“At least we know the fiend is a man,” Alec said. “A woman wouldn’t have the strength to do it.”
The Duke raised his eyebrows at his nephew. “Was a woman ever a consideration?”
Kendra smiled. “Don’t ever underestimate women, Your Grace. But in this instance, I agree with Alec. We’re looking for a man.”
Coachman Benjamin stepped forward as they came up to the carriage. “Your Grace, this . . . person—"
“Oy! Ye’re the Duke?” The boy, about ten years old, darted forward. His too-thin face was streaked with dirt and soot. Staring up at the Duke, he swiped his runny nose with the back of his hand. “If’n yer the nob, Oi gotta message fer ye.”
The Duke’s lips twitched. “I’m the nob. Let’s see the message.”
“Ain’t on paper. Got it in me head. Thief-taker told me that Oi’d find ye at Bowden’s and Oi’m ter tell ye . . .” His face scrunched in concentration. “The doc’s done with his examination. You can find ‘’im at the doc’s house.” The boy’s eyes shone with excitement. “The doc lives in the dead-house. Sawing and cutting up bodies for a livin’, he does.”
Kendra stifled a smile.Bloodthirsty kid. The Duke tossed the boy a coin, and then the urchin dashed away.
“The anatomy school isn’t far.” Alec eyed the traffic on the street. “We’ll make faster time on foot.”
As they started down the pavement, Kendra said, “I think we have an eyewitness to Lady Westford’s murder.”
“Edwina,” Alec filled in.
Kendra nodded. “She lives at the theater, so, yes, I think that’s likely. I also think it’s likely that Lady Westford went to the theater on Sunday morning to meet Edwina. No one has heard from her since Saturday night.” Uneasiness knotted her stomach as she looked at Alec and the Duke. “Lady Westford might not be our only murder victim.”
Chapter 9
Dr. Munroe’s anatomy school was an unassuming, three-story brick building in a shadowy pocket of Covent Garden. Deliberately unassuming, Kendra knew. Despite the messenger boy’s ghoulish excitement, medical examiners in this time faced condemnation and superstition from the public.
The door was unlocked, so they let themselves into the darkly-paneled foyer. Oil lamps had been lit, guiding them down the hallway to Dr. Munroe’s office. There, the door was open, light spilling into the hallway, and Kendra heard the murmur of masculine voices as they approached.
Munroe was sitting behind his desk, facing Sam, who was lounging in one of the wingback chairs. They held glasses of whisky.
Both men stood as they entered. “Your Grace, my lord and lady, you received my message,” Munroe said, moving to the sideboard, which held several decanters. “Would you like a whisky? A sherry?”
The latter was meant for Kendra, as sherry was considered a ladylike beverage. Munroe may have accepted her presence in the autopsy room, Kendra reflected wryly, but he couldn’t overcome his preconceived notions of what was a proper drink for women.
She didn’t argue, though, accepting the glass and taking a sip of the fortified wine. Her gaze roamed the cluttered room. Shelves and tables were packed with a mishmash of scientific equipment and jars filled with cloudy liquid and weird bobbing shapes. A full-sized skeleton was wired together on a T-stand.
“What did you find out from your examination, doctor?” she asked, looking to Munroe.
He didn’t answer immediately. “As you are aware, my examination was limited to a visual and tactile observation,” he said slowly. “Without a proper autopsy, I cannot determine the exact nature of Lady Westford’s injuries.”
Sam gave a snort. “Seems obvious enough. You take a tumble from that height, you die.”
“Not necessarily,” Kendra said. “We’re talking roughly forty-eight feet. Statistically, you have a fifty percent chance of survival. From that height, it’s less about the fall, and more about how you land, what you land on, and what you’re wearing. If Lady Westford had jumped, she would’ve been seriously injured, but she had a good chance of surviving.”
“But she didn’t jump,” Alec murmured, his eyes on the amber liquid that he swirled in his glass. “She was thrown over.”
Munroe nodded. “Yes, that’s my conclusion. She struck her head against the back of a theater seat, along the occipital bone, fracturing her skull and causing the lacerations that you observed earlier, Lady Sutcliffe. The impact caused a severe cervical laceration—basically, she broke her neck. I cannot say if she died instantly, but the head trauma most likely caused her to lose consciousness, and she would have expired shortly after impact.”
He hesitated, then added, “Naturally, she had considerable bruising, but there were contusions on her upper arms that I believe were at least a week old.”
Kendra recalled Lord Westford’s angry face as he strode toward her earlier. “Abuse?”
“I have no way of knowing that.” Munroe pursed his lips and said carefully, “But the injuries are consistent with someone grabbing her upper arms hard, possibly shaking her.”
“They were not sustained when the monster threw her off the balcony?” the Duke asked.
“There was bruising along her waist that was most likely caused when the fiend grabbed her and threw her over.” Munroe took a sip of whisky. “She didn’t struggle before she was thrown over.”
