Текст книги "The Thames River Murders"

Автор книги: Ashley Gardner

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Author's Note

Books in the Captain Lacey Series on Kindle

About the Author

Copyright

Chapter One

June, 1818

The letter, neatly folded at my plate, looked innocuous enough, but I had a sense of disquiet about it.

The letter had come through the post, my name and direction carefully printed by hand. Captain Gabriel Lacey, South Audley Street, Mayfair.

An auspicious address, though not my original. I’d married it. Six months ago, I had been living in straitened circumstances in rooms above a Covent Garden bakeshop. At New Year’s I had married Donata Breckenridge, a young widow, and moved into tasteful splendor.

The previous master of this house, Lord Breckenridge, had been a brute of a man, and a boor. Did I feel a sense of triumph that I had awakened with the beautiful Donata half an hour ago, while the foul Breckenridge was dead?

I did, I am very much afraid.

I breakfasted alone. Donata slept on upstairs, weary from her social engagements of the previous night. Her small son from her first marriage, Peter—the current Viscount Breckenridge—took his breakfast in the nursery, and my daughter had not yet woken. In the family, Peter and I were the early risers.

I eyed the letter for some time, filled with a sense of foreboding. I’d received two rather nasty missives in the last weeks, unsigned, purporting me to be an imposter—in fact not the Gabriel Lacey who had left my Norfolk country estate more than twenty years ago with a regiment posted to India. I was a blackguard who’d come to cheat Lady Breckenridge out of her money and leave her destitute. If I did not heed the writer’s warning, leave a substantial sum for him in a yet-to-be determined meeting place, and disappear again, he would denounce me.

I, of course, showed these letters to my wife at once. Donata had great fun with them, and was busy trying to decipher the handwriting. A jealous suitor, she proclaimed, though she had no idea which one. Could be dozens, she’d said, which unnerved me a bit, though I should not have been surprised. Donata had been quite a diamond of the first water in her Season.

I finished my ham and slice of bread, toasted to near blackness as I liked it, and took a long draught of coffee before I lifted the letter and broke the seal with my knife.

I make so bold to write to you, Captain, to beg a favor. I have a problem I have been pondering for some time, and would like another opinion. Sir Montague Harris, magistrate at Whitechapel, suggested I put the affair before you and see what you make of it. You would, unfortunately, have to travel to Wapping, but there is no way around that. If you would prefer to discuss the matter first, I am happy to meet you in a place more convenient to explain.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Thompson

Thames River Police

“Barnstable,” I said to the butler, who hovered nearby, waiting to serve me. “Please send for a hackney. I am off to Wapping this morning.”

***

Barnstable, who was a stickler for appearances, wanted to rouse the coachman to have me driven across London in the Breckenridge landau. I forestalled him, seeing no reason to wake the man, Hagen, who’d been out until four driving my wife from place to place. Nor did I wish to roll into the seamier parts of London in a luxurious coach with the Breckenridge crest on its side.

A hackney would do. Barnstable made sure one halted at our front door, a plain black coach, shining with rain. I asked Barnstable to convey to Donata where I’d gone, in case she woke before my return, and I was off.

The coach had only reached the end of South Audley Street when the door was flung open again. The vehicle listed sharply as a large man climbed inside, slammed the door, and fell onto the seat opposite me. He gave me a nod.

“Mornin’, Captain.”

“Mr. Brewster.” My hand relaxed on my walking stick, which had a stout sword inside it. “I would have hoped Mr. Denis had ceased sending a minder after me.”

Brewster folded his thick hands across his belly and returned my look blandly. “Mr. Denis pays me to follow you. When you dart out of your house at nine in the morning and leap into a hackney, I can’t but help wondering where you’re off to. If I didn’t find out, Mr. Denis would not be pleased.”

James Denis was not forgiving of those who disobeyed his orders. I had to concede Brewster’s dilemma.

“I am going to visit a man of the River Police,” I said. “Perhaps not an errand you’d wish to take.”

Brewster made a slight shrug. “I go where you go, Captain.”

Brewster was a criminal, a thief and possibly a murderer. James Denis, an even greater criminal, ever plotted to have me under his thumb. The association between us, however, had become much more complicated than that. My ideas about Denis had changed, though I had no illusions about exactly what sort of man he was.

