Cold Stone and Ivy

by H. Leighton Dickson

  Abigail Charles—R’leased

  Eliza Kerry—R’leased

  Emmaline McKenna—R’leased

  Charlie Fretts—R’leased

  Clarissa Agatha Polkey—At Seventh

  Sarah Ann Polkey—At Seventh

  The list went on.

  Some of the names were familiar, others were not, and she realized that it was not only clippings from the Whitechapel murders on the wall but from all parts of the county. Manchester, Blackpool, Preston, and Liverpool. The entire section of wall was covered in news articles on missing children and gruesome deaths and fiendish murders, and she found her head spinning with thoughts. What interest could a baron of a northern county possibly have with such horrible events?

  Her heart was thudding in her chest now. She needed to get out, to get to Second and the company of Cookie and Lottie and Davis. Or better yet, as far away as she could from the strange mysteries of Lasingstoke. She whirled, took a step, and froze.

  The Mad Lord was standing in the doorway, a pack of dogs at his heel.

  Chapter 13

  Of Old Books, Older Photochromes,

  and a History of the Ghost Club

  LONDON’S BUTCHER OPENS Shop in Lancaster

  Prostitute Found Murdered, Eviscerated near the Col. Springs Airships Platforms

  Clara Clements, of 33 Maudgate Rd, was found murdered in an alleyway behind the ticket platform of the Col. Springs Airships Field. Her throat had been cut twice, her bowels removed from their cavity, and several organs moved or removed from the scene. It is believed to have taken place between 9:00 pm and 4:00 am this morning. Her husband, Oliver Sloan Clements, insists that despite her profession, his wife was a woman of good character and did not deserve to be treated in such a low manner. The murder bears a shocking resemblance to the killings in London’s Whitechapel district and already there are calls for Imperial intervention.

  There are no witnesses, and police are currently investigating several leads. Anyone with any information regarding this heinous crime is asked to come forward to the police.

  “MISS SAVAGE?”

  She curtsied. Again, she didn’t know if it was good form. It just seemed the proper thing to do. “Your Lordship.”

  The Mad Lord of Lasingstoke moved into the room, the dogs following like shadows. They were all dry now, dogs and lord alike, and he moved to where she was standing beside the papered wall. His eyes—hazel now, most definitely hazel—flicked to the clippings, then back to her. He raised his brows.

  “Are you looking for . . . a book?”

  Relief flooded her from her head to her boots.

  “Yes!” she gasped. “A book. I had seen one the other day that looked, um, interesting.”

  “Indeed. Which one?”

  “Ah, well . . .” She turned, swallowed, stepped over to the shelves. “This one! This looks most intriguing!”

  She pulled a book from the shelf.

  His gaze flicked down at the spine, then back up. “The Manchester Birth Registry?”

  Damn.

  “Silly me,” she said. “Grabbed the wrong book. I meant this one.”

  And she pulled out The Ghost Club: Charter Members 1862—present.

  “The Ghost Club.”

  “Yes. It sounds like a wonderful mystery novel. I do love a good mystery—it helps when I’m writing my Penny Dreadfuls to have a brain full of mysteries.”

  “It’s non-fiction, I’m afraid,” he said. “The Ghost Club is an active organization for gentlemen, clergymen, and scholars interested in paranormal phenomena. They consult for the Empire, the War Office, and the Home Secretary of Defense.”

  Ivy blinked several times. The words of the sisters Helmsly-Wimpoll ran immediately through her head.

  “In what regard, sir?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m not a member.”

  “But you are a gentleman and you are interested in paranormal phenomena, clearly.”

  “A family pastime.” He smiled at her. “My father was a founding member.”

  “But not you.”

  “Not me. Never.”

  “Why not then?”

  “It’s a complicated thing.”

  “I love complicated things. I am bursting with the need for a challenge, or so I’ve been told.” Her heart was racing and she clutched the book to her chest. “Why do you have those newspaper posts on your wall?”

