Governing Passion Read Online Free Page A

the next morning
dictating his report to Gussie French, the police clerk. About
halfway through, Angus Withers poked his head into the constables’
room that Cobb was using as an office, and announced that he had
completed his examination of the body and had sent someone to
inform the parents of Sally Butts’s death.
    “What’d you find, doc?”
    “Well, the knife used had a serrated blade,”
Withers said. “I’d hazard a guess that it was some kind of skinning
knife. The slash was from left to right, so if the killer was
right-handed, I’d say he came up behind the victim, grabbed her to
hold her steady, and then, quick and vicious, slit her throat.”
    “I found a right-handed glove near the
scene,” Cobb said, taking the written report from Withers, “so if
the killer removed it to get a firmer grip on the knife, he was
certainly right-handed.”
    “There were no bruises or blood or skin under
her fingernails, so she didn’t put up any sort of struggle. She
didn’t have time, poor thing.”
    “Nothin’ else of interest?”
    “That’s it. I’ve jotted down the details for
you in that report.”
    Cobb thanked him, and he left.
    When Cobb was finished making out his own
report, he took it next door to the Chief’s office.
    Without looking up from his desk, Cyril
Bagshaw said curtly, “Just leave it, Cobb. I’ll call you in when
I’ve read it.”
    Cobb gave a small sigh and retreated. It was
no skin off his nose if he sat in the anteroom by the pot-bellied
stove and wasted his time. He had been relieved of his daily patrol
in order to play detective, so detective it would be. Ten minutes
later Bagshaw called him back in.
    “Why do you mention these gentlemen at Madame
LaFrance’s?” he said, motioning Cobb to a chair opposite him.
    “They left the premises right after Sally
Butts did, sir. And they went their separate ways, I was told. So I
figure we got three men, who seemed to have an interest in the
girl, wanderin’ about Devil’s Acre in the dark.”
    “Wielding skinning knives?” Bagshaw said with
heavy sarcasm.
    “Easily hidden in a coat pocket.”
    “So you think a gentleman is capable of
acting like a common cutthroat?”
    “I found a right-hand glove at the entrance
to the alley.”
    “I can read, Constable.”
    “It was an expensive glove, a gentleman’s
glove. Would you like to see it?”
    “I would not. For God’s sake, Cobb, Devil’s
Acre is a den of thieves and scoundrels who’d slit your throat as
soon as look at you, and you’re pursuing three nameless gentlemen
out for a diverting evening’s entertainment!”
    “And the boots, sir?” Cobb persisted. “I’ve
sketched the odd pattern for you there in my report. That
star-shape should make them easy to identify.”
    “And you think they’re gentleman’s boots? A giant gentleman at that?”
    “Well, it is a fancy pattern, ain’t it?”
    “You don’t even know if the footprints are the killer’s, do you?”
    “They led away from the body, sir, out to
Church Street. And they were snow-filled, meanin’ they’d been made
some time before any of us got there.”
    “But you say the footprints leading up to the body were all messed up by others who came after the killer
– like the gambler who found her, the coroner, Wilkie and you?”
    “That’s right.”
    “So how do you know the killer didn’t retreat
instead of going on ahead? If it was one of the denizens of Devil’s
Acre, he probably sneaked off to his hidey-hole somewhere in that
garbage heap – not out to Church Street.”
    “It’s possible, sir. But how do we account
for them big bootprints?”
    “Someone who left the place before the
murder? Or just after? Someone who didn’t feel like reporting it?
You see, there’s no way we can connect them definitely to the
murder.”
    “I suppose so, sir.”
    “I do. And I must say, I’m not overly
impressed with your detecting skills on the basis of this first
report. Why didn’t you and Wilkie