The Dastardly Miss Lizzie

by Viola Carr

  Lizzie dragged Eliza onwards. “O-ho-ho! Toasty warm! Someone turn me over, I’m done!”

  At last, they reached the bedroom landing. Eliza’s breath scorched, her eyes raw. Crazy laughter bubbled. “This is insane. WE’RE insane.”

  “Better bonkers than burned.” Lizzie pulled her into the dark, smoky bedroom, ran for the fireplace and dragged down the sconce. Clunk! It banged, hollow.

  The cabinet door already hung open.

  No time to wonder. Eliza ran in, grabbed one of Lizzie’s dresses and knotted it to make a crude sack. She stuffed in Finch’s books, Henry Jekyll’s diaries, Quick’s journals, her notes and phials from the wolf cure experiment. Her three remaining bottles of elixir, more of lux ex tenebris.

  The shelf where she’d left Professor Crane’s book was empty.

  Frantic, she fumbled through the clutter. The book was gone. The killer—or his accomplice—had taken it. Broken into Lizzie’s cabinet, and set her house on fire.

  Her thoughts stumbled in haste. Not Seymour Locke. This inferno was too well advanced. He’d left Ireton House only minutes before she had.

  That left jealous Mr. Wyverne . . . or Byron Starling. Her old friend. Who’d tried to insinuate himself into her life ever since their “chance” meeting. Who knew exactly where she lived—but did he know her secret? Her memories of those past years clanged, conflicting—but she couldn’t pluck out the thorny suspicion that Starling somehow knew everything.

  “Oi!” Lizzie tossed her a dragon-headed cane. “I’m taking this fine fellow. Everything else can burn. Ha ha!”

  Sweating, Eliza hauled the sack over one shoulder, the cane under her arm. The fire roared louder, the heat more intense. Lizzie’s back stairs beckoned, still dark and relatively cool.

  “Let’s go.” She took one final glance around . . . and swift, sharp pain pierced her heart.

  The room she’d slept in all these years, the corners and window seats where she’d read and laughed and dreamed. Her consulting room, where Remy had proposed. The study, her anatomy books, the desk where she’d studied Ovid and Newton and William Harvey. Her mother’s portrait, that beautiful lady in the wedding dress and diamonds whom she’d barely known. The drawing room, where Mr. Hyde had lurked behind the curtain, where first she’d swallowed his bitter elixir and given birth to Lizzie. And this cabinet, her most secret of secret places.

  Gone.

  A flash of treacherous color caught her eye. Mr. Todd’s painting, unfurling on the shelf. A portrait of a different Eliza, filled with fascination and naïve hopes. A beautiful Eliza, wrapped in Lizzie’s scarlet skirts, slumbering in the scent of blood and roses, dreaming of heaven. A far younger, vain, and foolish Eliza, who’d believed evil could be tempered by love.

  Let her burn.

  The whisper stung her ravaged ears. Had spectral Lizzie spoken? Or was it her own voice?

  Suddenly, the pain of disillusionment was too much to bear. She couldn’t let go of that precious, forlorn hope. Not now, with her life on fire. Impulsively, she stuffed the painting under her arm.

  Are you crazy?

  Tears blinded her, and Eliza took Lizzie’s hand and fled.

  WHERE SANITY MELTS

  HOURS LATER, ELIZA STUMBLED INTO CAVENDISH Square, Hipp trotting dolefully at her heels. The paved streets were deserted. Henry’s house—her house, though that still seemed strange—lurched from the darkness, gleaming with the threat of faint gray dawn. Somewhere, an early-rising bird sang a mournful tune.

  Exhaustion filled her muscles with lead. She’d stayed while the parish brigade tried to dampen the flames. They’d managed to stop the fire spreading to the adjoining houses. But the top two floors of her own house were gutted, just charred lumps of wood and a pile of ash, and the bottom floors weren’t far behind.

  The arsonist, whoever he was, had done an excellent job.

  Yawning, she hefted her makeshift sack and knocked. Half a minute passed before Mr. Brigham peered out, tie missing and shirt undone beneath his hastily donned coat. He didn’t look sleepy. Just interrupted. “Good morning, Doctor. I, um, wasn’t expecting you.” His eyes widened. “Holy Mary. What happened?”

