Hessians and Hellhounds

by Tilly Wallace

  “I am sure this is a terrible misunderstanding.” Hannah clasped her hands together and constructed a likely story that skirted the truth. “In some rare cases, Unwin and Alder need to remove the brain to study the lumps. It is quite fascinating work. In some instances with particularly strong personalities, the indentations in the brain’s surface affect the lumps felt on the scalp.”

  “But where is it now?” He leaned forward and clasped his hands between his legs.

  “I can only speculate,” she said, drawing out each word. She didn’t need to speculate, having seen the items in their jars on a shelf. “Perhaps it was shown to the professors and didn’t make it back to the premises before they returned your wife to you? Or it might have been retained as a teaching model, to further the advancement of medical knowledge.”

  His lip quivered. He must have loved her most devotedly. “But she won’t be allowed into Heaven now. She has to be intact.”

  On this subject, Hannah could speak with more authority. “I believe God is far more lenient about that than we are taught. Admiral Nelson had only one arm. Do you think God refused him admission after the battle of Trafalgar and told him to go find his missing limb first?”

  Mr Sennett snorted. “If anyone deserves to be sitting up on a cloud, it’s Admiral Nelson.”

  “Precisely. I believe that no matter what happens to one’s physical form, a person’s soul remains intact. It is the soul that journeys to the afterlife to be united with its Maker.” With his hound’s vision, Wycliff had seen her mother standing upon the legs her father had had to remove—proof that the soul did not carry the injuries inflicted upon the body.

  “Well, if it might help someone else, I guess they can keep it.” The frown stayed on his face, but a few of the lines relaxed.

  Hannah managed a weak smile. “That is very magnanimous of you. But I shall talk to them to ensure such a distressing situation doesn’t happen again.”

  He sat back in the chair and waved a finger at her. “I blame Jimmy for what happened. It was his fault, really.”

  “Who is Jimmy?”

  “Jimmy Kelly, my Kate’s brother. He was one of the pallbearers. He tripped over a speck of dirt and nearly dropped her. Funny thing is, I don’t think he even shook her that much for the top of her head to come off like that. Then he kicked up a right fuss that we needed to open the coffin there and then to check on her. When he did, that newshound happened to be in the cemetery and saw everything. Said he had been investigating something else, but Kate would be a front-page article for him.” He screwed up his face.

  “Really? How odd.” Hannah tucked the coincidences away as the tiny kernel of an idea sprouted in her mind. “Thank you for your time, Mr Sennett. I am glad if I have relieved a little of your anxiety about this matter.”

  Hannah took her leave and mulled over the information as Old Jim drove her to Whitehall and the Ministry offices.

  Higgs, the owl shifter, looked up from his desk and smiled politely. “Good day, Lady Wycliff. His lordship is not here, if you are looking for him.”

  “We were to meet here after he made his enquiries at Bunhill Fields. Since I have some time on my hands, are there any small matters I might assist with?” Hannah peered over the counter at the long and tidy desk.

  Higgs plucked a sheet of paper from a small pigeonhole, one of many that ran along the wall above his desk. “If it is not too much trouble, apparently one of the Afflicted has gone missing. Could I trouble you to find out more?”

  “Of course.” Hannah took the page with its neat script and froze on seeing the name at the top. “The former Lady Albright has gone missing?”

  He nodded and kept his unblinking gaze on her. “Yes, milady. A Mrs Hamilton, who is her cousin, came in yesterday afternoon to report her missing.”

  “I am sure there is a simple explanation. She might have gone to visit a friend or another relative and decided to stay for a few days.” Before they parted company, Wycliff had given her the envelope containing the scrap of fabric with its delicate embroidery, in case she recognised the work. Now the items in her reticule grew heavier and seemed to pull at her arm.

  Hannah returned to the carriage and gave Old Jim the familiar address.

  “Oh, dear,” she murmured on the journey. Separate clues were combining inside her mind and making a most disagreeable brew.

