A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1)

by Shawna Reppert

“Sit,” Miss Fairchild said in a tone that brooked no argument, “You’ll want tea. And there are cold meats and cheese and bread. No need to be reserved; you must be starving after your ordeal.”

  A sleek feline shadow sauntered across the room, paused in surprise at seeing a stranger, then continued her journey, stopping to rub against his legs and leaving enough hair on his pants to mark him as her possession. The same, he suspected, as any other object or person in the house, including Miss Fairchild herself. Jones dropped a hand to stroke the cat’s back, and she arched under his hand, purring loudly.

  “Fortuna seems to like you,” Miss Fairchild said.

  “I’d have thought a scientist such as yourself would be above keeping a black cat for luck,” Royston said, before remembering that their relationship scarcely warranted such familiar teasing.

  But Miss Fairchild merely smiled at him, a very warm, very human smile. “Hush. Fortuna, don’t listen to him.”

  Having received her royal due, Fortuna ended the audience and continued her progress to parts unknown. A maid brought the tea in, curtseyed to them both, and departed.

  Time to get to the point. “You hired me a solicitor,” he said. “And you bailed me out of jail. Were you worried that I would start talking about werewolves?” He owed her much, but he was not going to accept her gifts without question.

  “No,”” Miss Fairchild answered, unruffled. “I fancy myself a good judge of character, and so I had no fears on that count.”

  “Then why did you feel it necessary to drag out the most unsavory bits of my background and threaten my job?” They’d touched on the point once before, but it was not something he found easy to let go.

  She glanced away. Was that shame coloring her cheeks? “I didn’t know you so well then.” She poured him tea, and waved him to the platters of food. He hesitated just a moment before hunger won out, and he sat down to the table. Still, some vestige of illogical male pride kept him from reaching for the food.

  “I told you before, Mr. Jones, I like you, I dislike injustice, and I hate to see a resource such as yourself go to waste.”

  “I don’t accept charity,” he said stiffly. Even at their very poorest, he and his mother had survived without hand-outs, and he wasn’t quite that desperate yet. Close, maybe.

  “Let’s not call it charity toward yourself,” Miss Fairchild said. “But a public service to the community. The sooner the Yard is forced to come to its senses, the sooner they can focus on finding the real killer, and the sooner you can go back to serving the community again.”

  Was it egotistical of him to be tempted by that argument? He searched her face, trying to determine if she spoke with sincerity or with disguised pity.

  She leaned forward. “Consider it payment, if you will, for your silence in the matter of the werewolf.”

  Oh, hell no! He stood, and set his teacup down on the table. Only his mother’s early conditioning stopped him from slamming it down. “I don’t take bribes.”

  Miss Fairchild leapt to her feet, flustered. “What? No, I didn’t mean it like that!”

  But he was already walking toward the door. “Thank you for seeing to my release, Miss Fairchild. I’ll be going now.”

  She took a step toward him, hand outstretched, almost pleading. “It’s late. The carriage has already left to take Mr. Northrup home. You’ll never find a cab out this way.”

  Nor did he have money in his pockets for that kind of cab fare, and they both knew it. At least she didn’t embarrass him by saying as much. He turned around. “Blackmail. Attempted bribery. And now kidnapping. You’re a bold woman, Miss Fairchild.” And, damn it, but he wasn’t going to admire her for it, not when she played with his life like he was her own personal toy.

  The corners of her mouth turned up. “I am bold, when a friend is in danger.”

  “You and I are hardly friends.” Cold, perhaps, given that he might be going to the gallows without her help this afternoon but true all the same.

  “Look,” she said. “You clearly resent the money and influence given me by an accident of birth. I admit I’ve been fortunate in the gifts fate has granted me. Isn’t it only fair for me to use these things to right wrongs where I see them?”

  “The problem is, that leaves us with your opinion of what is right and what is wrong.”

