The Dastardly Miss Lizzie

by Viola Carr

  Belligerently, she forced a path to the stairs. In her current mood, they’d all do well to stay out of her way. Marcellus had been her best friend. Her mentor. She felt bereft, alone for the first time in years.

  And for once, Lizzie wasn’t talking. Eliza felt worn thin, weak, exhausted. Transparent, like a shadow. Was it that foul alchemical brew, scraping away at the ties between them? Or just Lizzie sulking? Maybe Lizzie’s apparition had solidified, and wandered off on some cunning frolic of her own, leaving Eliza to wither away.

  Hipp weaved through the forest of legs. “Make way! Insufficient space! Greater speed imperative!”

  She stalked up to the first floor, along past glass-fronted doors to Inspector Griffin’s cramped office. He’d tried to warn her about Marcellus, but she hadn’t listened. Well, she was listening now. And she owed him an apology.

  She knocked once and burst in. Flawlessly tidy as usual, maps and lists fastidiously pinned to the walls. “Harley, you’ll never believe what’s happened—” She halted, flushing. Griffin wasn’t there.

  Constable Perkins jumped back from the desk, reddening. “Dr. Jekyll. I was just—”

  “I can see what you were just doing,” said Eliza sharply. Griffin’s desk drawer lay open, its orderly arrangement exposed. Those were personal items. A locket. A red hair ribbon. A photograph of his late wife. “Where is Inspector Griffin?”

  “I-I’m not sure—”

  “Then why are you pawing through his things like a common thief?” Tears of rage threatened all over again. This girl had wormed her way into Harley’s confidence. Pretended to be his friend. Eliza wanted to slap her.

  Squirming, Perkins mumbled something.

  “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  “Information!” squawked Hipp, as irate as she.

  “I said he made me!” Perkins’s careful hairstyle quivered, as if it might wilt for shame. “He told me to bring him papers.”

  “Who?” But she already knew the answer, and her face burned. “Chief Inspector Reeve?”

  Perkins nodded, mortified.

  Eliza folded her arms. “Papers like my post-mortem reports, leaked to the press to make Harley look foolish? I thought you were his friend.”

  Perkins bit her lip. “Reeve says Inspector Griffin’s leaving and I should stick with him if I want to get ahead. With Reeve, that is, not Inspector Griffin. And word is that Reeve’s wife threw him out and now he’s doubly keen to show Griffin up—”

  “Leaving?” Eliza’s hands clenched. “What do you mean?”

  “He said Griffin would be fired.” Perkins eyed her ruefully. “You as well, Doctor. By the Commissioner, for bungling the Slasher case.”

  “I see. And how does Reeve know we won’t catch the Slasher, hmm? Could it be because he’s sabotaging us at every turn?” She banged fists against thighs. “Damn him.”

  Poor Perkins stared at her feet, in tears. “I only wanted a job that matters. My father wants me to marry his business partner and have babies and keep house for the rest of my life. I can’t be just a wife, Doctor. I’d rather die, don’t you see?” She wiped her wet nose. “What am I going to do now?”

  Now? Eliza wanted to snap. Now you can go to hell, you scheming little traitor. But she knew how it was to be used by unscrupulous men. To long so desperately for any glimmer of advancement that you’d do anything, say anything, play any ignoble game . . . and her skin stung with shame. Was this what Lizzie thought of her, every time she grinned through gritted teeth at Reeve’s patronizing jibes? That she was selling out to the enemy?

  “You, Constable Perkins,” she announced, “will walk away and pretend this never happened.”

  Perkins’s eyes widened. Her uniform so flawlessly pressed, buttons polished like tiny mirrors. So hopeful, it hurt to behold. “You won’t tell Inspector Griffin?”

  “I believe he’s too busy to bother with trifles, don’t you?” Eliza added a glare to her stern expression. “Just make sure it never happens again.”

  Perkins nodded fervently. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And if Reeve tries more of his desperately clever tricks? Tell him you’d simply love to help him out, but unfortunately, you work for Inspector Griffin, who most decidedly isn’t going anywhere—because he’s about to solve the Slasher case without any help from Reeve. Sound fair?”

  “Perfectly.” Perkins worked up half a smile. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “You’re welcome. Now go find Harley and make yourself indispensable, before I come to my senses and throw you onto the street myself.”

