by Kat Ross
“Nom de dieu,” Gabriel snapped, though he sounded amused. “We’ll bring you the cakes. But you’d better catch up. Don’t leave those kids wandering in the Dominion.”
Julian nodded and hopped into the gate.
“Well,” Anne said, lifting her black parasol. “Shall we?”
Her smile died at Gabriel’s grave expression. “Not just yet.”
“Why?” she asked evenly.
“There’s something I left unfinished, Anne. I can’t leave Brussels until it’s been dealt with.”
“I see. And what exactly is this thing?”
He scrubbed a hand through his beard. “It’s a surprise. I need your help.”
“Of course,” she said with a resigned sigh.
Gabriel led her out to the street. Night was falling and the flower sellers were packing up their wares in the vast open-air market of the Grand Place. His steps quickened as church bells pealed in the distance. Anne knew better than to ask where they were going. Gabriel had a devilish gleam in his eye. He finally halted in front of La Monnaie opera house.
“If we hurry, we can still catch the first act,” he whispered in her ear.
Anne laughed. “You have tickets?”
He shook his head. “They were sold out.” Gabriel grabbed her hand and dragged her around back to the stage door. He pounded on it until a young man in shirtsleeves appeared. The boy looked about nineteen. He had a chewed pencil tucked behind his ear and a smear of chalk dust across one cheek. Gabriel unleashed a torrent of Dutch, his hands gesticulating, some complicated story about a problem with one of the set pieces. He radiated authority and the young man’s expression slowly turned from irritation to alarm.
“Monsieur Rubé sent you?”
Gabriel nodded.
“I will take you to the stage manager,” the young man said. He stepped back from the door and ushered them inside.
“No need, I know where to find him,” Gabriel said imperiously, striding into the maze of narrow corridors. Anne gave a firm nod and followed. She felt the young man’s eyes on their back, but he didn’t try to stop them.
They hurried deeper into the rabbit’s warren of changing rooms and storage areas. In the sudden quiet, she heard the factory bell ring on stage and the patter of feet as the cigarette girls ran out from the wings and started bantering with the young men in the crowd, launching into La cloche a sonné.
“Hurry,” Gabriel hissed, his voice thick with silent laughter. He opened doors at random as the chorus swelled, but none seemed to suit his purpose. Anne only hoped the stage manager was too busy to come searching for them. Surely the stagehand would check Gabriel’s story….
He glanced up and down the corridor, then tried another door that opened into a large room filled with racks of costumes. Gabriel pulled her inside and closed it. An instant later, his mouth covered hers. Anne’s knees wobbled as he snugged her against his body and walked them between two of the racks. Elaborate costumes of satin and velvet were crushed ruthlessly against the wall.
“I couldn’t leave Brussels without hearing you sing at the opera,” he said, lifting the edge of her skirts to stroke the silk stocking beneath.
“Because you’re an obsessive,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Yes,” Gabriel agreed, his golden brown eyes hot and unfocused. “And you make me worse.” He kissed her again with abandon. “Much worse.”
The stage must have been just beyond the far wall. Anne heard Carmen belt out opening lines of La Habanera.
Quand je vous aimerai ?
Ma foi, je ne sais pas….
When will I love you?
Good Lord, I don't know…
Then the gypsy’s taunting aria faded and all Anne heard was the fierce beating of their hearts.
Epilogue
Balthazar checked the gold watch in his waistcoat pocket. He combed his sleek raven hair and patted aftershave on his cheeks. Then he slid the starched white shirt from its hanger and did up the buttons, the ouroboros a cool weight against his chest. He knotted his tie and trotted down the stairs.
“Lucas!” he bellowed.
It was a fine afternoon with a pleasant breeze swaying the curtains in the parlor. He ambled down the hall and found Lucas sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of tea and an open book of accounts.
“Going out, my lord?” he murmured without looking up.
It was a question Lucas had asked hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and which had become largely rhetorical at this point.
Balthazar squinted at the tiny, precise columns of sums. “How do you read that without going blind?”
Lucas blew on his tea. “Will you be wanting the carriage?”
Balthazar cleared his throat. “Actually, I thought you might like to come with me.”
Lucas looked up, vaguely alarmed. “I see. This is … unexpected.”
“Have I never invited you out before?” Balthazar asked with a frown.
“Never, my lord.” He coughed. “Not that I mind. I’m not the type for parties and music halls.”
“It’s neither of those things.” He smiled and held his silver walking stick aloft like a ringmaster. “We’re going to the circus!”
The reply was tepid. “The circus, my lord?”
“Those Americans, Barnum and Bailey. They’ve set up shop at the Olympia Theatre in Kensington. Come on, they have elephants.”
Lucas pondered this. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think they have elephants or you don’t want to go?”
“I don’t want to go,” he replied firmly.
“Why?”
He glanced down at the ledger and pulled it an inch closer. “I have work to do.”
Balthazar sighed. “You really need to get out more.”
Lucas picked up his fountain pen and jotted some microscopic figure in the margin. “No.”
