Dead Ringer

by Kat Ross

  Moran was wound tight. He kept looking up and down the street, although I didn’t think it was Hannah Ferber he feared.

  I drew a deep breath and knocked on the blue door.

  It was opened by a woman with a round face and messy brown hair falling out of its bun. She had a frazzled, worn-out look. A toddler clung to her skirts with grubby fingers and another even younger one crawled on the floor at her feet. Over her shoulder, I saw two boys, about nine and eleven, engaged in a mock sword fight with broomsticks. One of them swung wildly, just missing his brother’s head, and something smashed to the floor.

  “Hannah Ferber?” I asked in a friendly tone.

  She frowned and bent to pick up the baby, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. Then she saw Moran and her eyes widened. She tried to slam the door but he shoved his foot into the crack.

  “Let us in or I’ll smash it to splinters,” he said quietly.

  She looked past us to the street and hugged the baby tighter. “What do you want?” Her accent was much thicker than Klara Schmidt’s and I guessed she was fresh off the boat from Germany.

  “A blonde woman came to see you a month ago. I think you know who I mean.”

  Hannah Ferber stared at him, fear in her eyes.

  “I need answers and I’m willing to pay. You’ll talk to me either way.” Moran’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Take a moment and decide how it’s going to be. You have five seconds.”

  She hesitated. Then she stepped back from the door, a resigned look on her face, and made way for us to enter. The house was a palace compared to the Division Street flat and I saw no sign she shared it with any other families. Emma had indeed paid her well.

  Hannah Ferber led us to a small parlor with striped wallpaper. My quick impression was that she had hastily bought a new house but didn’t have enough money left over to buy furniture. The parlor was empty save for a very shabby table and chairs. I smelled bread baking in the kitchen.

  Hannah Ferber gestured for us to sit. “Show me the money.”

  Moran threw a wad of banknotes on the table. She counted it and left the room, returning a minute later with the baby on her hip. She yelled at the older boys in German and they retreated upstairs.

  Moran waited until they had gone. “You’ve been paid,” he growled. “Now talk. What exactly did you do to me?”

  Hannah Ferber emphatically shook her head, bouncing the baby on her knee. “Not me. Dark magic comes back on the one who calls it. Very dangerous.” She paused. “The woman was a friend of Klara. She said a bad man is after her.” She eyed Moran nervously. “I saw it when you came to the door. The darkness upon you.”

  He gripped the edge of the table. “There’s a fucking darkness because you put it there!”

  Hannah Ferber flinched.

  “How do I send it back where it came from?” he demanded.

  The baby started to cry. She made a shushing sound. “You saw it? Your shadow twin?”

  Moran didn’t reply, but the look on his face was answer enough.

  “They bring very bad luck.” She pursed her lips. “Or sometimes good luck, but usually bad.”

  “Does it want something?” John asked.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe you could make it tell you, but few live long enough to find out. They are very rare magic. The woman who taught me my craft in the Black Forest told me never to summon one lightly.”

  “How are they called?” John asked.

  Shrieks erupted upstairs, followed by the sound of something breaking and the plaintive wail of the toddler. Hannah Ferber’s lips tightened. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Please excuse me.”

  She stomped up the stairs and I heard her yelling at the boys in German.

  “This is ridiculous,” Moran said with a scowl. “You’d think a black witch could keep control of her own damned children!”

  A minute later, Hannah Ferber returned. She led the toddler by the hand. Snot ran down his face and he was gripping a stick of peppermint candy in one fist.

  “There are different ways, but I know of only one,” she said, as if the conversation had never been interrupted. “You need different things, but the most important is the victim’s blood.”

  “The charter,” Moran whispered to himself. “Would dried blood work?”

  “Yes, it needn’t be much. There are words you must speak and some things to burn. Powdered cow’s tongue and venomous skullcap, three rusty coffin nails and the wishbone of a black rooster. A handful of dirt from the grave of a murderer. Two teaspoons of wintergreen—”

  “I don’t need the damned recipe,” Moran said coldly. “You told Emma Bayard all of this?”

