Chapter Four

Even though he was at the opera with Mary to enjoy a nice night out with her ahead of the nuptial ceremony on the morrow, something about being presented with a case to solve made him feel alive and vital, but the fact that his fiancée was acting quite odd gave him pause.

Why? She had worked cases with him before and had never had such a reaction toward a corpse, so what was different about this one?

"Where did you wander off to?" He frowned, for the soles of the dead woman's half-boots were scuffed and worn, and they certainly didn't match the gown she'd worn. To be fair, the garment wasn't the quality or style that a woman would don to attend the opera, so that begged the question of what she wasn't doing at the opera house to begin with.

Mary frowned, but there were shadows in her blue eyes that worked to further put questions into his mind. "I needed to get away from the body, to compose myself, but decided to come back. It's quite stuffy in the corridors. "

"It should clear soon; the comedy will begin shortly." Lifting the edge of the dead woman's skirting, he did a cursory check, but it didn't seem as if she'd had carnal relations before her death. At least not immediately prior. A bit of staining on the shift indicated she had enjoyed that sort of thing but perhaps twelve hours off at the least. "Did you talk to anyone while you were out?"

She nodded. "I accidentally ran into a man in the corridor. Seemed congenial enough, a Mr. Dempsey. I was unsure if he was here to attend the opera."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"He wasn't wearing a tailcoat or the proper breeches and shoes."

Now that was interesting. "Did you question him, ask if he'd seen anything suspicious?"

"Oh. It didn't occur to me. My brain is clouded, my thoughts racing, and he appeared rather in a hurry as he was rushing through the corridor."

That wasn't out of the ordinary, for the intermission between plays wasn't all that long, especially if one needed to procure a drink or had to find a toilet. "Ah, well that's understandable." As he examined the dead woman's knees, he frowned. "Bit of bruising here. If she's a maid and used to scrubbing the floors while on her knees, why the devil is she at an opera house? I wouldn't think she could afford a ticket."

Mary snorted. "Someone could have gifted it to her. Honestly, though, her gown isn't fine enough for the opera, and she's wearing half-boots instead of slippers. I'll wager she's not here as an attendee."

"That was my conclusion as well." Before he could continue, a large and tall man stormed over to their location, and when he arrived at the body, he put his hands on his hips and huffed.

"What the devil occurred here?" he demanded in a voice that boomed along the corridors.

Gabriel glanced first at Mary, who widened her eyes in surprise then he looked up at the new arrival. "I assume you are the constable?"

"I am." The big man crossed his arms at his chest and glared at Gabriel. "Mr. Edding. Now answer my question."

It took all his willpower not to shoot off a smart mouthed comment. Instead, he stood, but even then, the other man towered over him by a good several inches. "There has apparently been a murder, Constable," Gabriel said with a fair amount of annoyance in his voice. He gestured to the corpse. "As you can see, there is a knife in the woman's chest where there shouldn't be such a thing. That, coupled with the pool of blood would indicate that this woman has been stabbed in such a strategic place that she quickly bled out."

The other man glanced at the corpse. Disgust went through his expression. "Her ilk isn't welcome here at the theater, and there is another play about to start besides."

Gabriel frowned. "What sort of woman is she, then?" From all accounts, the cut of her clothing wasn't that of a maid or a prostitute or any other sort of fallen woman.

"A courtesan, I'll wager. They are all over the gardens, working to separate a man from his hard-earned coin." The constable shook his head, and for some odd reason, the color leached from Mary's face. "We can't have this spectacle in the corridor."

"Obviously, I can't authorize the removal of the body until I've collected clues." He held out a hand. "Inspector Gabriel Bright, formerly of Bow Street but now working as an independent consultant on cases Bow Street can't or won't look into."

Relief was evident on the bigger man's face. "Good to meet you, Inspector. Perhaps you could take charge of this mess, hmm?"

