Dead Ringer

by Kat Ross

  “It’s not uncommon,” he replied. “Doctors prescribe it for everything from insomnia to cough. Half the patent medicines have it.”

  “Well, I thought she was in a hopeless fog at first, but then I wondered if it might not be an act, at least partly.” I bit my lip in consternation. “I can’t quite get a handle on her.”

  “The poor woman has been through a great deal in the last few years.”

  “I suppose so. Then Emmeline Bayard came in.”

  “The aunt?” John prompted.

  “Yes. She hauled Moran off to the kitchen to fetch a glass of milk, though why it required the two of them, I can’t say. There’s something off about her. I’d swear she has affection for Moran that borders on the . . . how shall I put it? The improper.”

  John laughed. “I wouldn’t expect any less from his charming family.”

  I quickly summarized the rest of my afternoon and John listened without interrupting. It was one of his finer qualities.

  “I’ll be lucky if Kaylock doesn’t sack me, but at least Kate and Wayne didn’t seem to mind. And don’t worry, I kept you out of it.”

  John frowned. “You didn’t have to.”

  “I know. But then at least one of us will still have a foot in the door at Pearl Street if it all goes south.”

  “Hmmm. Would you like to know what I’ve found out?” he asked.

  “Very much.”

  He couldn’t resist a trace of smugness. “I know what it is, Harry.”

  I leaned forward. “Do tell, Weston.”

  John set the bones down. He dropped his voice and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “What will you give me—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, just spit it out!” I exclaimed.

  John’s smile widened. When he still hesitated, I grabbed a sturdy femur from the table and brandished it threateningly. John laughed and held his hands up in surrender.

  “Now, now, no need to get violent. The creature we’re hunting is called a doppelgänger.”

  I frowned. “Sounds German.”

  “It is. The word means double walker. According to legend, they cast no reflection in a mirror or in water. They’re like a . . . a shadow twin.”

  I glanced at the grinning skull on the table. “That’s decidedly creepy, John.”

  “Isn’t it? There are various stories of doppelgängers appearing, but I found only one in which such an entity was deliberately summoned. It’s mentioned in The Night-Side of Nature.”

  I was familiar with the book. Authored by the English novelist Catherine Crowe, it purported to be a scientific exploration of ghosts and psychic phenomena. She had a special reverence for German mystics, and though the book was nearly half a century old, it remained popular with spiritualists and other students of the occult.

  “A single cryptic reference.” John took a copy from his satchel and leafed through it until he found the right page. “Franz von Baader says that some chap named Eckartshausen quote, unquote, assured him that he possessed the power of making a person’s double or wraith appear, while his body lay elsewhere in a state of trance or catalepsy. He added that the experiment might be dangerous, if care were not taken to prevent intercepting the rapport of the ethereal form with the material one.” John shut the book. “Which implies that it can be done.”

  I considered this. “Only in this case, the victims weren’t in a trance. They were on the other side of town doing things. Witnesses saw them.”

  “But it can be done,” John persisted.

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s definitely valuable.”

  He gave me a shrewd look. “You must have some dark horses in the running, Harry. Let’s hear them.”

  “I don’t, actually,” I admitted. “Kate and Wayne implied there could be some hidden hand targeting the Society, but none of them have any enemies in common. It’s just a hunch, but I don’t think Moran’s hiding a diabolical secret related to the club. If he knew the reason, he would never have hired us in the first place.” I sighed. “The crux of it seems to be the modus operandi. Why a doppelgänger?”

  “Because they’re terrifying,” John muttered.

  “That’s what I think, too.”

  “What scared you the most as a child?” he asked.

  I knew the answer immediately, as I suspect most people do. “Ghosts that come out of your mouth. Ectoplasm.”

  John cast me a sympathetic look. “Did Myrtle have anything to do with that?”

  I laughed uneasily. The memory still frightened me a little, though I knew I couldn’t trust it. “She was trying to teach me a lesson about observation, but I was too young to understand. How about you?”

