Time Rovers 03 Madman's Dance (40 page)

Oops.

“Okay, you got me, boss. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“I wanted to see all these places. That’s why I asked you to show them to me.”

“You just wanted to make sure
my
brain was working right.”

He nodded contritely. “Well, at least now I know the East End fairly well.” He yawned, trying to hide it with his palm.

She put his hand on his shoulder, leaning closer. “Here’s the deal: I work alone. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Especially someone who’s not a Rover.

“I know your history, Miss Lassiter, but right now you have a choice of me riding shotgun or wandering around on my own. I ask you, would you turn an apprentice traveler loose on these streets?”

Bull’s-eye.
He knew her too well—she would do anything to keep a new Rover safe, even one who wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Throw him a bone and maybe he’ll back off,” Mr. Spider suggested.

Good idea.

“You need sleep, and I need to do some work without you around. Let’s split the difference. I’ll take you to the hotel. We’ll go out
together
this evening.”

“What are you going to be doing in the meantime?” Morrisey asked, his suspicions clearly aroused.

“Going to an inquest,” she said.

“Oh, that sounds rather benign,” he replied, chagrined. “In that case, I suppose I could use a bit of a rest.”

“Good. Tonight, we go hunting for Fiona. We owe an anarchist his daughter.”

Morrisey nodded, barely stifling another yawn. “Fine. Now get me to a bed before I collapse.”

Works every time.

Ramsey hammered on the door to Hulme’s rooms in Cheapside. He got a gruff reply granting him entrance. To his surprise, the door was unlocked. That was sloppy. Good coppers made enemies.

Inspector Hulme sat at a small desk in a dark, unventilated room. A half empty bottle of scotch sat in front of him, and a revolver next to that. Perhaps he had more enemies than even Ramsey could imagine.

“What do you want, Inspector?” Hulme asked. He wasn’t slurring his speech, so maybe he’d not been at the liquor that long.

“I want to know why you buggered the Keats investigation.”

Hulme didn’t look up as he topped off the glass. “So what did I do wrong?”

Ramsey listed off the mistakes, raising one thick finger at a time. By the time he hit ten, he quit. “I asked around about you. You’re a good copper. What happened?”

“I did my best,” the man replied in a gruff growl.

“The hell you did,” Ramsey barked. “You ignored evidence a green constable would have found. Why?”

“Makes no difference,” Hulme said, not meeting his eyes.

“It’s a man’s life at stake!”

“Yeah, it is,” Hulme grumbled. “Mine. I had no choice. They told me if I did my job proper, I was in for it.”

“Who?” Ramsey demanded.

“Our
betters,
” Hulme replied caustically.

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you. That’d only make it worse.”

“Were their names on those cards?”

A nod. “They said they knew everything
about me.
Everything.
So I didn’t do my job, figuring it’d never get to trial. I thought someone would pull strings and get the sergeant off. I never thought—”

“That they’d hang him? Where were you this morning when they were putting the noose around his neck? Tucked in your bed, all safe and sound as a—”

“Goddammit, you don’t understand!” Hulme roared, surging to his feet. “They’ll destroy my career!”

“They don’t have to.” Ramsey snorted. “You did it yourself.”

He saw the truth hit home. Hulme sank down into the chair. Woodenly, he pulled open a drawer in the desk. A black notebook dropped just in front of the revolver.

“It’s Keats’,” Hulme said in a thick voice. “I found it in the alley in Whitechapel.”

“When?”

“The day after Fisher received the sergeant’s alibi. Tell Keats I’m sorry.”

Ramsey collected the item and rifled through it. Inside was the pawn ticket for the sergeant’s boots, the one that had gone “missing
.
”

“You intentionally hid evidence that might have cleared a fellow officer,” Ramsey seethed. “How can you live with yourself?”

Hulme drifted toward the small window, pushing back the heavy curtain, his braces hanging free. “I can’t. Not anymore. They’ll keep pushing me, using me. I’m done for.”

Ramsey’s eyes lowered to the gun. Perhaps it wasn’t just for protection.

Sensing a fleeting opportunity, he dropped the notebook into a pocket and then quietly lifted the revolver. Slipping the thumb catch back, he broke open the gun and deftly dropped the cartridges into his hand. He barely got it back in place on the desk when Hulme turned toward him.

“Why are you still here?” he asked. “I’ve told you my tale.”

“I’m still here because we coppers have to stick together. Come forward, Hulme. Give us names. We’ll kick those toffs in the nads, teach them some manners.”

Hulme shook his head.

“For God’s sake, don’t let them win.”

Hulme scoffed. “They always win. You know that. Now get the hell out of here!”

Ramsey did as the man asked, dropping the cartridges into his pocket the moment he was out the door. Unless the inspector had more tucked somewhere in his rooms, the future might not be as bleak as Hulme imagined.

~••~••~••~

Inquests were boring, at least from Satyr’s point of view. You listened to dull testimony about how the deceased had shuffled off this mortal coil, and then the jurors affixed blame…or not. In this case, none of them had any idea who had slipped that knife into Hugo Effington’s heart.

Tempting as it was to proclaim to the packed room,
I did it and I’m extremely happy that cruel tyrant is dead
, Satyr held himself in check.
En mirage
as a humble clerk, he stood at the rear of the room, an excellent vantage point from which to observe the proceedings. His disguise was perfect. Clerks were ubiquitous: no one paid them any attention.

At the very front, in the first row, was the veiled widow, recently returned from New York. Inky black was not Deidre’s best color. He wasn’t surprised that there were no sobs from behind that dense shroud. She was well rid of the man, and only the rules of etiquette kept her from dancing a jig.

