The Woman in the Coffin

by Nathan Long

  “You think something untoward is going on?” asked Madame Charlemagne.

  “I don’t know,” said Nellie, shrugging. “But I don’t like how he treats her.”

  “Ain’t she his niece?” asked Abomah. “If he’s her guardian, he can treat her any way he likes.”

  “Aye,” said Mary. “You’ll only get in trouble if you stick your nose in.”

  “I know, I know,” said Nellie. “All the same, I’d like to punch him in the—”

  There was a sharp knock on the door. “Nellie O’Day! Five minutes! Five minutes! Nellie O’Day!”

  “Thanks, Jack!”

  Nellie grabbed her eight-piece cap and shillelagh and straightened her tie and tweed suit in the mirror, then took a deep breath.

  It was showtime.

  ***

  “Hi hi hi!” Nellie cried as she bounded onto the stage and saluted the audience. “Say, why d’ye suppose Ireland is the richest country in Europe? Because its capital is always Dublin! Wa-hay!”

  With her unruly ginger hair, pug nose, and freckled cheeks, Nellie could not pull off the traditional “dapper young man” role that most male impersonators performed, so instead she played the cheery Irish rascal, wooing widely but not well, fighting at the drop of the hat, and singing melancholy songs of home when she’d had a drop too much.

  She took off her cap and threw it on the boards, disgusted. “Ach! Why’d I go and mention Dublin? Now I’ve got meself thinkin’ about the girl I left behind—well, one of ’em anyway. Say, there’s a song about her. D’ye know it? It’s called ‘The Black Velvet Band.’ Shall I sing it for ye? All right, then. Away we go.”

  She gave a nod to the maestro down in the pit and the band struck up the lively, lilting intro.

  “In a neat little town they call Dublin,” she sang, “apprenticed to trade I was bound, and many an hour of sweet happiness have I spent in that neat little town.”

  The audience nodded and clapped as she sang the verses, then came in strong on the chorus as she spread her arms wide. “Her eyes, they shone like diamonds, I thought her the queen of the land, and her hair, it hung over her shoulder, tied up with a black velvet band!”

  “That’s the way t’do it!” she called when the song came to its crashing finish. “But...but say, let’s have a sad one now, shall we? So we can all have a good cry before the comedian comes out. Get out your handkerchiefs, me lads and lassies! This one’s called ‘I Am Stretched Upon Your Grave.’”

  ***

  It wasn’t easy, keeping up the ferocious cheer that was the buoyant heart of Nellie O’Day’s act—not when she’d been in such a terrible funk all day, but three years as a trouper, performing two shows a night and three on Sunday, rain or shine, sick or sick at heart, had taught her how to pull up her stockings and make the people happy. She was a limp reed as soon as she walked off, though, and lay flat on the dressing room chaise, cap over her eyes, until she finally heard the haunting strains of Dr. Malignita’s entrance music. At the first note, she was up again and out the door, not this time to the house and the cheap seats, but to the stage to crouch in the wings, where she was near enough to Aurora almost to touch her as she watched.

  The act was the same as it was every night, with Dr. Malignita rolling out the coffin, then tilting it up a bit so the audience could see Aurora within it, then opening the lid and raising her to stand as he did his patter about her falling asleep after a disease when she was six and never waking up since. He further stated that over the years of caring for her, a mental bond had formed between them, allowing him to read her thoughts and for her to read his. This was how she was able to read whatever text he observed, no matter that she could not see it. Her acrobatic gifts, however, he claimed to be a complete mystery, even to him.

  “One day,” he said, “I found her sleepwalking upon the roof and then turning cartwheels along it. At first, I tried to stop her, but, as it soon became apparent that this strange activity was her only joy, I allowed it. And so began our act.”

  Soon, Malignita was again out in the crowd, demanding personal items, while Aurora performed her slow yet precise turns on the wire, the ball, and the trapeze. Nellie kept her eyes fixed on Aurora’s face, searching for a blink or secret glance or other sign that her somnambulism was just an act. She saw nothing of the kind, but, later on, when Malignita had once again taken a newspaper from one of the punters, something strange did indeed happen.

  “Aurora!” the doctor once again intoned. “What have I in my hand?”

