by Viola Carr
She tilted her optical, ready to inspect the victim . . . but a chill threaded her bones.
A love letter scribbled in blood. What if Mr. Todd was right? What did it mean?
It means he’s a friggin’ lunatic, whispered Lizzie. He just wants your attention. Forget him.
A gulp of laughter threatened to escape Eliza’s lips. Forget him? Todd was her recurring nightmare. The evil dream that never ended. The stain that never, ever washed out.
But avoiding the evidence didn’t make a problem go away.
Briskly, she bent to inspect the woman’s sliced legs through a magnifying lens. “Similar angle of slice relative to cut,” she reported. “Same rolled edge of flesh and burr on the rim of the bone. And the forearms . . . yes. I would venture the same or similar instruments as our ballerina’s murderer. And . . .” She swabbed the corpse’s lips and added her golden solution from the dropper. The swab flooded bright green. “The same drug, whatever it is. We may indeed have a pattern. Or at the very least, an admiring imitator.”
“The Chopper,” indeed. Perhaps the bloodthirsty Mr. Temple would get his wish.
Your budding artist isn’t angry or vengeful, whispered Mr. Todd in her ear. He’s hopelessly in love . . .
But why would Todd help her? She’d stolen his freedom, locked him in a dark prison of madness and pain. Spoiled his art forever. He’d every reason to wish her ill.
Every reason, except . . .
Eliza chewed her lip, strange excitement tingling in her heart. What she had here was a multiple murderer. Killing women—surely, though two victims did not yet a modus operandi make—with meticulous, mathematical care. Evidence aplenty. Secret trails of tiny clues to unravel. A feast for a determined forensic investigator with unorthodox methods and no fear. These women would have justice. She’d make sure of it . . .
But she glimpsed Captain Lafayette of the Royal, resplendent in red, pottering about on the yard’s edge, and shivered. A feast, but also a deadly trap.
A punctilious killer. A suspicious Royal investigator. A cunning lunatic. Each with the power to ruin her.
She didn’t know whether to feel triumphant or terrified.
“Wonderful,” remarked Griffin dryly. “Ten yards from the rear of a crowded venue, our hero manages once again to amputate limbs without arousing attention and to spirit himself away unnoticed. Hurrah! I do so enjoy a resourceful maniac—”
“Inspector, Doctor.” Sergeant Porter strode up and tipped his hat to her. He was a gruff London man, all business, his graying mustaches bristling. “We’ve found the hands, sir.”
Eagerly, Eliza followed Porter to a dark corner of the yard.
Two severed hands, dumped carelessly in the refuse pile. Smeared with dirt, the skin pale and bloodless. Carefully sliced off, halfway up the forearms, a pair of clean cuts.
Lafayette was already crouching, poking the appendages with a stick. His coattails trailed in the dust. “Odd,” he commented, “that our man should trouble to cut them off, and then just toss them aside.”
“Not particularly normal to carry them away, either.”
“Illogical,” buzzed Hipp, his red unhappy light gleaming mournfully. “Behavior does not compute. Culprit unreasonable.”
Lafayette wrinkled his nose. “You say that as if it’s worse than ‘homicidal.’”
Eliza bent closer. “The fingers on the left hand are broken,” she reported, pointing. “The flesh is badly lacerated. And there’s bruising around both wrists. As if . . .” She flicked on a hand-held light, blue sparks showering. “Yes. Finger marks. I see the imprint of a ring on the left wrist. A broad one.”
“She struggled when the killer subdued her,” Lafayette suggested. “They fought, and her hands were injured.”
“Perhaps.” Eliza frowned. Cut them off, toss them aside. Maybe dropped by accident . . . “Put those in a bag, please, Sergeant Porter. And keep searching through this rubbish for the feet. Hipp, why don’t you help him?” Hipp thrashed his spindly legs and leapt for the refuse pile with a gleeful whirrr!, leaves and sticks scattering as he burrowed in. “Crime scene,” reminded Eliza after him. “Restrain your enthusiasm, there’s a good boy.” Hipp relapsed into kicking twigs aside one by one, muttering as he went.
“Perhaps?” prodded Lafayette, as Porter carefully scraped the appendages into a paper sack. “Speak your mind, madam.”
