Stolen Remains (25 page)

She repeated for Pratt what she’d told Hurst.

“She and I were about to discuss some possible theories we have to explain the tragedies.”

“Did you tell her about the resurrectionists?”

“I was about to do so. Mrs. Harper, in your line of work, I’m sure you’ve heard of resurrectionists?”

“Yes, it was one of my own thoughts. I visited as many undertakers in the London area as I could to see if any of them might have been involved, but never discovered any information of value.”

“Of course, such men don’t seek ransoms for the bodies, as they have ready buyers.”

“Lord Raybourn’s body wouldn’t have been much use to a resurrectionist, since he was embalmed. It makes good dissection difficult. But the kidnapper wouldn’t necessarily have realized he’d been embalmed.”

“Unless he was taken by one of these bizarre religious cults. We’ve been watching the Order of the Golden Dawn closely. They incorporate Egyptian motifs into their rituals. An embalmed body might be preferable to them.”

Violet had never heard of such a cult.

“Conversely, it may have been an elaborate prank,” Hurst continued. “It wouldn’t be the first time some porridge brain cooked up such an idea.”

“If this was a prank,” Violet said, “it was elaborate in the extreme. They had to secure a hiding location—which was clearly not the cold store at Smithfield—where no one would find it. A coffin is no easy thing to hide. And to what end? A bit of money? Some notoriety? Moreover, if this was just a prank, why haven’t they told us where to find the body?”

“Perhaps they aren’t finished blackmailing the family. I admit, it’s been a most peculiar case. I never expected it to require so much attention, but we have no further progress from our informants in Egypt so we may as well focus our minds on it.”

The three of them stayed in the room another hour, turning over one theory after another, with no firm conclusions made. As Hurst rose to signal that their meeting was over, he said, “Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

Violet thought about the argument she’d overheard among the siblings, where Nelly said something about keeping Stephen’s secrets. What did she mean by that? Reference was made to these secrets again today in front of Mr. Godfrey.

Not to mention Toby’s clandestine behavior.

Some instinct cautioned Violet not to reveal the information.
It will keep,
it whispered.

“Not that I can think of. I’ll come back as soon as I know more.”

“I think perhaps Mr. Pratt and I will go round to see this Mr. Godfrey. Just to pay a friendly visit, if you will, to discern where Cedric Fairmont might be hiding. Would you care to come along?”

This was the friendliest the inspector had ever been. “I would very much like to come.”

Hurst’s massive presence intimidated Godfrey’s landlord enough that he immediately gave them access to his tenant’s rooms.

“This shouldn’t take long,” Hurst said, looking around at the sparsely furnished room with few belongings. “Look for anything whatsoever that connects Godfrey to Cedric Fairmont.”

While Pratt went through various drawers and Hurst inspected wall and floorboards for anything loose, Violet examined Godfrey’s mattress and bedding. It reeked of spirits and sweat. She wondered if he was so thin because he was malnourished. He would come to a bad end one day if he didn’t cease being an inebriate.

After feeling around in his pillowcase and the bedcovers, Violet lifted up one side of the mattress. Tucked underneath was a packet of envelopes. She extracted them and scanned through them. A letter from a law firm, several bills, an advertisement from a tailor, and . . . what was this? She tossed the other envelopes onto the bed and opened one that had neither an address nor postage on it, so it was possibly a letter that had merely been handed to someone.

The letter was undated.

“Inspector, you may be interested in this.” Violet held the note out to Hurst.

“So Godfrey was telling the truth,” he said, after reading it and handing it to Pratt. “At least in broad terms. Mr. Pratt, I believe you and I will wait here for James Godfrey’s return so that we can have a little chat with him. Mrs. Harper, it’s best if you don’t stay.”

Violet gladly left the men to their police work, having no desire to witness what might happen later, but an unhappy thought pained her the rest of the day.

Was it possible that Cedric Fairmont returned to England, hoping to secretly reestablish relations with his father, but was perhaps rebuffed? Maybe Cedric eventually killed his father in rage, either for rejecting him or for refusing him money.

Or maybe Violet’s imagination had the better of her. She needed a hot cup of tea, a few hours of light reading, and a good night’s sleep to clear her mind. Tomorrow was her scheduled trip back to Hyde Park with Mary, and surely the world would seem brighter and clearer after a day with her friend.

