by Viola Carr
“Oh, it’s you,” he grunted. “Griffin send you to poke your nose into my business, did he?”
“Merely doing my job, sir.” Calmly she replaced the clothing in the sack. Someone’s informer, indeed. Reeve was just the kind of man who’d give money to a beast like Billy Beane.
“No, Doctor”—Reeve salted the word with sarcasm and blew smoke into her face—“this is not your job. I’m about to close this case, and I’m damned if I’ll allow some bookish missy who’s been left on the shelf to meddle with my corpses.”
The childish insult washed over her and away, rainwater on glass. “Indeed, sir,” she said coolly. “You’ve done so well without medical evidence in the Moorfields Monster case, after all. How many victims now? Is it five?” A low blow, she knew. But his stubborn ignorance grated on her nerves. For a reasonably intelligent man, he certainly did a fine impression of a stupid one.
Reeve grunted. “Be damned to your swabs and squeezings, missy. Proper police work, that’s what’s needed, by proper police officers. We’ve found an eyewitness to the Beane murder.”
Her heart skipped. “What?”
“Your fancy science didn’t tell you that, did it?” He was practically crowing. “Yes, we have a little girly snout who saw the murderer. Or murderess, I should say, some uppity whore in a red dress. I’ll soon find her, mark my words. It’s open and shut!”
Her thoughts clattered like a rockfall. “But . . . how? Who is this witness? What did she see?”
“I can’t reveal details of an official investigation to you.” He chewed on his cigar. “Fancy yourself a police officer, don’t you? Look, you just have to accept that girls don’t have the wits for this kind of work. Stick to your embroidery. That’s what you’re good at. Leave the dirty jobs to the men, can’t you? It isn’t ladylike to have you grubbing around in the mud.”
His patronizing tone stung. “Inspector, this man has been savaged by an animal. I believe there’s more to this case than—”
“I didn’t ask what you believe, missy, and I don’t care. You can tell Griffin he’ll not steal my thunder this time.” Reeve stood aside and jerked his whiskered chin towards the door. “Now let me do my job, and get out.”
Sweet rage whispered in her heart, and the urge to punch his arrogant face washed over her like a red tide.
Her fist clenched. She stepped up to him, her nose level with his. “If you’re so eager, Inspector,” she spat, “you can tell him yourself. And I’ll thank you to address me with respect, sir. It’s ‘madam,’ if you please, or ‘Dr. Jekyll.’ I believe I’ve earned it. If you ever call me ‘missy’ again, I’ll take that stinking cigar away from you and shove it up your nose.”
And she slung her bag over her shoulder and stalked out, Hippocrates scuttling in her wake.
In the corridor, she stumbled against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut. Her pulse thudded, her blood coursing wild. She couldn’t catch her breath. Crimson mist buzzed over her mind, an evil swarm of biting insects. God, she wanted to squeeze that horrid man’s throat until his eyes bulged bloody . . .
She strangled a scream and slammed her fist into the wall. Crunch! Pain stabbed to her elbow, and the shock ripped her out into the real world.
The red mist dissolved like a breath, revealing the dim corridor, the single flickering arc-light.
She panted, trying to calm her sprinting pulse, control the angry shadow that threatened to smother her. She needed her remedy, Mr. Finch’s powder, tucked away safely in her bag.
But so soon, after drinking the elixir only last night? Unprecedented. Something was wrong. Was the powder failing?
She shook her bruised hand. Ouch. Not very clever.
But Lizzie didn’t think. She just reacted. And sometimes, when Eliza got angry, Lizzie bubbled to the surface like hot poisoned mud, ready to pop. Ready to protect herself at all costs from interfering guttersnipes like Reeve.
It felt good.
“Injury,” reported Hippocrates, unruffled. “Seek medical attention.”
“Thank you, Hipp.” She had to calm down. Discover what Lizzie had done, exactly what Reeve’s eyewitness had seen, what the clue of the strange hair under Beane’s fingernails meant.
At the top of the stairs, she briskly straightened her skirts and arranged her professional face. “Constable?”
The avid reader glanced up. “All done, ma’am?”
“One more thing. I must follow up on the eyewitness statement for the Beane case. What was the girl’s name and abode?”
