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combined with old age and an almost palpable sense of spiritual malaise. No matter what evidence
would be stacked either for or against the man, his time on this earthly plane was clearly limited.
We are no longer fighting to exonerate Weaver, Tom thought. Perhaps we never really
were. We are fighting to bring a sense of justice, however belated, to a wretched situation. To
ensure that the long-ago disaster known as Cawnpore claims no more victims.
Davy too considered the man who was passing, but he was thinking of the bright-eyed
face of Felix, how the boy had cheerfully repeated his uncle’s words. That Sahib Weaver would care
for his family for all days. This old man is guilty of so many things, Davy thought. Cowardice.
Desertion of military duty. Desertion of a friend, which is far worse. Infidelity, betrayal, an
indirect sort of blackmail, an addiction to opiates, an addiction to power. Lying about a thousand
matters both large and small. Breaking the enormous heart of the most worthy woman I have ever
met, save me mum.
And yet…and yet he looks so very ordinary.
And then Weaver was led from view and both Tom and Davy promptly went back to
their work. Tom gave the dead rabbit to a passing attendant with explicit instructions that the creature
was to be disposed of, and not become the basis of someone’s evening supper. He then turned his
attention to cutting the ivory linen trousers off the lifeless form of Hubert Morass in start of the formal
autopsy, while Davy moved into the second of the working cells to greet the picnickers he would be
required to fingerprint. The first to arrive was a gaggle of the Byculla Club servants who had
accompanied the members on their ill-fated holiday. Although Davy knew it was highly unlikely any
of their prints would prove to be significant, his heart was still pounding as he sat up his equipment.
He had only given Hubert Morass one lesson in fingerprinting and yet the man had
absorbed the information well. For as he had not only managed to hold on to the cup as he dropped
into the well, but he had earlier somehow managed to get whomever he had been conversing with to
touch the glass in question. Davy knew that Trevor was right. Morass undoubtedly wished to obtain
this fingerprint for the most self-serving of all possible motives: he was a blackmailer collecting even
further evidence to hold against his victim. But still…in taking care to both obtain and preserve a
perfect fingerprint, Morass had also handed Davy the sort of clear evidence that is rare in detection.
All I have to do now, Davy thought, waving in the cluster of servants, who were wideeyed
with fear at the strangeness of their surroundings, is manage not to muck it up.
***
The Office of Hubert Morass
9:35 AM
Nine months earlier, when he had dove from a dock while chasing a man he believed to
be Jack the Ripper, Trevor Welles had undergone a mystical experience.
Admittedly, that statement sounds rather metaphysical and grand, since most people
would expect mystical experiences to be accompanied by seraphim, harps, thunderclaps, and the
like. Trevor’s moment of insight had been grimmer and darker, as cold as the waters of the Thames
on a November midnight. The truth had not enveloped him gently, like angelic arms. It had stabbed
him like a blade pushed decisively into his chest.
You will never have him, the vision said. The Ripper will never be yours. Accept this,
and save what you can.
This singular moment of clarity was the reason that Trevor was able to maintain his
equanimity in the sort of cases where his fellow Scotland Yard detectives became paralyzed with