A Dangerous Duet

by Karen Odden

  My attempt to recover my poise failed, and her lips parted in surprise. “Why—you’re a woman!”

  I swallowed hard and nodded, too wretched to even attempt the lie.

  “Don’t worry.” She came close enough that she could murmur. “I won’t give you away. It’s hard enough for us. If I could masquerade as a man, I would. But we get paid more if I’m in this.” She glanced down at her pale pink costume, which, in contrast to Sebastian’s severe black one, left her legs and arms bare and was embroidered with sparkling threads.

  “And I get paid more if I’m in this,” I said, gesturing to my masculine garb.

  She laughed.

  I nodded toward the curtains through which Mr. Williams had vanished. “Does he really always shout like that?”

  “Every night that I’ve been here,” she said airily. “I remember once I was late to the stage. He all but had a fit, I tell you! He looked like a rabid dog, with spit flying out of his mouth. And the horrid names he called me.” Her delicate eyebrows rose. “I thought Sebastian was going to hit him.”

  A rueful laugh escaped me. “Well, I can’t hit him. I need the money.”

  “So do we,” she said cheerfully. “So does everyone, I dare say. But he’ll forget it by tomorrow.”

  “I hope so.”

  She gave a crooked smile that revealed small white teeth. “My name’s Marceline. What’s yours?”

  “Nell. It’s short for Elinor.”

  She tipped her head toward me, her eyes thoughtful. “Well, Nell, I’ll see you tomorrow. And really, don’t worry about old Williams.” With a graceful little wave, she turned away and went to stage left where her brother was waiting, coat in hand.

  I’d felt so grateful to her. I might not even have had the courage to return the following night if it hadn’t been for her kindness.

  As the hospital door closed behind my friend, I blinked back the tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. What vile person had beaten her and dumped her in that rotten little street? And where was Sebastian? Had something similar befallen him? Did he have any idea what had happened?

  I waited until a light appeared in the room used for admitting new patients. I imagined the night nurse settling Marceline in a bed; then, feeling relieved that she was safe for this night at least, I started for home.

  Chapter 2

  I woke to the muted clanging of copper pots on the stove.

  I had been lucky last night: when I’d returned home, Matthew’s bed had been empty. And judging from the clanging, Peggy had returned this morning, which must mean that her daughter, Emma, was feeling better. So, my first feeling of the day was one of relief.

  The morning sun glowed through my curtains, and the bells of Grosvenor Chapel rang the quarter hour. In the light of day, and surrounded by familiar sounds, my anxiety about Marceline was somewhat allayed. I had the utmost confidence in Dr. Everett, for over the years, I’d seen him perform what some might call miracles upon even his most feeble patients, and Marceline was young and strong. Still, I longed to know for certain that she’d recover.

  The thought nudged me out of bed. I went to the washstand and poured water from the ewer into the basin. As I splashed and dried my face, I considered how and when I should try to see Marceline.

  Matthew usually left by ten o’clock, after which I would practice for four or five hours while Peggy was occupied in the kitchen and the bedrooms. After I finished at the piano, she cleaned the parlor and the study, while I went for a walk or to the shops. There was part of me that longed to visit the hospital this morning, but Peggy would be certain to ask where I was going and why. And what excuse could I give to Dr. Everett for appearing unexpectedly and inquiring about a particular patient? No, I decided. It would be best if I were to follow my usual routine. If I started for the hospital at half past three, I’d arrive after Dr. Everett’s afternoon rounds, when he would have seen Marceline, but before tea, which he always took precisely at half past four. I could steer the conversation toward new patients to find out her prognosis; and if Marceline was by chance awake and able to talk, I might even be able to visit her. Maybe she’d be able to tell me where to find Sebastian; assuming that her brother was all right, he must be mad with worry about her. But without Marceline’s guidance, I’d have no idea where to find him.

  Though she and I had become good friends, I knew very little about her brother other than that he was a year younger than Marceline and very strong. They had been raised by their grandparents and trained by the great trapeze artist Jules Léotard himself at the Cirque D’Hiver in Paris. When a fire destroyed their theater, they came to London and styled themselves “The Flying Tourneaus.”

