The Humbug Murders

by L. J. Oliver

  “This is a trap,” I said hoarsely.

  “Fool. You think I don’t know that?” Shen said. He found the pistol under a chunk of fallen wood and pried it loose. We heard a door creak in the distance, an echo from the central chamber. “Nellie!”

  He shrugged off my hand as I tried to help him to his feet. Glass crunched beneath our boots as we flung ourselves ahead, passing through a carefully arranged gauntlet of shrouded platforms and the like. Why put on a show like this? Why not just kill Nellie and have us arrive too late to do anything about it?

  Wide arches and coffered vaults flanked us, buttresses and saucer-shaped domes were all about us. We reached the central crossing, where it appeared—though it was not so—that eight corridors connected it like spokes jutting from a wheel. Four were mere illusion. I flicked my gaze high, to the very inner core of the dome, and my breath caught at its magnificence.

  “There!” Shen commanded. I followed him to a heavy wooden door. We passed through it into a narrow winding stone staircase. He vaulted up the steps, and I followed behind: we could go but one at a time. The stones were narrow, the ledges high. The cold and uneven walls to either side of us were barely wider than my shoulders. Up we ran, while above, a woman’s sobbing and the echoing of footfalls mockingly drifted down. Only an occasional shaft of blue moonlight caressed the way. Otherwise, it was black as pitch, which retarded our movement.

  Ours, but not that of the killer. I smelled oil and guessed that Humbug had an already burning lantern waiting at the top of the stairs.

  Incensed, Shen shouted Nellie’s name again and again. He threatened the killer, he screamed and bartered and pleaded, but the only voice that ever met his was that of the confused and near-breathless actress.

  “Why?” Nellie asked piteously. “What harm could I possibly . . . You . . . ? You!”

  She recognized the killer!

  Clattering footfalls, more sobs, our own labored breathing. A hundred steps, I was sure. Two hundred. The muscles in my legs were on fire. I could barely breathe!

  Then, finally, we heard Nellie’s echoing cries from somewhere ahead, and we climbed out through a passageway, down two more steps, and stood upon the Whispering Gallery. We were on a small circular walkway that hugged the inner dome well into its heights. The tight circular railing stood out only a few feet from the wall. It rose to my mid-chest, and peering down past it was like looking down a near incalculable height to the very hall in which we’d stood minutes ago. A fall from this height would smash any man to pulp.

  But where was our prey? And Nellie?

  “Please . . . help me, please!”

  Who is it, who has you? I wanted to yell, but Shen put a finger to his lips for silence.

  Nellie’s whisper drifted from our left. We whirled, chased the sound, ran a quarter of the way about the circle, and stopped as another whisper came to us from the spot we had just vacated.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know . . . I couldn’t . . . don’t . . .”

  This was why it was called the Whispering Gallery. Whispers from any point about its radius could be heard at any other point, but one never knew quite where the sounds originated.

  Shen whipped his gaze from side to side. In the dim light, we could not see Nellie or the monster that held her. Had the killer wrapped them both in that infernal nightmare-black cloak and crouched low to hide them away?

  A sharp gasp of pain from the far end of the gallery drove Shen into a frenzy. He flew forward, racing for where he’d heard this sound land, unmindful of the many doorways lining the round gallery. Winded from the sharp climb and aching from the bruises and bumps I’d received during the madness of the carriages and the harm I’d endured in the Quarter yesterday, I could not keep up with him.

  But I saw the danger as, in the pale light, he passed one of those doorways and the cloaked killer sprang out behind him, knife raised high.

  “SHEN!”

  My shout thundered through the gallery, echoed off the walls, and he stopped, startled, and turned slightly in my direction, an act that saved him. The blade came down and bit into his shoulder instead of the nape of his exposed neck. Shrieking in pain, he nevertheless spun in his attacker’s direction, reaching out for the killer. Humbug was too quick, withdrawing the blade and darting back into the doorway, vanishing into the black beyond.

  I reached Shen even as his knees threatened to give. My hand went for the wound, but he was already clutching it, staunching the flow of blood, at least for now, the pistol tucked in his waistband. An amber flicker caught my eye from the door before us, and footsteps scraped more steps.

