Chapter 36
The Duke contemplated Kendra across the dining room table where he’d joined her and Alec for a late lunch. “You think there’s been a conspiracy to commit murder? Because Isabella spoke to you about Vivaldi and the saints? My dear, the creature’s mind is hardly sound.”
Kendra speared a boiled potato. “It’s about seeing the world through Isabella’s eyes. She wanted to be an opera singer and seems to have idolized Vivaldi. It’s not too much of a stretch to have her look at the group’s leader as a composer like Vivaldi.”
“And the saints are his followers?” murmured the Duke. “I suppose that’s possible.”
“We’ve got a leader and at least two others. Maybe three. Four—if Thornton was part of the group or loosely connected.”
The Duke’s blue eyes took on a grayish cast that indicated he was disturbed. “Or more. Who knows how many are part of this conspiracy?”
“She’s going to quote her fellow countryman, Benjamin Franklin,” Alec warned, and smiled crookedly at Kendra.
“It holds. The group has to be limited to only a few trusted individuals to remain a secret. Otherwise, you open yourself up to that human failing that Lady St. James relies on—gossip.”
“Transfusions are a crime,” the Duke reminded her. “They’re hardly going to gossip about that.”
“These men think they’ve come up with a way to purify blood. That’s thrilling stuff. It’s hard to keep thrilling stuff to yourself.”
“Not so thrilling when their procedure resulted in the death of a woman,” the Duke said softly. “Which brings up another point. If they’ve come up with a process to purify the blood, why is Isabella alive and Clarice dead?”
“I don’t know,” Kendra admitted. “Isabella was treated before Clarice. Obviously, she wasn’t cured. Maybe they became more aggressive with Clarice.”
The Duke’s mouth formed a grim line. “And murdered the poor creature.”
“I doubt that they’d view it like that. She was an experiment that failed.”
“She was a human being. How could they look at her as…as something to be discarded?”
Kendra understood the Duke’s horror, but shrugged. “A certain cold-bloodedness—or, at least, detachment—is necessary when you’re conducting medical research. People die in drug or medical device trials. It’s part of the learning process. All advancements come with a cost.”
Alec’s eyes narrowed. “They murdered Lady Westford, Dr. Thornton, and his maid to keep their experiments a secret.”
“One could argue that Mr. Goldsten was also their victim,” the Duke added.
“He may have committed self-murder, but only because he felt he had no alternative. You’re right, Kendra, about these men—Vivaldi and the saints.
They’re powerful enough that Mr. Goldsten believed they could destroy everything he’s worked for—his reputation, his practice. ”
They fell into a thoughtful silence. Alec and the Duke finished their meal, while Kendra pushed away her plate. She was no longer hungry.
“Did the seamstress at Bowden Theater tell you anything?” Alec asked.
The change of subject snapped Kendra out of her brood.
“Yes. Edwina’s alive. Or, at least, she was a day ago.
Just a minute.” She jumped up from the table and ran out of the room.
A maid and footman gaped at her as she bolted up the stairs.
Their mouths dropped open again when she raced back to the dining room.
“Here,” she said, opening her hand to show them the thimble that Edwina had left for Old Beatrice.
“It’s a thimble,” the Duke observed, taking the sewing tool from Kendra.
“I have to admit that I had no idea what it was when Betrice showed it to me.”
“Why is a thimble so important?” Alec wondered. “The woman is a seamstress, isn’t she?”
“It’s a very old thimble,” the Duke said. “Maybe Greek or Roman?”
“Edwina left it for Beatrice when she retrieved her possessions. I’m hoping it will help us find her. Maybe Edwina bought it, although it seems a strange thing to spend money on, especially if she has limited funds.”
“She didn’t buy it.”
At the certainty in the Duke’s voice, she turned to him. “How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen similar items. She found it—one of the Thames’s treasures.”
“Ah, of course,” Alec said.
Kendra glanced between the men. “What do you two know that I don’t?”
The Duke said, “Mudlarks pick up things like this all the time.”
“Mudlarks?”
“Scavengers,” Alec answered. “They wait for the Thames’s tide to go out, then they mine the mudflats for coal, coins, anything that they can use or sell to survive.”
“Edwina was seen around the docks,” Kendra said.
“It would be clever of her to join the mudlarks.” The Duke picked up his ale and took a swallow. “They’re around, but no one pays them any attention. Unless they misjudge the tide and drown, which is an all-too-common occurrence, I’m afraid.”