  He frowned at her, and she bit her tongue, for once again, it had gotten the better of her. And if she looked very closely, she could have sworn his eyes were changing colour.

  “The world is an unpredictable, terrible, fantastical place.”

  “So I’m beginning to discover. You haven’t answered my question, sir.”

  “That may take some time. I will need to show you around the rest of First.”

  “It’s raining outside. First is entirely more pleasant.”

  “I think perhaps,” he began, “you have decided to reach a little?”

  “I couldn’t find any boots.”

  He turned away. But she noticed he was smiling, and that it was a very pleasing sight.

  She stepped out with him and the dogs, The Ghost Club clutched tightly to her chest.

  IT WAS A time device. It had to be.

  He had fallen asleep with it in his hand in the study of Hollbrook House. And now, he was awaking in his own bed without any knowledge of getting there. He stretched, wondering if he had missed any classes in the interim. He was only supposed to sneak in a nap, but looking out through the crack in the drapes, it seemed closing in on supper.

  He wondered if either Bond or Williams would fail him for missing a shift.

  He rolled to sitting on the edge of the bed, slipped a hand into his waistcoat for the fob. Five o’clock. He had honestly slept from eleven this morning to five. It felt remarkably good, and he sprang from the bed, feeling he could work now for twenty-four hours or more.

  He trotted down the steps, the smell of lamb stew urging him onwards.

  “Pomfrey!” he called. “Pomfrey, I have time for a quick bite if it’s ready!”

  The wigged man appeared at the foot of the stair. He blinked several times.

  “Welcome back, sir. Are you sitting for dinner?”

  “Welcome back? You mean, welcome down.”

  “Well, yes, sir. If that is what you prefer.”

  Christien sighed. Pomfrey was an odd duck. He’d attended Hollbrook House for years now, since the death of his father.

  “I shall make some tea, sir. And oh yes, the paper is in the study . . .”

  “I’ve already read it, Pomfrey. Before I fell asleep.”

  “No, sir. I meant today’s paper. The Times, sir.”

  “Well yes, the very one.”

  “Oh, very good, sir. They must have an earlier run for you medical types . . .”

  And he turned in the direction of the kitchens, disappeared down a long hallway, leaving Christien confounded but used to it, and so he too turned in the direction of the study. The aforementioned newspaper was folded like new, and he shook his head. Pomfrey was an odd duck indeed, and he picked it up with idle curiosity, scanning the headline.

  Steam Times (London)

  September 17, 1888

  The Whitechapel Murders

  The detective officers continued their investigations, but up to a late hour last night, no arrest had been made, neither is there any prospect of an arrest being effected. The public of the neighbourhood continue to make statements, which are committed to writing at Commercial Street station, and in several instances the police have been made cognisant of what the informants consider to be suspicious movements of individuals whose appearance is supposed to tally with that of the man wanted. Every clue given by the public in their zeal to assist the police has been followed up but without success, and the lapse of time, it is feared, will lessen the chances of discovering the perpetrator of the crime.

  The article went on, but his eyes had ceased reading
. In fact, they were stuck, quite simply, on the date.

  September 17.

  He barely heard Pomfrey slip into the study, place the tea cup on the table beside his wing chair.

  “Is that not today’s paper, sir?” asked the houseman.

  “What is the date today, Pomfrey?”

  “The seventeenth, sir.”

  “It is not the sixteenth?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not Sunday, the sixteenth?”

  “Well, no, sir. Today dawned Monday, September 17, last I checked.”

  Christien swallowed. “Of course. Thank you, Pomfrey.”

  “Are you quite all right, sir?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “For you do not look well, to my eyes.”

  “I’m quite fine, thank you. Just needing some food. Lunch?”

  “Dinner, sir. It is, after all, five o’clock, sir. In the evening. Of Monday, September 17.”

  He sighed, sank back into the chair. Pomfrey waited a moment.

  “There is a steamcar in the mews, sir.”

  “A what?”

