by Viola Carr
“Beefy Mr. Sykes here has a nervous disposition, you know that,” added Sinclair. “Don’t provoke him, or I’ll have to take your books away again.”
“Kind of you, William,” remarked Todd. “Politely put. Manners appear to be in short supply this morning.”
“Nervous, my arse,” growled bristle-headed Sykes, and jabbed the electric stick in harder.
Fairfax waved Sykes back. “Enough. I don’t want residual effects spoiling my treatment. Bring him to my new laboratory, Mr. Sinclair. Full restraints.” And Fairfax marched away.
“Your funeral,” Sykes grunted, and lumbered off, his glittering hoop stick fading into the dark.
Todd straightened, wriggling his filthy clothes back into place. He popped his neck, a crackle of stiff joints. Not easy, with his elbows pinned behind him. “Alone at last. How are you, Eliza? You and your shadow?”
His knowing gaze made her flinch. Mr. Todd wasn’t fey, so far as she knew. Just very strange. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean—”
“Oh, never mind William,” said Todd airily. “We can talk in front of him. He’ll not speak a word of it. Too many wicked secrets of his own, you see. Closet hip-deep in skeletons. Shocking.”
Will Sinclair smiled apologetically, his tea-brown eyes tired but bright. His cheekbone sported a yellow bruise, the relic of some scuffle. “He says that about everyone.”
“He’s secretly in love with me, you know,” Todd confided. “It’s embarrassing, the way he shuffles and stammers. I’ve told you before, William, I’m not your type.”
“Woe! How ever shall I survive my broken heart?” A faint blush stained Will’s cheeks. “If I take my eyes off you, will you run away again, Mr. Todd? Or must Dr. Jekyll and I tie you down to win a few moments of civilized conversation?”
“Now there’s a diverting prospect.” Todd tossed his wild red hair and grinned, feral. “By all means, you amorous beast. Civilize away.”
“Thank you.” Will made a little bow in her direction. “Hello, Doctor. Not often we see you in these parts.”
“A habit I’d have preferred to keep,” she said briskly. “I missed you at the most recent Sydenham symposium, Will. A demonstration of a pneumatic levitator. Only in prototype, of course, but it was amazing. Mr. Paxton proposes to build a railway across the Thames using this very idea. Imagine that.”
Will’s young face fell. “But it sounds wonderful. I’m sorry I missed it. I meant to go, but Sir Jedediah insisted. My surgery studies, you know.”
Todd giggled. “Molding you into a little Fairfax, is he? What a revolting idea.”
“No apology necessary, Will,” said Eliza, ignoring Todd. “Next time, I’m sure.”
“Definitely. One must endeavor to improve oneself in every possible way.”
“I quite agree.”
“I’m glad.” Will fidgeted, rolling the canvas jacket in two hands. “Perhaps . . . you and I could attend together? If you’re not too busy, that is.”
She flushed. “Oh. Well. Ah . . . certainly. I’d be delighted.”
Will beamed. He was only twenty-one, and his beard didn’t make him look any older. “Excellent. Galvanism this time, isn’t it?”
“I believe so. Animal electricity and its effects on the human form. It’s highly anticipated.”
“Oh, well done, Eliza,” murmured Todd, an impish glint in his eyes that disturbed her. The symposium was merely a shared professional interest. And she liked Will. He was kindly and clever. But suddenly, she wished she could take it back.
Will hefted the buckled jacket. “Now, Mr. Todd, will you play nicely while we put this on?”
“Of course, old bean,” said Todd. “So long as Eliza answers my question. Otherwise, I declare, I shall wail and kick and gnash my teeth, and our nervously disposed Mr. Sykes will come lumbering in with his whip and there’ll be all that tedious messing about with bridles and thumbscrews. And who’ll have to wipe up the blood? Not I, William, I can promise you that. I’m quite mad, don’t you know. They don’t trust me with mops and buckets—”
“Lest we be here all day,” Eliza interrupted, the image of his elegant hands bleeding in metal clamps wriggling in her stomach like a snake, “I assure you, Mr. Todd, I’m perfectly well.”
“And your shadow?” he murmured, intent. “I think she’s troubling you. I read this morning’s press. A most delicious revenge tableau.”
