Cold Stone and Ivy (47 page)

The apparition was flickering over the man’s shoulder. It was a boy of perhaps thirteen with a very white face and sunken eyes. He looked as if he had drowned, but there was a hole in the side of his head, likely from a bullet.

A hand slammed down on the table in front of him and Sebastien flinched.

“Answer the question, man!” Moore leaned in again. “And how did looking for a ghost under a pier lead you to be assaulting a woman on Cable, sir?”

“Someone dropped a head in the river so I gave chase. And I did not assault her.
She
assaulted
me.”

“That is quite unlikely, sir. We have a photochrome.” He placed it on the table, turned it with his fingertips, and slid it across. “Hard evidence of you with a woman who turns up violently murdered less than an hour afterwards.”

“Yes. That is she. I saw what he did to her. It is unspeakable what a man can do to a woman.” He looked up. “Do you have any other chromes?”

Moore snarled but another man cleared his throat.

“Yes we do, sir. The ’bobs snap every minute like clockwork.”

“I was chasing two men. One was limping from a shot to the leg. Is there a chrome of their flight?”

“A shot to the leg?”

“Yes, I’m quite certain I hit him and most likely in the leg.”

“You shot a man last night?”

“It was a crackerjack shot, if I do say so myself. I could have taken them down whilst in pursuit but I did promise Ivy not to shoot any more people if I could help it.”

The room grew strangely still.

“You shoot people, sir?” said Moore.

“From time to time. As, I presume, do you.”

“I am an officer of the law.”

“I am a sorry wastrel of the Crown.”

“That is obfuscation, sir.”

“Victoria asked me to come to London to shoot hoodlums. I’d prefer not to but it is very difficult to say no to Victoria. She has her ways.”

“Balderdash. It is a fabrication, sir.”

“I do not fabricate, nor do I obfuscate. Would you please check on those chromes? If we have an image of them, we might be able to locate the torso killers. That would be a blessed relief.”

“Torso killers?” Moore frowned, glanced at his men. “What do you mean by torso killers?”

De Lacey sighed, dropped his head into his hands again.

“This game does not play far with me, sir,” growled Moore. “I believe as much in your madness as I do in your ghosts.”

“According to the reports, there was a woman’s arm found September 11 off Pimlico Bridge in the Thames. Two evenings ago, another arm on Lambeth. Last night, I myself saw the head. It does stand to reason that there would be a corresponding torso and possibly legs, hm? Not many heads around without torsos and legs.”

“You are bordering on contempt, sir.”

“And you shot a boy.”

“What?”

“You shot a boy in the head, so yes, I do hold you in contempt.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“A boy, thirteen, perhaps fourteen at the most, then dumped him in the river. Why? Was he a thief? A pickpocket? Yes, I think a pickpocket. He looks the type. Could you not be bothered bringing him to trial? I see what Ivy means now. Honestly, I do.”

“Sounds like Billy Clarence,” said Savage. “We haven’t seen him ’round the docks of late . . .”

“Does he have brown hair and brown eyes?” asked de Lacey.

“Why, yes, I think—”

“That’s enough!” snapped Moore. “Clap him and take him downstairs. A night in the brig will chase the bloody insolence out of him.”

“But he’s a Baron, Henry,” another man grumbled. “He sits in the House.”

“The peerage is not above the law, Donald. They, more than all of us, should behave in a conduct becoming an Englishman.” He narrowed his eyes in scorn. “But then again, I believe de Lacey is French . . .”

Sebastien sighed.

Moore turned to Savage. “Take him down, Trev. For your daughter’s sake.”

“Aye, sir.” He moved around the desk, helped the Mad Lord to his feet.

“There will be a torso, sirs,” said Sebastien. “I can attest to that. Where it will turn up I haven’t a clue, but it will turn up sometime. And please, have someone check on those chromes.”

“Have a good night, sir,” growled Moore, and he turned his back to them both as Savage led the Mad Lord down.

“THERE WILL BE
a report of a head in the Thames that I filed last night with a Constable Poole. The times will coincide and our story will be vindicated. You’ll see, sir. I am telling the truth.”

“Ah.” Carter Beals smiled at her. “You’re telling the truth
now.”

“There’s a time for every purpose under heaven, sir.”

There was a rattle at the door, and Christien slipped into the room.

Beals glanced up. “I’ll, ah, I’ll go see if your Poole filed that report in the archives, shall I? Back in a jiff.”

And he was gone, leaving Ivy by the window while Christien sagged against the door. He looked very pale, and perhaps sadder than she had ever seen him. He was usually so controlled, so calm, so perfect.

It was a mask, she realized, a fine, perfect, porcelain mask, cracking now and revealing someone very fragile underneath. She remembered a time when she had wanted to be his partner, draw strength from his perfection, but now things had changed. He was a stranger to her. Or perhaps she was the stranger.

She felt the ring, tight on her finger.

“I’m sorry, Christien,” she said. Her throat was closing but her hands had curled into fists of their own accord. “I’m sorry I’ve made a calamity of things.”

“What were you thinking, Ivy?” His voice was very thin. “How could you do this to him?”

“You
drugged him, Christien! You slipped the lithium into his tea and used
me
to do it. How could you do
that?”

“Please stop.” He held up his gloved hand, drew a long shuddering breath. Fighting for his calm, she knew that. Smoothing the porcelain. He was so very different from his brother.

“Your father wants you to go home. I’ve arranged a cab—”

“No, I can’t leave hi—” She caught herself. “Now. I can’t leave now.”

