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“Since ten this morning?” Elspeth sniffs. “You really do think me a fool.”
“If he has been gone since ten, then he is in trouble, and we must speak to ‘young Bob’ as quickly as possible.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
The boy is upstairs, having been ordered to stay out of this bit of business. Gray questions him. Bob dissembles—clearly uncomfortable with revealing what Jack had been up to—until Elspeth snaps at him to tell the truth or Jack’s death will be on his conscience. After that, he admits Jack heard about Mr. Ware’s murder and went to his house to investigate on behalf of her writer friend.
While there, Jack overheard enough conversation to realize Isla and I were upstairs searching the office. She was trying to figure out how to weasel her way in—on some pretense of needing to speak to us—when the clerk, Fischer, arrived. She eavesdropped on that conversation and waited until he came out and then tried to speak to him, hoping for insight into the murder.
Fischer blew her off and was clearly rattled. That piqued her interest, so she followed him. She saw where he was going and gave Bob the note. A smart thing to do… except she was so distracted over Fischer that she hadn’t explained it was to go to the people listed, at the address listed. I guess she thought he’d figure that out.
Instead, Bob delivered the note to the same place he took all her notes: Elspeth. The Victorian equivalent of texting a friend before you head into a guy’s apartment. Smart. It works better when the messenger knows what he’s supposed to do.
The obvious next step is for Gray and me to go to the address given.Elspeth won’t hear of it. She’s going herself, with her two heavies, and we aren’t invited. Gray argues but not nearly strenuously enough. I keep my mouth shut until we’ve left Halton House.
“You mis-deciphered the address, didn’t you?” I say.
“I may have. Quite accidentally, of course.”
I shake my head. “Where did you send them?”
“To the general area where the boy left Jack. I am only fortunate he did not see her to the specified address.”
“So where arewegoing?”
“To a butcher’s shop.”
“Tell me you mean that literally, and you don’t suspect Fischer has body parts strewn about his lodgings.”
“One can only hope.”
I could askwhichoutcome one can only hope for, but I decide—with Gray—it’s best not to know.
Yep, it’s a butcher’s shop, and I’d need to be starving to buy food there. The smell makes me consider vegetarianism, and that’s before we get close enough to see the flies on the meat. Meat that hangs a few feet above a street awash in excrement from horses and not-horses.
“It’s like something out of a horror movie,” I whisper to Gray.
“I presume that is not a good thing?”
My retching noises set the corners of his mouth twitching.
“It’s not even the worst part of the Old Town,” I whisper. “Do I want to see a butcher shop there?”
“It is likely no worse. Food adulteration is a never-ending concern in all areas, starting with convincing physicians that feeding chalk-whitened milk to babies is a health risk.”
I stare at him.
“I believe you have mentioned our infant mortality rate,” he murmurs. “We are an unhealthy lot.”
“Hell, no. If babies survive drinking that, you guys are freakinginvincible.”
“It is getting better,” he says. “Various food laws have been passed in recent years. But, as always, the pace of change is slow.”
Gray surveys the shop.
“Jack could have seen Fischer go inside,” I say. “But she’s not going to summon us to meet her here if he only popped in for a leg of lamb. That’s an apartment over the shop, right?”
His gaze rises to it. “Several, I would presume.”
