Shadows of Madness

by Tracy L. Ward

  “Look again!”

  “Peter.”

  “It’s her. I know it is.”

  “I pay attention to everyone who darkens them doors. If it was her, I’d know it. It ain’t her. Now get out of my pub before your friend there brings on a brawl.” The barkeep nodded to Jonas, eyeing him with distrust.

  Jonas nodded his agreement. He was more than eager to oblige.

  Ainsley slammed a fist on to the table. “Damn it.”

  Jonas felt someone push his shoulder and realized a large burly man stood inches from him. Jonas looked the man squarely in the eye and raised his hands up in surrender.

  “I have no quarrel,” he said.

  Ainsley appeared at his side and guided him out the front door of the pub. They both sent out a few curse words into the night; Ainsley for being so sorely disappointed and Jonas for having been nearly pummelled for something he did not do.

  “He’s probably drunk half the night anyways,” Ainsley said, sneering as two more people headed for the front door. “He wouldn’t know if the Queen herself decided to take a pint at his establishment.”

  Jonas paused on the pavement for a moment to give his heartbeat a chance to return to normal. He hadn’t been in a fight since school, not even to box, and he wasn’t all that eager to start again now.

  “Peter, I have to go back to Margaret,” he said, skipping to catch up. “John is the only one trained and—”

  “I can’t go back. I’d just be pacing the floor wishing I were out here doing something to find out who did it to her.” Ainsley stopped at an intersection and surveyed the traffic.

  As if something were nipping at his heels, Ainsley hastened across the intersection. Jonas felt compelled to follow him, if only to keep a watchful eye and only for a short while. He could not stomach the thought of Margaret in such a state. Only the thought of finding out what had been given to her spurred him forward.

  The crowds were thin that night at Waverly Station and the beggar woman was easily spotted. Upon seeing her, Jonas reached for Ainsley’s arm, intent on telling him to show caution. They might do better to ask questions in a calm manner than an emotionally charged one. He missed Ainsley’s sleeve by half an inch, a mistake that cost them their quarry.

  The woman took one look at Ainsley charging for her and took off at a run, darting between a pair of buildings and turning right as soon as she came to the street. Ainsley followed her in pursuit while Jonas reluctantly took up the rear. It seemed abhorrent to be running after a woman so old and reduced to such circumstances. However feeble, she still managed to lead them on a hearty chase through much of the alleys and crevices of Old Town. Though not speedy, she was nimble, eventually forcing Ainsley and Jonas to split up.

  Jonas became increasingly aware of how each turn took him further and further from Margaret’s side. As he splashed through stagnant waters and rounded shadowed corners, he thought of giving up the chase and returning to her. At the end of a short street, he spotted Ainsley.

  “This way!” he called, circling his arms widely and inviting Jonas to follow him.

  When Jonas rounded the corner he found Ainsley already had her blocked off in a dead end, though he hadn’t laid a hand on her. All three of them were out of breath. The woman hunched over slightly with her back against the wall, her breaths shallow. Staying against the wall she tried to slip by them as they rested but Jonas took one step over and blocked the way.

  “I only have a few questions,” Ainsley said, drawing in breaths between much of his words.

  “Would a man chase such a feeble soul for just a few questions?” the woman asked, her voice cracking. She kept her head low as she clutched her drooping bag close to her chest.

  “You aren’t so feeble,” Jonas said, propping up his arm on the wall to maintain presence while he struggled to catch his breath. “I know men who would not be capable of keeping up with you.”

  “Such is the way with many things,” she said. “What are your questions then, gentleman?”

  Ainsley gave Jonas a look and put his hands on his hips as he straightened his stance. “There was a woman you spoke with today. She was well off.”

  “Many of the women I approach are. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “She has brown hair, pale skin,” Jonas said, stepping forward. “She was wearing a blue dress and in the vicinity of Blair Street.”

  “She is my sister,” Ainsley added.

  “Ah yes,” the woman answered, “The trembling one. A scared little house sparrow.”

