by Viola Carr
“Sometime after eleven, then. Which makes it after the magic show had ended.” Griffin made a note. “And what time did you go to bed?”
A sullen shrug. “Don’t know.”
“Well, you must know, lad. It’s what, a fifteen-minute walk back to Her Majesty’s?”
“Don’t know.”
“How long does your cleaning usually take?”
“Don’t know.”
Eliza sighed. His hair was dark, coarse, long like a choirboy’s. Just like the strand she’d found on Ophelia’s pillow. “Tell the truth, now. You didn’t sleep in your loft that night, did you?”
“Don’t know,” he muttered again, tucking his chin to his chest.
Instinctively, she reached through the bars and touched his hand. He was sweating, his skin warm under her palm. “It’s all right. You can tell me. You won’t be punished. Did you go back to the Egyptian?”
“She wasn’t there!” More tears washed his cheeks. “I went in to look for her, but she was already gone. I only wanted to make her smile again.”
“She wasn’t in her bedroom?”
“No.”
“But you lay down on her bed, didn’t you?”
He sniffled. “It smelled nice,” he said indistinctly. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Please don’t tell Mr. Underwood.”
“We won’t,” she soothed. “What did you do then?”
“I stayed until morning. I hid, but she didn’t come back. When I came out, the police were in the yard.”
“And did you hear any strange noises in the night? Say, a gunshot?”
He shook his head.
Wordlessly, Griffin handed Eliza his notebook and pencil.
Eliza offered them through the bars. “Will you write your name for me, please?”
“Uh?” Geordie stared blankly at the paper.
“Your name,” she prompted. “Can you write ‘Geordie Kelly’?”
He took the pencil and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Balanced the book on his knee. His brow furrowed with concentration, and he chewed his bottom lip. “There,” he said at last, and held it out to her proudly.
His sweaty hands had stained the paper, and the pencil lead was smudged. His handwriting looked like an eight-year-old’s, irregular, with some letters larger than the others. He’d drawn the “K” backwards at first and crossed it out.
A flash of memory, Lafayette scrawling on Sergeant Porter’s notepad: Your handwriting is a tragedy. If anyone’s writing was tragic, it was Geordie’s. His name was likely the only letters he had. Not the same hand as Ophelia’s correspondence, by any stretch.
If Geordie was faking, he was extremely good.
Griffin retrieved his notebook. “Did you ever give Miss Ophelia gifts, Geordie?”
“What’s gifts, sir?”
“Flowers, jewels, presents. Such as a gentleman gives a lady.”
Geordie’s brows crunched together. “Once I found some pansies in the street. But I gave those to Miss Irina.”
“I see,” murmured Griffin. “Nothing else?”
“No, sir. I don’t have anything like that. Mr. Underwood only gives me sixpence a week.”
Eliza frowned. A straight answer, in fact.
She recalled the flowers in Ophelia’s room, the housemaid’s rehearsed response: Miss Ophelia is much admired. It seemed Mrs. Maskelyne had told only half the truth. But if the flowers weren’t Geordie’s—then whose?
“One more thing,” she added. “You operate the electric lights at Her Majesty’s. Can you tell me how they work?”
He nodded vigorously. “I pull switches, and they come on and off. Sometimes they go bang, and there’s a fire, and I have to use the sand bucket.”
“Indeed. How many amperes does the array draw?”
A puzzled pause. “I pull switches,” he repeated.
“What kind of power source is it? An aetheric generator, or a rack of galvanic batteries?”
Geordie just frowned, bewildered.
Griffin touched Eliza’s shoulder. “I think that’s enough for now.”
She stood, dusting her skirts. “Thank you, Geordie. We’ll be back.”
Back in Griffin’s office, she waited until he closed the door before she rounded on him. “Tell me you still think he did it.”
Griffin perched on the desk’s edge, leaning back on his palms. “Well, in the absence of more evidence, he’s still our chief suspect. I can’t let him go. But I admit, it doesn’t seem likely.”
