Inspector of the Dead Read online

  “You want to know who’s going to pay for this?” Ryan asked.

  “In a word,” the clerk answered.

  “As much as I hate to say it—the Metropolitan Police.” Ryan showed his badge.

  For a moment the clerk looked doubtful that the badge was authentic. Then he nodded. “We always wish to be on good terms with the police.” He turned toward De Quincey. “Follow me, sir.”

  “Inspector, would you be patient enough to wait here while Emily and I attend to something?” De Quincey asked. “It would be better if you didn’t know my intentions.”

  “It usually is,” Ryan said.

  Becker ran toward Mayfair, a half mile north of St. James’s Park. The sharp rush of cold air into his mouth froze his throat.

  The address he’d been given was on Curzon Street, which he’d hurried along five hours earlier. His urgent strides sent snow flying as he rounded a corner and studied what he could see of the narrow street.

  Like the other areas in Mayfair, the buildings here were attached. Their Portland stone and uniform four levels, with matching wrought-iron railings, made each house identical to its neighbor. The snow clinging to them reinforced the illusion that they were interchangeable.

  The number he’d been given was fifty-three.

  He raced along, counting off the brass numbers that lamps over entrances revealed. But at one entrance, the lamp wasn’t illuminated. Nor did any lights glow behind any of the curtained windows. If any tracks had preceded him, they had been buried by the snow.

  Becker hurried up the steps and banged the brass door knocker repeatedly. The impact resounded inside but received no response. He reached for the latch and wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked, just as he wasn’t surprised that no one answered when he opened the door and shouted into the darkness.

  “This is Detective Sergeant Becker! Can anyone hear me? I’m coming in!”

  De Quincey had once talked to him about an opium dream in which he experienced the same grotesque event again and again, trapped in a hellish circle of time. That was how Becker now felt as the door jolted against something on the floor. He found a table and touched a box of matches lying next to a candle. His hands shook as he lit the taper.

  A male servant lay on the floor. His head was cratered. Congealing blood indicated that the attack had been recent.

  Holding the candle with his left hand, Becker drew his knife from under his right pantleg, then cautiously entered a front hall. Hothouse flowers filled Oriental vases. The scent was cloying. A portrait of a man in a military uniform gazed sternly down at him. As the echo of Becker’s footsteps faded into silence, he listened for any sound of movement, but all he heard was the ticking of a clock.

  Closed doors confronted him on the right and left. The candle wavered as he opened the one on the right. Beyond it he found a sitting room like the one at Lord Cosgrove’s house. There, the sitting room had been deserted. Here, a silhouette sat in one of the many plush chairs.

  “I’m a detective sergeant. Can you hear me?” Becker asked.

  As he warily approached, the candle revealed that the silhouette belonged to a woman. She was tied to the chair. Her head was tilted back. An object of some sort projected from her mouth.

  Feeling sick, Becker realized that the object was a bladder made from animal skin. The room had a distinctive odor, not of death (too soon) or of blood (there wasn’t any). No, the odor was something that he recognized from years of having lived on a farm. What he smelled was sour milk. The woman’s hair and clothes were drenched with it. The white liquid seeped from the bladder stuffed between her lips. Someone had forced milk down her throat, pouring relentlessly until she drowned.

  Her right hand gripped a piece of paper. With a terrible premonition, Becker pulled it from her fingers and recognized the one-inch black border. Two words were written in the strong, clear script that was becoming all too familiar.

  John Francis.

  Becker couldn’t identify the name, but feeling an even deeper chill, he had no doubt that it belonged to another of the men who had tried to kill Queen Victoria.

  When De Quincey entered St. James’s Church and took off his overcoat, Commissioner Mayne stared at the bleak suit he revealed.

  “You look like you’re going to a funeral instead of a palace dinner,” Mayne said.

  “Since the police force paid for the suit, I was grateful for what I could find,” De Quincey told him.

  “The police force paid for that suit?” Commissioner Mayne directed a disapproving look at Ryan.

  “He claims he has a demonstration to make,” Ryan answered uncomfortably, changing the subject.

