Chapter Ten
TEN
The case of the missing maid has become the case of the missing body. We return to where the corpse had been dragged from the bog and try again to follow the tracks, but all that’s clear is that she was loaded onto some sort of wheeled conveyance, heading away from the village.
Why would someone take a body? When I’d first arrived in Victorian Scotland, I’d have said “body snatchers.” Okay, I’d probably have screamed it like the winning trivia answer.
And this proves why I’ve always been mediocre at trivia.
I have tons of useless information stored in my brain, but I suck at placing anything in historical context.
Asked to explain a missing corpse, I’d have launched into a mini-lecture about Edinburgh’s history of grave robbing.
Religious prohibitions against interfering with the dead.
Medical schools in desperate need of anatomy examples.
People in desperate need of money and willing to do anything to get it.
Those are the ingredients for a system that gave birth to the city’s most famous serial killers, Hare and Burke—two guys who sold a dead friend to an anatomy professor, and then got tired of waiting for another friend to die.
At one time, the answer would have been grave robbing.
Or, in this case, body snatching. Except I’ve arrived past the time when that’s necessary, because Hare and Burke’s case eventually led to a change in legislation that allowed medical schools to use unclaimed bodies.
Sounds great, right? Except that those bodies are often only unclaimed because the family can’t afford to bury their loved one, which is required to remove it from the dead house.
All that’s to say that this isn’t an old-fashioned body snatching. As for what it is, no one has any idea. What possible reason would someone have for stealing the body of a teenage girl?
Er, okay, I have heard stories from my cop days, and I know why someone might steal the body of a teenage girl.
I don’t mention it to McCreadie and Gray.
If they don’t know, I’m not enlightening them, because it doesn’t apply in this case.
The body had been floating, which means it’s been in the bog long enough to rise to the surface and …
no one’s going to do anything with that.
I think of the first young woman who drowned—Mary?—with her posy and pretty dress. She must have imagined what a lovely corpse she’d make, like the one undoubtedly described in the poem. The reality would be a whole lot different.
So I honestly have no idea why anyone would take this body. Neither do Gray and McCreadie. Neither does anyone else. We are stumped.
We head down that road, where the cart must have gone.
We search for tracks and find none. We search for where it left the road and find nothing.
We even canvass the homes along the road, knocking at each door and asking whether the inhabitants might have seen a cart go by.
Sometime between dusk and dawn, when police arrived.
Probably a small cart, pulled by a person, with something covered in the back.
No one saw anything.
With that, we need to swing back to the case of the missing maid. The body seems to have belonged to Nellie. Of course, I hope otherwise, but either way, until it’s proven, my focus returns to where it had been—interviewing the household.
I return to the Adler home and finish my questioning.
Gray tags along. Oh, he has an excuse. We’re collecting Isla, meeting McCreadie, and going for tea to discuss the case.
Since McCreadie is busy, it only makes sense for Gray to escort me back to the Adlers’ house.
Really, though, I think the murder makes all the difference.
Okay, it’s not necessarily murder. The body isn’t necessarily Nellie, either.
But the discovery—and subsequent disappearance—of the corpse has piqued the good doctor’s interest. We may have an actual case.
Not that the disappearance of a young woman wasn’t important but, well, there wasn’t a body.
And there still isn’t. But there could be. Soon.
The problem with taking Gray is that none of the staff are going to talk openly with him there.
He’s a fine gentleman. He’s a doctor. He’s an undertaker.
And he’s not white. Somewhere in that mix, there’s bound to be something off-putting to everyone.
Well, except Lily, who sees right through all of that to the fact that he’s handsome and relatively young.
Also single—she checked his ring finger and also confirmed that he lives with Mrs. Ballantyne, meaning there is no Mrs. Gray.
Gray’s fine dress means he has money. His fine manners mean he is respectable.
Now, personally, I think Duncan Gray is the catch of Edinburgh.
Seriously, why has no woman snatched him up yet?
Oh, I know the answer—because he isn’t interested in being snatched.
He’s enjoying the freedom of a bachelor life.
But still, he’s a prize, and I’m not at all surprised when women realize it.
The problem comes when young women like Lily realize it.
I’ve learned to recognize that glint in their eye, the one that says his skin color means they might actually have a chance.
Surely the reason a man like this is still single is because no upper-crust lady will have him.
Which means he’ll need to marry down the social ladder.
Earlier I’d said I’m clueless when it comes to less-than-blatant flirting.