  I opened my armoire to find my trousers in a heap on the floor. In my exhaustion the previous night, I must have missed the hook. With a sound of annoyance, I caught them up, brushed off the dust, and hung them, hoping they wouldn’t be too crumpled this evening. Then I buttoned myself into my blue day dress and headed for the stairs, where the clattering sounds from the kitchen rose to greet me.

  Peggy had been our housekeeper since before I was born; now she kept house for us and for Dr. Everett, three days each, with Sunday her day of rest. Lately she’d come less often because her daughter, Emma, suffered from consumption and was having one of her bad bouts. Now Peggy would be like a dervish trying to put things back to rights here. Wanting to take some of the burden from her, I’d dusted the parlor, polished the furniture, and thoroughly cleaned the kitchen after yesterday’s tea. But by her accounting, the house would be at sixes and sevens. Admittedly, in the exacting light of morning I could see a layer of grime on the front windowsills. It was impossible to avoid dust, even if the house was shut up every hour of the day.

  I entered the dining room, where my brother was drinking his tea and already several pages into his newspaper. The erratic din emanating from the kitchen rattled my nerves, but I suppressed my discomfort. Matthew, who was rarely agitated by anything, seemed not to notice it at all.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Morning, Nell.” He smiled and handed me my newspaper.

  I sat down, poured myself tea, added sugar, and laid my paper flat.

  And then, as was our wont, we were silent for some time, turning our pages. Reading the papers with my father and brother every morning had been part of my disciplina logica—my “logical education”—which, in lieu of the more traditional womanly skills of needlepoint, drawing, and French, emphasized mathematics, science, Latin, geography, and politics, among other things. After Father had passed away, Matthew and I had kept up the habit, and I liked the familiar beginning to every day.

  Peggy’s tall, spare frame appeared at the door, her arms akimbo. “Did the coal man come yesterday?” she demanded without preamble.

  I put my finger on the margin to hold my place and gave Matthew a questioning look. His clear blue eyes met mine, and he shrugged in reply.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied. “Was he supposed to? Usually he comes Saturdays.”

  “But he shorted us last week, and he told me he’d deliver the balance yesterday! For mercy’s sake!” She pursed her lips in disdain, but before she could start toward the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Her eyes sparked. “That’d better not be him, coming to the front door.” And she stalked off to answer it.

  Matthew raised an eyebrow. “Surely he’s not that much of a fool,” he said under his breath, and I stifled a laugh. More likely it was a message from Scotland Yard for Matthew.

  My brother had begun his career in uniform at L Division, in Lambeth, five years ago and risen rapidly from constable to sergeant to inspector, whereupon he’d transferred to the Yard last year. He had gained a reputation for being strong, clever, and unflappable, with the ability to work longer hours than other detective inspectors, being unfettered by a wife or family. He had teased me recently, saying it was fortunate that he merely had a younger sister to manage, and on most days I wasn’t an inordinate amount of trou
ble. His jest had made me cringe inwardly, as my nighttime excursions would certainly cause him—at the very least—an inordinate amount of worry. The fact was, I hated keeping secrets from him. But I’d squelched my guilt with the justification that my playing at the music hall wasn’t doing anyone any harm, and it wasn’t for much longer.

  Peggy reappeared in the doorway, a scowl on her face but no note in hand. “Beggin’ your pardon, but it’s a constable, and he’s very stubborn. I told him that I could deliver a message, as you’re eating breakfast like civilized people do at this hour, but he says it would take too long to put in writing, and he has to see you himself.”

  “Hm,” my brother said and removed his napkin from his lap.

  “Matthew, you could offer him a cup of tea,” I suggested hastily. “It’s still early. It would be the decent thing to do.”

  He snorted. “That is a truly pitiful attempt to mask your nosiness.”

  “Well, we’ve never had a visit from a stubborn constable before,” I retorted.

  He gave me a look of good-humored indulgence. “All right, Peggy. Let’s have him in.”