  “Tree people,” John said. He had moved on to the skeleton’s arms, his fingers deftly twisting the wires.

  I frowned. “Tree people?”

  “Andy told me about them when I was four or five.” Andy was John’s older brother. “We were visiting cousins at their farm upstate and he said I had better watch out because one of the nearby towns had disappeared overnight. The trees crept up and strangled everyone while they were sleeping.”

  “Oh, that’s a bad one.”

  “You’ve no idea. He said that when some traveling peddlers came along the road, they found the whole village overgrown as if it had been abandoned for a hundred years, except that there were rotting corpses stuck in the brambles and hanging by the ankles from a jungle of vines.” John chuckled, but it was a haunted sound. “A branch kept scraping the window of the room we were in that night and I nearly died from fear.” He shook his head. “Monsters are born in childhood, aren’t they, Harry? And the part of us that believes never grows up. Not really.”

  “It cuts both ways,” I pointed out. “Danny Cherney summoned a monster to protect himself, though it didn’t work.”

  “I wonder what might have happened if he had given it proper instructions? If he’d been sober enough to think it through?”

  I smiled faintly. “A bare-knuckle match between a golem and a doppelgänger?”

  “Why not?” John sighed. “Though we’ll never know now.”

  I watched him work in silence for a minute. That ticklish feeling was back; the conviction that we were close to something important. “So if you wanted to kill someone in the worst way possible, you’d choose the tree people?” I asked.

  “I can’t imagine hating anyone that much,” John replied. “But for the sake of argument, yes, that’s what I would choose.”

  He finished the left foot and moved on to the right, his hands moving swiftly now that he knew the correct sequence of bones. “Here’s a thought,” he said absently. “What if the killer – we’ll call him a killer even though the deaths are all chalked up to accidents – what if the killer only wanted one of them dead?”

  John had just put his finger on a feeling I had but couldn’t quite explain. “Keep talking,” I said.

  “Like you say, the whole thing is cold-blooded, Harry. Such a person might not care about killing innocents. The ends would justify the means, wouldn’t they?”

  I nodded slowly. “It fits better than anything else.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” he said happily. “So then all we have to do is figure out which target was the true target, and we’re closing in on our killer. Of course, proving it will be something else, but I’d call that progress.”

  My mind was already racing ahead. “The deaths are following the order of the signatures on the club charter. So to get to the one the killer really wanted, they’d have to go through the early ones first.”

  “Right. Or it was one of the first ones and the rest were killed to throw us off the scent.”

  “No. I don’t think so.” I looked at John. “The obvious target is Moran. He has an army of enemies.”

  John scratched his head. “True. Which makes it harder. If so many people want him dead, how do we find out which one it is?”

  “Again, the modus operandi,” I replied. “Would a street thug really use black magic
to kill him?”

  “Probably not,” John conceded. “So who does that leave?”

  “Who, indeed,” I murmured. “I wish you’d been at his house with me. There’s something off in that family.”

  “But why would his own mother want to kill him? Or his aunt for that matter?”

  “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”

  John crowed with satisfaction as he attached the skull to the spinal column and stood back. “What do you think, Harry?”

  “I think you’ll ace your anatomy examination,” I told him fondly.

  “Assuming all hell hasn’t broken loose, I’ll take you to dinner tomorrow night at Seighortner’s. Consider it a rain check for your birthday dinner.” He gave me a heavy-lidded look. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten. You still owe me a kiss.”

  I rose up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his cheek.

  John’s eyes narrowed. “Oh no, Harry. That doesn’t count. That was sisterly.”

  I grinned. “I still owe you, Weston, but that one was for something else.”

  “What?” He placed the skeleton back on the table and began the laborious process of taking it apart again.

  “For cracking the case.”

  “Really? But I didn’t— Where are you going?”

  “To check on Myrtle and have a think,” I replied with a smile. “Seven o’clock tomorrow?”

