Deadly Editions Page 11

  “Winston?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The man in charge of the horses.”

  “No, I didn’t see him either.”

  Jacques needed to rest.

  “Can I get him back to his room now?” Tricia asked.

  “Sure,” Brigid said. She gave Jacques her card and told him to call her if he remembered anything else. To her credit she did say to call the police too, though she didn’t mention to call them first.

  I decided not to tell them about our visit to The Tolbooth Tavern. It just didn’t seem to matter at the moment. Brigid must have felt the same, because she didn’t mention it either.

  Besides, it looked like we’d hit a dead end anyway.

  We told them good-bye, and without much more conversation—because Brigid used the time to call into her office and ask questions I couldn’t hear the answers to—she dropped me off at the bookshop. I was certain she was up to something too, but she didn’t want me along.

  I was just fine with that.

  THIRTEEN

  Considering everything, it was a surprise that my dreams weren’t filled with visions of monsters and murderers.

  Instead I dreamed about coffee—the aroma of it, the taste. In the dream I drank the best coffee I’d ever had. Normally I drink coffee without anything extra, but in the dream I added loads of cream and sugar and then other good things that don’t normally go into coffee—chocolate, cheese crackers, hot dogs—and everything tasted delicious. Somewhere deep down I thought, Oh, maybe I should try that. After I’d enjoyed the nocturnal journey for a while, the dream’s real message became clear. I opened my eyes, sat up in bed, and gasped.

  “What?” Groggily, Tom sat up too.

  “Oh, Tom, The Last Drop pub.”

  “Aye, what about it?”

  I looked at the time. All the pubs had probably just closed.

  “I need to make a call.”

  In the dark I looked up the number for The Tolbooth Tavern and hit Dial.

  “‘S’late, what can I do for ye?” a voice answered.

  “Benton?”

  “Aye?”

  “Hello, I know it’s late, but … I’m Delaney, and I was in earlier.”

  “Aye. The treasure hunter.”

  “That’s me. I have a question. The mugs we had today with our coffee—they had an old advertisement painted on them, something about ‘good to the last drop.’ They aren’t the mugs you normally use, right?”

  “No, they arenae. Someone brought them in last week, offered me a thousand quid if I used only those mugs for a few weeks. I thought it was a clever advertising idea.”

  “And you took the deal?”

  “Aye, do I look daft tae ye? ’Twas easy money.”

  “Can you tell me who brought them in?”

  “A man called me on the phone and then had the mugs messengered over. My waitress told me that a lad dropped them by, didnae say much of anything.”

  “Can you tell me more about the messenger?”

  “I can ask my waitress tomorrow. Call me back in the afternoon. I’ve got tae go now, though. Time tae go home. Goodnight.”

  He clicked off before I could say anything else.

  “What?” Tom said after I didn’t explain.

  “I don’t know how the person who left the clues did it, but this one, I’m almost one hundred percent sure, was meant to lead us next to The Last Drop tavern.”

  “Another pub? Another one in Grassmarket?”

  The Last Drop pub was in Grassmarket, in between Tom’s pub and The White Hart Inn.

  “I think so. I think all the clues are inside Edinburgh pubs.”

  “Might be a long hunt.”

  “I hope I’m on the right track.…” I shook my head and told him about the mugs. As I explained what had happened, it seemed like a pretty weak story, but it was all I had.

  “Someone paid him to use them?” Tom asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How in the world would they know you’d order coffee?”

  “Maybe it was just a chance they took, but not only did we order coffee, we ordered a carafe of it, along with the four mugs. Maybe Shelagh thought we’d stop by during the day, and it’s cold.… I don’t know. If we hadn’t ordered warm drinks, we’d have nothing, which might actually be exactly what we have anyway. I’ll stop by The Last Drop pub tomorrow and see if there’s another clue there.”

  “You’ll call Birk?”

  “Of course. I’ll send him an email tonight and have him meet me there.”