  At her destination, Hannah stood on the pavement and stared at the modest townhouse where the former Lady Albright resided with her cousin. In her reticule was the scrap of material Wycliff retrieved from the scene of the fire, a pressed snapdragon, the length of ribbon, and her sketch of where in the jaw the gold tooth had been located. Nervous tension made her stomach flop like a landed fish. A large part of her was certain that the most obviously Afflicted member of the ton, apart from Lady Miles, had met a fiery end. It could have been someone else, or as Wycliff suggested, a horrible bit of mischief to disturb another type of deceased person.

  But Hannah did not think so.

  She rapped on the door and the maid showed her through to the parlour.

  “Lady Wycliff,” Mrs Hamilton said as she rose from the settee and bobbed in greeting. Then she gestured to the sofa opposite. “I do hope you have come with news of my cousin?”

  Hannah took a seat and composed herself. “I am not entirely sure.” That was her second fudging of the truth in one day. “Could you tell me when you last saw her?”

  “It’s been four days now. She’s never been gone overnight before and rarely ventures out alone. I hope this is not my fault.” Mrs Hamilton twisted her hands together in her lap, and her eyes shone with unshed tears.

  “How could this be any fault of yours? Perhaps she is staying with another relative or a friend?” Hannah’s gaze drifted over the locked cabinet sitting on a sideboard. Within rested a jar of what sustained Lady Albright. Once, Wycliff had demanded to see it.

  Mrs Hamilton let loose a single sob and then placed a hand over her mouth. She drew up her spine before turning to Hannah. “We possess no relatives who would offer her shelter. That is why she has resided with me these past two years. But I am afraid to say we had words the last day I saw her. While I will do my duty by my cousin, having one of the Afflicted under my roof is…well…” Her voice trailed off.

  Hannah could guess at what the other woman didn’t want to say out loud. Living with one of the Afflicted was somewhat akin to taking in a leper. A subject of gossip and curiosity to others, but not necessarily someone they wanted to socialise with. Lady Albright’s cousin would have found her invitations drying up and her friends not quite as keen to dine with her.

  Hannah reached over and patted her hand. “Even the closest of cousins can rub against one another. I’m sure she did not take your words to heart, and there is some other explanation for her absence. Did she say anything before she left?”

  “She said that if she was not wanted here, she would visit her kind. The maid picked a posy and then my cousin left clutching the bunch of snapdragons.” Mrs Hamilton extracted a limp piece of cambric from a sleeve and blew her nose.

  Oh, dear. Visit her kind—the deceased. “Orange snapdragons, by chance?” Hannah asked and then held her breath, waiting for the reply.

  “Yes. How did you know?” A bright look of relief flashed over Mrs Hamilton’s face.

  “Is it possible she went to Bunhill Fields?” The icy dread swirled inside Hannah and a blast of bile shot up her throat as she could no longer ignore the sickening realisation.

  “Yes, the Albright family crypt is there. You know that horrid husband of hers wanted her interred before she reanimated. Can you imagine waking, and discovering yourself nailed into a coffin with no escape?” Mrs Hamilton shuddered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

  The idea of being buried alive terrified Hannah. Even her near drowning and the horror of battling the ocean didn’t compare to the awful loneliness of being trapped in a coffin for eternity.

  “Could you tel
l me what Lady Albright was wearing?” Hannah could take a guess. The former Lady Albright always wore black or very dark grey in mourning for the death of her marriage and herself.

  “Black.” A small smile pulled at Mrs Hamilton’s lips.

  “Was there anything to distinguish her gown? Can you remember the fabric and any ornamentation?” With each question, the sense of dread expanded inside Hannah.

  “A heavy cotton, with an embroidered hem. She used to stitch fanciful borders on her gowns. It kept her hands occupied as we sat here in the parlour. I think that particular one had feathers and some beading. Why do you need to know what she was wearing?” Worry pulled between the older woman’s brows.