She laughed. “Harley, the boy can barely write, and he has no money for a scribe. He doesn’t even have the wit to invent a convincing lie.” She ticked the points off on her fingers. “One: those letters to Ophelia aren’t his. Two: he didn’t give Ophelia the flowers. But Mrs. Maskelyne wanted us to think he did. Three: he has no clue how an electric light works, let alone a more sophisticated machine. And four: the ‘other lady,’ who tried to convince Ophelia to leave the night Lysander beat her? Whom Geordie saw at the crime scene? That’s Clara Morton, assistant to the scientist Percival, whose electrical demonstration I attended.”
Griffin frowned. “What’s that to do with anything?”
“Clara lied to me. Pretended she didn’t know me, or Ophelia. And she’s an expert on high-voltage electrical apparatus. Not many machines will produce the type and weight of discharge we found at the scene.” Eliza pointed to the open journal. “I did some research. This is how the killer is getting away.” She took a breath. “It’s a teleporter.”
“A what?”
“An instantaneous long-distance travel machine.” She showed him the diagram. “You build two machines, one positive, one negative. The power source attaches to this one, the main system. The other is portable. You activate that one here”—she pointed—“and the machine transports you back home to there.” She looked up, triumphant. “With a very loud bang, and a pile of black aetheric discharge. This thing has a spark gap like this.” She held her hands a foot apart. “No wonder the stone in the wall was melted.”
Griffin studied the page. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s unorthodox. I’d rather not say.”
He stroked his mustaches. “Very well, I shan’t press. But there must be several scientists with sufficient expertise to build this. Imagine this Clara Morton to be the killer. She’s supposed to be Ophelia’s friend. What’s her motive?”
“Lysander beats Ophelia, Clara tries to convince her to run away,” mused Eliza. “Ophelia refuses, out of family loyalty, so . . . better dead than unhappy?”
Griffin winced.
Eliza sighed. “I agree, it’s flimsy.”
“Also, what’s the connection to Irina Pavlova?”
“Well . . . what if Clara isn’t the killer? What if she’s just helping the killer? He needed a method of escape, so he hired her to build this machine for him. She’s short of money. She might very well take such a job.”
“Or the killer blackmailed her somehow and forced her to help him.”
“Clara’s under investigation by the Royal, or at least Percival is. That’s an easy threat for a blackmailer.”
“Hmm.” Griffin considered. “She poses as Ophelia’s friend, lures her into the killer’s clutches . . . ?”
“Maybe she did the same to Miss Pavlova.”
“Far-fetched but possible. But then who’s ‘G,’ and how is he involved?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he isn’t. Just an unfortunate admirer, in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Eliza smoothed her hair absently. “Hmm.”
“Oh, dear,” said Griffin dryly. “I know that ‘hmm.’ It means trouble.”
She bit her lip. “It’s probably nothing . . .”
“But?”
“Do you recollect what Geordie said, when I asked what Ophelia and Clara were talking about in the yard?”
Griffin didn’t need to refer to his notebook. “He said, ‘Don’t know.’”
“The same thing he said every time he wanted to lie. As if
. . .”
“As if he knew, but didn’t want to tell us?”
“Exactly.” Eliza tucked the diary under her arm. “He might not be our murderer, but he’s definitely hiding something.”
“Could it be the same thing that Mrs. Maskelyne was trying to cover up? The identity of the real secret lover? The mysterious ‘G,’ in fact?”
“I think it’s time I paid Miss Morton another visit, don’t you?”
Griffin grinned. “I couldn’t possibly say, madam. This is a police investigation, I’ll have you know. But suddenly, I find myself strangely powerless to stop a civilian asking questions.”
Eliza grinned back. “For shame, Inspector. At this rate, the Met will be hip-deep in private investigators before sundown.”
“Scandalous, isn’t it? Do take care, Eliza. If Reeve catches you, the Home Secretary won’t care how many razor murderers I’ve caught. There’ll be nothing I can do for you.”
A MOST SINGULAR PERSUASION
DR. PERCIVAL’S EXPERIMENTAL LABORATORY WAS at the Royal Institution, a grand edifice fronted by fourteen marble columns, quite near Mr. Finch’s shop in Mayfair. Eliza hopped up the steps, clutching her bag close, and Hippocrates scuttled inside after her, towards the rear of the building.
