Chapter 13 #2
The theatre manager’s office was in a state of total disarray.
His desk had been swiped clear, the contents strewn all over the floor, the chairs overturned; the cabinets stood open, drawers pulled free and emptied upon the floor, leaving a mess of papers and trinkets; and lying on the floor next to the bedstead, was Mr. Bernadetto himself.
Blood splattered his face and neck, soaking into his collar and onto the carpet beneath him.
Audrey clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling her scream.
“The window,” Mr. Marsden said, and then rushed toward it. The sash had been thrown open. With a sickening roll of her stomach, Audrey realized the muffled sound they’d heard from the behind the door must have been the intruder. Which meant he hadn’t gotten far.
“Stay here!” Mr. Marsden shouted to her before leaping up onto the open sill and maneuvering himself out through the window.
“No! Mr. Marsden, stop!” she cried as he dropped from view. Audrey dashed on clumsy legs to the window, reaching for the sill—and drawing back when she saw red stains smeared there. Mr. Bernadetto’s blood.
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself forward and peered out into a side alleyway—perhaps even the same one Mr. Marsden had led her down earlier.
She could see neither the officer nor any other man running away but heard shouting and the shrill blows of a pea whistle.
Stymied, and increasingly horrified at being left alone in a room where a crime had just been committed, Audrey stumbled back, her eyes darting toward Mr. Bernadetto.
He was utterly still. But perhaps… She edged closer, watching for any sign that he might still be alive.
That he could be saved. There. Movement. A rise of his chest.
Audrey went to his side, staring at the gore of his slashed neck and the blood dribbling from it.
His eyes were wide open, his mouth slack.
Audrey crouched lower, watching his chest. No.
She had to have been mistaken. He couldn’t possibly still be alive, not with so much blood pooled around him and his throat so mangled.
A noise gurgled from Mr. Bernadetto’s throat. She screamed and shot to her feet, staggering back.
“Audrey!”
She whipped around at her name, shouted from the corridor. Heaving for air, Mr. Marsden barreled into the office, a pistol in his hand.
“I heard you scream,” he panted, his cheeks flushed from giving chase, his eyes roving over her, as if assessing her for any injury.
“I’m…I’m fine, it’s Mr. Bernadetto. He made a noise. I think he’s alive!” She pointed toward the man, needlessly. Mr. Marsden came forward and crouched next to the manager. He took his wrist and held still, measuring a pulse. But then shook his head.
“Damn it.” He stood again, moving back out of the wet fibers of the carpet.
A strange numbness stole over her. “But I…I heard a sound,” she whispered.
“Death is not always fast, even when it is certain.” Mr. Marsden touched her arm, tugging her lightly. She stumbled away from Mr. Bernadetto, and she realized she’d been standing in his expanding pool of blood.
“Did you see him?” she asked, her vision unsteady. “The man who…”
“He had too much of a lead. I’ve signaled another street patrol. There is someone coming.” He maintained a hold on her arm. Audrey felt like it was tightening. “You should sit.”
She shook her head, but instantly regretted it when she felt the room tip. “I’m fine.”
It wasn’t true. Her breaths were too shallow, and she’d become entirely too dependent on the strength of Mr. Marsden’s arm. The gurgling of air and blood escaping the slashed neck, the squelch of the carpet beneath her slippers… Her vision wiped clean. The officer’s voice faded.
When her sight returned what felt like moments later, she was staring at the ceiling.
“Just lie still,” a soft, deep voice said. Mr. Marsden moved into her vision, hovering above her. Audrey blinked.
“What…?”
“You swooned.”
Audrey’s senses were suddenly alert enough to send a flood of humiliation through her. She swatted his hand away as he tried to keep her from rising.
“I do not swoon,” she insisted, even as she sat up to find that she’d been lain out on top of Mr. Bernadetto’s desk. Two other men were in the room now too, standing near the theatre manager’s splayed body. And in the doorway, Carrigan stood with his cap crushed in his big hands.
“No need to be ashamed,” Mr. Marsden said gently. “Men have lost the contents of their stomach at lesser crime scenes.” He slid to block her view as she looked toward the bedstead again.