The day was chillier than it had recently been as Violet and Mary made their way across the parade ground, where English kings and queens had once reviewed their troops, into Hyde Park and to the boat rental pier. Occasional puffy clouds, tinged with gray, dotted the sky. They seemed to want to pour down a good English rain, but it was as though the clouds felt they weren’t numerous enough to produce a soaking rain, so they were merely biding their time for an eventual onslaught. As a result the cloud cover was enough to prevent the sun from warming them.

As Violet once again settled into her role of rower, maneuvering the craft around the small island set in the lake near the boat launch, Mary brought forth a loaf of stale bread, breaking off small pieces and tossing them out to the eager swans, whose long necks ricocheted back and forth as they targeted the yeasty tidbits and gobbled them down. The trees all along the edge of the water, carefully planted to suggest a casual wildness, induced a sense of tranquility, despite the multitudes of people all along the pathways crisscrossing the park on either side of them.

“Shall we go all the way to the Italian Gardens?” Violet asked, referring to the other end of the winding lake, where an ornately sculpted garden with multiple fountains, walkways, and statuary beckoned visitors to stroll about.

“Yes. Do you suppose we could secure the boat there and walk around?”

“An excellent idea.”

Violet continued rowing until she reached the Serpentine Bridge, which crossed the lake and created a divider between the part known as the Serpentine and the far narrower portion called the Long Water. Carriage traffic thundered overhead as they passed beneath the bridge. Violet estimated that she had another quarter of a mile to row through the Long Water before reaching the Italian Gardens. After a brief rest, she continued rowing.

A group of four boats approached, filled with reveling young men joking, splashing water at one another with their oars, and being generally unaware of everything around them. Violet guided her own craft to the right, next to the tree line on shore, to enable the band of carousers to pass them without upsetting their own craft.

She struggled to stay away from the other boats, as well as to avoid getting caught up in the wiry brambles and fallen limbs that were prevalent along the edge. The water was shallower here, so she laid one oar down in the boat and used the other to try and dig into the soft earth beneath them, in an attempt to anchor them.

A red squirrel in an overhanging branch above the two women chattered angrily, as though chastising the revelers, as well as Violet and Mary, for disrupting his peaceful existence. A couple of acorn hulls dropped into the boat from above.

Mary looked up. “Forgive us, Sir Squirrel. We’ll be out of your way soon.”

The other boat group had passed by. Violet lifted the oar out of the soft earth to reposition it to push off the bank. She drove it back under the water and was met with resistance. She’d hit something that was not merely slippery, algae-covered earth. She tentatively stuck the oar back in the water.

“What’s wrong?” Mary asked.

“I’m not sure. There seems to be some sort of strange undergrowth here. I can’t get a firm hold on—”

Suddenly, Violet felt whatever it was loosen from underneath her oar, then, as she watched, the undergrowth rose to the surface. Except it wasn’t undergrowth.

It was a body.

Mary shrieked and clamped a hand over her own mouth, her eyes wide in terror. Even Violet, as used to corpses as she was, felt a moment of fright. One didn’t go rowing in a lake expecting a dead body to make an appearance in broad daylight.

Breathing deeply to calm her own pounding heart, Violet said, “We must get help, but we don’t want to alarm anyone in the park. We’ll continue to the Italian Gardens and find a guard or bobby.”

Mary nodded, removing her hand from her mouth and staring at Violet to avoid looking down at what was a foot away from her.

Her undertaking instincts taking control, Violet looked over again to examine the poor soul who had managed to drown himself in the Serpentine, beginning at his shoeless feet. Drowning suicides were not that uncommon.

The body was in relatively good shape, suggesting the man had been underwater less than a day. He was dressed in some sort of military uniform, the jacket of which was unbuttoned and floating loosely around his torso. It was what she observed next, though, that caused Violet to cover her own mouth to prevent herself from screaming.

Just as with Mrs. Peet, a rope was burrowed into the flesh around his neck, and his face was bloated almost beyond any human recognition.

Almost.

It took Violet only a few seconds to realize at whom she was staring, whose body she’d been inadvertently poking.

