Zander shuffled files and opened his report. “In your own words, Phaeton, you report the man was able to”—Zander double-checked the notes—“jump from the top of a six-foot wall to a second-floor window ledge to a rooftop in just so many effortless leaps. And rather quickly—‘blink of an eye’ it says here.”
The chill sobriety of the room was interrupted by a quiet knock as Mr. Oliver opened the door. “I beg your pardon for the intrusion, gentlemen, but a young man from the mortician’s office was just here with a rather unusual tale to report. Since Mr. Black is here, I thought—”
“Yes. Yes, Mr. Oliver, bring him in.”
Chilcott’s secretary shut the door behind him and inched forward. “I’m afraid the young man has run off. He requested that an agent follow along as soon as possible.”
“What seems to be the problem at the morgue?”
“A dead police officer, sir, found near the Strand last night.”
Zander leaned forward, “Mr. Oliver, we are aware of the murder. The very reason we called Phaeton in—”
“According to the mortician’s assistant”—the pitch of Mr. Oliver’s voice rose and he shuffled a bit on his feet—“the dead body sat straight up on the examination table this morning and attacked Doctor Meloni.”
Oliver nodded a bow to Zander. “Sorry for the interruption, Mr. Farrell.” The ordinarily polite and unflappable secretary turned to his boss. “I believe what remains of the police officer is still moving about, sir.”
The only sound in the room was the squeak of Chilcott’s chair as he leaned forward. “Well, what are we waiting for gentlemen?”
It took all six men to restrain the dead man.
Gripping a leg with one hand, Phaeton pulled a copy of The Feast of Blood out of his coat pocket. “We’ll need a stake to drive through his heart.”
Zander frowned. “I thought they were never able to kill Varney.”
“Poor distressed old vampire threw himself into the crater of Mount Vesuvius.” Phaeton pressed a bit more muscle into service to quell a jerking knee joint. “However, I have here a long list of talismans, cures, and elimination methods we might try.”
The body began another fit of violent shakes. Chilcott slammed a writhing forearm back onto the slab. “Someone find a stake, damn it.”
After an exasperating bit of shuffling about, the coroner’s assistant held a metal rod over the zombie’s chest, and Dr. Meloni swung the hammer. A swath of blood erupted from the poor devil’s chest, spewing over agents and mortuary workers. To make matters worse, the wretched corpse continued to twitch.
Phaeton saw no way around it. “Perhaps for good measure we should separate the head from the body.”
A slightly wild-eyed Meloni got out his autopsy hacksaw and removed the head. “Let’s hope this ends it.” The mortician wiped stained hands on a lab coat smeared in red.
Droplets of sweat and blood dripped off Phaeton’s brow. “Anyone for a bit of fresh air?”
Chilcott called a meeting in the small yard outside the morgue. Lowering his voice he eyeballed each and every man. “Not one word gentlemen. Neither to friends or family. If the press gets so much as a hint of this episode, Scotland Yard will be written about for years to come in the penny dreadfuls.”
The director continued to scan the crimson-splattered men in front of him. His gaze came to rest on Phaeton. “I expect you’re used to this kind of thing.”
He hardly knew what to say to the man. “Gone on for years, sir. Since I was a wee lad. All manner of ghouls and grotesques.”
“Yes. I suppose that explains you, Mr. Black. Chilcott exhaled. “I’m put off supper this evening. Anyone care to join for a pint or two?”
Phaeton staggered into Mrs. Parker’s drunk and beat.
Esmeralda called down the corridor. “You have a guest, Phaeton, waiting in your flat. And please run upstairs and visit Lizzie, she’s been asking after you.”
He turned toward the sound of her voice. He had not forgotten that she bedded Dr. Jason Exeter. The room swayed slightly. “I might suggest you and Doctor Exeter sit by her bedside. He to hold her hand and you to hold the hard, manly parts.” He braced the wall, which was badly listing. “A ghoulish little ménage à trois.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Very.” He stopped himself halfway into a turn. “Whooze, waiting below stairs?”
Esmeralda shot him a look and a smirk. “That pretty little thing you had tied to a chair the other morning.”
