The Devil's Grin: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller Book 1) (28 page)

‘Needless to say,’ he muttered to himself.

‘If you’d wanted an ordinary woman, you’d be married and father of a number of annoying children,’ I replied acidly.

It was a useless conversation and we both knew it. Unspeaking, we drove the long way to London. I steered the cab into Tottenham Court Road, stopped, and climbed off the driver’s seat.
 

The moment my feet touched the cobblestones, he flicked the whip across the horses’ hindquarters and drove away without a glance back.

Nonplussed, I stood on the pavement. How the deuce could I have let him take my heart away?

Preview of

THE FALL

— two men —

And soon the rotting corpses tainted the air and poisoned the water supply, and the stench was so overwhelming that hardly one in several thousand was in a position to flee the remains of the Tartar army.
Gabrielle De’ Mussi, 1348, on the Siege of Caffa

For this moment, this one moment, we are together. I press you to me. Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. I sob, I sob.
Virginia Woolf
 

Wednesday Night, October 22nd, 1890

S
omething cold pushed my head into the straw mattress. Two sharp clicks and the smell of metal sent my heart slamming against my chest. The gun’s mouth was pressed flat against my temple. If fired, the bullet would rip straight through my brain, driving blood and nerve tissue through the mattress down onto the floor. If the gun were tipped a little, the bullet would circle inside my skull, leaving a furrow in the bone and pulp in its wake.

‘Dr Kronberg,’ a voice echoed through the dark. ‘Get up slowly, if you please.’

I opened my eyes.

‘Sit over there,’ he rasped, waving a lantern towards the table. I obeyed and the small chair gave its usual quiet squeak. A match was struck. Sulphur stung my nostrils. A candle cast the room into unsteady light.
 

A man of approximately fifty years sat across from me. A face chiselled in hardwood, cracked by tension and ageing, his demeanour commanding strict obedience.

‘You are good at hiding,’ said he. Waves of goosebumps rolled over my skin. He looked at me, waiting for a reply that did not come. What could I possibly say? Obviously, I hadn’t been hiding well enough. My tongue glued itself to my palate. The wrong word might end my life in an instant.

Suddenly, my ears picked up a sound. The floorboards had produced a lone pop, raising the hair on my neck as though to assess the danger lurking behind me.

‘Last spring, a group of medical doctors were captured by the police and led to trial. Only one month later, they found their end at the gallows,’ he said.

I remembered that day — sitting on the very same chair I had read about the hanging of sixteen medical doctors along with the superintendent of Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum and four of his guards. What a spectacle that must have been for the Londoners! Details about their deeds, however, the abductions, murders, and medical experiments on paupers, had not been reported.
 

The tiny hairs on my neck ached, pricked by a noise so low I almost missed it — calm breathing, just behind me and far up.

‘All but one,’ the man interrupted.

Shock had broadened and sharpened my senses in the most exhilarating fashion. My first assumption was that the man behind me was a backup, someone to break my neck, if needed. I coughed, flicked my gaze towards the window and back again. For a short moment I closed my eyes, examining the reflection burned into my mind: the small prick of candlelight, the table, the man sitting, myself in a nightgown, and a tall, slender figure behind me. I opened my eyes, hoping the behaviour of the man facing me would tell me more about the other.

‘We were surprised to learn that Dr Anton Kronberg overpowered Mr Sherlock Holmes and made his escape.’

My hands grew cold. It finally clicked — the Club. Holmes had given that dubious title to the group of medical doctors who tested deadly bacteria on workhouse inmates. It had taken us months to round them up. Yet we were unable to identify the head of the organisation who had caused so much suffering and death. Ever since my escape to the Downs, I had feared he would find me and take revenge. I eyed the man in front of me, wondering why he talked to me at all and what might be coming before he pulled the trigger.

‘We were even more surprised as we found Anton Kronberg — a carpenter in a German village. An old man with a single child — a daughter of exactly your age,
Doctor
Anna
Kronberg.’ He flashed a smile, displaying a row of yellow teeth.

I made an effort to slow my frantic heart, trying not to think of my father or what might have been done to him. The man behind me seemed calm; his breathing had not changed in the least.

‘You do say rather little.’

‘You have not asked a single question,’ I croaked.

No audible reaction from the man behind. The man facing me smiled a thin line and fingered his gun. His eyes were glued to my face, while mine flicked between his and the weapon’s hammer. He repeatedly pulled and released it.
Click-click. Click-click.

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Will you admit to these accusations?’
Click-click.

‘Your accusations must have escaped my notice.’

The clicking stopped. The man’s eyes flicked sideways and back at me again, as though he wanted to check with the other man, but could not reveal that man’s presence by looking at him directly. Behind me, I heard a faint smack. It made me think of wet lips being pulled apart. He must be smiling. For a second I had the insane thought it was Holmes.