“But I already bought two tickets.” He took out the program. “Listen, they have Signora Stella’s flock of performing sheep.” He turned the flyer sideways. “I think it’s doing a handstand. Hoofstand.”
Lucas was unmoved.
“I’m quoting here,” Balthazar said, an edge of desperation in his voice, “there are Troupes of Wonderfully Wise Dogs.”
Lucas set his pen down. “Here’s my counter offer. I’ll go for a walk with you. I might stop for a cup of cocoa at that shop around the corner.”
“Now, we don’t want to overdo it,” Balthazar muttered sourly, folding the program and stuffing it back in his pocket. “Too much excitement….”
“Or you can go to the circus alone.”
Balthazar smiled. “Fine. I dislike screaming children anyway. We’ll go for a walk.”
“Hang on, I’ll get my emergency biscuits.” Lucas strode to the pantry and rattled a tin. “Oh dear, I’m getting low,” he whispered to himself.
“Is that in case we’re caught in a freak late August blizzard in Grosvenor Square?” Balthazar asked, trailing him to the front door.
“Mock if you will, my lord, but biscuits have saved me on more than one occasion.” Lucas stepped outside and flinched like a vampire. “It’s a nice day,” he said with a touch of wonder.
“Told you.” Balthazar strode off. “Let’s go this way.”
“Kensington is this way,” Lucas said suspiciously as he jammed his hat on and hurried to catch up.
“So’s Hyde Park,” Balthazar replied in amusement.
They strolled along in companionable silence for a few minutes.
“Are you allergic to dogs, too, or only cats?” Balthazar glanced over.
“It’s funny you ask, my lord. Did I ever tell you the story—”
The pair of them drew a few curious looks, one tall and swarthy and handsomely attired, the other smaller, pale and sporting a fussy waxed moustache, but neither noticed. The tall one was laughing too hard and the other was trying his best not to.
Besides which, elephants awaited.
Dead Ri
nger
Book #5 Summary
A poisonous secret.
A terrifying curse.
And a client she’d just as soon see dead in a ditch….
Summer 1889. Harrison Fearing Pell hoped for adventure when she signed on with the Society for Psychical Research as an occult investigator. Slogging through New York’s sewers in pursuit of a “mud man” wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. But the reeking monster terrorizing the dance halls of the Tenderloin leads her to an even more peculiar mystery — and the last man on earth Harry wishes to become entangled with.
James Moran is a prodigy in music, mathematics . . . and crime. Harry’s older sister, the famed detective Myrtle Fearing Pell, has vowed to put him behind bars. But Harry owes Moran a personal debt, so when he demands her aid she can hardly refuse. It turns out that the brilliant black sheep of New York Society is part of a secret club at Columbia College whose members have started dying in bizarre ways that may not be accidents.
Thus begins one of the strangest cases of Harry’s career, a tale of murder, cold-blooded revenge and fairytale bogeymen to make the Brothers Grimm shudder. As the bodies pile up, each preceded by sightings of the victim’s doppelgänger, Harry and her stalwart friend John Weston must race against time to save a man who arguably deserves his macabre fate.
Dead Ringer
First Edition
Copyright © 2019 by Kat Ross
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
ISBN: 978-0-9997621-5-8
1
August 31, 1889
It all started with some drunk boys from Brooklyn.
They were walking back to the Sixth Avenue Elevated after a night of carousing in the Tenderloin when they claimed they were assaulted by a large, lurching thing that reeked of the sewers. As one might guess, the patrolmen of the Twenty-Ninth Ward failed to take the story seriously. When they finished laughing, they arrested the boys and tossed them in a cell to sober up.
But over the next two weeks, more monster sightings were reported in the same area. Whatever it was, the thing only came out at night. After it attacked the son of a Tammany Hall bigwig, shoving him into the gutter and spraining his wrist, the boy’s father kicked up enough of a fuss that the Ninth Detectives Division was called in.
Commissioner Thomas F. Byrnes had quietly formed the new unit in the spring of 1889 after the Hyde case and the museum murders. I suppose he chose the bland name to keep it under wraps, but everyone in the department called it the Night Squad. It specialized in bizarre cases and often worked in cooperation with my own employer, the American Society for Psychical Research.
Which is how I found myself staring into an open manhole on a scorching Saturday night at the tail end of August. My best friend John Weston stood next to me, along with an engineer from the Croton Aqueduct Department. We all wore rubber boots.
“I’m starting to hate this case,” I muttered.
It was not our first foray into the sewers.
John flashed his dimples. “Now, Harry, it could be worse.”
A lock of sandy brown hair had fallen over one eye. The other glinted with excitement. He was actually enjoying himself, I thought sourly.
“How?” I crossed my arms and gave him a skeptical look. I wore an old shirt and trousers that had been passed down through the ranks of John’s four brothers. The material was already damp with perspiration and I knew it would be even more hellish down in that hole.
He studied the sky with a thoughtful expression. “Could be raining.”
I conceded the point. New York made its own vile gravy and it all drained into the labyrinth beneath our feet. After weeks of investigating the sewer beast, as John called it, I knew far more about Manhattan’s plumbing than I’d ever wanted to.
