Laura Lee Guhrke (27 page)

Despite that, there were times during her infrequent trips out of the house that her psychic senses would not be suppressed. During those times, she would stop only long enough to murmur something in a person’s ear before dashing for a waiting hansom cab. To a tearful new bride, Sophie made a suggestion of what to do about her mother-in-law. She gave the much-needed assurance to a grieving mother that her dear son was just fine on the other side. To a jealous husband, the emphatic reply that his wife was not having an affair.

Without any cooperation from Scotland Yard or the psychic, frustrated journalistsmade do with whatever they could find. They speculated on motives, guessed at the significance of the removed heart, and did a complete biography of Jack Hawthorne.

They investigated Sophie’s family, tried to interview her mother, her sister, Harold, Victor, Katherine, and anyone else within Sophie’s circle of acquaintances, most of whom remained blessedly silent. Her broken engagement to Charles, Lord Kenleigh, was given great attention. Charles refused to grant any interviews on the matter, but that did not stop the journalists from making all sorts of sordid speculations.

The irony of the situation did not escape Sophie. She’d been so afraid of Mick prying into her life and finding out things, but now it was the journalists who were doing that, and Mick came in for his share of scrutiny and gossip.

Inquiries into Mick’s childhood brought the reporters little information, but all were forced to admit that with the exception of an unfortunate incident involving Sir
Roger Ellerton, Mick’s record as a police officer and detective had been exemplary, and in some cases, heroic. Of course, the newspapers made much of the fact that Mick lived in Auntie’s lodging house. Some even gave sordid hints of what really went on behind the closed doors of 18 Mill Street.

The reaction of Sophie’s family was no less violent than she expected. All things considered, she was able to cope with that rather well, since the crowds outside the house were enough to keep her mother and sister from calling to express their opinions. They did write to her, but their letters were lost in the deluge of correspondence Sophie was receiving every day. Letters from complete strangers, some as far away as Holland and Germany, were beside her plate every morning at breakfast and every evening at dinner.

She didn’t even open most of them, knowing the people who had written them were motivated by the same desires and emotions as those of the visitors outside her door. But one morning, about two weeks after the tragedy, Sophie received a letter that was different from all the others.

She pulled it out of the pile without even thinking and the veneer of calm resignation she had wrapped around herself during the last two weeks shattered. She felt waves of such venomous fury emanate from the letter that she almost blacked out.

Sophie dropped the letter with a cry of agony and clamped her hands to her head, overcome by the intensity of the impression.

Everyone looked up from their breakfast, startled by Sophie’s cry. Violet took one look at her, jumped out
of her chair, and ran down to Sophie’s end of the table. “My dear, what on earth is the matter?” she cried, wrapping her arms around her niece. “You’re shivering. You feel so cold. Oh, you’ve seen something. I know you have.”

As if from a great distance, she could hear her aunt and the concerned voices of the lodgers, and she focused on that. After a few moments, the rush of hatred and violence she was sensing from the letter began to fade away, and things gradually shifted back to a more normal perspective.

“Darling, darling, it’s all right,” she heard Violet say. “Grimstock, get a doctor.”

“No, no.” Sophie shook her head and straightened in her chair, back in control of herself now that the blackness was passing. “No, I don’t need a doctor. The feeling has passed. Grimmy, what I do need is a cab.”

“A cab?” Violet grasped Sophie’s chin, turning her niece’s face up so that she could look into her eyes. “Why on earth do you need a cab?”

Sophie patted Auntie’s hand, then gently pulled it away from her face. She then shoved back her chair and stood up. “The obvious reason. I’m going somewhere.”

“Oh no you’re not!” Violet cried. “In this state? You’re not going anywhere.”

“Auntie, I’m all right now. I have to go see Mick.” She pointed to the letter on the floor. “I have to take that to him.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“No, Auntie, you can’t. If the reporters find out, they
will start speculating that you’re assisting Scotland Yard too, and that you might be a psychic, a killer, or heaven knows what. There’ll be no end of a fuss. Mama has enough to worry her with my reputation. She doesn’t need to be fretting about yours.”

