I searched, but the figure was gone, as if a ghost disappearing into the ether, leaving no trace of its passing behind.
I shook my head, pulling the curtains open to allow as much light in the room as possible, and returned to Andrew, staring down at the many knots that adorned his restraints.
"Well," I said. "What a pickle," I added. "How did you manage this?"
"Tricked me," he said, his words a mere whisper.
"Andrew?"
"I like you saying...my name."
"Oh, well."
“Say it...again."
"I will do no such thing."
"So fearless."
"I am not!"
"I love that...about you." Oh. "I love...everything...about you. Forgive…me."
“Yes, of course. Hold on. What's the matter with you? You're never this gushing."
"Gushing. Mushing. Touching. Touch me, Anna."
"Oh, dear Lord." I searched his body, baring his skin, making him sigh. Heat washed down my spine, centring in my stomach, but I forced it aside and considered the problem at hand. Assessing the inspector as I would any patient. As I had many times before now.
And rightly so. For I found the culprit.
A feathered dart sticking out of his shoulder, dangling by the hole it had pierced in his skin.
"What on earth...?" I started, just as Henry called out from downstairs, "I say! Anyone home?"
You Haven’t A Chance, Old Boy
Anna
“What’s the matter with him?” Henry demanded, brandishing a lantern from his carriage.
“He has been drugged,” I supplied, pulling on various knots, trying to dislodge them.
“Not…strychnine,” Kelly mumbled. “Truth…serum.”
“Hmm,” I said, frowning down at a particularly stubborn clove hitch.
“Never heard of a such a thing,” Henry harrumphed. “Any excuse to accost a lady.”
“He is not accosting me.”
“So you say, Doctor. The man is leering at you like a thirsty sailor. I say!” Henry exclaimed, stepping closer, and in the process making the lantern sway alarmingly, “stop staring at Dr Cassidy like that.”
“Henry, do please be careful,” I instructed. “There is still some unburned wood in this building which might like a naked flame.”
“Absolute dump,” Henry grumbled moving further away - with the lantern - to investigate the damage.
“Home,” Kelly murmured. Then laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh either. One devoid of humour; bitter to its core.
“Whose home, Inspector?” I asked, my fingers becoming numb from the effort required to dislodge him.
“Hers,” he said.
“Who her?” I pressed, trying to keep him awake. His head lolled alarmingly.
“It was…a dart,” he said, out of nowhere. We’d left the “her” for now, it seemed.
“Yes. Dipped, I dare say, in scopolamine.” I leant forward, gripping his chin, and peered into his eyes. “Dilated pupils,” I announced. “Slurred speech. Lowered level of consciousness. It’s derived from the scopolia plant. A member of the nightshade family.”
I studied him for a reaction but received only a soppy smile for my efforts.
“You’re quite corned, Inspector,” I commented mildly. “Perhaps I should interrogate you.”
“Ask me…anything. I am…yours.”
It would have been humorous if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.
“Who lived here, Inspector?”
“Andrew. Say my…name.”
I sighed. Releasing one of his hands finally. His fingers wrapped around my wrist in lightning fashion, putting paid to the theory of inhibited reactions.
“My, you are a fast one,” I murmured, releasing his grip and moving to his other side to start on the ties there.
He was silent for a moment, and then I think he might have begun to snore.
“All right for some, eh?” Henry remarked jovially from across the room. “Bit of a swizzler, what?”
“He is not drunk, Mr Tempest.”
“He’s not right in the head, either.”
I narrowed my eyes at the knot in front of me and pursed my lips, lest I come to Andrew’s defence and give myself away.
“Who is this fellow to you, Anna?” Henry asked softly, moving closer. Uncomfortably aware of my thoughts.
But it was the uncertainty in his voice that had me answering. Had he blustered and demanded, I might well have kept close counsel. But Henry did follow me here out of concern for my wellbeing. And would be providing our means of escape.
