A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1) (21 page)

“You may as well come down here,” Jones called up to him. “See if you can figure something out.”

The girl wasn’t there? But he’d been so sure.

In the cellar, the paint and turpentine smells were even stronger, burning in his sensitive wolf nose. Stacks of canvases leaned against the walls. Where he could make out images in the shadows, the paintings depicted women in various states of undress, all arched in unnatural, painful-looking poses. In the center of the room a dressmaker’s dummy held a woman’s overdress. Striped pale green. Just like the description in the papers of the clothes the victim was last seen wearing.

There was a note pinned to the dress.

“He addressed the note to me, personally,” Jones said. “By my Christian name, as though we were the most intimate of friends.” Jones hand shook as he reached out, not quite touching the paper. “The first layer,” he quoted. “I will take her apart piece by piece until I reach her heart. Try and catch me.”

Even by the dim lamplight, Richard could see the pallor of Jones’ face, accented by high color on his cheeks. Shock and horror and rage intermingled. Jones’ chest rose and fell in a deep breath as he clearly struggled to master himself.

Jones continued to read. “If you are reading this, you have found the first clue. Congratulations. You always were a clever little bastard.”

Jones’ voice ground on that last word. Richard flattened his ears in sympathy.

“Damn the man,” Parker whispered.

Jones ignored him and read on. “Now it’s time to go back to the beginning.”

“Back to the beginning?” Parker echoed. “What the deuce does he mean by that?”

“To the beginning of the trail?” Jones mused. “No, too obvious, I think. He’s, dear god, he’s trying to show how clever he is. Playing a game with a girl’s life at stake.” He addressed Richard. “Can you pick up anything else?”

Richard sniffed around the dress, but he could catch only brief whiffs of the killer and the girl beneath the overwhelming blaze of oil and turpentine. Either the artist was extremely careless, or someone had deliberately spilled the stuff. The harder he tried, the deeper he breathed, the deeper the chemical burned into his nasal passages. It was hopeless.

He sat down, wrinkling his nose and rubbing his muzzle with a paw.

“You can’t smell anything but paint, can you? I was afraid of that. Why don’t you go out and get some air while we search the room?”

Richard gave an apologetic wag of his tail and climbed out of the cellar. The night air soothed his burning nasal passages, but it would be a while before he would be any use as a tracker. Had the killer somehow known that Jones was using a ’wolf to track him, or were the nose-dulling artist supplies coincidence? If it was not coincidence. . .Jones had worked out who he was, and this killer must be as clever as the detective to have avoided capture for so long.

What was he doing here? He should be home in his study enjoying a good brandy by the fire, the miracle of Catherine’s alchemy flowing in his veins and holding him to human form. Home, safe. . .and useless, while evil stalked the city. That life had ended the day Jones sat down to tea at Catherine’s table. No, it had ended when a killer threatened Catherine and the wolf inside him was the only thing that could save her.

Jones and Parker came back up the stairs, their heavy working boots beating the slow tread of discouragement.

“There’s no other way in or out of the basement,” Jones said.

The killer must have laid the scent, then followed his own backtrail. He had to know that Jones was using some kind of scent-tracking animal, or else why leave the taunt where it would not be found any other way. Unless he expected the basement’s owner to find the clue and forward it to the Yard.

“There was a postscript on the letter,” Jones said. “‘It takes a bastard to catch a bastard, but the smart bastard comes out on top.’"

Richard stared at him, feeling every bit the uncomprehending beast that he looked.

“My very first week as a constable,” Jones said. “We were patrolling outside a theater. They were doing a Faust revival. I saw a pair of well-dressed toffs, but something looked . . .off about them. So I went up to them, bid them a good evening, and asked how they had liked the play. They said that they had liked it exceedingly well. And then they agreed with me that Marlowe was the greatest comedic writer of all time.”

