by Viola Carr
The copper peers in, befuddled.
God spare me from idiots. I lean closer, show off the ripe female flesh at the top of my bodice. Ain’t quite the same effect without the cherry satin, but a girl makes do. “I’d be ever so grateful, sir,” I purr. “Maybe there’s somewhere we can go. Y’know, private-like.”
Sorry, sweet Eliza, but my life’s at stake. Our life is at stake. If we have to suck and swallow our way outta here, we will. Just close your eyes and think of Chelsea.
The circus act over there hoot and call out crude suggestions. “Give it to her!” “Stuff her face with it!” “See if her arse is as smart as her mouth!” O-ho-ho, my sides are splitting.
The copper glances at me. Down at my chest. Back to me. Down at Limpdick, who’s moaning and rolling about like a leper. Back to me. Pulls out his iron key ring and unlocks the door.
Yes. I simper and sashay out into the corridor. “Righto, let’s get it over with—ugh!”
He just grabs my elbow and drags me off. Not towards the stairs. Further down into the dark, where stinking oily water drips down the walls and rats writhe in the mud, and there’s a cell with no one in it.
Clunk! Now, I’m in it. Alone.
I grab the bars and hurl curses, but the copper just hooks his keys back onto his belt and stamps away, towards the far-distant mist of light.
Shit.
I yell a bit more, but no one takes notice, and eventually I give up. I can barely see my fingers in front of my nose. Rats nibble at my boots, and I kick ’em away. I’m weak, exhausted. This dank blackness chills me to the core. But I won’t let despair overtake me, never mind that cold bitter crunch in my mouth and the roiling in my stomach that whispers you’re screwed, Miss Lizzie, so you are, screwed right to the wall, and how’d you like them apples?
I won’t.
But there ain’t no escape, not from the Bow Street house of fun. I’ve naught to pick the keyhole with, and even if I could, there’s a station full of crushers to worry about.
I’m here until they decide to come get me. And that could be a very long time.
I’m tired. My eyelids can barely stay apart. I swallow on cold slimy fear. Bear with me, Eliza. We’ve got each other. I’ll hold on, just as long as I can. I promise.
But I’m so very tired.
And I fold my muddy skirts, and sit on my haunches in the corner, and stare stubbornly into chilly dark.
PRIMUM NON NOCERE
LAMPLIGHT SHOCKED ELIZA AWAKE.
Doiiing! Her forehead clanged against the bars. She blinked gritty eyes. It was freezing, her clammy limbs chilled in the mud. The fetid cell’s stench made her ill. Her mouth was parched, and hunger stirred in her stomach.
Lizzie must have fallen asleep. For how long? What was that light? Was Inspector Reeve coming to interrogate his prisoner?
“Lizzie!” she whispered fiercely. “Come back. I need you!”
And Lizzie struggled and kicked and pawed, but like a drowning woman, she couldn’t break the surface.
Eliza almost chewed her tongue in frustration. It was the same with the elixir. Eventually, Lizzie exhausted herself. Like anyone, she needed sleep, time to recuperate.
Time Eliza didn’t have.
The light brightened. Booted feet sloshed in the mud. Prisoners at the far end grumbled and swore. “Fuck off and let us sleep, you nosy swine,” called one. Eliza scrambled up, wet skirts slopping around her ankles, and rats scattered.
First, a constable, holding a lantern aloft in the bluish light. Not the same man, but someone Eliza didn’t know. At least that was something . . .
“Open up,” ordered Captain Lafayette, halting before her cell. The light fractured in his eyes, cold like broken glass. “This woman’s under investigation by the Royal. Give her to me.”
Eliza gripped the bars urgently. “Captain, I must—”
“Silence,” he snapped. Not angry. Disinterested. Bored, almost. As if he really didn’t care. All in a day’s interrogations. He glanced at her muddy skirts and ruined bodice, and it didn’t even raise a flicker.
The constable unlocked the door, and before she could protest, Lafayette dropped a bag over her head.
She squealed, the sound amplified inside the rough linen. “What are you doing? Let me go!”
But she knew what he was doing.
Strong hands grabbed her elbows, bound her wrists efficiently with wire that bit into her soft skin, and escorted her firmly from the cell.
Up the steps, splashing through the mud, the musty smell of the bag stifling. At least this time, there was no cherry-blossom drug. The corridor above was silent. Perhaps the hour was very late.
