Page 5 of Ashes To Ashes
"Ask her for proof."
"Do you think she'd mind?"
Lincoln's gaze slid to Seth to see if he was serious. Seth kept a straight face; it would seem he didn't realize Lincoln had made a joke.
After several moments of silence, in which he continued to stare at the circus folk, Seth finally said, "If the thin man and the fat lady had children together, do you think they would be normal, or either thin or fat?"
There was no point joking about the logistics of such an arrangement if Seth wasn't going to laugh, even though Lincoln could think of several comments that would have had Charlie smirking at the very least.
He strode on in search of the strong man's neighbor, Lionel the lion-faced man. That morning, during a brief visit to the lodging house where the victim was found dead in his room, Lincoln had overheard the landlady give the police the name of the lodger occupying the next room. There'd been too many policemen crawling through the house to take a closer look or speak to her then. Lincoln would return later that night for a more thorough investigation.
In the meantime, he could question the lion-faced man. They found him in a tent at the back of the Olympia grounds, sipping tea and chatting to another man with scaly skin on his neck and face. They were wrapped in woolen cloaks against the cold, but neither wore hats or gloves. Lionel was indeed covered with real hair growing out of his skin. It was a soft golden brown color, like that on the top of his head, and covered every inch of his face except for his eyes and mouth. A lion was an apt description.
"You speak with him," Seth whispered. "I'll wait here."
"He looks like a lion, he doesn't behave like one."
"How do you know? Have you ever met a lion-faced man before? And that other fellow looks like a lizard." Seth shivered. "It's not normal."
Lincoln stopped and rounded on his employee. "You're coming. You might be needed."
Seth took a step back. In alarm? "What for?"
"Talking." People found Seth charming. He was good at setting folk at ease, and that could be useful when questioning witnesses. On this occasion, however, Lincoln doubted Seth's charm would work when he seemed so uneasy himself.
Lincoln approached the two men. Both watched warily, but made no challenge. "Are you Lionel?" He wished the landlady had mentioned his last name, but Lionel was all Lincoln had heard.
Lionel nodded cautiously. "It's Ira, actually. Ira Irwin. Lionel is a stage name."
"Who're you?" the lizard-man snapped.
"We're private inquiry agents, employed by Mr. Barnum and Mr. Bailey to find O'Neill's killer," Lincoln said.
"Isn't that what the police are for?"
"The police in England aren't very efficient."
Irwin snorted. "Much like our American ones."
"So Bailey hired you, eh?" Lizard's brows lifted. Now that he was closer, Lincoln could see there weren't actual scales on the man's face but an intricate tatoo made to resemble scales. "Can't believe he'd spend money on one of us freaks."
"He wants to catch the killer and see him brought to justice."
Both Irwin and Lizard snorted. "You mean he wants to make a dollar out of it somehow," Lizard said.
The light breeze drifted through the tent opening and brushed the hair on Irwin's face like grass in a meadow. "So you want to ask me some questions?" he asked in his American drawl. "I can only tell you what I already told the police. I heard nothing before the gunshot. It woke me up and set my heart racing. Took me a few moments to figure out what it was, and when I did, I got out of bed and went to investigate. The hall was empty at first, then Mrs. Mather, the landlady, joined me, and the other circus performers lodging in her house too. When we were all assembled, we realized O'Neill wasn't with us, so we knocked on his door. There was no answer so we went inside and saw…" He wrinkled his hairy nose. "There was blood everywhere, and his face was blown off."
Lizard rested a hand on Irwin's shoulder. Both men bowed their heads.
"I keep seeing the scene in my head," Irwin went on, his voice thin and tight. "All that blood and bits of brain everywhere. I don't envy Mrs. Mather cleaning it up."
"Did you hear any other noises, either before or immediately after?" Lincoln asked.
"Like I said, I was asleep before. After, maybe I heard some footsteps running off, but I can't be sure. I was still trying to figure out what had woken me."
"Did O'Neill have any enemies within the circus?" Seth asked. "Anyone who might want to harm him?"
"No!" Lizard cried. "We're like family, even the non-freaks."