It was James Godfrey.

O
nce she’d found a bobby to notify about Godfrey’s body and had dropped a shaken Mary off at home, Violet took a hackney straight back to Raybourn House for a cup of tea to settle her nerves. Toby and his friend were in the drawing room, a decanter of sherry between them.

“Mrs. Harper, this is Adam Farr.” Farr stood to greet her, his blond hair perfectly combed, beard neatly trimmed, and suit crisply pressed. It seemed incongruous that a warmonger would look so tidy.

Next to the sherry decanter were several patches, each with a different insignia on it. One had a single star on it, another contained a red bar, and a third displayed a silver crest with an “S” inside of it.

Violet knew little about military insignia, but these obviously represented some sort of rankings and were intended to be sewn onto a uniform.

Farr noticed Violet’s gaze, and scooped up the patches in one hand, swiftly tucking them inside his jacket without explanation.

“We were actually just leaving,” Toby said. “So feel free to use the drawing room.”

Violet watched out the drawing room window as Toby and Farr went outside, once again heading south down Park Street. Were they going to the same place Toby had gone before? She should have attempted to question Farr about his relationship with Godfrey. Was this young man somehow involved in Godfrey’s death?

What were Toby Bishop and Adam Farr really up to? Perhaps it was time to tell Toby’s father what she’d overheard and seen regarding his son, although she found it unlikely that Gordon Bishop would be any more willing to hear anything ill of Toby than Nelly had been.

The tea settled Violet’s stomach, but not for long. Her thoughts had become such a jumble it was as though she were walking through a cemetery at midnight without the aid of a lantern, and was perpetually bouncing off gravestones and the edges of crypts, bruising herself without benefit as she whirled about in a daze.

Didn’t the detectives in stories usually gather information and quickly deduce what had happened and why? Shouldn’t events be getting clearer, not murkier?

Violet knew what might help: writing letters to her parents, Sam, and Susanna. She spent a quiet evening doing so, being careful to sanitize events differently for each recipient—her parents would have been particularly upset over her involvement in an investigation—so as not to cause undue concern.

As Violet sealed up the last letter, one for Susanna, a thought occurred to her. How would a criminal “sanitize” the events involved in his schemes? Tell a story that resembled the truth, wasn’t too far off from it, but vastly altered everyone’s understanding of it?

Had someone in the household been sanitizing Violet’s perception of events since she’d been here? If so, how was she to ever figure out who it was?

The following morning, Violet went to Scotland Yard to see Inspector Hurst. By now he must know about Godfrey’s death, and she wondered whether he and Inspector Pratt had ever confronted him at his lodgings beforehand. Before she could reach their offices, she ran into them in the hallway.

“We were just about to send for you,” he said. “We’ve found Lord Raybourn’s body thieves. They were students at St. Bart’s Medical College. One of them hoped we might offer a reward after his ‘employer’ refused to pay for taking the body. What kind of muttonheads is St. Bart’s turning out, that they think the police would offer a reward to a body snatcher?”

Violet frowned. “Do you mean to say that one of their professors offered to pay two young men to steal Lord Raybourn’s body?”

“No. They refuse to say who it was. One of them did let slip that they dealt with an intermediary, someone who had ink-stained fingers.”

Like a journalist. But surely Ellis Catesby couldn’t possibly be involved in this. What motive would he have?

“When we picked the student up and realized he was likely one of the kidnappers, we, er, convinced him to tell us where Lord Raybourn’s body is, and we’d like you to come along to confirm its identity and to tidy him up if necessary. No sense in upsetting the family with it yet.”

The three of them boarded a police van. “Where is Lord Raybourn?” Violet asked.

“Underneath Blackfriars Bridge, at the north end. I suppose it was the nearest place to St. Bart’s to dump a body in water. Mrs. Harper, is something the matter?”

Violet felt weak from everything she was learning. This was to be her second encounter—in less than a day—with a murdered body floating in water. It was also the second time in mere days that she would be involved with Lord Raybourn’s kidnappers at a bridge. Blackfriars Bridge wasn’t that far from Westminster Bridge.

This time, she had no intention of being pushed over the pedestrian rail.

