The River Knows (30 page)

How much time had passed? She staggered to her feet and turned slowly on her heel, trying to make out the details of her surroundings. The dim, glary light of a lamp filtered through three iron bars in the opening in a heavy wooden door. She was in a small space with a low, vaulted ceiling. There were no windows. An ancient storage chamber, she decided, or a nun’s cell. Judging by the stones and the masonry, it dated from medieval times.

She went to the door without much hope and tried the knob. It did not turn. When she felt the cold iron under her fingers, she realized she had lost one glove. She had a dim recollection of having removed the glove to check Digby’s pulse

The opening in the door was at eye level. She peered between the bars and found herself looking into another ancient, low-ceilinged stone room. The lamp that was the only source of light sat on a low table in the middle of the outer chamber. It cast just enough illumination to reveal a closed door in one wall and the darkened entrance to a narrow flight of worn stone steps cut into the opposite wall.

She was about to turn away to explore her cell when she heard the faint echo of shoe leather on stone. A new wave of fear flooded through her. Someone was descending the staircase. She saw the skirts of a stylish black gown and a pair of fashionable black walking boots first.

The woman arrived at the bottom step and moved into the main chamber. The last element of her wardrobe, a small black hat, was perched atop a wealth of golden hair. A heavy black lace veil concealed her features.

Louisa took a deep breath. “Victoria Hastings, I presume? Or should I call you Madam Phoenix?”

The woman paused slightly, startled that she had been recognized. Then she glided slowly across the stone floor to the door of the cell. Coolly she reached up with one black-gloved hand and crumpled the veil onto the brim of her hat. Victoria possessed the face of an angel, Louisa decided, but the unwholesome, pitiless glint in her blue eyes was nothing short of demonic.

“I regret the necessity of having you kidnapped,” Victoria said, “but you have only yourself to blame. You were, indeed, getting much too close to the truth, Mrs. Bryce. Or should I call you I. M. Phantom?”

44

The closed sign dangled in the window of Digby’s shop. Anthony ignored it and tried the door. It was locked. He took out the lock picks that he always carried in his boot and went to work. He was inside the darkened shop in ten seconds. A bell chimed when he opened the door.

“Who’s there?” an anxious voice called from the rooms above the ground floor. “Go away. The shop is closed for the day.”

Anthony walked across the shop and halted at the foot of the stairs.

Digby looked down. He seemed nervous.

“Sorry to intrude,” Anthony said. “I’m Stalbridge. I trust you remember me. I was here about the Milton.”

Digby peered at him. “I remember you well enough. What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for Mrs. Bryce. Have you seen her?”

“Not today, thank the Lord. I’ve had enough trouble.”

“You sent her a message earlier this afternoon.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Are you certain of that, sir?”

“Of course, I’m certain.” Digby scowled. “I had no reason to send her a message.”

“Are you sure that she didn’t arrive around five o’clock today?”

“I just told you, she wasn’t here. Now please leave, sir. I’m not feeling quite myself.”

“Are you ill?”

“Not now.” Digby put a hand to his brow, looking worried. “At least I don’t think so. Had a bit of a spell earlier. Don’t know what happened. Must have fainted. Came to on the floor of my back room. Decided it would be best to take to my bed.”

“You were unconscious for a period of time?”

“Yes. Half an hour or so at most. What of it?”

“What time did you return to your senses?”

“See here, I wasn’t looking at a clock.” Digby gestured in an irritated manner. “I suppose it must have been shortly after five.”

“May I take a look around your back room, Mr. Digby?”

“Why?” Digby’s expression darkened with deep suspicion.

“I am concerned for Mrs. Bryce’s safety.”

“Then you must look elsewhere. I told you, she wasn’t here today.”

“I’ll just be a moment,” Anthony assured him.

He walked into the back room of the shop and turned up a lamp.

“See here, sir,” Digby yelped from the top of the stairs. “You can’t just barge in there and rummage around.”

Anthony ignored him, studying the cluttered back room with a growing sense of impending disaster. A carton of books lay on its side. It looked as if it had been kicked over. He went closer to the carton, pausing when he saw a glove on the floor. An icy chill tightened his insides. He picked up the glove.

