Spectris: Veritas Book Two

by Quinn Coleridge

  “Spit it out, Kelly.”

  He stops in his tracks. “For hell’s sake, Hester. Are you mad? The man’s a killer and you’re doing his dishes?”

  My throat stings like it’s been scraped with a blade. I switch into sign. Shift starts soon.

  “Not if I don’t let you out of this house. Give me one good reason why I should.”

  The doctor stands in front of the door as I retie my boot laces. My choice. Not your real wife.

  And yet we argue as though we’re well and truly hitched.

  “Oh, I bloody well know it, sweetheart. You don’t have to remind me.”

  Scooting off the bed, I rise to my feet. Calm down. I’m fine at work. I listen and learn things.

  Kelly begins counting again. I cross my arms and wait for his temper to cool. Righteousness fills my soul as I think of sleuthing at Griffin House. My hours as a scullery maid have yielded quite a lot of valuable information: Benedict and Morris, the details of Charcoal Suit’s paid protection scheme, and the room filled with mannequins.

  I admit to gleaning less important truths from the kitchen gossip. I doubt knowledge of Fannie’s affair with Fred and their assignations in the cellar or pantry will help me in the long run. Neither will being savvy to Charcoal Suit’s drawers and the footmen who take the silk underwear from the trash and wear them afterwards. Or the extensive deliveries made daily to the club . . .

  My bedroom seems quiet. Is Kelly still counting? No, but he hasn’t budged from his place in front of the door either. Worried that I’ll be late to work, I decide to challenge Kelly’s position. I move up close to the doctor, and he sucks in his breath.

  As usual, physical attraction sparks between us, but Kelly ignores it with some effort. “I outweigh you by a hundred pounds, if you’re thinking about getting past.”

  His cool tone makes me angry. This is my blasted bedroom, and I have the right to leave it any time I choose. Kelly is a good man, trying to protect me from myself, but I abhor the idea of being kept anywhere against my will. He knows enough about my months in Ironwood to understand this. I lift my chin and reach for the doorknob. No one, not even the person I love, can turn my home into a prison.

  He moves aside. “Hester—”

  I open the door and take a few breaths. Stop talking.

  Because his intentions were good, and I know Kelly feels badly for making me upset, I tell him about the connection between Griffin House and the circus. He listens quietly as I point out how the continuing visits of the big top to Stonehenge make very little sense on paper but must generate money for Scarlett in some way.

  Tom is there.

  “What does he hope to find?”

  Proof. I gesture for him to get out of the way. Against Scarlett, Lennox, Bloom. All bad.

  Kelly steps into the hall. “Might be difficult to do. No matter what the scandal, Scarlett emerges unscathed every time. All of Stonehenge is in love with him.”

  Not me.

  “I thought you were, when you asked about Scarlett the other day.”

  Wrong again.

  “My apologies. It’s nearing five, Hester. If you insist on acting the part of a drudge at Griffin House, I’ll drive you over.”

  I smile at Kelly. It’s killing him to make the offer. You have paper work to do.

  He walks toward the kitchen, muttering, “The papers will keep.”

  When I emerge from my bedroom a few minutes later, I’m wearing the dirty cotton dress that I covered with mud when I begged in front of Griffin House two days ago. My cane and spectacles remain behind, though it makes me feel vulnerable to leave them.

  Kelly abandons the kitchen and walks around me. He covers his laughter with a cough. “You smell like baked refuse. Like a midden biscuit.”

  I make the rude hand gesture that has tempted me for hours. He laughs again and takes me to his buggy.

  As we drive toward the club, I tell the doctor about Isaac’s written account of the day the factory was bombed, when he took a walk in the park to cool off. Kelly has me repeat the parts involving the clown merchant, Isaac picking up the rabbit for the boy named Peter, and the nanny’s subsequent scolding.

  “You’re sure Cordelia said there’s a ragman on that corner of the park?” Kelly asks. “If we can find both the clown and the nanny as well as the ragman, we’d have three witnesses. Isaac would be cleared of suspicion.”

