End of the Century

by Chris Roberson

  Blank tipped the boy, shut the door, and returned to his bedchamber to bathe and dress. Melville had been circumspect in the details of his communiqué, but it was clear from reading between the lines that the so-called Jubilee Killer had likely struck again.

  Without calling ahead to warn her, Blank knocked on the door of Number 9, Bark Place. When Mrs. Pool answered the door, a barely concealed scowl of disapproval at finding him standing on the step, he said, “Kindly give these to your mistress,” and handed her the bouquet of long-stemmed white roses he'd purchased on the way. Tucked in between the stems, speared on one of the longer thorns, was a card.

  Mrs. Pool left Blank standing in the entryway, and in moments Miss Bonaventure was standing at the top of the stairs in a nightgown, the roses in one hand, the card in the other. “‘Miss Bonaventure, we are needed,’” she read aloud. She smiled. “Blank, why do I get the impression that your gift of flowers arrives with some strings attached?”

  Mrs. Pool, scandalized at her employer appearing before a gentleman caller in such a state of undress—practically naked—stuck her head out from around the corner and glared at them, before ducking back out of sight.

  “Well, Miss Bonaventure, I'm afraid that I must interrupt your much deserved rest. It appears that our friend the Jubilee Killer has been busy.”

  A short while later, Blank and Miss Bonaventure arrived at the front door of the Tivoli. It was on the south side of the Strand, across from the Adelphi and next door to the Savoy.

  “It's been just ages since we've been to the theater, Blank,” Miss Bonaventure said, stepping down from the hansom cab that had carried them. “When was the last we saw together? Was it The Importance of Being Earnest at St. James's?”

  Blank tugged down the front of his waistcoat, which had ridden up in the cab, and scowled unconsciously. “No,” he said with a shake of his head. With his silver-topped cane he pointed up the street at the Lyceum. “It was King Arthur.”

  “Ah!” Miss Bonaventure clapped her hands. “Of course. With Arthur Sullivan's incidental score, and Henry Irving as that other Arthur, the one with the sword.”

  “Don't forget Ellen Terry's Guenevere,” Blank said, helpfully.

  “Forget it? I wish I could. Ghastly.”

  Blank shrugged. “I liked the scenery and costumes well enough, but then you never can go too far wrong with Burne-Jones. Bram Stoker was wise to bring him in on the production.”

  “Bram Stoker, the writer?” Miss Bonaventure asked.

  “Bram Stoker, the theater manager,” Blank answered. “Though I understand that both writer and manager receive their mail at the same address and are married to the same woman.”

  “We shall have to go to the theater again together soon, you and I,” Miss Bonaventure said, threading her arm through his.

  “I expect we shall momentarily,” Blank said, guiding her towards the door, “but I doubt it will be quite the experience you're looking for.”

  Miss Bonaventure smiled at him. “Well, if the experience is worse than that of Carr's King Arthur, I shall be very much surprised.”

  As it happened, the body had been discovered not in the Tivoli Music Hall itself, but in a studio built behind it. The woman had been identified as one Miss Cecilia Villers, and her body had been discovered first thing that morning by William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson, an employee of the Mutoscope and Biograph Company that leased the studio from the Tivoli.

  Kennedy-Laurie Dickson, it appeared, had briefly left the studio to conduct some business in the city, but was expected back momentarily. While they waited, Blank and Miss Bonaventure questioned the other employees on hand to learn what they could. What they discovered amounted to very little: that the principal address of the Mutoscope and Biograph Company was 2 to 4 Cecil Court, Westminster; that their films included “Pelicans at the Zoo,” “The Home Life of a Hungarian Family,” “Elephants at the Zoo,” and “The Coldstream Guard”; that the “Biograph” was a projector using wide-gauge sixty-eight-millimeter film, and the “Mutoscope” was a viewing device utilizing bromide prints in a “flick-book” principle; and that the cameras used in the studio were manufactured by Perihelion, Unlimited Company of London. All of which was perhaps interesting, if marginally, in the way that weather reports from other countries might be of trivial interest but hardly have any bearing on one's own daily plans. The only information of any relevance which Blank and Miss Bonaventure were able to procure was the fact that Miss Villers, a photographer of some small talent, had been these past weeks employed as a camera operator by the Mutoscope and Biograph Company, who were so desperate for material to meet the growing demand for moving pictures that they were willing to overlook the fact that she was a woman. That her films seemed to be several cuts above the lackluster record of animals in cages which accounted for a significant percentage of the company's output, it seemed, had no doubt argued somewhat in her favor.

  Miss Bonaventure recalled having seen some of Miss Villers photographic work on exhibition in a small gallery. On the evidence of those pictures alone, Miss Villers had obviously been influenced by the work of the late Julia Margaret Cameron.

  Blank was somewhat surprised, as he often was, at Miss Bonaventure's seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of women who excelled in the arts and sciences. Though to his certain knowledge Miss Bonaventure had not met many if any of the women in question personally, when their names were mentioned she was invariably able to recall some salient details from their personal and professional biographies. It was as though Miss Bonaventure had made a study of successful women, though through the use of what resources Blank was unable to guess.

