My Favorite Thief (12 page)

He did not know which direction the Dark Shadow had taken, and at that point, he didn't give a damn. He began to thread his way through the dimly lit streets, listening as the agitated shouting and screaming behind him grew fainter.

He would head toward Drury Lane, he decided, breathing heavily. It was always noisy and crowded at that time with dozens of people spilling in and out of taverns. No one would notice him there, not even in his current unkempt, staggering condition. If anything, he would fit right in. He would buy a drink and wait a while before hiring a carriage to take him home. The driver would give him at least some semblance of an alibi for part of the evening, should the need arise.

He thought it unlikely that either of the two servants who had burst into the room had seen his face clearly, but prudence demanded that he take precautions just the same. He had to be careful. The Dark Shadow had recognized him, which meant the bastard had the advantage.

Now he was the one who would be hunted.

Chapter Seven

“…AN' THEN HE LEAPS OUT THE WINDOW, LEAVING
poor Mr. Beale drownin' in his own blood.”

Inspector Lewis Turner stared grimly at the enormous reddish-brown stain that had saturated the intricately woven Persian carpet of Lady Pembroke's bedchamber. “Go on.”

“Well, it was awful dark in the room, but I could see Mr. Beale was done for,” the young footman continued excitedly. “ ‘Hang on, Mr. Beale,' I says, just thinkin' to give him a bit of a lift—I mean, there's no sense in thinkin' ye're a croaker just because ye are—‘ 'tis only a scratch!'—an' he looks at me an' says, ‘I don't think so, Tom, my boy—I think I'm right done for.' So I kneels down beside him an' wonders what should I do for him—I mean, if I pulls out the blade, will that make him feel better, or snuff him quick?

“An' while I'm thinkin' on that, he groans a little, not much, mind ye, no more than if ye had the collywobbles, an' then he grabs my hand and says ‘This is it, Tom, I know it, and there's somethin' ye must make right for me.' ‘Anythin',' I says, and I'm feeling right sad now, because Mr. Beale was always fair to me since I come here, and I liked him well enough, even though some of the other servants used to laugh about him behind 'is back and call him an old lobcock. ‘I'll do anythin' for ye, sir,” I says, and I means it. An' he's lookin' at me real close now, his eyes all wide and not blinkin' like them dolls you can buy up in Cheapside—the little girls go mad for 'em on account of their eyes bein' so big an' all, but I think they look horrible, like some sort of mad thing, an' who wants eyes that's always lookin' at ye anyway, even when ye're stark-ballock naked?”

Lewis struggled for patience, reminding himself that the footman had just held a dying, brutally injured man in his arms. It was to be expected that such a horrific experience might make him ramble a little. “What did Mr. Beale say?” he asked, trying to guide Tom back to the relevant part of his story.

“He says, ‘Make sure they catch the Dark Shadow and hang him for me,' and his hand is all tight and clammy now, an' them eyes of his are big as beets, an' I know he's goin' to kick it soon, so I says, ‘I will, Mr. Beale, you just worry about stayin' alive till the doctor comes.' ‘No doctor can fix me,' he says, an' I say, ‘it ain't all that bad,' an' he says, ‘Ye're a good boy Tom, but a bad liar,' an' I kind of smile at that, because even though he's bleedin' to death he's still makin' a joke, an' I'm thinkin' maybe I'm wrong, maybe he's goin' to be all right after all. I've heard about people who was layin' in their coffin, dead as a herring, an' just as they're about to be dropped in the ground they sit up all of a sudden and say ‘Here now, what's this about?' ”

“What else did Mr. Beale say about the Dark Shadow?” Lewis decided if he let the young man ramble any more, he'd never get on with his investigation.

He had been dragged from his bed at two o'clock in the morning to investigate this latest crime scene of the Dark Shadow. It was now nearly dawn. He was tired, he was hungry, and he was infuriated that the Dark Shadow had managed yet another robbery and murder while he had been lying in bed dreaming, for God's sake. It made him and the entire Metropolitan Police Force look like fools.

That was a perception he did not tolerate well.

“Why, nothin'.” Tom frowned, somewhat miffed at having his colorful account interrupted. “He just said to make sure that they got him and hanged him.”

