“Ever since Jack the Ripper, the queen likes to investigate the murder of any woman if the killer is not obvious,” Inspector Kemp murmured.
“So who was she?”
“Her name was Katherine Waters, daughter of Sir Roland Waters, fiancée of the Marquess of Montagu. She was found dead by her maid about two hours ago. The maid has been blubbering on about Spring-heeled Jack since we got here. Do you think you could give her a sedative before you leave?”
The doctor glanced up to see Immanuel jotting down every word. “Spring-heeled Jack? Why would she bring that up?”
“Apparently, the suspect was wearing a mask, breathed smoke, jumped from the balcony, and bounded down the street with preternatural agility. Hysteria, I say.”
James stepped closer to the woman’s bedside and carefully turned her stiffening neck, brushing back her mane of curls to reveal a triad of pricks only an inch from her carotid artery. The very edges of the wounds were singed and pinkened, but the blood that dripped from them was negligible. Whatever killed her had caused that wound. The doctor didn’t want to inspect her body under her night clothes with all the officers around, so he took each of her limbs in turn and inspected them. All were thin but unblemished save for her left hand, which had five straight lacerations, four on the proximal edge of her palm and one slightly longer one on the distal edge.
Dr. Hawthorne stared down at the pale void on her left ring finger. “Kemp, where is her engagement ring?”
“What ring?”
“Precisely. Look, there is nothing on either hand. The murderer must have pulled it off. That would explain the wound pattern on her hand.”
“Robbery?” Inspector Kemp scoffed as he propped open the dead woman’s jewelry box on the vanity. “Why would they leave all this behind and take the ring? This whole thing makes no sense. He kills her and steals her ring but leaves her jewelry. He rips open her dressing gown but doesn’t go any further. Then, he breaks the vase and waits to be seen when he could have escaped without notice. I just don’t understand. All I know is, I don’t want another Ripper, James, and if this Spring-heeled Jack nonsense gets to the press, we will have mass hysteria again. Do you have any idea how she was killed? It doesn’t look nearly as gruesome as Ripper. Probably a lover.”
Dr. Hawthorne shook his head. “I will need to get her back to the lab for further—”
“Where is she?” an unseen baritone boomed through the hall. “Where is Katherine? Let me see her! Unhand me!”
Two stout constables tried to hold the enraged man back as he hurtled into the room, shaking the smaller officer from his arm as if he was a child. Immanuel’s breath quickened at the sight of the man’s face, but it subsided as his gaze traveled to his once golden hair that had faded to a dull brass and his light brown eyes flecked with orange that were shaped exactly like his brother’s. The gentleman was nearly a decade older than Alastair Rose and slighter but lacked none of his strength as he ripped his elbow from the remaining guard’s grasp and leveled it at his face.
“Lord Montagu, Katherine Waters is dead,” James Hawthorne said as he gingerly laid her arms across her stomach.
Kemp and the other investigators turned to the Coroner to the Queen at his abrupt tone. Lord Montagu froze as his mouth fell open and his eyes moved past the detectives to Katherine’s lifeless form. It was true; his fiancée was dead.
“Oh, God, Katherine,” he moaned as his hand migrated toward his mouth but dropped as he stepped toward the bed.
Kemp edged to block his path but James raised his hand to stop him. The marquess moved blindly to Katherine’s side as he stared down at her graceful limbs and porcelain skin. Even in death, she was beautiful. As he knelt at her side and touched the cold flesh of her cheek, his legs gave way, and he folded to the floor beside the nightstand.
He shook his head, never taking his eyes from her pale lips. “How could this happen? She was only three-and-twenty. How could she die? What did she die of? She was not ill at dinner.”
“She was murdered, Lord Montagu.”
When the nobleman’s head whipped around to meet Dr. Hawthorne’s gaze with blazing eyes, Immanuel instinctively took a step back. “Murdered? By whom?”
“We do not know yet, sir. Did Miss Waters have any enemies?”
“No,” he replied as the fire died in his eyes upon seeing her again, “none. Everyone loved her. She was an angel, my angel.” He drew in a ragged breath at the holes torn into her throat and the scratches across her hand before bellowing, “Find who did it! Find who did it or I will!”
