by Ranae Rose
He turned away from the window, unwrapping his arms from around Elsie and leaving her to stare out at the crime-ridden city as he picked up the newspaper again. “Things have been quiet lately. I thought I could afford to spend a night in your arms.”
She turned her back on the cityscape and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t torture yourself over this. You can’t possibly be everywhere all the time. It was bad luck that those people were killed, but it’s not your fault.”
He shrugged away her touch, staring silently down at the bold headline.
“No!” She wrapped her arms around his waist and clung tightly to him, pressing her cheek against his back. “I won’t let you sulk over this. Think of all the lives you’ve saved. Think of me, for God’s sake. I would’ve been reduced to a pile of charred bones seven years ago if you hadn’t intervened. That one act of compassion would have been more than enough to set you apart from the average man, and from the sound of it you’ve done far more. So no, I simply won’t allow you to blame yourself for this.” She finished in a rush, glaring across the room at nothing in particular. Hopefully putting her foot down now would crush the beginnings of what looked ready to blossom into a lengthy depression. The only question was: could this vampire be swayed by a comparatively small female clinging to his back, speaking into one of his shoulder blades?
He dropped the paper. “I suppose it doesn’t seem as bad when I think of you.”
Pleased by this promising concession, she nodded, which was an awkward maneuver, considering that her cheek was still pressed flat against his back.
“But there’s still the matter of the killer,” he added gravely. “There could be an immortal murderer loose in London, and I may be the only one who realizes it.”
Fear sliced through her heart as she imagined Damon confronting a twisted killer that knew just how to take his life. “There might not be,” she said, as much to comfort herself as him. “Even if you have to cut out a vampire’s heart to kill it, I don’t see why a vampire would go around doing the same to humans.”
“To send a message,” he replied without skipping a beat, clearly having thought the matter over already. “I’m sure that’s why. I just don’t know what the message is, or who it’s directed at.”
“What it might be and who it could be directed at,” she insisted, clinging to the hope that there was simply a human fiend running wild with a butcher’s tools.
A knock on the door came before he could reply. “Yes?” he called out instead.
“I’ve a message from your father, sir,” a voice came from beyond the door. It sounded quiet, but its owner must have been speaking quite loudly for them to be able to hear her clearly.
“Come in and deliver it then.”
Louise appeared in the doorway, showing no surprise at the sight of Elsie clinging to Damon, still in her robe. “Your father wishes you to join him in his study,” she said, her tone perfectly polite. Though she’d always liked Louise, Elsie suddenly felt as if she’d never truly appreciated her. It was confusing enough being elevated from the household staff to the young master’s wife. Louise certainly seemed to be handling the situation with more grace than she herself had managed yet.
“I’ll be with him shortly.”
Louise disappeared, pulling the door softly shut behind herself and leaving the couple alone again.
“I should warn you that my father likely wants me to accompany him on some business matter that will take up half the day, at least.”
Elsie finally relaxed against Damon, loosening her hold around his waist as he turned to face her. “Does it bother you terribly? Being forced to attend all those meetings and things for a business you detest, I mean.” The only time he sounded half as cynical as when he spoke of his immortal nature was when Elsie brought up the industrial empire he was set to inherit.
He shook his head. “The meetings are a bore, but I willingly choose to attend as many as I can when I am in London. I am eager to inherit the factories from father whenever he sees fit to relinquish them.” His mouth curved in a wry smile. “I suppose that will occur whenever he’s kept his iron grip on them for as long as he can manage without people beginning to suspect that he’s immortal.”
“Really?” She stared up at him in surprise. “I hadn’t imagined that you actually looked forward to inheriting your father’s business.”
He smiled in earnest now. “Oh yes. When I finally gain control of the factories, things are going to change.” On that happy if somewhat ambiguous note, he opened the wardrobe and plucked out a fine, business-worthy jacket. “Why don’t you go see what Lucy has planned for the day? Whatever it is, I’m sure it includes you. Just don’t let her get too carried away.” Brushing a kiss across her cheek, he pulled her into a brief but tight embrace. “Have a wonderful day, love. I’ll see you this evening if not sooner.”
