“I’ve just come looking for coin to buy your mother’s medicaments,” he said, holding the orange candle flame between them. “I’m glad to find you. Thought you’d be at the necropolis.”
“I ain’t been up to Greyanchor these last few nights. You left your togs at the laundry, and your address on the slip, so I came to deliver ’em. I waited but you didn’t return.”
“Have you been here all this time?”
“Nights. I like it. The jars, they glow blue and green. Are they pickled ghosts?”
Roger pulled one of the jars from the shelf, a stout apothecary’s glass sealed with a cork coated in wax. A translucent blob undulated inside, glowing a faint purple.
“They’re jellyfish,” he said, pleased at her interest. “Preserved in spirits of wine. The fishmongers at the harbor haul them in sometimes with their catch, and I’m one of the few that buys ’em. This one here is a moonstar jelly. That’s an amber bowlflower there, and a chartreuse medusa.” He pointed to the shelves. “I’ve also got a raven skull, seaweed dried on paper, and a cat skeleton I assembled with wire. Not to worry,” he added when Ada balked. “Them human bits are teeth. I can wire ’em in, if folks is missing their own.” He pointed to his own jaw. “I did this one here myself.”
Ada cradled the jar with the moonstar jellyfish. “Where’s the light from? Is it magic?”
“There ain’t no magic. I dissected one, and the luminescence – the light – it rubs off on your fingers, like ink.”
“They’re nice to have in the dark.”
Roger found the leather knife roll with his medical instruments. The furrows under the girl’s eyes were a shade darker than he remembered, and she’d twisted strands of her hair into knots.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Ghost. You were right to be angry. But I’m here to keep my promise, whether I catch hell for it or not.”
“You done dithering yet? You promised to come days ago. But then you had to get yourself arrested. For murder!”
Roger grimaced. So she did know. Best not to make a thing of it. He rummaged through his cupboards but found no coin or curatives, not even gin. He lingered for a few minutes before his small collection of books. Most were disintegrating cast-offs given to him by broke medical students as payment for doing their practicums. His hand hovered over the spine of Hemon’s Studies of Medical Phenomena and Their Surgical Treatments. Sibet had given it to him, and even during his coldest, hungriest winters he hadn’t brought himself to part with it. He could see her now, the glow in her eyes as she produced the book from behind her back, her delight in surprising him, her belief in his talents to do good…
She should have directed her efforts elsewhere. With its tooled leather cover, the book must have been expensive. He could get a decent price for it, enough to sustain him through one more house call. He’d read every page at least ten times, and made notes in his journal since he hadn’t the courage to scrawl in the margins. The leather spine, soft from use, reminded him of her touch.
He scrunched his eyes shut. What had that sentimentality gotten him? If selling Sibet’s book might save this girl from becoming an orphan, so be it. He plucked the book from the shelf.
His ripped topcoat hung by the door. He pulled it over his servant’s clothes to better brave the cold. Then he slipped his pewter physicians’ medal around his neck.
“You look scrubbed,” Ada said as they tiptoed down the stairs. “I liked your face better before. But where’s your hat? How will you look respectikal?”
“No time to worry about that. I’m late for a house call. Which reminds me… have you heard of any more stranglings since I’ve been gone?”
“Besides me strangling you? No.”
Roger couldn’t tell if that was her idea of a joke.
Mrs Carver heard them sneaking past and leaned her head out the door. “Mr Weathersby? I thought I heard some commotion.”
“This is my… ah, niece, Adelaide. She’ll be staying with me, so don’t worry yourself if you hear noises. She’s just a girl.”
Mrs Carver squinted at Ada, who ducked behind Roger. “Your brother’s girl? Well, tell the poor dear to sit with me for supper if she gets hungry. I could pass on some tips for taming that unruly hair.”
When they reached the street, Ada pulled the hem of Roger’s coat in the direction she wanted him to go.
“Don’t get too eager, Ghost. I still need supplies. And for them, I need coin.”
Roger headed in the opposite direction, and Ada ran to keep up. He pulled his collar up to hide his face and kept to the shadows, though the unconvincing likeness on Mrs Carver’s broadsheet eased his fears somewhat. Two left turns later, they stood in front of Mr Grausam’s Undertaking and Coffining Services. The red-haired apprentice Nail could be seen through the front window, filing the nails of a deceased gent who reclined in a handsome oak coffin.
