“Not yet, sir. But I am pursuing that lead. Jocelyn had no idea of such a gentleman’s existence, but someone must know something. Ladies talk about such things together, or at least I think they do. Whatever the victim did that night, I’m certain it was nothing improper on her part.” Sebastian inwardly swore at himself for his slip of calling the countess by her given name, but neither of his companions seemed to notice. “I will go and speak to her again tomorrow.”
He was worried about her and wanted to be certain she was all right.
Blackstone suddenly shook his head. “No. I think you’re both wrong. There must be another answer. What if Lady Evelyn had a whole life that no one knew about? What if she truly was a whore and our killer was one of her lovers?”
Sebastian and O’Brien exchanged startled glances. Blackstone’s instincts were usually spot on, but he didn’t seem to be thinking clearly. Especially since Lady Evelyn had been a close personal friend of his.
“I want you to investigate that angle, Ness,” Blackstone continued. “I think you’ve bothered Lady Aston enough. I’m sure she’s already told you everything she knows.”
Now Blackstone was forbidding him to talk to Jocelyn? That really made no sense.
O’Brien was undoubtedly still cursing the fact that his injury had taken him off the case, and Blackstone... Well, who knew what had set him off? But Sebastian knew that he was merely looking for an excuse to talk to Jocelyn again. She probably had told him everything she knew.
“Well, I do know one piece of information about our killer,” Sebastian told the others, deciding not to argue the point at the moment. “One of his initials seems to be M.”
Blackstone gave an explosive laugh. “What do you mean? How do you know that?”
“In her diary, Lady Evelyn said she was meeting with someone named ‘M’ at Postman’s Park. Someone who had once asked for her hand in marriage and been turned down. Someone who had sent her notes saying that he wanted her to change her mind. I highly doubt that ‘M’ and the killer are two different men.”
Blackstone shook his head. “We don’t know if that refers to a first initial, a last initial, or a title. There are probably more than a dozen members of The Viper Club who have an M in their name. Hell, by that criteria, it could be me.”
Sebastian and O’Brien exchanged a startled look, to which Blackstone hurriedly said, “My point is, it could be anyone for all the progress that has been made. The initial M? That’s all you’ve got?”
Sebastian said, “We’re exploring every far-flung theory, only because this case is so confounding.”
“We don’t think you’re The Viper,” O’Brien said cautiously to Blackstone. “But even if it narrows it down a little bit, it’s worth pursuing past or potential suitors. Especially if one of those men was ever rejected by Lady Evelyn.”
“I agree with you, sir. There are a bevy of suspects if we consider any man who ever knew her, even casually, the initial M notwithstanding, for it could even be a nickname,” Sebastian added. “For all we know, M could stand for milliner.”
Sebastian watched Blackstone warily, feeling more confused by the moment. Surely, there was no reason to suspect him. So, why was he acting so strangely?
Blackstone ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Forgive me, lads. I’m just upset about Lady Evelyn. She was a long-time friend, and I can’t believe this happened in Mayfair. We’re going to be under a lot more pressure than we were before, and it was killing me before.”
Sebastian nodded. “The pressure is getting to me, too. But we’ve had so little to work with until now, I’m happy to have an initial. It will narrow down the pool a little, and maybe that’s all we need.”
“Let me interview Lady Aston,” Blackstone insisted again. “She’s undoubtedly taking this very hard, and I think I can be a little gentler with her than either of you.”
I was pretty damn gentle with her earlier tonight. The memory of holding her soft, sweet body so tenderly in his arms crashed back over him, and he shifted uncomfortably. The last thing he wanted was Blackstone reminding him how little he belonged in her world.
And the thought of Blackstone holding her the way he had made him want to hit something.
A knock on the door interrupted that train of thought as a constable came in to tell them that the doctor had finished his work on Lady Evelyn.
The three of them followed the constable down into the bowels of the building, where the doctor did his gruesome work. O’Brien stopped outside the door to light a cigarette, a trick some men in their line of work used to mask the smell of death, but Sebastian had never resorted to such measures. During his time in the army, he’d gotten used to it.
It was amazing what one could get used to.
Once inside the cold, grim room, he found a body lying on a steel table, a neat cross of stitches across her chest and abdomen. He tried not to look at her face. The girl he’d met at the wedding was long gone. This desecrated shell was something else altogether.
The doctor leaned against the counter, a grim look on his face. “I’m afraid this one is just like the others. The laceration to the trachea was the cause of death. The rest of her injuries were done post-mortem. Nothing else that can help you.”
“Nothing else that can help us?” Blackstone shouted. “What the hell are we paying you for?”
The doctor straightened, a haughty look settling across his grim features. “I can only find what’s there to find. Your killer isn’t leaving anything behind.”
Frustration built within Sebastian until he felt that he’d explode. How was it possible that The Viper had now committed three murders, and they weren’t any closer to finding out his identity than they’d been after the first one? No wonder Blackstone was acting so strangely.
O’Brien sighed and turned for the door. “Let’s go talk this over at the pub, Ness.”