House of Corruption (6 page)

“You can go to hell, sir,” he muttered.

“The Beast is gone,” Reynard called to him. “It is.”

By that point, he doubted Savoy could hear him.

4

Savoy wandered off Esplanade Avenue and down an adjoining street, not looking back, wishing he could get more air into his lungs, wishing he could walk faster. No apology from Reynard followed, and he was not in a forgiving mood.

So be it.

When a hansom drew near he hailed it, climbed inside and commanded the cabby to just drive until he told him to stop. He felt numb, stunned by the crucifying of his service in Reynard’s behalf.
Is that what he thinks of me?

He was no detective, true, neither empowered to pursue such matters nor authorized to do anything about them. He felt obligated as Reynard’s friend—current or former, he no longer knew—to keep vigil against the Beast’s return. Was this not the same as in Lisbon? Iszkáz? Santiago? Winnipeg? Unusual circumstances to the naked eye, with patterns only those with open minds might see? What would it take to convince Reynard—convince everyone—to see beyond their narrow vision?

For a werewolf in remission, he is a remarkable skeptic.

Why was he surprised? His hope for tenure at Cambridge was threatened by one too many who labeled him “neo-platoistic” despite his adherence to the scientific method. It was an ironic criticism, especially with London’s growing interest in spiritualism. He had pursued an appointment with Cambridge, above and beyond his father’s connections, due to its rich history of accepting new ideas; its Ghost Society and current incarnation,
The Society for Psychical Research
, included those who adhered to a study of the unknown while honoring their religious faith. In time he realized the S.P.R. and other such groups had more to do with political connections, illicit practices and clubbish habits than a real interest in supernatural phenomenon. He neither believed nor enjoyed the mania of sitting-room séances, their moving planchettes, the ethereal knocking, the claims of otherworldly visitations. He doubted most mediums, men and women often summoning their gifts only for those with a crown to spare.

Academia is notorious
, his father once said,
for punishing those who do not follow the mob.

Savoy refused to take the oaths required in his colleagues’ cabals and Masonic clubs, and his opinions were often in opposition to those with influence. Many academics sought to redeem a religious culture tainted by Darwinism, to uncover empirical evidence God did indeed exist, that faith was not the only method of divination. Their interest in spiritualism was a sign of their doubt...and
that
was why they hated him.

Because he could see right through them.

He had no agenda other than truth. Were not the scoffers the ones whose motives should be questioned? A darkened-room séance was all the rage, but declare that lycanthropy can alter a man’s fundamental shape? That a man of Haiti, dead and buried, was seen by at least a dozen people as he walked in the night? That a South American woman drank the blood of her newborn daughter and, when discovered, transformed into mist? That a dead girl, one he had loved long ago, would crawl out of her own grave?

Yes. I ought to be used to it by now.

Some time later he caught sight of a newspaper boy hawking a broadsheet with the title
Slaughter in Chalmette!
The rag had already typeset what they could glean and sold pages by the penny. He ordered his driver to stop, bought a sheet, and continued his random tour. He read laughable opinions from so-called “experts” to idiotic assumptions from onlookers.

Yet one section caught his eye:

...victims’ remains were transported to Charity Hospital for further study.

Early in their investigation officers uncovered a Colt .45 pistol. It was soon traced to a Mister Mahonri Grant, 28, from Salt Lake City, Utah. The suspect was apprehended before he was to board a ship bound for Kingston, Jamaica, now held in Parish Prison awaiting a preliminary hearing.

“That big man (Grant) and Paulie (Rabeaux, one of the victims) had words last night,” said Julia Blanchet, an employee of the King’s Tavern where the victims were last seen. “The big man said he would kill Paulie the next time he saw him.”

Why assume this man a suspect? The victims were slit open like fish, not fired upon with a pistol.
Frontier justice
, he guessed,
snatch a likely suspect to pacify the mob
.

The Southern hobby of jumping to conclusions was clearly in full swing, and he prided himself as being above such notions. He was a part-time American with Victorian sensibilities; he preferred a spot of tea while thinking things through.

A telegraphed query to Salt Lake City’s Deseret News confirmed what this reporter suspected: Mister Grant is no stranger to crime. The State of Utah may extradite the prisoner on unrelated murder charges if Mister Grant proves locally innocent.

Allegations of military desertion and attempts to avoid justice in both Arizona and Washington State may add to the man’s heavy crimes. Inspector Legrasse said little as to Mister Grant’s testimony.

“As to be expected, the suspect claims his innocence,” the Inspector said. “But this fellow is mad. He claims the murders done by a lady. He said she slaughtered (both victims) and drank their blood.”

“Unless you plan on paying my day’s wage,” the hansom driver said from his seat above, “you might want to give me a destination.”

“Yes,” Savoy said. “Charity Hospital, please.”

5

Lasha LaCroix sat in the dimly-lit dining room, picking at the buttery crust of quiche in front of her on the table. The gaslights were turned low, the candles dripping with wax upon the tablecloth. She pinched off a sizable piece and slipped it into her mouth.

I did a good job
.

She sucked the flavor from her fingers and plucked another bite. Reynard would have chided her for eating without a fork. Not ladylike, he would say, behavior beneath a young woman of her character. Posh. What did
he
know of character? Her brother had promised,
promised
, to escort her to the vaudeville starring the incomparable Robert Neville. Not only had he not arrived, he did so on one of those rare nights when he knew, he
knew
, the caretakers had taken the horse-and-buggy and would not return until morning. She was stranded.

