Chapter Ten
“I heard there was a bit of a commotion at the Yard yesterday,” Dr. Morton said dryly as he straightened from where he’d been examining a specimen under a microscope and glanced up as Tobias and Iain entered his laboratory.
“News travels fast,” Tobias gruffly replied, coming to a standstill beside where the doctor was seated on the bench stool.
“It was a spectacle, Doc,” Iain added with a chuckle. “And a bloody hilarious one at that, after we found our great inspector here, cuffed to his own filing cabinet, using his own handcuffs, no less.”
“Remember we agreed it was no laughing matter, Sergeant,” Tobias reminded him, crossing his hands over his chest.
“Aye, the part about the lass getting into the Yard isn’t, but the part with you involved most definitely is.
” Iain grinned. “I haven’t seen you so bamboozled before in my life.
You, someone who never loses his composure, standing there, rattled.
That in and of itself warrants a bit of laughter, I would say.
” The man demonstrated just how much laughter he thought it deserved, letting out a big, booming chuckle that filled the spacious room and only grated further on Tobias’s already pounding head.
“Well, I wouldn’t,” Tobias replied, to which Iain only laughed harder.
“I must say, I’m rather curious,” the doctor said, his eyes flicking between Iain and Tobias. “I heard rumors that some sort of explosion went off in the northeastern wing, but I hadn’t heard about your predicament, Inspector. Was it related to the explosion?”
“It was,” came Tobias’s curt reply. “Though it wasn’t exactly an explosion. It was fireworks let off inside the CID offices.”
“Oh, I am very intrigued now. What exactly happened?” Dr. Morton asked.
Tobias explained about the fireworks being set off in a bin, which in turn had triggered the internal fire sirens, causing pandemonium on the fifth floor.
“While everyone was rushing to help deal with the fireworks,” Iain added, “that’s when the boss here had an encounter with a cleaning lady—”
“She was no cleaning lady,” Tobias interrupted. If Iain was going to tell the story, he should get the facts straight. “The woman was an expert pickpocket and master illusionist—of that, I have no doubt.”
“Just because she got the better of you doesn’t make her an expert at anything. Well, except perhaps an expert at hoodwinking you.” Iain slapped his legs with his hand and chuckled again.
“You’re damn lucky I consider you a friend, Iain Kellerman,” Tobias warned. “Otherwise, I’d fire you on the spot for your insubordination.”
“Nah, you wouldn’t.” Iain’s smile hadn’t dimmed for an instant. “Otherwise, who’d tell you the truth?”
“Did this lady really lock you to a filing cabinet with your own cuffs?” the doctor asked, his eyes glancing down at the cuff pouch looped onto Tobias’s belt.
Tobias nodded. “She was rifling through the papers on my desk, clearly looking for information, when I came upon her. Then all hell broke loose in the building, which was clearly a distraction she’d set up to help her escape.”
“So, she escaped, then,” the doctor correctly surmised.
“Yes. We think she disguised herself as a man on her way down the back stairwell,” Tobias replied, wondering for the life of him how someone could completely transform in the space of a few minutes.
He explained about her clothing being found in the stairwell, and the constable stationed at the loading dock exit being adamant that only two male painters had left the building, not a woman.
“And let me guess, the actual painters working there were not missing any colleagues?” The doctor rubbed at his beard in what Tobias had learned over the last few years was a habitual manner whenever the doctor was processing information.
“Exactly,” Tobias confirmed.
“How fascinating,” Dr. Morton replied.
“I didn’t find it fascinating in the least.” Tobias had found himself unaccountably obsessing over the woman’s image in his mind ever since.
“Perhaps the lady was actually a man?” Iain said, the innocence in his voice belied by the humor twinkling in his eyes.
“The woman was a lady, of that, there is no question.” Tobias could still smell the jasmine perfume she’d been wearing.
Could still see her bright, aqua-blue eyes staring back at him with thick, inky lashes, her expression showing neither fear nor apathy.
Eyes that he’d dreamed about, much to his consternation.
“Do you both think it odd, that we suspect our killer is a magician, or at least thinks himself to be one, and the day after the murder, a lady who clearly has what appears to be some sort of illusionist training is found snooping about in your office, Inspector?”
