by Kat Ross
Gold Dust Liniment (The Cheapest and the Best for Man or Beast)
Dr. MacKenzie’s Improved Harmless Arsenic Wafers!
“How’s the patient?” I asked, hiding the last one behind a tin of sugar when she looked away for a moment.
Mrs. Rivers grunted. “Banging that cane on the floor every ten minutes, demanding to know where you went and when you’ll be back. Set the drapes on fire this morning and claimed it was an accident but didn’t seem sorry at all.” My housekeeper poured a glass of sherry, added a liberal dose of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup and took a bracing gulp. “The girl’s an ungrateful wretch. She refuses my remedies and we’re almost out of teacups because she’s taken to smashing them against the wall!”
“Can I help?” I said, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry to have left you alone with her. I have a new case.”
Her face softened. “That’s all right, Harry. I’ve managed Myrtle since she was four. She doesn’t scare me. But you can brew up some tea and bring it to her.” She nodded at the pot. “Not too hot, mind.”
I lit the stove and set the kettle to boil. “Any news from Mother and Father?” I asked.
“Not yet, I’m afraid, but I imagine it will be weeks. The packet ships are quite slow. How’s John?”
“Busy with his studies. One more year and he’ll have his license to practice.”
“He’ll make a fine doctor.” She eyed me shrewdly. “Yet you don’t sound happy about it, Harry.”
“Well . . . I suppose it’s because I like working with him. And when he becomes a doctor, everything will change. We won’t see each other as much.”
Mrs. Rivers nodded solemnly, though her blue eyes twinkled and she seemed to be suppressing some bout of humor.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothing, dear. I’m sure your friendship will continue, if you want it to.”
The kettle started shrieking and I took it from the fire and poured it over the tea leaves, devouring a mince pie while I waited for it to steep. Mrs. Rivers reached for a tablespoon and one of her murky bottles, but I snatched the pot away before she could pollute it.
“Can we skip it just this once?” I pleaded. “I’m tired of dodging missiles, especially when they’re full of hot liquid.”
She relented and I carried the tray up to Myrtle’s room.
“You got caught in the rain,” my sister observed when I entered her room.
I looked down at my dress. “I went walking in the park,” I replied innocently. “I had an umbrella, but the wind ruined it.”
Her grey eyes flickered over me, picking apart every inch, every stitch, and I felt as if I wore a sandwich board that read, Hello! I just spent the afternoon with James Moran! But she couldn’t know.
Not even Myrtle.
“You have a new case. I can see it in your face.” She sat up straighter in bed. “Let’s hear all the details. Leave nothing out—”
“I can’t,” I replied apologetically. “Kaylock’s sworn me to secrecy.”
She seemed about to object and I cast about for a change of subject. “My word, Myrtle, it’s actually clean in here. And the air is breathable.”
“The old hag took my cigarettes away,” she muttered. “Said they weren’t conducive to convalescence. I’ll need you to run out to the tobacconist tomorrow first thing.”
I made a sympathetic noise, but I was secretly glad. John said it wasn’t true that smoking cured asthma and lung ailments, the way some of the companies claimed. And my sister tended to go overboard with everything she indulged in.
“Tea?” I offered her the cup. “It’s plain, I swear.”
Myrtle sniffed the cup, then took a cautious sip. Her face relaxed a little. “I haven’t tasted plain tea in weeks, Harrison.” She gave me a brief nod. “Thanks.”
“Would you like to play chess?”
“No.” Her long fingers picked up a matchstick and broke it in half. I noticed a small pile of mutilated matches in her lap.
“Satisfying sound, isn’t it?” she murmured, snapping another one. “This is what I’m reduced to, Harrison.” Her gaze landed on the chamber pot on the corner. “If the hag continues to torment me, I’ll throw more than tea at her next time. You can tell her I said so.”
“I could read to you. John gave me a new book on forensics.”
She lay back against the pillows, staring bleakly at the ceiling. “Fine.”
