Relief so enormous that it was painful crashed through him.
“Gabriel?”
He feigned a cough and gathered himself. “Forgive me, go on.”
“Said he had shown up outside her rented house more than once. He’d just stare at her from across the street. Right creepy, she said.” Alcroft pushed his pen. “Dead. All of them?”
“Yes,” he said tightly, their goading faces floating in his memories.
Alcroft looked up, and Gabriel could have sworn a look of sympathy crossed his face. Heknew. Cold crept down his spine.
“What do you know, John?”
His friend looked taken aback for a second. “Only that they had their ladies’ club and they would torture some of the boys in the household by making promises and pretending interest.”
If only. If only that had been the extent of it.
“The footman probably caught a lure and became obsessed.” Alcroft shuddered. “Can you imagine what would lead to something like that?”
Being obsessed with something? Yes. Killing women? No.
“But this is good news too, no?” Alcroft said. “You will get Miss Winters’s brother out of prison.”
“Unfortunately, the Runner on the case is proving difficult. They are now after Miss Winters’s older brother as an accomplice and murderer.”
Alcroft’s face mirrored deep shock. “How did they determine that?”
“Idiocy and hoping to keep the public from panicking. Unfortunately for the public panic, Mark Winters has now gone missing.”
Alcroft’s eyes were shrewd. “How unfortunate indeed. I must commend you.”
“Do you still have the report on the servant?”
“Yes. The report was on the servant’s state and movements. I had an investigator do it. You were working on the other cases, and I wouldn’t have brought this to you.” He ran his hand along his neck. “I didn’t want to bother you with it.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“The investigator didn’t find much, and I had him send the reports to Abigail. I do know, though, that he was trailing the servant when the first murder happened. I was at the Plakens’ rout when the news came that a gruesome murder had just occurred in Clerkenwell, and I remember thinking about the investigator. I have an address for Abigail; perhaps you can locate the brief.” He paged through his papers, organized and neat as they were. “Here it is.”
Gabriel took the paper. “Thank you, John.”
He was thanking him for more than just the address, and Alcroft seemed to know it. He nodded solemnly. “I know you’ll find the bastard.”
Gabriel ran those words through his head as he walked home.
He also repeated Alcroft’s later words:Are you going to tell Marietta?
No.
It had to be this man, this nearly faceless servant. It wouldn’t be someone from his family, someone he knew or loved. It wouldn’t be someone from Marietta’s family. They would both be pleased at the end. Free to do whatever they both wanted.
If only he could convince himself of that. If only he could keep his mind from churning over escape routes and alternative plans. They kept forming and solidifying in his brain.
He forced himself to think of Jacob Worley. Of the man that he would catch, the man who would confess to everything.
And with that thinking, there was cause to celebrate tonight. To take back the control that had slipped from his fingertips this morning.
With every step he convinced himself more and more. He recognized the irony that he was deluding himself, but forced that section of his mind to lie dormant. He had always been a realist. A disgusting survivor. He hated the weakness. The fear. He had thought them stamped out long ago.
