Fearless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 1): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series (23 page)

Then Mary. The location and timing indicated a confidence that had not shown itself until then. A deviousness that taunted the inspector, all the while the killer improved his skill. Her tongue was a message in more ways than one. He wished to silence her, and in light of what we had uncovered so far, he also wished to highlight her inadequate dedication to her cause.

But it was even more than that. He also wished to show us he could find us. Select a body part, dissect with a modicum of skill, and deliver it wrapped in presentation paper.

Look here
, it said.
See what I’m capable of?

Oh, I saw. I saw indeed. A powerless man trying to gain dominion the only way he could.

“He is losing,” I suddenly announced, the thought coalescing before I could stop the words from forming on my lips.

“I beg your pardon?” Mina asked, coming to life in an instant. The speed of which indicated she hadn’t been lost to the darkness at all.

I waved my hand in dismissal. “Never mind, sweeting,” I offered. “Just thinking aloud.”

“Perhaps you should do that more often,” she commented quietly. But not in a way I felt was condemning in nature. Merely an observation.

“My thoughts are not for the faint of heart,” I reminded her.

“And yet,” she said with conviction, “I find myself having the same ones.”

I stared at her, noting the clarity to her gaze, the way she held mine without flinching. Her skin was pale, but I’d hazard a guess, so was mine. But her posture was upright, her shoulders back, her hands not trembling. She was more a Cassidy in that moment than I had ever borne witness.

“Tell me what you are thinking, cousin,” she pressed. “I should like to know.”

“You’re sure?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“I have never been surer.” Said with that new found conviction. “I may not excel at aiding you in the surgery, Anna, but I could excel at lending you an ear.”

I reached out instinctively and gripped her hand. Her fingers were the same temperature as mine, and mine were cold. I was sure Wilhelmina was stricken at what might be discussed, as I was distraught at what I was uncovering. But she offered a small squeeze of her hand in mine, and nodded her head for me to continue.

Is it any wonder I loved this woman?

I let a slow breath of air out and verbalised my thoughts.

“He is trying to compensate for a lack of control in his life.”

“Then he could be subjected to harsh directives normally.”

“Such as a Militia Guard,” I offered.

Mina nodded her head. “What else would tie him to a Guard?”

“His strength,” I admitted. “He has shown unimaginable brawn. Effecting feats the normal man could not accomplish.”

“Good, cousin,” she encouraged. “What else?”

“He has an understanding of the human body.”

Mina grimaced, but didn’t look away. Instead she enquired, “Would a Militia Guard have knowledge of such things?”

I nodded my head, warming to this new ability to discuss my observations. Receiving feedback and a sense of encouragement I had severely lacked recently. I prayed it was not too much of a burden for Mina. But the light was visible at the end of the tunnel, and the tunnel had been so very dark, I couldn’t seem to stop the discussion now.

“A Guard would be trained in how to disable an opponent.”

“You mean kill one,” Mina corrected. “They are military, after all.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “But the precision displayed would indicate more than just a military training. Especially for a volunteer Militia Guard.”

“You have someone in mind?”

“The inspector is investigating a possibility.”

“And this man could fit the account?” she enquired, using terminology I had not expected to ever hear coming from my cousin.

“Perhaps,” I admitted distractedly. The killer was also intelligent, and I’d spoken to the Militia Guard. Could
that
man have chosen the horn blowing cherubs? He certainly could have penned the illiterate missives.

I sucked in a breath of air.

“What is it, Anna?” Wilhelmina demanded, turning in her seat to face me, her attention wholly on our discussion now.

“The letters are falsified,” I murmured.

“In what way?”

“Designed to look uneducated, where the man himself must be highly so.”

“Highly educated?” she queried.

My head nodded as thoughts stormed my brain. Educated enough to know to cover his tracks. To be able to dissect a human body without needless strikes of the blade. To be aware of the inspector’s past and present and know how to wield it with subtlety.

Intelligent enough to hide behind a disguise.

“If the letters are false, what else could be?” I mused aloud.

“Start at the beginning,” Mina suggested. “This murderer is indeed a man?”

I blinked in surprise at my cousin’s astute understanding.

“You know, sweeting,” I announced. “You could give the inspector a run for his money.”

She smiled, the first real smile I’d seen in days.

“But then how would the inspector prove his worth to you, my dear?”

My smile fell, quickly followed by Mina’s.

“Anna? Has something transpired between the two of you?”

My head shook despondently. “Everything is fine, Mina. But I like where you are going with this train of thought. Is our murderer a man?”

Mina frowned, unconvinced with my answer, but acquiescing anyway.

“What evidence have you to work with?” she asked.

“The post-mortems, the letters, and the murder scenes.”

“One at a time, cousin. The post-mortem, how does this prove the sex of the assailant?”

“It doesn’t. We know he or she is right handed. We know they have an adequate knowledge of the human body. And we also know they are not opposed to removing certain body parts.”

Wilhelmina swallowed visibly, her skin paling a shade or two.

“Forgive me, cousin,” I rushed to say.

“No. No,” she managed. “Just give me a moment.” And then she was up and across the room and disappearing from sight.

I cursed my inability to think before I spoke. The need to determine answers clouding my good judgement. Wilhelmina had not been raised by my father. In fact hers had sheltered her, beyond what is considered healthy for a young woman. The fact that she had participated in this conversation at all was a miracle. The few short months she’d lived under my father’s roof had not been enough to reverse years of moulding.

