The Mourning Bells (27 page)

“But Roger Blount was a different case, wasn’t he?” Violet asked, dreading to learn what may have happened to him before he reached Brookwood. “It was his death that really had me confused. He was escaping London, but not for debts, and engaged your services.”

“Yes, he was the closest I came to making a mistake. He came to me on his own, no doubt referred by some other wastrel friend. He wanted to be rid of his family, and the feeling was mutual on their part. His plan was to fake his death, be sent to Brookwood, meet his fiancée, and together they would go on to France. The family paid me for my services in advance, but I assumed I could squeeze him of a bit more when he arrived at Brookwood. But that nitwit, Crugg, gave him entirely too much laudanum and he died en route. Or else he gave him far too little, and the man awoke en route and suffocated to death.” He shrugged in a cavalier manner. “Who can be sure?”

“How did they avoid having the coroner do an inquest when he died?”

“Really, Mrs. Harper? You don’t think that a family as prestigious as the Blounts could avoid an inquest by merely telling the police that their boy had died naturally? That he had been ill for some time, or that he choked to death on a chicken bone?”

Violet had to admit that that was possible.

Ambrose continued dispassionately. “Crugg came to me later and told me about Miss Latham’s hysterical breakdown at the station, in front of the inquisitive Violet Harper. He was able to escort her away from you, but the damage was done.”

Violet knew what had happened next. “You then murdered Miss Latham.”

“What choice did I have? I couldn’t have that grief-mad woman divulging any secrets now, could I?”

“You did it in such a way that her parents and the coroner thought that she, too, died of natural causes.” Violet could hardly believe the callousness with which Ambrose went after his victims.

“Must I remind you that I am a terribly talented physician? I am quite proficient in my use of opium tinctures.”

Ambrose was enjoying his story, probably elated to have an opportunity to share it with someone almost as intimately familiar with it as he was. “After you interfered once more and went to Crugg to accuse him of killing Miss Latham, he nearly fainted dead away. I told him to kill you before you ended up reporting our little arrangement to the police, but Crugg was like a frightened little boy. He informed me that he was fine with extortion, but he drew the line at murder. What a squeaky little mouse. With great bluster, he said he was finished with our partnership, but I had no other undertaker lined up and told him so. He insisted he be freed from his duty to me, and I obliged him. He no longer has a duty to me. He was entirely too weak to be associated with me.”

“But first you followed me and attempted to kill me in Hyde Park. Only you confused my daughter for me, and nearly killed her.”

“No, no, I realized my error soon enough. It was an excellent opportunity to send you a warning, though. One you didn’t heed. You should be grateful to me for being so kind to your daughter.”

“You would call bashing the girl on the head to be
kind?
Are you—” Violet stopped her thought. Of course he was mad, the complete opposite of the kindly physician she’d spoken to on other occasions. Shouting at him would not save her, either. She had to remain calm. She changed the subject.

“The Debtors Act must have been a great disappointment to you, sir, since the elimination of jail for them meant that fewer dodgers would feel the need to escape punishment.”

“Not really. It was easy enough for Mr. Hayes to convince them that they would be better off with a fresh start in a new country, even if they could no longer be jailed for their debts here.”

“But their debts would have passed on to their estates. They didn’t absolve their families of them after their supposed deaths.”

“And how would that concern me? That was the problem of their loved ones, not me.”

She returned her attention to Ambrose. “Among Mr. Crugg’s belongings, I also found a pocket watch engraved with a bell on it. That was a gift from you, wasn’t it?”

Ambrose smiled. “Ah, you discovered my little conceit. The bell was a clever touch, wasn’t it? Yes, that was a gift to Crugg. It was my pretense for getting into the shop and having him show me the back room. When he turned to put it in a drawer, I took the opportunity he presented to . . . take care of him.”

“You forced him to overdose on laudanum.” No wonder Hurst thought the man was a suicide. It was doubtful there was any evidence of murder on Crugg.

Ambrose shrugged. “He had become a liability to me and my work.”

“You mean, to your ambitions?”

“They are one and the same, Mrs. Harper.”

“Where was Mr. Trumpington in all of this?”

“Crugg was sworn to secrecy, so Trumpington was of no concern to me. Although I suppose he might have made a good partner after Crugg died, given how ridiculously loyal he was to his employer. Hmm.” Ambrose appeared to contemplate this, as though it was some angle he had overlooked.