Phaeton squinted in an attempt to bring her bustled rear into better focus.
A pivot toward the stairwell proved challenging as he considered the uninvited female in his flat. “Pretty little—?” He groaned.
Descending one step at a time, the tantalizing aroma of exotic curry spices wafted up to greet him. He dipped down to take a peek and nearly fell head first down the last section of stairs.
“Mr. Black, I’ve been expecting you for some time. Come, have your supper.”
The room smelled delightful.
She had the audacity to smile. “Esmeralda was kind enough to donate the spices, and I purchased a bit of sausage and lentils to make a potage.”
“I’m not hungry.” His stomach growled.
“Have a seat, Mr. Black, and a bit of stew. It will do you good. Quash the stout in your system.”
“Why?” He plopped down on a chair and she ladled out a healthy portion. The blasted little tart bit her lip. To keep from laughing at him, he supposed, but it was alluring all the same.
She stood beside the table and straightened her apron and skirts.
Slurping a bit of hot broth, he sighed. “Miss ... Jones. That is your name, is it not? I seem to recall a young lady with pirates after her.” He looked up. “Why are you standing? Spoon up a bowl for yourself and join.” He pushed out a chair.
She fixed a sober stare his way. “I’ve come to ask for a job.” He looked behind him. “From who?”
“From you, Mr. Black.”
“I don’t employ servants. Never have. Never will.” He swallowed a lovely bit of sausage. “This is quite good.”
She smiled. “I learned to bake and cook some, on voyages. Papa employed a wonderful Indian man he found in the Adaman Islands who taught me many dishes. And I am neat and clean by nature, so keeping house for you will not be difficult—”
He noted the basket of buns on the table. “Did you make those?”
She nodded.
Phaeton set down his spoon. “I am not going to engage you.” He dipped a piece of warm bread into the stew. “Even if you do make heavenly buns.”
“I’ll work for two and six a week, plus room and board.”
He concentrated on the bowl in front of him. It seems he had no choice but to frown his way through bread and broth.
“I need this job, Mr. Black.”
“Did your father leave you nothing to live on?”
“All that was left of his property was a large repository in the Basin. Father formed a new business and named me as full partner.” He distinctly heard a catch in her throat. “Everything burned to the ground last night. That warehouse was my living, what I could make off the rent to other traders.”
Studying her a moment, he chewed on a crusty piece. “I’m sorry to hear that, Miss Jones, but your misfortune has nothing to do with me.”
“I believe it does, Mr. Black. If I hadn’t been tied up all morning, I might have been able to prevent the break-in and the fire. I hold you partly, if not wholly, responsible. Therefore, you owe me.”
“Hold on—”
“I won’t take up much space. I notice you have a room, across from your own, that would fit a small bed.”
Phaeton raised his voice. “How many times must I say no before you grasp my meaning?” Her persistent pestering caused a sudden onset of sobriety, greatly agitating his nerves.
“I need a job, Mr. Black, and a roof over my head, at least until I can find employment elsewhere.”
“Not here. For a few extra bob a month, Mrs. Parker’s housekeeper sends her daughter down to dust and pick up laundry. And I take my meals out.”
For all he knew, she was a common street thief. This imaginary tea trader father of hers and now a burned out warehouse. She must think him a prize thickhead to fall for such a flimsy pack of lies.
“Get out.”
She untied her apron and tossed it over a chair back.
“I will give you one day to reconsider, Mr. Black. I currently have a bed assigned to me at the Sisters of Mercy Night Home on Lower Seymour Street.” She pulled on a dingy, grey coat with black velvet lapels. It might have been a very nice looking coat at one time, but it was singed and blackened now.
Phaeton leaned back in his chair. “Come here.”
She circled slowly as he brushed off a bit of soot, “If I do not hear from you by end of day tomorrow, I shall be forced to take Mrs. Parker up on her offer.”
Mrs. Parker? Phaeton smiled. “Now, that sort of service I do hire, Miss Jones.”
