Upon arrival at the Blessing house, Mary leapt from the carriage and started up the steps to the house. Immediately as she reached the front door, she heard cries and shouting from within. She tried the handle, gently, not wanting to give away her presence. As she expected, the door was locked. She wondered if using her pick would draw unwanted attention from outside the house, or within.
She heard men shouting within. A woman pleading desperately. Mary knew there was not a moment to lose. She slipped off her shoes, dropped her bag and decided to investigate the rear of the terrace, hoping to gain access through the kitchen. Hitching up her skirts, she broke into a run, unimpeded by the awkward heels of her shoes, flitting from pavement to cobbled street to avoid passers-by who stared at her in disgust.
Wheeling round the corner at full tilt, she almost collided with a barrow-boy, but nimbly sprang onto his cart and vaulted over his shoulder, landing on the pavement with no loss of pace. She turned onto the lane behind the house and maintained her pace. She deduced the correct gate and was soon in the yard, then kitchen of the Blessing house. The men had evidently not anticipated an intruder from the less civilised side of the building.
Able to hear more clearly on this side of the front door, Mary made out more commotion in the parlour and the voice of a young girl. Were the men squabbling?
Mary turned her attention to the kitchen. She recalled from the notes that the doctor had used chloroform to subdue the beast. He had rigged up a mechanism to feed the vapour through the illuminating gas pipes at his laboratory – perhaps he had done the same in his own house. She reasoned then that the containers of chloroform would be kept near the oven and gas workings, rather than hidden in the study as the study was where the creature was concealed. It took her moments to discover, in the back of the lower part of the pantry, several large tin containers. She removed two and was soon hurtling down the lane, a container under each arm, fingers pinching her bunched skirts.
Outside the Blessing house, she threw all caution and care to the wind. She could hear the muttered scorn of the gentlefolk on the street, but this was not the time to consider her appearance and behaviour – this was the time to act!
She drew one of her daggers from her sleeves and deftly punched a hole into each tin, which she promptly drew up, one in each hand, and hurled at the parlour window.
The shattering glass caused a stir on the street; cries of “Vandal!” went up. Those who stepped forward to detain her thought better of it, when they saw Mary pick up her blade once more.
As she took to the steps she picked at her hair clips with her free hand, and collected four metal pins, which had each been secreted within the hollowed ends of the clips. Two of the pins were coated with curare, and their tips had been dipped in wax, to create a small section safe for Mary to touch. It was this wax portion she placed firmly between her lips. The remaining two pins had each a gutta-percha bladder at the end, which she placed between her lips. Within these hollow pins was her specially balanced blend of strychnine, chloral hydrate and sodium nitroprusside, dissolved in ethylene glycol.
She kicked her shoes and bag to one side, drew her second blade and readied herself as the lock turned and the front door opened.
The door opened and she recognised the man from the clinic and coffee house immediately. Her punch was solid and stung his nose. Still clutching both blades, she jabbed his eyes with two extended fingers, slapped his left ear with the side of a blade and barged him aside.
His own momentum carried him staggering to the side. She knew that she had only seconds before he would recover and meet her in combat.
The second man, taller, thinner, he was prepared for her. Freddy grabbed her hair and yanked her close to him.
Big mistake, Mary thought. Her lips drew near to his neck. He shivered as her warm breath tickled his skin. She kissed his dirty flesh, but his pleasure was fleeting as the bite of the pins shocked him. A quick click of Mary’s teeth ensured that the tiny bladders discharged their toxin and she stepped back. She thumped the handles of both blades against the side of his head as he yanked at the pins.
The man had managed to draw the poisoned darts from his skin, but it was too late. Mary knew that his blood pressure was already dropping, his limbs becoming unresponsive and nausea building in an unstoppable wave.
She turned towards the street and slashed with both blades, narrowly missing the first man’s midriff.
“Fancy us meeting again like this,” Mary said, cheerily.
In the reception, the second thug vomited violently and collapsed into a heap.