The journey across London was tedious, its streets clogged with vehicles, animals, and humanity living as hard as they could under the cloud of smoke twined with mist from the river.

We moved along the Strand, then Cheapside, then through the heart of the City’s financial prowess at Cornhill and Leadenhall. We turned southward around Tower Hill and so to the docklands.

Wapping was in the midst of these, with tall ships lining the wharves, the forest of masts and yardarms stretching down the river. The bare rigging moved as the ships rocked, the vessels straining to be released to the freedom of the sea.

I’d sailed plenty myself in such ships, my longest voyage being to India when I’d been young and in the army, to fight in Mysore. I’d dragged my delicate first wife across the ocean with me. That she would not have the eagerness to see an exotic part of the world at my side had never occurred to me.

A similar ship had taken me to Norway, then to France, and finally to Iberia, to fight battle after battle in the unceasing wars. Since I’d returned to England in 1814, an injury denying me the glory of Waterloo, I’d been land-bound. The sight of the tall ships stirred in me a longing to explore parts unknown.

For now, I turned my back on the ships and descended from the coach in front of the narrow house that was an office for the Thames River Police.

Formed by merchants and ship owners tired of cargo being stolen from the holds of moored ships, the Thames River Police patrolled the river, watch over the ships and docks, and apprehend thieves. While the river was their jurisdiction, they did sometimes help the magistrates and Runners throughout London with investigations.

I entered the house to find a small room filled with desks, maps of the river, and pigeonholes crammed with scraps of paper. A wiry young man scampered into the back when I removed my hat and gave my name.

Brewster did not enter the house behind me. He remained outside next to the hackney, leaning on its wheel and narrowly watching anyone who passed. He had no intention of letting the hired driver leave, he’d said, in case I needed a quick departure, but neither had he any intention of voluntarily walking into a house full of patrollers.

Peter Thompson came through a door in the rear of the room and held out his hand to me. He was a tall, bony man with lively eyes in a thin face, wearing a frock coat and breeches that hung loosely on his limbs. So he’d looked every time I’d seen him. He was only minus his frayed gloves this morning, clasping my hand with a bare, callused one.

I’d been in the office to which Thompson ushered me before, long ago, when I’d investigated the affair of the Glass House. I’d met Thompson not long before that, when his men had pulled the body of a young woman out of the water and asked my help identifying it.

Thompson’s room hadn’t changed. He had a desk and chair for himself, a stool for any visitor. I remained standing, remembering that the stool was less comfortable than leaning on my walking stick.

“Thank you for coming, Captain.” Thompson also remained standing, a man who disliked to be still. “I hesitated to write to you, but this has been weighing on my mind for some time. Puzzles intrigue you, so I decided to ask your opinion.”

While I’d gained something of a reputation for ferreting out things that were none of my business, I had to wonder why a man of Thompson’s repute would ask for my help. He had plenty of young, sturdy men at his disposal to assist him in investigations.

“It is an old mystery, I’m afraid,” Thompson said. “I must not lie to you—my superiors have told me to let it be. If no one has come forward in all this time, we are to make a mark through it and continue with more pressing matters. But I dislike leaving a thing unsolved.”

“And you recalled that neither did I,” I supplied.

The corners of Thompson’s lips twitched. “You have a tenacity I admire, Captain. I believe you are the exact man for this little problem.”

“You’ve piqued my interest,” I said. “As you knew you would with your cryptic letter. Now I cannot leave here without knowing the whole of it.”

“For that, I must show you.” Thompson took up his hat and gestured for me to follow him out of the office. He led me from the house entirely, and around a narrow path between buildings to a yard in the back.

Brewster was not having me walk through tiny, dim passages with only a man from the River Police to protect me. He fell into step behind me, his stride even.

Thompson opened the door to another gray stone house, its bricks crumbling from years of exposure to damp, mist, and rain. A light rain was falling now, fog thickening until we stood in a ghostly atmosphere, the air gray-white around us.

Inside the door was a set of steps leading into a cellar. Thompson took us down these into clinging chill.

