Page 51 of Silence of Deceit
ChapterSixteen
Carrigan came back around onto Lambeth Street a handful of minutes later. From her window, Audrey could not see any sign of Hugh. She felt slightly guilty about deceiving the Bow Street officer, but not enough to adhere to his request to return to Violet House. The quiet of the tomb-like home would be wretched. It was possible that Philip had returned from wherever he had gone off to, but if he hadn’t, she refused to pace at home, worrying about him and getting angry—and she also refused to do the same while Hugh was actively searching for Esther.
She was not useless, and she also was not afraid of a little risk.
“Your Grace, are you certain I shouldn’t come with you?” Greer asked.
While having Greer at her side would certainly be more proper, it would be much easier to move on her own. Her plan did not exactly include being forthright.
“I won’t be long,” she assured her maid as she removed her gloves and set them beside her on the cushion.
Carrigan handed her down to the curb, and though he did not approve, he said nothing. Neither he nor Greer could object to their mistress’s decision, and she felt a bit guilty for that too. Surely, they were worried. Not only would being found entering Bedlam alone reflect poorly upon Audrey, but it would reflect poorly upon them. However, a woman was missing, and two more were dead, and so the narrow possibility that someone of influence or connection would see her, was not enough to hold her back.
She crossed the entrance court alone, her heart again leaping at an irregular rhythm. While she knew she would not be walking among the patients inside Bedlam, a heavy sense of sadness weighed upon her shoulders, even as she climbed the portico steps. It was as if the building itself emitted a stern somberness that penetrated right into the deepest recesses of her mind.
But as soon as the attendant who had greeted her and Hugh earlier appeared at the door to greet her now, she focused on what needed to be done.
“I’m so sorry,” she began, “but I seem to have forgotten my gloves in Doctor Warwick’s office. So silly of me, I know, but we were looking through some papers and I didn’t want to smudge them with ink.”
The excuse was pitifully weak, but she saw it through with a twittering laugh. The attendant indulged her with a grin. “Of course, ma’am. I will fetch them for you—”
“Oh no, I’m sorry, I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” she said with theatrical breathlessness and a look of pained remorse. “You see, there is also another matter I wish to discuss with the doctor that was simply impossible to broach with my brother present. It’s…rather delicate.”
She waited for the attendant’s response with her pulse thumping in her throat. He narrowed his eyes and frowned, but a moment later nodded. “I see. If you will wait in the doctor’s office, I will find him and inform him of your return. I believe he is in one of the wards at the moment.”
What providence! Audrey beamed at the young man, and she quickly made her way back to the office. If Doctor Warwick had still been there, she had a back-up plan, however hastily drawn. Asking the doctor for an item belonging to his wife would have been unbearably rude but backing down and giving up was out of the question.
Thankfully, as she entered the private office for the superintendent, all was quiet within. A room straight ahead looked to be a study of sorts, and to the immediate right was his office. To the left, a set of stairs led to what Audrey presumed to be Warwick’s living quarters. After spying a lady’s cloak and parasol hanging upon hooks at the first landing of the stairs, she was willing to wager he, Esther, and their child lived here. It wouldn’t be entirely out of the ordinary—Doctor Warwick had lived at Shadewell in a wing closed off to the residents. The entrance to Bedlam was much the same. However, she couldn’t imagine Esther would have been happy to live here, least of all with her child.
Thick carpet muted her footfalls as she climbed to the landing, and sure enough, she entered a foyer leading to a sitting room and dining room. A second set of steps led to a third level, where two bedrooms were located. Audrey entered the larger of the two, the furnishings and décor marking it clearly as Doctor Warwick’s and Esther’s. There was no time to spare. Doctor Warwick could arrive any moment.
Atop a dressing table, filled with lady’s necessities, an ivory-backed hairbrush seemed the most likely object to retain memories. Esther would have used it often. Audrey crossed the room and, feeling as though someone was about to pop out and catch her snooping, picked it up by its carved ivory handle, inlaid with silver. She closed her eyes and opened her mind, immediately welcoming the image that appeared, clear and bright.
It had been years since she’d seen Esther, but she had not changed much. She had been petite; short and thin with delicate features. She appeared to be the same now, however as she brushed a lock of her golden blond hair, her chin quivered. Her eyes were glassy, the rims red. The room behind her, reflected in the looking glass, appeared to be empty. Had she and Warwick just had an argument? Or was she crying for some other reason? She was preparing to go out, it seemed. Audrey dropped her attention from Esther’s anguished expression to the bodice of her dress. Silver satin, embroidered with blue thread, the capped sleeves trimmed with blue silk ribbon.
Impossible.
The gown was the one Audrey had cast off to Delia. The one Delia had been wearing when…
Cold shock poured through the veins in her neck and out along her arms. She dropped the hairbrush and the image scattered. The sound of the ivory, smacking against the mahogany table couldn’t compete with the rush of blood pounding through her ears. Though she had tried to forget her visit to the bone house with Hugh and Philip, it came rushing back to her now. The body of the woman who’d been laid out on the table had been so badly bloated, her face had been unrecognizable. Audrey had identified thedress…not the victim.
Delia hadn’t been wearing that cast-off. Esther had been. Esther, with her long blonde hair, just like Delia’s…
With a sickening swoop of her stomach, Audrey backed up toward the door to the bedroom. Voices below stopped her in her tracks. A woman’s voice carried clearly up the two levels of stairs.
“I cannot fathom why you would have allowed them to live here,” she said sharply. “Here! At a lunatic asylum! I told you it was bad business, Stephen. You should have listened to me.”
A lower, male voice was not audible, but she assumed it to be Warwick. He made some reply to what the woman said as Audrey’s pulse streamed out in a panic. Heat built under her petticoats and chemise, and she bit her lip as she tried to concoct a believable excuse for wandering up to his private living area, should she be caught.
A child’s voice was also muted. This had to be his daughter and the aunt the little girl had been staying with since Esther’s disappearance. Audrey’s heart sank. She hadn’t just disappeared. She was dead. The unclaimed body on the table had to be Esther’s.
So then, where was Delia? That she was in fact alive twisted up the whole case. It sent everything askew.
The voices became louder as she tiptoed into the hallway. A door led to a smaller bedroom—the one belonging to the child. Another door, likely to a closet. Audrey crept toward that one, hoping the newly built hospital would not yet have creaky floorboards.
“How could you expect a woman to agree to such conditions?” the shrill-voiced sister asked, alarmingly closer. Had she climbed the steps to the second level?
“Papa?” the little girl sounded uncertain, her voice warbling as if on the verge of tears. Audrey did not care for the way the aunt was speaking about the child’s mother in front of her.
