“You met her,” I said. “You told her of Bennett’s promiscuity.”
Coombs nodded. “I felt she ought to know. She’d left her life to be with him, poor lamb. We walked from Aldgate down toward the river—I scarce noted which direction we went. And then Bennett found us.”
“Mmm.” I had the feeling I knew what he would say next. “What happened?”
“He was enraged. Bennett confronted me, then shouted at Judith, telling her to go home, like a good wife. She wept, she groaned, she pleaded with him. We were near the docks at St. Catherine’s. He found a piece of iron bar, discarded. He took it up, and he hit her … She fell to the ground—it was terrible. Then he lifted her and tipped her into the river, dropped the bar in after her, and went home.”
Coombs stopped, letting out a long breath.
“What time of day was it?” I asked.
“Pardon? Oh … I scarce remember.”
“I would predict, evening. Judith’s sister saw her at Aldgate in the afternoon. No one saw you, or Bennett—Devorah would be sure to state if she saw him. I will return to my early speculation. You arranged to meet her here, in these rooms.”
“No, indeed. That would have been foolish.”
“Not if you wished to save her from Bennett,” I went on doggedly. “She was, as everyone has pointed out, a pretty young woman. I speculate that she was at Aldgate looking for her former intended, Mr. Stein. To reconcile with him? Perhaps. If Judith could prove Bennett did not marry her legally, she might ask Mr. Stein to forgive her and make an honest wife of her. You had already alerted her of Bennett’s perfidy. She would talk to you, get the proof she needed, and set a solicitor and her father on him. When she came here … what happened?”
“She did not come,” Coombs said stubbornly. His face was red.
“Again, I could ask your former assistant. Or anyone else I can find who was in the house at the time. She came here.”
“Very well—yes,” Coombs said, his voice a cracked whisper. “But Bennett was here too. That is not a lie. He followed her. He found her. He …”
“I do not believe Bennett killed her,” I said. “I looked into Bennett’s eyes when he protested his innocence. Bennett is a great liar, but about that, no.”
“How can you believe him?” Coombs asked, his lips white.
“You have tools.” I moved to the shelves and removed the long-handled chisel. “One blow killed her, dealt by a man who knew exactly where to strike. The other surgeon I consulted suggested such a thing.”
“Who is this surgeon?” Coombs flashed. “Let him accuse me.”
“He has no idea of your guilt. Why did you hit her? Did she refuse to leave Bennett for you? Even when you promised to take care of her?”
Coombs stared at me, openmouthed, and then at last his face flushed with color, and his eyes filled with rage.
“She was devoted to him. I could not understand it. Bennett was married to another woman already, and Judith would not believe me. She’d made up her mind to go home to her father, to beg forgiveness and start her life again, but when she came back here, she revealed that Bennett had talked her into staying with him. I was flummoxed. In my anger, I struck out at Bennett. Judith leapt in front of him to save him, and so I hit her …”
Coombs’s hand had come up in demonstration. As it came down again, mimicking the blow, tears sprang into his eyes and flowed down his cheeks.
“Good God,” Grenville said. “Bennett saw you kill his wife? Why did he not send for the magistrates at once?”
“Because he is an evil, evil man,” Coombs said, his voice rising. “He already had a wife. He wanted Judith’s money for the keeping of her, then Judith’s father refused to give them any. Not while he was alive, not in a will when he was dead. But that night Bennett found a new source of income—me. Money from me to keep quiet that I’d murdered her. Bennett took her off in a cart, and I never saw what became of her until you brought in her bones. He bled me dry …”
“Why did you not say so?” I asked. “When I came here, and showed you what had become of her, why did you not tell me what he’d done? For keeping it quiet, he is as much a murderer as you.”
“Because I do not want to hang!” Coombs’s shrillness increased. “Not for only killing a Jew. If I steered you to him, and you found out what he was yourself—I have heard of your ability to find criminals and take them to Bow Street. Bennett would hang, and I would cease having to pay him.”
He buried his face in his hands, weeping.
“Only killing a Jew,” I repeated. “Is that what she was to you, in the end? Not quite a person, in your eyes? Because she refused you?”
“She was a bloody fool!”
“I agree,” I said. “I would have fled you both. You killed again, though, did you not? You saw the man I hired to keep an eye on Bennett follow him, and you struck him down as well.”
Coombs nodded, continuing to weep. “Yes.”
“He killed Jack?” Brewster broke in, outraged. “Let me have a go at him, Captain.”
“No,” I said. “He is for the magistrates.”
Coombs looked up, his sobs quieting. “I will tell them about Bennett. All about what he is.”
“And I have no doubt he’ll tell them all about you,” I said.
Coombs paled, then he reddened again and he came at me. Pushing me onto my bad leg, he snatched the chisel from my hand, raised it, and swung it with precision straight at my head.
I swiftly brought up my walking stick and blocked the blow. The metal rang against the hard wood of the stick, jerking his hand up again. Coombs tried another strike, but he crumpled and fell as Brewster bowled him aside, his fist landing in the man’s gut.
Coombs collapsed to the floor, groaning. Brewster shook out his hand, looking furious but satisfied.
***
Coombs was in no shape to fight the three of us as we, for the second time that day, bundled a criminal into Grenville’s carriage and drove him to the magistrate’s court.
I sent a message before we left to Thompson in Wapping that told him to come to Bow Street to find the murderer of Judith Hartman. Thompson arrived in a remarkably short time after we descended at Bow Street with Coombs and gave him to Pomeroy.
Thompson looked buoyed—for him. “Well done, Captain,” he said, wringing my hand as we met inside the front door. “I knew you’d not fail. This is a burden from my mind, I will tell you. I’d think of her on a winter night, unknown, unwept for …”
“It was good of you to care,” I said. “Not many would.”
Thompson shrugged, his narrow face flushing. “Mayhap I’m too sentimental to be a thief-taker.” He shook my hand again. “I thank you, Captain. I am in your debt.”
“Go to Mr. Hartman,” I said. “Tell him and Judith’s sister, and Mr. Stein, all that has happened. Do that, and I will consider the debt paid.”
“I will do so, but that will not be enough,” Thompson promised. “Consult me anytime you need assistance, Captain.”
He touched his battered hat to me, and disappeared up the stairs, calling to Pomeroy as he went.
***
After that, Grenville, I, and Brewster made for Grimpen Lane, in the still-light evening, and shared brandy.
“Whew,” Grenville said after he’d drunk a large measure. “What a pair of disgusting, underhanded, horrible … I cannot think of words bad enough to call them.”
“Selfish-prick bastards,” Brewster supplied.
Grenville pointed the fingers around his goblet at him. “I will agree to that. What on earth made you suspect him, Lacey?”
“Nothing,” I said slowly. “And everything. I remembered his instruments—torture devices I thought them. The fact that Judith had been killed with such precision, the same precision that healed her arm, was in the back of my mind. When Bennett said his appointment last night was in Tottenham Court Road, where the only other man who’d seen his wife before she died had rooms … I was not certain, but I had to try.”