Cold Stone and Ivy (2 page)

“I could help . . .”

“Ivy, don’t be silly. You’re too busy with your mum.”

“Well, I could.”

Christien pulled the top hat from his head, gripped it in both hands.

“Ivy, I’m afraid I can’t take you to the library this Friday . . .”

“But Mr. Doyle’s never come to the Whitechapel Library before. He’s promised to read the entire first chapter of his new novel!”

“I have a meeting, Ivy. I’m so sorry.”

“Again?”

“It’s a very influential club in Pall Mall. They’ve been after me for months and Dr. Williams insists I go.”

“But I thought you hated those sorts of things. You say they give you headaches.”

“I’m sorry, Ivy.”

“Ah, life with a police surgeon,” said her father. “Get used to it, my girl.”

“Perhaps we can go for tea on Thursday? I have an exam until noon, and rounds at Bethlem at six. We could fit it in between?”

She nodded, heart sinking like a stone. Doyle was one of her favourite authors. His first novel had kept her up all night with the clues and plot twists and a fascinating protagonist. He had never come to the East End. No one of note ever did.

“I picked up the post,” said Savage, pulling letters from the pockets of his waistcoat and tossing them onto the desk as he crossed the floor toward the fire. “Scribbles from your admirers, my girl.”

“Your readers,” grinned Davis. “All three of them.”

“Oh yes, and a parcel,” said Christien. He rummaged through his town coat, pulling out a brown paper package wrapped in twine and passing it into her hands. “Apparently from someone named Jack.”

“Jack?”

“You are the literary sensation of an illiterate neighbourhood,” said her father. He knelt down beside his silent wife, took her hands in his. “Did she eat tonight?”

“Some soup.” Ivy sighed. “Not much.”

“Lonsdale could help with that,” said Christien. “For a sanitarium it has a good reputation and Frankow is a decent psychiatrist. I wish you would consider my offer.”

“I may have to, Remy,” said Savage. He rose to his feet, kissed his wife on the top of her head. “It’ll be difficult for Ivy to be her mum’s caretaker once she’s married.”

“Ivy can stay at Lasingstoke Hall while Catherine is being treated. My uncle won’t mind and my brother is most often away.” He looked down at her. “It will be like a holiday by the bay.”

His expression was earnest but she was disappointed and stubborn and cursed herself for it. They used to get on so very well, sharing stories of murder and medicine and the macabre world of policing. Then two months ago, he had surprised her with a ring and everything had changed.

“Your brother?” Davis grinned. “The Mad Lord of Lasingstoke? Don’t he talk to ghosts?”

“He’s a baron, Davis,” said Christien. “He sits in the House of Lords.”

“Therefore he talks to stuffy old English politicians.” Savage grinned, poking at the fire and causing it to rise in its bed.

“Still,” said Christien. “It’s a fine offer. You should both consider it.”

“I might just do that, Remy,” said Savage.

“Open the package, Ivy,” said Davis.

“We don’t need to consider it, Tad,” and she turned the brown wrapping over in her hand. Her name and address were written in red ink, with “
From Jack”
in the top left corner.
“My stories are selling and soon we may have enough to hire a nurse, care for her at home—”

“But once we’re married you’ll be with me at Hollbrook House,” said Christien. “There are far too many stairs for her at Hollbrook.”

“Open the package,” urged Davis. “Maybe it’s toffee. Or a pudding.”

“But my stories—”

“You’ll have duties as a surgeon’s wife, Ivy. Mrs. Williams is always throwing elegant parties, arranging games of whist for the doctors’ wives.”

“I’ll take care of her somehow.” She began to work the twine over the paper. “Or we can postpone the wedding a few months. I’ve read in the broadsheets about a law school in Paris that opened its doors to women just last year. I could go, take some classes, work for the Met or Scotland Yard like Tad.”

“Hah!” laughed Davis. “A real life Girl Criminologist! Shocking!”

“And who would care for your mother then, if you were in Paris?” asked Christien.

It was true. From the first light of morning to the last stroke of midnight, she was trapped in black collars and lace, bland soup and bleach. Her life was her mother, as surely as if she were bound with velvet chains.

“Then I’ll keep writing.” Slowly, she pulled the strings from the parcel. “Besides, I have an idea for a novel . . .”

“Oh no, you don’t,” growled her father. “Not
that
again. Don’t you dare, my girls. Don’t you dare even think about it”

“About what?” asked Christien. “Ivy?”

Davis waggled his brows.
“Penny Dreadful and the Terror of Whitechapel.”

“It’s just a story, Tad,” said Ivy.

“Good Lord,” her father grumbled. “You are a proud and stubborn girl. Why can’t you just get married like other girls, have babies, start a new life? Be safe for once, spare your poor old tad some grief.”

“But I’m not like other girls, am I?” she grinned as the paper began to unfurl in her hands.

“You are not, my girl.” He smiled, shook his head. “You most certainly are not.”

Out of the paper rolled an object, dark brown in colour, the size of a fist.

“Oh God,” breathed Christien. “Ivy . . .”

Davis sprang to his feet. “What the bloody hell?”

“Ivy,” hissed Trevis Savage. “Put it down. Put it down
now!”

As for Ivy Savage, future Girl Criminologist and writer of Penny Dreadful serials, she was surprisingly speechless, for in her very hands was a human heart.

HE STOOD OUTSIDE
the door of the row house, waiting for the frost. It would come, he knew it. It always did when they sent him. He had been standing there for hours, but he wouldn’t act until there was frost.

The streetlamp cast shadows down the long, dark boulevard. Not a wealthy district in Manchester, but then again, far from poor. He’d been in better neighbourhoods and he’d been in worse. Murder was a knife that cut across all classes, an equalizer of the lowest kind. Victims, however, were mostly the same and he knew there was little he could do to change that.

