Gaslamp Gothic Box Set

by Kat Ross

  Brady had sent his wife to her parents’ house so he would have free rein to roam the city.

  We would never know what he told his victims, but I think he used the uniform to gain a degree of trust that allowed him to cull them from the herd. To get them alone.

  I also learned from Rose Mason that the manager of the Grand Hotel in Cassadaga Lake had been arrested about three weeks after our visit for adding a mild hallucinogen to the food of his patrons. It seems the man believed it would enhance the Spiritualist reputation of the place and bring in customers. I immediately thought of the picnic lunch we’d eaten on the shores of the lake just before the séance.

  Upon hearing this news, Mrs. Rivers confessed that she might have been a tad influenced by Connor’s confiscated magazines, one of which was about a journey into the fires of hell. She might have pushed the planchette just a bit. She couldn’t really be sure.

  I saw James Moran once. On the campus of Columbia, where I’d gone to have lunch with John. He tipped his hat to me from across the street. I knew he’d never forget that I owed him one, but I figured that between me and Myrtle, one of us would put him behind bars one day. I’d told my sister everything except for the part Moran played. Only John and I knew about that. I had a strong feeling it would push Myrtle—who’d thus far been remarkably tolerant of our escapades—right over the edge.

  As for the Black Pullet grimoire…Well, on September third, I’d received an invitation for tea with Mrs. Temple Kane. It was not a pleasant experience. She informed me that the book had been burned—which I had to take her word for, of course—and more or less threatened the entire Fearing Pell clan with financial and social ruin if I ever came near George again. I told her that I wanted nothing to do with her loathsome offspring, which was the truth, although I did privately wonder what gentleman at his club he’d obtained it from. And exactly when and how George had gotten the grimoire back from Becky. From his talk of “all that blood,” I could only assume he had seen the crime scene. He must have visited her later that night or the next day to find out how his “experiment” had gone, and discovered her body.

  George Kane didn’t even have the decency to notify the authorities. He just left his former lover there to rot, until a neighbor smelled her.

  I said those exact words to Mrs. Kane, at which point our interview ended abruptly.

  What else? Connor and the Butchers finally tracked down the stock broker who had lost Straker’s money. His name was Gerald Forrest and he’d been serving time at Auburn prison for fraud for the last five months.

  As for the elusive Robert Aaron Straker himself…

  I sat up at a knock on the parlor door.

  “Come in,” I called.

  He was leaning on a cane, Elizabeth Brady holding his good arm. Moran’s thugs had broken his leg and would have done worse if four members of a rival gang hadn’t come along and been outraged that their turf was being invaded. A melee had ensued, allowing Straker to hobble away unnoticed. He’d ended up in Bellevue, where detectives found him a day later, raving and incoherent.

  “Miss Pell,” he said softly. He turned to John. “You must be Doctor Weston. And…”

  “Connor,” Connor said. “I’m a free-lance consultant.”

  Straker smiled. He was still handsome, although his eyes were lined and white streaked the dark hair at his temples.

  “I’m glad you could come,” I said warmly. “Please sit down.”

  “They let me go this morning,” Straker said, taking a chair by the fire and resting his cane against the mantel. “We won’t stay long. We’re catching a train to Hastings in an hour.”

  Elizabeth hovered protectively behind him. She too had lost weight, although her fingernails were no longer chewed to the quick.

  I knew that Elizabeth had paid for the private sanatorium Straker had been recovering in for the last two months.

  “You look well,” I said.

  “Yes.” Straker laughed awkwardly. “They say it was a case of nervous prostration. After the things I saw…” He trailed off.

  “I was hoping you might be able to tell us a bit about that,” I said. “If you’re able.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve done it enough before, with the doctors and the police. It gets easier. In fact, they say it’s good for me. To talk about it.”

  “Did you actually witness…?” John ventured.

  “Brady killing her?” Straker finished. “Not the act itself, no. But I had a bad feeling when Leland left me. A premonition of danger. We were both shaken up after Becky sacrificed that rooster, but Leland more so. He looked strange, pale and ill. I couldn’t sleep so I walked the streets for a bit. Then I thought that I’d go to the Bottle Alley Saloon for a quick drink.” He grimaced. “I was drinking quite a lot then. It was the only thing that gave me solace from my miserable existence. I was about to go down the stairs when I saw that Becky’s light was still on. I had the sudden thought that she might join me. I didn’t care to be alone. So I entered her building. Fat Kitty owns the whole place and sometimes forgets to lock the front door. Pickles usually watches things for her.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I knew something was wrong the moment I got to Becky’s flat on the second floor. Her door was ajar. And I heard noises coming from inside. A wet, slurping sound.”

  Connor’s eyes had grown wide as saucers. I regretted letting him stay, but I knew he wouldn’t leave now if the house was on fire.

  “My chest tightened with a kind of nameless dread. I peeked through the crack. Leland…well, he was on all fours. It took me a moment to realize that it was Becky lying there next to him. She was… suffice to say, she didn’t look human anymore. But neither did Leland. He’d removed his clothing and he was…well, he was lapping at her blood like a cat with a dish of milk. I think my mind fractured at that moment. I felt I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The doctors say I’d already been under a mental strain and the sight of it just…broke me. I must have made a small noise, because Leland turned. He looked me right in the eye. And he smiled. An awful scarlet grin. So I did the only thing I was capable of at that moment. I ran.”

