“Very well.”
“Ask him if he was aware of his wife’s affair with Mr. Goldsten,” Kendra added.
Alec smirked. “To confirm, you want me to quiz him about murdering his wife, whether he’s going to marry his mistress, and if he knew about his wife’samoretti.”
Kendra returned his smile. “You don’t have to do it in that order.”
Sam took a moment to enjoy his sip of whisky before asking, “You really don’t think Lord Westford killed his wife, do you, lass?”
Instead of answering, she regarded him. “You don’t?”
“Nay.” He paused to formulate his thoughts. “People kill for all sorts of reasons. But this. . . it was too public. Seems ter me, there are any number of ways ter rid yourself of an unwanted wife without drawing this kind of attention.”
Kendra surprised him by nodding. “I agree, Mr. Kelly. I can think of a dozen ways to kill someone that is more efficient and private, and where you wouldn’t have to worry about possible witnesses like Edwina.”
God’s teeth,Samdidn’t even know that many ways to kill.
“But he’s still a suspect until he can be eliminated,” Kendra continued, and began to pace. “I’m more interested in Lady Westford’s connection to the first murder victim, Clarice.”
“We don’t know the body found in the Thames was Clarice,” Alec said.
“You’re right, but the timing works. And Lady Westford was asking about Clarice. That’s not a coincidence.”
“Aye, but Lady Westford saw the body in the morgue,” Sam said. “If it was Clarice, why would she be asking about her the next day?”
“There might not be a lot of marine life in the Thames, but being in the water for a couple of days has a way of changing a person’s appearance,” Kendra pointed out. “Maybe Lady Westford wasn’t entirely sure the body she sawwasClarice, and wanted confirmation.”
“It’s queer thing, with the woman’s blood drained and then the body stolen.” Sam wasn’t a superstitious or devotedly religious man, but he tightened his hand on his glass to stop himself from making the sign of the cross.
Kendra said, “We need to find the connection between the woman from the Thames—Clarice or not—and Lady Westford. I’ve sent Muldoon a message to see if he can locate the article that caught Lady Westford’s eye.”
“I’m gonna speak ter Lady Westford’s household and stable staff,” Sam said. Servants of the nobility could be uppity, but he had more authority with them as a Bow Street Runner than with his betters. “Maybe they knew what her ladyship was involved in.”
“Dr. Munroe mentioned that Lady Westford arrived by hackney on Friday.” Kendra turned to study the timeline. “It’s likely that she did the same on Sunday. That tells us something.”
“Aye. She wanted secrecy.” Sam tipped back his glass to finish his whisky as the door opened and the butler entered, carrying a silver salver with a single folded piece of foolscap.
“A message has come for you, my lady.”
Kendra opened the paper, explaining, “I sent a message earlier to Dr. Munroe to ask if he knows Mr. Goldsten.”
“Mr. Goldsten?” Sam asked.
“Lord Westford wasn’t the only one unfaithful in the marriage.”
“Ah.”
Kendra smiled. “Dr. Munroe knows Mr. Goldsten, and has agreed to introduce me.”
Chapter 14
Mr. Goldsten was not a physician; he was a surgeon—or, in this century’s vernacular, a sawbones—who’d set up his surgery in Blackfriars, a section of London that had taken its name from the black-robed friars who had once lived in the priory on the banks of the River Thames. The priory was long gone, first gutted by King Henry VIII, with his dissolution of monasteries, and converted into factories and residences, then destroyed by the Great Fire that had burned most of London to the ground in 1666.
Only a few crumbling stone walls of the old monastery remained amidst a warren of timbered taverns, warehouses, shops, and shabby dwellings. It was, Kendra mused, a far cry from the Blackfriars of the future, with its sleek, soaring glass-and-steel skyscrapers.
Kendra was also amazed to see the River Fleet, which gurgled and gushed through the neighborhood to the Thames. The waterway would eventually vanish beneath concrete and asphalt, becoming one of London’s lost rivers. Even now, construction was taking place, changing the cityscape into what it would someday be.And I am witnessing it firsthand.
“I’ve known Mr. Goldsten for more than three years,” Munroe said.