  “Don’t you do the same thing? Don’t tell me you don’t sometimes decide to let some poor street urchin off with a warning when you’ve caught him stealing because you knew he was hungry and desperate. I know you too well, Mr. Jones. You have more power than some citizens, at least, and you use it as your conscience dictates. Allow me to do the same.”

  He looked at the door, and then at her, shifting his weight from foot to foot. She was making sense. Damn her.

  Miss Fairchild extended her hand, and it was a plea. “Please, let us help you.”

  “Us? Who else have you brought into this grand conspiracy?”

  There was a scratching at the picture window. Though the reflections of the gaslights obscured the view to the outside, Richard’s wolf-form was still discernible, black against the deepening blue-black of the summer night.

  Jones sighed. “Of course.”

  She went to open the door. The wolf’s feet padded softly across the carpet.

  “We weren’t sure if you’d need a ’wolf tonight or not. We decided it was better to have one and not need him, then need a ’wolf and not have him. The potion has to be taken before moonrise.”

  “What about the night Blackpoole died?” he asked. And then, “I’m sorry. “I shouldn’t have…"

  “Nonsense,” she interrupted him. “It had to be clear from the tracks that the ’wolf—whoever he was—transformed in the garden. That he transformed after midnight is the only hypothesis that fits the facts. From there, the obvious conclusion is that he was taking my remedy. Detection, alchemy, it’s all science.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe they weren’t best of friends, but he owed her better return on her kindness than to cause her more fear for her fiancé’s secret. But apparently, he had finally… “What’s wrong with him?” He pointed to wolf-Bandon.

  The wolf’s hackles had risen and his nostrils were quivering as though trying to parse a threat.

  “What do you sense?” she asked the ’wolf.

  The ’wolf stared at him and gave a short alarm bark. He took a step back, the trust he’d learned warring with primal fear.

  “You can’t believe he’s the killer!” she said.

  Please, no. But why else was the ’wolf acting so strangely? Did werewolves get rabies?

  The wolf shook his head, and Royston breathed again. A growl-whine escaped his throat, a lupine expression of frustration. The wolf paced around him. He held very still, everything he knew of Bandon’s character warring with deep, primal fear.

  “What is it?” His voice shook only a little. “You never had trouble communicating before.” Whatever Bandon sensed in this form, it must be something too complicated to express in body language.

  Bandon-wolf gave a huff of frustration and paced faster, snuffling, whining. Abruptly he turned and dashed out of the room, disappearing down the hall. He charged back, paws slipping on polished wood where the floors were bare of carpet. In his jaws he held…

  A planchette-board set? He raised an amused eyebrow at the alchemist. She hardly seemed the type.

  “I had been tinkering with it, to see if I could figure out how those so-called spiritualists performed their trickery,” she said a trifle sharply as she set the board up on the low trestle table.

  A far more likely explanation than any thought that she might be trying to commune with the dead herself, either as a party game or as serious pursuit. Still, he couldn’t help throwing her a mock-knowing smile. Then the ’wolf began nosing the heart-shaped wooden planchette across the board’s painted letters and numbers. All thoughts of teasing the alchemist fled as the ’wolf spelled out a message in the same way a spiritualist fa
ked dictation from the dead.

  “S-C-E-N-T. Scent,” Miss Fairchild said as he painstakingly slid the planchette. “K-I-L-L-E-R. Killer.”

  Royston stood and backed away from the board. What was the toff playing at? “If you’re trying to accuse me…”

  The wolf gave a short, impatient growl and shoved the planchette to the word ‘No’. He then started spelling again, as Catherine read out.

  “O-N. On. Y-O-U. You. I think he’s saying the scent of the killer is on you.”

  Richard gave a yip to confirm her interpretation.

  “Someone you encountered today. Maybe another prisoner.”

  He considered, then shook his head. “They kept me away from the general population. How long have you known that solicitor?”

  “Since I was a child. He handled my parent’s estate. I could no more believe he is the killer than you would accuse Godwin.”

  She said it as if she expected an argument, but he just nodded. His instincts said the man was not the type to do something so barbaric and messy. He could be mistaken, but he doubted that anyone could fool the keenly perceptive Miss Fairchild for so long.

