Cold Stone and Ivy

by H. Leighton Dickson

  “That’s interesting. Are you certain there was no head?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because we have a torso now, de Lacey.”

  Slowly, Sebastien looked up.

  “You did say we’d find one,” said Moore. “And we did. Do you know where we found her, sir? Any idea at all?”

  Sebastien shook his head.

  “The Embankment. In the foundation cellar for the New Scotland Yard.”

  There was silence in the room.

  “Clever, don’t you think?” asked Moore. “I think that was damned clever. Brazen, in fact. Anything you can tell me about that, sir? Anything else we need to know?”

  “The torso,” began Sebastien. He cleared his throat but his voice was thin. “No head, no arms, legs taken off at the hip joints, part of her abdomen missing?”

  “Exactly, sir. Looks like a butcher or a surgeon.”

  He nodded, let his eyes drop once more. Moore straightened.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself, de Lacey?”

  He did not look up. “This other woman, the small woman on the street who was murdered . . .”

  “Catherine Eddowes?”

  “She was alive. She was alive when I met her. I saw what he would do. I saw it all. I should have taken her home, made sure she was safe, but I chased after the men instead. I did not value her life.”

  His words were like an electric charge in the room, and the three officers moved in as his talk turned to the foremost of crimes.

  Moore placed his hands on the table’s edge. “Is this a confession, sir?”

  “Ivy was right all along. I place more value on the dead than the living. The dead plague me and the living are of no consequence. It is morally wrong.” He lifted his eyes to Savage. “You are correct, sir. She would not be safe with me. No one is safe with me.”

  “Fetch Abberline,” said Moore.

  Savage nodded and slipped from the room. Beals was frowning.

  “Are you saying you killed Catherine Eddowes, Lord de Lacey?”

  “I am responsible.”

  “But did you kill her, sir?”

  Sebastien looked up at the tall man. “I would like to speak with my brother, please.”

  Moore loomed in between.

  “I thought you might. He’s right outside the door.” He leaned in close one last time. “You’ll hang for this, de Lacey. You will hang from the neck until dead.”

  And quietly the two men left the room as Christien entered, closing the door behind him.

  They said nothing for some time before Christien took a chair to sit at the table, laced his fingers across it. Sebastien couldn't bring himself to look at him. Too many damned cadavers.

  “Bastien . . .” Christien began.

  “I’m sorry, Christien,” said Sebastien. “I’m so very sorry.”

  “I know. But you didn’t do these things. I know you didn’t. They have nothing. They’re simply trying to bully you, that’s all.”

  “Will you still have Ivy, Christien? She’s a good girl. Very industrious and clever. She needs a good stable fellow, someone to keep her safe. Someone to give her a fine house and fine children and . . .” He took a deep breath. “And you are the finest man I’ve ever known.”

  “I do care for her, Bastien.” Christien smiled sadly. “But not the way she needs. And I know she does not love me the way I need.”

  “But she does, Remy. I know she does.”

  The young doctor cocked his head. “How?”

  “Well, she is still wearing Mother’s ring, yes?”

  “I don’t believe she has taken it off. But I also gave her a locket and look who is wearing it now.”

  He glanced down. He had not even noticed. It pulsed like a heartbeat, beautiful and coy.

  He sighed.

  “Christien, that surgery . . .”

  “Which surgery?”

  “The one with the holes in . . . in the forehead . . .”

  “The prefrontal leucotomy?”

  “That will cure me, yes?”

  “That”—Christien swallowed—“It has met with some success in the treatment of violent schizophrenia, yes.”

  “Could you arrange it, please?”

  “Bastien . . .”

  “Please?”

  It was Christien’s turn to take a deep breath. “I’ll talk to Williams. We’ll have you transferred out of here. They’ll want to send you to Broadmoor but I’ll make sure it’s Bethlem. We can discuss it then.”

  “Thank you.”

  Christien rose to his feet and stepped to the door. He paused and turned.

  “How many women do you see, Bastien? Here in this room, right now, with me?”

  Sebastien cleared his throat again but did not look up. “There are nine women and three torsos, although the torsos are not as clear.”

  “Torsos? What do you mean?”