“What have you got there?” Digby demanded from the doorway. “It looks like a lady’s glove.”

“It is a lady’s glove.”

“How did that get there?” Digby looked both annoyed and baffled. “I’m the only one who goes into this room.”

“An excellent question.” Anthony prowled through the cartons and spotted a crumpled handkerchief. “Is

this yours, Digby?”

Digby reluctantly came closer to get a better look. “No. I don’t carry fancy embroidered handkerchiefs. That’s a gentleman’s style.”

A faint, sweet scent drifted up from the handkerchief. Not perfume, Anthony thought. It took him a second to place the odor. When he did, a wave of dread threatened to consume him.

“I believe I know what caused your fainting spell this afternoon, Digby,” he said. “Someone used chloroform on you.”

“Devil take it, are you certain?”

Anthony was about to respond when he noticed the muff. It was on the floor near the alley door.

The ice inside him expanded, chilling the blood in his veins. He scooped up the muff. The notebook and pencil that Louisa carried everywhere were still inside.

He thought about Mrs. Galt’s comments regarding Louisa’s visit to Swanton Lane. He reached into the muff, took out the notebook and opened it to the most recent entry.

The first thing he saw was the name Quinby. Next to it was a small arrow that pointed to another name: Madam Phoenix.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER he knocked on the back door of the little house on Swanton Lane.

A stern-featured woman looked at him through an iron grate.

“Gentlemen are not allowed on the premises,” she said.

“My name is Stalbridge. Anthony Stalbridge. I’m a close friend of Mrs. Bryce. I believe she is in grave danger. I need your help.”

45

Louisa took two steps back, moving out of the light that came through the opening in the door and deeper into the shadows of the cell. She could be mysterious, too, she thought.

“I assume you have some purpose in bringing me here,” she said.

Victoria stepped closer to the door, peering through the bars. “I’m afraid there is going to be yet another unfortunate suicide in the Thames. This time the victim will be Lady Ashton’s unprepossessing and extremely distant relation from the country. Very sad.”

“You have made a grave mistake in kidnapping me,” Louisa said. “Mr. Stalbridge will not be pleased.”

“By the time Stalbridge figures out what has happened it will be too late for him to do anything about the situation. In any event, I doubt that he will trouble himself overmuch with your demise, even if he does suspect the truth.”

“You seem very sure of that.”

Victoria’s smile was all that was arrogant and certain. “I am sure of it because, unlike you, I understand him. Once you comprehend a man, once you know what he wants most, he is yours to control.”

“How can you say that you know Mr. Stalbridge? According to him, the two of you met only in passing at occasional social affairs.”

Victoria gripped one of the iron bars embedded in the door. “I said I know what he wants. He is obsessed with obtaining revenge for his beloved Fiona. He suspected from the beginning that her death was not a suicide, you see.”

“He is right, isn’t he?”

Victoria smiled coldly. “Yes. And soon I am going to give him what he seeks most. Fiona’s killer. Rest assured, Stalbridge’s concern for your safety is based entirely upon your usefulness to him in the pursuit of his quest. Once you are dead and he has his answers, you will cease to have any value to him.”

“Hastings murdered Fiona, didn’t he?”

“With my assistance.” Victoria’s shoulder moved in an elegant little shrug. “We had no choice. She accidentally came upon us that night in the gardens at the ball. I do not know what drew her outside. Perhaps a desire for some fresh air. Whatever the case, she overheard an argument between Hastings and me. The quarrel involved the details of the blackmail scheme I had arranged. It was working nicely, but Elwin wanted to expand it.”

“Blackmailing those elderly ladies was your idea?”

“Of course. All of the plans that Hastings profited from so handsomely were conceived by me.” Victoria’s face tightened with anger. “But the fool convinced himself that he was the brilliant mind behind each venture. My mistake was in allowing him to deceive himself. He actually came to the conclusion that he no longer needed me.”

“What did you do to Fiona?”

