Read Online Bloody Relations by Don Gutteridge - Free Book Online Page B

naked beside Sarah McConkey with her dagger in your hand. Surely you remember getting into bed with a young woman?”
    Ellice kept his head down and brought his hands up over his eyes as if to blot out the horror of some image there. Marc realizedwhat a horror it must have been to awake in that room in those circumstances.
    â€œDo you remember making love to her?”
    The head came up and the face with it, anguished and shamed. “I don’t know. I c-can’t remember!”
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    â€œWELL?” DURHAM ASKED WHEN MARC HAD returned to the office.
    â€œI find it difficult to believe that your nephew could have committed the murder. I think it more plausible that he was so far intoxicated as to be barely mobile and far too disoriented to have rummaged around for a knife said to be under the girl’s pillow and then driven it with deadly force and unerring accuracy through her throat and spine. I can see no motive nor any latent hostility or repressed rage in the young man. He appears abnormally passive.”
    â€œThen how do you intend to proceed? The resources of the government are at your disposal.”
    Marc had already been thinking about that. “The only way we can exculpate your nephew is to find the guilty party. I shall go out and interview the women at Madame Renée’s—without revealing your nephew’s name, of course. There has to be something Cobb has missed. If so, I’ll find it.”
    â€œYou believe, then, that this could well be the result of a dispute among the inmates of that brothel?”
    â€œThat’s the most obvious place to begin. Four of them were in the house when the stabbing occurred.”
    Durham looked thoughtful. “That’s true. But if one or more was responsible, we may never be able to prove it—if they stick together, as they well might, having a fortuitous scapegoat handy.”
    â€œYes. I don’t suppose I could appeal to their patriotism.”
    â€œAnd the rack went out with the Inquisition.”
    â€œI think we should try to track down the couple who gave Mr. Ellice a lift into town. Where they dropped him off could be important. They may also have seen who collared him and led him off to Irishtown. In the least they’ll be able to vouch for the state of his insobriety. Surely someone at the gala, one of the whist players or a valet or coachman, must have seen your nephew leave and with whom.”
    â€œThere’s no need for you or Cobb to go out to Spadina. I’ll put Wakefield onto it. He’ll know by this evening every move that Handford made up to the point of his leaving, whom he talked to, and what was said. The walls, and servants, have ears at such functions.”
    â€œThat would be very helpful, sir. But even if we find out who took him to Madame Renée’s—and it appears to have been one of her regulars—we’re still left with the business of explaining subsequent events inside the house. Madame Renée told Cobb that she saw the man leave right after dumping the young man on her doorstep.”
    â€œTrue, but I am thinking now of something related to motive.” Durham drummed his fingers on the desk and glanced across at Marc as if making up his mind whether or not to continue. At last he said, “There are many people in this city who would like nothing more than to see my mission here fail.”
    â€œAlmost every Tory, I should imagine, sir, and a few of the less temperate Reformers.”
    â€œTo that end, a major personal distraction would be a heaven-sent gift, don’t you think?”
    â€œYou suspect that one of your opponents here might have taken advantage of Handford’s near-comatose state and naiveté and deliberately lured him to that brothel?”
    â€œIt is a possibility you must keep in mind.”
    â€œBut no one could foresee the death of the girl in his bed.”
    â€œI agree. But the