  “She never gave her name, but yes. She wrote everything down and asked where to get them. There is a black market for such things if you know the right people.” Hannah Ferber shifted restlessly. “I’m very busy. What else do you—”

  “Three men are already dead from this curse,” John exclaimed. “Doesn’t that trouble you?”

  Hannah Ferber looked ashamed. “She paid me a great deal of money. Enough to leave that filthy hole we were living in.” Her chin rose with a hint of defiance. “I had to think of my children. I wasn’t even sure it would work.”

  “Well, it did,” Moran snarled. “So I’ll ask you once again. How do I send the doppelgänger back where it came from?”

  She hesitated and his icy gaze settled on the baby, who crawled across the floor pulling a toy boat on a string. Moran said nothing, but Hannah Ferber went so white I thought she might faint.

  I almost walked out at that point. Whatever this woman had done, my own client was the scariest person in the room by far. But leaving would solve nothing and at least I could warn Hannah Ferber that she had inadvertently crossed the Devil.

  “What was the object used to bind it?” Hannah Ferber asked in a shaky voice. “Do you know?”

  “A document signed in blood,” I said. “There are seven names on it.”

  “The curse will continue until it has worked its way through all of them.” She licked her lips. “Where is the document now?”

  “I have it,” Moran replied.

  She nodded eagerly. “That is very good. Very lucky. If you burn it, the spell will break and the Other will return to its own plane.”

  Moran leapt to his feet. “You could have told me that straightaway! If you’re lying—”

  John tensed, ready to keep Moran from throttling her.

  “I’m not, I swear! You will see.” Her voice was assured now, full of authority. “Burn the paper and the curse will be broken.”

  Moran’s eyes held hope for the first time. Personally, I suspected Hannah Ferber would say anything at all to be rid of us, but a faint chance was better than none and perhaps Moran’s unnatural luck would work in his favor.

  “Thank you,” I told her, lowering my voice as Moran kicked the toy boat aside and hurried into the hall. “You should leave town as soon as possible. I mean today.”

  She said nothing, just watched with mingled relief and anxiety as we left. Moran was already climbing up to the driver’s bench. I got into the carriage and glimpsed her one last time, staring through the window at us with pity in her eyes.

  “I should have guessed,” Moran muttered. “The charter. Thank God I have it safe—”

  He broke off, a strange look on his face. The hands holding the reins tightened convulsively. His throat worked as if clamping down on a silent scream and I thought of Cash O’Sullivan’s stutter and how Moran had compared it to choking on a fishbone. For that’s just what he looked like now, his cheeks white with splotches of red, his breath coming in thin, wheezing gasps.

  John climbed up and seized the reins. He shook them and the horses leapt forward eagerly as if they were as glad to be quit of that place as we were. As the carriage hurtled east towards Tenth Avenue, I turned back and peered through the small oval window at the rear of the brougham.

  The doppelgänger stood in the mid
dle of the street watching us, a fixed smile on its face.

  Chapter 16

  The house was quiet as a crypt when we returned, though all the gas jets were burning. Moran strode through the black and white tiled foyer and dashed upstairs, taking the risers two at a time. A minute passed and we heard a howl of fury.

  “It’s gone!” he cried, leaning over the banister. “That vile bitch must have come back and taken it.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Her rooms . . . .” And with that, Moran was off again, tearing up to the third floor where we heard faint cursing and the sounds of furniture being thrown about.

  “He’s come undone,” John observed.

  We looked at each other. “I think we’d better bring in Mallory,” I said. “We did our best.”

  “I’m glad you’re seeing reason, Harry.”

  A crash resounded above our heads.

  “But we just can’t abandon him, can we?”

  John sighed. “I suppose not.”