She turned to Grimstock, who was hovering in the doorway, clearly uncertain whether to get a doctor, a cab, both, or neither. “Grimmy, you’re coming with me.” She pointed to the letter on the floor, and she couldn’t help shuddering at the horrific feelings it had evoked in her. She didn’t dare touch it again. “I want you to bring that letter, but don’t touch it. The police may want to check fingerprints or some such thing. Get a pair of tongs, put the letter in another, larger envelope, then put it in your pocket and get me that cab. We’re going to Scotland Yard.”

Mick had six detectives and three sergeants helping him with the Hawthorne case, yet after two weeks of investigation, they had turned up very little additional information. Mick was frustrated by their lack of progress, and DeWitt was not happy with it either.

“What am I going to tell the press?” the chief inspector demanded, glancing from one face to another in the group of detectives gathered around a long table in one of the meeting rooms at the Yard. “They’ve been breathing down my neck for two bloody weeks, and I’ve been promising them a report on our investigation to pacify them. I can’t put them off forever. They are wondering if we are even bothering to investigate the murder of one of our own, and they want to know just what we’ve been doing. The public is terrified we’ve got
another Jack the Ripper on our hands. And the only thing I can tell them is that we don’t know who killed Hawthorne, we don’t know why, and we don’t know who might be next. That will go down very well with the people of this city, I’m sure. What have the lot of you been doing?”

“The public can be assured that only police officers seem to be targeted,” Thacker suggested from, where he stood by the door.

“Lovely.” DeWitt tossed down his pencil. “That will make them feel so much safer. Thank you.”

Mick cleared his throat. “Sir, if you’ll allow me to go through what we do know, it might help you to understand what we’re doing, and you’ll be able to judge what is appropriate to tell the press and what is not.”

DeWitt turned in his chair to the man seated beside him. “I’m listening.”

“The autopsy shows that Jack was killed shortly before he was found. The body was still warm, and rigor mortis had not yet set in. He must have been killed around half past ten. The pub had closed for the evening, but the pattern of blood indicates that Jack was killed and his body desecrated inside the Three Horses. He was dragged into the alley afterward.”

“With the fireworks going off for Jubilee, I can believe no one heard the shot. Are there any witnesses?”

“We haven’t found anybody who saw Jack’s body dragged into the alley,” Mick replied. “The owner of the pub doesn’t seem to be involved, but we’re still looking into that.”

Sergeant MacNeil, another officer assigned to the case, spoke up, “The Three Horses is only a block from Jack’s flat. He often cut through that alley on his way home. The pub was already closed for the night, but the back door had been broken into. Jack probably saw that, and he stopped to have a look.”

DeWitt stared at him in disbelief. “Are you telling me this is a case of a burglar being caught breaking into a pub? Bosh!”

“No, sir,” Mick answered for MacNeil and gestured to the other men gathered around the table. “We all agree that Jack and I were both intended targets of this killer.”

“But didn’t somebody see something?” DeWitt shouted in frustration.

“The killer’s timing was impeccable. All the public houses were closed, but most of the people around Covent Garden were on Bow Street in front of the Royal Opera House, wanting to see the Prince and Princess of Wales who had just come out. We had dozens of constables in the area, but they also stayed close to the royal family. We’ve asked the newspapers to tell people who might have seen something to come forward. But so far, we haven’t had anyone come forward other than the usual crowd. You know, people who want to confess to the crime, or people who want to feel important and come forward claiming they’ve seen something.”

“Aye,” Sergeant MacNeil spoke again, “like that loony Haversham bird.”

An unreasoning anger flared inside Mick at those words. He opened his mouth to defend her, but he
caught DeWitt giving him a hard stare, and he forced himself to be silent.

He remembered his own attitude toward Sophie, how he had laughed at her, too. Mick had plenty of common sense, and he believed in his instincts. His instincts told him that Sophie was telling him the truth, that she had some sort of power he couldn’t explain away as lucky guesses or perception or women’s intuition. Common sense told him power like that was impossible.

There are some things, Mick, that can’t be proven. Some things just don’t have facts and evidence to back them up. Some things have to be taken on faith
.

