Military Romance Collection: Contemporary Soldier Alpha Male Romance (139 page)

“Yes,” Logan insisted.  “I would have brought photographs from the morgue but they were not yet ready.  I could draw it for you, if that helps.”

“Yes, please.”  Ruby gestured to a writing desk behind him.  “There should be paper and a fountain pen, just there.”

“Right.”Setting his bowler hat on the table next to the microscope, Logan turned around to fetch the items.  In doing so, his gaze fell upon an unfinished letter in Ruby’s elegant handwriting, addressed to
Uncle Arthur.
  He did not mean to pry, but he could not help himself when the words
Sherlock Holmes
caught his attention. He blinked.  “Is this a letter to
Arthur
Conan Doyle?” he asked.  He looked around at Ruby in surprise.  “Conan Doyle is your
uncle
?  Why have you not told me this, before, that you shared blood ties with one of the most famous writers in all of London?”

“It is because he is not my uncle – not in the conventional sense, anyway,” Ruby said with a smile.  She slid off the stool and walked over to stand beside Logan, the top of her head level with his eyes.  “He and my father met at Stonyhurst College and remained colleagues until my father’s passing in 1879.  I was just three years of age but I remember my mother saying Uncle Arthur had been of great comfort to her in the wake of her loss.  He remained in our lives and while not a blood relative, I began calling him ‘Uncle’ at a very early age.  He would often tell me fantastical tales of brave adventurers traveling to exotic worlds where amazing creatures exist.”  She nodded to the letter.  “I found his first detective story,
A Study in Scarlet
, to be quite intriguing.  The second piece,
The Sign of the Four
, is just as good, of course, but I questioned his reasoning for submitting it to
Lippincott’s
.  I’m writing to advise him to continue having his stories appear in
The Strand
.”

“That’s quite something,” Logan said.  He shook his head in wonder.  “I had no idea you had a connection to the man who created Sherlock Holmes.  You know, not many people at the Yard are particularly fond of the mockery your uncle makes of us, portraying the police as incompetent buffoons who can’t solve a case without the help of an outside consultant.”  As soon as the words left his mouth, Logan winced.  “Which is why I often come to you.  Damn.”

That got a laugh out of Ruby.  “You needn’t worry, Inspector,” she said.  “While I do share many traits in common with Holmes, a disdain for policemen is not among them.  It is a great honor to have you call upon me.”  She glanced down at the letter.  “You should know that I have even come to Scotland Yard’s defense when critiquing my uncle’s work.”

“Do you, now?”

“Of course.”  She looked up at Logan, her smile radiant.  “Even the sharpest of eyes can overlook details sitting right out in front of them.  When you come to me, you are not only asking me to be your second set of eyes, you are paying me a great compliment.  You respect my intelligence, and I appreciate that.”  She nodded to the paper in his hand.  “Now, about that drawing…?”

“Hm?  Oh.  Yes.  Of course.”  Logan had to shake himself.  Being this close to Ruby, breathing in the fragrance of her perfume and feeling the heat radiating from her body had distracted him.  He dipped the pen in the ink well and made a quick sketch of a head with the brand just above the eyes.  He slid the paper over to Ruby.  “There it is.”

Ruby picked it up, frowning again.  “You are certain this is how it looked?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he said, nodding.  “It’s the number sixty-nine, turned on its side.”

She shook her head.  “While it may look as such, I am inclined to disagree,” she said.  “It is, in fact, the astrological symbol for
Cancer
, one of the twelve signs of the zodiac, and coincidentally the sign for the current month – July.”She looked at Logan.  “Tell me, were there any other victims, prior to this?  Any other children bearing strange marks branded on their foreheads?”

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Logan said.  Then a thought came to him.  “However…”

“Yes?”

“I seem to recall hearing of another boy, about three weeks ago – an orphan, it was presumed, as no one came forward to claim him and there had been no prior reports of missing children which matched his description.  His body had been found on the banks near the Thames, without a stitch of clothing upon him.”

Ruby’s eyes widened.  “Was there a doll with him,” she asked, nearly breathless with excitement, “like this one?”

“As I was not there, I could not say.  It was another district.  I would have to request access to their files, and see what had been logged in as evidence.  There would be a full record of the autopsy, as well, including any photographs of the body.”

“We
must
see those files,” Ruby said with conviction.  She walked back to the table and picked up the doll Logan had brought with him.  “Traditionally, angels are known as messengers.  The branded symbol, the poppet, the yew branches – whoever he is, this murderer is sending a message but in code.” She held the doll out to Logan, who took it.  “If I am to decipher it, I will need to study on those photographs, and compare them to your current case.”