“He better not be dead, missy!” Charles boomed, levelling his revolver.
With a flick of her wrist, a blade streaked out at Charles, catching his upper arm as it twirled along its arc. The moment’s distraction was enough to put Charles off his aim. The revolver barked to life, a bullet tore loose, past Mary, into the thigh of the poisoned Freddy, who lay prone on the floor, bubbles of vomit dribbling from his lips. The shock and pain of the bullet wound failed to register with the man, so deep was his sedation.
Mary twirled, turning her back to Charles momentarily as she reversed her grip on her remaining blade. This she thrust behind her, low, finding Charles’ thigh. The blade bit deeply and Mary twisted away again, opening up a savage wound.
Charles dropped the revolver and clutched at his wound. As Mary darted for the parlour, she felt Charles’s hands grabbing at her dress, his strength and her momentum pulling in opposite directions, tearing the material from around her waist.
In an instant, Mary slashed the material, abandoning the garment to prevent further entanglement. Those who had gathered on the street gasped in disgust as Mary returned to the stumbling Charles and, her stockings, garter belt, hidden weapons and undergarments fully exposed, she delivered a kick to his jaw with such force that he was snapped into unconsciousness. To a further gasp of horror, and she knew, gasps of feigned horror by some of the men who wished to hide their delight, Mary bent over to scoop up the discarded revolver and left Charles where he lay.
She was inside once more. The largest of the men, The Bear, leaned in the parlour doorway, gasping for air, tears streaming down his face, almost overcome by the chloroform. Between breaths, he cried for Freddy to get up. His eyes fell on the half-dressed woman before him.
Before he could say a word she drew back the hammer on the revolver and fired a round into his foot, sending him howling to the floor.
Mary took a deep breath and plunged into the room. Niamh lay unconscious with Lily, in the middle of the floor. Mary dragged them as close to the door as she could.
The Bear cried and howled, clutching his shattered, bloody foot. Mary pointed the tip of her blade inches from his face. “Gather yourself, and leave!”
“My bloody foot! I need a doctor!”
“A doctor lives here, but I shall assume you have chased him away. Now get out and leave these people alone!”
She heaved Freddy out onto the front step and locked the door, once she had gathered her bag, shoes and the discarded blade from the steps. She pulled Niamh and Lily out of the parlour, clear of the vapour, which was fully discharged from the tins, and which was dissipating in the draught from the broken windows.
Mary detached her garter belt arsenal and concealed it in her bag. From that bag she produced a vial of pungent smelling salts, which, once waved under the noses of the two unconscious, newly rescued maidens, effected an almost immediate recovery.
“I feel that I owe you a debt I can never repay,” Lily gushed, taking in her tattered saviour. “Follow me upstairs, please! I am worried that the lady of the house has fallen to some harm. They said she was out, but I have not seen her all day – I took her to be in bed. She has been terribly unwell lately.”
Mary thanked her and followed the maid. “Those men have made quite the mess, have they not?” she said, nodding to the battered study door.
“Indeed. Thank goodness George escaped when he did.�
�
“I wonder why he felt he should escape, and abandon you, and his wife?” Mary asked.
Lily led Mary into the master bedroom. The door was closed and locked. “Thank God they did not make it this far,” Lily muttered. “There must be a key somewhere.”
Mary produced her pick and within seconds had released the lock. Lily opened the door and let out a sharp gasp, her legs buckling. She almost slipped back into unconsciousness again.
Mary saw immediately the drained body of Margaret Blessing and turned instinctively to grasp the child, steering her away from the bedroom. “You should not see this, child.”
“What is it?” Niamh cried, muffled by Mary’s embrace. “What is it? What has happened?”
“Something terrible.”
“Is Mrs Blessing all right?”
“No, child. She is not all right at all.”
Nineteen.
Panacea was unwell. Our flight had upset her. I could hear the vixen screams in my brain as she supplicated for some drops of tenderness, some care. Bracing my legs and holding the fractured bell-jar on my lap, I twisted the glass lid free. Reaching into the lukewarm fluid, my fingers slid over her skin.
