Chapter Thirty-Five
They’d made good time getting from across town to the mortuary, even stopping and grabbing a hearty meat pie along the way. The sustenance went a long way to alleviate Jack’s grumbling tummy and gave her a boost of energy she hadn’t even realized she’d needed.
She was glad they’d eaten beforehand, because even though the last time they’d visited here, she hadn’t made a fuss of the peculiar smell permeating through the place, it was not a smell conducive to fostering an appetite.
They passed down the corridors of the building heading to Dr. Morton’s office, but as they strode into the outer room, they were confronted by an empty space.
“Odd for Bernard not to be at his desk guarding the doctor’s office,” Tobias commented, walking over and rapping his knuckles on Dr. Morton’s inner office door. But there was no answer. He rattled the handle, but it was locked.
“Do you want me to open it?” she asked.
“No. We don’t need to bend the law this time,” he replied. “The doctor might be down conducting an autopsy in the rooms below. I’ll go see if I can find him. Did you wish to come?”
“To an autopsy room?” she asked, to which Tobias nodded in confirmation.
“No, thank you. This is a time I will wait here.” She had no interest in even seeing, let alone smelling death more up close than she already had over this past week, and especially not in this place, given the gas lamps in the corridors cast a somewhat malevolent atmosphere over the entire space.
“Very well, I won’t be long.” He turned and began to walk out the door but then hesitated. “Are you sure you’ll be all right waiting here alone?”
“I’ll be fine, Tobias,” she answered. “There are two attendants manning the entry into this main portion of the building, remember?”
He briefly nodded, then turned and strode away, his footsteps echoing along the stone floors of the building, gradually receding into silence.
Jack glanced around the space, and her natural curiosity got the better of her, so she wandered over to Bernard’s desk and quickly rifled through the papers on it.
He was neat, she’d give him that, but the paperwork was comprised of invoices and articles from medical journals, it seemed.
Nothing of great interest. She spotted a red leather appointment book and flipped it open to today’s page.
There were several entries for autopsies this morning, but currently there was a blocked-out time period, though no actual notation of what appointment to which the doctor was currently attending.
“Miss Hart? What are you doing here?”
Jack hid her surprise at being startled and glanced up to see Bernard only a few feet away from her. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“My shoes have a special film of rubber on their soles,” he replied, glancing down to his black boots.
“Clever, aren’t they? They’re custom made, as the rubber soles help not to make so much noise on these stone floors.
The doctor does need to concentrate and lots of footfalls clomping around disturbs him.
I think he appreciates me moving around silently. ”
She found it unnerving, given she hadn’t heard him sneak up on her at all.
“Can I ask what you’re doing here, Miss Hart?” He glanced down at the open appointment ledger on the desk. “The doctor is out at the moment, as you can see from the entry in his appointment book, which I’m certain I left firmly closed.”
“I am sorry, for prying, Mr. Brinkley.” Jack smiled over at him. “And I didn’t mean to; I was just overly curious and hoping to find out where the doctor was, seeing as you weren’t here to ask.”
“Are you alone?” he asked, glancing behind him out the door before turning back to pin her with his stare.
“No.” For some reason, she felt it important he knew that. “Inspector Flint’s here; he’s just gone down to the autopsy rooms to see if Dr. Morton was there.”
“Good, that means he’ll be several minutes at least.” He slowly walked over to her.
Jack stood her ground assessing the man, finding herself wondering if his beard was in fact real or not. But that was silly, given they believed Dr. Patterson was Thomas Clorren. Didn’t they?
“And a couple of minutes is all I will need,” he continued, his hand drifting into his pocket and gripping on to something.
Suddenly, Jack’s heart started to pound, and as Bernard began to pull out whatever was in his pocket, she simultaneously pulled out her own set of playing cards, and in one fluid movement, she flung them at his face like weapons.
They hit him square in the face, their sharp corners flicking into his eyes, and he hunched over, while Jack pivoted to the side and pulled out her small derringer, aiming it at him.
“What the Devil did you do that for?” Bernard spluttered, rubbing at his face and blinking up at her, his eyes widening in shock as he caught sight of her pistol. “I say, why are you pointing a gun at me?”