Her throat corked, dry. How on earth did Todd know about Lizzie and Billy Beane?
“The ballerina, I mean,” he added, watching her squirm. “I expect that’s the theory your tragic Inspector Griffin is spouting. ‘Revenge, sir! Vile enemies! Feuding families, ahoy!’ Stupidly clever of him, I’m sure. Are you quite all right, Eliza? Your pretty cheeks are rather pale—”
“What do you mean,” she cut in, “stupidly clever?”
Innocently, Todd lounged against the wall. “Oh, never mind me. I do claim a certain affinity with these matters. But I’m sure it’s nothing . . .”
Mentally, she smacked herself. Classic lunatic behavior. Attention-seeking, self-aggrandizement. She should know better than to take his bait . . . “Explain, if you please.”
An idle shrug. “It’s all there in the reports. I’d hoped you of all people would read the signs. Your budding artist isn’t angry or vengeful. Heavens, no. He’s hopelessly in love.”
“What?” Her senses eclipsed, and she fought to stand straight. Whispers in her hair, the warm kiss of steel: let me show you . . .
Will touched her elbow. “Come now, enough. No need to discuss such vulgarities.”
“It’s desperately romantic, Eliza,” murmured Todd, “if not particularly elegant. His passion consumes his reason, and it’s still hungry. If you don’t soon find another . . . love letter scribbled in blood, shall we say . . . I, for one, should be all astonishment.”
That’s what you’ve come for, isn’t it? A cold specter drifted from her memory. To dance with my shadow?
Will cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mr. Todd. As ever, your peculiar wisdom astounds. Now, I’m sorry to say Mr. Fairfax awaits—”
“Dr. Jekyll!” Bootsteps echoed smartly along the corridor. A determined, military stride.
With a sinking heart, Eliza turned.
“Dr. Jekyll, my dear fellow.” Captain Lafayette of the Royal grinned at her. He’d freshened up since she’d glimpsed him that morning in Seven Dials. Clean-shaven, hat tucked under his arm, his coat a blaze of scarlet in the dank corridor. “Lady, that is. I’m so glad I found you. You must come at once . . . good God.” He inhaled with a grimace. “This place stinks like a zoo.”
Behind her—yes, there—Mr. Todd chuckled.
Eliza whirled, jittery. But Todd just stared at Lafayette, enthralled. “Oh, I say,” he whispered. “Hello, shadow.”
She swallowed. “I, er . . . I don’t smell anything, Captain. What brings you here?”
Lafayette was still wrinkling his nose. “Whoever is this odd crimson fellow?”
Eliza smiled, dazed. Introductions in a lunatic asylum. This day just kept getting stranger. “Allow me, gentlemen. Captain Remy Lafayette of the Royal Society, may I present Mr. William Sinclair, student of surgery, and Mr. Malachi Todd, er . . . lunatic.”
“Razor Jack.” Lafayette studied him, hostile. “Fascinating. I thought you’d be taller.”
Mildly, Todd met his stare. “A Royal Society lackey. Disappointing. I’d hoped you’d be smarter. Eliza, can we do without the lapdog?”
Lafayette bristled. “Nice shackles. Do they hurt?”
“Nice sword. Perhaps I’ll try it out on your face. Do you think that’d hurt?”
Hastily, Will edged between them, lifting his hands in peace. “If you please, Captain, step away with your weapon.”
“Why? He looks harmless enough to me.” Lafayette didn’t budge. Didn’t shift his gaze.
Todd grinned like a hungry eel. “That’s what they all thought.”
“For heaven’s sak
e, gentlemen,” interrupted Eliza, “the miasma of male pride is choking me. Shall we draw pistols at dawn?” Firmly, she took Lafayette’s elbow. “Come along, Captain. Thank you, Will, I’ll see you on Tuesday morning at the Crystal Palace. Good day, Mr. Todd.” And she hustled Lafayette up the corridor and away.
“Do visit me again, Eliza,” Todd called after her, his voice fading into the distance. “When you find another. And give Harley Griffin my regards.”
Eliza clutched her box of bottles tightly as she and Lafayette strode through the ladies’ ward. Miss Lucy hissed at them, baring her chiseled teeth, greedy eyes tracking the impeccably dressed captain. “You smell goood, animal.”
