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hadn’t. The room looked like an abattoir, only no self-respecting butcher would have created this much mayhem. Blood pooled on the floor and spattered the walls. The smell was revolting. I put my forearm over my mouth to avoid breathing in the sickly sweet aroma. I had nearly crashed into French, as he’d pulled up short as soon as he’d entered the room. He turned now and grasped my arms.
    “Don’t look,” he muttered. His face was pale and his lips tightly crimped. He looked as nauseous as I felt.
    “Dear God,” I muttered. “Mayhew?”
    “Dead, poor fellow.”
    “No one could lose this much blood and still be alive,” I said with some asperity. Torture always makes me snappish, and torture, I am afraid, is the only thing that could account for the amount of blood now drying on the damask wallpaper and the pine floors.
    “What the devil did they do to him?”
    A vein throbbed in French’s temple. “They cut the man to bloody pieces.”
    “Do you think they were after the envelope?”
    “What else could it be? Someone wanted it very badly and Mayhew thought it would be safer with you.” He ushered me out the door, closing it behind him. “This would explain why those fellows showed up this morning at Lotus House. It looks as if Mayhew held out as long as he could, but he must have told them what he’d done with the envelope. Then they slit his throat and came after it.”
    Mrs. Sullivan had managed to wobble down the stairs and was leaning against the newel, sobbing hysterically. She glanced up as we came into view and let out a piercing howl.
    “Murder!” she yelled. She looked at us frantically and scrambled for the door. She wrenched it open and stumbled down the steps to the pavement. “Help! Murder!” She staggered off in the direction of the square, shrieking.
    “What should we do?”
    French shrugged. “Nothing. As loudly as Mrs. Sullivan is screaming, she’ll have the local constable here in a few minutes.”
    Mentioning the police had its usual effect upon me. “We can’t stay here and wait for the peelers to show,” I said, horrified. “Mrs. Sullivan may buy the carriage accident and the friends of the colonel routine, but I don’t relish being questioned by an inspector as to the depth of my acquaintance with the deceased.”
    “Hmm. I see your point. That could be awkward. Why don’t you duck out the back and down the alley? I’ll tell the inspector that I’ve sent you home as you’ve suffered a terrible shock. If he’s a gentleman, he won’t press the issue. If he’s not, I’ll pull rank on him.”
    “Splendid idea,” I said, and it was, but not, unfortunately, a timely one. For at that moment Mrs. Sullivan pelted into view with a constable on her heels.
    • • •
    I did not care for Inspector Allen. Nor, I believe, did the inspector care for me. He sauntered behind my chair with his hands in his pockets, a matchstick dangling from his lips.
    “So, you are a cousin to Major French?”
    The parlour had become an interrogation room. French and I were closeted there with the inspector and his sergeant, who had taken a chair in the corner and produced a notebook from his pocket to record my lies. In my defense (as if I need to provide one), French had lied first. He’d taken one look at Allen and decided that the inspector would have to find out by himself about Lotus House, the bill of lading and the reason for our appearance at the house on Milner Street. I didn’t blame French for determining that Allen would get no assistance from us. I’d pegged the inspector at first sight as a pompous, dim-witted, vainglorious toad. Perhaps it was the suit. Only music hall performers should go about in checked suits. Maybe the inspector aspired to the acting profession or sang in a quartet on the weekends. In any event, he had a nasty little mustache that he smoothed constantly, as if stroking a pet mouse, and a sly, knowing manner that would have played well on the stage as