  “Good plan.”

  I kissed my husband. “Go back to sleep. I’m wired. I’m going up to my wonderful library to email Birk and do some reading. If I’m not here in the morning, send a search party to the attic.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come too?”

  “No, rest. But thanks for asking.”

  “Very well. Goodnight, love.”

  I kissed him again, and I was pretty sure he was back to sleep by the time his head hit the pillow. I was going to have to remember to leave the bedroom when I had middle-of-the-night epiphanies.

  I wrapped myself in a thick robe and made my way to the pull-down door. It whooshed open and I climbed up.

  I switched on a table lamp, lighting the space with a warm, bright glow. Though the light didn’t extend to illuminate all the books on the shelves, I knew exactly which shelf I wanted to go to and the approximate spot where a certain book was located.

  The Complete Short Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson. It wasn’t a valuable book, but one with a few of Stevenson’s stories, including The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  I opened the book to the monster story. It was short, probably only about seventy or so of today’s pages, but it was still astounding that the author had written it in a mere three days. I started reading.

  It wasn’t long before I became swept up in not only in the story but the writing too. Yes, the language was somewhat old-fashioned, as were the characters’ behavior and speech. But Stevenson’s words were crafted beautifully, his imagery vivid. I could see the monster. I could feel the fear, the devastation some of the characters felt when they began to understand that their friend Dr. Jekyll was in fact also Mr. Hyde.

  The narrator of the story is an attorney, Utterson. An intelligent and levelheaded man, he’s compelled to find the answers to what is happening in his city and what he himself has witnessed. Who is this villain, a man who he eventually discovers is living in his friend Dr. Jekyll’s home? Dr. Jekyll is a good man, a good doctor, so the idea that he is also the monster doesn’t occur to Utterson until another friend of theirs, so shocked by what he has discovered about Dr. Jekyll, sinks into depression and death.

  The ending is a statement by Dr. Jekyll himself—written before he disappears forever. Having wanted to explore the dark side of human nature, he concocted a potion that turned him into the violent Mr. Hyde. But that first potion had been made with something the good doctor couldn’t find again. As a result, as time went on, the dark side of the man kept winning, and Jekyll couldn’t get back to being himself so easily. Dr. Jekyll had to kill Mr. Hyde—but there was no other way to do this than kill himself, because there weren’t two different men, only one, made of both good and bad elements, like all humans.

  I closed the book. There was no happy ending, but it touched something inside me. Fear? Sure, but it was more than that. It made me wonder about my own dark side, about that of the people I thought I knew.

  Dark and light had been used more times than I could remember in books and movies to portray good and evil. There was nothing unique about those descriptions. So what was it about this book that had captured Shelagh’s heart? Was it simply the fact that she’d read it without knowing anything about the story beforehand and learned the twist in real time, or was it something more disturbing? Something about her own darkness?

  But that’s not the way it works. Most people who enjoy reading books about seria
l killers aren’t serial killers themselves. Maybe Jekyll & Hyde was pure escapism for Shelagh, and maybe her behavior long ago really was something she’d done because she’d been a rich, curious, and bored young woman.

  My sense of it was that there was more, but I was far from figuring it out.

  I dug into more internet research on my phone, starting with the author himself. Not only had Stevenson written the story in three days and not only had there been a rumor that he’d based his character on Deacon Brodie, there were other interesting things too.

  He had dreamed the book, his wife waking him in the middle of it as he was screaming at the monster. I smiled. I’d just been awakened by my own dream, though visions of coffee weren’t quite as exciting as Stevenson’s fantasies.

  When I read the next part, though, I exclaimed aloud. Though Deacon Brodie was often thought of as the inspiration for the story, there was another source of inspiration mentioned too. Stevenson had been friends with an Edinburgh-based French teacher who was convicted and executed for the murder of his wife, Mary. The teacher had appeared to live a normal life in the city, meanwhile poisoning his wife as well as maybe other people throughout France and Britain. He’d serve them his favorite dish of toasted cheese, but with lethal doses of opium added to it.

