A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1)

by Shawna Reppert

  Two nights out drinking with Willie in a week? But how often did a friend have his first opening night? “Take the rest of that paint off your face, or you’ll have us both picked up by a constable for indecency,” Royston said with a laugh. “Then we can go out.”

  ***

  The sky had gone from black to gray to rose-gold before Royston stumbled to his bed that night. Sleep was sweet. . .

  The pounding at the door echoed the pounding in Royston’s skull. He fumbled for the pocket watch he’d left on the nightstand. It was not quite seven in the morning.

  “Sir, it’s Constable Parker, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you, but they’ve found another one. Winchell’s landlady found the body in his laboratory and contacted the Yard straightaway.”

  Ten

  Someone had found the off-switch for the automaton wolf before he got there, and it stood in frozen vigilance in the entry hall. A woman in a plain dress and apron, presumably the housekeeper, was sobbing and shaking in the sitting room, attended by one of the constables and a maid with smelling salts.

  The basement laboratory had no windows. The reek of formaldehyde threatened to overwhelm Royston’s head, still suffering the ill-effects of last night's pickling on top of the dregs of a cold. Royston looked toward the center of the room—and backed away, dry-heaving, eyes tight shut against the horror of the sight he’d take to his grave.

  A woman’s body lay on the table, viscera removed and dumped into a bucket, the skinning process begun. By the table stood the metal aperture for taxidermy of a female human form complete with the gears and levers for movement. Royston staggered back until he hit a wall. He slid down the welcome support until he reached the floor, the formaldehyde, the hangover, and the horror combining to rob him of his ability to function.

  Before noon they had Winchell in custody. Maybe at some point he would feel the pride of vindication, but at the moment, all he could manage was numb relief that the man’s reign of terror was over. He went back home, crawled into bed, and slept for ten hours.

  ***

  Cool air drifted in from London’s twilight, awakening him in the failing light and prompting him to drag himself out of bed to shut the window. The thin glass was adequate against the night breezes of summer, though come winter it did little to keep the bitter cold out or to keep the warmth of the coal fire in. He was glad for this season’s respite from buying coal. Every little bit extra he could squirrel away in savings was that much distance from the desperate poverty of his childhood, that much more security against any small disaster that might come along to destroy him.

  His stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten anything in nearly a day. The pantry was empty—he couldn’t say when he had last thought to get in food.

  Winchell was in custody. A celebratory dinner wouldn’t be quite right, not with all those girls dead. But he could at least have a stroll and treat himself to fish and chips. He had been back to the stand where Molly worked exactly once—to contribute to the collection the owners had started to pay for a decent burial. No stone—that would have been beyond reach, but at least her poor body hadn’t been tossed coffinless into a pit with a dozen others.

  He had stopped a time or two at a competing stand a block down and across the street. Disloyal, maybe, but he couldn’t bear to go back to the one where poor Molly had worked. Next to the stand, a boy hawked the evening extra. The headlines stopped him cold.

  Winchell Freed! Yard Apologizes, Says Doctor Death Still At Large.

  Eleven

  Royston stared at the headline in numb disbelief, reading it over and over again as though the words would somehow rearrange themselves into something that made sense. At last he rummaged into his pocket for a coin and bought the paper, taking it home to read, his earlier errand quite forgotten.

  A spectacular raid on an upstanding citizen came to naught. A brief investigation revealed that renowned scientist and philanthropist Dr. Edmund Winchell is far from being the brutal murderer Inspector Jones would have him be.

  Winchell claimed that the body was of Mrs. Annabelle Downs, a woman who had died from consumption. Her young husband, devastated by grief, had brought the body to him, pleading that the good doctor might do something so that he could have some semblance of his beloved Annabelle with him for all time. So moved was Dr. Winchell by the man’s despair that he agreed despite the moral ambiguity of the request. He even waived his normal fee, knowing that the husband was of modest means and such a fee would leave the man destitute.

