For I had no intention of handing this address off to Inspector Kelly.
I had every intention of going to the boardinghouse myself.
The police would not be welcomed in the slums of Freemans Bay, but I would be. I just needed to exchange my parasol for another and uplift my medical bag from the surgery, and then be on my way.
Mr Entrican saw me to the door of his offices, past the narrowed-eye stare of his secretary and right out to the front steps of the building. I had the sensation he was ensuring I did, in fact, leave the premises.
I smiled at him. He bowed, lifting my hand to his lips.
“I wish you well, madam,” he said against my gloved hand.
“And I you, sir,” I replied.
We were even.
I turned and walked down the steps, finding a hansom cabriolet with ease. As I settled into the seat and stared out of the side window, I watched the mayor turn and walk back into the council buildings. A lone figure who would hopefully do some good for our city. Despite his guard-dog-snapping secretary.
Mina was eating supper when I arrived at the house. I quickly divested myself of my cloak and parasol and joined her. I attempted to eat with Wilhelmina whenever she was well enough to sit at the table. I was inordinately pleased I had made it home in time to do so today.
“How was your afternoon?” I asked, heaping piles of mashed potatoes and glazed parsnips and carrots onto my plate. I had garnered something of an appetite sparing with the mayor’s secretary. It had been invigorating.
“Very pleasant, thank you.”
Her hand shook as she passed me the salt.
I said nothing, my stomach falling.
We ate in silence for a while. Well, I ate; Mina pushed her food around with a fork.
“Did all go well with the sergeant’s visit?” I enquired.
“He does so love it when I catch the Monarchs.”
I smiled into my wine glass.
“But he does not understand why I am pleased to view their beauty for such a short moment.”
“He would catch all the butterflies he could and gift them to you.”
“Anna,” she said, giggling.
The sound was music to my ears.
On the days Sergeant Blackmore came calling, Mina was alive and happy; if only briefly. I longed for those days to be consistent; for the happiness I saw in my cousin to spill over onto the days Blackmore did not visit.
So far, that wish had not been granted.
Mina placed her knife and fork on the side of her plate.
“I am tired, cousin,” she said. “If you will excuse me, I believe I’ll retire to bed for the day.”
Her body trembled as she rose. Mrs Hardwick entered the room as if she had been waiting for this exact moment. She rushed to Mina’s side to steady her gait.
“Good night, Anna,” Mina said. Hardwick met my gaze, a question there.
I shook my head, hating I was denying Wilhelmina anything.
Blackmore would give her the world.
I stole little bits of it from her.
“I believe I shall partake this evening, Hardwick,” Mina said, her body bowing slightly as she clung to the housekeeper’s arm for much-needed support.
My fork met my plate. The knife followed. I sat and stared at nothing.
“I feel quite wretched,” Mina said, “I shall not sleep unless I chase the dreamstick.”
Hardwick said nothing. I rose from my seat.
“Wilhelmina,” I called.
She turned to look at me.
“Not tonight.”
Her face fell. Her fingers trembled as she fisted them. Her body became wracked in shudders, her lips twisting into something quite foreign and evil.
“You cannot deny me!” she shouted. “I will source it myself if you cut me off! This is your fault! You did this to me! I am not a medical case you can toy with, Anna Cassidy! I am family, and you owe me this much!”
My heart ached. My eyes stung with unshed tears. The abruptness of the mood swings were the hardest to take.
No, I corrected silently, as I assisted Hardwick with a screaming and clawing Wilhelmina. The way her body craved the insidious drug and the way the drug ate at her sanity was.
“Laudanum,” I instructed Hardwick upon getting Mina to bed. She thrashed and rolled under the bedsheets, her face a reddened mask as if she were possessed.
Preparing the tincture with shaking hands of her own, Hardwick spilt more than she managed to make. I took the mixture from her and waited for Mina to calm, then we pounced. While Hardwick clamped her arms around Mina’s body, I tilted her chin up and slipped the laudanum down her gullet.
In minutes she quietened, and Hardwick and I stepped back.
“This cannot go on, miss,” Hardwick said softly. “You cannot take much more of this, night after night.”
Neither could she.
“Perhaps it is time to consider The Whau.”
“I will not see my cousin in a lunatic asylum.”
Hardwick said nothing. Her silence spoke volumes for her.
And added to the weight of guilt that settled about my shoulders.
I walked from Mina’s room with a heavy heart and aching body. The night was young, the day long, and I had a boardinghouse to visit.
Tomorrow, I would ask Sergeant Blackmore for his aid.
My stomach roiled at having to do so, but for Wilhelmina, I would prostrate myself in front of God and heaven itself to help her win this battle.
For a battle it was. And one my mother had lost.
I would not countenance another failure.
We Are Done For The Evening
Inspector Kelly
Water ran through the street, picking up the detritus of a busy urban neighbourhood. Dogs lapped at the dark liquid as children dressed in worn clothing splashed through the puddles chasing them. The smell of woodsmoke and coal met the nose, a haze lowering over the narrow and crooked streets as the night progressed.