  She glanced at her ash-smeared dress and blackened hands. No doubt her face was in the same condition. “I apologize for the hour. This sounds ridiculous, but . . . you see, my house burned down, and . . . well, I’m afraid I’ve nowhere else to go.” Not strictly true. Mrs. Poole had taken Molly to stay with their cousin, a respectable shopkeeper in Cheapside, and with typical bull-headed affection had insisted Eliza accept the same hospitality. But the thought of the family’s well-meant pity—and their questions—made Eliza cold. “I trust I’m not disturbing you,” she added.

  Brigham was still staring. “What? Yes. I mean, no. Certainly. Come in.” He stepped aside.

  Hipp stumbled in and collapsed under the hallstand with a determined clunk! She followed, those familiar scents settling over her, still disturbing but overlaid with warm comfort. Even the staircase had lost a little of its menace. But still she shivered, hackles prickling, haunted by ghosts of long-forgotten sorrow.

  Brigham fussed, taking her sack. “Might I show you to your room, or would you like breakfast first?”

  She blinked. “I have a room?”

  “Of course. First thing the captain bade me do.” And he took off up the staircase.

  Nonplussed, she followed. And sure enough, within half an hour she was luxuriating in a hot scented bath in the sitting room of a cozy bedroom suite.

  Soft blue drapes blocked out the grim gray morning, and a fire crackled in a tiled grate. The big copper tub was filled almost to the brim. Brigham had poured her a glass of wine, set fluffy towels by the fire, and lit candles so the electric lights didn’t glare.

  She sighed gratefully, warm water lapping at her throat. Ha. So much for your taunting, Lizzie. This wasn’t the room where Madeleine Jekyll had died. Guest quarters, if she had to guess, but she didn’t remember this room and that was a good thing.

  She’d already too much on her mind. The book thief, sneaking into her house and setting it alight. Was it Byron Starling? She didn’t believe it. He wasn’t her enemy. If he’d wanted the book, why not just ask?

  More likely the disturbingly eager Mr. Wyverne. But how could he know about her secret cabinet? It didn’t make sense.

  On the side table, alongside her wineglass, the purloined letter glinted in mocking firelight. You stole me, it whispered. Filched me from a crime scene like a common thief. Where’s your precious justice, Eliza? What price your noble principles when your own father’s implicated?

  Edward Hyde’s handwriting on the outside leered at her, a hungry demon. She could almost hear his taunting voice. Here’s your money, Ephronia. God knows I owe you. God knows I’d have throttled you with my own hands if someone hadn’t gotten in before me. I killed my own wife, you know. Hurled her down the stairs. Nothing easier . . .

  Compelled, she wiped her hands dry and fumbled Crane’s letter open.

  Sir,

  You will recall I once served you (to be exact, your physician predecessor) in a scientific matter requiring delicacy and discretion, and at no small risk to myself. Your gratitude since is my constant reward—but tonight I must beg the favor be returned in kind. Against the forces of ignorance and superstition, you and I hold common cause, and I beseech you to help me now, as once I helped you.

  A colleague is threatening to reveal to the authorities certain information which, for the sake of my continued freedom and safety, I must insist be kept private. In return for silence, this sniveling and frankly despicable villain demands immediate payment in coin—one hundred pounds, a sum which for the moment I cannot raise.

  I therefore write to you for a loan. Terms to be set by you, of course, at whatever rate you desire. You may rest assured that I shall shortly be able to repay you in full.

  I would be obliged by a response at your earliest, as the miscreant is to visit me tonight.


  I remain, sir, in eternal gratitude

  E. Crane

  Eliza sat up, hair dripping. Professor Crane was being blackmailed. Pay up, or have her secret project betrayed to the Royal.

  Her imagination sparked, re-creating the torrid scene. For a struggling scientist, one hundred sterling was a terrifying, impossible sum. Alone, frightened, facing a horrible death in the Royal’s fires, Crane had written to the King of Rats for help. Hyde delivered the money, no doubt for sinister reasons of his own. The blackmailer arrived, and Crane let him in. And now she was dead.

  It was no coincidence. Surely this extorting colleague—this sniveling and frankly despicable villain—had to be Crane’s killer, and likely Antoinette’s, too.

  The mysterious visitor again. The long-haired reprobate in the blue scarf. Who was demonstrably neither Starling nor Locke. Lady Redstoat—who, it seemed, had told the truth after all—had been sure of that. But could Blue Scarf be some accomplice?