  The poor woman’s husband corroborated the story, calling Winchell a true gentleman and a living saint. The article portrayed him as being quite distraught that his gentle Annabelle’s body had been carted off to the coroner’s office “as though she were some common hussy who had met with a bad end.”

  Royston still saw the horror of the wire aperture and the gutted body when he closed his eyes, imagined a human woman moving with the eerie, dead-eyed stiffness of the poor wolf Winchell had made. That wasn’t grief—that was madness.

  “Ordinarily my housekeeper stays out of my laboratory,” Winchell was quoted as saying. “Poor thing. I don’t blame her for being startled or for contacting the police. But really, I would have hoped Scotland Yard would employ rational men who would make civilized inquiries before they raid a gentlemen’s home with constables and coroners. I shall certainly call upon the mayor to look into the quality of men employed by our police force. I understand this man Jones has no formal education and comes from a questionable background. The mother was taken with flights of fancy about her betters. Such things run in the blood, as it is well known.”

  Royston crumpled the paper and threw it across the room.

  ***

  Royston didn’t even get to his desk Monday morning before one of his colleagues, Inspector Browne, informed him that the Commissioner wanted to see him immediately. He gave him a sympathetic smile that Royston didn’t quite believe. Browne always smiled, and, like everything else about the man, his smiles were charming and insubstantial.

  Browne had risen fast in the ranks, and was everything Royston was not. Tall, charismatic, confident with women. He was even from a respectable family, (father a clerk in some government office, mother the daughter of a successful merchant). He hadn’t quite descended in taking a position with the Yard, but everyone knew it was a stepping-stone to bigger things.

  He was also Miss Chatham’s new fiancé.

  “Good luck,” he said now, and though he was Royston’s junior, it was the insincere gesture of a superior toward one of his men.

  “Thanks,” Royston said with the greatest civility he could muster.

  He had enough enemies without alienating his colleagues, and Browne, no doubt, would be Chief Inspector one day if not Commissioner. Which did not bode well for the Yard. The man wasn’t stupid, exactly. But he lacked the ability to turn the facts around in his head, like glass bits in a kaleidoscope, until the picture made sense.

  The door to the Commissioner’s office opened. Royston braced himself, but it was just Miss Chatham, leaving. Lovely as always, her electric blue walking dress seemed to brighten the dull surroundings and her smile made his heart lift. “Good morning, Miss Chatham," he said. "A pleasure to see you.”

  “It is a fine morning, isn’t it?” she answered with an enthusiasm that made the rote words sincere. “And it is always good to see you.”

  Browne was a better match to her station, and he couldn’t bring himself to resent her choice. Much. Not when she was so kind when they met.

  “Adela—Miss Chatham,” Browne broke in. “How does your mother?”

  Browne might have the right to use Miss Chatham’s Christian name in private, given their engagement, but he was being shockingly forward to use it here in front of colleagues. Royston had no doubt that the slip had been for his benefit. Gloating, probably. Browne couldn’t possibly consider Royston as any kind of a rival.

  The Commissioner started in on Royston as soon a
s he stepped into the office. “Damn it, Jones, did I not specifically tell you to quit making a nuisance of yourself among your betters?”

  “Sir, with what the housekeeper found, I would have been remiss if…"

  The Chief stood up and slammed his hands down on the desk. “The man is a gentleman and a noted scientist and philanthropist. Did it not even occur to you to start with a discreet inquiry rather than invading the man’s home and embarrassing him and the Yard both?”

  Royston squared his shoulders and held his ground. “And tip off a suspect, give him a chance to destroy evidence?”

  “There was no evidence, because there was no crime!”

  The gutted corpse, the wire aperture. “No crime? What I saw was abuse of a corpse, at the least.”

  “Abuse of a corpse is a vague law, at best. In light of the man’s status and the honor of his intentions, I would say the law doesn’t apply.”