“What were you reaching for in your pocket?” she demanded, her hands using the pistol to point at his jacket pocket.
“A playbill, actually,” he said, sounding baffled. “Can I retrieve it?”
Slowly, she nodded. “Use only two fingers, though.”
He did as she instructed and carefully removed a piece of paper from his jacket before hastily flinging it onto the desk she was standing behind and quickly retreating even farther away from her.
“I was hoping to ask you to come and watch me perform in my first amateur play,” he said rather sheepishly. “I thought you might be interested, seeing as you’re a magic consultant. I only have a minor part, but well, I thought I might take you out to supper after…”
“You were asking me out to the theater and then supper?”
“You don’t have to sound so incredulous about it,” he replied, his tone of voice rather miffed. “I just thought perhaps you’d like to go with me is all. I thought we shared a moment the other day.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and then walked over to stand in front of him, her derringer still pointed directly at his chest. “Stay still and if you move even one muscle, I will pull the trigger.”
His eyes widened, but he briskly nodded.
Reaching her free hand out to his face, she yanked on his beard—hard.
“Ouch!” he shrieked. “What on earth is wrong with you?”
“Your beard is real.”
“Of course it is!” he said in outrage. “Is something wrong with you? There must be! I hereby rescind my supper invitation.”
“Is everything all right?”
Jack glanced over Bernard’s shoulder to the doorway and saw Dr. Morton standing at the threshold, holding his leather doctor’s bag and looking at her quizzically.
“You can pull on my beard too if you’d like?” the doctor said, walking into the room towards them both and smiling at her. “Though mine’s real too, so perhaps don’t yank as hard as you did on Bernard’s beard?”
Jack lowered her derringer and took several steps back and a deep breath in. Clearly, she was much more shaken by the events of the day than she’d realized. “That’s not necessary, and my apologies to you both. It’s just that we believe the killer is wearing a fake beard.”
“That would correlate with some of the various hairs I’ve found on the bodies,” Dr. Morton replied, seemly not bothered by her behavior, while Bernard was still staring at her as if she had two heads. “Where’s the inspector?”
“He went downstairs to look for you,” Jack said, replacing her derringer in her skirt pocket.
“I’ve been out on an errand,” the doctor said before glancing down at her weapon.
“Not a bad idea carrying that around, especially with the sort of man you’re chasing.
” He turned to his assistant. “Bernard, why don’t you fetch us all a pot of tea?
I’ll take Miss Hart into my office, and I’m sure the inspector will be back here shortly too. ”
Bernard nodded, though he glared at Jack for a good moment before he strode out the door to do the doctor’s bidding.
“Come in and have a seat, my dear lady.” The doctor unlocked his office and headed inside, with Jack following behind him.
The doctor moved some of the paperwork from off his desk, so that when he sat at his chair, he was able to see her clearly.
“I know Bernard is itching to sort out all of my papers,” the doctor began, staring around him at the mess of papers everywhere.
“But I at least know where everything is in my chaos. Or at least, I think I do.” He laughed as he settled back in his chair.
“Please, take a seat.” He indicated to one of the spare chairs in front of his desk.
“I’m assuming you and the inspector have come for an update about the latest murder. ”
“Yes, though that’s not all.” Jack quickly explained what they’d found at Dr. Patterson’s surgery.
The doctor’s face drained of all color. “But Ignatius and I went to medical school together at St Bartholomew’s Hospital,” he replied, sounding rather shocked.
“Surely, he couldn’t be who you say, nor have done these things to these people.
Why, we took an oath to save lives…not to take them…
No. Surely, there must be some other explanation? ”
“It doesn’t look like there is, Charles.” Tobias’s voice rang out from the doorway.
“But I can’t believe it…” There was doubt and confusion in the man’s voice as he glanced up at Tobias.
“It’s looking likely,” Tobias replied. “When did you attend medical school together?”
“About fifteen years ago now,” he replied, scratching at his beard as he stood and walked over to the far wall and removed a picture hanging from it. “This is a picture of my graduating class from all that time ago.” He walked back over to Jack and handed her the picture.
She took it and saw the doctor beaming proudly, alongside ten other men.
