I started to laugh, but as he began dragging it the short distance to the open doorway Miss O'Dowd was standing in front of, I rather believed him.
“It may not be The Cavendish,” Maureen O'Dowd said with a grin, “but it's clean.”
I gave her a smile as I stared into the room that looked nearly the same size as the monks' cells. “Thank you . . .” I mumbled, hearing the surprise coloring my voice.
The bed it contained defined its size. There was a single side table wedged between the side of the bed and the wall that held a ceramic pitcher and bowl, both of which looked well used based on the number of chips on their respective rims. The only other piece of furniture was a slim wood chair stationed at the foot of the bed that undoubtedly belonged to some long-defunct dining set. The room was so diminutive that it was physically impossible for someone to sit on that lone chair unless it was turned sideways to provide room for a person's knees between the chair, the bed, and the wall. Two gas sconces hung above the bed, one listing toward the room's only window on the far wall and the other badly scorched across its face.
“Yer other room is about four doors down on the other side a the stairs. Right by the WC. Ya can't miss it.” She gave a sideways smirk and I wasn't at all sure whether her comment was relevant to finding our other room or if it was some veiled warning about the WC.
“Might we trouble you at some future point with a few questions about the monks at Whitmore Abbey?” Colin asked.
“Whenever it pleases ya.” She gave another of the hearty smiles that illuminated her entire face. “But I really don't know much about 'em. I don't think they like women, ya know? The ones I seen don't 'ardly look at me, let alone talk ta me, and I just ain't that scary.” She laughed. “Why don't ya come down and try a pint a their ale. I'll clear a table for ya, don'tcha worry 'bout that.” She gave us a wink. “Will ya come back down?”
“How could we say no to an offer like that?” Colin grinned.
“I'll keep an eye out for ya,” she said with more enthusiasm than I thought we deserved, and was gone before either of us could say anything more.
“I'm not at all sure this is one whit better than the monastery,” I muttered from my spot just inside the door.
“I'd say Miss O'Dowd herself is a vast improvement. She almost makes that Mr. Chesterfield palatable,” he said as he kicked the door shut so he could slide the trunk into the corner behind it.
“Chesterton,” I corrected.
He waved me off indifferently. “We shall leave the trunk here for the duration.” He unlocked it and shoved it wide and I was amazed to see that there was just enough space to maneuver past it as long as one turned sideways first.
An abrupt knock on the door made me swivel around in the compact space. “Is that you, Miss O'Dowd?” I asked as I opened the door to a pretty, young woman in a gray smock with black hair tied up tightly at the back of her head.
“I'm yer chambermaid, Dora,” she answered with a ready blush, and I suddenly felt as though I had been caught doing something untoward. “Mo . . . Miss O'Dowd . . . asked me ta bring some water up fer ya.” Sure enough she was cradling a large pitcher of water in her hands and sloshed it tenuously, but without spilling a drop, as she gave me a quick curtsy.
“Very good,” Colin spoke up from somewhere behind me.
“Oh!” She looked surprised and I realized she had not noticed him.
“Why don't we get out of your way then,” Colin said as he squeezed past the open trunk. “Please get some water up to Mr. Pruitt's room as well, won't you?”
“Yes, sir.” She curtsied even deeper this time, once again managing to do so without splattering so much as a drop of water.
I was happy to scuttle past the bashful young woman and get back downstairs to the exuberance of the tavern crowd. Pints of honey-colored ale were being raised and drained as quickly as the ever-beaming Miss O'Dowd and her auburn-haired companion could hand them out. Nevertheless, the instant Colin and I stepped out of the back hallway I heard Miss O'Dowd holler to us from the table where she was passing out a half-dozen ales to a tableful of rowdy blokes.
“
Mr. Pruitt! . . . Mr. Snapdragon!
” she called with a wave of her free arm. “
Over 'ere!
