Page 15 of A Murder in Trinity Lane (Rosalynd and Steele Mysteries #2)

Chapter

Fifteen

THE brUTAL END OF THE NIGHT

B y the time I returned to Steele House, dusk had given way to full night. The lamps on the street flickered low in their glass casings, the fog curling like old smoke along the pavement. My coat was damp at the shoulders, and my boots were dull with the grime of the city.

Milford met me at the door with his usual solemn efficiency. “You have correspondence, Your Grace.”

I took the two envelopes without a word. One of them bore Rosalynd’s unmistakable hand—clear, fluid, decisive.

“I don’t suppose you’ve eaten, Your Grace?”

“I haven’t,” I admitted.

“Shall I bring supper to the study?”

“Yes. Thank you, Milford. Something light.”

I didn’t stop to change. Instead, I went straight to the study where light came from the embers in the grate and the desk lamp burning low. I broke the seal of her note and read.

Her words were succinct, but I could feel her in every line.

She’d been to St. Agnes. She’d spoken with someone—Marie, I noted.

There were hints of things, a story forming between the edges.

Fear, hasty departure, something overheard.

A connection to a house of quality, though which one remained unknown.

I leaned back in the chair and rubbed a hand across my face.

She was always a step ahead. Not just clever—intuitive. And damnably brave.

I fetched a fresh sheet of paper, uncapped the ink, and began to write.

Lady Rosalynd,

I’ve only just returned from Clerkenwell.

I spoke with Constable Collins, the officer who discovered Elsie’s body.

He remembered little at first, but something surfaced before we parted: several nights before the murder, he saw a fine carriage near Trinity Lane.

No business being there, not at that hour.

He remembered a symbol on the door, but couldn’t recall the design.

I suspect it was a family crest. If we can identify it, we may know who sent the note and who wanted her silence.

I admire your clarity. And your courage.

—Steele

I let the ink dry before folding the page and sealing it with my ring. Then I sat there a long moment, the letter resting beneath my fingertips, the weight of the evening pressing down like the ever-present London fog. Only then did I turn to the second envelope.

Finch. About Phillip. Whatever he’d uncovered, I had both longed for and dreaded in equal measure.

The paper bore the faintest trace of coal smoke—Finch’s usual haunts were not in Mayfair—and the scent of cheap sealing wax.

I unfolded his note with care, the paper still crisp.

Finch's script was quick, precise—urgent.

Your Grace,

I followed your brother as instructed. He left his club shortly before dusk and made his way east, unaccompanied. I kept my distance.

He passed through Clerkenwell, but his destination was Saffron Hill—a rotting crescent of buildings behind an old tannery. He entered a house there through the rear alley. No signage, no lamps. I lingered nearby and witnessed other men entering, none staying long. No one spoke above a murmur.

The locals call it a place for arrangements. A place where debts, secrets, and favors change hands. Quietly. Permanently.

Your brother emerged after roughly twenty minutes, alone.

He walked fast, head low. But I swear to you, he looked worried—truly worried.

I know the look of a man who’s heard something he didn’t like.

I followed him back to his rooms. A half hour later, he hadn’t emerged.

So, I found a boy and sent this note to you.

The house your brother entered is at the end of Cobb Court, just off Saffron Hill. East side. Black shutters, second floor lit. The place stinks of something bad.

— Finch

I folded the letter with deliberate slowness and tucked it into my coat to burn later.

Milford, ever silent, arrived with a tray of roast beef and potatoes and a single glass of claret. “Shall I serve it here in the study, Your Grace?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. I have to leave again.”

He didn’t blink. “Of course, Your Grace.” Without asking another question, he turned with the tray and vanished.

Fifteen minutes later, I’d changed into an old wool coat and rough trousers, my collar turned up and my revolver tucked securely into a deep pocket. I strapped a dagger to my boot as well—habits forged in darker corners of the world.

As I stepped into the foggy London night, the wind tugged at my coat like a warning. I hailed a hackney and gave him his marching orders. Saffron Hill.

“I don’t go there, Guv’nor.”

“Then get me as close as you can.” I didn’t blame him for refusing to take me there. Saffron Hill was another creature entirely. The kind of place where doors stayed locked even in daylight, and nothing good happened behind them.

If Phillip was tangled up with the kind of men who conducted business behind shuttered windows and tannery stench, then God help us all.

The fog thickened as the carriage passed beneath Holborn Viaduct, the lamps casting long bars of gold against wet stone. Beyond it lay Clerkenwell—rundown, neglected, and at times, downright vicious.

“This is as far as I dare go, Guv’nor.”

I tossed him a generous coin and watched the hackney disappear into the fog.

I passed a shuttered gin shop with broken panes stuffed with rags.

The tannery came next—long since abandoned but still reeking faintly of hides and lye.

Behind it, a crooked alley curled like a snake into the dark. Cobb Court.

I moved quietly, each step swallowed by soot-streaked fog, the kind that made it hard to breathe. Finch’s directions had been precise. East side. Black shutters. Second floor lit.

The house loomed at the end of the row—three stories of peeling brick, its windows shut like eyelids. A faint amber glow flickered behind the second-floor panes. I paused at the mouth of the alley and listened.

