“When’s the next low tide?”
“Later this afternoon.” Alec regarded her. “I guess we’re going mudlarking.”
Kendra’s palms tingled in anticipation. “It’s a chance. Our best chance of finding Edwina. We’re going to take it.”
***
Dark clouds began blowing in around two-thirty. Kendra prayed the rain that might come with them would hold off until after they’d conducted their search for Edwina.They were getting close.
A message arrived from Munroe to let her know that his geological expert, Mr. Engel, was at the anatomy school.
“You don’t think he’ll give you anything useful for the investigation,” Alec guessed, watching her from the seat on the other side of the carriage. “Finding the location of where a body had been based on dirt seems a bit fanciful.”
“Not in another couple of decades it won’t be. But because we’re not there yet . . . yeah, I guess I don’t think he’ll be that useful.”
“Why are we wasting time speaking to him then?”
“I don’t know if it is a waste of time—yet. You have to explore an angle before you know if you’ve wasted your time exploring it, if that makes sense.”
“Oddly enough, it does. No one can predict the future.” He flashed her a wicked grin. “Even a time traveler.”
Kendra was a little surprised to find Munroe’s anatomy school humming with activity, as most of her visits had been conducted after school hours. Today, the wooden bleachers in the operating theater were filled with medical students, while Mr. Barts lectured, standing next to a table upon which lay a naked male cadaver. A few men in the audience shouted ribald remarks, prompting an astonishingly stern rebuke from the weak-chinned apprentice.
Kendra and Alec continued down the hall to Munroe’s office. Inside, the anatomist was sitting behind his desk, talking to Sam, the Duke, and another man—Mr. Engel, Kendra presumed. At Kendra and Alec’s entrance, all three men stood.
“A pleasure,” Mr. Engel said, beaming and bowing as introductions were made. He was a short, spare man clothed entirely in black except for his snowy white cravat. Kendra thought he might be a Quaker, but he wore an ornate gold-and-ruby pin fastened to the folds of his cravat. Early sixties, Kendra estimated. The sun had permanently browned his complexion and bleached his hair into a silvery-sheened blond.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Engel,” Kendra said once they’d settled into chairs again.
“Well, I have to say this has been quite exciting, my lady,” he replied. “I’m a surveyor by trade, but the study of geology is a passion of mine. The two, of course, intersect. There is so much to learn from Mother Earth.”
Kendra caught Sam’s dubious expression.
Mr. Engel leaned forward, eyes twinkling. “I must say, I’ve never been asked to identify sediment off a corpse before. Naturally, when I received Dr. Munroe’s letter, I wasquiteintrigued. I wanted to come straightaway, but my sister—she keeps house for me in Cambridge—reminded me that it’s not safe to travel at night. I waited until dawn and came as soon as I could.”
“We appreciate your speed,” said the Duke.
“Well, I confess, I was fascinated. Examining soil and sediment on a corpse to help in a criminal investigation is a novel idea. I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”
Kendra had to suppress a smile. Mr. Engel was eerily accurate—itwasa novel idea. Forensic geology would first be envisioned by the novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose most famous character, Sherlock Holmes, was able to identify where suspects had been based on the dirt on their shoes. A few years later, fiction would become fact when German scientist George Popp analyzed soil samples in an effort to solve crimes, and a new branch of forensics was born.
“Have you examined the sediment on the body, Mr. Engel?” Kendra asked.
Munroe spoke up. “I brought Mr. Engel to the morgue as soon as he arrived to conduct the examination.” He gestured to the counter holding one of his old-fashioned microscopes. “We brought the samples here, if you would care to view them yourself, my lady.”
“I’m not sure I’d know what I was looking at,” she admitted, but stood up and moved over to the counter. “Why don’t you explain what you found.”
Mr. Engel joined her. “London has a complex geology, my lady. There is much discussion about how this came to be.” He paused and smiled. “Which is neither here nor there. My passions often get the best of me. My sister is always reminding me that few people appreciate long, tedious lectures on how the earth may have been formed.”
“I’m actually interested,” said the Duke, peering through the microscope. He raised his head to look at the surveyor. “Would you be available for dinner tonight to discuss the subject at length?”
Mr. Engel seemed dazzled by the invitation. “Oh, my. Yes, Your Grace. I would be honored.”
“What did you find, Mr. Engel?” Kendra asked again.
The surveyor cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. The sediment on the body is alluvium, which is a mixture of clay, sand, silt, and gravel, deposited by running water.”
“Like a river? The Thames?” Kendra wondered.