The manhole was on the east side of Thirtieth Street and Sixth Avenue in the shadow of the elevated tracks. It was a little after midnight and the various gambling hells, brothels and dance halls were going full tilt. Reformers had dubbed the Tenderloin “Satan’s Circus” and they weren’t far off the mark. I counted six saloons within spitting distance, bearing names like the Star and Garter, Buckingham Palace, and less appealingly, Chick Tricker’s Flea Bag.
Whiffs of French perfume mingled with beer and tobacco smoke. Music and laughter drifted down the street. A tiny elfin man in a sagging flannel suit preached the gospel to indifferent passersby, declaiming loudly about the wages of sin.
In short, everyone was having fun except for us.
The latest victim stood adjacent to a group of six patrolmen, who were keeping their distance. They’d thrown a horse blanket across his shoulders, but I could still smell him from ten feet away. Albert Wood fit the usual profile: male, early twenties, on his way home from an evening with friends at some fine establishment called The Billy Goat, where you could get two drinks for a nickel. He said he’d been thrown to the ground and trampled by a “mud man,” which then vanished into the manhole.
Judging by the odor that wafted in our direction, I deduced that “mud” was a polite euphemism.
Mr. Wood looked unhappy and dazed, which was entirely understandable.
“I don’t think we can wait any longer for Sergeant Mallory,” John said, his boot tapping impatiently against the manhole cover.
I drew a deep breath. “We’re heading in,” I called out.
As a rule, policemen are a superstitious lot. These showed no sign of wishing to accompany us down the ladder.
“Happy hunting,” someone said cheerfully.
The engineer, whose name was Albanesi, gave a curt nod. “I’ll go first,” he said.
We watched Albanesi descend the iron rungs into darkness. When no shriek of horror came from below, I followed him down, with John just behind me. A patrolman lowered three bull’s eye lanterns, their cones of light dancing wildly over the brickwork.
“If we’re not back in an hour, send reinforcements!” I shouted.
One of the cops stuck his head into the hole. “Sure thing, Miss Pell,” he replied seriously.
I heard laughter in the background.
We stood in a round tunnel about twelve feet high and eight wide. A stream of dirty water flowed south through a shallow channel cut into the center. It reeked of horse manure and other nameless waste.
John raised his lantern while Albanesi consulted the map. The engineer was in his late forties, with the black eyes and hooked nose of southern Italian stock. He sported a large handlebar mustache which I found reassuring. It was a mustache that had no fear of mud men.
The engineers of the Croton Aqueduct Department were a hardy bunch. They had built the sewers and seemed protective of them. When Mallory’s Night Squad requested its expertise, the department had obliged — to our eternal gratitude. Navigating down here alone would have been an even bigger nightmare. Manhattan island had almost four-hundred and fifty miles of pipes and mains, and more than five thousand receiving basins.
The sewers flowed on gravity and emptied into the city’s waterways. Most were too small to enter, but the one we stood in allowed the engineers access for maintenance of the pipes and to carry storm runoff. These larger tunnels roughly followed the grid system of the streets above.
Albanesi’s map bore pencil marks with the locations of the previous sightings of the mud man, which were clustered in an area bounded by Fifth and Seventh Avenues, and running from Twenty-Eighth to Thirty-Sixth Street.
“Which way?” he inquired,
his black brows arching.
John exhaled a soft breath and studied the map, though we both knew the pattern of dots by heart. It had been a little over an hour since Albert Wood was attacked. The creature (or prankster — I still held out faint hope) could have gone in any direction. But as I stood in the damp, oppressive atmosphere of the sewer, I caught a whiff of something indefinably loathsome.
I followed my nose down the left wall of the tunnel, sweeping the lantern beam across the bricks. They bore traces of dark-colored muck leading off into darkness. “Over here,” I called.
Albanesi folded the map and returned it to his pocket. We inspected the streaks more closely. Most were at shoulder height, but I observed a few on the ceiling as well. Albanesi’s gaze lingered on the moist splotches.
“What if we find it?” he wondered with a touch of unease.
“Not to worry,” John replied with supreme confidence. “We aren’t permitted to carry firearms, but we do have legal authority to detain any suspects for Sergeant Mallory.” He patted his pocket. “I’ve got a set of double-locking handcuffs right here.”
Albanesi glanced at him and said nothing. He didn’t seem reassured.
Personally, I felt irritated that Mallory had failed to join us on this subterranean monster hunt and didn’t even bother to send any of his men. Had the Night Squad given up on the sewer beast? No one was dead yet so technically it was still in the nuisance category, but I had a bad feeling that could change.
“The main thing is we’ve got the trail,” John said. “Nice work there, Harry.”
We started walking in single file, sticking to the sides of the tunnel where the ground was drier. I resisted the urge to look back as the open manhole dwindled behind us and darkness closed in save for the three beams cast by the lanterns. The light could be dampened with a quick twist of the wrist in case we wanted to lie in wait for the creature – a tactic we’d tried before with no success. It was either very smart or very lucky, probably the latter.