Cold Stone and Ivy (65 page)

He lit up with the flint and took a long deep puff, holding it inside his mouth as if he could make time stop in that simple act. He turned his sharp eyes back on her.

“He knocked one up, you see. One of those East End girls that he fancied so much. At least, she said he did, claimed we needed to pay her to keep quiet. And so we did. A goodly sum, I might add. Paid for Williams to give her an abortion too, just in case. No one would believe an East End whore, but still, facts are not required in the presses these days and scandal follows Eddy like a terrier on a rat. So before you know it, there’s another one saying he’s done her good and she’s got three rings as proof. I pay her off as well, but she doesn’t want an abortion, this one. Of course that won’t do, not with those damned rings. So one night, Williams has his boys get her drunk, and they run a clinic and do her while she’s out. Remy, I think, was the one who did it. Poor boy. Jack should have known, with Remy’s history. The boy couldn’t handle it, carved her up like a ham and didn’t remember a thing the next morning.”

“But it wasn’t Christien’s ‘history,’ was it, sir,” she said. “That’s far too simple an explanation. I know both the locket and the Ghost Club were involved in some way.”

“Well, off the record, m’dear, I will say that Jack had his eye on our Remy for years, given that he was a de Lacey and all that. With the sort of things Renaud was working on, it only stood to reason that something of the gift would be passed on.”

“But the rings belonged to Annie Chapman. Why would Williams give Christien the ring of a woman he had murdered? That’s horrible.”

“All in the name of science, dear girl. The Club believes that life goes on after the body is long dead. They keep trying to prove it using scientific methods, but I think they may have stepped in a little too deep with the de Lacey boys.”

“And Christien paid the price for it,” she said.

“Someone always does.”

“And the locket, then? Did they use Ghostlight to contact Renaud in some way? To release him?”

“I can’t say, little
Cymry
. Perhaps Ghostlight used the Club for that purpose. I think that damned locket had a mind of its own, wot?”

Ghostlight, a siren calling men to their deaths. She thought of Christien, clinical and driven, seeking answers but losing himself in the process. She thought of Sebastien, hollow and gaunt, sitting on the floor of the airship, snowflakes circling in his hands. Ghostlight was an opiate—a dark, dangerous, giddy addiction. Perhaps it was for the best that she was gone, lost in the crush of the Thames.

“No wonder it drives them all mad.”

She looked out the window, at the bleak streets streaked with rain.

“So Dr. Williams knew.”

“Knew?”

“Knew that Christien was killing those women. Knew that it wasn’t his fault, that it was because of what the Ghost Club was doing, or what the locket was doing, I don’t know. But
he
knew. He must have known.”

“Entirely possible, little
Cymry
. But Jackie is a man of principles, never forget that. He loves Remy like a son and a father will do anything to protect his son.”

“But the truth and the lies and the secrets, it’s almost criminal. It is like a conspiracy, sir.”

“It
is
a conspiracy, little
Cymry,”
said Edward. “But a conspiracy of brilliant men working out their ideals, to the exclusion of all else. It is a crime of arrogance, nothing more.”

“I have it on good authority that the dead women don’t agree.”

Edward blew a thin line of smoke out through his whiskers and narrowed his eyes.

“Welcome to the world of civilized men.”

“But Tillie Barton, Clara Clements—”

“With regards to any other crimes, I have no knowledge and I will deny any accusation to the contrary. In fact, I think you know more than I at this point, wot, little
Cymry?
Perhaps I would like to keep it that way.”

She kept her gaze fixed now on the streets, the houses, the rain, until finally the dark stacks of Fermier’s Fish and Crab down the row.

The steamcar purred to a halt.

“Yes, I think I would very much like to keep it that way.”

She said nothing. There was little else to say.

“Take this, little
Cymry
. You can return it to me at Sandringham once you are healed.”

As he gave her the cane, he pressed it into her hand but he held fast for a long moment. She swallowed, unsure whether his grip was affection or a threat. With a man like this, it was perhaps a little of both.

“Thank you for the ride, sir.”

The door was held open for her and she limped out of the steamcar and into the night.

THE HOUSE WAS
dark as she let herself in, and she set her bowler on the hook by the door. Stepped out of the boots, grateful that they were strong leather. Between them and the bandages, her ankle was only barely swollen.

“Tad?” she called, and the cane tapped as she stepped forward into the foyer. There was a splash, and she noticed a puddle of water on the floor.

She glanced up to the ceiling, expecting to see a dark circle, but there was nothing.

“Tad?” she called again into the dark house, and her heart thudded once in her chest.

Slowly, she moved into the kitchen, peering into each door as she went. There was no sound save the rain on the windows.

There was no water in the kitchen. Clutching the cane like a cudgel, she investigated each room downstairs, the dining room, the sitting room, and her father’s study. No sign of water anywhere, and she began to breathe a little easier until she spied a puddle at the foot of the stair.

Yes, she was certain of it. There was a watery trail that led up to the second floor.

“Tad?” she called up again, suddenly filled with memories of Seventh House and Lonsdale Abbey and Lasingstoke Hall. Death everywhere she went. Death and ghosts and madness and blood.

