by George Mann
"My goodness," she whispered under her breath, realisation dawning on her. She was certain this could be no coincidence.
This had to have something to do with Sir Maurice's investigation of the murder of Lord Winthrop. Did Alfonso have a hand in that, too?
She edged around the table, studying the other artefacts on the workbench. There were a number of similar ushabti figures, each of them broken, their hidden contents now removed. Someone — Alfonso, she presumed — had been conducting a detailed study of the objects, for many of the papers contained scrawling that deciphered the inscriptions, as well as strange mathematical drawings: stars within circles and other pictograms that reminded her of the contents of Sir Maurice's Chelsea library. She drew a deep breath and wiped her brow. She shook her head, trying to clear the drug-induced fug. It occurred to her, then, belatedly, to check for any escape routes from the room, any means by which she could quit the theatre and get away. She needed to find Sir Maurice.
She glanced around. Her vision was still hazy. Across from her, on the other side of the room, was a door. She began edging around the table towards it, and then stopped in horror. There, in the corner, a few feet to the left of the door, was one of the most ghastly sights she had ever encountered: a pile of female corpses, cast against the wall and left to rot.
The women had been piled up haphazardly like discarded marionettes. Flies buzzed chaotically around their slack-jawed faces. Veronica felt bile rising in her gullet. There were five, perhaps six corpses. She'd had no idea the situation was this severe. Only two women had been reported missing in the area, to date, but Alfonso had clearly been much busier down here in his secret slaughterhouse. She was appalled by the sheer magnitude of his perversion. What had he done to the women? How could he continue to work down here with their dead, unseeing eyes fixed on his every movement? And the smell!
Veronica fished around in her jacket pocket for a handkerchief. Finding one, she held it over her mouth and nose, and hesitantly stepped towards the sickening heap of bodies. She could not believe the lack of respect with which the women had been treated, even in death. They remained fully clothed, at least, although whatever had been done to them had clearly been appalling. What she could see of their faces showed the frigid signs of terror. These women had stared death directly in the face.
Veronica crouched low beside the nearest corpse. The girl was young — twenty, possibly — with pretty long curls of strawberry blonde, and full, pink lips. Her eyes had once been blue, but were now a grotesque shade of milky grey. She was on her front, partially buried beneath the corpse of an older, brunette woman. One of her arms was dangling free. Veronica grimaced as she turned the head slowly from side to side. A line of dry, dark blood ran from the girl's forehead down the side of her nose. Veronica followed the line of this bloody trail, finding, with dismay, the origin was a small hole that had been burrowed in the girl's forehead. Flinching, she probed it with the end of her finger. It was about the size of a pen nib and was located at the very centre of the woman's forehead. Veronica frowned, checking another of the girls. The marking was exactly the same. A neat bore-hole drilled for an unknown purpose, directly through the bone and deep into the skull cavity itself. Clearly, Alfonso had been intent on extracting something from inside the women's heads.
Veronica moved around the pile of corpses. She was glad that the heady scent of the chloroform was still affecting her sense of smell. Some of the bodies were days old — weeks, possibly — and had begun to decompose. Their waxen flesh had become bloated and saggy, their eyes putrefying in their open, staring sockets. Their terrified, bloodied faces were an alarming juxtaposition against the gaudiness of their colourful evening clothes. Veronica felt an intense burst of sadness for these young women, for how their lives had been so drastically shortened, snuffed out in such a foul manner. She felt anger, too, anger and a need for retribution. She had to stop this. She had to stop it before one more girl fell into the clutches of this terrible man. She knew, now, that the image of these dead girls would be forever burned into her memory, their silent mouths crying out for justice. She knew also of her own predicament, and the fact that — still dazed from the chloroform — she remained in terrible danger. Nevertheless, she felt a need to understand why: the meaning behind the shocking death of these women.
