Hounds of Autumn

by Heather Blackwood

  “We have to play these. One of them has what we want.”

  Chloe threaded the first spool in the machine and when she stepped back, Miss Haynes cranked the handle, making a ratcheting sound. The bulb glowed orange, burned gradually to white and then a grainy brown and white image appeared on the far wall. It was Camille, glowing with life, smiling and pointing to the flowers blooming in her greenhouse. She moved from plant to plant, turning toward the camera, pointing at each pot. Though there was no sound on the recording, Chloe knew she was describing each plant as one would for a child.

  “This isn’t it.” She pulled the spool out, careful to avoid the hot bulb, and threaded a new one.

  This one showed Camille in her laboratory, and Chloe recognized the hound’s battery on the table in front of her. The hound must have had a second battery inside it while Camille recharged the original. Camille pointed to something inside the battery, and the image grew larger as the hound moved closer to see.

  Chloe pulled that spool out also and was threading the next when the door crashed open.

  “I told you I heard something,” said Dora, standing in the doorway, a lamp in her hand. She strode in with a constable, Ian and Alexander. Where was the second constable Chloe had seen on the road?

  “What is this?” said Ian, putting up a hand to shield his eyes from the light pointed at them.

  “It’s a projector. The spools are from the interior of the hound, and one of them shows Dora killing Camille Granger.”

  “This is madness,” said Alexander, turning on a gaslight on a nearby table.

  Chloe recognized the constable as the one who had used the cricket bat. He stepped forward.

  “Mrs. Sullivan, I am placing you under arrest.”

  She backed away, and Miss Haynes, bless her soul, cranked the handle, saw that the next image was not what her mistress had described and threaded the next spool. Dora also saw the attempt and tore the next spool from the machine. She pulled the protruding film out in one long coil and took the glass cover from the top of her light. She then flung her lamp into the cold fireplace where it crashed into flames. The flames licked at a number of crumpled papers that Ambrose or Mr. Frick must have tossed in and the flames grew. Dora tossed the coil of film into the fire. It writhed and melted in on itself.

  The officer grabbed Chloe’s arm and she tried to yank free. “Ian!” she called. “You have to see what is on the spools. Don’t let her destroy them!”

  “Brrr?”

  Miss Haynes had threaded the next spool and was cranking the handle when Dora shoved her aside and went to pull it out of the machine. Miss Haynes regained her balance and pushed down on Dora’s hand, forcing her to press hard on the burning bulb. Dora howled a curse and after cradling her hand for a moment, struck Miss Haynes across the face, sending her staggering backward. She bumped the table and a spool fell to the floor and rolled away.

  More people were in the room now, and the voices churned together into a cacophony of shouts.

  “You have to let me play them!” Chloe pleaded with the constable, but his attention was on the other two women.

  Miss Haynes went again for the spools, trying to gather the remaining ones into her arms to protect them, but Dora shoved her aside. The lady’s maid lost her balance, caught her foot on the edge of the carpet and fell hard on her backside. The constable released Chloe for an instant, instinctively stepping toward Miss Haynes who, though resourceful and determined, still looked every inch the vulnerable female. Dora towered over Miss Haynes, and the constable insinuated himself between them.

  Miss Haynes was getting up with the constable’s help, so she must be all right, Chloe reasoned. Chloe ran back to the machine and grabbed the next spool.

  Dora turned from the constable and tore the spool from Chloe’s hand. Dora had the advantage of height, but Chloe had a good two stone on her and she threw her weight into Dora, pushing her down on the desk which quaked under their combined impact.

  Chloe made a grab for the spool, but Dora elbowed her hard in the ribs. Dull pain spread through her side, but her whalebone corset took the brunt of the impact. Dora bucked and broke free. She made for the fireplace, ripping the film out of the spool as she went. Chloe tried to pull her back, but strong arms restrained her and Dora tossed the film into the flames.

  The shouting was louder now, but Chloe did not heed the words being screamed back and forth. The dark thing within her was roaring. She had only one purpose.

