In Absinthia

by Alexandra Christian

  “Oh God. What the fuck?” He coughed and sputtered trying to get the foul taste out of his mouth. “That’s not blood.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’m not sure. But it isn’t blood. Not like we know it.”

  There was a knock at the door. Both of them gasped. Cage hid his hands behind his back as the door opened. “Come in?”

  Eleanor peeked around the doorframe. “You two all right?”

  “Yeah,” Phoe replied. “I was a little overwhelmed down there. So, Cage brought me up here for a drink before the police arrived.”

  Cage grinned. Phoe had been practicing.

  “Oh, okay. The inspector has arrived. He’ll be wanting to talk to all of us. Miss Abecrombie woke the cook and a midnight snack is on the way.”

  “I think I’ll bring the brandy decanter,” Cage said. He grabbed the glass bottle and a couple of glasses. “Come now, dear lady. We can’t let them think we’ve absconded.” He took the older woman’s arm and gently guided her from the room with a wink to Phoe over his shoulder.

  “I swear, Mr. St. John,” Eleanor began. “You could charm the whiskers off a kitten.”

  *****

  Cage’s contempt for the Absinthia police force was not assuaged by Detective Inspector Horace Tuggingham. He was the epitome of an inept cop from the movies: completely round with a bright red handlebar mustache, sweaty beard stubble, and male pattern baldness. The wool period suit he wore looked to be at least three sizes too small, accented by two of the hardest working pearl buttons Cage had ever seen. The detective’s physical appearance was not enhanced by his personality. When he entered the parlor of the Alice & Ludwig, Tuggingham immediately began barking out orders. Even the horrible Miss Abecrombie was intimidated.

  “All right, you lot. I’ll be needing to speak first with anyone who was awake at the time of the murders.” He pulled out an impressive calabash and began puffing away, nearly choking Mrs. Brown.

  “None of us were awake,” Eleanor offered. “It was well after midnight when we heard the screams coming from outside.”

  “We were awake,” Phoe called out. “Macijah and me. But we didn’t see anything.”

  Tuggingham whipped around and turned an accusatory gaze their way. “Is that so? Might I ask why you were still awake when all of your fellow lodgers lay innocently sleeping?”

  “No, actually,” Phoe stammered. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Oh? Something to hide miss…ah…miss…”

  “Mrs. Macijah St. John.” She helped the idiot out and sent a glance toward Cage. “Phoebe. And I’m not hiding anything. We were…”

  Eleanor cleared her throat and took Phoe’s hand. “Detective Inspector, Mr. and Mrs. St. John are in Absinthia on their honeymoon. For you to ask what they were doing at such a late hour would be improper and terribly dense. Perhaps you should save yourself a bit of embarrassment.”

  Tuggingham was visibly both angry and humiliated as it dawned on him what Eleanor had implied. “Oh, well—of course not. I wasn’t implying…”

  “Then what were you implying, dear?” Eleanor had a cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk playing on her lips. It was obvious that she was enjoying this.

  “I didn’t mean to insinuate that anything here was amiss. I am simply looking for the facts.”

  “I think you should begin by giving us some facts.” Cage linked his arm with Phoe’s and led her to a chaise, handing her a glass of brandy. “Given the circumstances, I feel we’re entitled.”

  It was obvious that Tuggingham was none too happy to reveal what was going on, but Cage had backed him into a corner. He paused, staring around at the expectant faces of the other lodgers. It was quickly becoming obvious that they weren’t going to let him escape without offering at least a little explanation of why they’d all been awakened in the middle of the night.

  Tuggingham sighed and pulled out his notepad with a snap. “At approximately twelve thirty-two a.m. this evening, a Misses Lavinia Norcross was passing by the alley at Wentworth and Mitre Streets after an evening of drink and merriment at the Devil’s Doorbell teahouse. She noticed a group of stray dogs fighting over what appeared to be some old rags. An animal lover at heart, Miss Norcross shouted at the dogs to try and scare them away from the rags before they could harm one another. That’s when she noticed that one of the dogs had a woman’s bloody shawl in its mouth. She walked over to investigate and discovered the body of Misses Carlotta Merriwhether, a known unfortunate that frequents the area around the teahouse.” He closed his notebook and looked up. “Those are the facts.”