“That’s Ignatius,” Dr. Morton said, leaning down over her shoulder and pointing out a man standing next to him in the picture.
“Does it look like Clorren?” Tobias asked her as he too came farther into the room and glanced down at the picture.
She sighed. “He’s wearing spectacles and has a beard, like every single other person in the photo.” Not to mention the photos was taken at a distance to get their whole bodies into the frame as they’d all held their medical certificates.
Dr. Morton nodded. “Yes, it was very fashionable at the time to have both. I think we were all trying to appear wise and scholarly to hide our inexperience. Though several of us now need spectacles for our eyesight, I’m afraid, and haven’t let go of our beards, either.
Though I must admit I did think it odd that Ignatius’s beard never got any gray in it, as mine has.
I still can’t quite believe he could be a killer, though… ”
“The timing adds up,” Jack added. “If it’s him, then he’d already shed the identity of Thomas Clorren by becoming Tommy Smith, and then after my father’s death, it’s likely he would have gotten rid of that identity too, and could have easily become this Ignatius Patterson.”
“But to study medicine?” Dr. Morton said. “Why would he do that? Not to sound arrogant, but it’s extremely difficult to do and takes a lot of intelligence and skills.”
“Does this killer not show extreme intelligence and skills, especially with his dexterity and knife work?” Tobias asked.
“He does,” the doctor agreed with as hearty sigh, taking back the photo frame from Jack. “But he’d also have to have had exceptional references to even get an interview at St Bartholomew’s, let alone be admitted into the medical school.”
“References that perhaps someone with the skills of magician could easily have forged?” Tobias replied.
Dr. Morton’s face fell as he hung up the photo back on the wall. “Yes, I suppose so. But I still can’t quite believe it. Not of the man I know…”
“Like I said, it’s looking likely, Charles,” Tobias said gently. “What else can you tell us about him?”
The doctor sighed warily. “We were both young men in our twenties at St. Bartholomew’s, and neither of us had any of the aristocratic family connections that most of the other young men attending there did, so we become firm friends from the outset.
” He shook his head. “No. I can’t believe he’s involved in all of this.
I won’t believe it. Not without further proof.
Why, perhaps this killer is simply trying to frame Ignatius?
Especially if Ignatius was the doctor treating this Thomas Clorren’s father.
That’s a possibility, isn’t it?” He looked rather desperately at them both.
Tobias slowly nodded. “Perhaps. Though we’ll need to find him to speak with him. Do you know of any other place he could be?”
Dr. Morton shook his head and sighed. “I don’t. Ignatius lived and breathed his surgery. If he’s not there, then I fear something dreadful must have happened to him.”
“We did find packets of the same playing cards that the killer has left with all of the bodies in his residence too,” Tobias added. “They were in his bedroom dresser, Charles. I think perhaps you might have to resign yourself to the fact that your friend potentially isn’t who you think he is.”
Dr. Morton closed his eyes and took in a steadying breath before he slowly nodded and then reopened his eyes. “I desperately hope you’re wrong, Tobias. However, even I can admit the evidence is certainly pointing in a definite direction.”
“Do you know where he might go?” Jack asked the doctor, wondering if perhaps his loyalty to his friend might outweigh his good sense in telling them.
“I don’t,” he replied, his eyes glancing back to hers.
“And I promise you I would tell you if I did,” he added, almost as if he could tell what she was thinking.
“Because honestly, a part of me is still certain he’s not the killer, and the only way we’ll all be confident of that fact is if you do find him and speak with him. ”
“We definitely need to find him,” Tobias added. “Until we do, though, did you discover anything from the latest scene?”
“Not really,” the doctor replied. “Unfortunately, the victim’s body was too badly burned to identify, so that’s a dead end. However, it seemed like she was probably in her late thirties to forties, I’d say.”
“So not Mary Brunham,” Jack said, feeling glad of that small fact.
“Mary Brunham?” the doctor questioned.
“A young woman who’s been missing since last week whom we think might have been taken by the killer,” Tobias explained.
“Inspector!” a loud voice boomed in a Scottish accent as Sergeant Kellerman barreled into the room, catching his breath, giving the impression he’d run there. “There’s been another murder!”