Pity I shall never share your bed again.
Too many questions might be asked, though he’d certainly enjoyed his time
en mirage
as her lover. The real Reginald Fine was in India, with no notion that someone was having a great deal of fun at his expense.

At least he won’t be charged for a murder he didn’t commit.

According to the newspapers, the police were stymied. No jealous lover to blame and the widow was on a ship to America when her husband died.

Dr. Montrose testified next. His firm voice and commanding presence was impressive for someone so new to his job. Satyr listened with interest as the doctor spoke of that night: the horrific discovery of Effington’s still-warm body, the mysterious disappearance of Miss Jacynda Lassiter, and the hellacious warehouse fire.

Satyr smiled to himself. The fire
had
been hellacious. He’d always had a certain talent with combustibles.

“At that time, did you have any notion of where Miss Lassiter had gone?” the coroner inquired.

“No, I did not,” Montrose replied.

“And yet, I understand she reappeared a few days later.”

Satyr straightened up, on the alert.
Twig was alive?
Now that was news he’d not heard.

“Yes,” Montrose replied. “In the meantime, she had suffered a mental collapse, no doubt from the horrific nature of the event. She remembered no details of that evening.”

If she’s still among the living, would she be here?
His eyes scrutinized the females in the audience.
Too old, too dowdy, too heavy…

A woman sitting three rows behind Deidre caught his notice. She was clad in a steel-gray dress and fully veiled.
Could it be?
He would have dismissed her outright as some aggrieved relative, except she had a particular way of holding herself not usually seen in women of this century. A gifted assassin could always suss out his prey.

His smile widened. Tobin had made a very grave error. He should have left her in the asylum.

Fool.

The coroner began to question a member of the Fire Brigade. Now truly bored, Satyr left the inquest. Twig would be out soon. He couldn’t wait for a personal chat with one of Bedlam’s former inmates. Somehow, she’d put her mind back together. He wanted to know how she’d achieved that miracle. Then he’d let her know the game was not over yet.

Death by person or persons unknown. Alastair hadn’t expected anything else for the verdict. Still, he would need to send Reuben a letter in Dublin, reporting the outcome. He waited until the majority of the room had cleared and then exited the building, holding the door open for a lady clad in dark gray.

“Thank you, Dr. Montrose,” she replied.

“My pleasure, madam,” he said.

“Want to share a cab?” the figure asked.

He started at the blatant invitation. The woman carefully raised a portion of her veil. A wink came in his direction.

Jacynda.
“I should have known.” The veil dropped. “Where are you headed?” he asked.

He offered his arm and she took it. “The Arundel Hotel. The sooner I’m out from under this damned veil, the better. It’s driving me nuts.”

“Very effective, though.”

“I thought so.”

“I will join you and then take the cab on to Lord Wescomb’s. I wish to ensure he is resting. He was at the prison this morning and it was very hard on him.”

As he waved down a hansom, a prickling sensation began, then increased. He hunted for the source.

Jacynda turned toward him. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone
en mirage,
”
he whispered. “Very near.”

Casually, she surveyed the scene. “Near the lamp post. The one who looks like a clerk.”

“How do you know he’s—?”

“Later,” she whispered back.

“He was at the inquest, in the back of the room,” Alastair observed. “I thought I felt something, but I wasn’t sure.”

“I knew I should have sat further back,” she said.

“I would not advise a confrontation on a city street.”

He heard her sigh. “All right, I’ll behave myself.”

He helped her aboard the cab. She supplied the address and the jarvey urged the horse forward. Once they were rolling through the streets, she lifted the veil.

“That’s better,” she said, scratching her nose.

Alastair took hold of her free hand and squeezed it affectionately.

“It is so good to see you again. I did not have the opportunity to tell you last night.”

“How’s Keats?”

“Bitter. The stay of execution came at the very last moment. At least they hadn’t put the rope on his neck yet.” He felt his companion wince. “I’m sorry, that was crude of me.”

She squeezed his hand. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have been there.”

“He was quite brave.”
Better than I would have been.

“I was outside the prison, waiting to see if they raised the flag. Morrisey kept telling me to have hope, but—”

“Morrisey?” he asked, puzzled.

“Theo Morrisey, my boss. He showed up this morning. He has this silly notion of keeping me safe.”

Alastair couldn’t keep the frown away. “Is he someone you can trust?”

“What? Oh, yes. He’s fine.”

“I see,” Alastair murmured. He leaned closer. “You said you could tell that fellow on the street was not as he appeared,” he said, keeping the conversation cryptic, though he doubted the hansom driver could hear them. “How?”

“It’s been that way ever since this,” she replied, tapping her temple.

Alastair blinked in surprise. “I’d keep that secret. Perceivers are not well regarded, and you’re not even one of us.”

She gave him a strange look, but held her silence. That wasn’t like Jacynda. She still tended toward profanity, but something was different about her. Why did that surprise him?
She had undergone such a profound mental disruption. Certainly she would be altered, wouldn’t she?

“What did they do to you, exactly?” he asked.

“They used a device that disrupted my memories, sort of…erased my brain,” she said.

“How long did it take for you to heal?” he asked.

“Nearly four months.”

“That long?” he exclaimed, astonished. “I had thought that with your advanced medicine, it would have gone more quickly.”

“I started with almost nothing, only my name. It just took time.” She let out a small chuckle. “Plus a medication error.”

When she didn’t offer any further information, he decided not to press further. The uncertainty in her voice told him she wasn’t completely healed, no matter how she tried to cover it.