“I shall request the report first thing tomorrow morning,” Logan said.  “I can bring it to you in the evening.”

“That will not be necessary,” Ruby said.  She smiled brightly.  “I shall come to see them.”

Caught off his guard by that announcement, Logan started.  “How’s that?”

“The less time wasted, the better,” Ruby said with a prim sniff, planting her hands on her hips.  “The lives of innocent children hang in the balance.  When the files arrive, simply send for me and I shall come to your office immediately under the pretense that I am a personal friend who is fascinated with your line of work.”  She smiled.  “Which is not a lie, if you think about it.”

“No, I suppose it’s not.”

“Then it’s settled.  As soon as you have those files, Inspector, you shall have
me
on
your
doorstep.”

Logan found himself smiling, not just at the prospect of seeing Ruby again but in the anticipation of working with her again on another case.  “I look forward to it.”  Pocketing the doll again and sweeping his hat off the table, he nodded to her.  “Good evening, Miss Waterbrook.”

“Good evening, Inspector,” Ruby returned.  As he started for the door, she called out to him again.  “Logan?”  At the use of his Christian name, he paused and turned back to look at her.  She smiled, almost demurely.  “Thank you.  Not many men would acknowledge a woman’s intellectual desires.”

Logan looked her over for a moment, silent.  She had a glow of excitement about her, almost like the flush of arousal, but not in the conventional sense.  A new mystery was as pleasurable to Ruby as sex was to any other person.  In a way, Logan realized, they were engaging in something far more intimate than the physical joining of bodies – theirs was a coming together of minds.  “It is I who should thank you,” he said softly.  “This benefits me as much as it does you, if not more.  I am always in your debt for your assistance.”  He smiled, and placed his bowler on his head.  “Good night…Ruby.”

***

Logan ignored the looks he received as he escorted Ruby through the entrance to the precinct station.  Aside from being an attractive woman, everyone knew Ruby Waterbrook to be a wealthy local heiress – and an unmarried one, at that. She looked quite lovely today, too, Logan noted, wearing a pale blue dress with a print of delicate white flowers and a matching hat perched atop her head.  Her auburn hair had been gathered up and pinned in such a way that ringlets cascaded down the back of her neck.  She arrived by open carriage with a parasol open over her head to shade her fair skin from the sun’s light.  Logan had been there on the street to meet her, offering a hand as she had stepped down. 
You look lovely today,
he had said to her.  

Apparently, he was not the only man at the station house to make such an observation.  Those who passed doffed their hats out of respect but otherwise did not engage.  Of course, that could not be expected from Sergeant MacCulloch.  Logan had no doubt in his mind that as soon as word reached him that a beautiful woman had just entered the building, he would rush from wherever he had been just to see who it could be.

Just as Logan predicted, Victor appeared out of nowhere, stepping between them they made their way to the inspector’s private office. The Scotsman doffed his hat to Ruby in polite greeting.  “Good afternoon, Miss,” he said.  “It’s not every day we receive such refined ladies as yourself, coming to call upon us. 

“That’s because she hasn’t come to call upon ‘us,’” Logan said in a low, tight voice.  “Miss Waterbrook is
my
personal guest.”

“Och, you don’t say?  Well, at the very least, you could show some manners and make introductions,” Victor said, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners.  He gave all the appearance of being courteous but Logan knew him well enough to know when he was being teased by the mischievous Scotsman.  “Go on, then, Inspector.”

Logan glared at him, a wordless promise that he would find a way to exact revenge.  “Miss Waterbrook,” he said, speaking formally, “may I present my second in command, Sergeant Victor MacCulloch.  Sergeant, this is Miss Ruby Waterbrook.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss,” Victor said, and pressed a delicate kiss upon her offered hand. 

Logan rolled his eyes.

“The pleasure is mine,” Ruby said.  She retrieved her fingers from MacCulloch and used them to clutch the handle of her closed parasol to her breast while giving forth with a gushing sigh.  “I must confess to possessing a keen interest in police work.  All those
delightful
mysteries published in the magazines are so very exciting!  I begged and begged Logan –” She stopped and touched her gloved fingertips to her lips and lowered her lashes demurely. “Erm, I mean,
Inspector Tummond
– to allow me a tiny glimpse.”

