Adam watched and waited. As did the police. For once the murdered women were found, it was only logical to assume the same man had been involved. The scenes of the crimes were identical in nearly every respect.
Sadly, so were the women, in the sense that they had been most immoderate in their number of lovers. But a tall, dark-haired man was soon mentioned, and had even been linked to some assaults in a nearby village, Millcote.
A dead body had turned up there as well, and a handkerchief with initials. Further inquiries eventually led them to a house guest of the Jeromes, Dr. Blake David Sanderson.
He had known the two murdered women of quality, had in fact had a lengthy past history with them. He worked at a clinic in the East End of London for fallen women. A clinic which had treated quite a number of assaulted and strangled women. Women who had been poisoned with some very strange substance.
From there they had traced the pattern of the deaths from London to Bath. Though he seemed to be a respectable doctor with a devoted wife, it appeared he had fled London precipitately after several run-ins with the two dead women.
Moreover, the lovely young girl whom he had married had been his ward. They had suddenly married. Then he had turned up with her at The King's Arms in Bath, beaten to a pulp, according to the landlord. Never mind that he had tenderly nursed her back to health.
Malcolm Branson and his father had met Blake on a number of occasions, and could not believe it. Yet there seemed to be such a chain of evidence all leading to him.
If it were true, then poor young Arabella was in dreadful danger. They had been keeping an eye on him, had not seen him acting in any suspicious way. But who knew what was going on behind closed doors?
At last, about a fortnight after they had begun investigating, they received word from a small tavern outside of Reading, The Bishop's Mitre, that Blake had been passing himself off as married man, sharing a room with a lovely dark-haired woman who had fled from him.
She had apparently disappeared off to London with a kind apothecary from Bristol, Mr. Samuels, who was most concerned when he tried to seek her at the lodgings he had set her down at, and had had no luck.
Malcolm sighed as his father wrote out the warrant for Blake's arrest. They mustered their deputies to go fetch their suspect, by force if need be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Blake and Arabella had never been happier the fortnight they spent at the Jeromes. As each day had passed, with nothing untoward or worrisome occurring, Blake had eventually relaxed and been delighted that Arabella seemed so much better.
She went out riding with her husband, the Jerome girls and her cousins every day, and they began to make plans for the new house they would begin to build as soon as they settled on exactly the right spot on the estate.
The only cloud on Blake's horizon was that his valet Timothy couldn't find a few of his personal items, some cufflinks, a ring, his old watch. A search had turned up Arabella's seed-pearl reticule with a couple of the items in it, though she had no recollection of how they had come to be there.
When Molly the maid disappeared, along with some cash from the housekeeping money, the other servants guessed she had got herself into trouble with the wealthy gent she had boasted was going to take her away from her life of menial servitude, and thought nothing more of it.
When she turned up dead, they guessed that the group of highwaymen which had plagued the district a couple of years before were back on the roads again.
Vanessa Stone's half-brother Gerald had been the insane mastermind behind the criminal gang. Though the Bransons had done their best to bring the men responsible to justice, there was no telling if they had got everyone in the group.
Martin Jerome, as Arabella discovered to her horror, had been one of their victims, beaten to a pulp, strung up in a tree and left for dead.
Blake began to grow uneasy once more, though he felt chagrined for ever having suspected Adam or Oliver, who seemed to make young Ellen and Georgina very happy. So happy that their fond Papa agreed to a double wedding, to take place in June.
"I don't think you should go out riding so often, all of you, not until the highwaymen are caught," Blake complained to Arabella one morning as she donned her riding habit.
"You're coming with me, aren't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then I shall be perfectly safe."
She planted a kiss on his cheek, and sauntered out the door, her little hat perched at a jaunty angle, her split skirt swinging with every long stride. He watched her go with a mixture of breathless admiration and a sudden fit of nerves. He tried to tell himself he was being silly. Nothing could happen in broad daylight.