by C. J. Archer
It was going to be difficult to blame natural causes with a bruise on his throat shaped like hands.
The door suddenly opened and Seth tumbled inside, shutting it behind him then turning the lock. "That nurse is coming back and she has another doctor with her. We need to leave. Now."
"But we'll have to go past them," I said.
Lincoln nodded at the window. "That way."
"It's too high," Seth said. "For Charlie, I mean."
The spirit chuckled from its resting place on top of the filing cabinet. He crossed his arms and watched the proceedings with interest.
I crossed to the window, gratified that Lincoln had faith enough in my climbing abilities to suggest it. "I can manage. There's a drain pipe just there."
"Indoor plumbing," Estelle said. "I'll go down first and break your fall if it comes to that."
Voices filtered to us from the corridor outside. "Go," Lincoln hissed.
Estelle was already through the window and climbing down the pipe like it was something she did every day. It was amazing what a lack of fear could do. She slipped when she was still some feet off the ground and fell the rest of the way. She landed on her back, cracking her already caved-in skull. She got up and signaled for me to hurry.
I hiked up my skirt and petticoat to above my knees, wishing I had some way of securing them there, and slung them up over one arm. Lincoln and Gus helped me through the window, and I let the skirts drop. Climbing down pipes wasn't as easy, dressed as a girl, but at least I could breathe properly since I refused to wear a corset.
I glanced down to see Estelle standing below, her arms outstretched to catch me. She wouldn't be the most comfortable cushion to land on but she would be enough to break my fall. Above me, Seth emerged through the window.
Beyond him, I heard the office door rattle. Thank goodness we'd locked it. Hopefully they would need to fetch a key from somewhere, giving us time to escape.
I glanced up again, but Lincoln had not followed Seth through the window yet. What was he doing? I continued to climb down and reached the ground safely, some considerable distance ahead of Seth, who felt carefully for every foothold.
"Where's Fitzroy?" I planted a hand on my hat and craned my neck back to look up. "He's taking too long."
"What are you doing?" cried the voice of Dr. Merton's spirit.
A gunshot cracked. Birds in Regent's Park squawked and screeched. Seth's hand slipped and he let go of the pipe. Fortunately he was close enough to the ground that he landed without hurting himself.
I opened my mouth to scream Lincoln's name, when he suddenly leapt out of the window, planting his feet on the pipe. As quick as a monkey, he descended. He dropped beside me before Seth had even picked himself up. He grabbed my hand just as raised voices from the third floor window exclaimed in horror.
We ran to the front of the hospital, then walked in a calm, civilized fashion toward Gus and the waiting coach. "Was that a gunshot?" he asked.
"Yes," Seth said, assisting me up the steps and into the cabin. He practically shoved me inside at the last moment. "Fitzroy shot a dead man."
Seth handed Estelle up behind me, his fingertips barely touching her boney ones, then he and Lincoln followed.
"Highgate Cemetery," Lincoln barked. Gus had the horses away before we'd even shut the curtains.
"You shot him?" I asked as we rounded a sharp corner.
Lincoln nodded. "In the throat, with a gun and bullet I found in the drawer. I placed the gun near his right hand where it would have landed if he had fallen. A competent coroner will know he was shot after death, but an incompetent one might miss it and declare suicide. A corrupt one certainly will."
Estelle snorted. "The one from this jurisdiction is certainly corrupt. My death certificate says I suffered a heart attack. I lingered in spirit form long enough to hear Merton and his crooked crony planning it. For a fee, of course."
"Oh, Estelle, I am sorry." I laid a hand on her arm, gently so as not to disturb what was left of her decaying skin and wasted muscle beneath the layers of clothing. "Are we to understand that Dr. Merton killed you?"
She bowed her head, but not before I saw sorrow shadowing her eyes—eyes that weren't dead, but weren't quite alive either.
"Tell us how it happened."