Candles burned in the darkness to light our way. Crates and boxes were piled in the room below, in front of open cupboards of filled pigeonholes. In spite of the cold, it was somewhat dry down here, no windows to let in the outside air.

Two young men stood in front of tall desks, making notes in ledgers. When they saw Thompson, they stood upright, at attention.

“Take some air, lads,” Thompson told them. “Stretch your legs.”

The two patrollers looked grateful and wasted no time hurrying up the stairs.

“They catalog things here,” Thompson said, waving his hand at the ledgers. “Things we find in the river, goods seized from smugglers, evidence in cases, that sort of thing.”

I glanced at Brewster. I wasn’t certain that information about goods taken from smugglers was a wise thing to pass on to a known thief, but Brewster did not comment or even look interested.

“They catalog things more gruesome as well,” Thompson said. He moved to a heavy, bolted door, and when he opened it, my breath fogged in the air that came out.

We looked into a chamber with a very low stone ceiling and thick walls, as though it had been carved into the banks of the river. The cold was enough to make my throat raw.

Shelves held wooden and metal crates and boxes, though not as many as in the outer room. Thompson lifted a crate from only a step inside the door and brought it out.

He set down the crate to close and lock the door again then carried it to a long table at the back of the main room. Brewster helped him lift the crate to this table, then Thompson used a long piece of metal to pry off its top. Thompson reached inside, lifting out a rolled piece of canvas.

“Will you move the crate for me, sir?” Thompson asked Brewster. Brewster lifted it down, clearing the table, now as intrigued as I was.

Thompson laid the canvas bundle on the table and carefully unrolled it.

“’Struth,” Brewster breathed.

On the dark, stained canvas was a collection of bones. Human bones, clean and preserved.

Thompson started laying them out, one by one, until we gazed down at a near-perfect skeleton of a human being lying before us. The skull, which was mostly intact, bore a large gouge from the top of the head down to the right eye socket.

Someone had smashed a cudgel into this poor creature long ago and left him to die.

“Here we are, Captain,” Thompson said. “I want you to help me discover who she is and what villain out there killed her.”

Chapter Two

“Her,” I repeated.

“That’s what the coroner said at the time.” Thompson straightened one of the hand bones, as though a whole, living woman lay there. “She was fished out of the river ten years ago, caught up on pilings, but no one ever turned up looking for her, and we were never able to find out who she was. We put out a report when we found her, but no one came forward. It’s weighed on me for a long time. And then the other day, I thought—this is something that the captain might be interested in.”

Thompson read me well. I was unfortunately drawn to intrigue, especially when it involved a poor individual who couldn’t fight back, or who had lost against a stronger opponent.

On the other hand, Thompson was optimistic about my abilities. A woman who’d been killed long ago, who was an unidentified collection of bones, and whom apparently no one had missed, would be a bit too cryptic a puzzle, I thought.

“That she was brutally killed is not in question,” I said, touching the gouge on the skull. The bone was smooth under my fingers. “Though how do you know she did not receive these injuries from a fall? An accident?”

“I don’t, not for certain,” Thompson admitted. He fished from the box what looked like nothing more than scraps of cloth. “Her clothes had mostly rotted away, except for a few trapped pieces I managed to clean up.”

I lifted a pale tatter of fabric that held a hint of blue. “Her dress?” I asked.

“I believe so, or undergarments. Also this.” Thompson dug one more item from the box, a gold chain with a locket.

It was an ordinary locket, a small oval on a chain, the gold still bright even after years underwater. Whatever had been engraved on the outside, however, had been worn away, only faint scratches remaining.

I slid my thumbnail into the locket’s crease and pried it open, but found nothing inside. If she’d kept a sketch, silhouette, lock of hair, or painting within, the river had long since destroyed it.

“That was fused around her neck,” Thompson said. “No clasp. I had to cut it from her.”

Interesting. “May I take these with me?” I asked, holding up the fabric and necklace. “If I can determine what sort of cloth it is, how common or how fine, we can at least conclude how wealthy was her family, which could narrow her to certain parts of town.”

“She was a tart, most likely,” Brewster said. “Killed and tossed into the river, no one coming forward to look for her. A lot of them don’t use their own names, and no one knows who they truly are.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, not condemning. In Brewster’s world, a person made a living any way he or she could—he’d met his wife while she was a courtesan in a bawdy house.

