Gaslamp Gothic Box Set

by Kat Ross

  Finally, the current became so strong and swift it lifted us up and carried us along. I could feel things bumping my legs and shuddered. It had been bad enough when I saw what ended up in the sewers, but to be both submerged and blind . . . . I clung to John’s shirt, trying hard to keep my mouth closed.

  The arched ceiling was only two feet above our heads when I detected a faint light ahead. We swept around a curve in the tunnel. It was a storm drain, roughly six inches high. We clung to the bars, shouting our lungs out, but there was no response from above.

  “Hang on,” John said, his face grim. “I think I see something. You stay here, Harry, just hold on tight.”

  He started to untie the suspenders and I grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t go.” I couldn’t keep the tremor from my voice. “You know how I feel about holes in the ground. I will never, ever go into one again, not for any reason, but don’t leave me here, all right, Weston?”

  John gave a firm nod. “’Course not. Come with me, then. On the count of three.”

  I took a last look through the bars of the storm drain. Then I let go.

  The current took us again, but as we entered the next curve John’s hand shot out and seized a rusty iron bar fixed to the wall. I would have missed it in the gloom, but he always had keener eyesight. It turned out to be the top rung of a ladder. Above us was a closed hatch. He found his footing on one of the submerged rungs and braced a brawny shoulder against the iron lid.

  “Cross your fingers, Harry,” he said softly.

  John grunted and heaved and the cover rolled to the side with a loud clang.

  We crawled out shoeless and blinking like troglodytes in the sudden light of the street lamps. I was astonished to discover that it had stopped raining in the real world, though a lake of water stretched out at the curb. The storm turned out to be one for the record books – 8.28 inches of rain over the course of a few hours – but I wouldn’t learn that until the next day. At the moment, I was thrilled just to be alive.

  I took my bearings and saw that we had journeyed a good two miles from our starting point. In fact, we were directly in front of the Metropolitan Opera House on Thirty-Ninth Street and Broadway, where the well-heeled audience was emerging from the front entrance. A jewel-encrusted matron – possibly a Vanderbilt – gazed at us with haughty disdain, but this being New York, the rest of the crowd ignored us completely.

  We made our way back to the original manhole and found Detective Brach supervising the evacuation of the injured officers. Three had minor cuts and scrapes, but one cradled a broken arm and the man the golem had thrown down the tunnel remained unconscious. He was lifted out on a stretcher and bundled into an ambulance wagon.

  John pulled the crumpled shem from his pocket.

  “That’s it?” Brach squinted at the soggy mess. “The ink’s run. I don’t think we can make out what it said.”

  “I’d better give it to Kaylock anyway,” John muttered.

  “Do you need us to stay?” I was beyond famished and entering the realm of hallucinatory, having skipped lunch thinking I would gorge on paprika chicken and dumplings at the Hotel Hungaria.

  Brach shook his head with a smile. “Go salvage what you can of your birthday, Miss Pell.”

  An officer from the Twenty-Ninth gave us a ride downtown to Tenth Street, where I washed and changed into dry clothes while John donned one of Mrs. Rivers’ dressing gowns, despite her protestations. My sister had still not returned, but Connor served up slices of chocolate birthday cake and we ate together at the kitchen table, laughing and talking about the mud man and other adventures late into the night.

  I woke the next day eager for a new assignment. The way I saw it, Mr. Kaylock owed us a decent case – something challenging but not repulsive. John was waiting for me outside Kaylock’s office when I arrived at Pearl Street. We gave him our report and John handed over the bedraggled shem, which he locked in the strongbox next to his desk.

  “Mayor Grant is pleased with you,” he said. “As am I.”

  “Any new cases?” I asked hopefully.

  “Not at the moment, I’m afraid—” Kaylock cut off at an urgent rap at the door. “What is it?” he called out.

  Kate Prince stuck her head inside. Her face was tense.

  “Cashel O’Sullivan, sir,” she said. “He’s dead.”

  5

  Kaylock gestured for Kate to enter. “Another accident?” he asked with a frown.

