Kiss Me, I'm Dead
Page 12
“One urchin more or less,” the Marquess answered with a pout.
“Please, your lordship. Have pity, sir,” the coachman said.
“Don’t be so heartless, Percy. I’ll think of nothing else tonight if we just leave him here.” The lady reached out for the door.
The Marquess of Stanton snatched her by the wrist. “If the price of your attention is a moment’s dalliance . . . You are a little shrew, aren’t you, Melissa?”
“But a soft and scented one,” she said, pulling her hand away. “And one who would well please you.”
The Marquess laughed. He turned back toward the coachman. “It is your fault I find myself so used,” he said. “Well, hoist him up onto your seat, then, if you must. I will not soil my clothes for one the likes of him.”
The young girl leaned against her suitor’s chest. “Oh, Percy. You are a decent fellow, after all,” she said.
“So I’ve been told,” the Marquess answered as the landau shuddered into flight. “On more than one occasion.”
* * *
Dr. Lambro sat at his kitchen table, listening to the rain. He was supping on a pair of apples and a chunk of cheddar, washed down by a flagon of warm stout. The rain pounded the thatched roof. A copper pot sat in one corner catching a steady drizzle of rainwater that dripped in from above. He eyed it suspiciously and sighed.
His was a simple cottage: a small sitting room in front, sparsely furnished; a mid-sized kitchen with a blazing hearth and roasting spit, plus the table at which he sat, ringed by four chairs; and above, on the second landing, two more rooms – the master bedroom, and the other for his two children, Mary and Nicholas. All in all, it was not a very grand house. Although well-loved and respected by members of the hamlet, Dr. Lambro was a man of simple tastes. He never charged more for his services than his neighbors could afford. Indeed, he was as likely to be paid in eggs and pigs and chickens as in coin. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. Such was his ilk.
He took a last bite of his apple and thought about the old English saying: Ate an apfel avore gwain to bed, makes the doctor beg his bread. He smiled a bittersweet smile. The adage was truer than most knew, he mused. Orchards were plentiful in the district. Perhaps that was why the bag of coins he’d secreted under a flagstone in his cellar was so light.
Dr. Lambro stood and stretched. It was almost nine o’clock and he was tired. But his wife was visiting a sick child down the lane, and he was loath to go to bed before her. Even after all these years, he felt an unbridled need to protect her. Not that she needed his protection; she was both spirited and strong. And yet . . . old habits died hard. He had loved her with all his heart from the first moment he had seen her.
A tall and gangly man, Dr. Lambro had the thick dark hair, strong jaw, and piercing hazel eyes of his forebearers. He was dressed in a simple cotton shirt, malachite green, with a bloodred kerchief round his neck and dark twill trousers. His hair was cut short, and although he had just turned thirty-four, it was already graying at the temples. His life had not been easy, and it showed.
Just then he heard a pounding on the kitchen door. Dr. Lambro turned. Who could it be at this hour? Certainly not his wife, he thought. The door was always left unlocked. “Come in,” he said.
The door burst open. Colonel Maxwell, his neighbor, stepped through the doorframe, carrying something in his arms. He was soaked from head to toe. Behind him, Dr. Lambro spied another man, quite fat, with a flat round face, wearing a woolen coat, a dark blue cutaway, and a silk top hat. The stranger was hovering under an umbrella carried by an old man with a lantern. Beside him stood a lady in a turquoise cape and bonnet.
“Thank God you’re home,” said Colonel Maxwell. “There’s been an accident.”
Dr. Lambro stepped up. He looked down at the bundle in Colonel Maxwell’s arms. It was a boy, no more than nine or ten. A small line of blood spilled from his lips as his head lolled to the side. Without even thinking, Dr. Lambro brushed his hand across the tabletop and tossed the remnants of his supper to the floor. “Put him down here,” he said. “Quickly.” He was already opening up the cape that had been wrapped about the boy. There was blood everywhere. The veins bulged from the boy’s neck and his skin had turned a bluish pallor. Cyanosis, the doctor thought. Traumatic tension pneumothorax, probably. Or worse. “What happened?” he asked.
Colonel Maxwell was an imposing man, with a mighty barrel chest and massive head crowned with a thick gray mane of hair matted down by the inclement weather. He wore a brown frock coat, a mustard-colored waistcoat, and a cinder neckcloth over his white shirt. Never one for style, Maxwell still sported the muttonchops so popular among the military of the late Regency. Without turning, he hooked a thumb across one shoulder and said, “Struck by his lordship’s landau on the London road. This is Dr. Lambro. The Marquess of Stanton and . . . companion.”
Dr. Lambro looked up for but a second before continuing his work. The fat man with the round flat face had already stepped into the kitchen. He was obviously a dandy. Beneath his coat and cutaway, he wore a checkered sea blue waistcoat, and his neckcloth was tied so tightly that it braced his collar up against his ears. “You do me honor, your lordship. Please. Come in,” said Dr. Lambro, trying to concentrate. Then he turned to Colonel Maxwell and added, “Pass me that knife there, by the sink. Be quick, man.”
Colonel Maxwell did as he was told. Dr. Lambro took the blade. With care, he began to cut away the waistcoat and tattered, mud-stained shirt that clung like a second skin to the boy’s chest.
