Realms of Stone

by Sharon K Gilbert

  Indeed, I believe he is jealous!

  A young man named Prince Rasarit Grigor is staying with Dolly Patterson-Smyth, and he stopped by to bring me a birthday gift. Paul is visiting as well, and he behaved quite differently from usual. You might even call it ‘clingy’. Dolly hosted a musical soirée, and whenever Rasha would ask me to dance, Paul would very quickly cut in, and he kept very close to me all evening.

  I’ve never met anyone like Prince Rasha before. He’s an unusual man: very tall, mysterious, and rather likeable, though somewhat full of himself at times. However, no man exists who could replace Charles St. Clair in my heart, but I really must try to forget him. Not one line has ever arrived from him, which must mean he has forgotten me. If I am so very forgettable to him, then I must find a way to leave this love behind and move forward with my life.

  But it is so very difficult to do! The more I try to forget Charles, the more I think of him. His name is branded upon my very soul!

  I must go to sleep now. I’m so very tired tonight. More tired than I’ve been in years. I pray for a dreamless sleep. The old nightmares have returned, and sometimes, I hear the Shadows talking near my window.

  The one bright spot in my life is that Paul did not propose—but it is only a matter of time. Will I accept? I cannot think about that now.

  10 June 1886

  Today is Charles’s birthday. I’ve been at Branham since late May for the annual fete, and I decided to make him a card, which I shall deliver to him in person when I go to London in a few days.

  Charles, my love, do you think of me? You are thirty-one today. Happy Birthday, my handsome Captain!

  14 June, 1886

  London has never felt so empty, so devoid of joy. Tonight, I’m to sing at Lord Salisbury’s. I suppose the one good thing that happened to me in Paris has been studying with M’sieur Bordelon, for he has worked wonders with my singing voice. Martin Kepelheim, a very kind and energetic man, who’s known my grandfather and Paul for many years, will be accompanying me, and he is quite excited about it all. Martin’s a very sweet man, and he managed to make me laugh many times, despite the ache in my heart.

  Why does my heart ache? Why else? I tried and failed to see my handsome Captain. This morning, whilst Paul’s attentions were turned towards Whitehall, I hired a hansom and rode into Whitechapel to visit the Leman Street Station House. Charles was not there! The desk sergeant informed me that his office is now at Scotland Yard. Tis the height of irony, for Charles now works in the same block of buildings as Paul!

  Should I try to see him there, I wonder? I dare not. Paul’s spies are everywhere, and he’d learn of it and scold me—but worse, he might blame Charles. I cannot risk that. Paul’s behaviour of late is very strange, and though he and Charles are friends, I fear his reaction!

  I keep praying that my Captain and I might one day be united, but I begin to worry that God’s answer is no.

  15 June, 1886

  Last night’s charity ball was a great success, and our musical selections well received. The Royal Opera director, Sir Anthony Delving, so appreciated our selections, that he asked me to sing there tomorrow night as a prelude. Mr. Kepelheim thought it a grand idea, but I said no. Perhaps, I should have said yes. I still could, I suppose. If I sang at the opera house, Charles might see my name in the news and realise I am in London. I doubt it would matter. I fear he has forgotten me.

  Paul insists I must return to Paris next month. So I shall. He’s to be my husband one day, and I must do as he asks.

  Oh, Charles! Why have you not written? If only you’d been at Leman Street—but perhaps you were not meant to be. I have been praying and praying, but my prayers go unanswered.

  Then again, the Lord may be saying no. Why does he allow me to love Charles, if we’re not to be together? I do not understand it! Please, Lord, please! This is my heart’s greatest desire. I beg you to grant it or else remove this love from my soul—for it is killing me!

  The journal for 1887 was missing, but he found 1888’s and thumbed through the entries. As before, Beth wrote over and over of her love for him, mentioning Paul’s continued absence, broken now and again by a quick visit.

  Then in April of that year, the Romanian prince made a second appearance.

  9 April 1888

  I am ill. Victoria has called in a doctor, and he says I have fallen victim to nervous prostration. Tory blames Paul, for he behaved most unusually at my birthday party last evening.

