The Thames River Murders (2 page)

“Here we are, Captain,” Thompson said. “I want you to help me discover who she is and what villain out there killed her.”

Chapter Two

“Her,” I repeated.

“That’s what the coroner said at the time.” Thompson straightened one of the hand bones, as though a whole, living woman lay there. “She was fished out of the river ten years ago, caught up on pilings, but no one ever turned up looking for her, and we were never able to find out who she was. We put out a report when we found her, but no one came forward. It’s weighed on me for a long time. And then the other day, I thought—
this is something that the captain might be interested in
.”

Thompson read me well. I was unfortunately drawn to intrigue, especially when it involved a poor individual who couldn’t fight back, or who had lost against a stronger opponent.

On the other hand, Thompson was optimistic about my abilities. A woman who’d been killed long ago, who was an unidentified collection of bones, and whom apparently no one had missed, would be a bit too cryptic a puzzle, I thought.

“That she was brutally killed is not in question,” I said, touching the gouge on the skull. The bone was smooth under my fingers. “Though how do you know she did not receive these injuries from a fall? An accident?”

“I don’t, not for certain,” Thompson admitted. He fished from the box what looked like nothing more than scraps of cloth. “Her clothes had mostly rotted away, except for a few trapped pieces I managed to clean up.”
 

I lifted a pale tatter of fabric that held a hint of blue. “Her dress?” I asked.

“I believe so, or undergarments. Also this.” Thompson dug one more item from the box, a gold chain with a locket.
 

It was an ordinary locket, a small oval on a chain, the gold still bright even after years underwater. Whatever had been engraved on the outside, however, had been worn away, only faint scratches remaining.

I slid my thumbnail into the locket’s crease and pried it open, but found nothing inside. If she’d kept a sketch, silhouette, lock of hair, or painting within, the river had long since destroyed it.

“That was fused around her neck,” Thompson said. “No clasp. I had to cut it from her.”

Interesting. “May I take these with me?” I asked, holding up the fabric and necklace. “If I can determine what sort of cloth it is, how common or how fine, we can at least conclude how wealthy was her family, which could narrow her to certain parts of town.”

“She was a tart, most likely,” Brewster said. “Killed and tossed into the river, no one coming forward to look for her. A lot of them don’t use their own names, and no one knows who they truly are.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, not condemning. In Brewster’s world, a person made a living any way he or she could—he’d met his wife while she was a courtesan in a bawdy house.
 

Brewster might or might not agree that a tart deserved justice against her killer, but he wouldn’t admonish me for taking on the task. As long as I didn’t endanger myself, that is. If I were hurt or killed while Brewster was looking after me, Denis might be unforgiving.

“This locket is of very fine gold,” I pointed out. “There’s not a bit of tarnish on it. Grenville and his man will no doubt know exactly where it came from, or at least who made things like this.”

The last time I’d helped Thompson identify a corpse from the river, Grenville’s valet had recognized the jeweler’s mark on the man’s ring she wore, and we’d had the woman’s identity within the night.

This time might be a little more difficult. She’d been lost for a long while, and if no one had come looking for her, Brewster might be correct after all. An anonymous woman, dying as she eked out her living.

“Also,” I began. A thought had formed in my head, a way we might learn more about this body than her gender—I assumed the coroner had known she was a woman from the shape of the hips and other bones—and the fact that she’d been bashed on the head. “I know of a surgeon, a very good one,” I said. “I’d like him to have a look at her. I’d value his opinion.”

Thompson shrugged, as though indifferent. “By all means. This corpse is no secret. Forgotten, rather.”

Brewster had a sharp gaze on me, guessing which surgeon I meant.

In March of this year, when my friend Leland Derwent had been badly hurt, James Denis had sent a highly competent surgeon to look after him. The man had saved Leland’s life when all others had despaired of it.

I never learned the surgeon’s name. I did not particularly want to. He had been transported for a crime and had returned to England, for reasons I also did not want to know. If he were to be caught, he’d be hanged. I doubted I’d convince him to come near a magistrate’s house, but I could not think of a better man to view the bones.

