The River Knows

19

He watched Louisa avert her eyes from the gory scene. “Are you certain you’re not going to faint?”

“I told you, I will be fine.”

“Go back downstairs,” he said quietly. “There is no need for you to remain in this room.”

She did not respond to that suggestion. “He certainly fits the descriptions the young ladies gave in their journals. He was, indeed, an exceedingly handsome man. And he appears to have been in his late twenties.”

Anthony turned back to examine the scene more closely. The bullet had inflicted considerable damage to Thurlow’s head, saturating his blond hair with blood, but his face was still mostly unmarred. He had, indeed, possessed the sort of features that drew the eyes of women.

He turned back to Louisa. Her attention was fixed on a piece of paper on top of a waist-high chest of drawers.

“Did Mr. Grantley leave a note?” she asked softly.

“Yes, according to Fowler.”

He crossed to the desk, picked up the paper and read the suicide note aloud.

“‘I cannot endure the shame that awaits. My apologies to my family.’”

“What shame?” Louisa looked at him. “Do you suppose he meant his gambling debts?”

“He does not appear to have been overly concerned about them in the past. Why would he suddenly feel the need to kill himself now?”

She nodded. “That is a very good question.”

“This is no suicide,” Anthony said, looking around the room.

“I’m inclined to agree.”

“I wonder if Hastings got rid of both of his employees for some reason,” Anthony said.

“Perhaps he thought he had cause to fear them. Maybe he believed that they were plotting against him. That would certainly explain why he hired those two guards.”

“Yes.”

She looked at him with stark, somber eyes. “What shall we do now?”

“I will send word to Fowler immediately. He will want to know about this new development as soon as possible.”

She clenched her black muff with both hands. “Yes, of course.”

“But first,” he said, “I am going to send you home in the cab. There is no necessity for you to remain here until Fowler arrives. I can tell him everything he needs to know.”

A flicker of relief crossed her face before she composed herself. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

She gave him a shuttered look. “Do you intend to mention my name to him?”

“I see no need to do so.”

“I am only concerned about protecting my identity as I. M. Phantom,” she said smoothly.

“I understand.”

He put the note down on the chest of drawers and moved back across the room to take her arm. “Come, we must get you away from this place.”

He guided her back downstairs. In the parlor he paused at the desk to write a short note.

“Are you certain you will be safe here?” she asked. “What if the killer returns?”

The anxiety in the question caught him off guard. She was genuinely concerned, he realized, perhaps even frightened for him.

“The killer may or may not be Hastings.” He folded the note. “Regardless, I don’t think that he will risk coming back to the scene of his crime. At least not until after the body has been discovered and the gossip has spread.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“Whoever he is, he took a great chance when he came here to commit the murder. He won’t take another one if he can avoid it. He will be thinking only of his own safety now.”

“You will be careful, won’t you, Mr. Stalbridge?” she said, suddenly looking very anxious.

“Yes,” he promised, oddly touched. “The cab will take you directly home. I will come for you at eight this evening.”

She stiffened. “Why?”

“We both have invitations to the Lorrington reception, remember?”

She shuddered. “I had forgotten. Forgive me, sir, but I am in no mood to attend any social engagements tonight.”

“I’m sorry, Louisa, but I think it would be best if we were seen together in public this evening. It is vital that we act as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred.”

She hesitated and then nodded reluctantly. “I suppose you are right. Dear heaven. Do you think Hastings will be there, too?”

“I don’t know. But there will be a large crowd. If he is present, I’m sure we can avoid him.”

“If I go home now, I will be able to write a report of the death for Mr. Spraggett. There is still time to get it into tomorrow’s edition of the Flying Intelligencer.”

He considered that briefly. “An excellent notion. If nothing else, it will rattle the killer’s nerves when he reads that the police are considering the possibility of foul play.”

“Except that they aren’t considering that possibility,” she pointed out very dryly. “The police don’t even know that Mr. Thurlow is dead yet.”

“Since when did small details like that stop an intrepid member of the press from reporting the facts?”

She smiled wryly. “Quite right. I shall make certain to put in some dark hints of possible murder.” She hesitated. “You really do think that Hastings killed Mr. Thurlow, don’t you?”

“I think it is possible,” he corrected evenly. “We need more information.”

“That seems to be the chief problem with this investigation: a fearful lack of information.”

He lowered the net veil so that it concealed her face.

“I won’t argue with you on that account,” he said gently.

He escorted her outside and put her into the carriage. When she was seated, he closed the door and handed the note he had written to the driver.

“After you have delivered the lady to her door, please go to Scotland Yard and see that this message is delivered to Detective Fowler.”

“Aye, sir.” The coachman took the note.