  “I’ll make a reservation.”

  I thought briefly of my promise to Moran, but he’d have to wait. It was too late to call without arousing suspicion in the household. So I caught a dirty, overcrowded street car down Sixth Avenue to Tenth Street, my mind picking over the revelations of that long day.

  Mince pies were cooling on the kitchen counter and my stomach gave a loud grumble. I’d missed lunch and supper, too. Mrs. Rivers was humming a tune as she catalogued a pharmacopeia of pills, powders, tonics and ointments. I squinted at the colorful labels.

  Dalley’s Magical Pain Extractor

  Gold Dust Liniment (The Cheapest and the Best for Man or Beast)

  Dr. MacKenzie’s Improved Harmless Arsenic Wafers!

  “How’s the patient?” I asked, hiding the last one behind a tin of sugar when she looked away for a moment.

  Mrs. Rivers grunted. “Banging that cane on the floor every ten minutes, demanding to know where you went and when you’ll be back. Set the drapes on fire this morning and claimed it was an accident but didn’t seem sorry at all.” My housekeeper poured a glass of sherry, added a liberal dose of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup and took a bracing gulp. “The girl’s an ungrateful wretch. She refuses my remedies and we’re almost out of teacups because she’s taken to smashing them against the wall!”

  “Can I help?” I said, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry to have left you alone with her. I have a new case.”

  Her face softened. “That’s all right, Harry. I’ve managed Myrtle since she was four. She doesn’t scare me. But you can brew up some tea and bring it to her.” She nodded at the pot. “Not too hot, mind.”

  I lit the stove and set the kettle to boil. “Any news from Mother and Father?” I asked.

  “Not yet, I’m afraid, but I imagine it will be weeks. The packet ships are quite slow. How’s John?”

  “Busy with his studies. One more year and he’ll have his license to practice.”

  “He’ll make a fine doctor.” She eyed me shrewdly. “Yet you don’t sound happy about it, Harry.”

  “Well . . . I suppose it’s because I like working with him. And when he becomes a doctor, everything will change. We won’t see each other as much.”

  Mrs. Rivers nodded solemnly, though her blue eyes twinkled and she seemed to be suppressing some bout of humor.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Nothing, dear. I’m sure your friendship will continue, if you want it to.”

  The kettle started shrieking and I took it from the fire and poured it over the tea leaves, devouring a mince pie while I waited for it to steep. Mrs. Rivers reached for a tablespoon and one of her murky bottles, but I snatched the pot away before she could pollute it.

  “Can we skip it just this once?” I pleaded. “I’m tired of dodging missiles, especially when they’re full of hot liquid.”

  She relented and I carried the tray up to Myrtle’s room.

  “You got caught in the rain,” my sister observed when I entered her room.

  I looked down at my dress. “I went walking in the park,” I replied innocently. “I had an umbrella, but the wind ruined it.”

  Her grey eyes flickered over me, picking apart every inch, every stitch, and I felt as if I wore a sandwich board that read, Hello! I just spent the afternoon with James Moran! But she couldn’t know.

  Not even Myrtle.

  “You have a new case. I can see it in your face.” She sat up straighter in bed. “Let’s hear all the details. Leave nothing out—”

  “I can’t,” I replied apologetically. “Kaylock’s sworn me to secrecy.”

  She seemed about to object and I cast about for a change of subject. “My word, Myrtle, it’s actually clean in here. And the air is breathable.”

  “The old hag took my cigarettes away,” she muttered. “Said they weren’t conducive to convalescence. I’ll need you to run out to the tobacconist tomorrow first thing.”

  I made a sympathetic noise, but I was secretly glad. John said it wasn’t true that smoking cured asthma and lung ailments, the way some of the companies claimed. And my sister tended to go overboard with everything she indulged in.

  “Tea?” I offered her the cup. “It’s plain, I swear.”

  Myrtle sniffed the cup, then took a cautious sip. Her face relaxed a little. “I haven’t tasted plain tea in weeks, Harrison.” She gave me a brief nod. “Thanks.”