She clasped her hands in her lap and lifted her chin, once more the no-nonsense woman I'd first met in spirit form in my sitting room. "Dr. Merton is the worst kind of man. He preys—preyed—on women, particularly the young and vulnerable. I was neither, so I avoided his notice until I confronted him over his misdeeds."
"He hurt the other nurses?"
"Yes, Miss Holloway, he hurt them. Two midwives under my supervision came to me after he'd raped them in that same basement storeroom where I came to my end."
"Bloody hell," Seth muttered. "The man deserved his death then."
"That's why the nurse didn't want to go to his office alone," I added. "She was happy for us to go with her rather than face him on her own."
"There were other stories too, of attempted rape and indecent acts," Estelle went on. "I brought them to the attention of both the hospital board and the local constabulary. Unfortunately, the poor girls were frightened of him and of the effect a trial would have on their reputations. They refused to testify, and it all came to naught." She shook her head. "It sickens me that they would have suffered if he was found innocent."
"How would he be found innocent if they testified?" I asked. "Surely a judge would believe their accounts."
"Your faith in our justice system is misguided, Miss Holloway. Dr. Merton would accuse them of being loose women and claim that they approached him in the storeroom, not the other way around. I knew he would stop at nothing to protect his reputation from this sort of scandal, but I had no idea that he would resort to murder. I was gathering evidence against him, you see. I talked to the girls and had almost convinced them to take the witness stand, but they only agreed to do so if there was an iron-clad case. That involved speaking to all the nurses at the Queen Charlotte, as well as those not associated with the hospital. It's possible there were other victims, you see, ones that we didn't know about. I checked inventory records for the storeroom, and cross-checked the dates and times of his signature in the dispensary book with the reported incidents. I was developing a solid case."
"So he killed you," I said, "then paid the coroner to cover it up by blaming heart failure."
"There's nothing wrong with my heart. My health was extraordinarily robust when I was alive."
"You appear to be alive again," Lincoln began, with his usual dark intensity. "How is that possible?"
Estelle bristled and regarded him down her nose. "I don't believe we've been introduced."
"My apologies," I muttered. "My manners are a little rusty. This is Mr. Lincoln Fitzroy and Mr. Seth Guilford. I work with them."
If Lincoln noticed me say "with" and not "for," he gave no sign. "Miss Holloway said you spoke some words in the cemetery before coming to life. Was that a spell?"
"You're an earnest man, Mr. Fitzroy, and quite unperturbed by the notion of spells, necromancers and the like."
"Answer the question."
Good lord, sometimes he had as much subtlety as a room full of dancing elephants. "We belong to an organization that wishes to keep the supernatural from harming the public," I assured her. "As you can imagine, having a corpse with incredible strength come to life is a worrying incident."
"Of course it is, and I'd like to assure you that I will return willingly to my afterlife." When Lincoln opened his mouth to speak again, she added, "Besides, I am not alive. Not exactly. I merely have the appearance of life. As to your question, Mr. Fitzroy, you are correct. I spoke a spell that my female ancestors have used for centuries to give consciousness to the dead, albeit for a brief time. It makes them act and look alive, but they are not. There is no air in their lungs, no blood pumping through veins, and the vital organs don't work. If there was, I would have died
all over again when I fell from that drainpipe. In a way, it's similar to necromancy. I suppose that's why the spell overrode your orders, Miss Holloway. Perhaps you and I are two branches of the same ancestral tree."
Seth and I exchanged confused glances, but Lincoln's gaze didn't waver from Estelle's. "You're a witch."
"My ancestors were accused of witchcraft on occasion, so yes, I suppose I am. It's why I'm so good at what I do." At our blank looks, she elaborated. "Stillborn babies are common in my line of work, sadly, as is the death of the mother during childbirth. That spell allows me to buy them some time on this mortal coil. In some cases, only a few hours, in others, they continue on for a day or two."
"But…why?" Seth asked. "What's the point of giving a baby or mother a few hours of something that is not even a life? Why prolong the death and the pain?"