“Wait here.” Roger squeezed Ada’s shoulder and entered the undertaker’s shop. “So, friend Nail, do you have any extra stiffs lying around?” In lieu of a hat to doff, Roger raised his fingers to his temple.
The apprentice dropped his file and leapt up in surprise.
“You think I’m a ghost, man?” Roger stuck his hands in his pockets and grinned. “Maybe I am. Passed right through the walls of Old Grim to come haunt you.”
“Bollocks. That daft Carver woman said your room were haunted after they arrested the Greyanchor Strangler, but I knew that Weathersby weren’t you. I just figured you’d offed yourself or somesuch, from the shame of association.”
“Offed myself? I were called away.” Roger approached the coffin, feigning interest. “Nice-looking fellow there. I’m in the market for one of them.”
“Get your thievin’, coffin-vacatin’ person out of my shop.”
“This shop belongs to Mr Grausam. I’m here to collect payment from that mute job.”
“Mr Grausam is indisposed,” said Nail. “But I can tell you this. The crumbs you did earn went to Mr Grausam’s coffers for them rented clothes you ap-skonded with. Never even returned the crape and staff, and them’s worth more than a mutton pie.”
Ada had probably sold the staff and crape he’d left in his garret along with his cat, and spent the earnings on hot cross buns.
Roger could tell by the stubborn jut of Nail’s jaw that he would get no cash tonight. But he might get something out of him. He glimpsed the wraithlike Ada waiting in the shadows beyond the window. She patted her head, then pointed at the dead man’s hat.
Roger turned back to Nail and shrugged. “A shame, that. You pester me to take your mute job, then won’t pay me? If you and Grausam want to stiff me on my pay, I’ll have to ‘stiff’ you right back, or starve.” He leaned over the coffin and straightened the corpse’s cravat. “I know this poor sod can’t afford a mortsafe or a watchman. Not if he took you up on that ‘display for a day, get a half-price coffin’ deal. Lock up shop tonight at your peril. I’ll have him to the anatomist’s before you get home.”
Nail’s eyes widened at Roger’s bluff. “I’ll turn you in.”
“If you can prove it were me. Or… you could help a mate out.”
“Meaning what, extort-shun?”
Roger rattled his leather roll of medical instruments in Nail’s face. “What if I told you I were headed to my first surgeoning job as a man of science, but seeing as I’ve lost my hat I’ll get flung out on my ear?”
Nail’s lip curled in a snarl. “Is that a payin’ job?”
“Not if I get the boot. So, lose a whole stiff, or just the deader’s hat?” Roger flashed his most innocent smile.
Nail heaved a defeated sigh. “Take it if you must. But you stay far from my shop, you hear?”
“You have my word.” Roger crossed his heart and spit on the floor.
“Good enough. How ’bout instead of a stiff, I send you off with a stiff drink?” Nail reached under the counter and pulled out a bottle. “I heard rumors you was trainin’ as a surgeon, but I figured it was lies.
When have you ever looked so clean and scrubbed?”
Roger opened the empty flask he’d brought from his garret. “Gin?” he asked hopefully.
“Spirits of wine from the preservin’ vat.” Nail poured some into Roger’s flask with a wink. “It’s the best I can do, but it ain’t watered down. Here’s to your honest trade.”
They both took long swigs of the burning ethyl alcohol, and Roger left the shop with a tip of his new hat.
In the street Ada grabbed his sleeve. “That hat looks well on you. But did you get your coin?”
He shook his head.
“Then how will you buy the medicaments for Ma?”
Roger pulled his hat low on his forehead. “A surgeon always has his resources.” He grasped her hand and led her down the shadowy street.
They made their way to the Bookbinding District where Roger haggled up the price of Hemon’s Medical Phenomena. His self-satisfied feeling fled when he glimpsed the pawnbroker gloating at him through the window on their departure. Roger wished he had stood his ground over the price of a princess’ gift. That pawnbroker must have fleeced him good and proper.