  “Certainly not,” Ainsley said.

  “Oh yes.”

  “She’s ill,” Jonas said.

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” the woman said. “By the time I found her she was already much troubled.”

  “By what?” Jonas could stomach no more games. Margaret waited for him. He needed to get back to the house.

  The woman shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “You gave her something, rubbed it onto her palm,” Ainsley said.

  “Lavender oil. Very soothing in the bath.”

  “Did anyone bid you give her such an item?” Jonas asked cautiously.

  “You believe her illness is the result of something I gave her?”

  “Yes, I must get back to her. She is in a bad way.”

  The woman reached into her bag and pulled out a tiny glass jar. She stepped out from the shadows and handed it to Ainsley. “Here is what I offered her. You both are such learned gentlemen, see for yourself what is contained in such a vial.” She moved to step around them. “You will find me innocent, I assure you.”

  “How did you know we are learned gentlemen?” Jonas spied the smooth skin of the woman’s jaw in the lamplight and caught hold of her arm as she neared him. She froze as he pulled her veil back from her face.

  “I remember you,” Ainsley said, stepping closer.

  The woman was not old, after all, but rather younger than either of the men. Her hair was the lightest blond, which looked grey in the lamplight. Jonas placed a hand under her chin to allow the subdued light to illuminate her face. “Rebecca Stewart.”

  She trembled and clutched her bag closer to her chest even as Jonas released his grasp.

  “What are you playing at?” Ainsley asked, taking up a position so she could not run again.

  The young woman put up her hands defensively. “I didn’t mean any harm,” she said, tears pooling in her eyes. “This is the only way in which I may support myself.”

  “You make a wage as Dr. Waters’s assistant,” Ainsley pointed out.

  “’Tisn’t enough! I get paid half the compensation of his male clerks and porters.” Her face hardened at her own words, irritated that she would be worth so little.

  “There are other positions,” Jonas said, “other doctors even.”

  “But Waters promised to teach me everything he can. None of the others would permit such an arrangement.” She pushed back tears from her cheeks and did not lift her head to look at them.

  Ainsley held up the vial. “And this?”

  Rebecca’s shoulders slouched as she exhaled. “When I am not with Dr. Waters, I am peddling salves and lotions of my own creation. I dress as a beggar woman so people will take pity on me,” she said. “And I didn’t want to run the risk of running into anyone from the school. I wouldn’t want Dr. Waters or any of the others finding out.” Her gaze bounced between Ainsley and Jonas. “I swear, I had nothing to do with your sister’s illness. Have the bottle tested. You will see I am telling the truth.”

  Ainsley regarded her suspiciously and then looked down at the bottle in his hand. “Where do you make this? At the university? Have you been stealing supplies?”

  “No!” Rebecca closed her eyes in an effort to steady her panic. “I make them out of my flat.”

  “Show me,” Ainsley said.

  As if knowing it was the only way she could prove she was telling the truth, she relented. “Follow me, then.”

>   She led them back to St. Mary’s Street and put a key in a door. They went up one flight of stairs and around the corner before she unlocked another door. As the door swung open a girl, a few years younger than Rebecca, hopped up from her seat on a chair and ran to them.

  Jonas saw Rebecca hold the girl’s wrists and guide her back into the room. She spoke to her in a soothing tone and kept her face inches from the other girl’s. “These are my friends,” Rebecca said. “Friends.”

  The look of elation on the girl’s face morphed into uncertainty. She looked to Rebecca a few times for reassurance before finally mumbling the word “friends” and nodding in unison with Rebecca.

  “My sister, Mary,” Rebecca said to Jonas and Ainsley before leading the girl away from the door.

  The place Rebecca and her sister called home was a single room with a bed placed against the wall, and a long table near the window. There were shelves constructed against one wall that housed various vials of ingredients and large jars of her product. After depositing Mary on the bed, Rebecca pulled a small lamp from the table near the window and used it to light another one and then placed it on the end of the table.