‘Do I amuse you?’ asked the man in front of me.
Click-click. Click-click.
He had both arms
 
placed on his thighs, leisurely holding the weapon between them. The lantern at his feet seemed to illuminate only the triangle of knees, hands, and gun. The light reflecting off the hammer’s silvery tip, polished by repeated toying, stung my eyes.

‘No,’ I answered.

He waited. We both did. And then I made a mistake. ‘What does a man from the military want from me?’ It was only a guess based on the few things I had seen.

He growled, ‘What do you know?’ before noticing that he, too, had made a mistake.

‘Not much. Only that you broke into my cottage to press your beloved gun to my head and tell me things I already know. And there is a man behind me who is very calm, approximately six feet tall and very lean. He is most likely the brain, while you are the brute.’
 

There was no time to flinch before his fist hit my temple.

Whispers penetrated my ears. I heard a groan; it came from inside my chest. My head drummed arrhythmically, throwing blue flashes of light on the inside of my eyelids. I lay flat on my mattress, my hands bound across my stomach. The whispering stopped. I opened my eyes and turned my head. Both men looked at me.

‘Thank you,’ I said. The taller of the two pulled his eyebrows up and seemed a little amused.
 

‘For showing your face,’ I explained.

‘You do realise that having seen me will likely diminish any chances of your survival?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Shall we continue, then? How did you overpower Mr Holmes?’

My throat tightened. How could I describe it? It was a long story and I would surely not tell the whole truth.

‘I kissed him.’

His eyes widened and he threw his head back, barking a single laugh.

A second later, he recovered from his emotional outbreak. Turning to the other man he said, ‘Sebastian, would you be so kind as to make us tea?’

Sebastian left. I heard a match being struck, the hiss of the gas lamp followed by the clonking of earthenware. The hearth was still hot. I used it to get a little warmth into the cottage during chilly autumn nights. In winter, I would have used the fireplace, too. But there wouldn’t be a winter for me here.

More wood was thrown onto the embers. The tall man observed me silently, and I realised he had come to decide whether I should be shot immediately or maybe a little later.

While we waited for the tea, he said, ‘We learned a few things about you, Dr Kronberg. But there are gaps I’d like filled.’ He bent over me, grabbed my neck and pulled me up into a sitting position.

Then, he commenced his speech. ‘You lived in London disguised as a male medical doctor for four years. You must have met Mr Holmes over the course of summer or autumn 1889, is that correct?’

I nodded, knowing my face showed my shock.

‘A little more information would help extend your lifespan.’

I cleared my throat. ‘I met Mr Holmes at Hampton Water Treatment Works in the summer of last year. A cholera victim had been found floating in the water and Scotland Yard wanted us to provide expert opinions. Mr Holmes saw through my disguise, but strangely decided not to report me to the police. The corpse bore signs of abduction and maltreatment, but the evidence was weak and the Yard did not think it worth investigating.’

I looked up at him. He was waiting for me to continue. And so I did, weaving lies and facts into one, ‘There was very little to go on, and Mr Holmes soon lost interest in the case. Or so I thought. Meanwhile, I did research on tetanus at Guy’s and later visited Robert Koch’s laboratory in Berlin. I was able to obtain tetanus germs in pure culture; it was a sensation, and the papers reported it widely. You are aware of this, of course.’

He tilted his head and I continued. ‘Only a few days later, Dr Gregory Stark invited me to give a presentation at Cambridge Medical School and I came into contact with all members of what Mr Holmes later called the
Club
.’

‘The
Club
? How charming!’ He chuckled.

‘I knew it couldn’t have been Bowden,’ I said. ‘You were the man at the centre.’
 

Holmes and I had believed that Dr Bowden was the head of the Club. Doubts about the importance of his role surfaced only at the very end of our investigation. But we could prove nothing and had no clue who the leader was. Until today.

‘I am merely a bystander, or assistant, so to speak.’

‘The assistant who pulls the strings?’

‘Perhaps,’ he said. I trembled as he bent closer yet again and pulled a blanket over my shoulders. I killed my hens the same way — I calmed them, caressed their heads and backs, then broke their necks and cut their throats.

‘You infiltrated the
Club and brought them down with the help of Sherlock Holmes,’ he stated.

I forced my eyes to look into his and remain steady. ‘Not quite, although in hindsight, even I could possibly interpret it as such.’

He leaned back, waving his hand invitingly.

‘Just after I returned from Berlin I was mugged and badly injured. I needed a surgeon, but whom could I have asked? Certainly not my colleagues! So I told a friend to find Dr Watson. That is how I met Holmes again, and only two days later he told me about his suspicions — that someone had been conducting medical experiments on paupers in Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum. I thought he was out of his mind.’

‘Pray proceed,’ he urged, as though time were running out.