“Go on, Reid,” said White. “We’ll have another drink and marvel some more.”
“Come, Mr Reid. I’ll take care of you.” She extended her hand. I took it and departed from my colleagues.
She took me back up the stairs and then up to the first floor. We entered a warm and well furnished room. She lit a few candles and opened the wooden shades. Below was Elm Grove, the soft glow of the gas lights illuminated the empty street. Osgen took a seat upon a sofa. She motioned for me to come over and sit next to her.
“Please, sit. I won’t bite.” Hesitantly, I walked over and sat next to the woman. “Tell me then, what do you want to know about Jackson?”
“Tell me why you wrote to Mr Goodtree about Jackson’s removal from the club.”
Her face grimaced. “He was a bad boy. He needed to be punished.”
“And did you… punish him?”
“I didn’t need too,” she replied.
“Oh yes, because he’s already dead?”
She nodded. “He is.”
“How did you hear of his death?” I asked.
“People talk.”
“Except a body was only recovered today.”
She raised her eyebrow at my response. “Shall we get a drink?” She stood without waiting for me to respond, and walked over to a table.
“So why was Jackson being removed?” I pressed. She poured two glasses of brandy, eyeing me thoughtfully.
“Who are you, Mr Reid?” she asked as she walked back over with the brandy. “You’re not an associate of Daniels or Goodtree.” She handed me the drink. She put her red lips to the glass and sipped. She nodded for me to join her. I did.
“I’m just curious, that’s all,” I returned setting the brandy to one side. I then felt a surge of heat through my body.
“You feel the room spinning? You must by now.”
My head felt heavy. “What did you do?”
“I put a drug in your drinks. Now, you didn’t take much, but your friends, well, I’ve got them safely put away for now. Until you and I finish our conversation.” With a jolt, she whipped a knife from her ankle and pressed it to my neck. The cold metal pressed firmly against my flesh. “You might as well talk, or this will be the last conversation you ever have.”
Chapter 19
Mr Brett
In The Lion’s Den
Autumn 1890
Inspector Reid left with Osgen. The bounce of her dress caught the attention of every eye. Reid attracted many dirty looks as he left the room with his arm through hers. I looked over at White who had his index finger and thumb pressed on either side of his nose. In his other hand he held his spectacles. He looked up, put his spectacles on the table, and ruffled his ginger hair furiously for a few seconds before looking over at me wide-eyed.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Genuine concern? Or just worried you’ll be left on your own?” White returned.
“I can handle myself.”
“Why are you so short with me?” White asked.
“Can I offer you a drink?” asked a waitress with two glasses of brandy on her tray. “It’s on the house. Compliments of Mother.” The girl’s painted lips lit up with a smile. White returned with a smile, grinning like an idiot from ear to ear.
“Let’s have it, then,” said White, winking at her. White took his before she could rest it on the table, and held her hand. “Thank you, love.” She winked at him and blew him a kiss before walking away.
“Despicable,” said I.
“What? Mind yourself, Brett.”
“I don’t trust you,” I said. “You found this place all too easily. What are your connections?”
“I have no connections to this case,” White replied.
“But you do have connections; ones of a less than savoury nature.”
“What do you know?” White smacked his fists on the table.
I took a swig of my drink. “Does Isabelle Taylorson mean anything to you?”
White paused a moment, squinting his eyes. He picked up his glasses and slid them back on his nose.
“That was a long time ago,” he murmured.
“Tell that to the lost souls.”
“Shut up, Brett!” he shouted. He leaned back, agitated.
Suddenly I felt my head beginning to spin. The room suddenly felt like it was pounding; as if with every beat of my racing heart the room was pulled in and pushed out.
“Shit, Brett… there was something in our drinks,” said White, his face flush.
“What is this?” I asked him, attempting to shake off whatever had befallen me.
“I… I…”
“Gentlemen,” said the waitress from moments earlier. “We’ve prepared a private room for you. Follow me, or your friend who Mother took away will die.” The girl took White by the arm and led him away. Another girl took mine and we followed them.
We were taken to the back of the hall and through a door on the left-hand side. My head was still throbbing, but the girls told me it was simply the drink. “You must be a lightweight, Mr Brett,” they chuckled. White laughed with them. We were led down a long, cold corridor. I turned, and saw that the door to the hall had been shut. Behind me, the corridor was badly lit with oil lamps spaced five or six feet apart. We were suddenly thrust into a dark room. My head was spinning furiously. I could feel the girls running their hands over my body, but I had no control and could not stop them. My jacket was taken off, something cold was secured to my wrists, and suddenly all I knew was darkness.
***
“Brett!” a voice shouted.
I opened my eyes. I was in a field. Off in the distance, I could see Westminster Palace and the City of London. I was on Primrose Hill.
“Brett!” the voice shouted again.
I looked and saw a woman. She was waving to me. I knew her, somehow. Her auburn hair danced in the breeze, and a beautiful smile graced her angelic face. “Come on, Brett!” she called with a laugh.
I ran towards her but as I did, she too ran. Who was she?
“You’re not going to get me, silly man!” she cried, giggling.