  Stevenson had been present throughout the teacher’s trial, shocked and terrified by what his friend had done, much as Dr. Jekyll’s friends had been.

  The part that caught me off guard the most, though, was the teacher’s name. It was Eugene Chantrelle. Was it a complete coincidence that a man who worked for Shelagh had the same surname? Who was Louis Chantrell, and was he somehow related to the nineteenth-century killer whom Stevenson had known? How much difference did an e make?

  Louis was my next search, but I found nothing online at all. As far as I could tell, Louis was in no way involved with social media. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Neither was Edwin, after all.

  I could find a few things about Edwin on the internet, though. He was well known. Though Louis might not be, I was surprised that I couldn’t find even one thing about him anywhere. I pulled up a couple of Chantrells who lived in France, but no one I could guess was local to Edinburgh.

  I thought back to those first few moments in Deacon Brodie’s pub, when Louis seemed to recognize the murder victim, Ritchie John. I wished I’d asked him what had seemed so familiar, but at the time I hadn’t thought it would be something important.

  Where had he been yesterday afternoon when Shelagh had been taken from her home? What about Findlay Sweet? And did Ritchie’s tie to horses also tie him to Shelagh?

  A chill shivered through my limbs. Where had she been taken? Was she still alive? If so, she was probably terrified. I sensed she was still living, but that might have only been wishful thinking on my part. I hoped she was. I considered that we all might too easily have been somehow blaming her for whatever had happened to her. That was a mistake. Because even if she held some responsibility for her own disappearance, it should not change the fact that priority one was finding her and assuring her safety.

  My eyes were tired, yet adrenaline still coursed through me. I had so much I wanted to do, so much I wanted to think about and figure out, but it was far too late—or maybe early—to do anything.

  I emailed Birk, telling him I’d meet him at The Last Drop tavern at 10:00 A.M., and then I shut my eyes. As I fell asleep, I was sure I heard the faraway howl of a wolf, but there weren’t wolves in Scotland. Maybe it had been a dog.

  Or maybe it had been something else altogether.

  FOURTEEN

  “Do you think it’s all about Grassmarket?” Birk asked as we looked toward the front of the pub. Snow was flying again—sideways this time, because of a strong wind.

  The name The Last Drop had nothing to do with old coffee-advertising campaigns. The sign outside was one of the things most commonly photographed by tourists in Edinburgh; along with the name of the establishment, there was an illustrated noose. Grassmarket had at one time been the location of many hangings, mostly for those determined to be witches, and this “last drop” referred to that particular last drop, down from the gallows.

  “Maybe. Let’s go in,” I said over the wind.

  I’d also been in this pub a time or two, though I’d never stayed long. It was a large place, with the door in between two large front windows. The inside had rich woods and old lanterns hanging from the ceiling, giving the space a darkish light. As part of the decor, there were plenty of pictures of nooses and gallows on the walls, the sorts of terrifying true historical things that Edinburgh tourists also enjoyed.

  As we came through the door, a woman nodded at us from behind the bar. There were no other customers inside.

  “It’s a wee bit early. Our cooks aren’t here yet, but if you want a pint, I’ll accommodate you. I can put some coffee on too if you’re just wanting to be out of the weather, for which, by the way, I wouldn’t blame you one wee bit.”

  I looked at Birk and then back at the woman as we walked toward her. “Actually, we just have some questions, if that’s okay.”

  She shrugged and stood straight, wiping her hands on a towel. “Depends on the questions, I s’pose.”

  She was middle-aged, with beautiful green eyes and dishwater-brown hair pulled back in a smooth ponytail. A pencil was stuck behind one ear, and the apron she’d tied around her middle was currently spotless.

  “My name is Delaney, and this is Birk.”