  “Three dismembered women. They are gruesome to behold.”

  “By God,” said Christien, and he looked at the ceiling. “They discovered the torso of a woman today. At the construction site for the new Scotland Yard.”

  “I have seen her for a month or more. Why have they only found her now?”

  “Perhaps she wasn’t murdered, Bastien. Perhaps she simply died and people needed to dispose of the body.”

  “That is no way to do it.”

  “Is that why they are angry?”

  Sebastien shrugged. “I don’t know, Christien. They don’t speak.”

  “Right. You’ve said that before.” He studied his brother for a few moments more. “Dr. Williams is a member of the Ghost Club.”

  “And so are you, it seems.”

  “Yes, well, that is a matter of debate. Would you consent to speak with some of his fellows at Bethlem?”

  “Why?”

  “You would present evidence of the validity of their pursuits. They are honest scientists, Bastien. They believe in life after death.”

  “But you don’t,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t want to believe it, Bastien. I’m terrified by the fact that they still want to talk to our dead father.”

  “They don’t know what they are seeking. It’s not illumination, it’s damnation.”

  “Will you consent to speak with them?”

  Sebastien nodded once again.

  Christien sighed. “Remember, Bastien, these officers are only trying to bully you. They have nothing.”

  Sebastien said nothing.

  “I’ll talk to John and see what we can do. Right?”

  “Thank you.”

  With one last look, Christien left the room but no one entered in his stead. The women who followed him like a cloak folded up on themselves and blew away, and for a short while, Sebastien was alone. However, he could hear voices from outside the door, heard words like “lunatic,” “illness,” “surgery,” and “Bedlam.” He wished for his father’s pistol. In fact, he wished for any pistol. He had sincerely tried his best last night with the Millhouse gang, but some problems could not be solved without the pull of a trigger.

  He wondered if it were possible for a surgeon’s drill to accomplish the same result, but he had his doubts.

  No, he was convinced he would never leave Bedlam a normal man. In fact, he was convinced that, once there, he would never leave Bedlam at all.

  “NINIAN?” EXCLAIMED FANNY. “My Liddell Ninny? In the Ghost Club?”

  “That’s so exciting!” squealed Franny.

  “Indeed,” said Ivy, and she smiled. It was amazing how the sisters raised her spirits so. They were natural forces for hope and she adored them for it.

  “Well, then,” Fanny sniffed and raised her cup. “Perhaps I shall drop him a post when I return home. To congratulate him, of course. Nothing more.”

  “I love datamancery,” said Franny.

  “Ah, that is London, is it not?” asked Fanny. “All this mystery, romance, intrigue, and fine, fine men?”

  “Very fine,” said F
ranny, although she looked happily preoccupied with the plate of biscuits on the table.

  They were on their second pot of the morning, and she had found the biscuits in the larder along with toast, and so they had made a cheap and easy breakfast of it. Truth be told, nothing could quell the sense of unease in the pit of her stomach.

  Fanny leaned forward and placed a hand on Ivy’s sleeve. “But you, dearest and darling. You have certainly had a rough time of it.”

  “A rough time, certainly.”

  “No, Sebastien has had a rough time of it. I’ve simply made everything worse.” She sighed, raised her chin. “I am a meddlesome, impulsive calamity of a girl and a very good man will pay the price for it.”

  “Oh dearest,” exclaimed Fanny. “That is a most terrible tale of woe.”

  “Most terrible,” said Franny.

  “But he will be cleared, surely.”

  “Most surely.”

  “Yes,” said Ivy, although with considerably less conviction. “Most surely he will.”

  Fanny sat back, raised her cup. “They have found the torso, you know. The torso belonging to that dreadful head of yours.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible.” Ivy sighed. “It was a terrible sight. Poor, poor girl.”

  They sat for a moment, sipping tea and thinking of the unfortunate woman now in pieces all throughout the city, when once again, there was a rap on the door.

  Ivy looked up.

  “Oh, that would be Marie,” said Fanny. “Our mother’s sister’s husband’s sister’s cousin’s daughter. We told you about her once. She’s a friend of your Christien Jeremie. Remember?”

  “Of your Christien,” said Franny.

