Chapter 26
Later that afternoon, Kendra sat alone in the library, Alec having accompanied the Duke to view a possible business venture. Munroe had sent her the list of Metamorphosis Club members, and she was now carefully perusing the names.
Without Munroe or Barts’s names on the list, the club’s members totaled thirty-eight. However, Munroe had put a line through twelve names, with a helpful notation to explain those gentlemen were either out of the country or had retired to the country for the summer months.
Kendra went down the twenty-six remaining names and began crossing off everyone Munroe identified as sixty-five or older. Sir Preston was in that group. She might even be able to go down another decade, given that Bridget had claimed the man she’d seen was younger.
That left her with fourteen names. More could be eliminated once they factored in physical description—average height and weight—and verified alibis.
Still, fourteen names out of thirty-eight wasn’t bad.
She went to the slate board, grabbed a rag she’d wetted earlier, and scrubbed off Lord Westford’s name. She could envision him being angry enough to put bruises on his wife because of her involvement with Goldsten, but he was a piece that no longer fit the rest of the puzzle.
Goldsten, however, remained on the list.
She began to pace. The man checked all the boxes, didn’t he?
He’d dedicated himself to medicine, working at both his own clinic as well as St. George’s.
He was intimately involved with the victim.
He’d lied about the last time he’d seen her.
And—this was the kicker—he’d been seen by Lady Westford with a younger, prettier woman.
Before death claimed her, Clarice had been younger and prettier.
Clarice was the key. The reason Lady Westford was murdered.
Kendra stopped pacing to read the words she’d written about the actress: Clarice Chapman (now confirmed) – exsanguinated, body stolen, body recovered, eyes and uterus removed.
Why remove the eyes and uterus after the body was stolen from the morgue? If the killer had wanted them, why not remove them at the time the victim’s blood was drained? For that matter, why remove them at all?
She understood the Duke’s fear that they were dealing with a serial killer—they were known for taking trophies off their victims. The infamous murderer Ed Gein had decorated his Wisconsin farmhouse with a macabre collection of severed noses and heads, bowls fashioned from skulls, and even a lampshade made from the face of one of his victims. Most serial killers felt compelled to take souvenirs because they wanted to maintain an intimate connection to their victim, to relive the murder over and over again in their minds.
But a serial killer would have removed the eyes and uterus the first time. The only thing taken from Clarice before she’d been dumped in the Thames had been her blood. No torture, except for the puncture wounds and chafed skin where she’d been restrained.
No, they weren’t dealing with a serial killer. She’d stake her reputation as an FBI agent on it—even if that reputation wouldn’t be made for another two-hundred-plus years.
“My lady.”
Wakely stood in the doorway with a look on his face that suggested he’d been trying to get her attention for a while.
“Sorry, I was lost in thought,” Kendra said. “Can I help you?”
“Mr. Kelly is at the door. Are you at home?”
“Yes. Show him up.” When the Bow Street Runner appeared, she said, “Mr. Kelly, please tell me that you’ve learned something.”
He removed his tricorn hat. “A maid across the street saw a carriage outside Thornton’s last night, and a gentleman went inside.
She didn’t think he was a stranger, as Jenny invited him in immediately.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t give a description, as he and his coachman were bundled up because of the rain.
She didn’t see a crest on the carriage, but it wasn’t a public hackney. ”
Kendra bit back a sigh. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy, could it? She brought the list of names over to Sam. “This is the list of Metamorphosis Club members that Dr. Munroe sent me. He eliminated everyone who’s not in town. I crossed out those that are too old.”
Sam’s eyes were troubled as he took the paper. “These men . . . physicians, sawbones, surgeon apprentices and apothecaries. They’re dedicated ter healing.”
“You know as well as I do that murderers come in all forms and classes, Mr. Kelly.”
He exhaled a long breath. “Aye, I do. It don’t make much sense, though. These are clever men. Why would one of them kill Lady Westford in a way that was bound ter attract attention?”
A very good question.
“It wasn’t very clever, was it?” she murmured, her eyes on the slate board as she let the possibilities run through her head. “And we are dealing with intelligent men.”
