Page 41 of Taken to the Grave
“The letter from Comstock was reason enough not to,” he told the magistrate.
“You cannot blame yourself,” Audrey added, which she realized Hugh had just said to her as well. It was futile to waste time laying blame upon anyone other than the person who had killed her. And from her vision, any number of men could have done so.
“Can you tell us how she died?” Audrey asked.
If she’d been found in the Thames, it was possible she had gone in on her own accord. But Audrey could not dispel the image of a woman’s limp arm hanging off the table. Though she hadn’t seen her face, it had to have been Bethany on that table. Not that she could share any of that with Sir Gabriel.
“It looks to be strangulation,” the magistrate said. “There will be an inquest.”
“So, nothing like the other bodies found at Vauxhall,” Hugh said. The magistrate lowered his whisky.
“Why would it be? Without doubt, Comstock has done this deed. I have men searching for him now.”
With an assenting nod from Hugh, Audrey explained. “We spoke to Bethany’s friend, Miss Bertram. It appears your niece did not set out to elope. She set out to visit a secret society known as the Sanctuary. Mr. Comstock took her there the night of her disappearance. His maid confirmed that he returned to his home before dawn the next morning. Bethany, as we know, did not.”
“Comstock delivered the letter insinuating an elopement and demanding a larger annuity when he was no longer even with Bethany. He was home,” Hugh said.
“And his maid, as it happens, was the young woman who pretended to be Miss Comstock, his sister,” Audrey included.
“But you can call back your men. Comstock is also now dead,” Hugh said. “Of an apparent opium overdose.”
The magistrate goggled back and forth between them. He shuffled to his desk and sat heavily into his chair.
“How is it that you did not know about Comstock?” Hugh asked.
“I have no idea,” he rasped after taking another indulgent swallow of his whisky.
“I find it highly suspect that both he and your niece are dead a week after attending the Sanctuary together,” Hugh said.
“The letter,” Audrey began, her eyes on the carpet as she put something together that had been bothering her. “What if it was a diversion? When Bethany did not return home as she meant to do, Comstock knew she would be missed. There would have to be a reason for her absence, and he would be the first person that Mr. Silas would contact.”
Hugh assented with a low groan. “Crafty bastard. Yes, I think you’re right. And as he’d already given a false address, Mr. Silas would not know where to find him.”
“Why advertise a parcel of land in the paper then?” Audrey asked.
“A land agent or solicitor might have done it for him. A steward perhaps,” Hugh answered. At the mention of a steward, for the briefest moment, she saw the edifice of 37 Berkeley Square. But then recalled their argument. She shook her head; now was not the time to dwell on that muddle.
It was also not the time to bring up the tenuous threads connecting Harlan Givens and Lord Stromburg to the Sanctuary. Audrey wasn’t certain the magistrate could handle more complications just now.
“You mentioned this Sanctuary place before,” Sir Gabriel said, raking back a hank of his silver hair. “A secret society you say?”
Audrey tensed her jaw and appealed to Hugh with a pleading look. He scrubbed the back of his neck and loosened his cravat before explaining to the magistrate what they had learned from Gwendolyn. Sir Gabriel stood from his chair, a vein in the center of his forehead beginning to pulsate.
“What in hell was Bethany thinking? Why would she do such a thing?”
“Excitement was the explanation we were given,” Audrey answered, echoing what Gwendolyn had told them.
“Foolish, foolish girl,” he seethed, coming out from behind his desk. “Why have I never heard of this despicable society?”
“I imagine it is because you are the chief magistrate at Bow Street.” Hugh’s blithe answer earned him a scowl. “Whatever does happen there, it is likely not legal.”
“I’d bloody well say so,” he thundered, “if young, innocent women are strangled there!”
The scene around the table in Audrey’s vision would support that theory. Bethany had been killed that evening, strangled during the initiation, the details of which Audrey did not want to contemplate. Mr. Comstock had returned home in a high dudgeon as the maid had reported, and the next day he began to formulate a diversion with the elopement ruse. Had he killed himself a few days later out of remorse?
“If the members are high ranking in society, they would stand much to lose if the activities they participate in there were made public,” Hugh added.
Audrey thought of something and pulled out the sketch she’d drawn of the inverted cross. “This is the symbol connected to the Sanctuary."