Chapter Six
AMERICA KICKED A FEW CHARRED BITS OF RUBBLE as she picked her way across the burned-out remains of the warehouse. A shiny metal button caught her eye. She turned it over and ran her thumb over the letter D. A typewriter key of all things. The shape of the character form was distorted—now all she could think about were D words. She stepped over chunks of blackened timber. “Distressed, despairing, devastated, dejected, despondent ...”
“Careful now, Miss Jones.”
“Yes, Officer Wilkie.”
Their district policeman patrolled the burn site to ward off the ragpickers. Scavengers, who would comb through the debris inch by inch, collecting anything they could sell to scrap dealers.
“My orders are to keep trespassers out, everything nice and quiet-like. An agent from Scotland Yard is coming to look about for evidence of arson.”
She stopped in her tracks and slowly eased her way out of the wreckage. So, one of London’s celebrated detectives suspected something. A faster rhythm beat in her chest, as her breath caught for an instant. The possibility that anyone, besides herself, suspected foul play gave America a measure of hope. Something she had given up on, as of late.
“What are you to do, lass, now that the business is gone?”
“I must find employment, Officer Wilkie.” She sighed. “I detest the idea of factory work, but I must labor at something if I am to afford a room in a boardinghouse. The Lucifer Match factory is always looking to hire.”
“Ahh, girl, a bad lot o’trouble for your toil.”
She nodded. Just passing by the dank, malodorous sweatshop made a person choke from the sulfurous air. A girl might contract the disease that gradually rotted a body’s jawbone away. A shudder ran through her body.
Mrs. Parker had offered a job. Said she ran a clean house and encouraged the use of condoms. Still, America wasn’t desperate or frightened enough to earn a living on her back.
A small bit of happiness tugged at the ends of her mouth as she fingered the large bill in her hand. She considered the rude, irritating man who likely planted the five-pound note in her coat pocket last evening.
You are a puzzle, Mr. Black.
Phaeton stood in the middle of Savoy Row and stared at the basement railing of the mercantile building. The lane was different in morning light. Day laborers pushed hand carts past bookbinders and printing guilds. Bustling, noisy. Completely unthreatening. He recalled a pretty, copper-skinned female with almond-shaped eyes. Out cold, right about—here. She had swung at him and missed, striking her head on the corner of the iron rail.
Had he helped the little minx escape justice? Those pirates she claimed to be hiding from were likely men she had stolen from. He could not shake the idea, however, that an experienced thief would have held onto her blade, taken money over sex, and knocked him, not herself, unconscious. He surveyed the small niche where he had thrust himself into the bonnie lass. There, the narrow outcropping of brick where he rested her plump derriere, just enough leverage to get in between those luscious thighs ...
“Phaeton?” A pale-skinned young man wearing thick, dark spectacles struck a safety match and held it to his pipe. Long tapered fingers curled around the bowl as full lips drew down on the stem.
A blush of tawny color washed over an elegant face shaded partially by a top hat. The glasses, which guarded light-sensitive eyes, gripped the bridge of an aristocratic nose. High cheekbones angled toward ears that were nearly elfish.
He smiled. “Sorry Ping, woolgathering.” He shook his head and cleared his throat. “I ended up in circles, following a cold trail. I’m afraid any trace of the fiend has long melted away.”
“Shall we double back and have another look at that dustbin and window ledge? I’ve a mind we might still find some evidence.”
The sweet smell of opium wafted in the air. “Chasing the dragon?”
Ping arched a brow. “Mix in a bit with my tobacco. Helps to ease contact.”
Phaeton retraced his route, staying a step ahead of the pale-faced creature wrapped in a long black coat and carrying a small satchel. The odd, enigmatic Mr. Julian Ping might be the very best forensics man in London, outside of Scotland Yard. He was also a most unusual crime fighter.
Ping used his extraordinary abilities to re-create the scene of a crime, through making some sort of clairvoyant link with the perpetrator. The strange lad connected to the rage, pain, and pleasure of the criminal mind. He saw through the eyes of the beast, even smelled the victim’s blood. The use of opiates dulled the experience.
