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I tug open the door to find the interior dark and empty. “Or not.”
Gray prowls about the site, viewing the mausoleum from all angles. I’m doing the same when my gaze falls on marks in the dirt. Divots at perfectly distanced intervals. Also footprints. When I notice a spot of silver under a tangle of undergrowth, I bend to lift a leaf.
“Is that mercury?” I ask, pointing at the droplet of liquid metal.
He crouches. “It is indeed.” A moment’s pause and then he nods. “From a camera. Excellent work, my girl.”
“Woof.”
His lips twitch in a smile. “I would offer to scratch behind your ears, but I suspect you’d prefer a treat.”
“No,you’dprefer a treat. I’d like cold, hard cash.”
He flips a thruppence my way.
I catch it. “Why thank you, sir. I find I have grown most fond of money.”
“Odd. That seems a common condition among those who do not have it.” He sobers. “In all seriousness, any time that you require money, Mallory—”
“I’m good.” I pocket the coin. “What would I do with more anyway?”
That faint smile returns. “Run off and start your own consulting-detective business?”
“Then go broke and hungry because it’s still fifty years before anyone would hire a woman detective. I like being your eager apprentice. Takes the pressure off. If we screw up, it’s your fault, ’cause I’m just a girl. It’s a wonder I can tie my own bootlaces.”
I peer at the mercury spot. From a camera? Why would…?
I laugh as the answer hits me.
“You’ve figured it out?” Gray says.
“Five minutes after you, I bet.”
“Five seconds, at most.”
I move into position, over by those divots, which I realize come from a camera tripod. Photography isn’t exactly new, but it’s not as if every family has a camera or knows how to use one. When we see photos of Victorians, they seem a dour lot, which influences our vision of them as staid and rigid. Believe me, if it took an hour to snap a selfie, you wouldn’t be grinning either.
Photosarepossible, though, and that’s what someone has done here. They built a miniature mausoleum and then shot photos of it with the city rising in the backdrop, and it would look amazing. It’s the Victorian equivalent of a deepfake. It would seem like a gorgeous full-scale marble mausoleum on an equally gorgeous piece of land.
Picture this for your loved one’s afterlife.
“They’re selling this land as a cemetery,” I say.
“Possibly,” Gray says. “More likely, though, they are selling plots. Or,even more likely, groups of plots to speculators who are relatively new to investing.”
“People who want in on hot opportunities, but don’t have a lot of money to invest and aren’t savvy enough to come out for an in-person look.”
“They may be focusing on investors from outside Edinburgh, in which case the photographs would suffice. After all, it is a photograph. What other proof is needed?” He stands in the spot, bending slightly for the angle. “It is rather genius.”
“Agreed. That’s the scheme then. They had Young—the gravedigger—help set this up and possibly even find potential clients. Then Burns, having plenty of experience with fraudulent investments.”
“Mr. Ware to handle the legal aspects and give it an air of respectability, as he is renowned for his fairness.”
“Mmm. Would it be Ware, though? Or his clerk, Fischer? Fischer gets a job with a respected but elderly lawyer and processes the legal work under the auspices of his office, even luring in some of Ware’s own clients, like Primrose.”
“True. That seems more plausible. Mr. Fischer did join the firm only a few months ago. Then there is Lord Leslie. We cannot directly connect him to this scheme yet, but it is plausible that he is connected, given that he had an interest in funeral-related investments and Mr. Fischer stole client papers from one of his close friends and one of his business associates.”
“Would Leslie allow a close friend to invest in a fraudulent scheme?” I peer out at the landscape before answering my own question. “Likely not, but he may not have known Lord Primrose invested… or Lord Primrose didnotinvest and played another role, such as bringing in investors.”
