by L. J. Oliver
“A wise move,” I said. “Inspector.”
He was about to correct me when my intent sunk into his thoughts and he grinned. Getting to the bottom of all this and dismantling a criminal empire would go a long way towards ensuring his rise to power.
Just then, an icy breath whispered in my ear. Your turn comes soon, Ebenezer. Then you.
Leaping to my feet, I cast my frantic gaze about for Fezziwig’s specter, but I saw nothing in this lovely ballroom other than the grim sight of two men hauling away Rutledge’s corpse, a white sheet tainted with crimson tightly wrapped about the body.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I RETURNED TO Furnival’s Inn with no other plan than to fall into a dreamless slumber. With the strokes of two after midnight tolling from the clock tower near the inn, I ascended the staircase to my rooms. My footsteps dropped a concrete thud against the wooden steps, my joints groaned despite my youth, and my eyelids were half-closed under the weight of the night.
I yawned as I fumbled for my keys with numb fingers.
Then my heart stopped.
The doormat had been disturbed, and scratches had been etched in the paint around the keyhole as if someone had used a butter knife to force the lock open. Black and smudged fingerprints were smeared on the brass knob. The door was ajar, a faint glow from perhaps a single coal in the hearth, and a faint and deathly whistling.
Fezziwig? Absurd. Then a thought struck, winding me—could it be Humbug? No, more likely one of Colley’s goons waited for me inside, with a clear order to bring back my eyeballs for Baldworthy. Summoning the last of my resolve, I gripped my cane, heaving it over my head, and kicked in the door.
“Ah, crikey, Mr. Scrooge sir!” cried a small lad in a thick green scarf warming his hands by my fire, a top hat falling off his head as he jumped. “Scared me ’alf out me wits, you did! Would ’ave fought a fine gentleman like you would fink to knock before bursting in!”
Dodger.
Relief washed over me, but the exhaustion in my body experienced it as a wave of hot ache rather than the pleasurable release of a fear that had, only seconds ago, been of a mortal nature. I leaned my cane against the wall, put my hat on the hat rack, and slumped into the armchair by the fire, right beside the one occupied by Dodger. Wearily and with heavy arms, I untied my boots and struggled to pull the wet leather off my feet. I chucked the boots to the side and sat back, feeling every vertebra in my back as I rested against the upholstery.
“Phwoar, sir! What a whiff!” laughed Dodger, pointing at the steam rising from my wet, darned socks as my feet were warmed by the fire. “Been out dancing till the wee hours? Good fing I lit the fire for you, warm this place right up, eh?” Yes, he had lit my fire. With four lumps of coal, no less!
The boy unwound his lengthy scarf and placed it absentmindedly on the side table. Without its bulk hiding his frail neck, I could see just how thin the young boy was.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “How did you get in?” The boy was about to speak, and I raised a hand to stop him, thinking better of it. Stealing and picking locks were second nature to him, surely. I pressed my eyes closed, rubbed my temples, and observed the yellow stars bursting against a deep-red canvas on the inside of my eyelids.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I’ve got ’ere, upon my person, for you, sir, a treasure of great importance.” His chest was puffed out, and with one hand he restored his worn top hat while the other retrieved a small velvet box, identical to the one housing Shen’s ring in his desk. I knew precisely what was coming, though I tensed, remembering the horror that had unexpectedly resided along with Shen’s ring.
“You, sir, are a gentleman of exquisite sensitivities and impeccable taste, the very characteristics we seek in our clientele. On account of bein’ a high-class service, you see.” Dodger drew his breath, then opened the lid with a slow, suspenseful movement. He held the ring aloft as if it were the Holy Grail, his wide eyes staring at me as if expecting a gasp or swoon, and his bottom lip sticking out when none came.
Relaxing—no severed finger this time, just a ring—I took it from him, turning it over, examining it. As I expected, it was a heavy-set gold and ruby ring in the very same style that Fezziwig, Thomas Guilfoyle, Shen, and who knows how many more had worn.
