Chapter Twelve
The wind whistled shrilly through the alleyway, the frigid cold hand of it clawing its way through the thick morning fog much like a drowning man desperate to reach land.
Tobias reached up and pulled his jacket in tighter to his chest as he pushed through the crowd of onlookers to where four constables were holding a perimeter around the latest murder.
He’d hoped they’d have more time before another murder, but it seemed the killer had other plans, waiting only three days before striking again.
For a moment, Tobias hoped perhaps this death had nothing to do with the first, but he doubted it, given he’d been awoken at the crack of dawn by a constable’s pounding fist on his front door with news that the Coffin Conjurer had struck again.
And so here Tobias was at the scene of another murder, in what was proving to be an exercise in frustration.
His questioning of the magician the Great Dondaric yesterday had been a complete waste of time, given the man had absolutely refused to tell Tobias how the Lady in the Coffin Illusion was done.
Caleb Dodd have been a pompous fool, adamant that it was a magician’s sacred duty to uphold the secrets of magic, and he would rather die than reveal them to anyone.
Tobias had had half a mind to haul the man into custody and show him the photos of how a so-called magician had butchered Bethany Cartwright with that very illusion, but at the end of the day, there had been no legitimate grounds to, so Tobias had resisted.
Only just. Men like Caleb Dodd, who were more concerned with protecting their own hides than anyone else, had always rankled Tobias the wrong way.
It was just a shame that being a pathetic human wasn’t a crime.
Trudging down the alley, the smell of death slowly flittering along the breeze, he experienced an unsettling sense of familiarity, similar to the first murder.
With only days between kills, this killer would fast become London’s most notorious and feared, especially as the press seemed to be reveling in the latest murder.
Tobias would have to deal with them shortly too, given his bosses would be demanding he do so to allay the public’s fears. He imagined they’d also be demanding immediate results with finding a suspect too. Which he didn’t have.
“Sir,” Detective Rollings said, recognition flaring in his eyes as he caught sight of Tobias approaching the police line and stepped aside to let him pass.
Tobias nodded in acknowledgment and came to a halt as he glanced beyond the detective to where a white sheet was being held up by two other officers, again shielding the body from those in the crowd eager to catch a glimpse of the Conjurer’s second victim. “Another bad one, Andrew?”
The detective nodded, his hat bobbing up and down, his eyes stark with dread. “It is, sir,” he murmured. “Even worse than the first, which I didn’t think would be possible.”
Pressing his lips together, Tobias felt the low-level pounding in his head escalate. “Who was first on the scene?”
“A mister Simon Collins, sir. He says he owns that there warehouse.” Andrew motioned to the building to his left.
“Apparently, he was arriving early to work when he saw the…the body and went and found the constables on watch. They then sent for us, and when Detective Deerling and I arrived, I got four officers to escort Mr. Collins to the station, under lock and key. I wasn’t going to make the same make that Stubbings made, just in case the man is actually the killer, like we think happened the other day. ”
“Excellent work, Rollings,” Tobias replied, even though he doubted they’d be lucky enough to come across the killer on the scene once again. “Has anyone touched the body?”
Andrew shook his head. “No, sir. We’ve followed your orders exactly. Even Dr. Morton, who got here a few minutes ago, is waiting for you before he begins examining the body, murmuring about it being so bad that you’d probably want to see all the details before he touched anything.”
“Damn.” Tobias sighed, though he was glad to hear the procedures he’d instituted to ensure the scene was preserved as much as possible until either he or the medical examiner attended were starting to become routine for the first attending police on scene.
Too many times in the past, Tobias had thought something at a scene had been significant, only to discover it had been left there by an officer or moved by one.
“Continue maintaining the perimeter, and don’t let the press get close,” Tobias instructed before making his way to the body. Hopefully, the killer had left them some clue, though he doubted it.
He passed through the perimeter of police, his footsteps echoing across the cobblestones as he made his way over to where the other officers stood holding the sheet up before stepping around the barrier to where the body was hidden.
He stopped in his tracks, his gaze taking in the scene, a sense of outrage and anger gripping him. And he’d thought the first murder had been the worst a murder possibly could be… how wrong he’d been. No wonder Andrew had been rattled; it was worse than the first murder. God help them all.
