The Fire in the Glass

by Jacquelyn Benson

  Yet the flames still flickered in the glass. They glowed in not just one window, but all of them, the same hungry glare dancing before her, mirrored a dozen times over.

  Mirrored . . .

  Reflections. It wasn’t this building that was burning. It was somewhere else, someplace close by, the conflagration echoed in all those panes of glass.

  A clatter of hooves broke her concentration, pulling her gaze from the building to the deserted street.

  Not entirely deserted.

  A single sheep trotted toward her down the empty road. It shone in the darkness, its wool gleaming like spun gold.

  “Bitter,” it bleated as it hurried past her. “Bitter. Bitter.”

  Bells rang out, shattering the silence. Their clear sound sparkled through the winter air.

  Lily knew that sound. The tones were familiar. If she could just place it . . .

  Something rustled overhead.

  A raven sat at the pinnacle of the roof. It looked down at her, tilting its head, black eyes glittering with dark intelligence.

  It ruffled its feathers again, then burst into flight—not one raven, but five. Ten. Dozens, a wave of ravens, rising from the roof to obscure the sky. They arrowed south, moving with fierce purpose.

  What was the collective name for ravens?

  The thought was vague, inconsequential, but it tugged at her, refusing to be set aside.

  Then the answer clicked into place.

  Murder. It was called a murder.

  The murder dove, consuming her in a whirlwind of sharp beaks and black feathers. Lily threw up her hands to protect herself and felt the burn of hot wax as the candle clattered to the ground.

  The flame guttered, then blinked out, leaving her in darkness.

  A soft chorus of gasps rose up through the floorboards, Estelle’s séance-goers reacting to some manufactured wonder. The smell of dust mingled with the mineral scent of snuffed candle.

  Lily crawled to the window. She rose and pushed back the curtains, letting the soft blue moonlight filter down into the room, making it once again the familiar space she knew.

  For good measure, she lowered the surface of the looking-glass down onto the rug.

  Hartwell.

  Why had the vision taken her back to her encounter with him? Was it because he was the murderer she sought? What about the building with the burning windows? It was an inscrutable sign, offering her nothing concrete that she could grasp onto.

  She might have received what she asked for, clues to the identity of the threat that stalked Estelle . . . or the vision may have danced her along the path of some other impending horror Hartwell might be involved with.

  Another disaster she would be incapable of preventing.

  The mirror offered no answers, just dream-like distortions that begged any number of interpretations.

  Useless.

  The frustration burned hotter than the wax on her hand. She had nothing but a pile of symbols and guesses that made her feel like she was moving blindly through darkness.

  No, she protested. There had to be something here she could grasp on to, a lead she could follow, even if she was taking the chance of being pulled in the wrong direction.

  She forced herself to concentrate on that bland building, on the ravens and the sheep with its shining coat. The bells . . .

  Of course.

  Lily knew those bells. They could be heard echoing across the river from the tower of Southwark Cathedral, which Lily, like many other Londoners, still knew by its old name of St. Saviour’s.

  The building from her vision was across the Thames in Southwark. Would it grant her answers or only more unwelcome questions?

  There was only one way to find out.

  NINETEEN

  THE PUNGENT SCENT OF the Thames at low tide rose up to meet her as the omnibus clattered over London Bridge, crossing into Southwark.

  The jolting movement felt too slow. Lily longed for her Triumph and the quick, nimble way it might weave through the traffic that crowded the city’s streets. She had never brought it into London before, preferring the fresh air and open roads of the heath for her rides, but it seemed to her now that the motorcycle might serve a more practical function—at least if she would be spending much more time crisscrossing the city chasing rumors and shadows.

  Southwark Cathedral loomed before her over a sprawl of low buildings, its bells hanging still and silent.