Her limbs were shaky as she swung her legs off the side of the desk. She must have been unconscious for longer than a few moments if the street patrolmen and her driver had made their way into the theatre.
“Goodness, I didn’t cast up my accounts too, did I?”
Mr. Marsden huffed a laugh. “No.” He swung a glance over his shoulder, his expression darkening. “If you’re ready to stand, I’ll take you back to Violet House.”
She slid down from the desk, and Mr. Marsden’s hands came up to bracket her shoulders. Heat flushed her cheeks and she flinched, panicking that he might pass a vision to her, like last time he’d taken her elbow.
“I’m fine,” she said again, moving away from him. She felt like such a fool.
Partially to avoid his eyes, Audrey peered at the destroyed office. The papers strewn about, cabinets opened and overturned.
“He was looking for something,” she murmured.
“It appears that way. Though there’s no telling if he was successful in finding it.”
Her first steps toward Carrigan at the door were tremulous. “What could Mr. Bernadetto have had in here?” she mused aloud.
Mr. Marsden walked with her into the corridor. “I don’t know, but I doubt this was a simple burglary gone wrong. The method of the attack on Mr. Bernadetto…” He sighed. “It matches the type of wounds Miss Lovejoy sustained.”
Gooseflesh spread along her arms, and she tripped to a stop as her spirits gave an expected jump. “Then that proves Philip is innocent. He’s locked up right now, it couldn’t have been him.”
Mr. Marsden turned to face her. “It proves nothing.”
“But surely if both attacks are the same—”
“The inquest for Bernadetto won’t be for a few days, and until then there is no evidence to link the two murders other than a heavily mutilated throat.”
Carrigan took a step closer to Audrey in the corridor, as if to protect her from some invisible foe. No, not invisible. The murderer had been just on the other side of that office door.
Mr. Marsden, too, stepped closer. He lowered his voice, his expression one of smoldering wrath. “He knew we were coming here this morning, and he got to Bernadetto before we could.”
She shook her head. “That’s impossible, I told no one but you and my maid and Carrigan. Who did you tell?”
He grimaced and searched the corridor behind her. “Just Basil.”
Audrey frowned, curious. “Who is Basil?”
“My valet. He can be trusted.”
He employed a valet? Audrey puzzled over a Bow Street officer being able to afford a staff. Then again, his personal life was none of her business.
“Our voices might have carried last night in the drive at Violet House,” she suggested. “There was a man watching, after all.”
“Not at that point. Sir would have seen him.”
Audrey frowned again. He certainly placed a lot of stock into this Sir.
Mr. Marsden turned to her driver. “Carrigan, correct? There is an unknown man following Her Grace. She’s spotted him twice now outside Violet House. Do you have any footmen who could check the perimeter of the property on an hourly basis throughout the night?”
Audrey simmered as Carrigan seemed to grow taller, his shoulders broader, and his expression flattened to something deadly serious.
“I’ll speak to the butler. We’ll be sure no one steps foot on the property and that Her Grace has someone with her at all times.”
Audrey glared at them both. “Her Grace is right here, and I will decide if I require a guard.”
Mr. Marsden growled with impatience. “There is a dead body in the room behind us, Your Grace. What more do you need to convince you?”
The mention of a dead body should have captured her attention, but it was his emphasis on Your Grace that did instead. For whatever reason, hearing it made her recall the way he’d instead shouted her given name when he’d heard her scream earlier. She didn’t know why it flustered her so much.
Audrey forced herself to forget it.
“Mr. Bernadetto was likely killed because the murderer made a mistake,” she said. “He left something behind. Some clue.”
She had made a mistake too. Back in the theatre manager’s office, she should have kept her wits about her and hunted down an object, some possession of Mr. Bernadetto’s to help her see something informative. Instead, she’d swooned.
“I agree,” Mr. Marsden said, surprising her. “And I have an idea who to question about it.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I’ll come with you.”
“You’re not invited. But before I leave, I’ll escort you home.”
Audrey clenched her hands into fists and resisted the urge to stomp her foot. “There is no need. I have Carrigan.” She set her shoulders. “Besides, I’m not afraid, Mr. Marsden.”
“Then someone ought to be afraid for you.”
He tipped the brim of his hat and disappeared back into the theatre manager’s office.