The Humbug Murders

by L. J. Oliver

  “Owen? Not Scrooge, then?” trilled Mrs. Lazytree with a smile that did not reach her eyes. “So you aren’t married? And unchaperoned, I see! How very modern.”

  Adelaide smiled kindly.

  “Thank you once again for orchestrating those opportunities,” I said, lowering my voice. “The evening ended somewhat abruptly, so . . .”

  “Not to worry, Mr. Scrooge,” said Lazytree, with a conspiratorial wink. “You will be receiving quite the visit to your offices in the morning.”

  The Lazytrees continued on down the aisle and found their seats some rows in front of us, but not before Mrs. Lazytree could turn to send Adelaide an icy glare. I sat back down feeling thoroughly delighted. The deadline for the rail investment was tomorrow, and by the sounds of it, the funds would be secured with time to spare!

  “Business looks to improve, Adelaide,” I said. “We will soon have every penny we need.”

  She nudged me. “But what about all the capital I raised for you this week? It was already improving, wasn’t it?”

  Though she had no idea that the funds she had gathered were not even a tenth of what was required for the investment deal, she had certainly succeeded in areas I had not in that regard.

  “A clerk worth their salt shouldn’t need constant reassurance,” I grumbled. “You know the books as well as I. A marked improvement, down to you. Which you already know.”

  Crossing her arms over her breasts, she said, “Pardon me, Mr. Scrooge. I didn’t realize how much a kind word costs you.”

  The orchestra silenced their tuning, and the lighting flickered, signaling the imminent start of the performance. A hush rolled across the atrium. I heard Adelaide draw her breath, then she nudged me and pointed. A man in a tall top hat was late arriving, causing upset and annoyance as he squeezed past occupied seats several rows away. He was clutching white gloves and a program, and when his head turned towards me, I gasped.

  Shen!

  I looked away and brought my hand to my face. His warning this morning had been clear and, of course, I had not heeded. Had he already received word of my trip to the Quarter and come here to finish what Bill Sikes had begun? My heart thumped against the back of my throat.

  “He didn’t see you,” Adelaide whispered. “It seems he is here for his own enjoyment.”

  The Chinaman took his seat, and from that moment until intermission, he stared at The Lady of Shalott, transfixed.

  The performance was mesmerizing. Unlike The Adelphi’s usual melodramatic themes, this romantic interpretation of Lord Tennyson’s poem had the performers sweeping across the stage in stunning feats of ballet-like nimbleness and grace. Actresses, each as beautiful as the next, dressed in pure white maid’s costumes, swanned round Nellie as she cried on the stage, her character condemned to a lifetime of viewing the world only through a mirror.

  “I am half-sick of shadows!” she cried, and from the shadows on the set, her maids mirrored her every move.

  I sensed Adelaide glancing at me from time to time but did not turn my head to look at her. Instead, just as Shen, I stared at the stage, feeling each carefully choreographed step thud against the painful bump on my head. Adelaide eyed me. My companion was astute and sharp as the point of a dagger, and there was no doubt in my mind that she knew I was holding many things back.

  A host of actors dressed as Arthurian knights thundered across the stage. The maids sighed and swooned over the handsome knights, their distinctive, sinuous moves expressing an infatuation The Lady of Shalott was succumbing to, falling deeper for Sir Lancelot and provoking a terrible curse. Nellie leaped up and caught a ribbon that descended from the sky, swirling round with absurd strength and a surprising athleticism. Her movements were quick, flawless, calculated yet natural. The dance of the maids was evocative, verging on sultry, and I heard collective gasps around me as impossibly graceful movements nevertheless signified deeper, darker meanings.

  But wait—I had seen those moves before! As the girls bent into slow backbends and Nellie stretched her arms in intricate, flowing gestures, I caught myself predicting each move as they unfolded. How could I know this? I couldn’t place it.

  “The curse is upon me!” cried the Lady of Shalott, and the maids fell into protective positions about her, the middle one gazing out over the audience. And there, almost invisible under her heavy makeup, was the scar running from her upper lip to her left cheek. It was the “Nellie” from the Doll House! Her hair color was different, but she shared the same nose and haunting stare as her original. I had to speak with her.