Outside, where an icy breeze dragged at her hair, and down the steps. Her shins cracked into something sharp—a step?—and instinctively she climbed. Her rear hit a hard wooden bench, and a door clacked shut with a rattle of glass panes. A carriage.
“I’ll take it from here, Constable.” Lafayette’s effortless authority sliced like sharpened steel, and the policeman muttered something and shuffled away.
Wheels and brassy feet clattered, and the carriage jerked forwards. Eliza’s head swam with hunger and fatigue, and she fought to sit straight. Her wet skirts stank of grime even through the canvas bag. The wire on her wrists cut in too tight. Her fingers ached and puffed up, the circulation blocked.
She reached out with her feet, but met only empty air. The rumble of metal wheels on flagstones drowned out her ragged breathing. “Captain? What’s going on?”
No answer. No hint of movement. But she couldn’t help feeling that he was sitting only inches away. Watching her. Staring at her and saying nothing.
“Remy, please, we can talk about this like civilized people . . .” Her voice crisped, scraped away by despair. They’d gone far beyond civilized. She recalled her vision of Lafayette as a torturer—how wrong it had seemed—and crazy, high-pitched laughter choked her.
Wrong, indeed. Lafayette hadn’t needed to stoop to torture, not with foolish Eliza. He already knew all her secrets, and he’d extracted them efficiently, callously, without a single scream or one solitary drop of blood. And now she’d burn, like Clara Morton, on a pyre in St. Paul’s churchyard, only she’d be surrounded by a jeering death-hungry crowd.
What an accomplished, abominable man.
After a few minutes—an hour? who could tell?—the carriage lurched to a halt. The street was strangely quiet, as those same steely hands dragged her from the carriage, over a gutter, her wet skirts slapping against stone. Wind groaned, and the air sparkled with the fresh sensation of distant rain, prelude to a storm. A door creaked open. He pushed her into a close, threateningly warm room. Her heartbeat ran wild, and instinctively, she stumbled, desperate to delay whatever was about to happen.
The door tinkled shut, and he tore the bag away.
Apothecary’s counter, rows upon rows of drawers, gleaming golden in warm firelight. The smell of herbs and alchemy, welcome after the bag. The blinds were drawn, and outside, it was dark. Distant thunder crashed, and the air stung with latent power.
Marcellus Finch blinked at her, his white hair sticking up like a bleached porcupine. He wore a purple velvet smoking jacket and a yellow scarf. “I say, young man, is this necessary?”
Dumbly, she stared back. The hairs on her arms crackled.
Lafayette cut the wire that bound her wrists—snip!—and eased it free. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“But look at the poor girl. She’s . . . soiled.”
Lafayette emerged into her view and shrugged sheepishly. “Sorry about that, Doctor. All the killer’s teleportations have been to open spaces. I figured the cells were the safest place for you while I figured things out.”
Eliza spat out the breath she’d been holding. Her heart still hammered, her limbs reluctant to obey her. Good thing, because she burned to hit him. Longed for violence with a ferocity that would have stunned Lizzie herself. She didn’t know which was more infuriating: that he’d lef
t her out of his plans or her absurd gratitude and relief that he hadn’t betrayed her after all. Not to the police. Not to the Royal. Not to anyone.
Her eyes burned. Furious, she shoved Lafayette in the chest. “Safe? Is that what you call it?”
“I didn’t know what else to do—”
“You let the police arrest me,” she accused. “They threw me into a filthy cell riddled with rats and maggots and lice and God knows what else, not to mention killers and thieves. I’m freezing. I stink. Everything hurts. Just what, pray, have you been ‘figuring out’ that necessitated that?”
The Philosopher’s portrait frowned down at her from the wall, and she wanted to tear it down and stamp on it. Lafayette didn’t retaliate. It just made her itch harder. Punch him. Claw his face. Grab his pistol and fire. “Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded, “or so help me, I’ll break your neck with my bare hands.”
Lafayette only nodded towards Marcellus. “Mr. Finch has news.”
“Hmm?” Finch blinked, befuddled. “Oh, yes. Your famous drug. Ha-ha! I’ve completed my analysis. Tricky little animal, too.”
Eliza glared at Lafayette, but curiosity got the better of her. “Well?”
