Among the Darkness Stirs

by Nicola Italia

  She agreed and looked at the mantle clock. “It’s so late. You shouldn’t travel just yet. Why don’t you spend the night? The sofa is comfortable. Let me get you a blanket.”

  She returned a few minutes later carrying a blanket. “Henry, I’ve been thinking. They attacked you on the grounds of the workhouse. Anyone could have come upon you. They must be concerned that we are close to finding the truth.”

  He sighed. “I thought the same as I walked here. They know. They don’t know how much we know, but they know it’s us.”

  Audrey sat next to him on the couch as he nursed his face with the cool rag. “I think the ledgers is money being spent using the workhouse as a cover,” she told him. “The key is the bodies. Marguerite was keeping track for a reason. She suspected something. When Alistair died, she was afraid. Then she died. We lost the mortuary and accounting ledger. I think we need to return to the mortuary.”

  Henry took the cloth away from his face. “How quickly can you get dressed?”

  “Five minutes. Ten at the most. Are you up to it? Your face—”

  “No time like the present,” he said firmly.

  Audrey quickly changed from her nightgown to the mourning gown and threw a shawl about her shoulders. “Come.”

  They stepped into the small pathway outside the cottage, and he winced in pain.

  “Henry?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “My face hurts, and I’m tired. But I want to finish this. If the mortuary holds the truth, so be it.”

  They passed the skeletal trees of the orchard guarding their kingdom. A light mist had fallen.

  “It looks spooky at night,” Audrey whispered.

  “Don’t start saying spooky,” he admonished her. “Suddenly there will be a ghost or goblin behind every turn.”

  They came to the one-story mortuary. It appeared dark from the lane. They found the door they had both entered before, and the knob turned easily.

  They walked into the same hallway as before and found the records room. There was a gaslight burning along the hallway, but once they were inside the office, it was darker. The rectangular glass window above the door offered some light.

  “Check the desk,” Henry said. “See if you can find a letter opener or something sharp. We can use it to pry open the cabinets.”

  She went over to the desk. The light was scant. She could see the objects on the desk but no letter opener. “I don’t see—” she began and stopped abruptly when she heard voices in the hallway.

  “I have another one for you,” a male voice spoke.

  “You know where to put them,” a second voice responded.

  Henry and Audrey listened at the door as the footsteps receded and then came again.

  “This one is for the evening train tomorrow,” the voice said.

  “No problem. We’ve got this down to a science,” the second voice said.

  Audrey strained to hear the voices, trying to find something familiar in their tone. Did she know them? Were they staff at the workhouse? When the footsteps receded, she turned to Henry.

  “The evening tomorrow. We’ll be on it,” he said.

  Audrey spent much of the next day in the classroom watching the clock. Several of her students had to repeat their questions, and she felt awful. But the more the clock moved, the more excited she felt. When the students were finally dismissed, she hurried down to the cottage to splash some water on her face and grab her wool coat.

  She was heading back to the front of the foyer when she saw Joseph and Levi chatting. They greeted each other.

  “Hello there.”

  She struggled to maintain her composure as she passed them by, and when she joined Henry outside in the cab, she blurted out, “I just saw Joseph and Levi just now. It was just in passing, but Joseph has a bruise on his face.”

  He frowned. “A bruise?”

  “Didn’t you tell me you got one punch in? The person who took the ledger? You hit him?”

  Henry looked at her with a steely gaze. “I did.”

  “Could Joseph be behind this? That’s not thinkable!”

  “We’ll soon find out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The hansom cab deposited them in front of the train station, and they waited discreetly where no one could see them. An hour later, a carriage arrived, carrying a somber coffin and a man dressed in a large overcoat and hat.

  The coffin was loaded onto the train, and the man took his seat in one of the compartments. Henry and Audrey quickly joined the train before it began to move and settled into a compartment near where the cloaked man was.

  “We’re headed to London,” Audrey said.

  “Listen to me, Audrey. Once we get into London, we need to wait for the coffin and our friend there. I’ll get us a cab so that we can follow them. I need you to keep an eye on them in case we get separated.”

  “I will.”

  Once the train pulled into Victoria Station, Henry exited first to procure the cab while she watched the man. She was unable to see his face, as his collar was turned up and he wore his hat low. He left the train and then returned with a porter. He and the porter chatted like old friends, and Audrey had the feeling that this was a common occurrence. When the coffin was secure, it was transported to an awaiting hansom cab.

  She saw Henry signal to her in another cab. She quickly got inside.

  “Now we’ll see where this is headed.” He rapped on the roof of the cab, and the driver sprang into action.

  They moved through the dark London streets as the driver followed the other cab. They weaved in and out of the buildings until they came to a large, multi-storied building.

  “Wait for me here, Audrey. If they stop for a length of time here, I’m going to get the police. Don’t go in before I come back,” he said.

  With that, he stepped out of the cab and vanished. She waited inside, looking out the window at the large building. It was an imposing building from the alleyway, and everything seemed dark, and a moldy smell was thick in the air.

