Edgar Bannister lookedsurprised that he was dead. His eyes were wide and glassy, his mouth hanging loosely open. The amount of blood that surrounded his body proved all too well, however, that Lord and Lady Richford’s son was gone.
Sir John Stauncey’s arms were crossed, his hands tucked up under his armpits, a pinched look on his face. “This will devastate Lord Richford. I don’t know if the man will recover from losing both his son and his wife.”
Frederick breathed through his mouth, the smell of blood giving him a headache. “I will have to question him. There is the possibility he’s involved.” Lord Richford was family to both victims. It made him an obvious suspect.
Stauncey looked up at him, glaring. “I know Richford. He’s not a man capable of this.”
“Even if he discovered his son killed his beloved wife?” Frederick was thinking aloud, trying to process all the possibilities. When his employer shook his head and said, “Not even then,” Frederick was forced to agree. He would speak with the viscount, of course, but in his heart of hearts Frederick knew the man was innocent.
Stauncey sighed and ran his hand up the back of his head. “What do you think?”
Frederick examined the scene again. Bannister was in the parlor of his rooms at the Albany, a lodging house to many bachelors of wealth and rank. His body lay a few feet from thefireplace, a hole piercing his throat, his life’s blood soaked into the thick carpet underneath. A scrap from a piece of paper lay inches from his head. “The weapon was a small caliber, possibly a thirteen millimeter? Fifteen at the largest.” The misshapen wad of lead embedded in the wall might tell them more about the gun.
“A woman’s pistol?” Stauncey said.
Frederick nodded. “Or one a man can easily conceal.” Pointing at the bullet, he continued. “Bannister was standing before the fire when he was shot, I’m guessing at close range both because of the accuracy of the shot through the center of the neck and because of the velocity needed for the bullet to exit his neck.”
Stauncey nodded. “Notice how high the bullet is lodged in the wall? The shooter must have been very small in stature and pointing up at Bannister.”
Frederick had noted that, too. He would make the formal calculations based on the victim’s height and the height of the bullet in the wall, but the idea of a female killer was looking more and more probable.
“He must have known his killer.” Frederick pointed to the nearby chairs, arranged just so around a low table. To the books orderly stacked on the mantel. “There was no struggle. Bannister invited the person in.” He looked again, but only saw one glass on a low side table. “He didn’t offer his visitor a drink, or hadn’t gotten to that point yet.”
“The paper?”
Frederick stepped around the pool of blood and squatted by Bannister’s head. “A piece of a letter, perhaps? Only a few words are visible.Shouldn’t. And then the next line,cannot wait for. The rest is gone, most likely ashes in the fire.”
Stauncey cracked his neck. “A letter from the killer, destroyed to hide his identity?”
Frederick made a noncommittal sound. If Bannister had been holding it when he’d been killed, the remainder torn from his hand and destroyed by the killer, why was this lone piece above his head, on a small section of floor not covered in blood. It seemed almost positioned. But why?
“The neighbors?” Stauncey asked.
“Are being questioned now.” Frederick rose, staring down at the body. He hadn’t liked Edgar Bannister in life, but he would do his damnedest to serve him in death. There were few people who truly deserved this fate, and Bannister hadn’t struck him as one of them. He had been petty, immature, greedy, but none of those faults were worthy of a death sentence. His behavior toward Eleanor deserved a sound throttling, but not death.
Frederick would find out who had killed him, not only because it was his job, but because this killer was beginning to make him bloody angry, not least because the call had taken him from his bed that had been warmed by Eleanor. He’d tried to convince her to stay at his lodgings, to wait for him, but looking at the scene before him he knew she had been right to go home. This would take the rest of the night to work. Dropping her at her home, watching her go inside not knowing if she would be protected, had been more difficult than he’d anticipated.
“We got the safe open,” an agent said from the doorway to the bedroom.
Frederick nodded to the two men who stood guard at the front door. “You can take the body to the surgery now.” Watching a dissection was his least favorite duty, but useful information could be gleaned. He hoped the coroner would find something to point to their killer.
He and the magistrate went into Bannister’s bedroom, through to the dressing room. A rack of dinner jackets had been pushed aside exposing the safe embedded in the wall. The now open safe.
Frederick pulled out his notepad to take inventory. One hundred and twenty-seven pounds. An emerald cravat pin. A gold ring with his family’s insignia. A black velvet sack. He directed the agent to take out the sack and remove the contents so Frederick could continue writing the inventory.
The agent upended the bag, and the contents tumbled to the seat of a settee in front of a dressing mirror. Jewelry glittered under the gas lamps. “Mostly ladies’ stuff,” the agent said, poking through the pile. “Gifts to lady friends?”
That Bannister stockpiled beforehand? That hardly seemed likely. But Frederick dutifully cataloged each item. Three necklaces, one pure gold, the other inset with emeralds, another with rubies. Several bracelets, a set of drop earrings. A man’s silver pocket watch, the top of the hour hand inlaid with a cut diamond. And two rings, one plain, the other a wrought gold posey ring with the words ‘Je t’adore’ engraved in script on the surface.
Frederick fingered the ring. Something about it seemed familiar, though for the life of him he couldn’t think why.
“Box it all up,” Frederick told the agent. “Put it in our safe at Bow Street tagged with the case number.”
The man nodded, and Frederick and Stauncey wandered back into the bedroom. The magistrate planted his hands on his hips and surveyed the slight disorder. “Whatever pressure we felt before from Lady Richford’s death will now be doubled. We need to make an arrest.”
“We need to arrest the murderer.”
Stauncey gave him a narrow-eyed look. “There are times when calming a frightened public takes precedence over…”