  His fingers tightened about his shoulder, his left arm dangling uselessly. He launched himself ahead, drops of blood marking his passing. He took a sharp turn in the direction from which the light had lapped out at us—the killer’s lantern—and cursed as he stumbled over another trap: an array of bricks and debris piled about the base of a second flight of curving steps. By the time I had him back on his feet, I saw how Humbug could easily have stepped over these. The drugged Nellie must have already have been deposited on the next landing, then the beast had doubled back.

  Freeing a path, we climbed upward once more, the killer and Nellie far enough ahead of us that we heard only the scraping of footsteps and labored breathing. The sound of something being dragged.

  Then the amber light brightened, creeping like skeletal fingers across the curved walls to either side of us. Shen let go of his wounded shoulder and drew his pistol from his waistcoat’s pocket. He stumbled, light-headed as blood flowed at a steadier trickle now, and called, “Let her go! I command you, do it and I’ll let you live. Harm her and I’ll harrow you to the gates of hell and beyond!”

  The creaking of metal rungs sounded above the December wind. Unmindful of further traps, I pushed past Shen and stepped onto the roof. A merciless fist of cold propelled by a swift and heavy wind struck us, nearly driving the air from our lungs. We were in a long rectangular gallery and far ahead and another story higher than us jutted the empty tower we’d spied when we first arrived. I stepped out and heard metal groans and the clatter of the same steel-heeled boots that had kicked me square in the skull back in the manor house. They clanged while something thump-thump-thumped up behind them.

  Shen stumbled out next to me. The empty tower’s spire stabbed at the full moon and was kissed by the drifting clouds. The sounds were to our right, and we crept out until we saw another flight of metal steps. They led up to the slightly arched roof nestled over the long alley we had run through downstairs.

  High above, the killer hauled Nellie from the steps onto the slanted rooftop. A long, narrow walk beside it acted as a gutter leading back to the west façade through which we had entered St. Paul’s. Hooking gloved hands that looked pale and sharp as bone under the actress’s arms, Humbug dragged the apparently unconscious woman towards the trio of waiting saints.

  Shen and I exchanged worried glances, then we reached the metal stairs and climbed. I helped the wounded man as best I could, steadying him as his left arm dangled uselessly. By the time we reached the top, Nellie and the killer had vanished, or so it seemed. Then Shen grasped my steadying arm so tightly I might have cried out from the pain.

  The robed figure stood from a crouch and revealed itself next to the statue of St. Paul. The saint’s back was turned to us, and he was framed by a burning white moonlight. The murderer stood at the very center of the rooftop’s two slanted panels. Shen tried to climb onto the arching roof but could not.

  The killer’s arm was around Nellie’s waist. Her hair flowed down past her face, but her arms were moving, her hand touching her skull. It came away bloody. The monster had clubbed her to unconsciousness when the drugs had begun to wear off back at the Whispering Gallery.

  Beyond the ledge on which the killer stood, carrying the now weeping Nellie, the woman’s body convulsing with terror, was a sheer drop to the steps. A long fall nothing could survive.

  We edged clo
ser, and Humbug made no move to stop us. Clutching the cold railing to my left with one hand, steadying the weakened Shen with the other, I watched for any sign that our movements displeased the maniac. There were none. This was what Humbug wanted.

  A great distance still separated us from the killer and the girl. We carefully trod along the rooftop’s angled flank, Humbug still and quiet as the statue of St. Paul. Nellie started to struggle. Humbug leaned in close and whispered something in her ear, then turned her slightly. She peered over the ledge to the terrifying fall awaiting them should they lose their balance and tumble from their precarious perch.

  Then the beast fixed its veiled eyes on us once more. And waited.

  Humbug dressed as the spirit of death itself, the ghost of the future that would come for us all in its good time, and I thought to flatter the maniac beneath those robes. Anything to buy us time and the chance to reach the pair now a dozen yards before us.

  “Spirit, what would you have of us?” I asked, my exhaustion and the sting of the bitter cold putting a plaintive quaking into my speech. “What is this ‘humbug’ that drives you? What lie was told, what duplicitous act are you punishing? What is it that binds all of us to you in such a hateful way?”

