Page 13 of The Business of Blood
“Indeed.”
I froze like a bunny in a hedge as Inspector Croft’s heavy footfalls told me he’d approached the threshold.
I held my breath and pressed my body against the outer wall as he leaned his shoulder on the doorjamb.
“I’ve more than a passing suspicion that the placement of the body is invariably more consequential than just the drainage of blood,” Croft surmised.
“Yes,” Aberline agreed. “But what the message could be, I can hardly make out. Do you have any ideas, Croft?”
The young inspector was close enough for me to hear the sandpaper rasp of his rough hand running over his evening beard. In the slant of light on the ground cast by the lantern within, I watched his shadow rummage about in his pocket and put something in his mouth. I flinched at the loud scrape and flare of a match.
He really did smoke too much.
Inhaling alongside him, I did my best not to wince when the match hit my boot. It blessedly went out instead of catching the wool of my skirts aflame.
“Pittura infamante.”In a voice as cavernous as Croft’s, the words invoked a Gregorian chant echoing in the halls of an old cathedral. The sacrosanct language spoken in a voice crafted for profanity lifted the fine hairs on my body.
“What’s that you say?”
“Pittura infamante,”Croft repeated louder on an exhale of smoke that disseminated into the pall of coal, steam, and mist of the London night with no more consequence than a tear would into the ocean. “It’s Latin fordefaming portrait. A common enough practice in Italy from Ancient Rome all the way through the Renaissance, especially in the wealthy states of Florence and Milan.”
Aberline snorted. “I’ve heard of the Romans doing some rather dodgy, brutal things, but never this.”
“Well, the practice wasn’t known to be deadly. It was used as a form of public humiliation for crimes in which there was no true legal recourse. Things like bad debts, forgeries, libel, the defamation of an innocent woman, that sort of thing. The perpetrator would hang upside down from one foot until he could be sketched. Then, that sketch would be painted on a fresco in the square or disseminated somehow with the name of the subject and his offense.”
“Remarkable.” Aberline harrumphed, and I could hear the tiny clicks of his watch as he checked it. “How on earth do you know this?”
I wondered, as well. Croft had never struck me as a history enthusiast, but then I didn’t know what he did in his free time. I just assumed he prowled the night in search of evil until he retired to his lair.
He seemed the type of man who would have a lair rather than a home.
“I read,” he explained simply. Which, as usual for him, was no real explanation at all.
“Perhaps Mr. Sawyer owed money to someone dangerous,” Aberline theorized. “One of the local crime lords, perhaps. Someone from the High Rip Gang, or the East End Butchers.”
“It’s possible. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect theTsadeqSyndicate. The Hammer and his assassin are infamous for their escalating brutality.” A note of strain harmonized with Croft’s usual baritone.
“I would not say that name above a whisper hereabouts,” Aberline cautioned. “The Hammer has both devious minions in the East End and powerful friends in Westminster. To speak against him might be the death of your career. Or of you.”
Croft puffed out a dubious breath.
“You just said thispittura infamantewas a Roman or Florentine practice.” Aberline deftly changed the subject. “I don’t see what it’d have to do with the Hammer. He’s a Jew.”
“Iknowhe’s involved in this,” Croft insisted, his rumble intensifying to thunderous levels.
“And how do you know that?”
“I make it my business to know all I can about the Hammer. One of these days…” Croft expelled one more lungful of fragrant smoke, letting it carry away the end of his sentence. His hand appeared around the doorframe to crush the glowing end of his cigarette.
Without thinking, I stepped back to avoid his touch. The crunch of the cobblestones beneath my boot heel was louder than I’d expected, and I winced as Croft’s hand turned into a fist around the stub of his smoke.
I’d been caught.
I sprang to claim the first word before Croft could accuse me of doing something I ought not to do. I’d found this an effective technique when put on the defensive.
“Do you truly believe the Hammer is responsible for Mr. Sawyer’s death?” I blurted the question the moment Croft appeared around the doorframe.
If glares truly contained daggers, I’d have been stabbed as many times as Martha Tabrum—if not more.