I cleared my throat. “Would it be possible for me to take her away with me?”

Thompson’s brows climbed high in his face. He rarely looked surprised about anything, but he stared at me in perplexity now.

“Where on earth would you take her?”

“Someplace safe, I assure you.”

Brewster continued to watch me in silence. Thompson looked over the bones, pushed back his low-crowned hat, and scratched his head.

“Can your surgeon not come here?” he asked. “Would be simpler all around.”

I cast about for some excuse. While Thompson was an informal man in many ways, I did not think he’d look the other way if a convicted felon, escaped from his punishment, were delivered into his house.

“He is of delicate constitution,” I ventured. “The air would not agree with him.”

Thompson looked amused. “Must be tricky for him to perform his surgeries then.”

“He is retired.” That was at least close to the truth. “I will take good care of … her.”

Thompson considered further, rubbing his lip, then he righted his hat. “I suppose I trust you, Captain. But take care. Without these bones, we wouldn’t know there was a crime, a deceased person at all.”

“Of course.”

Thompson made no more comment, only began carefully piling the bones in the middle of the canvas, then rolling it up with the same gentleness.

He put everything back into the crate that Brewster, with a dark look at me, lifted for him.
 

“She’s been kept fairly cold,” Thompson said. He found a hammer on a cluttered workbench and pounded the nails into the lid again. He laid down the hammer and leaned an elbow on the top of the box. “Mind you keep her cool, now that the weather’s turning warm.”

It was not all that warm today, under a thick mist, but I took his meaning. Cold preserved, heat destroyed.

Brewster heaved the crate into his arms without being asked, but he did not disguise his distaste. He’d long thought I was mad, ever since the day he’d come across a valuable pile of silver objects hidden in my house in Norfolk. He’d offered to split the loot with me, but I’d insisted on returning the pieces to their rightful owner.

Thompson wrapped up the cloth and locket, which I placed into my pocket, then Thompson led the way out again.

I had the feeling of emerging from a tomb. The cold from the underground room fell away as we climbed out to the open air. Though fog prevailed, it was warmer outside, the dampness clinging to the skin. The two young men who had been working below looked disappointed when they saw us come out, and slunk back down to resume their tasks.

Thompson helped Brewster lift the crate into the coach. Thompson rested a hand on it a moment, as though saying good-bye to a friend.

“Thank you, Captain. Let me know what you discover.”

No hurrying me. Perfect trust. Thompson was a man confident everything would resolve itself in due time.

We shook hands, then Thompson lifted his hat and disappeared back into the house.

“You aren’t thinking of taking that home are ye?” Brewster asked, his look wary.

I imagined explaining to Donata that I had placed a pile of brown bones in her cellar for safekeeping. “No,” I answered.

“Mr. Denis ain’t going to like them either.” Brewster’s scowl was formidable.

“I know.” I started to climb into the coach. Brewster put his hand on my back to help shove me inside but remained on the ground.

“I’ll ride up top,” he said. “I don’t fancy sharing a vehicle with a dead body.”

“Perfectly understandable.” I settled myself into the seat and drew my greatcoat closed against the fog. “Tell the coachman to take us to Grosvenor Street.”

Brewster’s dour look fled, and his eyes lit. “So that’s your idea, is it? I can’t wait to see his face.”

***

Lucius Grenville lived in splendor in Grosvenor Street, in the heart of Mayfair. His mansion’s facade was unpretentious, plain even. Rows of uniformly spaced windows marched across it, each flanked by a pair of recently painted black shutters. The front door, also black, with a fanlight, held a polished brass knocker.

The unadorned exterior hid a house of magnificence. The homes of Mayfair, which shared common walls, might be one room and a hallway wide facing the street, but the bulk of the house ran far back into the property. Grenville’s home was quite large within, containing lavish rooms on the ground and first floors for his guests, elegant private chambers above for the privileged few.

The footman who answered the door was Matthias, brother to the young man who now valeted for me. Matthias was tall, blond, and muscular, the epitome of the handsome footman Mayfair residents wanted seen at their front doors.