  The face beneath the veils lifted with interest. I thought perhaps the killer’s mouth opened, that speech might betray the killer’s hidden identity. Then the figure went still again.

  I stepped closer. “Do you seek to bargain? What do you want?”

  Slowly, inexorably, the murderer’s bony hand rose and a single incredibly long finger pointed first at Shen, then at myself. Ice drained down my spine.

  “No,” I whispered, remembering Fezziwig’s promise. “It’s not yet my time . . .”

  “Coward,” Shen snapped, dropping the pistol and shrugging off my helping hand. A trail of blood in the snow behind us marked our path like crimson tears. “Monster, take me. Let her live and I will go to the deathlands with you.”

  Humbug’s head angled quizzically.

  “I love her,” he said, in response to the unasked question. “She is light and life itself. I would give up all for her, and be glad. That is a bargain I am happy to make.” His voice hitched, his throat constricting with emotion. Tears glistened on his cheek.

  He waited.

  In response, Humbug loosed the grip about Nellie’s waist—and seized her by the throat. The actress was lifted up until she balanced on her toes. We were close enough to see ice on the stone ledge beneath them. They could not dance long or well upon that spot without slipping back into the abyss.

  Nellie was turned ever so slightly until she faced the street, her hair billowing behind her.

  I had thought the killer might be a woman, but the sheer inhuman strength now displayed made me question that theory.

  Do not do this, I begged in my mind, even as Shen fell to his knees and moaned similar pleas.

  Humbug looked our way a final time. An instant before the deed was done, understanding crept into our bones, our blood, our flesh. We could not stop this. We had been powerless from the start.

  Then, with a jerk of one hand, Humbug shoved Nellie out into empty space. Her hand shot out for the statue, as if to find a hold to arrest her flight. Her nails scraped the statue’s robe, one bending, flicking off.

  Her scream as she disappeared from sight was quickly drowned out by Shen’s horrified wailing.

  Humbug watched us, stared with what I could only construe as delight, feasting on Shen’s misery and my growing fear.

  A ghostly hand rested on the nape of my neck. One more, Ebenezer. Then you . . .

  “Bastard!” Shen cried. He groped for the fallen weapon. The murderer stood beside St. Paul with nowhere to go, no means to escape justice. Or revenge.

  Not unless the mad thing intended to join Nellie in oblivion.

  Heat rose in me with the desire to avenge not just this innocent woman I had wrongly suspected, but my old dear friend Fezziwig.

  “We end this, now,” I snarled.

  Then I heard a clanging.

  The killer sprinted across the center join of the gently steepled roof. Black cloak whipping in the freezing, bitter wind, Humbug passed us even as Shen snatched up the weapon and aimed it with a trembling hand. Inhumanly quick, Humbug dropped and slid down the far side of the roof. Shen fired, but his arm was unsteady, the bullet sparking a good yard beyond the killer, who flew over the edge and down into the opposing gutter from us.

  On trembling legs, my companion trod upward on the icy roof. A single misstep might have spelled disaster and death, but his eyes were hollow, beyond caring. I rubbed the numbness from my limbs as I followed him, cutting glances back to the silent saint that had stood by and watched as yet another soul was consigned to the void. I knew that a horror waited below and was in no hurry to take it in.

  We found a rope dangling from where Humbug had slid over the ledge. The rope led all the way down the two stories to the flat floor of the workman’s gutter between the cathedral’s high outer walls. Far beyond it was a propped-open door, through which Humbug had again escaped.

  There was no chance of catching up now.

  We found our way down the many winding staircases, through the great nave, then out to the freezing night. A crowd was gathering; children were running to find the nearest bobby.

  Nellie lay on the steps, a crumpled, shattered doll, limbs twisted unnaturally, her head caved in. Her face—what remained of it—was a bloody red shattered mess of protruding bone and teeth with only a single eye.

  There was one thing more. A task the killer had managed to perform before fleeing into the night:

  The word “Humbug” had been written on the steps in the shattered woman’s blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Friday, December 23rd, 1833

  Two Days to Christmas

  I WAS RUNNING.

