“In answer to what you said about no one ever having laid eyes on the devil, Lady Sutcliffe,” Munroe said. “I haven’t seen the devil himself, but I see his handiwork.” He spread his hands to indicate the dead around him. “Every day.”
Chapter 28
Human beings didn’t need the devil to commit evil. They were quite adept at doing it all on their own.
Kendra left Munroe and Mr. Barts, ideas, theories, and conjecture spinning in her mind like bits of flotsam caught in an eddy. She liked Dr. Munroe. Hell, she respected him as much, if not more, than any M.E. she’d dealt with in the twenty-first century. But she had some reservation over his ability to think objectively when his colleagues and friends were the prime suspects.
On the landing, she began opening and closing the doors in the long hallway. It took a few minutes to find what she was searching for: an exit that dumped her into the narrow alley, which smelled of urine and rotting vegetation. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned quick, muff pistol ready . . . as two small pigs darted out from under a pile of trash, snorting and squealing down the narrow lane.
A single gust of wind whipped her skirts around her ankles and sent a few bottles rolling noisily as she followed in the pigs’ wake. Emerging from the alley, she joined the pedestrian traffic. She could see Coachman John waiting next to the carriage, his attention on the street vendors and scantily clad women who were beginning to congregate in the shadows of the Theater-Royal.
She wheeled in the opposite direction, scanning the street as she walked. A few roughly dressed men eyed her. Coventry Gardens was the kind of neighborhood that became increasingly more dangerous in the evening. Midafternoon was iffy enough for her to keep her hand in her reticule, around the comfortable weight of her muff pistol.
Deliberately, she made eye contact with the more nefarious individuals. Attitude always helped. Predators, human or animal, preferred meek prey. Whether it was the attitude she was projecting or it wasn’t dark enough to cover their criminal activity, Kendra arrived unmolested at a hackney parked along the curb.
She told the driver where she wanted to go, then signaled to one of the street children.
“There’s a carriage down the street with a coachman—Coachman John. Tell him that he can return home. I have an errand to do and will return later.”
The boy gave her a suspicious stare. “An’ who might ye be?”
“The Marchioness of Sutcliffe.” It was the first time she’d used her title, and it made her feel strange. Like there were too many words in her mouth. Pulling out a coin, she pressed it in the grubby palm. “Can you do that?”
“Aye, me lady!”
After watching the kid scamper away, she climbed into the public coach and was immediately assaulted by the smells of bad body odor and cheap perfume. It made her appreciate Alec and the Duke’s private carriages all the more.
Chewing on her bottom lip, she gazed out the window as hackney barreled down the street. Her stomach coiled itself into greasy knots. Not because of what she was doing—damn it, she was a trained FBI agent. She could take care of herself.
Her nerves came from anticipating Alec’s reaction when she eventually told him what she’d done.
She’d never had to worry before about taking action in an investigation. She had to report to her supervisor, sure, but not about something like this. Besides, Alec wasn’t her boss; he was her husband. They were equal partners. She refused to feel guilty. Yet her head was beginning to throb with not feeling guilty.
The streets changed from cobblestone to gravel, from gravel to muck and dirt. She’d visited the neighborhood of Cheapside before. The area hadn’t improved. Poverty clung to the smudged shops, businesses, and tenements like moss on a tree. The residents of Cheapside ranged from the tattered poor to the rough working class. And criminals.
When the hackney pulled up outside its destination, Kendra pushed open the door and leapt down.
“Wait here,” she ordered the driver, then flagged down another young boy flitting about the street.School, what school?
Pointing at a half-timbered Tudor building that housed a pub that went by the name of Ye Old Beelzebub, she gave the kid a coin to find out if the person she wanted was inside, and to deliver the message that she needed to speak to him immediately. She promised another coin after he delivered the message.
The kid’s eyes widened at the name she gave, but he looked more excited than scared about his errand. She watched him sprint away and disappear inside the tavern.
A prickly sensation on the nape of her neck warned Kendra that she was attracting unwanted attention from at least a dozen men on the street.
The hackney driver shifted in his seat uneasily. “Miss, maybe ye ought ter get inside the carriage—”
“Maybe ye ought ter shut yer mouth and let the lady be,” said a man, advancing toward her with the slinky slyness of a tomcat. “The lady came ter ol’ Cheapside for a reason.”
Not taking his eyes off Kendra, he stepped close enough for Kendra to smell his fetid breath. “Only right ter give her a proper welcome.”
Kendra narrowed her eyes at him, shifting subtly. “I appreciate the welcome, but I’ve got business with someone. I suggest that you move along.”
The man’s face hardened. “Aw, now, that don’t seem friendly. Looks like you need ter be taught some manners, yer ladyship.”
He reached for her. She didn’t hesitate, whipping her pistol out of the reticule and drilling the muzzle into the man’s forehead. His eyes bulged and his mouth dropped open, and he scrambled back a step. She followed, her hand rock-steady, finger on the trigger as she pinned her eyes on his.
“Eh, now, ye be careful with that barkin’ iron. It could go off!”