  “Demonstration?”

  “Of Immanuel Kant’s great question,” De Quincey replied. “Whether reality exists outside us or in our minds.”

  “This kind of speculation is irrelevant to the law,” the commissioner said. “A jury needs solid, factual, verifiable evidence. Whatever you intend to demonstrate, there isn’t much time. The queen expects you in an hour.”

  The zigzag of lanterns revealed constables hurrying to complete their investigation. The congregation had been dismissed; only a few churchwardens and pew-openers lingered.

  Mayne looked startled as a woman in mourning approached him from the shadows. The black crepe of her dress absorbed the rays from the lanterns. A thick black veil hung from her black bonnet.

  Like the commissioner, the constables looked unnerved by her arrival.

  “Inspector, this is how Lady Cosgrove looked when she arrived at the church this morning—do you agree?” De Quincey asked.

  Ryan nodded. “Are these the woman’s garments that you obtained at Jay’s Mourning Warehouse? Are they what you kept hidden in the packages you brought here? Emily, now I understand why you stepped into the room off the vestibule when we entered the church. You changed clothes.”

  “What is this intended to prove?” Commissioner Mayne asked. “Don’t tell me that the police force paid for these clothes, also.”

  Ryan looked away, more uncomfortable.

  “Lady Cosgrove had an escort,” De Quincey said. “Emily, allow me to serve in that capacity.”

  Pretending to support a bereaved woman, he accompanied her along the aisle. The group followed.

  At the front, De Quincey paused before the altar rail, its marble eerily white in the beams from the lanterns. He pointed toward Lady Cosgrove’s pew on the right.

  “Has Her Ladyship’s body been removed?”

  “Not yet,” Commissioner Mayne said.

  “Then we’ll need to use the church’s other curtained pew.” De Quincey pointed toward the far left. “Come, Emily.”

  Situated in front of a pillar, the box pew was identical to Lady Cosgrove’s. It had posts at all four corners, with curtains tied to the posts. There were three rows of benches in it, the same as in Lady Cosgrove’s pew.

  “May I borrow some lanterns?” De Quincey asked the constables.

  He placed several in front of the pew. “To try to create the effect of daylight,” he explained. “This morning, Lady Cosgrove’s pew was locked. Would someone please unlock this one?”

  A pew-opener stepped from the group and did so.

  De Quincey turned toward the woman in black. “Emily, I’m deeply sorry.”

  “Sorry? About what?” Commissioner Mayne asked in confusion.

  “That’s what Lady Cosgrove’s escort said to her this morning,” De Quincey answered. “Except that of course the man addressed the woman as Lady Cosgrove and not Emily. He said, ‘Lady Cosgrove, I’m deeply sorry.’ Inspector Ryan, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Ryan answered. “That is what I heard.”

  “Emily, please raise your veil.”

  When she complied, Commissioner Mayne stepped back in surprise.

  “But…”

  The woman behind the veil wasn’t Emily.

  She was a white-haired woman of around sixty, whose height approximated that of Emily.
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  “What on earth?” the commissioner exclaimed.

  “When Inspector Ryan referred to her as Emily, this woman nodded,” De Quincey said. “When I frequently referred to her as Emily, everyone assumed that they were indeed seeing Emily. That is what happened this morning. The woman who entered the church was not Lady Cosgrove. Her escort addressed her as such, however, and convinced everyone that she was indeed so. The reality in our minds differed from what actually stood before us.”

  “But Lady Cosgrove’s body lies on the floor of her pew,” Ryan objected.

  “Without question.” De Quincey turned toward the woman in the funereal dress. “May I introduce Agnes, a pew-opener who greeted us this morning? When we arrived a while ago, she was in the vestibule and agreed to assist us. Thank you, Agnes. Please lower your veil and resume being Lady Cosgrove—or should I say Emily? So many names. Commissioner, are you well? Your brow is pinched as if you suffer a constriction.”

  De Quincey reached into his new suit and removed a black envelope that had a black seal, giving it to Agnes.