“Mick?”

DeWitt’s voice broke into his thoughts. He glanced up and found everyone looking at him, including his superintendent. “Sorry,” he said, straightening in his chair. “I was thinking. What was the question, sir?”

“What is your next step?”

“To find a witness. Somebody must have seen something. We’ve questioned quite a few people, but we still have many other leads to check.”

“Do you still believe revenge for a past case is the motive?”

“Yes, sir.” Mick pulled out his notes. “Sergeant Thacker gathered information on all the cases Jack and I have worked on together, but in every one of those cases, all the criminals we helped to convict arc still in prison, dead, or have alibis for that night. We’re investigating any connection between those cases and Miss Haversham, but we haven’t found any. There arc quite a few cases to go through, especially from my
days at Bow Street Station, when Jack was my sergeant ten years ago. There are many leads yet to pursue, and you know how time-consuming it is. We need more time.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the other officers present, but before DeWitt could comment on that, there was a knock on the closed door of the meeting room. The door opened and a young clerk stepped inside, an envelope in his hands, “Pardon me, sir,” he said to DeWitt, “but a young lady is here to see Detective Inspector Dunbar.”

“We’re having a meeting, Mr. Stover,” DeWitt pointed out with a frown that would have sent most young clerks scurrying for their desks. This clerk did not move from his place by the door.

“Yes, sir, but this young lady was the one what was at the crime scene, and she says she’s got some more information about Jack’s murder.” He held up the envelope in his hands in verification of his statement. “She said she needs to see Inspector Dunbar at once. Quite adamant about it, she was.”

There were chuckles, questions, and sarcastic comments from the group of men around the table.

“What, did she have another vision?”

“Maybe she brought her crystal ball.”

“She’s obviously batty, but she knows something. What’s her connection?”

“Spirit guidance.”

At that last comment, laughter broke out around the room, and Mick shoved back his chair. He stood up, knowing he had to get out of here. Losing his temper would not help him solve this case.

“I’ll talk to her.” As he followed Stover out the door, he said over one shoulder, “Thacker, continue where I left off. I’ll be right back.”

“C’mon, Mick, you’re not really going to talk to her, are you?” someone called after him as he walked out the door. “We’re not that desperate, are we?”

Mick set his jaw and shut the door, silencing the laughter that emanated from, the meeting room.

“Where is she?” he asked the clerk.

“I put her in your office, sir. Her butler came with her, and he is waiting for her in the CID main room.”

Mick pulled the envelope out of Stover’s hands and strode down the stairs to the floor below. The clerk followed him all the way to his office.

Sophie turned her head as he walked in, and the moment he saw her face, he knew something was very wrong. He turned to the clerk, who was hovering just outside his office. “You may return to your duties, Mr. Stover,” he said and shut the door.

The moment the door closed and Mick turned toward her, Sophie let out a sob and ran to him. “I’m so glad to see you,” she choked, throwing her arms around his neck. “I was so afraid they wouldn’t let me.”

She was trembling. Mick closed his eyes and stood perfectly still, wanting to hold her now more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, but he knew he couldn’t give in to that temptation. Not here. Not now.

He glanced at the glass windows set into the wall and door that separated his office from the hallway outside. Thank God he didn’t see Stover peeking in. Mick grasped Sophie’s arms and pushed her away, “Sophie, it’s not private here,” he reminded her.

“Of course,” she murmured and bit her lip at the curtness of his voice. “I’m sorry.”

He looked away and gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Sit down and tell me what’s happened.”

She obeyed. With a glance around, she said, “This wasn’t your office the first time I was here.”

“That office was temporary,” he explained and moved to sit behind his desk. “Mine was being painted.” He held up the envelope in his hands. “What’s this?”

“A letter from the killer, I got it in the post this morning.” She saw him turn it over in his hands and frown at the fact that there was no address or postmark on it, and she went on, “The letter itself is inside. We put it in there so we wouldn’t muddle it up with our fingerprints. I didn’t know if that was right or not, but I assumed it was better to be safe than sorry. . .”