Estelle clicked her tongue and shook her head. "So that the mother can hold her child, Mr. Guilford. Just for a little while, and look into her baby's eyes, and know a mother's love. It's better to die in the arms of a mother than in her womb. On a more practical level, there is time to baptize the child and have other family members see the baby. In all cases, it's clear that the baby is sickly and will pass on, so I'm not giving false hope. The same in the cases of the deceased mothers. They know they only have a short time in which to continue, but I think they would all claim that is better than nothing. Some have older children they wish to hug one last time, and then, of course, there are burials or other matters to discuss with husbands."
"But you're playing God," Seth said. I was surprised to hear him say such a thing when he'd never shown much interest in religion. He never went to church, whereas Gus and I made the occasional effort on Sundays.
"If that is how you think, then I'm unlikely to change your mind," Estelle said stiffly. "I've never used my witchcraft on anyone outside childbirth until myself, this morning. When you raised my spirit, Miss Holloway, you unwittingly presented me with an opportunity for vengeance that I couldn't pass up. My decision to kill Merton was spur of the moment, but I don't regret it. Even if I have damned myself, I will face the consequences, not run from them. I do not shy away from my fate."
"I admire you for that," I told her.
She blinked in surprise at me, then smiled. "Thank you, Miss Holloway. You're quite an admirable young woman yourself. You weren't afraid of escaping through the window, for instance."
"Years of practice," I said, laughing.
"Did anyone at the hospital know about your witchcraft?" Lincoln asked.
"No, nor outside it, either. It was a family secret."
"No one? Didn't Lord Harcourt discover it?"
She shook her head. "I don't believe he did."
"He must have," I said. "You see, the late Lord Harcourt belonged to our organization. When he learned of something supernatural, he reported it to Mr. Fitzroy, here. Oh." I suddenly saw the hole in my logic. "He never brought this case to your attention, did he?"
Lincoln shook his head. "Why was your name in his journal, Miss Pearson?"
"Because he discovered I was the nurse who delivered his grandchild, and he had some questions for me."
"Whoa," Seth said, hands up. "The present Lord and Lady Harcourt are childless."
"She gave birth to a stillborn boy, five years ago. The birth was difficult, and we almost lost her too. I managed to give the little boy an extra day, through my spell, but that was all. As with every resurrection, the family was never aware that it was my magic that kept him on this realm a little longer."
"So why did old Lord Harcourt need to see you about it?" I asked. "And why was he angry with you? Are you quite sure it wasn't because he found out about your witchcraft?"
"He never mentioned it when he met with me, a few years later. He wasn't angry with me, you understand, he was angry with his son and daughter-in-law. The couple had been married only four months when I assisted with the birth, yet I delivered Mrs. Buchanan, as she was known then, of a full-term baby. You see, when she announced her pregnancy, everyone assumed she'd fallen in on the honeymoon. Including her husband. However, she was already well into her pregnancy by the time she married. Some five months, in fact. She must have hidden it well."
"She told you this?" I asked.
"I learned it after the delivery. One cannot hide the difference between a full-term baby and a four-month old fetus."
"Why were you summoned to deliver the child?"
"She'd heard of my skill." Estelle straightened, but did not puff out her chest or sound in the least boastful. "I have a reputation, you see, and I've often been asked to assist in home births in good households. Mrs. Buchanan knew she was going to deliver a full-term baby and, by asking for me, I'm quite certain she hoped the baby would survive. Despite her lie, she wanted that child very much."
"How sad," I murmured. "The poor thing died."
"Very sad. She was distraught, but the extra hours I gave the baby helped, I believe. She held him every moment until he finally slipped away a second time."
I dabbed at the corner of my eye.
"It was then that Donald Buchanan discovered his wife's lie?" Lincoln asked.
She nodded. "It was impossible to hide."
"How did he react?"
"Confused, shocked."
"Was the baby his?" I asked.