“Heaven’s above,” the lady cried.
Two ribs stuck out of the boy’s chest. As soon as Dr. Lambro had peeled away the clothing, a stream of blood began to seep out of the open wound. “It’s as I feared. A lung’s collapsed.”
“I told you, darling, this was just a waste of time,” the Marquess said. “We’re very late.”
“Perhaps if you had brought him earlier . . . ”
“That isn’t what I meant,” the Marquess interrupted peevishly. “For our engagement.”
“Your what?” Dr. Lambro looked up with surprise.
“We’re to dine with the Earl of Leicester. Do not fret, good doctor – I’ll pay you for your time. And the boy is obviously a vagabond. He shouldn’t have been gamboling out there on the road.”
Dr. Lambro’s face grew white. His back arched visibly. “I would urge you, sir, to leave my house.”
“What’s that? What did you say?”
“I said get out. Get out of my house, right now.”
“How dare you speak to me that way, with such impertinence,” the Marquess sputtered. “You forget your place, sir. I am a peer.”
Dr. Lambro rushed against the Marquess with the ferocity of a feral cat. He pushed his lordship up against the wall, grabbing his cutaway in his bloody hands. He brought his face up close and said, “I wouldn’t care if you were king. Get out.” He began to drag him toward the door. “Mark me, I say, or it will be you upon my table needing surgery.”
“I would pay heed, your lordship,” said the Colonel, “if I were you. I know the doctor, and he is not a man to trifle with.”
The Marquess looked helplessly about the room. The coachman stayed his ground outside. The lady sidled toward the door. With a great effort, the Marquess pulled himself away. His gray eyes bulged. His face grew red. He looked down at his bloody waistcoat. “Very well,” he said, brushing his clothes. “We are already late. Besides, it smells in here of cabbage and the poor.” Then, without another word, he turned and headed out the door.
Dr. Lambro stepped back to the table. He picked up the knife, placed the tip above the boy’s third rib, and began to push the blade into the skin.
“Good God!” said Colonel Maxwell. “What are you doing, man?”
“Air is filling the cavity between the chest and lung. I need to relieve the pressure. Fetch me that pheasant.”
Colonel Maxwell turned. A large cock dangled from the ceiling, tethered by its legs to bleed. He tore it
loose and brought it over to the doctor.
Dr. Lambro plucked a quill out without ceremony, broke off both ends, and carefully removed the feathers. Then, with precision, he slipped the straw-like barrel down into the opening, immediately beside the blade. Next, he removed the knife. There was a small whistling sound as air began to leak out of the barrel of the plume. “Please, Colonel, shut the door.”
The Colonel stared for a moment at the three figures retreating down the garden path through the rain, bathed by the amber glow of the coachman’s lantern. He closed the door and said, “By thunder, Lambro, you are a game one. To treat a peer with such contempt.” A small smile played upon his lips. “Have you no fear?”
“I fear this boy will die if I don’t operate immediately. And even then . . . ”
“I’ve heard of the Marquess of Stanton. He’ll not suffer this insult without satisfaction. You may count on that, sir.”
“’Tis but his pride that’s wounded. Look at this boy.”
“But to make an enemy of Stanton . . . This boy’s no kin to you.”
In all his years of military service, Colonel Maxwell had weathered countless enemy barrages, had faced down hundreds of cavalry charges, thousands of anxious blades and bayonets. And yet . . . there was something about the way the doctor glanced up from the table that made the blood freeze in his veins. Lambro seemed a man possessed.
The doctor smiled an icy smile and said, “No kin to me, perhaps – that’s true.” Then he looked down at the wounded boy and said, “But he’s no stranger, Colonel Maxwell. I knew another boy once. Just like him. A long, long time ago. Another lifetime, really.”
“Who was that?”
“Fetch me my surgeon’s kit from the front room. Assist me, Colonel, if you would, and I will tell you.”
Table of Contents
Praise for Kiss Me, I’m Dead
Also by J.G. Sandom:
Copyright
Part I
Chapter 1 June 15, 1904 The East River, New York City
Chapter 2 June 15, 1904 Kleindeutchland, New York city
Chapter 3 June 15, 1904 Twenty-sixth Street, New York City
Chapter 4 June 15, 1904 Twenty-sixth Street, New York City
Part II
Chapter 5 June 16, 1904 Kleindeutchland, New York City
Chapter 6 June 18, 1904 Middle Village, Queens
Chapter 7 June 20, 1904 Coroner’s Office, New York City
Chapter 8 June 20, 1904 New York City
Chapter 9 June 20, 1904 New York City
Chapter 10 June 21, 1904 New York City
Chapter 11 June 22, 1904 New York City
Chapter 12 June 22, 1904 New York City
Chapter 13 June 22, 1904 New York City
Part III
Chapter 14 June 23, 1904 New York City
Chapter 15 June 23, 1904 New York City
Chapter 16 June 23, 1904 New York City
Chapter 17 June 15, 1905 New York City
Chapter 18 Years Later Long Island, New York
Epilogue
About the Author
Excerpt from CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BODY SNATCHER