Eliza chewed her lip. Her unscientific instincts itched, dissatisfied. “Let me present to you a different scenario. Miss Maskelyne missed the show last night, purportedly ill. But suppose—”
“Eliza?” Griffin waved at her from beside the body. “Come and look at this.”
“First names, is it?” murmured Lafayette as she turned away. “Poor Mr. Todd. He will be heartbroken. You really are pitiless, aren’t you?”
Her jaw clenched. “I’m sorry, Captain, did you say something?” She marched to Griffin’s side. “Yes, Harley?”
Griffin hid a smile. “You are, you know.”
“What?” Lately, he’d looked pale, she realized. Fatigued, his eyes bruised. As if he wasn’t sleeping. But who did sleep, in this benighted city?
“Never mind. There’s a letter in her bodice.”
Sure enough, a folded paper poked from the neckline of Ophelia’s dark blue dress. Eliza popped out her tweezers and eased the letter free. “Hmm. The page has been crunched up and smoothed out again. Retrieved from the waste paper, perhaps? And I smell something . . .” She sniffed the paper carefully.
“Violets,” said Lafayette, without turning. “It reeks of them. Can’t you smell it?”
She inhaled again. “Ah, yes. Violets. But . . .” She bent cautiously to sniff the woman’s dress and hair. “Only on the letter. An expensive scent, is it not, Captain?”
“Very, in my experience.”
“Purchase a lot of ladies’ perfumes, do you?” murmured Griffin.
“I’ve had wild romantic impulses in my time.”
“What a prehistoric prospect.”
Lafayette grinned. “Violets are beyond the means of a stage actress, I’ll wager.”
“But perhaps not a gentleman admirer.” Eliza shivered. A love letter scribbled in blood . . .
She unfolded the letter and squinted through her spectacles to read aloud.
My dearest love,
It breaks my heart to watch you cry. He does not deserve your loyalty. He will never cherish you as I do. He shall not keep us apart. Please, when can we meet again?
Your one and only
truthful servant,
G.
She held it to the light. “The ink is quite fresh, a day or two at most. And such lovely handwriting. Educated, I should say. Though rather too well-read among the bad novelists.”
“So,” mused Griffin, “suppose the mysterious Mr. G to be the guilty man. Ophelia receives this correspondence, she calls off sick from the show to meet him in this yard in secret . . .”
“Maybe that’s his method.” Lafayette walked over, dusting hands on coattails. “Same with the ballerina. He approaches famous ladies, pretending to be an admirer. Declares his love, and when they fall for it? Chop chop, thanks very much for your feet, see you later.”
Griffin snorted. “Delicately put. Remind me again, Lafayette, what any of this has to do with you?”
“I’m the Royal Society, Inspector. Everything is something to do with me. Besides,” added Lafayette airily, “I’m not convinced you can be trusted, old boy. Perhaps the ‘G’ stands for Griffin.”
“You have me, sir. I am incorrigible. Clap me in irons at once.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Truthful servant,” murmured Eliza, abstracted. “How odd.”
“How’s that?” asked Griffin, still amused.
“Not ‘true servant,’ or ‘faithful servant,’ or ‘yours truly.’ It says, ‘your one and only truthful servant.’”
“Hmm.” Griffin stroked his mustaches. “Meaning . . . her other servants ar
e false? Such as this ‘he,’ who shall not keep them apart?”
“Indeed. Show me your ring, Harley.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your wedding ring. Show me.” The words came out before she thought, and inwardly she winced. It was a mark of the Griffins’ modern view of marriage that Harley wore a ring at all. But Mrs. Griffin’s health was frail, and had lately gone into decline. Eliza should ask after her. But it never seemed the right time.
Harley swallowed, pale, and held out his hand.
She turned it over, palm up. The silver band glinted around his middle finger. Broad, thick, the metal proud above the indentation of his knuckle. Definitely a man’s ring.
“Now grab my wrists, as if I’m fighting you . . . Hmm. As I thought. Come, Inspector.” She dragged him over to the gap in the linen barrier, where the striking Lysander Maskelyne still stood, arms folded over his long black coat, a stony expression on his handsome face.
“Mr. Maskelyne,” she said briskly, “I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m Dr. Eliza Jekyll, Metropolitan Police. Do you mind terribly if the inspector and I ask you a few questions?”