  “A copy of today’s Times,” said Aurora, just as she had the day before.

  “And will you read the article upon which I have my finger?”

  “‘Third Murder Attributed to Mysterious Slayer,’” announced Aurora, as she did a handstand on the ball. “Once again, death has visited a prominent member of London society. This time famed poet and playwright Algernon Unwin has been killed in a manner very similar to the deaths of Rusholme Wedlock and Robert Brightline, who were killed earlier this week...”

  Nellie stared. Something was glittering on Aurora’s cheeks as she spoke. Was it... A drop splashed on the ball as Aurora balanced upon it with one hand, and Nellie was certain. Though her eyes never opened, Aurora was crying—a steady stream of tears that did not stop, even as she continued.

  “Again,” she said, “but a single window, high above the ground, was found open, and as before, the victim had been strangled, perhaps with a scarf or—”

  “That is enough, Aurora!” called Malignita. “Thank you!”

  Nellie heard no more as imaginings of the darkest sort flooded her mind unbidden.

  4

  The Silent Voice

  This time, Nellie was in place in the closet above Malignita and Aurora’s dressing room before they had taken their bows. She wanted to see if there was even the smallest lapse in Aurora’s sleep act when they were in private. Also if she again began to don her black clothes, Nellie intended to forgo the guilty pleasure of watching her undress and instead race to the alley below her window, to... Well, she wasn’t sure. Confront her? Stop her from climbing to the roofs again? She had a dreadful suspicion about where Aurora might have gone last night, and what she might have done, and if she intended to do the same thing again... Well, Nellie wouldn’t let her; that’s all there was to it. It was illegal, it was immoral, and worst of all, it seemed to pain Aurora to the depths of her sleeping soul.

  But things did not go as they had the previous night. Dr. Malignita put Aurora’s coffin against one wall, locked the lid, and left her in it, then began to clean up the room in a way that made Nellie realize he was expecting someone, for she had gone though exactly the same hurried motions every time a visitor was about to call on her in her room at the boardinghouse.

  A few moments later, she was proved correct when a knock came and Malignita went to the door and opened it, then stepped aside as a statuesque woman in rich clothes and a widow’s veil entered. Nellie felt a sense of dread as he closed the door behind her, but for a moment, she didn’t know why. The doctor had made no furtive or threatening motions toward the woman. He hadn’t even spoken to her. Then she realized what it was. The woman had not looked around when she stepped in, nor did she do so now. Instead, she stood staring straight ahead. She was behaving exactly like Aurora, as if she were afflicted with the same disease.

  But no, perhaps Nellie had only been seeing things, for as Malignita stood before the woman and looked her in the eye, she took on a more relaxed posture. She greeted the doctor with a kiss and a stroke of the cheek, then turned and let him take her coat, hat, and veil. He hung them up, then ushered her to a small side table where he had laid out a bottle of wine and some petit fours.

  What followed was as odd and unnerving a scene as Nellie had ever had the misfortune to witness. As they ate and drank, the woman, who was of a rare beauty and grace, became more and more demonstrative, at first touching the doctor’s hand, then stroking his arm, then his leg. Soon, she wa
s sitting on his lap and tugging playfully at his beard as he encircled her waist with his arms and stared at her hungrily. What made it odd was that the entire scene was played out in mime. Not a word was exchanged between the woman and the doctor, even when it seemed like it should—when, for instance, she offered him more wine or looked lovingly in his eyes. What made it unnerving was that, soon after the scene had begun, tears began streaming from the woman’s eyes, just as they had from Aurora’s during her performance, and neither she nor Malignita acknowledged them.

  Then the woman pressed herself against the doctor’s broad chest and kissed him wantonly on the lips, long and full and deep. His eyes closed in bliss, and he crushed her to him in passionate embrace.

  Despite her horror, Nellie was getting a bit hot and bothered herself, but as she tugged on her collar, a movement from the other side of the room drew her eye. Aurora, who had lain absolutely still since the doctor had wheeled her into the room, had begun twitching in her coffin!