  “Anyone would have,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  “No!” Straker said forcefully. “I was weak. A coward. If I’d just confronted him then, I could have prevented him from killing all those others.”

  “If you’d confronted him then, he would have killed you too,” Elizabeth said.

  “I could still have gone to the police with what I knew,” Straker said. “But I wasn’t thinking. I was so frightened of him. His eyes, when he saw me through the crack. They looked black. I know now that it was a trick of my fevered mind, that’s what the doctors say, but after the séance, all that talk of demons…I feared that Robert had been possessed somehow. I only wanted to hide from him.”

  “He described a foul wind,” John said. “That he closed his eyes against it.”

  “I don’t recall that,” Straker said, frowning. “But the rest was bad enough. Anyway, I staggered into a flophouse on the Bowery and stayed there until a boy found me several days later.”

  “Billy Finn,” I said. “I sent him to look for you.”

  This part I knew from Billy himself.

  “Yes, I saw him watching me and grabbed him. I feared he had been sent by Leland. He confessed that he’d been offered a reward if he revealed my whereabouts. I begged him to keep it a secret, but I had no money to offer. I finally told him what I’d seen. I gave him Brady’s name and asked him to relay it to you, Miss Pell.”

  “Yes. Well, it seems Billy had other grand plans,” I said, still aggravated with the boy. “He decided that my reward was a paltry sum compared to the money he could make if he blackmailed Mr. Brady. So he found out where his office was and confronted him outside. Not surprisingly, it didn’t go as Billy had planned. Instead of getting rich, he nearly got himself killed.”

  “Billy always did have gumption,” Connor said, laying another log on the fire.

/>   “I don’t know that I’d call it gumption,” I said. “More like sheer idiocy. Brady was delighted to discover where you were hiding. He forced Billy into the Beach tunnel and kept him a hostage there, in case he needed him to send a message. But in the end, he decided that he couldn’t trust Billy not to run at the first chance he got. So he left it for you himself, along with the uniform, once he’d ascertained that we’d be conducting a search for the Hunter that night. Brady was very clever. He timed it perfectly so we’d encounter you on the Third Avenue Elevated at the appointed hour.”

  “It’s why she let him choose the line,” John said. “She knew what he was up to. Though she could have mentioned that fact to the rest of us.”

  This was still a sore point.

  “I truly believed the note was from Elizabeth,” Straker said. “I’d thought of her so many times. Once I even took a train up to Hastings to tell her everything and bring her someplace safe, but she was already gone to her parents. When I saw that letter, saying she was afraid…Well, despite my own terror of Leland, nothing could have stopped me from meeting her.”

  Elizabeth laid a hand on his shoulder and it was evident they cared for each other as deeply as a brother and sister. I hoped that after all they had been through, they might find happiness one day, someplace far from New York City.

  “I think that explains everything,” I said. “I’m very grateful that you both came today.”

  “Well, not everything,” John interjected. “There’s still the question of why. Why a perfectly ordinary man would suddenly start killing people, even if he did suffer from multiple personality disorder. It makes no sense. Unless he was …”

  “Possessed?” Elizabeth said sadly. “That’s apparently what my husband believed. I found a letter from him a few days ago. He’d placed it in the pocket of a coat I only wear when the weather turns, which I didn’t have occasion to do until this storm blew in. The police must have overlooked it when they searched the house.”

  She took out a single sheet of paper. “I don’t wish to read it again now, Miss Pell, but I’ll give it to you. Maybe it will help you understand him better. I don’t want to keep it.” She set it on the mantle. “He was quite mad. I keep wondering how I could have missed the signs. I’ll admit I was disturbed when I found him in the garden that night. It was just after I came to see you, Miss Pell, when you’d asked me if Robert had suffered from lost time. I found Leland missing from our bed so I searched the house, but he wasn’t there. Then I happened to glance out the window. He was standing in the rain, his eyes wide and staring at nothing. But even then I didn’t believe…couldn’t believe. After all the nightmares, I assumed he’d been sleepwalking. I spoke to him firmly and took his hand and he seemed to come back to himself.” Elizabeth’s face tightened in pain, as though she’d been struck a physical blow. “When I read your cable, I couldn’t deceive myself anymore. I felt so sickened. To think that we lived under the same roof while…” She shook her head. “It’s over now, and I’m trying to put the past behind me.”

  “Actually, I just received something that I think sheds light on why,” I said. “Your husband’s autopsy report. I saw a copy this morning.”

  Nellie had brought it over. She was in a frenzy of logistical planning, having just read Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days and hit on the crazy idea that she could beat Phileas Fogg’s record. Her editors at The World agreed to bankroll the trip. I’d never seen her so excited. But dear Nellie had taken the time to stop by Tenth Street, knowing I’d be eager for the results.

  I could tell from John’s expression that he was irritated I’d kept this tidbit to myself, but I thought Elizabeth should be told first.

