by Viola Carr
Curiosity nibbled her toes. So Starling had been up all night clearing out Crane’s office, had he? To salvage Project Interlunium, whatever it might be? She’d get it out of Starling if she had to flirt all morning.
Mr. Locke arranged it, the clerk said. As if Locke were the master, Starling the assistant.
Hmm.
At the bottom of the stairs, a flagstoned corridor was lined with offices, workshops, and experimental laboratories. The doors were labeled with scientists’ names. From W. CROOKES, noisome green smoke drifted, along with the bubbling of liquid and a man cursing. From the next, SPOTTISWOODE, a static generator crackled. After that, a door labeled PROF. E. CRANE hung open. Desk bare, bookshelves emptied, electric light switched off. A cold shell, like the woman herself. Gone.
Eliza halted before the next, closed door, B. STARLING. From inside came the scratching of pen on paper, as if he wrote furiously. “Two solutions to a square . . . Two! How did we not . . . no, it can’t . . . dividing by zero, by God! It’s not here. I need the rest of it!”
Rat-tat! “Mr. Starling? It’s Eliza Jekyll.”
Crumpling paper crackled. “I can’t talk now, Doctor. Leave me to work, please.” Agitated, hoarse with exhaustion.
She jiggled the handle. Locked. “Byron, is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine. Leave me alone.”
She peered into the keyhole, but it was blocked. A peculiar smell emanated from it. She heard a clatter, books tumbling to the floor, a groan. Alarmed, she rattled the door harder. “Are you ill? Can I fetch you anything?”
“He won’t see you.” A mocking new voice from behind her.
She whirled, startled. A pale fellow gave a familiar sickly grin. That lank colorless hair, the bloodshot eyes. The unlikeable chemist from the demonstration. The plaque on his door read H. G. WYVERNE.
“He’s been scribbling in there all night,” added Wyverne with a shrill giggle, toying with his dirty scarf. He wore a creased suit, coat too large but sleeves too short, yellowed with chemicals and grime. A man who worked too much, yet ate and slept little. “Scribbling and moaning. That’s what Starling does. Scribbles and moans about unsolvable field equations. Stick to what you’re good at, I told him.” He shouted at the closed door. “Stealing, Starling! Thieving! Taking what doesn’t belong to you!”
“I see.” Casually, Eliza peered over Wyverne’s shoulder into his sullenly lit office, whence drifted a strange scent of sulfur and hot glass. Desk upended, books and ashtray hurled to the floor amidst ink-splattered papers. As if he’d trashed the place in a fit of rage. “Has there been an accident?”
Another eerie giggle. “Oh, no. No accident. Starling made me. It’s all his fault. He stole my things.”
She glanced at Crane’s empty office, directly opposite. The sniveling serpent across the hall. As if Crane thought Wyverne dangerous.
The only thing left standing in Wyverne’s room was a trestle, upon which sat flasks of chemicals bolted to metal stands, twin flame burners hissing. The air shimmered oddly, a twisted, retrograde haze that made her eyes ache. Somewhere, a cat purred, and a plate of shelled oysters sat uneaten on the windowsill. A lumpy bedroll with a blanket lay unfurled. Was Wyverne sleeping here?
“He sneaks into my office at night, you know.” Wyverne rubbed his palms with a slick hissing sound that turned her stomach. “Installs hidden mirrors and photographs my notes. He makes meticulous records of his plans to thwart me. I’ve seen them!”
Clear off, there’s a good lunatic. Locke’s taunts at the demonstration bounced back. This is physics, not extra-dimensional chemistry for crackpots. What on earth was “extra-dimensional chemistry”?
Clearly, this Wyverne was barking mad. She’d met lunatics at Bethlem who talked exactly like him. Conspiracies, secret surveillance, the world ganging up to persecute them.
But madmen had ears.
“What a fascinating experiment you’re working on,” she said brightly. “What is it?”
Wyverne didn’t seem to hear. He kicked Starling’s door, his pale hair flying. “My work on negative refractive indices? He filched it. Passed it off as his own.”
“Did he, indeed?” Her curiosity piqued. Finch had mentioned experiments with refractive indices—and that Starling had asked about them.
“Of course! The idiot doesn’t know the first thing about chemistry! None of them appreciate my contribution. I saw you at the demonstration, didn’t I?” he added suddenly, eyes gleaming. “Eliza Jekyll M.D. of the Metropolitan Police. Are you here to arrest Starling? He’s surely guilty.”