“So, they go out every time the tide is low?”
Alec said, “If they want to eat, they do.”
“When’s the next low tide?”
“Later this afternoon.” Alec regarded her. “I guess we’re going mudlarking.”
Kendra’s palms tingled in anticipation. “It’s a chance. Our best chance of finding Edwina. We’re going to take it.”
***
Dark clouds began blowing in around two-thirty. Kendra prayed the rain that might come with them would hold off until after they’d conducted their search for Edwina. They were getting close.
A message arrived from Munroe to let her know that his geological expert, Mr. Engel, was at the anatomy school.
“You don’t think he’ll give you anything useful for the investigation,” Alec guessed, watching her from the seat on the other side of the carriage. “Finding the location of where a body had been based on dirt seems a bit fanciful.”
“Not in another couple of decades it won’t be. But because we’re not there yet . . . yeah, I guess I don’t think he’ll be that useful.”
“Why are we wasting time speaking to him then?”
“I don’t know if it is a waste of time—yet. You have to explore an angle before you know if you’ve wasted your time exploring it, if that makes sense.”
“Oddly enough, it does. No one can predict the future.” He flashed her a wicked grin. “Even a time traveler.”
Kendra was a little surprised to find Munroe’s anatomy school humming with activity, as most of her visits had been conducted after school hours.
Today, the wooden bleachers in the operating theater were filled with medical students, while Mr. Barts lectured, standing next to a table upon which lay a naked male cadaver.
A few men in the audience shouted ribald remarks, prompting an astonishingly stern rebuke from the weak-chinned apprentice.
Kendra and Alec continued down the hall to Munroe’s office. Inside, the anatomist was sitting behind his desk, talking to Sam, the Duke, and another man—Mr. Engel, Kendra presumed. At Kendra and Alec’s entrance, all three men stood.
“A pleasure,” Mr. Engel said, beaming and bowing as introductions were made.
He was a short, spare man clothed entirely in black except for his snowy white cravat.
Kendra thought he might be a Quaker, but he wore an ornate gold-and-ruby pin fastened to the folds of his cravat.
Early sixties, Kendra estimated. The sun had permanently browned his complexion and bleached his hair into a silvery-sheened blond.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Engel,” Kendra said once they’d settled into chairs again.
“Well, I have to say this has been quite exciting, my lady,” he replied. “I’m a surveyor by trade, but the study of geology is a passion of mine. The two, of course, intersect. There is so much to learn from Mother Earth.”
Kendra caught Sam’s dubious expression.
Mr. Engel leaned forward, eyes twinkling.
“I must say, I’ve never been asked to identify sediment off a corpse before.
Naturally, when I received Dr. Munroe’s letter, I was quite intrigued.
I wanted to come straightaway, but my sister—she keeps house for me in Cambridge—reminded me that it’s not safe to travel at night.
I waited until dawn and came as soon as I could. ”
“We appreciate your speed,” said the Duke.
“Well, I confess, I was fascinated. Examining soil and sediment on a corpse to help in a criminal investigation is a novel idea. I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”
Kendra had to suppress a smile. Mr. Engel was eerily accurate—it was a novel idea.
Forensic geology would first be envisioned by the novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose most famous character, Sherlock Holmes, was able to identify where suspects had been based on the dirt on their shoes.
A few years later, fiction would become fact when German scientist George Popp analyzed soil samples in an effort to solve crimes, and a new branch of forensics was born.
“Have you examined the sediment on the body, Mr. Engel?” Kendra asked.
Munroe spoke up. “I brought Mr. Engel to the morgue as soon as he arrived to conduct the examination.” He gestured to the counter holding one of his old-fashioned microscopes. “We brought the samples here, if you would care to view them yourself, my lady.”
“I’m not sure I’d know what I was looking at,” she admitted, but stood up and moved over to the counter. “Why don’t you explain what you found.”
Mr. Engel joined her. “London has a complex geology, my lady. There is much discussion about how this came to be.” He paused and smiled.
“Which is neither here nor there. My passions often get the best of me. My sister is always reminding me that few people appreciate long, tedious lectures on how the earth may have been formed.”
“I’m actually interested,” said the Duke, peering through the microscope. He raised his head to look at the surveyor. “Would you be available for dinner tonight to discuss the subject at length?”
Mr. Engel seemed dazzled by the invitation. “Oh, my. Yes, Your Grace. I would be honored.”
“What did you find, Mr. Engel?” Kendra asked again.