  “I knew she didn't do any more photography,” Miss Bonaventure had said, absently, staring off into empty space, “but I'd just assumed she married, or…” She trailed off, and caught Blank looking at her. “I'm sorry,” she said, bringing her features under control. “We'd never met, but having seen her work, I felt that I knew her, somehow.”

  So far as Blank had been able to discover, Miss Villers had once done a single gallery show, and that one at a small and seldom-visited gallery of little repute. He wondered how many photos might have been displayed for Miss Bonaventure to come to know her so well.

  Finally, William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson arrived. He wore a Homburg and a neatly trimmed little mustache, and spoke English with an American accent, with the slightest traces of France creeping around the edges of some words. He explained that he had immigrated to England the month before to take up an appointment as technical manager and cameraman for the newly formed Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Then, without prompting, he explained that he had until 1895 been a senior associate to Thomas Alva Edison, whom he described as a “rat bastard,” their association having ended when Edison discovered that Dickson had been sharing trade secrets with his competitors, the Lathams.

  “Well, thank you for agreeing to answer our questions,” Blank said, having to work to keep his slight smile from erupting into full laughter. He'd not had to ply Dickson with one of his calling cards, or employ his mesmerism in the slightest. The cameraman was clearly born to talk and needed only the slightest provocation to let out a torrent of words, on whatever topic.

  Dickson continued, unabated, talking about the KMCD group he'd set up with three friends, Koopman, Marvin, and Casler, still more “rat bastards,” who had failed to offer him a senior management position when the initial development work for the company had ended. He'd spent the previous year and the early part of 1897 as a traveling cameraman, filming in various parts of the United States, living out of hotels and roadside inns, and his roaming finally ended when he accepted the Mutoscope and Biograph Company's offer and moved to London. Only after accepting the offer and relocating, though, was he informed by his new employers, whom he refrained from calling “rat bastards,” but only just, that he would be expected to travel widely throughout Britain and Europe, providing the company with a steady stream of filmed product.

  �
��You're right, that hardly seems fair,” Blank said, his manner consoling. “Now, about the matter of the dead woman.…”

  Dickson blustered on, hardly pausing for breath, segueing from the topic of his new employers to the other employees with whom he'd been forced to work. Including the aforementioned Miss Cecilia Villers, who if it had escaped everyone's notice, was a woman. That he was expected every morning to restore the damage done in the night to the camera and its settings by the second-shift crew was bad enough, but that the inept camera operator in question was of the distaff variety simply added insult to injury.

  “So she was not an accomplished photographer?” Miss Bonaventure asked.

  Dickson allowed that Miss Villers had produced a few very watchable films, though perturbed to be questioned by a woman, but went on to say that anyone could fall off a building and hit a bucket of water, but that it didn't make them marksmen, which analogy seemed to escape Blank and Miss Bonaventure. That Miss Viller's work was evidently skillful, it appeared, was not evidence of her skill.

  “What can you tell us about the scene this morning?” Blank asked.

  Here, Dickson seemed to soften, remembering the sight that had greeted him on first arriving at the studio a few short hours ago. He recounted that he had arrived early, not long after dawn, having not yet accustomed his sleeping schedule to the early London sunrise. He had gone to unlock the studio, as was his habit, and been surprised to find the door standing open. Dickson had entered to investigate, and almost collided with another man on his way out. This stranger had been tall, dressed in a shabby suit, and completely bald. His skin, that of his hands and on his head and neck, was chalky white, almost cadaverous in coloring. There was something strange, too, about the man's eyes, but Dickson had only caught a glimpse of them and could not put into words just what it was that had struck him odd.

  “So the man rushed past you and out of the building, and that's when you found the body?” Blank glanced to Miss Bonaventure, and then back to Dickson.

  Dickson allowed that he was correct.

  Miss Bonaventure leaned in close to Blank. She'd had the chance to talk with the constable who'd first arrived on the scene, in response to Dickson's urgent call for help. According to the constable, Miss Bonaventure said, in a voice pitched so low only Blank was close enough to hear, the victim had been dead some little while before Dickson supposedly found her.

  Dickson shared rooms with two of the other employees, temporarily he assured Blank and Miss Bonaventure, and when these employees arrived at the studio, they were able to corroborate parts of Dickson's story, namely, that he had left their rooms shortly after dawn, making enough noise to wake them in the process.

  “Did you notice anything in his hands,” Miss Bonaventure asked, “this man you encountered at the door? Any sort of tool or weapon?”

  Dickson shook his head and said that he'd taken careful note of the man's hands as a matter of course. He'd seen that they were both empty. He'd had nothing under his arm or across his back, come to that. The man might well have secreted something in his pockets, but Dickson was reluctant to guess, not having seen anything to suggest it.

  “Thank you,” Blank said, taking Miss Bonaventure's arm and backing away from Dickson. “I think we have the information we need.”

  Dickson, seeing his audience slipping away, but with a good head of steam built up, continuing his harangue, simply shifting targets, and without missing a beat turned to one of the laborers standing nearby and started castigating him for the poor quality of the painted set at the opposite side of the studio.