  “No, sir,” she replied. “This one appears to be a suicide.”

  Cashel O’Sullivan, she explained, had hung himself with a red scarf from the ceiling fixture in his bedroom early that morning – apparently the same scarf Francis Bates used to wear. Cashel lived at home and the body was discovered by his mother. No note had been found.

  “Guilty conscience?” Kaylock wondered.

  “We wondered that too, sir,” Kate said. “It seems a strong possibility. Mallory says there’s no sign of foul play. The bedroom door was locked from the inside. The police had to break it down. Pity he didn’t leave a note.”

  “Any connection with the college?”

  “Yes, sir. He attended Columbia at the same time as Francis Bates and Daniel Cherney. That’s how he first met Bates. Mr. Copperthwaite is at the house now with Sergeant Mallory interviewing the parents.”

  “Did anyone see him elsewhere?” John wondered.

  Kaylock turned his stern gaze on John. “I appreciate your work on the golem case,” he said. “I’ll admit, I had my doubts when you first came to the S.P.R., but you’ve earned my confidence.” From Kaylock, this was high praise indeed and John looked pleased.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “That said, you’re both excused.”

  I shifted in my chair. “If you need anyone to help question witnesses, I’d be happy to—”

  “This is not your case, Miss Pell.” He made a shooing motion.

  I sighed and rose to my feet. John did the same.

  “I heard you killed the golem,” Kate said.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Though we don’t know who made it.”

  “Well, congratulations are still in order,” she said, a touch glumly.

  I heard Kaylock grilling her as we closed the door.

  “What do you think?” John asked me. “O’Sullivan saw Bates’ death specter—”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “And now he’s dead, but unlike the first two, it’s by his own hand. If O’Sullivan was behind it—”

  “Never mind, John, they don’t want our help. What do you say to some celebratory sausages at the Atlantic Garden? I’m buying.”

  He glanced at the clock. “Wish I could, Harry, but I have to get to class,” he said apologetically.

  “It’s all right.” I forced a smile. “Come by later if you can manage it.”

  Despite my words, I hung about for a while hoping Kate might emerge, but it soon became clear that I was neither needed nor wanted, so I finally headed back to Tenth Street.

  The house was quiet. I went to the upstairs parlor and took out my birthday gift from John. I had set it near the coal stove to dry out; the spine was swollen and the pages wrinkled, but happily the writing was still legible.

  It was a translation of the handbook for coroners written by the Chinese bureaucrat Song Ci in 1247 – the first written work on forensic science. I started reading and quickly became engrossed in the case of a murder victim who had been hacked to death by a hand sickle. He was a peasant and it seemed certain the killer was one of his fellow villagers, but which one?

  The clever local magistrate gathered a dozen or so suspects in the square and ordered them to place their hand sickles in a line on the ground. Then he waited for the blow flies to come.

  I imagined the scene. The men standing around in the hot sun as the bright green flies began to gather and swarm over a single sickle whilst ignoring the others. Of course, the tool the flies took such an interest in was the one with traces
of blood and bone on the blade. The owner stammered denials, but it was too late. Everyone knew who had committed the crime.

  Using the behavior of insects to guide the inquest into a suspicious death was one of the many techniques codified in the handbook, titled The Washing Away of Wrongs, or Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified. It was a morbid but fascinating volume, and the hours flew by as I immersed myself in the grim mechanics of death.

  “During the three months of summer, when the body is one or two days old, the flesh will change color, beginning with the face, belly, ribs, and chest. When three days have passed, a foul liquid will issue from the mouth and nose, and maggots will appear. The whole body will swell, the lips will pull back, the skin will rot and separate from the flesh, and blisters will appear. After four or five days, the hair falls out . . . .”

  I startled as the front door banged open and I heard the quick, light footsteps of Connor.

  “Harry?” he called.

  “In the parlor!”

  He pelted upstairs but hovered in the doorway without entering. Connor’s red-gold curls were damp with perspiration, as if he’d been running for miles. His face was ashen.