  Miss Haynes was back at the projector when Dora turned back. Chloe elbowed the person holding her and kicked with the heel of her boot. She heard a grunt and was free. Chloe caught a glimpse of blue serge, and knew where the second constable was.

  “That’s enough of that,” growled Dora as she rushed forward and yanked Miss Haynes backward by the hair. The large constable pulled Dora away, dragging her backwards as Miss Haynes regained her composure and cranked the handle.

  “Brrr?”

  “Don’t you touch my daughter!” shouted William at the constable as Dora cried out piteously.

  Chloe let them argue. Dora was now screaming and Miss Haynes pulled the spool out of the projector as Chloe grabbed the next in line. A second scream joined Dora’s, an unnatural sound, as high and unwavering as a train whistle.

  Chloe knew what it was, but glanced up anyway. Giles must have been on top of the nearby bookshelf as he was now wrapped around Dora’s head, yowling and clinging with all his might. Some of Dora’s hair had fallen down over her shoulders in thin dark coils, but Chloe knew that even the generous amount left on top of her head would not protect her from the cat’s claws. Ian was trying to pull the cat off, but Giles clawed and ripped again, tearing at her ears, face and neck. Chloe heard Robert yell her name.

  Ian managed to pull the cat from his sister’s head, but Giles thrashed so wildly that Ian was forced to release him. The cat pushed off of Ian and leapt onto the table, knocking over the lamp that Alexander had lit and sending it rolling off the desk. It hit the floor and shattered at the base of the window. A few agonizing seconds passed as smoke curled up from the carpet and then a flame blazed. The flame caught the curtains and climbed.

  Robert stomped the carpet, and others were tearing the curtains down and stomping them. Chloe cranked the projector handle, but the mass of people running back and forth prevented her from seeing what was on the wall. Someone called for water, but the flames were already out.

  Dora was beside Chloe in a moment, dragging the constable by the arm.

  “Arrest her!” Dora’s face was mottled and her hair was wild. Blood was beading up from the long thin cuts along her face and neck.

  The constable hesitated.

  “I know it was you,” said Chloe. “And I know why you did it. Mr. Graves. The blackmail. And the pennyroyal tea.”

  She saw a flicker of something behind Dora’s eyes. Then her face grew wild and her lips pulled back from her teeth. She gave a roar, guttural and terrible and launched herself at Chloe. Her momentum pushed both women against the wall. Chloe’s world blurred and her ears roared as Dora struck her across the face again and again. Pain exploded from her nose, the side of her face and her mouth. Chloe got one hard strike at Dora and had just registered the metallic taste of blood when Dora was gone. The constable had her arms pulled behind her back. Aside from Dora’s curses, the room had fallen silent, absolutely silent. Dora turned to look at something.

  All Chloe heard was the blood pounding in her ears and the ratcheting sound of the projector. Miss Haynes was motionless with her eyes fixed on the far wall and the constable eventually turned as well.

  Alexander was turning the handle. On the wall was the back of a dark-haired woman, kneeling over the prostrate form of a blonde woman who was motionless on the ground, a broken zoetrope on the ground nearby. The camera moved now and then, blurring and refocusing on the image, but there was no mistaking the dark-haired woman’s arms as they rose and fell over and over, until they slowed and
stopped. She heaved aside a rock that was light with dark smears. She rose and stood for a long time, looking at the dead woman at her feet.

  Chapter 45

  Inspector Lockton leaned back against the edge of Ambrose’s desk and Chloe sat in her husband’s chair, backed against the wall. Miss Haynes handed Chloe a cool rag, which she held to her split lip. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but there would be swelling and she was fairly sure a black eye was in her future. Her nose was bruised but unbroken, and had only bled a little.

  “I’ll say one thing for Dora, the woman can hit,” Chloe mumbled through the rag.

  “Three constables are escorting her to the station. She won’t be able to harm you or anyone else again. Now, I need you to tell me everything.” He had a notebook out, but no pencil. She doubted he would need one.