Logan had to fight back a snort of amusement over Ruby’s performance, the wide eyes of wonder and the heaving bosom all part of an act – even the way she deliberately pretended to slip and then cover up the manner in which she referred to him, intimating that the visit had been some way of Logan trying to impress a young woman he fancied.  He placed his hand at the small of her back, just above her bustle.  “It will only be a brief tour, of course,” he said. 

“Oh, yes, of course!” Ruby said, looking around.  “Everyone seems so busy – I would loathe to interrupt any important investigations.”

MacCulloch smiled.  “Your presence does no such thing, Miss Waterbrook,” he said, and Logan wanted to cuff him upside the head for flirting so flagrantly with the woman who came in on
his
arm. 

“You’ll have to forgive the sergeant,” Logan said.  “He cannot resist a pretty face.”  That was the closest he would come to announcing that the unmarried MacCulloch had the reputation of a Lothario, frequenting music halls and the occasional brothel, always with a different lass on his arm or in his lap.  He gave Victor a meaningful look.  “Did you not have some information for an important case to look into, Sergeant?”

For his part, Victor understood when he was being dismissed without coming right out and saying so.  “Aye, so I do.  I suppose I’ll be getting right to that, now.  Good day, Miss Waterbrook.”  Still beaming, he bowed slightly to Ruby before making his way out of the station.

“He’s quite charming,” Ruby murmured, as Logan moved them along into his office and closed the door.  “Well.  I do believe we may have just discovered the perfect excuse for me to be present for your investigations, instead of you always having to come calling to my apartments under cover of night.”  She looked up at Logan, one eyebrow arched in a bemused fashion.  “The way you just stepped between me and Sergeant MacCulloch could be construed as the action of a man protecting the honor of a woman in whom he has a deep and abiding interest.  If we were to make people believe you are courting me, it would allow us to move about together and for me to visit various crime scenes in addition to your office, to observe and study on evidence first-hand.”  She choked her parasol handle and shook it with triumph.  “How absolutely brilliant!”

Logan did not have the heart to admit to her that he did feel protective and that his interest in her was – still -- quite ‘deep and abiding,’ as she said.  That she would see it as a false pretense only served to salt his long-wounded heart, confirming for him once again that he would never be anything more to her than a mere professional colleague.  In one of life’s more cruel twists of fate, she expected him to merely
pretend
to court her, to create a ruse for the public, so that they may consult together undisturbed and in full view of the world as opposed to covert operatives.  He managed a smile.  “Yes, I suppose that would work.”

Leaning her parasol against Logan’s desk, Ruby settled on the edge of a chair.  She tugged at the front of her dress and huffed impatiently.  “Damn this corset!” she muttered.  “I look forward to a day when women are no longer confined by such restraints…it’s difficult enough trying to sit properly with this bustle protruding from my backside, and all these heavy layers of cloth, but
this
– ugh, I can barely
breathe
.”

He smiled at her.  One of the reasons he liked Ruby was her courage and willingness to speak her mind with him, even when it came to complaining about women’s clothing.  “I’ll make this quick, then,” he said. “I wish I could say I sympathize, but I have a feeling there is nothing we men have to endure that is quite as uncomfortable.”

“Having donned men’s attire,” she said, “I can confirm that you are correct in your presumption.”  She motioned to her ample bosom.  “Of course, I still had to bind these down in order to give myself a less feminine figure.  I may have to resort to creating a special suit to wear under my garments, something which increases my overall body size in order to better disguise the womanly bits.”

Logan could feel his neck and face grow warm at the thought of Ruby standing in front of a full length mirror as she struggled with flattening her chest. 
What God has blessed her with, she sees as a curse,
he thought, and tried not to stare at the lovely mounds of milk-white flesh currently on display at the neckline of her summer dress.  He cleared his throat and moved around behind his desk, fearing that his body’s reaction to her physical charms would not go unnoticed by her unusually keen powers of observation.  “I have the files here on that boy found last month…”  He slid the report across the desk.

Ruby reached out and pulled the file closer.  She opened it, and began sifting through the handwritten notes from the coroner, her brown eyes darting.   “Hm.  It would seem that very little physical evidence had been recovered, as the child’s body had been floating in the river before washing ashore during low tide.”  She found the photographs and began to card through them.  The sight of the dead child’s naked, bloated corpse, lying face up in the black mud, gave her a moment’s pause.

“Is this difficult for you?” Logan asked.

