Caught in the grip of bloodlust, Alaric didn’t give a damn. He drew his fist back again.
Palmer gasped, “Bloody ’ell, stop... I give...”
“Who paid you to kill me?” Alaric slammed Palmer against the wall. “Give me his name.”
“Don’t... know.” Blood streaked down Palmer’s face, trickling into his scar. “’E ne’er told me. Just paid me five ’undred quid... for the job.”
“What did he look like?”
“Black ’air, pudgy face—like a babe’s. Wore sp-spectacles.”
Silas Webb.
“Where can I find him?” Alaric demanded.
“If I tell you, you’ll let me go...”
“If you don’t, I’ll kill you.” Alaric squeezed Palmer’s throat.
“He will, you know.” This came from Will, who now stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “We Scotsmen keep our word.”
“Alright... alright,” the bastard choked out. “I followed ’im once—like to know where my blunt is comin’ from. ’E’s got a place... in Whitechapel.”
“Take us there,” Alaric said.
***
The tenement was part of a sagging pile of misery at the heart of the East End.
“That’s the room.” His hands manacled behind his back, Palmer could only jerk his head toward the peeling door of the apartment. “I remember it on account o’ it being next to the stairs.”
“Take him back to the carriage,” Alaric said to Cooper. “Keep an eye on him.”
The guard nodded and hauled Palmer away at gunpoint.
Kent tried the knob. The easy click raised the hairs on Alaric’s nape.
Wordlessly, Kent withdrew a pistol from his greatcoat, and both Will and Alaric followed suit. Kent pushed the door harder, and the squeal of rusty hinges spurred Alaric’s heartbeat. Darkness greeted them, the air musty and dank, and there was an indistinct noise... a buzzing. An unsavory odor caught Alaric’s nose, and his stomach gave a queasy surge.
Kent held up his lantern, and shadowy light spilled over the cramped interior.
“I think we’ve found our man,” he said in grave tones.
A figure lay face down on the table in the middle of the room. As he approached, Alaric saw the flies swirling, the stain beneath the head. Will lit another lamp, and brightness flared above the dead man’s head—what remained of it anyway. A gaping hole had been blown out the back; a pistol lay on the ground near the man’s dangling hand.
With a detached professionalism that Alaric could only admire, Kent turned the corpse’s head to the light.
“Silas Webb?” the investigator asked.
Alaric grimaced. “Aye.”
“By the state of decomposition, I’d say it’s been several days since the bastard blew his brains out,” Will muttered. “Damned messy way to go.”
Bending, Kent fished a sheet of paper from the pocket of Webb’s jacket. Creases deepened around the investigator’s mouth. “It’s a signed confession. Webb says he acted out of revenge but now repents.” Kent passed Alaric the note. “Can you verify the handwriting?”
Alaric scanned the brief lines. “It looks like Webb’s signature.”
He wondered why he didn’t feel relieved. As he looked around the room, he didn’t see signs of anything untoward—no evidence of a struggle, of this being anything but what it appeared to be: a sinner succumbing to his conscience. Yet Webb had never struck him as a man of strong morality or the type to end his own life.