Maskelyne looked down his hooked nose at her. He was about twenty-five. He wore his long black hair loose beneath his bowler hat, and like his sister’s, it was dead straight, covering his ears. His dark eyes were arrogant, still lined with traces of stage makeup. Something looked odd about them. Improbably black, perhaps, too far apart, a little too large and liquid.
“I already told the constables everything I know,” said Maskelyne coldly. “Ophelia is murdered. I can’t help you beyond that.” He had the grace to look grieved, his brow furrowing.
“I’m told your sister was ill last evening and didn’t perform,” prompted Griffin.
“She’s frequently ill. She suffers . . . suffered terrible headaches. She doesn’t often miss the show, but last night her discomfort was considerable.”
“Oh, the poor child,” said Eliza. “And how long do these, er, headaches typically last?”
“Days, sometimes.” He eyed her insolently, her doctor’s bag, her optical. “Women’s troubles. I’m sure you understand. Or maybe you don’t.”
“Oh, I understand women’s troubles,” said Eliza with a cold smile. Men like you, for a start. “Tell me, Mr. Maskelyne, did your sister have enemies? Any person who might wish her harm?”
“We run a successful theater show. We’ve plenty of enemies.” A note of unconscious pride.
“What about admirers? A particular male friend?”
His expression blackened. “What are you implying? Ophelia is a respectable girl.”
Griffin touched Eliza’s arm. “We don’t doubt it, sir,” he interjected. “But a young lady on the stage attracts attention, does she not? Sometimes from less than respectable men?”
“No doubt. But such men”—Maskelyne spat the word like rotten fruit—“must come through me, Inspector, and I do not shrink from unpleasantness, should it prove necessary. My sister’s virtue is impeccable.”
“So . . . there’s no one you know of who might have written her a love letter?” persisted Eliza.
“Dozens, I imagine. She’s a beautiful girl.”
“How about a letter she’d choose to keep?”
Maskelyne tossed his head, stormy. “Certainly not. Now, if that’s all, I have a show to run.”
“Of course,” said Eliza smoothly, and held out her hand. “Our apologies. I’m sure you and your wife work very hard.”
“Indeed,” muttered Maskelyne, and condescended to touch her hand ungraciously, just for a second. No glove, and his oddly long hand was cold. On his middle finger shone a thick golden ring. “Do excuse me.” And he stalked away.
Eliza watched him go. “A stubborn man, jealously guarding his sister’s reputation. Interesting.”
Griffin waited, expectant. “Well? Must I guess?”
“‘He shall not keep us apart’? Clearly, the endearingly patriarchal Mr. Maskelyne knows more than he’s saying.”
“Naturally. They always do. But—”
“Those bruises on Ophelia’s face and neck are ante-mortem, Inspector. At least a few hours before death. Likewise the broken fingers. It’s difficult to perform sleight-of-hand tricks in that condition, wouldn’t you say?”
“Ah. The sordid truth emerges. Ophelia didn’t miss the show with a headache.”
“Indeed not. She missed the show because someone wearing a man’s ring spoiled her face and broke her fingers.”
“Perhaps an overly protective fellow who discovered her hiding a love letter he didn’t want her to have?”
“Once again, you read my mind. Uncanny.”
“Hmm.” Griffin stroked his mustaches. “But no connection to the ballerina’s case. And why kill his sister, if the argument was already over? A bad temper and worse manners don’t make Lysander a murderer.”
“No. But very possibly, he knows who is.”
“Recall our vengeance idea, though,” added Griffin. “I’d call a rival stage show a connection, wouldn’t you?”
“What, you think Maskelyne could have had Miss Pavlova killed out of professional enmity?”
“I shouldn’t think he’d hesitate. Did he seem the violently jealous type to you?”
“And what, risk giving himself away by hiring the same man to kill his sister? Don’t even start me on hired killers going rogue and attacking their employers’ loved ones.”
“You suggested it, not I.”
She fingered the letter thoughtfully. “Still. Creases smoothed out, carefully kept safe. Maybe Captain Lafayette’s hypothesis still stands firm. Mr. G, the love-letter killer.” Scribbled in blood, she almost added.
