“I’ll see what can be done,” Rutledge promised, thinking that Frances would be delighted to hear that Jake had a permanent home.

And with that, Lawrence Cobb opened the door to Mrs. Greeley’s house as Rutledge turned the bonnet of his motorcar toward the south.

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

On his way into London, Rutledge made a detour to Chelsea, but the Channing house was quiet, the drapes still pulled across the windows, as they had been for days. The long golden rays of the setting sun touched them with brightness, but it was only a shallow reflection, not the lamplight he had hoped to see. He couldn’t bring himself to walk up to the door.

She was in good hands, wherever she was. He could only wish her a speedy recovery. And time would see to that. He could still remember the shock of recognition as she lay there injured in the broken and twisted wreckage of her carriage. He’d been too busy then to deal with the image that was burned into his memory. Seeing her whole again would change that.

“Aye,” Hamish said. “But she isna’ coming back to London straightaway. She was already leaving it, ye ken.”

Analyzing his own feelings, he realized that the uppermost emotion that day had been fear. Fear that she was terribly injured. Not pity or compassion or anger at the waste of a life.

He had been in love once. And it hadn’t worked out. Just as Lawrence Cobb had said. He’d seen the look on Jean’s face when she finally visited him in hospital and realized what he’d become. He had done the only thing he could do in that single appalling moment: he’d released her from her promise to marry him, so that he wouldn’t have to face her rejection. The relief on her face as he spoke the words had stayed with him long after her first horrified view of him sitting there, a broken man, had begun to fade.

Once was enough. He said as much to Hamish, his voice sounding overly loud in the cacophony of traffic as he turned toward the Yard.

Gibson greeted him with the news that Billy had killed again.

“There’s been another murder. Of the same ilk. And this time Billy has cut his throat. The victim was on the bridge, walking, minding his own business. And he was robbed.”

“How can you be sure it’s our friend Billy?”

“The past week, we’ve had constables in street clothes walking over the bridge and along the river late at night, and we’ve been watching them with field glasses. But nothing happened.” He paused. “None of them looked like you from a distance. They were a different shape. Different height. And nothing happened to them. And then this poor sod was attacked.”

“Billy was elsewhere. Or recognized them for policemen.”