Chapter 9
I’d become used to seeing angry mobs protesting outside government buildings and the factories and workshops owned by magicians, but seeing one on the steps of a townhouse in a genteel street like Moray Place was far more disconcerting.
Shouting accusations at a man’s home, where he and his household should feel safe, was deeply personal.
I wondered how Mr. Kinloch fared. Was he rigid with fear that they’d take it upon themselves to break down the door and storm inside? I certainly would be.
I spotted the journalist who’d written the article connecting him to the witchfinder of centuries past. He stood to one side of the small but vocal crowd, madly scribbling on a notepad. A photographer stood alongside him, fiddling with the lens of a camera on a tripod, a bag opened at his feet.
We decided to head directly to the mews. We had no need to speak to Mr. Kinloch. Yet.
We passed the house where the first victim, Mary, had worked as a maid. All was quiet. The curtains were closed, which was unusual for a household that employed servants whose duty it was to open them of a morning. Perhaps not so unusual, considering the to-do on their neighbor’s doorstep.
The house next to that one didn’t have the same air of abandonment.
A man and woman watched us from a first-floor window.
They stepped back in unison when they realized I’d seen them.
It was the house where Juliette had been staying when she was abducted from the garden square opposite, so perhaps they were her aunt and uncle.
More police arrived as we rounded the corner, whistles blaring.
We did not see the outcome of their efforts.
The whistles and shouts could still be heard from the mews, but were comfortingly distant.
Aside from the tapping of a hammer against a horse’s shoe, the lane was relatively quiet.
We found Blackburn polishing the carriage door while the groom mucked out the adjoining stables that belonged to Mr. Kinloch.
Blackburn took one look at us and returned to his polishing. “Kinloch’s inside.”
“We want to speak to you about the morning Juliette was abducted,” Oscar said.
Blackburn paused, heaved a sigh, and continued with slow circular motions of his polishing cloth on the already gleaming carriage door.
“You were driving past the garden square when you heard a woman cry out in the early morning. Do you know the time?”
“I ain’t sure of what I heard. Could have been a woman crying out.
Could have been a bird. As to the time, all I can say it was around dawn.
I dinna carry a fancy watch.” Blackburn flipped the cloth onto his shoulder and picked up the tin of polish.
“The abductions ain’t your affair, sir. Go back to London and leave us to solve our own problems.”
“Why are you unsure about what you heard now?” Oscar pressed. “According to the police, you were quite certain on the day of the abduction that the cry had come from a woman. Why do you want to retract your statement?”
“I told ye,” Blackburn growled. “I cannae be sure.”
Oscar huffed in frustration.
Miss Wheeler turned her back to Blackburn. Her voice low, she said, “This is a waste of time. He won’t budge.”
Perhaps we wouldn’t get an answer out of the coachman about the cry he may or may not have heard, but I had a different question for him. It was a question that had rattled around in my head ever since hearing that the two abducted women were magicians.
I cleared my throat. “Last night I overheard you tell the maid from the house next to Mr. Kinloch’s that she doesn’t have anything to fear. You said it with conviction. Why were you certain she had nothing to fear?”
Blackburn must have known the abductor only abducted cotton and wool magicians, and that the maid wasn’t a magician, hence she was safe. It was the only explanation for why he’d not been worried for her safety.
Or so I thought.
Blackburn’s eyes narrowed as he glared at me. “Because the lass is ugly.”
The groom proved he’d been listening to our conversation when he suddenly stopped raking and looked up.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Oscar bit off.
“Suit yaeself.” Blackburn pushed past Oscar, slamming his shoulder into Oscar’s as he went.
Oscar pressed his lips together and glared at the coachman’s broad back.
Miss Wheeler lifted her skirts a few inches to avoid the muck and followed the coachman.
“It’s not just pretty girls who are abducted, you know.
Crimes against women of all description occur in every country around the world.
Appearances are irrelevant.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “I’m sure you know that, which begs the question, why did you mention the maid’s looks at all?
Is it because you know the real reason those women were taken and the maid doesn’t fit the bill? ”
Blackburn suddenly spun around, eyes blazing with fury, fists closed at his sides. “Are ye accusing me of taking them?”
“No, she isn’t,” I quickly said as Oscar wedged himself into the gap between Blackburn and Miss Wheeler. He shot a fierce glare of his own back at the coachman.
Miss Wheeler stepped out from behind Oscar. “Yes, I am. Did you take them, Mr. Blackburn? Or do you know who did?”