  “Well,” Mr. Brown began. “It seems pretty obvious what happened.”

  “Oh?”

  “Of course. Some whore got a little drunk and got herself raped and murdered in the alley. Probably some street gang or maybe a vacationing gent out for a little taste of strange and it got out of hand.”

  Mrs. Brown gasped and covered her daughter’s ears. “George. Not in front of our child.”

  “I’m not a child, Mother,” Lisa grumbled, inching out of her mother’s grasp.

  “I’m simply saying what all of you are thinking,” Brown bloviated. “Besides, it’s my understanding that all of these so-called unfortunates are machines anyway.”

  “She wasn’t a machine,” Cage informed the room before Tuggingham could interject. “At least not all machine. There was too much blood. And the dogs wouldn’t have been attracted to the scent of a machine any more than they would a broken mannequin.”

  “How do you know about the blood?” Tuggingham asked.

  “How couldn’t he?” Phoe replied. “The stench of it was all over the street.”

  Before the Detective Inspector could reply, the door opened and the vicar and Professor Pankenthorpe entered behind Miss Abecrombie. “Oh thank heavens, Alfie,” Eleanor exclaimed, rushing to her husband. “I was afraid something might have happened to you.”

  “Who might these gents be?” Tuggingham asked, looking the two men up and down.

  “Professor Alfred Pankenthorpe,” the professor said, offering his hand to the inspector. “And this is our local vicar, Adolphus Sockersby. And who might you be?”

  “This is Detective Inspector Tuggingham,” Eleanor said, leading her husband to the parlor where everyone had gathered around Miss Abecrombie’s tea tray. “There’s been another murder?”

  “A murder?” Mr. Sockersby asked. “Here in the pension?”

  “No, no,” Eleanor clarified. “In the alley. They think it’s another Ripper case. Don’t you?” Eleanor looked to the inspector with her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She was obviously nonplussed by his skills of deduction so far.

  “We can’t be sure of that yet,” Tuggingham huffed. “We can’t be sure that any of these murders are connected.”

  “What do you mean?” Cage asked. “From what I was reading earlier, there have been three other murders, all of them women found in alleyways with their insides splattered all over the cobblestones. That seems like a connection to me.”

  “Mr. St. John, please,” Mrs. Brown stammered. “My daughter is too young for such talk.”

  “Your daughter is fifteen, Mother,” Lisa stated. “And I think I have the right to know if I’m vacationing in the murder capital of the galaxy.”

  “Miss, I can assure you that Absinthia is quite safe,” Tuggingham said, puffing out his chest.

  “My apologies, Mrs. Brown,” Cage offered. He could feel his blood beginning to boil and clenched his fists at his side. Tuggingham was an idiot. It was fast becoming clear that his place on the police force in Absinthia was not to keep the tourists safe, but to keep any dark underbellies securely covered up. He reeked of the same stench as Derek Machine. “But surely you agree that we must all be aware of the situation if we’re to keep safe.”

  “Aye.” Tuggingham cut a sideways glance at Cage. “I’m sure that safety is your biggest concern, Mr. St. John. From what Miss Abecrombie says, you’re a journ
alist. Looking for a good story, eh?”

  “Detective Inspector.” Phoe pushed away Cage’s calming hand on her shoulder. “I can assure you that Macijah’s only interest in this matter is the safety of everyone in this pension. The fact that the murder took place so close to our front door is upsetting at best. And if we’re all to be questioned like suspects, I believe we deserve to know why.”

  Cage smiled. To the casual observer, Phoe seemed to be a delicate flower, sweet of scent and pleasing to the eye, but anyone who spent much time with her knew that she had the stinging tongue of a serpent when riled.

