The Spider- Chapter 26-27

Revelations

Nov 17, 2024

26

29th November, 1892

Dear John,
Yesterday, I awoke as though from an enduring, terrible dream. Mother has brought us to New Brighton, under doctor’s orders. As I’d tried to tell her all along, Swinson was poisoning me, and every day I was sick or feverish. I loathe that man. I knew he’d try to kill me in the end, whether it be through dull conversation or other means. She is beside herself with grief. I forgive her. She wasn't to know.
Ablewhite has been so kind and attentive. He says I shall make a full recovery, but it will take some time. I am thin, and I do not like to look upon myself in the mirror, for I look… I look like her.
Mother wouldn’t tell me when I asked where you were. I hoped that it was the 28th of November. No one would confirm what date it was, which I thought was odd, and I could not find a single letter or newspaper in the house.
As I was not at home, I asked when I could see you, but nobody seemed to have an answer with which they could provide me. I feared the worst: your death.
It was cool outside with a brisk wind, but overall, not terribly cold. We went for a walk along the pier. Elsie skipped ahead and flew her kite on the sands! She is ever so good. She misses you. I have embraced that child more times in this past week than I have in all of her life, because she is all I have right now to keep me alive.
I’ve never been on this side of the river before—I could almost see our house from the golden beaches! Hundreds of vessels entered and exited the river, tooting and puffing with their characterful sounds. I wondered which one you were on, and I wept, because I cannot bear to be apart from you.
On the way back to my aunt’s house—against mother’s wishes—I happened to find a paper boy, and I looked down at the paper he gave me, and it gave me quite a start. I had not expected to see my husband’s face on the front page. Mother rushed to hold me as I fell to my knees. It cannot be! I cried. It cannot be!
They say you are to be hanged for the murder of a woman found in our home. I cannot believe it. I will not believe it. The only fact in this matter is that I have to write to you as you wait in your cell. The doctor does not advise me to cross the river to come to you. I sense no deception—he is good mannered and I am frail.
With what strength I have left in this weak body, I will fight for you. Mother, and every reputable name she knows is behind you, John. I have a new found passion in my soul that is indefatigable, and they will not take you from me. I have written to our solicitor. Hold fast, John.
All my love,
Frances

🕷

Fred Wilcox arrived at the bridewell the following day. His arrival prompted a heated discussion between Muldoon and Gill, as both had forgotten to let him know that they didn’t need a statement any more. “I don’t know, sir,” Muldoon said uneasily. “I mean, why do we need a statement from the night they messed around with a ouija board?”

“A statement’s a statement. Don’t we need proof that she was poisoned? He might know something.”

Muldoon rolled his eyes. “It just doesn’t seem relevant now that the body’s been found. The haunting is over.” He didn’t believe his own words as he heard them, and he hadn’t checked since they removed Mary’s body from the property. The sudden disappearance of the ghost worried him. If he'd caught the killer, he felt she had no need to bother him. If he hadn't, he worried she'd come back with a vengeance. He buried the thought.

“We can’t tell him that. He’s come all the way here. Anyway, I’ve not slept for two days in case you haven’t noticed, and my men are still out looking for The Grim Reaper. I’m nipping home for a kip.”

“About that, sir,” Muldoon said, feeling his heart rising into his throat. Gill looked at him expectantly. “I found the doctor. Tell the squad to stand down.”

“Well where is he, then?”

“I just need him for a bit longer, and then he’s all yours,” Muldoon lied. “Let’s get Bryant put away first.”

Gill, too tired to think about it, nodded and left the corridor. “Good luck, Mulders. You know where to find me.”

Muldoon stepped in to Gill’s office where Fred Wilcox was waiting for him, sipping a cup of tea. Muldoon shook off his fatigue, greeted the man and shook his hand before they both sat down.

“Mr Wilcox, thanks for coming in. I believe I need to collect a statement from yourself regarding the night of the seance.”

Wilcox tilted his head. “Oh? I thought I was here about John Bryant?”

