Shadows Fall Away (3 page)

I looked around but saw no one except Sarah and the hired man in the distance. “Perhaps she went to get help.”

“I thought she did…“He struggled to rise.

“Slowly.” Father cautioned, motioning our groom, Harry to take hold of the other arm as he helped the young man up. “My surgery isn’t far. We need to get you out of this rain.”

***

The young man collapsed on the carpet in the hall as Mother and Phoebe came in from the dining room to gawk.

“He’s wet.”

“He’s drunk.”

“He’s
injured
,” Father told them.

I took a measure of satisfaction when they averted their gazes.

“Gently,” Father said, helping Harry lift the young man. “We don’t want to cause any more injuries than he may have already sustained.”

I followed as they carried the patient onto the examining table in the surgery. Father started removing the young man’s wet clothing, grimacing when I began to help

“Eugenia—”

“Really, Father, I’ve volunteered in your hospital. I’ve done this before.” I handed the man’s jacket and vest to our maid. “Sarah, see if he has anything identifying him.”

“My word!” Father exclaimed.

I turned, my curiosity aroused. The young man was undressed down to very small clothes.

Odd, close-fitting, black small clothes that emphasized his—

Father quickly pulled a sheet over his patient.

“But, Father his garments are soaked through—”

“He will be fine, Eugenia.”

I knew perfectly well when to choose my battles. I stepped back and turned away.

“Miss.” Sarah held out a damp envelope. “I found this.”

I squinted, then wiped the tiny rain droplets from my spectacles. I moved closer to one of the gas wall sconces to make out the faded writing, then carefully removed the damp sheets, reading as much as I could of the unsmudged text. “My word.” I turned to Father. “I believe this is from Inspector Fraser. My Inspector Fraser.”

“
Your
Inspector Fraser, is it now?” Phoebe asked pointedly, eavesdropping from the hallway. “I suppose it doesn’t matter he’s old and married does it, Genie?” She sniffed. “But then, one is known by the company one keeps. And when one consorts with whores—”

I charged forward and slammed the surgery door in her face. Closing my eyes, I struggled to tamp down my indignation. Once under control I turned to the coachman. “Harry, please go to the police station on Leman Street. Tell them we need Inspector Fraser to come at once I believe this young man be known to him.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Harry wiped his dripping hair from his face, clearly not relishing a trek to Whitechapel in the storm. “But I think by now ‘e’d be at ‘is supper.”

I looked to the clock on the mantle and then at the still unconscious young man on the examination table. “Let’s wait to see if the rain lets up then,” she said. “But I want you to bring the inspector here tonight.”

Harry nodded. “Yes miss. I’ll just ‘ave a quick bite first then go fetch the Inspector for ya.”

I turned back and stared at the young man on the table. Sarah had said he was “quality” but he wasn’t really, I realized. But not of the working class either, despite his build that hinted at physical labor. The material of his suit was of decent fabric, but not posh. His boots, as well seemed to be a bit above average. His pocket watch appeared to be well used and either he had lost his fob or had never bothered with one.

He was a mystery, I thought as I noted his unfashionably-cut dark hair. Not of the upper class, not lower, and yet not quite fitting in the middle either.

I suppose if I were possessed of Phoebe’s disposition, I might suspect the clothing was stolen. Father would no doubt suggest that it was far more probable that all of these discrepancies could be accounted for by the fact that he was an American. Mother would simply sniff and turn her back since he was obviously not one of her “gallant lads” who’d served in the British Army. Then she would suggest as she often did, that I concentrate on finding a suitable husband.

But I wasn’t like any of them. I was intrigued by the pieces that represented this human puzzle and the pieces simply didn’t fit.

And, I fully intended, when Father wasn’t watching, to try and have a much closer look at the American’s strange, small clothes.

Genie

“I imagine he’ll be coming around soon,” Father remarked after I’d changed into a dry dress and returned to the surgery. “He called for that woman again. Agatha, I believe.”

I stepped closer to the table, wondering who this Agatha was. His mother most likely. But Inspector Fraser didn’t have a sister named Agatha. My thoughts broke off at the sound of Father’s voice.

