by Viola Carr
“Before noon? Shouldn’t think he’d strain himself.”
“You realize he has authority to enter where he wishes? We could have made this search yesterday.”
“Yes, well, consider it my good deed for the day. You noticed Lysander’s odd ways, didn’t you?”
“Certainly. Horrid man.”
“Undeniably. But as yet he’s done nothing wrong by law. Did you see his eyes? I’ve no idea how he fooled the Royal the first time, let alone a second.” Griffin shrugged, ingenuous. “Perhaps there are places our tenacious captain needn’t go. Don’t you agree?”
Chastened, she nodded. Just because Lysander annoyed her—back-combed your fur, did he? whispered Lizzie smugly—didn’t mean he deserved to have his livelihood destroyed. “Didn’t think you believed in magic, Inspector.”
“The Royal believes in it. That’s what matters.” Griffin held open the door. “After you . . . I should say, after him,” he added, as Hipp darted inside and vanished into the dark.
Inside, a narrow, musty corridor led into the bowels of the Hall, which doubled as exhibition space, gallery, and museum as well as a small theater. Curtains, sudden corners, ladders lurching upwards, wooden steps twisting down into the dark.
Sergeant Porter led the way to the stairs, which took her up to a narrow landing with a series of doors. “First one along,” he said gruffly. “We’ve left it just as it were, sir.”
“For what it’s worth,” muttered Griffin. “Maskelyne has long since stripped everything he doesn’t want us to find.”
“We shall see,” said Eliza firmly, pulling on her white gloves. “Every contact leaves a trace. Let’s see what Ophelia and her brother have left for us.”
A tiny window let in a shaft of dim light. Wardrobe, rug, wrought-iron washstand with a half-empty jug. A full-length mirror hung on a hinged frame, covered in a white satin shawl. A few books leaned on a shelf. Oliver Twist. The Age of Reason. Jane Eyre. The Faerie Queene. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
Shimmering costumes in garish colors lay flung over the couch and hung on hooks along the wall. The dressing table was cluttered with little glass pots of rouge and stage makeup, like lurid oil paints, green and blue and orange.
A tall screen covered in golden Chinese silk hid Ophelia’s bed, which was a narrow one with a ghostly lace canopy. Neatly made sheets, but the white quilt was creased and flattened, as if someone had lain atop it without getting in.
Hippocrates snuffled at the pillow and buzzed. “Attention. Trace substance detected.”
“Well done, Hipp.” Eliza poked her tweezers at a tiny rust-colored stain on the satin pillowcase. She flicked a filter on her optical and snapped on her ultra-violet light. The stain glowed eerily. “Blood,” she confirmed, and pushed her optical away. “Still, it could be from a nosebleed or a scratch. And certainly not enough for the kind of surgery our killer performs.”
She sniffed the sheets. The smell of rose petals and oriental incense hung, a faded memory. “A single bed,” she commented. “No other girls in the family?”
“Correct. Just Lysander and Ophelia.”
“Poor girl.” She pinced a single black hair from a crease in the quilt and held it to the light. “Coarse, with a slight curl. Ophelia’s was fine and straight. Still, it could be hers. I’ll do a comparison.” She popped the hair into a sample tube.
“Too short to be Lysander’s,” added Griffin.
“In the bed? Let’s hope so.” Eliza poked at the ashes in the incense burner, checked the wicks in the old-fashioned oil lamps. “At least a day old. If someone’s been in here, they brought a candle.”
Griffin sorted through the contents of the dressing table drawer with his pencil and fished out a slip of writing paper. “Same handwriting, would you say?”
Eliza peered over his elbow and read aloud.
I watched you disappear tonight. It was better than I could have hoped. You were fabulous, and I wished we could vanish together. Perhaps one day we shall.
I live in hope.
Your loving
G.
She smelled the paper. “Violets again.”
“A threatened elopement?” Griffin mused. “Strange, that Lysander should leave this letter and take the others, if he’s so protective of his sister’s reputation. Left here for us to find?”
“Or perhaps we’re giving Lysander too much credit for cunning.” A bunch of dying white roses sat in a vase on the dressing table. She lifted one out, and crispy petals fluttered to the floor. “White for purity,” she commented, “not red for carnal love. Neatly cut, stems undamaged. A florist, or someone with garden implements. Expensive.”