“Not half of us would know Marlowe from a match girl,” Parker cut in with great admiration. “So Jones here watched them right close, and sure enough they weren’t toffs at all, but pickpockets. Caught ‘em in the act, didn’t he? One of ‘em, as it turned out, was the Earl of Suffolk’s bastard by a common whore.”

Impressive, yes, but why was it relevant? He stared hard at Jones, trying to impress upon him the desire for further explanation.

“The letter was addressed to me by name. It told me to go back to the beginning. That was the beginning of my career. It takes a bastard to catch a bastard.”

Fourteen

This time, Jones led them through the dark streets. There was no performance at the Little Globe of London tonight, and only distant laughter and drunken song from down the street broke the silence.
 

“Here, Ba— boy, how’s your nose now? Can you sense anything?”

He never talked to werewolves as though they were dogs, but it was better than finishing Bandon’s name. Damn, but the case was getting to him. If the ’wolf noticed the slip or resented the rudeness of his cover, he didn’t show it. Not that it was easy to tell what was going on behind that animal skull.
 

Bandon waved his plumed tale once and dropped his nose to the ground, his snuffling loud in the quiet. Forward, up one side of the alley and down the other, while Royston questioned whether he had gotten the puzzle right, thought about the girl who must be terrified, every moment an agony of anticipated pain if not actual torture, depending on him to get it right.

The ’wolf checked, turned back, started zig-zagging over an increasingly small area. Then he jumped up, barking and pawing at the layers of playbills stuck to the walls of the theater.

“Carefully!” Royston cautioned. “You may be destroying evidence!”

 
The ’wolf fell back to all fours and backed away, giving Jones and Parker room as they carefully stripped away the playbills until they found, stuck beneath one of them, a lumpy envelope addressed to Royston.

Royston took a moment to consider the envelope. Coarse paper, there would be no watermark. Cheap ink. ‘Royston Jones’, no title, printed in a hand that was bold but coarse. Something about it tickled at his memory, but printing was less distinctive than script.

Had the man known that, and printed to disguise his hand? That would mean that the killer was someone Royston knew and knew well. The thought of such evil among his circle of acquaintances sent a chill down his spine despite the too-heavy constable’s uniform.

The killer could just be someone who knew he would be suspected and asked for a writing sample. Or someone who printed habitually—for the less-educated, printing was often easier than script. The paper certainly pointed to someone in the lower class. Unless, of course, the choice of paper was meant to deliberately mislead. Winchell would be just that clever.

A puzzle, just like the ones Godwin had brought him, the ones he so loved as a child. Despite the stakes, a bubble of excitement built in his chest, something bright and warm filling him, feeling that it might overflow at any moment and fill London with its light. He would find this killer; he would make his city safe.

Royston carefully broke the seal. The lump proved to be a lady’s pendant, a cameo with a broken chain. Miss Chatham had been wearing just such a pendant when last he saw her.

He withdrew a single sheet of paper, sloppily folded.
 

“Congratulations for making it this far. But the clues will just get tougher from here. From the young bastard’s success to the old man’s failure.”

“Please tell me you know what he means by that,” Parker pleaded.

Royston closed his eyes. “I’ve no idea.”

A girl’s life hung in the balance, and he
had no idea
.

Bandon made a quiet noise in his throat, not quite a whimper, and shifted back and forth on his forepaws, restless. The buildings all around let only the smallest bit of horizon visible between them, but that bit showed the barest hint of gray.

He sighed. “You’d best be going, then. I don’t think we’re going to figure this out any time soon.”

Bandon wouldn’t be of any use once the sun rose, and Royston couldn’t, in good conscience, put him at any more risk.

“The first thing we need to do,” Jones said to Parker, “Is to figure out what old man the killer means.”

“Chatham?” Parker suggested.

“Could be. Although the first letter referred to my career. In which case the ‘old man’ is probably Godwin. But what failure? Even a detective as sharp as Godwin has had more than one failure. There was the thing with the rubies. And the case with the banker’s daughter.”