  The constable was a thin fellow of around one-and-twenty, with red spots in his cheeks, a sharpish nose, and a top hat that he held in front of his chest. He wore the blue swallow-tailed coat of the Metropolitan Police, with its high neck and a row of buttons down the front. The coat rode a bit wide across the shoulders, as if he needed to grow into it.

  “Why, Hodges!” Matthew said with some surprise.

  The constable bobbed in my direction and looked abashed. “Sorry, Miss.” He turned to Matthew with the air of deference that always made me feel a mixture of amusement and pride in my brother. “Mr. ’allam, I’m turrible sorry to interrupt your breakfast. Wouldn’t do it if it warn’t important.”

  “Of course not. What’s the trouble?”

  “A man found dead, down by the river just west of Waterloo Pier.”

  I knew that pier; it wasn’t far from the Yard, on the north bank of the river, in the curve closest to Soho.

  Matthew’s gaze sharpened. “You found him?”

  He nodded. “On my rounds, though I wouldn’t ’a seen ’im at all, except I heard two boys shoutin’, and one of ’em asked if ’e was dead. I couldn’t see ’em at first because there was a wall on that part of the embankment.” He raised his hat. “So I used this. It was still mostly dark, but I could see something wot looked like a bloke near some broke-up crates.”

  “You used your hat?” I blurted out.

  Matthew arched an eyebrow but didn’t rebuke me.

  The constable nodded, flipping the article over so I could see. “It’s shored up with cane, so’s we can step on it. It’s come in tol’rable useful more ’n once.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it has,” I said faintly.

  He turned back to Matthew. “I ran round to where ’e was layin’ and saw ’e was beat bad, blood everywhere.”

  Unbidden, my mind leaped to Marceline, and I had the unsettled feeling that coincidence sometimes gives.

  “We turned ’im over, so we could see ’is face,” Hodges continued. “That’s when I seen ’ow it was just like the murder wot ’appened near St. Luke’s.”

  “St. Luke’s, in Soho?” I asked, turning to Matthew. That was Peggy’s church, and it was only a few streets from the Octavian.

  “Yes.” Matthew gave me a look and lowered his voice. “I’m not sure Peggy heard about it, as we kept it out of the papers, and I have no intention of bringing it up. She has enough to worry about with Emma.” Matthew turned back to Hodges. “How was it similar?”

  “Well, you remember, ’is face was beat summat awful, and ’is right ’and ’ad the three middle fingers broken.” He held up his own fingers. “I didn’t see it on this bloke till we turned ’im over. And I remembered wot you said: that if I ever saw it again, I was to find you direc’ly.”

  I thought of Marceline’s bloody hands. I hadn’t observed them closely enough to tell if the bones were intact. “What is significant about broken fingers?” I asked.

  Matthew pantomimed holding a fan of playing cards. “Conventionally, it’s been a punishment used for gamblers who didn’t pay their debts.”

  “A warning to others,” I said.

  “As it were.”

  “O’ course, like you said ’afore, it might not be for gambling,” Hodges offered. “Could just be a—a trick, like. To ’ide the real reason they was killed.”

  “When did the murder near St. Luke’s happen?” I asked.

  “A few days ago,” Hodges answered, seemingly appreciative of my interest. “Same sort o’ thing as last night. The poor man was stripped down to his skiv—well, down to—well, down to not much a’tall”—he averted his gaze from mine and the bits of color in his cheeks darkened—“with ’is ’and wrecked, and beat so’s ’is face was pretty much gone. ’Twas lucky that somebody came for’ard right away and told us who ’e was.”

  Matthew pushed back from the table, and I followed them to the front door, my mind drawing various, if somewhat tenuous, connections between the two murders and Marceline’s attack. My face must have revealed the tenor of my thoughts, for the constable bent toward me, his face twisting with regret.

  “Sorry to ’ave disturbed you, Miss,” he said. “I know this ain’t the sort of thing that sits well with breakfast.”

  “Oh, I’m all right. It’s just—just such a grisly thing,” I said.

  “It is,” replied Hodges earnestly, as he donned his tolerably useful hat. “Most as grisly as I ever seen. Even worse’n that time wot I pulled a dead man out of the Thames with ’is eyes et out of ’is ’ead.”