Her slits of nostrils sniffed at me. Oh, this is it, I thought! She means to drain me! I cradled her as one would an infant, keeping her head away from my injured shoulder. Holding her to my breast with one arm, I placed the jar on the floor of the cab. My fingers slid up her spine and across her ribcage. I leaned back and inspected her. She was weak.
I could not let her just die! Killed by some animal!
I offered her my wounded shoulder and braced myself. This is it, George! You had a good run, but you connived and slew to keep this creature alive and now she slays you! Any fear for my own safety was swiftly overcome by the urge to protect her.
Her lips peeled back and I felt the icy tongue scrape across my flesh. She knew the taste of this blood; she had sampled small amounts before. I had teased her with it, these three years, giving her just enough to survive. I noticed a small, bleeding wound on her head, no doubt caused by the same impact that cracked the jar.
Her lips formed a seal over my skin, and the needle teeth bit in, dozens of them at once, clamping down – then further in, working their way deeper.
“There, there, girl,” I said, rocking her back and forth, cradling her tighter and tighter as the wound began to throb. “Shhhhhhh,” I soothed.
Somewhere in my brain I heard the sound returning to me, “Shhhhhhh.”
I looked down at my child and felt the needles withdraw, my wound numbed. Her saliva formed pink webs as her mouth disengaged. She rubbed her head into my shoulder, pressing her own blood against mine as she nestled into me.
Her control – her discipline… Astounding. To be so weakened but to show such restraint… I wondered if even I was capable of such composure any more. I felt immediately both proud of my daughter and ashamed that my own self-control had declined beneath the level of a mere child. I wondered if the gas was necessary any more, to bring her under control.
Miraculously, the numbness of my wound was replaced by a warm throbbing and I could see the blood coagulating in the cut even as I watched.
“You truly are remarkable, my darling,” I whispered and clutched her to my chest, sharing my warmth with her. We rested together on our journey. The roads of London had been slow, choked with travellers. On three occasions I had been forced to hide the child and change transport. Drivers were fearful of longer trips, in case the passenger refused to pay. The hiding and waiting had slowed matters somewhat.
The sun was all but set and the chill of the night bit into us, exposed as we were in the last hansom cab. I wrapped her in my tatty jacket and huddled down with her. “Soon, we will be there, my dear,” I whispered to her. “We are almost safe.”
Twenty.
“What do I need you useless bastards for, eh?” Charles boomed at The Bear. He glanced at his hands, which were soaked in a mixture of bloods - his own, The Bear’s and Freddy’s. The tattered bandage on his hand was stained bright red.
The Bear narrowed his eyes at Charles and continued limping along the pavement, dragging Freddy’s unconscious frame. “Never mind that, give us a hand with Freddy, eh?”
Charles sucked his fingers one by one then yelled, “A woman! All of us beaten by a woman.”
The Bear lowered Freddy to the ground and straightened up. “Listen, Charles,” he growled, “I’m not carrying on with this. That was no normal woman. Lord only knows what unholy business you’ve got me into, but that woman beat three of us in less than a minute.”
“I know that!” Charles snapped, before running his tongue over his palms in two quick, unconscious movements.
“Well, look at Freddy. What help is he going to be now, eh?” The Bear asked, tapping a foot against Freddy’s rump. “Well, you can forget about me following you. You’re on your own now.”
“Is that it, then?” Charles asked, squaring up to his old friend.
“How common,” a woman remarked to her husband as they passed, having observed the blood leaking from each of the men, and the gruesome trail they had left in their wake.
“Shhh, dear. Let them go about their business in peace,” her husband chided, knowing that either one of these men alone looked strong enough to pick him up and throw him away like a doll.
“That’s it, Charles. Without your gun you should think twice about laying hands on me. I would not enjoy it, but my word on it, I would dash your brains out on the pavement and take my chances.”