Clearly, the constable had gained his position with no blessed clue how to actually handle a crime if one occurred. That was one of the issues in London currently. There was no real authority when it came to a police force, nor was there any cohesion of a "force" at all. It was a wonder justice was ever served. "I am endeavoring to do so, Constable."

Before either of them could say anything else, another man fought his way through the gathering crowds to join them. Of average height and weight, his chestnut hair had been fashioned into the latest style and held there with copious amounts of pomade. He wore the requisite clothes for an evening out, and there was even a red rose bud on his lapel.

"Good heavens! I'd heard rumors, but I wasn't prepared to see a real dead body." His eyes rounded as he took in the body, the blood, the jeweled knife handle still sticking out of the chest.

"Who are you?" Gabriel demanded while Mary watched the interaction with uncharacteristic silence. Concern for her brewed in his chest, but there was no opportunity to speak privately with her just now.

"Oh, I am Mr. Whirley, the theater owner."

"I am Inspector Bright, formerly of Bow Street." As annoying as it was to continue referencing his former employer, he'd found after six months of being a consultant and independent investigator that it lent authenticity to his credentials. "The constable here has asked that I take charge of the situation."

"Yes, well, that is all well and good, but you need to do it quickly and quietly because it will upset the patrons. Additionally, the second play will start in ten minutes."

What the devil did the man want him to do, wave a magic wand and make all the gawkers vanish? Annoyed, he tamped on the urge to show it. Instead, he nodded and conceded the point. "You're right. We can't have a stream of people trampling through the crime scene. That would be a messy endeavor at best and would cause a sensation." He met the theater owner's eyes. "I don't guess you'll want the press sniffing about."

"Well, bad publicity does have its place and would bring patrons, but my schedule is already quite full."

Good God, the man was useless. Gabriel waved him away. "By all means, Mr. Whirley, go ahead and continue with the play's opening, but at the very least, block off this corridor." When he glanced at the constable, who shrugged, he gritted his teeth. "I can't have the crime scene compromised." Then dismissing the man, he once more addressed the constable. "Summon the coroner. Once he retrieves the body, I will not have access to it, so I intend to conduct my own investigation until that time comes."

"Of course, Inspector."

Both men left, and to his credit, Mr. Whirley managed to herd the bystanders away. A few minutes later, two young men wearing maroon jackets signifying they worked for the theater came to stand guard at the end of the corridor.

He blew out a breath, and glanced at Mary. "Now I can go back to work."

"You kept your temper in check quite admirably," she said with a faint smile, but the expression didn't reach her eyes.

"Thank you for noticing." He missed the banter they usually shared during a case. "Let's see what we can gather before the coroner arrives."

A tiny sigh escaped her as she moved to the back of the woman and then kneeled on the floor. "The gown is of a fairly recent style though the hue doesn't suit her complexion." Gingerly, she moved the head as Gabriel rolled the woman onto her back. "No earbobs or necklace, so she either wasn't wealthy or she wasn't finished with her toilette, due to the half-boots still being on her feet."

"You think she was interrupted while getting ready?"

Mary shrugged. "It's a possibility."

"Aside from the bruises on her knees, there aren't any other wounds." He picked up one of the dead woman's hands. "She wore gloves, so there are no defensive wounds, but since she was stabbed at such close quarters and by someone who clearly hated her enough to drive a knife so deep into the body to the hilt, she must have known them to allow them into her personal space to begin with."

"Why do you believe her attacker knew her?"

"Because if she didn't know the person, she would have put up a fight and there would have been at least a few slash marks on the gown or her gloves. And she would have attempted to run from him or her, so the attacker would have probably stabbed her in the back." As he spoke, he inspected the gown. It was still in pristine condition… except for the blood-stained front. "It would be best if we remove the knife and take it with us." He took a handkerchief from an interior pocket, but when he reached for the jeweled handle, a whimper from Mary stopped him.

"Bright, stop."