  We climbed up to the third floor. Tamsin’s room was empty, of course. The sheets had been stripped from her large four-poster bed, though I smelled vomit and a bitter hint of laudanum. Down the hall lay the gigantic master suite, which no one had occupied for three years. And finally, Emma’s room, where we found Moran sitting in the midst of carnage.

  Gowns and shoes and jewelry littered the carpet. The drawers of the vanity had been flung across the room. He’d smashed her collection of perfume bottles and it smelled like a French bordello. Goose feathers drifted lazily through the air. Moran had gutted her mattress with a switchblade.

  His chest heaved as he stared at us.

  “Not here, I take it,” John said.

  Moran seemed beyond words. He shook his head.

  I took a closer look at the items strewn about the room. “Have a look at that,” I said, pointing to a smashed box in the corner. Withered, forked roots had tumbled out, along with what looked like animal incisors and a deformed, leathery thing that might have been a mummified foot. Moran crawled over and poked it with his knife. “Mother of Christ,” he muttered.

  “What’s this?” John said.

  He had gone to investigate the closet. Now he held up a round metal vessel, the sides and bottom blackened by fire. We all stared at it for a moment.

  “It’s a fucking cauldron,” Moran said wonderingly.

  John sniffed it and made a face, hastily setting the cauldron on the floor. “I think we can safely say she practiced witchcraft in this room. And she would have needed the charter for the summoning spell.”

  “She broke in and took it once before, when she first invoked the curse,” I said to Moran. “Then she must have returned it in case you looked. But that’s what got me pointed in the right direction. Do you remember those scratches around the doorknob of the music room I asked you about? They’re not from the dogs.” I couldn’t keep the note of triumph from my voice. “They’re from a woman’s hairpin! I thought it might be Emma, but I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for a monograph Myrtle wrote on the nascent forensic science of tool marks—”

  “Put a lid on it, Pell,” Moran snarled.

  “Er . . . sorry.”

  John walked over, glass crunching beneath his shoes, and offered a hand. To my surprise, Moran took it. He dusted himself off and we went back downstairs, thoroughly searching the other rooms on the way. There was no one home and no sign of the Pythagoras Society charter.

  Once again, we assembled in the drawing room. John poured three fresh whiskies.

  I was starting to feel like we were all in a bad play with too many acts.

  Outside, darkness was falling quickly. The wind gained strength, moaning under the eaves and hurling the autumn leaves about. Moran looked utterly disconsolate, sitting with his head cradled in his hands.

  “You need protection,” John said firmly. “It’s time to admit we’re outmatched. Don’t worry, the Night Squad will keep it quiet. They’re not like the regular police. And I know the agents from the S.P.R. who are working the case. Discretion is their middle name.”

  “And what exactly can they do?” Moran muttered. “Lock me in a nice padded cell at Bellevue?”

  “They can launch a manhunt for Emma, for one thing,” John replied. “She can’t have gone far.”

  Moran gave him dubious look. “There’s two and a half million people in this city, Weston. All she has to do is hide out until I’m dead.” He turned his face away. “Which won’t be long.”

  “Maybe you should go stay at the Fifth Avenue Hotel for now,” I suggested. “Check on your mother—”

  “And have her witness whatever fate awaits me? It would destroy her. No, I’ll take my chances here. Running won’t make a damned bit of difference. I won’t hide like some whipped cur!” He tossed the whiskey back and poured another but didn’t drink it, just sat with his head in his hands.

  I signaled to John and we stepped into the back hall, just through the doorway, where we could keep an eye on Moran. It occurred to me that we stood in the exact same spot where Klara Schmidt had watched him shoot his father.

  “One of us needs to run over to the Nineteenth Ward,” I said. “It’s the closest precinct. The officers there can telegraph Mulberry Street and summon the Night Squad.”

  John sighed. “By one of us, I can tell you mean me. I’m not crazy about the idea of leaving you here, Harry.”