  Royston took a deep breath. And another. “Just because the man wasn’t guilty of murder in this instance doesn’t clear him as a suspect in the other cases. Anyone who could do that to a woman’s body, in my opinion…“

  “Your opinion doesn’t matter, Jones. You’re off the case.”

  “What? You can’t…"

  “I think you’ll find I can, Constable Jones.”

  Cold sluiced through his veins. “You mean to demote me?”

  “Mean to? I have done so. Be lucky I have not fired you outright. You were warned.”

  “Sir, he was trying to make an automaton out of a woman’s body!”

  “Which fact was easily explained away, were you not so keen to treat a learned member of society as you would an Irish sailor. Speaking of, I understand you reeked of alcohol that morning as though you were a sailor.”

  “I was out with a friend the night before." He lifted his chin. "And, yes, we made rather merry. It is not the Yard’s business what I do in my off-hours. I wasn’t meant to work that morning and had no reason to expect that I would be called. If I did not stop to bathe and change, it was because of my urgency to the task, but I was as sober as choirboy long before I arrived at the scene.”

  “I heard that you nearly passed out at the scene.”

  “From shock, sir, to see the dead woman so ill-treated. I was not the only one to be so affected. The housekeeper was in hysterics, and two of the constables refused to enter the room at all.”

  The commissioner shook his head. “Clearly I expected too much decorum from one of your upbringing. To be reeking of alcohol on a Sunday morning, when any man of good breeding would be preparing for church. . .”

  “Sir, I fail to see how my religious devotion or lack thereof pertains.”

  “Of course you would, a child of sin brought up in so scandalous a manner.”

  From the little bit of the Bible his mother had made him read, Christ hardly seemed the type to judge a man for having no father, but there was no point in debating theology with a believer.

  “My vicar runs a temperance league for men such as yourself,” Chatham continued. “I suggest you consider it. In the meantime, you will give Browne everything you have on the Doctor Death case.”

  “You’re giving the case to Browne?” Damn it to hell, did the commissioner not care at all about catching the murderer?

  “I am. I think it’s time to have a proper detective on the case, one of sensibility and proper background. You’ll be working with Parker. His partner got knifed breaking up a drunken brawl outside Fishtail’s and isn’t expected to return for a long time, if ever. Parker’s a good family man, sober and respectful. Hopefully he’ll be a good influence on you.”

  “Hard luck, old boy,” Browne said when Royston came out of the office.

  He knew all along. And they call me a bastard.

  “I look forward to your insights into the case,” Browne said. “Though I have some ideas of my own. I’d like to know about this source that led you to the warehouse.”

  “I doubt he’ll work with you,” Royston said.

  Browne wasn’t clever enough to make the connection between Bandon and the death of the Ladykiller, and Bandon hadn’t kept his secret so long by being a total fool. He knew better than to reveal himself to a weasely little social climber like Browne. And if he didn’t, Royston would warn him not to. He’d heard Browne’s opinions on werewolves. Bandon had given the Yard its only real lead on Doctor Death. He didn’t deserve to be repaid with the kind of trouble Browne could cause him.

  Parker was on the night shift, so at least he’d have a chance to sleep before he returned. Royston was given a constable’s uniform and sent home to change. Heavy black wool, bright brass buttons, domed hat—when he was eighteen and starting out as one of the youngest of recruits, this uniform had meant pride and accomplishment and great things to come. Now it symbolized shame and the end of all his dreams. He wanted to drop the uniform on the floor and turn his back on the Yard forever. Everything he’d worked so hard for, everything that he’d ever wanted, all of it was gone, and he wasn’t fool enough to think he’d be given another chance at it.

  He held the uniform and walked deliberately. There was still the service to the city, the protection of innocents. But how could he hold onto those commitments when the organization that supposedly served those interests was so damned incompetent as to be nearly criminal itself? There was a killer out there, damn it, one Browne would never catch.

