Chapter Thirty-Four #3
Walking down the hallway to the back room, Tobias twisted open the door and saw that it was the master bedroom of the house, but this room, unlike the others, had personal items in it, but again no inhabitants.
“It looks like the house is empty,” Jack commented, wandering into the room behind Tobias. “Is this the doctor’s bedroom, then?”
“I would assume so,” Tobias remarked, walking over to the wardrobe and opening it up. It was filled with an array of black, blue, and brown suits, all lined up neatly on hangers inside.
“Did Dr. Patterson have a beard?” Jack asked.
Tobias glanced back to where she stood beside a dresser and raised a brow. “He did. Why?”
Slowly, Jack picked up a small jar with one hand and turned to Tobias. “This is a jar of spirit gum. It’s a product made of resin soaked in alcohol, and it’s one of the best adhesives used in theatrical makeup to adhere products to someone’s skin.”
“Are you saying he was wearing a false beard?” It had certainly looked real enough to Tobias on the morning he’d met Dr. Patterson, and he’d been trained to notice details.
“Most likely, given there’re some fibers of human hair here too. That, combined with the spirit gum, would suggest that yes, he might have been pretending to have a beard.” Jack returned the jar to the dresser. “How old was Dr. Patterson?”
“In his mid- to late thirties, I’d say.” Tobias dragged a hand through his hair. “The rough age Thomas Clorren would be. Damn it.”
“Do you really think Thomas could have been masquerading as a doctor?”
“If Dr. Patterson is Thomas Clorren, then I don’t think he was masquerading at being a doctor,” Tobias replied.
“Dr. Morton went to college with Patterson, so it’s likely if Patterson is Clorren, then after your father died, Thomas created a brand-new identity and seemingly enrolled in medical school as Ignatius Patterson.
Which would make some sense in light of the expert incisions used on his victims.”
“But if Patterson is Thomas Clorren, then he had access to his father at Broadmoor. Why would he have pretended to dress as his mother to visit the baron?”
It was a good question, and Tobias didn’t have much of an answer for it. “The baron did say his son whispered things to him on his visits, didn’t he?”
Jack nodded. “He did.”
Tobias shrugged. “Perhaps Thomas could only get close enough to his father to whisper those things to him by dressing as his mother, so as to not attract the orderlies’ suspicions?”
“Perhaps,” Jack replied. “You don’t think he could be hiding somewhere in this house still, do you?”
“We’ve just checked the entire premises, and no one is here.” Tobias shook his head. “When I met Dr. Patterson, I was barely a few feet away from him, and his beard looked completely real. Surely, I would have been able to tell if it had been false?”
“A good beard made with human hair and using this particularly adhesive would look extremely real, I’m afraid.” She bent down and began to open the drawers of the dressers, then jumped when she opened the bottom drawer.
“What is it?” Tobias strode over and swore under his breath as he glanced down inside.
Reaching down, he picked up one of the sealed packets of playing cards nestled inside.
“These are the same brand of playing cards that the killer has been leaving, aren’t they?
” He turned the pack over and examined the back of the box.
The pattern matched the cards left at all the scenes.
“They are,” Jack confirmed.
“I think that answers the question about whether Dr. Patterson is Thomas Clorren. Who else would be keeping these specific card decks in their house?” Tobias shook his head. “And he had the nerve to attend one of the scenes, acting as if he were appalled. The man is a monster.”
“Yes. It must be him,” Jack said. “But given he’s not here, where would he be?”
“He must have some other property somewhere,” Tobias replied. “His father was a wealthy man before he was incarcerated, so I imagine Thomas—or Ignatius Patterson, or whoever he wants to call himself—would have the funds to have secured a safe house somewhere, and one that won’t be linked to him.”
“Perhaps that’s where he’s keeping Mary Brunham?”
“Most likely,” Tobias confirmed before he glanced down at his watch, noting the time. “Dr. Morton might know something that could help us locate Dr. Patterson, or Thomas Clorren, or whatever the Devil we’re calling him.”
Jack nodded and then her stomach grumbled loudly into the silent room.
Tobias smiled. “It’s not too far a walk from here, so we might as well ditch the hackney and make our way there on foot. Then we get some food on the way, given we’ve both not eaten much for breakfast.”
“I haven’t felt like eating,” Jack replied. “Though my stomach obviously has other ideas.” She looked so annoyed at that fact, that he couldn’t help but smile.
“We all have to eat, Jack.”
Reluctantly, her lips twitched up at the corners, and he was glad to see it. And even with a semi-smile, she looked gorgeous.
Which was something he really shouldn’t have been noticing.
Especially not in the middle of a murder investigation.
Inwardly, he sighed to himself. The woman made him feel things he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Come on, then. I know a good pie shop on the way that should satisfy your stomach. Then we’ll head to the morgue, where hopefully Dr. Morton can help us, and perhaps he might have even found some clues from the last scene. ”
Hopefully, now they knew whom Thomas Clorren was masquerading as, they would close the net around him and capture him. Sooner rather than later.
Lives depended upon it.