by Viola Carr
Coolly, Eliza proffered the scrap of paper. “Since you’re not an idiot, Mr. Locke, might you tell me to what these figures refer?”
Locke gave it only a perfunctory glance. “Sadly, I’m but a lowly assistant. I purchase materials, set up the equipment, adjust levels, take readings, that sort of thing. Antoinette’s physics is quite beyond me.”
“But you know that this is physics,” persisted Eliza. “Not pure mathematics, for instance.”
Again, he looked blank. “Advanced aether physics is her field. I assumed it was to do with the new miniature engine. Is it important?”
A tiny clockwork opossum climbed down from the overhanging light into Locke’s hair, blinking solemnly. Eliza tried not to stare. “That’s a very fine clockwork. Did Miss de Percy build it?”
Locke extracted the opossum and reattached it to the light. “It’s not clockwork. Fully electric. No winding necessary.”
“Surely it’s far too tiny for an autonomous power cell.”
“Attend our demonstration if you don’t believe me,” said Locke impatiently. “I did say advanced aether physics. You people really ought to listen harder.” He made a defiant show of checking his watch, clicking his tongue at the time. “Satisfied, Inspector? May I go?”
Griffin opened his mouth to answer—but a scuffle in the hall cut him off. The door slammed, boots banged in the corridor—and in burst a short, ruddy-faced man in an unkempt brown suit, chewing on a cigar.
Griffin sighed. Eliza groaned—and Lizzie bristled into view like an irate scarlet hedgehog and started snarling curses.
“Griffin,” exclaimed Chief Inspector Reeve with an insolent smile. “Just the man. You remember General Sir Stamford Owen?”
“Ahh. Griffin, is it?” The ancient Commissioner of Police squinted down at Griffin through an enormous monocle, leaning on a spindly cane that creaked under his weight. He had a drooping mustache of pure white and a moth-eaten top hat, and his coat gleamed with dusty campaign jewels dating back to the Peninsular Wars. “Banged up that Slasher chap yet? Can’t be an Englishman. No decent public school chap would slice a fellow up so rudely. Dirty Froggie spy, says I. One of Boney’s men!”
Eliza winced. Reeve was angling for promotion again, and had put Griffin in charge of a particularly gruesome set of murders in Soho that were proving stubbornly impenetrable. It was the impossible case, with no evidence and no witnesses—just a rising body count. And with each new grisly discovery, Reeve gleefully made sure everyone knew exactly who had failed to stop the killer.
Griffin smiled faintly. “We’re doing everything we can, Commissioner.”
“Shitsmear!” Lizzie paced around Reeve, a ball of frothing scarlet rage. “Gropenoddle! Wormstained green shagbollock . . .”
“Takes me back to Waterloo,” declared Sir Stamford, oblivious. “Damned Froggies all over the shop. Horses screaming, cannonballs whistling by, men running to and fro with their arms torn off. The fog of war!” He waved his cane heartily, sending the electric light swinging, and the opossum clambered dolefully for cover.
Griffin steadied the old fellow’s arm. “Glad you’re keeping on top of things, sir.”
“Ahh,” said Sir Stamford again, jamming on his dislodged hat. “Excellent. First rate. But who’s doing something about it, eh?” he added, suddenly fierce. “Shopkeepers closing early, ladies of the night staying off the streets in Haymarket and raising their prices, by God. Why, a man needs a guinea just to get himself a good rogering! It’s scandalous!”
“That’s the spirit, Commissioner.” Reeve looked the victim over, chewing his cigar, equally oblivious to Lizzie’s tirade. “What have we here?”
“Dead scientist, sir,” said Griffin crisply. “Weapon some kind of electrical equipment.”
“Ahh.” The Commissioner nodded solemnly. “Why, I once saw a man’s torso blown to smithereens by an enemy capacitor! Hidden in a barrel of Dutch gin, by God. Innards all over the campaign tent, eyeballs in the ice bucket. Loyal toast quite ruined. Never saw a gin and tonic in quite the same light after that.” He peered at Griffin’s mustache. “I say, they’re shiny. Do you use whale oil?”
Reeve flicked through the ledger, snorting. “ ‘Whore,’ is it? Having a bit on the side, I’ll warrant, and got taught a lesson. These radical floozies get their leg over with anything in trousers.”