“Not yet,” she improvised. “We must build our case. First I’ve come to learn about the new project.” She dropped into a whisper. “You know. Interlunium.”
“Ah, yes.” Wyverne nodded sagely, watching her like a hyena waiting to see if its prey was dead. “I was there, the afternoon before the evening before the day Antoinette died. They pretend I wasn’t, but I heard and saw everything.”
“How clever!” She edged closer, conspiratorial. “I so love a secret.”
“Me too! Me too! Extraordinary results, Doctor. Energy fluctuations. Field distortions. Advanced aetherial vibrations.” He giggled. “Locke warned them when first he came. An idea that might lead to a method by which it would be possible to . . . well, you know. But Locke is the worst. The ringleader!” He jiggled, fervid enthusiasm bubbling over into spitting anger. “He stole my Antoinette—oh, yes, the worm is cunning—and now he’s stealing my life. They’ll be sorry they didn’t listen to me.”
Delusions of persecution, certainly. “I understand your frustration—”
“I can’t work without money, Doctor!” Eagerly, Wyverne grabbed her hands. He was sweating, clammy to touch. “Funds! They all want to stop me, these politicians and Cambridge dons and boards of so-called philanthropic organizations. Idiots! Their tiny minds can’t conceive of the mysteries I’ll solve!”
Her skin prickled. So he wanted money for his experiments. Enough to blackmail and kill Ephronia Crane?
But she bit her lip, unconvinced. For a man who’d stolen a hundred pounds, he certainly looked shabby, ill-fed and homeless.
“They’re watching me, too!” She cackled, hoping she sounded insane enough. “They’re relentless. Crawling about in my business like, er, termites. Termites, sir!”
“Yes!” cried Wyverne, vibrating with delight. “That metal-faced Royal Society jade? She’s one of them. She was here yesterday afternoon, plotting away with Starling in that very office! She’s in league with sorcerers. It’s a government plot to suppress me!”
“And have you discovered their plan?”
“Of course!” he crowed. “Crane thought she’d sorted it all, trading my secrets for her own sordid gain. And now Starling’s doing the very same thing! Selling my project to the enemy! It’s larceny, Doctor. Treason, Doctor! You wouldn’t believe the shenanigans these people get up to—”
“Quiet, you lunatic!” The opposite door burst open, and out hurtled Byron Starling, suffused with rage. Shirtsleeves rolled up, ink-stained fists flying. His desk was heaped with papers, slide rules, ugly chemical-stained syringes and rubber tubing.
He grappled for Wyverne’s throat, and the pair crashed back into the chemist’s shambolic office, kicking and punching as they hit the book-strewn floor.
“Gentlemen, please!” Eliza hovered, alarmed, as the two men clawed each other’s faces and hurled insults. “Can’t we work this out like scientists?”
“Bastard!” yelled Starling.
“Dirty thief!” came the reply.
“Liar!”
“Traitor!”
Zzzzap! Eliza whipped out her electric stinger. “Stop it this instant, or you’ll both get three thousand volts—I say, watch out!”
Intent on their struggles, Wyverne and Starling collided with the trestle table. Crash! It toppled. Flasks shattered, steaming chemicals splashing.
“Miaowww!” An unseen cat pushed her skirts a
side like a breeze, its flailing claws scratching her ankle as it scampered into the corridor.
“Ow! You little beast.” She rounded, indignant—but the cat wasn’t there. Just an unearthly shimmer, galloping for the stairs, leaving a trail of wet paw prints.
She gaped. A cat that couldn’t be seen? Was she finally losing her mind? She fumbled on her optical, slotting in the aether-reactive lens.
“Ouch!” She tore the apparatus off, temples throbbing. White-hot like burning phosphorus, a dazzling network of glitter swirling up the corridor.
The very path the paw prints had taken.
Incredulous, she rubbed aching eyes. Refractive indices. Aetherial vibrations. Extra-dimensional chemistry. That bright aetheric disturbance from Antoinette’s murder scene. The trail that led out the back of Ireton House the following night . . . and the persistent notion that she was being watched. That an unseen something—or someone—had jostled her in the corridor.
That dirty-minded eavesdropper, Crane had told Johnny Wild. Interlunium. New moon. An unseen shadow.