  Counting themselves lucky to have extricated themselves from Dickson, Blank and Miss Bonaventure walked out of the studio into the London morning.

  Based on the evidence at hand, the woman would have been murdered sometime shortly after Dickson had woken but long before he'd have been able to reach the studio, eliminating him as a suspect. The natural assumption was that the hairless, chalky-skinned man whom Dickson had glimpsed fleeing the scene was the Jubilee Killer, but Blank wasn't so sure.

  “Remember,” he said, as he and Miss Bonaventure made their way to New Scotland Yard, “that the constable thought the woman had been dead for some time when Dickson discovered her. But if that is the case, why would the killer have lingered so long beside the body?”

  Miss Bonaventure nodded. “And, as Dickson reports, he saw no weapon or cutting implement in the man's hand, and the constable who arrived on the scene saw no indication of one having been left behind.”

  “True.” Blank narrowed his eyes, thoughtfully. “Well, perhaps something can be learned from viewing the poor woman's remains.”

  Unfortunately, as it happened, all that was learned from their viewing was that seeing so much blood in recent days had not inured them to the sight of more, and that Miss Villers appeared to have been dispatched with the same implement used on the three women and Mr. Brade before her. Unlike the three women, though, Miss Villers had not been decapitated or had her limbs severed, and unlike Mr. Brade she had not died with her back to her attacker. She had sustained grievous wounds on her torso and her upper legs, and had lost several fingers on her left hand, perhaps when raising it to ward off a blow. The cuts were clean and straight, as all the others had been, the cutting implement seeming to have passed unimpeded through skin, muscle, and bone.

  In death, it was easy to see that Miss Villers had been a handsome woman in life, if perhaps with coarser features than society would deem aesthetic. Her clothes were well tailored if not fashionable, and beneath her skirts she had worn well-cobbled walking boots. In all, Miss Villers appeared to be a respectable unmarried woman of the middle classes, free from disease or other impairment. The postmortem had been conducted by Dr. Thomas Bond, and when he studied it, Blank for the first time felt no inclination to throttle the man. Bond's summary of the woman's condition at death and the nature of her wounds were essentially in line with his own thinking.

  Blank and Miss Bonaventure thanked the constable who had, on Melville's orders, shown them to the body, and then went to visit the flat which the police had found registered in her name. It was a stolidly middle-class residence in Islington, not far from the Agricultural Hall, off Theberton Street.

  Miss Villers had been in the early years of her third decade, the daughter of a trader, and had been fairly well set up by her family. Despite the respectable address, though, and the relative good quality of the furnishings, Miss Viller's flat was fairly small, one might even say cozy, with something of a threadbare feel to it. Aside from a wardrobe and dresser, a sideboard, bed, and nightstand, there was little in the room to indicate it was even inhabited. And aside from a framed print over the mantle, nothing to suggest the character of the woman who had lived there.

  Blank stepped close to the print and read aloud, “‘For I'm to be Queen o’ the May, Mother, I'm to be Queen o’ the May.’”

  “What's that?” Miss Bonaventure asked, setting a handheld looking glass back on the dresser and coming to stand beside him.

  “It's from Tennyson,” Blank said. “One of his Idylls of the King, if I'm not mistaken.”

  It was a photographic print, depicting a woman holding a wreath of flowers in one hand, her head tilted slightly to one side. She had a broad-brimmed hat on, pushed back, looking almost like a halo, and was wearing a white dress, with her long wavy hair falling past her shoulders. Written beneath the print was the inscription Blank had recited.

  “If that's Miss Villers's work,” Blank went on, “then she was quite talented, indeed.”

  “She may well have been,” Miss Bonaventure said, “but you'll need to look elsewhere for evidence of it.” She pointed a finger at the photograph. “This one is by another dead woman, actually. Julia Margaret Cameron.”

  Blank glanced at her, and then looked back to the photograph, appraisingly.

  Miss Bonaventure drifted off and went to the sideboard along the wall. There was unopened mail lying in a heap, all of rec
ent vintage.

  “Here,” she said, opening the first and holding the contents aloft for Blank to see. “A cheque, made payable to Miss Cecilia Villers, and drawn on an account with the name ‘LRT.’”

  “Long Range Transportation?” Blank ventured.

  “Little Red Train?” Miss Bonaventure countered.

  “Less Redemptive Taxidermy?” Blank chuckled slightly, and came to take the cheque from her hands. “What else is there?”

  “Just a letter,” she said, holding it up. “From a W.B. Taylor, addressed to Miss Cecilia Villers.” She read aloud.

  Dearest Miss Villers,

  I am in receipt of the photographs you've sent, those which depict an early passage from “The Raid on the Unworld.” I can hardly express my first responses in words, which seemed instead a tumult of emotions. Coupled with Mr. B's scenery and costumes, I think your photographs have precisely captured the feeling I had hoped to evoke, the frisson I felt when first reading Lady P's account. I can't tell you how grateful you've made this country boy by taking on the project, and I know that I speak for Lord A and the rest of the league when I say that we're proud to have you on the team.

  (When next we meet, I have some notes for you about how you might approach the next stage of the project, which I'll refrain from outlining here, for fear of sullying these well-wishes with criticism.)