“It’s a psycho-active alchemical preparation,” supplied Finch. “Fire and mercury, a little wormwood, some other things. A poison, yes. In sufficient dosage, it stupefies in seconds.”
“And in insufficient dosage?”
Finch beamed. “That’s the best part, dear girl. An automaton effect! The mind is dissociated, but the body functions normally. When the patient awakens, they suffer drowsiness, confusion, memory loss. They don’t remember what their body did without them.”
“Like Lizzie . . .” She swallowed. “Like me, the night Billy was murdered.”
“Excellent, say what?” Happily, Finch scratched his head, raising more tangles.
“And where would our killer obtain such a substance?”
“Well, either he’s an alchemist . . .”
“Makes it himself?” Lafayette wrinkled his nose. “Busy chap, isn’t he? Talented, too.”
“. . . or he ordered it from one.” Finch yanked his fingers from a nest of knots and peered at the white strands caught under his nails. “Thing is, you see, the method is obsolete.”
Eliza frowned. “So?”
“It’s clumsy technique. That’s why the effects are so alarming if it’s overdosed. No one’s done transformation this way for thirty years or more. If they had, I’d know about it. We alchemists have principles, you know. Primum non nocere—first do no harm, all that.”
“So what, the killer’s had it in storage for thirty years?”
“More or less.” Finch gave a rueful shrug. “It’s even possible . . . well, it could have been I who made it, by accident, back in the day. I wasn’t always so careful.”
“And who,” cut in Lafayette, “would have stockpiled this drug, so long ago?”
“See, that’s the thing.” Finch picked at his fingernails, scowling at a broken one. “It’s a very specialized psycho-active substance. Alters higher cognitive function. Used for targeted narco-analysis, on delusional or recalcitrant subjects.”
Eliza blinked, baffled. “Narco-analysis? But—”
“Interrogation by hypnotic suggestion,” explained Lafayette coolly. “We have such things at the Royal. Recalcitrant subjects being our speciality. What he means to say is: it’s a truth drug.”
“Just so.” Finch grinned. “Brilliant, say what? A tool for torturers. And—”
“Mad-doctors,” cut in Eliza suddenly, her bones rattling cold. “Delusional subjects. Hypnotic suggestion. Oh, my.”
“What?” Lafayette and Finch spoke together.
“Mr. Fairfax’s new experimental regime at Bethlem.” A torrent of broken thoughts rushed out. “Electroshock, sensory stimulation, mind-altering substances. It’s like my remedy, see? Lux ex tenebris, ‘light from darkness.’ Only my remedy suppresses the truth, whereas this drug . . .” Mr. Todd wired to the wall, drugged, hypnotized, plied with questions about blood and razors and exactly how long it takes a mutilated body to die . . .
“It doesn’t matter,” she cut herself off impatiently. Outside, lightning erupted, a brilliant triple flash. “Mr. Fairfax has supplies of this drug. He uses it to pierce his patients’ delusional state and get at the truth. He’s been interrogating the criminal lunatics, don’t you see? Discovering the best method to kill!” She finished, breathless, but her blood stung, acid poison staining her heart.
If you want instruction, all you have to do is ask.
What a fool she’d been. Mr. Todd, who knew so much about the murderer. Because Mr. Todd knew exactly who the murderer was. And craftily he’d guided her to the solution, for sick and secret reasons of his own. It was all just a game.
Then again, Todd loathed Fairfax. What if . . .
Marcellus Finch stared, bewildered. “Oh, Jedediah. For shame. I thought we’d been through this with Victor.”
Lafayette’s eyebrow cocked. “Fairfax? But—”
“That’s where I got the book about the teleporter,” she explained. “His secret library at Bethlem.”
A flintlock flash of vintage Lafayette smile. “Secret library? Do tell.”
“Never mind,” she said hastily. “He has the means to build the machine. He has access to the drug. What more?”
Lafayette considered. “You know what we saw at Temple’s,” he said at last. “Do you mean to say Fairfax is a—”
“What other explanation is there?” Eliza thought of Fairfax’s mild eyes, his careful smile, and shuddered. He covered the monster inside well. “Perhaps he caught it from a patient. Maybe he even infected himself with the disease. You never could fault his experimental rigor.”
“But what about the missing body parts?” asked Lafayette reasonably. “Fairfax is a surgeon. He can get all the cadavers he wants from medical schools, not to mention the dead from Bethlem itself. Why go to such dangerous lengths to collect these pieces?”