  “What’s happened?” I exclaimed, standing so abruptly the book spilled from my lap.

  “It’s Myrtle,” he said, twisting his cap in his hands. “Someone coshed her on the head. Broke her leg, too.”

  My heart froze. “Where is she?”

  “St. Luke’s Hospital. It was the nearest one to where they found her.” He paused. “She’s in a bad way, Harry.”

  “Oh God,” I said, covering my mouth with a hand. We shared a look of mutual anguish.

  For all her apparent callousness, my sister had rescued Connor from a life on the streets. At first she had given him odd jobs, but when he proved honest and reliable, he had come to live with us in the attic room. Connor never spoke of it, but I knew he worshipped Myrtle.

  I grabbed my hat and coat. A quick cab ride later, we were pushing through the entrance doors on Fifty-Fourth Street. St. Luke’s was run by the Episcopal Church and catered to the poor and indigent. I told the nun at the front desk who I was and she gave me directions to a large open ward on the third floor.

  Mrs. Rivers sat at Myrtle’s bedside. Her eyes brimmed with tears when she saw me. “Oh, Harry,” she said.

  My heart clenched as I looked down at my sister. Her head was swathed in white bandages, her face a mass of dark bruises. Myrtle had always seemed indestructible, a force of nature, and seeing her laid so low was a profound shock.

  “Will she be all right?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Mrs. Rivers wrung her hands together. “The doctors will hardly tell me anything.”

  “Who did this?”

  She gave a helpless shrug. “Myrtle was found lying in the street by a pair of night soil men. They saw some hoodlums running away, must have scared them off. They took her here straightaway. If they hadn’t . . . .” She trailed off and wiped her nose with a handkerchief.

  “How long has she been here?”

  “Since yesterday afternoon. It took the staff some time to identify her. She had nothing in her pockets. Then one of the doctors recognized her from that picture in the paper a few months ago.”

  All the time I’d cursed Myrtle for skipping my birthday dinner, she’d been lying alone and unconscious in a hospital bed. I reached down and took her hand. The skin was dry and burning hot.

  “She’s got a fever,” I said.

  Mrs. Rivers wiped her eyes. “Myrtle’s a strong one,” she muttered.

  I dampened a cloth in a bowl of water and pressed it to her neck. How small she looked under the mound of white sheets. “Don’t let them bleed her,” I said. “Can you reach Mother and Father?”

  Our father was a doctor who had gone to India to lecture for a year at one of the medical schools in Madras. My parents both relished adventure and were admirably tolerant of their eccentric daughters.

  “Yes, of course. I’ll send a letter.” She paused. “But I don’t want to frighten them. I’ll wait until her condition improves a little.”

  I thought of Myrtle’s words the night we watched the Avalon.

  If anything happens to me . . . . There’s no one else, Harrison.

  I knew who had done this to her, though I had no proof. At least I could ensure that my sister was safe from further attacks. I spent the next hours contacting Sergeant Mallory and Mr. Kaylock and telling them what had happened. By afternoon, two uniformed patrolmen were standing guard outside Myrtle’s door. Then I sent Connor to Gramercy Park to fetch John.

  Mrs. Rivers brought in some sandwiches, but I had no appetite. Myrtle hadn’t yet stirred in her bed. The thought that she might have suffered permanent brain damage was too much to bear. When Connor returned and reported that John wasn’t home, a wave of despair washed over me. Mrs. Rivers saw my expression and her eyes softened. She took my hands in her own. They were work-roughened but warm and gentle.

  “Go find him yourself, dear. It’s all right, I’ll stay right here.” She glanced at the patrolmen in the hall. “Myrtle’s safe now. Go on.”

  I gave a wordless nod and we embraced each other, the familiar smell of her lavender soap making my eyes sting. Mrs. Rivers had been a stolid presence in our lives for as long as I could remember. I had taken her for granted, but now I could hardly imagine what I would do without her.