  Running through twisting paths within dark abbey ruins under a gibbous moon, whispers caressing me from every side. A giant bell tolled a series of slow, deathly clangs, and the darkness and mist obscured my vision. My legs were heavy, and each step was like trudging through coagulated blood while the hollow steps of Humbug came ever closer.

  Panting, I turned a corner and stopped. Humbug rose up and towered before me, a ghost shrouded in black clutching a bloody knife. I squinted, trying to recognize him, and just as I feared the knife would be plunged into my heart, a lock of chocolate hair tumbled loose from inside the hood. I gasped. The killer raised a bony hand and combed back the veiling hood.

  The visage before me belonged to Adelaide!

  I woke with a start and sat up, clutching my chest and gasping for air. The window was cracked, the curtains fluttering gently in the frosty Christmas breeze, and the bell in the clock tower was striking the hour. Four in the morning. Still dark. I sighed and ran my hand through my sweat-drenched hair, an icy droplet trickling down my spine.

  Suddenly a gust burst into my room and blew out the candle by my bed. A shadow whipped wildly, then another, and I felt the icy droplet trickle back up my spine. Shadows began to form, emerging towards me, taking shape until I saw Fezziwig’s pale ghost before me. His white and grey spirit contrasted against the blackness of the night. He rasped and stretched a bony finger towards me, accusing me, warning me: One more, Ebenezer, then you. Then you!

  Then he leaped and flew at me, deathlike hands outstretched—

  With a painful gasp, I shot up in bed, morning sunlight glowing all about me. I scanned the room. I was alone—no ghost, no killer. I felt my face, pinched my own cheek, threw off my bedcovers, and swung my feet round to touch the cold floor. I was no longer lost in a waking dream state; this was real. The clock tower tolled. Seven strokes this time. It was morning, and the faint light of winter dawn streamed through the windows. Breathing out and rubbing the exhaustion from my eyes, I let out a little chuckle. I should not be surprised at my own foolish imagination considering the week I’d had.

  At the washba
sin, I doused my face in the freezing water and peered at myself in the mirror. Bags under my eyes, unshaven . . . then my heart stopped. For in the reflection behind me . . .

  I spun round. The word HUMBUG was written in blood-red paint on the wall opposite.

  The wind seemed harsher and the grey daylight dimmer than was normal for the hour as I trudged through the snow to my office. Wary of spying Sikes or another of Smithson’s men, I tipped my hat at a woman I passed, but she scowled in return. A few paces on and a gentleman avoided my eyes, sending only a fearful glance as he passed me. One after the other, the normally cheerful Friday morning Londoners were giving me odd looks as I walked along the icy cobbles. Fearful. Angry. Disgusted. Confused and concerned, I rushed to my office.

  A mob was waiting for me outside the counting-house. Scores of men, angry faces.

  “There he is!” cried one of them, and they collectively turned my way just as Dickens appeared from behind me, grabbed my arm, and rushed me into the building.

  Where the hell have you been? I wanted to ask. And what happened to the guardsmen I requested for Miss Owen and myself?

  I slammed the door and locked it behind us against a roar of accusations and questions, then tweaked the curtain and peered through the windowpane. From their ravenous demand for “statements,” it was apparent that the mob was a crowd of other reporters on a feeding frenzy, the taste of blood on their lips.

  Dickens slammed a folded newspaper on the desk beside me, and I jumped, turning to see my office already occupied. A trio of stern-faced and expensively dressed gentlemen stood there with folded arms, and behind them Adelaide, Constable Crabapple, and Shen. Their expressions were dark, their looks grim.

  I glanced at Dickens, quizzically, but he too was staring at me from under a heavy brow.

  “What have you to say for yourself, Scrooge?” he said. “Did you do it?” Then he chuckled and unfolded the newspaper. Beneath the headline “HUMBUG STRIKES AGAIN” and a drawing of poor Nellie Pearl sat a story about me. The title read, “IS HUMBUG THE ONLY KILLER?” My image was crammed beneath it, next to that of George Sunderland.