The Humbug Murders (39 page)

“What the devil are you talking about, boy?” shouted Crabapple.

Dodger looked indignant for a moment, like a crucial business meeting was being interrupted by a tea lady, but cheered right up. “The time is now, gentlemen! Oh, excuse me, and lady. But we 'ave to move fast. It's a ways from here, see, down in Temple Brook. I never thought you'd come all the way into Essex! My fingers were right frozen clinging on all that way!”

“Temple Brook?” Adelaide asked.

“Rutledge's country house,” I said. “Of course. Of course that's where they'd take them.”

The lad continued to boast that he had thought of a cunning plan. Scowling at Crabapple suspiciously from time to time, he explained that he knew exactly where the magician, the photographer, would be tonight, and that the very best way to secure the secret to photography would be to kidnap the scientist. He even offered to overpower the man himself and tie him up.

“It'd be easy,” he boasted, describing the man as little and funny, always wearing white and black stripes with silly round glasses tinted dark as night: he'd never see Dodger coming, the boy theorized.

My heart jumped. I'd seen that man. He had been the one man in the Doll House receiving the “specials of the house” without benefit of a ring. The same little man in the zebra suit.

“We'll get our hands on him, Mr. Scrooge,” Dodger said with a toothy grin. “We'll get him to teach us and others how the magic works, and we'd be set for life on account of being extremely rich, you see! Bob's your uncle!”

A lifetime of fortune and prosperity flashed before my eyes but in a split second had been replaced by the darkness of the hell I had just left.

“No,” I shook my head sadly. “This is beyond the worth of any profit margin.”

“But he's up there right now!” cried Dodger. “With all them ladies! Chance of a lifetime, see, Mr. Scrooge! And by tomorrow, well, it'll all be over, see. They're shipping him elsewhere. It's what The Lady wants. She'll be there, just to make sure it all goes off right smooth. . . .”

The first person I looked at was Adelaide. Her face sported an expression of urgency, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted. Dickens was nodding. Shen might have had steam pouring from his nostrils at the chance to further avenge his Nellie. If not now, then when?

The time had passed four in the afternoon, and the drive to Temple Brook was five hours. That didn't take into account how long it might take to stop and find a few honest men—and men of that sort were fewer by the hour as Shen's revelation about Foote had revealed. And God forbid, there were snow drifts on some of the narrow and winding country lanes.

By tomorrow, all the women could be dead. Any chance of solving the hideous mystery would be wiped like melted snow. Still, who knew how many men might be patrolling the place? The handful of us against what nature of a beast?

“Look, I knows what I'm talking about,” Dodger assured us. “Ain't never been a sneak thief like me. I sneaked about the Lycia, hitched rides and sneaked about that fine house, and ain't never any o' them punters
ever
had a clue I was there. I know the secret ways in and out. You needs me!”

A howl whistled through the bare branches in the surrounding woods as a frigid gust swept snow across the fields.
“It's there,”
whispered the distant and frozen voice of Fezziwig.
“Humbug is waiting. The next, then you, Ebenezer. Unless you stop it.”

I stamped my cane on the icy ground. “I'm going. Any of you have the courage to follow me, come along. Otherwise, rot in hell.”

One by one, the others followed.

WE STOPPED A
mile outside Temple Brook and stepped upon the moonlit road leading to Rutledge's country estate. The rushing breath of the ocean lapping onto jagged stones greeted us as we removed lanterns and other provisions from our carriage's boot. An icy wind kicked up as Shen dug into his flush pockets and paid our driver a handsome sum to wait here for us until morning. I turned to Adelaide and made one final appeal.

“Miss Owen—Adelaide—this is far too dangerous,” I told her. “Even young Dodger saw the sense in staying behind. Take the carriages and go, I beg you.”

“And Ebenezer Scrooge is not one to beg,” she said distantly, her gaze fixing on a reddish glow in the distance and the sounds of revelry accompanying them. “Not even if the hounds of hell were scratching at his door. Why would you think me any different?”

“There is bravery and then there is madness,” Shen said as he joined us. “For once, I'm in agreement with Mr. Scrooge. Quite enough of you have taken leave of your senses by getting mixed up in this. I have one woman's blood on my hands. I would not have another's.”

“Not even The Lady's?” Adelaide asked.

Shen turned away. A good deal of his strength and swagger had returned. He and I were decked out in our finest suits. Adelaide was once again dressed as a lad, but not the sooty-faced beggar she'd pretended to be in the Quarter. Her hair was slicked back, her bust strapped, and she wore the clothes of a young footman.

“What happens to her is on your head,” he said, looking back at me.

“I'll look out for myself, thank you,” Adelaide assured him.

“You may have to.”

The ruby rings we had acquired in our adventures set firmly on our fingers, we walked ahead towards Middlehays, the country estate Rutledge had inherited, then put out to let. The isolated house was perched on a rise overlooking the ocean. A frozen fairytale wood reflected the silver-blue moonlight to our left as the ocean lazily lapped at the shoreline far below to our right.

“How do you think the constable and Mr. Dickens are faring?” Adelaide asked. She hugged herself against the frigid winds, which caressed us like invisible hands.

Though Crabapple was woefully lacking in compatriots he might draw into our madness tonight, Shen and Dickens were not. Shen had quickly drafted instructions for Crabapple to take to one of his key agents in the drug trade, while Dickens—now weighted down with Shen's funds—went to pull away the security detail he had assigned to Belle and round up even more protectors. With any luck at all, they would join us within the hour accompanied by a score of hard, dangerous men.

“I have no doubt they will be here presently,” I lied. For I had every conceivable doubt.