“Roses, white,” piped up Hipp. “Threepence per bunch.”
“Expensive, indeed. Or stolen.”
Her brows lifted. “Mrs. Maskelyne said she thought this ‘Geordie’ to be of no uncommon means. But perhaps he’s merely a thief. A con man of some sort. Lafayette’s love-letter killer?”
“It would explain the alleged expensive gifts. Which, by the way, I don’t see here.” Griffin poked through the glass jewelry box on the table. “It’s all costume, for the stage. Not a genuine piece among them.”
“Raided by the loving Lysander?”
“The gifts? I expect so. If they ever existed at all.”
“Don’t tell me you’re suspicious.”
“Do you see anything that contradicts the Maskelynes’ story?”
“Not in particular,” she admitted.
“That’s what I mean. It’s all too convenient.” Griffin grimaced. “Awful as the prospect is, I’m rather beginning to agree with Captain Insufferable—”
The door banged open, and a young servant girl in a black dress and white apron halted in her tracks. “Oh. Sorry, ma’am, sir. I’ll come back after . . .”
“Not at all,” interjected Griffin, swiftly moving so she couldn’t back out. “Come in, please. What’s your name, child? Are you the housemaid here?”
“Mary, sir.” The girl dipped a curtsey, hastily tucking a loose curl under her cap. “I clean up after ’em, sir. Make the beds, take out the rubbish, bring water.”
“And who dresses—dressed—Miss Ophelia? Is there a lady’s maid?”
“Well, there’s Missus Maskelyne’s maid . . .”
“I mean for the theater. To help with the costumes.”
“No, sir. They all put on their own. Sometimes I help,” Mary added with pride. “I curl Miss Ophelia’s hair just how she likes. She says to me, ‘Mary, whatever shall I do without you?’” Her smile faded. “I’m not in trouble, am I, sir? Because I never done nothing . . .”
“It’s all right, Mary,” soothed Eliza. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I say, those are lovely flowers, aren’t they?”
“Very pretty, ma’am.”
“A gift from a friend?” suggested Griffin.
Mary shuffled, twisting her hands in her apron. “I didn’t see who brought them, sir. Miss Ophelia is much admired.”
Something in the girl’s tone rang false. “Are you sure?” asked Eliza. “Do you know a boy named Geordie? A friend to Miss Ophelia?”
Mary fidgeted. “Everybody knows Geordie. He hangs around the theater all the time.”
“Why?”
“Well, he wanted a job, only Mr. Maskelyne told him no. But Miss Ophelia were nice to him.”
“In what way?”
Mary blushed. “She talked to him, is all. Such a nice handsome boy, and most people just kick ’im out o’ the way, but not her. He’s . . . well, he’s kinda sweet on her,” she admitted, with a sigh straight from a melodrama. “I told ’im it were no use, but . . .”
“But what?” pressed Griffin gently.
“But he won’t listen. He watches her on the stage, and he thinks she’s so pretty and magical-like, and I . . .”
Lizzie smirked. Aww. Sweet little thing’s in love.
Inwardly, Eliza rolled her eyes. “And you what?”
“Ma’am?”<
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“It’s all right, Mary. You won’t be punished.”
Mary twisted her hands. “Promise you won’t say nothing to Mr. Maskelyne. He’ll have my hide.”
Eliza and Griffin exchanged glances. “We promise.”
“I just wanted Geordie to like me.” The girl was nearly in tears.
“Mary, we can arrest you if we have to. Do you think Mr. Maskelyne will keep you on if that happens? Just tell us what we want to know, and nothing need be said. You have my word.”
Mary wiped her face, resigned. “Sometimes I snuck him into the theater for free, so as he could watch her. And I bringed him things. Of hers, you know. Old flowers, ribbons. Things she throwed away. I don’t mean no harm.”
Awkwardly, Eliza patted her shoulder. “Thank you, Mary. You can go now . . . Oh, one more question. Did Geordie ever write letters to Miss Ophelia?”
“Letters, ma’am?”
“Like that one.” She pointed to the letter from “G,” which still lay open on the table.
Mary shrugged. “Sometimes he give me papers for her.”
“Was that one of them?”
“Dunno, ma’am. I can’t read.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“He never said. But he must have a place somewhere. He’s always clean.”
“Thank you, Mary. You can go.”
The girl curtsied and scuttled out.