  Ainsley walked into the room first and circled the table while Jonas closed the door slowly behind him.

  “Does your sister have Mongolian idiocy?” Jonas asked, recognizing the facial differences.

  Rebecca nodded.

  Jonas looked to Ainsley. John Langdon Down had only recently characterized the syndrome as a mental disability, something of which Jonas was aware after assisting a few affected patients in London. Most ended up committed to asylums. The fact that Rebecca hadn’t done such a thing was commendable given the lack of appropriate care offered in such places.

  “Our mother abandoned us a few years ago. I’m all she has,” Rebecca said, as if reading his thoughts. “You’ll understand now why I need more than what Dr. Waters is willing to pay me.”

  The two men exchanged glances and then a feeling of guilt rushed over Jonas. A person willing to care for a mentally incapacitated sibling in such a way was highly unlikely to be involved in a plot to harm Margaret.

  “Your compassion for your sister is a credit to your character,” Ainsley said, mirroring Jonas’s thoughts exactly.

  “I don’t need your pity,” Rebecca said.

  “’Tisn’t pity, I offer,” Ainsley explained. “Praise, perhaps.” He stood on the opposite side of the table, looking over an assortment of dried herbs, rose hips, seashells, and leaves.

  Rebecca went to the window to open it and remained there while Jonas and Ainsley surveyed her workspace. She was nervous, as anyone would be, and brushed away tears that threatened to spill over onto her cheeks.

  “How long have you been doing this?” Ainsley asked, as he picked up a jar of green-yellow liquid and held it to the lamplight.

  “Four years,” she said. “No one has ever gotten sick. Not that I recall.” She pulled the veil from her hair and hung it off the rails of the bed and then began to remove her gloves.

  “Who taught you?” Jonas asked, running his hand through some dried lavender buds.

  Rebecca didn’t answer straightaway. “I taught myself once I realized Mother wasn’t coming back.”

  Jonas knew the feeling well. It had taken him and his mother two months before succumbing to the realization that his father would not be returning home. Like his mother, Rebecca was all alone in the world, with a dependent to support, and this was her only means of survival.

  Jonas looked to his friend, his anger extinguished, and his need to head back to Margaret reignited. “Peter, I don’t think we are going to find anymore answers here. We can have John test the lavender oil to be sure. Perhaps Margaret contracted something at the train station or in the morgue.”

  Ainsley bore a look of disappointment. If the facilities were dirty and unkempt, Margaret’s sickness could be attributed to some bacteria, perhaps even bacteria, but this room where Rebecca eked out a humble living was kept cleaner and tidier than any lab either of them had ever worked in, and Ainsley knew this.

  “We should go.” Jonas motioned for the door, eager to return to Margaret.

  Ainsley scanned the room and then pointed to Mary. The girl had donned a wig of long, brown hair and was bouncing on the mattress in some internal game.

  “What’s that?” Ainsley strode across the room in three steps. With a look of panic, Rebecca tried to pry it from him before he turned and showed it to Jonas at the door.

  “Where did you get this?” Jonas asked, hoping for an easy explanation.

  Rebecca did not answer right away. She looked as if she would cry while she thought of some excuse for having such an item.

  “Is this another part of your costume?” Ainsley pressed.

  Jonas’s hands began to shake as his mind put the pieces together. As a brunette Rebecca would bear a very close resemblance to Margaret. Jonas had no doubt that she had been the one who lured him from the pub that night. He turned from them both and pressed a fist into the wall while taking deep, concentrated breaths.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, backing away as far as she could. “I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

  Jonas rounded. “Like hell you didn’t!” he yelled over Ainsley’s shoulder. “My life is ruined because of this.” He grabbed the wig from Ainsley’s grasp and threw it to the floorboards in disgust. He should leave. He knew if he stayed he’d do something he’d regret and perhaps end up back at Calton.