  Tuggingham sighed. “The victims seem to have no connection, save for the manner in which they were murdered. Misses Merriwhether was an unfortunate, but the previous victim was a restaurant worker and the one before that was—” Tuggingham’s expression fell and he looked away from them. “The first victim was a tourist.”

  Everyone gasped in disbelief. A rumble of everyone talking at once grew to a roar.

  “Do you think we should leave?”

  “I knew coming here was a mistake.”

  “This is ridiculous. The IU assured us that the colonies were safe. I’m going to demand a refund.”

  “Calm down, dear. Your blood pressure...”

  “The killer could be someone here.”

  Cage’s heightened senses were normally an asset, but in times like these he cursed them. It was like everyone’s voices and even their thoughts were swirling incomprehensibly in his head until he could feel the beastly DNA lurking in his cells heating up and preparing to explode.

  He walked to the decanter and poured himself another glass of brandy. The air had become so close. Perhaps a drink would loosen the grip of the night’s events. As he poured, he glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Professor Pankenthorpe pull a cigarette case from his jacket. He took a cigarette out and pressed it into the corner of his mouth while he rummaged in his pockets for a lighter. Cage was about to offer his own when the man produced a matchbook. The front was decorated with a tiny red symbol. Probably the logo of whatever watering hole he’d been roused from this evening.

  Cage swallowed his drink in one gulp. “Everyone calm down,” he finally shouted over the din. It did the trick, and everyone went silent. “I think the Detective Inspector was right about one thing. Nothing is certain right now, and there’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

  Judging by his expression, Tuggingham was surprised that Cage had agreed with him. He kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water, stricken speechless. Finally, he cleared his throat and nodded. “Quite so. I trust that all of you will still be here tomorrow. I will come by in the morning to interview each of you.” He gathered his coat and hat from Miss Abecrombie and started to the door. “Perhaps I could speak to you first thing, Mr. St. John.” He tipped his hat to everyone and allowed himself to be shown out by Miss Abecrombie.

  The lodgers got up and began milling around, talking amongst themselves in hushed tones. Suddenly, no one seemed so certain that these were bits of theater constructed to entertain the tourists with a giant murder-mystery party inspired by Jack the Ripper.

  Phoe stood and wrapped her arms around Cage, insinuating herself under his arm as the others started up the stairs to their beds. He could feel her shiver, but not from the winter chill. “Why do you think he wants to speak to you first?” she whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” Cage answered. “But it probably isn’t to tell me he appreciates my insight.”

  “You surely don’t think that he’s going to accuse you.”

  “Stranger things have happened. Tuggingham is a moron. Nothing would surprise me.”

  Phoe nodded. “Do you think one of these people could be the killer?” He could see the uneasiness in her eyes. She liked nothing more than to fret over nothing. “Should we go home?”

  “I don’t think we can. At least not until everyone is ruled out as a suspect.” He kissed the crown of Phoe’s head and hugged her tightly. “Come on. Let’s go back to bed. I’m sure that everyone will have calmed down by morning.”

  Eight

  As it turned out, everyone was even less calm than they had been the night before. Evidently, the guests at the Alice & Ludwig had gone up to their respective rooms and talked themselves into a frenzy of theories. The more Cage thought about it, the more he had come to realize that if this was all some publicity stunt to draw tourists to Absinthia, it was genius. People were frightened, but it was more of a horror-movie type of frightened. They were more delighted than anything else and couldn’t stop talking about it over breakfast.

  “Do you really think the killer could be one of us?” Mrs. Brown asked while buttering her toast.

  “Of course it could,” her husband boomed. “I’m sure that Detective Inspector Tuggingham will be here asking for everyone’s alibies.”

  “All of us were here,” Eleanor stated.

  “Except for your husband and the vicar.”

  Upon hearing his title, the professor looked up from his plate. “I beg your pardon?”

  Eleanor laughed. “Mr. Brown, surely you can’t think that a fine, upstanding man like Alfie or Mr. Sockersby could brutalize a woman like the one in the street.”