  Chapter 3

  Promptly at half past three, I donned my boots and coat and walked toward Charing Cross at a quick clip.

  Most voluntary hospitals in London did not accept patients with mental diseases; nor did they take children, incurables, or patients who were infectious, with child, or truly destitute. It was a testament to Dr. Everett’s standing in the medical community—or to his gifts of persuasion—that he’d convinced the hospital’s Committee of Benefactors to establish a ward in which brain diseases in patients of any age or condition might be treated.

  When I arrived, I entered through the main hall. To the left of it was the receiving room, where dozens of patients were examined daily by the inquiry officer and then either admitted to a ward, treated for minor injuries, sent to the dispensary, or directed to the outpatient benches, where they would wait to be seen by a consultant. Dr. Everett’s dominion was in the north wing, on the second floor of four, and I climbed the central stairs, passed through two archways, and paused at the threshold of the long, narrow room, made in the newly adopted “pavilion” style, that was the women’s ward.

  Because Dr. Everett believed that a pleasant environment was conducive to mental health, the walls were painted a soft yellow, and pairs of windows both enabled cross-ventilation and let in the light all day long. The wooden floor was polished, and two black stoves in the center aisle cheerfully kept off the chill. The room held thirty beds, fifteen on each side, with their metal headboards set against the walls. A few had free-standing curtains, not unlike those at my piano alcove, for privacy. Near the back of the room, Dr. Everett was tending to a patient with a bandaged head and broken arm. Her name was Grace, and she’d been admitted last week, having been thrown from her husband’s carriage. He caught sight of me in the doorway and beckoned. As I approached, I scanned the room; so far as I could tell, Marceline wasn’t there, but she might be behind a curtain.

  I bent to greet Grace, but her eyes only wandered vacantly to the ceiling above me with no noticeable change of expression. I felt a stab of pity, and the smile I’d intended for her slid off my face.

  “Nell, my dear,” Dr. Everett said, “I was just about to have tea. Why don’t you go to my office? I’ll be there in a moment.”

  I nodded agreement, but as I left the room, I adjusted my steps to peer sur
reptitiously around the curtains, my anxiety increasing as I neared the last bed.

  Marceline wasn’t there.

  Fear gripped me. Was it possible that she’d died in the night? Striving to remain outwardly calm, I started down the corridor to Dr. Everett’s office, wanting desperately to ask someone. But what pretext would I give for inquiring whether a nameless young woman had been unceremoniously deposited at the hospital the previous night?

  As I passed the door to the children’s ward, I halted. Could she have been assigned to a bed there? She was small for being seventeen, and I could see how she might be taken for several years younger. I took a quick walk through, smiling at the patients who seemed well enough to notice, until I reached the end of the row, where a beige curtain partitioned off a bed. Through the gap between two panels, I glimpsed thick black hair on a pillow. My heart leaped. I looked in hopefully and gave a sigh of relief when I saw Marceline.

  Nurse Aimes, who had been with Dr. Everett for as long as I could remember, was setting aside the portable sphygmograph used for measuring the pressure of arterial blood. She caught my eye and put a finger to her lips. I nodded and remained silent. But as she bent over her chart to make notes, I stepped inside the curtain so that I could observe Marceline more easily.

  I had to stifle my gasp. Her eyes were covered by a white bandage that encircled her head, and another bandage wrapped under her chin, keeping it immobile. Her hair was a tangle, matted with bits of dried blood. What little I could see of her cheeks and mouth was discolored and swollen, and her hands were swathed in bandages to above the wrist. The bedclothes were barely disturbed, and she looked even smaller than usual. I could see why someone had mistaken her for a child.

  When Nurse Aimes stepped outside the curtain, I followed and asked softly, “What happened?”

  “I dunno,” she replied, her mouth pursing in vexation. “Poor thing was brought in last night by a cabdriver. He said there was another bloke, too, but he ran off. I dunno if I believe that; my guess is that the driver was the one who beat her senseless, the worthless blackguard.”