Isla goes to speak to her brother. I’m still not quite sure what their situation is. The fact that Gray is quick to hand her money for cab fare suggests she’s not a wealthy widow. On the other hand, the fact she teases him about it says she’s not destitute either.
The basic arrangement seems to be what I presumed from the start. I’m guessing Gray isn’t exactly on the hunt for an eligible future Mrs. Gray. Isla is widowed and childless, and has returned to the family home to keep house for her brother. Therefore, whatever his own feelings about me right now, if she says she doesn’t want to fire me, that’s ultimately her call.
When she returns, she motions me into the library.
“He’ll come around,” Isla says as she closes the door behind me.
I take my bucket and brush to the fireplace, so I can work while we talk.
“Please don’t do that,” she says.
“The fireplace needs cleaning, and Alice doesn’t need any extra chores.”
She continues to hover, but I wave her away and say, “So I’m right. Dr. Gray isn’t happy with me. Is it because he was dragged down to the police station? That was humiliating.”
She sighs and sinks into the chair behind the desk. “Duncan would not blame you for that. The problem is that while my brother can be single-minded, he does raise his head now and then to analyze the world around him. You were attacked twice in a similar manner. The first could be misfortune. A second time, though?”
“It seems like proof that I’m involved in criminal activities that could endanger his household, including you.”
“He says you claimed your attacker is the killer they’ve been seeking.”
I stop scrubbing the soot. “He thinks I’m lying.”
“Was it the same person?”
“Yes.”
She leans forward. “Who randomly attacked the housemaid helping to catch him? I may enjoy a rousing melodrama, where every person and event is linked by pure coincidence, but that is fiction.”
“I agree. This is not coincidence. I told Dr. Gray about the peacock feather, which disappeared. I didn’t tell him about the paper, because it also disappeared. The killer took both.”
“Paper?”
“I went into that alley and saw a bundle of rags, meant to look like a fallen child. On top of it was a piece of paper with ‘Catriona’ written in block letters. That was supposed to startle me. Throw me off balance and let him attack me. I had the feeling I’d been followed that night, and I think that wasn’t paranoia. The killer targeted me.”
She frowns. “Targeted you? Or Catriona?”
“Catriona. Presumably because she’s Dr. Gray’s housemaid, and Dr. Gray works with Detective McCreadie. Do I love this theory? Nope. But I know my attacker was the raven killer, and he knew who he was attacking—Catriona, maid to Dr. Gray.”
I set down my scrub brush and continue, “The only other possibility is that whoever attacked me was impersonating the raven killer. What he wore matched what a possible witness reported seeing, but I’ll need to go over the newspaper and broadsides and pamphlets again and see whether that made it into a newspaper, which would explain how a copycat killer would have known what to wear.”
“I can send Simon to fetch the latest papers for you.”
“I’d appreciate that. As for the peacock feather, it fits. For Evans, it was a messenger pigeon or stool pigeon. For Catriona, the proud and vain peacock.”
“Is it possible—?” Isla begins.
Mrs. Wallace taps at the door. When Isla calls a greeting, she opens it and says, “Caller for you, ma’am. A messenger from Mr. Bruce with a chemist request.”
Isla tells the housekeeper to bring the messenger into the drawing room. Then she turns to me. “Poor timing, but duty calls. I would like to speak on this more after Simon brings us the papers. Perhaps this is how we might investigate the case, you and I together.”
“The women shut out by the men, proceeding on their own?”
“As they often must.”
* * *
It’s early evening when Alice brings a message that Dr. Gray requires my assistance in the funerary parlor, and I nearly drop my broom and race for the stairs. I’m down there in two minutes flat to find the business dark and empty. Apparently, the assistance required is that the place needs cleaning, as I’ve neglected to do so in the last few days.
Once I realize I’m alone, I become uncomfortably aware of how empty and quiet it is. The raven killer tried to strangle me. That note he left tells me he knows who I am, which means if he wants to finish the job, he’ll know exactly where to find me.
I slip upstairs and get my knife before I begin work. When I do hear the knob turn, though, it’s clearly the front door. I straighten, hoping for Gray. Instead, Isla walks in bearing an armload of papers.
“It is only me,” she says with a smile. “Do not look so terribly disappointed.”
“Sorry,” I say. “But if those are the newspapers, then I’m just as happy to see you.”
Her brows rise. “I’m not certain that’s a compliment.”
“You know what I mean. Your brother is avoiding me, and until he stops that, I’m stuck with this.” I wave my dusting rag. “I said I’m okay with it. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather be examining stab wounds.”
“Duncan will come around. He is being prickly, and you need to get used to waiting it out.”
We move into Gray’s office, and I take a chair as she sets down the papers.
“I don’t blame him for getting prickly,” I say. “I heard about his, uh, backstory at the police station.”
Her lips tighten. “I’m quite certain you did. Yes, our father showed up one night with a child barely old enough to toddle. I was only three at the time, but it is my earliest memory, that little boy in my father’s arms, him telling my mother the child is his, and the mother is dead and so she must raise him now.”
“That’s…” I shake my head. “No words.”
“Oh, I have a few. Such a thing is not unheard of, but it’s still a scandal and an unforgivable insult to my mother. However, it has nothing to do with Duncan, and so she raised him as her own, which was nearly as scandalous.”
“Was she supposed to play the evil stepmother and make him sleep in the servants’ quarters?”
“Apparently, that would have been more acceptable. No, to her, Duncan was her child, as much as the rest of us.”
“Rest?”
She settles into the seat behind Gray’s desk. “Duncan is the youngest. I am next. We have an older sister, who is married and visits as little as possible. We also have an elder brother, who was supposed to inherit the undertaking business but dashed off to the Continent before Father was cold in his grave.”
“Leaving Dr. Gray to run the business.”
“Not Duncan’s first choice of occupation, but it did afford him the opportunity to pursue the science of death, and I daresay he enjoys that far more than he would a standard surgical practice. His interest has always been in the science.”
“A researcher rather than a practitioner. Whereas your chemistry is more practical? Or more research oriented as well?”
Her lips twitch. “I do believe you have turned this conversation into something of an interrogation, Detective. Learning what you can about those around you. I will play along. My chemist’s trade involves both the sale of medicines and the study of new formulations. That poses problems for me professionally. Women may ply their trade as natural healers, with herbs and a mortar and pestle, but when it comes to proper chemistry, it raises the specter of poison. My products are primarily traded through third parties, like Mr. Bruce, who is a chemist in his own right, but not a very good one.”
“So he buys your medicine and passes it off as his own. Hope you charge him extra for that.”
She smiles. “I should. A surcharge for improving his professional reputation.”