Brewster might or might not agree that a tart deserved justice against her killer, but he wouldn’t admonish me for taking on the task. As long as I didn’t endanger myself, that is. If I were hurt or killed while Brewster was looking after me, Denis might be unforgiving.

“This locket is of very fine gold,” I pointed out. “There’s not a bit of tarnish on it. Grenville and his man will no doubt know exactly where it came from, or at least who made things like this.”

The last time I’d helped Thompson identify a corpse from the river, Grenville’s valet had recognized the jeweler’s mark on the man’s ring she wore, and we’d had the woman’s identity within the night.

This time might be a little more difficult. She’d been lost for a long while, and if no one had come looking for her, Brewster might be correct after all. An anonymous woman, dying as she eked out her living.

“Also,” I began. A thought had formed in my head, a way we might learn more about this body than her gender—I assumed the coroner had known she was a woman from the shape of the hips and other bones—and the fact that she’d been bashed on the head. “I know of a surgeon, a very good one,” I said. “I’d like him to have a look at her. I’d value his opinion.”

Thompson shrugged, as though indifferent. “By all means. This corpse is no secret. Forgotten, rather.”

Brewster had a sharp gaze on me, guessing which surgeon I meant.

In March of this year, when my friend Leland Derwent had been badly hurt, James Denis had sent a highly competent surgeon to look after him. The man had saved Leland’s life when all others had despaired of it.

I never learned the surgeon’s name. I did not particularly want to. He had been transported for a crime and had returned to England, for reasons I also did not want to know. If he were to be caught, he’d be hanged. I doubted I’d convince him to come near a magistrate’s house, but I could not think of a better man to view the bones.

I cleared my throat. “Would it be possible for me to take her away with me?”

Thompson’s brows climbed high in his face. He rarely looked surprised about anything, but he stared at me in perplexity now.

“Where on earth would you take her?”

“Someplace safe, I assure you.”

Brewster continued to watch me in silence. Thompson looked over the bones, pushed back his low-crowned hat, and scratched his head.

“Can your surgeon not come here?” he asked. “Would be simpler all around.”

I cast about for some excuse. While Thompson was an informal man in many ways, I did not think he’d look the other way if a convicted felon, escaped from his punishment, were delivered into his house.

“He is of delicate constitution,” I ventured. “The air would not agree with him.”

Thompson looked amused. “Must be tricky for him to perform his surgeries then.”

“He is retired.” That was at least close to the truth. “I will take good care of … her.”

Thompson considered further, rubbing his lip, then he righted his hat. “I suppose I trust you, Captain. But take care. Without these bones, we wouldn’t know there was a crime, a deceased person at all.”

“Of course.”

Thompson made no more comment, only began carefully piling the bones in the middle of the canvas, then rolling it up with the same gentleness.

He put everything back into the crate that Brewster, with a dark look at me, lifted for him.

“She’s been kept fairly cold,” Thompson said. He found a hammer on a cluttered workbench and pounded the nails into the lid again. He laid down the hammer and leaned an elbow on the top of the box. “Mind you keep her cool, now that the weather’s turning warm.”

It was not all that warm today, under a thick mist, but I took his meaning. Cold preserved, heat destroyed.

Brewster heaved the crate into his arms without being asked, but he did not disguise his distaste. He’d long thought I was mad, ever since the day he’d come across a valuable pile of silver objects hidden in my house in Norfolk. He’d offered to split the loot with me, but I’d insisted on returning the pieces to their rightful owner.

Thompson wrapped up the cloth and locket, which I placed into my pocket, then Thompson led the way out again.

I had the feeling of emerging from a tomb. The cold from the underground room fell away as we climbed out to the open air. Though fog prevailed, it was warmer outside, the dampness clinging to the skin. The two young men who had been working below looked disappointed when they saw us come out, and slunk back down to resume their tasks.

Thompson helped Brewster lift the crate into the coach. Thompson rested a hand on it a moment, as though saying good-bye to a friend.

“Thank you, Captain. Let me know what you discover.”

No hurrying me. Perfect trust. Thompson was a man confident everything would resolve itself in due time.