Inspector Kemp pushed past the doctor. “Sir, we are trying to do that, but we are going to need your full cooperation—”
“I know who did it.” Standing in the on the threshold was Miss Waters’ maid with a flushed face and pained eyes. She crinkled and wrung her handkerchief between her water-chapped hands as every man’s gaze fell upon her. “It was Spring-heeled Jack, sir. I saw him with my own eyes. You all think me hysterical, but I saw him. Spring-heeled Jack killed Miss Waters, Lord Montagu. I know it was him. Please, please believe me.”
“I told you, you should have given her a sedative,” Kemp whispered into James’s ear.
***
Immanuel let out a slow, deep breath as he kept his eyes locked on the tin ceiling of the basement laboratory. With each exhalation and swallow, he was able to temporarily stave off the caustic bile threatening to surge from his throat. Katherine Waters lay on the doctor’s table exposed, but he didn’t want to look at her. After seeing her in her room surrounded by her tapestried bed and pink silk robe, he couldn’t bear to watch her be sliced open and her organs heaped onto a scale like offal at a butcher’s. To avoid witnessing her defilement, he kept her pale form in the filmy portion of his vision as he scribbled down the measurements and observations called out by Dr. Hawthorne.
James hesitated when his assistant’s face turned green before returning to an unnatural pallor. “Immanuel, could you lend me a hand? I need you to hold her head steady while I inspect the wound.”
Refusing to let the doctor know the extent of his nausea, Immanuel laid the ledger down and put his hand on the dead woman’s forehead. Her icy flesh melded with his palm, but no vision of her room or murderer invaded his eyes. Immanuel removed his hand as if readjusting its position and touched her again while clearing his mind, yet the images refused to flow. How odd, he thought as the doctor probed and measured the minute holes on the curve of her neck. What was it about Miss Waters that set her apart from the walrus or the dignitary? Could it be because she was a woman? Until now, he had avoided peering at her naked flesh as he had never seen a woman’s body before except in statues and paintings at the Neues Museum or drawings in textbooks. He let his gaze run over the shallow mounds of her breasts, avoiding the scalpel-hewn cleft as he took in her graceful arms and flat, if not concave, belly. Was this how Adam felt when he saw a woman? He felt nothing, except pity for her untimely loss and the suffering of her parents.
“Do you know what killed her, Dr. Hawthorne?”
He pushed on the cords of her neck near the wound with his thumb. “The injury on her hand is post-mortem while the neck wound is peri-mortem. There are no obvious signs of internal damage. We will not know for certain until I have run the toxicology analyses, but I think she was electrocuted.” When the younger man raised a blonde brow in confusion, he continued, “Wounds from electricity often leave burns where the current entered, and each of the three cuts are surrounded by a ring of slightly singed skin. The muscles around it are also prematurely in rigor, which is common in electrocutions. Whoever killed Miss Waters had some sort of device that dispatched enough of a current to stop her heart.”
Immanuel swallowed hard. “What could do that?”
“I haven’t the foggiest, but I am sure Scotland Yard will figure it out in due time.” He stepped back and sighed. “As soon as you have written down my findings, I would like you to type up the report, so I can send it off to I
nspector Kemp as soon as possible.”
With a nod, he abandoned his station at Miss Waters’ head and wrote down the coroner’s tentative conclusion. Never was he so happy to escape the Hawthornes’ cellar. As he mounted the last of the steps and threw open the door in the kitchen, Immanuel froze. His eyes met the dark gaze of Emmeline Jardine as she nibbled at a piece of toast while the morning newspaper sat propped against the salt shaker.
“Is Katherine Waters down there?” she asked, never taking her eyes off him.
Immanuel bit the inside of his lip as the words refused to come.
“Well? Is she?”
“How did you know?”
The young woman folded the paper with a flourish and tossed it across the table towards him. The front page headline read, Socialite Slain by Spring-heeled Jack, and was followed by an etching of the creature as seen by her maid. “All the racket you and my uncle made woke me up. He is the Coroner to the Queen, you know, and Katherine is from a noble family. It only makes sense that he would take her case.”
