The Diabolical Miss Hyde

by Viola Carr

  “It says that he cares, Eliza. He wants this very badly. His killings are acts of seduction. This is how your artist makes love.”

  “But . . .” Frustration gripped her, a dull student who couldn’t follow her master’s lessons. “If he’s in love with his victims, why kill them? Anger, perhaps, he finds he can’t perform as he wishes . . .”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t say so.” A bright red smile. “The tableaux positively exude joyous abandon. He’s happy with his results. Your Moorfields Monster, au contraire? Now there’s an angry lad. Such primitive duality dwells in the human spirit. It’s enchanting.”

  “Jealousy, then. The victims loved other men . . .”

  “The hands were damaged,” interrupted Todd, “did you see that?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Disappearing Ophelia’s hands. They were disfigured somehow, yes?”

  “How did you know that?” she demanded breathlessly, for what seemed like the dozenth time that evening. “We kept that little fact out of the papers. And Mr. Temple’s pamphlet.”

  “Have you ever studied a ballerina’s feet, Eliza?” Todd’s sharp nose twitched. “How those ladies suffer for their art.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Try harder.” Todd reached out one palm. A scar glistened on his wrist beneath his sleeve, the mark of a manacle. “Show me your hands.”

  He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t edged closer. But suddenly the walls shuddered inwards. The cell threatened, frighteningly dark and cramped.

  “Come, I shan’t kill you with a paintbrush.” A delicate grin. “Supposing I had one handy.”

  She held her breath and offered her right hand.

  He took it, and light as a butterfly’s wing, eased away her glove. Traced one fingertip over her palm, that all-too-familiar search for reaction.

  She gasped. So sensitive. His fingertip so smooth and warm. What if he touched her face, as he’d done that night long ago, his strange scent alive, his breath tingling on her cheek, until . . .

  Or maybe he’d kill her. He’d no weapons. It didn’t matter. Doubtless he could end her life as easily with his bare hands. Artist’s fingers, well-trained, so precise as they sought that fragile place in her throat and squeezed . . .

  Mr. Todd trailed his finger over her knuckles, where her skin was roughened from work. Over the edge of her forefinger, tough from holding scalpel or curette. Between her thumb and fingers, where an old cut still stung faintly, unhealed. She wanted him to press harder. Press his lips to the aching spot and taste her, the way he’d tasted her blood long ago . . .

  “Look,” he whispered, “at what your work makes of you. Now do you see?”

  A doctor’s scars. A ballerina’s tortured feet. And poor Ophelia’s broken hands . . .

  “He’s removing the damaged parts,” she blurted out. “He’s making them perfect.”

  Todd smiled faintly and tucked his hands behind his back, and Eliza realized she’d snatched her hand away.

  Fresh bitterness stung her heart. He lived alone here, in the dark, his only company Will and Fairfax and broken men who screamed. Her visit, this conversation . . . probably the most interesting thing that had happened to him for weeks.

  Of course he’d try to fascinate her. He wanted her to come back.

  “But the next victim could be anyone,” she covered in a rush. “We could search for injured women, deformed women, those in the public eye somehow . . . but it’s a long shot. I must know how he’s doing it.” She tugged back an escaped wisp of hair. “This electrical machine he’s using, I must know what it is. Will mentioned a scientist’s journal . . .”

  “Oh, you mean this?” From behind him, Todd produced a blackened book.

  The tooled leather cover was scarred, burned. Sinister. “What is it?”

  “I had an inkling you’d be interested. Do you read German?”

  “Only a little.”

  “Well, never mind. There are illustrations enough, and what Latin he uses is tolerable. The man was a visionary, for certain.” A twinkle of knowing eyes. “I should have liked very much to see his inventions brought to life.”

  Her fingers tingled, eager. “Who’s the author?”

  “You’ll see.” He made no move to give it to her. “When you discover your Chopper, what will you do?”

  She blinked. “Well, I imagine we’ll arrest him. Collect the evidence, send him to trial.”

  “Testify that he’s insane?”

  She swallowed. “Perhaps. May I have that, please?”

  “He knows what he’s doing. He has his reasons. He’s orderly, in control. Why would you testify to such nonsense?” Todd hid the book behind his back. “Who knows? Perhaps one day I’ll meet him, on the other side of my cell wall. We could swap ‘how Eliza lied about me’ stories. Wouldn’t that be amusing?”