“If it ain’t too much trouble, Mr. Scrooge, sir,” said the young lad, assuming his exaggerated air of business acumen and credibility, “if it ain’t too much to ask, you are to attend at the Doll House tomorrow at the request of the patron of this ring, and if it is too much trouble, I am to take the ring back and leave you with nothing but a solemn warnin’.”
I smiled. Dodger was a keen businessman indeed, if his short stature and hairless chin could allow him to be classified as a man at all. With a little mentoring, he could easily fine-tune that rough commercial acuity and find a path in business, but such a commitment was not one for me to make.
I opened my hands solicitously. “And this, I presume, is regarding the engagement with Annie Piper that Fagin was commissioned to arrange?”
Dodger said nothing but grinned and held out his grubby hand.
I stared at it, unease forming like a lump of coal in my gut. “Well?”
“A tuppence, sir? As per our business arrangement?”
“So you have indeed secured an audience for me with Annie Piper?” I asked, studying the boy in the giant top hat.
“Indeed I ’ave, sir. Though officially-like, my function tonight is messenger only, a little under my station perhaps, but I takes what I can get!”
I fished a coin out of my leather purse, feeling its smooth, cold surface between finger and thumb, as I would with my Belle’s locket. Parting with any amount of hard-earned, well-deserved money was no less agonizing than her departure had been. I flipped the coin to him, and he caught it handily, securing it in his ratty coat.
His expression changed suddenly, his eyes darkened, and he lowered his voice. “And I gets what I takes.”
With that, Dodger pulled a thick envelope from inside the lining of his blue velvet coat and slid it across the side table between us, knocking his scarf to the floor in the process.
“I understands you’re a man of business, just like meself,” he said, his eyes set on mine like burning coals. I nodded. “Business is good in the Quarter, truly sir, but I wouldn’t mind makin’ a better future for meself, not that I need much. So I’ve got a business proposition for you . . .”
The tiredness was melting away fast. I sat up and leaned forward. Dodger took a deep breath and carefully opened the envelope. From within it he pulled a packet wrapped in tissue, a bundle of thin cards, with what appeared to be very detailed illustrations.
“It’s magic, sir,” he whispered. “Black magic. We could use it for good, you and me.”
I frowned, taking the package from him. They were certainly illustrations, but clearer than anything I had ever seen, extremely realistic. Illustrations of women, doing . . .
My heart sank.
“See how lifelike, sir?” Dodger jabbed at one of the cards with a dirty finger. “See there? Like it’s real. Photography, they call it. I knows it ain’t magic really. I’ve seen the scientist they use. Ain’t many people who know nothing about it yet, but this is what it’s used for. Gentleman’s Relish.”
I flicked through the appalling cards, each depicting one woman or more, drugged or bound and to all appearances barely aware of what was being done to them. My stomach tightened and my head swam, and then I gasped. One of the cards featured Nellie—no, one of the Nellie “dolls”—performing a degrading, explicit act in what appeared to be the drawing room of an upper-class home. Views of the sprawling countryside reached out through a nearby window. Her hands were bound behind her back. I shoved it quickly to the rear of the stack but was surprised to see an identical one underneath, and under the next.
“They’re prints, they can do as many as they like of each image, hundreds if they wants. And there ar
e a few select customers what buys them—guess what they pay for one of these prints . . .”
I shook my head. No price could be put on such atrocity.
“Forty pounds. Each!” Dodger took the photographs from me and carefully bundled them together, wrapping them back in the tissue and sliding them carefully into their envelope.
I gasped. Forty pounds was well over six months of my business takings, and it became crystal clear that the true “treasure” Dodger had brought was not the gold ring. This packet alone was worth the rail investment I was seeking.
“What is your proposition, boy?” I asked.