It did not help she was alone in that great house, enduring the kind of night that feels more closed and less free, the kind of night when life turns its attentions inward with a million eyes watching. She lit many of the gaslights throughout the house. Even when it positively glowed with light, their mansion, nestled against the liquid dark of Lake Pontchartrain, still felt too large and too empty.

The crumpled flyer in her hand—a woodcut of Mister Neville’s face headlined with
One Night Only
—tightened in her grip.

She looked over the supper she had made: baked lamb quiche and asparagus with hollandaise sauce, homemade rye bread, and a lemon-balm cake with custard sauce cooling in the icebox. She had spent hours with flour-dusted apron and a proud smile on her face, proving her gratitude for a brother who normally avoided such events. She was
sure
he would come through this time. Why was she surprised?

Does he even know I exist
?

She considered herself in the dining-room mirror, feeling sorry for herself. She had dressed to the nines in an embroidered vest and bustled skirt, her hair upturned with pale-gold ringlets falling down her neck. Reynard once said that, at seventeen, she had the look of a charging goose. Maybe he was right. Yet tonight, of all nights, this goose held tickets for fourth-row-center seats! Fashionable people would have been there. She would have sipped from crystal goblets and chatted in French with fetching young men and now...

And now.

There may be a very good reason, and I am a spoiled brat.

“Yes,” she answered herself, “but it was Robert Neville.”

She smoothed a bead of sweat from under her eye and looked into her reflection, considering the crook of her full mouth. She wished she had more color, more height, more courage against such nights.

A knock echoed from behind her.

The sound startled, which made her laugh, and she practiced her best scowl. Home already? The nerve. They could have made the curtain call! She marched to the foyer to throw the door open in indignation. Tomorrow the buggy would return and she could go to town all by herself, visit her best friend Elisabeth and see how the vaudeville went. Perhaps Mister Neville was simply
atrocious
and she had a miserable time? She could only hope.

“Forgot your key yet again,” she said, entering the foyer.

She opened the front door. It was not Reynard. A tall gentleman stood on the porch, dressed in a black tweed suit and cravat and polished shoes. The lines at his eyes suggested he was twice as old as she, but his skin was taut with healthy color. With his slicked black hair and narrow, almond eyes he was an exotic reminder she had not seen a stranger on LaCroix Manor’s porch in a very, very long time.

“Oh,” she said. “Excuse me. I—?”

“LaCroix?” he asked with an accent.

“Yes.”

“An urgent message for a...” He removed an envelope from his vest and glanced at the name. “A Monsieur LaCroix? Your...husband?”

“Dear me,” she said, laughing. “He is my brother.”

“Is that so?”

“He takes all mail at his office. Who sent this?”

“It is a private affair,
m’oiselle
.”

“My brother is a private man.”

“Indeed.”

She stood, waiting, wondering if this courier would stand there all evening. Did he expect a gratuity? Behind him, outside at the edge of light at the rim of the front lawn, the shadows between the cypress lingered in drapes of Spanish moss. She hated those trees. They always seemed to be hiding something.

“It must be frustrating,” the courier said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I see we were meant for the same experience.” He motioned to the flyer still clutched in her hand. “Sir Neville was to perform this evening.”

“Oh. This?”

“A remarkable man. One who attracts only the finest of patrons. It is a privilege to be invited, all the more distressing to know another has missed out on such a rare occasion. I would have gone myself if my duties did not detain me otherwise.”

“Yes,” Lasha said. “I wish Reynard had come.”

“He was to escort you?”

“Yes.”

“He did not keep his word?”

“Yes.”

He bowed stiffly and descended the porch, trailing a whiff of expensive cologne. Only when her senses registered the feel of rough, expensive paper against her fingers did she notice the envelope in her hands. When had he given it to her?

“I would not despair my dear,” he said at the bottom of the porch steps, his accent thickening. “You might find him more interested in your welfare in the days to come.” He bowed slightly, gathering the reins of his horse. “I am sure he—you both—will find this most exciting.”

“What is it?”

“I guarantee.”

***

Late into the night, the stagecoach stopped just long enough for Reynard to descend and pay his fare. The driver snapped his reins, the horses resumed their pace, and the coach clattered down the lonely road. No lamppost illuminated the gate leading to LaCroix Manor, no sign or marker. The driveway slithered so deeply into the trees that few knew a mansion lurked at its end.

He walked up the driveway, comfortable for the first time that day. The city and its unwashed masses could be endured for business, but he craved solitude and shadows and fresh air and an unobstructed view of the lake. He relished the frog songs and insects, the darting streaks of fireflies, how the drapes of Spanish moss caught the breeze like festival ribbons.

Two hundred yards further, the lights of LaCroix Manor gleamed into view, a former plantation house—modest by Louisiana standards—with Grecian columns flanking the front porch and whitewashed walls contrasting sharply against the night. Most of its outlying acreage had been sold to the parish to extinguish his father’s debts, save seven acres along the lakeshore. It was a life with well-defined borders, money in the bank and insurance for his sister’s future happiness.

Lasha had left on the porch-light—and every other light on the first floor—which irritated him. Ascending the steps, he unlocked the front door and smelled the lingering residue of her perfume, cooked eggs, asparagus, cheese, the smoke from snuffed candles, white wine left out to breathe too long...

Tonight
, he realized.
I’d promised her
.

At his feet lay an envelope. The vellum envelope smelled of dead roses and vinegar, the flap sealed with red wax and pressed with a lion’s emblem on a circle. He started to pocket it for the morning but something, perhaps the scent, prompted him to tear it open:

Dear Mr. LaCroix,