“He’s lived up to his reputation, hasn’t he?” Dr. Morton’s voice was barely a whisper, his whole demeanor demonstrating a sense of incomprehension, mirroring Tobias’s thoughts about what he was seeing too.
“It’s the Conjurer’s work, then?” Tobias asked, his eyes returning to the macabre sight before him of a very dead man sitting on a wooden chair perched in the middle of the alley, a thick rope tied around the victim’s chest, keeping him upright in the chair.
The man, though, wasn’t in one piece. He was missing his head, his right arm, and his right leg.
Although missing was probably the incorrect way of describing it, given the man’s head was sitting on his lap, and his arm and leg had been casually tossed into a straw basket, sitting on the ground beside the chair.
For a moment, Tobias closed his eyes and brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed his temple. The depths of evil some could resort to were beyond belief and imagination. Who could even think up this grotesqueness, let alone enact it?
“Fuck me.” Iain’s voice broke the silence as he walked up behind where Tobias and the doctor were standing, having arrived at the scene just after Tobias. “Is this for real?”
“Very much so, Sergeant,” the doctor confirmed.
“And yes, Inspector, to answer your question, I do believe this is the work of the Coffin Conjurer, as the press have eagerly taken to calling him.” The doctor stepped closer to the body and then crouched down in front of it, motioning towards the limbs in the basket.
“The incisions of these cuts are extremely precise, just like the cut occasioned to the other victim. And like with her”—he lowered his voice—“it looks like another playing card has been left with the body.” He pointed to the top breast pocket of the victim’s outer jacket, where instead of a handkerchief, there appeared to be a card.
“The Jack of Hearts again?” Tobias said, having also told Iain of the discovery the other day.
“I’m not sure,” the doctor said as he stood.
He was several inches shorter than Tobias but had a similar athletic frame, mostly from the man’s obsession with participating in boxing, fencing, and playing cricket.
Probably a good thing for a doctor who dealt with death day in and day out to have some healthy hobbies.
“I haven’t removed it yet to check. Once Phillip finishes taking the photos, I’ll do so. ”
“Speaking of Phillip, where is he?” Tobias glanced around and saw the camera box and wooden tripod set up in front of the body, but the photographer himself was nowhere to be seen.
“I believe he’s throwing up his breakfast down in that adjacent alley.” The doctor flicked his head to the right, just as Phillip appeared at the mouth of the alley, his face completely devoid of color.
“I might join him,” Iain added, his face a shade of green that was clashing with the red of his hair.
Tobias was glad he hadn’t had a chance to eat yet.
“Sorry, sir,” Phillip apologized as he caught sight of Tobias and hurried back over to his camera. “I’ll get back to work.”
“How long will it take you to photograph the scene?” Tobias asked him.
“I’m using dry-plates again for this case, sir,” Phillip replied. “So, the exposure time is much quicker than wet-plates. Plus, I’ve already set up the magnesium powder for the flash, which cuts down on the exposure time the plates need—”
“How long, Phillip?” Already, Tobias could feel the time ticking down until the next murder, which going off this one, gave them maybe three days, probably less.
“Perhaps thirty minutes for the entire scene? I’ve already taken photographs of the front of the body before I had to, um, go, um, relieve myself of my breakfast.”
“You got every angle of the front?”
“Yes, sir.” Phillip nodded as he began to reposition his tripod and camera to the right of the body, in preparation to take some photos from that side.
“Excuse me, Inspector?” Detective Rolling’s voice interrupted from behind. “There’s a man here by the name of Doctor Patterson? He said Dr. Morton sent for him.”
“Aye, yes, Ignatius Patterson. He’s a fellow colleague of mine who also has experience in treating the criminal insane at Broadmoor,” Dr. Morton confirmed.
“I rather thought I might need an extra pair of eyes and the knowledge of another doctor for this case. I assumed that would be all right with you, Inspector?”
“I think we’re going to need all the help we can get.” Tobias gave Rollings a nod. “Give us a minute, Rollings, then go fetch Dr. Patterson and bring him back here.”
Rollings nodded, doing his utmost to keep his eyes firmly affixed to Tobias rather than the gory sight behind him, before he turned to do as instructed.