  Cage looked around, now intensely aware that the aforementioned Sockersby was nowhere to be found. He had returned the night before with the professor, but since then, no one had seen him. Cage shouldn’t be surprised. The young man continually looked like a frightened rabbit.

  “I’m merely saying that we should, as the police will most certainly, examine every possibility.” Brown reached over his daughter to grab a plate full of steaming sausages. “So where were you, Professor?”

  “Not that it’s any of your affair, Douglas, but I was attending a lecture at the Mayfair,” the Professor said.

  “Come, now,” Eleanor entreated. “Let’s not begin accusing one another. After all, we’re supposed to be on vacation.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone,” Brown countered. “But surely you must realize that Tuggingham and his lot will be back this morning, and they will be questioning all of us about our whereabouts and if any of our fellow lodgers were missing at the time of the murders.”

  “My father wants to be sure that you all know that he isn’t interested in lying for you.” Lisa put a fine point on it, pushing her sausages around the plate and looking miserable.

  “Don’t be rude, Lisa,” her mother scolded.

  “It isn’t rude if I’m telling the truth.”

  “You mentioned that you were at a lecture, Professor?” Phoe asked, clearing her throat. Cage smiled. Always the peacekeeper. “Do tell us about it.”

  “Oh, it was nothing special, really. It was about the implications of biomechanical technology as it relates to artificial intelligence.”

  “That’s an interesting topic,” Cage said. “I read an article several weeks ago about using nano-bots to heal wounds and cure diseases. Fascinating.”

  Mr. Brown scoffed. “An abomination, if you ask me. Scientists playing God will never come to anything good. As if the world weren’t strange enough, what with all these Others that everyone is on about. There are days I’m certain that the good Lord above is punishing us for our abundance of scientific advancements.”

  Cage gritted his teeth. Clearly there was no topic on which George Brown didn’t have a negative opinion. Cage was preparing to skewer him alive when they heard the bell out front sound and the mechanical whirring of Miss Abecrombie’s insides. A few minutes later, Detective Inspector Tuggingham appeared in the doorway of the dining room.

  “Inspector,” Phoe greeted, her skirts swishing as she made her way around the table. “Good morning. Won’t you sit with us and have a bit of breakfast?” she asked, offering her hand.

  “I’m afraid I can’t, Mrs. St. John. I’ve come to follow up about last night’s unpleasantness. If I could ask you all to join me in the parlor.”

  There was a healthy amou
nt of grumbling around the table at having their breakfasts interrupted, but the group followed the detective, clutching their teacups.

  Cage had spent most of his life as an agent, first for MI6 and then for the Interplanetary Union. During his tenure, he’d done his fair share of interviewing suspects and a fair amount of being interviewed. So, when he said that Horace Tuggingham was the most inept police detective he’d ever encountered, that was saying quite a bit. One by one he took the guests into the study to interview them individually. When it was Cage’s turn, he had to try not to look amused.

  “You understand, of course, that the only person I actually needed to interview this morning was you, Mr. St. John.”

  “Oh? To what do I owe the pleasure of your attention?”

  “I did some digging about you. You aren’t exactly who you say you are. Isn’t that right?”

  “No one in Absinthia is. Isn’t that the point? To come here to the colonies to have a separate fantasy life?”

  Tuggingham’s face reddened. “Not when it means that they come here to murder innocent civilians!”

  “I can assure you that I haven’t come here to murder anyone. I’m on my honeymoon.”

  The detective laughed heartily. “Mr. St. John, must we keep up this charade? You’re no more here on your honeymoon than that android woman that runs this place.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a thick folder. He tossed it out on the table between them, its weight making a big noise. “Care to explain that?”

  Cage reached forward and took the dossier. He opened it up and flipped through pages and pages of information on himself and his career with MI6. The pictures were old, and Cage hardly recognized the man that stared back at him. The cold, calculating assassin that he’d been before no longer existed.

  “You’re not a journalist. You’re a retired MI six agent.” Tuggingham sat back on his chair, his arms crossed smugly over his chest.

  “Not that I’m not interested in how you managed to get your hands on classified information, but as you said—I’m retired.”