Blackmore stepped out of the rowdy tavern and donned his hat.
“’Tis no good, sir. They will not help us.”
“Not even you? Dressed as you are, Sergeant?”
Blackie had worn his most appropriate outerwear for our journey into Freemans Bay this evening in the hopes that someone would lower their guard and speak with him. So far, our efforts had been in vain.
“Half-rats mad as hops, they are. In the back, I swear I saw a bunch of ‘em smothering the parrot.”
Absinthe had made it to our shores along with many of our immigrants.
“Even corned as they are, though, they’re not dizzy,” Blackie added.
“They see through our ruse.”
“Aye, that an’ all.”
He seemed especially chipper this evening. Blackie only ever bothered with the slang of his childhood streets when he was excitable; be it riled to fisticuffs or otherwise.
We began walking. “Where were you this afternoon, Sergeant?”
“Oh, that,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck. “I visited Miss Cassidy if you must know, sir. The young chit does spend a great deal of time in the back garden on Franklin Street. And I likes me a bit of Mrs Hardwick’s cake.”
I was quite certain the cake was merely a bonus.
“Is her health progressing?”
“‘Ave you not asked such of the doctor?”
I looked away. “The doctor is a busy woman,” I said lightly.
“Aye, that she is, sir,” Blackie announced and halted in the middle of the street.
I stopped a step or two in front of him and then turned to see what had put that dry note in his voice. He was looking across the street at a crowd of children who had surrounded someone. The children were laughing and touching a woman’s cloak, and she was laughing with them it seemed.
And then my eyes landed on a certain duplicitous parasol and the raven hair of Anna Cassidy.
“Damnation,” I muttered and crossed the street wit
h all due haste.
I heard Blackie scoff and mutter behind me; something to do with “this should be fun” I believe. But my eyes were all for Anna in the slums of Freemans Bay. And my ears had started ringing.
“That is all,” she was saying. “I have no more sweets on me. Sally, you must share what you have with your brothers.”
“But they never share with me, miss!”
“Pick your battles, young lady,” Anna said sternly. “For one day you may need your brothers’ aid on a greater course, and you can remind them of the sweets you shared with them in childhood.”
“That’s sneaky, miss,” the child said. “I like it. ‘Ere, George! Hubert! I’ll give you one each, but you’ll owe me, got it?”
“With finesse, Sally,” Anna reminded her, a smile in her voice.
“What’s that then?” the girl asked and then spotted me.
In a thrice, she snatched her sweets back from her brothers and ran.
“Hey!” the boys yelled and chased after her. In seconds, Anna was standing alone on the side of the street.
She spun, her parasol handle parting to reveal the glint of a sharp blade.
Surprise flittered across her beautiful face for a second when she spotted me, and then she schooled her features and slid the blade home. The parasol was once again an innocuous-looking thing. I eyed it warily.
“Dr Cassidy,” I said, doffing my hat to her. “Are you quite well?”
“Very, Inspector.” She looked me up and down, no doubt judging the clothes I’d chosen to wear into this part of the city. Then her eyes slid to Sergeant Blackmore and understanding registered.
Not much got past Anna Cassidy.
“It is dangerous to wander these streets after dark, Doctor,” I said.
“I am armed, sir.”
“I noted. However, had I nefarious thoughts, I could have been upon you before you’d drawn your weapon.”
“I have walked these streets since a young girl, Inspector. I will walk them until I am old and frail.”
I stared at her.
“You have patients,” I guessed. Then why had she stopped to issue treats to the local children?
“On occasion.”
“But not on this occasion?”
“Indeed not. And you? Are you having much success with your investigation?”
“None at all, miss,” Blackmore piped up. I threw him a disgruntled look.
“I am not surprised,” Anna announced, lifting her skirts and starting to walk away.
I slipped into step beside her and offered her my arm. She stared at it, and for a moment, I thought perhaps she’d deny me; that she’d prefer to walk in Freemans Bay without the protection of an escort.
Anna could be stubborn and headstrong at times, but this was beyond the pale.
“Anna,” I urged.
She sighed and slipped her hand onto my arm. I pulled her closer, even though I knew it was a mistake. She smelled of woodsmoke and lavender, and something that was all Anna and called to me.
I cleared my throat.
“If not a patient you seek, then what may I ask?”
“I believe you shall be most intrigued, Inspector,” she said, and then closed her mouth, lips spread in a knowing smile that teased.
People greeted her with nods of their heads or a kind word as we passed, or even going so far as to reach out and grasp her free hand and thank her for something. One man thanked her for the tincture she’d dropped by last week. One woman told her the baby had stopped fussing and what a miracle honey was on wee teeth. Another spoke of the salve Anna had administered and the relief they had received. Someone said they’d be by to see her in the morning if she’d be kind enough to see them.
She greeted them all with a warm smile and, I acknowledged, admirable grace.
She was not like these people and yet, they welcomed her and spoke openly with her, respected her for what she did, who she was, not what part of the city she lived in or the clothes she wore. She bridged a gap that not even I as a police inspector could bridge.