The physician stood again, searched through his trunk, and pulled out the vial Violet had seen him pack earlier. He tucked it into his jacket pocket and crossed the room to a table, which held an assortment of bottles and flasks. His back was to her, but she saw him pull the vial out of his pocket, and she knew what he was doing.

“What is your plan now, Mr. Ambrose?” Violet asked, slowly reaching into her reticule and grabbing the knife’s handle. Was this the wisest course of action? Should she simply flee? Surely she could unlock the door and get out of his office and to the train station without his catching up to her.

Without turning around, he replied, “Oh, I do believe I will head over to the continent somewhere. I should be able to easily start my practice again. I imagine there are plenty of places where young spendthrifts have the threat of debtors’ prison hanging over their heads.”

“My apologies, Mr. Ambrose, but I cannot allow you to do that.”

He glanced briefly over his shoulder. “And you believe you’re going to stop me?” he said, returning to his work of pouring what she knew was laudanum into a glass. The scent of cloves and cinnamon drifted over to her, before being quickly diluted by the splashing of spirits into the glass.

“I will do what I must.” Violet pulled the knife out of her reticule and tossed the bag onto Ambrose’s desk. He turned around with the short glass in his hand. It was only half full, so she could only imagine the high ratio of his opium tincture in it.

Ambrose laughed in derision. “Do you think you will stop me with that silly little thing? Come, let us be reasonable, Mrs. Harper. We both know you are no match for my superior strength. Also, I am much more valuable. There are hundreds of undertakers in Great Britain, but only one man with my particular skills.”

How had this monster managed to hide behind such a kind and meek façade? How many men had he fooled with his genial demeanor ? Did they all die in disbelief that a physician—a healer—was actually intent on murdering them? Or did he overdose them before they realized what was happening, and thus they passed on swiftly?

Am I about to die swiftly?
The thought stiffened her resolve.
No, absolutely not.

Violet rushed forward with the knife in her right hand, instinctively raising it up in the air as she bore down upon him. Ambrose’s immediate reaction was to set the glass down carefully—as if he knew he’d still need it—then bring his right fist up in a wide arc that landed squarely on Violet’s left jaw, completely knocking her off her feet. She landed hard on her right side, and the knife went clattering across the floor. The pain in her jaw radiated throughout her head, and she worked to maintain consciousness.

She was aware of Ambrose, the glass of laudanum in his hand once more, casually stepping over her to retrieve the knife.

No, she couldn’t allow this to happen. She couldn’t . . .

Ambrose pulled her roughly to her feet and stood over her, the handle of the knife held between his bared teeth. He moved it to his free hand. “Now, Mrs. Harper, as I said, you must be reasonable. Take this”—he held up the glass of opium tincture—“or take this.” Violet’s knife, an instrument of protection thirty seconds ago, now gleamed threateningly in her face.

“I’ll do neither,” she said, with far more bravado than she felt.

He shook his head, a headmaster disappointed in an errant pupil. “I much prefer that you drink the laudanum; there’s no pain to it for you and no mess in it for me. But if you insist on it being this way . . .”

Ambrose put the glass on the desk behind Violet. He grabbed her throat with one hand, and for a moment, Violet thought he was about to kiss her. But when she saw the feral gleam in his eye as he raised the blade above his head, she knew she was about to be his next victim.

And, for certain, a fish knife was sharp enough.

“W
e’ll have none of that, will we?” Hurst’s voice boomed so loudly as he crashed through the door that even though Violet was rapidly losing consciousness thanks to Ambrose’s hand squeezing her windpipe, she was able to hear him clearly.

At Hurst’s forced entry, Ambrose let go of her. Or, rather, he pushed her out of his way. Violet stumbled backward to the ground, gasping. The centurion in Hurst had taken command of the situation in an instant, and he was shouting at Ambrose as if the doctor were a lowly legionary soldier. Coming in behind him was Inspector Pratt, who was dangling iron manacles from one hand.

As Hurst roared at the physician, Violet rose clumsily to her feet by grabbing the edge of Ambrose’s desk and pulling herself up. The pain in her jaw made her wonder if she had loose teeth.

She heard the grinding sound of a key inserted into a lock, and knew that Mr. Ambrose was secured. All of a sudden, Inspector Pratt loomed over her. “Mrs. Harper,” he said, his voice full of concern, “your face . . .”