“Name and abode,” intoned Hippocrates. “Information please.”
The constable frowned. “I don’t think I’m allowed to tell that.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Reeve was already emerging from the stairway. “Outstanding medical issues,” she improvised swiftly. “Female problems, you understand. Did you know that a quarter of all women suffer paranoid delusions at the onset of their menses?”
His cheeks reddened. “No, I, er, never knew that.”
“Well, then. It’s a danger to society, you know. Hysterical bleeding madwomen roaming around everywhere. I must conduct a thorough internal examination of this girl’s—”
“Right you are,” he interrupted hastily, and searched through his papers, word by word.
Eliza fidgeted. Come on . . .
“Miss Jemima Clark,” he read laboriously at last, “unfortunate.” By which he meant “prostitute.” “Age fifteen, Great Eel Street . . . No, Earl. Great Earl Street.”
Frilled blue skirts, limp curls hanging over a low-cut bodice, a dull green stare of hatred . . .
I’ll be damned, whispered Lizzie. Jemima Half-Cut. That jealous cow.
Eliza reeled. She knew the name. She didn’t know it. She had no idea why this Jemima should be jealous. She had every idea.
But deep inside, her heart burned like poison, and she pasted a bland smile over her face and walked away.
Just before dusk, Eliza picked her way over the soil-stained puddles on Great Earl Street and stood before the Cockatrice public house.
Shadows stretched, the setting sun already hidden behind ramshackle buildings. The street was packed, strange-faced beggars and children with rat’s tails and prowling whores with dirty skirts above their ankles. The slanting twilight threw an evil glint into every eye, turned every movement into an ambush, every whisper into a threat.
Lizzie had never minded the people, or the smell, which crawled like a living thing, damp and insidious. Eliza felt faintly sick, as if the air were poisoned.
The rooster-headed dragon above the crooked stone lintel stared down at her with insane, hungry black eyes, as if she were prey. Threatening. Go away, he seemed to growl. I don’t know you. You don’t belong here.
She shivered, suddenly sorry she’d taken her remedy, mixed with water just as Mr. Finch prescribed. The bitter powder had stung her throat as it went down. Now, Lizzie seemed but a distant haunting, her confidence a sadly faded dream. And this strange world—her world—was no longer homely or welcoming. Instead, it was filled with monsters.
Eliza clutched her bag strap tightly, mustering courage. Hippocrates crouched inside the bag, cogs clicking, his little head poking out from a gap in the flap. “Dragon,” he grumbled. “Illogical. Re-examine evidence.”
“Hush,” she murmured, tucking him deeper inside. “We shan’t be long. Just a few questions.”
“Questions,” he muttered reluctantly. “Home, one mile. Recompute.”
She pushed the door open, and ripe warmth assailed her. Tobacco smoke swirled, mixed with the tart scents of gin and sweat. A scrawny fellow perched on a stool, playing an accordion, his bare feet dangling from trousers that ended a foot too short, and a few men already in their cups roared some filthy ditty.
They didn’t appear to notice her. Didn’t stop singing or sloshing their gin cups. But like a flower in the desert, her confidence wilted. She could feel their stares, sliding like fingers over her face, her well-nourished bo
dy, her clean dress.
She slid her hand deeper into the bag, grasped her electric stinger tightly. This was foolhardy. But how else to discover what had happened? Anyone who attacked her would get a prompt dose of zap!, make no mistake.
A grinning white-haired fellow hunched over the pile of gin barrels in the corner, wearing only a smudged one-piece undergarment. On the floor, a mad boy with a bulbous forehead and no legs dragged himself up to her on a wheeled trolley. His arms were monstrous, over-sized. He leered, toothless, and poked his nose beneath her skirt. Startled, she shoved him away with her foot and edged up to the rough wooden bar.
“I’m seeking Miss Jemima Clark,” she announced, to anyone who’d listen.
A one-eyed man behind the bar grunted at her, surly. His scar was angry pink, fresh. “Don’t want no teetotaller mopsies here. Fuck off.”
Her ears burned. Was that who she looked like? The Christian Temperance Union? “I assure you, good man, I’ve no wish to—”
“Who’s asking?” Someone pulled her around by the elbow.
