Tenfold More Wicked (18 page)

“It does sound fascinating.” Her first honest words for this entire conversation.

“Doesn't it? I assure you, the launch will be quite something. I venture London's never seen the like.” The Philosopher tipped his hat, and he and Lady Lovelace vanished into the crowd.

E
LIZA'S NERVES STILL SMARTED LATER THAT AFTERNOON
as she approached the undertaker's shop across from Regent's Park. H
ARE'S
F
UNERALS
, the sign murmured discreetly, above broad bay windows somberly draped in black.

“Bloody murder in Blackfriars! Escaped lunatic strikes again! Razor Jack's back!” A boy in a red cap jumped onto his stack of newspapers, brandishing his latest edition:

“P
ENTACLE
K
ILLER”
C
LAIMS
S
ECOND
V
ICTIM

The police had found Carmine, then. The papers loved to blame anything gruesome on Todd. He wasn't responsible, she was sure of it . . . but her sweating skin chilled when she recalled that missing beadle. If Todd wanted her attention, he'd gotten it.
Help me, sweet lady, lest I fade into that nightfall forever . . .

No bell tinkled as she entered the shop. Elaborate black drapes and a vase of white lilies enforced an overtly funereal atmosphere. Dried lavender sprigs lined the room, an effort to obscure the inevitable stink of chemicals and death.

“May I help you?” A man in an ill-fitting suit studied her rudely above wire-rimmed spectacles. Snotty, with emphasis on the
help
.
Shall I HELP you, madam, or shall I KICK you out onto the STREET?
Blue-black hair greased his skull, smelling strongly of hair dye. Unlikely it was his wife he wanted to impress.

She flashed her best smile. “Dr. Eliza Jekyll, police physician. I've been sent to examine one of your deceased. Sir Dalziel Fleet?”

The clerk sniffed. “Even if you're truly a doctor, madam—which I doubt
very
much—the grieving widow has declined permission. No police. The late baronet is not to be disturbed. Good day.”

Inwardly, she screwed up her face. Good thing her pink remedy was still in effect, or Lizzie would have throttled this idiot on the spot.

From the depths of her bag, Hipp whirred, mocking the clerk's prissy voice. “Good day. No police. Good day.”

Surreptitiously, Eliza whacked him with her elbow. “Oh, dear. Can't you help me, sir? It's my first day on the job, you see.” She dropped her gaze modestly, and worked up a maidenly flush. “My Chief Inspector sent me—
such
an impressive man, you know—and he'll be so dreadfully cross with me if I don't report back.”

“No police,” the clerk repeated, pointedly flipping his ledger open.

Eliza laid her hand on the counter, three glinting sovereigns half-hidden beneath. “What a pity we can't come to some arrangement.”

Temptation and fear warred across his brow. “I'm afraid I can't possibly . . .”

“I've gone to such lengths, you see, to get this job.” She smiled, suggestive. “I'd be so very grateful, sir.”

The clerk's damp hand covered hers. “I'll see what I can do. Shall we?”

“Work before play,” she simpered, ignoring Hipp's electric snort, and withdrew her hand, leaving her hard-earned bribe. As much as this horrid clerk likely earned in a month. Sympathy stung, and ruthlessly she plucked it out. She still wanted to punch his condescending face.

“Very well,” he grumbled, clearly put out. “We've half an hour before Mr. Hare returns. The embalming room's through the parlor.” Greedily he watched her skirts sway as she walked. “Don't be long.”

“Can't wait.” Out of sight, she dropped her fake smile with a shudder. His speculative gaze had greased her skin. She felt dirty, a deceiver, committing some vile sin.

Bollocks,
whispered Lizzie, just a faraway echo.
Ain't your fault he's up for it, the lousy cheating sod.

“That doesn't make it right to sink to his level.”

Hell, it don't. Screw him for a dirty dog. Think he'd spare a drop of piss if you was on fire?

This parlor also served as a chapel, firmly Anglican in its lack of gaudy trimmings. No popish fripperies here, thank you very much. Dark cloth masked the windows, and soft gaslights burned in the scent of fresh lilies and brassy chemical undertones.

She closed the frosted glass door of the embalmer's room. A row of high tables served for the cadavers. A wooden trolley held make-up pots, sturdy needles, and thick black thread. On another, a range of autopsy tools, clamps, a staple gun, an
electric cauterizer. Barrels of preserving chemicals, wads of cotton packing for sunken cheeks and chests, coils of copper wire.