When he glanced at her, he frowned, for she'd gone as white as the proverbial sheet. Immediate concern tightened his chest. "What's wrong? You have been acting oddly since we came upon the dead body, and that isn't like you."

"I know." She nodded, but she was a bit green about the mouth as if she could retch at any moment. "I must admit something to you, and I'll wager you won't be pleased."

"Oh?" Cold foreboding snaked through his gut. Perhaps this was the crux of her unease.

Briefly, she held her lower lip between her teeth as she looked at him. Finally, she swallowed and the delicate tendons in her throat worked. "I know who this is."

"What?" His eyebrows rose in surprise. "Were you going to withhold this information?"

"I'd thought about it." A faint blush stained her cheeks. "I knew you would find out eventually during the course of the investigation." Sorrow and worry warred for dominance in her eyes as she stared at him from over the dead woman's legs. "Her name is Theresa Kessler, and she was my husband's mistress."

Bloody hell.

His chest constricted, for that admittance changed the whole course of the investigation. "Obviously, she was someone for whom you didn't have much love."

"Yes." She nodded, and instead of meeting his gaze, she focused on something over his left shoulder. "Also, she wasn't stabbed with a knife." When she pressed her lips together and her chin trembled, he steeled himself against feeling for her. At least not right now during an investigation. "That is a letter opener."

"A wedding gift?"

"No." A blush stained her cheeks. "Your, uh, brother gave it to me a long time ago when we were together, as a gift. "

"What?" The inquiry seemed overly loud in the tight space. Now that he knew it had come from Frances, of course the damned thing looked familiar; he remembered it from his childhood, for it had been on his mother's desk.

"After I married Benjamin, I thought I'd lost it or one of the servants had stolen it or that he'd even hawked it for coin during the time when he was down on his luck. I shouldn't have been surprised to find out Theresa took it." When she snapped her attention to his face, a trace of bitterness skittered through her expression. "She took him from me, and now that I think about it, she probably stole other things from me that had gone missing during that time. Some of them I assumed he'd sold for quick coin, but then, that was a long time ago."

Indeed, for she'd become Tomlinson's widow five years ago last month. "Damn it all to hell," he couldn't help but whisper. This was bad. The woman he would wed on the morrow was now his prime suspect, and they would need to have a tough conversation soon.

Yet he knew deep down in his heart she didn't do this crime. But he also knew that he'd nodded off for about twenty minutes during MacBeth. Could she have slipped away during that time, come upon Theresa and then killed her with the letter opener she had already admitted was hers? Had she known the woman frequented the opera and had bided her time in the hopes that someday their paths might cross?

Farfetched, possibly, but he had seen people murdered with far less planning.

"I'm sorry, Bright." It was said in a barely audible whisper, and as she gazed down at the corpse in front of her, the blonde arcs of her lashes that lay over her pale cheeks brought him back to the first case they'd worked together… where he'd also declared her as a suspect.

The feeling of numbness tingled through his hands. With every breath, betrayal went through his chest and his heart squeezed. Had she truly done this? In the past, they'd discussed the possibility that everyone, regardless of how good they were, had the capacity to kill.

Did she? Could she? And on the eve of their wedding when she would leave her past behind?

Slowly, he shook his head. In some odd way, his brain was trapped between logic and disbelief and horror. "I have no choice but to question you, Mary, for you are a suspect, and the best one I have thus far. You had prior knowledge of this woman, had interacted with her during the years you were with your husband, and for all intents and purposes you had motive to kill her since she was Tomlinson's mistress."

Those words seemed to snap her out of the daze she'd apparently fallen into. With a scoff, she yanked her head up and raised her gaze to his. "Why? Ben is dead and has been in the ground for five years. I had no need to kill her now."

Tension crackled between them, rolling through the small corridor, making them more strangers than a couple soon to be joined for eternity.

Hellfire and damnation.