She could only imagine the bruise that was forming. Before she could answer, Ambrose stumbled across the room, with Hurst pushing him from behind. “Mrs. Harper, anything you’d like to say to this cretin before I—What happened to you?”

“I’m afraid I had a little spill.” Violet refused to give Ambrose the satisfaction of hearing how badly he had hurt her.

Hurst looked pensively at her, and Violet knew he understood exactly what had happened. “Well, the desk sergeant at the Yard told me you were off to Ambrose’s office here in Surrey and wanted us to join you. It sounded suspicious enough, so we jumped onto the first train we could. Good thing we did, else you might have been another of the good doctor’s victims, eh, Ambrose?” Hurst cuffed the doctor against the ear and was rewarded with a grunt.

“Augustus Upton filed a complaint against you, Mrs. Harper,” Pratt said. “I thought you might like to know, as we will have to ask you a few questions about it.”

Violet nodded. “I understand. I probably owe that man an apol—”

Ambrose broke in. “I would like to join Upton’s complaint against Mrs. Harper. She is a carping busybody and a—”

“Be quiet, will you?” Hurst growled, cuffing the man’s other ear.

Ambrose went silent but glowered at them as if hoping they might all drop dead from the intensity of his stare.

“Mrs. Harper,” Hurst said, “I presume you now know what happened with all of your disappearing bodies?”

“I know everything, Inspector.”

The detective sighed in capitulation. “Naturally. Come on, both of you. We’ll get Ambrose here to a cell where he belongs; then we’ll return to the Yard to make a report. I believe I will need several drams of whiskey to hear it all.”

Violet suspected that Hurst would be plying her with questions about Mary, not Ambrose, long before they ever reached Scotland Yard.

V
iolet sat in Etchingham House’s tiny, overfilled study once more. Byron Ambrose had been taken to Newgate, where he awaited trial for numerous counts of murder and embezzlement. Violet doubted the doctor would be able to intimidate a jury with his black scowl. Mr. Hayes, too, was awaiting trial on lesser charges. Now she wanted to clear up some remaining details.

At least Audley had the good grace to act a little sheepish.

Inspector Hurst had decided that pursuing the family for fraud was pointless, given that their son had died in the execution of the fraud. Violet, however, wanted questions answered. Lady Etchingham was indisposed, the butler said, an obvious lie, but Audley was willing to see her.

This time accepting his offer of a glass of sherry, she explained everything she knew. Audley took a gulp of his drink. “Yes, that is all correct.”

“So the grave next to the family crypt was a fake?”

He nodded. “It had to look as though we were burying him, but we didn’t want to open the crypt for an empty coffin. His body would be placed in there far in the future when he really died, not that he deserved a hallowed place with us. Except that he—” Audley choked on the last word, and took another swallow from his glass. “Except that his plan was an unmitigated disaster, as most of them were. I should have known better than to go along with it, but it seemed the best way to save the family’s reputation.”

“And what was that plan?” Violet wasn’t sure she really wanted to hear Audley’s version of things.

“He would fake his death, meet up with Margery, and together they would start a life elsewhere on the three thousand pounds we gave him to never resurface.”

Violet shuddered inside to think of having such dreadful familial relations that you would be paid to never return nor acknowledge your family again.

“I remember his gravestone,” Violet said. “It had a verse on it: ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’ Why did you choose that?”

“It was a reminder of how Roger had so fouled up this family as to make us coconspirators with him. I, for one, would never forget it, and I didn’t want anyone passing by what was ostensibly his grave to forget it, either. It also served to shore up our position that we heartily disapproved of my brother, and weren’t sad at his passing.”

The whole situation made Violet almost glad she had no siblings.

“You lied when you said he dropped dead after finishing a meal.”

Audley looked at Violet as though she were an imbecile. “Well, of course I did. Did you think I would confess all of our family doings to a mere undertaker, and one I’d never met before, at that?”

No, she supposed he wouldn’t.

“Why didn’t Miss Latham’s family bury her with him?”

He shrugged elegantly, a move he had probably learned in the past while on the Grand Tour. “We haven’t had contact with them since it all happened, but I suspect they didn’t want to be associated with our tainted family, no matter how much wealth we might offer.”