  As soon as the curtains fell at intermission, I snatched the backstage pass from Adelaide and made for the side of the stage, jostling audience members as they poured up the aisles to the bar. As soon as I had made sure Shen was nowhere to be seen, I hopped onto the stage, confident that the raucous activity throughout the atrium at intermission was enough cover for me to remain undetected. I slipped behind the curtain, keeping to the shadows.

  The set was being torn down by stagehands, and they were not looking in my direction, so I hastened down the wooden steps to the backstage area. It was dark but alive, as actors, actresses, and crew jostled about one another to prepare for the next set.

  “Excuse me,” I said, tapping the shoulder of a confused and sweaty knight, who was promptly ushered away by a stage manager.

  “You shouldn’t be back here,” he barked, leading me by the elbow to a door in the brick wall. I resisted and presented the invitation.

  “It’s imperative that I speak with a chorus girl,” I urged.

  “Not that kind of production, sir,” he said sternly. “If Miss Pearl has indeed invited you to her dressing room after the show, then by all means return then.”

  I would attract too much attention if I argued, so I nodded and let him lead me to the door where I made to exit. A cry rang out suddenly as rope fell from a beam somewhere and the stage manager hurried off. I slipped back into the shadows to find the Nellie doll.

  I spotted a woman across the room, with her back to me, dressed all in white. I drew a breath and made to slip across the room to her when I was stopped by nearby voices.

  “No, not her,” came a girl’s voice, laughing. “It was Sarah he fancied. The one who looks just like Miss Pearl.” I froze and listened. “Well, except for that scar, you know.”

  “Oh, her!” said another voice. Two chorus girls were approaching a bench near the darkened corner where I was hiding. They sat down and began tying their shoes. “Is it true he was all over her?”

  “Obsessed. Saw it myself.”

  I tried to ignore them, yet I had seen Shen with Nellie’s double. Were they talking about the Chinaman?

  The women at my side babbled on. “And did she . . . you know?”

  “She’d never! Not with an ugly brute like him, poor man . . .”

  An ugly brute? No, certainly not Shen. So “Sarah,” the Nellie look-alike, had another admirer . . . perhaps that nugget of information would prove useful if I ever caught up with her.

  A strange movement caught my eye. I looked up and saw a familiar tall top hat moving through the bustling backstage. Shen had gained entry. Had Nellie invited him, too? More likely some weighty bribes had changed hands. He moved quickly and confidently between the cast and crew, heading for the woman in white. He grabbed her arm and she turned. It was Nellie, the real one, not the doll I was looking for. She looked furious, but he was talking to her resolutely; whatever words were being exchanged were impassioned. I strained my ears to hear, but their altercation was drowned out by the gossiping hens beside me.

  “I reckon that Sarah fancies herself a bit of a prima donna, because of her resemblance to Miss Pearl. Treating the crew members like that. You know he spent hours working on her costume, fitting it for her just so, while the rest of us have to squeeze in to these standard sizes. Doubt she even thanked him.”

  “He’s a bit of a monster, though! How did he get all those scars and horrible bumps and stuff?”r />
  “Damfino!” she said, a low-class mumble that meant “damned if I know.” “No, haven’t the foggiest notion. Ain’t seen hide nor hair of him in a week or more anyway. Probably curled up in a dark den somewhere, clutching an empty bottle or a pipe. This place is going down the sewer, I tell you, ever since Villiers popped his clogs . . .”

  The gossiping girls continued speculating about the whereabouts of that tragic-sounding costumer and bemoaning the demise of their industry, and ahead, Shen was leaning in, placing a hand on Nellie’s shoulder. Her expression flashed from anger to fear, when suddenly two or three stagehands appeared and pushed Shen off her. His hand moved to his belt, where I had previously suspected some hidden weapon.

  He looked to Nellie, who was staring at him, and his hand stalled. The Chinaman drew a breath, composed himself, and bowed. Then he turned and walked away, his head held high as he passed right by me and through the side door.