  She left the omnibus at the Borough Market. The street bustled with shoppers and vendors, the air rich with the moist, yeasty aroma of the neighboring brewery. Further back, the iron girders of the gasometer rose over the buildings like an elegant modern sculpture punctuated by tall smokestacks. Coal smoke mingled with aromas of grilling sausages, old onions, and fresh haddock.

  The noise was a rich blanket, woven with brash laughter, factory whistles and the clang of machinery. It was very different from the bourgeois quiet of Bloomsbury, all polite murmurs and subdued footfalls.

  She threaded her way through the crowd, walking stick tapping on the pavement and offering a touch of support against the lingering soreness in her leg. She moved past stalls selling oysters and sacks of flour, racks of hanging ducks and vats of writhing eels. Apple cores crunched under her feet.

  Which way should she go?

  It was cold. The chill of the previous evening had carried over into the day and frost glittered on the rooftops. Winter lingered. Even if it hadn’t—even if a sudden thaw promised there was more time before the killer reached Estelle, she had another reason for urgency now.

  Lord Deveral’s arraignment was only nine days away.

  She thought back to the vision. The building she saw had not been on the river, but further back. There were no stalls or shops crowding against it. It had to be on one of Southwark’s quieter streets, somewhere within range of the cathedral’s bells.

  It was too broad an area. It could take her days to cover all those lanes and byways. There had to be something more that she could use, some other clue she could draw on to narrow her search.

  Then it came to her. In the vision, old soot stained the tops of the windows, relics of a past conflagration.

  Fires were an event in London, both a danger and a terrible thrill. If the place had burned within the last few years, the natives of Southwark would remember it.

  She stopped an elderly man with a loaf of bread tucked under his arm.

  “Excuse me. Could you tell me if there’s a building nearby that suffered a fire?”

  He considered, chewing on a wad of tobacco.

  “Which sort of building are you looking for? Church?”

  “No.”

  “Warehouse?”

  “No. Just an ordinary sort of building.”

  “House?”

  “Bigger than a house.”

  “Hmph.” He spat. “Don’t know of any ordinary buildings ’as been burnt of late.”

  Lily fought not to show her frustration.

  “I see. Thank you for your time.”

  “Unless you mean the hospital,” he added as she turned to walk away.

  Lily stopped.

  “Hospital?”

  “The ladies’ clinic, by the Golden Fleece.” The word ladies rang slightly off. Something had also shifted in the way he looked at her, as though Lily had offended him but he was too polite to say.

  Lily thought of the gleaming sheep she had seen in her vision.

  “The Golden Fleece?”

  “Aye. The public house.”

  Bitter.

  That was the word the gilded animal in her vision had called as it trotted past. Not an adjective, but a pint.

  The Golden Fleece was a pub.

  The old man’s directions took her past the market and down Borough High Street, a busy thoroughfare where pipe-makers and cheese shops stood cheek-by-jowl with coffee houses and linen drapers. She paused for a moment in front of a confectionery, its window glittering with frosted delicacies. Behind her, carts rum
bled past, punctuated by the hiss of the odd steam wagon.

  The noise and bustle drifted into the background as she turned down a quieter street. She was close to the old Liberty of the Mint. Not long past, this had been a notorious slum, the sort of place respectable folk told tales of in order to frighten disobedient children. It had been mostly cleared, the tenements razed, but remnants of the old aura of the place remained.

  The Golden Fleece announced itself to potential gin-guzzlers with wooden sign depicting a strapping young man in Greek armor holding what looked like a fuzzy gilded afghan. Past it, Lily found herself looking at the unremarkable facade of the building from her vision.

  It sat across from the parochial school. At some point in its recent history, it had been thoroughly burnt. Soot stained the limestone above each window, the path of the smoke tapering like a Medieval banner. The windows of the upper floors were cracked or shattered while those of the lower level had been nailed over with boards. The front door hadn’t opened in a very long time, judging by the weathering of the advertisements for hair pomade plastered over its surface.