A steamcab chugged through the fog, and he pressed himself against the building, drawing his greatcoat close for protection. He wasn’t afraid. No one would stop him. No one would even see him. They would make sure of it. They always did. Still, he reached behind his back, to the pistol he kept in his belt. It was a fine walnut musket-bore, with three clockwork chambers fully loaded. His was a simple pursuit. He rarely needed more than one shot.

Suddenly, his breath began to frost in front of his face. He could feel them behind him. Only three with this one, but three were too many. He preferred to stop them at one if he had the chance, but the dead were poor communicators. It took him a long time to understand, although their pleas were always the same.

He stepped swiftly up the stair and rapped on the brass doorknocker, waited for a light or candle to spring to life inside. He rapped again to make sure someone would come and he prayed it wasn’t an automaton. Those were a bugger to get around, especially the modern ones. Some of them even had security systems. Damn the technology that was allowing them to think.

A rattle at the knob and the black door swung open, revealing a short, stocky man in a dressing gown and nightcap. He wore a thick moustache and long muttonchops and appeared to be in his fifties. Rather typical, he thought. Looked like anyone’s banker or solicitor or clerk. His wife was peering around his side. She had a puffy face, soft and bovine. He could not feel for her.

“What the devil do you want?” growled the man in a thick Manchester brogue. “It’s bloody well past midnight.”

“Alistair Byron Tup?” he asked.

“Yes, yes that’s me. And I ask again, what the devil do you want, sir? Tell me now, or I’ll raise the alarm.”

He looked back over his shoulder. The three were there, standing on the walk. Their eyes were bulging, their throats red and swollen. They had been dead for months.

They nodded.

He turned back.

“Alistair Byron Tup, I have a message for you from Miss Abigail Charles, Miss Eliza Kerry, and Mrs. Emmaline McKenna.”

Tup’s face fell.

As good as a confession.

“You are forgiven and the Crown has been served. May God have mercy on your soul.”

He pulled the pistol from his side and fired.

The Steam Standard

September 13, 1888

The arm of a woman was found this week in the mud on the bank of the Thames, near Pimlico. Dr. Bond, Police Surgeon with the Metropolitan Police, decided that it had been cut off by some sharp instrument, but he did not express an opinion whether this was done by a professional anatomist or a murderer.

Met officials are not commenting on whether this case bears any connection to the notorious Whitechapel killings, although it most certainly smacks of the torso killing of last year. It is the opinion of Dr. Bond that the arm was not dissected for medical purposes nor as a prank on the part of medical students as is the common theory and he rigorously defends the practices of his apprentices as most professional. As for the arm, the doctor could not give a cause of death or show that a violent act had taken place, so the jury had no choice but to return a verdict of “Found Dead.”

Police continue to investigate.

Of English Barons, French Castles,
and a Toxic Welcome to the Ghost Club

“LANCASHIRE?” ASKED PENNY
, and she turned round to her father, a puzzled look upon her face. “Whyever are we going to Lancashire, Father?”

“Capital question, my girl,” guffawed her father, Chief Inspector Charles Dreadful. “I’m afraid there’s been a rather scandalous robbery.”

“A robbery, you say?” Penny sat up. “Is it the Clockwork Heart from Lancaster Castle?”

“Yes, by Jove, it
is
the Clockwork Heart from the Castle!” Her father looked shocked. “How
do
you do that, my girl?”

“Oh Father, the Clockwork Heart is a marvel of modern science. The Germans and the Americans are quite envious of our British engineering and would pay a pretty sum for it. And since it’s stored in Lancaster Castle, I’m afraid it’s quite an elementary deduction!”

“Bully for you, my girl! Bully for you!”

She smiled at him before turning to her wardrobe to choose a hat that would best suit a mystery in Lancashire.

Ivy sighed. It was a dreary start to a dreary story, for she had absolutely no idea what could possibly be mysterious in Lancashire. This was the northern heart of England, a vast green countryside with rolling hills, grey stone walls, and sheep. Davis had not been helpful with story ideas, for all his suggestions involved disembowelled livestock and beer.

She looked out the window, tried to still the bobbing of her head. She had spent days in this coach now, days of trotting horses, hills, and sheep. Each night they had stopped at some inn with flea-infested mattresses, bland stew, and potatoes for supper. Each morning they woke to the sounds of cockerels and cattle and the smells of fried pork. Lunch was bread, cheese, and cold poulet wrapped in paper. She hadn’t had a decent cup of tea since leaving London, and it had broken her heart to leave.

The road to Lonsdale Abbey, a sanitarium north of nowhere.

It had been coming for ages, she knew it now. The heart in the post had only served to set her on this road sooner rather than later. Her father was a good man, a modern man. He had always indulged her writing—even supplying plots, clues, and storylines on occasion, but the heart had done it for him. There was no way he would allow his only daughter to become the target of a killer, not for any story in the world.

But this time, Christien had agreed, siding with her father and winning out in the end. Once a fellow intellect and kindred spirit, he was quickly stepping into the shoes of a protective husband, and she was not sure she could ever forgive him for that. She was not a romantic girl, had never fallen for ideals of happy home and family, and was certain Christien felt the same. Until of course, the ring. She twisted it on her finger, wondering if it would ever feel like home.

A dark shape blotted out the evening sun, and she peered out the window again. It was an airship, high above the hills, most likely heading to Lancaster. Airships were all the rage now in Europe, and they routinely crossed the channel and back to London, making the crossing in less than an hour. By steamship, it still took the better part of a day.

She watched the large cylindrical shape until it disappeared from view.