Page 91 of A Treacherous Trade

“What?” I prodded. “Tell me.”

“Well, it almost seems ritualistic, doesn’t it? Like something from the occult.”

Kitchen witch.Why did I keep thinking those words? Why would women paint themselves to appear dead when they were not?

In their hearts, women were vast creatures, often darker than the world gave us credit for.

What if a woman had gone through so much trauma, she was no longer sane? What if she’d lost something, say a child, and it broke her?

I wasn’t thinking of Amelia, was I?

She knew all the victims. Often had Alys to her home, and delivered remedies to Beatrice.

I gasped.

Bea!Beset by that cough that refused to abate… Could it be caused by something insidious?

“Did Dr. Bond check Alys Hywell for poisons?” I asked.

“It doesn’t say here—”

“Could you do it?” I gripped his arm. “For me?”

“She’s in the ground. I don’t have enough to exhume her for examination; there’s not even a case on her death. Bond ruled it a suicide.”

“I think he was wrong,” I said. “Can you talk to him for me? Ask him about this blue substance and see if he noted it anywhere? Perhaps it didn’t make it into the final report because he didn’t think it important.”

“Talk to Bond?” He slumped his shoulders forward in a comically boyish gesture. “Must I?”

“Please? It could be the key to solving these murders.”

He heaved a beleaguered sigh. “All right. If only because it’ll keep you out of alleys with violent men and the back rooms of brothels. I’ll call upon him this afternoon and get back to you when I can.”

I had to stop myself from doing something untoward, like throwing my arms around his neck. “Thank you. Thank you for everything. I will be in touch soon, likely with business. It seems the Syndicate is done being patient with my mourning.”

He opened a supply cupboard and extracted a clean apron. “Very good. But do try to stay out of trouble, Miss Mahoney. I worry over you from time to time.”

I kissed him on the cheek as he bothered with the ties behind him, and he blushed from his collar to his pate. “I’ll be careful.”

“No, you won’t, but thank you for humoring an old man.”

“I’m going to try to sneak out before Croft returns,” I said.

“I sent him to the visiting washrooms on the third floor.” He winked at me. “There’s often a queue.”

Flashing him my most brilliant smile, I swept out of his office and gathered my hem so I could jog up the steps and avoid—

“Where are you off to now?”

The very man in question stood above me, backlit by the anemic light let into the windows of the hospital corridor. It drove his deep-set eyes further beneath his strong brow, turning them oddly demonic from this angle.

I couldn’t meet his gaze. Not with where my thoughts had just been.

Cresting the stairs to the main floor, I swept past him, tucking my umbrella beneath my arm so I might pull on my gloves.

As he was wont to do, he fell into step with me, following toward the main entrance.

“Dr. Phillips is going to consult with Dr. Bond today about Alys Hywell’s death. He’s searching for more similarities and the possibility of poisons,” I informed him.