The pub had suddenly grown silent and she glanced around to see all eyes on her.
He lifted the tea to his lips.
“Oh I do believe they heard you in Over Milling
that
time, Miss Savage.”
And a roll of thunder announced the commencement of rain.
Of Wet Streets, Dry Cabs,
and a Head in the Thames
THE RAIN WAS
pelting down as the coach pulled up in front of a little rowhouse in Stepney. The street was dark, the brick of the buildings streaked with coal, and the odour of fish hung heavy in the air. There was a factory at the end of the street, the large stained sign reading
“
Fermier’s Fish and Crab.” Sebastien thought the entire neighbourhood looked weary and sad.
“Yes,” Ivy said. “I live in a neat little rowhouse by a factory.”
“Funny how life is,” he muttered.
“I’m just going to leave a note for my tad,” she said. “He doesn’t know I’m in town.”
He continued to stare out the window.
“You won’t leave without me, right?”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Castlewaite?” Ivy called, and the trap swung open, revealing the gap-toothed smile of the coachman. “You promise not to leave without me?”
“Aye, miss. Ah promise.”
“Right.” She reached for her umbrella. “We’ll do this tonight, and have a better day tomorrow. Agreed, Sebastien?”
“Yes, Miss Savage,” he said, trying to smile. “We will have a better day.”
“Because every day spent living is a good day, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Miss Savage.”
She stepped out of the cab, popping her umbrella and trotting up the steps. He dropped his chin onto his palm, watched her let herself in with a very old key. Immediately, figures began to rise out of the floor.
“Castlewaite?” he called.
“Aye, sir?”
“Did you see anyone else in there?”
“Other than Miss Ivy, sir? Naw, sir.”
“You didn’t see a bearded woman, a clown, and a sword-swallowing acrobat?”
He could hear the old man grin.
“Naw sir, Ah din’t see any o’ tha’.”
He sighed.
“Castlewaite?”
“Aye, sir?”
“If a man kills a killer, is that wrong?”
“Sir?”
“What I mean to ask is . . . ah . . .” He leaned his forehead against the glass. “Is it wrong to kill someone that you know is a killer? If you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person has killed not just once, but several times. That he is a murderer and a villain and will kill again unless stopped. Then is it wrong to stop him . . . or her . . . by means of a bullet to the brain?”
“Without a trial, sir?”
“Yes, Castlewaite, without a trial.”
The coachman thought a moment and Sebastien could see rainwater drip from his top hat onto the roof of the coach.
“‘And if he strike him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. And if he smite him with a throwing stone, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. And if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. The Avenger of Blood shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.’”
Castlewaite looked down at him; his copper eyepiece whirred and clicked.
“Th’ Avenger of Blood shall slay the murderer, sir. Tha’s wha’ Ah think, sir.”
“Thank you, Castlewaite.”
“Tha’s from the Bible, sir.”
“You’re a good friend, Castlewaite.”
“Aye, sir. Thank ye, sir.”
He leaned his forehead back on the window, waiting for Ivy and a break in the rain.
“DR. WILLIAMS!” CHRISTIEN
called as he pushed through the crowd toward the steamcab. He could see the Royal Physician’s face through the rain-streaked window, looking very fine in his top hat and cloak.
The cab door swung open.
“Get in, boy,” shouted the doctor. “You’ll catch your death in a torrent like this!”
Christien climbed in and dropped himself onto the red velvet seat. Rain dripped down his forehead and cheeks, but he did not move to wipe it.
“I’m headed to Buckingham, Remy,” said Williams. “But I can give you a lift as far as the Park.”
Christien nodded but said nothing.
The coach lurched forward with a sputter and pop, and forward again as it pushed into the crowd. The smell of coal filled the cab.
“What is it, my boy?” said Williams, leaning back in his seat. “You have the look of a lost soul about you.”
“I . . . I . . .” Christien held his breath for only a moment before pulling the black glove from his left hand.
“What the deuce?” said Williams, and he leaned forward.
The little finger looked like a slip of drying jerky. Tendons were stark against the purpling flesh and the skin had peeled and blistered around the circumference of the ring. Bone and nail looked as one.
Williams took his hand, turning it over in the window’s grey light.
“It’s a miracle,” he breathed.
“A miracle?” said Christien. “A miracle? It’s a nightmare, that’s what it is!”
Williams looked up at him now, eyes shining.
“It is proof, son. Success.”
“It’s a cursed ring from Annie Chapman, isn’t it?” He snatched his hand away, slipped it back inside the safety of the glove. “Why did you give it to me and why is it behaving so?”
“Oh Remy.” Williams sighed, and Christien was certain he saw tears shining in the grey eyes. “You have no idea what this means.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“She’s trying to contact you, boy. Through the ring.”
“That’s nonsense, sir. You know how I feel about that sort of thing.”
“It doesn’t matter how you feel, Remy. What other explanation can there be?”
“That it is too tight and is now cutting off circulation to my finger.”
“Really, boy? That is what you believe?” Williams leaned back in the cab. “Or is that what you are telling yourself?”
Christien set his jaw but said nothing.
“You see?” said the surgeon with a grim smile. “If you believed that, why wouldn’t you have simply asked one of the boys to remove it with a hacksaw? Easy enough done, I should think. And why else would you have been going through my medical journals in the Doctor’s Rooms at Bethlem? Oh yes, I do know that’s what you were doing. I’m not a simpleton and you’d do well to remember that. Why were you looking for Dark Annie Chapman in my journals if you thought a brass ring simply too tight? And finally . . .”
