Page 10 of Murder in Disguise (Mary and Bright #5)

“No you are not.” Thank God for that. “If you remember, the morgue is toward the rear of the building.” As quietly as he could and with as much stealth as he could manage—he didn’t need the lecture from some of the men beneath this roof—he led her through the corridors.

Not that it mattered; there weren’t many principal officers around.

No doubt they were out enjoying tea or a late luncheon, or the Bow Street field agents were out investigating.

When he and Mary arrived at the string of rooms where corpses were held and the coroner did his work, Gabriel went directly to the main door, moved ahead of her into the room, and once she’d entered, he closed the wooden panel behind her.

“I’m sure you remember the London morgue. ”

“Unfortunately, I do.” She gave into a shiver. “I’ll never become used to this room.”

He glanced about, trying to see it through her eyes.

Roughly the size of a small drawing room, the windowless space hosted wooden shelves on two sides.

Golden illumination from gas sconces fixed on the walls.

filled the chamber. On the far wall, glass curio cabinets waited with jars filled with mysterious liquids, some having organs floating about inside, as well as various instruments that occupied shelves within.

The centerpiece of the space, if they could be described as such, were two stout wooden tables.

One was empty save for a few papers of handwritten notes.

One of them held a corpse, covered with a white sheet.

On a smaller table nearby lay instruments such as what a surgeon would employ, which was how the coroner cut through the decomposing human flesh in order to poke about and explore the internal organs.

And throughout, the scent of astringent chemicals as well as death filled the air.

“You never quite get used to it, do you?”

“No, and perhaps that is a good thing.” Mary’s eyes rounded as she looked through the room. Since the body had just been recovered and hadn’t had time to decompose, and since it wasn’t the dead of summer, thankfully there wasn’t a smell as of yet.

“Agreed.” The fires she’d lit in his blood while in the carriage still burned, but he had to ignore them to concentrate on the case. “Shall we begin? I’d rather not be here when the coroner arrives to engage in his gruesome task.”

She nodded as she rummaged around in her reticule. “At least I brought my own notebook this time. All the pages in yours are nearly full.”

“Well, I have been a bit busy with my private investigations.” While it was satisfying and flattering that he’d made a name for himself, it was concerning because that meant London was crawling with crime of all types.

Then he approached the sheet-covered body on the wooden table.

When he folded back the sheet, stopping at her breasts, he frowned.

Without her bonnet on, the whole of her blonde hair was visible in the candlelight.

“The scratches at her throat have scabbed over.”

Mary wrote a couple of notes. “Check her fingernails. Yes, she wore gloves, but if she fought back, some nails might still be broken.”

Gabriel lifted both the dead woman’s hands and examined them. “All nails intact and they show no signs of poison either.” Then he moved on to a cursory look at the girl’s torso. “No indications of trauma.”

She drifted to the other side of the table, and in silence, Mary lifted the sheet.

A few seconds went by in silence while she poked and prodded the young woman’s legs and nether regions.

“There is no sign of sexual abuse or trauma. No bodily fluids and no bruising.” After she put the sheet back into place, she moved to the smaller table where all the girl’s personal effects rested.

“Then it wasn’t a crime of lust or passion.”

“Not necessarily. Passion can drive people to anger or madness. It doesn’t need to represent sexual frustration or revenge.”

“True.” Those damned scratches on her neck puzzled him.

What had made them? Had she been held at knife point?

If so, during a struggle, wouldn’t the blade have cut her skin?

There was no blood. While he set out to look over her face and through her hair, Mary pored through the contents of the girl’s reticule.

“Oh, goodness.”

“What?” He glanced at his wife. “Did you find something?”

“A handwritten note tucked into the pages of the book of poetry.”

He frowned. “What does it say?” Did he even wish to know?

“Just this. ‘I started with four, but I grow weary of waiting for notice, so now there are three. Do you know who I am? Can you stop me before the rest are gone? Everyone is equal in death, don’t you think?’” She glanced at him. “That is quite chilling.”

“Indeed.” What did it mean? “Do the words refer specifically to the dead girl or is there something deeper within?”

“We need to ponder this.” She copied the words into her notebook. “Unmasking and chasing criminals never is easy.”

“No, it is not. Help me turn the girl onto her side.”

After putting her notebook away, Mary did exactly that. “What are you looking for?”

“I’m not certain.” As he combed through the corpse’s hair with his gloved fingers, he bent closer to her head. “Ah, interesting.”

“What?”

“Look here.” He pointed to a tiny drop of dried blood at the base of the woman’s skull. “A puncture wound, made by a precision instrument like a surgeon’s needle.”

“Or perhaps a man’s stick pin or a lady’s hat pin. Both of which are innocent and everywhere in many wardrobes all over England.”

“Exactly.”

Mary frowned. “Wouldn’t it require strength to push any sort of needle through the skull? It’s bone, correct?”

“Yes, but I’ve been at this position for many years, and have sat in on medical lectures and been told information from many coroners over that time to have accumulated a few facts.

” He set the girl on her back once more.

“Where the brain stem joins the spine, there are spaces between the bones of the skull. If someone had medical knowledge, they could conceivably shove a needle through one of those breaks.”

“And?”

“The sharp point might puncture a vital artery, but it also might muck about in soft portions of the brain that are needed for breathing, sight, heartbeat…” He forced a swallow into his suddenly tight throat.

“Or punctures there could cause massive hemorrhaging on the brain. All of which would result in death.”

“And because the original stab is so small, the victim wouldn’t bleed out in the usual says,” Mary added as all the color drained from her face. “How disturbing.”

“Indeed. And desperation can lend a killer any sort of strength to overcome qualms to accomplish that.” He shrugged.

“Once the first murder is completed, it gets easier to do the next and so on. The killer gains confidence and a sense of pride, I suppose.” The implications were horrid.

“Mark my words, Mary. All those girls who were taken? They’ll end up dead if we can’t solve this in time. ” Knots of worry pulled in his gut.

“Don’t think like that, Bright.” She came close and patted his hand. “We are going to puzzle this out. Don’t we always?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “So much is at stake.”

“There always is.” Then she arranged the sheet over the body. “There is nothing we can do for her now. Come back tomorrow and talk with the coroner to confirm your hunch. In the meanwhile, we are going home to dress for dinner and compose ourselves. We shall start again in the morning.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” And he was glad for her down-to-earth attitude. “I despise when the crimes include children or young people.”

“I know.” Mary led him out of the room. “Every life is sacred, but it’s quite jarring when someone is preying on the youth. Made more difficult because we are parents now and are temporarily responsible for Adelaide.”

I’m going to solve this damned case, and then throttle whoever is doing this.