Instinctively, she back-pedaled a step.
Tall fellow, thin but healthy, a shock of black hair over sharp ears. He wore a dusty blue frock coat, and he surveyed her with dark, misaligned, oddly handsome eyes. He put her in mind of Lysander Maskelyne, only Lysander was chilly and unpleasant and this fellow was . . . not.
She took a steadying breath, a whiff of sweet flowers, and ghostly memory fingered the back of her neck. She knew him. She’d never seen him before. “I’m looking for Miss Jemima Clark—”
“Who? Reckon you’ve come to the wrong place.” He glanced down at her skirts, her bag, up to her high lace-trimmed collar and neatly coiled hair. “I’d wager it, in fact.”
“I don’t mean to intrude. I merely wish to ask her a few questions . . .” Her words trailed away at the way he was staring at her. Frowning. Suspicious.
“Don’t I know you, lady?”
Flashes of rough purple cloth, the vile taste of gin, a breathless laugh . . . “Me? Ha ha. I really don’t think so . . .”
The one-eyed barkeep spat into the sawdust. “Just give her a slating and be done, Johnny. That rum rig will fetch a few bob on Petticoat Lane.”
Still Johnny stared at her, scratching his untidy hair. “Indeed it would, Charlie.”
She clutched her bag closer. Inside, Hippocrates wriggled, frantic. “Now look here—”
“Customers’ll pay good coin for that fine mouth, too,” observed Charlie the charmer. “Ain’t every day you get sucked off by a lady.”
“Speak for yourself,” returned Johnny, eliciting a crude laugh.
Inwardly, Eliza cursed her foolishness, and whirled to run.
But Johnny’s long fingers pinched her elbow cruelly. “Hell, Charlie, this is my drinking time. Just get out of my sight, woman. Go on, clear off.” And he hustled her towards the door.
Hippocrates squawked against her hip. Somehow, she’d lost her grip on her stinger. How infuriating. “I say,” she began, stumbling, “there’s no need for—”
“Don’t kick up a shine,” Johnny hissed secretly in her ear. “I don’t know who you are, madam, or what you’re about, but scuttle before you get fleeced, or worse. And don’t come back.” And he dumped her unceremoniously onto the street and slammed the door.
How rude. Lizzie, who on earth was that?
But Lizzie just murmured dreamily. Smothered by Finch’s remedy, trapped in a dark miasma of slumber.
Damn it.
Eliza straightened her skirts, catching her breath. But her palms itched, and her skin crawled, and she raked her fingers through her hair and growled, frustrated. No one in this part of town would talk to her. Not without a policeman’s authority, and probably not even then.
Lizzie, on the other hand, could navigate these treacherous waters with ease. Find this Jemima, discover what she’d seen. If she didn’t get her red-skirted behind arrested by Reeve first. Not forgetting the irritatingly persistent Captain Lafayette, who had at least as much information as the police, probably more . . .
That rich, dangerous hunger burned inside her, scorching her resolve thin. Yes. Why wait for the relief she craved? She had the elixir ready. No time to lose. Prowl down here tonight, discover the truth once and for all. And it’d feel so good . . .
Her hands shook, sweating, and she clenched them. Not tonight. She couldn’t, no matter how tempting the prospect. Set Lizzie free and she’d ooze off into Seven Dials and not come back until morning.
And Eliza needed to be home at midnight. To meet her mysterious A.R.
She hurried along darkening Broad Street towards the mist-twinkled lights of New Oxford Street, anticipation eclipsing the gnawing hunger, at least for the moment. How could she have forgotten? She had a bath to take, her hair to wash and curl, her best clothes to make ready.
It wouldn’t do to disappoint A.R. Not at all.
A PROFOUND DUPLICITY
AT TWENTY TO MIDNIGHT, ELIZA EASED OPEN HER study door on the first floor.
Firelight gilded the bookshelves, the fringed carpets, her leather-topped desk. Plum-red velvet curtains hung floor-length over the window. On the mantel, above the glowing coals, a clock ticked, brass cogs clicking behind a cut-glass face.
