by Amy Cross
Before I can say any of this, however, I hear a faint groaning sound coming from the far side of the room, and I turn just in time to see that Delilah Culpepper is beginning to stir.
“Did she see?” Jack asks. “What I did to her husband, I mean. Did she see it all?”
“Of course she did,” I reply. “Why else do you think she fainted?”
“And will she remember?”
I turn to him, and I actually believe that there is a hint of shame in his eyes. Regret, even. It is remarkable how even the dullest and most ape-like face can appear to have such complex emotions, even though I am certain Jack possesses only very basic urges.
“Of course she will remember,” I tell him, enjoying the flicker of pain in his eyes. “She will remember every moment.”
“I should have been more restrained,” he continues. “I should have held back my anger, but the man who so intolerably irritating and his ceaseless babble was keeping me from my work. Nevertheless, I acted more like a beast than a man.” He pauses, watching as Delilah continues to let out a series of groans. “She will surely see me as a monster now. How could she ever see me otherwise?”
I am about to tell him that he must put such things out of his mind, but then I glance at the woman again and realize that perhaps she might be useful after all. Indeed, while Delilah Culpepper has always seemed to be a thin and pointless creature, I am suddenly minded to believe that she could be the answer to my predicament. She carries something that I need.
“Leave the room,” I whisper after a moment.
“I beg your pardon?” Jack asks.
I turn to him. “Leave the room. Let me speak to her alone when she wakes.”
“But -”
“You do not want her to faint again, do you?”
“Of course not, but -”
“I am sure you can find something else to do,” I continue. “Jack, I only have Delilah's best interests at heart.” Realizing that he still needs to be convinced, I decide to strengthen my hand. “Let me speak to her,” I add. “Let me try to explain things, so that perhaps she will be more disposed to your presence. All is not lost, if you dream of her friendship. I might be able to help, but for that to happen you must not be here when she wakes.”
“You would do that for me?” he asks.
“Of course,” I reply with a smile.
“I shall work on the symbols,” he says, picking up one of the notebooks and heading toward the doorway. Just as he is about to leave the room, however, he stops and turns back to me. “Tell her... Tell her that I am not a beast, nor a brute, nor a monster. Tell her that I regret my actions, and that I can only beg her forgiveness.”
“Of course,” I say again. “Now leave us and shut the door, so that I might speak to her alone.”
He does as he's told, and I'm left to walk over to the reclining chair and sit down, just as Delilah's eyes begin to open.
“Where am I?” she whispers, still sounding rather groggy. “What happened?”
“You will remember in a moment,” I tell her, although after a moment I am unable to keep from looking down at her belly and thinking of the very young child that resides inside her. “Do not worry, my dear,” I continue, as an idea begins to form in my mind and as a smile crosses my lips. “Everything is going to be quite alright.”
“But what happened?” she asks, and then I see a hint of horror in her eyes. After a moment, she turns and looks toward the spot where her husband's lifeless body fell. “Oh,” she whispers, clearly overcome by shock, “my dear Thomas...”
Chapter Fifteen
Maddie
Today
“I'm fine,” I say for the third or fourth time, as I sit at Jerry's kitchen table and watch some of his cats eating their food. “I just got freaked out for a few minutes. I'm sorry I came over in such a panic.”
“You saw somebody behind you,” Jerry replies, setting a cup of tea on the table for me. “Somebody who wasn't supposed to be there. That's enough to upset anyone.”
“There was no-one behind me.”
“But you saw them.”
“Sometimes people see things.”
“You doubt your own eyes?”
“I know that people can react to stress in strange ways.”
“Have you hallucinated before?”
“Kind of,” I reply. “Maybe. I think so.”
“And you think that's all this was? A figment of your imagination?”
“I'm worried I might be losing my mind,” I tell him. “Seriously, I think a combination of the house and Alex and Nick has managed to drive me completely crazy. I never thought I was so easily spooked, but it's as if that place really got to me.” I pause for a moment. Now that I've calmed down a little since rushing out of the house, I'm starting to realize more and more that I must have had some kind of panic attack. “It'd help,” I add finally, “if my so-called friend didn't seem to enjoy scaring me like that. She's put me completely on edge.”
“Your friend sounds like a trouble-maker,” Jerry says, gasping a little as he walks stiffly back to the kitchen counter. “I don't like trouble-makers. Life is full of enough difficulty as it is, without people going around making it worse.” He picks up his cup of tea, holding it carefully in trembling hands, and then he glances back at me. “I wouldn't be so quick to assume, however, that everything you experienced was a trick.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I told you that I've been studying that house,” he continues, with a hint of fear in his voice. “The face you saw in the reflection... I am wondering whether it might be who I think it is.”
***
“That's him,” I whisper, feeling a shudder pass through my chest as I stare at the photocopy in my hands. “Yeah, that's definitely him, but who is he?”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure. Who is he? How did I see him just now?”
He pauses, before taking the photocopy from my hands and staring down at it for a moment.
