Part 2 (1/2)
”A giant bra.s.s wheel,” she said quietly. ”Have you heard of a similar machine used in that way?”
”No.” But four yards ahead of them, a path of crushed gra.s.s caught his attention at the same moment Mina began moving toward it. ”But I don't think Prescott was too far off.”
Without stepping off the slate tiles, she crouched beside the three-foot-wide swath of flattened gra.s.s. She pointed to a narrow strip of gra.s.s that was not crushed as the others, then another, all evenly s.p.a.ced along the wheel's path. ”It's not completely smooth. It must be shaped like a gear, and these the uncrushed sections are from the valleys between the cogs . . . but no, the s.p.a.cing isn't right. It runs on a track, perhaps-and these flattened sections are the plates. Hopefully they will lead us on a path back to their owner.”
The viscount lay in the corner, near the wall. Aside from removing the covering, Mina didn't immediately touch him, but studied the body. Redditch wore a black suit similar to the one he'd worn the previous night, with a linen cravat and a bounder's trousers instead of breeches. Blood surrounded a dark, gaping hole in his chest. Mina bent over him, eyes narrowed.
”The entry wound is an inch and a half in diameter. This isn't from a bullet. Or if it is, the largest bullet I've ever seen.”
In the smugglers' havens of Australia, Rhys had seen musket b.a.l.l.s almost as big, but firing one would have made considerable noise. ”No one mentioned hearing a gunshot,” he said.
”Perhaps he was impaled on a metal rod of some sort.” She glanced around the area again, as if looking for a tool that matched the wound. ”I don't think it went all the way through his body. There's not enough blood beneath him. But I can't be certain without turning him over, and I'll wait for Newberry to arrive and take photographs before I do.”
She briefly examined his hands, his mouth, and face. Redditch's bronze skin had turned waxy in death, his features slack and eyes open. She closed his eyelids before standing, looking down at him.
”d.a.m.n it,” she said quietly. ”He seemed a decent sort, didn't he?”
Rhys supposed Redditch had been. He didn't often think of people in that way-there were simply those who were necessary to him for some reason, those he protected or were useful to him, those few he cared for-and the one woman he loved. Redditch might have been useful as a political ally, but so were many other members of society. Unlike many of the others, however, Rhys wouldn't have minded pa.s.sing more time in the man's company.
But he knew that to Mina, Redditch had represented something more. The first time she'd seen the viscount in person, she'd been fascinated by the darkness of his skin, his native blood. She was too familiar with the docks to be surprised by his race in general-a good portion of the sailors coming in from Manhattan City were either native, Libere, or mixed-but it had been her first time seeing it in a member of the aristocracy.
And it hadn't just been the fact of his native blood, Rhys knew, but that no other New Worlder had thought a thing of it. Unlike Mina, who'd endured stares and hatred her entire life, Redditch hadn't likely encountered the same. Centuries ago, he might have, when the first trade agreements with the native confederacies had been sealed with marriages, strengthening political ties. But now, marriages between New Worlders of native, European, or African descent took place for all the usual reasons-money, religion, progeny-and for the d.a.m.n lucky ones, the same reason Rhys had married: love.
Seeing the native viscount and learning his story had given Mina hope that England might eventually be the same-for her, for Anne, for their children. h.e.l.l, it had given Rhys hope, too.
Now he hoped that this murder wouldn't take away Mina's optimism. He hoped that when she discovered who'd killed him, the reasons wouldn't have a thing to do with Redditch's ancestry.
”He did seem the decent sort,” Rhys finally said, and meant it when he added, ”I'm sorry he's gone.”
Her gaze flattened again. ”Hopefully I will make someone else a lot sorrier.”
Rhys had no doubt she would. He walked with her as she followed the crushed path across the gra.s.s, and wondered how the Black Guard felt about aristocrats with native blood. The brotherhood wanted a purified country, settled by Englishmen with no nanoagents infecting their blood. But in his lifetime, Rhys had run into plenty of men who thought ”pure” meant no native blood, no Libere blood. Did the Black Guard feel the same way?
He couldn't know. The one member of the Black Guard they might have asked had committed suicide in his cell while awaiting trial.
But though he wondered, he wouldn't suggest the Black Guard's involvement now. If it began to look as if the brotherhood had been involved, Mina would come to that conclusion, too-but she'd use evidence, not conjecture.