  “Where do you want to start?” she asked.

  “Why did Dora kill Camille Granger?”

  “Blackmail. Camille was blackmailing her because Dora found herself with child thanks to Robert’s tutor, Mr. Graves. Then, after Dora rid herself of the pregnancy, Camille decided to blackmail her. Dora killed her to end it.”

  “And how on earth did you learn this? What proof do you have?”

  “During Camille’s funeral, I took the liberty of exploring Camille’s laboratory; looking for the hound’s schematics. I stumbled across a little box filled with money—hidden money that she was saving up to escape her husband. I wondered where it had come from. How had she collected so much money simply from selling a few items of jewelry?

  “The hound is actually what provided the most important clue. It was hiding things in that little hole in the rocks near the bog. The hound seemed to like performing repetitive actions, and it copied its mistress. Camille would check the hiding place, where Dora would regularly leave money or various valuable items. So the hound did likewise, opening and closing the hole, leaving and removing coins and other detritus.”

  “So Dora was leaving items in the hiding hole as a blackmail payoff to Camille.”

  “Exactly. The hound was also trying to copy Camille’s actions when she worked to recharge its battery. The cadmium and nickel battery required regular infusions of an alkaline solution. Because Camille was saving up her money to escape, she found a way to make her own solution using fen water and ashes. One night, I saw the hound scoop up ashes in its mouth, which only made sense after I remembered my visit to Camille’s laboratory. I found a bottle of the fen water and ash solution in her laboratory and ph tested it. It had the same ph as potassium hydroxide which is used in the cadmium and nickel battery. She was making a homemade alkaline solution.”

  “As fascinating as I am sure that is, I need to know about the blackmail and the murder.”

  “Right, I’m getting there. Ambrose and I knew that the hound might be hiding, and we searched for it. A vital clue came when we saw the Hammond’s shed. The hound had come looking for machine cleaning solvent. That’s what led us to the mine, where they used the solvent to clean machinery. The solvent is also an alkaline, so Camille may have used it to try to make the solution for the battery.

  “We found that the hound had another hiding place deep in the mine where it kept odds and ends in a crate. Included among the things it kept were data spools. See, when I took apart the hound earlier this evening, I discovered that it stored data on replaceable spools. Now, even an advanced mechanical like Giles only has a certain number of spools, and I would have to put them in and take them out. But Camille designed the hound so it could replace its own spools. The cloth cover on its abdomen had a simple bone button and the panel underneath had a simple hook closure. The hound could take its memory spools in and out itself. And it did.

  “When I took it apart, I realized that the hound not only had a decision engine, but an extra processing engine connected to a series of wires from its head that seemed useless. It turns out that Camille gave it a way to generate a small amount of light, but more importantly, it had a camera. It was able to record images. That’s why I had to escape from the cell. I needed to get all the spools, from the mine and from inside the hound, and play them. Camille had a playback machine in her laboratory, but Mr. Granger had probably destroyed it. Ambrose had a similar one, so I brought the spools here.”

  “We found the thing you built to keep the cell door from closing completely. Clever.”

  “Thank you. Now, after witnessing its mistress’s murder, what did the hound do? It attacked a shop dummy dressed as a woman as well as a scarecrow wearing a skirt.”

  “You think it was imitating the murder?” asked Lockton.

  “I’m not sure. The scarecrow had brown yarn for hair, but I’m not sure what the shop dummy looked like. Was it trying to avenge Camille or imitate Dora?”

  “If I recall, the dummy had a black wig. I was called in to look at the shop window.”

  “Interesting …” She paused, lost in thought before continuing. She supposed there was no way for her to ever know if the hound had acted in imitation or vengeance. “Ambrose and I also found the second part of the zoetrope in the mine, you recall. In the recording, Camille had the zoetrope near her hand. Dora must have brought it as a blackmail payment, and put it into the hiding hole. She waited until Camille took it, then bashed her over the head with a rock. The zoetrope breaks, and after Dora leaves, the hound took pieces to the hiding hole and its cave.”

