Fowler’s brows rose. “Were you acquainted with him, sir?”
“Only in passing. Saw him occasionally at the clubs, but we were never friends.”
Fowler glanced at the adjoining booths, assuring himself that they were still empty. He lowered his voice. “Lord Gavin was, shall we say, not unknown to those of us involved in murder investigations at the Yard.”
Anthony went cold. “I never heard any rumors to that effect.”
“Of course not. My superiors were careful to keep it all extremely quiet. There would have been hell to pay if it got out that we had linked his name with an investigation. Gavin would have been furious.
Everyone involved at the Yard would have lost his position.”
“I understand.”
“You must not repeat any of what I am going to tell you in your clubs, sir.”
“You have my oath on it.”
Fowler nodded once, satisfied. “Very well. A few months before Gavin’s death the proprietor of a glove shop, a young widow who had taken over her husband’s business, was raped and beaten almost to death. She was found in a state of shock by her shopgirl, who summoned the police.”
“Go on.”
“The victim named Lord Gavin as her attacker.”
Anthony stilled. “I read nothing about that in the press.”
“Of course not.” Fowler snorted. “It was hushed up immediately. Among other things, the proprietor of the glove shop was not the most credible of witnesses. She was having an affair with a married man at the
time and had been overheard quarreling with her lover.”
Anthony put down his fork. “So it was assumed that he was the one who had beaten her in a fit of jealous rage and that she had named Lord Gavin as her assailant rather than reveal her lover’s name.”
“Precisely. In the end the victim suffered an overwhelming attack of nerves and confessed that she had lied about Gavin having assaulted her.”
“Surely you are not going to tell me that she plucked Gavin’s name out of thin air and gave it to you?”
“No. He was one of her customers. Gavin purchased two pairs of gloves from her in the weeks before she was assaulted.”
“Did you speak with Gavin?”
“He refused my request for an interview. With no evidence and my only witness changing her mind about the facts of the case, there was nothing more I could do.”
“I sense the tale does not end there.”
“No,” Fowler said, grim-faced. “It does not. A month later another single woman living alone was found dead in the rooms above her shop. She had been raped, beaten, and stabbed to death.”
Anthony pushed his plate aside, his appetite gone. “That murder was in the press. As I recall, there were no arrests.”
“Because there was no evidence. The victim was unable to tell us anything because she was dead. However, there were certain similarities to the first assault that bothered me. I eventually found one witness who saw a man of Gavin’s description entering the shop on one or two occasions in the days preceding the crime, but that was not enough to act upon.”
“What did you do?”
Fowler widened the fingers of one hand. “I wanted to assign a constable to keep an eye on Gavin for a time, but my superiors were afraid that Gavin might notice and complain.”
“What happened next?”
“There was a similar death a month later.”
Anthony raised a brow. “Another single female shopkeeper?”
“Yes. In that case the victim’s neighbor said that in the weeks before the shopkeeper was killed she had confided that one of her gentleman customers was making her nervous. She said he’d made improper advances and seemed angry when she rejected him. After that there were some incidents.”
“What sort of incidents?”
“Among other things, the shopkeeper found a crude drawing that had been shoved under her door. It was a picture of a nude women who had been slashed open with a knife.”
“Son of a bitch,” Anthony said softly.
“On another occasion the shopkeeper discovered a dead rat in her bed. Its head had been severed. The sheets were soaked with blood.”
“I suppose there was no way to link those incidents to Gavin?”
Fowler shook his head. “None.”
“Tell me about the scene at Gavin’s murder.”
“When I received a report that his body had been discovered in the rooms above Barclay’s Bookshop I went around at once. I found Miss Barclay’s suicide note.”
“Anything else?”
“A poker with blood and hair on it.”
“Was that all?”
“One more thing,” Fowler said slowly. He set his fork down with great precision. “It did not appear in the press because we did not tell the journalists about it. I discovered a knife on the floor beside the bed. Some might say, of course, that Miss Barclay intended to stab Gavin with it after she bashed in his head with the poker just to see to it that he was good and dead.”