She gripped the cane a little more tightly and began to climb the stair.

A puddle outside the door of her bedroom, and she took a deep breath, heart thudding in her chest. Slowly, quietly pushed the door open.

Through the moonlight, she could see a strange shape in the middle of the room underneath her floral bedspread.

“It was the bearded woman,” came the voice from under the cover. “She said you wouldn’t mind.”

She smiled, lifted a corner, and slipped underneath.

“I’M SO GLAD
you’ve come out of it in one piece, my girl!” guffawed her father, Chief Inspector Charles Dreadful. “That was a tricky bit of deduction!”

“And a supernatural amount of good luck!” sang Penny, but she laid a hand on her father’s sleeve. “But father, my dear Julian? Whatever is to become of him?”

“Not to worry, darling! The Specter Society will help him now. It wasn’t his fault, after all!”

“No, not at all,” she mused.

“Now, if only we could find that rascal Dunn!”

Penny Dreadful, Girl Criminologist, smiled to herself, for some secrets were best kept—as they say—like the dead.

The End of “Penny Dreadful and the Terror of Whitechapel”

DR. JOHN WILLIAMS
sighed and tossed his cigarette into the fire. The last of his guests had finally left and the parlour still smelled of perfume and smoke, but the whist had been good. Fotheringham was a shark, he knew it, but he had given the bastard a run for his money. He made certain to lose, however. Patrons rarely returned when their charities bled them dry.

He reached for his Scotch, swirled it in the glass. They had raised ten thousand tonight. Ten thousand for the Library. He would have it, by God. A National Library filled with all things Welsh.

There was a knock on the front door and he rolled his eyes. Likely one of the guests, having forgotten something or other. With great wealth came greater senselessness, and he heard his wife’s voice, speaking kindly to someone. She was a fine woman, he knew that full well. It was a shame she was barren.

He sipped the Scotch in silence until he heard her footfall, her singsong voice.

“Jack?”

“Liz?”

“It’s a package, Jack. For you.”

He frowned, set the tumbler down as she swished into the room. A package, wrapped in string and brown paper.

“Who’s it from, then?”

“He didn’t say. And there’s no return address on the paper.”

“Odd. Fetch me a pen knife, dear.”

She did and he slit the strings, carefully unfolded the wrapper, let it drop to the floor like an autumn leaf. There was a note and he lifted it to the light of the fire.

“Dear Boss,”
it read.
“I fond this in the River n thot you’d like it well enuf. Haha. You n yer boys’ll know wat to do. Signed Yor frend, Jack”

His wife was staring at him and he laid the note on the table to examine the package. It was a book, an old book but not a
very old book, with a parchment cover and inked illustration. A first edition most likely, and he studied the print. It was in French.

Vingt Mille Lieues sous Les Mers, par Jules Verne.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
.

“Did you purchase this book, Jack?” asked his wife, and he shook his head.

“No, dear. I admit to reading it as a boy, but honestly, I . . .”

It made a soft thump in his hands.

He frowned yet again, carefully lifted the cover, turned the frontispiece to the first page, which began to glow and hum. His heart thudded once in his chest, for in truth, there was no first page. There were no pages. The book was empty, hollowed out as a receptacle, no more, and his fingers trembled as he lifted the tissue covering to reveal two pouches, one of satin, one of leather. Carefully, he reached in, lifted the satin pouch, emptied the contents into his palm.

His heart stopped.

It was a locket. A clockwork locket fashioned from brass, copper, silver, and gold, each tiny gear a different metal, spinning in connected but opposing directions like a watch. It was housed in a polished glass globe, again with brass, copper, silver, and gold circlets ringing the globe and at the bottom apex, a pin.

“Oh, Jack. That’s beautiful.”

He swallowed, slipped it back into the pouch, hardly daring to breathe as he lifted the leather one now, turned it upside down. It stuck and he needed to give it a good shake before its contents dropped into his palm.

It was a human heart.

The End of Cold Stone and Ivy

I am exceptionally grateful to a large number of folks, whose encouragement got me started and, in fact, kept me going. Criminal mastermind Margaret Curelas and the Ant Hill Mob at Tyche Books and editor/author Erica Orloff, both of whom I owe many bottles of wine. And maybe some money.

And I have to thank House Calls, SpaceAnjJ, Purple Piggie, Castiello, PJaneL, Elodie Wolfe, Ebony 10 and so many others. You know who you are and why I love you.

H. Leighton Dickson grew up in the wilds of the Canadian Shield, where her neighbours were wolves, moose, perennial-eating deer and the occasional lynx. She pencilled for DC Comics while studying Zoology in the University of Guelph. Later, she went on to the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens in Scotland, where she was chased by lions, wrestled deaf tigers and fed antibiotics to Polar Bears via baby bottle. A Hybrid author, Heather has four self-published novels on Amazon as well Tyche Books' Steampunk Gothic thriller, COLD STONE & IVY. She also writes for Bayview Magazine and is a photoshop wizard when it comes to book covers. She has been writing since she was thirteen, has three dogs, three cats, three kids but only one husband. She has managed to keep all of them alive so far.