“Paper?”
“I went into that alley and saw a bundle of rags, meant to look like a fallen child. On top of it was a piece of paper with ‘Catriona’ written in block letters. That was supposed to startle me. Throw me off balance and let him attack me. I had the feeling I’d been followed that night, and I think that wasn’t paranoia. The killer targeted me.”
She frowns. “Targetedyou? Or Catriona?”
“Catriona. Presumably because she’s Dr. Gray’s housemaid, and Dr. Gray works with Detective McCreadie. Do I love this theory? Nope. But I know my attacker was the raven killer, and he knew who he was attacking—Catriona, maid to Dr. Gray.”
I set down my scrub brush and continue, “The only other possibility is that whoever attacked me was impersonating the raven killer. What he wore matched what a possible witness reported seeing, but I’ll need to go over the newspaper and broadsides and pamphlets again and see whetherthat made it into a newspaper, which would explain how a copycat killer would have known what to wear.”
“I can send Simon to fetch the latest papers for you.”
“I’d appreciate that. As for the peacock feather, it fits. For Evans, it was a messenger pigeon or stool pigeon. For Catriona, the proud and vain peacock.”
“Is it possible—?” Isla begins.
Mrs. Wallace taps at the door. When Isla calls a greeting, she opens it and says, “Caller for you, ma’am. A messenger from Mr. Bruce with a chemist request.”
Isla tells the housekeeper to bring the messenger into the drawing room. Then she turns to me. “Poor timing, but duty calls. I would like to speak on this more after Simon brings us the papers. Perhaps this is how we might investigate the case, you and I together.”
“The women shut out by the men, proceeding on their own?”
“As they often must.”
It’s early evening when Alice brings a message that Dr. Gray requires my assistance in the funerary parlor, and I nearly drop my broom and race for the stairs. I’m down there in two minutes flat to find the business dark and empty. Apparently, the assistance required is that the place needs cleaning, as I’ve neglected to do so in the last few days.
Once I realize I’m alone, I become uncomfortably aware of how empty and quiet it is. The raven killer tried to strangle me. That note he left tells me he knows who I am, which means if he wants to finish the job, he’ll know exactly where to find me.
I slip upstairs and get my knife before I begin work. When I do hear the knob turn, though, it’s clearly the front door. I straighten, hoping for Gray. Instead, Isla walks in bearing an armload of papers.
“It is only me,” she says with a smile. “Do not look so terribly disappointed.”
“Sorry,” I say. “But if those are the newspapers, then I’m just as happy to see you.”
Her brows rise. “I’m not certain that’s a compliment.”
“You know what I mean. Your brother is avoiding me, and until hestops that, I’m stuck with this.” I wave my dusting rag. “I said I’m okay with it. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather be examining stab wounds.”
“Duncan will come around. He is being prickly, and you need to get used to waiting it out.”
We move into Gray’s office, and I take a chair as she sets down the papers.
“I don’t blame him for getting prickly,” I say. “I heard about his, uh, backstory at the police station.”
Her lips tighten. “I’m quite certain you did. Yes, our father showed up one night with a child barely old enough to toddle. I was only three at the time, but it is my earliest memory, that little boy in my father’s arms, him telling my mother the child is his, and the mother is dead and so she must raise him now.”
“That’s…” I shake my head. “No words.”
“Oh, I have a few. Such a thing is not unheard of, but it’s still a scandal and an unforgivable insult to my mother. However, it has nothing to do with Duncan, and so she raised him as her own, which was nearly as scandalous.”
“Was she supposed to play the evil stepmother and make him sleep in the servants’ quarters?”
“Apparently, that would have been more acceptable. No, to her, Duncan was her child, as much as the rest of us.”
“Rest?”
She settles into the seat behind Gray’s desk. “Duncan is the youngest. I am next. We have an older sister, who is married and visits as little as possible. We also have an elder brother, who was supposed to inherit the undertaking business but dashed off to the Continent before Father was cold in his grave.”
“Leaving Dr. Gray to run the business.”