Veronica examined another of the bore-holes, this time in the skull of a brunette. What was their purpose? There was clearly nothing sexual about the deaths; the manner in which the women had been discarded, carelessly, suggested that Alfonso was in no way objectifying the girls. He didn't appear to desire their deaths, to treat them with any reverence or passion. No, it was as if he considered them as animals, there to be experimented upon in his laboratory. The bodies were purely carcasses, immaterial, and he had left them there to rot whilst he went about his business, having extracted whatever it was he needed from inside their heads. Veronica knew she risked jumping to conclusions, but she was convinced her reading of the situation was accurate. She'd learned a lot of Newbury's methods in the last few months; now, finally, she had an opportunity to apply them.
Standing, Veronica strode across the room to where the bizarre chair-like device stood against the wall. She needed to focus on something else, to blot out the horror of the dead girls. She fought another wave of dizziness, holding on to the edge of the workbench for support. The chair. She needed to concentrate.
The chair was an odd contraption. Its frame was wooden and roughly hewn, with locking iron bands where a person's wrists and ankles could be fixed. Likewise, an adjustable band was attached to the backrest, perfectly placed for clasping a person's head. At the centre of this band was a small opening, and Veronica realised with a shudder that this was the guide mark through which the holes were bored into the women's skulls. Rust-coloured stains around its edges confirmed that blood had been spilled on the metalwork.
Above the chair, rising from the back of it, was a large, multi-jointed brass arm, which curved up and over the seat like a scorpion's tail, terminating in a fine drill bit. It gleamed in the low light of the gas jets. The mechanism had two handles: rods with rubber grips, attached part way along its length, so that a person standing before the chair could easily manipulate the direction of the drill bit, moving it back and forth and adjusting the height and alignment. The drill itself appeared to be powered pneumatically; cables stretched from the drill housing along the length of the brass arm, disappearing around the back of the machine, where they snaked towards a large, grey cylinder of compressed air. Beside this, a glass bell sat atop a chamber containing two brass pistons, which were currently at rest. Tubing curled from two bungs at the top of this glass dome, connecting with two further, smaller mechanical arms, one holding a long-bladed scalpel, the other some bizarre kind of suction device.
It was a terrifying machine. It looked to Veronica like an engine designed solely for the torture of others, but she knew it had to have an even more sinister purpose.
Beside the chair was a low wooden trolley which held a number of metal trays. One of these was covered in a scattered array of glass syringes, another with a series of small vials, each of them filled with the same brown fluid she had seen earlier, in the vials on the workbench. She realised that this liquid — whatever it was — had to be the end product of whatever terrible process Alfonso was conducting down there beneath the theatre: the reason for the entire set up. Some chemical or substance extracted from within the skulls of the dead girls. Veronica felt sick to her stomach. She found it hard to reconcile the understanding she had developed of Alfonso's character with the concept of this monstrous laboratory. Yes, he was a thuggish brute, and egotistical too, but this? Did he really have the gumption and the knowledge to pull off an operation such as this? And what of the links to Lord Winthrop and the Ancient Egyptian artefacts? Surely Sir Maurice would have made the connection by now if it were obvious. She glanced once again around the room. No, this was the work of a scientist, not an illusion
ist. For the first time she considered the fact that Alfonso may have only been part of the story. Perhaps he was working with an accomplice. Perhaps —
There was a sharp pain at the back of her skull as she was coshed, definitively, from behind. Instantly she crumpled to the floor, the metallic taste of fear on her tongue, and once again she slipped away into darkness.
—— Chapter Eighteen ——
Newbury ached with every fibre of his being. He'd taken a number of serious knocks during his pursuit of Ashford, particularly when he'd driven the tricycle down the stairwell in the Underground station, and he knew he was lucky to be alive. His knuckles were bleeding and he had a painful red burn on his left forearm, where a hot coal from the tricycle wreckage had scorched his flesh during the crash. He suspected other minor injuries, too, but he wouldn't have time to examine himself in the cheval glass for some hours.