She hadn’t telegraphed ahead or made an appointment. She wanted to ambush Clara, give her no chance to absent herself. And sure enough, when Eliza ducked under the low doorway to approach the array of buzzing electrical machinery by a row of soaped windows, there stood Clara, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, cleaning a pair of bright silvery anodes with a chemical-soaked rag.
Hipp beeped, his lights flashing double-time. “Off you go,” she murmured, and he dashed away under the tables, hunting rats.
An electric light hung low from a hinged metal arm, casting a pool of light around Clara Morton as she worked. She wore the same drab gray dress, her hair arranged in a tight coil. Her freckled face looked sallow, drawn with fatigue. Perhaps she, also, worked too hard. It wasn’t easy for a woman who wanted a career in science. You had to be better than your male colleagues, brighter, more determined.
“You again.” Clara didn’t cease her polishing. “Clear off.”
“I’m sorry we seem to have gotten off to a bad start,” Eliza began, with a harmless little smile. “I don’t mean to intrude. As I said, I’m a police physician, and—”
“What do you want?” snapped Clara, not looking up. “I’m very busy.”
The woman’s attitude stung. “Then I’ll keep it short,” said Eliza rudely. “I need to ask you some questions about the murder of Ophelia Maskelyne.”
Clara just scrubbed harder at the anode, liquid splashing in her pail. “Poor woman. An actress, wasn’t she? I don’t know anything about it. Just what I read in the papers.”
“Well, that’s strange, because I saw you at the crime scene, on the very morning Miss Maskelyne was found dead.” Eliza plonked her bag on the table, atop a pile of handwritten notes, and folded her arms. “And we have a witness who saw you arguing with the victim at the theater, just hours before she was killed. Obstructing a police investigation is a crime, Miss Morton. Care to revise your story?”
Clara halted, and then she sighed and let the anode slip from her hands into the liquid. “We talked, that night,” she said, in a small voice. Did her chin tremble? “I left the Egyptian sometime after one, and that’s the last I saw of her. I don’t know what happened. Please, Ophelia was my friend. I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“I understand,” said Eliza gently. “But two women are dead, possibly more. We have a murderer to catch. Can you think of anyone who wished Ophelia ill?”
“No. Everyone loved her.” A catch in her throat. “But it’s not always those who hate us who cause the most pain, is it?”
“What do you mean? What did you talk about, that night in the yard?”
Clara wiped her hands on a towel. “Her brother was in the habit of mistreating her. I urged her to stand up to him.”
“By doing what? Finding a husband to protect her? I understand she had a sweetheart.”
Clara laughed, bitter. “Another man, to beat her as Lysander did? To lock her in her room and order her about? Trust me, Ophelia wasn’t the marrying kind.”
“Then what would you have had her do? What was the fight about?”
Still, Clara avoided her gaze. “She didn’t want to leave. She could have, you know. There are places such women can be safe.”
Deft fingers tugged at the back of Eliza’s mind, a thief’s hand at her skirts. But she couldn’t grab it. “Could she have lodged with you, for instance? Where do you live?”
“I have a room at a ladies’ hostel near Sloane Square.”
“But she refused?”
Clara shrugged.
Eliza recalled Ophelia’s letter. I wished we could vanish together. Perhaps one day we shall . . . “And what happened then?”
“Lysander called for her, and Ophelia went back inside. I walked home. I’m afraid I don’t know anything else . . .”
“Are you acquainted with a young man named Geordie Kelly?”
“Geordie?” A little laugh. “A feeble-minded lad. He followed Ophelia around like a lost lamb, making eyes at her. A pest. Harmless, I suppose.”
“He told me you don’t like him. That you would chase him away.”
“Yes. He became tiresome. Always eavesdropping on our private conversations.”
“Could he have been eavesdropping that night, in the yard?”
Clara’s expression froze. “I didn’t see him if he was.”
Eliza held out a sheet of paper. She’d copied the teleporter diagram from the old diary, minus the technical notes. “Do you know what this is?”
