“Thank you!” she said abruptly, and swinging around, she ran back to where Monk and Charles were still waiting. They saw her and started towards her.
“What is it?” Monk said breathlessly. “Where is she?”
Hester looked beyond him at Charles. “Did she have an umbrella, a green one?”
Charles was ashen. “Yes! Why? What’s happened?”
“I think she left with Pendreigh. A clerk at the door over there says someone exactly like her went out with him about ten minutes ago.”
Charles lunged forward and ran across the now almost empty hallway and down the steps, Monk and Hester racing after him, feet flying, clutching the rails to keep from tripping. Outside was that unique darkness of very late autumn and fog. It was almost like disappearing into a muffling layer of cloths, ice-cold and gripping as if a solid touch, except that it parted in front of you and closed behind, leaving you without sense of direction. Even sound seemed swallowed by the wall of vapor.
“Why would she go with Pendreigh?” Charles said from a few feet away in the gloom. “What could he do for her? How could he help? With what he’s just heard about his daughter, how could he even think of anyone else’s grief?” He spun around, almost colliding with them in the thick darkness. “Do you think he’s trying to save her, because he lost Elissa?” His voice was wild with hope, soaring up out of control.
“I don’t know,” Monk said roughly. He swore as he stumbled on the edge of the curb. “But why in God’s name did they leave the courthouse? She must have known you’d be frantic with worry for her.”
“Perhaps she’s still angry with me for bringing her to see just how gambling can destroy everything she loves,” Charles said, trying to choke back his emotions and hold on to some kind of control.
Hester was beginning to shiver, as much from fear as cold. There was something profoundly wrong. Imogen did not know Fuller Pendreigh. Why on earth would she go out into the fog alone with him? No matter how distressed she was over Elissa, or gambling, or anything else, no matter how much she might grieve for Pendreigh because they had both known Elissa at wildly different times of her life, she would not have left Charles and walked off into the fog.
Then a terrible thought assailed her. Could Pendreigh in some insane way blame Imogen for Elissa’s gambling, just as she had once feared Charles might blame Elissa for Imogen’s? She swung around and gripped Monk’s arm so hard he winced. “What if he thinks it is her fault that Elissa gambled?” she said urgently. “What if he means her harm?”
Monk started to protest her foolishness, but Charles broke away and, churning his arms, trying to feel his way through the shifting patterns of the mist as it thinned and then rolled together again, he lurched towards Ludgate Hill.
With awful certainty Hester knew where he was going. . Blackfriars’ Bridge, and the river.
Monk must have known it, too. He clasped her hand and pulled her along, forcing her to run blindly through the white wall around them, along to New Bridge Street, then left with muffled hoofbeats of cab horses behind them and the dismal sound of foghorns from the water ahead. The mist smelled of salt, and it was moving in patches now on the wind off the water.
It cleared, and they saw Charles ahead of them, still trying to run, swiveling from right to left as he searched desperately for a sign of someone, anyone he could ask. The gas lamps were barely visible, just one before and one behind, giving the illusion of a pathway.
They overtook a hansom, which was almost soundless in the gloom, just a faint creak of leather and wood and the hiss of the wheels on the wet road. It was invisible until they were almost on top of it, and then only a darkness in the paler mist.
“Imogen!” Charles shouted, and the night swallowed his voice like a wet sheet. “Imogen!” he called, louder and more desperately.
There was a faint murmur and a slurp of water ahead, and then suddenly the boom of a foghorn almost on top of them. The road was rising. The bridge!
It was stupid, pointless, but Hester found herself calling out as well.
There was a gust of wind; the fog cleared a few yards. Half a dozen lamps were visible. They were on the bridge, the water below a black, glistening surface, looking as solid as glass, and then gone again, rolled over and vanished in the choking vapor.
Another hansom passed them, moving more certainly. A moment later the driver called out, a thick, sharp cry of alarm.
Monk sprinted in the brief patch of light from the lamps.
Hester picked up her skirts and ran after him, Charles catching up and passing her. Even so she saw the dark heap on the curbside between the lamps, almost as soon as they did, and only the volume of fabric around her ankles prevented her from reaching it at the same time.
Monk fell on his knees beside the body, but in the fitful light through the vapor he could see little, except the ashen pallor of her face.
“Imogen!” Charles cried, all but collapsing on his knees and reaching out for her. “Oh, God!” He snatched his hands back, covered with dark, sticky liquid. He tried to speak again, but he could scarcely breathe.
Hester felt her heart choking in her throat, but it was too dark to see anything to help. She swiveled towards the roadway and scrambled to her feet. “Cabbie!” she shouted, her voice high and thin like a scream, except she had not drawn in enough breath. “Bring the carriage lamp! Hurry!”
It seemed like an eternity in the mist and darkness before she saw it wavering towards them, but actually it was only a moment in time. He made his way at a run, carrying the lamp high, and held it over the body on the ground.
Charles gasped and let out a sob of horror. Even Monk gave a low moan. Imogen was gray-faced, and the whole top of her body from the waist up was scarlet with blood.
The cabbie drew in his breath with a hiss between his teeth, and the light in his hand swayed.
Hester steeled herself to touch Imogen, to search for the wound and see if there was anything she could do. There was no blood pumping, no movement at all.
Blinded by her own tears, she felt for Imogen’s neck and pulled away her collar. Her fingers touched warm skin, and a definite beat of pulse. “She’s alive!” she said. “She’s alive!” Then immediately she realized how stupid that was. There was blood everywhere, scarlet arterial blood. The whole of Imogen’s jacket front was soaked in it. But where was the wound? Was there even any point in trying to find it when so much blood had been lost?
With fumbling fingers in the juddering light from the carriage lamp, she half pulled, half tore at the fastenings until Monk reached over and took them from her, ripping the jacket open. Underneath on Imogen’s white blouse there was only a single bright stain.
Hester heard Charles sobbing.
Less blood. . not more. The blood was from outside. It was not Imogen’s! Just for a last assurance she pulled the blouse out of its anchorage in the skirt waist and pushed her hand underneath. There was no blood at all, no wound to the smooth skin.
So why was Imogen unconscious? Quickly she replaced the clothes, wrapping them around her. “Coats!” she ordered. “Give me your coats to put around her!” And instantly Monk and Charles threw their coats off and handed them to her. The moment after, the cabbie offered his, struggling to keep the light high at the same time.
Hester felt very gently under Imogen’s head, exploring, terrified to find broken bone, more blood, a soft indentation of the skull, but there was only a swelling. Her heart beating faster and faster, her mouth dry, she covered the last few inches. Still no splintered bone.
“She’s struck her head,” she said hoarsely. “But her skull seems whole.” She looked up at the cabbie. “You’ll take her home, won’t you? Now. .”
“Yeah! Yeah, o’ course!” he said quickly. “But wot abaht all that blood, Miss? If she ain’t stabbed. . ’oo is?”
Charles let out a long, shuddering sigh.
Monk stepped forward and took the lamp from the cabbie and held it high. It was Hester who saw the green umbrella lying on the pavement beside the bridge rails. It was still rolled up, and the long, sharp spike of it was thick with blood, and more had fallen in spots along the path.
“Oh, God!” Charles burst out in horror.
“Pendreigh. .” Monk gasped. “Why?”
