Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Pain seared Hugh’s scalp as the cloth came down onto the gash there. He winced and swore and ripped the alcohol-soaked cloth from Thornton’s hand.
“I can do this part myself,” Hugh said, carefully dabbing the back of his head, where his friend had just placed four sutures with far too much enthusiasm.
Had Hugh been able to stitch up the gash he’d received at the Red Lotus himself, he would have done so.
However, Thornton had been all too happy to assist.
“That lip could use a suture as well.”
“It is fine,” Hugh grumbled. He hadn’t even realized his lip had been split in the fisticuffs until he was on his way to Thornton House.
Thornton stepped away, his hands raised in concession. “Something tells me Audrey won’t think it is fine when it comes time in the wedding ceremony to kiss her groom.”
“I will be healed by then,” Hugh replied, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut about her accepting his proposal. Thornton would find any opportunity to rib him now.
The physician rolled down his sleeves. “Not rushing to use that special license, I see.”
“Finishing up this case first.” Hugh pulled away the cloth and sighed at the blood there.
“And things look to be going so well,” his friend said dryly.
Hugh lobbed the cloth at him and stood from the table in Thornton’s home surgery. “Thank you for your tender care, but I think I would have received better from Basil.”
Mentioning his valet made him think of Audrey. He wondered where she was now, and if her evening had gone any better than his own. He’d discovered the connection between Stromburg, Madame Lee, and Harlan Givens, and why they might have all been silenced, but there was still no proof of anything.
Hugh reached for his coat, the collar spotted with blood. Basil would have a fit of the vapors when he saw it.
“Can I be of any help?” Thornton asked before Hugh could reach the sliding pocket doors closing off the surgery. By the changed tone of his voice, the offer was genuine, and his apology clear.
Hugh’s muscles ached from exhaustion and from the scuffle he’d been in at the brothel. Bruised and tired, Hugh tossed aside his coat. “You could pour me a drink.”
Thornton did. A generous one, which Hugh forced himself to sip slowly after sitting in one of the club chairs before the hearth.
He’d informed him about the night’s events while Thornton had been sewing up his scalp, along with the discovery of Sir Gabriel’s niece’s body. Though he was in deep with the demimonde and other more risqué areas of society, Thornton had not heard of the Sanctuary.
He took a seat in the other club chair. “A sex society where women are only invited if they are willing to sleep with the members. And now, two such women that you know of have been strangled in the act.” Thornton swirled his whisky but looked too ill to sip it. “It makes me see red.”
“And those who speak of it have their throats cut and ears lopped off,” Hugh said, his whole skull throbbing dully.
“Why their ears?” Thornton asked.
Hugh shrugged. “Maybe because they heard things they weren’t supposed to.” He sipped slowly. “Just the left ears, mind you.”
That was important, he knew, and discovering the answer as to why would surely bring him more answers.
Thornton looked away from the flames in the hearth that he and Hugh had been staring absently at. “I’ve read that business is thin for Mr. Gye.”
“He could not expect to keep the discovery of three mutilated bodies a secret from the public forever. One of his workers was bound to feed the story to some rag for his own gain.”
And now, the backlash he’d feared had come to pass.
“Why wait?” Thornton asked, arching a brow.
“How do you mean?”
His friend shrugged. “Why would this anonymous worker wait until the third body turns up? Why not spill to the papers after the discovery of the first?”
“Perhaps they thought it was beginning to get out of hand. They might have disagreed with Gye about keeping it from the public.”
Thornton took a swig of his whisky. “You’re probably right.”
Hugh knew that tone. “But?”
“But…have you given any thought about why Givens was left to be discovered when the gardens were busy, but the other two were not?”
Hugh had given that some thought, though admittedly not enough. Not until now.
“If the Sanctuary is behind the deaths, as we believe, they might have grown impatient with the lack of publicity. Givens changed that,” Hugh said. “And then, immediately after, someone tipped off The Morning Post about the other two bodies.”
The new thoughts began to unravel with more speed. He sat forward. “What if it wasn’t a Vauxhall employee, but someone associated with the Sanctuary?”
“Why would the Sanctuary wish for their deeds to be made public?” Thornton asked. “One would think they’d want to keep things hushed, just as Gye wanted.”
“Gye wanted to keep things running smoothly at Vauxhall.” Hugh’s thoughts picked up speed. “What if the Sanctuary wanted the opposite? What if they wanted the pleasure gardens to suffer?”