  “I swear … on my father’s grave. I … I was only supposed to take you from the pub and leave you at the university. That’s all I did.” Her pleading made her voice crack. “I laid you down on the sofa in Professor Frobisher’s office and left. I swear. Please.” She looked to Ainsley. “You have to believe me.”

  Jonas tried to calm down, turning away and walking to the other side of the room to keep the table between them. “And you didn’t notice a body lying on the floor?”

  “It was dark—”

  Jonas scoffed and threw his hands up in the air.

  “I could see nothing amiss in the room. As far as I could tell there was no one else there. I have no idea what happened after I left.”

  “Did you think I was capable of such a thing?” Jonas pressed.

  Sheepishly, she shook her head. “You were always so kind to me,” she admitted. “I wanted to come forward, after our conversation, Dr. Ainsley, to tell my story but … he knows where I live. I care nothing for myself, not after what I did, but Mary is innocent.”

  “Who knows where you live? Who asked you to bring Jonas to Frobisher’s office?” Ainsley asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jonas couldn’t keep himself from pacing. The anger he felt seemed to engulf him. The only thing that stopped him from charging from the room was the thought of finally finding out who had done this to him.

  “Someone put a letter under my door. It had twenty pounds in it and promised another twenty if I did what he asked. The next day my neighbour told me a boy came with a package for me and the wig was in it.”

  “A boy?” Ainsley asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned to Jonas. “A hired intermediary.”

  Jonas nodded. “An anonymous one at that.”

  “I’m so very sorry. Twenty pounds. I stole a man’s life for twenty pounds!” She sobbed uncontrollably into her palms.

  “Do you still have the letters?” Ainsley asked.

  Rebecca lifted her head slowly and used her sleeve to wipe her nose. “I believe so.” She went to the chest at the foot of her bed, retrieved two letters, and handed them to Ainsley. The first was as she described, the second was blank save for five words, “With my most ardent appreciation.”

  “This is the one that brought the rest of the money?” Ainsley asked.

  The young woman nodded and then she closed her eyes, dropped to her bed, and hid her face with her hands. Mary came along beside her and wrapped an arm around her s
houlders in a side hug.

  Ainsley looked to Jonas and gave a tiny nod. Jonas suspected she was telling the truth as well, which meant they weren’t any closer to finding out who did this to him.

  Suddenly, Rebecca let out a deep sniffle and raised her head. “I will go to the constabulary first thing in the morning,” she said with conviction.

  Jonas kept his gaze on Ainsley. “No,” he said.

  “Jonas, this proves you didn’t do it.”

  “It only proves how I got to the university from the pub,” he said. “At anytime between when Rebecca left and I was found next to the body I could have killed Frobisher.”

  “I know you didn’t do it!”

  “We need proof that I either didn’t do it or that someone else did,” Jonas explained. “Rebecca’s confession does not prove either. We are close, Peter, but not close enough.”

  “It proves that you did not go to the university out of your own volition. There is more at play here,” Ainsley said. He turned to Rebecca. “In what state did you find Jonas?”

  Rebecca looked at him with confusion.

  “Was he inebriated, slurring his words, unable to walk in a straight line?”

  She shook her head at each of Ainsley’s suggestions. “He was none of those things. He kept saying, ‘Margaret, I’m so tired. I’m so tired.’ He came willingly. I only had to hold his hand.”

  Jonas closed his eyes. “What did you put in my drink?” he asked, still unable to look at her.

  “Excuse me?” Rebecca stammered, as if unsure if Jonas would lunge for her.

  “My drink!” Jonas pounded a fist on the table, rattling the jars on top. “What did you put in it to make me so tired?”

  Scared and confused, she looked to Ainsley, then back to Jonas. “Nothing. I never touched your drink.”

  “Something had to have been put there,” Jonas said.

  Ainsley pulled Jonas aside. “If it wasn’t Rebecca, it must have been Eloise,” he said quietly. “Rebecca knows lotions and little else. Eloise knows chemistry. You said so yourself. She must have tampered with your drink or asked someone else to do it.”