What if this was it? What if Wyverne was making himself . . . transparent? Spying on the others, invading their homes, listening to their private conversations?
On his back amidst broken glass, Wyverne screeched in fury. “AHH! Look what you’ve done, fool. Herbert’s gotten away!”
“That’s my cat, you nasty little thief!” Starling leapt up, fetched Wyverne a disgusted kick in the ribs, and darted back into his office, slamming the door.
Dismayed, Eliza rattled the handle. “Byron, come out at once.”
No reply. She turned back, dismayed—only to have Wyverne’s door slammed in her face, too.
Hmph. So much for manners. But her thoughts jumbled, clashing like ill-fitting puzzle pieces. Invisibility! Such aberrant chemical reactions would require vast amounts of energy. No wonder Wyverne wanted Crane’s super-efficient engine.
But Wyverne and Starling clearly hated each other. Working together? One the blackmailer and murderer, the other the arsonist?
Unlikely.
And why would Wyverne bother to steal Crane’s book, if he already had his invention working?
Insane, certainly. Jealous, laboring under delusions of persecution. But a killer?
Inspired, she tiptoed quietly up the corridor, turning at the stairs. Then she strode back, footsteps ringing, and raised her voice. “Ah, Inspector Griffin. So glad you’ve arrived. Yes, that door there. Wyverne’s the culprit.” She flattened her back to the wall beside the door, gripping her stinger. “An enemy agent. What’s that you say? No, not even a real scientist. A lousy charlatan, claiming Professor Crane’s work as his own. Extorted a hundred pounds, stole her project, and murdered her like a coward—”
“I did not!” The door tore open, and Wyverne rushed out. “She was already dead when I got there!”
Triumphantly, Eliza leveled her stinger at his temple. “Care to elaborate?”
He skidded to a spluttering halt. “So you are one of them! I knew it! Pox on your greasy hide! Curse your curdled innards, you traitorous hussy—”
Zzzapp! She thumbed the charger, blue current forking. “When did you send Crane the blackmail letter? Come, I don’t have all day.”
A cackle. “That very afternoon. Sneaked it into her office right before her eyes, and she’d no idea!”
“I see,” she said calmly. “Who’s spying on who, exactly?”
“Antoinette, too, with her visitors.” Wyverne sniggered, smearing sweaty palms on his trousers. “Such a good lark! She’d have two of them in her bed at a time. Three, even. Anything, so long as they paid what they’d promised. She had the prettiest titties I’ve ever seen. Like cream, with little cherries on.” A side-eye giggle. “Almost like yours, only smaller.”
Her stomach curdled. “What did you say?”
“In your bathtub. Dreaming of something nice, weren’t you? You’re very pretty when you sigh like that. I should like to have touched, but—”
“Shut up,” she ordered, sickened. Such a marvelous invention—if it was even his—and he used it to ogle naked women in the privacy of their bathrooms. So much for progress.
Her fingers clenched angrily around her stinger. He’d spied on her. Violated her. She burned to jam her thumb on the trigger, watch him choke and writhe. How do you like it, scum? Does that feel powerful? Am I pretty now?
“So it was you,” she accused, shaking. “You burned my house down and stole Crane’s book.”
He eyed her slyly. “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“What happened at Ireton House?” she demanded, fighting a Lizzie-like urge to wring his greasy neck.
Wyverne gnashed his teeth. “I arrived on time and everything, and the rotten ingrate had gotten herself killed. Drowned in her own blood just to spite me. Imagine her smug face as he shoved that coil down her throat. ‘This’ll teach you, Wyverne, ha ha ha!’ “
“Did you see the killer?” she asked sharply.
“Of course not! Whoever did it was long gone.”
“And the money?”
“The murderer must have taken it. He’s one of them, too.” He glared at Starling’s door. “You’re all in on it, the stinking lot of you!”
She fumbled one-handed in her bag for the bloodstained blue scarf. “I found this at the scene. Whose blood is this?”
“How should I know? That’s not mine. Who says it is? Starling? I’ll throttle him!”
Still shaking, she forced herself to lower her stinger. “Well, Mr. Wyverne, you’re a pervert and a blackguard, and I’d march you down to Bow Street and have you charged with extortion, not to mention housebreaking and indecent assault, but frankly I can’t stand your stench one moment longer. Inspector Griffin has better things to do than listen to your feeble delusions of persecution.”