“An acquaintance from Auckland,” I said, releasing a knot and moving on to the next. “Inspector Andrew Kelly of the Auckland Police Force.”
“I say, a copper! And from the Antipodes to boot!” Henry peered closer at Andrew’s face. “Why’s he here, then?”
“Attempting to locate Wilhelmina for one,” I said.
“He came all the way here for that?” Henry shook his head. “Was he forewarned?”
An interesting thought. “I assume he has another reason for visiting England, Mr Tempest. However, I am not familiar with it.”
“Rather timely, though, isn’t it?”
“A coincidence I am not above utilising. Wilhelmina is still missing.”
“Oh, Anna. I am sorry. Wherever would the chit have taken herself off too?”
I was not about to divulge my theory of Mina being fascinated with Inspector Kelly. Nor was I about to tell Henry of Andrew’s past. What little I knew of it. Henry was a friend, of sorts. But only a recent one. Hardly close enough to carry my burdens.
“I must thank you, Mr Tempest,” I said, clearing my throat to speak on. “For following me here. Coming to our aid.”
“Our aid, Anna? I rather thought I was rescuing you, not him.”
I didn't reply, releasing instead the last tie that held Andrew to the chair. I let out a loud sigh and stood upright, stretching my back. I noticed belatedly that Henry watched my every move hungrily. Rather like a thirsty sailor, come to think of it.
“Perhaps your driver would assist us in removing Inspector Kelly from his stool?” I enquired.
“Oh, yes,” Henry said, shaking himself awake. “I shall ask him to attend to the inspector in due haste.”
He left the lantern on the floorboards and walked from the room, quite prepared to leave me unchaperoned in the presence of an intoxicated gentleman.
“Whatever am I to do with him?” I murmured to myself.
“He is…too familiar…with you, Anna,” Andrew said.
I spun back around and stared into remarkably blue eyes. Even with blown pupils, his stare was forthright.
“And you are not, Inspector?” I asked.
“I am…ever your servant, madam.”
“It’s wearing off, isn't it?”
He nodded. Then shook his head. “Not quite,” he murmured.
I took a step closer.
“Whose house is this, Andrew?”
He lifted his head and stared right at me.
“You know. Too clever…by far. My Anna.”
I turned and looked around the near empty room, taking in the faded wallpaper in the light of the lamp. Flowers. Pale pinks and dark blues. Green vines intertwining them. It would have been rather pretty, once upon a time. Now, it looked abandoned and uncared for.
“This is a bedroom,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Yours,” I whispered.
“In a previous…life.”
I kept my back to him; I couldn't look him in the face. Not when I asked this.
“Was it her?” I swallowed thickly. “Your wife? Did she do this to you?”
“My wife,” he spat.
I turned, my body moving of its own volition. My breath stalling in my chest. My heart bursting.
“Was that your wife I chased from the room?”
He lifted his eyes and held my unwavering stare. My body shook. My eyes were steady.
“I have no w
ife,” he rasped. “She is dead to me.”
“Ah, but Inspector, she is not dead, is she?”
He slowly shook his head as loud footfalls could be heard out on the landing. Henry and his driver stomped into the room, shattering the moment.
“There he is,” Henry said, waving a hand in Andrew’s direction. “And back in the land of the living, it appears. Pity.”
“Watch your…tongue, sir.”
“I say! No need for that behaviour. We’re all gentlemen here.”
“Some of us…more so than…others.”
“Well, I never!” Henry blustered. “Is this what has become of the Antipodes? I dare say, you are pleased to have emigrated here, Anna. No more ruffians to deal with.”
“Henry…” I started.
“Anna is returning home,” Andrew said, rather clearly, I thought.
“Home? My dear boy, ‘home’ is where I intend to keep her. In the manner of which she deserves.”
“Home is Mrs Pugh’s Boarding House on Fleet Street, gentlemen,” I said, curtly. “And I’d rather like to return there now.”
“With him?” both men snapped. Then eyed each other suspiciously.
“Have you booked accommodation, Inspector?” I asked calmly, when I felt anything but calm, right then.