He inclined his head, smile widening.
“Finally, why would you be sitting here in a cab with me, telling me that such things cannot happen if you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they could not?”
Christien was shaking with fury, a sensation altogether new for him, and it took all of his nerve to keep his face passive and his breathing controlled. The coach bumped and rattled as its wheels exchanged mud for cobbles, and he knew that they had left the East End for a better part of town.
Williams patted his knee.
“You see, Remy? This is why the Club wanted you. You are your father’s son and your brother’s superior in every way. I will call an emergency meeting for tonight, ten o’clock. We will share this amazing discovery, and all will be explained. How does that sound, Remy my boy? You will have all the scientific, metaphysical, and parapsychical answers you seek.”
Christien eyed him for a long moment before turning his face to the window. Fleet Street now, tall limestone and brick buildings, arched windows, gothic spires, and squared roofs. Men and carriages, women and horses, crowding the streets with the noise of their lives. It was deafening and suddenly he understood his brother far too well.
“Tonight,” he said through tight lips. “At the Ghost Club.”
SHE COULD SEE
umbrellas by the dozen bobbing as their owners trudged along beneath them. It was very late, nearing midnight now, and the wet streets were lit with gaslight.
“Are ye sure ye want to be doin’ this now?” Castlewaite called down from the dickey. “We can come back in the mornin’, we can.”
They had been sitting for hours on Tower Hill Road, waiting for the downpour to ease, neither wanting to admit defeat and retire to the places they called home.
Ivy looked at him, her eyes heavy. “We can come back, Sebastien. I don’t mind.”
“No, Castlewaite,” he called up but he was looking at her. “This won’t take long.”
“Aye, sir. Ah’ll wait right ’ere for ye, then sir.”
“Certainly, but do wait inside,” said Sebastien. “The cab is good and dry.”
The old man grinned, his eyepiece whirring as he left the dickey to climb down.
“It’s bad enough the horse has to be out in this,” the Mad Lord grumbled as he held the door open. Ivy popped her umbrella and stepped out into the rain.
The formidable dark shape of the Tower rose above them as they made their way onto the road. She was still wearing Davis’s peacoat. It was several sizes too large but served to keep the water off. The bowler did the same, and together they strode past the Tower down St. Katharine’s Way toward the docks.
She could smell fish and oil as they neared the river. There were some longshoremen working, some shipsmen, and she could hear shouts and laughter as they moved about the ships but for the most part, the docks were quiet. Still, she hoped Sebastien had his strange three-barrelled pistol at the ready, just in case, and she led him away from the cloistered docks toward the pier.
Finally, in the rain and the darkness, she stopped.
“Here,” she said. “A ship from the East India Company was reported to have brought elephants as cargo and Mum had taken Tobias to see. The elephants were being unloaded and Mum was watching them when Tobias chased a kitten toward the pier . . .”
Her voice trailed off. She had not been there. She had not seen.
“Here?” asked Sebastien. “Not inside the locks but this pier, right here?”
“Yes. Down there . . .”
He moved slowly to the edge of the water, his umbrella keeping his head and shoulders dry, but she saw his hand move, turning upwards as if to catch raindrops in his palm. He had called it “asking” back in Milnethorpe.
She glanced around the dark waterfront. Smokestacks billowed above the engineworks house, its massive steam engines running constantly to keep water in the locks and basins level. The Tower of London rose darkly on one side, the arched windows of the Ivory House on the other, and in the distance, cranes—idle now, but in daylight busy with the construction of the new bridge across from the Tower. It was an elaborate project that had already taken two years. It was rumoured not to open until well into the next decade.
Suddenly, the locket began to hum and glow, and she looked back at the Mad Lord. He was standing as he had been, palm upraised, and she felt her heart breaking at the sight of him. He moved her more than a thousand stories.
Suddenly, he dropped the umbrella and began moving toward the far end of the pier. She thought he would walk straight off the edge, but he paused, turned, and began to climb down the ladder that accessed the framework beneath the dock. He disappeared and she stood clutching her umbrella and peering over the side.
“Miss Savage!” she heard him call. “Miss Savage, come here!”
She turned and climbed down after him, once again grateful for the practicality of breeches. The framework was dark, but because of the locket, she was not completely blind. The water lapped at the posts and timbers, and the smell of the river was strong here. Fish and sewage, silt and oil. Wharcombe Bay had smelled so much better than this.
He was suspended like a monkey in the framework of the pier, arms and legs braced against angled beams, but when he heard her, he turned his face and smiled like the sun. It was a pleasant change after the last few hours. Slowly and carefully, she climbed toward him, not trusting her handholds on the water-slick timbers. He reached down and wrapped an arm around her waist, hoisting her up so she could see where he was looking.
It was a strangely intimate grip, entirely flattening her chest into his body, but she pushed it out of her mind.
“Look there,” he was saying, and he pointed with his free hand. “In the far corner, under the truss.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“No?”
“Honestly. No.”
“Tobias. He looked like you, yes? Dark hair, green eyes?”
“Yes . . .”
“Did he have freckles?”
Her throat began to tighten. “Yes . . .”