Sam regarded her intently. “What are you thinking, lass?”
“I’m thinking . . . it would make sense if Lady Westford’s murder wasn’t premediated.”
The Bow Street Runner lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “He just happened ter followed her ter the theater? What did he want? Ter talk?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I think.” She turned back to Sam.
“Remember Lady Westford’s reputation. She was interested in finding cures to diseases.
She even corresponded with Edward Jenner about his smallpox vaccine.
Somehow, Lady Westford learned about the experiments being done on Clarice.
Exitus acta probat. The end justified the means. ”
“Aye, but the means resulted in the death of a girl.”
“If Clarice’s death was an accident, our killer might have believed he could talk Lady Westford into . . . understanding what he was trying to accomplish.”
“He expected her ladyship ter ignore Clarice’s murder?”
“In his mind, Clarice wasn’t murdered. She was an experiment that went wrong.
And, yes, I think that’s what he hoped for when he approached Lady Westford.
When she didn’t get onboard, he knew he couldn’t let her leave the theater alive.
” Kendra tapped the piece of slate against her chin.
“He had to think fast. He didn’t want her death to look like murder.
That would mean an investigation. Scrutiny.
So, he forced her up the stairs and threw her over the balcony.
“He then made certain that Dr. Thornton oversaw the postmortem and planted the seed that the victim had killed herself while he ruled her death an accident. Who wanted to be the person to suggest someone like Lady Westford, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, had committed suicide?”
“God’s teeth, I take back what I said. The fiend is clever.
No one in Bow Street would raise doubts.
Certainly not Parker. It would’ve been left alone—if not for the Queen.
” He shook his head, then scanned the list in his hand.
“Dr. Thornton must have known the truth. Was he part of this experimentation?”
“I don’t know. His wife died from diabetes, and he still mourns her. I don’t think it would’ve been too difficult to get him to look the other way if someone was trying to cure diseases with unethical research.”
“Even if it caused a girl to die?”
Kendra shrugged. “There are winners and losers in all medical research.” Even in her own time, sick people were given placebo treatments while others were given experimental drugs.
Both could die. Or be saved. It was the price of research.
The difference was that the participants in medical trials knew the risks.
Not always, though. History echoed with unethical experiments.
One of the more infamous was the Tuskegee Experiment, which, ironically, was also an attempt to cure syphilis.
Beginning in the early 1930s, researchers enlisted more than six hundred Black men from Alabama’s Tuskegee College.
Four-hundred-thirty-one men had syphilis, and were studied as the disease developed.
When penicillin became available to treat the disease in 1947, the doctors chose to supply the men with placebos in order to study how the disease progressed.
Doctors—scientists—allowed the men to go blind and insane—and give birth to nineteen syphilitic children.
It took decades before the experiments were halted, thanks to a whistleblower.
Lady Westford would have been a whistleblower if she hadn’t been killed.
“Why did the fiend murder Dr. Thornton, then?” Sam asked.
“Clarice died in a treatment. In his eyes, it was for the greater good. But Lady Westford . . . that crossed a line.”
“He still ruled it an accident.”
“He was an accessory after the fact,” Kendra agreed. “Probably hoped the whole thing would go away. The investigation forced him to think about his actions. If he showed any doubt, he became a threat. And just like Lady Westford, he needed to be eliminated.”
“The villain is bloody ruthless.”
“Yes. He also thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. Do you know who thinks they’re smarter than everybody else, Mr. Kelly?”
“The French, the royals, most noblemen and women, the clergy—”
Kendra had to laugh. “Point taken. You can add to that list: doctors. Surgeons, physicians. They tend to have a god complex.”
“They think they’re God?”
“Sometimes.” She remembered Dandridge arguing that surgeons played God every time they operated on a patient. “Or they consider themselves superior to other men. Infallible in their thinking, their decision-making, their feelings.”
Like my father.
“We know the why—his motive for killing. Now we need to find out the who.” Kendra gestured to the sheet of paper that Sam held. “He’s one of the names on that list, Mr. Kelly. I’d bet my life on it.”