“When I heard a faint sound from the other side of the hedge I knew at once that someone was there and that she had no doubt heard enough to ruin us. We could not afford to let her live. I went around the corner of the hedge and spoke politely to her, as though nothing was amiss. Hastings came up behind her and struck her on the back of her head with his walking stick.”

“Dear heaven,” Louisa whispered.

“Once she was unconscious we carried her out through the garden gate and left her in the alley, bound and gagged with items of her own clothing. Leaving her there was a risk, but we could not think of anything else to do. We went back into the ballroom, summoned a cab, and departed as though nothing had happened.”

“And then went back to take her to the river?”

“Elwin handled that part. He took one of my cloaks and returned to the alley for Miss Risby. She was still unconscious but not yet dead. He wrapped her in the cloak.”

“How did he get her out of the alley and to the river?”

“You will have noticed that Hastings is a large man. Miss Risby was a small woman. Elwin simply put her over his shoulder and hauled her out of the alley as though she were a sack of coal. When he reached a side street he summoned another cab.”

“How did he explain his burden to the driver?”

Victoria smiled. “That was simple enough. He explained that the woman with him was a whore who had entertained him and then passed out from too much gin. Out of the goodness of his heart he wanted to see the woman safely back to her lodgings near the river. The driver asked no questions.”

Louisa shuddered. “But Hastings made a mistake. He could not resist the temptation of the necklace Fiona wore that night. He removed it before he threw her into the river.”

Victoria laughed. “You must not blame Elwin for taking the necklace. I removed it from Miss Risby when we left her in the alley. One could hardly allow such a valuable piece of jewelry to go into the river. I had planned to have the stones reset in the modern style, of course.”

“I understand why you and Hastings murdered Fiona Risby, but why did you arrange to disappear and come back as the proprietor of a brothel? Bit of a comedown, wasn’t it?”

In less time than it takes for a viper to strike, Victoria’s beautiful features were transformed into a mask of rage.

“Are you mad?” she rasped. “Do you think I wanted this? I loved him. Do you hear me? Elwin was the one man on earth I trusted. I thought we were two of a kind, meant for each other. I taught him everything he knows about manipulating money and the greed that consumes most people. Everything.”

Louisa realized she was holding her breath. Victoria was on the brink of some inner precipice.

“What happened?” she asked gently.

“That was when the bastard concluded that he no longer needed me. I think that killing Fiona Risby gave him a sense of power. Having murdered once, he found it easy to do it again. He came for me a few days later when I was asleep. He used chloroform. I woke up too late to do more than put up a weak struggle. He held me down while he finished the job.”

“But you lived.”

“It was luck and fate that saved me that night. I was partially awake when I went into the water. I knew how to swim, and I was wearing a nightgown, not a dress and corset. I was pulled from the river by some deranged man who had a hovel near the water’s edge.”

“What did you do?”

Victoria’s mouth thinned, and her eyes tightened. “I survived. It is something I am very good at, Mrs. Bryce.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“The man thought I was some sort of fey being that had been sent to him. He took excellent care of me. When I recovered, I made my plans.”

“Why didn’t you simply come forward and tell the authorities what had happened?”

Victoria gave a scornful laugh. “Surely you are not that naïve, Mrs. Bryce. I had no proof that Elwin had tried to kill me. You know as well as I do that the authorities are very quick to leap to the conclusion that any woman, wife or not, who lodges charges against a gentleman of Hastings’s background is suffering from hysteria.”

Memories of Lord Gavin’s relentless assault on her nerves before the final attack sent another shiver through Louisa. She had known then that if she had gone to the authorities they would have considered her to be suffering from female hysteria.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

“At best I would have found myself locked away in an asylum. The other, far more likely possibility, of course, is that Elwin would have had another go at killing me.”

“So you remained in hiding.”

“And I formulated my vengeance.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t simply murder Hastings.”

“I thought about it many times, but that would have been far too easy. I wanted him to suffer. I yearned for him to roast over a long fire. I needed him to see his destruction bearing down upon him slowly, inevitably.”

“You murdered the former owner of Phoenix House, didn’t you?”