”And that's Newberry,” she said, tilting her head. Faintly, Rhys heard the puttering of the police cart. ”Good. I'll ask him to take pictures of these tracks, too, before the gra.s.s recovers. At least they tell us how the wheel got in and out.”
The path of crushed gra.s.s led to the garden gate set into the rear wall. Mina tugged on the handle, and it opened easily. Arching her brows, she looked back at him. ”It only locks from the inside.”
”So someone unlocked it to let the wheel in,” Rhys said.
”We'll find out if the household was diligent about locking the gate, but yes. Perhaps someone even opened it for them-though I don't see any footprints in this area. It might have been unlocked earlier, in antic.i.p.ation. Redditch regularly walked in his gardens; they knew he'd be out here eventually.” She bent to examine the face of the wooden gate. ”There are no scratches, nothing that tells me a giant wheel pushed it open-and if it runs on a track as the impression in the gra.s.s suggests, it would at least be sc.r.a.ped. Come, let's see how far we can follow it.”
Not far. The track remained clear in the dust of the alley between the garden wall and the mews, but disappeared where the alley met the cobblestone street.
Frustration tightened her mouth. ”Blast. We'll have to ask people whether they've seen it.”
Rhys knew that she found eyewitness testimony unreliable at best, and impossible to procure at its worst. ”There are always people out at this time of night. Now that Newberry's here, I'll walk the streets around the square and ask if anyone saw it.”
She looked up from the tracks, studied him as if considering his offer-though by the humor tilting the corners of her eyes, he knew she'd already decided it was impossible. ”And what would you do if they obviously had seen something but didn't want to talk?”
”Drag them here by the scruff of their necks.”
Her grin lit her face, twisted straight through his gut. G.o.d, what she did to him. If there hadn't been a dead man on the other side of the garden wall, he'd have taken advantage of the shadows and s.h.a.gged her against it.
But he wouldn't interfere with her work. In the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes, he'd seen how brilliant she was at her job, at looking, at seeing. Mina was more than he'd ever deserved, but she was exactly what a good man like Redditch deserved; no investigator would work harder or do better to bring the viscount's murderer to justice.
Mina sighed as she started back toward the garden. ”This wasn't how I intended to spend this evening.”
He hadn't, either-but they'd get to what he'd intended later. ”Neither did Redditch,” he said dryly.
His reply brought a quick smile to her lips. It was gone by the time they returned through the gate. A head taller than the butler and twice as wide, Newberry stood at the library door with Prescott. Mina waved the constable into the garden, pointing him toward the body before turning back to Rhys.
”That is all, then. I'll be speaking with the staff, knocking on doors and asking whether any of the neighbors saw anything, trying to track down Percival Foley, then examining the body at headquarters. I don't know how late I'll be.”
”I'll wait up for you,” he said.
She smiled. Her inspector's flat stare dropped away for a moment, her gaze softening as she looked up at him. After a long, searching glance that he felt over every inch of his skin, her eyes unfocused and a frown marred her brow.
”What is it?” Whatever concerned her was a concern for him, too.
”Anne.”
”You're worried about her reasons for staying over again?” Rhys guessed, and when she nodded, he asked, ”Do you want me to stop by your parents' house and bring her home?”
”Yes.” She closed her eyes, gave a short laugh. ”But I don't know if we should. I'm not her mother. I don't . . . I don't know how much I can tell her to do.”
He'd never known a mother or father, so Rhys was the last person to advise her on this. But he couldn't deny he felt the same. He'd grown as possessive and as protective of the girl as she had.
”And at least she's not on the streets,” Mina said, then shook her head. ”But if she was, would she think that a problem? She's lived years without us and done perfectly well.”
Right or wrong, he knew his feelings on this. ”She might have got along perfectly well without us, but she's ours now.”
”You would say that. I was doing perfectly well, too, until you came along.”
And made her his. ”And now you aren't?”
”Now I am even better, and the thought of getting along without you tears me apart.” Her hand found his, her gaze holding his just as tight. ”But Anne's not used to having a family. Perhaps she doesn't know that because we care, because we worry, we need more than a gram that says she's not coming home.”
Rhys wouldn't have known that either, but he was learning. ”So I'll stop by their house and take her home.”
”No. I don't want her to feel she's done something wrong. We'll speak with her tomorrow.” Her fingers squeezed his. ”I must work now.”
He knew. But because she had not let go of his hand yet, because only Newberry was out there to see, he bent his head and kissed her on that beautiful, incredible mouth. ”Be safe.”