  “Well,” she said faintly, “I’d have to examine his particular case, and . . .”

  “I let you into my house. We talked. I thought you understood.” He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t raised his voice. But the lamplight lent a monstrous gleam to his hair, a dark and sinister shadow under his cheekbones, a baleful fire to his eyes.

  She wanted to back away, escape that glittering green stare. She’d condemned him to this prison, the shock treatments, the squalor and ugliness. Was Bethlem mercy compared to facing the hangman?

  Her hands trembled. “Mr. Todd—”

  “Would you like to dance with my shadow? It’s the perfect evening for it.” He licked his lips, that tiny sound. “So. Let’s begin. My turn, I think, with the questions. You had your chance to end me, Eliza. I’m still here. Why?”

  How many people must you kill and dismember before you’re a madman? Mr. Temple’s jest clanged, hideous now. She gritted her teeth. The very definition of insanity was failing to comprehend that cutting people up with a straight razor was unacceptable. Todd didn’t live by ordinary rules. He existed in a secret, perfect world of his own. That was what “insane” meant.

  Admit it, Todd had whispered that night in his loft, we’re the same. And Eliza had insisted he was wrong.

  But the day she’d stood in the witness box in that chilly courtroom, under the scrutiny of an outraged London that clamored for his hanging, she couldn’t help glancing at the prisoner in the dock. He’d given her a tragic little smile, and with a flash of dark certainty, she knew she’d never forgive herself if she let him die. Her testimony, for good or ill, had saved his life.

  Now, in the dimly lit cell, her eyes burned. Was his special world real? Or had he fooled her, with his odd charm and twinkling eyes and swift heartbeat against her breast?

  What if it was all just a game? A seductive illusion that she’d wanted desperately to believe, simply because it meant she didn’t have to face the truth?

  What if he was just an ice-hearted brute who delighted in blood?

  “It was a legal matter,” she said shakily. “Nothing personal.”

  “The law’s the law, is that it? Fiat justitia ruat caelum.”

  Though the heavens fall, indeed. “Exactly.”

  “Admirable,” murmured Todd, “but I wasn’t referring to the courtroom.”

  Her heartbeat skittered. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean—”

  “And you’re lying again. I told you we’d work on that.” His gaze stalked her, lurking in shadow. “We were alone, that night in my studio. I confess, you’d surprised me. I was defenseless. The quarry you’d chased for months, at your mercy. Yet I’m still alive. Why?”

  Warm lamplight, the silvery flash of his blade, the tiny throb of his pulse beneath her fingertips. His fingers closing around hers, inviting her to strike. Do it, he’d whispered. Let me show you what freedom means. Let me show you how . . .

  “It wasn’t my decision to make,” she said shakily. “I believe in justice, not retribution.”

  “We both know that’s not entirely true.”

  She swallowed, desperate. “I was afraid . . .”
<
br />   “No excuse. You came to me, alone, in the dark. You’re the bravest person I know.” A step closer, the predator preparing to spring.

  “You’re stronger than I, I couldn’t . . .”

  “I put the razor in your hand, Eliza.” Todd’s whisper sliced the shadows, deadly as that blade. “I gave you my life. And you gave it back. Don’t pretend it was because you didn’t want it.”

  Eliza’s body burned. She’d had her chance to end him. To slice him open, drain his hot crimson life away. To put an end to his nightmare world of murder. She’d have saved countless lives, brought a criminal to justice, solved the impossible case.

  Let me show you, he’d whispered, the lamplight caressing his face. His fingers had wrapped around hers, guiding her hand, pressing the glittering blade against his throat.

  Let me show you how I love you.

  Mr. Todd smiled. Indecently red, just like his hair. And silently, he held the journal out to her.

  Shivering, she grabbed it and fled.

  STARTLING BLASPHEMIES

  AN HOUR LATER, RAIN PELTED FROM A BLACKENED sky, fat drops that left oily streaks on her clothes. Eliza stomped up her town house steps in wet boots, her skirt hems slopping with mud. Her cape was sodden and grimy, and the evening chill had soaked deep into her bones.