  “I didn’t know…” Her face was pale. “What does it say?”

  “Your husband had a brain tumor,” I said. “I doubt he was aware of it. It wasn’t large, but it pressed on his frontal lobe. There are several case histories of tumors that caused psychosis and extreme aggression. It’s rare, but well-documented. I might have guessed it. The last time he came to see me, he said he smelled burning rubber.”

  “That’s a classic sign,” John agreed.

  “Thank you for telling me, Miss Pell,” Elizabeth said slowly. “It does explain things. Would it…would it have been fatal?”

  “In the end, yes, most likely,” I said, reaching into the pocket of my dress. “And I believe this is yours, Mr. Straker. I thought you’d very much like to have it back.”

  I handed him the cameo. Straker opened it and looked at the picture of his mother. His eyes grew damp.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I can’t express what this means to me.”

  Elizabeth helped Straker to his feet and they moved slowly to the door. Then she turned back.

  “I nearly forgot. There’s still the matter of your fee.”

  “Yes, as to that…” I squirmed a bit on the couch and John smiled. My punishment for withholding the autopsy results, I supposed.

  Thanks to Nellie, my name had been kept out of the papers in relation to the Jekyll and Hyde case. Mulberry Street was more than happy to let the police take all the credit. So my remaining client had no clue that she’d been jigged, as Billy might say.

  “I have a bit of a confession to make myself,” I said in a rush. “I’m not Myrtle Fearing Pell. She’s my older sister. I’m terribly sorry I lied to you. It’s just…” How to explain? “It was an impulsive decision,” I finished lamely. “So please don’t worry about the fee.”

  Elizabeth looked startled at this revelation, quite understandably, and took a minute to mull it over.

  “I do feel foolish,” she said at last. “But I don’t suppose your motives were ill-intentioned. You found Robert and you stopped Leland, which is pretty impressive in my books. So I think I’d like to pay your fee anyway.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t expected that. “Thank you.”

  “We can settle it later,” she said briskly. “Send a cable.”

  “I will.”

  We shook hands and her hazel eyes twinkled. “I’m pleased to have been your first client, Miss Pell. What is your first name then?”

  “Harry,” I said, feeling as though an enormous weight had been lifted.

  “Well, I’m pleased to have been your first client, Harry. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  I heard them laughing softly as they went down the stairs.

  “A brain tumor, eh?” John said. “I’d like to see those results myself, if you don’t mind.”

  “Absolutely,” I replied with no small degree of satisfaction. “But let’s have a look at that letter first. I’ll need to add it to my report.”

  John retrieved it from the mantle and we all gathered round. There was no date.

  My dearest Elizabeth, it said. By the time you read this, I will be gone as I have resolved to take my own life rather than exist with the thing I have become. The thing that lives in me. Always whispering, urging. It says terrible things, my darling. Awful things. I don’t wish to speak of them, not to you, but I grow weary of fighting. The struggle is constant now.

  I have made a will, leaving you everything. Our attorney has a copy and he’ll see to its execution. It’s not much, I know, but I hope it is enough to keep you for a little while.

  I don’t expect your forgiveness, but I pray you will remember me as I used to be and not the nauseating creature I am now.

  It was signed “From Hell.”

  “Too bad he didn’t go through with it earlier,” John muttered in disgust. “Would have saved us the trouble…Connor? Are you all right?”

  Connor stared at us. He looked agitated. “Ain’t you seen the papers?” he asked.

  “Not in a few days,” John said. “I’ve been studying for an exam, and Harry’s had her nose buried in that report. Why?”

  “Well, I suppose you’ve at least heard of the Ripper case in London,” Connor demanded.

  “Of course,” I said.

  The news was everywhere.
First they’d called him Leather Apron, but now they were calling him Jack. He’d killed four women, horribly, and sent taunting letters to the police. I knew Connor had been following the case, but I personally couldn’t stomach thinking about another maniac at the moment so I’d absorbed only the basic details.

  “George Lusk, he’s the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee,” Connor said. “He got a letter too. Four days ago. It came with a box that had half a human kidney inside. Look, they reprinted it.”

  Connor grabbed a copy of The Tribune and held it out.

  It said:

  Mr Lusk

  Sor

  I send you half the

  Kidne I took from one women

  prasarved it for you tother pirce

  I fried and ate it was very nise I

  may send you the bloody knif that

  took it out if you only wate a whil

  longer.

  signed

  Catch me when

  you Can

  Mishter Lusk.

  At the very top of the letter were two words. From Hell.

  I tossed the paper aside.

  “And your point is?” I asked briskly.

  “Brady wrote his letter back in early August. Before the Ripper struck. Don’t you think it’s strange?” Connor asked.

  “A coincidence,” I said with a shrug.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences,” John said.

  “I do when there’s literally no other explanation. When all else is eliminated…you know what Myrtle says.”

  “But there is another explanation,” he insisted. “Don’t you remember what Father Bruno told us? That some demons can leave their hosts and enter another body?”

  I threw my hands up. “Not that again. Really, John.”

  “What if whatever was inside Brady knew he was going to die? What if it jumped into someone else?”