The place was spotless. She'd seen much worse, in the dank police morgue, or filthy makeshift dead houses set up in pubs and drawing rooms. Here, death was all business, the sanitization of horror. Paint them, stitch them, put them in the ground, so we don't have to remember that one day, it'll be us. And pervading all was that cold meaty whiff that never completely left her nostrils or washed out of her clothes: the beckoning scent of death.

Such was the career she'd chosen. What was it, this fascination with
ending
?
Alpha and omega, that sibilant slice . . .

She tugged on her white crime scene gloves. There was only one body, covered by a sheet. Hipp leapt from her bag and capered beneath the table, springs boinging. “Samples,” he yammered. “Sample-ample-ample . . .”

“Take dictation, there's a good boy. And do try to stay in one piece.” She pulled the sheet away.

“Sir Dalziel Fleet,” she reported, and Hipp's cogs chattered as he recorded her voice. “Mid-fifties, looks every minute of it. Why did I have the idea he was younger? Excess body fat, skin yellowed. I'd say he both ate and drank too much. Face has been peeled away. Numerous old scars on his torso.” She prodded one. “Not smallpox. Neat cuts, deep. Perhaps some quack applied leeches. Hooray for the nineteenth century.”

She settled her optical on her forehead, and the body loomed, magnified. “Apparent cause of death is a gaping throat wound, made by a bronze crucifix now missing. A large star-shaped entry point, consistent with a blunt stabbing . . . Wait.”

Her pulse quickened. “That's not an entry point. I see a slice with a small neat puncture. Same on the right side . . .”

She blinked. Frowned. “These are knife wounds. Same as the carved pentacle. Our killer didn't stab. He slashed, one way and then the other. From behind, presumably, while large quantities of blood squirted. Do you know what this means, Hipp?”

“Squirt,” he burbled. “Squirt-squirt-squirt . . .”

“It means, you gruesome little beast, that our crucifix was
not
the murder weapon.” She straightened, perplexed. No answers. Only more questions. “Why kill a man with a knife, then shove a crucifix into the wound?”

She checked the forearms. “No defense wounds. The victim didn't fight back. Consistent with attack from behind. Or maybe too drunk.”

She recalled that ashtray, the strange hallucinogen.
Chinese opium, or some such.
Glancing swiftly over her shoulder, lest that lustful clerk be lurking, she slipped an iridescent alchemical filter into her optical.
Zing!
The world shimmered, luminous, and she probed the throat wound with her tweezers.

“I say, Hipp! The flesh inside his esophagus is scintillating. He didn't inhale this drug. He swallowed it. Was he poisoned?” She sniffed the wound. “No scent I can detect. What a pity Captain Lafayette isn't here. Remind me to press Mr. Finch for an analysis.” She sliced off a chunk of glittering flesh and popped it into a phial. “Look, something's balled up in his throat.”

She tugged.
Pop!
Out it came in a spatter of blood. “Someone—the killer—has stuffed in a wad of canvas. What on earth is that about?”

Carefully, she unfolded it, shaking away stained fluid, and pushed up her optical. “Well, well. It's Dalziel himself. Sharp-looking gent, in his younger days. A fragment, sliced from a larger portrait.” She brightened. “What if this is from the ruined picture that hid Dalziel's wall safe? I must check if this piece matches. Certainly such desecration would support our revenge motive.” She rolled the canvas carefully into a test tube. “So if the painted face is stuffed down his throat, where's the
real
face?”

“Real face,” snorted Hipp, on his back with legs kicking. “Realfacerealfacerealface . . .”

On the wooden tray, a scalpel winked, tempting. She still had a few minutes. Perhaps she could get stomach contents. Eagerly, she turned for her instruments.

The grinning clerk grabbed her.

She backed into the cadaver's table. “Unhand me, buffoon!”

“Hands off! Hands off!” squeaked Hipp.

The clerk advanced. “You've had long enough. Shall we get to it?”

Enraged, Eliza shoved him backwards, hard. At his stupid, shocked expression—what absurdity, a woman
fighting back
—her blood boiled over. Not Lizzie's fury this time, but her own. At this stupid, inequitable world and the fools like this who ran it.

Wildly, she slapped him, kicked his shins, clawed for his eyes. “You arrogant fool. Did you imagine I'd trade
favors
? You think far too much of yourself!”

Lizzie cheered.
Huzzah! About time. Now let me strangle the limpdick rat.
Eliza's hands flexed hungrily. Her flesh tingled, heating. How she burned to end him . . .

“You lying hussy,” he snarled. Already his face blossomed red where she'd hit him. “I'll make you sorry.”

