On a Night Black

by Cherie Mitchell

  Luckily, from Ramona’s nod she seemed to know exactly what he meant, although her next comment was perplexing. “Maybe that’s how your coat got here.”

  “What? What does my coat have to do with anything?”

  She was the one tripping over her words in excitement now. “That’s probably how your coat came to be at that charity shop. It arrived here with you via an alternative version of now. You obviously brought it here on another journey forward from 1889, rather than leaving it hanging on Darcy’s coat stand.”

  “I might agree with you but if you remember, when I stepped out of the time machine it was the first time I’d ever been there.”

  “Oh, that’s right. But it was a good theory, wasn’t it?” She did an adorable wrinkling of her nose that made her look very young and infinitely approachable. Kissable.

  He wrenched his eyes away from her mouth, afraid he might make an utter fool of himself and bend to press a kiss onto screen. His restless night had made him giddy. “It was a good theory, but if I start thinking about it too much my brain turns into a plate of Darcy’s scrambled eggs. Alternative versions of the future are all very well but they take a lot of thought to figure out and even then, they still don’t make much sense to me.”

  “Darcy’s scrambled eggs. I remember them well. Best eaten hot, not so appetising once they’ve gone cold.” She giggled and all at once everything felt exactly right. He settled back against the pillows, grinning at her like a loon. Did she realise how beautiful she was when she laughed? And if she knew, why didn’t she do it more often? Pretty girls should smile and laugh. It was the duty of the fairer sex to light up the world with their smiles.

  “Have you been here, to his house?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about this. He knew the pair of them had originally met through a dating app and both had stated that theirs was a friendship from the beginning, but could there once have been a smidgeon of romance involved? He couldn’t imagine any man not being intrigued by Ramona.

  “Maybe. Maybe once upon a whisper of time in a world gone mad.” She gave a casual shrug and her eyes darkened. He could imagine her apartment now, could see it as vividly as if he were there himself, with the sleepy morning sun peeking through the window and the smell of coffee in the air.

  “It sounds as if you’re about to tell me a story.”

  She firmly shook her head, her hair flying loose around her shoulders. “Not right now.”

  “One day?” He allowed a seductive tease to creep into his voice, enjoying their light conversation.

  “If you’re a good boy.” Her lips twitched and her eyes sparkled with amusement. Again, he wished he were there with her. She looked around as the sound of her ringing phone chimed musically through the tablet speakers. “I have to go. We can talk again soon.”

  “Of course.” He told himself not to be too disappointed – he knew by now that she always had somewhere else more important that she needed to be and it didn’t necessarily mean that she was uninterested in talking to him.

  The tablet screen flickered and she was gone without a word of goodbye. He sighed and tossed the device to one side. Hopefully, he would deal quickly with his work here and then get himself back to 2020 and the delightful business of pursuing Ramona.

  He heard someone passing on the landing outside his door, most likely Darcy from the heavy sound of his tread on the stairs, and again he pushed himself off the bed. He pulled back the curtains and gazed out through the pitted glass at a misty, foggy world, yawning and arching his back as he stretched his hands over his head. A new day had dawned, his focus now had to be on doing whatever it was that he needed to do to stop the barbaric Knave from killing anyone else, and in the meantime there was breakfast and hot coffee to be had. Speaking of which, he was sure he could already smell the delectable scent of toasting bread. He snatched up his boots from the end of the bed and hurried downstairs to use the water closet before joining the others in the kitchen.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Do you remember dying?”

  Hortense blinked her surprise at him. She was faintly bleary-eyed this morning but immaculately dressed, with her hair piled high and her locks looking as smart and unruffled as they had done last evening. “My goodness Elliot, that’s a big question for so early in the day.”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” she said lightly as she reached out a delicate hand for the jar of marmalade. “I didn’t die. Darcy came back to get me before the fateful dinner party.” She smiled her thanks to the manically grinning Darcy. The inventor’s white whiskers were doing odd things this morning, standing out from his jaw as if rising to attention. Perhaps he’d forgotten to comb them or overlooked the need to apply a brisk rub of hair oil. Elliot wondered with absentminded distraction where each of his table companions had spent the night.

