The Crimson Inkwell

by Kenneth A Baldwin

  “Everything is quite well,” I said. “Excuse me. I guess I’m just a bit distracted this morning.”

  “Wouldn’t be a good writer if you weren’t distracted,” he said smiling. He took another half teaspoon of sugar and dumped it into his cup. “Have you tried the scones? Mrs. Barker tried to infuse them with some lavender, and I think they’re a delight.”

  “I have, and they’re quite good. Listen,” I began, “I went down to the Dawnhurst Police Station yesterday.” He lowered his paper.

  “Luella, say you didn’t. You promised me.”

  “Well, I didn’t just go to stir up trouble. My father used to be friends with a police sergeant there. I went to check in.”

  “Just went to check in? Do you go there often?” he asked. I shook my head sheepishly. I hadn’t been since before my father died.

  “I’m no fool, Luella. Went to check in, rubbish! The police station! Who knows what rough lot you ran into down there?”

  “It was time to rekindle an old relationship. One that might benefit my safety. It’s never a bad thing to be friendly with the police force. And, if I might also prevail on him to provide some interesting news of what’s been happening about the city, that’s just the nature of the conversation. I can’t help that, can I?”

  “I’m sorry that you had to go about this business. I should have hired someone,” he said, rising to his feet. He folded his newspaper and threw it on the table, looking unequivocally guilty.

  “It wasn’t bad. There’s no need to overreact,” I insisted. “In fact, as luck would have it, he did have an interesting story to share.”

  He braced himself. I could see the tension in his muscles make his back go rigid. He clearly did not feel comfortable with the image of me out there getting into the mud and grit he imagined came with investigating a crime thriller.

  “I’m excited to hear it,” he managed through pursed lips.

  I took a deep breath. “Well, at the station yesterday, I met a man named Lieutenant Edward Thomas. He was in the middle of being berated by his superior officer, Sergeant Cooper (my late father’s friend), because of a report Edward had filed the previous day.” I felt his first name on my tongue like honey. Edward. How exotic to be on a first name basis with a police lieutenant—a young one, not a stodgy sergeant that looked at me like a little girl.

  “It turns out, the evening before, he was on patrol in a darker area in Southside Dawnhurst. It was a cold evening, and the fog was settling in. Soon, it was nearly so thick that he could hardly see between one lamp and the next. He thought he might try to find some higher ground or go get an extra lantern, when he thought he saw a woman walking alone at a tremendous pace through the night on the other side of the street. He thought it uncommon for a woman to be out at this time of night by herself in such a rough part of town. So, he set off to follow her.”

  Recalling the story out loud, in my own words, made me feel as if I had been there, which after my dream last night, I suppose in some ways I had. Living it through retelling made me breathe in the fear and wonder Edward must have felt on the job. He must have been possessed by an outlandish courage. How formidable and daunting to be a policeman in this day and age.

  “Did he find the poor woman?” Byron asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

  “That’s just it. As he stepped into the street, he saw a shadowy figure pass in the fog, under the same lamp where he had seen the woman. The man, or so he assumed it was a man, followed exactly in her wake at an even more furious pace. Edward recognized at once the gait of an assailant, and he gave chase.”

  “Good gracious,” Byron exclaimed, leaning back in his chair. “This in our own city? And you walked home alone last night, I imagine, as well.”

  “Don’t get too excited about all that, Byron! Just hear the story out,” I said. “He ran through the fog after the assailant and, consequently, after the woman. The three of them continued at length down the street. Through the fog, he could see a vague silhouette of the woman when she passed under a gas lamp ahead and a much more distinct silhouette of the man, until finally the woman ahead tucked behind a corner into an alleyway. The man followed right after her.”

  “Then, Edward heard an ear-piercing scream. He ran to catch up, dreading that he was too late to save the woman, but when he arrived, he saw her, braced up against the alley’s brick wall, looking like fear itself. On the ground in front of her lay the assailant, dead, garbed all in black. And, standing next to the assailant was what Edward described as a fog man.”