I knew that voice. I knew it well. How could it be? We raced through the park and down residential streets. She ducked down an alleyway and was lost to my sight. I ran in search for her. My heart raced, and I felt a panic fall over me. I turned a corner and, to my horror, I saw her. She was lying on the ground, covered in blood. Standing over her body was a fiend, a creature of some kind. Its big, green eyes gazed menacingly at me. Its yellowish, lumpy, skin hung morbidly off the bones.
“Brett!”
I looked at the body. Despite the monstrous Goblin-like creature holding her innards, she was still screaming my name.
“Brett! Wake up, you damn fool!”
My eyes rolled and I shot up. I had been lying on the floor. Across from me stood White. His hands were cuffed behind his back with a chain binding him to the wall. My head rolled on my shoulders while my senses returned to me. I, too, was bound like White.
“Come on, man. Get on your feet.”
The room was dimly lit by a couple of oil lamps. White’s shadow was put in dramatic relief by one of the small oil lamps, which rested on an unstable looking wooden table not far from me.
“What happened?” I asked groggily.
“Drugged us.”
“Why?”
“No clue, but I’d rather not wait around to find out. You?”
“Do you have a key?”
“No, but we have that oil lamp.” I looked at it, and then back at White. “I need you to get it. Slide the table near you, get the lamp, and slide it over.”
“What are you going to do?”
“This.” White tugged his left arm, and with a sharp pop it came out of its socket. He bit his lip, trying to hide the pain. He sat down on the ground and managed to pull his hands down and under his feet so that his hands were in front of him.
“Come on! Get the lamp!”
I pul
led the chain which was connected to my cuff as far as I could. I knelt down and extended my leg. My left leg just clipped the table. The table wobbled, and the lamp shook.
“Don’t knock it over!” scolded White. I slowly began tugging the table leg and slid it near me. “Blow it out.”
“I know what I’m doing!” I snapped. I blew the flame out, and turned my back trying to grab it. I touched the lamp and felt a sharp burning on my palm.
“Grab it from the bottom.”
I did just that, and slowly lowered myself down onto my knees.
“Roll it over quickly - I don’t want to lose too much oil.”
I tilted it and rolled the lamp towards White. He reached out and grabbed it with his right hand, groaning as the pull on his left sent pain through his body. He picked the lamp up and poured some of the oil over his left hand as he began tugging on the cuff. He moaned as he scraped it over his hand, tearing the skin in the process. With a loud moan and a grunt, White slid the cuffs off his hand. He paused for a moment to catch his breath.
“Are you alright?” I asked. He nodded. He then took his left arm to his right. With a twist and snap, he put his arm back into its socket.
“Blimey, that hurt!”
“My God, man!”
“Time for the other hand…” White poured the remaining oil over his other hand and painfully removed the cuff. When he was free of his binds, he walked over to the door. He turned the handle the is swung open. He looked back at me and grinned and walked out into the hall.
“Where are you going?” I called out. “Are you just going to leave me here?”
No response.
I stood there alone in the darkened room, not knowing how I’d escape. I leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. I heard a rustle out in the corridor and expected to see one of the girls walk through the door, but to my surprise it was White. In his hand, he held a key.
“Where did you get that?” I demanded.
“The key was hanging on a hook outside,” he smirked. He walked over and began to unlock my cuffs. “You passed out from the drugs. I kept my wits and watched the waitresses. Heard them hang it outside.” He tossed the cuffs to the ground, and we went to the door. The corridor was empty. “Go left.”
“We came from the right!”
“Yes, and if we go out that way, we’ll go right back into the halls. I’m not so sure we will be able to slip past the crowds.” He snickered.
I glared at him.
We continued down the corridor, which seemed peculiarly long. I looked behind, and judging from the distance we had travelled, we were no longer inside the Liberal Club. A few doors presented themselves to our right and left. We listened for any sign of life inside - all was quiet. I opened the door and inside was a chamber with a large bed, sofa, and table with drinks. The walls were panelled with wood, and hung with large mirrors.
“How peculiar,” said White.
“You don’t know what’s going on here?” I asked sarcastically.
“You still don’t trust me?”
“I am not going to put any faith in you. You might have fooled Reid and his colleagues, and Holmes and Hewitt may know nothing of you, but with what I know, let’s just say I’m keeping a close eye on you,” said I as we looked around the room.
White sighed.
There was a fireplace in the room. It was filled with logs, but there was no indication that it had been lit. It was, in fact, the cleanest fireplace I had ever seen. There were scattered items on the mantel, above which hung one of the large mirrors. There was a tiny wooden box with a floral design on its lid. Inside, I found snuff. There were two large golden candelabras with seven candles on either side of the mantel. Oddly, the middle candle in both had been unlit while the others were considerably depleted.
“Who is Antonia?” White asked while he rummaged through a chest of drawers.
I felt my heartbeat quicken.
“How do you know that name?” I asked.
“You were saying her name when you were recovering from the drugs, when I was shouting at you.”
“She’s… Forget you ever heard of it.”