” She turned in a single fluid motion to a small nearby table where two scruffy young men were seated next to a door that I suspected must lead out to the kitchen. As we headed toward her she smacked one of the men on the shoulder and shoved them both out of their seats. “Go on 'ome, ya buggers. We got a couple a fine gents come all the way from London. I ain't 'avin' 'em stand around.”
To my surprise the two men moved off without a word, minding Miss O'Dowd as though she were their headmistress.
“You really needn't have done that,” I said when we reached her.
She grabbed their used glasses and wiped the table with a singular swipe that spoke of too many years of practice. “Don't trouble yerselves over them. They don't need a table and chairs ta get pissed. Besides, their wives'll thank me if they get 'ome early fer once. Or maybe they won't.” She let out a raucous laugh. “Two Whitmore Ales?”
“If you please,” Colin answered with a smile. “And it's Pendragon.”
She tossed him a curious look. “Wot?”
“My name. It's Pendragon, not Snapdragon.”
“Ah . . .” She laughed. “I ain't good with names.” Her smile widened as she got a pixie's twinkle in her eye. “And do ya remember
my
name?”
Colin's grin widened as he stared back at her. “However could I forget the delightful Maureen O'Dowd?”
Miss O'Dowd beamed her amusement at being thusly dubbed. “I'll jest bet ya got a swirl a ladies back in London waitin' in line for you ta pay 'em a bit of attention like that.”
“Oh”âColin lifted his eyebrows and gave her a mischievous grinâ“you
would
be surprised.”
She let loose another hearty laugh. “I'll fetch yer ales,” she said, leaning in suddenly and giving a conspiratorial wink. “And the first one's on the 'ouse.” She lowered her voice. “Don't tell Raleigh.” And with a merry chortle she was off, swallowed up by the crowd in a flash.
“I like her,” Colin chuckled.
“And it would seem she is equally enamored of you, the poor girl.”
He laughed outright. “How you cut me.”
“Never mind that. What do you make of those monks?”
“Ah . . .” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes clouding. “I appreciate that they have suffered a terrible and shocking loss, but they really do seem like such a grim lot.”
“They're monks,” I reminded, “not circus chimps.”
Colin rolled his eyes just as Miss O'Dowd swept back and slid two pints onto the table. “Here ya are. Some a the Lord's better ale,” she said, giving us an impish grin before charging back off with her tray full of pints artfully balanced in one hand.
Colin immediately snatched up his mug and downed a healthy swallow. “Wheat,” he announced as he licked his upper lip.
“Pardon?”
“The brewing. They use wheat, not hops. It's rather like a German Hefeweizen. Brother Clem . . .” He hesitated.
“Clayworth,” I supplied.
“Yes, he has much to be proud of.” He toasted my glass and took another sip.
“I'm glad you're pleased with their ale-making talents, but I would much rather hear what you're thinking after our discussion at the monastery tonight.”
“Thinking . . . ?” he said before he tipped his pint back and took another swallow. “We have spent all of about three hours with them thus far. What should I be thinking?”
“Surely someone has caught your attention,” I pressed, not believing him for a minute.
He gave a small shrug as he drained his pint.
“Very well,” I grumbled, shoving my unfinished pint away from myself with a frown. “I think I've had enough for one night. Are you ready to retire?” I dropped a generous handful of coins onto the table for Miss O'Dowd.
“I am.” He stood up and stretched before following me through the doorway at the back of the pub.
“I hope it won't be too noisy,” I carped as we trudged upstairs.
“We'll stay in the room at the back. That should be quieter,” he yawned.
“What?”
“The room at the back,” he repeated as we reached the landing. “We'll stay there. It's bound to be quieter than facing the street.”
“What are you talking about?” I continued as he followed me to the room at the rear of the building.
“Am I speaking a foreign language?” he queried impatiently as we went into the miniscule room and he slipped off his jacket and vest.
“You can't stay here.” I bothered to state the obvious as I too began to undress before washing my face and hands in the bowl the young chambermaid had brought up earlier. I dried my face on the folded towel set nearby and turned to find Colin stripped to his undergarments.
“Whyever not?”
