“You did nothing wrong, Mr. Barts,” Munroe reassured him.
They had no more questions for the apprentice, so Munroe dismissed him. Kendra watched Barts weave his way across the room to the door. After he’d disappeared, she turned back to Munroe. “Do you think Mr. Barts could be involved in the theft of the body?”
“Good God, no. Absolutely not.”
Kendra didn’t say anything, but she wondered if Munroe’s faith was misplaced. Barts had been nervous. Sure, healwaysstruck her as nervous.But Barts had access to the school and the missing body. Kendra didn’t know how much assistants earned during this time, but she suspected that it wasn’t much. Bribery was a long-standing practice. Barts could even rationalize it: Who would it hurt? The woman was already dead.
Frowning, Munroe picked up his tankard again. “Bodies are always valuable to those in the medical field. However, if the interest was dissection, I had two bodies in the morgue. Why only steal the woman? Women and children aren’t worth as much as an adult male. Why—” He drew in a sharp breath, and something flickered in his intelligent gaze.
“You’ve thought of something,” the Duke prompted.
“Yes. Possibly.” He set down his tankard without taking a drink. “There was a peculiarity about the woman that I failed to mention. When the River Police brought her to me, she wasn’t clothed. That’s not the oddity,” he added hastily. “I’m merely mentioning it to give you a full understanding.”
Kendra nodded. “Go on.”
He said nothing for a long moment. A strange expression had settled behind his eyes. Then he expelled a breath. “As I told you, I didn’t have time to conduct a postmortem, so I cannot say the cause of death. But I can say, based on my visual examination, she was not shot, stabbed, or strangled. I believe—although I can’t be certain—that she was in the Thames for only a day or two. In my experience, cold water can slow decomposition. The river is also dreadfully polluted, which hinders marine life. This allows the body to be more preserved than, say, if she’d been pulled from the ocean.”
Kendra wasn’t surprised. The stench coming off the river was like a living thing, and was also the main reason wealthier citizens abandoned their homes near the river to move west to the Mayfair District, which was conveniently upwind of the Thames.
“She had abrasions around her wrists and ankles,” Munroe continued.
“Abrasions? Like she’d been restrained?” Kendra was careful to keep her voice neutral, even as her stomach did a quick roll.
“The marks would be consistent with some type of restraint—a sturdy material rather than metal, I’d say,” he acknowledged cautiously. “She also had puncture wounds on the insides of her forearms.”
The Duke looked to Kendra with apprehension. “Dear heavens. Is this the same kind of madman as before?”
When Kendra had first arrived in this period, they’d found the nude body of a young girl floating in the lake at Aldridge Castle. Kendra had eventually killed the sadistic serial killer preying on prostitutes. Could they now be dealing with another likeminded madman?Was that why the body had been stolen? Was the killer afraid it would yield incriminating evidence upon closer scrutiny?
A chill prickled the back of her neck. “I don’t know what we’re dealing with—yet.”
Munroe added quietly, “The restraints and puncture wounds weren’t the most peculiar thing.”
Kendra eyed him. “What else did you see, doctor?”
“It was what I didn’t see. Livor mortis.”
Everyone stared at him. The laughter and conversation around them seemed out of place for their talk.
“How is that possible?” the Duke asked.
“I know of only two possible causes. The woman was either severely anemic and had very little blood in her veins to produce lividity when she was killed, or she simply had no blood in her veins at all. The puncture wounds, the restraints . . .” Munroe shook his head, his gray eyes dark with worry. “I’m afraid that someone took this woman, restrained her, and then drained her dry.”
***
The mood inside the carriage was somber as the horses trotted down the dark streets to Alec’s residence at 25 Bedford Square. The amber glow from the interior brass lantern illuminated the lines on the Duke’s face, making him appear older than his fifty-plus years.
He met Kendra’s gaze. “This morning, we had one murder to investigate. Now it appears that we have two—if the woman from the Thames is connected.”
Three, Kendra added silently. If Edwina had indeed witnessed Lady Westford’s murder and had been caught by the killer.
But she didn’t point that out. Instead, she said, “I don’t see how they aren’t connected.”
She considered the timeline. On Wednesday, Jane Doe had been found in the Thames and delivered to Munroe’s morgue. A scandal sheet had an article about the body on Thursday, and Friday morning, Lady Westford arrived to view the body. For some reason, the countess waited until Saturday night to go to Bowden Theater, inquiring about Clarice, the missing actress. The next day, Lady Westford was murdered. And now the body from the Thames—a body that may not have had any blood—had disappeared.What the hell’s going on?
Kendra looked out the window when the carriage drew to a halt. They’d arrived at 25 Bedford Square.My new home.That was enough give her a jolt, momentarily pushing the murders out of her mind.
The Duke leaned forward to look at them as Alec assisted Kendra down the carriage steps. “This is not how I imagined we’d celebrate your wedding day.”