  Inside, delicious smells of supper curled from the kitchen in delightful warmth. Rain streaked the windows and hammered on the roof. Hipp greeted her, hopping on the spot, trying to climb her dirty skirts. “Welcome,” he yammered, flashing his lights. “Welcome. Possibility of rain. Make greater speed.”

  “Down, idiot.” She petted him, but her weary bones ached as she put down her things. RIOTS IN HYDE PARK, read the rain-smudged headline on her evening edition. RABBLE MARCHES ON PARLIAMENT. SHOTS FIRED. MILITIA FORCES DEFEATED BY CAVALRY. The Thistlewood Club, it seemed, had received a hard lesson in public order—what would Sir Isaac make of that, she wondered, with his talk of revolution?—and she’d ridden home from the station along puddle-splashed streets that were lined with armed soldiers and possessed by the strange, unearthly hush of fear. Despite having taken a cab, she was saturated.

  The unnamed scientist’s diary, too, huddled in Eliza’s bag, mysterious and compelling, but all she wanted was supper, a warm bed, and sleep, free of dark dreams.

  She shuddered. She had an inkling what her dreams would be about tonight. Glittering green eyes, a fevered embrace, sparkling steel . . .

  She hung her sodden cape in the closet. “Mrs. Poole?”

  The housekeeper emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “What time do you call this? Your little brass critter has been nagging me all afternoon. How do you quieten a dog who won’t chew a gumdrop?”

  “Critter,” announced Hipp happily, “critter-critter-critter . . .”

  “And a good evening to you, too.” Fruitlessly, Eliza shook her wet skirts.

  “Look at you, you’re drenched. That cape is quite ruined. And your hair’s coming down.” Mrs. Poole tutted and fussed, taking Eliza’s sodden gloves. “The bedroom fire’s lit, not the study. Unless you’re planning to stay up past dawn again.”

  “How thoughtful,” said Eliza faintly, and turned to close the door on the foul night.

  Footsteps splashed on the stairs. “Dr. Jekyll?”

  Hipp scuttled into the corner, muttering.

  Not now. Please, not tonight. She longed to slam the door, pretend she hadn’t heard. Run upstairs and hide. But her soaked skirts suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.

  Captain Lafayette stood dripping on her threshold. His hair was plastered wet to his cheeks in sharp tendrils, and his eyes shone too brightly in the night. He looked young, harmless. A boy lost in the rain.

  “You’re home,” he said unnecessarily. “I, er . . . that’s good.”

  Words wouldn’t come. Burning heat, roughened breath, damp skin sliding on skin, fingertips and palms and thirsty mouths colliding. Golden fur, claws, moonlight glinting in wild blue eyes, the horrid crunch! as his bones stretched . . .

  Eliza swallowed, her mouth dry. What could she possibly say? Lafayette was . . . well, she didn’t quite know what he was. As a child, she’d read with delight the garish tales of lycanthropes, wild beast-men of the forest. She’d never heard of one who locked himself in a cage when the change came.

  Distantly, she recalled the claw wounds in Billy Beane’s corpse. The hair sample she’d taken still sat in its glass tube on her desk. Coarse yellow-brown hair, torn out by the root. A dog’s, Hipp had said.

  A wolf’s?

  Lafayette was a monster, certainly. But a dangerous one? A killer? Had he connected her with Lizzie? Did he remember . . . ?

  Pointedly, Mrs. Poole cleared her throat.

  Eliza knitted her cold fingers. “Captain. I . . .”

  “Rude of me, I know, to visit at this hour.” For once, Lafayette didn’t smile. He held out a large object wrapped in a damp hessian bag. “I just wanted to bring you this.”

  She unwrapped the bag’s corner and gasped in delight. Her optical. Undamaged and polished, the brass spotless, lenses gleaming red and blue. “Oh. I say . . .”

  “And to offer you my apology.” Lafayette’s blue gaze glowed, clear of deceit, and her stomach filled with hot dread. She squirmed. How she wanted to disappear. Vanish in a puff of this never happened . . .

  “I’d ask if you’re all right,” he added, “but clearly you are. I heard you were taken, and I’m sorry. I know you won’t believe it wasn’t my doing. But I’d never have left you had I known what they planned. Forgive me.”

  Relief staggered her, and she grabbed the doorframe lest she fall.