  Discomfited, she watched Perkins scuttle away. More than ever, her fingers itched to crush Reeve’s lying throat. How dare he spoil that young woman’s dreams? She’d half a mind to march down to Scotland Yard and give him a sizzling piece of her temper . . .

  “Yes!” crowed Lizzie, swinging her legs over the desk’s edge. Her heels made alarmingly solid thumps into the wood. “Peel the turd’s face off for a Welsh rarebit. He deserves it, for all he’s done to us.”

  “Now you appear,” muttered Eliza warily. “Never fear. Harley and I will catch this Slasher all the faster, just to spite him—”

  “Right. All we need do is put in the squeak on Eddie and it’ll be fine, is that it?”

  “—and the murderer of de Percy and Crane, too,” she added fiercely, and strode back down the stairs, out into the busy hall, and down to the basement morgue.

  Hipp scuttled after, sniggering at Lizzie’s vocabulary. “Turd! Turd-turd-turd!”

  The clammy chill crept under Eliza’s petticoats and up her sleeves. As usual, the smell of cold flesh turned her stomach. Shrouds, rattling bones in rotting caskets, graves hacked in snowswept ground beneath crumbling headstones. The inevitable truth that one day, we’d all be dead and forgotten. The smell of murder, too, screams echoing in the silence, that bitter overtone of terror. Even after years of experience, it made her shiver.

  A single electric bulb shed weak golden light. Two rows of benches marched into the darkness. Most were occupied, corpses covered with blood-crusted sheets. Here were the Slasher’s victims, four in a row. Only two had been buried. No one had come forward to claim the rest, their relatives perhaps afraid of incurring funeral costs. Or maybe they had no relatives. The final, eternal loneliness: no one to care when you die.

  Compelled, she paused by Saucy May and drew back the sheet.

  The girl’s skin was blue, exposed muscle losing its sheen. Such chaotic cuts. The knife rising and falling, slicing through sinew and tendon . . . Unwilled, she recalled Mr. Todd’s insistence that this was not the Slasher’s work. An imposter. Someone who loves him.

  Determined, she covered up the remains and moved on. She’d no interest in anything Todd had to say. And she still couldn’t carve that jagged nightmare of Hyde from her mind. He smooths his palms eagerly over shiny intestines, enjoying their slippery texture, smacking his lips as he carves. “Maggie, Maggie Mayyy . . .”

  She shuddered. No more Slasher for her today.

  Instead, she headed to the back, where Antoinette and Ephronia lay. Wyverne’s admission of blackmail—and likely arson, too—had only clouded the issue. If Wyverne wasn’t the killer, who was? Locke and Starling had alibis—and the elusive Blue Scarf still remained unidentified. She needed hard evidence.

  “Ha!” Lizzie laughed in her face. “Having stuff-all don’t stop you accusing our father. You in your fine new life as Captain Lafayette’s wife, with a drunken crime lord for a papa? ’Twon’t never do. You’ve wanted rid of Eddie all along, so you can go on pretending you’re Henry’s daughter and your shit don’t stink.”

  Eliza sidestepped her, skirts swishing. This next body was larger, bare feet protruding. “You’ve seen his behavior lately. He’s guilty and you know it.”

  Lizzie thrust hands on hips. “Bollocks. You never heard what Rose said?”

  “Bollocks,” tittered Hipp. “Bollocks! Eh-eh!”

  Eliza banged her instruments onto the tab
le. “The promise of a money-grubbing prostitute. That puts it beyond doubt.”

  Lizzie prodded Eliza’s chest over the corpse. “What’s wrong with her word, you snotty cow? Rose is an honest working girl—”

  “Rose is in love with him!” She slammed the table’s edge. “He’s charmed her, same as he’s charmed you and your Jonathan and everyone else in that stench-filled cesspit you call home. Are you blind, or just stupid?”

  “Ha! Mr. Todd were dead convinced some other cove’s responsible, but you’re too god-rotted stubborn to open your eyes. Who’s blind now?”

  Eliza clenched her teeth on acid rage. “How dare you even speak his name?”

  “Todd, Todd, Todd,” taunted Lizzie. “Must be cold up there on your high horse. So his honor slit a few windpipes. Hell, half the people I know’s done a killing. Think your precious Remy never murdered anyone?”