  “Would you like to play chess?”

  “No.” Her long fingers picked up a matchstick and broke it in half. I noticed a small pile of mutilated matches in her lap.

  “Satisfying sound, isn’t it?” she murmured, snapping another one. “This is what I’m reduced to, Harrison.” Her gaze landed on the chamber pot on the corner. “If the hag continues to torment me, I’ll throw more than tea at her next time. You can tell her I said so.”

  “I could read to you. John gave me a new book on forensics.”

  She lay back against the pillows, staring bleakly at the ceiling. “Fine.”

  I fetched Washing Away of Wrongs and related the story about the bloody sickle and the blowflies. It seemed to perk her up a bit, so I read the chapter on suicides by edged weapons and how to tell when a death by manual choking – i.e., murder — is disguised as a death by hanging.

  “That’s a delightfully grim little volume,” Myrtle observed. “Weston gave it to you for your birthday?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s a keeper, Harrison. Pray continue.”

  I resumed my bleak litany. Song Ci was extremely thorough and the coroners’ guide covered scalding, poison, drowning, stabbing, overeating, death from tiger bites, and even a whole section titled “when the head and the trunk are in different places.” Myrtle listened quietly, her gaze dreamy from the morphine, interrupting now and again to seek clarification of some finer point. It was the most time we had spent together since that night watching the Avalon.

  “I’ve been wondering about tool marks,” I said casually, holding my place with a finger. “It’s the one area the author neglected.”

  Myrtle’s eyes sharpened. “What sort of tool marks?”

  “I can’t divulge the details, but there’s a case that might involve breaking and entering. Is it possible to identify, or at least narrow down, the source of scratches on wood?”

  “Oh, it’s possible. I wrote a monograph on it,” she replied, waving a hand towards the bookcase. “Over there, second shelf down, third volume on the left.”

  “May I borrow it?”

  “Of course.” She smiled. “Best of luck with the case, Harrison. Now finish the chapte
r on the opening of graves.”

  At last, my sister fell asleep. I took her monograph to my room and read for a while, but the tone was exceedingly dry and I found it hard to focus.

  A doppelgänger. Did the person who had conjured it up know how to send it back where it came from?

  That was the (rather large) problem. Even if we unmasked the culprit, it might not save our client.

  I kept thinking of the dogs and Moran’s music room. My sister claimed he kept everything in his head, at least as it pertained to illegal activities, but how could she know for certain? His habit was to lock the door but not the filing cabinet. Did he keep documents written in the supposedly unbreakable code that someone might kill for? I needed to examine those scratches again – and soon.

  I drifted into a fitful sleep until sometime after midnight, when a cold hand clamped over my mouth.

  Chapter 11

  I grabbed the fingers and twisted them back as hard as I could. There was a soft yelp in the darkness and the grip eased. My heart raced as I threw off the covers and leapt to my feet. A shadowy figure stood at the end of my bed. Adrenaline flooded me as I realized it was James Moran.

  Or something worse.

  “Don’t rouse the whole damned house,” he hissed. “Please.”

  My pulse slowed, fear replaced by anger as I realized it must be the original.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered furiously. “Have you lost your mind?”

  I groped for the candle and matches. The flame burst to life and he threw up a hand, shying from the sudden light. When he spoke, there was a tremor in his voice.

  “I saw it, Pell. Standing outside my front door. I snuck out the back. I . . . I didn’t know what to do, so I came here.”

  I snatched up the blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. “You could have gone to the Avalon.”

  “No! It’s followed me there before.”

  He lowered his hand and my anger faded. Moran looked ghastly. He wore no coat, an unthinkable breach of etiquette. His shirt was wrinkled, his tie unknotted and hanging crookedly around his neck. The half-moons of exhaustion beneath his eyes were so dark he looked like he had taken a beating. Rough stubble covered his gaunt cheeks.