Page 6 of Taken By the Ripper
e arrived promptly at noon the following day, just as she’d expected. And unfortunately, he blew through the door with his long limbs, fancy cane, and just as much attitude as the day prior.
“You have a witness,” Detective Claude La Cour said in an accusatory tone. He limped after her as she fitted the newly vacant cots in the infirmary room with new sheets. After much screaming, kicking, and begging, the patient faking a coma had been dragged out of the infirmary by two officers. Clearly, he hadn’t been in a coma at all unless he’dmiraculouslywoken right as the police had arrived to escort him off the premises.
She grunted with the effort of lifting the mattress to fold the edge of the sheets beneath before briefly turning to answer the impatient blond detective. “How did you learn of it so quickly? I’ve only spoken to—” An exasperated exhale escaped her as she shook her head. Of course, Mazie had told the detective about the possible witness to Elizabeth Stride’s murder.
“Where is he?” the man demanded. “Show me the patient.”
“Due to patient confidentiality—”
Detective La Cour backed her against the wall in a blindingly fast motion and slapped his hand directly above her head, trapping her against his body. She gasped, her heart beating quickly at the sudden motion and when his intense blue eyes seemed to pierce directly through her soul.
She squirmed under his scrutiny, but her limbs quickly locked beneath the ice in his eyes.
“Please move aside.” Surprisingly, her voice didn’t quaver.
“You are impeding on official police business,” he growled in his smooth French accent. “I demand that you acquiesce and show me to the man.”
Defiance glared back at him as she challenged him with her own stare. Who was this man who thought he could barge into her infirmary and demand whatever he wanted? All without a single ounce of decorum in his entire body.
“Would it hurt for you to ask nicely?”
La Cour huffed as he pushed himself off the wall and crossed his arms with his cane dangling from the ends of his fingers. Like their first meeting, he made an imposing sight full of long limbs, sharp angles, and deathly glares. He brushed the swoop of his hair out of his face, but it fell right back over his eye.
“Take me to the patient.Please.”
She supposed she would receive no better from him and, therefore, stepped past and led him to the opposite end of the infirmary. From there, she drew back a curtain to reveal the man in question with skin as pale as death and shallow breaths moving in and out of purple lips.
“You will get no testimony from him,” she explained as she once more took the man’s vitals to find his pulse slow and his lungs struggling for air. “Hasn’t woken since he stumbled in here yesterday. I’m not sure what happened to him, but he’s not in good shape.”
“Obviously.” The detective leaned closer and studied the man with a careful eye. “He told you he was with Stride the night of her murder? Did he say anything else?” He tapped a long finger to his chin. “I wonder if we’ve found our murderer at last.”
Yet, doubt clouded his voice as if he didn’t believe it in the slightest.
His fingers moved toward the bandage around the man’s neck. “Let me see the wound. If it’s similar to the others…”
“You can’t barge in here, rudely demand information, and undress what I’ve so painstakingly wrapped all for the sake of—” Her words cut off as the detective gasped after peeling back the bandage to reveal the double puncture wounds. Thankfully, they had stopped bleeding. But it had already done enough damage. The poor man might not live to see the next sunrise.
La Cour released a string of expletives unfit for a woman of good breeding to hear. But as it was, she’d heard more than her fair share of curse words, plus some, that it hardly fazed her. Especially when she’d used a few of them herself.
“You’ve missed your calling as a sailor, Detective,” she said with a straight face, but a small bit of her teasing tone must have leaked through enough for him to lift his head.
“My apologies. But this wound… It’s…it’s…”
“Yes?”
Rather than explaining himself, he rummaged through the pockets of his coat and pulled out a yellow tape measure often utilized by seamstresses. He used it to measure the height of the man, though at this point, he should have just asked. She had all the information written down on the patient’s chart.
Next, he measured the length to the wound, the angle, and jotted it down on his own small, leather-binding notebook filled with neat, elegant writing that already appeared stretched for space.
She peered over his shoulder to try to catch a glimpse of his findings, but he quickly snapped the book shut.
“Not for your eyes,” he warned.
A scowl pulled on her lips as she planted her hands on her hips. “Not for my eyes? And what aboutmycharts?Mypatients? Detective or not, they are not meant for your eyes, either—”
“I have horrifying details of the victims of recent murders.” He tucked his notebook back into his pocket. “They are not for your eyes because the details are rather gruesome. But…” He glanced around the infirmary, his gaze lingering a little longer on a man lying on a cot with his amputated arm bound tightly with wrappings. He’d badly injured his arm in a factory accident when his wedding band had snagged on machinery and sucked the rest of his arm inside. “I suspect you could handle them.”
Yes, that she could. She’d seen more than her fair share of blood and misery. It had stopped bothering her in her teenage years, and now she was indifferent to it all.
