From The Ashes (The Ministry of Curiosities #6)(27)

"Does Rampling have a middle name?" I asked.

"James." Lincoln once again shifted his stance, this time drawing a little closer. "Charlie, if you don't want to do it, you don't have to."

"Of course I want to," I snapped. "It's what I'm here for, isn't it?"

Seth and Gus looked to Lincoln. He shook his head, but said nothing. I blew out a breath and began. "Thomas James Rampling, I summon you here to me. Thomas James Rampling, please come to me in spirit form for…a conversation."

White mist coalesced in the corner of the library in the form of a man. Like a charcoal sketch, he didn't look real or alive, but he did nevertheless have form that drifted through the room toward me. His face was bloated from his drowning, and I found it difficult to look at him. After surveying his surroundings, taking in each of the men in turn, he settled near Lincoln on the other side of the enormous mantelpiece.

"Mr. Thomas Rampling?" I asked.

"Who're you?"

"My name is Charlie. I've summoned you here to ask you some questions."

"How'd you do that?"

"It's an inherited skill. Will you willingly answer some questions for me about the man who hired you to hire Jack Daley?"

The mist dispersed as if a strong breeze had caught it, then quickly reformed into the shape of Thomas Rampling again. "What d'you want to know?" he asked, looking to Lincoln.

"Only I can hear you," I told him. "We are the Ministry of Curiosities, a group formed to keep account of all supernaturals, such as myself. Daley killed a supernatural and we'd like to know why and who ordered the murder. He told us you hired him. Did you?"

The mist shimmered. "What are the consequences if I did? Not confessing, mind, just asking."

"There are no consequences. Since you're already dead, there is nothing anyone in this realm can do to you and we're not interested in laying blame posthumously. In the realm where you exist now, they already know your earthly deeds and have judged you. Confessing to us makes no difference."

His eyes narrowed. "Why should I tell you anything?"

I sighed. "Because I'm asking you nicely, and because I believe you are not a cruel man, but one forced to do cruelty because of your circumstances."

"I have no craft, no skill, and I couldn't find work," the ghost explained. "I needed the money."

"Your cousin believed you to be a good man," Lincoln said. He must have guessed that Rampling was being obstinate. "Honor his memory of you by helping us catch the man behind these murders."

"Very well." Rampling passed a hand across his swollen face. "I was paid to hire Daley, sure enough. I gave him the directions to the victims, and passed on his fee. But I didn't see the face of the man who hired me. I can't tell you his name or describe him."

"Bollocks," I muttered before I could stop myself.

Rampling's eyes widened and I apologized for my language and repeated what the spirit had said for the benefit of the others. Gus and Seth both swore too. Lincoln's chest rose with his deep breath.

"He must know something that can identify the man," Lincoln said. "Otherwise why was he killed?"

A good point. I looked to the spirit whose brow had crinkled into a frown in thought.

"Is there something other than his appearance you would know him by?" I asked. "Something on or in his coach perhaps? A monogramed letter? A distinctive ring?" I had a thought that made my breath hitch. "A distinctive walking stick?" Like the one Lord Gillingham used.

Rampling shook his head. "Not that I can recall."

"Think!"

The mist drifted around me, leaving a chill in its wake. I watched him float to the ceiling then dip under the table and sweep up the ladder to the highest bookshelves. Finally, he resettled in the same spot, his frown cleared.

"I think I know why," he said. "I followed him that first night I met him. My cousin drives for a lord and lady and he happened to pass me by soon after I met the man who hired me. My cousin was just filling in time driving around, waiting for his mistress to finish her shopping. I asked him to follow the toff's growler at a distance with me as his passenger. Thought I could squeeze some money out of him later, to keep his identity quiet, if I knew where he lived. But he didn't go home, so it was pointless. We followed him all the way to Brooks's on St. James. His growler was just pulling away from the curb when we drew closer, and a footman greeted someone at the front door. I didn't see his face," he added before I could ask. "He had his back to me. The footman knew him, though, so I'd wager he was a member of the club. If you want to find him, try there."

It wasn't much, but it was something. I relayed the information to the others. "What about his build?" Seth asked. "Tall, short, fat, thin?"

"Taller than most, but his build was impossible to determine beneath all the capes on his great coat. His collar was turned up and with his hat on, I couldn't see his hair."

"Did he walk like an old man?" I asked. "Or a young one?"

Rampling shrugged. "Can't recall. Nothing so as I noticed."

Damnation. It wasn't much at all.

"If he had his back to Ramplin'," Gus said, frowning in thought, "then the toff wouldn't have seen him and wouldn't know he was bein' followed. So why kill him?"