  She stepped out of the cab to stretch her legs and walked along the back side of the building. She looked about her, but Henry was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone for the police. There was a small door at the back of the building, and when she turned the knob, it opened.

  She wanted to wait for Henry, but she was also interested to see what could be inside the dull building. As she stepped inside, the first thing she noticed was the walls, which were painted jet-black. She could see nothing beyond that as she moved into the next room.

  The first thing that caught her attention was a blood-red tablecloth covering several tables and large glass jars illuminated under hissing gaslights. She made her way towards them.

  The jars varied in size, all of them with liquid in them. As she moved even closer, she saw that inside the jars and liquid were objects. First, she saw an ear floating in one jar and then a nose. In another jar was an eyeball, a mouth, and yet another jar held several fingers.

  She stifled a gasp and looked behind her sharply, but she was alone.

  “What is this place?” she whispered, feeling uneasy.

  Moving into another black room, she covered her mouth before she even took a step inside. Underneath several gaslights was a human body opened up to reveal the organs inside. She shook her head. It wasn’t real. That was not possible. It was wax. She had seen such wax figures before when she had visited Madame Tussauds. That was it.

  She walked forward to get a closer look at the body to marvel at the waxwork. As she stepped nearer to it, she saw that the body was intricately made and so delicate, and she had to keep herself from screaming.

  This was not a wax figure. This was a human.

  Next to the abdomen were more red tables with more jars. This room appeared to be more sexual in nature. A woman’s breast floated in one jar and in another a man’s sexual organ. She backed out of the room and almost stumbled into another room, where a woman’s body lay cut open to re
veal her organs. Her stomach turned, and she covered her mouth to avoid being sick.

  She stumbled into another room and saw a man’s arm flayed open to show the muscles, and a distinct odor of rotting flesh assailed her nose. She closed her eyes from the horror of it all. After she had regained some courage, she looked around for the door she had entered.

  She noticed there were signs on each body or jar with a small plaque describing what it was in detail. She shook her head, feeling increasingly sick. What was this place? Where was Henry?

  She knocked into a display of an old, wrinkled corpse and wondered if she knew the person. Was this Marguerite? This place…. it was hell.

  As she tried to retrace her steps, the lights flickered. Please! Please don’t let the gaslights flicker out and plunge her into darkness in this hellhole. Please, please, please.

  And just as she thought it, she was plunged into darkness.

  Audrey willed herself not to become emotional or hysterical. She would find her way out. She must be patient and calm. When she heard the sound of someone coming towards her, she turned. Thank God! She was not alone. Henry had found her. She heard a match being struck, and one single gas lantern flared to life. When the gas lantern entered the room, she saw the face of Joseph Caldwell.

  “Joseph! What are you doing here?”

  He smirked and shook his head. “You should have left well enough alone, countess. You really should have.”

  Audrey grew cold. “That was you in the mortuary. And you attacked Henry.”

  “I was only following orders. You can’t fault me for that.” He shrugged.

  She glanced around at the horrors surrounding them. “Whose orders? What is this place?”

  “This place is the reason for it all.”

  “The reason for what?” she asked, but he gave no answers.

  He tsked. “It’s a damn shame, countess. I liked you. I did. But you have one of those annoying traits modern women have.”

  “Which is?” she asked.

  “You’re too smart. Too smart by half.” Joseph looked behind him as if he was waiting for someone, then footsteps approached.

  Audrey’s face fell. “Levi? You too?”

  Levi shrugged nonchalantly. “It pays, don’t it? That’s all I care about. The money.”

  “Money for what?” Audrey asked them both.

  She was about to ask them again when someone else joined them, whistling as they came. Dr. Samson Beesley.

  “Welcome to my humble museum, Ms. Wakefield!” Dr. Beesley said, his hands flung wide like a showman.

  “Your museum?” Audrey questioned.

  “Of course! This is my museum. It’s called The Obscene!” He grinned wildly.

  Audrey looked warily at the three men before her. “Your name is quite apt. Everything here is obscene. I’m amazed you haven’t been shut down,” she spat at the doctor.

  “Oh, but, my dear, we have. Several times. Right, boys?” He grinned at Levi and Joseph. “But we have something exceptionally rare, and certain people pay top coin to see it.”

  “What is it that you have that’s so rare?” Audrey asked him quietly.

  “We have fresh corpses every other day that can be dissected and put on display. Imagine that?” Dr. Beesley smiled. “For an extra coin, our patrons can even try their own hand at dissection. I have one man who comes here and takes his aggression out on the corpses.”

  Audrey shuddered. “A modern-day Frankenstein.”

  Dr. Beesley sneered. “It’s a marriage made in heaven. The workhouse supplies us with fresh flesh in part thanks to our dear Matron and we transport the bodies here.”

  Everything clicked into place. “You falsify the documents to say they died of the plague so no one questions where they go and cremated them so no one expects a body.”

  Dr. Beesley looked pleased with himself. “As young Joseph said, too smart by half.”

  “It’s atrocious!” Audrey told them. “How can you take these men and women and dissect their bodies and put them on display for a shilling or two? It’s disgusting.”