  The street smells grow more luxurious as we travel uptown. Chocolatiers and perfumeries scent the air—the sounds and language become more refined. It isn’t long before I recognize the tinkling piano keys in the drawing room of Griffin House. A classical piece is being played—Brahms, I think—to soothe the rich gentlemen as they drink alcohol or sip tea.

  Kelly parks his buggy around the corner. His shoulder bumps mine as he brushes a strand of hair from my cheek. The blasted stuff is always escaping its braid. “How long do you stay?”

  About two hours

  Metal brushes against metal, like chain links rubbing against one another. Now I hear a ticking. He’s checking his pocket watch. “Your shift should be over at seven-thirty, Hester. If you’re not outside the club by a quarter of eight, I’m coming in to get you.”

  I scowl as he helps me down and then turn toward Griffin House, hoping it will be easier for me to walk around the side garden to the kitchen door. I’ve established a sound picture of the grounds in my head, but having been there only once, I may have missed something.

  After tripping twice before reaching the kitchen door, I hear that terrifying English voice. “Back again, are you?” Fannie asks. “Work first and you can have salmon croquettes afterwards.”

  She slaps my backside as I enter the club. “Skip another day, and you’re done here.”

  How I will miss Fannie when this case is finished. Like poison oak or an ingrown toe nail.

  The piles of plates seem endless, and I listen throughout the club as I rinse them. Nothing but the usual noise for the first hour—wealthy men bragging about their mistresses and playing billiards. A bit of fencing, pugilism, and boot polishing. My hands feel soft and puckered in the soapy water, but I keep scraping.

  Fred, the footman, knocks at the back door of the kitchen, saying there’s a special delivery. His voice sounds tense. Why is that, I wonder? Fannie prides herself on the fact fresh eggs, meat, and milk arrive each afternoon. Ice, wine, and spirits too. Deliveries are expected with a restaurant and tearoom on the premises. So what’s different about this one?

  Fannie’s as tightly wound as Fred, and they both smell of fear. “Is it one of those crates for Mr. Lennox?” she asks. “Heavens above, go right to his office. No lollygagging.”

  “Okay, Fan. I’ll be fast.”

  “Not too fast! Whatever you do, don’t drop it.”

  Fred makes several trips, carrying crates through the kitchen and up the back stairs to the second floor. He stomps down the hall and turns right. Is that Scarlett’s office? With the boss gone, Charcoal Suit has probably made himself at home there.

  Fred comes back a few minutes later and bids Fannie goodbye.

  “Where’s the other chap?” she asks. “The one who brings the boss’s things over most days?”

  Fred pauses, as though speaking might bring misfortune. “Snake squeezed him to death and ate him. Don’t that beat all?”

  “Bloom’s big old python? How horrible! Oh, I’d die of fright if it so much as touched me.”

  The footman laughs like they’re sharing a naughty secret. “That’s it, lovey. You like something warmer against your skin, don’t you?”

  I could vomit as I listen to the lovers flirt, but I focus instead on the information about the python, Bloom’s albino friend at the circus. Given what I just overheard, important objects come to Griffin House from the circus when the show is in town. And whatever resides within the boxes are valuable enough for the club’s employees to fear retribution from Lennox if the items are mislaid or damaged.

  What sits in the
room above?

  Fate must be sleeping, the old Jezebel, because she does not intervene and complicate my life. An opportunity to check on the parcels presents itself when Fred and Fannie sneak off to the butler’s pantry for a quick moment alone. I shudder to think what that entails, but I don’t waste time imagining. I slowly back away from the sink. The other scullery girls keep scraping and washing, laboring hard enough to forget about the impaired beggar with the dirty dress. I don’t mind being socially invisible in certain circumstances.

  Retracing the route Fred took, I creep up the back stairs to the second floor and sneak down the hall to the room he entered. I lift my face to listen to the surrounding club sounds, only to see Willa Holloway appear. She looks sad and reproachful.

  Where’s my killer, Visionary?

  Blast and damn—her visit complicates matters. Fate must not be sleeping after all.

  I motion for the ghost to follow me. This way, Willa.

  Shaw and Pilgrim appear a moment later, body parts hanging akimbo.