“Not as yet,” Andrew replied, attempting to stand and falling back onto his rickety chair.
He tried again and promptly fell backwards. Sweat started to bead his brow.
“If you please,” I said to Henry’s horseman. “He’ll require a firm grip. Scopolamine has a tendency to render one insensate.”
“Jolly good, then,” Henry exclaimed, and promptly let go of his side of the inspector, allowing the man to fall back down yet again.
I arched a brow and turned on my heel, leading the way downstairs.
“You haven’t a chance, old boy,” Henry murmured over my shoulder.
Andrew, though, did not reply.
I’m Sure I Don’t Know
Inspector Kelly
It should have made things easier. The fact that Anna now knew of Eliza May. But instead, it only clouded everything; turned what was once lit so brightly into shadows. Making ghosts appear at every corner. Hiding Anna away.
Cutting me off from everything that made this damnable life worth living again.
I cleared my throat and took a sip of Mrs Pugh’s tea. Blackie paced the sitting room, his hands fisted, his face hard, his dark eyes glinting in the naked light of the room. Muffled voices could be heard from the hallway. The landlady offering up her own two pennies worth and that damnable Tempest trying valiantly to sway Miss Cassidy from her current chosen path.
I could have saved the cove the effort and pointed out Anna’s stubborn side.
“I rather believe,” the pompous prick said, “that their staying here is quite inappropriate, Mrs Pugh.”
“Where else should they stay, but a boarding house?” Anna replied neutrally.
“Well, anywhere but here, dear lady,” the cur said.
“I have the room,” Mrs Pugh offered. “And need the business. I’m not wont to turn ‘em away.”
“Think you not,” Tempest ground out, “that they should retire to another more appropriate location?”
“More appropriate, how?” Mrs Pugh demanded. “Is my home not good enough, sir?”
“No, no, of course not,” the idiot replied, back peddling like the coward he most certainly was. “But, madam, a lady is present.”
“Am I not a lady, then?” Mrs Pugh demanded, making me smile.
Blackie huffed, flicked me an angry glare, and then resumed his pacing.
“Of, course, of course…”
“Henry,” Anna said softly, making the smile slide from my face. “Thank you for your help this afternoon, but I am quite safe.”
“Anna.”
The front door opened. “Please send Emily my love,” Anna replied. “I’m sure she’ll be frantic to know where you have taken yourself off to.”
“Emily does not concern herself with my comings and goings of a night. I have time to dally a little longer.” The unsaid being “to keep an eye on things here.”
“Would you like a room and all, too?” Mrs Pugh enquired. “I’ve one in the attic which should suit you nicely.”
I gathered the woman did not much like the toff. I decided, however, that I liked Mrs Pugh.
“Good night, Henry,” Anna said firmly.
The sound of huffing accompanied the squeak of the door, and then the click of it closing behind him.
I let out a long breath of air I hadn’t realised I’d been holding and caught Blackmore’s eye.
“Don’t think you’ve got off scot free, sir,” he said. “Miss Cassidy’s only just gettin’ started.”
The door to the sitting room opened, and Anna walked in, followed by an apron wearing, hand-wringing Mrs Pugh.
“Gentlemen,” Anna announced. “I do believe we need to talk.”
I stood from my seat, swaying only slightly, my hand fisting my cane for added balance.
“It’s late, Dr Cassidy,” I offered politely. “I would be happy to address your concerns in the morning.”
Blackie let out a little laugh; his lips twisting into a smirk.
Damn the man.
“Scopolamine has a short half-life, Inspector,” Anna pointed out. “But I dare say your assailant used a significant amount on that dart.”
Mrs Pugh sucked in a mortified breath of air. Blackie only smiled wider.
“Never ‘eard of this scopolamine before, Doctor,” he said. “Do tell us how it works.”
“I’d be happy to, Sergeant,” Anna said, moving into the room proper and taking a seat on the opposite couch.