  “Actually, Ms. Wakefield, it’s none of your business.” His stare was flat and cold. “And if you and your paramour hadn’t been nosing about, we wouldn’t have to make the unfortunate decision we now must do.”

  Audrey’s heart skipped a beat. “Which is?”

  “I think you know how this will end, Ms. Wakefield. But you have my word,” he pointed at her, “you and your lover won’t end up in the display. Even I draw the line there.”

  “Bastard!” Audrey yelled out even as the doctor took out a gun and pointed it at her.

  “What now?” Levi asked.

  Dr. Beesley seemed to be thinking. “It’s too risky to transport her. She might cause a scene. Let’s finish it here.”

  Audrey’s heart thudded. “Henry’s gone to fetch the law! You won’t get away with this. We figured out what was going on. You’ll all hang for this!” Levi seemed to waiver, so Audrey pressed on. “And my mother will seek justice for me.”

  “Your mother?” Joseph laughed. “She can’t remember her own name. She didn’t even realize I was the shadow man that night at the concert.”

  Audrey’s breath caught in her throat. “You!”

  “Yes. Your mother kept watch at her window like some demented harpy. So that’s what I turned her into. A demented old woman.” He grinned.

  “You evil—” Audrey lunged at him, but Dr. Beesley stopped her.

  “No hysterics now, Ms. Wakefield. Let’s keep this friendly. This is ending one way and we all know that,” he assured them.

  “You think if you stop Henry and I that you can continue to play the puppet master with the inmate corpses. But even if you silence us, someone else will stumble upon your despicable set up. It’s only a matter of time,” she told them, her breast heaving from the words.

  “Yes, time. Of which you have little of,” Dr. Beesley taunted her.

  “Well since I have so little of it left,” she flung back at him, “I spend my last moments telling you all that I think what you have done is beyond inhumane. To take these bodies away from a proper Christian burial and string them up here like some pig carcass is revolting!” She yelled the last word.

  “I understand you feel that way, my dear,” Dr. Beesley nodded looking her up and down in a studying fashion. “You don’t understand the mind of an entrepreneur and even less the intricacies of an artist’s mind,” he said, placing his hand to his head for emphasis.

  Audrey’s sharp laugh rang out. “An artist’s mind? You’re a freak! You have a disturbed mind! You should be with lunatics in the asylum! Just because these two,” she jerked her head at Levi and Joseph, “have followed you into this house of horror doesn’t mean it’s anything artistic. And people pay coin to see these human cadavers? You’re all sick!”

  She glanced at the men before hoping that if she could cause in-fighting amongst themselves they would turn on each other and she could escape.

  “This isn’t going to help you, Audrey. No one is coming to save you,” Dr. Beesley shook his head.

  “Levi, Joseph. You are good men,” she addressed them. “You don’t want to hang for his scheme. I know you wanted the money, but this has gone far enough. Let me go and I’ll put a good word in for you.”

  “Enough!” Dr. Beesley roared. “Enough! You modern women want the vote and to work and yet you can’t keep your goddamn mouth shut to save your life. Literally.” He took a step forward even as she backed away from him.

  Suddenly, the gas lantern toppled over, and the room was plunged into darkness once more. Audrey heard sounds and immediately crouched down upon the floor, not knowing what was happening.

  A shot rang out, then another. She remained still on the floor, trying to make herself as flat as she could. She heard a scuffle, footsteps ringing out in the building, and hoped it was Henry.

  After what felt like the longest moment of her life, the gaslights flickered on around her,
and she saw uniformed police holding Dr. Beesley and Joseph. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Everyone here, stop what you are doing!” a clear authoritative voice rang out.

  The three men were taken outside. She would learn later that they would be charged with the crimes of murder and violation of the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, which branded all public display of anatomical specimens as potentially obscene.

  Audrey walked into the alleyway, drained and shaken, and heard her name being called. “Audrey!”

  In the middle of the alley, Henry strode towards her and caught her in his tight embrace. As the light rain fell down upon them, he kissed her softly, holding her tightly against him.

  “You stubborn brat! I told you not to go inside!” he said roughly.

  She shook her head. “I should have listened to you. It was awful. It was a nightmare what they were doing.” She shuddered. “Unspeakable.”

  He tightened his hold. “I just spoke to the inspector.”

  “They were all involved, Henry. Dr. Beesley, Joseph, even Levi.”

  He smoothed her hair down soothingly. “Dr. Beesley was falsifying the records to say they died of the plague so no one would think twice about the bodies. Then he was paying to have them transported here for his museum. This is his real passion. Levi and Joseph were helping him for money.”

  “And Matron?” she said, shocked.

  “She’s been arrested, too. She didn’t harm anyone, but she looked the other way and took money from Beesley and gave them money when they needed it.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “We should get out of the rain. I should get you home,” he said, looking down into her face.

  “It’s all over.” She sighed. “Finally.”

  “It is. Except for one thing.” He pulled her closer to him.

  “One thing?” she asked, looking up into his handsome face.

  “Yes. There was that question I’m supposed to ask you. And remember I told you the answer already.” His eyes were warm upon her.

  “I remember,” she said, smiling up at him.