“John Bryant?”

“Yes. I'm a solicitor. The family has asked me to appoint a barrister who will represent him in court.”

Muldoon raised an eyebrow, wondering how Frances was. It had been over a week since he last saw her. “They have?”

“Yes. Put simply: There isn’t enough evidence for us to believe it’s him.”

“Is that so?”

“They will fight the charges.”

Muldoon, smelling blood, leaned forward. “We have the murder weapon, Mr Wilcox.”

Wilcox remained upright, looking Muldoon directly in the eyes. Fred was bold and assertive, albeit the epitome of friendliness and professionalism as he sat across the desk from the inspector. “I’ve heard that, yes. But it proves nothing.”

“Come again?”

“The brand, Inspector. Where can’t you find a Sheffield-made straight razor in this country? It could be anyone’s.”

He was right. He had reason to believe that it was the same brand of razor that John Bryant used, but both his mother-in-law and his housekeeper added that they weren’t entirely sure. “He cleaned and sharpened his own razors,” Mrs Mckinnon said. Muldoon knew that even if they had confirmed it as the same razor Bryant used: on its own, it proved nothing. Muldoon made a note of Wilcox’s comment, and decided to change the subject.

“Who do you think murdered this woman then? We have Bryant’s name on the deeds.”

“And I shall be refuting that. There is a copy of his marriage certificate in the post as we speak. Mrs Bryant is adamant that the signature on the deeds is not that of her husband’s, and I have more.”

“All right, I’m listening.”

“Mrs Bryant, as you know, was gravely ill,” Fred began. Was— that was good news. “And on the night of the seance, we all saw that ghost. But the thing is,” Fred’s eyes twinkled with excitement. “I’ve seen this woman before.”

Wilcox pulled out an envelope and handed it to Muldoon. “It was distributed by the Salvation Army last Christmas in their missing persons campaign. They do it every year, as you may know. Anyway, I was coming out of St Mary’s On Christmas Eve and they handed out some photographs as they always do. This is Mary Hobbs—well, I believe the ghost to have been Mary Hobbs. This girl has been missing since November, 1885.”

Muldoon gazed at the photo, feeling his hands tremble, and turned it over. The handwriting on the back said Mary Hobbs, missing since 1885, aged eighteen years. He turned it over once more; looking up at him was the woman who had been dragged up the stairs. He had no reason to believe that this wasn’t the face of the apparition that they called Mary. She had been incredibly striking, with masses of dark hair and fine clothes. Around her neck rested a necklace that made his heart thump through his chest. “That necklace,” he said, tapping the photograph. “That necklace was on the body we found…” There was more life in the eyes of the still image than there had been any time he’d seen Mary Hobbs. “What else do you know about her?” Muldoon asked, musing.

Fred shook his head heavily. “Not much. Daughter of a wealthy cotton merchant. I’ve heard of class-defying romances—I mean, I’ve read The Greenwood Tree for goodness’ sake and Bryant is married to a schoolmistress, yes—but a sheep-farmer in West Derby and a middle class girl from Allerton? There are more than five miles between them!” He lowered his shoulders. “I’ve struggled to find any dates that would put them together, or even places where they would cross paths. No mutual friends or connections… I thought of writing to the parents, but to write about what? I couldn’t face them as—how could I explain? ‘Hello, I’ve seen your missing daughter and she’s rather dead, I’m afraid.’ I didn’t know what to say. I’m no clairvoyant, and I was hardly going to drag my father-in-law out to Allerton to try and reconnect the family. They would have thought us mad! It was rather a difficult situation. I’ve only partaken in seances that have been requested. We don’t doorstop people.”

Muldoon, barely listening, stared at the face in his hands. He couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph. She had been trying to tell him all along. “Could Frances communicate with her?”

“Absolutely. I’d never seen anything like it. I knew from my father-in-law—Mr Kingsley—that Mrs Larkin had the sight, slightly, but Frances saw her and felt her just as you or I would be aware of each other’s presence right now.” Fred smiled. “She’s rather beautiful isn’t she? Don’t tell my wife, but if one could fall in love with a photograph, it would be this one.”