“Did he describe him for you?”

He vigorously scratched his head, thinking. “No.”

“Did he tell you anything about him that might give us some clue as to his identity?”

He shrugged his skinny shoulders. “Not that I remember.”

“Thank you, Tom.” Lewis was suddenly anxious to be rid of the stale-smelling servant, with his bloodstained shirt and his talk of beet-sized eyes and strange-looking dolls. “I'll let you know if I need to speak with you again.”

“Don't ye want to hear the rest of my story?”

“I presume that then Mr. Beale took his last breath and died. Isn't that right?”

“He just kept starin' at me, an' I kept tryin' to tell him it was goin' to be fine, an' then he got all quiet. But his eyes never closed. They just kept lookin' at me.” Tom's voice was hushed as he finished fearfully, “Like he was tryin' to tell me somethin' from beyond this world.”

“Often when people die their eyes don't close,” Lewis assured him. “It is entirely normal.”

The young footman glanced nervously at the enormous bloodstain on the carpet. “Do ye think he's still here—watchin' us? Especially since he died so violent. Do you think his spirit is waitin' to see if I'll do like I said?”

“There's no such thing as ghosts, Tom.” Lewis felt as if he were talking to a child. “The best thing we can do for Mr. Beale is to find the Dark Shadow and bring him to justice, so that his untimely death can be avenged. Is there anything more you can tell me that you think might be of help in this case?”

Tom shrugged. “I didn't get a very good look at him.”

“Was he tall or short?” Maybe there was one small additional piece of information he could extract from the servant that might help. “Thin or fat? Moving quickly and easily like a young man, or slower and more stiffly?”

“He was tall enough, I guess—bit hard to tell, really, since he was kind of hunched over to get through the window. I wouldn't say he was thin, really, but I wouldn't say he was fat, neither. More middlin' like. I didn't take no notice of how he was movin', on account of the fact that I was more concerned with poor Mr. Beale.”

“Of course. Thank you, Tom. If you think of anything else, I would appreciate it if you would contact me.” Lewis handed him his card.

Tom nodded glumly as he took the small white rectangle, clearly disappointed that his interview was over. “Yes, sir, Inspector Turner, sir. I will.”

Lewis turned his attention back to the overturned writing desk and the litter of broken glass, papers, pen, and ink surrounding it. It was not characteristic of the Dark Shadow to ransack a room. Typically the thief worked silently and left everything in perfect order, so that the owners of a home had no idea they had even been robbed until the next time the wife went searching through her jewelry box. This meant days often went by before anyone realized a crime had occurred. What the devil had caused him to start heaving over furniture?

“His hair was black.”

Lewis turned around, surprised to see that young Tom had not yet left the room. “Pardon me?”

“His hair was black—or real dark, anyway. It might have been dark brown—like dirt.”

“The Dark Shadow always wears a cap to cover his hair,” Lewis pointed out. Obviously the young man was embellishing his story to gain a few more minutes of his attention.

“He wasn't wearin' a cap.”

Lewis regarded him skeptically. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Sure as I'm standin' here.”

“Was he wearing a mask?”

“I ain't sure,” Tom admitted. “It was dark, and he was already climbin' out the window when I come runnin' in. I didn't see his face. But I did see his head, an' the hair on it looked black.”

Lewis considered this a moment. The Dark Shadow always wore a cap and mask—they were vital to concealing his identity. If it were, indeed, the Dark Shadow who had visited Lord Pembroke's house that night and murdered poor Mr. Beale, why on earth would he not be wearing a cap?

By the time Lewis had arrived at the house, Mr. Beale's body had already been moved to his bed by the servants, who felt it wasn't decent to leave him lying sprawled upon Lady Pembroke's bedchamber floor. This well-meaning gesture had unfortunately meant that Lewis was unable to see for himself exactly where and how Mr. Beale had fallen. But it was clear from the bloodstain that he had been injured and died near the door; there was no trail of blood to suggest that he had been stabbed somewhere else in the room and then staggered back to the door in an attempt to escape. Was there an altercation between the butler and the Dark Shadow before Mr. Beale was stabbed? That would explain the overturned furniture. But the other servants had described hearing a loud commotion in Lady Pembroke's bedchamber, which was what had instigated Mr. Beale to fetch his pistol and go upstairs in the first place. Tom had said he had heard Mr. Beale yelling at the thief to stop just before his pistol went off. The damage to the ceiling and the plaster showered across the floor indicated that Mr. Beale had completely missed his mark, suggesting that the weapon had discharged after he had been stabbed. The Dark Shadow had then apparently climbed out the window and disappeared.