  Contract negotiations with B. proceed apace, said Crane’s phonograph transcript. My escape.

  In spite of her colleagues’ objections, Crane had put her miniature engine up for sale. How else to raise the repayments so soon, at Hyde’s undoubtedly extortionate interest rates?

  But who was “B”?

  Could it be Veronica Burton? Her unexplained presence at the demonstration, the envelope on Crane’s desk. Empire contracts, Mr. Paxton had suggested. What if, while investigating Crane’s engine, Burton had found out about Interlunium? A zealous Royal Society agent discovers a wildly unorthodox project, and blackmails the inventor? Hardly seemed likely.

  Wearily, she laid letter and spectacles aside. Her head ached, her throat raw from smoke. Suddenly the day’s events crashed in, falling buildings in an alley too narrow for escape.

  The Slasher autopsy, that poor boy’s mutilated body. Saucy May, her “dirty cove in fancy britches.” Eliza’s house afire, that melting heat. Professor Crane’s choked corpse, ink-stained Antoinette, the swollen purple face of Ormonde. And Hyde’s letter.

  Three people had already died for the sake of this mysterious book. And now, at last, the murderer possessed it.

  What next? Had she, Eliza, been intended as the fourth? She’d read the book, or at least glanced at it. Would the killer—or killers—come after her?

  “Ha!” she scoffed aloud. “I’ve seen off razor murderers and soulless thieves and insane surgeons who coveted my corpse. Don’t even try to scare me, you rascals.”

  Or perhaps the case was over. The killer would take the book and go, and they’d never hear from him again. That was a comforting thought.

  She sighed in the warm cocoon of the bath, eyelids drooping. What she wouldn’t give for a proper night’s sleep . . .

  Splash! She recoiled, bathwater sloshing. But it was only Lizzie, up to her neck at the far end of the tub, whistling and soaping herself.

  Eliza groaned. “Go away. It’s not your turn until tomorrow.”

  “Just because you lost a night don’t mean I need to.” Lizzie rubbed soap along her arms, admiring the firelit bubbles. “Swanky room. D’you think I’ll get one like it? Or am I for the attic again, locked away like a loony wife?”

  “Hardly the time to quibble,” said Eliza waspishly. “Did it escape your notice that our house just burned down? I risked my life to fetch your things, remember?” She’d laid out the contents of her makeshift sack on a shelf. Books, papers, that treacherous oil painting, a row of phials. Alongside the king’s medicine and that odd blue mixture she’d concocted for her mouse experiments, three black bottles of elixir glimmered, murmuring their bittersweet song. Eliza, come to us. Drink us, love. Be free . . .

  “Oh, aye,” said Lizzie comfortably, puffing a bubble aloft, “and how’d that’ve gone without me? I’m a bleedin’ hero!”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re imaginary. You can’t die from smoke inhalation.”

  Lizzie threw the soap at her, and it hit Eliza’s chest with an indignant plop! “How come you’re always the one who’s real? What if you’re a figment of my imagination, eh? Ever think of that?”

  “Can’t you stop carrying on even for one moment? I don’t need you here. I don’t want you here. Just leave me be!”

  Suddenly Lizzie lurched forwards, clawing for her throat. Eliza splashed under, thrashing, trying to yell but sucking in only water.

  Lizzie squeezed harder. “Get rid of me, will you? How about I get rid of YOU?”

  Eliza flailed, gulping, but Lizzie was too strong. Panic gripped her. Sparks danced before her eyes. She was trapped. Drowning. And all the while, Lizzie’s laughter bounced and swelled, contorted by the water into horror.

  Eliza’s vision stretched like wet rubber, tearing into two shapes, two worlds, two bodies, mine and hers, hers and mine, and somewhere just out of sight in that crusted blackness, the nightmare is lurking. A predator clawing out to claim me . . .

  Thump! Our head bounces off the wall. It’s a white wall, lined with lumpy cushioned fabric. A padded wall. As if these mean-arsed mad-doctors give a flying frig what we does to ourselves. I giggle, and try again. Boingg! Clangg! Amazing, the number of noises her skull can make.

  Wet warmth trickles into our eyes. I claw our red-spotted shift, ripping it to rags. Wouldn’t do to mess up our fine gown, Eliza. Stop bleeding this instant. Ha ha! A-ha-ha-haaaah!

  Clunk! A bolt grinds aside, and the padded door squeaks open. Light sweeps, a draught of unclean air.