Seymour Locke flushed. “Now look here—”
“Naturally,” snapped Eliza, ears burning from Lizzie’s creative invective. “A single woman of education and intelligence simply must be lifting her skirts to all and sundry. And what business of anyone’s if she is? Heaven forbid one should seek out entertaining conversation that isn’t about hairstyles and babies.”
“Exactly right,” said Reeve, utterly without irony. “All this science is unhealthy. If she’d had a husband to protect her, this wouldn’t have happened.” He studied Locke insolently, earning a sharp-frosted glare. “Who’s the pretty boy?”
“The victim’s intended,” said Griffin. “He found the body.”
Reeve tucked thumbs into tartan braces, cigar clamped between his teeth. “Book ’im.”
“Is your act meant to be funny?” snapped Locke. “I thought this Griffin character was the police force’s village idiot. Apparently he’s just the warm-up.”
Griffin cleared his throat. “Sir, the man has a checkable alibi.”
Reeve chortled. “I’ll bet he does! It’s always the lover, Griffin. Police work doesn’t get more basic than that. Book the snotty brat and be done.”
“Ahh!” Sir Stamford’s rheumy eyes gleamed. “Excellent job, Reeve old boy. Just the sort of man we need to win this war.” He flourished his cane like a saber. “Charge for the guns, men! We’ll have Boney in chains by nightfall!”
Eliza’s heart sank. “But there’s no evidence.”
Reeve grinned. “Then find some. Isn’t that what you’re for? Or have you forgotten how?”
She opened her mouth to retort, but her failure in the Slasher case burned bitter on her tongue. Flushing, she said nothing.
Smugly, Reeve beckoned to a pair of Griffin’s officers, ignoring Constable Perkins, who’d waited eagerly to be called upon and now deflated visibly. “Bow Street, lads, quick as you like. Griffin can do the paperwork. Not too busy, are you, Griffin?”
The two blue-coated men grabbed Locke, one arm each. Locke shook them off, prickly as a thistle. “Leave off, half-wits. This is a waste of time,” he added over his shoulder as they led him away. “You’ll see.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Locke,” she called after him, glaring at Reeve. “We’ll check the facts at once. We shan’t trouble you for more than an hour or two.”
“Facts,” grumbled Hippocrates, scratching disconsolately at the carpet, where a brass snake slithered, its forked copper tongue flickering. “Evidence negligible. Does not compute.”
Satisfied, Reeve chewed his cigar. “Job done for you again, Griffin. No wonder you’re getting nowhere on the Slasher case. Perhaps it’s time we had fresh eyes on that.”
“Indeed, sir!” Sir Stamford prodded Griffin in the chest with his cane. “Put some effort in, lad! Hunt that Froggie interloper down, or we’ll find someone who will!”
“You heard him, Inspector.” Reeve smirked. “Better come up with some leads. Shame if we had to replace you.”
“Screw you, weedbrain,” retorted Lizzie, steaming in a fit of scarlet pique. “Don’t see you down there getting your hands dirty.”
Eliza gritted her teeth, her own anger fresh. As if Reeve knew anything about real detective work, as opposed to thrashing suspects into false confessions and cultivating corrupt informants who’d say anything for a price. “But—”
“Not a word, missy,” snapped Reeve. “I’ve told you before: police work is no job for a girl. Don’t you have a wedding to plan?”
Lizzie hopped like a dervish, shaking her fists. “I’ll plan you, fartstain! I’ll wring your greasy neck until your god-rotted eyes bulge!” Dizziness over
came Eliza, hard and fast like a blow to the head. Scarlet mist descended, and she swooned . . .
“Oi!” Reeve leapt backwards, swearing. “What the devil are you doing, you crazy twat?”
“Eh?” Eliza jerked, startled.
Griffin and Reeve gaped at her. Hipp boinged sheepish springs and muttered, “Sorry. Sorry.”
That red glass vase lay smashed on the hearth, shards glittering.
She’d hurled it at Reeve. Or rather, Lizzie had.
The Commissioner peered through his monocle at a patch of empty air. “I say, who’s the saucy minx in the red skirts?”
Oh, bother.
Eliza scrabbled up her things and ran.
A WOMAN’S PLACE
OUT INTO THE DRIZZLE, RAINDROPS A STINGING SOLACE on her burning cheeks. She clutched the wrought-iron fence, panting for breath. Her stomach lurched. This was it. Reeve’s taunts had finally gotten under her skin. This time, he’d have her job for certain. Her career was over. Not to mention having to explain to Harley.
