Free Murder in Grosvenor Square by Ashley Gardner Page B

bedchamber was sparse, with only a bed, a washstand, and a night table. No curtains hung in the many-paned window, though they were draped heavily around the bed, which told me it was used. The washstand was from the past century, polished mahogany, the top with the washbowl made to swing open to reveal the slop bowl beneath. Grenville had one like it in the guest room in which I’d often stayed.
    Leland was breathing, but that breath was labored. His lids were half-open, his eyes unmoving. “We need to find a surgeon,” I reminded Brewster. “A good one, not a quack.”
    Brewster didn’t answer and started to trudge away.
    “Wait,” I called. “What about Travers?”
    Brewster paused in the doorway. “Still in the cart. He’s dead, inn’t he?”
    “Bring him inside. Give him some dignity.”
    The man did not hasten to obey. “He needs burying. He’s going to start stinking.”
    “Then we will have to live with the stink. Put him in a ground-floor room and keep the mice away from him.”
    Brewster scowled. “I can’t do everything, Captain. And Mr. Denis won’t like a corpse in his front room.”
    I looked at him in surprise. “This is his house, is it?”
    “Aye. He keeps it for business. Sometimes a ladybird.”
    The idea that the ice-cold Mr. Denis ever did anything as sentimental as tuck a mistress into a discreet house was absurd. I nearly laughed, but the laugh would have been tinged with madness. I supposed every man needed to satisfy his bodily needs—God knew I enjoyed it—but Denis seemed to subsist on cold air alone.
    “Perhaps he will know a surgeon who can be discreet,” I said. “You can send word to him?”
    “Oh, aye, he’ll know you’re here.” Brewster’s voice was hard, his annoyance apparent. “Anything else , sir?”
    “Yes, hunt up Grenville. He will be racing to my summons at Seven Dials.”
    Brewster didn’t bother to answer; he strode noisily out of the room and left me.
    I heard him slam the front door of the house, but I also heard movement in the lower floors, presumably the driver carrying Travers inside.
    I hunted up cloths from a cupboard in the hall, but I’d need to climb down the stairs for water or shout for the dray’s driver to bring it up. That assumed there was any water below, and the man wouldn’t have to run to the nearest pump.
    I could at least wipe the mud and grime from Leland’s face. Leland remained insensible, making no noise or movement as I touched his bloody wounds.
    All the while questions continued to whirl through my head: Why had Leland and Travers been in that dirty passage? Or had they been attacked elsewhere and carried there, arranged to be found as they’d been? The large quantity of blood suggested Travers had bled out on the cobbles where Mackay had first taken me. But who had moved them between the time Mackay had found them and I’d returned with him? Had Leland been conscious enough to try to get Travers to safety? Or had the killer returned and tried to hide them?
    As to who had attacked the two, Seven Dials had no shortage of toughs and men who lived on anger. A street gang who’d come upon two toffs on their own, no matter what they’d been doing, wouldn’t mind giving in to violence. Discovering that they were mollies would have lent fuel to the fire. But where did Mackay come into it?
    I would have no answers until Leland woke. I worried he’d never wake at all.
    I do not know how long I sat in the dim light, cleaning Leland’s face, but presently I heard Brewster return. His heavy tread sounded on the stairs, combined with a lighter, more nimble one.
    The man Brewster ushered inside was short of stature but had muscular arms, like a blacksmith’s. This gentleman said nothing to me but went straight to Leland’s side while Brewster lit more candles.
    The surgeon—I assumed that was who he was—demanded water and clean towels. Brewster moved to oblige, far more quickly than he’d ever obliged me.
    The surgeon