“Don't take that tone with me, you witless runt.” With a supreme effort, she controlled her breath. She swept her optical into its case, ripped off her gloves, and made for the door. “I have all I require. Keep the money. Call it a consolation prize. Zap him, Hipp, there's a good boy.”

Hipp popped out his crackling copper coil and jabbed the clerk's thigh.
Zzzap!

The fellow cursed, hopping, and slapped ineffectually at Hipp. “Stop it, you brassy fiend.”
Zzzap!
“Don't think I won't report this to your inspector, you evil tart!”
Zzzap!

She halted, one hand on the swinging door. “By all means, sir. Don't think I won't report
you
to Lady Fleet. Defying her instructions, just to get your sticky hands on a bit of skirt? Your Mr. Hare will surely hear of it, and you'll be dismissed on the spot. Think on that, before you open your vulgar mouth.” She smiled sweetly. “Now go home and beg your wife's forgiveness, you despicable man. You don't deserve her. Good day.”

Satisfied, she strutted out into the street, and collided with a stocky body.

She stared, heart pounding. “Hello, Mr. Brigham. Didn't expect to see you here.”

It was Brigham, for sure, lush black curls and youthful face. No more bruises, naturally. Captain Lafayette's genial threats had done their work. Out of butler's costume—
instead, a rough brown coat and trousers. He clutched a bulging canvas bag by wicker handles.

“Ma'am.” He touched his cap, trying to sidle by.

She blocked his path, a casual swish of skirts. “Not at work this afternoon?”

“Come to pay respects.” His East End tones were stronger, as if reinforced by his clothing.

“To a master who beat you? Isn't that odd?”

“Got nuffing to say to you . . . Oi!”

Hippocrates barreled from Hare's and launched at Brigham.
Doinng!
The boy stumbled, dropping his bag, and its contents tumbled into the dirt.

A clockwork servant's head, knobbly neck bolts unscrewed. A disassembled logical processor, sprouting dusty wires. Spanners, probes, a rusted electrical meter with a cracked casing.

Hipp scrabbled at the brass head. “Clockwork overstressed! Logic unit failure! Maintenance imperative!”

“You'll bust it, you rotter. Get off.” Hastily, Brigham stuffed the head back into his bag. Papers spilled, circuit diagrams and notes in Brigham's painstaking hand.

Starlit memory sparkled. That same writing, listing the guests at Sir Dalziel's dinner. Lady Fleet's obsequious entourage.
Dr. Silberman, Lord and Lady Havisham, Lord Montrose, Sir Wm Thorne . . .
She frowned. “Wait. Why did you write Dr. Silberman's name first?”

“Beg pardon?”

“On that guest list. In order of precedence, wasn't it? Except you put Dr. Silberman first. Why does a lowly physician
take precedence over a viscount? Unless he or she is somehow the most important.”

Brigham's dark eyes shifted. “Thought of him first, is all.” Again, he tried to push by.

“Are you taking that clockwork for maintenance?” She grabbed his elbow. “Don't you do that yourself? Keep the monsters in good repair, you said. So why was it malfunctioning?”

Brigham shrugged her off. “Daft things break down all the time.”

“No, they don't,” she retorted, inspired by splintered memories of a broken cuckoo clock. “Where did you learn to repair clockworks? Not from Mr. Lightwood, by chance?”

Another shrug.

“You sabotaged that machine, didn't you? So it would lie to us about that night. What really happened at that dinner? Was this Silberman in charge?”

“Don't know what you're gobbing about.”

“Come, Mr. Brigham, you're a better liar than even Captain Lafayette gave you credit for.” She watched his expression, triumphant. “Aha! That still gets a blush. We imagined you'd no reason to protect Sir Dalziel, but we were wrong. Tell me the truth and there'll be no more unpleasantness.”
And we can all go home for tea,
she almost added.

Brigham scowled. “Vicious old codger gave me a job, didn't he? Could've replaced me wiv a clockwork, but he never. I can take a slap or two if it keeps me in a situation.”

Clearly he accepted such abuse as a way of life. “I'm sorry he mistreated you. Couldn't you protest?”

Brigham laughed. “Right. Keep your sorry, lady. Never swallowed your pride to get your way? Hell, I done whatever
he asked. His students took it harder than I ever did. And now he's croaked, and at last that screeching crow's got her way and put me out on the street. Crueled me right and proper. Think I'll find a new place as high?” His chin trembled. “To think I lied for her all this time. Mary Mother of God, if I told half of what goes on in that filthy house . . .”