The scientist leaned closer, frowning, but color flooded her cheeks. Relief at the change of subject? “Looks like an oversized capacitor, or . . . I say, this is a very strange design. Where did you get this?”
“What might such a machine be used for?”
Clara shrugged, opaque. “It looks like something an electrical chemist might use. For plating anodes such as these here, or synthesizing new chemicals.”
Images of a certain apothecary’s laboratory fizzed in Eliza’s mind. Galvanic cells, wires coiling from beakers of fluid, voltmeters, vacuum flasks, unorthodox spectrometers . . .
Marcellus Finch had been her father’s colleague, privy to his secrets. And he knew enough about electrical fluid phenomena to synthesize alchemical solutions, at least. Was Marcellus involved somehow? She’d perused his hidden cache of books at New Bond Street before and never found anything like this.
What if Finch was still in league with Fairfax? Henry Jekyll’s old cabal, still hiding their secrets? Storing their most provocative codices at Bethlem, where no one would ever think to look?
Eliza’s mind boggled. Finch’s strange medicines. Fairfax’s radical treatments. What was going on?
“But this machine is far too large to be practical,” Clara added. “The resistance alone would fry the circuit in minutes.”
“It could function only for a limited time?”
“Yes. A few minutes only, even if you had an extremely efficient voltage discharge method.”
“Such as what?”
“A heat sink the size of this room. Or a directed explosion. A lightning strike, if you like. Where did you say you got this?”
“That’s confidential.” From her bag, she pulled the diagram’s other half. Beneath the bag, Clara’s notepapers piled, their edges curling. Ornate handwriting, the letters swiftly but finely penned, with careful flourishes and swirls on the capitals . . .
Eliza’s heart skipped.
Harley’s words from Ophelia Maskelyne’s crime scene echoed in her mind. He’d been twitting Lafayette about his handwriting: That “T” looks like an “F.” No one drew their letters in exactly the same fashion.
The initial at the foot of Ophelia’s correspondence, for instance. A simple ‘G.�
�� Or, with a swirling flourish at the bottom . . .
Oh, my.
She held the diagram out to show Clara, damp fingers sticking to the paper. “What if you paired such a machine with this one? What purpose might it have then?”
Clara stared. “I insist that you tell me where you got this.”
“Why? Does it look familiar?”
Clara’s cheeks pinked. “No, I just . . .”
“Worried someone might have stolen your ideas?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Eliza watched her closely. “It’s easy to do, especially from a woman. No one would believe you had priority, would they? They’d assume you were taking the credit for some male scientist’s work. Look, I’m not from the Royal, Clara. You can tell me. Have you built something like this before?”
Clara sighed. “Not exactly . . .”
“Not exactly. A smaller, more rudimentary one, then, for the stage. For Ophelia’s vanishing act.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, come.” Eliza unfolded Ophelia’s letter from her pocket. “‘I watched you disappear tonight,’” she read. “‘It was better than I could have hoped. You were fabulous, and I wished we could vanish together. Perhaps one day we shall.’” She showed the letter to Clara. “This is your handwriting, isn’t it? And your initial ‘C’ at the bottom? The perfume of violets that you bought for her?”
“What if it is? We were friends. There’s no crime in that.” But Clara’s square chin quivered, and her fierce eyes glistened, wet.
“‘My dearest love?’” Eliza quoted from memory. “‘Your one and only truthful servant?’”
“I think you should leave now.”
“What really went on between you in the yard that night? What did Geordie Kelly see that he was too scandalized to tell me?”
Grief washed green like cholera over Clara’s face. “You horrid thing. Get out of my laboratory.”
Eliza’s heart brimmed with sympathy, but she resisted it, with a spike of Lizzie’s coarse practicality. Now was the time to be brutal, to move in for the kill. “An illicit liaison. My, my. The Maskelynes were very keen for us to believe that these letters came from someone else. And now I discover you’re building the very type of machine the killer is using to escape the scene of his—or her—crimes. It smells of cover-up, wouldn’t you say? I should think my inspector will be pleased to hear of this.”