“I take it you do not believe that was the case.”
“No, I do not. I’ve a hunch the knife fell from Gavin’s hand when Miss Barclay struck him with the poker.”
The image of Joanna Barclay fighting for her life against a man armed with a knife iced Anthony’s blood. He looked down and noticed that he had made a fist. Very deliberately, he relaxed his fingers.
“He went there to rape her and kill her,” he said quietly.
“I’m absolutely certain that was the case. I had a look through Miss Barclay’s receipts and journal of
accounts. Gavin had purchased three books from her on three separate occasions. That was part of his pattern, you see. He chose single women who were alone in the world. Shopkeepers he thought no one would miss, at least not for long. Women of modest backgrounds whose rank in the social order was much lower than his own.”
“Bastard.”
“A mentally unstable bastard, I believe,” Fowler said. “I’ve run into his sort before. I think he began by beating his victims, but after a while that was not sufficient to satisfy his unwholesome lust.”
“So he started to murder them.”
“And would likely have gone on doing so had Miss Barclay not stopped him,” Fowler said. “In my opinion, she did us all a great favor by dispatching Gavin to the Other World. A pity she is no longer with us. I suppose she took her own life because she feared she would be charged with murder.”
“Such a fear would not be a fantasy, given her position in the world relative to Gavin’s.” He held Fowler’s eyes across the table. “We both know that if Gavin’s family had determined to see Miss Barclay hanged for murder they might well have prevailed.”
Fowler’s heavy brows rose. “Unfortunately, Miss Barclay had no way of knowing that Gavin’s wife had no love for her husband and his family is secretly relieved that he is gone. I suspect they had reason to fear his rages.”
“How did you learn that?”
“I talked to the servants, of course. Until his death last year there was a very high turnover in staff in the Gavin household.”
31
Anthony emerged from his club shortly after midnight. He paused briefly to consider the wisdom of whistling for a cab and then abandoned the notion. The fog had slowed traffic to a snail’s pace. Even the usually quick, agile hansoms were forced to pick their way cautiously through the near-impenetrable mist. Walking would be faster. Besides, he did some of his best thinking while walking, and tonight he needed to think.
He turned up the collar of his overcoat and started down the steps. A hansom halted in the street directly in front of him. A familiar figure descended with unsteady movements. Julian Easton was drunk as usual. Unfortunate timing, Anthony thought. He should have left the club five minutes earlier.
“Stalbridge.” Julian gripped the iron railing on the steps to steady himself. “Leaving so soon? Don’t rush off on my account.”
“I’m not.”
Anthony started down the steps. Julian moved in front of him, blocking his way.
“Off to visit the little widow in Arden Square?” Julian’s face twisted in a sneer. “Be sure to give her my regards.”
Anthony stopped. “You’re in my way, Easton. I would appreciate it if you would move.”
“In a hurry to get to her, I see.” Julian swayed a little. “I wonder how long it will take for her to comprehend that you are taking advantage of her naïveté.”
“Why don’t you go inside and have another bottle of claret?”
“Rather unfair of you to use her to cover up your affair with some other man’s wife, don’t you think?”
“What I think is that you had best keep your speculations to yourself,” Anthony said quietly.
“Now why would I do that when there are so many people eager to unravel the mystery?” Julian looked shrewd. “In fact, there are wagers going down in every club in St. James. Amazing how many gentlemen are curious to see which one of their wives you’re fucking while you hide behind Mrs. Bryce’s very unfashionable skirts.”
“Get out of my way, Easton.”
Easton’s face screwed up into a mask of rage. “Better not try to knock me down again, you bastard. I’m carrying a revolver these days to protect myself from you.”
“Have a care. In your present condition you’re likely to shoot yourself in the foot. Now I must insist that you get out of my way.”
“Damned if I’ll move.”
Anthony gripped Julian’s arm and shoved him to the side. Julian came up hard against the iron railing. He seized it frantically to keep himself from losing his footing. By the time he recovered his balance, Anthony was at the bottom of the steps.
