The Connicle Curse (23 page)

T
he message, delivered mid-morning by Mrs. Connicle's young, awkward part-time maid, Letty Hollings, was unexpected and distressing. It felt ever more so given that the dawn had revealed itself to be another of brooding, steely clouds that had yawed wide to let loose a torrent of rain before we'd even had our breakfast. By the time Miss Hollings arrived, Colin had already stripped and cleaned two guns, re-buffed the blade on the small knife he'd been fretting over since the start of this case, flung his weights about, and finally retreated to the bathroom to ice his still tender left thigh. I, however, was hard-pressed to think of any reason to pull myself from the newspaper or the blazing fire he had built.

So I was alone in the study when Mrs. Behmoth, after ascertaining my availability by hollering up at me, sent Letty upstairs. I tossed the newspaper aside and went to the landing, intent on scowling at Mrs. Behmoth, until I caught sight of the young woman. Her face was pale and worn, and even from the top of the stairs I could see that her eyes were swollen and rimmed in red.

I kept quiet as I ushered her to the fireplace to warm up, wanting her to settle in while I rousted Colin, but she was far too agitated. Instead, in a single barrage, she told me that Randolph was downstairs waiting for her and that Miss Porter had only given her leave to be gone long enough to inform us of what had occurred. And then she had burst into tears.

“They've taken me mistress ta Needham 'Ills and moved 'er in,” she said through a bray of sobs and sniffling. “They're closin' down the 'ouse and lettin' the staff go.”

“What? Who took her there?”

“ 'Er doctor. 'E sent a man round with a note ta tell us.”

“A note?”

“Ya.” She swiped at her nose with her sleeve. “It were from that man what works for Mr. Connicle. 'E says they 'ave ta shut the 'ouse and sell it.” She covered her face with her hands and wept, her whole body shaking.

I moved to her to offer what comfort I could, but she stepped away from me and I knew she was uncomfortable being alone with me. No matter that I was desperate to get more information, I knew none would be forthcoming. Not only had she become quite inconsolable, but also no one in the household would have taken her into their confidence. So with little other recourse I walked her back downstairs and delivered her to Randolph's care. I noticed the dazed expression coloring his face and knew what Colin was going to say about all of this. Which was why, not twenty minutes after they left, Colin and I were on our way to see Mrs. Connicle at Needham Hills.

The place sits like a long-forgotten dowager in Waltham Forest on the northeast side of the city between Leyton and Walthamstow. It was once the Wentworth estate, the noble home of the preeminent carriage-manufacturing family of two centuries before. Which is why it had a carriage house larger than most London homes, capable of housing more than three dozen coaches with room to spare. The stables were equally enormous, providing shelter for enough horses to convey nearly all of those carriages simultaneously. Yet all of it was overshadowed by the main home, a fortress-like façade of dark native stone that seemed to be reaching toward the sky at its two front corner turrets. The bevy of arched windows were all crenellated as if to keep invaders out, and the whole of the structure rose a height of four stories and covered a width of some five times greater than that. One would not be faulted for thinking it could hold a small village. Indeed, the early Wentworth families had been quite large, with staffs well in excess of a hundred. However, the modern age had been unkind to both the Wentworth business and family.

First an issue had developed with the axle assembly on several of their finest coaches almost fifty years ago. There had been rumors of sabotage, but nothing had borne out of it other than the mortal blow to their reputation. The eldest brother had committed suicide, leaving only a sister and sickly brother behind. The brother succumbed to his disease within that same year, leaving the sister to try to repair the damage done. She shuttered the business five years later, in 1853.

The sister never married but stayed within the confines of the house, if a home that size can be said to have confines, until her death eighteen years later. As she had left no heirs, the estate transferred to the county, where, due to the crenellations fronting the windows of the main house, it was determined to be an ideal place to house those of unsound mind.

I could not stop the shiver that slithered down my spine as we turned down the macadam path that led to Needham Hills. True to its name, there were small knolls that rolled off on both sides of the heavily wooded road. The main structure, the original house, could be seen peeking through the trees as we drew closer until, as though an invisible hand had been placed against the brooding woods, the trees abruptly fell back to reveal the cold, stone building looming under the steely gray sky.

I had not been back to this place in fourteen years. Not since I had shaken the clutch of opium. Rail-thin, hallucinatory, terrified, and running out of options, I had allowed my unexpected benefactor to convince me to sign my care over to him. He was a beautiful man who looked at me with wounded eyes the color of azure, and I wondered why he cared. I could not remember him paying me any heed during our mutual years at the Easling and Temple Senior Academy, and yet there he had suddenly been, affecting my heart and mind, and making me consider that there might be worth to me after all. So I had placed my shattered life in his hands. And he had brought me here.