  “I’ll take you at your word on that.” Though he might do some discreet investigation on his own, just in case, if they could identify no other suspect. And then his blood ran cold as the full import of the ’wolf’s discovery sank in, “Dear Lord, it would have to be someone at the Yard.” And yet he had been so sure it was either Winchell or Downey. “I've had contact with no one else since I parted company with the ’wolf two nights ago.” He turned to Bandon-wolf. “You are certain?”

  The ’wolf gave a sharp bark of affirmation.

  “There were the constables who brought me in. No one I’ve worked with before. Easier for everyone that way, I suppose. Browne, but much as I dislike the man, I can’t quite believe this of him.”

  “Agreed,” Miss Fairchild said.

  “There were two other constables who took me to my trial. I don’t know their names.”

  “Would there be records?” Miss Fairchild asked.

  “Duty records. Not the sort of thing Foster would have an excuse to access. Besides, I don’t want to wait until morning. If Miss Chatham is still alive, she won’t be for long.”

  The alchemist frowned, thinking. “Is there someone at the Yard who could get the information for you?”

  He shook his head. “Not tonight, not without attracting too much attention.”

  “Maybe we can get into the records tonight, more directly. One of my clients has rather—unorthodox skills. Werewolves have to make their way any way they can since traditional employment is denied them.”

  He was an officer of the law. He should not be going along with this. “Can he be trusted?” he asked. “Will he help us?”

  “He feels he is in my debt,” she said. “There is often more honor on the streets than in the drawing room.”

  “Well I know it. But when he finds out what we’re looking for, won’t he figure out that he’s helping the police detective accused of being Doctor Death?”

  “I think that you’ll find few of the very lowest classes—the street urchins, the beggars, the petty thieves and prostitutes—believe that you are guilty. Your reputation among them is more widespread than you realize. The ones you pay generously for any spying they might do for you, any tidbit of information they might give, the families you helped without even that excuse when mothers couldn’t afford to feed their children or buy a little coal to warm their houses in the bitter London winter, the werewolves you’ve never persecuted just for being what they are. The prostitutes who know there is at least one detective they can apply to for protection from abuse without being asked to pay in kind—they believe in you.”

  He flushed and looked away. “I have only done my duty as a citizen and an officer of the law.”

  “Perhaps so, but you are rare in doing it.”

  He had his doubts that the small kindnesses he’d done here and there outweighed the news headlines proclaiming his guilt, but they had little choice and less time. “So, do you know where this gentleman can be found? And will he be able to help us with the moon full?”

  “Yes, and yes,” she said. “He picked up his remedy for the month and so should be in human form. He was the reason I couldn’t see you when you stopped by that afternoon—I expected that a uniformed constable at the door might make him nervous. I keep all my patients’ addresses, so I can contact them if I need to.”

  “But can we get to him in time?” he asked. “Not to mention getting him to the Yard, getting the records, and getting to each of the constable’s homes? Before the moon rises? Has the carriage even returned?”

  “We’ll take the horseless carriage.”

  The ’wolf made a questioning sound in his throat.

  “It’s fine. I finished putting it back together this morning. I even filled the boiler, so she should be ready to go in a tick.”

  He refrained from commenting that she hadn’t mentioned the horseless carriage when she was trying to convince him of the impossibility of departure. It wasn’t polite to point out a lady’s contradictions.

  Seventeen

  In theory, the prospect of riding in a horseless carriage intrigued him. But faced with the actuality of a metal box with no horses in front, powered by a mysterious, mindless engine hidden beneath its steel skin, controlled by a too-small wheel in front of the driver’s seat—Royston suddenly found that he'd rather be facing down a whole shipload of drunken sailors. And their monkeys.

  The thing was all shiny metal, painted electric blue with shiny brass trim. It was shaped vaguely like on open carriage, only instead of shafts for horses a long, angled nose jutted out in front, housing the engine.