Griffin watched her go. “Boy falls for stage actress, bribes housemaid for access, actress brushes him off . . . I suppose it’s plausible.”
“Surely more plausible than ‘jealous housemaid kills actress over unrequited love affair’?”
He winced. “Truly horrible. And I thought hatchet-wielding ballerinas and rogue hired killers were the worst we could come up with.”
“And what was all that about the roses? ‘I didn’t see who brought them,’ she said. Not ‘I never seen who brung ’em,’ or some such.”
“Indeed. Such elaborate secrecy from Mrs. Maskelyne about an admirer that apparently everyone knew about. And then a clumsy lie about a bunch of flowers.”
“‘Miss Ophelia is much admired,’” mused Eliza. “As if the maid had been taught what to say, if anyone should ask.”
“Mmm.”
“So why not just have her claim the roses were a gift from this Geordie?”
Griffin tugged his mustaches. “Because Geordie’s involvement is a recent invention, that’s why. No, this Flower Man is not Geordie. He’s some person they don’t want us to know about.”
“Someone they’re covering for?”
“Or someone they’re ashamed of. But that doesn’t mean Geordie can’t be the killer.”
Eliza tucked her heavy optical away in its case. “Hmm. Flower Man, Geordie, the mysterious ‘G.’ So do our suspects multiply.”
Griffin scribbled a few more lines in his notebook and flipped it shut. “Are you busy this afternoon? I think it’s time to pay a visit to the Imperial Russian Ballet. Perhaps our vengeful Muscovites can shed light on the matter.”
“Diary,” reported Hipp in his tinny electric voice. “Three o’clock, Bethlem Asylum. No further appointments.”
Swiftly, Eliza sorted through her day. Tonight, she’d send Lizzie to the Holy Land, find out what this Jemima Clark knew about Billy Beane. She had patients to attend at Bethlem, but they could wait, and she’d no wish to face Mr. Todd again.
Her thoughts fluttered, dancing, lured by a distant will-o’-the-wisp. A love letter scribbled in blood. What had Todd meant? Your budding artist isn’t angry. He’s desperately in love . . .
But with whom? Miss Pavlova? Then why keep killing? Or Ophelia? Todd had spoken before her body was discovered. Perhaps he really was prescient.
Aye, muttered Lizzie. Or mayhap he’s just foolin’ with your mind. Wouldn’t be the first time . . .
Eliza shook herself, determined to concentrate on the case. “I’d be delighted.”
At her skirt hem, Hipp rocked on little brass feet. “Delighted,” he echoed smugly. “One o’clock, Imperial Russian Ballet. Make greater speed.”
Griffin raised his brows. “Keen, isn’t he?”
“Naturally,” said the theater manager at Her Majesty’s, an hour later. “Everyone here knows Geordie Kelly.”
His name was Underwood, and his craggy, deep-wrinkled face seemed a hundred years old. He was fabulously tall and thin, hunching over on a slender black cane that quivered under his weight, ready to snap. His creaking black hat sported a net of cobwebs on its brim, and a tiny brown spider scuttled underneath into his scraggly white hair.
Eliza tried not to stare. Behind her skirts, Hippocrates gave an electric titter.
Griffin coughed to cover a smile. “Everyone? Why? Does Geordie visit the theater often?”
Underwood’s snow-white brows bristled. “Take me for a fool, do you? I still have my wits, you know. I already told that other young fellow all about it. Smart chap, fine red coat. A detective from India, you know. Tigers and nabobs, say what?”
Inwardly, Eliza groaned.
Lafayette sauntered in the office door, resplendent, hat under his arm. “Dr. Jekyll, my dear lady.” Hippocrates clattered up to him, his happy light flashing, and Lafayette gave him an indulgent pat on the head. “I say, Griffin, we really must stop meeting like this. People will think we’re working together.”
Underwood blinked. “Yes, that’s the chap. Told him all about it. No stone unturned, all that.”
Eliza smiled faintly. “Excellent. Hipp, come here, please. Mr. Underwood, sir, would you mind telling us what you’ve told the captain?”
“About what? Oh. Yes, this Geordie. Theater nut. Harmless fellow, really. Well, except for . . . Ah-CHOO!” Underwood wiped his nose on a vast scarlet handkerchief that he dragged from his coat pocket. The spider dangled from its web into his eyes, and he batted it away. “Confounded crawlers! Sorry, what was I saying?”