“It certainly is now,” Thornton said with a nod. “Do you think the Sanctuary could have some vendetta against Vauxhall? Or Mr. Gye?”
It was something to find out.
“I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow, to see if he has any enemy in mind,” Hugh said, setting down his still full whisky.
“I’ll come with you. You may be concussed. And by the way, you mean today,” Thornton said, standing to see him out. He tapped the face of his fob watch. “It’s nearly two in the morning.”
Hugh’s eyelids drooped shut on the ride back to Bedford Street, but when Norris called to the horses and the rhythmic sway of the carriage slowed, he snapped awake.
The lamps were still lit inside the residence, and when Whitlock answered the door for him, he’d barely handed the older man his coat and hat when he heard the sharp intake of air from the entrance to his study.
“What happened to you?” Audrey rushed toward him, her eyes scouring his face. “Your head is bleeding.”
“The Dowager Duchess of Fournier is here, my lord,” Whitlock languidly intoned.
“I can see that, thank you,” Hugh said, then dismissed his butler. The man moved at the pace of an elderly snail and spoke just as slowly.
Hugh led Audrey back into the study, where they both turned to one another and said simultaneously, “Tell me what happened.”
She crossed her arms and waited for him to answer first. She’d made herself at home, it seemed.
A small glass of sherry had been left on his desk, along with an opened book.
He pictured her as she’d likely been, reclining in his desk chair, her legs tucked up underneath her.
It was a delectable image, one he wished he could have seen.
It was then that he remembered they’d parted on tense terms.
“I got into a bit of a scrape at the Red Lotus, but I am fine. The important thing is that I now know how the three Vauxhall murder victims were connected.”
He went to his desk and sat in his chair, groaning at the ache of his muscles as he did. Audrey eyed him with concern but didn’t press him about his injuries.
“How?” she asked, remaining on the opposite side of the desk.
“Mr. Givens was working as security at the Red Lotus when Madame Lee and Stromburg were both killed. The two had decided to go to the police about the strangulation of one of Madame Lee’s girls, whom Stromburg had taken to the Sanctuary for initiation.”
“Strangulation,” Audrey echoed. “Like Bethany.”
“Yes.”
Her expression darkened at the mention of the young woman. “Do you think Mr. Givens heard them discussing it and thought he might profit by turning them in to the Sanctuary?”
Hugh shook his head, though only once. It hurt too much. “No. Givens would have no access to such an exclusive, well protected society club.”
“Then who did he tell?”
“If he was an informant, it was more likely for the police. He knew his way around Bow Street. Knew that officers paid people like him for information. Information that could lead to an arrest.”
“He told the police about Madame Lee’s strangled employee? How would that benefit him?”
“It wouldn’t,” Hugh answered. “I don’t think he told the police anything…not until after his employer and Lord Stromburg mysteriously disappeared.”
Hugh suspected Givens had figured out some benefit to being an informant for Bow Street. He’d fed the investigating officers what he’d overheard about the strangled girl and the Sanctuary, aiming for a monetary reward should any of it pan out.
“But then, how did the Sanctuary learn that they’d been betrayed by Madame Lee and Lord Stromburg in the first place? How did they know to silence them?”
That was the question Hugh had kept coming back to. The answer he’d come to accept curdled in his gut and made him feel turned inside-out.
“The men from your vision,” he said, “knew Givens had been talking out of turn. If that was the case, and he was an informant for someone at Bow Street…”
“Someone at Bow Street told someone at the Sanctuary,” Audrey finished.
Lead ballast slid into his stomach. “Most likely, yes.”
“A Bow Street officer is part of the Sanctuary? But only wealthy men are invited as members.” She went still, the most plausible answer paling her complexion. “You don’t think Sir Gabriel…?”
He had thought it. But instantly dismissed the ridiculous notion. “No. Never. He’s not corrupt. And Bethany was his niece.”
“He didn’t want you to investigate. And he agreed with Mr. Gye to keep the murders from the press,” she pointed out, playing devil’s advocate. But he wouldn’t be swayed.
“No, it’s someone else. My guess is Tyne.”
“But he’s working class,” she said.
“Who better to bring into the fold, offering luxuries and pleasures he could never access normally, in exchange for protection?”
The more Hugh thought on it, the more convinced he became.
Audrey uncrossed her arms. “If that is the case, Officer Tyne may tell the Sanctuary we are investigating.”