  “Good to meet you,” she said. “I’m Sarah.”

  I scooted up to a stool. “We are on something like a scavenger hunt, but it’s more of a treasure hunt with clues. The last clue we got led us here, we think, and we’re wondering if there’s something here for us.”

  Her eyebrows came together. “A wee bit old for such things, aren’t ye?”

  Birk sighed. “You have no idea. Nevertheless, here we are, and we feel compelled to see it through to the end.”

  She smiled at Birk. I liked his charming side too.

  “Well, I wish I could help, but I don’t think I know of anything that might serve as a clue. Would it be a note or something?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “The last clue came in the form of an old advertisement on a mug. ‘Good to the last drop.’”

  “Och, aye, I’ve heard that one a time or two.” She fell into thought as she plunked her hands on her hips.

  “Someone might have asked you to use something different than you normally do. Carry a different product? The last clue showed up on mugs that were delivered. The pub owner was paid to use them for a couple weeks.”

  Sarah laughed once. “Good job if you can get it.”

  “Aye.” Birk smiled.

  She shook her head a few moments later. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t think of one thing. I apologize.”

  “It’s all right. We weren’t even really sure we got the last clue right to bring us here. Mugs might be a long shot.”

  Sarah’s eyes went to a spot above our heads. “Excuse me a moment. I’ve been wanting to hear the latest on this.” She grabbed a remote control and turned up the volume on the television that was mounted above us.

  Birk and I turned and watched the story too.

  “Still no sign of missing eccentric Edinburgh resident Shelagh O’Conner,” said the newscaster. “She was taken from her home, leaving a bloody trail in her wake.”

  “Well, not a trail,” I muttered. “Bloody fingerprints on the doorframe.”

  “What’s that?” Sarah asked.

  “Nothing. Sorry.”

  The newscaster continued. “The police are working from the assumption that Ms. O’Conner was taken by the New Monster, a man who continues to evade the police even after committing another string of burglaries last night. Please look at these pictures.” More grainy black-and-white pictures showed on the screen. I squinted and tried to see if I could spot anything familiar. I couldn’t even estimate the real-life size of the person under th
e shabby winter wear.

  Another newscaster took a turn as the pictures snapped back to half screen. “There is no indication that the New Monster has anything to do with the Old Monster, even though it was Shelagh O’Conner herself, fascinated by the Jekyll and Hyde story, who dressed and played the part all those years ago. A man was murdered back then, but Ms. O’Conner was never arrested for the crime and later expressed regret for ever having pretended to be someone she wasn’t. There’s no indication that she is in any way responsible for the burglaries and murder that have occurred this time around, but our investigators have uncovered some new information.

  “It seems that the man who was murdered two nights ago might in fact have had a tenuous tie to Shelagh O’Conner.”

  “Uh-oh,” I muttered quietly.

  “Aye,” Birk said over my shoulder, and just as quietly.

  The newscaster continued. “At one time Ritchie John worked caring for horses, and though we don’t think he worked for Shelagh O’Conner, we are investigating a lead that might still connect Mr. John and Ms. O’Conner because of their shared love of equines. We will report details as they unfold.”

  “That’s how Louis knew him!” I said.

  “Shh,” Sarah said.

  A grainy picture of the New Monster filled the screen, and once again the newscaster continued. “If you see anyone resembling this man or if you have any information regarding him or Shelagh O’Conner, please contact the police immediately. We’ll be right back.”

  Sarah turned down the sound. “Terrifying, but at least there hasn’t been another murder.”

  “It is,” I agreed as Birk and I turned to face her again. She looked at us expectantly, but I didn’t have anything else to ask. “If I leave you my name and number, will you ring me in case something comes in that might be considered a clue?”

  “Certainly.”

  For the second time in as many days, I was handed a paper napkin and a pen. I scribbled my name and number.

  “Delaney,” she said as she read it. “Happy to.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You two want some coffee before you step back out into the storm?”