“Mr Wilcox,” Muldoon began, “as part of this investigation, I’ve been privy to the correspondence between Frances and her husband. In a couple of the letters, Mrs Bryant mentions another ghost. A man? Did the second ghost come up at all in the seance?”

Wilcox shook his head with a downturned mouth. “Not that I am aware of. There was no sign of an additional ghost, Inspector—just this lady, Mary.”

Muldoon leaned back in the chair and reflected on the information. “Did Mrs Larkin mention a second ghost?”

Just as Wilcox was about to say “no,” there was an urgent knock on the door. Muldoon excused himself and answered to an older constable holding a stack of letters. “Sir,” he said. “We was cleaning up in Percy street and Lacey found these in the attic, sir.”

“Thanks, Pinners,” Muldoon said. “Are you all finished there now?” he asked.

“Yessir, it’s all done.”

“Thanks,” Muldoon took the bundle from him and closed the door. Unable to help himself, he put the letters down on the desk and started reading them. Fred Wilcox twiddled his fingers and looked on awkwardly, wondering if he should excuse himself or not.

The detective bent over them, his dark brows furrowed as he read the words in the letters intently.

“Hang on—” Muldoon said, raising his head for once. “Did you say Allerton?”

“Yes.” Wilcox nodded. “The Hobbs family resides in Allerton…” Fred’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. “Do you need a moment, sir? Is everything all right?”

Muldoon shot up out of his chair and paced the room to the window and back. “You’re telling me this woman has been missing since ‘85, her family are in Allerton and here I am reading letters she wrote to…” he picked up a letter and read it again in a quiet voice. “Margaret Ross…in 1888.”

Wilcox waited for the detective to elaborate, but he didn’t. Instead, there was another awkward silence followed by Muldoon clearing his throat. “Mr Wilcox, if Bryant’s not our man… how would you like to solve a murder with me?”

***

The next day, Fred was waiting for him in the main reception with a copy of John Bryant’s marriage certificate in his hand. Muldoon had a copy of the deeds to five Percy Street in his inside pocket. They both presented the documents to Gill who agreed they didn’t seem like the same signatures, at all. Wilcox also had a handful of letters that Frances Bryant had given him upon visiting New Brighton the day before. “Fine,” Gill huffed. “I’ll send for a handwriting… what are they called again?”

“A graphologist, sir,” Wilcox said, smiling.

“Yeah, one of them. I’ll get one from the University.”

Muldoon and Wilcox left Gill to his work and crossed the street. Hailing a hansom cab to take them to Lord Street, they disembarked and stood before a small office bearing the sign, “Jessops and Partners,”—a sign that was identical to the header of the letter that had been in Muldoon’s pocket, signed by Jessops himself.

Inside, a well-groomed male secretary greeted them, had them wait ten minutes while Jessops finished up with another client, and brought them to the office of Michael Jessops. “Thank you, James,” said Mr Jessops, watching the younger man leave the room with a longing glance that made Wilcox look again.

Wilcox, doing most of the talking, encouraged Jessops to jog his memory and fetch a copy of the deeds for Percy Street. Jessops, more than happy to help, retrieved a copy from the basement himself and returned to his office. “Yes, John Bryant, 1882 it says here,” Jessops said, laying the document down on the desk for Muldoon to read over.

“Thank you for this. It’s been ten years Mr Jessops, and I know that you must be rather busy with clients, but I did wonder if you could help us identify him?” Muldoon presented Jessops with his most earnest expression of which Jessops couldn’t help but find attractive.

“Well, you’re right, Inspector. It has been a while.” Fred watched as Muldoon seemed to bat his long black eyelashes at Jessops, rendering him defenceless. “Of course. I’ll give it a try,” Jessops said, winking.

