Page 34 of The Hunter
Morley looked away from her when she saidwe,and Dorian couldn’t help but feel sorry for the lout. Losing a woman like her would break a man. Even a stuffed shirt like Morley.
“There’s a killer stalking the streets,” Morley said severely.
“This is London,” Dorian scoffed. “There’s always scores of killers stalking the streets.”
“And some of them are in your employ.” Morley shook his head, grappling with frustration. “Women,youngwomen, are dying. All of them mothers. And their children are vanishing. Not one of them have turned up, not one. No body. No trace. It’s like they’ve vanished.”
Farah tapped the tiny divot in her chin. “And that’s how you know these particular murders are connected?”
“More importantly, you think I have something to do with these murdered women and vanishing children?” Dorian demanded.
Morley looked him square in the eye, not something that many men had the constitution to do, and answered, “I think that if something like this is happening on such a large scale in London, there is an even larger chance that you’re either profiting from it, allowing it, or at very least have an idea who’s responsible.”
Dorian was not a superstitious man, despite his Highland heritage, but how the unmistakable auburn head of Argent appeared on his terrace in that very moment, as though conjured by conversations of assassins, Blackwell would never know.
Their eyes met through the glass of the giant parlor window—as much as Argent’s eyes ever met anyone’s—and when Morley turned in his seat, Dorian made a gesture toward his study.
“What you’re insinuating is ridiculous,” Farah said gently. “My husband is involved in no such thing. He may not be a saint.” She looked at him askance. “But I would not have married a man who was capable of such evil.”
Dorian warmed to the faith in his wife’s soothing voice. She’d made him a good man by believing it was so. Well, not so much agoodman… but a markedly better one. A work in progress, some might say.
“Perhaps not, Lady Northwalk,” Morley said, obviously trying to maintain his air of carefully practiced civility. “But like it or not, your husband built associations with some rather ruthless criminals, in his tenure at Newgate. I have it on good authority that many of those associations still exist.”
Dorian lifted a brow. He was no mere associate to the men he’d met in Newgate. He was their king. “In business like mine, one does not openly discuss their associates with any agent of Her Majesty’s and hope to keep his head attached to his neck.”
Especially when one of those associates was currently climbing up the back trellis, letting himself in the French doors of the second-floor balcony, and dropping through a secret passage into the study below. Dorian kept an ear open for thethunkof Argent’s arrival.
“Care to admit what business that is, Blackwell?” Morley asked sharply.
Dorian’s lip twitched. “I believe that’s Lord Northwalk to you,SirMorley.” Dorian had been interrogated by this man in many less well appointed rooms, and under much less pleasant circumstances. Those times, it had been Dorian’s blood on the floor. Luckily for him, Farah’s marriage came with a title, and for the bastard son of a marquess like Dorian, it gave him great pleasure to remind Morley of that fact.
“Pick a business to discuss, Inspector. I am a vintner, landlord, business proprietor, investor, entrepreneur, and recently I’ve become a restaurateur.”
Thunk.Argent was in place, and for such a big man, the assassin could always land quietly. Dorian didn’t flinch, having complete faith in the man to know how not to make himself known.
“Don’ttoywith me, Blackwell.” Morley stood. “We all bloody well know you’re king of the London underworld. You fought the war. You won.”
“What we both know, Inspector, is that the London underworld, by definition, can have no king.”
Turning to the very window that had only just framed Argent, Morley heaved a great sigh, rubbing at the bags beneath his eyes. “Lordand Lady Northwalk…” He faced them again, an earnest pain in his blue eyes. “You know I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t at my wit’s end. These women, if you saw them, the looks frozen into their dead eyes, the ones who have eyes left in their skulls. The terror, the confusion, the… pain. Five have been murdered so far, in such brutal ways, all with missing children. Particularly sons under the age of ten. These women are beingassassinated. I know this. Maybe you don’t care, Lord Northwalk, but I thought your wife still might.” He turned to Farah. “Because she, I think, is still a decent lady. A mother.”
Farah, cheeks and hips still delectably plump from the birth and nursing of their own beloved daughter, Faye, turned to Dorian with concern. “Have you heardanythingabout this, darling?”
“All I need is a name.” Morley’s face became more hopeful with each passing moment. “An inmate number, afuckingdirection. I fear that these boys are being taken somewhere and killed, or worse.”
Dorian assessed the chief inspector with his one good eye. The man reeked of desperation. Should he tell him the truth? Should he admit his own incompetence?
“Dorian?” Farah pressed.
Goddammit.
“Seven months ago an… associate of mine, Madame Regina, contacted me to say that one of her employees had been brutally murdered on the premises and no one had seen a thing. Her young son, Winston, had disappeared from under their noses.” Dorian sniffed, galled to admit that he had had just as much, if not less, success tracking the serial murderer down.
“You let them keep children at the whorehouse?” Morley hissed.
“We’ve set up rooms for child care, where they can be safe and protected, not just from the streets, but from what is going on at Madame Regina’s,” Farah cut in, picking up her tea. “Many of these women have chosen this profession, many have not, but at the very least we can care for their children.”
“That’s very magnanimous of you, Farah,” Morley stated, and Dorian sensed the man was in earnest.
