Tenfold More Wicked (7 page)

She stepped over a coil of carbon-wrapped wire. Like a magician's den, Finch's laboratory always seemed bigger on the inside. Potions in rainbow colors bubbled over hissing gas flames. Coiled electrodes poked into beakers, soldered to silvery anodes. Hinged tubes of mercury upended themselves like pendulums, and an aetheric generator hummed and glowed, its glass globes forked with blue lightning.

“The Royal could easily find all this. You ought to be more careful.”

Ahead, Finch waved dismissively. “Pah! They investigated me already, years ago. Mr. Faraday's admirer, you know, stern young lady with big brains.”

A chill stabbed her. “You mean Lady Lovelace?”

“That's the girl. Not a countess then, of course. Merely the daughter of some gloomy aristocratic poet. Endless rude questions about some magical ointment of mine. Witchcraft, love potions, a cure for piles, whatever it was. I don't rightly recall.”

“Not the elixir?”

“Goodness, no. Far too clever for that! Something wrong with her, I should say, the way she muttered and kept
on
. But she never made anything stick. Ha-ha! Brave Marcellus, victorious! Down with the tyrants!”

Finch was already vanishing behind an array of brass scales and centrifuges, Hippocrates dashing at his heels. Charts and graphs were pinned crookedly to the walls, scribbled with formulae and alchemical symbols in Finch's copperplate handwriting, alongside an annotated periodic table and a diagram of Leonardo da Vinci's
Vitruvian Man
.

She recalled that crucified Christ, dripping with Sir
Dalziel's blood. “Do you know anything about devil worship, Marcellus?”

“Why? Planning to give it a whirl? A spell, say what, like Lady Lovelace, for the lover of your dreams?” Finch tinkered with a retort, adjusting a leaping yellow flame beneath an apparently empty flask.

“You have me, sir. All over London, witty scientific geniuses with obligingly hefty fortunes shall faint at my feet.” She shoved past a pile of evil-smelling herbs. “You know I don't believe in hocus-pocus. This murder had ritual elements, that's all.”

He turned a glass tap to trap some invisible gas in a phial, and jammed in the cork. “Behold! My new prophylactic against stupefying gas attacks. Steels the lungs, fortifies the intestines. Doubles as a hangover cure,
and
repels ants. A marvelous breakthrough!”

“Sounds fascinating . . . No, you're too kind, I oughtn't.”

He thrust the warm phial into her hands. “I insist. Grimy-fingered republicans blowing things up on every corner, disseminating frightful toxic stenches, and who knows what. We're all doomed! Just don't inhale too hard. Rots the tonsils, eh? What were you saying? Ritual, bah! Bad excuse for debauchery. Still,” he added happily, “one ought to try everything. No such thing as forbidden knowledge. True science knows no boundaries, all that.”

“Bravo.” She stuffed the phial into her bag. “It isn't as if we'll be flattened by lightning bolts from on high, after all.”

“Let's hope not.” Finch stirred a beaker of scintillating blue goo. “I do enjoy a lovely murder. Gruesome, was it?” he added hopefully.

“Particularly.”

Finch popped the cigar ash onto a dish, poured in the blue substance, and brandished a sparking electrical wire.
“En garde!”

Bang!
The ash exploded, shattering the dish in a puff of blue mist.

Eliza cleared her throat. “Well. That was unexpected.”

Finch sucked a scorched thumb. “Alchemy, as you say. Reactive to aether. An hallucinogenic intoxicant, by the spectral range. Did he smoke the whole cigar, perchance?”

“It looked like it. Something one might use in an unorthodox ritual?”

“Or a debaucherous one. Heightens the sensations, eh? Not that I'd know anything about that. Veritable stoic, that's me. Utterly sober at all times.”

“I've the victim's blood sample, too. Might you test for toxins?” She scraped dried blood from her skirt onto a glass slide. Lafayette's olfactory analysis still dangled, a tantalizing loose end.
Chinese opium, or some such.
His wolfish nose was a precision instrument. If he couldn't identify it . . . or wouldn't?

Finch dabbed a forefinger into the blood, and licked it. “I say. Drunk as a skunk, was he? Scotch, single malt, well aged?”

She laughed. “You can taste that?”

“All eminently scientific, dear girl.” Finch winked. “Fruits of hard-won experience. Your man was plastered. Sozzled. Up to his eyeballs, say what? And then he smoked enough hallucinogen to buy a week's holiday in la-la land . . .”