We shook hands, then Thompson lifted his hat and disappeared back into the house.

“You aren’t thinking of taking that home are ye?” Brewster asked, his look wary.

I imagined explaining to Donata that I had placed a pile of brown bones in her cellar for safekeeping. “No,” I answered.

“Mr. Denis ain’t going to like them either.” Brewster’s scowl was formidable.

“I know.” I started to climb into the coach. Brewster put his hand on my back to help shove me inside but remained on the ground.

“I’ll ride up top,” he said. “I don’t fancy sharing a vehicle with a dead body.”

“Perfectly understandable.” I settled myself into the seat and drew my greatcoat closed against the fog. “Tell the coachman to take us to Grosvenor Street.”

Brewster’s dour look fled, and his eyes lit. “So that’s your idea, is it? I can’t wait to see his face.”

***

Lucius Grenville lived in splendor in Grosvenor Street, in the heart of Mayfair. His mansion’s facade was unpretentious, plain even. Rows of uniformly spaced windows marched across it, each flanked by a pair of recently painted black shutters. The front door, also black, with a fanlight, held a polished brass knocker.

The unadorned exterior hid a house of magnificence. The homes of Mayfair, which shared common walls, might be one room and a hallway wide facing the street, but the bulk of the house ran far back into the property. Grenville’s home was quite large within, containing lavish rooms on the ground and first floors for his guests, elegant private chambers above for the privileged few.

The footman who answered the door was Matthias, brother to the young man who now valeted for me. Matthias was tall, blond, and muscular, the epitome of the handsome footman Mayfair residents wanted seen at their front doors.

“He’s not at home, sir,” Matthias said after he’d greeted me. “But please come in and rest if you like, and I’ll serve you something. Mr. Grenville’s door is always open to you.”

He cast a glance at Brewster who’d climbed down to stand behind me. Matthias did not approve of Brewster, though he acknowledged his help in the past.

“That is kind of you,” I said. “But I’ve come only to deliver something—to ask Grenville to keep it safe for me, to speak more concisely.”

“Of course, sir.” Matthias held the door open wide, never questioning. “We can put whatever it is in his collections room.”

“Ah.” I paused. “His wine cellar was more what I had in mind.”

“Oh?” Matthias peered dubiously at the crate Brewster was now hauling out of the coach. “An interesting vintage?”

“You might say that.”

Behind me, Brewster chuckled, his sour temper lightened. “Show us the way, lad.”

Matthias opened his mouth to no doubt state that both Brewster and his burden should enter through the kitchen, then closed it. My friendship with Grenville occupied a place that didn’t quite fit with Grenville’s other acquaintance. Matthias gave a shrug, led us inside the front door, through the elegant hall, and down the back stairs to the kitchens and cellars.

Grenville’s staff were working to keep up the magnificence of his household. Two footmen industriously polished a large quantity of silver in the servants’ hall. Maids were in the laundry room, steam rolling out as they applied whatever magic they knew to Grenville’s linens. The chef, Anton, hovered in the large kitchen, closely watching his assistant, a rather harried young man, as he stuffed a bird lying spread on a platter.

Anton glanced up when he heard our steps in the corridor, the displeased look on his face turning to rapture when he saw me.

“Captain!” Anton was a rather small man with a round stomach and stooped shoulders, but a wide, beaming smile. I have no idea how much of a martinet he was in his kitchen, but when it came to guests to feed, he was benevolence itself. “You are here,” he announced. “Sit, sit. I will give you a déjeuner not to forget.”

I bowed. “I thank you, sir, but I am here only briefly.”

Anton’s look turned scornful. “Nonsense. You are a gentleman. You have these …” His fluttering fingers took in Matthias and Brewster “… to do your work, while you are fed by me.” He shouted to one of the footmen across the hall. “Lay a place upstairs for the captain. He will dine.”

Brewster lifted brows at me, but he trudged on after Matthias, taking his burden through the door to the wine cellar that Matthias opened for him.

Matthias nodded to me. “Go on, sir. I’ll take care of everything. Mr. Grenville would likely have my head for bringing you below stairs anyway.”

