Page 67 of The Devil in Oxford
Good God, this was bad.
I stared unblinking at the unconscious form of Inspector Beecham. The same dreadful man from the police station who’d discovered me in Mr. Mueller’s cell and threatened the kind, young constable, Jack. The same one who couldn’t be bothered to bring me back from outside the museum after my attack, and instead phoned for the constable to carry my insensate form back to the station. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Are you out of your minds? That man is a policeinspector!”
“I don’t care if he’s the Almighty himself!” Mrs. Penrose exclaimed. “He was after the poor maid upstairs. What else were we to do, let him finish the job he started?” Mrs. Penrose gestured with her large copper pan to the upstairs floor where young Annabelle was recovering.
“Is Annabelle all right?” Ruan asked, closing the door behind him lest any passersby discover we had a man held at gunpoint in the kitchen.
Mr. Owen gestured with the revolver. “She is. I went up to check on her in the night—you know how I have trouble sleeping—andfound him in her room trying to smother the poor lamb. We got into a bit of a tussle.”
“This certainly explains how Mr. Mueller was killed under the nose of the police.” I watched Beecham’s unconscious form, running a rough hand over my face. It also explained who accosted me in that alley. While I couldn’t fault Mr. Owen for his actions, a wave of nausea struck.How the devil would we get out of this?
“I think we have to assume that this Beecham fellow killed Mueller.” Ruan crossed the room, pouring water into a kettle before putting it on to heat. “Perhaps you can ask him when he wakes up?” he added dryly.
“Very amusing. I suppose we found our killer, haven’t we?” I folded my arms.
The muscles in Ruan’s jaw worked slowly as he watched me across the chilly kitchen.
“Ruan, go see to Annabelle. Be sure she’s not harmed. I doubt much will be happening down here until Beecham wakes up.”
“This is bad, Ruby.Verybad.”
Oh, I knew that all too well. “Mr. Owen has this all in hand, we’ll muddle through.”
Ruan made a gruff sound of disagreement before running up the stairs after the poor wounded girl.
“Lass… there is something else.”
I turned slowly to face Mr. Owen. “What else happened tonight?”
He inclined his head encouragingly to Mrs. Penrose. The older woman reached into the pocket of her thick woolen housecoat and withdrew a very familiar scrimshaw comb from her pocket. She hesitated, offering it to me on an outstretched palm.
This day got stranger and stranger. Mrs. Penrose was holding the comb from Harker’s Curiosity Museum. The same one that captivated Ruan when we broke in the first time. I reached out with a cautious hand, taking it from her.
It was cool to the touch, unnaturally so. Perhaps it was the material it was made from, but the object seemed to absorb the air around it. Up close it was even lovelier than it had been under glass. I closed my eyes, wrapping my fingers around it, and the scent of salt and a bone-deep longing for home grew in my belly. “Where did you find this?” My voice cracked.
“In his pocket. It’s an odd piece, isn’t it?” Mr. Owen asked, his dark brown eyes lingering on my face. “Yet you seem to know what it is.”
“It was in Harker’s museum. Ruan was fascinated by it.”
Mrs. Penrose’s breath hitched softly as she darted her gaze to Mr. Owen, who looked a shade paler than he had a moment before.
“Does it mean something?”
Mr. Owen rubbed his bristly white beard and gave his head a shake. “Of course not, my lamb.”
“Pay it no mind, my lover,” Mrs. Penrose quickly added.
“He must have stolen it from the museum.” I turned the comb over in my hand. Ruan had been transfixed by it. Such a small object, to hold his attention. Ruan’s response to the little comb had unnerved me at Harker’s museum, but even more now that I knew of his ties to theRadix Maleficarumas well. Inspector Beecham was most certainly in league with whoever killed Julius Harker—if he wasn’t the killer himself. First the book, now the comb. There were a growing number of questions that led back to Ruan and I didn’t like that one bit. But any questions about why Beecham had taken the comb would have to wait until the inspector had awoken—for he certainly wasn’t answering anything in his current condition.
RUAN SAT BESIDEAnnabelle on the narrow mattress, talking to himself in Cornish as he changed the bandages on her belly. I sometimes wondered if he even realized he did it.
“You were right.” He finished removing the soiled dressings from her abdomen, exposing the damaged flesh beneath.
“About what?”
“That her attacker meant to finish the job. We cannot leave her unguarded again. It was a mistake to do it tonight. We are lucky that the inspector didn’t come when we were at Lord Amberley’s with only Dorothea here. At least she had Owen with her.” Ruan applied a strong-smelling liquid to a small piece of cloth and began gently cleaning around the stitches. An herbal scent flooded the room. “If you’d listened to me and put her in the hospital, she’d be as dead as Mueller.”
“You must have more faith in Mrs. Penrose and her skill with copper pots. Dorothea Penrose is a woman not to be trifled with.”