  “A steamcar. Shewed up this morning sometime. Ghastly thing. All metal and gears and steambricks.”

  “A steamcar . . .” Christien ran a hand through his hair. “When the bloody hell did I buy a steamcar?”

  “I would suspect either Sunday, September 16 or Monday, September 17, sir. Unless there are more days of which I am unaware.”

  Christien blinked slowly.

  “Is there anything else, sir?”

  “No, Pomfrey. Thank you.”

  Pomfrey left the study as Christien sank deeper into his chair.

  He had lost an entire day. His last recollection was of the clockwork locket, and he pulled it out from his pocket. Its gears were ticking merrily like a watch. It was cold in his hand.

  He didn’t even touch the tea that had been brought for him.

  THE PHOTOCHROMES ON the walls were amazing.

  “And this is my father with his first Warmblood. Rouen Jardin Bleu de Mer.”

  She grinned. “And his stable name?”

  He grinned back. “Blue.”

  She watched him, had been watching him the entire afternoon as they strolled about the large wing known as First. He was very different from Christien, at times awkward, at other times animated, and she had no sense of why this man would be so fascinated with the Whitechapel killings, or any killings for that matter. He did not seem such a man. Still, she had enjoyed a lovely afternoon and was finding herself growing strangely comfortable in his company.

  She wondered why he was not married.

  On the third floor now and the last hallway leading to a large padlocked door. The walls were lined with photochromes of a personal nature, featuring both him and Christien as very young boys along with their parents. Physically, Renaud and Jane were as dissimilar as Christien and Sebastien. Renaud was the spitting image of Rupert, but with perhaps more hard lines across his face. All the chromes with him were stiff, posed, as if he was always aware of the presence of a camera and acted accordingly. He was a handsome, fine-figured man, and he knew it. His wife, Jane, was entirely different.

  Ivy could see the likeness of Sebastien in her, the fair wavy hair, the animated expressions and sunny smiles. And the dogs. There was not a chrome of Jane without dogs. It was clear she adored them, and Ivy wondered if she had shared that love with her oldest son. It would explain much.

  She was about to ask the reason for the padlock at the end of the hall when her eyes were diverted by a chrome high on the wall. It was a group of men in dark suits. There was one in particular who seemed familiar, with a high forehead, piercing eyes, muttonchops, and small moustache. She narrowed her eyes.

  “Is that Prince Albert?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Sebastien. “Just before his death in ’61.”

  “Impressive connections, sir.” She grinned. “Is this a gentlemen’s club?”

  “And there you are. This is what I wanted to show you,” he said, nodding at the book still clutched in her hands. “It is the Ghost Club.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. There were many influential people involved in the creation of the Club. Edward is still a member.”

  She stared at him for a long moment before turning back to the chrome. This was not the first time Edward, Prince of Wales had cropped up in the family history. She remembered the newspapers after he had been shot in India, and his first public appearances with his clockwork arm. Suddenly, the use of prosthetics amongst the general public increased one-hundred fold.

  She wondered if Frankow actually did design it. The world was an unpredictable, terrible, fantastical, place.

  “This,” she said as she studied the chrome further. “This looks like Dr. Williams . . .”

  “Hm,” said Sebastien. He pulled thick spectacles from a waistcoat pocket, slipped them over his nose, and peered up at the chrome. “Dr. John Williams, yes. I believe it was his first year in London. Got snatched up straightaway by the Club.”

  “But I know Dr. Williams. He’s a friend of my father’s from Swansea. He and his wife have dined at our home and we at theirs. He’s not a member of some paranormal club, sir. I can assure you of that.”

  “I shan’t argue.” Sebastien shrugged. “I don’t know the man. Although, according to the books, he was on the registry as an active member. I would shoot the lot of them if I had my druthers but that would be hard to justify, even if they did conspire to drive my father mad.”

  “Did you just say you’d shoot them?”

  “Yes. And I have the perfect pistol with which to do it.”

  She stared at him, but he did not seem to notice.