  “I obtained this from Jay’s Mourning Warehouse. It resembles what Lady Cosgrove’s impersonator was given this morning in plain sight of the congregation. Emily, or rather Agnes, no, I mean Lady Cosgrove, you may continue to reenact what happened this morning.”

  The veiled figure entered the pew, shut it, and sat on the first bench.

  De Quincey turned toward the constables. “Now will all of you kindly select various pews and pretend that you’re at a church service?”

  “Whatever’s going on, I intend to be near it,” Commissioner Mayne said, choosing the adjacent pew.

  “I have a better vantage point for you,” De Quincey told him. “Please follow me.”

  De Quincey led him toward the altar railing.

  “What are you doing?” the commissioner demanded.

  De Quincey drank from his laudanum bottle. “You’re going to pretend to be the vicar. A little closer to the railing, please.”

  “I’m very uncomfortable,” Mayne said.

  “Now face the congregation.”

  “Very uncomfortable indeed.”

  “Because only the vicar was on this spot, I shall leave and give you instructions from the aisle,” De Quincey said.

  With his back to the altar, Commissioner Mayne watched in bewilderment as De Quincey proceeded past the constables and churchwardens in various pews. The little man diminished into the shadows.

  “Commissioner, in your youth, did you ever perform in plays?” De Quincey’s voice echoed from the darkness at the rear of the church. “I have some lines for you to recite.”

  “Really, this is—”

  “The service began with a hymn. ‘The Son of God Goes Forth to War.’ How many of the constables know it?” De Quincey inquired.

  Some raised their hands.

  “Then join me.”

  De Quincey’s voice rose toward the vaulted ceiling, surprisingly sonorous. “The Son of God goes forth to war / A kingly crown to gain.”

  The constables began singing.

  As the commissioner listened in confusion, his attention was directed toward the pew on the right, where the severe figure—what was her name?—tore open the black envelope, unfolded a black-rimmed piece of paper, and read it through her black veil.

  The figure moved toward the posts at the corners of her pew. She untied the curtains and closed them at the back and the sides. Hidden from everyone except the commissioner, the woman knelt at the pew’s front and placed her brow on the partition.

  “Is that what Lady Cosgrove did this morning?” Commissioner Mayne called to De Quincey in the back.

  “Yes.” The Opium-Eater’s voice echoed from the shadows. “The vicar welcomed the congregation, saying something like, ‘Whenever our burdens become too great, consider the hardships that our brave soldiers endure.’ Can you repeat that, Commissioner? ‘Whenever our burdens become too great…’”

  “‘Whenever our burdens…’”

  The commissioner frowned as De Quincey emerged from the darkness. Proceeding along the aisle, he held a stack of hymnals. “Please say the rest, Commissioner, about the hardships that our brave soldiers endure.”

  “I—”

  De Quincey suddenly lurched. The books flew out of his hand, scattering along the stone floor. The noise rebounded through the almost-empty church.

  “Oh, my goodness!” De Quincey cried.

  He scrambled to retrieve them, dropping several more in the process. Two constables opened their pews and stooped to help him.

  “What are you doing?” the commissioner demanded.

  “My apologies. How clumsy of me.” The little man picked up more of the hymnals, delicately balancing the stack. More of them threatened to fall. “Please continue the service.”

  “What service?”

  Commissioner Mayne looked toward where the grieving woman—Agnes! that was her name—knelt with her forehead on the front of the pew.

  But now Agnes was sliding down. At the same time, her head tilted back, revealing…

  “No!” Mayne cried.

  Agnes’s veil and dress were covered with crimson.

  “My God!” the commissioner shouted. “Her throat’s been slit!”

  Agnes collapsed out of sight.

  Mayne rushed from the altar, joined by Ryan, who hurried from the next pew.

  “It’s happened again!” Mayne shouted.

  De Quincey approached the pew and peered down at the unmoving figure on the floor. The black-rimmed note was clutched in her hand.

  “Inspector Ryan, would you please determine if Agnes can be helped? I recall that you lifted Lady Cosgrove’s veil with the tip of your knife, but that won’t be necessary in this case.”

  Confused, Ryan entered the pew. “At least the floor isn’t covered with blood.”