  Without the benefit of glamour, Miss Fairchild had changed into men’s trousers, shirt and waistcoat—a scandalous disregard of decency laws. She had tucked her long hair up in a man’s cap. Royston only hoped that, if they were seen, she would pass for a particularly effeminate man. Otherwise, they’d all be up on morals charges to add to his suspicion of murder.

  “Can I help with something?” Royston asked as Miss Fairchild pumped a lever, muttering something about steam pressure, a fine sheen of sweat building on her face..

  With any other lady, he’d insist on taking over the physical work as a matter of course, but Miss Fairchild seemed to nullify the normal rules of correct behavior. Most disconcerting.

  “No, thank you.” Her voice was clipped, distracted. “I have the routine down. You’ll only get in the way.”

  The ’wolf nudged her leg.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “I find directness refreshing.” Bandon was a lucky man to have found a woman so spirited and intelligent.

  “Where’s the coal?” he asked.

  “I’ve modified her to burn gasoline to heat the water to steam. Much more efficient.”

  Gasoline. He’d heard of gasoline. “But isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Not if you know what you’re doing.” Pulling down her goggles, she crouched in front of the horseless and probed with a long metal instrument Royston couldn’t identify. “I thought about kerosene, but it takes too long to heat.”

  A jet of flame shot out. She dodged and cursed. “I hate when it does that.”

  Bandon lay on the cool of the floor, relaxed and watching with interest, so Royston didn’t interfere. To distract himself while Miss Fairchild woke her metal monster, Royston wandered the carriage house, workshop, whatever the space could be called, wrinkling his nose a bit at the unfamiliar scent of machine oil. Tables and benches held an assortment of tools, gears, wheels, and tortured bits of metal. The white walls boasted a generous few scorch marks, and Royston’s tension about the upcoming adventure built with the steam.

  Something nagged at his mind, and the gears and levers brought it closer. Mechanics, no, but something science. Alchemy, chemicals, and what w
as scent but chemicals drifting in the air?

  “Miss Fairchild?”

  “What?” On her back now beneath the metal beast with only her legs visible, she tinkered with something underneath the carriage, and her voice was as sharp as her nose.

  “You’re an alchemist…“

  “If you’ve nothing to do but state the obvious, please delay until I’m not trying to get this bloody thing going so we can catch a killer. And prove you innocent, of murder if not of stupidity.” She banged at something near the left tire and uttered a curse he wouldn’t have suspected her of knowing.

  Royston had been set down by better than her and heard sailors utter oaths that would make Satan blush. “Could it be possible for an alchemist to distill a scent, spread a false trail? Winchell knows a bit about alchemy. So does Downey.”

  “A bit,” she said. “Though half of it is wrong. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the killer is Winchell.”

  And here he had thought she might be different from the rest of her class. “Because someone of his education and standing couldn’t possibly commit such crimes?” He didn't try to hide the sarcasm in his tone.

  “No.” She grunted, torqueing something-or-other beneath the infernal machine. “If you ask me if either or both are capable of murder, then the answer is yes, provided he was sure he could get away with it. Doubly so, in Downey’s case, with the murder of women. The man is sick and evil. I’ve been in the same room with him on occasion, and it made my skin crawl. But these murders lack finesse. God’s mercy, machine, will you cooperate?” She threw the wrench halfway across the room and picked up another.

  Royston choked on a startled laugh. “You are worried that the killer isn’t dainty enough?”

  “I’m not, but they would be. Downey would arrange the bodies artistically in the park, complete with floral arrangements. Winchell might make them into automatons as he was trying to do with that deluded man’s poor wife. Maybe I’m wrong, but dumping bodies in alleys doesn’t seem like his style. And as for this game of follow-my-clues, well, the killer is playing with you. Sorry, but Winchell and Downey would consider it beneath their dignity to play with a lowly detective.” She slid out from under the carriage and pulled a lever beside the driver’s seat. The monster grumbled, wheezed, then started an unsteady chuffing.