  “I do recall,” said Ivy, rising to her feet.

  “We told her to meet us here so we girls could go out for a spot of lunch. I hope that wasn’t too forward of us?”

  “Was it forward?”

  “Not at all,” said Ivy. She bustled to the door and opened it upon a vivacious woman of perhaps twenty-five, with strawberry curls and a rosy complexion. “Hello?”

  “’Allo, Miss,” said the woman, and when she smiled, there were dimples in her cheeks. “You Ivy Savage?”

  “I am indeed.”

  “Helo fy chwaer!” said the young woman. “Cyfarchion o Aberystwyth!”

  “Dear cousin,” said Fanny, hovering over her shoulder now. “This is our friend Ivy Savage. Ivy, meet our mother’s sister’s husband’s sister’s cousin’s daughter Mary Jane Kelly. We call her Marie. She’s Welsh, you know. Just like you.”

  And Mary Jane Kelly called Marie smiled as Ivy invited her in.

  Chapter 36

  Of Women Restelled, Women Released,

  and Women in the Morgue

  THE SNOOTY FOX was a well-frequented pub between the neighbourhoods of Stepney and Whitechapel, and even at the early hour of eleven, men of all ages sat, smoking, drinking, and chatting amongst themselves. Not so different from women, thought Ivy, with the exception of the smoking. And the tea in the Fox was almost as strong as the tobacco or the ale.

  Mary Jane was a talkative girl, and Ivy learned more about her in half an hour than she knew about any other living soul. She had been born in Ireland but raised in Wales. She had been married at a very young age, and three times no less, firstly to a coal miner, secondly to an Ironclad longshoreman, and thirdly to member of the Submersibles Navy. She had been widowed in each circumstance. She had worked as an artist, singer, actress, governess, and seamstress. She travelled on the stage to Paris but returned to London to find work in Knightsbridge, very near Hollbrook House, in fact. Her parents had been well-off and friends with Dr. John Williams back in Swansea. In fact, it had been Dr. Williams who had introduced her to Christien and the boys years ago. They were “thick as thieves,” as she put it. “Thick as bloody thieves.”

  Ivy did not know what to make of her stories. They were grand for such a young woman, but she was obviously a girl of intelligence and pluck. With a well-connected family, it was possible to have done all these things, and yet she was living in a common lodging house off Dorset. Ivy suspected that while she dreamed of many grand adventures, she made do with what she had. It seemed women for the most part lived this way.

  She understood it quite well.

  As Mary Jane lifted her tea, Ivy noticed a brass ring on her finger.

  “Mary Jane?”

  “Call me Marie. It’s French. French is so much more ’phisticated than English, don’t you think? Just like your Remy. ’e’s very ’phisticated, ain’t ’e?”

  Ivy smiled. “Marie, your ring? Where did you get it?”

  Mary Jane held out her hand to admire it. “Oh, funny you should mention it. John gave it to me. ’E’s a regular gentleman, my John is.”

  “John Williams gave you this ring?”

  “Aye. Annwyl fy meddg, John.”

  “You must know him well, then.”

  The young woman blushed but said nothing, merely twirled the finger around a lock of hair.

  Three matching rings, thought Ivy. One for Christien, one for Prince Albert Victor, one for Mary Jane Kelly. She shook her head, entirely boggled.

  “Dear friends, I think I must get back to the Yard. They’re bound to have released Sebastien by now and I feel the need to make things right between us before he returns to Lasingstoke.”

  “Alone,” sniffed Fanny. “All great romances end in misery, I fear. Misery, death, and then of course, ghosts.”

  “I love ghosts,” said Franny.

  “I thought you was Remy’s moll.” Mary Jane leaned forward. “’oo’s this ‘Bastien,’ then?”

  “Have you not heard, cousin?” scoffed Fanny, waving a hand in the air. “Sebastien Laurent St. John Lord de Lacey, the Mad Lord of Lasingstoke himself?”

  “Christien’s brother,” said Ivy. “He’s being wrongly held at the Yard.”

  “The Mad Lord!” Mary Jane sat upright, a look of alarm crossing her face. “Why, ’e shot poor Rosie, ’e did. Shot ’im right up from under a pier.”