  Hannah stared at her hands and wished Wycliff were beside her. He could blurt out the raw facts, whereas she found her dry throat wouldn’t let the words pass. She fumbled in her reticule and pulled out the envelope containing the scrap. “Could this be from her dress?”

  Mrs Hamilton took the fabric and stretched it taut between her hands. She peered at the line of feathers. “Oh, yes. I recognise her work. Where was this found?”

  “At Bunhill Fields. It had caught on the metal railing around a grave in front of the Albright crypt.” Next to the scattered orange snapdragons, but Hannah didn’t see any point in revealing that piece of information.

  “What are you not telling me?” Mrs Hamilton scrunched up the scrap in her hand.

  Hannah drew a steadying breath and whispered her last question. “Did Lady Albright have any gold teeth?”

  “Oh. Let me think.” She leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Yes! Here.” She tapped the side of her lower jaw. Then Mrs Hamilton’s face fell and her bottom lip trembled as she gathered up the trail of breadcrumbs Hannah had dropped. “Oh.”

  Hannah rose, moved to the settee, and took Mrs Hamilton’s hands in hers. “Burned remains were found at Bunhill Fields. My father identified the person as a woman with a gold tooth. The slip of fabric and orange snapdragons were found nearby. I am so terribly sorry that what we have found points to its being the former Lady Albright.”

  “Burned remains?” One hand went to her chest as tears welled in her eyes. “The blue fire that the newspapers reported—is it true that some creature dispatched her to Hell?”

  “She appears to have been the victim of a crime, yes, but I do not believe for one moment she went to Hell.” Hannah recalled the sad figure of Lady Albright. Cut adrift by a society keen to witness her humiliation and fall, but none would offer her a hand in friendship or mercy.

  “It was him, wasn’t it? Lord Albright made no secret of how he wanted to dispatch her. Do you know he offered me money to keep quiet that she had risen? To let him bundle her into a coffin and nail the lid down?” The tears dried as her features hardened.

  “Lord Wycliff will investigate, I assure you, and we will find the person who did this to her.” Hannah rose to her feet to leave Mrs Hamilton to plan a second funeral for her cousin.

  The other woman rose as well and kept her grip on the fabric, all that was left of her final glimpse of her relative. “I hope she haunts his every footstep, and he never finds peace.”

  Hannah rarely thought badly of others, but in this instance, she imagined that a temporary haunting might frighten Lord Albright into changing his ways and being more mindful of his fellow human beings.

  7

  Wycliff ignored the chill that washed over his skin and the insistent whispers in his ears as he stepped into the graveyard. He strode the path to the tiny cottage used by the sexton and kept his gaze fixed upon the rough stone exterior. Flashes darted past his vision, taunting him to blink and see the world with the hound’s vision.

  The sexton sat outside, oiling a shovel with a cloth. “Lord Wycliff. Here again about the odd fire, I assume?” He balled up the cloth, dropped it to the bench, and leaned the shovel against the wall.

  “Yes. I am pondering whether the remains belonged to a deceased individual who was dug up and burned, or a victim brought into the grounds for that purpose. Do you have any recent burials with disturbed soil?” He could narrow his search somewhat, since they now knew the remains belonged to a woman. Although death was too common among the large London population. How many died every week?

  “Always busy here with comings and goings.” He waved for Wycliff to follow him inside to where they kept large registers recording the names and plot numbers of those interred at the site.

  “Sir Hugh Miles identified the remains as those of a woman.” Wycliff resisted the urge to peer over the man’s shoulder.

  The horrid odour of tripe and onions seemed embedded in his clothing. His suspicion about the man’s breakfast was confirmed when he spotted the pale gelatinous mass in a bowl on a corner of the desk. A shudder ran down his spine. The stomach lining appeared more brain-like than the objects suspended in alcohol at the premises of Unwin and Alder.

