Convicted Innocent(56)

“That was his doing?”

“According to his men, yes. We might’ve even found the fellow who first got wind of Nicholas Harker’s letter to you, a fellow by the name of Corbin Ediker. He was in Holloway the same time as Harker, and likely overheard Frank O’Malley reciting back the lad’s dictation. It may be safe to assume that, upon failing to intercept the letter before it was posted and delivered, the gang attempted to wrest it from you.”

“Which they botched.” Lewis said.

“And I was just an unlucky, interfering bystander.” Powell added.

Horace nodded. “Yes, but then Duke worked you into his scheme to pin all blame on his nuisance of a nephew and fell the family’s empire. His gang would then be ideally placed to snatch up the choicest pickings from the spoils.”

The priest made a disgusted sound at the back of his throat. “How could anyone even think to foist such awfulness as murder on the shoulders of someone so…so innocent? That boy knew of the injustice of it all – in his own simple way – yet he still offered to die in place of men he scarcely knew. His uncle was aware of the lad’s nature, and he abused it; he twisted it out of proportions; he made him seem a monster. What sort of man does that, and to his own flesh and blood?!”

“David.” Lewis murmured to quiet him.

The priest’s voice had risen steadily in anger as he spoke, and the bell-like fury had begun to carry through the ward. A nurse at the far end turned to look back at them with a frown.

“Oh. Forgive me,” Powell returned, seeming not at all apologetic. “I fear I’m rather uncharitable where Conway Duke and those like him are concerned.”

Mathilda glanced at her husband and Lewis before saying, “Though we may not express it so heatedly, I believe we all share the strength of your sentiments.”

Powell nodded, introspective, and then asked in a more even voice, “Is it known who murdered Frank O’Malley, and why?”

Horace pursed his lips. “Given the status of the proceedings…and the public nature of our current location…I oughtn’t say anything about our culprit.”

As he said this, Mathilda noticed the little priest shoot a glance at the police sergeant; though she couldn’t understand the look Lewis returned, apparently Powell did, for he frowned. She knew what the frown meant: Rory had shared the same frustration with her only last night as they went to bed. They hadn’t managed to definitively pin the murder – or any of the others like it – on anyone yet. True, the Harker boy had witnessed enough of something that his uncle had set him up as his scapegoat, but there wasn’t physical evidence enough yet to support a trial-worthy murder charge against Conway Duke.

“As for the why, I think the poor chap died because it best suited our murderer’s plans. O’Malley knew a great deal about the gang’s operations, and his loyalty seemed to be owed foremost to Nicholas Harker. I believe the testimony he was to have given on the boy’s behalf would’ve included material against the gang, so he was nabbed before that could happened. And while I believe O’Malley might have died for those ‘offenses’ alone, his murder was in such a manner and at such a time so as to lead the police to the tunnels.”

Horace paused.

“Timing. It was a brutal, vindictive-yet-calculated matter of timing.”

Only Duke hadn’t reckoned that her Horace would’ve set aside his prejudice against the Harkers long enough to seek true rather than convenient answers. Mathilda knew they were all thinking this, though none of them said it aloud. She also thought it fitting that of all the men in London that Duke’s gang might’ve kidnapped, it had to nab the two most suited to helping their scapegoat: one to speak for the boy, and the other to fight for him.