Her Dark Curiosity by Megan Shepherd Read Free Book Online

But how could I possibly explain my interest to the inspector? Well-bred seventeen-year-old girls weren’t fascinated by murder suspects, as a rule. If I said three of the four victims had personally wronged me, I’d become the number one suspect.
    My fingers clenched the newsprint. If only Montgomery was here, he’d know what to do. He had always been better than me at these things: investigating, tracking, lying. For the longest time I’d thought him a terrible liar, and yet in the end, he’d fooled me well enough. I could still remember his voice: You shouldn’t have anything to do with me. I’m guilty of so many crimes. He’d warned me plain as day, and yet I’d still fallen in love with him, believed we had a future . . . and now here I was, alone with ink-stained fingers, only a dog for company and an old man who didn’t begin to know the truth about me.
    I skipped over Inspector Newcastle’s name and let my gaze linger on the last line of the article, a line that I’d barely glanced at in my hurry yesterday: “The bodies are being kept in King’s College of Medical Research until autopsies can be performed to shed light on the exact nature of the deaths.”
    King’s College—I knew those dark hallways only too well. I’d scrubbed blood from the mortar there, dusted cobwebs from between skeleton’s bones. That was where Dr. Hastings had decided a simple cleaning girl wouldn’t dare refuse his sexual advances, and I’d slit his wrist. I still remembered the crimson color of his blood on the tile.
    The last thing I wanted to do was return to those hallways.
    And yet those bodies called to me, promising to tell me the answers buried within their cold flesh.
    It was a call I couldn’t resist.

    T HE FOLLOWING MORNING I dressed early and came downstairs with a lie prepared about needing to do some Christmas shopping in the market. To my surprise, I heard sounds of arguing and found the professor in the library with a visitor, a stout man with stiff waxed hair and thick glasses whose face froze when he saw me standing in the doorway.
    “Ah, Juliet, you’re awake,” the professor said, rising to his feet. His mouth was still held tense from their argument, but he forced a smile as he pulled me into the hallway.
    “Who’s that man?” I asked, trying to peek around his shoulder.
    “Isambard Lessing. A historian, one of the King’s Club men. No need to concern yourself with him; he’s here to inquire about some old journals and family heirlooms. Did you need something?”
    “I was thinking of going shopping. This close to Christmas—”
    “Yes, yes, a fine idea,” he said, herding me toward the stairs. He fumbled in his pocket for some bank notes and pressed them into my hand. “I’ll see you back here for supper.”
    I muttered a silent prayer of thanks that he was distracted and wasted no time hurrying from the house with Sharkey. I took the dog to the market and firmly deposited him with Joyce, so by the time I got to King’s College—wearing an old apron over my fashionable red dress—classes were already in session for the morning. I entered through the main double doors into the glistening hallway with polished wood inlay floors and wall sconces covering the electric lights. My boots echoed loudly in the empty hallways. I’d never felt comfortable on this level, the realm of academics and well-off students from good families. Grainy photographs lined the walls showing the illustrious history of the university and its construction. One brass frame bore the crest of the King’s Club, the motto underneath. Ex scientia vera. From knowledge, truth. I thought of stiff Isambard Lessing and his red face. I paused to look at the date on the frame’s inscription.
    1875. Four years before I was born. The photograph documented the King’s Club membership at the time, two lines of a dozen male faces wearing long robes and serious expressions. Lucy’s railroad magnate father, Mr. Radcliffe,