He left in a surprisingly good mood that, God willing, would keep his mind off of the morning’s macabre news.
****
“What do you mean ‘go shopping’?” Elsie asked, slumped in a damask chair as far from the window as possible. She’d barely been sitting down for half a minute, but Lucinda was still bristling with energy.
“What do you think I mean? We’ve just commissioned a dozen dresses to be made for you, and you’ve only got one bonnet! The first gown will be done by the end of the week. We must make sure you’ve got a bonnet to match.”
“This very minute?” Elsie asked, casting a cursory glance at the tall window that revealed a sunny mid-afternoon sky. Though she herself had been exhausted by the session with the dressmaker, Lucinda appeared energized. It was quickly becoming apparent that the lengthy fitting had been a sort of warm-up exercise for her, a beginning to a rigorous day of fashionable spending.
“Of course. We want to have enough time to look around before the shops close.”
Before Elsie knew it she was being whisked away, abandoning Lucinda’s bedroom for the promise of a shop that sold bonnet trimmings galore – ribbons in every color and the most exquisite lace, according to Lucinda. Elsie was barely able to steal a moment to snatch her own plain bonnet from where she’d left it in her and Damon’s bedchamber. As she prepared to exit the room, something else caught her eye – the newspaper lying on a small table beside the bed. She grabbed it on a whim, intending to pick Lucinda’s brain over the matter during the carriage ride. Would she draw the same sinister conclusion that Damon had?
****
“I suppose it could have been,” Lucinda said for the third time, looking pensive as she lifted the velvet curtain and stole another glance out the carriage window, checking to see how close they were to her favorite shop. Judging by the expression on her face, they weren’t quite close enough. “Though I don’t think the fact that the murderer cut the victims’ hearts out constitutes solid proof. A particularly twisted human might have come up with that idea. It has a great deal of shock value, wouldn’t you say?” She shot a sideways glance at the paper, where a bold headline glared from the front page, announcing the grisly deaths.
Elsie nodded as she returned her attention to the article, scanning it for any hints of the truth she might have missed. The details were disturbing, if not particularly helpful in any way that she could identify. The young couple had been murdered together in bed, left tangled in each other’s arms in death. The actress, on the other hand, had been left in an alleyway, slumped alone in the shadows. Amelia White, 27, had acted in over two dozen plays at the Golden Theatre… Elsie stared at the inked name as something clicked in her mind; a realization accompanied by the remembered sound of a hiccup resounding throughout a courtroom. “Lucinda, look here! Look at the name of the actress that was killed.”
Lucinda’s ruby lips formed an ‘o’ shape as she scanned the text. “That’s the name of the tipsy prostitute who testified against Damon.”
“Yes. But according to this she wasn’t a prostitute.”
“Well of course the paper put
the best face on it they could – Ms. White may have been a whore in life, but in death she’s a tragic victim. They want the readership to feel as sorry for her as possible. Tragedy sells papers.”
“She must have really done some acting though, if the paper gave the name and address of the theater,” Elsie mused. “It says here she acted in over two dozen plays.”
“She could have stopped acting ten years ago,” Lucinda pointed out, “and turned to prostitution instead.”
“Still, don’t you think it’s glaringly obvious that Griffith hired an actress to play the role of a witness to his brother’s murder?”
“She did a poor job of it. I should say that Griffith’s money was wasted.”
“Perhaps that’s why she was killed.”
Lucinda arched an eyebrow in the familiar Remington fashion. “You think Griffith orchestrated the murders?”