  Dolly Patterson-Smythe hosted the party, and Prince Rasarit Grigor attended. Rasha is once again visiting Dolly (I believe Dolly and Rasha’s late aunt were friends), and he brought me a gift, a hand mirror and brush made of ebony and layered in gold. The set once belonged to his ancestor, Princess Erzsébet of Hungary and was given to her in 1658 by King Louis XIV, who’d taken her as his mistress.

  The items are quite expensive, worth many hundreds of pounds, and Paul insisted I return them because the set is too intimate a gift and implies a relationship to Rasha which is improper. I’ve no idea why Paul would make such a statement, for I’ve received expensive gifts from other admirers—including him. He was so angry that he practically challenged Rasha to a duel over it!

  Now, tonight, I am fatigued and can scarcely lift this pen to write, but my heart aches and I must get it all out. This pain and emptiness over Charles never leaves me. The nightmares continue unabated, and Charles often appears in them, but always as my rescuer. Upon waking, I am both happy and sad. A dream is better than nothing, but I miss him all the more for it! Tory says I must forget my handsome policeman and find contentment in marrying my cousin. Truly, I can barely think!

  Oh, my sweet Charles! I could bear anything if I knew you loved me. I would walk through a lonely desert, if I knew you waited on the other side! Write to me, my darling. Please, write!

  20 May, 1888

  Paul and I had a terrible row last night. He is so very jealous of Rasha! The prince spends nearly every evening at our home, laughing and telling stories, and he often rides with me in the woods near Goussainville. Paul was supposed to leave again this week on assignment for the circle, but he’s postponed it. He insists I am in danger. How can that be? Rasha is only being polite, and we are always chaperoned, so where is the harm?

  Despite my protestations, I may return Rasha’s gift to him. The mirror gives me a very strange feeling that is hard to explain. It’s as though it looks back at me whenever I use it. Am I imagining it? Probably. I’m not sure. Sometimes, I hear voices, and my fatigue grows ever worse. All my doctors are perplexed. Some say I’m overwrought, others that I’ve suffered an insect bite, for there’s a little wound on my throat that won’t heal. It is very warm this summer, and many flies and other insects flitter about of an evening.

  A large raven sits outside my window each night, but bats get into the attics and fly throughout the entire château, causing the servants to panic and a few have left us. Many talk of ghosts and something called a ‘vampire’. It’s all very strange.

  I still dream of Charles, and last night, I dreamt we were married with seven beautiful children. On waking, I could still feel his sweet kiss on my lips, and it made me weep.

  If only he would write to me, then I would recover! I’m sure of it. I am heartsick and desperate. And alone. I entreat the Lord for an answer, and thus far, the answer remains no. Will He never say yes?

  I must keep believing that one day He will. I must!

  Charles closed the diaries, glancing down at his wedding ring, the fulfillment of Elizabeth’s dreams—and his. She never stopped loving me. Never stopped hoping and believing, and I must not. Though everyone told her to give up on me, she never did. Not once. Beth trusted that Christ would eventually bring us together.

  “Thank you, Lord, for saying yes at long last,” he whispered into the quiet darkness. “Though my darling Beth had no way of knowing it, I loved
her all that time and also prayed for an answer. I believe that your plan was always for us to be together, but the timing had to be perfect. I beg you to return her to me, please! I will die without Beth beside me, Lord! I truly will.”

  He wiped tears from his eyes and turned down the lamp, lying alone in the silent chamber. He placed the bar of raspberry and vanilla soap beneath the plump pillow and lay back against it, allowing the sweet scent to calm his senses and still his aching heart.

  Somewhere, his wife—his great and everlasting love—also looked into the darkness, perhaps ill and fearful. He had to stay strong for her.

  And for their unborn children.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  7:01 am – Monday, 26th November

  Edmund Reid had slept very little. After tossing and turning most of the night, a constable had called at his modest home shortly before dawn. Now, as he arrived at the crime scene, the middle-aged inspector discovered why the matter couldn’t wait for him to have breakfast. He passed by two constables guarding the entrance to the house. Both had almost literally turned green.