  Lily approached. She could see holes in the stone by the door where a plaque might once have hung, but there was nothing else to indicate what the building had once been, or why her vision would have drawn her here. It was just a shell, boarded up and abandoned, at the edge of a district once known for its pickpockets and cutthroats.

  She felt the bite of frustration. How much energy should she devote to uncovering whatever secrets the building might hold, when she had no way of knowing that it was a genuine lead and not a useless distraction?

  “If you’ve got yourself into a bit of trouble, you’ll not find a way out in there.”

  The voice came from beside her. Lily turned to see a woman of middle years, plump as a baker’s wife. Her cheeks were rosy in a way that required no powder, her ample figure squeezed into a corset that pushed some of her more substantial assets into prominence.

  Lily took in the bright striped pink of her bodice, the skirt cut high over her ankles, and knew she was talking to a woman who made her living on her back.

  “It’s been closed six months now, ever since the blaze. But you’d not have wanted their help, even if it was to be had. Take my word on that.”

  The woman assessed the cut of her coat and the well-heeled quality of her boots.

  “You from one of them fine houses? I thought they had quacks as came in to take care of any girls who got themselves up the spout.”

  Lily had spent enough time in the world of theatre—a realm heavily populated by women formerly of her interlocutor’s occupation—to know what the lady meant. She had taken Lily for a denizen of some higher-end brothel who had been unfortunate enough to find herself pregnant and was seeking a way to end it.

  Inside that building.

  She made a quick decision.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Berta,” the whore replied. “After His Majesty.”

  “Berta, could I treat you to a gin?”

  “What would you do that for?”

  “I’d like to know what else you can tell me about this place.”

  Berta’s gaze flickered from Lily to the burned-out shell they stood before.

  “What’s to know? There ain’t nothing left of it now.”

  “I could pay you,” Lily offered quietly. “Please. It’s important.”

  Berta shrugged.

  “Shilling for an hour.”

  The interior of the Golden Fleece was much as Lily might have anticipated—dark, low, and wreathed in tobacco smoke. She and Bertha were the only women inside, but the handful of men who lounged at the scattered tables gave them only a cursory glance before turning back to their ale. A lady in a public house would raise eyebrows, but a whore on the publican’s bench was a common enough occurrence, particularly one frequented by types as rough as the men who lingered at the scratched wooden surface of the bar.

  Berta led her unhesitatingly to a snug at the back, settling herself onto the bench. The coal stove nearby gave off a welcome heat. Lily tucked her walking stick against the seat, then unwound her scarf and unbuttoned her coat.

  “You’re not showing yet,” Berta noted. “That’s good. It goes easier if you take care of it early.”

  “How often have you had it done?” Lily asked.

  “Just the once. But one hears about it from the other nuns, of course.”

  “And you had the procedure over there?” Lily nodded toward the far side of the street, where the boarded-up facade of the hospital was just visible through the glass of the pub’s small window.

  Berta nodded.

  It was surprising. Lily had heard about abortions being performed before. Occasionally, an actress might find herself in that sort of trouble. But the procedures she knew of had taken place quietly, in private homes or even more out-of-the-way places. The clever or lucky found a midwife willing to do the deed. Those less fortunate resorted to barbers or persons even more poorly qualified. She knew of women who lost their lives as a result.

  None of them reported having an abortion in a regular hospital. Ending a pregnancy carried with it a penalty of life in prison. What respectable physician would take such a risk?

  Yet it was clear that, before it had burned, the building across the street had been a substantial and well-funded establishment.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  The publican came over. He was an older man built as solid as a keg, his hair cut close around a balding pate.

  “Berta,” he said flatly.

  “Hello, Art.”

  “I’ll not have you working my room.”

  “We ain’t here for tricks. Just two girls after a pint.”

  His sharp eyes moved from Berta to Lily, flickering over the fine cut of her dress.

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Stout for me. And a sausage roll,” Berta replied promptly.

  “Lager, please,” Lily said, handing him a few coins. She had no intention of drinking it but felt fairly certain that neglecting to order would render her even more suspicious in the publican’s eyes.

