A Sunless Sea by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online

filthy water closing over his head.
    “Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I suppose you have to leave them here?”
    “Yes,” Brundish replied, his brows lifted slightly in surprise. “I assumefrom that remark that you do not wish for … whatever it is?” He pulled a small sheet of paper from his inside pocket. “However, I need you to sign this to confirm that I have delivered it to you.”
    “Of course you do.” Wordlessly Rathbone took the paper over to the writing table in the corner, picked up a pen, dipped it in the inkwell, and signed. He blotted the signature lightly and handed the paper back.
    After Brundish had gone, Rathbone sent Ardmore to fetch brandy, then he dismissed him for the night and sat in the armchair thinking.
    Should he destroy them, now, without even opening them? He looked down at the box and realized it was metal, and locked. The key was tied to it on a ribbon, presumably by Brundish. He would have to open it and take them out before he could destroy them. Inside that box they were invulnerable, probably even to fire.
    What else would destroy pictures? Acid? But why bother? Fire was easy enough. There was a fire in the grate now. All he needed to do was pile more coal on it, get it really hot, and he had the perfect method. By morning there would be nothing left.
    He bent down and took the key, put it in the lock, and turned it. It moved easily, as if it were well cared for and often used.
    The contents were not only paper as he had expected, but photographic plates, with paper prints beside, presumably duplicates used to prove their existence. He should have foreseen that. These were the originals from which Ballinger had printed the copies he had used to blackmail people. He had nearly said “the victims” in his own mind, but these men were not the victims. The true victims were the children, the mudlarks, orphans, street urchins taken and kept prisoner on the boats.
    He looked at the pictures one by one. They were horrific, but obscenely fascinating. He barely looked at the children—he could not bear it—but the faces of the men held him totally, however much against his will. They were men whose features he knew, men of power in government, in law, in the Church, in life. That the sickness ran through them with such power that they would stoop to this shook him till his stomach clenched and his hand holding the plates trembled.
    If they had paid prostitutes, or even done such things with adultmen, or other men’s wives, it would have been a private matter that he could perhaps shut out of his mind. But this was entirely different. This was the rape and torture of children, and—even to the most tolerant—it was a bestial crime. To the society in which they moved, which respected them and over which they had power, it was a sin beyond forgiveness.
    The plates were glass. They would not burn. The fire in the hearth, however hot, would not be enough.
    Acid? A hammer and blows violent enough to smash them to rubble? But should he? If he destroyed this evidence, then he was complicit in the crimes they had committed.
    Should he take them to the police?
    But some of those men
were
police. Some were judges, some advocates in the courts. He would overturn half of society. And if word of his possession got out, perhaps he would not even survive. Men had killed for infinitely less.
    He was too tired to make any irrevocable decisions tonight.
    He closed the box and locked it again. He must find a safe place to keep it until he could decide. It must be somewhere that no one else could find it, or ever think to look.
    Where had Ballinger kept it? A bank vault or something of that nature?
    He would deal with it tomorrow. Tonight he was too weighed down with grief.

CHAPTER

3
    I T WAS A BRIGHT , cold morning as Monk turned onto Copenhagen Place to continue knocking on the doors of Zenia Gadney’s neighbors to see what he could learn about her. Orme was working the area closer to