  The three ghosts and I enter the room. I see it through their eyes, as I saw the pottery showroom earlier. It is square and deep and filled with costly possessions: furniture, paintings, and thick carpets.

  My stomach suddenly feels ill. I close the door and lean upon it as the room spins. I don’t wish to see this place anymore. I pray for the ghost-sight to leave me, for blindness to return. Then I would not gaze upon the settee—dotted with silken pillows—where my mother rested on Sunday mornings to read the Ladies Journal. Nor my ancestor’s portraits and landscapes on the walls.

  Because of ghost-sight, I do see Mama’s parents, and aunts and uncles, watching me from within the ornate frames. Her cherished collection of artwork—the sweeping hills, bowls of fruit and flowers. I saw them many times when I walked about my childhood home, haunted by the spirits I was working with at the time. New to being a Visionary, barely fourteen, I was enamored of ghost-sight. It gave me the chance to see my home and behold my mother and father in the flesh. Following the ghosts from room to room, I ignored their pain and thought only of myself. I can never make amends for my callow behavior. Though I did eventually solve their murders and help the spirits pass on to the other side.

  What are my family possessions doing here in Griffin House?

  At my side, Willa murmurs reverentially to Shaw, telling him to hush—as though they are in a church rather than an office. I step away from them and run my hand along the swirly, European-style plaster on the wall, then lurch toward my father’s desk, find his copper trash bin and vomit.

  Sweating, wiping my mouth, I scan the room as the headache which has plagued me for days grows in intensity. I walk with Willa through my past life. Grandmother’s prized candelabra sits next to the porcelain figurines that adorned the sideboard in our dining room. Father’s Chippendale desk and the jade inkstand from his study look exactly the same. After leaving the desk behind, I stand before the marble bust of Mama that father had sculpted for an anniversary gift one year. She wore a diadem upon her head that day and jewels passed down through the matron’s of her family. A sought-after Italian artist captured the very essence of my mother in stone. All who beheld the sculpture agreed on that point.

  I touch Mama’s cold face and remember her last moments on earth, when Sir Death came and took the closest thing I ever had to a loving parent. I could not weep as I drew the lace shroud over her lifeless form, but I did later when the shock wore off.

  Willa spins slowly in a circle and shows me more of Scarlett’s room. We Grayson’s must always have more: Sevres, Limoges and Aubusson. The things are inscribed upon my memory like a tattoo. Which is logical since I was quite jealous of them as a child. The dishes and artwork were valued and cared for. Shown off at parties with society friends, never causing a moment’s disappointment or shame.

  Gathering dust, they are now jumbled together, like trophies in an Egyptian pyramid, or treasure in Ali Baba’s cave.

  16

  Omnis una menet nox.

  The same night awaits us all—Horace

  I touch my wet face, surprised that I am weeping, feeling again like the lost child I was for so many years when I lived at home. Why would Scarlett do this?

  Perhaps if we had switched lives, he might have been the golden son, scion to my father’s fortune, rather than the adopted child of an abusive stepfather.

  Non est mea culpa.

  Families are chosen by the heavens, and somewhere there must be a grand ledger to explain our placement here on earth. Wouldn’t justice demand it?

  I use my sleeve, the least-dirty part of my dress, to wipe my nose. It does no good to delve into profound questions. Wiser people than I have failed to find the answers.

  But there are some mysteries I can put to rest. Like how Scarlett came by the Grayson furniture and art. After returning to Stonehenge from the asylum, I remember being told that an unknown buyer had purchased everything in our home. My father had sold it all to avoid going to jail for stealing from his partners.

  Until now, I’ve never given much thought to who the buyer was. Scarlett used a rather fragile young man named Simmons Harrow to unravel my father’s kingdom, leaving Sim with a broken mind and a jail sentence for attempted murder.

  My murder.

  Not a true killer at heart, Sim failed to achieve his goal several times, even after dousing me with kerosene while holding a handful of matches. Although he burned my parent’s home to cinders, I escaped.

  And what did Scarlett do with our father’s spoils? Is he content now after taking them away like an angry child and hoarding them for his own? If he wasn’t so evil, I’d pity my half-brother.