  “That bad?” he asked Sergeant Joseph Meyer.

  “Worse,” the seasoned detective replied. “The body’s this way, Inspector. As you can see from the marks on the hallway carpet, the victim was dragged through to the parlour. Sunders is working the scene, but I’ll warn you. It’s quite gruesome, sir.”

  “Worse than Mary Kelly?” Reid asked as he followed his officer into an elegant drawing room.

  “I didn’t work the Kelly scene, sir, but this one’s a right mess.”

  The room was thirty by forty, width by length, and twenty in height. The pale blue walls displayed a variety of photographs and portraits, surprisingly, most were of women in various states of undress. “Is this a brothel?” he asked Meyer.

  “The decor suggests it, doesn’t it, sir?” the sergeant replied. “Though if it is, it’s a new one.”

  Before inspecting the body, Reid examined the rest of the room. A trio of arched windows divided the south wall, their sparkling panes offering an unobscured view of George’s Brewery. On the walls above each window, the inspector noticed a series of strange symbols, similar to pictographs MacPherson had once shown him. Each image was written in red, using a brush or perhaps a finger; probably, with the victim’s own blood.

  The floor carpet looked new, and the long drag marks Meyers had pointed to in the corridor continued through the door and across the floral design, ending in the centre of the parlour in a pool of blood.

  Lots of blood.

  A veritable orgy of blood.

  Dangling above this crimson field, hung the dead man, upside down, his throat slashed, eyes protruding from the skull in shock. He’d been stripped of clothing, dignity, and finally his life.

  “Good heavens, it’s Lord Hemsfield!” Reid exclaimed as he saw the victim’s face. “Has anyone notified Lord Aubrey?”

  “The earl?” Meyer asked. “Should I have done?”

  “Yes! Aubrey’s been following crimes committed by the Earl of Hemsfield for over ten years. Send one of those ailing constables to Westminster, quick sharp! If he’s not at Aubrey House, he’ll likely be at his cousin’s home, Haimsbury House. Ask his lordship to come at once.”

  “Very good, sir,” the sergeant replied. “Antram! Over here, Constable. I’ve a mission for you!”

  Reid gingerly stepped around the blood-soaked areas of the carpet and assessed the body. Gerald Dryden, 5th Earl of Hemsfield, hung by his right ankle from the primary downpipe of a cut-crystal gasolier. His hands were bound behind his back, and the left leg bent into an acute angle, the foot tied with electric wire behind his right knee. He wore nothing at all; not one stitch of clothing. The peer’s pale, hairless chest was carved with the Roman numeral XII, and the throat slit from ear to ear.

  “Choked, then bled dry,” Thomas Sunders said calmly from the other side of the victim. “Morning, Inspector. This is one for the books.”

  “I can see that,” Edmund muttered as he studied the corpse. “How do you know he was choked first?”

  The physician used a fireplace poker to turn the dangling body around to show Reid the man’s back. “See here, sir? Just below the hairline, you see ligature marks. If the purpose was to paint the room with blood, they’d have knocked him out first, then hung him up and slit his throat. But it looks as though the killers wanted to control the flow of blood and force it to pool below the body. Stopping the heart first allowed them to do so. Rather like hanging a pig. Kill it, hang it, then slice it from ear to ear.”

  “So I see. Why killers?”

  “A guess, but a logical one,” Sunders explained. “I’d estimate our victim weighs a little over two hundred pounds. If they killed him first as I suggest, he’d be dead weight. It takes a powerful man to lift and hang something that heavy from so high a pipe. You’ll notice there are no marks on the carpet, indicating a stool or ladder was used. They might have moved it, of course, but I can find nothing nearby. And the room was found locked.”

  “Locked?” Reid didn’t like it one bit. “The earl will have his work cut out on this one.”

  “Earl, sir?”

  “Lord Aubrey. You remember him.”