“He’s not at home, sir,” Matthias said after he’d greeted me. “But please come in and rest if you like, and I’ll serve you something. Mr. Grenville’s door is always open to
you
.”

He cast a glance at Brewster who’d climbed down to stand behind me. Matthias did not approve of Brewster, though he acknowledged his help in the past.

“That is kind of you,” I said. “But I’ve come only to deliver something—to ask Grenville to keep it safe for me, to speak more concisely.”

“Of course, sir.” Matthias held the door open wide, never questioning. “We can put whatever it is in his collections room.”

“Ah.” I paused. “His wine cellar was more what I had in mind.”

“Oh?” Matthias peered dubiously at the crate Brewster was now hauling out of the coach. “An interesting vintage?”

“You might say that.”

Behind me, Brewster chuckled, his sour temper lightened. “Show us the way, lad.”

Matthias opened his mouth to no doubt state that both Brewster and his burden should enter through the kitchen, then closed it. My friendship with Grenville occupied a place that didn’t quite fit with Grenville’s other acquaintance. Matthias gave a shrug, led us inside the front door, through the elegant hall, and down the back stairs to the kitchens and cellars.

Grenville’s staff were working to keep up the magnificence of his household. Two footmen industriously polished a large quantity of silver in the servants’ hall. Maids were in the laundry room, steam rolling out as they applied whatever magic they knew to Grenville’s linens. The chef, Anton, hovered in the large kitchen, closely watching his assistant, a rather harried young man, as he stuffed a bird lying spread on a platter.

Anton glanced up when he heard our steps in the corridor, the displeased look on his face turning to rapture when he saw me.
 

“Captain!” Anton was a rather small man with a round stomach and stooped shoulders, but a wide, beaming smile. I have no idea how much of a martinet he was in his kitchen, but when it came to guests to feed, he was benevolence itself. “You are here,” he announced. “Sit, sit. I will give you a
déjeuner
not to forget.”

I bowed. “I thank you, sir, but I am here only briefly.”

Anton’s look turned scornful. “Nonsense. You are a gentleman. You have these …” His fluttering fingers took in Matthias and Brewster “… to do your work, while you are fed by me.” He shouted to one of the footmen across the hall. “Lay a place upstairs for the captain. He will dine.”

Brewster lifted brows at me, but he trudged on after Matthias, taking his burden through the door to the wine cellar that Matthias opened for him.
 

Matthias nodded to me. “Go on, sir. I’ll take care of everything. Mr. Grenville would likely have my head for bringing you below stairs anyway.”

I was left standing in the kitchen with the good scents of Antoine’s fine cuisine floating around me. I succumbed.

***

After the fine meal Anton forced upon me, alone in Grenville’s dining room, I returned home.
 

I believe Anton enjoyed feeding me, because I was apt to eat everything in sight and praise it to the skies. With Grenville, Anton expected a certain amount of criticism; which he asked for to further his quest to be the best chef in the world. I simply enjoyed.

“Her ladyship is awake, sir,” Barnstable informed me as I entered. “Asking for you.”

I brushed dust from my sleeves. “I am hardly in a fit state to see her at the moment.”
 

I had grime from the London streets embedded in my clothes, and who knew what dirt from the cellar to which Thompson had ushered me. Anton had let me wash my hands and face in a basin before I sat down to eat, but he was less scrupulous about my state of cleanliness than in wishing me to polish off every morsel.

Barnstable gave me an apologetic look. “She said she needed to see you the moment you stepped foot in the door.”

“She will hardly thank me if I smear her pristine silk sofa with London’s black mud. Send her word I will attend upon her once I’ve changed my clothes.”

Barnstable’s expression remained stoic, but I saw the flicker of dismay in his eyes. Donata was not a despot in her own home, but she did like her whims obeyed. I took pity on Barnstable.

“I’ll tell her myself,” I said. “I realize her delicate state makes her a bit impatient.”

Barnstable’s relief was apparent, but he only answered with a neutral, “Yes, sir.”

The relief told me that Donata had been a bit peevish when she’d risen. She was in possession of a sharp tongue, which could sting if one did not know how to withstand her barbs.