with its people, and then forcing them to adopt your ways was the epitome of barbarous. A term often thrown around regarding the innocent people who’d been conquered by the true barbarians. My grandmother loved my grandfather wholly, but that did not mean she ever forgot who she was or where she hailed from. I believe he’d loved her all the more for her conviction.
“I’ve heard—” I snapped my mouth shut as Uncle banged the door open, spectacles askew. I recognized his look immediately. Either a new body lay waiting for our scalpels to explore, or there was a new development in our Ripper-like case.
“I need to speak with you.” He jabbed a finger in my direction. “At once!” he barked when I hadn’t moved instantly. As if noticing the other women in the breakfast room, he nodded, his attention pausing on my grandmother. “Good morning, Lady Everleigh. I trust you’re well?”
“Hmmmph,” she grunted, not bothering to elaborate. “Mind your manners, Jonathan. They’re abysmal.”
“Yes, well.” Uncle turned on his heel, letting the door shut behind him. As if my life hadn’t already reached a crescendo in turmoil, things were boiling over everywhere I turned.
I bid my grandmother good-bye and hurried after Uncle, my cane clicking in time with my heart. The day had only just begun, and I already wished for the comfort of my bed.
“That bloody fool arrested a man.” Uncle slammed the newspaper down on the large writing desk in Grandmama’s library. “Apparently, Frenchy Number One was the unfortunate pick.”
EXTRA.
Frenchy No. 1
————
Is He the Man Who Murdered
Carrie Brown in the
East River Hotel?
————
Arrested Last Friday and at
Police Headquarters
Ever Since.
————
Blood-Stains on His Hands and
Clothes and in His
Room.
————
I scanned the Evening World newspaper article, shaking my head. “They mention blood being found on his doorknob, but that isn’t true.”
I thought back to the crime scene. The papers alleged that the man who’d been arrested, a Mr. Ameer Bin Ali, had rented the room across from Miss Brown, and they’d found bloodstains on the interior and exterior of his door. The only blood I recalled outside of the victim’s room had been droplets found in the corridor, leading very much away from the crime scene and the supposed killer’s own door.
“Did they inquire about his profession?” I asked, remembering the butchers’ row located not far from the hotel. “For all they know, it might be animal blood. If there was in fact blood present.”
Uncle twisted his mustache, attention focused inward. After another moment of inner debate, he slid an envelope over. “This arrived from London. It’s late in finding me, as it traveled to Romania first before getting forwarded here in New York.”
A plain, otherwise unremarkable envelope with a large red CONFIDENTIAL stamped across it indicated its importance. I flicked my attention to Uncle and he motioned for me to open it. Inside was a postmortem report signed by a Dr. Matthew Brownfield. I read it quickly.
Blood was oozing from the nostrils, and there was a slight abrasion on the right side of the face.… On the neck there was a mark which had evidently been caused by a cord drawn tightly round the neck, from the spine to the left ear. Such a mark would be made by a four thread cord. There were also impressions of the thumbs and middle and index fingers of some person plainly visible on each side of the neck. There were no injuries to the arms or legs. The brain was gorged with an almost black fluid blood. The stomach was full of meat and potatoes, which had only recently been eaten. Death was due to strangulation. Deceased could not have done it herself. The marks on her neck were probably caused by her trying to pull the cord off. He thought the murderer must have stood at the left rear of the woman, and, having the ends of the cord round his hands, thrown it round her throat, crossed his hands, and thus strangled her. If it had been done in this way, it would account for the mark not going completely round the neck.
I knit my brows together. “If this was prepared by Dr. Brownfield, why does he refer to ‘he’ in the text?”
Uncle tapped the section I’d inquired after. “Dr. Harris, his assistant, examined the scene. Dr. Brownfield wrote the report after.” He shifted his finger, pointing out the date of the attack. “The twentieth of December.”
Thomas and I had still been in Romania attending school, and Uncle had likely been getting