“I can’t thank you enough for your cooperation,” Muldoon said, pulling a photograph out of his pocket. He placed the photograph of a dark-haired, handsome man with a moustache on the desk. He was wearing a top hat and dressed as smartly as any banker or company director walking past the offices they sat in. Jessops tilted his head, looking at the photograph intently.

“Yes, that’s him,” he finally said after some time. “I’d recognise him anywhere.” He shot a second glance at the image that Muldoon had placed on the desk. “That’s Mr John Bryant.”

“Excellent,” Muldoon smiled and shook Jessops’ hand. “Thank you for your time, Mr Jessops,” he said. “Would you be so kind as to just write a note saying we were here? It’s just that, with the police service being the way it is…”

“Not at all,” said the solicitor. “My secretary—Richard—he can do it.”

Wilcox stood and opened the door slightly. “Oh,” he said, looking disappointed. “He’s with a client. We really have to get back. Do you think you could…?”

Jessops nodded, and said, “yes, of course.” He pulled a card from his drawer and scribbled a note with his signature on it, and slid it to Wilcox who had returned to the desk. “It was good to see you again, Fred.”

“Likewise,” Wilcox said, shaking his hand enthusiastically. “It’s been too long.”

“A friend of yours?” Muldoon asked him when they had stepped back outside onto the street. Wilcox blushed. “Not quite. He was my principal. He had a few of us under his tutelage and became enamoured with one of my peers.”

“They let women train in those days?”

Wilcox smiled uncomfortably. “I didn’t say the peer was a woman, Inspector.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” Wilcox said, putting his hat on. “What do we do now?”

Muldoon took the calling card out of his pocket and said, “we find out who really signed it.”

“It was a risk doing that. He could have seen that photograph in the paper!”

“But he didn’t, did he?” Muldoon winked. They both looked down at the photograph they had shown Jessops. Borrowed from a reporter friend at The Post, the photograph had been attached to the obituary of a James T. Wallace. Muldoon grinned. “He’s never seen John Bryant before in his life, or this deceased son of a coal tycoon, clearly—what have you got there?” he asked, looking at the document Wilcox had produced from the wallet under his arm.

He looked at him mischievously, and asked, “you don’t think Jessops writes all his own letters and contracts, do you?" Wilcox grinned. "I pinched this one when his secretary went back into his office.”

“Fred, you snake.” Muldoon laughed, impressed.

“Well then,” the smaller man said, sticking his chest out, “let's go and hand these in.”

🕷

“Why are you doing this?” Gill asked, slapping his hands on the desk in exasperation. “He’s downstairs.”

“I’m just not convinced, Gov.”

“Mulders,” Gill barked. “I’ve got the head of police breathing down my neck wanting this thing put to bed. Bryant’s face is all over the papers.” Gill slammed the newspaper down on the desk. One of the front page headlines read: ‘Shear evil: sheep farmer murders first wife and locks her in the attic.’ Muldoon rubbed his forehead for a moment.

“They always exaggerate. We have no proof.”

“The deeds, Mulders!” Gill exploded. “We’ve got the fucking deeds!”

“Forgery and framing.”

“What? Can you prove it?”

“Not yet. I handed some more evidence to the graphologist.”

“That’s not going to work! It’s not even a proper job. Handwriting expert? Isn’t that what a school teacher does? It’s a fad.”

“What about Geography then? His time in Australia? Mrs Bryant has letters he sent when he was in Australia.”

Gill pursed his lips in thought, acknowledging his defeat. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you’re happy to have an innocent man hanged, Gov. I can’t—”

“This is how it works, Mulders. We find the body, we pin the murder on the most likely and we get rid. Keeps the city happy.”

“You know it’s not right. We can’t just go on circumstantial evidence. There’s something else going on here.”

Gill looked up at the ceiling and let his shoulders collapse. “Who did it then, clever Dick?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then why are you wasting my time?” Gill roared, squaring up to him. Muldoon stood still, challenging him with a stern glare. Gill relented, and sat back down, massaging his temples. “You’ve got three days, Muldoon. Three days. Head of police wants this dealt with, and I can’t keep it open for a hunch.”