And yet, for all that, he had failed to capture Ashford once again. He lambasted himself for the fact that the chase had resulted in nothing substantial. He supposed he was able to take some solace from the fact that he now had a better understanding of the man, even if it had left him feeling more confused than ever. The certainty he had felt earlier, the sinister character of Ashford that he had constructed in his mind, all of that had now dispersed, become disassociated with reality. Now, they were playing a different game altogether, and Ashford had shown his hand. Firstly, the rogue agent had refused to strike him during their battle on the tracks; aware, perhaps, of his own incredible strength, he had refused to risk Newbury's life with a direct blow. Secondly, at great risk to himself, he had thrown Newbury out of the path of the moving train. If it were not for that, Newbury would certainly be dead. It seemed to the Crown detective that Bainbridge had been right all along; that Ashford was not the killer that Newbury had earlier presumed him to be. He had much to consider.
"Help me up there, lad." Newbury smiled gratefully as Purefoy offered his arm, enabling him to heave himself to his feet. His back creaked. He straightened up, groaning at his protesting muscles. "What kept you?" he said, grinning.
Purefoy was still trying to catch his breath. He shook his head at the other man's jibe. "I understand now, Sir Maurice, a little more of what you intimated at Lord Winthrop's house."
Newbury gave a curt nod. "Indeed." He brushed his unruly hair back from his face. "And I believe, Purefoy, that you could be a great deal of help in bringing this situation to a happy conclusion. Can I count on you?"
Purefoy's lips curled in a wry smile. "Absolutely."
Newbury glanced along the platform at the gathered crowd of people. Passengers were now disembarking from the stationary train, which was sighing loudly at the platform. The driver had climbed down from the engine and was on the tracks, examining the scorch marks on the tunnel wall, where Ashford's brass skeleton had been dragged across the tiles. He looked confused and not a little shaken by his experience. He couldn't seem to understand why there was no sign of a body on the rails.
Newbury knew that he needed to lose himself in the crowds, before people began to identify him to the authorities and it became too difficult to fade out of sight. He didn't have the time nor the inclination to answer the raft of irrelevant questions that would be put to him before he was able to prove his identity or all in the aid of Sir Charles. He clasped the reporter on the shoulder. "Right, Purefoy. Let's get out of here."
They set off, forcing their way through the press of people. Newbury had a determined look on his face as he tried to ignore the flashes of pain from his sore limbs.
Mounting the stairs, they soon found their way out of the Underground station, passing the wreckage of the tricycle, which was now swarming with police constables and transport officials in neat, black suits. They were holding back the crowd of onlookers who had gathered around the wreckage, and talking to witnesses in hushed tones. Newbury recognised the woman who had helped him to his feet after the crash, and turned away, surreptitiously shielding his face from view.
Above the station, the street was dark and foreboding. Shapes hulked in the thick miasma, causing them to take on new roles; an avenue of trees became a row of forlorn soldiers standing to attention; a solitary flower-seller became an ethereal ghost, haunting the abandoned streets in search of fellow spirits. Newbury drew his jacket closer around himself, coughing a little on the syrupy vapour. He turned to the young reporter, who was loitering anxiously beside him, awaiting instruction. "Purefoy. I need you to fetch the police. Go directly to Scotland Yard and tell them that Sir Maurice Newbury has sent you to speak with Sir Charles Bainbridge. Charles is a good man. Fill him in. Give him all the details of what has occurred here this evening, and then have him send his men round to Arbury House. They need to secure Blake's apartment."
Purefoy smiled. "Of course." He hesitated for a moment. "Surely you're not going after Ashford again?"
Newbury grinned. He took his pocket watch from his jacket pocket and held it for a moment in the palm of his hand, studying the elaborate face. It was approaching seven o'clock. "Me? No, I have an appointment with a beautiful young woman."
Purefoy laughed. "Then may I suggest, Sir Maurice, that you first of all find an opportunity to change your attire."
Newbury glanced down to see that his suit was now torn and filthy, spattered with mud, grit and oil. His green eyes twinkled. "I think, my young friend, you make an excellent point."
Purefoy's advice, however, whilst perceptive, proved not to be timely. Newbury knew that if he were to take a cab to Chelsea he would miss his appointment at Kensington with Miss Hobbes. He was not prepared to leave her waiting for him once again. So instead, bedraggled as he was, Newbury had seen Purefoy into a cab, before hailing his own hansom and instructing the driver to ferry him directly to Miss Hobbes's apartments. She'd seen him in worse states than this, after all.