I sat too, lest I sway any further and give the chit more ammunition with which to hit me with. Blackie remained standing, but Mrs Pugh sat in a chair by the door. The nosy landlady was doing her best to keep Anna’s reputation intact when on our earlier visit, she had failed to do so.
“It is derived from the scolpolia tree,” Anna explained. “Most commonly found in Europe and the Orient. Its use as a truth serum began in 1881 and since then has escalated in many eastern countries. A muscle relaxant in low doses and a hallucinogenic in high. It also has the unnerving ability to inhibit memory.” She turned her storm grey eyes on me. “Do you remember what happened this evening, Inspector?”
“Vividly.”
“Even how you got lured into a dark house with no back-up and clobbered over the ‘ead with a dart?” Blackie asked, irritatingly impertinent.
I could see a corner when backed into it, so remained mute.
“Of course,” Anna went on, pouring herself a cup of tea, “its most common use is as a truth serum. Pray tell, Inspector, what did the assailant seek that required an honest answer?”
I blinked at her, my cane spinning in my agitated hand. Anna’s stunning eyes tracked the movement as she raised the teacup to her lips and hid a smile.
Enough!
“What were you thinking, Anna?” I asked in an explosion of air. “Following me into that house.”
“Oh, we are to disassemble my behaviour this evening, are we?”
“You are not a policeman,” I countered.
“I am a police surgeon,” she replied, daring me to say otherwise.
“Anything could have happened,” I argued. “What if he had fired another dart?” I demanded. “I could not have saved you, incapacitated as I was.”
“I require little saving, Inspector,” she said haughtily. “And unlike you, I was aware of my back-up.”
“Hear, hear,” Blackie muttered.
“Anna,” I said pleadingly. “I lost an informant tonight to that brigand.”
She stilled.
“I could have lost you,” I murmured quietly.
Silence met my words. Heat flushed my cheeks. I couldn't meet anyone’s eyes. But at least I’d obtained my objective.
Blackie finally cleared
his throat.
“You said ‘he’, sir? Did you get a good look at the blighter?”
The silence stretched. “Did I?” I forced myself to say.
“Yes, you did,” Anna replied tartly.
“I’m sure I don't remember,” I tried.
“Oh, so now you call on the drug’s ability to restrict memory?” Anna demanded uncharacteristically harshly.
I lifted my head and flicked my eyes over her face. Tight lips. Pale skin. Firm jaw.
She was a vision when riled.
“Was it her?” she whisper-demanded.
“Was it who?” Blackie asked.
I held Anna’s stare with one as equally as determined. Damnation, couldn’t she stay out of my twisted past?
“The letter,” Blackie suddenly announced.
My head whipped around to face him, my eyes screaming at him to stop.
“This has nothing to do with young Miss Cassidy, does it, sir?” the blasted man continued.
“What?” Anna whispered, her face paling further.
I glared at Blackie and then leant forward in my seat, my eyes on Anna.
“We were chasing down a lead,” I explained. “In my old district.”
“Whitechapel,” Anna supplied.
“Spitalfields, actually,” I corrected. “But close enough.”
“Was Mina there?”
“Possibly,” I hedged.
“And the lead?”
“My informant.”
“Dead,” she said in a rush of air.
I wanted to comfort her. I wanted to breach the gap and wrap her up in my arms. But Blackie hovered, and Mrs Pugh watched on eagerly, and the sins of my past came back to haunt me.
The room was full of ghosts.
Anna struggled with her emotions for a long while and then lifted her chin; a tempest swirling in her beautiful gaze.
“And the letter?” she enquired.
The damn letter; currently burning a hole in my coat pocket. I almost reached for it. I almost smoothed a hand over my heart, giving myself away.
“An old foe,” I murmured. Then looked toward Sergeant Blackmore. “And not who confronted me in that Lime Street home.”
That Lime Street home, as if it hadn’t once been my home. I feared the omission revealed too much. It certainly had Anna stiffening.
Breathless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 2): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series Page 8