Spring Showers Box-set

by Avell Kro

  Manager and the others out of here.”

  "Ms. Rose Caldwell. Might I remind you that you are here as an observer and your presence is at

  the whim of the Metropolitan Police Department where you have only one supporter. Me."

  She gave him a square look.

  “You don’t boss me," said the detective. Rose lifted her brow and rol ed her eyes “Ok, long one last

  night?” she went back to opening cases and assembling her contraption.

  “No, Rose it was not. It was a pleasant evening but today isn’t. I have two society types killed

  mysteriously and you come in here with all this… this hooeypalooley marching me about. I am the

  Detective Sergeant and you are the crazy lady who sees ghosts through a bottle glass,” and you're

  also my only lead I have in this case.

  “Detective Sergeant Frederick Williamson, I beg your pardon. May I please have your permission

  to examine your crime scene?”

  Dol y turned to his men in the drawing room “all right, the lot of you get out to the hall,”

  The room had cleared. After briefing the constable in the hall Dolly came back firing questions,

  “Rose what do you make of this note?”

  Rose walked over to the writing desk. “I’ll capture images to see what I can scry but it looks like

  our culprit is still sending messages,”

  “Oh, you might want to look at this," Dolly took the envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it to

  Rose. “It is one of those spirit siphons. I had quite the shock when I removed it from his chest,

  poor fella let out a gasp and collapsed. I thought for a minute he was still alive.”

  “A death knell,” said Rose.

  “A what...”

  “A death knell, there was a lingering spirit essence still affixed and when you tugged out the

  siphon, he exhausted his dying breath.”

  “So, he was dead?”

  “He might not be dead, but trapped or banished, I can’t tell, but I know this body had its life force extracted like Chilton." She turned and smiled “That death knell is a good sign there is residual

  energy here,” mentioned Rose before placing the amber lensed goggles that hung about her neck

  over her eyes. She set three of her incense burners in the room then waved a hand fan to create

  circulation. Dolly stood out of the way wondering if he should breathe normally when she was

  vaporing the room. It must be all right because Rose never wore a mask.

  Rose reached into a case and pulled out a glass slide and placed it in the top of the camera. She

  stood to the side of the camera. “Dolly does your pocket watch have a second hand?”

  “It does,”

  “Fantastic, would you be a dear and let me know when fifteen-seconds has passed. Start timing

  once I remove the lens cap.”

  Dol

  outly

  h rie

  s ac

  w h

  ated

  ch in

  a t

  n o h

  d is w

  pop a

  pe ids t coat, pul ed

  open the cover, “ready.”

  " Go" said Rose, as she lifted the cap.

  “There’s fifteen,” said Dolly. She replaced the cap and switched the photo plate.

  "Rose, what do you make of it when folks like Keane call you. ."

  "A witch,” rose completed his sentence.

  “He is a good bloke. Devout you know and a great cop. He’s cleared more murders than me.”

  Rose set down the plate. “Fredrick, I have never broken my vows and plan to never do so. When I

  joined the Sisterhood, I joined to seek out the truth and understand the spiritual. I learned that the

  unseen is far beyond any one dogma and many times that dogma and the arcane become

  subordinate to the will of a single man and that's when ill comes to be.”

  The two took o

  imprints of the desk area where the note was placed and the bed where the body lay. As Rose

  packed up her equipment, and the mortuary removed the remains from the room, Dolly

  questioned the Valet in the hall.

  "Mr. Yardley how long have you been working for Mr. Moya?" asked the detective.

  "I don’t work for Señor Moya I am a hotel employee and serve several of the gentlemen on this

  floor prepared to pay for service."

  "Did Mr. Moya happen to share with you where he was going last night?” Dolly followed up.

  "Yes, he did. He was meeting Mr. Randall Strathmore and a Mr. Owens at Whites for drinks and

  whist." replied the valet.

  “Is that the Strathmore and Owens of Chilton, Chilton, Owens and Strathmore?”

  "Why yes, it is. Señor Moya’s a client of the firm and my understanding his family and the Chilton’s

  have socialized for generations.” added the valet.

  Dol y now had two dead bodies within a week, with identical ends that only an excommunicated

  nun could explain. Now it appeared there were social connections if not face-to-face meetings of

  the two dead men.

  As he finished up his question with the valet, he watched Rose make her way out of the suite with all her kit. “What happened to the cases where a fella shot his old lady for running around,”

  mumbled Dolly.

  “What was that Detective?” asked the Valet.

  “Nothing, just reminiscing about the good old days.”

  Monday the 13th of June

  7:00 AM Scotland Yard

  Monday morning and the detectives were back in the pen with the commissioner for case updates.

  Dolly arrived early, having managed only a few hours sleep between the Carlton crime scene

  investigation and his need to prepare for the weekly case review starting any minute. As rough as

  Dolly felt from a deficit of sleep, Keane reflected it physically in the manner he showed up at the

  branch office.

  “What’s the steam lorry driver’s name that drove over you?” questioned Dolly.