The hansom clattered on through the effluvium-laden streets towards Kensington. The fog had descended swiftly, and looked set to entrench. Newbury watched through the window as figures flitted past, ghostly shapes in the hazy yellow-grey, like spirits attempting to escape the miasma of the afterlife. Every building, every corner, the mouth of every alleyway; suddenly, in the sickly whitewash, they became the haunt of otherworldly things. Newbury imagined shapes in the fog, just as he had since he'd been a boy. Only these were no longer the lucid imaginings of a child. Newbury knew that out there, in the pale darkness, there were real monsters, both human and otherwise. He had the scars to prove it.
Newbury sighed, and leaned back against the soft leather of the seat. He hoped the fog would lift. If not, he was sure that Mrs. Bradshaw's respiratory condition would return. It had affected her badly throughout the winter months, and he was concerned for her wellbeing. Besides, he knew he couldn't live without the woman. She was a miracle. Unfazed, undaunted, she catered to his every whim. And she approved of Miss Hobbes. She hadn't stated it explicitly, but her affection for Veronica was clear for all to see. If nothing else, it gave Newbury hope for the future.
Newbury glanced again at his pocket watch. It was now ten past the hour. He imagined Veronica in her Kensington rooms, sat before the fire, awaiting his arrival. He suspected that, even now, she would be cursing him, in her own gentle way, for his tardiness. He would attend to her directly, and hoped to take a moment to relax a little before going on. He needed a brandy. He needed more than a brandy, but for now, a dose of alcohol would help to quell his burning desire for the poppy.
Tonight, he would give himself over to his assistant, enjoy the pleasure of her company and attend to the details of her own case, regarding the missing girls and the magician. After a drink and a wash, they would repair to another carriage, take the short journey to his Chelsea lodgings — where he would change into his evening wear — and together they would enjoy a fine meal at a restaurant on the Strand. He needed that.
Newbury's mind was still a whirlwind, as he considered the Ashford affair. He didn't fancy Purefoy for the crimes,
and was now more resolute than ever that he should take the young man under his wing. He'd arranged to call for the reporter in the morning, with Miss Hobbes in tow. In the meantime, Newbury hoped that Charles wasn't being too hard on the young man.
He must have dozed off in the back of the cab, for what seemed like only a moment later, he was awoken by the brisk knock of the driver on the roof of the cab. He rubbed blearily at his eyes and sat forward, glancing out of the window. The hansom had come to rest outside Miss Hobbes's apartment. Newbury clambered out of the cab, paid the driver, and realised for the first time that he must have lost his hat somewhere during the excitement of the afternoon. Shrugging, he followed the path to the house and rapped loudly three times on Veronica's front door. Moments later he heard footsteps creaking on the loose floorboards of the hall. The door creaked open, enough for the slightest sliver of light, and the eye of Mrs. Grant, Veronica's housekeeper, appeared in the opening. It took a moment for her to recognise Newbury in such a dishevelled state. When she did, the door was flung open widely and she was ushering him in, offering him platitudes.
"Oh my poor dear. Come on in. You look like you could use a pot of that Earl Grey you're always asking for. I keep some out the back for when you call."
Newbury smiled. Mrs. Grant was typically the most stoic of housekeepers, rarely finding the occasion to even smile or raise her eyes to greet Miss Hobbes's visitors. Something about the state of his apparel that evening had moved her, however. Either that, or there was already something more significant amiss. He smiled warmly. "Now, Mrs. Grant, fear not. I am quite well, really. But I am running rather late for an appointment with Miss Hobbes, who I gather had plans to meet me here this evening. Will I find her in the sitting room?"
Mrs. Grant frowned. She placed her hands on her hips, shaking her head in an exaggerated fashion. "Indeed not, Sir Maurice. Indeed not. Miss Hobbes has yet to return from the museum. I had hoped, upon seeing you, that you would be in a position to put my mind at rest regarding her good health." She looked him up and down once again. "I expected her over two hours ago, but I fear there has been no word."
