“Sure enough, sir,” Janey said. “Just because the insane tell the tales doesn’t make them false.”

“Excellent point,” he said before beckoning to Nell when she surfaced again. “You’ll be hours drying out. The soaking won’t do your bones any good tonight.”

Nell jerked her skirts unnecessarily high as she climbed out of the fountain, exhibiting an expanse of pale leg. “I’ve got an idea about what would do me bones good, if I can pry ye away from yer books for an hour.”

“Nell,” Janey said, taking her by the arm as she cleared the edge of the fountain. “That’s no way to be speaking to the young doctor.”

“There are a myriad of reasons why that won’t be happening, Nell, all of them quite good,” Thornhollow said. “And while I have to credit your showmanship, I still say that you’ll regret your swim once the cold penetrates.”

“Aye, well,” Nell said, slinging a wet sheet of black hair out of her face, “I live in an insane asylum. May as well jump in the fountain, I say.”

“And yet another lesson for you, Grace,” the doctor said, guiding her by the elbow away from the asylum doors and down the path to a waiting carriage. “By our standards a person who flings themselves in a fountain isn’t sane, yet Nell says she’s already deemed insane, so what more damage can be done by giving in to the temptation?”

“Therefore using reason and proving herself to be, in fact, sane,” Grace said.

“Very good.”

“I haven’t eaten yet,” Grace reminded him, knowing well enough what the carriage meant for their evening.

“Not a concern. You won’t be hungry soon.”

NINETEEN

The girl lay staring at the sky, her gaze missing the first sparks of the stars in the dying daylight. Grace fought the urge to shift away from the warm bodies pressing on both sides of her, only too aware of how different this scene was from her first outing with the doctor. On that night, her facade had been under the scrutiny of only a select few and the heavens had poured as they worked on the blood-soaked cobblestones.

Here rain didn’t fall; blood did not flow. There was only the softest of breezes from the river, carrying with it the moist smell of a night just ready to begin. The last rays of the sun were drying the wet folds of her dress and Grace bit the inside of her cheek as someone trod on her foot.

“Pardon me,” the man said, glancing at her. She remained blank, staring straight ahead as he took in her scars and the doctor’s black valise clamped tightly in her hands. The sight of a mental patient was just as entertaining as the dead, and he elbowed the person next to him, whispering something. The white moon of another curious face filled her peripheral vision, but Grace remained unmoved, her attention focused solely on the girl and Thornhollow as he knelt beside her.

“Step back, now. C’mon, step back.” The policemen walked in a widening circle around the body trying to move the crowd away. Grace’s spine stiffened as she recognized Davey. His eyes met hers and she willed herself to show no reaction as he approached.

“You’re all right,” he said quietly, reaching for her elbow, then pulling away as he thought better of it. Instead, he gestured for her to move closer, separating her from the crowd. “Can’t do the doctor much good from back here, can you?”

Grace stepped forward, letting a long exhalation escape silently as she left the press of other bodies behind.

“Look here—why’s she get to go in front?” the man who had stepped on her foot protested.

“What do you think this is? An exhibition?” Davey shot back. “This here’s a murder scene and that girl is the doctor’s assistant.”

“What good is a doctor on a murder scene? Seems to me she’s already dead.”

Grace left their argument behind her, their words sliding away as she lost interest in all but the girl, whose blank stare was so like her own. Thornhollow glanced up as she moved closer, his eyes glazed with concentration as he feverishly cataloged all he could in the moments allowed him.

“Ah, there’s your girl,” the heavyset policeman said as he joined them, having successfully threatened the onlookers enough that they kept a distance. “Almost makes a murder worth it, seeing her pretty face. Shame about the scars, though.”

Thornhollow rose, and she caught the slightest whisper of his words as he leaned into her. “Watch the crowd.”

“Hardly a shame,” Thornhollow countered George in his next breath. “The surgery made her violent fits much less common, although admittedly, less predictable. Just yesterday she chased a squirrel across the front lawn, caught him too. The nurse told me she spent hours picking all the hairs from Grace’s teeth.”

“You don’t mean to say she ate it?” Davey asked.

“That’s the tale. I wasn’t there to see it, but one of the patients told me the doomed thing was still trying to climb out as she was chewing.”

George backed away from Grace. “Might want to keep your distance, in that case, Davey. No face is pretty enough to outweigh having something chewed off.”

Davey hovered nearby, nonetheless. “There’s a fella over there not too happy about the girl, uh . . . Grace, getting to come up close for a good look. I’ll just stay near.”

“She knows no difference, either way,” Thornhollow said, looking at Davey shrewdly. “If the gentleman in the crowd were to bother her past her point of endurance, Grace would handle it. Now, if I could direct both your attentions to the girl on the ground and not the one standing, that would be most beneficial.”

Grace’s eyes wandered over the crowd that had gathered in a loose circle around them, the girl’s body on unwitting display as her death provided the night’s entertainment. People pressed against one another three deep, the ones in front informing those in back what was going on. Eyes bounced off her own as Grace took in each face, each reaction as they noticed her scars.

The three men conversed in low tones, their words suddenly scattered by the shrill piercing of a train whistle. Several people in the crowd jumped, hands going to their ears.

“Some vagrant’s done it,” someone shouted. “Probably hopped the next train out too. Never catch the bastard once he’s on the rails.” The man broke to the front of the crowd. “You’d best be watching the tracks, coppers.”

George rounded on him, hand dropped threateningly to his billy club. “You let me decide what I best be doing.”

“Make way,” Davey shouted, parting the crowd on the opposite side of the circle. “Coroner’s wagon is here. Make way, all of you. Show’s over.”

Thornhollow took his valise from Grace, and she followed him to the carriage. “Back to the asylum. We’ve seen all we need here,” he said to the driver, who nodded.

“It seems vultures of all types follow the dead, don’t they?” Thornhollow asked Grace as they watched the crowd gather around the coroner’s wagon.

“Vultures don’t have such heavy feet,” Grace said, rubbing her toes through her buttoned boots. “I’d have been trampled by them if Davey hadn’t noticed me. Why did you ask me to watch the crowd?”

“Yes, I think Davey has taken notice of you, to say the least,” the doctor said, lurching forward as the carriage moved into motion. “As for my request, I believe our killer is a planner and an intelligent one at that. Some of that ilk return to the scene of the crime. They rather enjoy watching the police bumble about, not knowing the person they seek is a stone’s throw away. Now, quickly, tell me what you gathered while it’s fresh in your mind.”

“The body wasn’t moved,” Grace said. “The grass around her was crushed as if there had been a struggle.”

“I noticed that as well. However, we don’t know how many people passed close to the body even before the city’s finest could be called. Judging by the crowd, a good many. We can’t be sure she wasn’t killed elsewhere.”