"I don't know. He never suggested otherwise in my presence, and never spoke harshly to his wife or questioned her. Of course, that could have been because she was distraught and weak. She only had eyes for her son. He never said a word to anyone about the baby being full-term, I do know that much. As far as the outside world knew, she was delivered of a stillborn fetus at four months gestation. The baby never had breath to cry, so it never made a sound, and aside from Mr. Donald Buchanan, myself and the local parson, who christened the baby, no one entered that bedroom. The servants and villagers were all told that Mrs. Buchanan needed to be alone to recover and mourn. Her husband and I took care of everything."
"Villagers? So this happened on the Harcourt estate?"
"They lived up there after the wedding," Seth said. "Old Lord Harcourt preferred London. He liked the theater too much to live far away from it."
The theater and its delights in the shape of Julia Templeton.
"Old Lord Harcourt must have discovered the truth," Lincoln said. "That's why he came to you, to have it confirmed."
She nodded. "It was a few years later. He was angry, as I said, with both his son and daughter-in-law. He somehow heard a rumor that the baby was full-term, and he thought he had a right to know. I don't know how he found out, but I was able to confirm that he was correct. I'm not a liar, and it was the first and only time anyone has ever asked me directly about that baby."
"He was quite the controlling father, so I heard," Seth said. "I can imagine having this kept secret would anger him. It was, after all, his first grandchild, not merely a fetus. He probably would have liked to see him and hold him too before he died."
Lincoln shifted the curtain aside. "We are almost at the cemetery. Miss Pearson, did Andrew Buchanan ever ask these questions of you too?"
"No, just Lord Harcourt." She peered out the window as the coach rolled to a stop. "I've told you everything I know about the situation. May I go now?"
"Of course."
Seth opened the door, climbed out, then helped us ladies to alight. He remained behind with Gus, while Lincoln and I escorted Estelle to her grave. We continued past it, however, when we spotted a groundsman lingering nearby. Someone had raked over the disturbed soil to make it seem as if the body were still inside, so as not to alarm the public, but the groundskeeper watched us carefully. I did not recognize him.
Estelle kept her hat low over her head and her thin, knotty hands in her coat pockets until we were out of sight.
"We'll have to do it here," Lincoln said, stopping at a large tomb bearing a cross. It and the other tombs kept us hidden from the groundsman, but still I looked around anxiously.
Fortunately the drizzling rain kept visitors away.
"When they find your body here, they'll know it's yours and return you," I assured Estelle.
She nodded. "No doubt they'll assume it was boys having a lark."
I hoped so. "How does this work? I can't send you back while you're like this."
"My strength is rapidly waning, but a reversing spell will speed up the process. You will notice the moment I've died again, so to speak, and then you can return my spirit. But first, I wish to thank you, Miss Holloway. Dr. Merton deserved justice, and because of you, I was able to deliver it."
My stomach rolled. I wasn't as certain that I'd done the right thing. What he'd done in his lifetime was heinous, however I didn't like being judge and jury—or playing God, for that matter.
She laid a hand on my shoulder and peered into my eyes. "You have helped save the lives and reputations of several young women today, but ultimately, his death is on my conscience, not yours." Without waiting for me to respond, she spoke some foreign words in the same harsh accent as earlier. At the end, she staggered a little then her eyes went dead. She remained standing, however, and her cracked, colorless lips stretched into the semblance of a smile. "There," she said crisply. "I am done. Now you may say your piece." She clasped her hands in front of her and tilted her chin. "Goodbye, Mr. Fitzroy."
Lincoln gave a shallow bow. "Farewell."
"Goodbye, Miss Holloway."
"Goodbye, Miss Pearson. Thank you for your assistance. I'll not trouble your spirit again. Please return to your afterlife now, Estelle Pearson. Leave this realm and go back."
The mist rose like a thin wisp of smoke from her chest. As the last of it left, the body crumpled, landing awkwardly on the grave. Lincoln righted it, propping her up in a sitting position. The mist formed the shape of Estelle, smiled at me, then whooshed up into the clouds.
"She's gone," I said on a sigh.
"We must leave before we're discovered." He took my hand, only to let it go again almost immediately. He stepped away from me and indicated I should walk first. "I'm sorry, I didn't bring an umbrella."