“I’m going to pop into my study for a cigar. Have Sarah come sit with the lad.”

My heart raced, but I managed a frown. “I am perfectly capable of remaining here to keep watch over him, Father.”

He appeared ready to protest but simply nodded as he usually did when he knew my mind was set, and exited the surgery, leaving the door open.

After his footsteps died away, I partially closed the door then returned to my place near the examining table. I stared down at the American’s attractive face, but my thoughts kept drifting back to those strange underclothes he’d been wearing.

Father had allowed me only limited training as a nurse and, despite Phoebe’s insinuations, I had only the vaguest idea of the male part of the “mechanisms” that governed conception. Even though this man wasn’t mature and by no means brawny, there had been a noticeable bulge in his small clothes. I lifted the sheet to look more closely. My cheeks grew hot as monstrous images of what might be causing that bulge ran through my mind, images fueled mostly by the lewd comments of the West End women. I rather suspected they were not seeing the matter scientifically but, at the moment, neither was I. The women went on about men who got hard as bricks and those than couldn’t. This one didn’t seem brick hard, but he didn’t seem to be “soft” in that way either. Would one tiny touch really be so horrid?

I dropped the sheet as if it were on fire. How could I even dare think of such a thing? Wait. There’d been something else. A scar, low on his abdomen off to the right side. It mightn’t have been a scar, though. There was a chance it was a tattoo of some sort. If it was it might lead to his identity. And that would be important if Inspector Fraser proved not to know him. I took a deep breath and plucked up the edge of the sheet again. After all, it was my duty to look.

***

Mark

The sense of smell returned first.

Medicinal. No.

Flowery. Sort of.

I felt something hard beneath me. Hard but covered in leather or vinyl.

A sofa? Maybe a table.

Doctor’s table.

The sheet covering me moved, startling me. I opened my eyes a little. Everything was a blur, but I made out a shape, a female shape. The small round glasses were vaguely familiar. Her fingers were lightly tracing the scar from that time I missed the stair Ollie and broke my skateboard deck, damn near impaling myself on the splintered board.

“Agatha?”

“Eugenia!” a man’s voice called sharply.

The girl coming into focus gasped. Her fingertips jerked away from my side.

So the girl was definitely not seventy-year-old Aunt Agatha. She was probably a nurse or med student, maybe?

“I think he’s waking, Father.” She stepped aside.

I tried to sit.

“Go slowly, young fellow,” the approaching man said as I managed to push up on one elbow.

My vision blurred again and I let doctor help me sit up all the way. “Where am I?”

“In my surgery. I’m Dr. Cornelius Trambley.” He glanced over his shoulder when another man entered the room. “Inspector.”

Inspector?

I moved my head to look at the man in the doorway. Shit. He was a cop. He had that look just like my dad. There’d been a cop in park when the storm hit. I sort of remembered knocking someone down though it wasn’t on purpose.

I was in for it now. I needed to get out of here. Fast. I tried to pull the sheet away. Strangely both men stepped closer to the table, blocking me.

The doctor addressed the nurse.

“Eugenia, you may go.”

“But, Father—”

“Go, Eugenia.”

She slammed the door shut when she left and I wished I could just evaporate away.

“Look,” I addressed the cop, “I’m sorry about the park. It was an accident. Your guy tried to help me up, but I couldn’t stand. When I fell I guess I pulled him down with me and he thought I was being an ass…My memory was fuzzy and I wasn’t even sure what had happened after that.”

The inspector’s eyebrows inched up like he was about to call bullshit and haul my sorry butt to jail, but the doctor muttered a few words to him, which seemed to smooth things over.

The doctor handed me a glass. “Some brandy will help steady you,” he said. “Drink it down, take a few deep breaths. Then try to focus on the last thing you remember.”

“Brandy? You’re sure?” I asked. I’d been hot to tackle champagne at the party, but brandy? I’d never tasted the stuff. But hey, there was a first time for everything. If I could get a buzz on to kill this headache before Agatha showed up so much the better. I knocked the drink back and it burned all the way into my stomach. I wasn’t sure if I liked brandy. But it did work amazingly fast. And yet something seemed wrong with this picture.