  “A fog man?” Byron said, eyes alternating between wide disbelief and narrow suspicion.

  “The fog man looked directly at him with a mostly transparent, gaseous face. Instead of eyes, it simply had indentations in the fog, much like you might see if you impressed a divot into mashed potatoes with a spoon. The fog man turned, took a few steps at an astounding speed, and jumped into the night, pulling into himself all the dense fog that had moments before blanketed the street. The night was now clear as still water. Edward ran out of the alley to get a better look at the thing, but he found nothing. When he returned to the alley, the woman was gone. The body remained.”

  Byron sat in silence for a good while at the end of my story. He took out his pipe in that fatherly way of his and stood by the window, puffing and thinking. The silence gave me a moment to reflect on the eeriness of the tale and the very concrete dream I had the night before. A dream where my father was a masked assailant, and I was detective and victim all at once. I shuddered and pulled my shawl closer around my shoulders. Why didn’t Byron ever stoke the fire? Not even his bird felt like singing on a cold, overcast day like this.

  “So, what do you think? Should we publish it?” I asked, finally.

  “You mean as a piece of fiction?” he replied, with an overtly stoic gaze. Fiction?

  “As an article in the Miscellany,” I said, “like my other articles.”

  “Would we be purporting that this article was a factual police incident?”

  “It was a police report! That’s why Edward took such heat from his superior,” I insisted. “Don’t you see? The credibility of the police officer is what makes the whole story worthwhile at all.”

  “So, you want to set the city into an uproar. What would people do if they actually believed a murderous fog creature was roaming about?” He tapped his foot.

  “Well, at least we’d be making ripples again. Heaven’s sakes, Byron, I feel like I’ve been eating table scraps since “At Home with a Woman.” This could be a chance to be talked about again. Maybe even, heaven forbid, a story that could put me at least in the running for the Golden Inkwell this year.”

  He scoffed and quickly recovered but not before it hurt. A scoff? He didn’t think I’d ever be in the running for the Golden Inkwell. I shut my eyes. I hadn’t said I had a chance at winning. I just wanted to be in the running. It’s not like I said I wanted to win the whole thing. My betrothed’s disdainful expression seared into my memory like a hot iron.

  Perhaps he was right. It was just like me to let my dreams outrun my feet. Byron would know.

  “Don’t you worry that we’d be slandering a poor man’s reputation as a fanciful lunatic?” Byron asked in a gently apologetic tone. “I made a promise to myself, Luella, that I wouldn’t get into that type of journalism.”

  “Sergeant Cooper brought that up, but I’ve worked it all out already. We can give him a pen name, The Steely-Eyed Detective,” I said with a flourish of the hands.

  “Steely-Eyed Detective?” he echoed. I saw his brain masticate the words, tasting a bitter flavor. In his eyes, I saw the briefest flash of mistrust, betrayal, even pain.

  “Or some other title that will keep the ladies buying at the newsstands,” I said. “You were worried about my sensitive nature being offended by digging up these stories, but you still have much to learn about women. Not only do we hope for this type of story, but we live for it. They’ll be chattering in groups on the stre
ets, banding together. Our story, whether it be true or not, will follow them home at night, keep them scared of mysterious shadows. They’ll jump at sudden noises and giggle about it with their friends.”

  “That would be quite the spectacle. You’re sure the police are willing to stand by it?” The warmth and color in his face returned gradually as he took the bait. Steely-Eyed Detective was just a moniker to sell a publication. Our publication. I crossed the room to him and grasped his hands.

  “I’d bet my life on it.” He stared down at our locked hands and smiled deeply. I don’t know why I felt dishonest, but I didn’t have much time to think about it. Before I knew what was happening, he planted a big kiss on my lips.

  “Byron!” I cried, pulling away.

  “Apologies, apologies!” he stammered through a masked grin. He didn’t do a good job hiding how pleased he was with himself. “That was forward of me and improper.”

  “Hardly,” I justified to him and myself. “We are engaged after all. I was just—well, just surprised. And we’re standing right in front of this window where everyone could see.”