I’d just pushed myself to my feet, in order to chase after her, when Mina came bustling back into the room, a tray held tightly in her pale knuckles. She placed it on the table before us, and began to pour tea. Adding several heaped spoons of precious sugar to her cup and only two to mine. Two more than I usually partook.

She handed me the cup, rattling a little in its saucer, and then lifted her own, as she took a seat at my side. I sank down into the soft padding of the chaise longue and watched as she took first one measured sip, and then another and another. Finally she lowered the cup to the saucer in her lap and lifted tear-rimmed eyes to mine.

“Go on,” she instructed, causing an inappropriate bubble of laughter to erupt from within. “Anna!” she chastised, but a small smile twitched at the edge of her lips.

“Very well,” I murmured. “Where were we?” Far be it from me to start this discourse again.

“He or she,” Mina said very carefully, “removed body parts.” So we weren’t shying away from a thing, this morning.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“And does this give an indication of sex?”

I opened my mouth to deny its veracity in this regard and paused. The killer had dissected organs mainly, but also a tongue and a breast. The former did not indicate sex one way or the other. But the latter…

My eyes flicked to Mina’s. She was watching me, teacup to lips as she sipped. The hot liquid soothing, but not soothing enough for the knowledge I wished to impart.

I shook my head and chose my words carefully.

“On the whole, the body parts taken do not lead to a conclusive sex.” I let a slow breath out. “Apart from one.”

“Which is?”

“He took a breast.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Emma said, lowering her teacup to the table, managing to spill only a small portion of the tea itself. “How horrendous.”

“Indeed.”

“And you believe only a male would attempt such,” she correctly guessed.

“Along with evidence procured from the letters,” I offered. If the letters were to be trusted, of course.

“Very well, we’ll move on to the letters.”

“Are you sure you wish to do this?” I enquired.

“Is it helping?”

I bit my bottom lip.

“Be honest, Anna.”

“Yes, it is somehow,” I admitted reluctantly.

“Then we shall proceed. The letters. What lies within to indicate sex?”

I closed my eyes and thought back on the most recent missive, wishing I’d had the forethought to copy the wording down. But I needn’t have bothered, I remembered every misspelled word as though the letter lay before my eyes.

“
‘I shall imagine your wistful thanks, your lush lips pressed into a determined grin’
” I quoted. “And he always signs them, ‘
Yours in truth only.’
”

“Does seem rather masculine,” Mina agreed.

“But so much has been falsified,” I argued. “How can we be sure the murderer hasn’t fabricated this leaning as well?”

Mina narrowed her eyes, deep in thought.

“The letters and the post-mortem both support to some degree the notion the killer is male,” she summarised. “How does the murder scene corroborate or discount this train of thought?”

“You really are very good at this,” I remarked.

“Despite the topic and the depravity of what we’re discussing, I am enjoying myself,” she confessed.

And aside from the fact that we knew the victims. And loved one in particular.

I cleared my throat, letting out a measured breath of air, then took a fortifying sip of tea. It was cold. We’d been at this some time now. I glanced out the window, noting the rain had stopped and the afternoon sunlight was filtering between grey clouds.

“The killer showed great strength,” I said softly, taking care to couch my words. “Displayed a sense of madness, which could be inherent or obtained in some external way.”

“Such as?”

“An injury to the head. Maltreatment of some kind. Drugs.”

I paused, thinking back on Mary Bennett’s scene, remembering the proximity to an opium den. Then Helen’s face flashed before my eyes. Unmarred, no defensive wounds, unlike the previous two deaths. Images of the blood which had clearly pooled prior to death joined the others.

I sank back in the chair. Drummond would have determined more by now, but my conversation with the inspector had been cut short. Did they find opium in her system? Large doses of pacifying Laudanum perhaps?

“Drugs,” I announced. “His madness comes from drugs.” Because he surely has a knowledge of where to obtain them and how to administer them.

Silence, as though Mina knew I’d alighted on something that required deep, uninterrupted thought.

The Militia Guard could fit that bill, but could a woman?

A small sound of distress emitted from my lips. Because I knew how far a woman could go when caught in the clutches of opium. I knew only too well.

Images of my mother’s face flared to long lost life inside my mind. Her listless frame. Her dull eyes. Her vacant stare. The grey pallor of her skin. Her parched and bleeding lips. The cough that claimed her.

I knew all too well how opium, and its many derivatives, did not discriminate by sex. I knew it intimately.

But opium alone was not all that could be determined from the victims. Margaret’s scene showed evidence of immense strength. Mary’s as well. And although Helen’s did not, she was no doubt under the influence of an insidious, soul destroying drug. The killer did not need his strength when he had compliance.

But he was strong.

“The strength of the murderer,” I whispered, “would indicate a male for the role, not female.”

“In the fairness of discussion,” Mina began, “I must point out his propensity to disguise. Could he have hidden his sex behind the strength? I mean to say, could the killer have doctored his strength in some manner? Made him or herself stronger than he or she would normally be?”

I stared at my cousin in wonder. Although I did believe the murderer could only be of the male persuasion, I agreed the strength displayed had been a falsity of sorts.

“You are right, dear cousin,” I said, standing to my feet and moving toward the door to the parlour. “For even though the killer is undoubtedly male - one need only look at the evidence as a whole to determine that fact - the acts still required more strength than humanly possible. How?” I asked, turning at the door and directing my gaze to Wilhelmina.