  “Places!” shouted someone. The girls hopped off the bench and darted off, the backstage became a flurry of activity, and I had missed my chance to speak with the Nellie doll. Cursing the gossiping chorus girls, I returned to my seat, where Adelaide greeted me with a scowl but asked no questions.

  I paid little attention to the second half of the performance. Knights and maids jumped about and Sir Lancelot tossed the nimble Lady of Shalott some way into the air, but all I could think about was the series of suspicious incidents I had witnessed or been party to, including the strange interaction between Shen and Nellie. When the curtains fell at the end of the show, Adelaide and I went straight to the side door.

  The stage manager led us to her dressing room, some way from the dark brick backstage where I had been skulking during intermission.

  “Miss Owen, Mr. Scrooge!” exclaimed the star when we entered. She swept across the room and kissed us both. “Oh, thank you, thank you truly! I know how busy you both must be. Did you enjoy the performance?”

  We both assured her that we did and were rewarded with a dazzling smile that was more teeth than soul. I couldn’t help noticing in her dressing room that there were all the accoutrements for Miss Pearl to disguise herself as anything from a young lad to an old woman and all in between, but I kept these thoughts to myself.

  “I finally found the summons from poor Mr. Fezziwig,” said Nellie, pouting with sympathy. “Please do accept my apologies for taking so long, but oh! What a week it has been!”

  She handed me an envelope and used the moment to gently stroke my hand as I grasped it. It was exactly the same as the one Dickens and I had discovered at Shen’s.

  The contents echoed verbatim what Shen’s letter had said, with one exception. There was no mention of the Lady. That was strange. Why would Fezziwig omit something that had seemed of such great importance in Shen’s letter? Crawling spiders of unease moved from my esophagus to my gut. I stared at the letter. For all my expectation leading up to getting hold of this summons, it had yielded nothing. But then . . .

  Fezziwig would not have looped his g’s. I studied the letter. The handwriting was neat and tight, just like Fezziwig’s, but a few technical differences betrayed the letter as a forgery. I had missed it when I first read the letter, for the quality of this counterfeit summons was almost impeccable. But I spent years as Fezziwig’s clerk, I knew that man’s hand, and this wasn’t it.

  “May I?” said Nellie, her hand outstretched. I handed her the envelope, finding myself disappointed that she didn’t again touch my hand, and thanked her. Both Nellie and Adelaide watched me, waiting for my analysis, but my thoughts were racing. Adelaide raised her eyebrows at me, quizzically.

  “Mr. Scrooge?” she tried. I snapped back into the present.

  “Nellie, I do beg your pardon,” I said. “I must say, it continues to plague me, the notion that Fezziwig chose you four in particular to receive this summons. Something must have bound the four of you. You truly had no connection to either Sunderland or Rutledge?”

  Nellie shrugged, her smile vibrant as ever. “It’s possible we met at some premiere or function. Beyond that . . .”

  “Miss Pearl, tell me about the second matter you wished to discuss.”

  She sighed, adopting a mournful expression as she sat down by her dressing mirror and pouted at me through the reflection.

  “I think you know,” she said. “I saw you earlier. At intermission. You were hiding in the shadows.”

  I held my breath.

  “You must have seen how he treated me.”

  “Mr. Shen?” I asked, relieved, and Nellie nodded. She turned to Adelaide and grabbed her hands.

  “You know what it’s like, don’t you, Miss Owen? To be made to feel so vulnerable by a man?” Her voice became thick, and the pleading in her eyes was genuine. “We women are nothing more to them but playthings, isn’t that so, Miss Owen?”

  Adelaide gave Nellie’s hands a squeeze, and the actress looked at me with wet eyes.

  “I don’t know who else to ask, Mr. Scrooge,” she whispered, touching my arm. “I fear for my life. He is everywhere I go. I hear his steps behind me, I see him in the shadows. I am so very sick of those shadows. You have my word I have given him nothing to suggest that his obsession with me is anything but one-sided.”

  I nodded.

  “Will you speak to him, Mr. Scrooge? As one gentleman to another? He will listen to you, I’m sure. He respects men of business. Doesn’t respect me.” Her voice broke and she began to cry, and Adelaide kneeled down by her and pulled her into a sisterly embrace.