Blackfriars Bridge was newly erected, having been rebuilt to replace the crumbling old stone bridge that had stood upon the same location, and was recently opened by Queen Victoria herself. Violet and the inspectors left the coach and raced onto the pedestrian footpath of the bridge, stopping periodically to look over the parapet to search for Lord Raybourn in the water below. The rail on this bridge was so low it was dizzying. The effect was aggravated by the lethal stench of the Thames. Violet clutched the rail tightly each time she stopped.

“Inspector, look there!” Mr. Pratt was pointing back toward the base of the bridge. There was some sort of bundle afloat next to one of the bridge’s piers. They all dashed back off the bridge and down the embankment, with Violet nearly tumbling headfirst down the rough slope to the water, despite Hurst’s best efforts to support her.

It stank worse than any rotting corpse down here, threatening to knock Violet unconscious. Mr. Pratt reached the edge of the water first, and waded out to the first pier. A long rope had been tied around the pier, with one end of it securing a figure wrapped in rough burlap.

What an unfitting end for a viscount so respected by the queen.

Pratt retrieved a knife from his pocket and cut the rope, dragging the body out of the water and onto the shore, taking special care to bring him as far under the bridge as he could to prevent gawkers from watching over the bridge’s parapet.

With Violet and Hurst at his side, Pratt cut away the burlap that had been wrapped around the body, secured at its ankles, waist, and neck with more rope strands. After he’d cut away all of the burlap, he looked up at Violet, who nodded.

This was definitely Lord Raybourn. She recognized her own handiwork with the cambric shroud that still covered him.

“Let’s be certain, Mrs. Harper,” Hurst said. “Unwrap him.”

Pratt moved aside so that Violet could drop to her knees in the soft earth and take a closer look at Lord Raybourn. She gently loosened the body from the soaked cloth, revealing his repaired face and his torso, still dressed in his vest and tailcoat.

Stephen was going to be devastated to know how his father had been treated.

She sat back and nodded again. “It’s him.”

As the two detectives moved to pick up the body, though, she noticed something peculiar. “Wait just a moment,” she said.

They laid him back down. Violet put her hands to either side of Lord Raybourn’s face, attempting to examine him through her repair work. Like Godfrey, he hadn’t been in the water for very long, or else his double layers of wrapping had protected him from fish and other sea scavengers. Or perhaps the embalming had somehow repelled aquatic creatures.

His eyes were sewn shut so she couldn’t look at them again, but she ran a finger over the telltale Raybourn cleft chin and down his neck. Violet undid his shirt and once again reviewed the various nicks and scars Lord Raybourn had picked up from life on an active estate. She touched one angry-looking welt that she’d assumed was from a hunting hawk or falcon.

Or was it?

Her stomach churning, Violet felt along the body’s legs, pressing gently through his trousers. She felt a depression from some sort of puncture wound in his thigh.

Cold realization hit Violet like a February rain, damp and bone chilling.

Dear God, how could I have been so blind?

She looked up at Hurst and Pratt, who were staring at her questioningly. “Gentlemen, as I look at this body again from a different perspective, I now realize something that I was too naïve to have seen before.”

She hesitated. What a glorious fool she was.

“Yes?” Hurst said.

Violet sighed. “This isn’t Anthony Fairmont, the Viscount Raybourn. It’s his long-lost son, Cedric.”

She’d never seen Inspector Hurst speechless before. “How have you determined this now? After he has been soaking in water?”

“Do you see the multitude of scars on his body? I’ve seen such things many times on bodies where the man was active in country life. They come from deep animal scratches, tool injuries, that sort of thing. This particular one”—she pointed to the welted ridge—“I assumed was probably the result of a cantankerous sporting falcon. Perhaps he fell off a horse while jumping or hunting.

“But now, combined with the dimpled mark in his chin, which the Fairmont men share, and the knowledge that Cedric was alive as recently as a year ago, as well as the thigh wound I can feel through his trousers, I now believe this to be him. This scar—and the others—are probably wounds sustained in the Crimean War.”

Hurst passed a hand over his eyes. “This is quite a new development, Mrs. Harper.”

“It pains me to no end to admit to it at this late hour.”

“I have a thousand new questions to consider.”

“As do I.”