  “We’ve had at least fifty burials of women in the last two weeks. Some will be in the paupers’ mass graves. Do you want to check them all to see if they are still there?” The sexton puffed out his cheeks as though the mere idea of the work exhausted him. Not that he would do it himself. In a cemetery as large as Bunhill Fields, the sexton commanded a few men with callouses on their palms from digging the soil.

  “I’ll not unearth anyone at this point. I shall exhaust other avenues first. What of any disturbances?” If his enquiries went nowhere and he had to dig up fifty women to determine their remains still rested beneath the earth, then he would. Or rather, he would sit in the shade while the gravediggers undid two weeks of work.

  The older man closed the ledger and rubbed his neck. “None of late. Been right quiet, it has, and we haven’t spotted a resurrectionist for some weeks now.”

  “I need you to inspect each grave and confirm they appear undisturbed, in case someone has slipped in unnoticed and covered up his tracks better than others.” He would trust the man to do as he asked. How much easier it would be to monitor the cemetery if he could deputise a few of the more cooperative spirits to patrol at night.

  “You’re assuming the remains came from a recent burial?” The question halted his exit from the cottage.

  Wycliff muttered a soft curse. He was a fool. The remains could have been decades old for all they knew. Could Sir Hugh determine how much flesh had remained on the bones by some sort of analysis of the volume of soot and debris? “An excellent observation. I shall ask further questions of Sir Hugh on that subject.”

  “Women and men alike have been buried here for over a thousand years. That’s a lot of bones beneath our feet, milord.” The sexton smiled and stared at his boots.

  “Quite.” The whisper of phantom voices sounded as though every single resident from the last thousand years demanded his attention. How many souls fail to move on? When he ventured to the underworld to find who controlled him, he should ask about payment terms. He had enough to do as investigator for the Ministry and landowner at Mireworth. If some shadowy deity expected him to fetch lost souls, that entity could damned well compensate him for his time and effort.

  He walked out into the bright light and down the hill to hail a hansom cab. “Unwin and Alder,” he told the driver, then sat back and watched London roll past.

  Wycliff mulled over how the past six months had dramatically altered his life. Now that he was married to a woman he loved, his heart sat lighter in his chest and even old Mireworth struggled to pull herself from the gloom. The fortunes of the estate turned like a tide. The financing advanced by the Earl of Pennicott had funded the new sheep breeding stock, and the recent shearing had brought a good price for the fleece. Thanks to Lady Miles and her gift with Nature, the autumn harvest looked to be the best yet, enhanced by her magic. For the first time, he dared to hope the long, dark winter of his youth might give way to the warmth of spring.

  In the warehouse district, he walked into the discreet office that reminded him of the rooms kept by his solicitor. The secretary lo
oked up and a pained expression crossed his face as he recognised the person before him. “Lord Wycliff. How might we be of assistance today?”

  “Is he in?” He gestured to the panelled double doors behind the secretary.

  The secretary gave a long-suffering sigh as he rose and walked to the doors to rap upon them. “Of course, milord. We at Unwin and Alder are always keen to assist you in whatever way we can.” He pushed opened the doors and waited for Wycliff to enter before closing them again.

  Unwin sat behind an enormous polished desk and appeared to be playing with a small moveable model of the planets with a brass sun at the centre. The former grave robber turned affluent businessman pushed the series of globes on metal arms to one side. “Lord Wycliff. You want to discuss the Sennett case, I assume.”

  “Yes. Lady Wycliff has seen in the ledgers that the woman passed through here. Why did your employees not stitch the scalp back in place? Sloppy work to leave her head cracked open.” A conversation with Sir Hugh highlighted how difficult it should have been to dislodge both scalp and the top of the cranium with a simple bump against the side of a coffin. That left Wycliff with the assumption that someone, probably in a hurry to get home to his supper, had failed to complete his job and assumed that no one would ever know.

  Unwin pulled himself to his feet and scowled. “My workmen know better than that. Anyone who didn’t perform the entire job would be out on the street. Our reputation hinges on donors being none the wiser about what is removed from their family members.”