  “It would be poetic justice really, but in all honesty, madness runs in the family. The Club just capitalized on my father’s expertise and gave him enough rope to hang himself. So to speak. He used a bullet. I’m so glad Christien has escaped their attention all his years in London. They would want to corrupt his innocence, and I would hate to see him burdened with even more loathsome cadavers.”

  She was certain her mouth was hanging open.

  “Cadavers?”

  “Yes, they are simply too much for me. Can’t stand the sight of them. And Christien brings trunkloads of cadavers whenever he visits. It’s difficult for us to be in the same room. Hollbrook House is hell for both of us.”

  “Trunkloads?” She blinked. “Of, of cadavers?”

  “Well, not literally ‘trunkloads.’ Although for me, it is the same. They want me to shoot him, but he’s my brother so I refuse. They are quite a persistent lot.”

  She stared at him now, as “animated” slid a ways past “awkward,” deep, deep into the territory of “bizarre.”

  “Gads, I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” And he shoved his hands into his pockets to stare at the floor. “Do forgive me, Miss Savage. I often forget myself when in the company of the living.”

  “But why, why would you want to shoot Christien?”

  “No, no, you misunderstand. I love my brother. Rest assured I will never lift a finger to harm him, no matter what the women say.” He shook his head, his eyes appearing distorted and currently very blue behind the lenses. “Never.”

  And then he smiled like the sun.

  What had Frankow done to him?

  Her heart was racing as quickly as her mind. Could any of this possibly be fact or was it all simply a glimpse into the addled mind of the Mad Lord of Lasingstoke? She tore her eyes away but they came to rest once again on the chrome of the Ghost Club.

  There was a man with thinning brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and spectacles.

  “Wait,” she murmured. “This fellow . . . He’s familiar as well . . . Who is he?”

  Sebastien peered closer, then straightened.

  “Ah,” he said. “That is a photo of a very young Dr. Arvin Frankow. You’ve met him, I believe.”

  A cold fist gripped Ivy’s heart, and she
turned back to the image. Sure enough, along with Dr. John Williams, Renaud Jacobe St. John Lord de Lacey, and Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, stood a much younger Dr. Arvin Frankow. A Charter Member of the Ghost Club.

  And he had both his legs.

  Chapter 14

  Of Mad Women, Machine-Men,

  and a Locket Filled with Angels

  SEBASTIEN STARED OUT the dark window as the hilly county of Lancashire rolled past. Across from him, Ivy Savage sat staring out the window on the other side. She had insisted on returning to Lonsdale immediately after seeing the photochrome of Arvin Frankow and the Ghost Club. Had he been alone, he would have ridden, but he was certain the woman was soft from life in London. Instead, he summoned Castlewaite, and the coach had set out in the rain for the Abbey.

  They said nothing to each other on the ride.

  Fergis sat on the bench beside him, Tag next to Ivy. The other dogs lay on the floor of the cab, and he had to give the woman credit. The coach smelled of wet dog and she had yet to complain. Quite a resilient creature, all things considered, if more than just a little highly strung.

  He watched her, wondered what she thought. Coming to Lasingstoke was a plucky thing for a girl to do, even on the urging of a father and a fiancé. Lonsdale was a fearsome place and Frankow a formidable man. It was obvious that she loved her mother, and it was commendable. Christien was lucky to have her.

  Finally, the grey bay of Wharcombe and the Gothic roofs of the Abbey came into view, and he felt the cold descend on him like a blanket. Through the gate now and the codes spun through his mind like leaves. He knew them all by heart. Along the drive that still filled him with dread and finally the lurch as Castlewaite stopped the carriage at the doors.

  They were met by uniformed men, Vickers and Toewes. He knew them well. They nodded as he stepped out of the carriage along with the dogs and he held out a hand for Miss Savage. Two nurses as well, one familiar, one not, but Ivy bundled past them all into the foyer of the Abbey.

  He turned to the dogs and held up a finger. “Stay. Do you understand? Dickey? Tag? I mean you too.”