I was left standing in the kitchen with the good scents of Antoine’s fine cuisine floating around me. I succumbed.

***

After the fine meal Anton forced upon me, alone in Grenville’s dining room, I returned home.

I believe Anton enjoyed feeding me, because I was apt to eat everything in sight and praise it to the skies. With Grenville, Anton expected a certain amount of criticism; which he asked for to further his quest to be the best chef in the world. I simply enjoyed.

“Her ladyship is awake, sir,” Barnstable informed me as I entered. “Asking for you.”

I brushed dust from my sleeves. “I am hardly in a fit state to see her at the moment.”

I had grime from the London streets embedded in my clothes, and who knew what dirt from the cellar to which Thompson had ushered me. Anton had let me wash my hands and face in a basin before I sat down to eat, but he was less scrupulous about my state of cleanliness than in wishing me to polish off every morsel.

Barnstable gave me an apologetic look. “She said she needed to see you the moment you stepped foot in the door.”

“She will hardly thank me if I smear her pristine silk sofa with London’s black mud. Send her word I will attend upon her once I’ve changed my clothes.”

Barnstable’s expression remained stoic, but I saw the flicker of dismay in his eyes. Donata was not a despot in her own home, but she did like her whims obeyed. I took pity on Barnstable.

“I’ll tell her myself,” I said. “I realize her delicate state makes her a bit impatient.”

Barnstable’s relief was apparent, but he only answered with a neutral, “Yes, sir.”

The relief told me that Donata had been a bit peevish when she’d risen. She was in possession of a sharp tongue, which could sting if one did not know how to withstand her barbs.

I moved past Barnstable, who gave me a silent look of thanks, and up the stairs to my lady’s chamber.

Donata Anne Catherine St. John, nee Pembroke, the daughter of an earl, widow of a viscount, and now simply Mrs. Captain Gabriel Lacey, reclined as gracefully as ever on a chaise in her boudoir.

Coffee reposed at her elbow as did an empty glass with a small amount of film clinging to its interior. Conclusion—she’d been ill soon after she woke.

The casual observer would never suspect it but for that glass with a draught to settle her stomach. Her color was high, her golden silk peignoir flowed over her limbs, and her dark hair was caught in a bandeau with careless elegance. The only thing missing was the cigarillo wafting its smoke about her face—she’d declared the things made her queasy when she was with child and had reluctantly given them up.

Donata held several letters in her hand and did not look up when she heard my step.

“There you are, Gabriel. Barnstable said you’d gone out. Where on earth did you find to run to in the small hours of the morning?”

“It was nine,” I said. “It is one o’clock now. Which is the small hours of the morning for you.”

I did not move from the doorway, knowing I could not be surrounded by the best of odors, in spite of my contact with Anton’s kitchen. Death has a miasma of its own.

Donata looked up. Her dark hair held a gloss that picked up the sunlight through the windows, burnishing a gold streak in it that matched her garment. Her fine-boned face held the arrogance of the aristocrat—her family’s ancestors had graced this land from Saxon times, integrating themselves with the upstart Normans and continuing from there.

Her eyes were her best feature, in my opinion, dark blue and bottomless. When I looked into those eyes, my cares and pain fell away, and I drowned in her.

Few cracked the hard shell she’d formed around herself through years of unhappiness, but I’d found the way to the true Donata.

“Will you prop up the doorframe or come in?” Donata asked, an edge to her voice. “I do hate to shout across the room.”

“I have been to Wapping and back in not the cleanest of hackneys,” I said. “Let me change to something more suitable, and I will attend you.”

“Nonsense, Gabriel. You are perfect as you are. Please, do come closer. If you fear to put dust on the furniture, you may stand, or I will have Barnstable fetch towels for you to sit upon. But I really must speak to you.”

Her adamance made me curious. I had expected her to flap her hand and say, Yes, yes, if you think it best, instead of insisting I stay.

“What is it?” I came to her, but halted about six feet away. If her stomach was a perilous place, and I smelled of horse, dank cellar, and death, it might lead to a headlong rush to her basin.

She lifted the papers she’d been reading. “I’ve been perusing these letters again. The ones accusing you of being an imposter. I think—I am not entirely certain—but I might know who wrote them.”