  There was silence at the little table. Both Fanny and Franny turned to look at Ivy, for she had told them the tale that very morning.

  “What did you say, Mary Jane?”

  The girl glanced among the faces now looking at her. “I was there at ’ollbrook ’ouse with Lewie the other night. Christien was fixing up Rosie’s leg. ’Enry said some git shot ’im right up from under the pier, just like that! Your Christien said it was ’is brother who shot ’im and ’e would get ’im to shoot Lewie next.”

  Ivy felt the world lurch underneath her.

  “I saw ’im through the glass. ’E looked like a lunatic, sure enough, but the room grew right cold, then. There were frost all over everything. Old ’ouses are poor for it, ain’t they? But I thought ’ollbrook ’ouse were finer ’n that . . .”

  Ivy took a deep breath but it did not help steady her racing heart. “Did Henry say what they were doing on the pier?”

  “Naw,” she answered. “Something about Bedlam. They die all the time in Bedlam, ’e said. John’s been ’elping them with some schoolwork and it has to do with Bedlam, but for the life of me, I didn’t listen. I was in me cups that night, I was! Lewie’s right generous with the gin!” And she laughed at the memory.

  Ivy looked at the sisters. “What would Ambrose Pickett be doing dropping a head into the Thames in the middle of the night?”

  “Disposing of it, I should think,” said Franny, and all eyes turned to her. She was eating a steak and kidney pie and did not bother to look up. “It is an ideal way to rid oneself of an unwanted body. The Met pays well for human remains fished out of the river, so it’s a win-win situation all round. Ah ha, me me. Medical students and their pranks . . .”

  She laughed to herself as she sopped up gravy with a bit of bread.

  Ivy stared at her. Franny Helmsly-Wimpoll was not a woman given to many words.

  “Franny? What are you saying?”

  Franny noticed all
eyes on her. Slowly, she raised her head, licked the gravy from her lips. “Nothing . . .?”

  “No, no, continue. Please.”

  “Well,” she said tentatively. “It’s in all the papers, isn’t it? The arms of Pimlico and Lambeth? And now the torso on the Embankment. I read all of them. The papers, I mean. I do love to read the papers. They have so many wonderful stories in them, almost as good as yours, Ivy. And the papers have always maintained it was students and their pranks. They have access to cadavers for their studies and are usually high-spirited young men. Your Christien Jeremie is a medical student, is he not?”

  “Is he not?” echoed Fanny in an odd reversal of roles.

  “Yes,” said Ivy quietly. “He is. But I can’t imagine Christien being involved in such hijinks. He is simply too . . . too . . .”

  She had no words. She wanted to say, “too perfect,” but he had deceived her into bringing his brother drugged tea. He still can’t bear to be in the same room as me, he had told her back at the house called Seventh. Says the cadavers are too much for him.

  She sat back in her chair, puzzling.

  “Oh, they’re pranksters, the lot of ’em,” said Mary Jane. “Remy stays out of most of it, though. ’E’s too good for ’em, says Lewie. ’E’s right in thick with Bondie and my John. ’E only had to do the legs.”

  “The legs?” barked Fanny.

  “They get ’em from Bedlam,” whispered Mary Jane. “Patient girls ’oo die from the bleeding. ’E’s not s’posed to do it, you know. Lewie says its illegal an’all.”

  “What, Mary Jane?” Ivy cocked her head. “What is illegal?”

  “The Restellism.” The woman glanced around and leaned in close. “The ’bortions, girlie. John’s good that way. ’E ’elps us at the clinics when we need ’im. They need ’im at Bedlam too. There’s men and ladies together at Bedlam. Of course it’s going to ’appen.”

  Ivy frowned. She knew Williams performed abortions. He had admitted as much in the lift at the Ghost Club.

  “But why would they die at Bedlam, Marie?”

  “It’s not an easy job, no, miss. Not easy at all. Sometimes it works with just them pills, or the tonic, but if it don’t, then that’s when they need our John. ’E has these instruments to do the job right quick. But there’s a lot of blood, miss. And sometimes, the girls get sick. They run fevers, and sometimes they die.”