“Geordie,” prompted Griffin.
“Who?” Underwood peered vaguely at Eliza. “I say, young lady, have we been introduced?”
“Indeed we have, sir. Eliza Jekyll, Metropolitan Police.”
“Not you,” he said crossly. “The other one. Saucy girl, dark hair.”
Faintness washed her mind thin. Was Lafayette glancing at her oddly? “I’m sorry, who?”
“Who what?” Another sneeze, louder and wetter than the last. “Never mind. What were you saying?”
Griffin smiled patiently. “The boy is harmless, except for . . . ?”
“The showgirls don’t like him, for certain. He spies on them, they say. Steals things from their dressing rooms. Never saw it myself. The filching, that is, not the spying. Of course he spies. Dancing girls with no clothes on, eh? Who wouldn’t spy?”
“And the late Miss Pavlova?”
“Who?” Another bristling white frown. “Oh, yes. Russians, dead girl. Terrible thing. Their Giselle was so popular. Now I’ll have to find another show for my theater, I suppose. Acrobats, I’m thinking. Whistling about on the flying trapeze, ahoy!”
“You were just telling me,” interrupted Lafayette, with a steel-edged smile, “that Geordie had admired the late Miss Pavlova. Sent her flowers, that kind of thing.”
“Poor girl didn’t speak a word of English, but that didn’t stop him. The more exotic, the better, that’s our Geordie.”
The spider on Underwood’s hat climbed down its thread towards the old man’s coat lapels, and Eliza resisted the urge to grab it and pull. Perhaps he’d unravel. “So he’s . . . an obsessed theater lover?”
“You could say that. Once, we had an opera diva from darkest Africa. Lovely young thing, six-octave voice. Sang like an angel. He mooned after her for weeks. Poor lad was heartbroken when her company moved on.”
“He’s a regular patron?” suggested Griffin.
“Good God, no.” Underwood’s eyes crinkled, incredulous. “Are you all idiots? He works here.”
PIECES OF GIRLS
; WHAT?” ALL THREE OF THEM SPOKE TOGETHER, and Eliza saw Griffin hide another smile. At last, something Lafayette hadn’t been able to find out first.
Underwood scratched his flea-bitten hair. “In charge of the electric lights. Swings about in the rafters, flicking switches on and off all night and making puppy eyes at the leading ladies. Moons about in the corridor outside the dressing rooms, picking up feathers and sequins from the girls’ costumes. As I said: harmless.”
“How frightfully convenient of the lad,” murmured Lafayette in Eliza’s ear. His hand on her waist made her jump. “Tell me you’re not buying into any of this.”
Hippocrates whirred, indignant. “Impertinence,” he trumpeted. “Inappropriate manners. Recompute.”
Coolly, Eliza ignored Lafayette and plucked the letter they’d found in Ophelia’s dressing table from her pocket. “Could this be his handwriting, Mr. Underwood?”
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Underwood briskly, without glancing at it. “Boy’s an idiot. Dull-witted. A fuse loose. Whacked with the glocky stick. I doubt he can read or write.”
“Care to discuss your thoughts?” whispered Lafayette. “I’m free this afternoon. Your little brass idiot seems an efficient chaperone, if you’re bothered with that sort of thing. Or we can just call it an interrogation.”
She fought strange laughter. The very devil in scarlet . . .
Her cheeks flamed, and she elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop it,” she whispered fiercely. “This is serious.”
“So am I. You smell fabulous, by the way. For a revolutionary.”
Griffin cleared his throat. Eliza smiled weakly at Underwood. “I see,” she said loudly. “Thank you. Can you, er, tell us where Geordie lives?”
Underwood’s spider crawled over his lapel and disappeared inside his shirt. “Right here, of course,” said the old man. “A loft in the rafters. Our very own Quasimodo!”
They bustled in single file through corridors crowded with machinery, old scenery, piles of lumber, and tools. Looms of electrical wiring hung along the walls, clumped with dust. The air was musty with the smell of old makeup and sweat. Eliza and Hipp dodged harried servants, small boys with buckets and brooms, dancers in rehearsal costume. Many of the dancers were fey, with graceful spindly limbs and huge eyes, their long-suffering feet crammed into pretty satin ballet shoes.