Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(10)

“I have no notion how it began. I went to fetch a constable and when I returned, the building was ablaze.”

“Where is Miss Lassiter now?” Fisher asked.

“I am not sure. She does tend to wander,” he remarked, hoping with all his might that it was true this time.

“Indeed. What were you doing there?”

“I was looking for Keats.” As you asked me to.

“So why was Miss Lassiter there?” Hulme jumped in.

Alastair had wondered how long the inspector would hold his silence.



“She was particularly interested in Effington, ever since the assassination attempt at his party. She’d heard that he was skimming goods off the top of his customers’ loads and hiding them in one of his own warehouses. She wanted to investigate the claim.”

Hulme scowled. “I suppose it never occurred to her that there is a paid constabulary in this city.”

The doctor swore he heard a chuckle from Fisher.

“Miss Lassiter is single-minded, Inspector,” Alastair explained. “Once she has the bit in her teeth, there is no means of stopping her.”

“I will vouch for that, Hulme,” Fisher added. “I’ve spoken at length with the woman, and she is quite tenacious.”

“So it seems,” Hulme grumbled.

“Is she still residing at the Charing Cross Hotel?” Fisher asked.

“No,” Alastair replied. “She’s staying in a room at Pratchett’s Bookshop in the Strand.”

“Why?” Hulme challenged.

“You’ll have to ask her.”

“From what I gather,” the chief inspector interjected, “they’re still digging through the remains of the warehouse, but they have not found any further corpses.”

“Thank God,” Alastair murmured.

“Did you kill Hugo Effington?” Hulme asked.

Alastair’s eyes widened. “No.”

“Set fire to the building?”

“No. Why do you think I would do such things?”

Hulme only smirked for an answer, making Alastair’s gut churn. Does he know about what happened in Wales?

“We put these sorts of questions to anyone who may have been at the scene of a crime, Doctor,” Fisher remarked.

“Even when you know what the answer will be?”

“Of course. Sometimes you receive a reply that surprises you,” the senior officer replied. “Who do you think might have killed him?”

“Given his egregious behavior, Effington no doubt had a long list of enemies. I would hazard that it was someone very familiar with human anatomy. As best as I could tell from a brief inspection of the corpse, the blade went neatly between two ribs at the precise level to impact the heart.”



“A doctor?” Hulme quizzed.

Alastair gave him a sour look. “Or a professional assassin.”

“There are a lot more of the former around than the latter,” Hulme replied.

“I requested a copy of the post-mortem results this morning,” Fisher cut in. He offered the doctor a few sheets of paper.

Alastair scanned the notes from the local coroner who had performed the post-mortem. “Lack of soot in the lungs indicative of death before the fire, pericardium pierced by a single incision.” He dropped the papers on the desk. “As I expected.”

Hulme extracted his notebook and flipped a page. “I understand that you and Miss Lassiter escorted Hugo Effington’s wife to Southampton on the eighteenth. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

Hulme continued, his tone gruff. “You were involved in this woman’s surreptitious departure from England, though you knew I was investigating her supposed suicide.”

Alastair felt like he was in the dock, facing a jury. The questions carried that sort of edge. “I cautioned her on that point, but she refused to go to the police. She was terrified of her husband, and said that was why she made it appear as if she’d killed herself.”

“How convenient that terror has been removed, and she has the perfect alibi—she was on a ship bound for America.”

Alastair opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it.

“No defence of the widow, Doctor?” Fisher asked, leaning forward.

“No,” he replied abruptly. “I do not have enough information to say either way, though I doubt that she would be so bold as to hire someone to kill her husband.”

“Perhaps,” Fisher conceded. “Nevertheless, my years as a copper have taught me many lessons, one of which is that women are a mystery. They appear as innocent as children, though I believe they are the more cunning of the species. They often employ that childlike innocence to rally our noblest male instincts in their defence.”



“So you maintain that you had nothing to do with Effington’s death?” Hulme pressed.

Alastair’s jaw was firmly set. “Yes.”

“I am given to understand that Mrs. Effington has accused her husband of physical cruelty,” Hulme went on.

“There was evidence to support her claim.”

“Bruises?”

“And old scars.”

Hulme’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that Mr. Effington delivered those blows?”