“Whereupon someone peeled his face off and cut out his heart.” Eliza's skin tingled, anticipation and dread in equal measure. Did someone give Dalziel this drug to incapacitate
him? Or had he taken it willingly? Black magic, indeed. What kind of insane shenanigans had Dalziel been up to?

Late afternoon had crept stealthily upon her before she finally returned to her town house in Russell Square. Her muscles ached and shivered, her throat sore. The singular flavor of Mr. Finch's pink remedy whispered across her face, lifted the hair on her arms, teased the back of her neck. She could still taste it, foreign yet sweet, like the breath of an absent lover.

No breeze disturbed her skirts. The park's iron railings glistened wet, rows of trees retreating into the gloom. The dirty London fog hadn't lifted, just turned sour and vengeful, biting at Eliza's eyes until they watered. On the corner, a pair of white-masked Enforcers surveyed the street with empty red eyes.

Shivering, she hurried by, recalling Lady Lovelace and the green boy. Was Captain Lafayette interrogating him right now? Had the Royal sniffed her and Lizzie out, just waiting for their moment to strike?

Inwardly, she fumed. Satisfying as it had been, this morning's debacle with Reeve left her in a pretty spot. She'd recently spent most of her savings on urgent repairs to her house—which she now owned, thanks to her former guardian—and was short of cash for expenses and servants' wages. Her infrequent police work paid poorly, her private practice was sadly non-existent, and as for Lafayette's murder case . . .

Of course, she'd access to funds in plenty, if she chose. Edward Hyde was generous with his ill-gotten gains. A doting father, by financial standards at least. She needed only to ask.

But the idea of accepting his charity stung her pride. She wanted to make her own living as a physician. And Mr. Hyde was an evil man. Unhinged. Murderous.

Aye,
whispered spectral Lizzie, drifting alongside the fence, just a faint shadow in the fog.
Bloodied hands is a real turnoff for you. Never would dream of consorting with no killer.

“I'm sorry, did you speak?” snapped Eliza, but tiny bubbles of hope prickled inside her. Was Lizzie
dimmed,
by that tiny drop of pink-purple remedy? Had Finch at last found a working formula?

Under her porch, the lamp shed a welcoming glow. She glanced up at her expensive, newly repaired roof, already coated in dirt from the filthy London air, and checked a sigh. The brass shingle on her doorpost—E
LIZA
J
EKYLL
M
.
D
.,
it announced politely—was grimy again, too, the windows dull. She sighed. More work for Molly. In this fog, scrubbing the steps was an endless job. Those Incorruptibles deserved punishment for that alone.

She let herself in, to the delicious smells of hot supper. The polished hall furniture glimmered in soft electric light. She set her things on the hall stand—W
HO
I
S
H
ARLEQUIN?
D
ESPICABLE
F
RENCH
S
PYMASTER
E
LUDES
C
APTURE
A
GAIN
read the headline on her evening edition—and Hippocrates bounced from her bag and boinged into his corner. “Welcome home! Welcome!”

“Thank you, Hipp.” He'd calmed, mercifully, but she could still hear the click and whir of overstressed cogs. An overhaul, Mr. Brigham had said. Perhaps he was right.

“You're home early, Doctor.” Her housekeeper swept in,
stocky as a bulldog, her white bonnet tucked over steel-gray hair. “There's blood on your skirt. Have a pleasant day?”

“No, Mrs. Poole, it was positively disheartening.” Eliza tugged off her gloves, frowning at the blood-smeared leather. “Oh, dear. These are ruined, I think. Perhaps Molly can have them cleaned.”

“Your boots are filthy, too. Where have you been, mudlarking?” Mrs. Poole dusted the already spotless hall stand. “That Chief Inspector's case take a bad turn?”

“Worse,” admitted Eliza. “A
dull
turn. The man's making fun of me. And please don't say ‘I told you so.'”

“Never did like that Mr. Reeve. Ugly manners, stinks of cigars.” A sly wink. “Your handsome army captain, now, there's a proper gentleman. Shall we be seeing him again?”

“Who?” Eliza widened her eyes.

“For certain, clever rich fellows pop into your consulting room and propose all the time. Hardly surprising he should slip your mind.”

“Oh, you mean that insufferable Royal Society agent?” Eliza waved carelessly. “Decidedly an
improper
gentleman, and certainly doesn't belong to me.”

