taking matters a bit too far.”
He and his brother continued to communicate with each other furiously through their eyes, and Lord Henry flicked his gaze our way.
“Fool, perhaps you could lead the way back,” Lord Edward added, speaking over the continued complaints of the others.
He dipped his head in agreement and turned to lift his lantern higher, plunging back into the tunnel. The others swiftly followed, all the while grumbling and screeching with anger and residual fright. But Gage and I lingered, waiting until our companions passed out of hearing range before we spoke.
“That’s no prop,” Gage accused, searching the Lord of Misrule’s now solemn gaze. “And this is no jest.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “No,” he admitted. “But it seemed best for the moment to pretend it was.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Not when the truth might have sent the shrieking ladies and even some of the inebriated men into hysterics.
“Do you know how that body got down here or who it is?” Gage pressed.
He shook his head, but there had been a slight hesitation. One that told me he knew more than he was admitting.
“Then perhaps we should find out.” Gage’s gaze met mine, silently asking what I wished to do. I knew that he would never ask me to look at a corpse. That if he had his way, I would never be exposed to such a ghastly business ever again. But he also respected my knowledge, and he recognized that with my training—no matter how unwillingly it had been forced upon me by my late anatomist husband—I could glean far more information from a dead body than he ever could.
Starkly aware of that cold, hard fact, I nodded.
Gage released me, extracting a knife from the scabbard he’d concealed at his waist beneath his long coat before he approached the recess. Lord Edward moved to the side, lifting his lantern as my husband sliced through the fabric of the sack, opening the canvas wide enough so that the cloth could be peeled back from the body. Clasping my hands tightly in front of me, I swallowed the acid already building at the back of my throat and composed myself for what I suspected I would find as I approached the niche.
Despite the numerous murder investigations we had conducted in recent years, it had been some time since I had been confronted with a body in such an advanced stage of decomposition. Such a sight was always a shock to the senses, particularly when there was evidence of animal activity. The cool temperature of the crypt and the chill of a Scottish winter had slowed the decay of the body, at least internally. But the scavengers had disfigured the corpse, attacking the softest and most vulnerable parts first, namely the face. I could not look on it with more than a cursory glance before moving on to search for evidence of how the victim had died.
The body had belonged to a man, that I could tell, and a gentleman, if his clothes were any indication of his class. He had stood at an average height with an average build, and possessed hair a shade of pale sandy brown. There was almost nothing distinguishable about him—at least nothing that the rats had not ruthlessly obscured—except for the small chip in one of his front teeth and the fact he possessed only one boot. I glanced toward the corner across the room where Lord Edward had dropped the boot he’d tripped over in the tunnel, confirming that it appeared to be a match for the black leather Wellington the man wore. Perhaps there would be something more significant to note beneath his clothing, but I was not about to conduct a more thorough examination under such circumstances, though the nun’s habit I wore would undoubtedly prove to be an effective apron.
I glanced at Lord Edward, who stood to my left, staring at what remained of the man’s face. His complexion was pale, but he did not seem in danger of casting up his accounts. “You recognize him.” I stated it as a fact not a question, and his troubled gaze shifted to meet mine. “Or at the least, you have a strong suspicion.”
He didn’t reply at first, but then he slowly nodded, reaching up to remove the paper crown from his head. “Yes.” He hiccupped a shallow breath through his mouth, struggling, like Gage and I were, not to inhale the stomach-churning smells through his nostrils.