  A jolt like an electric shock shot through Nellie as Aurora’s eyes suddenly flew open. They were just as dark and soulful as Nellie had imagined, but were also rolling from side to side with fear. Her hands came up and she began to push futilely against the locked lid of the coffin, then tried to climb out through the cameo opening.

  The sound of her struggles brought Dr. Malignita’s head up and he jumped up, shoving his lovely visitor unceremoniously to the floor and striding to the coffin. Aurora shrank from him as he locked eyes with her, and tried even harder to escape, but then her struggles ceased, though Nellie could see her hands and arms trembling violently with the effort to move. Malignita reached for her, but before he could force her back into her resting place, the woman on the ground began shrieking and crawling backward toward the wall, as if unable to understand how she had come to be there.

  Malignita whipped around and held her eyes with his, and she went abruptly silent, then rose and stood like a mannequin, staring straight ahead, though her breast continued to rise and fall in a panicked tempo. Satisfied, the doctor turned back to Aurora and leaned over her, glaring at her.

  Aurora turned away, avoiding his gaze, but he grabbed her chin and forced her head back toward him. Before he captured her gaze again, however, she looked toward the ceiling and for the briefest of seconds stared directly into Nellie’s eyes.

  Nellie gasped at the contact and drew back, heart pounding, for in that fraction of a moment, a voice had spoken in her head, as plain as if whispered directly in her ear.

  “Wake me. I beg you.”

  5

  The Ogre's Cave

  Nellie’s mind reeled. How had Aurora known she was there? How had she spoken to her? How had Dr. Malignita controlled Aurora and the other woman? Mentalism was a clever trick of code and memory worked out between two skilled performers. It wasn’t actual thought-projecting! But Nellie had felt it! Heard it! Seen it in action!

  She put her eye to the hole again.

  Below, Aurora once more lay in her coffin with eyes closed as if nothing had happened, while Malignita was bowing the mysterious woman—back in her hat, coat, and veil—out the door. When the door had closed again, Nellie saw Malignita curse and slap himself in the face a few times, then pull himself together and reach for his overcoat.

  Nellie jumped up and dashed to the door of the closet, determined this time to confront him, but then paused. What would she do when she faced him? What could she do? Certainly, if she took him by surprise, she might knock him senseless with her shillelagh—which, despite being of a size to fit her small stature, was the genuine article, with a brass-bound knob at the top and a solid brass ferrule at the base. But what then? Run off with Aurora’s coffin? She wouldn’t get so far as the stage door. Should she instead demand that Malignita release Aurora from her mental bondage? He would laugh and say he didn’t know what she was talking about. And if she went to the police, why, they would laugh too and then lock her up as a lunatic. It was impossible. But she couldn’t just do nothing. Not after what she had seen. Not after Aurora herself had—somehow—begged her for help. She had to act!

  Perhaps if she got Aurora away somehow. Yes, that was it. She would wait for an opportunity and steal her from her tormentor. How? She didn’t know. But Aurora had said, “Wake me,” and she was perfectly capable of walking on her own when let out of her coffin. If she could be awoken, then they could flee together. All the rest could be sorted out later.

  She opened the closet door with a new plan. She would follow Malignita and Aurora to their hotel and see what might be done there.

  ***

  The Clarendon was one of the finest hotels in London, five stories high, with a curved entrance drive manned by liveried porters waiting to service the carriages and cabs that came and went. They were currently servicing Dr. Malignita’s glass-sided hearse, helping the undertakers ease Aurora’s coffin out and to the cobbles.

  Nellie backed under the awning of a tailor’s shop across the street. It wouldn’t do for Malignita to see her face. That would spoil everything.

  As she waited, Nellie kept her eyes on a swivel, looking out for the peelers. They didn’t care for loitering Irishmen in this part of London and would like it even less when they found she was an Irish woman under her tweeds.

  Then a familiar profile caught her attention as she looked once more to her left, and she frowned. Through the side window of a hansom cab which waited on her side of the street, Nellie could just see the elegant veiled head of Malignita’s mysterious woman, staring straight ahead.

  Nellie’s breath caught as she realized the woman’s presence might mean she would soon have an opportunity to find Aurora alone. If the woman was there, it was because Malignita had asked her—more likely mentally commanded her—to wait. Which meant he would eventually come out to her and leave with her.