Another carriage halted, disgorging three men in evening clothes. They took in the scene with expressions of amused curiosity.
“Whose wife is she?” Julian shouted, voice rising in fury. “Which one of the gentlemen inside that club are you cuckolding, Stalbridge?”
Anthony did not look back. He kept moving, walking into the fog.
Streetlamps were abundant in this part of town. The glary balls of light in front of each doorway were strung like so many strange, glowing gems in the darkness. But on foggy nights such as this the light did not penetrate far. In the street, private carriages and cabs appeared and disappeared. The slow
clop-clop-clop of the horses’ hooves and the rattle of wheels had a muffled quality. It was as if the fog
ate sound the way it did light.
He should warn Louisa about the wagers that were being placed in the club betting books, he thought. He paused at the corner, considering the time. She was very likely in bed, but surely she would want to be awakened with this latest information. She was always reminding him that they were partners, after all.
He thought about how she would look at this hour, garbed in a dressing gown and slippers, her hair tucked into a little white cap or perhaps down around her shoulders. Smiling, he turned the corner and walked toward Arden Square.
He was not certain when he became aware of the echo of footsteps behind him. There had been a number of other pedestrians on the street in the vicinity of the club. But as he moved into the quieter neighborhoods of town houses and squares there were far fewer people about.
It wasn’t just the sound of the footsteps that bothered him; it was the pattern: Too similar to his own, he thought. Whoever was behind him was keeping a certain distance between them. He stopped, testing his theory. The footsteps continued for a few paces and then halted abruptly. He started walking again. The footsteps followed.
He turned another corner and walked into Arden Square. The weak glare of the streetlamps illuminated the doors of the town houses, but the little park in the center was only a dark, shapeless void.
He stopped. The person following him stopped, too. He crossed the street, heading toward the invisible park, the change of direction giving him an opportunity to glance casually to his right. A figure in an overcoat and top hat stood silhouetted on the pavement.
Anthony entered the small park, following the gravel path. There was just enough fog-reflected moonlight to reveal the dark outlines of nearby tree trunks and the massed shapes of bushes.
Hurried footsteps echoed. A moment later gravel crunched behind him.
He removed his coat and hat. When he reached the statue of the wood nymph in the center of the park he draped the coat around the stone shoulders. He balanced the hat on top of the nymph’s head.
He moved across the grass into the shadows to examine his handiwork. By day no one would have been fooled, but here in the moonlight and fog the coat and hat bore a reasonable resemblance to a man who had paused to relieve himself.
He waited. The footsteps came more quickly now. There was a certain nervous quality about them, as though the pursuer feared he had lost his quarry.
A figure moved out of the deep shadow cast by a looming tree. The man stopped a few feet away from the draped statue. His arm came up, pointing.
Anthony barely had time to register the dark shape of a gun in the man’s hand before he heard the unmistakable cocking of a revolver. A second later the weapon roared. Light sparked. There was a clang as the bullet struck stone. The attacker cocked the gun again and fired another shot. This time when the coat and hat did not fall to the ground, he seemed to lose his nerve. He whirled and fled back along the gravel path.
Anthony lunged out of the shadows. Hearing the pounding footsteps behind him, the man paused, swung around, cocked the gun and fired again, aiming blindly.
Not surprisingly, the shot thudded into a nearby tree trunk. Nevertheless, it occurred to Anthony that pursuit was probably not his most intelligent maneuver. He had his own revolver with him, but he was not prepared to start shooting people he could not identify. Reluctantly, he halted at the edge of the park, watching his quarry disappear into the night. Blood pounded in his veins.
“Bloody hell.”
The shots had not gone unnoticed. Shouts of alarm sounded from bedroom windows around the square.
He went back to the nymph to retrieve his hat and coat. Sticking to the shadows as much as possible to avoid notice by the people peering down from the windows, he made his way through the park and crossed the street.
He should not call on her now, he thought. Nevertheless, he found himself going up the steps of Number Twelve. She would want a report of events. She was a member of the press, after all. And he wanted to see her very badly.