City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (5 page)

“I haven’t any clothes with me. I
only brought that one bag -“

“There are plenty of shops in London,
my dear.”

Leanna paused, thinking of the narrow-hipped
jewel-colored dresses she’d seen in the pages of magazines, so different from
the filmy pastel gowns her mother had made for her by the local seamstress. The
idea of going shopping, alone, with her own money in her pocket… 

The solicitor laughed.  “So I’ve
finally hit on the argument that will sway you.  The chance to buy new clothes
in London is irresistible for any woman, even our stern little Leanna.”

“I haven’t been to London in years,”
she said, looking up as Tom reentered the room.  “And never alone.”

“Really, darling, try to focus,” Tom
said. “You won’t be alone. I’ll wire Aunt Gerry from the train station so
she’ll know to be there for you tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?” Leanna protested.

“It’s the best way,“ Galloway said,
as he pulled a pouch from his pocket and carefully began to count out pounds. 
“There’s a train which departs Leeds station at five-“

“Five in the morning?”

“Yes, Leanna, businessmen take it to
London for the day.  Grandfather was always going in for the libraries and
museums, don’t you remember?”

“You’ve worked out every detail, haven’t
you?” 

“We’ll leave by carriage at four.
They’ll all be dead asleep at that hour and for several hours beyond, judging
by the way they’ve made a run for the decanter,” Tom said.  “And they won’t be
able to chase you, because they’ll think they have to stay here and fight for
their interests. Galloway and I will see to that.”

Leanna sank back against the couch. 
“I feel so strange  - part excited and part frightened to the core.  When I
give in to the fear, the joy comes rushing in but when I try to feel joyous
that little tickle of fear is there to distract me.  I wonder what it is.”

“Freedom.”

Leanna gave her brother a sidelong
look of doubt.

“No really Leanna, that is precisely
what freedom is like- a bit of excitement, a bit of fear.  You’d better get
used to the feeling.”

“This is final proof of what I’ve
been saying for years,” William sputtered, setting an over-full wine glass on
the mantle. “Grandfather was senile.”

“You never called him senile when you
thought you were his heir,” Cecil drawled, swirling the brandy in his own
glass. “And you’re being awfully careless with the claret given your concern
that Rosemoral be kept in such pristine condition.”

“It’s Leanna’s estate now,” William
said thickly.  “Let her hire more maids. You’ve been notably silent, Mother. 
What are you thinking? Are we doomed to spend the rest of our days in Winter Garden?”

Gwynette looked up.  “You could
follow the counsel of the will and take up a profession, I suppose.”

“I can only assume that you’re
joking.  And what of Cecil’s marriage plans?  We’ve all been left in the lurch
by this appalling turn of events.”

“Not necessarily,” Cecil said. “We’ll
go home tomorrow and I’ll call on Edmund Solmes.  He must know a dozen
solicitors who could dance circles around Galloway.”

“I don’t know if you can afford to
ask Solmes for any more favors,” William mumbled, ignoring Cecil’s warning
glance as he clumsily reached for the wine bottle.  “Especially now that your
collateral is no longer in your possession.”

“What?” Gwynette asked, looking from
one son to the other.

“Cecil has run up gambling debts.“

“He exaggerates, Mother.  Edmund and
I are friends.  He doesn’t intend to press me.”

“What did you mean by collateral?”

“Leanna,” William said brusquely. 
“Solmes has his eye on her and Cecil agreed to press for the match.  He came to
me and said when I was officially head of the family - “

Gwynette stood, eyes blazing, and
focused the full force of her fury on Cecil, who although he remained casually
sprawled, visibly tensed under her scrutiny.  “Let me see if I understand,”
Gwynette said.  “You intended to use your sister’s virginity to pay off your
debts from the horses?”

“A callous turn of phrase, Mother.  It
isn’t as if Edmund wasn’t prepared to marry her.“

“Marry her?  He’s four times her age!
He would be too old for me!”