Unlike Ambrose’s other victims, Lord Blount needed a way to escape England for reasons other than dodging a debt but was still able to pay handsomely for the assistance. Almost to herself, Violet said, “If Mr. Crugg hadn’t bumbled up the laudanum dosage, perhaps Lord Blount wouldn’t have died in the coffin before arriving in Brookwood.”

“Yes, Julian Crugg assured us he had everything well in hand. Obviously, he didn’t. Now we learn from Scotland Yard that Roger would have fallen into the hands of that demon Mr. Ambrose even if he had survived the railway trip, meaning it was never even possible that Roger’s plan was going to work.” Audley shook his head in disgust. “Why did we listen to him?”

Violet ignored the rhetorical question. “You also lied about not knowing who the family undertaker was.”

The viscount shrugged. “It didn’t seem important. And I had no idea Crugg would be targeted himself.”

Violet’s next question was irrelevant, but she had to know. “As for Miss Latham—”

“Of course you would ask about her.” Audley cut Violet off before she could even finish her query. “Yes, yes, yes, I was in love with the dear girl. Does that satisfy your curiosity? I hardly think my wife needs to know about it, do you? Margery was—Well, Margery was exquisite. I can hardly believe that madman, Ambrose, snuffed her out like that. My brother didn’t deserve her, and I was shocked that she agreed to his plan. My only hope now is that she rests in heaven while my brother is tortured with the flames of wrath.” Audley’s eyes welled up, but he quickly blinked back his sorrow.

Society men were trained not to demonstrate grief. Violet found it interesting that the Earl of Etchingham’s heir was far more broken up over his brother’s fiancée than over Blount himself. She would intrude no further on the man’s sorrow. Putting her nearly untouched glass on a table, she rose and thanked him for his time, then fled Etchingham House as quickly as possible.

Roger’s foolish experiments and ideas had cost him not only his own life but that of Margery Latham, as well. What a terrible web of lies and deceit this entire affair had been, with Byron Ambrose sitting in the middle of it like a vigilant, patient, and monstrous spider.

At the sound of the shop’s bells jangling several days later, Violet put aside her ledger, which seemed to be growing heavier each year. She glanced at her fingers, as covered with black ink as Inspector Pratt’s were always coated with graphite. She’d heard about some new invention in the States called a type-writing machine. Supposedly it used a foot pedal and keys to put words on paper. Could such a device help her with her correspondence and keeping her books?

“How may I be of service to—Oh, Mr. Vernon,” Violet said, surprised to see the man entering her shop and not quite sure what to say to him.

“Mrs. Harper,” he said shyly, removing his hat and twisting it in his hands. “I’ve come, er, to pay my respects to you.”

She stepped out from behind the counter. “Your respects, sir?”

“Yes, madam. You see, I—I—” Vernon stopped and frowned, as if he’d forgotten his line and was waiting for a whispered cue.

“Would you care to sit down?” Violet offered.

“No, that won’t be necessary. I, yes, I just wanted to inform you that—” Vernon took a breath and seemed to find his place in his script. “I’m leaving London. A bit of rest and relaxation, you understand.”

“How very pleasant for you,” Violet said cautiously. Why was he reporting this to her?

“Yes, indeed. My daughter lives up in Rutland. She wants me to stay with her awhile. You know how children can be.”

“They are our greatest joy and our greatest worry, are they not?” she replied.

Vernon still twisted his hat nervously, as if the action would summon up a well of courage.

“I do hope you have a pleasant journey,” Violet said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to—”

“I’m asking for your forgiveness, Mrs. Harper,” Vernon blurted out. “I apologize for what I did to you in my shop that day. I confess I was a bit . . . strained . . . at the time. I never did mean you any harm.”

Violet suspected the man’s mind was probably still strained, and not entirely whole, and that he would remain with his daughter permanently. For the sake of grieving families all over London, Violet was glad.

Ignoring that thought, she instead responded to him graciously, “I accept your apology as if the matter never occurred, and I will never think on it again.” She meant it. Why dwell upon the actions of a man who was not evil, like Ambrose, but merely disturbed?

Vernon gave her a weak smile and ceased the mauling of his hat. “I’ll leave you now, Mrs. Harper, with my thanks that you didn’t ever send the police after me.” He planted his crumpled hat back on his head and departed.

No, Vernon was no criminal, just a poor soul who needed to be as far away from the undertaking profession as possible.