  “Right, then,” he said after a brief but noticeable pause. Then he returned to the bar, where he picked up his conversation with a thin man in a brash gold waistcoat and bowler cap. The thin man noticed Lily’s attention and flashed her a grin marked by a slight gap between his front teeth.

  “Don’t try to pick him up. That’s Frank the Spiv. He ain’t worth the dosh, trust me on that,” Berta warned.

  “I haven’t the least inclination to do so,” Lily replied honestly. She leaned back as their pints were set down on the table along with a greasy lump of sausage and pastry. Berta tore into it happily.

  “Were there many girls who got help with that sort of trouble over there?” Lily nodded toward the hospital.

  “It weren’t like they advertised it, but word got round that a real doctor was doing the thing for charity, like.”

  “For charity? You mean you didn’t have to pay?”

  “That’s right,” Berta replied. “And if it sounds too good to be true, you can be sure it was.”

  The publican moved past as Berta spoke. He cast them a sharp glance. Lily lowered her own voice and waited until he had returned to Frank the Spiv at the bar before she continued.

  “What do you mean? Did they not do as they’d promised, then?”

  “Oh, no. They did it, right enough. Though for a while I did wonder.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, there was a fair bit of bleeding . . . after, you know. Then I kept waiting for my monthlies to return. I started to think perhaps it had all been a lark and maybe I was still carrying that babe around after all. But I never felt it quicken and there weren’t no swelling in my belly.”

  Lily frowned. This was not a symptom of the procedure she was familiar with. Then again, her knowledge of ridding oneself of a pregnancy was entirely composed of overheard snippets of conversation.
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  “So your cycles just . . . stopped? How long did that last for?”

  “I’ll let you know when I find out.”

  “You mean they still haven’t resumed?”

  “I know—sounds a right treat, don’t it? Took me an age to convince my house that I could work right through the month. That’s put an extra few quid in my pocket. But I mightn’t have been so pleased if I thought I’d actually want a babe of my own someday.”

  Lily wondered if what Berta described was unusual. By some accounts, ending a pregnancy was neither safe nor easy—but then, she had heard others say the thing could be accomplished in less time than it took to pull a tooth.

  She did not recall the ladies whispering backstage reporting an end to their female cycles as a result of the procedure. Something in Berta’s account left her feeling uneasy, especially since the women treated at the wreck across the road would never have been able to appeal to the authorities if they felt they had been mistreated.

  Who would the enforcers of the law have believed? The proprietors of a well-funded charity hospital or a batch of whores?

  None of this went any way toward answering the more pressing question of whether the burnt-out building had some connection to the killer she sought.

  “So you were inside the place, then,” she pressed.

  “Well, they hardly would’ve done it on the pavement, would they?”

  “Can you tell me what it was like in there?”

  Berta shrugged, looking a touch more uncomfortable.

  “It was clean and all. Each patient in her own bed and the blankets fresh laundered. Everything very orderly.”

  “But outside you told me I’d not have wanted their help. What you’re describing doesn’t sound so terrible.”

  “Well—it weren’t how they treated us that were up the spout. It was them others.”

  “Others?”

  “The girls they put up in the East Wing.”

  “What happened in the East Wing?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. They kept it locked up tight as a drum. All the time I was there, I never saw a body come out of it. Just the orderlies, carrying bottles or linens and such. They said it was the ward for them as had the French disease, but it looked like a regular prison. I had it from an oyster girl who’d been in for a month—consumptive, she was. She told me any girls as were put in that part of the place never came out again. Not unless they was being carried to the bone yard.” Berta lowered her voice. “She said you could hear screams sometimes, during the wee hours of the night. She didn’t sleep well, you see. Once there was a great clatter at the door and she saw a girl pounding on the glass like she’d break through it with her bare hands if she could. Had sores on her face, she did, and burns all over her arms.”