  “But you did die once. Don’t you remember the first time?”

  “No, I don’t remember dying because the previous version of my reality was erased when Darcy came back to get me. I skipped that period of my life, rather than living through it.”

  “That makes sense, I suppose.”

  “Well now, what’s everyone’s plans for the day?” Darcy asked with jovial cheerfulness, although his eyes were on Hortense alone.

  “The Knave.” Elliot didn’t need time to consider his response. After his earlier conversation with Ramona, he was invested in completing his assignment and returning to his own future as soon as he could. “Where do I go to find him? Will you give me an assignment brief, just as Ramona did in 2020?”

  Darcy grimaced. “You’re in 1889 now. We don’t have the benefit of emails here. You must remember that we have nothing close to that sort of tidy and efficient automation in these vintage days.”

  “I have the tablet. I used it to contact Ramona this morning.”

  “You did?” Darcy was suddenly alert. “Is there something wrong?”

  “No, there’s nothing wrong. I just wanted to talk to her.”

  “Ah.” Darcy shared another long and complicit look with Hortense and Elliot felt a vague stirring of irritation. He was the odd one out at the breakfast table today, a spare wheel for a carriage that didn’t require one. He finished his tea and pushed himself back in his chair. “Please excuse me. I’m going for a walk to clear my head and reacquaint myself with the area the Knave frequents.”

  “Not so fast, not so fast.” Darcy dropped his napkin and rose from his chair with surprising speed. He smiled at Hortense. “Do excuse us, my dear. I’ll run through the program with the lad and then I’ll be back for another cup of tea.” He laid a hand on Elliot’s shoulder and steered him out of the room without a pause. “By the way, you can only use the tablet for the Com-Dec app. There’s no chance of accessing your emails or the internet. How was the line this morning? Was the connection viable?”

  “We didn’t get cut off, although Ramona asked me to pass on her request for you to take another look at the quality of communications.” Darcy reached past him to shove the door open and Elliot stepped into the muted morning light of the front room. He gasped at the pent-up odour of fuel that rushed out to meet them. “You might want to leave that door open for a minute or two. That smell is disturbingly strong.”

  “It will waft away soon enough. I find the smell quite pleasant.” Unconcerned, Darcy walked over to the table to inspect his time machine with all the fond affection of an attentive parent for their child. “I have a few tweaks to make to this old lady today and then it will be ready to go.”

  “Old lady? How long has the machine been in use?”

  Darcy scrunched up his eyes and moved his lips, silently counting through multiples of unknown figures. He popped his eyes open again and beamed. “A millennium at least.”

  “Are you serious?” This was well outside Elliot’s range of comprehension. He’d scarcely walked the earth for three decades himself and jumping forward 131 years had tested him enough. A millennium was in
conceivable.

  “I would never jest over such an important question.” Darcy slid his spectacles on and bent to read a complexly drawn diagram that lay on the table beside the sidecar.

  Elliot felt his impatience rising. “You obviously have work to get on with so I won’t keep you. If you can give me an outline of where to find the Knave and tell me what you expect of me, I’ll be on my way.”

  Darcy scratched at his whiskers and glanced at the open door as Hortense’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. “He’s found himself some new territory to conquer. As I’ve already mentioned, he’s changed his murderous tactics. He was never a fool, regardless of what other words we might throw at him. Jack the Ripper of Whitechapel is no more but the Knave and his evil intentions are alive and well at the Olympia.”

  “The entertainment hall in Kensington?” Elliot knew the place and he’d even been inside once, when Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth visited London. The imposing red brick exterior and the unique glass domed roof housed an exhibition and trade fair centre of a size and quality incomparable to any other.

  “That’s it. A carnival, circus, and freak show is currently performing on site, drawing crowds of patrons and attracting both the young and the old to view its dubious delights. It’s the perfect place for a man who wants to hide in plain sight so he can select and stalk his victims.”