Leaving the question: What had happened that had caused him to heave over the desk and make so much noise in the first place?

A scrap of something dark peeking out from beneath Lady Pembroke's bedstead suddenly caught his eye. He walked over and studied it, memorizing its location and arrangement before he actually picked it up. It was a black woolen cap. Plain, of common make, without any label inside to indicate either where it had been manufactured or purchased.

“Godamighty—that's his, ain't it?” Tom stared at the cap in horror, as if he thought the Dark Shadow might somehow be hiding inside it.

Lewis dropped to his knees and lifted the skirt of the heavy damask cover on Lady Pembroke's bed. There, just by the edge of the bed frame, lay a black ripple of fabric. He pulled it out and stared at the two small eyeholes cut into the center of a silk scarf.

“An' his mask, too!” Tom's face was chalk white. “Do ye think Mr. Beale's ghost put 'em there, as a message?”

“I can assure you, whoever left these was of flesh and blood.” Lewis studied the two articles, wondering just what the hell he had found. It didn't make any sense. Why on earth would the Dark Shadow remove his mask and cap and leave them lying there to be found?

“We've got him!” Police Constable Wilkins's burst through the door, his expression jubilant.

Lewis stared at the young officer, stunned. “You caught the Dark Shadow?”

“No, but we found something that's going to lead us to him,” Constable Wilkins amended, nearly quivering with excitement. “We found this on the ground outside. He must have dropped it while he was making his escape.”

Lewis set down the mask and cap on Lady Pembroke's bed and took the white linen square from Constable Wilkins's hand. It was of an expensive make, precisely woven with an elegant trim of fine hemstitching around the edges. Clearly a gentleman's handkerchief.

Carefully embroidered into one corner in white thread was the single initial
B
.

“All we have to do is find the man whose initial matches that, and we've got him!” declared Constable Wilkins, ecstatic.

“The last time I checked, Constable Wilkins, the law does not permit us to charge a man with murder based on the fact that we found a handkerchief bearing his initial somewhere in the vicinity of the crime scene,” Lewis pointed out. “It is merely another clue in our case, which may or may not be of significance.”

“It's his handkerchief,” Constable Wilkins insisted. “It hasn't been there long—it's too clean.”

“It may be his,” Lewis allowed, “or it may belong to someone who simply shares the same initial. It may have been mistakenly dropped by the Dark Shadow, or it may have been planted there by him in an attempt to confuse us.” He studied the snowy piece of fabric, thinking. “It has been my observation over the years that criminals generally assume a method that follows a certain pattern. Sometimes it takes them a while to perfect their technique, but once they do, they tend to adhere to it. This is especially true in the case of criminals who achieve a degree of notoriety. They enjoy the public interest in them, and therefore they want to make sure the public knows that they are the ones who have committed a crime, and not someone else.

“Until recently, the Dark Shadow has always been meticulously careful during his break-ins, slipping in and out undetected, never leaving so much as a pin out of place. Now, suddenly, he is taking young women hostage, heaving furniture about, dropping personal articles, and murdering people. Don't you find that rather odd?”

“He's getting bolder, and that has made him sloppier,” Constable Wilkins argued. “He probably took off his mask and cap on account of the room being so hot and dark—he wanted to see better. Lady Pembroke said that her jewelry box was hidden in the back of the wardrobe beneath a pile of clothes, while the key to it was hidden under her pillow. He probably got his dander up trying to find the key, and that's why he tossed her desk over once he realized it wasn't there.”

“Perhaps,” allowed Lewis, unconvinced. “He also only took one item from her jewelry chest: a diamond-and-ruby necklace. But Lord Pembroke has attested that there were many other significant pieces of jewelry stored in the chest. Why didn't he take any of those as well?”