Chapter 32
Chapter
Thirty-Two
The Same Machinery
His hands were still on mine. I let them stay. He was certain. Not hopeful, not merely kind, but certain, the way a man is certain of ground he has already crossed. It was reassuring to know he was certain of Linnet and of me.
"So what did you find in Edinburgh?" I asked, if only to give myself time to recover my equilibrium.
"Brookes witnessed what was done to Emily Driscoll.
There were four of them—my brother and three of his friends.
William proposed a wager. A housemaid at Everthorne Manor would be willing to take all of them on.
Whoever was first to try her favors would win the wager.
But before they reached her, they found Emily Driscoll in the conservatory.
Alone. She had gone there to smell the night-blooming flowers. "
His voice remained level, but it cost him something to keep it there.
"One of them proposed a change to the wager.
A willing housemaid would prove no challenge.
But young, innocent Emily Driscoll would.
So one of them assaulted her. Emily screamed and fought off her assailant, but she was no match for him.
I pressed Brookes for the name. But he refused to tell me.
He swore he would take it to the grave."
"Did he try to stop it?"
His lip curled. “No. He was busy throwing up on some plant."
"Not only despicable but a coward."
"I agree."
"How did you leave him?"
"He had heard what happened to people who knew things. So he was planning to disappear into the Highlands of Scotland. I let him go. He must be there by now."
"Then it was a wasted journey," I said, disappointment clear in my voice.
"It wasn't. He gave me the part that matters."
"What part is that?"
"Three older men arrived in the conservatory too late to stop the assault. My father. A clergyman in black. And a third—immaculately dressed, younger than my father, who went to the girl like a man arriving at familiar work."
He paused, watching me. "The clergyman was Grimshaw. The third man had to be the physician."
"Aubrey Strode,” I said. “I met him at Elmwood House."
"The one who will judge Linnet," he said. "He was in that room twelve years ago. These are not two different matters. They are the same.”
A chill crept through me. Not coincidence. Not separate cruelties occurring years apart. The same people. The same institution. The same machinery grinding forward decade after decade.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then Thorne reached into his coat pocket. "There is more."
I looked up sharply. His expression had gone completely serious.
"What?"
He drew out a small notebook. “A witness came forward. To Lydia Gray's death."
I gasped. “There was a witness?"
He nodded. "She’s been in York the last three weeks, nursing a sick sister, which is why we are only hearing it now.” His jaw hardened. “She gave a statement to a constable the very afternoon it happened. And the constable did nothing with it whatsoever."
"What did she see?"
"Lydia Gray did not stumble, and she was not careless. A man came up to her in Gower Street, put both hands to her shoulders, and pushed her into the path of the carriage. Then he walked away."
The words struck with less force than they should have. Not because they were unexpected. Because I had known. Somewhere beneath the doubts and hopes and desperate attempts to explain it away, I had known from the beginning.
"So, it was murder," I whispered. "Just as we thought."
"It was."
I sank back into the chair I had abandoned without realizing it. "Did she describe the man who pushed Lydia?"
"Very clearly. Ginger hair. A scar down one cheek to the jaw. A nose broken more than once. The witness had seen him about Gower Street this twelvemonth—lingering, running errands, keeping rough company. She did not have his name. But she was certain others would."
"A hired thug,” I said.
"Almost certainly. The sort who lets out his fists by the job."
The exhaustion that had weighed upon me all day was suddenly forgotten. "Then we find him."
"That is my intention."
At that moment everything became crystal clear. "Men of that kind do not murder women for their own amusement. They do it for money."
"Exactly so. And once we find that man—"
"We find the person who wanted Lydia Gray silenced. Someone tied to the asylum."
His voice grew grim. "The same machinery. The same men. The murder, and Grimshaw and Kent and Linnet. Every separate thread drawing into one knot. I would wager a great deal on it."
"How long to find him?"
"A day or two. I mean to employ my manservant, Dawson, at the task. A Londoner who knows more of what passes in London than the whole of Scotland Yard. And, unlike Scotland Yard, he can go where I cannot and be remembered by no one."
"That," I said, "makes me very glad he is on our side."
"It is also entirely true. And if it comes to it, I will sit in every public house in Bloomsbury until a ginger-haired man with a broken nose walks past the window."
"You."
"I."
"Personally."
"Personally."
I glanced down at his leg, which I knew pained him.
He caught the look and answered my unspoken question. "My leg may lodge a formal complaint with the appropriate authority. I shall hear it sympathetically and proceed regardless."
A smile tugged unexpectedly at my mouth. Trust Thorne to turn pain into a joke. Yet beneath the dry humor lay the simple truth that he was prepared to do exactly as he said. He would endure whatever discomfort awaited him without complaint if it brought Linnet home.
He had met her only once.
Certainly, there was his brother’s shadow hanging over all of this. There was the injustice of Elmwood House and the certainty that other women had suffered there before Linnet. And others would suffer after her if no one stopped it. Yet none of that fully explained the determination I saw in him.
How very honorable he was being.
A reluctant breath escaped me that was not quite a laugh. "Very well."
"You, meanwhile, have a task of your own, and it is the most important of the lot."
I knew what he would suggest before he said a word. "Anne."
He nodded.
"I want her to find out where Westmere has taken Linnet.
He will not have told her—he thinks her ornamental—but a wife hears a great deal a husband never means her to hear.
A direction let slip to a coachman. A name on a letter left out on a desk.
If anyone alive can learn where that carriage went this morning, it is the woman who pours his coffee. "
The room fell quiet.
For the first time since Bexley had opened the door and Thorne had stepped inside, something inside me eased. Not peace. Nothing so complete as that. But direction.
"I will talk to Anne, and you will direct your manservant to look for the ginger-haired man."
"I will visit my solicitors as well and set matters in motion." He reached for my hands and closed them between his own. "Take heart, Lark. We will prevail."
I wanted to believe him. And for the first time since Linnet had been taken, I found that I did.
For today, that would have to be enough.