“This is a small town, Colin. Mr. Chesterton already saidâ”
“That man's an old sot.” Colin yawned again as he stripped off his undershirt and began to wash up. “I'm not sleeping alone because of him. You're worrying about nothing.”
“It's not just him,” I reminded. “It's the law. We could end up in jail. Look what they did to Oscar Wilde this winter.”
“We're not aesthetics!” he snapped with finality as he dried himself before peeling the rest of his underthings off. “They have no reason to view us with suspicion. We'll simply wake up with the first light, and before that silly chambermaid comes scampering about we'll go and muddle the bed linens in the other room. She'll believe I've spent the night there because she has no reason to suspect otherwise. Now stop fussing.” As if to prove his point he threw the covers back and climbed into the bed. “Get in here. I'm cold.”
I wanted to continue to protest. Somehow it seemed as though that was the right thing to do. Yet as I glanced at him, his eyes shut and one arm stretched across the bed waiting for me, I began to lose my will. After all, he was right, the two of us were nothing like Mr. Wilde and his young fop, Lord Douglas. For discretion marked our every move outside of our home. We did not flaunt our bond as Mr. Wilde had so brazenly done. To do so was not only unseemly, but risked courting the very sort of censure that had garnered Mr. Wilde two years of hard labor. The poor man would be lucky to live through such a sentence.
It was folly to disregard the tenets of decorum, which is why Colin and I so closely guarded the true nature of our partnership. And because of that fact I realized that he was right. If we took care to disassemble the other room each morning there would be no reason for anyone here to imagine anything untoward. And so, after a brief final consideration, I finally released my internal debate, turned down the gas lamp, removed the last of my clothing, and crawled into bed beside him.
CHAPTER 5
T
he cloying scent struck me with a familiarity that I could not at first place.
Colin and I were standing just inside the Whitmore Abbey infirmary, a compact building set a short distance behind the main monastery at the edge of the wheat and barley fields that stretched out beyond it. The infirmary was painted the same dusky white as the main structure and also had a roof of thick, deep, yellow thatch that sagged in spots and appeared thinner in others than would truly seem needed to effectively banish the outdoors from within. Only the monastery's small chapel had an actual tile roof, clearly defining that which the monks, indeed the church itself, believed most valuable.
Our morning had progressed exactly as Colin had said it would. We dressed, I disheveled the bed in the other room, breakfast was dispensed with all due haste, and we managed to complete the trek to Whitmore Abbey in a brisk twenty minutes. The last feat was as much the result of Colin's relentless pace as the mostly flat terrain. All of it, I understood without Colin's having to say it, had been undertaken to ensure we got as much accomplished as possible before the local constable showed up.
Carbolic acid, I suddenly realized. The sweet, tarry smell underpinning the small infirmary was the disinfectant carbolic acid, though there was also a twinge of alcohol beneath it. But what took another moment for my nose to discern was a sort of tainted sting that seemed to hover just along the periphery with a familiarity I could not yet name.
Three empty beds were lined up along the wall to our right, all made as crisp and concise as if by a military troop. A tall side table stood beside each of the beds atop which sat a single oil lamp and a white ceramic pitcher and bowl. Once again I found it curious that while the decision had been made to sequester this building, they still had not bothered to equip it with gas. I wondered if they would ever adopt the new electricity.
“
Hello
. . .” Colin called out. There were several doors on the wall to our left and opposite us, making it seem that Brother Silsbury could be anywhere.
Before either of us moved farther into the main room the door on our immediate left swung wide to reveal Brother Silsbury's towering form as he stepped out of a small office. “Gentlemen . . .” He gave a polite bob of his head as he pulled the door shut behind himself. “I will be glad to have this regrettable task swiftly concluded. I am ill equipped to store human remains, which has left our beloved abbot unsuitably treated.” He quickly crossed himself.
“I understand,” Colin answered in a rather perfunctory way, and I suspected it was because these monks seemed more concerned about the protocol of the situation than in ascertaining who had left the poor man thus.