“Did you know her?” he asked, shifting and tugging at his collar.
She glared at him as she struck her soft boiled egg with her knife. “Yes, I know her— I knew her.”
When she began to saw the head off the egg, he knew their conversation had come to an end. As Immanuel shuffled into the foyer, his eyes burned from the mid-morning sun as it blazed through the front windows of thirty-six Wimpole Street. He turned his back to morning and trudged towards the dim sanctuary of James’s study. Dropping into the wooden chair behind the typewriter, he sighed. Sleep would have to wait until he finished. Immanuel opened the ledger, loaded the paper into the machine, and stopped as his gaze fell on the skeleton wearing the derby on the other side of the room. The skeleton was petite, standing no more than five and a half feet, with a flared, wide pelvis. It was a she.
Leaving the report behind, Immanuel laid his hand on the skull’s soft brow. His sightless eyes dilated as he was transported to the bleak, grey walls of a prison. He looked out from the gallows at the high walls and small crowd of wardens below as the frayed cord scratched his neck, waiting for the moment when— Immanuel drew back with a start. No, being female was not the problem.
Chapter Twenty:
Promise and Disappointment
Adam Fenice straightened his tie and smoothed his teal vest under his coat before grasping the mandible of his cousin’s doorknocker. The smile refused to leave his lips, but when he caught his toothy reflection in the mirrored surface of the knocker’s forehead, he smothered his mirth back to an acceptable level. He was dying to tell Immanuel his news, but as he waited on the steps, he recalled how not so long ago Immanuel had been closer to death than he had ever seen another being. For over two weeks, he had watched him progress from an invalid to a prospective partner, and while he was still haunted by the ghost of his attacker, he admired him for his strength. It had taken a lot to admit he was afraid.
He was about to push the doorbell when the front door creaked open, and a haggard Immanuel Winter leaned against the threshold for support. He rubbed his hooded eyes with his knuckles before feebly attempting to smooth down his curls and rumpled shirt, which had come unbuttoned at the top and hung on his thin frame without a vest or jacket. Upon seeing Adam, his tired eyes lit up.
“Are you ill? You look positively dreadful!” Adam cried as he came into the foyer and quickly shut the door behind him to prevent the sleety chill from worsening his friend’s condition.
“Ich habe nicht gut geschlafen,” he yawned but caught his slip back into German. “Sorry, I did not sleep well last night. Dr. Hawthorne was called out to a murder scene in the middle of the night, and he brought me along. I have only had about two hours sleep since.”
“If I woke you up, Immanuel, I can come back later.”
He caught Adam’s arm. “No, stay. I’m happy to see you. How have you been? I have not seen you in nearly a week.” Immanuel paused at the parlor door. “Would you like me to put on some tea?”
“Thank you, but I cannot stay long.”
His companion’s smile drooped to a lopsided frown as he whispered, “No one is home. Mrs. Hawthorne and Miss Jardine went to the Spiritualist society, and Dr. Hawthorne is at Scotland Yard.”
Adam reached up and tugged Immanuel’s tie back into place before smoothing his collar. “It isn’t that.”
Immanuel wanted to tell him not to bother with his clothing as he planned to return to bed, but the occasional brush of Adam’s fingertips against his neck arrested his protests.
“I promised my sister that I would help her sort through some invitations and linens her future mother-in-law sent over for her to look at. I came over because my boss gave me two tickets to La Basoche at the Royal English Opera House since he cannot make it. I do not know if you like opera, but I was wondering if you would like to accompany me.”
“I would love to,” he replied with the same grin that had appeared after they crashed on the ice.
“Good.” Adam’s cheeks burned until they nearly matched his hair. “I will come by Friday evening at eight to collect you.”
As his redheaded companion tried to escape with his answer, Immanuel laid his hand on his shoulder. “Could you stop by a little earlier? I want to take you out to dinner with the money I earned from typing up all those autopsy reports for Dr. Hawthorne. Then we could have some time to talk.” Immanuel laced his fingers through Adam’s loosening grasp and brought his hand to his lips. “How does one dress for the opera?”