"I wish you hadn't said that." It was tantamount to a confession. "However, I will question you at home. I don't wish to do it here in this place where there will be gossip that might circulate through the ton ."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "I would imagine that might look bad for you, hmm?"

"Absolutely, it will, and for you as well. Damn it, Mary, we are getting ready to start our lives together, and now this." Immediately after the words came out, he regretted them, for tears sprang to her eyes and twin spots of color blazed in her cheeks. "I'm sorry."

"No." She scrambled to her feet. "You are well within your rights to think what you will or even say it too. I don't fault you for that." There was so much emotion in her eyes that it was his turn to want to cast up his accounts. "You must do the job that you have been put on this earth to perform. Because you are the best at that."

If his heart ached anymore, he feared it would break. "Thank you for that," he forced out in a whisper as he made a few scratches in his notebook. Then he cleared his throat. "In the meanwhile, let's search for clues. The coroner will be here soon."

"Right."

"Here." Gabriel gave her the handkerchief. "Remove the letter opener and wrap it up. Then go back to the box and retrieve our outerwear." It went against everything he believed in, everything he'd discovered about Mary since meeting her last December, but he couldn't have her working the crime scene with him if she was truly compromised.

"Ah. You don't trust me." Her hand shook as she gently removed the letter opener from the dead woman's chest. As she bundled it into the handkerchief, she frowned. "I don't blame you, Bright, but I've told you the truth. I didn't kill her." Then she put the letter opener into her reticule. "I also don't fault you for doing what you must."

He nodded. "Once I finish there, we will wait for the coroner and then go home." Suddenly, his appetite had fled. Even though they'd skipped dinner, he didn't think he could eat a bite after being handed a gruesome murder as well as the knowledge that his soon to be wife could somehow be involved.

With a poorly stifled sigh, Mary quickly fled the scene and went back toward the corridor that would lead to the opera box .

Shoving his feelings deep, Gabriel returned his attention to finishing his examination of the murder victim. Half stuck in the pool of blood was a calling card with expensive embossed lettering that belonged to a gentleman, and a peer at that. After wiping off as much of the blood as he could, he then tucked the card into his waistcoat pocket.

Hidden in the folds of her gown was a matching reticule, except portions of the bag had signs of wear and use with a few smudges of dirt or soot. In cases like these, the investigator had to look at things with a detached mind; it was best not to consider the person as once alive because then emotions would be involved and that would cloud critical thinking.

Inside the reticule, he found a voucher from a London merchant giving her access to shop credit in a different man's name than was listed on the calling card. There was a folded sheet of paper that contained a brief note of adoration from a Clarence Taylor saying every performance he did was in the hopes she would take notice of him. Clearly, he was an actor. Had she come tonight to see him? Additionally, there was a scrap of paper with an address in Mayfair scribbled across it, but he didn't know who'd written it or why. A different calling card with no name, only an address in Brighton printed on it in embossed, silver ink with the image of a cluster of grapes. It had been hidden into a folded playbill, perhaps one the actor had been in? A small brown bottle of laudanum was next, three quarters empty. Hers or someone else's? At the bottom there was a hairpin, a tarnished brass compact of powder, and finally, a shortbread biscuit, carefully wrapped in a ladies' handkerchief with embroidery at one corner.

The personal effects of a dead woman, and the last objects she had touched and used.

With sadness clinging to his person, Gabriel stood and deposited the items back into the reticule. He would take the whole thing with him. Then he frowned. Her dark hair had been mussed, either from the attack or a different meeting, but the teeth of a metal comb stuck out of the tresses. When he reached down to inspect it, there was a thin sheen of blood on one of the teeth. Did that mean there had been a struggle and in the process, the attacker had been cut?

It was the first real clue he'd found. After adding the hair comb to the reticule, he sighed. Now the work would truly begin, for once he arrived home, he would need to interrogate Mary, and that was something he never thought he'd be doing on the eve of his wedding.