“I will help you in any way that I can, Mary. After all, I. . .”
He was just about to open his heart to her but thought better of it. A more appropriate time would present itself once all of this was over. For now, they had a lot of work to do. “You have my word,” he told her instead, before turning his attention back to the open journal in front of him. He wondered if she’d noticed that he’d been about to tell her something else, but she seemed too caught up in the situation at hand to have given it much thought. And since he very much doubted that she reciprocated his feelings, he’d just stopped from making a complete idiot of himself. After all, her reasons for marrying him were purely practical: she’d made that abundantly clear when he’d proposed.
Skimming his fingers along the open pages of the journal, Ryan pointed to a segment of the text. “Now, looking at this,” he continued, “it appears as though your father referred to Dr. Clemens as Mr. Clemens when he added the initials at the end of his entry, perhaps in the hopes that nobody would make the connection.”
“What are the other initials again?” Mary asked as she glanced down at her father’s carefully written notes.
“Well, LT and SB seem to stand out quite a bit. In fact, each of them is mentioned about forty times.”
“Good heavens, that is a lot. Do you suppose. . .” Mary stared at Ryan as if she suffered from amnesia and had just recalled her own name. “At the Glendale ball, when Woodbridge introduced me to Clemens, there was another gentleman there, a Sir Boswick, I believe.”
“I think you mean Sir Bosworth,” Ryan said, folding his arms on the top of the table and turning his head to look directly at her.
“Yes, that is right. Well, your father mentioned that he was involved in quite a scandal a few years back—something about a malpractice suit. Apparently, the whole thing was hushed up, and he eventually regained his reputation, but do you suppose that he might be the SB to whom my father is referring?”
“It is possible, I suppose, though I would have a difficult time believing it. I know the man quite well; he is a good friend of the family’s. To think that he might have—”
“Ryan,” Mary told him calmly as she cut him off, “Clemens seems equally unlikely, and yet we already know that he caused the death of at least two patients through his own negligence. We do not know enough about the rest of the patients that died at his hands, though I doubt my father would have mentioned them unless he was just as responsible for those. So we are looking for men who have gone to great lengths to hide their mistakes. They are not going to stand out among the crowd, I’m afraid.”
“I believe you are right,” Ryan said and sighed. “As for LT and VR, I am not sure who they might be; nothing really comes to mind. And then, of course, there is MH, who pops up just a couple of times. . .I”
“Oh, no,” Mary gasped, looking suddenly quite ill. “Let me see that.”
Ryan passed her the journal and watched while Mary flipped back a few pages. Her index finger skimmed the writing until she found the date she was looking for. She read the entry in silence before sinking back against her chair. “It’s Helmsley,” she whispered on a breath of defeat. “MH is Mr. Helmsley, my father’s closest friend. How could he. . .”
Ryan watched as her eyes began to glisten. He understood her feeling of betrayal, for she had known the man her whole life. “They were like brothers,” Mary whispered. “I always thought he was a good physician, but. . .”
She glanced at the open page of her father’s journal. “I remember the argument that he and my father once had about that very case.” She nodded toward the book. “My father insisted that Jack was to blame for that man’s death, a farmer who lost his leg after having it crushed beneath an overturned cart. Jack denied it, of course. He claimed that he did everything he could and that the farmer’s family was to blame for not alerting him when the wound became infected. I just cannot believe that he might have had something to do with my father’s death.”
“Perhaps he didn’t,” Ryan told her in an attempt to offer comfort. “His initials only appear a few times when compared to the others, and you must not forget, you told me yourself that when Lady Arlington needed help, he called for you because he recognized his own limitations. It is possible that he has learned his lesson and has nothing to do with the threats against you.”
“I’m not so sure,” Mary muttered, her voice more miserable than ever. “But you can be quite certain that I intend to find out. Don’t forget that I was repeatedly warned against continuing my practice—that I was told not to follow in my father’s footsteps. Helmsley is the only physician I can think of who knew that I performed a cesarean on Lady Arlington. He cannot be trusted.”
“Then don’t trust him. But you still ought to consider the other names, because someone like Sir Bosworth, for instance, who, as unlikely as it seems, apparently caused an astonishing amount of fatalities, would have much more reason to see the journals destroyed. And let us not forget Mr. Clemens and whoever VR and LT might be.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Mary muttered.
She appeared to be considering something. “Do you know—I promised Lord Woodbridge that I would have him over for tea one day. He is the master of the Royal College of Surgeons; perhaps he can shed some light on who the rest of these men are.”
“I think that might be a very good idea. In the meantime, I shall have a word with my father and Percy. With a little luck, all of this will be resolved within the next few days.”