He glanced over his shoulder to make certain no one was at the door or window peering in and stammered, “Form— formally. If James has nothing suitable for you to use, I will let you borrow some of mine. My sister always jokes that my share of the profits is my clothing allowance.”
Swallowing hard he raised his gaze to meet Immanuel’s bichrome eyes. His iceberg blue irises drew him in while the tinge of tragic brown urged him to stay. Hadley wouldn’t mind if he was late. She would just pick something at random if Lady Dorset pressed her for an answer that night. He knew she only wanted his opinion because her mother-in-law liked him and because he could tell the difference between cream and ivory. Ardor and panic from twenty-four years of hiding his proscribed desires sent his heart thundering up his throat. He could stay, but what if someone saw? Would anyone notice how long he was there alone with him? He wanted to. He really wanted to, but the voices of his long-dead parents, his boss, and the queen echoed through his mind, forbidding his thoughts. One day they will be dead, and I will still be here as unhappy as I ever was.
He threw his arms around Immanuel’s back, drawing him closer until his companion’s body was flat against his own. A soft gasp escaped Immanuel’s lips but was quickly silenced by Adam’s mouth. Letting his weight fall against the front door, Adam barred the outside world from intruding upon his moment of freedom. His body hummed as his fingers trailed into Immanuel’s loose curls. Caught off guard by the sudden embrace, Immanuel stiffened before sagging into Adam’s grasp. His lungs strained beneath his still bruised ribs, but as he gently pulled away, a grin was etched into his features. He wrapped his arms around the dandy and rested his head against his neck.
“I would love to stay, but I need to get home, Immanuel,” he whispered as he kissed the top of his head and helped his friend to his feet, “especially before the others get back.”
“I know.”
Immanuel sighed soundlessly as he watched Adam don his coat and gloves to fortify him against the snow that fell just beyond the panes. It was impossible, but he wished he could stay with him. Adam Fenice put his hand on the knob but turned back to see Immanuel’s eyes brighten once again with hope.
“It slipped my mind before, but Hadley wanted me to invite you to spend Christmas at Lord Sorrell’s home. He knows you have no family in England and that you are close to me and Uncle Elijah. I hope you will come with us.”
“I would like that very much.”
&nbs
p; Adam’s mustache curled into a grin as he stepped into the cold. “Until Friday, then.”
“Until Friday.”
***
“Oh, great spirits, come to us!” the frizzle-haired psychic called out in the darkness at Emmeline’s elbow. “Tell us your secrets. Spirits, if you are with us, send us a sign! Lift the table or knock on the walls. Please, let us know you are here.”
Emmeline swallowed down a yawn as she waited for the theatrical pounding on the walls from the “spirits,” but nothing came. Apparently, the spirits are not talkative this evening, she thought as Madam Nostra swallowed hard, her eyes meeting the expectant gazes of the others at the table. Emmeline had heard of the acclaimed medium and fortune teller, Madam Nostra, from her mother. She assumed the woman’s real name was probably something like Agatha Newman. Ever since the Fox sisters came out as frauds, these women who claimed to be gifted with second sight and the ability to commune with the spirits came out of the woodwork in droves. She pegged Madam Nostra to be a spinster from nowhere who had been praised one too many times for correctly predicting the weather or the sex of infants in her tiny hamlet and burst out of obscurity with a new and artificially exotic name. Woman after woman like her had come to the Oxford Spiritualist Society for admittance, but Lady Jardine had turned nearly all of them away after their first performance. Her mother could spot an imposter a mile away. Almost imperceptivity Madam Nostra’s skirt shifted and her foot jutted toward the base of the table. A collective gasp rose from the others at the table as the still air was disrupted by three solid knocks coming from the center of the table. Emmeline sighed. Another fraud. Apparently, it was true that anyone could go to London, but only the best could get into Oxford.
“Spirit, are you a man or a woman? Knock once for male and twice for—”
The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Box Set Page 41