She fumbled in her satchel for her bottle of remedy, the medicine that was supposed to keep Lizzie at bay, and swallowed a big gulp. Reproachful sweetness burned her throat. Get rid of me, will you? hissed Lizzie’s disembodied voice in her ear. The lackwit deserved it. You want me to stand by and listen to that? Poor Eliza, too chicken-shit to speak up.
Her vision whirled, a disorienting blur, and she barely registered the constables stretchering the corpse out, Reeve and the Commissioner climbing into their carriage and rattling off into the distance. Sir Stamford’s voice drifted back on a chill breeze of fear. “I tell you, sir! Brunette in a red dress, giving me the saucy eye . . .”
A hand gripped Eliza’s shoulder. She jerked, ready to run.
“Easy, Eliza.” Swiftly, Griffin helped her loosen her tight collar. “Breathe. That’s it. And again. You can do it.”
Gratefully, she gasped, the world spiraling. “It’s all right, Harley . . . thank you. Just some . . . medication I’m taking . . . I get a little confused.” Gradually, the swirling slowed, and she caught her breath. “Forgive me. This is frightfully embarrassing. Hush, Hipp,” she added, as the little brass fellow tried to climb her skirts, squawking like a hurt kitten.
Griffin looked dubious. “That charlatan pharmacist of yours is nothing but trouble. Are you seeing things? We should fetch another doctor—”
“I’m fine,” she announced shakily. “You ought to get along with the case. I suppose Reeve fired me at last?” Her nerves grated. The idea of losing her job drained her of hope. Seeing things? Oh, only an apparition of my imaginary other self, who apparently mad old men can see. Nothing to worry about. Griffin would call her crazy, send her packing . . .
Griffin just helped her put on her wet mantle. “No such satisfaction. I made some remark about women’s problems and letting ladies have their hobbies, and Reeve chortled it off.” He looked faintly shamefaced. “It got us another chance. I hope you don’t mind.”
Gratitude washed her thin. As if Griffin didn’t have enough problems. “You’re a good friend, Harley.”
Gruffly, he brushed raindrops from his mustache. “Back to the case, eh? We must get poor Mr. Locke out of the Bow Street lock-up before Reeve wrings out a false confession and thrashes him to an irate pink pulp.”
She adjusted her hat, wriggling tired shoulders with a sigh. The remedy was working, for now. Lizzie felt distant, just a warm undercurrent in her blood, biding her time. But Eliza’s own cowardice galled her. Hurling that vase at Reeve hadn’t felt shameful, or an embarrassing overreaction. It had felt good.
“If Locke’s guilty, I’d have expected less bad temper and a better alibi,” she said hurriedly, to cover her distraction. “A little harsh on him, weren’t you? He did just lose his future bride.”
“Are you sure?” Griffin shrugged. “Ill-fitting suit, untidy hair, wanders around in the rain instead of paying for cabs. And he sets up other people’s experiments for a living. Doubt he’s ever been blessed with an original thought.”
“So?”
“So, he’s hardly Remy Lafayette, is he? D’you really think an accomplished young lady like Miss de Percy would marry a man like that? Would you?”
She stared. “You think Locke could be inventing their engagement?”
“He could be inventing the whole thing,” said Griffin. “That mysterious afternoon caller, the lab accident, his walk to Albemarle Street.”
“Hmm. The bruise on Antoinette’s face is real enough. The maid sees her alive at six, but Locke returns unseen afterwards. They fight, he strikes her, it ends in murder . . .” She shook her head. “Call me sentimental, but I rather thought Locke’s grief to be genuine.”
“No accounting for love.” Griffin jammed on his tall hat. “Share a cab? I’m back to Bow Street. Our friend the Slasher awaits.” He sounded tired, dispirited. It wasn’t like him.
Hipp bounced eagerly. “Raining. Forty-five degrees. Make greater speed.”
“I’m headed to Finch’s Pharmacy,” she admitted. “Rather in the opposite direction.”
Darkly, Griffin shook his head. “I wish you wouldn’t put so much faith in that swindler. He’s worked you nothing but trouble.”
A pang of guilt stabbed. Griffin’s wife had perished of a wasting disease, her condition exacerbated by idiot apothecaries and haughty physicians who cared more for honoring the mystic traditions of Galen and Aristotle than for treatments that actually worked. Eliza had tried to help, but too late. Mrs. Griffin had faded away, a ghost of the vivacious lady who’d been so delighted when Harley took on a female physician as his crime scene expert.