Lafayette cocked that single eyebrow. “Lovely office you keep. Such charming staff.”
“Yes, well. Look to your virtue, Captain. They don’t meet many dashing young officers in here.”
“Lucky me,” he commented dryly. “Do you meet many dashing young officers, Doctor?”
“Lately?” She smiled sweetly. “None.”
“You wound me, madam.”
“Really? How quaint. I imagine you as barely bruised.”
A grin. “But you do imagine me.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“When I decide to push, Doctor, luck will not come into it.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Whatever was that madman raving about, ‘shadow’? And another what?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion,” said Eliza shortly, sidestepping the palsied old woman, who was still making determined circuits of the ward. “That’s what ‘madman’ means. And mind your manners around him, if you please. Dignity is all he has.”
“Weren’t you the one who put him away? Didn’t know you and he were friends.”
She flushed. “We are not friends. I simply have no wish to make Will’s job any harder than it already is. Rudeness upsets Mr. Todd, and when Mr. Todd gets upset, people get hurt.”
“Fair enough. I apologize. The fellow back-combed my fur, I confess.”
She waved at Annie the pig girl and smiled. “A descriptive turn of phrase. He has that effect on most people.”
“But not on you.” A sidelong blue glance.
“He’s not my patient. I’m really not interested one way or the other.” The warder unlocked the gate, and Eliza halted on the landing, gray skirts swirling. “Can you see yourself out from here? I have rounds to complete.”
“Then complete them later.” Lafayette was already tugging her down the stairs. “Come along, Dr. Jekyll. No time to lose. Consider your services retained by the Royal.”
Evil visions of the Tower’s dank electrified cells flitted through her mind, the rats, the rusted instruments of torture. Was he dragging her off to interrogate her? The box of Finch’s alchemical tinctures under her arm suddenly loomed like a murder weapon, incriminating. Not to mention the two sniggering black flasks in her bag. God help her.
She tried to shake him off, bottles rattling, but his grip wouldn’t shift. She stumbled over her skirts. “Whatever for? I assure you, I’ve done nothing—”
“Not for that. At least, not yet.” Lafayette grinned, and it lit his eyes with disarming excitement. “It’s another murder scene, Doctor. I think you’ll find it familiar.”
SCRIBBLED IN BLOOD
THE TALL FAUX-SANDSTONE COLUMNS OF THE EGYPTIAN Hall in Piccadilly swallowed the doorway in deep shadow. Twin pedestaled colossi of ancient queens in Egyptian headdress loomed above. Eliza stared up at them as Lafayette handed her from the carriage, Hippocrates jumping down at her side. The place looked like a tomb. “Another theater?”
“Just so. Come along.” Lafayette ushered her down the muddy side street, his hand at the small of her back. Behind the Hall lay a bare stone courtyard, surrounded by a wooden fence and overlooked by a pair of large black-painted windows.
Policemen milled about in their blue brass-buttoned coats, protecting the familiar screen of bedsheets from a thickening crowd. Scruffy boys, a pinch-faced governess or lady’s maid in a drab black dress, a haughty old lady wearing elbow-length gloves and veils who looked down her nose when Eliza and Lafayette shouldered through with murmured apologies.
Lizzie scowled. Everyone loves a murder, eh? Villains in the night, tragic heroines splattered in gore. Better than an opera. Bloody vultures.
On cue, Eliza spied Mr. Temple, the penny-pamphlet writer, lurking in a corner with his sketch pad out. She signaled to a policeman, secretly gleeful. “Constable, kindly escort this gentleman in the lime-green waistcoat from the scene. I believe he’s contaminating the evidence.”
“Oi!” Temple fought, but a grin played over his face, and he called over his shoulder as two uniformed men dragged him away. “This is an outrage, madam! I’m merely doing my job!”
“So am I, Mr. Temple. Good day.”
She and Lafayette stepped around the barrier. Inspector Griffin motioned them over. A dead woman lay at his feet, a sprawl of blueberry skirts stained with blood. Young, pretty, tangled black hair stark against her death-white skin. Like Miss Pavlova, this woman had no feet.
And no hands.
Todd’s words echoed uneasily in Eliza’s mind. I should be all astonishment . . .