Charles felt the ache in his back from the fall and the burning sensation in his hand, beneath the bandage. His jaw hurt like hell, his leg was leaking blood, but his forehead was no longer bleeding freely. He was surprised at how quickly the wound had scabbed over. Nevertheless, he had to consider, was his collection of injuries worse than The Bear’s shattered and bleeding foot? It certainly seemed to be hindering him very little, even though, when Charles glanced at The Bear’s burst right boot, he guessed that at least one toe had been severed.
“All right, then, Mister Bear. Have it your way. You and that drunken pig can bleed to death here on the street for all I care.” Charles stormed off in the opposite direction, pressing a hand against his slashed thigh, hoping to find a doctor before he blacked out.
He managed to hail a cab, eventually, as several drivers refused to pick him up in his injured state. The driver knew of a doctor nearby and drove Charles to his house. The same house he had raided less than an hour earlier. “Find another! Another!”
The driver managed to locate a doctor’s surgery only a few minutes away. Charles limped into the building and through the reception, past two sickly children with their mother, and a young man in the butcher’s apron with a crimson towel wrapped around his bloody fingers.
Nobody protested as Charles barged into the consulting room. Something about him gave off an air that he was not to be trifled with.
The doctor cried out in alarm, “You may not simply barge into my office, sir! I am with a patient, and have other patients waiting!”
A terrified young woman was huddling away in the corner of the room, hoping that this madman would not harm her.
“You’ll tend to me, doctor!” Charles demanded, cuffing the man across the jaw. “You’ll tend to my leg now!”
The doctor rubbed at his jaw and looked at the woman in the corner with a look of apology in his beady eyes. “All right then. All right!”
The doctor had doused Charles’ open leg wound with a liberal amount of Lugol’s iodine, disinfecting the cut. With cotton swabs he cleaned the area, spreading a reddish-brown stain around Charles’ thigh.
Charles had braced himself for agonising, stinging pain when the iodine was introduced to his wound, but he was surprised to feel very little pain at all. His bitten hand itched, however, to a maddening degree. He clawed at the bandage while the doctor stitched up the leg wound.
As the practitioner plied his
trade, and Charles scratched at the small, scabbed puncture marks in his hand, he wondered at Blessing’s flight. Where had he left to hide?
Surely he would not be so bold as to return to the Burton household? No, surely not, Charles thought. Not when he knows I would almost certainly catch him there. Charles reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small notebook. He leafed through the pages. Friends, friends, friends… Father Haddon, vanished. The accountant, Francis Flanders and the crooked art dealer Edward Summerscale. An address was written on the small page – Flanders’ domicile was known to him, but Summerscale lived God knows where. Mrs Burton had lost track of his movements over the years.
“Hurry, Doctor! Hurry about your business and I shall be sure to set about mine!” Charles urged the older man. He thought about his two ‘friends’: damn those cowards, those drunk cowards! I shall end this the way I started it! Alone – for it seems Blessing has but two friends in this world who may be able to help him and though I know the whereabouts of only one, it is with him I will find Blessing, or find the location of the other, and from either I will certainly find my man!
Francis Flanders, the accountant who handled all of Mrs Burton’s financial affairs, was a mutual acquaintance of her late husband, and Blessing. Indeed, he believed that Flanders and Blessing had eaten together two nights hence.
Once more Charles found himself in a cab as the sun began its descent into the choking muck of the city. He hoped to catch Flanders at his office. Flanders was known to be a fastidious timekeeper and would not leave his desk until after five O’ clock.
Charles bounded up the steps off the street and burst into the office. The gloom of the dusty office was permeated only by a few candles scattered here and there. Four men were hunched over their books, but quickly turned to face him, wondering at the sudden draught caused by his entry.
“Where can I find Francis Flanders?” Charles barked.
The oldest of the four men squinted, trying to make out if he recognised Charles. “And you are?”
The Cabinet of Dr Blessing (The Dr Blessing Collection Parts 1-3): A Gothic Victorian Horror Tale Page 11