I fetched Washing Away of Wrongs and related the story about the bloody sickle and the blowflies. It seemed to perk her up a bit, so I read the chapter on suicides by edged weapons and how to tell when a death by manual choking – i.e., murder — is disguised as a death by hanging.
“That’s a delightfully grim little volume,” Myrtle observed. “Weston gave it to you for your birthday?”
I nodded.
“He’s a keeper, Harrison. Pray continue.”
I resumed my bleak litany. Song Ci was extremely thorough and the coroners’ guide covered scalding, poison, drowning, stabbing, overeating, death from tiger bites, and even a whole section titled “when the head and the trunk are in different places.” Myrtle listened quietly, her gaze dreamy from the morphine, interrupting now and again to seek clarification of some finer point. It was the most time we had spent together since that night watching the Avalon.
“I’ve been wondering about tool marks,” I said casually, holding my place with a finger. “It’s the one area the author neglected.”
Myrtle’s eyes sharpened. “What sort of tool marks?”
“I can’t divulge the details, but there’s a case that might involve breaking and entering. Is it possible to identify, or at least narrow down, the source of scratches on wood?”
“Oh, it’s possible. I wrote a monograph on it,” she replied, waving a hand towards the bookcase. “Over there, second shelf down, third volume on the left.”
“May I borrow it?”
“Of course.” She smiled. “Best of luck with the case, Harrison. Now finish the chapter on the opening of graves.”
At last, my sister fell asleep. I took her monograph to my room and read for a while, but the tone was exceedingly dry and I found it hard to focus.
A doppelgänger. Did the person who had conjured it up know how to send it back where it came from?
That was the (rather large) problem. Even if we unmasked the culprit, it might not save our client.
I kept thinking of the dogs and Moran’s music room. My sister claimed he kept everything in his head, at least as it pertained to illegal activities, but how could she know for certain? His habit was to lock the door but not the filing cabinet. Did he keep documents written in the supposedly unbreakable code that someone might kill for? I needed to examine those scratches again – and soon.
I drifted into a fitful sleep until sometime after midnight, when a cold hand clamped over my mouth.
11
I grabbed the fingers and twisted them back as hard as I could. There was a soft yelp in the darkness and the grip eased. My heart raced as I threw off the covers and leapt to my feet. A shadowy figure stood at the end of my bed. Adrenaline flooded me as I realized it was James Moran.
Or something worse.
“Don’t rouse the whole damned house,” he hissed. “Please.”
My pulse slowed, fear replaced by anger as I realized it must be the original.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered furiously. “Have you lost your mind?”
I groped for the candle and matches. The flame burst to life and he threw up a hand, shying from the sudden light. When he spoke, there was a tremor in his voice.
“I saw it, Pell. Standing outside my front door. I snuck out the back. I . . . I didn’t know what to do, so I came here.”
I snatched up the blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. “You could have gone to the Avalon.”
“No! It’s followed me there before.”
He lowered his hand and my anger faded. Moran looked ghastly. He wore n
o coat, an unthinkable breach of etiquette. His shirt was wrinkled, his tie unknotted and hanging crookedly around his neck. The half-moons of exhaustion beneath his eyes were so dark he looked like he had taken a beating. Rough stubble covered his gaunt cheeks.
“How did you get in here?” I whispered. “And keep your voice down. Myrtle has hearing like a bat.”
“Took a cab,” he answered in a monotone. “Climbed up the drainpipe. Window wasn’t locked.” Moran peered through a crack in the curtains. “It’s out there somewhere,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. “Waiting.”
I stared at the window in consternation. I always locked it. Always. Since the previous summer when Mr. Hyde crept into my house as I slept, I was meticulous about security. And yet I couldn’t remember turning the catch before bed the night before.
Moran’s uncanny luck. It had to be.
“Pull yourself together,” I whispered sternly. “And don’t turn around.”