But he had caught it too and he took a long deep breath.

“Well, you don’t have much choice, Ivy. They’ve taken him downstairs to the pen.”

“Oh . . .”

“Eloquent response for a writer.”

“I’ll . . . I’ll talk to my father . . .”

“It was your father who ushered him.”

Ivy bit back any further eloquence. In truth, she didn’t know what to say.

“I do care for you, Ivy. Do you not believe that?”

“I know you do, Christien.”

“What more, then, do you need? What does he give you that I cannot?”

A word popped into her head, and she tried to chase it out as quickly as it came to her. But there was no denying it, she knew it full well. It was a key, the very key to her heart, her mind, her soul, the key to Penny Dreadful and her winning ways. Just as quickly, she realized that it was very unlikely that Christien could ever give it to her. He was as much a prisoner as she.

She looked up at him.

“Freedom,” she said.

HIS NAME WAS
WILLS.
Westinghouse Institutional Legal-Lockdown Sentinel.
He was the sergeant-at-arms of the holding cell and he was easily twice the size of a man and much more formidable.

At the end of one of his arms was a skeleton key that spun as he unlocked the large iron door to the cell. Inside, the room was small with grey walls, plain linoleum, and a single window very high up. There were currently five men incarcerated and the odour of them struck like a fist, as unwashed men have a way of doing. A covered bucket and a low bench were the only items, other than the men, in the room.

Other than the men and the dead, that is.

Sebastien hesitated as, one by one, like wolves out of a forest, they appeared, until there were at least twelve along with the living. He suspected there would have been more, but it was these twelve alone who were the most insistent and were aware enough to sense him. Not for the first time he regretted the loss of his pistol.

He turned back to Savage.

“And why am I being locked up, sir?”

“Having second thoughts, are you?”

“Not at all. I am just recovering from a rather large dose of lithium and am a titch addled. I would just like to know. For the sake of clarity.”

Savage raised a thick brow. “You pissed off the Chief Inspector, that’s why.”

“Ah. And that is a crime, now, is it?”

“In.”

Sebastien stepped through the door as Savage leaned in.

“Stay
away
from my daughter.”

The door closed in his face.

Sebastien stood quietly for a moment before slipping his hands in his pockets.

“Hm. Apparently, I pissed
him
off as well.”

He turned to the other occupants of the room. By the looks of them, this was not their first night in a cell. One by one, they stood and moved toward him as if to jail him with their very bodies alone. One was short, stout, and smelled of cooking oil and beer. Another was very hairy and reminded him of a warthog. One sharp tooth even protruded from his lip like a tusk. The third was bleeding from a wound to the head that was obviously not his first. The fourth was very tall with a beaked nose and tattered clothes, but oddly enough, very fine riding boots. And the fifth was the largest man Sebastien had ever seen, a great tattooed bull of a man with a shaved head and burnsides that swung up and formed a moustache.

This man alone brought six of the dead.

He towered over the Mad Lord, and his breathing was the only sound in the room.

Sebastien looked up at him and smiled.

“Your tattoos are quite remarkable, sir. Do you know, by any chance, when they bring the tea?”

A massive fist turned out the lights, which was as good a start as he could have hoped for.

Of Repentance, Remembrance,
and a Trio of Unexpected Visitors

PALL MALL STEAM
Gazette

TORSO FOUND AT WESTMINSTER

At twenty minutes past three this morning, workmen on the construction site of the New Scotland Yard made a grisly discovery. It was the torso of a young woman, missing the head, arms, legs, and several internal organs. She was wrapped in a dark skirting and was assumed to be a bag of lime until a workman tried to move her. How or when the torso was brought to the site is unknown, but it is believed to be the original owner of the arms of Pimlico and Lambeth Road. Dr. Thomas Bond is on the scene and the Offices of the Metropolitan Police have declined to comment.

Whether this is a prank on the part of medical students or yet another victim of the Whitechapel Ripper is still unknown. Police are continuing to investigate.

“HE WAS IN
there all night?” asked Carter Beals as he trotted alongside his partner, Trevis Savage. “With Rusty and the Millhouse gang?”

“Aye,” muttered Savage. “Half an hour with Rusty is enough to make most men cry like a baby. That’ll teach him to mess about with my daughter after midnight.”

“Trev,” groaned Beals. “I’ve told you. Nothing happened. Ivy was lying.”

“I don’t care, Bealer. She was a good girl ’til she went up north.”

“He was right about those chromes, you know. Two fellas in the chrome before his, one limping like a lame nag.”

“That says he’s either observant or he’s good with a pistol. Nothing more.”

“Did he have a pistol on him?”

“Probably in the house.”

“Did we search the house?”

Savage rolled his eyes.

“Well then, maybe we should,” said Beals.

“Well then. Maybe we should.”

They came to a halt at a registry desk outside the row of cells. Savage presented his badge, as did Beals.

“Block D, Prisoner 777,” said Savage.

The registrar peered up at them through thick reticulating lenses.

“We ’ad a bi’ of a problem . . . wif d’ ’eat,” he said. “Cold as ’ell, in ’ere. But ovver’n ’at, no incident.”

Beals glanced at his partner but said nothing, and the pair of them entered the cellblock row.

The ceilings were at least twelve feet high and their footsteps echoed on the linoleum. There was a peculiar odour to the cellblock as well. The pots were cleaned daily but that was a part of the “charm” of a cell. No amenities. Intended to make a villain think twice about committing another crime.

They pulled up in front of the Sentinel. It patrolled the row like a soldier.