  “That’s different,” she retorted, flushing. “It was an accident—”

  “The hell you say. Once a killer, always a killer, that’s what you said.” Lizzie chortled, delighted. “I think Malachi likes me, the handsome devil. Always knew you was jealous. Afraid I’ll succeed where you failed?”

  “I’m not listening.”

  “Deaf as well as blind,” crowed Lizzie. “Admit it, Eliza, our blood’s tainted, same as Todd’s. If Eddie’s the Slasher, what does that make you?”

  “You vicious tart,” snarled Eliza, and clawed for Lizzie’s face.

  But with a sarcastic pop! Lizzie disappeared.

  Eliza stumbled over the cadaver, catching herself. That sour blue potion scorched her throat again, and she clenched back a scream. Grabbing at ghosts. An imaginary friend who hated her. Perfectly sane.

  Taking a steadying breath, she folded back the sheet. Professor Crane, cold and gray. That gruesome coil mercifully removed, but her torn lips bled black. Reddish hair trailed over her shoulder, lank in death.

  “Take dictation, Hipp.” Hipp’s cogs rattled, rrk! rrk!, as he recorded Eliza’s words on his little phonograph. “Ephronia Crane, early forties, well fed and strong. Cause of death bleeding and suffocation from foreign object in the throat.” She pulled the sheet down to the thighs. “Full post-mortem exam not required, searching for trace evidence only . . . oh, my.”

  Ephronia’s belly was rounded and swollen.

  Barely noticeable, easily hidden by skirts. Eliza smoothed her hand over the cold skin, palpating for gases, hoping for a mistake. But no decomposition had formed that unmistakable bump.

  “A couple of months at least,” she murmured sadly. “That puts a new complexion on things. Or does it?”

  It’s Starling who’s jealous, Locke had said. Always wants to be the golden child. Crane wasn’t married. So whose was the baby?

  Inspired, Eliza pulled out a long-sticked cotton swab and eased the corpse’s legs apart. A gentle swipe, and she smeared the results onto a glass slide and examined them through her optical’s microscopic magnifier. Tiny tadpole-like cells, motionless but intact. A couple of days old at most.

  “A liaison on the day of her murder?” Eliza frowned. “More circumstantial evidence, Hipp. But it seems strange. The professor had rather a busy day, what with the failed demonstration, the meeting, being blackmailed by Wyverne, writing to Hyde. Pausing for a quick tumble over the desk doesn’t seem her style.”

  “Unless Starling slipped her one before he throttled her.” Lizzie ran laps of the morgue, skirts billowing. “Your mild-mannered maths maestro, oho! Hardly seems the type.”

  “Nonsense. Locke saw Starling at the library.” But doubt prodded Eliza’s ribs. Locke changed his story with the breeze. And who knew what outwardly respectable people did in private? Was she searching for complex motives that weren’t there? Could this entire case be based on sexual jealousy out of control?

  “Right,” called Lizzie scornfully. “Locke was fucking Crane. Starling, too. The whole world was fucking Antoinette. It’s all about fucking, Eliza, because that’s what women do, ain’t it? Always some man’s whore, his wife, his mistress. Never just ourselves.”

  “That’s enough, Lizzie.” She scanned the body closely with her magnifying lens. “No unusual marks. Any trace evidence will have come off with her clothes.” Reaching beneath the bench, she retrieved the sack into which the police had stuffed the victim’s effects. “Corset, still laced, clips undone. One pair of cotton stockings. Look, this garter is snapped. And the dress . . .”

  A hard object in the pocket clunked against her wrist.

  Curious, she dug it out. A wax cylinder, smaller than her fist, with tiny carved markings. A phonograph recording.

  A phonograph set had been left running on Ephronia’s desk. What if she’d been playing this cylinder when the killer interrupted? Plucked the roll out, shoved it in her pocket so the intruder wouldn’t hear what she was listening to.

  Or what she was recording.

  Eliza unhinged the panel atop Hipp’s head and clicked the roll into place. “Play this, please.”

  Cogs whirred, and Hipp’s tinny speaker crackled.