27

18th July, 1888

Dear Maggie,
I fear that the day is due when he will not let me out again. I have had to convince him to let me see a doctor, privately. The walk to the surgery is good exercise, and he cannot argue that it isn’t beneficial for me. I always come back within two hours, and he is learning to trust me, but I know him, and he will revert to his true nature again. It is in the waiting room of the surgery that I write these letters to you. I stop by a hotel and ask the concierge to post them for me. He is happy to do so, and asks how he can assist me further. The kindness of strangers! It is a balm to my soul.
I cannot come home, because he will find me, and I cannot begin to think what he would do to anyone who tried to protect me from him. I made my bed, and I must lie in it.
There is not much time, but I still wish to proceed with the plan. It breaks my heart, and I wish things could be different. This is not the life that I dreamed of, and it is certainly not the life I would have left my family for. For that I am a fool. I shall regret it for the rest of my life.
I do not deserve your loyalty and love, but I am grateful to God for you and Sissy and all you do for me, and all you will do for me in the years to come.
My eternal love,
Mary

🕷

The heavy, oppressive odour of factory smoke accompanied by dense clouds from the chimneys blanketed the mid-morning autumn sun as Muldoon approached the east side of the city. Crossing the street, he weaved his way through the shopkeepers, residents and restaurateurs of Chinatown, where he found the tea house he had been asked to wait in. He sat down and informed the waiter that he was hanging on until his company arrived, and positioned himself so that he could see the world pass by from a table near the window. Faces of every age, sex and colour seemed to pass along the glass panes, but he didn’t see the one he was hoping to meet.

“We can’t talk here,” Maggie had said when he caught her turning the corner of Percy street the previous day.

Muldoon took stock of the bruises on her forearm as she pulled away from him. She had tucked it back into her shawl. “Who did that to you?” he asked.

She shook her head, eyes wide with fear. “Nobody. I knocked it.”

He wanted to interview her there and then but she wouldn’t speak any more. “It’s not safe,” she said, looking down the street and back at him. “I can’t go back with you. Please. I can’t.”

“All right,” Muldoon said, accepting defeat. “But I think you know something about the woman in the box, Maggie.” A fire rose in his belly, as he dared to say, “I think you knew Mary.”

Maggie fixed her eyes on him, and looked as though she was going to faint. She helplessly clutched the basket she was holding, as though it could steady her. “Not here. Please. It’s not safe.”

She agreed to meet him the following morning at the tea house. “In Chinatown. No one expects to see me there,” she said.

He waited for nearly two hours.

🕷

He rang the bell several times and peered in through the window of number five, Percy Street. He couldn’t see anything through the closed curtains; he tried the back gate and found all of the back doors and windows impenetrable. Frustrated, he returned to the front of the house and stood on the top step. At any moment, a patrolling constable would pass and he would borrow him for a moment.

The day was clear and dry, and the mid-morning sun warmed his face as he waited on the top step of the porch. In the still, eerie silence of the morning, he fancied he could hear movement inside, and listened against the glass. The thumping of footsteps and breaking of crockery grew louder until he heard a woman scream.

“Maggie?” he asked, banging on the door. “Maggie?”

He stepped back and lunged at the door, trying desperately to kick it in. He ran at it again and again until a constable grabbed him by the shoulders and asked “what do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, I’m…” Muldoon pulled out his badge. “I’m an inspector. Help me get this door down.”

The constable helped him break the door down, issuing the final blow to the lock with his truncheon. Muldoon burst into the house past him, looking for the owner of the scream.

He found Maggie lying on the parlour room floor, her neck slashed open. The razor, tossed carelessly on the wood floor, lay only a few inches from her head.

🕷

Muldoon was still at the scene of the murder after Maggie’s body had been covered and taken away in a wagon. The familiar, metallic smell had started to fade as the blood congealed on the floor.