  “Only the front of her dress and a portion of her veil. It’s actually red ink from a bottle that I took from the desk in Lord Cosgrove’s study. I have a better idea. Commissioner Mayne, would you make certain that Agnes hasn’t been harmed?”

  Frowning, Mayne entered the pew, knelt, and pulled Agnes’s veil away.

  He jerked back in shock. The face that smiled at him didn’t belong to the pew-opener.

  The face was Emily’s.

  “I’m sorry to startle you, Commissioner,” she said.

  Clutching the black-rimmed note, she rose from the floor.

  “What you saw just now is what happened this morning in front of the congregation,” De Quincey explained. “Agnes, where are you?”

  The white-haired pew-opener stepped from the rear of the group, where she had joined them while they were distracted. She no longer wore mourning clothes.

  “Thank you for your help, my dear,” De Quincey said.

  Agnes couldn’t help looking pleased.

  “But…” Ryan said.

  “At Lord Cosgrove’s home, you mentioned a bedroom that was splattered with blood. You indicated that you were looking for another victim. Actually, the victim had already been found. She was Lady Cosgrove, who was killed at her home last night. For certain, she did not walk into this church. As you yourself said earlier, it made no sense for her to come home, find the corpses of her brutally murdered husband and household, and then go to church in mourning rather than alert the police. The only way this could have happened is that she was killed at her home. Then her body was dressed in bereavement garments and brought here in the middle of the night. There are so many keys that I doubt it would have been difficult to acquire one of them.” De Quincey turned toward the group. “Is any of you missing a key to the entrance?”

  “I am,” a churchwarden said. “I couldn’t remember where I mislaid it. I’ve been looking everywhere for it.”

  “In the night, Lady Cosgrove’s body was brought here and hidden beneath the rear bench of her pew. Agnes, did you by chance receive a message from Lord and Lady Cosgrove, indicating that they wouldn’t a
ttend the church service this morning and that it wasn’t necessary to dust their pew or light the charcoal heater?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Thus the killer and his accomplices ensured that the body wouldn’t be found by someone unlocking Lady Cosgrove’s pew and chancing to find the body beneath the third bench. During the distraction of the hymn, the woman pretending to be Lady Cosgrove closed the curtains in the pew. The only person who could see her was the vicar, but he was preoccupied by the sight of the esteemed war hero, Colonel Trask, proceeding along the aisle in his scarlet uniform, accompanied by an uncommonly beautiful woman. Every eye, including the vicar’s, was upon that glowing pair. It was an easy matter for the imposter to slip down out of sight below the pew’s partition. Unseen, she pulled Lady Cosgrove’s body to the front and propped her into view before the vicar was no longer distracted by the procession. My meager distraction of dropping the hymnals and scurrying to retrieve them was sufficient in this case. The note that the imposter was given and the identical note in the victim’s hand reinforced the impression that the two figures were the same.”

  “But what about the blood on the floor?” Ryan asked.

  “A bladder of it—probably blood from an animal—was hidden with the corpse. After propping up Lady Cosgrove’s body, the imposter emptied the bladder so that it drained under the pew’s gate. Before the sight of the blood alarmed the vicar, the imposter returned to her hiding place beneath the rear bench, removed her disguise, and put it in a bag. During the commotion, she slipped out the back of the pew, using the curtain and the pillar behind the pew to conceal her. A woman would not have attracted attention as she mingled with the alarmed congregation, just as Agnes didn’t attract attention when she rejoined us.”

  “People saw what they had been told to see,” Commissioner Mayne said.

  “Indeed. The question of whether reality exists outside us or in our minds is not an idle one, Commissioner. Worshippers were deluded into thinking that a brutal murder occurred in their midst, in St. James’s Church of all places, and that the killer was capable of vanishing mysteriously. Tomorrow morning, London’s fifty-two newspapers will spread that conviction. People will believe that if they aren’t safe in church on a Sunday morning, surely they aren’t safe in their beds or anywhere else. The purpose isn’t only to achieve revenge but also to create panic. You can be certain there’ll be other murders that involve public places.”