A short while later, as clouds obscured the afternoon sun, a large carriage pulled into a clearing just outside Gerrards Cross, drawn by four great horses. A gentleman wearing a black greatcoat got out, his booted feet leaving imprints in the spongy wet grass. Placing his beaver hat on top of his head, he strode brusquely toward the two men who awaited him.
“Mr. Croyden,” the Raven remarked as he leaned his heavy frame against his cane. “I must say that I was very pleased to hear of your success. Your endeavors, and those of your son, are greatly appreciated.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Alistair replied as he handed over the box containing John Croyden’s precious journals. He cast a nervous glance in his son’s direction.
The tall, sturdy figure of the Messenger responded with a slight frown. His lips were drawn in a tight line, while his coal black eyes met those of the Raven’s. “Unfortunately, one of the journals appears to be missing,” he said, keeping his eyes trained on the man who’d employed him a little over a year ago. He didn’t trust him further than he could throw him, no matter how highly his father spoke of him. The Messenger was no fool: he knew a callous villain when he saw one, and the orders he’d received from him until now spoke of a man who was ruthless enough to stab his own mother in the back. There was no telling what he might do, now that he knew they had failed him.
“And which volume is it that has gone missing, precisely?” the Raven asked them from between clenched teeth.
“The last one, my lord,” Alistair replied with an excessive amount of regret.
The Messenger winced. He hated seeing his father reduced to a sniveling coward before this man. Still, the look of anger that shifted behind the Raven’s murky eyes was far from lost on him. He braced himself for the onslaught he expected, but it never came.
Instead, the Raven merely glared at both of the men before him. “I see,” he finally muttered. “What a pity.”
“My sincere apologies, my lord,” Alistair groveled. “I know how unacceptable this is, but you must not worry; we can easily retrieve the tenth volume for you. Right, Matthew?”
The Messenger said nothing in response to his father’s claims. He merely nodded.
The Raven held up his hand. “That will not be necessary,” he said with mild amusement flickering behind his dark gray eyes. “In fact, I would rather like to thank you for your assistance. You have been most helpful, both of you, but I think it is time for me to take matters into my own hands.”
“But. . .” Alistair sputtered, a look of desperation creeping over his face. “I believe Lady Steepleton trusts me now. She doesn’t think I had anything to do with the theft. I am sure she will let her guard down and—”
“And how do you plan to explain the sudden disappearance of your sarcoma?”
“That. . .that was your idea. . .I merely. . .” His voice trailed off as realization kicked in.
“She is a smart woman, Mr. Croyden. She will hardly be fooled by you forever, you know.” The Raven began walking back toward his carriage, his boots sending a spray of water in all directions as he went. “Sooner or later, she will discover what you have been up to.”
He stepped up and took his seat on the bench, placing the box beside him as he closed the door, locking it firmly in place. “And once she does,” he told Alistair through the open window, “I have no desire for anything or anyone to lead her back to me.”
A flock of birds in a nearby tree scattered at the sound of the two deafening shots that followed. Matthew and Alistair fell to the ground in quick succession, their bodies pressed firmly into the soggy ground, their startled eyes staring upward toward a heaven that neither man was likely to see.
Returning his pistol to the inside pocket of his coat with slow precision, the Raven tapped the roof of the carriage with his cane. His visit to Gerrards Cross had lasted long enough. It was time for him to return to London.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Lady Stephanie, as delighted as I am for your enthusiasm in regards to this subject, I simply do not think that—”
“Perhaps I did not make myself completely clear,” Stephanie snapped. She took a sharp breath and stared directly at Mr. Dunn. The anxious editor was quickly taking on the likeness of a cornered animal, trapped by a merciless hunter.
“There is a lady out there,” she said and pointed toward the window with a stiff finger, while her lips drew together in a tight line, “who believes that it is perfectly all right to go around cutting people open willy-nilly. Well, I for one will not stand for it.”
Oh, how she’d gloated when she’d discovered that Lady Arlington had undergone surgery at the hands of Lady Steepleton. The information hadn’t been easy to come by, but after seeing Lady Steepleton and Ryan Summersby dance together on the terrace of Richmond House a few weeks earlier, she’d enlisted the help of her maid, offering her a bonus if she could uncover anything unsavory about the marchioness. It had taken both time and patience on her part, not to mention that she’d spent a full week’s allowance on bribes. Apparently, the Warwick servants had been especially reluctant to comply, but the promise of a rather substantial reward had eventually loosened the tongue of one maid. And it had been worth it: this was precisely the sort of juicy detail that would put the presumptuous woman’s name to shame forever. It was a priceless piece of information, the sort with enough meat on it to keep the gossipmongers busy for the remainder of the season.