“This,” he says finally, “is, or was, Doctor Charles Grazier, the man I think I told you about before.”
“But I saw a photo in the house,” I tell him. “Charles Grazier was...”
My voice trails off as I realize that maybe I've overlooked something. Looking at the photocopy again, I realize that whereas the man in this image is older and fuller in the face, the man in the photo back inside the house was younger and more lively-looking, with a keen and energetic smile. The difference between their expressions is so great that even now – while I'm trying really hard – it takes a moment before I can accept that they're the same man.
“He looks so different,” I whisper, “but... I can see it now.”
I pause again, before letting out a sigh of relief.
“It's obvious, then,” I continue. “I hallucinated him. I'd already seen a photo of him, so it's not weird that my brain threw him back at me.”
“You'd seen him when he was younger,” Jerry points out, “not when he was an older man. How did your brain manage to age him thirty years?”
“I don't know,” I reply, “maybe the light was different or...”
My voice trails off, and I know that I probably sound a little desperate. Still, that's preferable to actually believing that the ghost of this Charles Grazier guy was right there with me in the room.
“I saw another photo,” I tell him, remembering the second picture in the house. “He was older in that one. Maybe my brain took that picture and just added something to it.”
“Do you have a strong stomach?” Jerry asks.
“I guess.”
“Then I shall show you yet another photograph of him,” he says, reaching into one of his other folders and rifling through the pages, “one that I obtained by dubious means thanks to a source in the police archive building. I'm not supposed to have some of this paperwork, but it's not as if I'm hurting anyone. Those idiots keep hold of anything and everything, they just like having power. Fortunatel
y I've been around for long enough to make a few connections.”
He takes a moment to leaf through some more pages, and then he takes out another photocopy, this time showing a pair of trousers on a table, along with some kind of bulky shape that's taking up most of the image. The whole thing seems like a mess of blacks and grays.
Just as I'm about to ask what I'm seeing, however, the picture suddenly comes into perspective.
“Who's that?” I ask, realizing that I'm looking at a dead body on a mortuary slab. Or at least, what's left of a body.
“Who do you think?” Jerry asks. “It's Doctor Charles Grazier, after he jumped from the window and landed on the spiked railings.” He points at the neck area. “See the face?”
“Not really,” I reply, squinting to get a better look.
“Of course not. The spike went in through his belly and tore him open all the way to the top of his head. They say he was only identified by his clothing. What a way to go, eh? Spilled out all across the street in front of everyone, like a sack of offal. According to a contemporary newspaper report, several people fainted when they saw the bloody mess, and some people even say you can still see a hint of red staining the pavement outside the house. I don't know about that, I haven't seen it myself, but the man's death was a true shock for the entire neighborhood. It's said that he was a proud and arrogant man, a man who believed wholeheartedly in his own talents. Why do you think such a man would suddenly decide one day to kill himself?”
“I don't know,” I mutter, “but I guess people have their reasons. Maybe he had doubts that he never revealed to anyone. It was the nineteenth century, right? I guess men had to keep their feelings to themselves, and maybe his fears or his grief just came out one day.”
“His wife's body was never found.”
“So maybe that drove him over the edge. He missed her, so he wanted to go and join her.”
“There are other links I've been making,” Jerry continues, setting the photocopy down and then taking some more photos from his folder. This time there are two faces on the image, and I find myself staring down at a middle-aged man and woman. “Doctor Thomas Culpepper,” he adds, “and his wife Delilah.”
“Delilah?” I whisper, taking the photocopy from him and looking more closely at the woman's face. “That name keeps coming up.”
“In what way?”
“There are some notebooks I haven't brought over yet,” I explain, “and in one of them, there's a sketch of a woman with her belly open and the name Delilah Culpepper scribbled nearby.” I pause, wondering how much I should admit, before realizing that at this point I might as well be completely honest. “I recognize it because I'd already heard it once before, when I was talking to... a friend.”
“Around the time of Doctor Charles Grazier's suicide,” Jerry reply, “his former colleague Doctor Thomas Culpepper disappeared. Vanished completely, off the face of the planet, with no trace left behind. Quite unusual for such a distinguished man. And you'll remember that Catherine Grazier vanished too.”
“But Delilah didn't vanish,” I point out. “She was found murdered quite a way from here.”
“In Gregson Way,” he replies. “Yes, I know. These coincidences are really piling up, aren't they? There was even talk for a while that Delilah Culpepper was another victim of Jack the Ripper, but the style of the killing didn't match. Whoever murdered her, he didn't take any of her organs. What he did take, however, was her unborn baby.”
I shudder as I think back to the sight of the woman in the alley. I know she was just a hallucination, but it's still creepy to think that somehow the idea of her wormed its way into my mind and came out in such a bizarre, freakish vision. And now, as I stare at the old photo, I can't help remembering the woman's anguished voice as she screamed at me. I can still hear her words echoing in my thoughts.