The fire in the coachman’s eyes dimmed then extinguished altogether.
He scrubbed a hand through his beard as he glanced toward the groom, who’d returned to his duties.
“It wasnae me, and I dinnae ken who took the women.” He glanced at the groom again and lowered his voice further.
“You should look at Redmayne. He was a footman in another house years ago where a lass went missing. She was found dead days later. Redmayne came under suspicion, but was never charged. If he was innocent, why did he leave there and come tae work here?”
“How do you know this?” Oscar asked.
“I just do.”
“Did you ever see Redmayne interact with either of the missing women?”
“Nae.” Blackburn thrust a finger smudged with black polish into the air between himself and Oscar. “Dinnae tell anyone what I said.”
“We’ll have to inform the police if it becomes relevant to this investigation.”
Blackburn seemed satisfied with that and began to walk off. I wasn’t finished, however.
“If it was Redmayne,” I said quietly so that the groom couldn’t hear, “why do you think he’d leave straw effigies at the scenes of the abductions?”
Blackburn gave it serious thought before answering. “Tae throw suspicion onto Kinloch, descendant of the witchfinder. Since the lasses were magicians, an effigy puts it in folk’s minds that witchcraft’s a motive.”
It was the same explanation Redmayne had given us earlier.
“Magic is not witchcraft,” Oscar pointed out.
Blackburn turned away and strode to the coach house exit. He waited there for us to file past him.
“We should check out his story about Redmayne,” Oscar said once we were out of earshot of Blackburn. “Even if it happened years ago, it’s a coincidence we shouldn’t ignore.”
I agreed, as did Miss Wheeler, albeit with a reservation. “Blackburn offered up the information quite readily.”
“We’d accused him of being the abductor,” Oscar pointed out. “He had to tell us to throw suspicion off himself and onto another.”
“Precisely. He may have made it up so that we’d look elsewhere for a suspect. I’m not suggesting we don’t look into Redmayne’s previous employment—we should—just that Blackburn didn’t require much prompting, and it’s something we should bear in mind.”
“He also said ‘were.’” At their blank looks, I added, “He said ‘the girls were magicians.’ Does that mean he knows they’re dead?” I suppressed a shiver as the thought chilled me. Those poor women.
Oscar came to a stop at the stables of Kinloch’s next-door neighbor, near where the first abduction took place. He indicated the horse peering over the lower stall door at us. “Would an indoor servant need to bring out the slops? I’d say it’s the groom’s task to feed the horses.”
A spotty youth’s face peered over the stall door. “I’d leave if I were you. The coachman dinnae like ink scribblers.”
“We’re investigators not journalists,” Oscar said, approaching. “We’re working with the police. Can we ask you some questions about Mary, the maid who worked here?”
“Aye. Anything tae help find her.”
“Where were you when Mary was abducted?”
“In my room, above the stables, eating dinner with the coachman. We dinnae hear anything until Agnes came and asked if we’d seen her.”
“Why was Mary bringing out the leftovers for the horse? Is it a task she always undertook?”
“Aye. It was an excuse tae come out here and see the horses. She liked ’em.”
“Did she come out here to meet someone?” Miss Wheeler asked.
“Who?”
“A young man, perhaps. Someone she’d been stepping out with.”
The groom’s gaze looked past us, making us all turn. The maid who Blackburn had called ugly stood there. While her masculine features stopped her from being conventionally pretty, she wasn’t awful to look at by any stretch of the imagination.
I smiled at her. “Good morning. I’m Gavin Nash, and this is Miss Wheeler and Oscar Barratt. What’s your name?”
“Agnes.”
“You work in the same house as Mary, don’t you?” I indicated the back of Mr. Kinloch’s next-door neighbor’s house.
She nodded.
“Do you know if she has a paramour?”
Agnes’s gaze flicked to the groom and back. “She has a lot of ’em. She’s a hoore.”
I stared at her, not quite sure how to proceed after the rather nasty accusation. I’d felt sympathy for Agnes until that moment.
The groom chided Agnes for speaking ill of Mary. “Mary’s a flirt,” he clarified for our benefit. “The lads like her. She’s bonnie.”
“Did she flirt with anyone in particular?” Miss Wheeler asked.
The groom shrugged. Agnes didn’t answer. I got the feeling she knew something, but wasn’t sure whether to tell us.
“Did she receive letters from anyone?” Miss Wheeler prompted.
Neither servant answered.