  Miserare mei, deus. Maybe I do pity him. We’re all at the mercy of those who raised us, and the absence of love and kindness can make a monster from a saint. That said, I’d still kill him with my own hands if he tried to hurt one of mine. He vowed to destroy them all to get at me, but I cannot allow it. I’ll do what I must.

  Wouldn’t that please the Furies? In some terrible, sick way, I’m sure it would make Scarlett happy, too. I’d never be clean again if I shed his blood.

  Backing away from the marble sculpture of my mother, I gesture to Willa.

  Come with me, I ask her. I cannot see without your eyes.

  Impressed with the grandeur around her, Willa’s more subdued than usual and does what I say without arguing. Tell me where to go. We’re in this together, Visionary.

  The room has two doors besides the entrance, and Willa and I open the nearest one first. The hinges squeak a little, and I hiss softly, hoping that no one passing by in the hall heard the sound. Again I feel a spinning sensation and the sickness from before. My half-brother did not stop at just acquiring my parent’s belongings but mine as well. The lovely suite is identical to my own bedroom when I was young: canopied bed with the blue velvet curtains, exquisitely dressed china dolls resting against the headboard, the chaise lounge, and the shelves of books Cordelia read to me.

  Willa and I survey the dressing table. Pale blonde hair is caught in the silver brush. I take the stopper from the peacock-shaped bottle and smell fresh, Parisian perfume. We turn toward the ottoman and find my ostrich-feather fan. It looks as though it were thoughtlessly tossed there on a whim. Beyond that, I see the teapot Mama gave me when I turned sixteen displayed in a glass case, perfectly dusted. A silk kimono is draped across the end of the bed and beaded satin slippers sit nearby on the floor. One of the slippers is turned on its side, as though the owner’s foot had been hastily withdrawn.

  Illness overwhelms me again, but there is no copper bin for me to use. I sink down on my old bed, and Willa comes to stand beside me.

  Does someone live here?

  I shrug, as if I don’t know the answer to her question, but I believe someone does live here. Unfortunate girl.

  Pointing toward the Chinese screen, I remain seated and have Willa walk closer to it. Yes. It’s the same one I would change behind. A wardrobe is
positioned next to the screen, and I point to that as well. Willa opens the wardrobe and reveals what’s inside. Dresses crush one another: silk, lace, and fine linen. Some for day, for visiting, or having tea. Others for dinners and balls I could never attend, but Mama had fun ordering them from Paris anyway.

  In those days, I was like one of the dolls on the canopy bed rather than a real person. A blind, mute daughter to dress up; one who would never run a household or choose the correct sauce to go with the duck. Never to have a season on the annual trip to London or make a good match, no matter the dowry.

  Of what use was she but to treat as a fragile doll and hide away?

  Willa closes the wardrobe and glances over at me sitting on the bed. My own bewildered, tear-stained face gazes back. I wipe my eyes and notice a decidedly masculine piece of furniture sitting next to the bed. Standing up, I motion Willa over and we examine the brown leather chair. It smells of expensive tobacco, bergamot, and citrus. It smells of James Scarlett.

  My body shivers, and I wish to be away from this room. My brother is completely mad. Does he sit in this place and plan the next step in my destruction? Or gloat, having taken away all my worldly possessions? Down to the very teapot.

  Would it gall him to know that I am more content in my ramshackle boarding house—where I am accepted and cared for—than I ever was in my old home, with all the luxuries known to man? Poor as a church mouse, I am happier than Scarlett will ever be. He can keep the bloody teapot and everything else.

  Laughter bubbles up in my chest, and Willa looks at me with wide, crimson eyes. What’s wrong with you?

  I smile at her, shaking my head. Far too much to go into just now. Or maybe nothing at all.

  She lifts her brows as though I’m crazier than my brother and then walks with me back to the office. I close the door on my bedroom firmly and try to collect my thoughts. Before I can do this, someone climbs the stairs and walks down the hall. I hold my breath.

  Not this room. Keep going. Don’t even think of coming into the office now.