“He tries, Harley,” she murmured. She’d told Griffin her medication was for headaches, and he’d believed her. Not for much longer, if Lizzie kept hurling vases and flirting with the Commissioner.
“So does Chief Inspector Reeve, and he’s still an accident waiting to happen. D’you know, I had his wife in my office again yesterday, complaining I wasn’t doing enough to further her husband’s career.”
Eliza winced. Despite her dislike for the Chief Inspector, she envied no man a partner so demanding as Mrs. Reeve. “There’s gratitude for you.”
“On that subject, did you see the Illustrated News?” Griffin offered a folded edition. REGENT AND CABINET AT LOGGERHEADS OVER WAR POLICY, read one headline. ENFORCERS CLASH WITH SUFFRAGETTE PROTESTERS. IS THE SOHO SLASHER FROM OUTER SPACE? “Another Slasher suspect beaten to within an inch of his life,” said Griffin, showing her an article entitled ARMED CITIZENS UNITE AGAINST BUTCHERS’ GUILD. “Poor fellow, in the wrong place at the wrong time. And to top it off . . .”
“Oh, no.” Her heart sank. “My post-mortem report again?”
“In full bloodcurdling detail.” Griffin gritted his teeth. “Damned if I know where the pilfering lice are getting them. I swear, everything’s kept under lock and key.”
“Hardly your fault. Some greedy fool of a constable must be taking money from those disgusting vultures at the News.” She shook raindrops from the paper. “ ‘Slasher still at large,’ “ she read. “ ‘Police fail again. Once more the myopic incompetence of our so-called law enforcement officers is an expensive and embarrassing scandal for the Home Office.’ Honestly, it makes one wish poor Mr. Temple back again. At least his sordid penny dreadfuls were works of honest fiction—”
“Where are the po-LICE?” demanded a shrill voice, and across the wet road stalked a hatchet-faced lady. Her black mourning gown was twenty years out of date, skirts swishing like a street sweeper’s broom, and she brandished a pair of brass opera glasses in one crow-like hand. “I have information! I demand to be heard!”
Constable Perkins came splashing after her. “A witness, sir,” she panted triumphantly. “This is Lady Redstoat. She lives at number thirty-six.”
“Told you so, Perkins,” murmured Griffin, earning a blush and a pleased smile.
Lady Redstoat waved her glasses. “I told her! I told that brazen hussy what wou
ld happen if she didn’t repent. And now she’s swimming in the lake of fire!”
“A dread fate indeed, my lady,” said Eliza, winking at Perkins. “What can you tell us about Miss de Percy?”
Lady Redstoat’s fanatical gaze burned. “A sinner! Pride, lust, gluttony, taking the Lord’s name in vain with her evil so-called experiments. Consorting with the devil!”
“I see. And did Satan call in person, or did he send messengers?”
The lady stabbed her on a sharp-nosed scowl. “Scoff if you will. Callers at all hours, day or night. These ‘scientists’ and ‘intellectuals’ and ‘poets.’ Hmph. Fornicators, the lot of them. The shame!”
Griffin coughed politely. “And did these, er, fornicators attend yesterday?”
“I watch for them, you know, through my drawing room window.” Lady Redstoat glared fiercely through the opera glasses. “I know exactly who they are. I have the names and times written down. A sin ledger, sir!” She extracted a matchbox-sized notebook from her reticule, and flicked feverishly through. “Yes. That’s them, the degenerates! A pair of her so-called scientists at twelve o’clock, that disgusting Locke creature and his one-eyed accomplice. Then that professor”—she spat the title like a bad-tasting morsel—“and the old gray-haired pervert at a quarter past.”
Eliza nodded. The team meeting. “And after?”
“A man on his own at a quarter to three. And then Locke again at four. For an hour!” She fanned herself, perspiring. “Imagine the debaucheries! Ohh!”
“Perhaps imagining a little less vividly would help,” murmured Eliza dryly. “A different man at a quarter to three, you say? Not Mr. Locke or the others?”
A disgusted wrinkle of nose. “That vile boy curses at me with the devil’s tongue. I would have recognized him. No, this was some long-haired reprobate in a top hat, with a dirty overcoat and a blue scarf. Never seen him before. A fresh recruit for Satan! He idled about in the street for ten minutes before going inside. For the world to see!”
“But no one called later than five?”
“No one.” Haughty certainty.