Anna walked many paths in her life, but this was one I had not thought would touch me so keenly.
I stared down at her as she smiled and spoke softly. I stared at this miraculous woman on my arm who was a ray of sunshine on the darker streets of Freemans Bay. I was in no doubt, that should a ne’er-do-well wish her harm they would succeed. There might have been welcome here, but there would never be absolute safety.
And yet Anna walked the streets as if she belonged. As if she’d earned the right to walk amongst these people. As if the risk was worth it.
My Anna.
Would that I could keep her safe. But this was Anna. This was my scarlet suffragette.
And I realised, with a clarity that rocked me to my core, that I loved her completely. That I could no further deny her this path she treads, this world she lived in than I could deny my feelings.
She slowed as we approached a boardinghouse; one we had entered earlier in the day and been soundly told to leave. I had the unsettling feeling that Anna had achieved what we had not been able to.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
“You wish to know more of the Bohemian immigrants, Inspector?” Anna looked up at me with a smirk.
It took everything in my power not to kiss that smirk right off those rosebud lips of hers.
“Then come along,” she added and entered the boardinghouse.
I glanced at Blackie. His grin said it all.
“What would we do without Dr Cassidy, sir?” he said and slipped past me into the ramshackle building.
I had no idea what I would do without Anna. The past few days had been inordinately difficult; keeping my distance but also keeping an eye on her home on Franklin Street. I had managed very little sleep, and still, the axe hovered above my neck, and the fierce and determined eyes of Superintendent Chalmers glared inside my dreams.
He wished for me to find Anna a husband.
I wished to be rid of my wife so I could be that man.
My hands fisted. My cane tapped down on the steps of the house. I needed answers and ammunition, and Anna had just provided an opportunity to gain such.
I studied Blackmore’s broad shoulders as Anna spoke with the landlady. He watched Anna with amusement and respect, a look I had seen on his face many a time over the years of their acquaintance.
My hand lifted to my breast pocket, and I felt the letter within.
There were more answers to be had than those regarding the Bohemians.
We climbed the stairs behind the landlady and Anna, who chatted amenably with one another. The woman unlocked a door to a double room and stood aside. Her hawk-eyed gaze turned to myself and the sergeant.
“I watch,” she said in broken English. She sounded German or Austrian; I could not tell which.
“All is well, Frau Junge,” Anna said. “You have my word.”
“Your word I trust,” the woman said. She glared at Blackie and me. “Not them.”
“I will vouch for them,” Anna insisted.
The woman looked at Anna and finally nodded her head. She brushed past us in the next heartbeat, her anger sending a chill into the air.
“Why the hostility?” I murmured. “I was aware we are not well received in the slums, but this seems…personal for some reason.”
I couldn’t help but glance at Blackie.
He seemed equally as confused as me.
“There have been rumours,” Anna said, stepping into the room and taking in the drab decor, the two cots with unmade sheets, the clothes and belongings scattered about the room haphazardly, “of extortion on these streets.”
“Gang-related?” I enquired.
Anna turned and looked at me. I did not much care for that look of pity.
“No, Andrew,” she said. “It comes from the police.”
“Not my police!” I snapped.
“Are you privy to all that transpires at the station?” she asked softly. “Of
all that your policemen do whilst on the streets?”
“That is a rather dangerous accusation,” I told her.
“I am not accusing anyone of anything,” she replied steadily. “I merely pass on the mood of the city.”
“And you are in touch with the mood of this city?”
“I am more in touch with the mood on this side of the city than Superintendent Chalmers.”
She reached down and picked up some loose papers from the bedside table, then shuffled through them quickly. With an arched brow, she turned and handed them to me, and then walked toward the door to the room.
“We have not yet searched properly,” I said to stall her. I did not want her walking these streets without an escort when one was close at hand.
I could not protect Anna from everything, but I would not allow her to walk unprotected when I was nearby and willing. And I was very much willing this evening.
“I think you’ll find what you need in amongst those.” She nodded at the stack of papers she’d handed me.
I stared down at them, feeling slightly lost at sea.
The papers depicted instructions, complete with drawings, of a device that could crack the ribs and spread them, allowing access to the heart within a chest cavity.
“They were in league with the murderer,” I said, stunned.
I looked up at Anna. She met my eyes; understanding and intelligence gleaming.
“She is tidying up loose ends,” she said.
“Bloody hell,” Blackmore muttered, looking at the papers from beside me. “She had ‘em build the thing and then used it on ‘em. Now that is a vile thing.”
I shook my head. The Bohemian men were loose ends, now neatly tied. The gentleman at The Northern Club was happenstance, as the location was what she really needed.
What would she do next? Who would she prey on next?
And who was she using to do these things?
I looked at the specifications on the diagram. The device would weigh at least 30lb when complete. It would be too heavy for a lady. I glanced at Anna. Her cloak covered her body and did not allow for a clear understanding of her feminine fragility.
But I had touched that skin, kissed that flesh, felt the muscles quivering.
Heartless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 3): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series Page 8