“It is to go only to Fowler,” Anthony emphasized softly. He gave the coachman some money. “Is that clear? If you must wait for him, then do so.”

The coachman checked the coins and nodded eagerly. “No need to worry, sir. I’ll see to it yer note gets to this Fowler.”

“Thank you.”

The driver slapped the leathers against the rump of his horse. The cab rumbled forward and almost immediately disappeared into the fog.

Anthony went back inside Thurlow’s lodgings and climbed the stairs to the upper floor. The higher he climbed, the more he had to force himself to keep moving. The atmosphere of death was as thick as the fog outside in the street.

Inside the bedroom he went first to the wardrobe. The coats and trousers were all in the latest fashion. The hand-tailored shirts were freshly laundered and crisply ironed.

There was a leather jewelry case on the chest of drawers. Inside were several pairs of expensive cuff links, a handsomely engraved gold pocket watch, and a pearl-tipped tie pin. A silver-backed brush and comb and a jar of pomade were arranged near the jewelry case. Thurlow had taken great care with his personal appearance.

Anthony walked toward the bed and studied the body again. Forcing himself to look past the blood and gore, he noted the details. The portions of Thurlow’s hair and mustache not drenched in blood appeared to be trimmed in the latest style. The nightshirt was embroidered.

He began a more thorough, methodical search of the room, looking in places where a man might stash his secrets. He found the strongbox beneath a false panel of wood in the wardrobe. The lock was excellent, crafted by one of the best manufacturers in Willenhall, but it was no Apollo. It took him less than fifteen seconds to crack it.

The only thing inside was a notebook. It contained a record of what, at first glance, appeared to be large sums of money won at gambling. There were only five entries, however. The dates went back nearly three years. There were initials next to each of the amounts. The initials matched those of the five young ladies who had been compromised. He realized that he was looking at a record of the payments Thurlow had received in exchange for delivering the blackmail victims into Hastings’s clutches.

He tucked the notebook into a pocket and stood quietly, looking around the room one last time. Something seemed slightly off. He contemplated the items on the dresser for a long moment, trying to understand what it was that was out of place. Vague smudges in the thin layer of dust on the dresser and a few carelessly folded handkerchiefs in a wardrobe drawer were all that stood out. When he could not come to a conclusion, he went back downstairs.

On a hunch, he decided to search the desk again, this time more thoroughly. Opening the folder of unpaid bills, he suddenly knew what was wrong: The bills were out of order. Everything else in Thurlow’s lodgings was neatly arranged, but the bills had been dumped into the file in a random fashion. It was as though someone had gone through them in a great hurry and then tossed them back into the drawer.

With that observation in mind, he continued his search. When he was finished, he was certain of his conclusion.

A short time later a carriage clattered to a halt outside in the street. He went to the window and eased the curtain aside in time to see the bearish form of Harold Fowler descend from a hansom.

He opened the door before Fowler could knock.

“I got your message, Mr. Stalbridge.” Fowler came into the hall. He removed his hat and looked around with the stoic curiosity of a man who was accustomed to being summoned for unpleasant reasons. “What is this about?”

“The occupant of these lodgings, Benjamin Thurlow, is dead in the upstairs bedroom. It appears that, in despair over his gambling debts, he put a pistol to his head. There is a suicide note. The words are all neatly printed.”

“Printed, you say?” Fowler’s bushy whiskers twitched. His sad eyes sharpened. “Like Grantley’s note.”

“Yes.” He handed the note to Fowler. “The printing makes it impossible to compare the handwriting, but I suspect that Thurlow did not write this.”

Fowler took the note in his broad paw and scrutinized it for a few seconds. When he looked up, his expression was grim. “I agree with you, sir. But we’ll never be able to prove that the killer wrote this note.”

“Another thing,” Anthony said. “There is no way to prove it, either, but I would swear that someone searched these rooms before I arrived.”

“I see.” Fowler squinted slightly. “What sort of information was it that brought you here today?”

“I got word that Thurlow, like Grantley, was employed by Hastings. It appears that Hastings paid him a great deal of money at various times in the past. I wanted to talk to him.”

“You think that Hastings killed him, don’t you?”

“I think it likely, yes. But that doesn’t bring me any closer to finding a motive for Fiona Risby’s murder. And now someone else who might have been able to answer my questions is dead.”

Fowler’s bleak face softened. “I’ve warned you, Mr. Stalbridge, the odds of learning anything new after all this time are dismal, indeed. My advice is to leave the poor dead girl to rest in peace.”

“You don’t understand,” Anthony said. “I am the one who cannot rest, Detective. I must find out why she was killed.”

“In my experience there are only a small number of reasons for murder. Greed, revenge, the need to conceal a secret, and madness.”