“Very well,” Brother Silsbury responded in a tone that did not hide his distaste for what we were there to do. With a stifled sigh he turned and headed for one of the doors along the back wall. “I have had hundreds of pounds of ice brought in to try and containâ” He waved a hand beneath his nose but did not finish his sentence.
As he did so I finally recognized the cause of the sticky tang permeating the air. Walking through this infirmary was no different than being in Denton Ross's deplorable morgue. I was surprised that I had not identified the cloying scent at once, but as we neared the specific door, the growing stench of putrefaction mixing with the prick of alcohol and carbolic acid, I felt my stomach starting to roll.
“I appreciate the sacrifice you and the other brothers have made,” Colin allowed. “There is an extraordinary amount to be learned from both the murder scene and the victim's body.”
“You misunderstand, Mr. Pendragon,” the monk clarified, his tone grim. “This was not a sacrifice but an order.”
He swept the door open and led us into a small, windowless room about half the width of the building and no more than a dozen feet deep. A single rectangular table stood in the center of the room that appeared to be an old dining table that had been mounted on outsized legs to bring it to a more comfortable height for working on whatever was placed upon it. In this instance it was clearly the body of their abbot; the telltale protrusions of the forehead, nose, chin, shoulders, belly, knees, and feet unmistakable beneath the covering sheet. There was a patchwork of deep umber streaks littered across the front from the neck to the midsection with only the lowest part of the abdomen and legs appearing to be thusly unadorned. Yet it was the area around the lower part of the face that had clearly borne the most severe damage, a great swath of dried blood having saturated the thin fabric there.
“Be careful,” Brother Silsbury muttered from his position at the door. “His body is resting on ice and, as you can see, it is melting faster than I can get more fetched. All manner of fluids have drained to the floor and made quite a disagreeable slurry.”
“We shall make quick work here,” Colin reassured again, and I knew quick work was all that either of us could tolerate given the sharp air.
“Thank you,” Brother Silsbury murmured. “Then I will leave you to it. Call me if you require anything.” He took an unsteady step backward and pulled the door shut, making me only too aware that the only fresh air leaking into the room had now been shuttered out.
“Shall we?” Colin spoke low and taut, his face appearing every bit as dour as Brother Silsbury's had been.
I did not bother to answer as I watched him move toward the body with a determination I simply could not match. There was little more I could even convince myself to do beyond continuing to stare at the covered form while desperately trying to conceive of any way to delay the inevitable. Yet such is the very definition of the word
inevitable
that I finally forced myself forward even as I considered why this aspect of an investigation never got easier.
Colin slowly peeled the sheet back from the abbot's face and did not stop until the body lay fully revealed. Abbot Tufton had been a plump man of late middle years, with a full head of silvery hair. His eyes, thankfully, had been drawn closed and his skin was pallid and chalky. But where normally I would have expected to see a demarcation of bruising along the lowest portion of his body lying against the tableâa product of his blood pooling as his heart ceased to functionâthere was almost no sign of it.
“What a sight this must have been for Brother Hollings,” Colin said under his breath. “The abbot clearly lost an immense amount of blood during the attack given how little is left to accumulate along the back of his body. No wonder that young monk remains so aggrieved.” He leaned in over the abbot's face, peering closely, and then quite suddenly reached forward and pried open the man's jaw. “Oh . . .” He drew the word out even as he pulled back with a slight jerk.
“What?”
“His mouth . . .” he started to say as he gestured toward the abbot's mouth. “I cannot recollect what I expected it might look like to have his tongue removed, but I must admit it is rather worse than I imagined. . . .”
While I did not relish seeing the sight, neither could I stop myself from leaning over and glimpsing inside. The mouth was caked with blackened blood and it was obvious at once that something was dreadfully wrong. Still, it took a moment to realize that the tongue was not nestled against the bottom jaw where it belonged, leaving a gap that was as shocking as it was unexpected. Even so, it took another moment to spot the nub of flesh that had dropped far back into the throat that, in spite of an angry red incision, looked as though it had been carefully filleted.