“It can be a bit of a shock,” Ruby admitted.  “It is not so much the sight of death that I find unsettling.  I had the good fortune to be in acquaintance with a professor at Cambridge, one who would often invite me to his classroom at the end of the day where he had been giving instruction on human anatomy using cadavers.  Contrary to what many may think about me, I am not without sensitivity.  Seeing a dead child in any condition is always disturbing.”

“Have you ever entertained the thought of having any of your own, someday?” Logan asked, before even considering the question.

“Children?”  Ruby chuckled and shook her head.  “Perhaps,” she admitted thoughtfully.  “But the man I would choose as their father would have to be understanding that I would not assume the role of the doting housewife, nor would I leave the children to be raised by a governess.  No, I should like them to be brought up as I had been: independent, forward thinking, curious about the world around them, and well educated.”  She looked up at him and smiled.  “And I would be right there, leading the charge.”

“Of course.”  Logan smirked.  “Any man who would expect you to change with the onset of motherhood would not be worthy of you as his mate.”

“Quite right.”  Ruby continued to study on the photos.  She stopped upon one and her eyes widened.  “Logan – look, here!  This is a photograph from the scene where the child’s body was found, on the banks of the Thames.  What is this object on the child’s left side?  There, by his hand – do you see it?”

Logan took the picture from her.  Pulling a magnifying glass from the top drawer of his desk, he used it to get a better look at the grainy image.  His brows knit together for a moment before lifting in surprise.  “Mother Mary,” he murmured.  “It almost looks like…”

“…Another doll,” Ruby finished for him.  “Identical to the one you showed me last night.”  She rose, picking up her skirts, and rustled around to stand beside him.  “May I?” she asked, indicating the glass, and he handed it to her.  “Thank you.”  She hovered the lens over the image and reached for a letter opener lying on the blotter.  She used the metal tip to point to the photograph.  “You see, there?  The dark shape of the body, the white bulb of the head…you can almost make out the eyes, two black spots…there, and there.” 

“Yes…yes, I see it,” Logan said.  His pulse began to race, both from the close proximity to Miss Waterbrook and the revelation about the photo. 

Ruby reached for the rest of the photographs and began shuffling through them with haste.  She stopped again when she found one among those taken at the morgue during the autopsy.  “Oh,” she breathed.  She blinked several times, slowly straightening up.  “This is interesting.  This…is
very
interesting.”

“What is it?” Logan asked, peering up at her.

She placed the picture before him, covering the one taken at the Thames.  One lace-gloved fingertip tapped the image.  “There.  Upon the child’s brow.”

Logan took a moment to study on it before remarking, “It’s an open wound…raw…it looks to be something
rectangular
in shape…”

“It’s a Roman numeral,” Ruby said.  “It represents the number two.  More importantly, it is also the symbol for
Gemini
, the twins, and the astrological sign dominant for the previous month.”  She looked down into the inspector’s eyes, her own sparked with the fire of excitement.  “This just proved a theory I had been considering last night, after you told me about the Cotton boy.  With this, I am inclined to believe that your killer has been preying on children and branding them with these symbols for
at least
four months.”

“Four months?” Logan snorted and shook his head.  “How do you figure?”

“Because I believe this murderer is a man of methodical thinking,” Ruby replied.  “And a methodical man would not begin with the
third
sign of the zodiac – he would start with the
first
.  That would be Aries, the sign which rules the month of April.  Then would come Taurus in May.”  She nodded to the photographs.  “This is Gemini.  The Cotton boy is Cancer.”

“So what you are telling me is that there will have been two
more
bodies, prior to this one.” Logan tapped the photograph of the Gemini child. 

“I am almost certain of it.”

Logan sighed and ran his thumb and forefinger down the sides of his mouth.  “Well,” he said, “I suppose I could have a couple of my constables look into it, send them off to check with other precincts, see if there were any reports of dead children who turned up in May and April matching these specific descriptions.”

“It would surprise me if there are,” Ruby said.

“And why is that?”

“Because he disposed of this one.”  Ruby picked up the photo of the child found in June and gazed upon it with something resembling sadness.  “This child was no one of importance, in all likelihood a common street urchin.  The one who came before him – the May child – would be the same.”

“What of the first?”

She breathed out and lifted her eyebrows.  “From what I have read on these matters, often it is the first victim who held some personal significance to the murderer; someone close to him, such as a family member or a neighbor’s child.  But as he appears to be evolving – perfecting his craft, as it were – it is more likely the first three were merely
practice.
”