  “I remember him well, sir. Will he be joining us on this one?”

  “Most likely. Our victim is an old acquaintance of his. Look, Sunders, I want a thorough examination of this man’s stomach contents, and run chemical analysis on the blood. I want to know if he consumed anything poisonous. Take samples from the carpet and also his veins, if you can find anything left.”

  “I’d planned to perform all those tests, Inspector, but it seems redundant to kill a man by so many methods. Poisoned, choked, and then dragged to a hanging to be bled like a pig.”

  “It might, but the scene is clearly staged. Also, compare any evidence found on the body to our Victoria Park victims,” Reid suggested. “The manner differs, but those women were exsanguinated. It may be our killer expands his method to satisfy some twisted desire.”

  The weary inspector felt an overwhelming sense of dread. Sunders placed an arm around the policeman, for he’d noticed Reid’s complexion pale suddenly, as though all blood left his face. “Sit, sir, next to this window. Did you have any breakfast? A full stomach at such a scene is more a liability than an asset.”

  “Thank you, Tom. Thankfully, I had no time for food,” the inspector said as he took the chair. “Meyer!”

  The sergeant had been speaking with a constable near the entry door and responded immediately. “Sir?”

  “Send for a photographer. I want everything documented, including the writing above these windows. Be sure to take multiple plates of the man’s pose. There’s a message in it.”

  “Right, sir,” Meyer answered, jotting the orders in his police book.

  “Also, compose a list of everyone who works here, and no one is to leave the house before being interviewed,” Reid continued. “Ask the butler what sort of business is conducted here, and if he keeps a record of visitors, either through calling cards or a guestbook. Also, get a list of everyone with a latch key. Oh, and send several constables to canvass the neighbours, especially the brewery. Ask whether anyone has suffered a break-in of late, if anyone noticed unusual activity near Lord Hemsfield’s house, any strangers in the area, that sort of thing.”

  “Sir, I cannot say what business operated here, but this isn’t Hemsfield’s home.”

  Reid’s eyes widened. “Then, whose is it?”

  “According to the butler, the earl leased it a few weeks ago from an estate agency.”

  A dark sensation crept along Edmund’s midsection, like an adder slithering through his bowels. “Don’t tell me. Royal Estate Agency. Located on Wormwood in the city.”

  “Yes, sir. How did you know?”

  “I fear that it makes a disturbing s
ort of sense. Sergeant, this will be a very long day.”

  8:47 am – Haimsbury House

  Still clutching Beth’s journal, Charles awoke to the sound of persistent knocking. “Yes? What is it?” he called sleepily.

  “It’s Baxter, sir. May I enter?”

  “Yes, of course,” the marquess answered, pushing himself into a sitting position.

  The white-panelled door opened, and Baxter’s wide face appeared in the dimly lit room. “Forgive me for waking you, sir, but Lord Aubrey insists you come down at once.”

  “Has my wife been found?” Sinclair asked throwing off the quilts.

  “No, my lord, I’m afraid not. It seems there’s been a crime in the east, which Inspector Reid considers of interest to you and the ICI. That is the name of your new endeavour, is it not, sir?”

  “Yes, Baxter, it is, and I’ll want to speak to you about that eventually. Is Dr. Emerson here this morning?”

  The butler opened the cedar-lined closet and began selecting a suit for his employer to wear. “Dr. Emerson informed young Mr. Stephens that he had to attend a patient in Marylebone. An emergency, apparently. He hopes to return by midday.”

  “And my uncle?”

  “The duke has not yet called this morning, sir. Lady Adele is practising her piano, most beautifully, I’m proud to say, and Lady Victoria is walking her dog. Shall I run you a bath?”

  “No need. I took one last evening, and if I’m visiting a crime scene, I’ll likely want one when I return,” he answered running a hand across his chin. “I’ll need to shave once my wife is found.”

  “Shall I fetch a bowl and razor now, sir?”

  “No, it’ll wait for the duchess. She may prefer the beard.”

  “Very good, sir. Will you be eating breakfast before departing with Lord Aubrey?”