  “Are you saying he targets women who are visiting the Olympia and then follows them?” The Knave might have changed his venue but Elliot doubted that his methods had altered much.

  “Unfortunately yes, and I can’t think of a more fitting home for a man who is freak of nature in his own way.”

  “What is this carnival called?”

  “A Stupendous & Sensational Saturnalia Showcasing Extraordinary Feats of Human Talent & Peculiarities.” Darcy rolled the words off his tongue with a suitable flourish.

  Elliot chuckled, amused despite the dark subject of their conversation. “That’s something I missed when I jumped into the future. The Victorians do have a flair for verbosity and outrageousness in their speech. Ramona called it quaint.”

  “They do indeed.” Darcy picked up a small notepad and scrawled a few words on it before passing it to Elliot. “I have a contact name for you at the hall, a Mr. Jerome Langley. He will give you access to the venue at any hour or the day or night. We don’t know exactly when the Knave will strike. It was so much easier when he was meeting his victims through dating apps.”

  “Easier for us but not for him. We prevented him from harming anyone, remember?” He tucked the piece of paper with Jerome Langley’s name on it into his breast pocket. “Is that all? Do I need to know anything else?”

  Darcy peered at him sternly from over the top of his spectacles. “Just be careful. I don’t think Ramona would ever forgive me if I didn’t get you back to 2020 in one piece.”

  Darcy’s comment started a warm glow in Elliot’s belly that rapidly spread up into his chest and onwards, forcing a foolish smile onto his face. He nodded, not trusting himself to reply without saying something idiotic, and turned to leave.

  “Wait. There’s one more thing.” Darcy tapped his mobile phone where it lay with the other paraphernalia on the table. “Do you have the mobile phone Ramona gave you? I’ve rigged it so you can contact me directly if necessary. It won’t connect to any other time or place but it will ring through to my phone.”

  “I have it.”

  “Do be careful, Elliot. The Knave is a man without a conscience.” Both men spun around to where Hortense now stood in the doorway and again Elliot had the distinct feeling that he’d once seen or spoken to someone who looked a lot like her.

  “Elliot has his quick wit and his knowledge of the Knave’s habits to assist him, Hortense. I’m sure he’ll have a tale or two to tell us when he comes back.”

  Hortense turned a grave face on Darcy. “Have you told him yet? About my role in all of this?”

  Darcy made a choking noise and hurriedly shook his head. “Not now, my dear. Elliot has enough on his plate today.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that if I ask you to explain I’ll only be fobbed off again?” Elliot grumbled.

  “That’s very astute of you but then again, your perception was never in doubt. We’ll explain in due course.” Darcy flashed a warning glance at Hortense as he hurried Elliot out of the room. The inventor pushed him with ungentle haste towards the front door where he grabbed Elliot’s coat from the stand and thrust it into his hands without any further formalities. “Off you go. And give Jerome my best regards. Tell him he must come round for a drink sometime. It’s been far too long since I saw the old rogue.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  By design, intent, or neither of these, Jerome Langley was a hard man to find. Elliot had already spoken to a couple of people outside the building who had assured him that the man in question was around here somewhere but so far, he’d proved to be elusive. Elliot had tried to get into the Olympia to search for him inside but the stern-faced man in the ticket office had refused him entry unless he paid his penny. Unfortunately, Elliot didn’t have a single coin on his person and no means to get any unless he walked all the way back to Darcy’s house. This part of the plan probably could have been thought out a little better but of course Darcy had hurried him out the door this morning without giving him time for much preparation.

  He mooched around by the entrance doors, watching as couples and families came and went. A proud and colourful banner was stretched across the red brick frontage of the building, exclaiming in extravagant, curled font: A Stupendous & Sensational Saturnalia Showcasing Extraordinary Feats of Human Talent & Peculiarities – Come One, Come All And Be Sure To Come Back To See It All Again! The curiosity and excitement on people’s faces as they walked into the hall was plain for anyone to see and their enthusiastic chatter and quick laughter only served to underline their eagerness to get inside. Elliot was anxious to get inside too and see what all the fuss was about himself. Oh, and to find the Knave.