As the carriage drew closer Colin's hand settled over mine as if he had read my thoughts, and I rather suppose he did. He twined his fingers with mine and squeezed, but neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say.

I had remained at Needham Hills for three months, enduring tortures designed to rid me of the weaknesses that had purportedly drawn me to opium. I had been confined naked in a small, makeshift room of the former stable for the first two weeks and pelted with buckets of icy water at all hours until I fully lost track of time and feared for the last threads of my sanity. Any infraction on my part was rewarded by a bucketful of frigid water: if I did not rise when a keeper entered, if I did not eat the sparse food brought me, if I dared refuse any question fired through the slot in the door. There was no bed or bedding of any sort, no furniture, and no visitors. I had nothing but my own rage and hatred.

One afternoon, when I was sure I had been abandoned by anything that was good, they threw a pair of muslin pants and a shirt at me. I had slowly dressed, the movements feeling stiff and unfamiliar, and they had taken me to the main building. How I had scowled at the afternoon sun that felt so harsh and foreign to my eyes.

I'd been delivered to a tiny room with two chairs and a table in what had once been the servants' quarters and told to wait without moving. And that is exactly what I had done, having become the well-trained creature they had made me. Several minutes later Colin had been shown in. I still remember the sight of him as clearly as if it had been an hour ago. He wore a navy-blue suit with a pale blue shirt beneath, his gold watch fob glittering from a pocket in his checked vest. His tawny hair had been combed yet still somehow managed to look tousled, and when his eyes met mine I found the same notch of pain that I had seen there before, and in that instant I had burst out in sobs. He reached me so quickly that I jumped at his touch, but even so, he pulled me to him while I wept like a madman. We stayed that way until the attendant knocked at the door again.

Colin bade me be brave as he left that tiny room, the grief in his eyes as tactile as the solidity of his arms. So I stayed.

They took me to a room in the main house after that. It was sparsely furnished with a cot, a chair, and a small, round table tucked up by the partially covered window, obstructed by its crenellation. I remained in the muslin uniform that had been provided me, and while I cannot say that the subsequent ten weeks were easier, at least the water dousing ceased. I was properly fed thereafter, but the best thing of all was that I was given pen and paper.

I spent countless hours at that tiny table pouring out my heartbreak, torment, and fear. Colin was allowed to visit me weekly, then every other day for the last two weeks. And he never failed to come. We talked as long as they allowed us to, and when I was alone I purged my demons onto that paper. Colin wanted to read it, but in the end I couldn't let him. I burned it instead.

“You all right?” Colin asked as the coach pulled alongside the stern, imposing façade of the main building.

I gave him a thin smile. “It's not me you need to worry about, but Mrs. Connicle.”

“Yes,” he answered vaguely as he hopped out of the carriage.

We located the medical superintendent's office only to find that he was out. His secretary was on the verge of refusing us entry when Colin threatened to bring the whole of Scotland Yard into her office within the hour if we were not granted an immediate interview with Mrs. Connicle. The poor woman in her late middle years went ghostly white, but she acquiesced. She had an attendant escort us to the fourth floor, where a series of small rooms were lined up like tiny soldiers, one after the other. He slid open the slot on a door about three-quarters of the way down the second hallway and announced us.

“I will be back in fifteen minutes,” he warned as he unbolted the door and heaved it open.

Colin waved him off without the slightest care as we stepped in, the door closing and locking behind us. The room was small, though larger than the one I had been held in. There were two chairs, a table, and a half dresser, and the bed was an actual bed, not a cot. Two small arched windows looked out onto the front drive, allowing a modicum of light, but that was impeded by the severely gabled roofline that angled harshly down from about the halfway point to the tops of the windows.

“Mr. Pendragon.” Mrs. Connicle's voice was thick and leaden, and she did not rise from the edge of the bed where she was sitting. “Mr. Pruitt. How shameful that you should see me like this. I fear you are viewing the very end of me.” She spoke not with malice or sorrow, but with a resignation that seemed wholly embraced. I could tell she was under the thrall of some drug. Her hair was down and had been cut exceedingly short, barely reaching the bottom of her ears, and she was dressed in the white muslin clothing that was still obviously the uniform of the facility. I don't think I will ever forget the rough feel of it on my skin.

“Mrs. Connicle,” Colin said softly as we both sat in the chairs by the little table. “You must tell us how you've come to be here.”

“It is the death of my husband that sees me confined to this place,” she answered wistfully. “I have lost him twice and I could bear neither.”

