A Perfect Gentleman (20 page)

Lattimer ignored the scowl and the scorn. He was being paid by the lady, after all, not the angry toff. He took his occurrence book out of his pocket and turned to the last page. “Right here, my lord, they say the unknown female has no calluses. No rough fingernails. That makes her a lady, all right and tight.”

Not necessarily, Ellianne thought, glad for the gloves she wore. Her own fingers were ink-stained from the ledgers, with a callus from holding the pen so often. She left in such a hurry she might still have traces of cooked asparagus under her nails, from feeding the dog. She could not recall if Isabelle's hands were well manicured or not. Her sister used to suck her thumb as a toddler.

Ellianne hesitated alongside the coach, her lips moving in silent prayer.

Damnation, Stony thought as he handed Ellianne into her aunt's town carriage. He took the seat beside her, leaving Lattimer to ride backward, facing Miss Kane, for all the good it would do him, with that ugly bonnet in the way. “Pretty hands do not make the woman a lady. She might still have been a well-paid courtesan, one who had a falling-out with her protector. Those things happen frequently.” When Miss Kane turned her head toward him, he added, “Or so I am given to understand.”

“That's as may be,” Lattimer said, “but you can see why I didn't go on my own to look at the corpse.”

Stony could not see at all, nor why the blasted Redbreast had to use such language in front of a lady. He'd heard the whimper that escaped Miss Kane's lips at that hopeless word
corpse.
Stony grasped Ellianne's hand in his, hidden by her skirts. “Dash it, you should have gone!”

Lattimer was starting to get angry. He was doing his job, and this well-dressed nob was belittling him at every turn. “What was I supposed to do, guess?”

“To start with, you might have made note of her clothing, in case Miss Kane remembered similar attire, or if the dressmaker had left a mark.”

“She was naked,” Lattimer snapped back, “which I was not going to mention to Miss Kane.”

“In that case, you could have looked to see if she had green eyes, for one, or if she was the right height, and slender, like Miss Kane. You could have discovered if she had any scars or birthmarks, anything that would prove the poor woman's identity, or disprove her connection to Miss Isabelle. You could have gone a great deal further on your own, without needlessly distressing Miss Kane.”

Lattimer was frantically turning pages in his log book. “Green eyes, green eyes. Someone must have made a note of it. And the height, I was certain they said average length. Now where…?”

Ellianne could not help smiling, even now. Trust Wellstone to look for the ray of hope. And trust him to try to protect her from whatever might happen. He could not shield her from the truth, no more than she could have kept Isabelle wrapped in cotton wool for her entire life, but he would try, the dear, pigheaded clunch. She did not think for a moment that his care of her had anything to do with money, for once. He was simply a genuine gentleman, and a nice one, too. Despite their gloves, Ellianne found his touch comforting and was glad he'd insisted on coming along, once he'd ceased insisting that she stay home. She squeezed his fingers, and was reassured by the answering pressure. It was good to have a friend nearby, not charging ahead without her, but at her side.

“I needed to come, Wellstone. Please try to understand that I have to see for myself, without the torture of waiting at home. Mr. Lattimer did right in asking me, no matter how terrible an ordeal it might be. I do appreciate your concern, and your support, but no one else can do this for me. No one else knows my sister half as well, and no one else cares as much. But maybe you are correct and the female is not Isabelle, after all. I pray that is so, and I pray for the soul of the woman, whoever she might be.”

The rest of the ride was silent, except for the sounds of the horses' hooves and the carriage wheels.

Chapter Fifteen

When they arrived at their destination, Lattimer hopped out of the coach almost before it stopped. He put down the steps and stood, waiting to hand Miss Kane down. Then he led her into the dark building that housed the coroner's office and morgue, leaving Stony to follow, or not.

Inside, when Ellianne would have unbuttoned her pelisse, he cautioned her to keep it on. Where they were going was kept cold, of necessity. “I should have warned you to bring a scented cloth,” he told her.

