Chapter Three #2
“Well, the Magnificent Maguire often started his acts with the Lady in the Coffin Illusion,” Phillip said.
“Which looks like this one, except the lady always survived. And then he gave the audience members who participated in his shows a Jack of Hearts from his card deck,” Phillip replied.
“I suppose you could say it was Maguire’s calling card, and a keepsake for whoever had been lucky enough to be chosen from the audience.
I used to want one of them cards of his, really bad, but can’t say I would want one now, though…
” Phillip looked down to the dead woman, and his skin turned a very definite shade of green.
Tobias plucked the card out of the tweezer’s grip and stared at it further. It seemed to be a normal card, of good quality stock, but nothing special about it, apart from having been left in the dead woman’s hands and having the words, ‘the first of six’ written down the bottom in black ink.
He felt his heart sink.
“Does that mean what I think it does?” Dr. Morton asked, peering over at the card. “That this poor lady is the first of six to die?”
“I can’t see what else it would mean, Doctor,” Tobias replied.
The doctor glanced up at Tobias, worry in his gaze. “Let us hope he kills at a snail’s pace, then.”
Tobias shook his head in agreement. “The knowledge of this card must be kept completely confidential. I cannot afford to have any leak of this to the press. It would not only cause panic, but it could be our key to finding this killer, and I cannot have that compromised in any way.” He first looked at the doctor then back to Phillip. “Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Phillip said with an earnest nod. “I won’t say a word.”
“Nor will I,” Dr. Morton agreed, conviction radiating in his voice.
“Um, sir,” Phillip added, “if that’s all, I’m done here, and I think it prudent for me to head back to the station to process these pictures.”
Tobias nodded. It seemed a lot of his normal stalwart staff were being greatly affected by the murder, not that he could blame them in the slightest. “Make processing the photographs a priority, Phillip. We need to catch whoever did this before he strikes again.”
“You really think he plans to kill another five people?” Phillip’s voice shook.
“The level of violence and precision displayed suggests that whoever did this is no stranger to death,” Tobias replied.
“And staging this whole scene like some sort of macabre magic show? It all suggests that yes, he’s likely to kill again, and if I had to lay money on it, sooner rather than later too. What do you think, Doctor?”
The doctor had a good deal of experience in not only dealing with death, but he worked on occasion at a lunatic asylum and often provided expert testimonials in court regard the mind of killers. Tobias relied on him often for his insight.
Rubbing his hand against his thick, black beard, Dr. Morton took a moment to ponder the question.
“Unfortunately, I believe you’re correct, Inspector.
Though given my experience in treating those who are unsound in the mind, I would think that we have days, perhaps weeks, if we’re lucky, before he strikes again. ”
“God help us all,” Phillip muttered, making the sign of the cross over his chest.
A sentiment Tobias shared. If the killer were to strike again in such a short time, God help them all. They were going to need it.
*
“Stubbings? Where the Devil are you?” Tobias called out into the seemingly empty office inside the warehouse as he wandered around the room, Iain only steps behind him while they searched for the constable and the witness the officer was meant to be watching.
“I thought you said they were going to be waiting here in the office area?” He turned back to Iain, who was also glancing around the empty room.
“I don’t understand it. He was under strict instructions to wait in here with the man,” Iain confirmed, a frown now firmly etched across his brow. “Stubbings!” Iain roared. “Show yourself now!”
A muffled thud sounded from behind a closed door at the far end of the room.
Both Tobias and Iain glanced at each other and nodded. Swiftly, Tobias pulled out his revolver from the holster under his jacket, while Iain removed his truncheon from the truncheon pocket of his trousers.
“When did they give you authority to carry a pistol?” Iain whispered as they both made their way over to the doorway, their footfalls nearly silent on the floorboards.
Pistols were only issued in special circumstances, with most police simply carrying trebuchets on their persons, a legacy of Peel’s ideas of making police as nonthreatening as possible.
“They issued me one after you nearly got your head blown off last year,” Tobias murmured as they both positioned themselves against the sides of the door, with Tobias taking point on the left of the door and Iain on the right.
Tobias took in a quick breath and gave a nod, to which Iain leaned forward and in one fluid motion twisted the handle and flung open the door.
Taking the lead, Tobias peered around the doorjamb, his revolver held in front of him, as his eyes quickly examined the space.
It was another office area, with desks and chairs in the middle of the room, and a row of wooden filing cabinets along the left wall.
There was also a window at the far end of the room leading out to the back of the building.
The window was wide open, its curtains flapping in the breeze.
A muffled voice echoed from the back of the room.
Immediately, Tobias rushed over to the sound, with Iain following behind.
He saw Stubbings lying on the floor, a rag tied around his mouth, his hands cuffed to an iron pipe leading from the wall towards a cast-iron radiator.
He also had blood dripping down his forehead from a laceration.
Tobias holstered his revolver and wrenched the rag from Stubbings’s mouth. “What happened?”
Stubbings shook his head, his eyes awash in confusion.
“I don’t know, sir. Honestly, I don’t. Mr. Murphy asked to come in here so he could turn the radiator on to get the room warm for some of the office staff, and then he was having trouble turning the knob of the pipe, as he didn’t have the strength to twist it, so he asked me to help.
I went over and bent down and started turning it, and then the next thing I know, I was waking up here on the floor, cuffed to this pipe, a rag in my mouth, and my head pounding like a freight train. ”
Tobias stood and strode over to the window, noting it was about ten feet from the ground, with a drainpipe right next to the window leading down to the ground below.
Certainly, too high for anyone to jump out from, let alone an elderly gentleman with a hunched back.
But the pipe was climbable for an agile man.
Not to mention there was a scrap of torn brown tweed fabric against one of the bolts of the drainpipe near the window ledge, and what looked to be a stuffed cushion and a tweed jacket lying on the ground next to where the pipe ended.
He glanced back over at Iain, who was unlocking the cuffs around Stubbings’s wrists using his own universal cuff key. “Was Mr. Murphy wearing a brown tweed jacket, by any chance?”
“He was,” Stubbings replied as Iain helped him to his feet before leading him over to sit down in a chair.
“How’d you know that?” Iain asked as he came over to stand beside Tobias at the window.
“It seems your Hunchback of Notre Dame shimmied down the drainpipe and left his hunch on the ground, along with his jacket.” He pointed to the ground below.
“Well, fuck me,” Iain swore. “Looks like I owe you beers at the pub for the next blood month, doesn’t it?”