Her stomach rippled, sick. Every murder victim made her sad, angry, a little helpless. Much good her science did them now. All that remained to them was justice, and even that proved sadly elusive in a world where monsters walked free.
Aye, never mind, whispered Lizzie darkly. Just another dead girl. And girls can be replaced, can’t they? Can always get another wife. Another daughter to eat your food and spend your money, another housemaid to scrub and haul, another whore to make you feel good . . .
“Still here, Griffin?” asked Lafayette breezily. “Outside your division, isn’t it? Hadn’t you better stick to Haymarket, where the crooks all tremble at the very twirl of your mustaches?”
“Lafayette, how nice to see you again.” Griffin didn’t bother to look up from his notebook. “This is still my case. The Commissioner insisted, I’m afraid. Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Don’t be, Inspector. You’re so very good at it.”
“Honestly, Captain, have you no male friends?” Firmly, Eliza pushed him aside. She, for one, was pleased to find Griffin at the scene, and not one of his rude colleagues.
She surveyed the body, pulling her optical from its bag and affixing it to her head in readiness. “Do we know her name, Inspector?”
“Miss Ophelia Maskelyne,” said Griffin. “Known hereabouts as ‘The Mysterious Disappearing Ophelia.’”
Memory flashed, an oil painting of a beautiful drowning girl, her flaxen hair swirling in dark water . . . She shook herself. This was no time to let Mr. Todd and his sly allusions muddle her mind.
Any more than he’s done already, missy . . .
“She’s a stage magician, playing at the Egyptian,” added Griffin. “It’s a family outfit. They’re quite well known.”
“A magic show?” Eliza glanced at Lafayette.
The captain shrugged. “I’ve seen their act. Garish but entertaining. They have the Royal’s stamp of approval.”
“And how does one earn such a precious jewel, pray?”
“By proving there’s no magic in it, of course. You show the investigators the secret of every trick. Get it duplicated by our committee of experimenters. They document it, sign it off. It’s quite simple.”
“Wonderful,” Griffin muttered. “You chaps take the fun out of everything.”
“Fun is permitted. Just not dangerous superstition.”
“Excellent. I’ll remember that, next time the Royal burn some poor fellow in St. Paul’s churchyard for speaking his mind.”
“There’s free thinking, Inspector, and then there’s treason. Not the same thing.”
“Really? My mistake.”
“Truce, please,” cut in Eliza. “Shall we help poor Miss Maskelyne tell her tale?” She bent closer to the body, careful not to disturb the pooling blood, an
d pulled on her white gloves. “Her face is bruised,” she pointed out. “A black eye. Also her throat. When was her body discovered?”
“Time,” demanded Hippocrates importantly. “Information please.”
“Hush, Hipp, just record, please. Inspector?”
“Not until around midday. Possibly missing since late yesterday,” added Griffin. He nodded towards a pale, dark-eyed fellow with dramatic elbow-length black hair and a bowler hat. “That’s the brother, Lysander Maskelyne. Apparently she pleaded illness last evening and didn’t go onstage.”
“And no one thought to look for her since? Not a close family, are they?”
“Or simply late risers. These theater types do tend to over-indulge.”
“A generalization, surely.”
“Surely,” agreed Griffin. “But the banal explanation is usually the truth. We need not seek criminal conspiracies under every rock.” He shot a sharp glare at Lafayette. “Need we?”
Eliza stifled a smile. “The most likely explanation is the one requiring the simplest causes. The Occam’s razor of crime. How illuminating.”
Hippocrates ground his cogs. “Logical,” he trumpeted happily. “Conclusion computes.”
“Naught but weary experience, I’m afraid,” said Griffin. “Besides, they say William of Occam was secretly an alchemist. How disreputable of him.”
“Some say the Philosopher was an alchemist, too, in his day,” reminded Eliza archly. “Just not a very successful one. Fools, obviously, I should say. What an outlandish notion.”
Dramatically, Lafayette slapped his palms over his ears. “Tra-la-la. Sorry, what was that? I say, you vile rebels, carry on pretending I’m not here, long as you like.” He wandered away across the yard, sniffing the air and humming to himself.
Griffin glanced after him, perplexed. “I’d swear that fellow’s an idiot, but . . .”
“But,” agreed Eliza. “I know exactly what you mean. Shall we carry on?”