He should have taken up another line of work, Stony thought, frowning at the young man's back. In another borough. The one satisfying thought he had, the one that he grabbed on to instead of imagining what awaited them, was that Miss Kane was taller than the Runner. Not by much, and perhaps that inch was due to her hair or her bonnet, but she was definitely taller. Good.

They passed through a long corridor and several doors before reaching a long flight of stone steps that seemed to lead down into the very bowels of hell itself, lighted with oil lamps that were too far apart. Lattimer kept Miss Kane's arm in his, in case she
missed her footing. Or Lattimer did, was Stony's uncharitable thought.

He could feel the dank cold start to seep into his bones despite the greatcoat he wore, and wondered how Ellianne was faring. The blasted Runner could have warned her to bring a heavy coat, too. Deuce take it, they must be tunneling under the river, in some ancient catacombs or ice house or dungeon.

At the bottom of the steps, Lattimer rapped on a thick door and then opened it, ushering in Miss Kane. Stony was hard on her heels, taking her arm and displacing the Runner. The temperature here was even colder, and the odor was sickening. Stony would have reached for a handkerchief to cover his nose, but Lattimer seemed unaffected. Worse, Miss Kane did not seem to notice the stench. Stony tried to breathe through his mouth.

While Lattimer spoke to a worker in a leather apron, the viscount slipped off his coat and placed it over Ellianne's shoulders. He couldn't tell if she was shivering from cold or from fear. She smiled weakly in thanks.

The worker disappeared through another closed door at the other side, leaving them in the vast room with platform tables at one end and gruesome stains on the floor. Stony was happy to stay right where he was. Eventually a gentleman came out and walked toward them. Nearly Stony's height, he did not have an athlete's build, but was neither cadaverous, as the viscount might have imagined, nor paunchy. He was forty-five, Stony estimated, in expensively tailored clothing, an intricately tied neckcloth, and highly polished boots. His brown hair was combed straight back, then pomaded to keep it in place, and his dark eyes had that same glisten to them. Stony supposed women would consider the man handsome, with his high forehead and prominent cheekbones. He did not appear to notice the chill or the smell, bowing low to Miss
Kane as if welcoming her to a ball. Stony hated him on sight.

“Sir John Thomasford,” Lattimer proudly announced, as if he were personally responsible for getting a belted knight to assist on the case. “Elevated for service to the Crown in solving murders.”

“Are you the coroner, then?” Stony wanted to know.

“Oh, no. I merely assist when I am able.” The man smiled with one lip, as if anyone with more hair than wit could have guessed that he was a gentleman born, an educated man of good family and income, living a life of leisure. Sir John turned to Ellianne as soon as the introductions were complete. He raised her hand—she had no trouble holding it out for this grave robber, Stony noted—and brought it to his lips. “My dear lady, I was a witness for the coroner's jury held in relation to your aunt's death, so now I offer my deepest condolences. I am grieved that another such tragic event brings you here, but may I also offer my humble services?”

The man was anything but humble, Stony could swear. He was a dilettante dabbling in detective work, it seemed, as Sir John rattled on about his studies in Edinburgh, his research through classical tomes, his discoveries that were helping to advance medical knowledge and helping Bow Street to solve murder cases. Stony had no doubt that some of the man's detecting involved Miss Kane's bank account.

“Eventually,” Sir John was saying, “we will be able to tell more about the killers simply from examining their victims. We will understand their minds, and why they commit such heinous acts. Science will outwit evil,” he told Ellianne, his voice rising with near religious fervor and echoing off the high ceilings. “But not yet, unfortunately. There is only so much we can deduce thus far.”

Ellianne said, “But how wonderful that dedicated men like you are trying to unlock such mysteries. You must be proud of your work, and I am sure you are well deserving of the rewards it brings.”

Sir John kissed her fingertips once more. “The best reward I get is seeing the killers hang. And helping find justice for lost souls.”

Stony almost gagged.