At a chemist’s in Mouthstreet, Roger purchased a bottle of laudanum and sow’s butter, which the apothecary promised could cure innumerable female diseases to include hysteria, ulceration, monthly cramping, and wandering womb. It seemed like a reasonable catchall.
When they reached Will-o’-the-Wisp Lane, Roger made Ada promise not to move from her hiding place and to throw pebbles at the window if she needed him.
“Are you sure your ma still wants to see me?” Roger asked. “She won’t report me to the magistrate, what with all the rumors?”
Ada shook her head. “She won’t, but she said you’d be doing her a favor either way. You’re to use the window this time, not the front door.”
Smart lady, that Celeste.
Roger scrambled up the rusted drain spout, the old brick crumbling against his shoes. Estella helped him in through the window where he found Celeste in bed under a heap of crocheted blankets. Her jaundiced skin had darkened, and her cheeks were hollow bowls.
“I can’t take callers with her like this.” Estella lowered her voice so only Roger could hear. “We went to the hospital and I begged them to admit her, but they turned us away, us being what we are. Please don’t think me cruel, Dr Weathersby, but I can’t earn a living with an invalid in my bed. But you’re influential. I’m sure you could put in a word for us.” She kissed Celeste’s wan cheek, then excused herself to “strum a back-alley ballad,” as she put it.
Roger placed a hand on Celeste’s forehead. “I wish I could say you looked well, but I’m not a good liar.”
Celeste smiled weakly and clasped his wrist. She placed his hand on her throat.
“Is it you, sir, come at last to end my misery? I’ve been waiting. Say you’ll spare my Ada, and I promise I won’t cry out.”
Roger inhaled sharply. “I’m no strangler, miss.” He moved Celeste’s hand to the coverlet. Her palms burned as if her blood simmered beneath her skin. “I’ve but come to administer your medicaments.” Roger counted out drops of laudanum and fed her with a spoon. Celeste couldn’t stay here in this state. “I need to move you to a hospital.”
“The hospitals won’t take me. Estella and I have tried. The private ones require tickets bought in advance, and the charity wards need references.”
“Then leave it to me. I’ll find a way.” Roger worried he was again promising more than he could deliver. But he couldn’t promise nothing.
“Thank you, doctor.”
He observed the weak latches on the window and the paper-thin door. It had been easy enough for him to climb up the drain and gain access to her room. “Bar your door tonight, and the window, too.” He strongly suspected that someone had done this to her. “Can you think of anyone who might mean you harm? A customer perhaps?”
Celeste shrugged under her mountain of blankets. “They all love me and hate me in equal measure.”
“But think,” Roger urged, before the laudanum took full effect and her senses grew muddled. “Perhaps someone threatened you.”
Celeste laughed, bright and distant. “I’m threatened every time I refuse to marry a customer. So, most of them.”
Any one of her customers could be the culprit, assuming the strangler was male. Roger noted her arm, still bruised from where he’d lanced her vein. Her black treacle-blood had disturbed him so. Perhaps a doctor might welcome Celeste into a hospital if he perceived in her a medical curiosity.
“Might I bleed you again?” Roger could do little else.
Celeste nodded her assent before her eyelids flickered closed. Her face relaxed as the laudanum entered her system, and her breathing slowed. Roger cleansed his fleam and set a basin beneath her arm. His nick produced the same thick, black blood as before. It dribbled out slowly, but he needed more this time if he wanted to catch a physician’s attention. It could save her life.
He rubbed warmth into her icy hands and feet as the bowl slowly filled. She whimpered in her sleep. By the time Estella returned from her back-alley job, Roger had replaced the wine spirits in his flask with Celeste’s blood and tucked her snugly back into bed.
16
The Coral Drawing Room had at one time been papered red-orange with a birds-of-paradise motif before the queen ordered its walls painted ivory, though the name had stuck. Silver candlesticks spiked the great fireplace’s mantel where a painting depicted the end of the Doomsday Miasma – Caligo’s gray skyline ablaze with sinewy red charcoal fires. The room’s splotchy wool and silk carpet reminded Sibylla of a boxing ring post-match, and gold-leafed cornices held up a molded ceiling. Her encounter with Dr Lundfrigg had left her shaken. If not for the promise of seeing Prince Henry, she’d have found an excuse to miss the family dinner.