  The mist and rain were holding off today and a few hopeful patches of blue sky had appeared amidst the clouds. He leaned back against the stoic red bricks of the Olympia and lifted his face to the sparse warmth of the watery sun. He allowed himself a moment to daydream a little, imagining Ramona busily going about her day somewhere in the future and maybe lifting her face to the same weak rays of sunshine. Had he crossed her mind again since their earlier conversation?

  “I heard you were looking for me.”

  Elliot opened his eyes and looked for the source of the voice. A large man with stooped shoulders and a paunchy belly that pushed insolently at the front of his vest beneath his tailored blazer stood a short distance away, his body poised as if he were ready to rush off again. “If your name is Jerome Langley, you probably heard right.”

  Jerome had one of those heavy, bullish heads that looked as if it would emerge the winner if he should ever find himself in a fight with a cannonball, and the expression he currently had pasted across his face matched the bullishness to perfection. “Are you Cinder? Elliot Cinder?”

  “The one and the same. Darcy Darcel sent me. He said to give you his regards and remind you that you’re welcome to visit him at his home.”

  “Huh.” Jerome glared at him with scrunched, flinty eyes. “You’re not what I expected.”

  “It’s a commonly known fact that our expectations will be the death of most of us.” Elliot had little interest in standing here while Jerome grunted and scowled at him. “Are you able to grant me entry to the exhibition hall? Darcy said you would.”

  “There are a few formalities to cover first.” He walked off and Elliot hurried to keep up with him. The man’s lengthy strides were equal to the rest of him – impatient and larger than life. He opened a small, dusty, and otherwise unremarkable door just inside the first entranceway and ducked his head to step in. “Come into my office,” he said gruffly from inside, the invite issued too late and too tersely to be in a
ny way welcoming.

  The top of the doorframe was so low that Elliot also needed to stoop to enter. The office itself was closer in form and size to a broom closet, with just enough room for a desk that touched both opposing walls and a chair that didn’t look as it could safely accommodate a man of Jerome’s size and bulk. A chipped glass vase on the windowsill contained a bunch of old, long-dead flowers and held a thick layer of dust instead of water. On the wall behind the desk was a boastful, yellowing certificate in a wooden frame proclaiming Jerome Langley as a ‘Polished Showman, Master of Business, And Entrepreneurial Genius’.

  “I can issue you with a badge that will give you entry to the carnival. Just show it to the man in the ticket office by the next set of entrance doors each time you need to go into the hall.” Jerome banged open one of the desk drawers, sending up a large puff of dust, and scrabbled his fat fingers around inside before eventually pulling out a round, yellow badge with a pin on the back. The word STAFF was scratched unevenly on the enamel surface with what was probably the pin from another badge. Elliot took the badge and affixed it to his coat lapel.

  Jerome surveyed him with undisguised suspicion while Elliot fought against a sneeze that tickled at the end of his nose, his nostrils irritated by the disturbed clouds of dust. “That badge indicates that you’re in a position of trust and it will allow you access to parts of the hall away from the public arena.” His suspicion deepened. “How can I be sure I can trust you?”

  “Didn’t Darcy vouch for me?”

  Jerome didn’t break his icy stare. “Darcy may have vouched for you but I know nothing about you. For all I know, you could be some thieving vagabond come to steal what you can from me.”

  Elliot struggled not to roll his eyes. Everything about Jerome Langley screamed rogue and vagabond yet he was accusing him of untrustworthiness? The man was a fool. Elliot had just opened his mouth to tell him so when Annie’s lovely face floated to the front and centre of his mind’s eye. Remember why you’re here, Elliot. You’re here to prevent what happened to Annie from happening to another innocent woman. He nodded brusquely. “I understand your hesitation but I can assure you that my intentions are pure and good. I have an important task to carry out and both Darcy and myself appreciate your help and assistance in the matter.”