“Why, indeed?” murmured Finch.
Eliza’s thoughts collided, fighting for an explanation that made sense. “Because they’re special,” she offered at last, desperate. “Because the parts themselves mean something. A ballerina’s feet, a pickpocket’s hands and eyes . . .”
Her throat corked. He’s making them perfect, she’d told Mr. Todd. But it wasn’t the victims who were being perfected. The victims were leftovers. Discarded. Their admirable parts removed and stored, and anything broken or unfit for the killer’s purpose thrown aside . . .
Images jumbled and coalesced, like puzzle pieces clicking into place.
The cover of a crumpled pamphlet, a stiff-limbed figure in mummy wrappings stalking Waterloo. WALKING DEATH!! NONE CAN ESCAPE THE MONSTER!
A cadaver riddled with wires, striding jerkily across the amphitheater floor at the Crystal Palace. Matthew Temple’s blithe grin. The fellow’s dead, isn’t he? Can’t bring him back to life with a spark up his arse.
Mr. Todd’s sly whispers, electric light glistening in his hair. Your killer isn’t angry or vengeful. He’s hopelessly in love.
That pale, wrinkled human brain, floating in the jar on Fairfax’s desk.
Victor’s ready. But we have to be quick. Before the decay sets in.
And the portrait of dead Lady Fairfax, edged in black . . .
Oh, my.
“Marcellus,” she cut in, “who’s Victor, and what’s he ready for?”
“Say what?”
“‘I thought we’d been through this with Victor,’ you said, just a moment ago. Been through what?”
Lafayette touched her arm. “Am I missing something?”
“Victor,” she insisted. “Enough secrets, Marcellus. Tell me.”
Reluctantly, Finch sighed. “Well, it was a long time ago. I don’t suppose it matters now.” And he opened a drawer and plucked out a faded sepia photograph.
The same photograph that hung on the wall at Bethlem. A
dusty laboratory, her father’s associates, stiff in starched suits and cravats, pausing impatiently for the camera, as if they’d better things to do.
Finch laid the image on the counter and pointed to each figure in turn. “Here’s me. Goodness, I’m a mere child, eh? This one with his nose in the air is Fairfax. The rest are all dead now. Henry, of course. The bright-faced fellow in the pale suit is Mr. Faraday, rest his tactless soul, and God rot the fools who burned him . . . present company excepted,” he added hastily.
Lafayette managed a twist of smile. “Before my time, Mr. Finch. No offense taken.”
“This older fellow here by the name of Davy, a friend of Faraday’s. Fairfax electrocuted him once,” Finch added moodily. “Set his hair on fire. Never saw much of him after that. And . . . yes. Here, on the end. Tall fellow in a top hat, looks like a foreigner.”
Lightning flashed, illuminating the photograph. A thin man of middle age, pointed beard, dark hair curled in the European fashion. His wide eyes held a fanatical glow. He stood apart from the others, as if he wasn’t quite part of the group. As if they feared him.
Finch tapped the man’s face. “That’s Victor. Not an Englishman, you know, the most frightful Teutonic accent. Spent years in Bavaria as a student. Family seat some crumbling stone pile outside Geneva. I heard he died abroad . . . let’s see . . . twenty years ago?” He gave a sickly grin. “Well, there you go. Old memories, eh? Nothing else to see.” He began to return the picture to the drawer.
Eliza grabbed Finch’s arm, desperate. “No. I read his diary. The one with the electrical teleporter in it.”
“Don’t know what you’re on about, dear girl. I say, is that the time?”
“In German, to be sure,” she persisted, “so mostly I looked at the pictures. Title page torn out, half the book missing? Locked in a secret cell at Bethlem? Ringing any bells?”
Finch ruffled his hair, sheepish. “Oh, dear. I told Fairfax to get rid of that when Henry passed. Jedediah, I said to him, Jedediah, you foolish old fox, are you mad? We can’t keep this now, not after what we’ve done—”
“And what exactly did you do, Marcellus?” She felt sick. Bells clanged in her skull, as if she were locked in the belfry while a frenzied mob pulled the ropes. “Don’t lie to me anymore. I know the pair of you covered up my mother’s death. What did you do that drove Henry to . . . be consumed?” His death, she’d been about to say.