She sat on the cream upholstered chaise, putting her candle on the table. Her light skirts puffed, and she smoothed them carefully. This was her best dress, pale golden silk with an embroidered bodice, tiny cap sleeves and matching gloves to the elbow. Something a young lady of not-quite-sufficient fortune might wear while she swanned around from soiree to house party to court reception for the season, trying to attract a lord’s son or a rich officer.
Or on a dark midnight in a Chelsea loft, holding palaver with a murderer.
Her shoulders were almost bare, and a hint of cleavage swelled at her rounded neckline. She’d pinned up her hair under a pearl-studded net. All she needed was a feathery fan to bat her eyelashes behind.
She was just glad no one could see her. In any other setting, she’d have felt faintly ridiculous, not to mention fraudulent. But A.R. was old-fashioned. It pleased him to see her “ladylike.”
Besides, he’d paid for most of this. Might as well wear it for him, if no one else . . .
But you did wear it for someone else, didn’t you? You was due to meet A.R. that night, but instead you scuttled off on a killer’s trail, and look what happened. Can you still smell oil paints, Eliza, even though the silk’s long since cleaned?
. . . but with the receipt of A.R.’s letter, after so many months of being ignored, all the old questions bubbled once more to the surface. She fidgeted, the dress uncomfortable and strange. She’d eaten only the barest of morsels for supper, and the fire’s heat made her sweat.
Who was he? What did he know of her father, the mother she’d barely known? Why did he spend so much effort and money on keeping an old friend’s orphaned daughter, when a few simple financial transactions would have divested him of responsibility for her forever?
Keeping. The word bothered her. Like a museum exhibit. Or a pet.
Never ask about me, he’d whispered from behind the velvet curtain that first fateful night. Never follow me. Stick your pretty nose into my affairs, princess, and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.
Why had he forbidden questions? And why wouldn’t he show her his face? Was he ugly? Deformed? Notorious? Did he fear she’d . . . what? Run, scream, make a scene? Go to the authorities?
And what if, one night, instead of obediently presenting herself to his summons . . . she sent Lizzie? I want you to meet your new sister, he’d said that night, as she trembled, the hot sweet scent of elixir watering her thirsty mouth. Perhaps you’ve dreamt of her. Her name is Lizzie Hyde, and she wants you to be happy . . . but you mustn’t ever make her angry, my sweet. You mustn’t ever betray her. She won’t understand.
But the idea made Eliza blush. The things Lizzie would say . . . No, it’d never do. If A.R. wanted to see
Lizzie, he’d say so. Wouldn’t he?
So here she sat, in her ridiculous peacock outfit with pearls in her hair, while in Seven Dials, the hunt for Billy Beane’s scarlet-skirted killer no doubt carried on. In her heart, shadows stirred like angry snakes. This was pointless. She should rush down there, winkle out this Jemima, find out exactly what the dirty chit knew . . .
“Don’t go.”
She froze, halfway to her feet. Don’t look. Don’t turn . . .
A warm draft puffed on the back of her neck, and her candle flickered, as the curtain behind her swayed. Leather, tobacco, a whiff of some bitter alchemical tincture.
She tried to breathe normally. “Uh . . . good evening, sir.”
“Is it?” Gruff, roughened with liquor or sin. An edge of weird-city drawl. Kindly, after a coarse fashion. “Sit, why don’t you? I don’t bite.”
She took her seat. The chaise pressed uncomfortably beneath her thighs.
A melancholy pause. “You look beautiful, my sweet.”
She cleared her throat. “I, er . . . I was pleased to receive your letter.”
“Were you?” A hair-tingling chuckle. “I think you’d like it better if I stayed away.”
“Not at all, sir.” It tumbled out in a hurry, and she gave an embarrassed little laugh. “I look forward to your visits. It’s just that . . .”
“You’d prefer we met in public? Like normal people? Take tea and biscuits, make social calls?”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Ha! We’d make a fine spectacle in society, you and me.” Cloth rustled, as if he sat or fidgeted. “Get ourselves invited to Lady Whoever-the-Hell’s absurd summer ball. I’ll parade you in on my arm and thrash the lights out of all the love-struck young fools who’d chase your hand. You’ll wear silk and diamonds, and we’ll dance the waltz by candlelight.”
She gave a little laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m afraid I’m a terrible dancer. Do you waltz, sir?”