“Or, Lysander catches the couple at it and loses his temper. Kills Ophelia by accident. He’s read about the ballerina’s death in the papers, and mimics it to throw us off the scent.”
“Now that’s more realistic. It would make our amorous Mr. G at the least a witness to murder.” She sighed. “So do our conjectures multiply, ever wilder. We must stick to the facts.”
“Indeed.” Griffin grinned. “Let’s collect some more, then. I think we should track down this Mr. G, don’t you, Dr. Jekyll?”
“I rather think we should, Inspector.”
“Doctor?” Lafayette was messing about in the corner of the yard with Hipp and beckoned. “When you’ve concluded your mutual-appreciation symposium? You really ought to see this.”
“What is it?”
“Come and see,” he insisted. “Wouldn’t want to miss my chance to impress you at last. Perhaps you’ll call me by my first name, too.”
“I doubt it. I find I’ve quite forgotten your name already.” She strode over, but a hand on her arm stopped her.
“Doctor?” A pretty blond woman. Her green silken dress was fine but garish, the off-the-shoulder neckline trimmed in lace and covered with a light shawl that she clutched to her breast. Her lips were painted, her cheeks stained with peachy color. Her gaze darted, first to Lafayette, then Griffin. “I really shouldn’t . . . I overheard you questioning my husband. I didn’t want to talk to the detective, or to the other . . .”
But to another woman?
She caught Griffin’s eye, drew the woman aside, and lowered her voice, confidential. “Mrs. Maskelyne? How can I help you?”
“My husband . . . perhaps he misled you a little.” She touched her cheek, self-conscious. She looked at least thirty. Old to be Lysander’s wife. But under the coating of face powder, her skin shone with an ethereal glow. “Ophelia has . . . had . . . an admirer,” she whispered. “There were letters, flowers, gifts. It made Lysander very angry. He has quite a temper.”
“I see.”
“He’s protective of his family,” she said defensively. “Lysander is a very loving man. He only wanted the best for her.”
“I can see that,” said Eliza dryly. Perhaps those weren’t just shadows under that makeup. “Did he and his sister, er, disagree last night?”
/>
“I heard noises. Lysander was shouting, he wanted her to throw the letters away. I don’t know what happened after that. I thought Ophelia went to bed.”
Letters. More than one, then. “Did you not visit her? To make sure she was well?”
“Lysander wouldn’t allow it. It was showtime. We had to cover for her. He said she was ill, hysterical.”
“Mmm. And this . . . admirer? Did you ever meet him?”
“It was meant to be kept a secret. My husband didn’t want it talked about. But we all knew.”
Eliza waited.
Mrs. Maskelyne fidgeted. “I really shouldn’t say. I can’t imagine . . . He’s a sweet, simple boy. Ophelia was lonely. It was harmless.”
Eliza touched her shoulder reassuringly. “We need to talk to him, Mrs. Maskelyne. If he’s innocent, he has nothing to fear. I’ll ensure he’s well treated.” In fact, she had no such power. But unlike some of his Scotland Yard colleagues, Griffin didn’t jump to conclusions. If the lad was blameless . . .
The woman breathed deep and nodded. “He started coming to the theater a month or so ago,” she said in a low voice. “Hanging around after the show, sending Ophelia bouquets with little notes attached, things of that sort. At first she took no notice. Just another fan. But he persisted, and inevitably they became acquainted. Then a week ago a letter arrived that was . . . passionate. Indecent.” Her face reddened. “My husband found it. He accused Ophelia of . . . well, you can imagine.”
“I understand.” A sudden dark vision of this woman’s life spread before Eliza. Living with this Lysander, doing his bidding, observing his strict rules. Sharing his bed, being touched by him . . .
“She denied it, but Lysander refused to believe her. He’s afraid she’ll meet someone and leave the show, don’t you see? She’s the star of our act. It’s not easy for people like us to get a Royal Society license. If she ever marries outside our circle . . .” She tugged her shawl straight, blinking her watery eyes.
People like us. Eliza recalled Lysander Maskelyne’s strange eyes, his odd hands, the long dark hair carefully arranged to cover his ears. He put her in mind of the public house in Seven Dials, the scent of flowers, purple wool rough against her cheek . . .