  “I can’t believe this.” Ephronia’s Scottish voice, harsh with fear. She was pacing, click-swish-click-swish, her agitated tone rising and falling. “I can’t believe Byron lied! Or was he too blinded by ambition to realize what was happening? The contract, everything we’ve worked for . . .” Furniture crashed, as if she’d kicked it. “Damn! It’s all over. I know what they’ll say about me when they come. But I’m not a traitor, I swear to God, I never knew. I suspected that Royal Society witch wasn’t what she seemed, but this . . .” Papers rustled. “But time wastes, laddie. Ha ha! What a laugh! These fanatics cannot get their hands on Interlunium. These designs, my papers, they must be protected. But who can I trust? Who—oh, God.” Her voice quavered, and the next lines were delivered in a frantic whisper. “It’s him. He’s coming! I can see him across the square. You must deliver these notes. I’ll write down the address. Wish me luck.”

  Ker-chunk! Abruptly, the recording cut to silence. “She recognized the killer across the square,” exclaimed Eliza. “It must be Blue Scarf!”

  Hippocrates jigged, excited. “Fanatics! Murder! Make greater speed!”

  But ugly bells clanged, a discord of doubt. I’m not a traitor. That Royal Society witch. Miss Burton, her metal forehead shining, jumping into that carriage with Paxton, the railway man. In Soho, the Foreign Secretary’s letter in her pocket, a covert meeting with a strange man with a withered arm.

  She’s in league with sorcerers, Wyverne had said. Starling’s selling my project to the enemy. What if he was right?

  Crane was a patriot. She’d thought to sell her project to a respectable Royal Society agent. To the Empire, for the war effort. But what if . . . ?

  “Dr. Jekyll.” Veronica Burton stalked into the morgue, navy blue skirts scything. Her boot heels cracked on the floorboards, a bullet-like warning. “I was only just looking for you.”

  Oh, my. Eliza’s nerves squealed in alarm. How much had Burton heard? Behind her back, she hastily clicked Hipp’s lid shut. Thankfully, mercurial Lizzie was nowhere to be seen. “Miss Burton! Such a long time since we chatted.”

  The girl smiled lopsidedly. A hole in one temple revealed gleaming wet clockwork parts and a glimmering blue filament. One hand had been severed and replaced, decaying skin grafted onto steel fingers. On her bodice shone a Royal Society badge.

  Eliza’s stomach churned. A few months ago, she’d borrowed that badge, to break into the Tower and fool Lady Lovelace. How long ago that seemed. Miss Burton had been such a lively, irreverent girl. Now more Enforcer than woman. Cold. Dead-hearted. Unstoppable.

  She grinned weakly. “Heavens, is that the time? I’ve a meeting to get to. Perhaps we’ll take that tea another day—”

  “Not so fast.” A rot-skinned hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “Why are you interfering with this cadaver?”

  “Interfering,” piped Hipp from under the stairs. “Does not compute. Re-an
alyze.”

  “I’m hardly interfering—”

  “Professor Crane kept a book. A journal. Where is it?”

  She despaired. That cursed book again. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Answer me.”

  “I don’t know about any book! This is a police investigation. I’m merely examining the body for clues. Please, you’re hurting me.”

  Veronica’s face twitched, clank! clunk!, as if cogs and pistons calculated inside her skull, and abruptly she let Eliza go. “It’s not a police investigation anymore. This is a Royal Society matter now.”

  Crossly, Eliza rubbed her bleeding wrist. “Are you solving a multiple murder, then? Or just fishing for scientists to burn?”

  “That will be all, Doctor.”

  Eliza’s blood boiled. All her old frustration at bull-headed Royal Society interference bubbled up with a vengeance, mixing with anger that vivacious Miss Burton had changed into a metal-headed harpy just to curry the Philosopher’s favor. “No, it certainly will not be all,” she snapped in a voice barely her own. “How dare you obstruct this investigation? I’ve got it on good authority that you made a secret deal with Ephronia Crane to peddle unorthodox science for profit. What would Sir Isaac say about that, eh?”

  A rivet popped in Veronica’s scarred cheek, releasing a green squirt of pus.

  “Go on,” jeered Lizzie, as she waltzed about the morgue cradling a severed arm. “Let her have it!”

  Eliza barely heard. “Oh, not so officious now? I happen to know you’re conspiring with the Foreign Secretary, too, in the same ignoble shenanigans. Oh, yes,” she added with fierce, reckless enjoyment, “your little meetings in Soho have been eyeballed. We’ve got our snouts, too, so we do. So don’t strut into a god-rotted coppers’ shop, interrupt me in the middle of a stand-up crushers’ bug hunt, and flap your mouth about Royal Society business when it ain’t no such thing!”