Elsie shrugged, trying to get a rein on the wild thoughts and half-formed conclusions that were whirling through her mind. Hiring Ms. White must have seemed perfect to Griffith – she’d possessed both acting skills and, thanks to the fact that she was a prostitute, an excuse for lingering in the street around Green’s at night. “I don’t know, but it seems awfully suspicious. Perhaps we should stop at the Golden Theater and see if she’d acted there recently. I don’t think it’s far from here.”
Lucinda looked bemused. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have a few facts to throw in Griffith’s face if he tries to stir up trouble again,” she eventually concluded. “So long as we’re still able to make it to the shop before closing time, that is.”
“I only want to ask a few questions,” Elsie promised. “It won’t take long.”
****
There had perhaps never been a place less deserving of its name than the Golden Theater. It was a grubby building fashioned of deteriorating brick, sandwiched between a tailor’s shop and a narrow alley that appeared to be home to a bevy of slat-ribbed cats. The sign that hung above the entrance had obviously been gaudy a decade ago, but had been weathered down to something barely legible. At three in the afternoon, the windows were dark and the doors closed. “Are you sure you want to go in?” Lucinda asked.
“You can wait in the carriage if you’d rather not,” Elsie replied. “I don’t mind the shabbiness.” The truth was that the Golden Theater’s state of disrepair was nothing compared to the squalor she’d spend the first twelve years of her life in.
“No, I’ll go inside with you.” Lucinda gave the building a challenging look from beneath the brim of her bonnet, as if daring it to soil her pristine dress.
Elsie stepped forward and knocked solidly on the splintered wooden door. Several moments passed.
“Perhaps you’d better try again.”
Elsie nodded at Lucinda and raised her fist. The door swung inward just before her knuckles could make contact with the worn wood.
“We’re not lookin’ for any new actresses currently,” said a stout woman who filled the doorway completely, giving them a tired look from beneath her cap, which failed to conceal more than a few escaped iron-grey curls.
“We’re not actresses,” Elsie said.
The woman took a couple moments to survey the visitors, her gaze sweeping from their colorfully beribboned bonnets (Lucinda had insisted on attaching a length of jonquil ribbon to Elsie’s before they’d left the house) to their fine skirts and the rather delicate low-heeled pumps that peeked from beneath their hems. “I suppose you’re not,” she concluded. “Or at least if you were, you wouldn’t be lookin’ for work here.” She offered no invitation for them to explain why they had come. “First show of the night starts at eight. Mid-Summer Night’s Dream.”
Any curiosity Elsie felt toward the play was sparked entirely by the undreaminess of the venue. It was hard to imagine that even the most vivid scenery could conjure images of summer meadows or faeries inside the Golden Theater. “Begging your pardon, but we’re not here to see a play, either.” Elsie seized her self-made opportunity to explain herself before the woman could offer a reply. “I’d like to ask someone a few questions about one of your actresses. Is the owner in?”
The woman’s face darkened. “My husband and I run the place, but I won’t be answerin’ no questions. You two aren’t the first to come here askin’ about Ms. White – though you are the first ladies.” She tipped her head in their direction, as if acknowledging their forwardness. “I’ve too much to do to prepare for tonight’s performance to be standin’ around providin’ fodder for gossip.”
“Please,” Elsie stepped forward, placing a slippered foot in the way of the door before her reluctant conversant could close it. Hopefully she wouldn’t try – Elsie’s flimsy footwear wouldn’t offer much protection against the tough old wood. “Mrs.…”
“Barnes,” the woman conceded.
“Mrs. Barnes, we’re here for more than idle chatter. I’m trying to shed some light on the mystery of Ms. White’s murder.”
The woman chuckled. “A couple of lady detectives, eh? Well now, I’ve heard it all today, I have.”
“Not exactly,” Elsie replied, doing her best to seem as unridiculous as possible. It wasn’t easy with the woman laughing in her face.
“Please, Mrs. Barnes.” Lucinda stepped in, somehow managing to sound calm and in control – much like her mother always did. “We’re only asking for a few moments of your time, and answering a couple simple questions just might help Ms. White’s killer be brought to justice.”