“They’re right idiots, I fink. Not them poor women, but the men that run this operation. On account of them using this science for Gentlemen’s Relish alone, you see. They keeps it right under wraps, very exclusive indeed, mind you. Keeps it special, and they can charge a king’s ransom for each and every print. But I say, if proper businessmen like me and you was in charge, we’d see that every household in England could have real portraits done like this. Instead of paintin’s. I bet anyone would pay something for a photograph of themselves.”
The potential flooded my imagination. Parents and children, soldiers leaving for battle, distant sweethearts, architecture, crime scenes . . .
“I should say you were right, Dodger. It’s remarkable technology. I’ve seen nothing like it.”
The boy beamed. “Well, what if I told you I could get the secret of how this new technology works? Already told you I seen the scientist. I’ll share it wiv you, Mr. Scrooge, honest I will, and in return . . .” He drew himself up to his limited full height and puffed out his chest. “And in return you’ll make me an equal partner in the legitimate business. I’ll make you rich, Mr. Scrooge, you bet your cotton socks I’ll make you a fortune.”
The ache once again began to creep up my legs and into my bones. A distant clock tower struck quarter past the hour and my headache reverberated with its hollow toll. I longed to be done with this gruesome Humbug affair, to escape the secrecy, the pursuit, and the terror.
“Thank you for your intriguing business offer, Mr. Dodger. It is a most fascinating idea indeed.”
Dodger puffed his thin chest out even further, pursed his lips together in pride, and stuck out his hand for me to shake.
“But,” I continued, “there is much to consider: What you have shown me is utterly horrifying. For example, it is impossible for me to judge whether these subjects have posed consensually.”
Dodger averted his eyes immediately, which told me he knew something to the effect that they had not.
“And we would stand to make powerful enemies should we follow the course you suggest. Let’s say you stole away the know-how. What would its current owners do to prevent us from ever capitalizing on it? These are dangerous people, are they not?”
Dodger shrugged. “Life’s fulla risk.”
He was right. I’d just seen a man murdered, I’d grappled with a known killer; certainly not the normal state of things for a man of business like myself. I considered the task I would be about in just a few hours: the raid on Marley’s place. If proof was indeed found supporting Rutledge’s claim that Marley was Smithson, then the entire criminal empire might crumble and this technology become ours for the taking.
“All right,” I said. “For now, you must not show these to anyone else, to save the dignity of these poor girls. And let us not alert the police either, there are few within the institution I trust.”
“Oh, right you are, guv’nor! I feel the very same!”
“How may I get in touch with you?” I asked.
Dodger named a particular inn just south of Whitechapel. “Ask for Nancy. You might ’ave seen her around, like, ’fyou’ve ever been to the Quarter. Shock of red hair, takes good care of me and me boys? No? You’d like her. A businesslady if you’ve ever known the like. She can find me anytime.”
A businesslady? “Very well,” I said, shaking his hand. Then I looked away, waved my hand absently as if what I was about to ask was of little consequence, a mere aside. “Speaking of ladies at the Quarter, young man. Do you know anything about a woman calling herself ‘The Lady’? Does the title mean anything to you?” I studied Dodger’s expression; it had become stony and calculated. I mentally crossed this Nancy off the list.
“Yeah, I heard of her,” he said. “Scary sort. Talks funny.”
“Funny?”
“Like she’s a foreigner or sumfing.”
“Chinese?” I quizzed him.
“ ’Ow would I know what a Chinese lady sounds like?” he retorted.
“But you’ve seen her. What does she look like?”
“Long hair, always wears dresses and ’ats.”
“You couldn’t perhaps be a little less vague? I could find women on every street corner in London that fit that description.”
Dodger shrugged his slender shoulders.
“What connection does this Lady have to Smithson?” I pressed on, leaning in and locking eyes with him. The more dirt I might heap on Marley’s grave, the better!
“Don’t know nuffin’ about that neither,” he said.
I sighed. “And the Quarter? Is she somehow connected to this ring, the Doll House, the network of darkness in that God-forsaken district?”
“Tell you what,” my potential business partner said, stuffing his hand in his pocket. “How about you fink on the matter and get back to me?”
