Julia put her hand on Mary’s arm. “Should you need assistance, please call for me at any hour. A note to number seventeen Finsbury Circus will find me.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Will you come to us tomorrow morning? See how Charles is faring?”
She smiled and said, “Of course.”
“We’re in Kensington, near the Horticultural Society’s gardens.” Mary produced a calling card, scribbled her address, and gave it to Julia. Then she supervised her brother’s removal by stretcher. The sodden man at the brazier handed Julia the borrowed blanket and followed the Allinghams out the door.
“Gone to collect his twenty quid.”
Julia turned to the speaker. He was one of the Humane Society’s icemen, still wearing his cork life belt. “What do you mean?”
“Saw it happen. That lass offered the chap twenty pounds to save her brother.”
* * *
For the next two hours, Julia treated and released a score of skating victims and sent others by ambulance wagon to thehospital. She also pronounced several young men dead. Attendants removed their bodies to the Marylebone Workhouse to await identification by loved ones.
Sometime after six o’clock, Julia hesitated. She held a blanket at the shoulders of a dead young officer. The two pips on his tunic told her he was an army lieutenant.Not a day over thirty.She’d noticed his wedding ring.A young husband. Perhaps a father?Pity washed over her.
A rumbling bass behind her asked, “This is what you call resting, Julia?”
She turned around. “Grandfather. How did you—”
“Your aunt sent a message. Ogilvie is waiting with the carriage.”
Dr. Andrew Lewis had removed his bowler, and his silver hair glinted in the lamplight. Julia was a tall woman, and her grandfather had grown more stooped over the years. Their eyes met nearly on the level. Julia held his gaze and said, “I had to do what I could, Grandfather.”
He touched her cheek. “I know, my dear. I know.” Then he looked down at the contorted face of the dead lieutenant. “A terrible last memory for whoever identifies the body.”
“Yes,” Julia said, thinking of the young wife. She wiped the froth from the lieutenant’s mouth and wished she could do the same to the ghastly smile on his frozen lips. Her hand trembled as she drew the blanket over his purple face. Her grandfather put his arm around her, closed his hand over hers, and squeezed. She looked at him, knowing they were two minds with one thought.Two weeks ago, Grandfather might have been looking at me.Until that moment, she’d been too busy to think about her close call at Regent’s Canal.
Julia spoke with the Humane Society’s surgeon, then linked arms with her grandfather and opened the tent’s flap.
“On the way in, I had a word with the police officer incharge,” Dr. Lewis said. “They’ve suspended the search until tomorrow.”
The light had left the lake hours earlier. As Julia’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw two icemen drag the last boat ashore. Scattered, mournful watchers remained, but most had gone home. The treacherous ice had frozen over, trapping the missing.
The grim recovery of the final victims would wait until morning.
CHAPTER2
The morning after the skating tragedy, Julia hailed a cab and gave the driver the Allinghams’ address.
He pushed his hat brim with his whip handle and scratched his head. “Marlborough Mews?”
For a moment, Julia thought she’d done something extraordinary.Have I stumped a London cabbie?
“Just off Kensington Road, miss?”
“That sounds right. Blenheim Lodge. It’s near the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens.”
On the way, they passed streets of terraced town houses with columned porticos as white and regular as perfect teeth. When the cab turned right into the mews, it stopped in front of an older residence. Blenheim Lodge, a red-bricked, ivy-covered mansion, was set back from the road in a broad, tree-covered lot.
Julia paid off the cabbie and paused, looking up at the house. The door opened, and Mary Allingham appeared, her tall figure framed in the doorway. She’d tied her long, fair hair to the side. It spilled across her shoulder like a pony’s tail. Her apple-green “artistic dress” fell like a column from the bodice with simple lines and an absence of voluminous underskirts. It was an unfussy style that Julia also favored.
“You found us, Doctor. I’ve been on the lookout.”
Julia smiled up at her. “You caught me admiring the house. It’s quite different in style from the rest of the neighborhood.”