“The two of you,” Shen said without looking back at us. “You are clear on our objective?”

We'd talked about little else. Dodger had explained that the photographer—the only man who knew the secret process that made his miraculous image-taking possible—considered himself quite pious. Part of the allure of Rutledge's country estate had been its chapel. Though the foreign gentleman had accepted that he was damned, he would not begin or end his photo-taking festivities without a private moment of prayer in a sanctified space. No one knew if this was to cleanse himself or to spit in the eye of God, but it was his ritual.

Guards were stationed at the two main doors leading in or out of the chapel, but there was a secret door hidden behind one of those newly placed Doric columns. That door led to a stone stairwell and a series of underground tunnels coming up into open air far from the house.

“We hide in the chapel and lay in wait for the photographer,” I said wearily. Shen had made me repeat our plan countless times since we'd left London. It had almost taken my mind off the distinct possibility that once we reached our destination, Miss Owen would give a command to the scum within for our capture, thus revealing herself as The Lady. The chains of trust were not yet secure. “We knock him senseless, bind him, and kidnap him. Later, we offer to trade him for the release of the women and—”

“Be
quiet
,” Adelaide hissed. She nodded ahead. The house was in sight, and we dared not risk being overheard by the men standing outside the well-lit front entrance.

The crimson glow we had glimpsed in the distance now lay far to our east, beyond the house and along the cliffside. We could not see what cast it.

Rutledge's house was a modest affair, at least when contrasted to the magnificence of Dyer Manor. We passed a hedge maze that had fallen on hard times, an iced-over fountain sitting smack in the middle of the rounded front drive, a pair of stone lions beside the steps leading to the porch, one cracked so badly half its face had fallen off. A pitiful forced attempt at opulence made the recently added Doric columns stand out in stark contrast to the rest of the house. Two columns bracketed the front double doors where a pair of valets stepped forward and greeted us. They were impeccably dressed—and armed. Masks rested upon red silk pillows cradled in one man's arms. I might have thought the masks a fortuitous turn, but Shen had been confident they would be presented to us. The men in the photos always wore them.

No one questioned that we had strolled in from the darkness with no carriage in sight. From the jaundiced look in their eyes, I wagered they had seen far stranger things tonight. One look at the ruby rings adorning Shen's hand—and my own—settled any possible raised eyebrows. Except one.

“What's with the boy?” the nearest valet asked.

Smiling, Shen draped a casual arm about Adelaide's shoulders and winked. “We like to have him about when we . . . watch. He serves our purposes.”

Adelaide, remaining perfectly in character, regarded the men with a ruddy sneer and knowing nod. The men shrugged and turned to one another.

“Does he get a mask?”

“I suppose.”

We three were swept into the warm and noisy antechamber, where a pair of handsome young women rushed at us. Sparkling green and brown wood nymph costumes barely covered their comely bosoms and striking legs. Laughing and frolicking, they relieved us of our hats, canes, and heavy winter coats. My cheeks blazed with a sudden heat as I realized their “costumes” had mainly been painted on, the green and amber leaves glued strategically in one place or another.

This pair must have been from the Doll House, I reasoned. Those poor women who'd been drugged and held against their wills in their pens at the warehouse simply could not have managed such smiles and unspoken promises of delight. We passed another of the great Doric columns, and my gaze rested upon hooks that had been driven into its side. One thrust out at waist level, the other slightly over my head. Looking about at the low-hanging chandelier, the paintings, and gilt-covered woodworks, the ornate resting couches, I knew that I was walking through a spot used for the terrible photographs.

I felt as if I were striding through a particularly deep, dark, and inescapable level of hell.

The women opened a pair of doors, and we strode confidently into a whirling mass of decadence and vice. Dozens of finely-appointed gentleman wearing outlandish masks laughed, ate, and drank to their wicked hearts' content. Shen was already making small talk with one of them, his grotesque “plague doctor” mask with its birdlike beak drawing little attention. His mouth and chin were yet uncovered, revealing his bright white teeth and perfectly chiseled chin.

Christmas, now only days away, had hardly been forgotten in this wretched place. A perverse bacchanalian twist had been thrust upon what might have otherwise been a genteel Christmas get-together. The air was thick with myrrh, which smothered all other fragrances, including sweat. Whole hogs had been slaughtered and carved to perfection, served on great tables with orange rinds and deep, delicious-smelling gravies. Joyous music sprang from tautly-tuned instruments as a string quartet supported a stunning cellist. Fires sizzled and gaslights whispered. Staggeringly beautiful women circulated in various states of undress and pagan excess, jewels glittering on naked flesh. Men and women danced in the center of the vast banquet hall. I found myself taking in the sight of a woman whose entire derriere had been adorned in ringlets of bouncing white cream.

“Remember, no sampling before the main event,” a man in a lion's mask said, nudging my arm knowingly. “Save it up, you're going to need it!”

Across the room, a man with a familiar laugh held court. He was dressed as Father Christmas, perhaps, the founder of the feast. His bare chest shimmering in the glow from the fire, his red velvet coat swept to the floor, gold and purple sashes adorned him along with glittering chains. A crown of wild holly sat on his head. He was masked, like all the fine gentlemen here, but I knew that hyena-like laugh.

“What an absolute gigglemug,” Dickens said. “Worse than that Pickwick, even!”

I knew the man. It was Lazytree.

My mind reeled and hauled me back to the Colleys' warehouse, where I was tortured and prodded to reveal what Sunderland had done with Roger and Jack's property. Sunderland as much as said that his many companies were infested by scoundrels, like ships overrun by rats.

Was I standing in the very presence of Mr. Smithson himself? Was it Lazytree?