  We scuttle back towards the bed. Eliza kicks and scratches, but I makes her, I drags our limbs by sheer force of will. She wails, and I rake her face with my nails, a bright shock of pain. Shut it, you feeble mopsy. Our body ain’t yours no more. Lizzie, that’s my name now. Lizzie Hyde, by God.

  I don’t know how I know that. I just know.

  In struts the dark suit, the steely hair, the mild eyes of Sir Jedediah Fairfax, Fellow of the Royal College of Snotfaces. He’s holding a canvas coat festooned with buckles and straps. “And how are we today, Miss Jekyll?”

  That patronizing doctor’s “we”—how are we today, madwomen, all two of yer?—makes me laugh. I smooth my ragged shift, grin my best grin. He wants me. I know he does. They all want me, these shiny gents with their civilized manners and polished lies. We’ve all got two faces. All just brutes inside, hungry to consume. Take me, beat me, bleed me dry.

  I lick bloodstained lips, and it tastes of freedom. “Is that for me, sir? Can I wear it now? Come undress me, you beast.”

  Behind the surgeon, the dusky boy with spectacles cringes like a whipped dog. “See what I mean, sir? It’s as bad as I’ve seen it. I didn’t know who else to come to.”

  This one’s barely twenty, only a few years older than us, hair floating to his shoulders and flashing dark eyes that melt at our glance. He wants me, too. Aye, don’t deny it, Eliza. Think I haven’t noticed his sidelong looks as we pore over your studies? His breath catching as our fingers reach for his sleeve, his brow glistening when we share your excitement over some triangle or curve or god-rotted fluxion, whatever in hell those are?

  Think it’s you he’s looking at?

  I rip our shift apart and arch my back, giving ’em both a good eyeful of her tits. Her blond hair tumbles on our bared shoulders. “This is your chance, Byron,” I purr. “Come take what you want.”

  Fairfax just watches, detached. The boy blushes, averting his pretty eyes. A lover’s eyes, all lashes and poems and sighs. I’d like to bruise ’em black, suck out their juices for my supper. Stab in a knife and watch ’em pop.

  I don’t know why I hate him. I just do.

  Laughter bursts from my chest. A big, ugly belly laugh, like she won’t never allow, and I swoon a little, it feels so good. The world feels good, the light on my face, the stench of chemicals and piss-stained madmen. One day, I’ll escape her prison, so help me. Claw my way out through her rib cage if I must. And all this will be MINE . . .

  Urgently, the lad grips Fairfax’s arm. “Th
e poor child is suffering. We must do something!” He hesitates. “You know what I’m saying.”

  Sir Jed—may I call you Jeddy? Ha ha!—shakes the grip off like the arrogant sod he is. “Don’t even think it, Starling. You know there are grave side effects. And we can’t do anything without him.”

  Him. That unconscious emphasis, the way everyone does, an underline or an exclamation point. Our guardian, the man without a face. The monster behind the curtain. Aye, Eliza. Mark my words. He hides his face, you rot-witted chit. Think he’s Prince friggin’ Charming?

  “But look at her! You know what will happen if we don’t act. Eliza is a good girl. D’you want that on your conscience?”

  I laugh, fondling myself even while she flinches. Look to your own conscience, Byron. I’m a good girl, too. Come and see.

  “Out of the question.” The surgeon’s lips compress, a cruel slash. “She can stay here until it subsides and then she’s going home, before anyone finds out. Now help me or get out of my way.”

  The two of them grab us, forcing us into the crisp canvas jacket. We scream and kick and gnash our teeth, but Fairfax whips out an ugly steel needle and jabs it into our throat. Cold poison oozes into our flesh, a creeping plague, and that precious world wavers and darkens and there’s nothing but silence . . .

  Eliza inhaled sharply, sucking in water. Panicked, she fought upwards. Her face broke the surface, and she clutched the bathtub’s rim and spluttered until the water was gone.

  The sitting room hovered into focus. The fire was dying. The bathwater was cold as a corpse. How long had she been asleep? How long under the surface?

  She shivered. “Lizzie? You there?”

  Nothing. No sign of the thing that had tried to kill her, wrapped cruel fingers around her neck and held her underwater . . .

  No. Eliza hugged herself. She’d fallen asleep, slipped into the water, dreamed the whole thing. Yes. That had to be it.