  “So how do you figure that Dora was being blackmailed?”

  “When we first arrived, Ambrose asked about the son of an old friend named Graves. The son was working here as Robert’s tutor. We learned that he had left suddenly, supposedly because his mother had fallen ill. However, Ambrose wrote to the elder Graves and received a letter back. Guess who delivered the letter to us?”

  “Dora?”

  “Yes. Beatrice and Robert were there too, but Dora must have seen the return address. The letter revealed that the younger Graves was released because he and Dora had become too close. At least, the letter hinted at it. The tutor sounded heartbroken when he returned home, as if he and Dora had been very much in love. I spoke with Robert, and though he wouldn’t confirm it, his manner suggested that Mr. Graves had, indeed, been released because of his relationship with Dora.

  “Now, when we first arrived for our visit, Mr. Baxter, Dora’s fiancé, came for supper. Baxter mentioned an illness that his men had suffered in the Klondike. Mrs. Malone said that Dora had suffered a similar illness last winter, which was right around the time Mr. Graves was ordered to leave. Ambrose was intrigued, as he usually is when an herb or plant is in some way unusual.

  “Later on, Ambrose had mentioned over supper that he was meeting with Mr. Baxter to discuss a publishing and investment business that would mutually benefit them both. He also was still intrigued by the symptoms that the men had exhibited. See, they had the symptoms of pennyroyal, an herb used to rid a woman of pregnancy.”

  “But they were men.”

  “Yes. And I don’t even know if they have pennyroyal in the Americas. But the symptoms were similar enough for Mrs. Malone to mention it over supper. Dora must have started to see Ambrose putting together the puzzle. He knew that she had symptoms of pennyroyal use in December. And she suspected that he had learned from the letter that Graves had not left because of an ill mother.

  “Then, when Ambrose said he was going to discuss things with Mr. Baxter, I think she panicked. When she saw the soup that Mrs. Block had always prepared for sick members of the household, she knew he would be eating it. She gathered some mushrooms, chopped them and added them. Thus she could rid herself of any risk to her upcoming marriage.”

  “Do you think Mr. Sullivan had figured out everything?”

  Chloe shook her head. “I’m not sure. He said ‘Graves’ as he lay dying, but he also said other things. I don’t think he put it all together, but he might have, given enough time. What I do know is that Dora must have thought he knew something. And I know that Josephine died for nothing.”


  The inspector nodded and paused for a moment out of respect. “How did you learn about the pennyroyal?”

  “I saw that Mad Maggie had jars and jars of herbs in her kitchen. I know that many locals would come to her for remedies, especially people who couldn’t afford a doctor. But I also knew that women have been coming to people like her for centuries to rid themselves of unwanted babes. So once I knew that Dora may have carried Graves’s child, I asked Rebecca Hammond. She worked as an assistant to the three lady’s maids in this house. She told me how she had to get tea, special medicinal tea, from Mad Maggie. She also mentioned that both Dora and her maid fell ill, and again, it was the symptoms of pennyroyal.”

  “Why would her maid become ill?”

  “It is not unusual for a maid to finish up a pot of tea that her mistress left. If I understand herbal remedies properly, Dora would have had to drink as much of the pot as she could. If her maid did not know what kind of herb was in it, she may have decided to finish off the pot. So she had similar symptoms, but milder.”

  “And Miss Hammond told you this?” He pulled out a pencil and made a note.

  “Yes, she also told me that Camille had come by to visit Dora that day. They were close, from what she said. Camille was brilliant, and if she knew that Dora and Mr. Graves were lovers, or even if she merely suspected it, she may have noticed the effects of the tea and deduced that Dora’s goal was to lose the babe. Maybe she had even used such a concoction herself.”

  “Your opinion of Mrs. Granger seems to have fallen.”

  “She was a blackmailer as well as an adulterer.”

  “The letters from Alexander?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think Dora killed Camille so she wouldn’t be blackmailed any longer?”