  It was late afternoon by the time I started walking the few blocks to Columbia’s neo-Gothic campus on Madison Avenue. Most likely John was studying in one of the grey stone buildings. With all his brothers, it was nearly impossible for him to find peace and quiet at home. I moved swiftly with my head down, lost in dark thoughts, and as I turned the corner of the Arts and Sciences Library, I crashed straight into a student hurrying the other way. He was carrying an armload of books that scattered across the sidewalk. I was starting to apologize when I saw who it was. The blood rushed to my face.

  James Moran didn’t spare me a glance as he knelt to gather up his things. It was as if I didn’t exist.

  I savagely kicked one of the books just as he reached for it.

  “What the devil is wrong with you?” Moran snarled, glaring at me.

  He didn’t look like a dandy now. In fact, he looked distinctly disheveled. His black hair wanted combing and his coat was buttoned wrong. In my enraged state, this was clear evidence that he had been up to no good.

  “I’ll see you burn for what you did,” I growled. “Mark me, Moran.”

  He scowled deeply. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Pell.” The puzzlement in his dark eyes seemed genuine, but he was a master of deceit. “None! Now get out of my way.”

  If I stayed a moment longer, I knew I might do him real violence, so I stormed off. When I glanced back, I saw him staring at me, his face pale.

  The Arts and Sciences Library had the feel of a cathedral, with a soaring ceiling and tall arched windows. I found John in a quiet corner copying notes from a heavy textbook. His shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing strong forearms, though his eyes were bloodshot. He glanced up and read my grim expression instantly. “What’s happened, Harry?”

  “It’s Myrtle,” I said quietly, aware the librarian was watching us. “Someone attacked her. She’s in the hospital.”

  John stood at once and reached for his jacket. “How badly?”

  “I’m not sure yet. She has a broken leg, but she was struck on the head, as well. She has a fever.” I raised a shaking hand to my forehead. “I’m certain Moran ordered it. And I just ran smack into him.”

  I related the rest of the story as John threw his books into a leather satchel and ushered me from the library.

  “I’ll speak with her doctors,” he said. “Concussions are generally treated with bed rest. As long as her skull isn’t cracked she should recover fully, but I’ll need to have a look at her records.”

  “She’s always taking horrendous risks,” I muttered as we
crossed Madison Avenue and headed west toward Fifth. “Working alone and going after the vilest scum in the city.” I was silent for a minute. “When she missed my birthday, I was so angry at her, John. I thought some awful things—”

  “Don’t,” he said firmly. “I’ve wished my own siblings dead more times than I can count. It comes with the territory.”

  “But what if—”

  “No speculating.” He shot me a sideways look. “Your sister has survived worse. Remember the time she nearly blew the house up with one of her laboratory experiments?”

  I smiled weakly. “How could I forget?”

  “And the snakebites she deliberately inflicted on herself when she was writing that monograph on anti-venom for the Pasteur Institute?”

  “Naja naja,” I replied. “Indian cobra. Mother fainted when she saw it in the bathtub.”

  He steered us toward the wrought-iron gates of St. Luke’s, whose stone towers and narrow windows reminded me of a medieval abbey dropped into the center of Manhattan.

  “So a little bump on the head won’t do her any harm,” John said firmly.

  “She has a broken leg, too.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it will keep her out of trouble for a few weeks.”

  When we entered Myrtle’s ward, relief flooded me. She was awake. Mrs. Rivers sat at the edge of her bed helping her to sip from a glass of water. We gathered around and I waited until she had settled back against the pillows to launch my interrogation.

  “Do you remember anything about the attack?” I asked, my voice low and urgent. “If it was Moran’s thugs—”

  “It wasn’t.” Her voice was hoarse but firm. “In fact, it was a rival gang.”

  I frowned. “Are you certain?”

  Myrtle nodded. I waited impatiently while she took another sip of water.

  “Daybreak Boys,” she whispered. “Robbed the Manhattan Savings Bank a few weeks ago. Pinkerton hired me to find out where they’d stashed the loot before bringing them in.”

  “And you did?”

  Even in her weakened condition, sporting two black eyes, Myrtle managed a condescending look. “Of course. But then they caught up with me. . . .”