Wyverne waved his arms. “But it’s all true! They’re all out to get me—”
“Enough,” she snapped. “You are not the victim here, you disgusting little slug. I suggest you pour yourself a drink, have a nice lie down, and consider very carefully what you’re going to do next. Good day.”
He opened his mouth to retort.
“Ah.” She held up a warning finger. “Not another word.”
Sullenly, Wyverne retreated into his office, slamming the door in a queasy puff of strange. She wanted to spit after him, yell curses. Such dirty little games.
She knocked on Starling’s door, impatient. “Byron, stop fooling about. I’m sure you had good reason for your lies, so let’s talk about it like adults.”
Not even a rustle of paper.
Her skin grew cold. Those ugly syringes. She rattled the handle, anxious. “Byron? Are you all right?”
Just empty silence.
She backed up, and slammed her shoulder into the door. Bang! The lock broke, and the door thumped back on its hinges.
The desk was bare of papers and books. Just a yellow-crusted syringe on the blotter, mocking her. An adjoining door to Crane’s office lay open, and Byron Starling—invisible or not—was gone.
Twenty minutes later, Eliza strode into Finch’s Pharmacy and dropped the glass syringe on the counter.
Finch’s head poked from behind the curtain. “Yes?” he said crossly. “I’ve told you before, eh? No clarified opiates before ten o’clock, so you can just clear off . . .” His expression brightened. “Oh, it’s you, dear girl. Sorry. Fending off addicts, you know. Cattle stunner close to hand.” He wiped stained hands on his apron. “What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to analyze this.” Stiffly she proffered the crystallized syringe. “I got it from Byron Starling.”
Finch peered at the yellow substance, pince-nez flashing with rainbows. “I declare. Uncanny spectrum, say what?”
“It’s a compound that engenders a negative refractive index during cellular decomposition.” She watched him, a bitter ache in her guts. “But you already knew that.”
“Eh?” He looked
mystified.
“Your friend’s experiments. Wyverne, wasn’t it?”
A vague head scratch. “Not sure what you’re driving at, dear girl.”
“Byron Starling, Ephronia Crane, Antoinette de Percy. You knew everything. Why didn’t you tell me you gave Victor’s diagrams to Antoinette?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea what you’re babbling about—”
“Why did you put me in Bethlem?”
Finch’s face whitened.
“I was fifteen. Fairfax and Starling were there. I remember it now. Those cruel ‘treatments.’ “ Her throat ached. “Why?”
Carefully, he set the syringe down. “My dear girl,” he said gently, “nothing good will come of these questions. It was all for the best. You must trust me.”
“This illness.” Her voice cracked to a whisper. “I wasn’t just sick, was I? You locked me up. What did I do that was so terrible?”
He just pulled a cigarette case from his pocket, his baby-blue gaze no longer so vague. Chilly, even.
“Please, Marcellus. I need to know. Was it . . .” She swallowed. “Did the elixir drive me mad?”
He lit his cigarette. Exhaled slow, sweet-smelling smoke. “Trust me,” he repeated, hypnotic. No longer her doting, dotty Marcellus. This was Edward Hyde’s Finch. The man who’d taken one look at Madeleine Jekyll lying dead on those pristine white sheets and advised Henry to cover up what Hyde had done. Who’d taken her poor dead body to Victor Frankenstein and brought her back to hideous life.
“You never loved me, did you?” Eliza’s eyes burned. “You only ever loved him. Everything you ever promised me was a lie.” Blindly, she grabbed the syringe and walked out.
THE OBSERVATION OF TRIFLES
SOON AFTER, ELIZA JUMPED DOWN FROM THE OMNIBUS outside the soaring glass arches of the Royal Opera. She paid her threepence and climbed the steps to Bow Street Police Station, Hippocrates hopping at her heels.
With the magistrates in session down the street, the entrance hall was packed. Constables, civilians, and bowler-hatted civil servants jostled, umbrellas and briefcases adding to the crush. Two constables marched a skinny fellow with scraggly red ringlets towards the booking desk. “Don’t know nuffing ’bout no murder,” he proclaimed, winking at Eliza as he passed. “A dead Fishy Dolittle? What sort o’ name is that? The Artful Dodger, you say? Never ’eard of ’im.”