“Granted, Mother, but Leanna doesn’t
have your fire -“

“Spare me your flattery.  You’ve
really gone too far this time, Cecil.  Our family fortunes may have fallen, but
I was not aware we were to the point you found it necessary to sell your
sister.  Especially not to that odious old man.”

“That odious old wealthy man, Mama,”
added William, enjoying the rare sight of Cecil squirming.

“Wealthy indeed,” said Gwynette.  “And
so doddering he would probably drool on her.  Just how severe are these debts?”

Cecil hesitated.  “No more than three
hundred pounds.”

Gwynette sighed.  “If you’ll admit to
three hundred, it’s more than likely twice that.  You’re just like your father,
Cecil, and it pains me to admit the fact.”

“Don’t start on that again, Mother,”
William said.  “I don’t see why Cecil and I should suffer because of Father’s
sins and be cut out of what is rightfully ours.  No one leaves that kind of money
to a woman!  No one!”

“Agreed,” Cecil said, relieved for
the chance to change the subject. “Every wolf and fortune hunter in the
countryside will be after her now.”

“I scarcely see how she could do any worse
than what the two of you had planned for her,” Gwynette said.  “And Cecil, for
you to call anyone else a fortune hunter is quite unendurable.”

“They’re in there plotting, you
know,” William said darkly.  “Even as we speak, Tom and that corpse of a
solicitor are strategizing their next move.”

“Oh, I have no doubt what they’ll
do,” Gwynette said.  “There’s really only one logical option.  They’ll hide her
with your Aunt Geraldine in Mayfair.”

Her sons turned to her with puzzled
faces.

“I thought I saw her at the funeral
in a rather ridiculous disguise,” Gwynette said.  “Now I suppose I understand
why.”

“Given her eccentric nature I scarcely
see how you could distinguish a disguise from her everyday clothing,” Cecil
said. “Remember, William, she’s a huge ogre of a woman, spouting feathers on
her head and indigestible political beliefs…”

“Which is precisely what happens when
a woman doesn’t marry,” William said.  “Which is why for Leanna’s own sake, we
must –“

“Yes, without question, that’s their
plan,” Gwynette went on, her brow creased in thought.  “Leanna will be spirited
away to London.”

Cecil rubbed his temples vigorously,
but the headache from his hastily gulped brandy refused to be erased.  “Then we
must stop her.”

“I’m not sure you can,” Gwynette said. 
“And besides, it might be best for everyone if some time passes before Leanna
takes up residence in Rosemoral.” 

“As far as I’m concerned she can stay
in London forever,” William muttered.  “The longer I can go without facing the
boys at the pub, the better.”

“Why you’re right, both of you,”
Cecil said with some surprise, for he considered it his duty within the family
to think of things first.  “No one outside our small circle knows of this, do
they?  The assumption will naturally be that William is the heir and as long as
our little sister is tucked away in Mayfair, we have a pocket of time, enough
for me to…”  Cecil sprang unsteadily to his feet, his spirits quite restored. “Yes,
bravo to you both, that’s quite the plan. We will proceed to the Wentworth ball
next week and no one will be rude enough to ask.  They will see us there,
laughing and gay, as if it has all gone precisely as expected.”

“When I first met Geraldine I was
just a bride,” Gwynette murmured, gazing toward the open window and the blazing
colors of Leonard’s autumnal garden. “And she seemed to me almost as if she’d
come from a different species. I’d never known a woman who was free to marry as
she pleased, and if she chose not to marry at all, I suppose there are worse
fates.  I can still recall the day my father summoned me to the library and
told me I that I was going to be escorted to the dance that evening by a boy named
Dale Bainbridge…”

“Perhaps I should even get something
new for the ball, something brightly colored, a very symbol of gay disregard,”
Cecil mused.  “Gloves, do you think?  Perhaps an ascot?”

William looked at Gwynette with a
play of emotions on his face, something between a child’s indignation and a
man’s sadness.  “You surprise me, Mother.  You’ve always claimed you and Father
were a love match.”