I took my dressing gown from where it hung on the bed post and tied the belt around my waist.
I had to get rid of him before someone heard. The hour on the bedside clock read 2:15, so at least I could count on Mrs. Rivers being fast asleep. Connor slept in an attic room and I doubted an earthquake would wake the boy. But my sister. . . .
“Listen, Moran,” I began in the tone one adopts with a recalcitrant toddler.
He spun around so fast it made me jump, closing the distance between us in three long strides. “I’m going to die,” he growled, his hands clamping down painfully on my arms. “I don’t care about myself, but Mother. . . . It will kill her! You have to help me, Pell.”
“Let go of me,” I said calmly, though my heart was racing again.
Moran stared at me a moment longer, his eyes wild. Then he let out a long breath and stepped back. “I’m sorry,” he said tonelessly. “But you don’t know what it’s like.”
“Sit,” I ordered, pointing at the chair facing my desk.
He gave me a dour look but complied.
“If you want my help, you must be totally honest with me.”
“I have been—”
“No. You’re holding back.” I sat down on the edge of the bed. I could still feel the imprint of his viselike grip on my arms.
His dark eyes went flat. “What do you want to know?” he asked warily.
“What happened the night your father died.”
Moran looked away. “I shot him.”
“I’m aware of that. Why?”
He inhaled slowly through his nose. “He was a hard man.”
“In what way exactly?”
He turned back, meeting my eye again, and there was something so raw in his face it almost hurt to look at him. “I was too clever, too bookish. My interest in music was abnormal. Music is for women and my father scorned women. He took it on himself to toughen me up.” Moran gave a bitter laugh. “He never hit me in the face. That would have been too obvious.”
“But he beat you?”
“Would you care to see the scars?” He asked dryly, elegant fingers moving to the top button of his shirt.
“That’s not necessary,” I said quickly.
Moran stared at me for a moment more, long enough to make my cheeks burn, and lowered his hands.
I cleared my throat. “And your mother? Did he mistreat her too?”
His expression darkened further. “What do you think, Pell? And what the hell does it have to do with anything anyway?” His eyes moved to the window again, then flicked away. He reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette case.
“You can’t smoke in here,” I said. “Myrtle will smell it and she’s already deep in withdrawal.”
He sighed and returned the case to his pocket. Moran started gnawing at a fingernail, his leg jittering.
“I haven’t slept in days,” he muttered. “It’s like sitting in one of those miserable death cells at the Tombs and never knowing when your date with the gallows will arrive.
“That thing. . . .” He shuddered. “It’s getting bolder. Every time I see it, it comes a little bit closer. I wonder if that’s what Danny and Francis saw at the last. Their own face, leering down at them.” He grabbed his head in his hands. “Christ, Pell, I’m not sure how much more I can take. Maybe Cash did the right thing. Put an end to it himself.”
“Stop talking like that.” I pulled the robe tighter, wrapping my arms around myself. “Listen, I would have come to you, but the hour was too late. John discovered what we’re dealing with.”
Moran’s head snapped up. I had his undivided attention.
“A creature called a doppelgänger. It’s from German folklore.” I drew a deep breath. “This feels extremely personal, Moran. It’s about suffering and terror before death.”
“Doppelgänger,” he repeated softly. “Jesus.”
There was a faint Irish lilt in the way he pronounced the word. Jay-sus. I had never heard it before and something about that troubled me, but now was not the time to worry about it — not with him sitting in my bedroom on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“The stories say it’s the exact double of a living person,” I whispered. “To see one’s own doppelgänger is considered bad luck. Death or misfortune usually follows such an encounter. It’s unclear where they come from, but John says there might be a way to summon such a thing.”
“That sounds dead on,” he muttered. “How do we send it back?”
“We don’t know yet,” I admitted.
His face deflated. “I thought you found something useful!”
“Keep your voice down,” I hissed. I hurried to the door and cracked it open. When all remained quiet in the hall, I returned to my perch on the edge of the bed.