  “His doppelgänger poses no threat to anyone else. You’re faster. And I don’t know any patrolmen at the Nineteenth. They’d write me off as a hysterical female.” I rubbed my arms. The skin-crawling sensation was all too familiar. Chance was starting to twist in unforeseeable ways, an elaborate mousetrap waiting for Moran to nibble at the cheese.

  “Every minute counts now,” I said in a low voice. “If we can’t burn that charter, at least we can bring the full weight of the Night Squad to bear. You were right, we should have done it before.”

  We both looked at Moran. He had risen from the couch and his eyes flicked around the room, examining each object in turn. I knew what he was thinking. Which will it be?

  “Where’s the precinct house?” John asked in a resigned tone.

  “Fifty-Ninth between Second and Third.”

  He nodded. “Sit tight. I’ll be back soon.” John paused at the front door. “If you see it, get out of the house. Both of you.”

  I gave his hand a quick squeeze and returned to the drawing room.

  “Any ideas at all where Emma might have gone?” I asked.

  Moran shook his head. We sat without speaking. It was the most oppressive, dismal interlude I have ever spent. I kept glancing at the clock, calculating how long it would take John to bring help. Forty minutes at least and that’s only if they took him seriously.

  My gaze moved across the family portraits. Now that I knew the truth, they had a more sinister aspect. The old grandfather seemed to be glaring down in disgust. Tamsin’s blue eyes shimmered with nameless despair. Even the yappy dog in her lap looked forlorn.

  I gulped some whiskey, shuddering as it worked its way down.

  Every faint creak of that old house seemed a herald of doom.

  I felt a small lump in my pocket and found the rosary. I cleared my throat. “I have something for you. From Klara Schmidt.”

  Moran’s eyes flicked to mine. “What is it?”

  I opened my palm and showed him the gold crucifix. “I can’t say I liked her much, but I do believe she felt sorry at the end. She asked me to give you this.”

  “I want nothing from that woman,” he muttered. “Nothing.”

  “I’ll just keep it then—”

  He reached out and snatched it from my hand. To my astonishment, Moran pressed the rosary to his lips and quickly hung it around his own neck.

  “I didn’t think you were religious,” I said.

  He gave a silent laugh that was more a gust of air. “I was raised Irish Catholic, Pell. Those nuns still scare me.” He tucked the rosary inside his shirt next to
his heart. “And I might be a vainglorious bastard, but I’m not fool enough to spit in the Lord’s face. Not that I have any right to expect Him to help me now.”

  Moran lapsed into a dark reverie. There was an awful resignation in his posture, as if the fight had finally gone out of him. I’m not sure what he might have done if he’d been alone. Ended it like Cash O’Sullivan, perhaps.

  I took another gulp of whiskey.

  My nerves were strung so tight I jumped clear out of my seat when a sudden scratching came at the door.

  Moran’s head snapped around. We stared at the knob.

  Silence. Then the scratching came again, like nails on wood, followed by chuffing breath against the crack.

  The whiskey lent me courage. I strode to the fireplace and seized the poker, then crossed to the door.

  “Pell, don’t—” Moran cried.

  I threw it open. The brindle dog bounded into the room, nearly bowling me over. It went straight to Moran and licked his face.

  “Blue!” he exclaimed, rubbing its ears. “Where did you come from, boy?”

  The appearance of the dog cheered Moran considerably. He wrestled it off the sofa and it rubbed its big head against his knee. I peered into the hall and saw the black hound flopped down on the second landing of the stairs, red tongue lolling as it regarded me with a canine grin.

  “I’d swear they weren’t here before,” I said with a frown. “John and I checked all the rooms upstairs.” I covered my mouth with a hand. “Oh!”

  We shared a silent look. Moran rose to his feet and moved stealthily into the hall. We stood together at the bottom of the staircase looking up. Blue hurtled past and vanished into the second floor corridor. The faint notes of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor drifted down.

  “She’s playing the funeral march,” Moran said in a disbelieving tone.