Phaeton could hardly begrudge the young man a bit of the pipe. He led them back to Savoy Row and into a labyrinth of connecting walkways that meandered from the Strand to the Embankment along the Thames.
Ping set down his instrument case and retrieved a blade the size of a penknife and a small tin. He carefully scraped dried blood off the window ledge and collected a gobbet of unspeakable slime from a nearby refuse bin. Notebook in hand, Phaeton sketched out a crude map of the area. “Three murders. Here. Here.” He placed an X at each spot where a body had been found. “And here.”
Sallow cheeks puffed silently as the rare gentleman studied the sketch. “Two of them quite close to the Embankment, actually.” Ping lifted his sunshades and squinted. Bright winter light accentuated the hooded slant to his eyes. He used his bent briar pipe as a pointer. “Let’s have a look down along the Thames.”
A passageway between buildings led to an intersecting alley angled toward the river. A look of intense concentration marked the young mesmerist’s face. “You’re being rather methodical for a man of pseudoscience.”
“When you wired about a walking corpse in the morgue and a possible Empusa, I admit I was skeptical. But now ...” His nose sniffed the air like a bloodhound after a wanted criminal.
Phaeton’s pulse accelerated. Ping sensed something. Rounding a bend, shades of silver-grey water shimmered through a break in the row buildings. “Ah, here we are.”
They reached the corner where the first body was found. “This one was male, and the second—”
“A female, you found her just over there.” Ping flipped down cobalt blue lenses, but his mouth gripped the pipe tight enough to cause a dimple.
The gentleman seer led the way to the second spot. Once again, in the broad glare of day, both crime scenes appeared less than threatening.
Mentally, Phaeton rifled through various field reports of the murders. The bodies had been found early in the morning, the first by a neighborhood policeman, the next by laborers, employed by a nearby engraver’s guild.
Something about the Strand murders continued to niggle at him. An intuition surfaced every time he compared these crimes to the string of unsolved murders that had begun and ended last year in Whitechapel. They were nothing alike and yet there was something coincidentally mysterious about them, mismatched bookends, but a queer pair nonetheless.
Ping used an umbrella to forage about in
a crate filled with shredded leather refuse. The eccentric sleuth had often proven himself to be more adventurous than many of the Yard’s field detectives. Phaeton exhaled. “You are aware Chilcott fired me over the Ripper fiasco?”
“Wild conjectures fueled by opium and absinthe, wasn’t it?”
He grimaced. “Close enough.” He dropped his voice a register. “What if I told you that I sense some kind of linkage?”
Ping swiveled slowly toward him, puffing heavily on his pipe. “Between the Chapel murders and the Strand?”
“Let’s have a stroll down the Embankment, shall we?” Phaeton turned away from the scene. “I’d like to review what we know, unequivocally, about each one of these homicides.”
Ping nodded. “I’d like a briefing on the injured party, as well. A prostitute in your employ, I believe?”
Phaeton assembled a list of facts in his head and repeated them aloud. “All killed south of the Strand, most likely after midnight, but before daybreak. All were drained of blood, the bodies marked by scattered puncture wounds. Sometimes two, sometimes more. Always in pairs.” He squinted as the sun broke through at bit of cloud cover. “Two corpses were found lying in a pool of blood. A third was not.”
“The officer at the morgue.” Ping rubbed his chin with the pipe stem. “The corpse you, Zander, and Chilcott stabbed in the heart and cut to pieces.”
“Right.” He took a deep breath. “Pure conjecture, but the poor bloke may have been drained of blood over time. Think of it, a bobby on his beat—about in the Row every evening. A regular meal for the fiend, if you follow. Lizzie has been attacked twice. She shows signs of a personality change. Often wants to sleep walk, as if she was being drawn away from us.”
“What do you sense intuitively, Phaeton? Forget Chilcott and the rest.”
He chewed on his lower lip. His warnings about the Ripper murders had been dismissed as wild talk—raving, unprofessional guesswork. Eventually, due to a mountain of pressure, Chilcott had called Phaeton into his office and given him the sack.
The Seduction of Phaeton Black Page 5