Having the entire house to himself, he passed through each room, waiting. Only the grandfather clock ticked in the hallway. The body had been discovered just after twelve o’clock, and it was now half past one in the afternoon. “Mary?” he asked quietly. Nothing about the hallway changed. He stood and stared at the great mechanical face for a few minutes more.

He decided to try something. Winding the clock back by ninety five minutes, he waited for the long hand to land. It struck twelve. He touched it.

As clear as it had been the first time, the vision from the days before presented itself again. Against an unknown force, he pushed his way towards the foot of the stairs, leaning as far as he could to try and get closer to the man dragging Mary’s body away. The clock struck for the twelfth time and threw him out of the vision. He blinked and found himself back at the park bench with Sarah, moments before she caught him looking at the sketch book. “What are you doing?” she asked. Before he could answer, he was back in her alcove of the nursery looking through her sketchbook. He flicked through page after page furiously as the small shape of a pencil-drawn stick man in the corner ran to the next page, and the next. The man with no face. He was in her dresser, rubbing his forefinger and thumb against the soft muslin fabric of her undergarments. He held a chemise up and sniffed it, but he wasn’t holding it with his own hands. He was somebody else. He heard himself breathing heavily, standing over Sarah as she slept. A desire for her burned deep within him, and he couldn’t suppress it. He reached for his trousers and started to unfasten them, until a shadow moved in his peripheral vision.

When he turned his head to catch sight of the figure standing on the other side of the bed, he froze. Mary was staring at him: her eyes dark and focused, even hateful. She lifted her hand, pointing to him. Her scream seemed to shatter his ear drums as he fell to the floor with his hands over his head.

Muldoon lay on the nursery floor, feeling his pulse hammering through his body. His head ached, and he couldn’t get up for some time. He moved his eyes around the room and saw that he had an audience of dolls and a rocking horse watching him. Rolling over and feeling ashamed at the sight of his unbuttoned trousers, he managed to balance and put his weight into his palms and knees, eventually pushing up onto his feet.

On the floor beside him was the calling card that Sarah had given to him. He checked his pockets and saw that it was the same one. He flipped it over.

Sarah’s scent still lingered in his nostrils, and he stared down at his hands. They were his again, and there was nobody in the nursery but him.

Downstairs, he stood for a moment on the top step of the porch before another constable and a joiner with a bag of tools and some timber over his shoulder approached. “We just need to put a lock on it, sir. Don’t want no looters.”

“Aye, absolutely,” he said, looking back at the house. He stepped aside, letting them pass. As the joiner got to work on the door, Muldoon pulled the card out of his pocket again and made the decision to head back to his office.

🕷

“Yeah, I’ve seen him before,” Chloe said, eyeing the sketch he had given her.

“Do you remember what colour his eyes were, Chloe?” Muldoon asked.

She didn’t need time to think. “Brown. Brown eyes that were so dark, they were almost black… I’d never forget those eyes.”

Muldoon looked down at Sarah's drawing again, his stomach still feeling uneasy. “Chloe, I know that usually, that sort of comment would be heard as a compliment, but you’re saying it with some disgust in your voice there.”

Chloe rolled one of her caramel shoulders towards her ear and looked at Mae, who was listening intently with a look of worry on her face. “You didn’t say he was weird, Chloe?” she said, taking a drag of her cigarette.

Chloe shrugged and sat on her hands. “He was, but it was a different kind of weird.”

“Did he try to hurt you?” Muldoon asked.

She shook her head, loosening wisps of midnight hair across her shoulders. “No, not like that. He likes to… you know… do stuff to the clothes and things.”

“Oh?” Mae asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. Not watching me do it or anything. He comes in, puts some stuff on the bed that he’s brought and asks me to leave him. The first time he came here, he looked through my dresses and laid one on the bed. I asked him if he wanted me to put it on. He just said no and told me to get out. He didn’t shout at me or anything. That’s why I’m saying he didn’t seem dangerous. I just mean he was weird as in, not interested in you know…me?”