  Nellie looked back to the hotel. The porters and the undertakers had carried the coffin up the hotel’s marble steps to its grand door and were now wheeling it in as Malignita followed. Nellie had to get inside so she could learn what room they were staying in. With a look to the left and right, she dashed across the street, then up the steps.

  The doorman, a formidable-looking fellow with more braid on his shoulders than a sergeant major, frowned at her cap, tweed coat, and breeches, and put up a hand to stop her.

  Nellie pulled an envelope out of her breast pocket—her rent, as it happened—and held it up.

  “Message for a guest, guv,” she cockneyed.

  He waved her on without another look, and she trotted into the lobby, then stopped to look around. It was a grand place, with a high, arched ceiling, twisting marble columns, potted palms for as far as the eye could see, and a mahogany reception desk along one wall staffed by dignified men in cutaway coats. Straight ahead was the lift, a glorious contraption of curling ironwork and gold leaf with a semicircular dial above it, showing which floor the car was currently on. And waiting for the lift, now with only one porter to assist him with Aurora’s coffin, was Malignita.

  Nellie stepped behind the fronds of a palm and waited. Beside the lifts, a grand double staircase curved up to the upper floors. As long as no one stopped her, Nellie would hopefully be able to run up to the correct floor once she saw what it was.

  The car arrived and the lift operator opened the accordion gate, then bowed as Malignita and the porter wrangled the coffin aboard. Ellie edged forward another two palms, then one more as the door closed and the car began to rise. The clock hand of the dial moved with it, and she watched it like a hawk. First floor... second... third and... stop.

  Nellie walked to the stairs as quickly as she dared, then bolted up them two at a time. She slowed as she neared the third floor, not wanting to run smack into her quarry, the peered down the halls to the left and right. She breathed a sigh of relief to see Malignita and the porter just exiting the lift and starting away from her down the hall. She hid behind a marble statue of a callipygian dryad and watched as they continued
to the fourth door on the left, then unlocked it. The porter helped Malignita maneuver Aurora’s coffin into the room, then bowed at the threshold and waited with an expectant hand half-extended. The door shut in his face.

  Nellie smirked as the porter made a rude gesture and stalked back to the lift.

  “Anything?” she heard the operator ask.

  “Not a fig, the beardy old goat,” replied the porter, and then they were rattling away back toward the lobby.

  Nellie used the stairs to follow them down. Waiting for the doctor to leave would be far less conspicuous in the lobby.

  “I’m t’wait for a package comin’ down from a guest,” she said to the bellman as she crossed to the desk. “Where should I wait?”

  The man sniffed as he looked her over, then pointed to a dark and roped-off tearoom on the far side of the lobby. “In there, boy. I’ll call for you. And keep out of sight of the guests. We don’t want them mistaking us for a rookery.”

  “Ta, guv.”

  ***

  Only a few moments later, Nellie saw Dr. Malignita step out of the lift and cross to the exit with all the slow dignity of a king on his way to dedicate a building.

  “Ye’d never know he was rotten inside,” she said to herself, then slipped to the stairs and up to the third floor once again.

  Outside room 329, she knelt and took out her penknife and a whalebone toothpick. She was no master criminal, but she had grown up in Kilburn, so some things just came natural. A few moments later, after far too much cursing and sweating and guilty looks down the hallway, the lock turned at last, and the door swung in.

  “Thus,” she whispered, as she edged inside and closed it behind her, “did the brave knight Nell enter the ogre’s cave.”

  6

  The Dreamer Awakes

  It was not a large room. Not the opulent suite Nellie had imagined. There was a bed, a nightstand, a table with two chairs, an armoire, a water closet through a door on the left wall, and Aurora’s coffin pressed against the curtained windows, all illuminated by the flicker of a single gas jet, turned low. It was, however, as frightening as she had imagined. In the reddish gloom rose stacks of heavy leather-bound books, some left open to pages illustrated with ancient-looking diagrams and texts in languages she didn’t know. Devices that looked like divining tools and surgeon’s equipment littered what little table space was not cluttered with books, and plates of half-eaten food were piled next to empty wine bottles along the baseboard beside the bed.