achieved. It was a lovely evening; he could think of a dozen better places to spend it than cooped up in the House of Commons listening to arguments he had heard a dozen times before. There was a jolly good Gilbert and Sullivan opera on at the Savoy Theatre, and several charming ladies he knew would be there.
The offshore breeze carried the smoke and the fog away, and he could see a dazzle of stars overhead. He had been meaning to say to Sheridan-blast! He had been a few yards away only moments ago. He could not have gone far, bound to walk on an evening like this. Only lived off the Waterloo Road.
Loughley set out smartly towards the bridge, past the statue of Boadicea with her horses and chariot outlined black against the sky, the lights along the Embankment a row of yellow moons down the course of the river. He loved this city, especially the heart of it. Here was the seat of power hallowed back to Simon de Montfort and the first Parliament in the
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thirteenth century, to even its concept in the Magna Charta, and Henry II's charter before that. Now it was the center of an Empire none of them could have conceived. Heavens, they had not even known the world was round, let alone a quarter of its face would be British!
Ah, there was Sheridan, leaning up against the last lamppost, almost as if he were waiting for him.
'Sheridan!' Loughley called out, raising his elegant cane to wave. ' 'Sheridan! Meant to ask you if you'd come to dine with me next week, at my club. Wanted to talk about the ... Whatever's the matter with you, man? Are you ill? You look ...' The rest died away in blasphemy wrung from his heart so intensely that perhaps it was no blasphemy at all.
Cuthbert Sheridan was draped half backwards against the lamppost, his head a little on one side, his hat on the crown of his head, and one lock of pale hair over his brow, looking colorless in the strange quality of the artificial light. The white scarf round his neck was so tight his chin was tipped up, and already the dark blood was soaking the silk and running under to stain his shirtfront. His face was ghastly, eyes staring, mouth a little open.
Loughley felt the sky and the river whirl about him, and his stomach lurched; he lost his balance, stumbling and grasping for the balustrade. It had happened again, and he was alone on Westminster Bridge with the appalling corpse, so horrified he could not even shout.
He turned and stumbled away back towards the north end and the Palace of Westminster, feet slipping on the damp pavement, the lights dancing in his blurred vision.
'You or'right, sir?' a voice said suspiciously.
Loughley looked up and saw light gleaming on silver buttons and the blessed uniform of a constable. He grasped the man's arm.
'Dear God! It's happened again! Over there . . . Cuthbert Sheridan.'
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'Wot's 'appened sir?' The voice was heavy with skepticism.
' 'Another murder. Cuthbert Sheridan-with his throat cut, poor devil! For God's sake, do something!'
At any other time P.C. Blackett would have regarded the shaking, semicoherent man in front of him as a hallucinating drunk, but there was something hideously familiar about this.
'You come wiv me an' show me, sir.' He was not going to let the man out of his sight. It crossed his mind that perhaps he even had the Westminster Cutthroat in his grasp now, although he doubted it. This man looked too genuinely shocked. But he was unquestionably a witness.
Reluctantly Loughley returned, feeling nauseated by horror. It was exactly as had been burned indelibly in his mind. Now it had the quality of a nightmare.
'Ah,' P.C. Blackett said heavily. He looked back at Big Ben, noted the time, then pulled out his whistle and blew it long, shrilly, and with piercing intensity.
When Pitt arrived Micah Drummond was already there, dressed in a smoking jacket, as if he had just left his own fireside, and looking cold and sad. There was a hollowness in his eyes, even in the lamplight, and the bridge of his nose was even more pinched.
'Ah, Pitt.' He turned and left the small group of men huddled together by the mortuary coach. 'Another one, exactly the same. I thought perhaps with Etheridge we'd seen the last of it. Well, it looks as if it wasn't your woman after all. We're back to a lunatic.'
For a moment Pitt felt a surge of relief mixed with the mounting horror. He did not want Florence Ivory to be guilty. Then her face came to his
