I was seated in the drawing room reading a letter when Gage returned from the firth shore and stormed into the chamber in a towering fury. I watched as he paced up and down the floor and cursed Constable Paxton for a bloody fool, the many capes of his greatcoat snapping out behind him as he pivoted.
“I take it he refused your assistance.”
“The idiot actually threatened to have me brought up on charges for interfering with his investigation.”
I grimaced. “I guess he heard about our visit to Cramond yesterday.”
“Oh, yes. Some helpful biddy passed along that choice bit of information.” He whirled around on the heel of his boot and charged back across the room. “He refused to listen to any of our findings today or yesterday, even about the boat Craggy Donald saw moving away from the island. He said the man wasn’t to be trusted and we should just ignore whatever he told us.”
I scowled. “Did you ask him about the damage he did to Donald’s hut?”
“To be sure, but of course he denied it.”
“Of course.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “So he’s going to rule Miss Wallace’s death a drowning by misadventure?”
“Yes.” He paced the length of the room one more time before planting his hands on the back of a golden wingback chair and leaning over it toward me. It creaked beneath the force of his weight. “Can you believe that man actually accused me of being a ghoul when I suggested he have the local surgeon or someone from the Royal College perform an autopsy to discover if there was water in her lungs?”
I sighed. “I was afraid of that. People do have a fear of dissection. Many still believe it’s an unholy practice, that the soul can’t be resurrected if the body is desecrated.”
“Yes, well, while they worry about that, Miss Wallace’s murderer may very well go free.” He scraped a hand back through his golden hair and with a huff rounded the chair and dropped down onto its cushions. “So that avenue is closed to us, unless you want to go harass her father. I’m sure Mr. Paxton will have gotten there ahead of us, painting our suggestion in the worst possible light, but we could try. Though I loathe asking a grieving father to do such a thing.”
“No. Not when all we wish to discover is if there is water in his daughter’s lungs. We’re already relatively certain she didn’t drown.”
He nodded and leaned forward with his elbows braced on his knees, staring down at his feet. His hands were spread wide and he kept bouncing the fingertips of one hand off the other in nervous agitation. When he noticed me watching him he nodded to the paper in my lap. “You were reading when I came in.”
I lifted the letter. “It’s from Philip.”
Gage sat straighter in interest.
I opened the sheet of foolscap to look down at the handwriting. “He spoke to Dr. Renshaw, Sir Anthony’s former assistant,” I reminded him.
“What did he say?” From the look in his eyes I knew that wasn’t all he wanted to ask, but he stuck to what was most important. I would have disappointed him on the other anyway, because Philip had said nothing of the man—or whether he had been rough with him—other than to relay his words about Dr. Sloane.
“Apparently he’s familiar with Dr. Sloane’s work.” I arched my eyebrows.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. He says that Dr. Sloane likes to collect oddities—people with interesting mental afflictions.” I glanced back at the letter, reading from Philip’s notes. “He was dismissed from his position at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and he received disciplinary sanctions from the Royal College of Surgeons because of a series of unorthodox experiments he performed on several of his patients.” I lifted my gaze to meet Gage’s. “Including his daughter.”
He stiffened in surprise. “His daughter?”
I nodded, having felt the same shock upon reading the words. “Apparently she suffered from uncontrollable manias and melancholia, and his experiments began as a way to find a treatment for her.”
“Where is she now?”
I hesitated, feeling a pulse of horror at the whole situation. “She killed herself.”
Gage sank back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair, looking as stunned as I felt.
“That’s what prompted the investigation into his experiments in the first place.”
“His own daughter?” he muttered, staring unseeing at the muted morning sunlight shining through the windows to his right. “What was he doing to her?”
I shook my head, wondering the same thing.
“Did Cromarty confirm these statements?”