Chapter Seven
After leaving Jocelyn, Sebastian hailed a hack to take him back to his station. As much as he wanted to devote all his time to looking for Evelyn, he had many responsibilities of his own, and he had to admit that he’d done all he could think to do. Evelyn Lindsay seemed to have disappeared into thin air, and he had to content himself with the fact that Blackstone had a small army of men out looking for her.
As he rode back across the city, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, thinking of Jocelyn coming undone at his hands. She’d been so lovely, so responsive.
What he wouldn’t do to have her in his bed for a whole night, just the two of them, without the specter of her missing sister standing between them. He wanted so much to be the one to show her how much pleasure could be had in lovemaking, especially since her introduction to it had apparently been so horrible.
But he knew he’d already crossed the line. She had far too much on her mind to be taking on any sort of affair with him. And he hadn’t thought even once of her son this morning, of his promise to himself not to get involved with the mother of a young child. How had things gotten out of hand so quickly? He’d never been tempted so badly in his life. Somehow, he needed to find the strength to keep things between them professional, at least until her sister was found safe and sound.
He hated to think of the other alternative, what he’d do if Evelyn had met with some terrible end. If the worst happened, Jocelyn might never want to explore things between them further, and he wouldn’t blame her.
Later that afternoon, he was attacking his pile of paperwork when Constable Pond stuck his head in his office. “There’s a call for you, sir. Assistant Commissioner Blackstone.”
A shiver of foreboding went through Sebastian. He couldn’t have said exactly why, but he’d long ago realized that in his line of work, it was best to trust your gut instinct. Right now, his gut was telling him that Blackstone was about to deliver some very bad news. He pushed to his feet grimly and followed Pond down the hall to where the office telephone was kept.
The contraption still didn’t make much sense to him, but since it had been installed, it had helped communication between precincts immensely. He held the receiver up to his ear. “Ness here,” he said loudly, always feeling as though he had to practically shout.
“Ness, I need you to meet me at Postman’s Park right away,” Blackstone replied, his tone heavy with anger and sadness. “We’ve found Lady Evelyn in the gardener’s shed.” A long pause hung heavy on the line. “It appears she’s The Viper’s third victim.”
* * *
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Sebastian was back at Postman’s Park, elbowing his way through the crowd of people who had gathered around the gardener’s shed. A dozen or more constables were keeping back the onlookers, and several other inspectors and Blackstone stood near the door. When Blackstone saw Sebastian, he motioned for one of the constables to let him through.
“Are you certain it’s her?” Sebastian asked, hoping against hope that it wasn’t. “Are you certain it’s Lady Evelyn Lindsay?”
Blackstone nodded grimly. “I’ve known Evelyn since we were children. I would recognize her anywhere.”
Sebastian sighed, feeling as though he’d somehow horribly failed Jocelyn, even though odds were Evelyn had been dead before Jocelyn had even come to see him yesterday morning. All the way over here, he’d prayed that Blackstone was wrong, but the man would know his childhood friend. No escaping that the worst had happened. “Can I have a look?”
“Of course. I was hoping you’d get here before the coroner took her away. It appears to me that this is The Viper’s doing, but since you’ve seen his work before, I’d like your opinion on the matter.” Blackstone waved an arm toward the shed.
Sebastian entered the small space, which was filled with different gardening tools and implements. The heavy smell of soil in the air was tainted by the unmistakable scent of spilled blood. He slowly let his gaze fall to the floor, where a naked woman was splayed upon the dirt, her throat cut and gaping, her green eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
He swallowed. No matter how many times he saw death, it never got any easier. He had a quick flashback to the morning of O’Brien’s wedding when Lady Evelyn Lindsay had sat two chairs down from him, alive and inquisitive. She’d been intelligent, a crusader for women’s suffrage, but now she’d never get to help all of those she might have.
Jocelyn would be destroyed by this.
Shaking away the thought, the suddenly personal aspect of this case, he forced himself to concentrate, to take in everything he could before they took Lady Evelyn Lindsay’s broken body away.
All the way over, he’d wondered why Blackstone was so convinced this was The Viper’s work—he’d been certain it couldn’t possibly be—but staring at Evelyn now, he was inclined to agree. Her throat had been cut, and there were unspeakable wounds to her body. He only hoped that she had been dead when those other wounds had been inflicted. At her feet, there was a piece of paper with a single word, whore, written across it in red ink.
This was somewhat different, because with the other women, the word had been written on naked photographs they’d posed for to make money. However, it seemed very doubtful that Evelyn had ever had any such photographs taken of her own free will, so the killer wouldn’t have had such a thing available to him.
But if not, if Evelyn had been what she seemed—a kind, responsible spinster—then why had she been targeted at all? Why would The Viper write this about her?
This departure from The Viper’s normal sort of victim had to be a clue, it had to give some inkling of who the monster might be, but he’d be damned if he could figure it out. None of this made any sense.
He spent a few more minutes viewing the body from every possible angle and scanning the shed in hopes of finding some personal item The Viper might have left behind. They’d gotten lucky when the man had left his snuffbox behind at the first murder, but he seemed to have learned his lesson, because he didn’t appear to have left anything behind when he’d done this.
Weary and saddened, he finally went to join Blackstone back outside. “I think you’re right. It must be The Viper, but I have no idea why he’d pick someone like Lady Evelyn.”
Blackstone ran his hand through his black hair in frustration. “The city was baying for our heads when it was prostitutes in Bethnal Green. Can you imagine the uproar when it gets out that The Viper murdered a lady in Postman’s Park?”
Sebastian frowned, hating the fact that Blackstone was right. The murder of a lady was going to bring tremendous pressure on them. “It has to be him. We never leaked the information about the word whore being left at the scenes.”
“He came here with the intention to murder her in this building,” Blackstone said, pointing to a lock that lay on the ground, obviously cut open with some sort of a tool instead of opened with a key. “When we finally contacted the gardener, he showed up with the key, but it didn’t work. He told us this was not the lock that belonged to this building. So the bastard must have cut the original one off himself and brought a new one with him.”
“Do you suspect the gardener?” Sebastian asked.