  “Oh, Jones?” Browne called behind him. “Will you stop at Dr. Foster’s on the way home and see if he has any ideas on that poisoning case I sent over to? There’s a good lad.”

  Royston’s grip tightened on the uniform until his knuckles went white, but he acknowledged the order with a nod and a crisp, “Yes, sir.”

  His throat ached, but he marched out with eyes front and head held high. He had dealt with humiliation his whole life. As a child, he had been the smallest boy his age and fatherless to boot, with a name too lofty for his circumstances. As a new recruit, he’d been an easy target for trainers and fellow recruits both— too short and too educated to fit in. As a child and as a recruit, he’d had Willie as his protector, Willie with his easy charm to keep them out of trouble and his ready fists to handle anything he couldn’t talk his way out of.

  Willie had found trouble neither fists nor words could get him out of. Royston was on his own.

  And now he was off to see Foster, or Miss Fairchild, or whatever he should be calling the alchemist in his head. Because it was too much to ask that he be allowed to lick his wounds in peace for a few hours, he had drop in on one of the last people in the world he wanted to see. She had tried to warn him off of Downey just yesterday, most likely wishing to protect a fellow alchemist. No doubt hers was one on the voices raised up in protest at his investigation of Winchell.

  Foster—it was easier to think of Miss Fairchild by her assumed name and gender when she was in her glamoured guise—was just seeing a client out when Royston arrived. A working-class man, hat in hand, clothes clean but mended many times over, mechanic’s grease too deeply worn into the cracks in his hands to completely scrub out. Not the sort of man who could afford an alchemist’s services. A charity case, then. One of the werewolves?

  Foster clapped a hand on the departing man’s shoulder in a way that would be entirely inappropriate for a lady, and then turned to Royston with a smile. “Inspector Jones, what can I do for you?"

  Royston just stared at her. The politely cheerful greeting from the person who had done nothing but threatened him, who had finally succeeded, with others, in taking away everything that he had worked so hard for, everything that had ever mattered to him. . .

  ”Won’t you please come in?” Foster’s tone faltered just a little. “I have some things I want to discuss with you on the Doctor Death cases."

  He ground his teeth and stood where he was. “It’s Constable Jones now,” he said. “And if you do come up with anything on those cases, you’ll want to forward it to Inspector Browne. He’s the one o
n the case now. Speaking of Browne, he sent me on an errand. You were working on a poisoning case for him?”

  Foster’s lips tightened. “It wasn’t poisoning. At least not intentional. Our society insists that ladies are delicate and must be protected, but then they work the women of the lower classes like dumb beasts. Worse than dumb beasts. The conditions those poor girls face is criminal. Or at least it should be.” Foster’s voice rose in anger. “Browne is an idiot,” she said. “How could they think of giving him a case this important?” And then the glamoured alchemist broke off, brows furrowed as though confused. “They demoted you? For what?”

  If this was an act it was a good one. He really didn’t see the point in it. He glanced down the sidewalk, reminding her that they were still standing in the doorway, in a public street.

  “You’d best come in,” she urged, her voice soft, troubled. “Please.”

  He hesitated. But Charles Foster could have a man in his office without an escort, and he was beyond caring anyway. He badly needed to have it out with someone, and Foster’s dual identity made him the safest target. He followed her into the office.

  She closed the door firmly behind them. “Anyone who knows anything about the Yard knows you’re one of the sharpest knives in their drawer. How did you get yourself demoted?”

  His eyes narrowed. What game was she playing now? “Apparently some people don’t appreciate a working class bastard with a badge questioning his betters.”

  She flinched at the word ‘bastard’. Hypocrite.

  He watched her face as she tried to put it together. Really, it shouldn’t be so hard. “Winchell? I’d hardly call him your better, no matter what his pedigree and how many diplomas hang on his wall.”

  “Winchell almost certainly. But I recall another even above him who threatened to put me in my place.”