“He could do. Taking your sweet time, aren't you?” Mrs. Poole bustled around, assaulting invisible dust. “Dashing officer with prospects and a fortune, pleasing to look at, knows words of more than one syllable. Even you ought to be satisfied with that. He won't wait forever.”

“What a shame. Perhaps
you
should marry him.”

“I might, if you dilly-dally much longer.” Mrs. Poole dusted Hipp's head, eliciting an indignant squeak. “Oh, your new
lodger arrived. Miss Burton. Pleasant girl, three shillings a week. I believe she'll do nicely.”

Eliza's heart sank. Renting out the spare third-floor rooms was better than selling furniture or pawning her mother's jewels. But it still smacked of professional failure. And what if this Miss Burton noticed Lizzie's comings and goings? What if Lizzie . . . interfered?

She forced a smile. She needed to pay Mrs. Poole and Molly. Decision made. “Excellent. Whatever should I do without you?”

“Replace me with one of those brass monstrosities? Why, just the other day, the Bistlethwaites at number twenty-five bought a clockwork butler. Let poor Mr. Simkins go after thirty-four years. He'll never find another situation at his age.”

“Poor fellow. It's awful that people are losing their jobs. Still, the technology is marvelous. One must admire progress.”

A doubtful sniff. “Will you be dining early, Doctor?”

“No, thank you. I've work to do.”

“Just as well. A patient's waiting in your consulting room.”

Eliza gaped, stunned. “Why didn't you say something?”

“I just did.” Mrs. Poole dusted on, as if the news were of no import. “Weren't you expecting anyone?”

“You know perfectly well I was not.” She'd not had a patient in weeks. Not since the Chopper case, when her name had yet again made the newspapers connected with murderers and escaped lunatics. Once was tantalizing, worthy of gossip. Twice was merely bad manners. She'd devolved from dashing heroine into wicked lady of loose morals and rampant laudanum addiction, probably a poisoner and a suffragette to
boot. One particularly garish publication had labeled her “Madam Murder.”

Hastily, Eliza dusted her muddy skirts and shoved loose hair into its pins. “What's her name? Has she been waiting long? Oh, never mind. How do I look? Shall I impress?”

A cursory glance. “I suppose you'll do.”

“A fountain of confidence, as ever.” Nervously, Eliza grinned. “Wish me luck.”

“Wouldn't waste it on you.”

She gulped a steadying breath and opened the door.

Her consulting room was blessedly tidy. Writing desk by the window, medical books lined neatly on tall shelves. On the big rosewood table sat a vase of fresh-scented freesias. Tiny arc-lamps glowed in sconces, and a small coal fire burned. By the low sofa, a velvet-shaded lamp cast her patient into shadow.

Eliza cleared her throat. “Sorry to keep you waiting, madam . . .” Her guts heated. “Oh. I'm so terribly sorry. I was expecting . . .”

“No matter.” The gentleman—fancy that!—jumped up, bowler hat in hand. A youthful fellow, blond with an upturned nose. He bowed, eyes—green or hazel?—twinkling. “Moriarty Quick, at your service or for your entertainment, whichever lasts the longer.”

Despite her embarrassment, the Dubliner's lilt on that odd greeting charmed her. “Delighted, sir. Dr. Eliza Jekyll.”

“I know who y'are. This is your office.” An impish smile that matched his surname. Expensive bottle-green coat, black satin necktie in an elaborate knot. Not impecunious. Vain, she guessed; he had the kind of rakish aspect that had been
fashionable twenty or thirty years ago, but was now considered disreputable.

“Please, sit.” She took her own desk chair, confused. Dozens of physicians worked in the West End alone. Had she come recommended? “Forgive my presumption. It's only . . . a female physician tends to attract . . .”

“Only the finest clientele, I'm sure. Yours is the clever sex, and mine the humble. I submit eagerly to your expertise.”

He muffled a dry cough, reminding Eliza of her own parched throat, where that new pink remedy's sweetfire flavor lingered. “Water, sir? Or tea?”

“I could murder a whiskey.” Another cheeky smile. “But we've barely met. Water would be grand.”

She poured two glasses, and sipped. Pink iridescence swirled from her lips, coating the water's surface like oil. “What can I do for you, Mr. Quick?”

“It's more a question of what
I
can do for
you
.” He hooked the brass frames of green-tinted spectacles over his ears. They made him look faintly demented. “I'm something of a professional meself. With a certain specialty, if you take my meaning.”