There was no sense in pressing him further, his defensive stance and mineral expression spoke loudly that he would not answer any of my questions.
“I will send word to Nancy once I have fully considered the matter,” I said, extending my arm in the exact manner he had just presented his hand to me. He shook my hand and leaped to his feet. His stomach growled. The poor lad was hungry, but how he acquired sustenance was up to him, the astute businessman that he proclaimed to be.
“You won’t regret it, Mr. Scrooge!” cried Dodger, and sped out and down the stairs with a drumroll. I closed the door behind him, and my thoughts drifted back to the photographs, which he had taken with him. If I didn’t regret it, somebody would.
Yawning, I turned to extinguish the fire and fall onto my bed in an unconscious slumber, but my eye caught something under the side table.
The boy’s thick, green scarf. No part of me considered running after him into the freezing night; his little neck would have to endure the cold. I picked it up to hang it on the hat stand, but as I reached up to drape it over a hook, I was knocked awake by its acrid smell. The scarf stank, a biting, acerbic stench of the chemicals just like those I’d smelled drifting from the Lycia back in the Quarter. Screwing up my nose, I tossed it into the fire.
WHOOSH! A burst of light flashed and crackled, and bluish flames rose like an inferno for a moment, then subsided. I leaped back and dashed for the washbasin by my sink before dousing the fire with a hiss.
The blackened scarf lay in the hearth like a charred snake after a forest fire. What the hell were those villains doing at the Lycia?
Putting such thoughts from my mind, I stumbled to my bed and collapsed into the warm and welcoming arms of sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Thursday, December 22nd, 1833
Three Days to Christmas
THE LACK OF sleep and terror from last night were a toxic combination, rendering my eyes sore but my resolve piqued. This time yesterday Marley was the last person I ever saw myself speaking with again. A mere year ago, I had broken off my referral relationship with Marley when I had caught him going through confidential papers on my desk. He stood there bold as brass, with a pad and pencil making notes of wealthy men that I had been developing as contacts. But now, with the chill morning air whipping my face, my head was poking out the cab window and I was clutching my hat, shouting and cursing at the horseman to drive his horses faster and deliver me to my former business associate.
“Sit down before you do yourself an injury!” called Adelaide from where she
was sitting opposite me in the police cab. I could picture Crabapple rolling his eyes.
“Gossip travels faster than horses, Miss Owen,” I said, angrily retreating back into the cab and adjusting my top hat. “We must beat the morning edition. If Marley gets wind of the murder at the manor, his storage rooms will be emptied faster than you can say ‘Dickens.’ ”
I wasn’t pleased to find Adelaide in Crabapple’s carriage when it pulled up before Furnival’s, but there was little I could say or do where that woman was concerned with Crabapple’s watchful gaze upon us. Still, I noted with satisfaction the look of surprise and the sting with which she reacted each time I reverted to the formal “Miss Owen.”
As soon as the cab drew to a full stop, I darted up the familiar stone steps to Marley’s place and rained a deluge of staccato strikes at his door with the brass knocker. The handle of the knocker quivered when I released it, its head a snarling gargoyle that bore, I noticed, a subtle resemblance to Marley.
“Police!” shouted Crabapple as he rushed up behind me. “In the name of the law, open up!”
A gaslight was lit behind one of the upper windows, which slid open with a crash. Out popped Marley’s enraged head, still wearing its nightcap over a shock of greying hair disheveled from its abrupt awakening.
“What’s all this?” he shouted down. Then he saw me, and his face screwed up in distaste and fury. “Ebenezer Scrooge . . .” he snarled.
“Open this door immediately,” demanded Crabapple, and Marley retreated. He slammed the window and the ghostly flickering of his gas lamp dimmed and vanished.
The metal clangs of bolts being drawn and locks being turned rang out in the cold, dark December morning. As soon as the heavy door opened just a creak, the host of policemen pressed past Marley and vanished inside his offices, which also served as his home.