“Oh we were, in a way, at least in
the sense he was the youngest and most attractive of the options my father
offered.  But I was sixteen and hardly knew what I was doing.  Then, years
later, after you children were born, I saw I should have chosen a different
sort of man.  It’s the way Hannah will feel if you persuade her to marry you,
Cecil.  There will come the day, a normal seeming sort of day, and she will
look across the breakfast table…”

“I won’t hear this,” Cecil said.  “It’s
almost as if you’re suggesting that a child like Leanna would know better what
she needs than her own brothers.  Solmes may be older than her but he is
settled, prosperous…”

“Forget it, Cecil,” William said,
pushing himself from the settee and walking toward the open window.  “She isn’t
ours anymore.”

“No, she isn’t, is she,” Gwynette
said, her voice almost as low as a whisper. “Your grandfather hasn’t just
handed her an estate, he’s cut her quite loose from the earth.  I feel she’s up
somewhere floating high above us, not bound by the same rules anymore.  Someday
you’ll both understand that this was the true purpose of Leonard’s will.  Not
to punish the two of you, but to allow Leanna to be a different sort of woman.”

“Like Aunt Geraldine?” William said.
“If so, he’s cut her loose but I’m not sure it was a kindness.”

“Perhaps she was his last
experiment,” Gwynette said quietly.  “The last species he attempted to evolve. 
The independent woman.  But you’re right, I’m not sure it was a kindness.”

CHAPTER FOUR 

5:35 PM

“It’s a bit early in the
investigation for us to be literally running down blind alleys, wouldn’t you
say?”

Trevor turned to see Rayley Abrams
standing behind him.  “This is where they found Martha Tabram in the early
morning of August 7,” he said.

“I know where we are, Welles.  But
Tabram isn’t part of our inquiry.”

“She should be.  Throat sliced ear to
ear and then stabbed thirty-nine times, for God’s sake, not three weeks before
the Nichols murder.  Are you so sure she shouldn’t be under consideration?”

Abrams shook his head.  “Not sure at
all, but you heard Eatwell.  We can’t investigate every woman who comes to a
bad end in Whitechapel.  And perhaps he’s right.  Prostitution is not just the
world’s oldest profession, but also the most dangerous.  They’re statistically
more likely to be killed in the line of duty than even we policeman are.”

Trevor shot him a skeptical look.

“It’s true,” Abrams said, “and, even
more to the point, thirty-nine stab wound suggest a different sort of mentality. 
Not surgical.  Not precise.   You said it yourself, a multiplicity of wounds
implies a frenzy of anger, as if the killer knew the victim personally.  The
last two are more….as if you are taking something meant to heal, a surgical
scalpel, and very deliberately turning it a different way.  Do you see what I
mean?”

“It’s just as the doctor said.  The
how will tell us more than the why.”

“Precisely,” Abrams said, removing
his glasses and blowing on the lenses.

Trevor looked down at the overgrown
grass and bits of broken windowpane where Martha Tabram had drawn her last
breaths and a slow shudder came over him.  “Our normal means of deduction are
quite useless here.  Our killer didn’t necessarily have any prior relationship
to our victim.”

“Quite right again,” Abrams said. 
“Which is why the hour I spent tracing the Sussex postmark turned out to be a
blind alley too.  Chapman was taking some sort of pills and the box that held
them broke.  So she tore a piece off an envelope she found in the rubbish at
her boarding house and folded the pills into it.  Wasn’t even her letter. It
makes you long for the good old days, doesn’t it?  When criminals were decent
enough to only murder people they knew?”

The men turned, as if by silent
agreement, and began walking back toward the street.  Trevor had spent his own
afternoon combing the East End, moving back and forth between the slaughterhouses
and the bars.  He had seen a dozen aprons of the kind Phillips had displayed in
the conference room and had observed several people holding a pencil,
cigarette, or whiskey bottle in their left hands.  He had taken note of
everyone in the area, even women, and wouldn’t Eatwell have a laugh at that? 
But a midwife or nurse might have enough medical knowledge to effectively wield
a scalpel, and Trevor would not allow himself to leave any stone unturned.