  “Of course, Miss Pearl,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do. But unfortunately I can make no promises; Shen and I are not currently in the warmest of friendships.”

  “Oh, thank you!” she sighed and gazed into my eyes with such fondness and gratefulness that I could see myself falling under her spell. “Thank you so much. Whatever help you can give me. You see, I could tell that you were a gentleman and would always help a lady in distress, I am so indebted. Just knowing you understand is a comfort indeed.”

  She rose to her feet and gave Adelaide a frank and tender hug, and Adelaide looked earnestly into her eyes as she curtsied. I bowed, replaced my hat, and Nellie’s tears transformed into smiles.

  Just as I turned to leave, my eyes fell on a side mirror, and my stomach tightened in surprise. Nellie’s reflection was staring at me, her eyes filled with a longing and a desire. Then she turned her gaze in Adelaide’s direction, her eyes darkened by a look of cold jealousy. Nellie was clearly not accustomed to competition for a man’s attention—and woe betide the woman who got in her way!

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “OH, LOOK,” ADELAIDE said frostily. “A steam bus. How very interesting.”

  She was nodding across the street as we shrugged off the theatre’s cozy warmth and stepped outside into the cold. Only pockets of attendees from the packed audience remained huddled on the sidewalk out front. Most had dispersed while we were backstage. I looked about, disappointed that Dickens was not waiting for us with guardsmen; I’d given him the address in the note I sent over.

  I cast anxious looks about for Sikes, Shen, or any suspicious-looking types, then peered at the steel contraption that had arrested Miss Owen’s interest. “The Silver Flash”—painted along its sterling flanks—was built to hold twelve, but the so-called engineers of these ungodly devices routinely crammed in twice as many to increase their profits. The engineer—or driver—stood next to the bus, which was left running, as he attempted to romance a pretty girl who might have been in the chorus.

  “Come on now, let’s go!” someone hollered. A crowd waited at the bus stop. Young lads with the look of Fagin’s gang circulated among them, no doubt relieving them of wallets, watches, and whatever else the opportunistic urchins might nab. The well-dressed crowd was so intent upon the gleaming new vehicle that they paid little notice.

  “Not time yet!” shot back the driver. He glanced to the empty cab where a gigantic wheel waited. Beside it, a steel column rose
to the roof with a spout for venting smoke. It chugged much like a locomotive—or a panting beast readying to spring.

  “How fascinating,” Adelaide said, her voice surging with barely contained fury. “I’ve never been on one.”

  “An abomination,” I grumbled.

  “Really? This from the man who preaches about the future brought by technological advancement? How is this any different from the rails? Or is it just that someone beat you to it and peppered these through the city before you could?”

  I leaned out into the street, waving my hand at the glowing lantern of an approaching horse-drawn carriage.

  “So, you want to have this conversation now?” I asked.

  She looked away, hugging herself against the cold. It was all the reply she would give. I grasped her arms, shook her, forced her to look my way. “Answer me.”

  Her eyes filling with dark bursts of anger, she cried, “I don’t even know what ‘this conversation’ is! I’ve been trying to talk to you, but you keep shutting me out. So yes, Mr. Scrooge. By all that’s holy, tell me why you’re acting so cruelly!”

  I snorted. “I’m not sure which performance was better. Nellie as the Lady of Shalott or you as the outraged innocent.”

  “You’re a foul man,” she said, her voice faltering as she stood with her back to me.

  “And you’re a liar!”

  She whirled and slapped me, eyes flaring. I grabbed her arm and suddenly, the ruby ring was being waved before my eyes. I unhanded her at once. How had she gotten ahold of it? I didn’t think even Dodger could have snatched it from my pocket without my knowledge.

  “It looks like neither of us has been entirely forthcoming,” she said. “A lie of omission is also a lie, or so I was always taught.”

  I snatched back the ring. “Perhaps you were right with what you said before. That we should pursue this matter separately.”

  “You coward,” she spat. “You can’t even say it, can you? You act high and mighty and level accusations, but when it comes down to putting some meat to the meal you—”