  Keane was pale and looked flu ridden. The tall detective sat down at the adjoining desk that faced

  Dolly.

  “Dolly I ain’t been right all weekend. I guess I ate bad mutton or something foul at Albies. Me

  head is throbbing, and I been all woozy,” Dolly stared at him with no outward expression, "It's

  called a hangover.” Then went back to organizing his notes.

  "I felt like this since Saturday morning and I haven't had a drop since I was with you" replied

  Keane.

  Commissioner Mayne walked into the pen. There was no formal command in the branch. Younger

  detectives were subordinate to detective sergeants but no superior officer existed so all the

  detectives reported to Commissioner Mayne. To keep the office on task, Mayne held a weekly

  meeting where he listened to the comments of each police officer and could administer direction

  to the group. “All right gentleman let’s have it. You start Keane,”

  “I have a wash up on the Thames, awaiting affirmation from the mortuary but it looked like a

  stabbing before they deposited her in the river.

  I closed the Clove Row murder. It was Ginger Kelly, another member of Sweeney's gang.

  Apparently, Sweeney and Ginger were both rolling the same music hall singer, and it came to

  blows. After Ginger beat Sweeney to death, he passed it off like the Green Street boys, to protect

  his arse and stir up the strife between the gangs.

  I have been putting in time down at the gas works helping Dolly with keeping an eye out for

  trouble." Keane finished.

  "Detective Keane you seem out of sorts,” stated Mayne.
<
br />   "I feel out of sorts. I guess I got bad mutton on Friday"

  "Dolly, do you have anything further to introduce on the case at the gas works?" Mayne asked.

  Dolly looked up from his papers "I looked around and made it known I was watching. Talked to one organizer named Nelson Bruce,"

  Several of the detectives called out “Brucie,” then the entire group chuckled.

  “As you can tell commissioner, comrade Brucie is an admitted Marxist, with numerous arrests for

  disrupting the peace and one conviction. He served a year hard labor. I put him on notice,” said

  Dolly.

  "Thank you for the update, detective Sergeant, why don't you continue with your case load?”

  suggested the commissioner.

  “I have the Chilton Case. Sir Chilton found dead in his Belgravia office on Sunday morning June

  sixth. Further investigation turned up a burglary of about five thousand gold guineas, worth

  twenty-thousand in pounds’ sterling from his offices in the City of London,” one of the detectives in

  the pen let out a whistle when he heard the huge sum, Dolly was seasoned enough to talk over the

  rabble. “I am working with Sergeant Jones of London Police who is lead on the Robbery. I opened

  another homicide case last night, Emilio Moya, a national of Portugal with connections to nobility.

  His corpse turned up in the same condition as Chilton. I will consider these incidents together as

  my conclusion is that the cause of death was the same, thus the culprit is also the same.

  I propose to make queries of the staff regarding the actions of Señor Moya at White’s gentlemen’s

  club. He was a guest there the preceding night.” Dolly knew he would have his best results if he

  gave the private club for gentleman of royalty and society advanced warning. This could be

  achieved through Spencer Walpole a club member.

  “Could you reach out to Home Secretary Walpole to let the club manager know of my plans and

  determine if an invitation will be extended?” suggested Dol y.

  “I’l wire type the secretary and see. You be discreet, those are the true halls of power. You pull

  any of your shenanigans, like deciding to bring that witch of yours near there and I’ll have your

  badge and pension," stated Mayne.

  “Yes sir,” replied Dolly.

  The group of detectives consumed the next hour with the reports of the six other agents. Each

  rattled out opening, pending and closed cases of homicides and thefts throughout London.

  Dol y had a full day arranged. Next stop was the flat of Sister Rose and then late night interviews

  with the staff at the Carlton. He would see if he could squeeze in a nap between Rose’s and the

  Carlton.

  * * *

  11:00 AM Rose Caldwel ’s Rooms

  There was a banging on the door. Rose was in the midst of fixing the image in the bath of chemical.

  Timing, chemistry, art, science and magic all had to align to develop the image.

  “Wait, a bleeding minute,” Rose said. She watched the clock on the wall to see how much longer. “I can’t open the door,” she yelled, so the Scotsman could hear her through the thick metal barrier.

  “Any trouble in there?” Came a man’s voice through the door. Dolly, Mr. Punctual.

  “I am fine. The door must remain closed until I fix these photo plates, the light will spoil the

  image," she emphatically responded.

  She withdrew the plate out of the fixing solution, set it on the drying rack, then made her way to

  the door pulling off her rubberized gloves and throwing them on the bench.

  Rose wiped her hands on her canvas apron and unlatched the multiple locks, bars and the warding

  hexbox, to open the door.

  “Hey, off with you two… You bugger off or you’ll be in the boys ward tonite.” Dolly was yelling

  down the alley. He turned back to the open door giving one more quick glance down the street to

  make sure the boys were away from his carriage.

  “This is my place of trade could you please come here with less ruckus?” asserted Rose.

