But to my surprise, Lilly Corteville spoke unprompted. "I was telling Inspector Grayling what happened."
"Pray continue," I said. "I'd like to listen."
"Miss Corteville was explaining that she was in a hired hack on the way to . . . where was it, Miss Corteville?" Grayling asked. He reached into the pocket of his wool coat, which had been brushed and the buttons all tightened. He withdrew a small journal and self-inking pen.
I made quick observations:
Very close shave, no nicks, no leftover shaving soap-a newly sharpened razor blade.
The ticket stub from the Underground and a blotch of dark grease on his boot and staining his small fingernail-reduced to using public transportation, likely because his steamcycle wasn't working properly.
"I was going to attend a lecture. A salon," she said. My interest perked up, and I felt a sizzle of expectation, for the Ankh had referred to the Society of Sekhmet and the meeting of its salon.
"What was the topic of the salon?" I asked. "And, pray remind me, what day are we speaking of?"
"It was the twenty-fifth of April, and the salon was an evening gathering of friends. We enjoy discussing aspects of Egyptian culture. I hired a cab because I didn't want my mother to know I was going out. To be honest, I sneaked out of the house while she was at the theater." Lilly shifted on the chaise, her hands fluttering over the blanket as she glanced toward Lady Fauntley. "But I never arrived at the salon. The wheel on my cab broke-it must have hit some large stone or fell in a pothole and split. Either way, the wheel needed to be repaired, and I was required to alight from the cab."
Grayling's fancy writing implement, which had a large bubble-like reservoir of ink at the top, scratched busily in his journal.
"I decided to walk for a short distance and take some air. I was on the third level-I felt safe enough. I left the cab on Fleet-street, and there was a quaint little lace shop just closing up for the night. I wanted to stop in before I found another cab. But that's where it all went wrong."
Looking down at her fingers, which twisted in the crocheted blanket, Lilly continued, "Someone was following me. There weren't any cabs in sight, and I kept walking, trying to find one. I kept hearing the footsteps behind me, and it was starting to get dark. I was almost running, and I lost track of where I was. The next thing I knew, I went past St. Paul's and I was walking down Trinity, when I waved at several cabs, but they didn't stop. The moon was right there in front of me, just above the rooftops, but it barely gave any light. Then all at once, they were there. Three of them."
Her voice caught in a sob, and her fingers no longer played with the blanket, but instead trembled. "They . . . grabbed me and took me off and gave me to that man. B-Bad Louie. I don't know where he took me, but it was awful. Dark and dirty and frightening. I . . . I don't want to talk about what happened . . . there." Her words trailed off, and I could tell she was reliving the horror of her captivity. I could only deduce what sorts of pain and activities had been visited upon her, and my practical insides softened with sympathy as she continued. "He kept me there. For weeks and weeks."
I sat back in my seat, considering. Her story generated a variety of questions and emotions, many of which I wasn't prepared to share at the moment. The least of which regarded why she was lying.
Grayling's pen was poised above a page of his journal, and when she finished speaking, he paused, then rested it on his knee. "You've had a harrowing experience, Miss Corteville," he said in the kindest voice I'd heard from him. "Perhaps you might like to rest for a while. We can speak with you again when you're feeling better." The "we" in this last sentence clearly included me, and I stiffened at his presumption.
I was about to correct him about my intentions (if I wanted to continue questioning the young woman, I would certainly do so), when the door to the parlor opened.
Inspector Luckworth appeared and gestured to his partner. Grayling nodded, then looked at me. "Inspector Luckworth has retrieved the clothing Miss Corteville was wearing when she was abducted. Perhaps you wish to examine it, Miss Holmes?"
"Yes, I do." An examination could confirm my suspicions that she was lying about much of her experience. I was also aware of the real benefit to Grayling: I would not be left alone with Miss Corteville to continue the questioning without him. I was under no illusion that he was including me in the investigation for any other reason.
"If you would excuse us, Miss Corteville," he said, standing. He tucked away his journal and closed the cap on his pen before sliding it into his pocket.
Once out in the corridor, the door closed behind us, and Grayling, Luckworth, and I were alone.
"The housemaid is pulling the gel's dress and under-things from the garbage-they didn't realize we'd want to see them. Gonna be a ruddy-'scuse me-mess when they fin' it. Did you learn anything from the gel?" the elder inspector said to his partner.
"Miss Corteville gave me her story," Grayling replied as they walked down to the end of the hall and found a private alcove in which to speak. I followed, uninvited.
Grayling glanced up as I joined them, then pulled out his journal to review his notes. "She stopped to do some shopping after the wheel of her cab broke and needed repair, and then she got lost. Miss Corteville thought someone was following her, tried to elude them, and in the process became further lost in an unpleasant area of London, near St. Paul's. Then three men abducted her, keeping her captive in the slums of Whitechapel for nearly four weeks. It's quite a sad story," he said, flipping the book closed.
"She was lying," I could hardly wait to inform them. "There were several-"
"Of course she was lying." Grayling gave me a disgruntled look. "It's obvious to anyone that Miss Corteville has had a horrific experience, and one wonders if she will ever fully recover. But her story is riddled with untruths. She claims she saw several cabs on Vergrand-street that she tried to hail, but as it happened, on that day, that particular street was closed due to a flooded sewer canal. There was no traffic on that street at any level."
I sniffed. "I knew she was lying the moment she mentioned a lace shop on Mayfair. There's no such shop on Mayfair, or even in the blocks surrounding it. Aside from that, she claimed the moon was over the rooftops and gave off hardly any light, but on April 25, it was-"
"A full moon in an unusually clear sky," Grayling said.
"Not only that, but the moon rose high in the west that night, so it would have been behind her and very far above the rooftops, if she were walking away from St. Paul's on Vergrand-as she claimed."