I’m not the only one. I remember the story McCreadie told me, soon after we met, about the sex worker who’d expressed great interest in blood splatter Gray had been examining …
and he honestly believed it was the blood splatter she was interested in.
So Gray doesn’t notice Lily’s obvious preening and posturing, and I decide the solution is to leave her with him and hope she’s more forthcoming with him than she’d been with me.
Let him ask her my questions while I go interview someone else.
So I have no idea why Gray scowls after me as I slip from the room, leaving him trapped with Lily.
I do another quick round of the staff, this time with a few new questions. I’m heading back to Isla when Gray appears from nowhere and steps into my path.
“I suppose that amused you,” he says.
“A crime may have been committed. Nothing in that situation amuses me.”
“Except leaving me with a maid who kept thrusting her bosom at me.”
“At least she wasn’t flashing her ankles. Then you’d need to marry her.”
He shakes his head.
“Also,” I say, “it didn’t seem like you noticed the flashing. I’m surprised.”
“I…” He clears his throat, looking flustered. “I did not try to notice, but she kept thrusting … That is to say—”
I squeeze his arm. “I’m teasing you. It was kinda hard to miss, and if you had, I’d have seriously worried about your normally keen sense of observation. I left you with her in hopes she’d be extra forthcoming with a cute guy.”
“Cute guy?”
“It means—”
“Oh, I am certain I can interpret in context, but it denotes the sort of fellow that no one has ever mistaken me for.”
“Cute?”
“Yes.”
“How about hot guy? Is that better?”
Color touches his cheeks.
“Hot means—”
“I have heard you use it before, and we are going to end this tangent, which is obviously designed to see how much you can make me blush. You have no respect for the delicate sensibilities of the Victorian male.”
I sputter a laugh, and that gets a smile from him. “Touché,” I say. “Though, honestly, even in my world, I know a lot of guys who’d blush if I called them hot. And who’d be offended if I called them cute. To women, though, cute just means attractive. So did Lily tell you anything?”
“Yes, actually, she did seem much more amenable to speaking about Nellie once you were gone. She said you are—” He stops. Clears his throat. “Sometimes people prefer speaking to a man. That is their issue, obviously, and has nothing to do with you.”
“She said I’m what?”
When he hesitates, I push, “Come on. I won’t get offended, and it helps me to know what I’m up against, with a witness. She said I’m too female? Too young? Too…”
“Uppity. She said you were uppity. Which you are not.”
I snort. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but in this era, an uppity woman is one with a decent sense of her own worth and who considers herself equal to men. So, yeah, damn straight I’m uppity.”
At that moment, Loomis rounds the corner and stares at me.
Gray doesn’t miss a beat. “He said that?”
I nod. “Those exact words, sir. I am not even sure what they mean, but I was shocked. Shocked.”
The butler continues on. Once he’s gone, I lean in and whisper, “Nice save.”
“Thank you. I am curious about what that means myself, though. Damn straight? Very straight?”
I smile. “It means absolutely right. Just a little more colorful.” I glance up and down the hall. “Should we see if Isla’s ready to be collected? Then you can tell me what Lily said, and I can tell you what I got from everyone else.”
Isla is beyond ready to be collected, and I feel a little guilty about that.
Okay, I feel a lot guilty. It can be hard to tell when Isla’s having a pleasant social visit and when she’d rather stick needles under her fingernails.
She’s perfected the fine art of acting as if every host and guest is fascinating.
Lady Adler, it seems, is fine in small doses, but she’s also a bored old woman who has nothing better to do than talk. And talk. And talk.
We get Isla out of there and meet McCreadie on the corner, where he offers her his arm, and she takes it in both hands, briefly burying her face against it and declaring, “I need a drink.”
“Tea, right?” I say. “Excellent, because that is where we are going. To a tea shop.”
She gives me a murderous glare. “Unless they will supply whisky for my tea, no. I need a drink.”
I glance at Gray and pat his arm. “No afternoon tea for you. Sorry.”
“Oh, he’s fine,” Isla says. “There are cream pastries at home.”
“No, there are not,” McCreadie says. “Because, apparently, Mallory stole the last one.”
“I did not—” I bite it off. “Fine. All the cream pastries belong to Duncan, and I am a demon for thinking otherwise.”
“I … feel as if I missed something,” Isla says.
“Let us get you that drink,” McCreadie says. “We have a case to discuss.”