There was no shouting. Just the muted thrum of voices—male, indistinct. A low murmur that carried through the cracked panes or down a narrow chimney, blurred by distance and stone.

I circled the rear, stepping carefully over a half-collapsed crate and a pair of boots that looked recently abandoned.

A side entrance nestled beneath a rusted staircase offered just enough cover.

I eased forward, gloved hand closing around the iron latch.

It gave way with a soft groan. I slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind me.

No turning back now.

The stench hit me first—a rank stew of sweat, smoke, and something sharp and metallic that clung to the back of the throat. Blood.

A narrow hallway opened into a dim room, lit by the weak sputter of an oil lamp. Beyond a threadbare curtain, two male voices carried—sharper now. One edged with menace. The other laced with pain.

I moved toward them, silent as a shadow.

Through a gap in the worn fabric, I saw them: four men, two standing, one seated, another on his knees.

The man kneeling was in rough shape—one eye swollen shut, lip split, arms hanging useless at his sides.

A hulking brute, all muscle and old scars, loomed over him, fists clenched from the beating.

Another figure lingered in the shadows—silent, watchful, calculating.

The fourth sat apart at a small table, his face obscured by a mask.

His identity was hidden, but his boots—polished to a gleam—marked him as someone who didn’t belong in Saffron Hill.

“You said you saw something,” the brute growled.

“I didn’t,” the bloodied man gasped. “I saw nothing.”

“Funny,” the brute said, stepping closer. “Word is you’ve been spouting off about a girl from St. Agnes. Said you saw someone kill her.”

My pulse kicked. Elsie.

The man on his knees shook his head weakly. “I was drunk. I didn’t mean?—”

“Was it true?” the brute pressed. “Or just mouthy lies to make yourself feel big?”

“I don’t know what I saw,” the kneeling man mumbled through his broken mouth. “Just shapes in the dark. A man—dressed like a gent. Long coat. Gloves. Didn’t see his face, I swear.”

“But you told someone,” the brute snapped. “Said he waited for her in the alley behind the bakery. That you heard her cry out.”

The man’s voice cracked and turned into a sob. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” the brute said grimly. “It matters a great deal.”

The seated man lifted his hand—a silent signal.

The brute pulled a knife from his coat.

That was it.

I stepped forward fast and silent, voice like steel. “That’s quite enough.”

All heads turned. The brute spun first.

“Who the hell are you?”

The man in the shadows shifted. His gaze slid past the others—straight to me. Recognition flickered, followed by a slow, curling grin.

“Wait,” he said, a grin curling at his mouth. “Well, well. Looks like we’ve got company.”

Mulligan.

We’d crossed paths before. He was broader now, thicker through the neck and shoulders, but still had the same red hair, now streaked with rust at the temples. And that smile—tight-lipped and dead-eyed—like he’d forgotten how to mean it years ago.

“You shouldn’t be here, Your Grace.”

The brute sneered. “A bleeding nob?”

“The Duke of Steele, in the flesh,” Mulligan said, eyes still on me. “We go way back. Cost me a pretty penny, he did.”

He glanced past me, scanning the shadows. When he saw no one else, his grin deepened.

“You wandered into my world all by your lonesome? No constables lurking behind you? That was a grievous mistake, Your Grace.”

He nodded to the brute.

The brute charged.

Sidestepping, I grabbed the brute’s arm and slammed him into the edge of the table. His blade clattered to the floor.

He roared, twisted free, and swung. His fist caught my shoulder with a solid hit.

Pain jolted through me, but I was already moving. I drove my knee into his gut and shoved him backward. He stumbled, crashed over the overturned chair?—

—but not before his boot slammed into my ribs.

The crack and flash of pain nearly dropped me.

The man at the table moved, reaching beneath his coat.

“Don’t,” I said, drawing my revolver. “Reach for it, and I promise you won’t leave this room upright.”

Everything went still. Even the shadows held their breath.

The bloodied man groaned, trying to rise.

I nodded toward the masked man at the table. “Let him go. Now.”

He slowly raised both hands, his tone calm, his diction precise. “Merely a runner. He drank too much and spoke out of turn.” That voice didn’t belong here. Too polished for a backroom in Clerkenwell.

“Then he’s not your concern anymore.” I shifted just enough to keep everyone in sight. “Go.”

The bloodied man blinked at me in disbelief. “You—you don’t even know me.”

“I don’t need to.”

He staggered to his feet and limped toward the hall. No one moved to stop him.

Gun still raised, I backed toward the door.

No one followed.

I slipped through the back door into the alley, boots thudding against cracked cobblestones, side screaming, lungs burning. Pain burned through my side with every step, but I didn’t slow. Not until I reached the end of the alley and melted into the fog.

The man they’d been beating had vanished. He’d seen something. Not just heard it. Seen it .

A witness.

He might be the only person alive who’d seen Elsie’s killer. And now he was out there, somewhere in the city.

I didn’t know his name. Didn’t know where he’d go. But I had to find him.

Before he ended up dead and took his secret with him.