She signaled a footman to bring her an aperitif while she looked for signs of her parents: a half-full glass of juniper and whiskey, or a whiff of jasmine perfume.
Splayed across a blue sofa, Crown Prince Elfred clutched a pastille tin. After he slipped the tin’s last lozenge between his lips, the empty container in his hand rusted away to a fine powder. He blew the pile of rust-colored dust from his palm in an orange plume, then lazed back with his eyes closed.
A high-pitched whistle stung Sibylla’s ears.
Edgar.
Her cousin enjoyed taking advantage of her sensitivity to sound, and she knew better than to ignore him. She half-wondered if he wasn’t already preparing some spiteful recourse after her refusal to relinquish the prayer plaques at the grotto. Once as a child she’d refused to join him in smashing ladybird beetles, and he’d removed her favorite gardener along with the rose bushes she’d helped plant. When she snubbed him at the Royal Hunt Ball by choosing Lord Howell’s son as her first partner, Edgar had her best-loved reading chair taken to his own bedroom. Shortly after, Lord Howell’s son broke his leg in an unfortunate croquet incident.
Wearing a meticulous brown suit and a shimmering gold cravat about his narrow neck, Edgar reminded Sibylla of an immature parsnip – long and bitter. Rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers, he nodded curtly in her direction. “Cousin.”
“I should thank you for the chocolates you sent to Helmscliff,” said Sibylla, searching for the footman with her aperitif.
Edgar tilted his head. “Weren’t you always stuffing your face with one treat or another?” He swiveled the cigarette between his fingers. “Anyhow, Edmund practically beseeched me to help finance the sweet shop when it opened, bribed me with his plaid cravat, too.”
“Then I should be thanking Edmund.” Luckily, Edgar didn’t mention the marriage proposals.
“If you must thank someone, thank the lady whose skirts he wanted to get into. He had his eye on that tart of a proprietress ever since she worked at Dame Angeline’s salon.”
Seemingly on cue, Edgar’s two brothers burst into the drawing room, batting each other over the head with badminton rackets. Th
ey’d recently turned sixteen and seventeen and Sibylla wondered at their childish behavior. Edmund and Edward charged between the furniture, jostling their father who clenched his armrests to keep from falling over. Crown Prince Elfred used to demonstrate a sturdier constitution and better reflexes.
“Uncle Elfred doesn’t seem well,” said Sibylla as she watched the crown prince fumble with his empty glass. “Perhaps he might benefit from Dr Lundfrigg’s attention.” At least then, Dr Lundfrigg would find less time to concern himself with bastards.
Edgar flicked the end of his unlit cigarette. “One too many Straybound. Took another just this week. Does that make five or six this season? I lost count after Old Gabe.”
The church prohibited each member of the royal family from having more than one Straybound at a time but did nothing to prevent the deadly discardment of servants who failed to please their patrons. Revulsed by the crown prince’s habit of replacing Straybound when he grew bored of them, Sibylla guided the conversation back to Dr Lundfrigg. “Don’t you think it’s strange how obsessed Dr Lundfrigg is with studying our ‘sanguine spirit’? I’m surprised you haven’t had him dismissed.” Perhaps she might use Edgar’s spitefulness for good.
“I still can’t fathom why Grandmamma knighted the man, passionate old trout that she is. I preferred old Dr Hartlin myself. At least he had a respectable lineage and kept his examinations to gentlemanly conversation. Not that I have anything against Dr Lundfrigg, but he is a…” Edgar leaned in to Sibylla’s ear, “…hematologist. Disgusting.”
Sibylla bit her lip. Given Dr Lundfrigg’s academic expertise, his interest in taking her blood at Helmscliff made more sense. Worse, he may really have some way to test whether someone belonged to the royal family or not.
“You haven’t seen your parents, have you?” Edgar slipped a silver watch from his pocket, and Sibylla noticed his soft, unblemished hands. The most arduous thing he’d ever done with them was likely fanning his cards at his gentlemen’s club. Despite his father Crown Prince Elfred’s proclivity for remaking murderers into disposable servants, Edgar had yet to take a Straybound himself. No scars marred his left thumb. His morality, it seemed, remained intact.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 16