  He was talking about her abduction. The Philosopher.

  Did she believe him, that he’d had nothing to do with it? It didn’t matter. After all that had happened—the Tower, Mr. Todd, the mess Lizzie had made—she’d almost forgotten she and Lafayette had argued, that she’d as much as ended their acquaintance. That the Chopper and Billy Beane’s killer were the same person. Or creature.

  Oh, my.

  She held her optical tightly, abruptly aware of the incriminating arcane diary in her bag. “Where did you find this?”

  A raindrop trickled down his cheek. “I called in a few favors. Recovering stolen goods is simple if you know the right people. A device so unusual doesn’t go unnoticed.”

  “Oh.” Not so simple as he pretended. Recyclers and fences were a greedy lot. Doubtless it had cost him dear even to find the right one. He’d gone to a lot of trouble for her . . . but was it just part of his ruse?

  She fidgeted. Captain, we really should talk. Convince me I should believe you that you aren’t the Philosopher’s agent trying to trick me. Explain why you’re chasing me up and hither for the Royal, when clearly they’d burn you alive if they discovered what you really are. Prove to me that the hair I found on Billy’s corpse is nothing to do with you.

  Promise me you don’t realize that the woman who gave herself to you in a pile of dirty straw last night was me.

  “Thank you,” she added lamely.

  “The least I can do.” He tucked his hands behind his back, squishing water from his soaked coat. “Um. Well, I’m glad I found you at home. Sorry to intrude so late.”

  The silence stretched. Compulsion gripped her to say something, anything. Apologize, call it a misunderstanding, let him know they could still be friends.

  “Er . . . Might I offer you an umbrella?”

  Well, that certainly wasn’t it.

  At last, a flash of his old smile. “A little late for that. Good night, Doctor.” And he vanished into the gloom.

  Eliza closed the door and leaned against it with a thudding heart. Relief. Confusion. Guilt. She didn’t know what she felt.

  What to do? Either Lafayette was determined to pretend nothing had happened . . . or he didn’t realize she and Lizzie were the same woman. Should she go along with it? Had he truly been innocent of her abduction? If he’
d wanted to arrest her—or get rid of her—he’d had ample opportunity. That didn’t mean he wasn’t delaying for some dark purpose of his own.

  A prophylactic against a curse. Mr. Finch’s words echoed back to her, glimmering with fresh meaning. Can’t say I can promise anything.

  What if Lafayette was trying to cure his affliction? What if there really was a cure? If she could get rid of Lizzie for good . . . would she?

  A flick on her shoulder startled her. “What?”

  Mrs. Poole swatted her again, dishcloth flying. “Don’t ‘what’ me, young lady. Who on earth is he?”

  Him? Oh, he’s a moon-crazed wolf-man. My lover. Might I have some tea? “No one. It doesn’t matter.” Eliza clunked her optical onto the hall table and wiped water from her sleeves. Her fingertips were wrinkled and clammy.

  “Obviously not,” said Mrs. Poole blandly, producing a fresh hand towel as if by magic and pressing it into Eliza’s hands. “What a ridiculous notion. Fine-looking gentlemen call here soaked to the skin in the middle of the night all the time. Utterly of no consequence.”

  Eliza snorted and swabbed her dripping hair. “Captain Lafayette of the esteemed Royal Society”—she waved her towel grandly, splashing water drops—“was merely returning my property, soaked to his bullishly thick skin or otherwise. And it isn’t the middle of the night, even if it feels like it. It’s barely eight.”

  “You allow he’s fine-looking, then.”

  Eliza tossed the damp towel at her. “Do you think so? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Single, is he?”

  “Given his insufferable arrogance, I should imagine so.” She realized with a pang that she didn’t know. He wore no ring and flirted incessantly. That meant nothing. For all she knew, somewhere there lived a Mrs. Lafayette, who steadfastly tolerated her husband’s absences and his easy ways with other women, counting herself lucky to be able to spend his fortune—and happily oblivious that he burst out into fur and fangs whenever the fancy took him. Or even when it didn’t.

  “Rich?” pressed Mrs. Poole.

  “Odiferously, I suspect.”

  “Charming, too.”

  “I’ll take supper in my room, if you please. I’m finding the conversation down here quite vapid this evening.”