  He laughed. He rarely laughed, but it was my favorite of his characteristics. His laugh was infectious and oafish, and I couldn’t help but smile with him. “The devil with all of them,” he said. “We’re about to publish ‘The Steely-Eyed Detective and the Fog Man Caper’!”

  I almost felt an urge him to kiss him right back.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Carnival

  THE STORY WENT over better than we could have hoped. I wrote it up in a fury, filled with renewed exhilaration for the work after Byron’s endorsement. It felt so much easier getting through production when I wasn’t going on and on about table napkins or the intricacies of lapels. The words came out as if on their own. It felt like the story wanted to be told and was just waiting for me to put a pen to paper. Later that week, when I saw “The Steely-Eyed Detective” printed in capital letters on the front page of Langley’s Miscellany, I felt an absurd rush go to my head.

  I’ll never be able to repay Byron for the gamble he took on me. Rather than just appease my bold story idea, he fully invested his time, attention, and resources as if it were his own passion project. He printed double his usual stock and called in favors he had been stockpiling with colleagues in the printing business. He ordered a no-holds-barred assault on a total rebrand.

  The whole business was exhilarating and terrifying. When our delivery man showed up to haul them off, I felt my stomach do backflips as if it were a trapeze artist. I kept staring out the window to look at the people on the streets. How could I not? At any moment, I might see someone pass by with one of our papers! These were the true critics. The lady pushing a pram. The chimney sweep between shifts. The vendors hawking their merchandise. The businessmen. The factory girls. The working girls. The policemen. Brutus had words to cut us with, but these people wielded indifference and purse strings. With the investment we had put in, their apathy could ruin more than my ego.

  The first day after publication, we noted nothing extraordinary. We met our usual figures in sales, and with the double order weight on my shoulders, I was just about ready to call it quits with the writing business. Guilt swept over me like a rogue wave. I didn’t think a gamble like this would ruin my betrothed, but even if he could absorb the loss, could I ever repay a debt like that? It was hardly a way to begin a marriage. I could tell Byron was nervous as well, less by his reactions to the boy who brought tidings from the newsstands and more by his inherent excitement each time that boy rang the door.

  At home, I couldn’t eat a thing, despite Anna’s insistence. I was a right fool to think a petty ghost story was going to turn the publishing business on its head. To think my head had been filled with thoughts of smashing success, and the Golden Inkwell no less. What was more common and banal than a ghost story? I’d turned Langley’s into a mere drunkard spouting tales at a pub!

  That night, after finally falling asleep, I found myself sitting in the church where my father was buried. Tall stone columns held up its high ceiling, just the way I remembered it from his funeral, but fog spread heavily in the church like a visible blanket, as if the guilt of its Sunday attendees settled like smoke. It felt unsettling and cold; I recognized it at once as the fog from my previous nightmare. I sat in the middle of the pews, seats stretching out in each direction. I could hardly see three benches away from me, what with the fog, though pinpricks of candlelight from the front of the chapel called through the haze like beacons of another life.

  “My darling Luella,” I heard a voice say, and there sat my father like a phantom, his face creased in deep smile-carved wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. They shone brightly at me, as blue as though he were still living and enjoying the coursing blood of mortality.

  “Papa!” I cried, wrapping him in an embrace. I knew it was a dream—it had to be—but I felt the coarse, wool jacket he used to wear on my arms and the scratch of his whiskers on my cheek. It had been so long since I’d seen him, even in the unearthly realm of sleep. I missed even the dream of my father. “Is this real?”

  “What say we avoid answering as long as we can, eh?” He brushed a stray hair from my face.

  “Papa, I miss you so much. Tell me this isn’t just a dream. Tell me it’s a visit. Tell me you’re still out there somewhere.” He put a finger to my lips to quiet me and suggest the topic was as taboo as complaining about one of my mother’s meals.

  “By George, the church looks queer though, doesn’t it? Did it always look like this?”