“Okay,” I said once the burning in my throat faded. “My head doesn’t hurt quite so bad.”

“Do you know your name?” the inspector asked, reminding me even more of my dad when he was on duty. Mom called it his “cop mode” attitude.

“Stewart. Mark Stewart.” I wiped my face with my hands, not much into being on the receiving end of an interrogation when I had no idea what I might be accused of—especially since I didn’t remember what had happened after Agatha went off. I made a grab for the ultimate kid-in-an-uncomfortable-situation Trusted Tactic #1: Change the subject. “What happened to my clothes?”

“They were soaked through and muddy.” The doctor turned and took a small bundle from atop a nearby table. “These should fit you.”

With a nod of thanks, I pulled on the button down shirt then swung my feet off the table, regretting it when my head spun. I wasn’t looking at the inspector or the doctor, but they were staring at me so I concentrated on pulling on the loose pants. I went to zip up and stopped short. They were fly front like Levis 501s, only made out of stiff cotton, or maybe wool.

“Something’s not right here!” every instinct and nerve ending in my body screamed. But I didn’t know what was wrong and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask the bearded guys in the old-fashioned get ups.

Wait. They were dressed the way I’d been. The girl was dressed similar to Agatha. They must be part of the costume party. “Where’s Agatha?”

“Agatha?” the inspector asked. “You address your mother that way?”

I laughed, regretting it instantly as pain lanced through my head. “Hardly. She’s my aunt. I traveled here to London with her. So are you guys with the convention, too?”

“Convention?”

Seeing the confused looks of the doctor and the skeptical one of the inspector, I touched my forehead and winced then leaned back against the table. “Look, I’m sure I’ll be okay in a bit. And if not, I’ll go to the emergency room. I don’t want to hold you up if you need to get back to the party.”

“Party?”

“The big Saturday night costumed gala…thing.”

“Today is Monday,” Dr. Trambley informed me.

My stomach lurched. “Monday? No…it…If these guys weren’t part of the convention, there was no good reason for them to be dressed in those old-fashioned suits. Unless they had some strange fetish.”

The doctor checked my pulse. “Memory lapse is not unusual with a head injury,” he said with a clipped professional tone that also implied it wasn’t always the case. “Do you know the date?”

“August sixth?”

“Do you remember what happened?” The inspector moved closer.

I knew I was on shaky-ass ground and decided the less said, the better.

“Agatha insisted on taking a walk—”

“In this weather? It’s not fit for man nor beast out there!” the inspector cut in.

I nodded. “I told her it looked like rain but she’s a bit eccentric. Anyway, the lightning started and…” What
had
happened then? “That’s all I remember until the cop…and then some woman…a maid?”

“And when was this?” the inspector asked.

“Saturday. I thought it was Saturday.”
Something’s not right.
“But if today’s Monday…
no, I couldn’t have been lying in the park the whole time.”

“Indeed,” the inspector replied. “And you’ve no recollection of your activities since Saturday then?”

“No.” My body trembled deep down inside. “One minute I went back to get Agatha’s shoe, and the next thing I remember is a bolt of lightning, then falling to the ground. That’s where the cop found me.”

“As I said,” the doctor cut off the inspector’s line of questioning, “Memory loss is not uncommon. It also seems as if he’s suffering some form of shock that may have been induced by proximity to the lightning. His clothes do show signs of blackening. It’s remarkable he’s alive, actually.”

The inspector seemed to accept this. Grudgingly. “Your man said something about him being a relative of mine?”

Relative?

I stared. I had a bad feeling on this and decided to go for Trusted Tactic # 2: try to sneak away. The most I could do was inch to a chair along the wall and sit down.

The doctor took a letter from the top of his desk. “He had this in his pocket. Apparently from you to your sister in America.”

They were discussing the letter I’d had as if it was a current event, even though it was over a hundred years old. Written by a man long dead! This was definitely crazy. “You’re Ian Fraser?” I blurted out, before I realized what was leaving my mouth.

The inspector turned on me, dark eyes narrowed. “How did you come by this letter?”

The shock made me woozier than the bump on my head.
It couldn’t be!
I wanted very much to disappear and I did. Sort of. I passed out.