Then the jumped-up mortician led them toward the far end of the room, where a body rested on a high platform, covered by a sheet. Stony made sure he was standing at Ellianne's side, near the head. He reached his hand out for hers, and felt hers shaking. He held it tightly.

“We do not have much evidence to examine, but we can tell something about the killer from our preliminary investigation. Identifying the remains will aid in uncovering motive and possible suspects. It all works together, you see.”

Ellianne was staring at the shrouded body. Stony could feel her entire body trembling beside him. “Get on with it, man.”

Sir John cleared his throat. “Quite.” Without further speechifying, he slowly raised the white sheet, folding it back under the young woman's mouth.

One side of her face was bruised, but the other was so pale it would have made milk look healthy. Her lips had a purplish tint, and blue veins were a road map on her bare skull. Ellianne was silent, transfixed by the dead girl, perhaps in shock.

Stony thought the shape of the face was wrong, but swelling from injuries might be distorting it. The sheet covered what might have been a pointy chin like Miss Kane's, but he did not suggest lowering the fabric. Instead he asked, “What color are her eyes?” His mouth was so dry his question came out as a whisper.

“Ah, the lady's eyes.” Sir John peeled back one translucent lid. They could all see a blue orb staring up at them, or perhaps seeing the image of her killer imprinted there forever.

“Blue. They are blue, Ellianne, not green. This is not your sister.”

“No, it is not Isabelle,” she echoed on a loud exhale, as if she had been holding her breath throughout. “It never was Isabelle.”

“Too bad,” Sir John said. “Of course, not for you and your sister, Miss Kane. My apologies. I was merely hoping we could give a name to this poor woman.”

“I understand. And I am certain that you will do everything in your power to deliver the young lady back to her family and bring her killer to justice. You say you have some clues?”

“Why, yes, if you are interested. It is fascinating, really. Of course, we can tell her approximate age, the general state of her health, whether she ever bore a child or not, that type of thing. But here, let me show you. We can guess the killer was about my height by the angle at which he held the knife. He was right-handed, by the direction in which he wielded the weapon.”

Sir John pulled the sheet down a bit farther, below the woman's chin. An ugly slash sliced across her throat. Dried blood was everywhere, on the woman, on the table, on the rags the coroner's staff were using to clear the area for their inspection. Ellianne leaned closer, letting go of Stony's hand.

Stony slowly sank to the floor.

Ellianne screamed.

“Nothing to be concerned over,” Sir John reassured her, leaning over the corpse to see. “It happens all the time. Especially with those heroic types who will not admit to any weakness. At least this oaf did not hit his head, or fall on the body.” He gestured for Lattimer and one of the assistants. “Just drag him to the side, out of the way.”

“What, you are going to leave him there?”

Sir John shrugged. “No use in waving the smelling salts until we are finished. He'll only go off again.”

Mr. Lattimer added, with a degree of satisfaction that Stony would have deplored, “And he's too big to carry up those stairs. We might drop him, you know, kind of accidentally.”

The assistant grinned, showing two missing teeth.

Sir John was impatient with the delay, wanting to get on with impressing Miss Kane with his erudition. “He'll come around by himself by the time you are ready to leave.”

Ellianne looked down at her fallen champion. Wellstone did not look like much of a hero, crumpled atop unspeakable stains. “No, please lift him. He will be too cold on the floor.”

Lattimer and the worker dragged the viscount none too gently back to a wooden bench near the door to the stairs. Ellianne mentally added the cost of a new suit of clothes to Wellstone's account. She also placed his greatcoat over the unconscious man, and brushed a lock of blond hair back on his forehead.

Then she went back to Sir John and the murdered woman.

The medical examiner explained how they could tell which side of the woman's neck the killer slashed first by the shape and direction of the wound. Then he came to stand behind Ellianne, proving a left-handed man could not have made the same marks. Nor could a shorter one. “Of course, I am of average height, and most gentlemen are trained to be right-handed, no matter their inclinations, so that does not narrow our field of suspects by much.”