I stumbled back a half step before catching myself and forcing a deep intake of breath. “It's awful,” I heard myself say.
“That it is,” Colin mumbled agreement. He had moved across from me and was bent over the abbot's neck and shoulders, running his fingers over the areas, both of which were covered with a veritable jumble of slash marks. The monk's chest, arms, upper abdomen, and right side were equally marred, and while I assumed the left side would be as well, I did not immediately advance to see. “Here”âColin waved to me as he continued to peer at several of the neck wounds from a distance of mere inchesâ“count these wounds. I want to know how many there are.”
The thought of it made me blanch, but I was glad Colin had not noticed. It wouldn't have altered his request anyway. I quickly swiped at my nose and then wished I hadn't as a fresh wave of stink assaulted me. It was enough to make my head go light and I had to flick my eyes up to the ceiling for a moment until I could gather my wits again. I could do this, I scolded myself.
The slicing wounds started just below the jawline with most of them occurring on the sides of the neck. There was only one, in fact, that was on the throat itself, coming very close to the Adam's apple without actually touching it. I started to count the wounds, trying to convince myself that the thin black lines had been drawn on with charcoal.
Working slowly, I progressed down the right arm and side, counting to twenty-three, before having to step around Colin, who was now studying the right hand so intently that someone unaware might have thought he was pondering whether the abbot might have held the knife himself and delivered the blows. I moved back around to the other side of his chest, adding up the marks across the abdomen before beginning to inspect the left arm and side. Curiously there was far less damage there, yet even so, I had nearly reached fifty by the time I leaned back and stepped away from the body.
“What do you have so far?” Colin asked as he released the abbot's right hand, his brow tightly knit.
“Forty-eight.”
He shook his head. “Help me roll him up so we can see his back.”
“His back?!” I blurted without thinking. Of course he would want to see the monk's back.
Colin did not respond, nor did I expect him to, as I went over and stood beside him. Stealing a quick intake of breath, we rolled the body away from us and I was glad to find that it moved more easily than I had expected. Without having to be told again, I leaned forward and resumed counting the hash marks across the back, neck, and shoulders of Abbot Tufton. Colin was poking around the upended right side, but as I was too focused on my own work I could not tell what had caught his attention this time. It was only after I heard the hushed swing of the door behind us, followed by an abrupt gasp, that I stopped my counting.
“
What in the name of the Holy Father are you doing?!
”
“Examining the body,” Colin replied flatly as he nevertheless signaled me to lower the abbot back down. “It may not appear to be a reputable duty, but I can assure you it is quite critical.”
“Nevertheless, it
is
unseemly.” Brother Silsbury reiterated the charge from the night before. He quickly came forward and snatched up the sheet that Colin had carelessly bunched up at the abbot's feet. “Abbot Tufton was a highly regarded man in this monastery,” he explained, his voice taut and brittle. “I cannot condone this sort of pawing about his remains. I'm sorry, but I cannot.” He tossed the sheet over the midsection of his abbot's body. “He would not want it.”
“We mean no disrespect,” I said before Colin could reply.
Brother Silsbury's face was ashen and very much distressed. “Please tell me you are finished here.”
“We are.” Colin spoke up, his tone as smooth as ever. “We have learned a great deal. Thank you.”
“Good.” The relief was immediate on Brother Silsbury's face. “Then perhaps all of this”âhe waved a rigid hand toward the abbot's body on the tableâ“will have served some purpose.”
Colin nodded grimly. “Rest assured that we are already drawing nearer to the perpetrator of this horrendous murder. I believe we shall see a resolution within the week.”
Brother Silsbury looked stunned. “Then I owe you an apology, sir,” he said stiffly, “for I confess I did not think such a thing possible.”
“You must have faith,” Colin answered wryly. “And you may be certain that I will not fail the brothers of this monastery, no matter the outcome.” He gave a curt nod and exited the room before Brother Silsbury or I could respond in any way.