“‘Illusionist training,’ Doc?” Iain asked, a furrow to his brow. “You think this lady was a magician? I didn’t think they had women magicians.”
“I confess I don’t know much about magic.” Dr. Morton pulled off his glasses and rubbed the lens on the lapel of his jacket. “And though I believe women are very rarely magicians themselves, I have heard of some who have trained in the art.”
“You might be onto something, Doc,” Iain replied. “It does sound like she had some skills of a magician.”
“I told you her skills were beyond that of a mere thief,” Tobias mumbled, still annoyed that the woman had gotten the best of him.
“I suppose sleight of hand is a skill employed often by thieves,” the doctor said.
“So perhaps she could have been a pickpocket rather than an expert in sleight of hand. Though the two go hand in hand. However, to then do a quick costume change, transforming from a cleaning woman into a young man, all in the space of minutes while going down a stairwell? That very fact adds weight to her being trained in magic, rather than simply thieving. Not to mention fireworks are often associated with magic and the arts, are they not?”
“I suppose they are, aren’t they?” Iain agreed, rubbing his chin, just like the doctor was doing too.
“Though it could be she’s just a thief looking to take advantage of a case that the papers would be paying a lot of money for information on.
Isn’t that what she said she was there for?
” Iain turned and addressed the question at Tobias.
“She did,” Tobias replied.
“Well, then, that could be it, I suppose,” the doctor said. “Though to have snuck into the Yard and purposefully found the inspector’s office without attracting any attention, in light of the murder? I don’t know. It feels a bit too coincidental for her merely to be a thief.”
It was what Tobias had been thinking too. “Far too coincidental, Doctor. I think this damned woman is somehow involved in these murders up to her pretty neck, and I intend to find her and get to the bottom of it before our killer strikes again.”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned she’s pretty,” Iain commented. “I daresay that might have been part of how she was able to distract you, of all people.”
“Her looks had nothing to do with it,” Tobias replied, trying to sound convincing but knowing he was doing a poor job of it.
“The only reason she was able to catch me unawares was because she must be an expert at sleight of hand. I’ve never seen anyone move so quickly before. It was practically indiscernible.”
“That’s why people pay to see magicians, isn’t?” the doctor said. “They make everything they do seem impossible, to the point people start to believe in magic.”
“I don’t believe in magic, Doctor, and now that I know her skills, I will not allow her to get the better of me again.
” Pretty face or not. Because even though Tobias had denied it, he knew deep down, that yes, her attractiveness had been a distraction.
A distraction that Tobias had neither expected nor had known exactly what to do with.
He’d sworn off allowing himself to ever be vulnerable to a woman again after Marion had essentially ripped his heart out when he’d been twenty, refusing to marry him if he was determined to join the police and not live the life a gentleman of his station in the world should have.
Unwilling to give up his dream of helping those who couldn’t help themselves, nor wanting to live the life his father and brother did, Tobias had refused Marion’s ultimatum, certain that she would come around in the end.
But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d broken off their engagement and within the month had been engaged to another gentleman.
It had been a bitter pill to swallow, but one that had taught Tobias a lesson about what women really valued, their social positions above everything, so he’d sworn off women, or at least the marrying kind, ever since.
Of course, he’d had companions over the years: widows who like him, hadn’t been looking for anything more beyond casual companionship.
But even with those ladies, he’d never felt the visceral pull in his gut that he’d felt merely from looking into this woman’s eyes.
Almost like she had the power to pull his soul from his body and trap him for eternity in her gaze.
He shook his head free from the theatrical musings that were as unfamiliar to him as they were unwanted. “In any event, let’s get back to the matter at hand, shall we?”
Dr. Morton nodded sagely. “Yes, of course. I expect you’ve come for the autopsy results?”
Tobias nodded, so the doctor stood up from the stool and strode over to his desk in the far corner. He rummaged through a few of the piles and piles of papers and folders that were stacked high on his desk, all the while muttering to himself that he’d put it somewhere on top.
“Ah, here it is!” he said in triumph as he plucked a folder off from one of the piles and walked back over to Tobias and Iain, handing the file to Tobias.
“It was as we expected, Inspector. The woman was alive when the killer used a weapon to cut through her torso. From the angles of the laceration, the weapon appears to have been a serrated saw of some sort, approximately two feet in length.”