Page 44 of Her Majesty's Necromancer
"The first was the one you witnessed, Charlie. His name was Lieutenant Martin Jolly, and another was Captain John Marshall. Mr. Tucker also spent yesterday traveling to the other London cemeteries. He discovered the second body to be dug up came from Kensal Green."
"Did he learn his name?"
"William Bunter. All except Bunter were in the army."
"Or was he, but it wasn't inscribed on his tombstone?"
He shook his head. "I checked with his family. Bunter was a shopkeeper in the family's Piccadilly ready-to-wear shop."
I eyed the box. "You did some shopping while you were there? What did you purchase?"
"Blimey," Gus muttered with a roll of his eyes. "Just like a woman to think about shopping in the middle of an important discussion."
"A cloak," Lincoln said.
"What's wrong with your old cloak?" I asked.
He regarded me with those deep, black eyes of his and I clamped my mouth shut. I'd overstepped the boundary he'd laid between us again. I needed to learn to behave as a maid should.
"My apologies," I muttered. "So not all the dead men were linked through the army."
He shook his head.
"There must be another connection," Seth said, joining us at the table. "There has to be a reason why the captain chose to dig up those four specifically."
"The Bunters mentioned their son had been acting strangely before he died," Lincoln went on. "He would disappear for days on end without word, and when he returned home, he was inexplicably tired. He also seemed to be losing money but claimed not to be gambling. He'd grown thin too."
"Opium," Cook said quietly.
Lincoln nodded. "I suspect so. The Bunters didn't know where William went during his missing days. He wouldn't tell them, despite their pleas."
"What did you discover at Mr. Lee's house?" I asked.
"He admitted that a man matching the captain's description frequented the house from time to time, but never partook of the opium. Lee claimed not to know what the captain was up to. He paid well for privacy."
"And Lee allowed him to be alone with the men while they were so vulnerable under the opium's effects?"
"The likes of Lee don't care about anyone's safety," Gus said. "Only money."
"I'm unclear on how much Lee did know exactly," Lincoln told us. "He could be withholding information."
"Is his English good? Perhaps you need a translator."
"We understood one another."
Seth leaned in to me. "Mr. Fitzroy speaks perfect Chinese."
"Cantonese, and a little Mandarin."
How impressive. I wondered how many other languages he'd mastered. "What else did Mr. Lee tell you?"
"That the captain hasn't returned since the morning of Thackery's death, and that perhaps all four of our dead men frequented his establishment in the weeks and months before their deaths, but he can't be sure. It stands to reason that most were soldiers."
"Gordon said opium relieves the pain of war injuries."
He nodded. "Soldier's curse, some call it."
"Mr. Lee doesn't note down his customers' names?"