“WHERE IS HE?”
“This doesn't mean anything,” I say cautiously, turning to Jerry. “That house is just a house.”
“You don't believe that,” he replies. “I see it in your eyes.”
“Of course I believe it.”
He shakes his head.
“I don't believe in ghosts!” I say firmly.
“I think you do. Deep down.”
“Of course I don't. I spent long enough in that house for a ghost to show itself. Just because I saw a few weird things, that doesn't mean the place is haunted. It's nothing more than an old, neglected house that nobody cares about anymore.”
“I have spare bedrooms,” he says. “I think it would be better if you stayed here tonight.”
“That's really kind of you, but -”
“There are things I can't tell you,” he adds earnestly. “Things that I suspect, but that I can't quite speak of, not yet. You'd think that I'm crazy, if you don't already, but I've been researching that house for all of my adult life and I'm finally starting to understand some of the things that happened there. I thought the ghosts were dormant, but something must have woken them, and you could be in terrible danger. Please, don't ask me to explain, but accept my offer. Don't spend another night at that place!”
“I already told you,” I reply, “I don't believe in ghosts.”
“And I already told you,” he says firmly, “that your voice says one thing, and your eyes say another. You have nothing to prove to anyone, my dear. Please, just trust me. Do not spend another night there. It's not safe!”
Chapter Sixteen
Doctor Charles Grazier
Tuesday October 2nd, 1888
“I must confess,” I say to Delilah finally, after we have sat in silence for some time, “I expected a different reaction from you. You are far calmer than one would expect of a lady in such circumstances.”
As she stares at the window, there are hints of tears in her eyes. But only hints. I had assumed that she would weep and moan, that she would become inconsolable and that I would have to calm her down, but instead she seems lost in thought now that she remembers the moment of her husband's death. Is it possible that Delilah Culpepper, despite her fragile appearance, possesses a more formidable constitution? I can scarcely believe that anyone – let alone a woman – could react in such a manner.
I blink, and in that half-second of darkness I once again see Catherine stumbling toward me on the beach, rotten and putrid. The image vanishes as soon as I open my eyes, but for a few seconds I am struck by a violent fear.
“Would it have been quick?” Delilah asks, turning to me.
“Your husband's death?” I pause, before nodding. “He would barely have known it was happening.”
“And Jack...”
She flinches, as if the mere mention of his name has had some terrible impact.
“And it was Jack who killed him?” she adds. “I know I saw it happen, but still I can't quite believe that it's true.”
“Try to understand,” I reply, “that Jack is a beast from the streets. Perhaps he fooled you by affecting the air of a gentleman, but nothing can change his true nature. He is a thing, the product no doubt of equally wretched parents. I imagine he grew up in the most terrible squalor. He is a criminal, I am sure, and I would not like to know how many people have died at his hands.” I pause, aware that she must wonder why I allowed such a creature into my home. There is, really, only one possible lie I can tell. “I thought I could reform him,” I explain. “In this, I was terribly, tragically mistaken.”
“You must think I am so cold,” she continues finally. “Oh, Doctor Grazier, you must think I am the most awful person in the world. I should be in floods of tears at news of my husband's death, I should be inconsolable with grief. You must wonder why I am not.”
“The question had crossed my mind,” I admit, and then I blink again, and again I see Catherine lunging at me. I must try not to blink.
“Do you recall when you came home the other day,” she asks, “and chanced upon Jack tending to the wound on my knee?”
“Indeed. A most surprising scenario.”
“He barely touched me. In truth, Doctor Grazier, he was very careful and delicate. His hands were not the hands of a beast, but of a kind and gentle man.” She pauses, and now there are more tears in her eyes. “It was the most tender moment I have ever felt in my life. I suppose my husband hardened me over the years. Thomas was not a bad man, Doctor Grazier, not most of the time. However, when he had been drinking, he could...”
Her voice trails off.
“Was he violent?” I ask.
She pauses, before nodding.
“I can scarcely believe it,” I tell her, struggling to keep from blinking, even though I can feel my eyes watering. If I blink, I shall surely see Catherine on the beach again, coming toward me.
“Nor I.” Delilah sniffs back more tears. “He could be so charming when he was not under the influence of alcohol, yet after a night at the club he might come home and clatter about for hours. It was on one such night that he bumped against me at the top of the stairs and sent me tumbling down. I don't suppose you know, Doctor Grazier, that I was with child once before, about two years ago?”
“I did not know that.”
“The child was lost when I fell,” she explains, as she places a hand on her belly. “And so help me God, I changed in that moment. I tried so hard to forgive Thomas, but I never could. I was no longer able to stand his touch, though of course this only made him angrier and made his touch more harsh. I feigned a certain degree of contentment in public, but I felt dead to the world, at least until the other day when Jack touched my leg. I know I most likely sound utterly foolish, but in that moment Jack awakened something. Oh Doctor Grazier, is it wrong of me to feel such things?”
I pause for a moment, before nodding.