“It is useful,” I whispered. “It tells us something about the person controlling this thing. Not even the other investigators at the S.P.R. had heard of a doppelgänger, Moran. So it must be someone intimately familiar with German folklore. The whole scenario is Old World. It’s not. . . .” I struggled to find the right words. “Not an American way to kill someone.”
Moran gave a low, humorless laugh. “A knife. A bullet. A bit of cyanide. That’s what most people would think of.”
“Precisely.” I cleared my throat. “And here’s another thing. John thinks the person behind this might not be interested in punishing all of you. Just one. The rest are incidental casualties.”
He clearly hadn’t thought of this for he grew quiet, his thick brows drawing together as he puzzled it out. “It’s a plausible theory. I told you the truth when I said we weren’t troublemakers. If anything, we all kept our heads down. If someone has it in for a member of the Pythagoras Society, the real victim could even be one of the names after mine. Quincy or Thad or Joseph.”
For a purported genius, he could be incredibly dense sometimes.
“It could.” I made my tone as gentle as possible. “But frankly, Moran, I’d put my money on you.”
He gazed at me coldly. “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“Look, you’re the obvious choice. Will you really force me me to say it plain?”
The words were a quiet rasp. “Say what, Pell?”
“You’re a criminal,” I hissed. “And not just any criminal, but the most devious and dangerous in the city, if my sister is to be believed.”
That made him smile. “Did she say so?”
I clapped a hand to my forehead. “God save me. You don’t even deny it, do you?”
He gave a bored shrug and crossed his ankles. His nonchalance irritated me.
“Why do you do it, Moran? You’re already richer than sin. Men kowtow to you and women don’t exactly run screaming, though they probably ought to.”
He frowned.
“Surely you could find something else to occupy your energy and intellect. Even if you survive this curse, the odds are excellent that you will end up in prison again.” I bit my lip. “So why do it?”
Moran looked at me gravely for a long mom
ent. Then he grinned. “Someone has to. Why not me?”
I sighed. “Never mind. It’s not my business. But you’ll answer my questions truthfully or I’m quitting right now.”
His eyes danced with amusement. “Fire away.”
“Your grandfather came from Ireland. None of this is Celtic lore. What about your mother’s people?”
“Old Dutch blood.”
“Emma and Tamsin look very different,” I observed carefully.
“They had different mothers. That’s why they’re so far apart in age. My own maternal grandmother died young. Emma’s mother had Spanish blood.”
“Oh.” That explained a good deal. “Who else do you know with a connection to Germany?”
Moran frowned. “There was a nurse. She served the family for years.”
“What was her name?”
“Klara Schmidt. She was always kind to me, though I got the feeling Emma was a little scared of her. She was gone when I got out of jail.”
I felt a tickle of apprehension. “What’s your impression of this woman?”
“Klara? She was already old when I was a child. Too old to care for me. Emma did that when Mother was indisposed.”
“Was she indisposed often?”
He slid his tie off and began weaving it into a series of intricate knots. Even when the rest of him was still, Moran’s hands were always moving. “Often enough. Klara must be a fossil by now, if she’s even still alive. I haven’t seen her since. . . .” He paused, his slender fingers hesitating.
“Since what?” I prompted.
“The trial,” he replied curtly.
“Did she testify?”
“Briefly. She came every day and sat in the public benches. She always wore a black hat and dress, like a crow.”
“Was she at the house that night?”
Moran nodded. “Sleeping in her room, apparently. Claimed she didn’t hear a thing.”
“Could she have lied about that?”
He frowned. “Why would she?”
“I don’t know. You said she was a nursemaid to your father?”
“Yes. Emma was eleven when she first came to the house.”
“What happened to her?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never asked. I was just glad she’d gone. The woman always smelled of cabbage.” His eyes grew distant. “She used to make these chocolates every Christmas with molds she’d brought over from Germany.”