Madame Chloe was Mae’s most expensive whore, and Muldoon could see why. She was different from the other girls, with a slight French twinge to her accent, and the beautiful, round face of a North African angel, embellished with large, almond eyes. The girl was sought after by the wealthiest men in the city, being far too expensive for a sailor’s pay grade, or as Lacey had discovered, a police officer’s. “What sort of things did he bring with him?” Muldoon asked.

“Someone else’s clothes. Chemise and drawers, that kind of thing.”

Muldoon felt his stomach drop. “Do you have any of them still?”

Chloe nodded. “I just kept them in case he forgot them and wanted them back. I didn’t wear them or nothing.”

She stretched a long, elegant arm out and opened a drawer from her dresser. Lifting out some delicate items in a bundle, she passed them to Muldoon, who held them like they had been a newborn child. “All of these?” he asked, surprised at the volume.

“Yeah. He comes here quite often, so I supposed he’d want them back.”

Muldoon laid the undergarments on the bed and swallowed. Mae and Chloe watched, intrigued.

He turned everything inside out looking for labels until he found what he didn’t want to see. In a pair of lace-trimmed drawers, he found the initials, S.J. He also found her initials in a muslin chemise and lastly, the initials M.H in a silk nightgown.

“I need to take these away, ladies,” he said regretfully.

“What if he comes back?” asked Chloe, frowning.

Muldoon thought for a moment. If he came back and found the items where he left them, he would suspect nothing. If he came back and found the items gone, nobody knew how he would react. “I know the owners of these things,” he said. “But I doubt they’ll want them back, after…” he picked up a chemise that was crumpled; it was unusually stiff—as stiff as a garment that had been starched. Chloe covered her mouth with her hand.

“If he comes here again,” Muldoon said, “I need to know.”

“Why?” asked Chloe.

“He could be dangerous.”

Muldoon left them in Chloe’s room to figure out for themselves what they would do with that request, and, grabbing Lacey from a peephole outside of Chloe’s room, headed back to the bridewell.

🕷

“I am innocent,” John Bryant said, resting his cuffed hands on his lap. Wilcox sat beside him, waiting to offer counsel if John required it.

“That may reveal itself to be the case, Mr Bryant, but we still have a murder on our hands. You must know something.” Gill took a deep breath. “So let's start again. When did you secure the deeds to five Percy Street?”

“May of this year. 1892,” Bryant said.

“Do you have the papers for that?”

“I did,” he said. “Mr Ellman sold the house to me. It had been his, and he had no use for it as he lived in a mansion out in the countryside. It came as part of the employment contract. I had my own copies.”

Gill jutted his chin forward in thought. “I must say, Mr Bryant, it’s quite unusual for a man as wealthy as yourself to need an employer after that stint in Australia. You must be rolling in it, if you’ll beg my pardon for such a crude expression.”

Bryant shrugged. “He was very convincing, and I wanted to give the girls a good life—that is, my wife and daughter. Look—at the end of the day, I’m still just a sheep farmer. I didn’t think anything of it, working for him. I thought that’s what you do, so I took everything he offered. He was so nice to me… Cared about my life and my dreams, you know?”

Muldoon nodded sympathetically. “And you have no idea where those papers are?”

“No. I brought them with me to Percy street. They must be in the house somewhere?”

“We’ve searched the premises several times,” Muldoon said regretfully. “Our officers can’t find anything.”

“Well, look again! I signed the contract on the ship and as soon as the ship docked, I went to see it with him. He’d just had it all decorated and he suggested I went shopping and had it outfitted, which I did.” Bryant smacked his lips together. “It was too good to be true.”

“So you have no idea who the woman in the attic is?”

Bryant shook his head. Wilcox cleared his throat and said, “as I have previously stated, Chief Inspector Gill, my client has no connection whatsoever to Mary Hobbs.”

Gill folded his arms and frowned. “You might not, but you’re still involved in this, somehow, Bryant, and I’m going to find out how.”

The Spider- Chapter 26-27

Revelations

26

27

Discussion about this post