Mrs. Barnes recovered slowly from her bout of hilarity. After a few last wheezes, she became suddenly business-like. “I suppose I could spare a few moments for someone lookin’ to buy a pair of tickets to tonight’s show.” She smiled, revealing a mouth that was only half-full of teeth.
“Of course,” Lucinda replied, opening her reticule as calmly as if she’d come to the Golden Theatre intending to buy tickets all along. She handed the woman the standard price for a pair of box-seat tickets and then some.
“Well, well,” Mrs. Barnes chortled, quickly stuffing the money into a grubby purse and tucking it away on her person. “Come in for a few moments, both of you.”
The inside of the Golden Theater was hardly in better repair than the exterior. Rows of uncomfortable-looking seats stretched a modest distance beyond a small stage, the only alternative to a few boxes that looked precariously unsturdy. Two dusty chandeliers hung overhead, their half-burnt candles lightless, leaving the majority of the building cloaked in a sort of melancholy darkness that added to the facility’s air of neglect. Knowing that Lucinda would probably object if asked to sit in one of the dust-covered seats, Elsie began her bought interview before Mrs. Barnes could offer. “Is it true that Ms. White acted here?”
Mrs. Barnes nodded. “On occasion.”
“Not regularly?”
Mrs. Barnes shook her head, causing a few escaped curls to dance above her brow. They were the same color as the dust that coated everything, making the woman seem as much a part of the place as the chandeliers and stage. “Used to, but then she took to drinkin’, oh, five years ago or so.”
“Was she a very good actress?”
“When she wasn’t into her cups. Couldn’t act to save her life when she was. Muddled half her lines with hiccups and forgot the rest.”
That seemed about on par with Ms. White’s behavior at the courthouse. Apparently, Griffith hadn’t known about her alcoholism. “So you stopped casting her in your plays because of her drinking habits?”
“Whenever there was anyone else to take the role,” Mrs. Barnes replied, sounding mildly defensive. “Would’ve gone bankrupt if we’d casted her like we used to in the old days. Occasionally we’d get desperate – an actress would fall ill or get too big with child for her costume – and we’d call in Ms. White as a last resort. Usually happened once a month or less.”
“How did Ms. White earn a living, if her employment here was so infrequent? Did she act at any other theaters?”
Mrs. Barne
s shook her head and shot Elsie a dark look. “She earned her living the same way many a desperate woman or washed-up actress does.”
Elsie nodded. “And her living arrangements? Could you shed any light on those?”
“She lived right here. Rented a cot back in the storage room. Nearly always paid the fee on time, too,” she said as if she felt she needed to restore some honor to Ms. White’s memory.
“I see. Mrs. Barnes, do you have any idea who might have murdered Ms. White?”
“Who knows?” She grimaced. “A woman out on the streets at night is a target for all sorts of evil. I’d wager t’was only that she was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Chapter 16
“Jenny.” She stood slightly hunched, bent over a shelf in the library, wiping away whatever dust had accumulated on the edge of one of the many bookshelves. Elsie had noticed her when she’d gone down the corridor several minutes before with Lucinda. After depositing four ridiculously expensive bonnets and what must have been half of London’s ribbon supply in her bedroom, she’d parted company with her sister-in-law and returned for an overdue conversation with her oldest friend.
Jenny turned slowly, surely recognizing Elsie’s voice. Her face looked a shade whiter than usual. Was it an illusion caused by Elsie’s enhanced vision, or was Jenny frightened? Or perhaps angry? Her mouth was motionless and unreadable, until a single word rushed out like a confession. “Elsie.” She looked wary as soon as she said it, as if afraid she’d said the wrong thing.
“Yes?” Elsie asked in as friendly a tone as possible, doing her best to let Jenny know, without sounding condescending, that it was still all right for her to call her by her given name. The idea of asking Jenny to call her ‘Mrs. Remington’ was even more ridiculous than the shopping spree she’d just gone on.