  “I had the most terrible dream about you. You—you killed someone! It shook me so deeply.”

  “Well, I hope the bloke deserved it,” he said with a playful smile. I hit him in the arm.

  “I’m serious! It’s not a joke. The man was chasing a woman, and you came from the fog to kill him.”

  “My darling, didn’t I tell you when you were younger, if you dabble in ghost stories, nightmares are inevitable. And if you write ghost stories for the papers, you might as well invite demons to dinner.” He put an arm around me and laughed. The laugh was contagious and warm, just as I remembered. I leaned my head on his shoulder. There were a million questions I wanted to ask him, dream or not.

  “Are you proud of me, Papa?” I spat out ungracefully. “Of how I’ve cared for Anna? Of my writing?”

  He turned a thought over in his head and popped his jaw before answering.

  “I’m glad you’re finally getting a chance to write and not one of those rubbish stories meant just to keep you busy.”

  “Byron means well,” I said. “He’s given me a job and a wage.”

  “Me thinks you pay a steep price for your salary,” he said. I didn’t want to talk about Byron. I shook my head.

  “Do you think ‘The Steely-Eyed Detective’ will be a success?” I traced an old tattered patch on the arm of his coat. He took me by the shoulders and turned to face me.

  “You’re more than a single story. I know there’s more in you.”

  Tears welled in my eyes as I guessed at his meaning.

  “The Golden Inkwell. . . But, how could I? I’m trying, Papa, but I’m just a young girl from the east side,” I said. He smiled conspiratorially before standing and kissing my hand.

  “In that case, show ‘em what a poor girl from the east side can do.” He backed away from me until the fog swallowed him. I tried to follow but lost my way in the downy white until I surfaced, blinking in the morning light.

  It was still early, and I laid in bed stewing over my dream. Apart from my recent nightmare, I hadn’t dreamed of my father in years. He felt so real that the pain of his loss renewed afresh. I missed his guiding hand, the way he always seemed to know what he was about. I had tried my best for Anna since he died, but half the time, I felt I was guessing, and the other half I was making it up.

  My father’s words both encouraged and beleaguered me, but the more I thought on it, the more fanciful it all seemed to be. He w
as gone. It was just a dream, a silly dream for a silly girl who missed her father. I had more practical things to worry about. After all, I still had a hanging story that could sink my fiancé!

  After forcing down a quick breakfast of jam on half a piece of bread, I nearly ran to the print shop. When I opened the door, there was a ferocious spirit going on inside. Byron was abuzz with such an energy that I was afraid to approach him. A few men, whom I did not recognize, swept past me and out the door, and Mr. Storm and Mr. Jacob sat scribbling furiously at whatever flat surface they could manage.

  “Byron?” I interrupted, approaching him as he worked away at the office typewriter under the watchful eyes of Gerald Storm.

  “Everything’s a mess,” he said without pause. “I’ve got so much to put in place. So much to set straight. I don’t even know how I’ll manage!”

  “Is it that bad then? Is Langley’s ruined?” His words hit me like sledgehammers. I knew it. This was the end of me.

  “Ruined me? My darling, they’ve sold out completely. There’s not a copy of Langley’s Miscellany to be found anywhere!”

  Not one to be found? Anywhere?

  My knees buckled. Was this just a cruel prank?

  “You can’t be serious.” I gasped.

  “Serious? Why do you think I’m running around like this? I got in this morning, and there were requests for more batches! It seems our little print shop has taken on significantly more than I think we can muster! It’s absolutely glorious!”

  “Oh Byron! It’s wonderful!” I ran and enveloped him in a full embrace, hiding my tears over his shoulder. I did it. I actually wrote a success! My father’s smiling, clever face from the night before flashed through my mind, mingled with every happy memory of him. The whole journey of learning to read and write flushed over me until I was left gripping my father tightly. I did it, Papa! I did it.

  I was lost in a mixed state of my euphoria and reality. I couldn’t have expressed who I was embracing or who else was in the room, but I was embracing someone, not in supplication, but in victory.