  “Good morning to you Sister Rose Caldwell,” Dolly greeted her with his melodic tone, a modest

  Scottish intonation weaved into his English accent. He seemed bigger and clumsier as he

  maneuvered the steps down to the underground flat, and the cellar’s low beams supporting the

  floor above. “Has there always been so many street arabs in this neighborhood?” Dol y asked

  removing his tall hat, smoothing out his beard he was letting grow in.

  “Ever since the dye mills have opened there have been more and more,” responded Rose. She lit oil

  lamps as she strode the flat. It was an old basement with no windows, the open door produced the

  only natural light into the flat.

  “Secure and bolt the door,” said Rose lighting a lamp as she spoke. Once the door closed the whale

  oil lamps would serve a hazy yellow illumination.

  “When are they going to run current to this part of town?” Dol y asked.

  “Come back this way,” Rose led Dolly out of the small area with a coal stove vented through the

  wall and two threadbare wing chairs with a small table and heaps of books. Across from the entry

  door was her writing desk. A folding partition divided the cramped space of Rose’s bed and dresser

  from the larger section that made up where she worked. The rest of the basement was part

  storage area, part workshop. She led Dolly by lamplight through a row of homemade wooden

  racks. A variety of jars and glass vessels held fluids and exotic substances, a cross between an

  apothecary, a sideshow curiosity, and a winter pickle storeroom. “My landlord wouldn’t pay for gas

  lighting let alone arc lights. You know they dropped a gas line just on the other side of that wal

  under the avenue, all she has to do is fit out the apartment with pipe and this could be gaslit,”

  added Rose pointing to the street side wall of her basement dwel ing. Of course I would need to be

  up to date on rents too.

  As Dolly followed her he chimed in “Rose your place usually had a pleasant smell of candles and incense what is with the vinegar smell?” It was lost on Rose she had been breathing the chemical

  for hours and lost the ability to sense the aroma. “ Oh, that is just the chemicals for fixing the

  images for what I wanted to show you, follow me.”

  Rose’s cellar floor was unfinished and made of hard packed clay and stone. She had placed carpet

  runners in between racks and shelves to keep the dust down and the floor warmer. Rose led the

  detective down the main aisle to the workspace and strode over to her latest gadget. “This detective

  is the phantasma graph. I have married the latest in the photographic sciences with arcane scrying

  to facilitate the uninitiated; to see the world as it is, was and can be.” Her right arm was

  outstretched and waving at a glass cylinder about eighteen inches in diameter set on a brass base

  with a brass crown. Her contraption looked like a cross between a fishbowl and a Russian samovar

  with copper tubing joining the top to the bottom of the chamber. On the opposite side of this

  recirculation tube was a bellows. Within the glass tube, the bottom half of the container hung a

  heavy cerulean gas with phosphors glimmering in the vapor.

  An armature secured to the base incorporated a lens system, a photo plate holder, and an oil lamp.

  “This ended up being more complicated than I thought, but you’ll like the results,” Rose

  pronounced as she took one of the glass sheets and placed it into the h
older. She took a matchstick

  and ignited the lamp attached to the phantasma graph. Rose then pumped the bellows causing the

  gas to recirculate in the chamber. “When you have seen me scrye a location I use incense and

  potions that cause an etherial reaction that helps me to see the images. To see what the camera

  has caught I must project the image back upon an eldritch element. For this, I use a refractive gas. I

  found a specialist apothecary that can source alchemical materials. I finally settled on seureleum

  mestificatos, or SM gas but it is heavier than air so it settles out over time. To get the gases in the

  tube to disperse I recirculate them with the bel ows."

  Rose could see Dolly’s eyes glazing over as she peppered him with her lecture on her innovations

  until his eyes caught the figures appearing in the mist. In the chamber was a vignette of a

  gentleman garbed in a nightgown sitting at a desk writing. It was room 8A at the Carlton, the man

  was Moya. Behind and to his left stood a handsome young woman adorned in an elaborate bustled

  gown with a lace veiled hat peering over his shoulder. Through the swirling image, Rose could see

  Dol y frozen with astonishment, fixated on the picture. Dolly finally spoke, “Rose this has got me

  absolutely knackered, you’re telling me that this is an image from Moya’s suite the night of the

  murder, and this is actually Moya sitting there.”

  “You can see what I see when I use my vapors and lens while conducting a scrying ritual. What I

  have done is imbued the incantations into my construction, that is to say, yes you're seeing an

  astral imprint of a moment from the past”

  “Rose, we could settle every case that is outstanding," Dolly said as he clapped his hands together.

  “Unfortunately, No my friend. If the latent energies have dissipated I can’t capture them, and if the

  homicide had no arcane influence, then there would be no imprint made.” The smile left Dolly’s

  face.

  “This next one is good,” Rose said as she switched glass plates. The next slide illuminated, as Rose produced a steady stream of the gases through the tube, the picture was more vivid and resolved.

  The image was what looked like a negro woman. Rose could confirm it was the same woman from

  her height and clothing and she had removed the veil. The genesis of the light for the exposure