“I just assumed since you knew about Isabella Taylorson, then I should know about this.”
“Keep your mouth shut. Never utter her name again!”
Silence fell.
“Hold on, do you see that?” White said.
“See what?”
“There are candles all over the room, but why are those two candles not lit? Actually, why is there a fireplace in here?” He walked over and tapped on the wall. “Oh my, oh my.”
“What?”
“Hold the centre candle, Brett.”
I reached for it, but it wouldn’t come out.
“It’s not wax. It’s a hard rubber made to look wax-like!” White grabbed the other candle. “When I say so, push it down.”
He counted from three and we pushed the candlesticks down. There was a loud click, and a door opened in the panelling. We stepped through. Light shone in from the room via the mirrors, and we saw that there was a narrow hall that outlined the entire room.
“The mirrors,” said I, “they are transparent.”
“Here’s why,” said White. He held up a piece of photography equipment.
“What is this place?”
“Blackmail,” said White. “Those women bring men in here and capture them on camera doing their nasty deeds. The woman, Osgen, I reckon she funds her entire operation off blackmail money.”
We walked around the outlining hall.
“There’s a door here!” I said, opening it slowly.
A dim light lingered inside. Hanging on a string were photographs. White and I examined them. They were vile. They were not just images of sexual encounters between the men and the women. There were images of orgies, men performing unspeakable acts upon eachother, as well as women both old and young. Individuals being strangled, bleeding, beaten. The presence of narcotics was overly evident in the images. What I saw turned my stomach. Even White appeared appalled at the evidence we had uncovered.
“We need to take some of these with us. We will need evidence,” said White. “Some of the people in these photographs are mere children!” He and I gathered a few photographs, and stuffed them into our pockets.
“We should leave now,” said I.
We continued down the corridor until it came to an end. A stair presented itself, and we proceeded up. White pushed the door at the top and opened it gently. Inside was a large, well-lit, room. A roaring fire popped under the mantel. There were comfortable places for sitting; a sofa and arm chairs and a large cherrywood desk.
“Must be in someone’s house,” said White as we looked around curiously.
I peeked through a window. It faced an empty garden.
A work desk was covered in sheets; engineering designs. I noted that the initials R.L. were inscribed upon the papers.
“What do you know of Isabella Taylorson?” White asked hesitantly. I looked at him. For the first time, he wasn’t smirking, nor had he any look of mischief upon his face.
“It was an inn, up north in Manchester. I would frequent it back then when I was writing for a paper, the Manchester Gazette. I wasn’t the only one to call this inn my local. Many of the college students did so; and so did a bespectacled ginger doctor-in-training. He would come in and regale us all with tall tales of adventures. One day this ginger boy comes in speaking about a lady he fancies, only she’s not a free lady. You picked a married woman, soiled her, ruined her marriage and killed the husband.”
White gazed upon me, holding papers in his hand. His eyes were glazed, as if I had witnessed some sort of odd transformation in his person.
“What has you so sure it was I who did the murdering?” he said in a calm and rather queer tone.
“I was at the hearing - I reported on it. The letters between you and her, which discussed, vaguely, a way of being rid of her husband. You manipulated her. The destruc
tion of that woman and her family and future were all upon you and your inability to keep your hands to yourself.”
White lowered his head. “My alibi,” he said.
“I care not!” said I. “You very well might have had nothing to do with his suicide, but you were the reason she put a pistol in her mouth and blew her skull open in the city’s centre.”
“I was young, Brett,” White began. “The incident ruined my potential career.”
“Hardly the justice you deserved.” I returned sharply.
With no warning, the door burst open. White and I stood in disbelief. I felt the blood pulsing through me. White dropped the papers he had in his hand. To our great horror, standing in the doorway, with green bulging eyes, a reddish froth around the mouth, bulbous yellow skin, and growling deeply was none other than the terrible Goblin Man. In one hand he held a large blade. His grip upon the handle was tight and his grin was menacing. He charged towards us…
Chapter 20
D.I. Edmund Reid
The Conversation Between Reid & Osgen
Autumn 1890
The blade was pressing into my skin, and I knew that with any swift movement I could be choking on my own blood. Osgen’s manic eyes looked upon me, her teeth grinding together. “Tell me who you are,” she commanded.
“Tell me your connection to Jackson,” I returned.
She frowned at me. “I told you, he died.”
“Who told you he died?”
“What does it matter?” I felt the knife pressing as she spoke.
“There’s no way you can know this,” I told her. “His body was only retrieved today. His death has had no time to reach the papers. So how do you know?” A look of confusion passed across her face, then a grin.
“You fail to realise my clientele,” she moved the blade up my neck and pressed it under my jaw. “I have fingers in many pies. Information comes to me, and I to it.”
“Then your information is flawed.”
“How so?”
“Because the body isn’t Jackson’s.”
She stared. “It… isn’t Jackson?”
“No. He lives, yet.”
“Oh dear.” She removed the knife from my neck, and rose. She walked over to a desk and leaned upon it, her hand stroking the edges.
Sherlock Holmes and The Scarlet Thread of Murder Page 10