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Yes, his wife took the money and abandoned his corpse, but any horror at that disappears when I remember Gray saying that the couple lived in one of the worst parts of Old Town. Now he says they lived in a single room shared with their three children and two elderly relatives. Grave digging is at the low end of the laborer pay scale, which is saying a lot in this time. Young was known to be an alcoholic who often didn’t show up for his shifts, which meant he often went without pay. Can I really blame his wife for keeping the burial payout?
Still, having kept it immediately put her on the suspect list. In fact, she has already been arrested and is in prison, while the police continue their investigation.
The second victim was Andrew Burns. He’s the pub regular whose wife made him his favorite pudding and he kept eating it even after his stomach started bothering him. The one whose wife had publicly ignored his symptoms. The police hadn’t realized this until McCreadie overheard it lastnight. That might seem like poor investigative techniques, but it’s more a case of witnesses not wanting to speak to the police. When McCreadie relayed that evidence to Detective Crichton—the officer in charge of the case—Crichton had gone to arrest Mrs. Burns, only to find she’d fled.
The Burnses were a step up the social ladder from the Youngs. Lower-middle-class, living in lodgings better than one might expect from his salary, according to McCreadie. Mrs. Burns is also the second to bear that title. Andrew Burns left his first wife and two kids a year ago and married his mistress. He did not pay child support or alimony, this being a world where a “decent” man does that as a matter of course and everyone else just doesn’t.
As for the bigamy, it seems there had been no actual first marriage. Oh, his first wife certainly thought so, but he’d paid a friend to play officiant and marry them. Yep, Andrew Burns sounds like a peach of a guy, and I suspect his wives—both of them—aren’t the only ones who might want him dead.
If we’d been a little faster, we could have gotten tissue from Burns before he was buried. Addington’s verbal report of leg pains, though, suggests thallium poisoning.
“Any chance the pudding is still in the icebox?” I say.
“Wouldn’t his wife have thrown it away?” Isla says.
“Not if it isn’t the murder weapon,” I say. “Also, the fact that she didn’t even act worried about him being sick suggests she’s not the most devious killer ever. It’s worth looking into. I’d like to get access to the home anyway. If all three poisonings were thallium, that definitely suggests a single source.”
“Agreed,” Gray says. “I will send a message to Hugh and request access.”
“Good.” I look at the stack of newspapers and broadsheets. “Anyone up for a little reading while we wait?”
Tommy the newsboy was right. The death of Lord Leslie is all over the news. Not all the papers got it out in time, but those that did put it on the front page, and one that missed the print cutoff has already added an overlay sheet—a single page to fold over the original front page.
There is no mention of Gray or Isla in the articles. That will come. I’ve seen how some—possibly most—of the police treat Gray: like a ghoulwho gets off on cutting up corpses. I tell myself they’re just confused. The police don’t understand what he’s doing, and they almost certainlyhaveseen people with an unhealthy interest in the dead. Add in the fact that he’s also an undertaker, and it’s little wonder that they’re quick to misread his interest. That’s the logical explanation. The emotional one is that I am furious on his behalf.
From that, though, I can extrapolate that it won’t only be the police who have a problem with Gray. Does anyone else know what he studies? I suspect local medical academics will, but beyond that? I can’t see him giving public lectures or telling clients about his side gig.
From what I understand, Gray conveys his findings to the police through McCreadie and other open-minded officers. He doesn’t submit reports. He doesn’t testify in court. And he sure as hell doesn’t talk to reporters. Is that going to change? He’s the brother of a murder suspect, and he’s a fascinating subject on his own—a man of color with a scandalous birth story, trained as a surgeonanda doctor, now an undertaker and a forensic scientist.
The press will find him. They will find officers more than happy to tell them what he does in his spare time.
Is Gray ready for that? Does he know it’s coming? Do I warn him, as I did Isla?Howdo I warn him?
I need to think more on that. For now, the papers are focused on Lord Leslie and his wife. Leslie was well known as a hunter, which explains the trophy room. He was married once before, to a woman who died in childbirth, taking his only offspring with her. A few years later, he wed Annis Gray. While Miss Gray had no title, nor any claim to nobility, she did bring a sizable dowry, courtesy of her father, a wealthy investor who had made his fortune in private cemeteries and burial clubs.
There’s no mention of Mr. Gray having been an undertaker. I can’t imagine the papers would omit that detail. Undertaking isn’t the most respectable of professions—this is the era where they get their reputation as vultures feeding on the grieving. Gray is more funeral director than funeral salesperson, but the profession has used the mourning mania surrounding Prince Albert’s death to its full advantage. I’m guessing Annis—and probably Lord Leslie—re-framed that aspect of her past, positioning her father as an upper-class man of leisure investing his family money.
I wonder how the press could make such a basic research error… until I remember I’m in the nineteenth century. It’s not as if they could pop online and research the Gray family. The fact that papers were able to report on Leslie’s death at all suggests they knew he was sick and had either bought off staff or positioned themselves nearby, awaiting the inevitable.
A man of property and title has been murdered by poison… when the city is already working itself into a tizzy over a poisoning ring. It’s a wonder there weren’t journalists thronging Lord Leslie’s front gate.
Reporters must have obtained whatever scanty details the staff could provide, with a greater interest in the murder than the background of the lead players. That background will come later. And it will catch Gray in its net.
I read all the articles and then move on to the broadsheets, including a few extras Simon has already brought over. I’m moving faster than Gray and Isla, having gotten an earlier start. The newspapers had largely stuck to the facts, but the broadsheets have no such probity. Being someone who enjoys a lurid tale, I can’t help but admire the creativity here. While a few of the broadsheets are utter trash, barely even intelligible, there’s one writer who shows serious talent, at least for fiction.
No, that’s not entirely fair. This particular writer of broadsheets gets enough of the facts right to suggest they actually do their research. They just don’t feel compelled to stick to those facts.
I’ve read this writer’s work before. Their byline proclaims them “Edinburgh’s Foremost Reporter of Criminal Activities.” There’s no name attached, as if no other identifier is needed, and I’m kind of impressed by the chutzpah.
This particular writer has already put out two broadsheets today, which is incredibly fast in a world before even a copy machine. The first focuses solely on the Leslie murder. The new one also recaps the first two murders.
To properly serve its audience, a broadsheet must function as an independent story. When the writer wants to publish new information, they update the original story, condensing the earlier parts to accommodate the new bits.
This update summarizes the earlier poisonings and then adds the Leslie one. The writer notes “a similarity between the cases,” with all victims having experienced similar symptoms. That’s a scoop on the papers, and I’m about to tell Gray and Isla when I hit the final paragraph.
It is not only the dreadful signs of poison that connect these three tragic cases. This reporter has heard that Lady Leslie’s own brother, Dr. Duncan Gray, was seen in the Old Town the night of Lord Leslie’s death. Known to assist the police, Dr. Gray seems to have been pursuing the very poison ring his sister, Lady Leslie, now stands accused of joining.
I read the paragraph twice to be sure I’m not misunderstanding. Then I set the broadsheet down.
