There was also a photograph of myself, then one of Brodie and I together, and another of Lily. There were also photographs of each of the young ladies, including Anne Pemberton.
It appeared that she had been followed for some time, along with the other young women in that group photo taken at Wimbledon.
A glass jar sat on the counter alongside the basins with those noxious chemicals. The lid had been removed. I smelled it even before I picked it up— ether, sharp, pungent, and unmistakable.
It was all there, everything the murderer had planned and intended to carry out, and the means to do it.
Sheer madness! It was the only word for it. But who was doing this?
Laughton? He most certainly had the expertise and the knowledge… But for what reason?
I went after Brodie and Munro. I found them in the front of the studio with floor screens set about for background and props much like a stage production. And there was someone else there, sitting in a chair in that fake setting, like a stone statue, head bent forward, unmoving. Another victim?
My heart leapt into my throat.
Please, no! Not Lily!
It wasn’t.
It was an old man, the same man I had seen at my aunt’s party— the photographer, Paul Laughton!
He was alive, but breathing with great difficulty, the sound painful in the dark gloom of the studio, with pale sunken features in the beam of the light Munro held. And there were bruises on his throat, identical to those we had seen on each of the young women who had been murdered.
“Who did this?” Brodie asked with a hand on Laughton’s shoulder. “Where are the others?”
There was a faint stirring and Laughton opened his eyes. They were dark, dilated, and filled with pain as he stared up at Brodie.
“Where are they?” Brodie again demanded. “Where is the girl? Where have they taken her?”
Laughton made a feeble gesture toward the second floor.
The scream that followed was shrill, a sound I’d never heard before, followed by a growl as I was seized from behind. A hand closed around the collar of my jacket as I was spun around.
I recognized Laughton’s daughter from my aunt’s party, only now she was dressed in far different clothes. Costumes Mr. Cavendish had said, and she wore make-up as well, cheeks vividly painted with an equally vivid, cruel smile that streaked across her lower face.
Madness— it was there in the crazed look in her eyes as she then lunged at me with a knife.
It all happened in seconds and there was no time to retrieve the revolver Brodie had given me.
Instead, I reacted instinctively, with just one thought— Lily. Was she already dead?
I pivoted from the hip as I’d been taught, and brought my left arm up in a sharp blow that knocked the knife from her hand. I then slammed the heel of my other hand into her face.
It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough to satisfy me as I moved on her again and gouged at her eyes. That brought another maddened snarl.
Before she could recover, I swept her feet from under her. She landed on the floor with a sharp sound and lay perfectly still.
Munro was already past and moving toward the stairs in the hall. Brodie stopped, bent over Laughton’s daughter and nodded.
“Stay here.” Then he went after Munro.
Of course he would say that, and of course I didn’t. Not if Lily was up there and in danger. I stepped over the woman, who was quite out of it, and followed them.
I followed the beam of that light as it played along the walls at the second then third floor landings. Then sounds of fighting, from somewhere at the top floor. I followed those sounds with the revolver now in hand.
That room was in chaos when I arrived. Munro was across the room, kneeling beside Lily. Her head wobbled, her eyes glazed, then much like the hound she came up fighting and landed a blow to Munro’s chin.
“Get them both out of here,” Brodie shouted as he was slammed back against a wall by the other person I had seen at my aunt’s party.