He grunted. “Very well. Let’s get him to the police van, then we have much to discuss back at Scotland Yard. I believe Commissioner Henderson will want to know about this.”

“As will the queen.” Dread and loathing gripped Violet as though she’d just encountered a ghost. Except the ghost was Lord Raybourn, and he was presumably alive.

Commissioner Henderson stood and paced as Violet, Hurst, and Pratt sat at the interview room table. All three of them reeked of putrid water and offal. Violet’s dress, which had been muddied nearly from the waist down, clung stiffly to her like the fish breading from the previous evening’s meal. Henderson, though, took no notice of the trio’s bedraggled condition. “So you’ve just discovered that this body was, in fact, not Lord Raybourn at all, but his
son?
”

“Yes, sir,” Hurst said.

“Despite the fact that he was embalmed by an undertaker who professed to actually know the supposed victim in question.”

Hurst looked pointedly at Violet and raised his eyebrows.

“Yes,” Violet said. “You must understand, Commissioner, that Lord Raybourn was always a very strong and vigorous man. Conversely, Cedric was a man who had experienced the ravages of war, making him look older than he truly was. The Fairmont men also share a physical trait, a dimpled chin, which further lent credence to his identity. In addition, I assumed it was Lord Raybourn because I was
told
it was him, and I had no reason to believe otherwise.”

“Surely, Mrs. Harper, you could have simply recognized that it wasn’t Lord Raybourn by looking at his face.”

“His face was nearly obliterated by a gunshot wound, Commissioner.”

“Yes, but you took care of repairing him personally. You should have noticed if anything was amiss.”

“Perhaps you’ve never sewn together the features of someone who has been the recipient of a blast from a volley gun. It’s a difficult job, and one not likely to render a man’s original appearance. And although I’m quite certain you’ve never provided such a service before, I’m equally as certain you’ve witnessed the damage that can be done by such a death.”

“Mrs. Harper, right now my primary concern is the damage being done to Scotland Yard. You’ve made us look foolish to the citizenry, and I can only imagine what the queen thinks.”

“No doubt I will be the one to bear the cross of her displeasure, Commissioner, so I hardly need your lecture, although I don’t see why the burden of the body’s identity rests with me and not Scotland Yard.”

Henderson retreated from Violet after that, and turned to the business of discussing the various possibilities resulting from the murder victim being Cedric, not Lord Raybourn. As usual, Pratt retrieved his worn notebook from his jacket and took notes.

The four of them were soon all talking at once, each with differing opinions and theories.

Finally, Hurst held up a hand. “Mrs. Harper, didn’t you tell us that Eleanor Bishop resented Cedric because he prevented her from scribbling for a newspaper? Perhaps she killed him when he showed up so unexpectedly, in a fit of rage over realizing he was still alive. With his face half gone, everyone thought it was the father, and she was pleased to encourage that illusion.”

“That’s impossible. Cedric was found wearing his father’s smoking jacket.”

“Yes, part of her plan to pass him off as the father.”

Henderson nodded. “A very problematic scheme, but a brilliant one if she could get away with it. Until Lord Raybourn actually showed up, assuming he’s still alive.”

Why was Scotland Yard so determined to find one of Lord Raybourn’s heirs guilty?

Violet cut into Hurst’s theory. “First, I’m sure Mr. Bishop and his son will vouch for Mrs. Bishop’s whereabouts on the day Lord Raybourn was murdered. Second, she—”

But Hurst was warming up to his theory. “Oh, yes, I’m sure her husband and son would indeed vouch for her whereabouts. Don’t be naïve, Mrs. Harper. It’s simple enough for any criminal to convince a family member to protect him. Threats, bribery, cajolery—all effective tools a wife could use on her husband and son. Eleanor Bishop had the greatest motive of all the family members for killing her brother.”

“But Stephen never said that Mrs. Bishop was on the premises prior to the murder. Stephen himself was seeing her for the first time since they came to London for the Season. If she didn’t know that Cedric had returned, what was she doing at Lord Raybourn’s London home? And how did she visit without Stephen’s knowledge?”

Hurst shrugged. “Perhaps he sent her a note to let her know. He was hoping for a confrontation with her over her relationship with that reporter, Ellis Catesby.”