“What about the time he was shot?” Parker suggested.

“I don’t think Godwin would count that as a failure,” Royston said. “The bullet shattered his health and ended his career, but he got his man.”

“Even if Godwin doesn’t think of it as a failure, we’re talking about the killer’s thoughts, not Godwin’s.”

“How am I to fathom the thoughts of a madman?” Royston clenched a fist in frustration.

He wanted to punch the wall, punch it until his bones shattered and his hand bled. A detective didn’t show such a loss of control in public. Nor did a constable.

“Respectfully, sir, are you sure the old man is Godwin and not Chatham?”

“I’m certain of nothing!” Royston shouted. He scrubbed his face with his hand, took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“It’s all right, sir. It’s nearly time to go back to the Yard to check in.”

“We’ll have to tell them what we found. . .or at least, I’ll have to tell them. I’ll keep your name out of it, if you want. There’s no way around the fact that at least one of us deserted our post.”

He may have thrown away even his constable’s job and with it his last final bit of security. He couldn’t regret the decision, though he felt cold and sick when he considered the consequences. How did Willie go so blithely from job to low-paying job?
 

He thought about Miss Fairchild, so adamant that he was wasted as a constable. Well, he’d be wasted even more at the workhouse, but despite her promises of aid he hadn’t seen any help from her yet and really didn’t expect to. He’d even gone so far as to stop by Mr. Foster’s office before his shift started, only to be told that it was not a good time and hurried on his way. Ah, well. The wealthy could afford to be flighty.

“I’ve never once lied about the performance of my duties,” Parker said sturdily.

Which made Royston feel worse about what he had to say next. “I told the ’wolf I’d keep him out of it.”

Parker grinned. “I saw you meet with an anonymous informant. Beastly sort. Black hair with a bit of gray, long nose, broad shoulders. Don’t think I’ve seen him around before.”

This was a side to Parker he hadn’t seen when he was the man’s superior. He appreciated it, but still. . .

“I shouldn’t be letting you put your job at risk like this. You have a family.”

“With respect, sir, you’re not
letting me
do anything at the moment.” Parker smiled to take the sting out of his words.

Royston hadn’t strength left to continue the argument. The surge of the chase could only take him so far, and both his mind and his body felt thick and sluggish from the unaccustomed schedule and the strains of the day. They dragged into the Yard just as most of their shift were leaving. Conversations hushed, and heads turned to follow their progress. This could not be good.

“Jones! Parker!” the duty sergeant roared as soon as he caught sight of them. “You’d better have bloody good excuses for where you were and evidence to back it up or else you’re both fired. Stoddard ran into a bar fight that spilled out into the street for two blocks, just next to your watch. Blew his whistle for backup, and backup never came. I have a man in the hospital and citizens yapping at my heels.”

Quietly, Royston related the events of the night, skirting around the details of the source that lead him to the first find. The sergeant’s red-faced anger turned to pale shock. Quiet murmurs spread about the room like ripples from a dropped stone.

The captain sent someone to wake Browne. “Which you should have done right away,” he said to Royston. “This isn’t your case anymore, and you’re not a detective. Go home. We’ll deal with this later.”

Later
came entirely too soon for Royston’s taste. Blinking in the strong light of mid-morning, he opened his door to two constables who sheepishly informed him he was wanted at the Yard. For questioning. As a suspect in the disappearance of Miss Adela Chatham, and the deaths of the others.

Fifteen

Royston never expected to be this side of the desk in an interrogation room. Having Browne on the other side only contributed to the farce. The sense of unreality made it hard to focus. Odd thoughts kept flitting through his head. He remembered the weeping, hysterical mothers of men he’d arrested in the past and was at least glad that his mother had been spared that. He imagined how the same prim and proper people who had said the dead girls must have brought it on themselves now saying that of course he was a killer, just look who his mother had been. All the hard work he’d done to prove them wrong had come to naught unless he could find some way to prove his innocence.