“But I should think you'd be best served in your home,” Colin pressed gently. “Surrounded by those who care for you. How is it that you are
here?
”

She turned her gaze to him, and though her eyes were swollen and red, she did not cry. “I am ordered here on my husband's behalf,” she said. “I am under the care of Dr. Renholme and Mr. Tolliver now.” She sagged as her eyes dropped to the floor.

“Mr. Tolliver?!” Colin repeated with astonishment. “Noah Tolliver?”

“Yes,” she exhaled. “He and the doctor will see to me now.”

Colin's scowl said what he did not need to. With Noah Tolliver incapable of such a thing, who had given the order to confine this shattered woman to this horrid place, and why had it been done?

“Y
ou
will
calm down, Mr. Pendragon, or I will
not
continue this conversation.” Wynn Tessler glowered, his eyes rife with warning as his lips pinched themselves into fine, thin lines.

“Forgive my agitation, Mr. Tessler, but you can imagine my shock at learning that
you
are the person who has sentenced Mrs. Connicle to live in that godforsaken place.”

“It is a place of comfort and health,” he protested.

“Only if you are a bedbug,” Colin shot back as he pushed himself out of his chair and began pacing the length of Mr. Tessler's office.

“If I may . . .” I spoke with all the serenity I could muster, eager to diffuse the conversation before Mr. Tessler could decide to eject us from his office. “There is no denying that Mrs. Connicle is a brittle and sensitive woman, but in a time of distress such as this, don't you think she might not be better served at home with the people who have tended to her for so long?”

“Those people”—Mr. Tessler stared at me as though I had lost my mind—“are servants. They know nothing of caring for a woman who has succumbed to hysteria. And may I remind you that one of them is already under suspicion for complicity in this whole affair. I consulted with her doctor and did what needed to be done. Edmond would thank me for it.”

“She has suffered the loss of her husband twice,” I reminded. “To see her initial hopes dashed with such cruel certainty—does she not deserve our deepest sympathy and understanding?”

“Of course she has my sympathy,” he punched back defensively. “But she is not served by such sentiments, is she? Pity will not see to her care and well-being, will it?”

“So you drop her into the midst of the feebleminded and insane ?” Colin growled, and I felt my heart sink at his description of the place I once had to stay. “Is there any wonder she struggles for a will to survive?”

“Need I remind you that Edmond sent his wife there
himself
some years back. Surely you do not mean to chastise him?”

“Oh, but I would if he were here,” Colin said as he came around behind me. “Which begs the question, Mr. Tessler, under whose authority did you have Mrs. Connicle remanded there?”

“My own,” he answered, his posture stiffening and his face clouding with offense. “Because of Mr. Tolliver's current incapacitation I am the estate's temporary executor.”

“
Current
incapacitation?!” Colin thundered over my left shoulder. “The man's incapacitation is clearly catastrophic and permanent.”

Mr. Tessler went still. “Do you mean to suggest that you are a prescient medical professional as well as an investigator? Because I have not been told such a thing about Mr. Tolliver from anyone.”

“Have you
seen
him, Mr. Tessler? Have you tried to
speak
with him?”

Wynn Tessler stared back at Colin with obvious confusion, and for a moment I thought perhaps he had not caught the scorn in Colin's question. But a minute later he gave a terse chuckle and stood up, taking his time to tug at the sleeves of his crisp white shirt and adjust the emerald-cut diamond cuff links pinching them together. Only after he had completed that bit of smartening did he finally cast his gaze at Colin with the well-worn patience of a shrewd negotiator. “Gentlemen,” he said with ease. “I hope I have accorded you every assistance required. I have certainly done my utmost to try. But you must forgive me in my refusal to engage in your invectives. I am headed to Zurich on business in two days and there is much I must do to prepare. If there is anything further I can do . . .” He crossed behind us to the door and cast it open with a flourish. “Well, you have only to ask.”

Colin was out the door in an instant, leaving me to rally myself back to my feet and offer the necessary pleasantries before I could make my own escape.

That Colin was livid was unquestionable, so I was not surprised to find him on the street cursing every carriage that passed by as though it were a personal affront. Before he could throw himself bodily in front of the next one with the intent of ejecting some poor sod from his cab, I caught the eye of an approaching driver by discreetly waving a pair of crowns. The man deposited his current fare at our feet with a hurried excuse and we were on our way in a heartbeat.

I stayed quiet for a time, knowing Colin was best left to his brooding, but as we drew nearer to our flat in Kensington I could keep my peace no longer. “I hardly know what to think of Mr. Tessler—”

“The man is a bollocky, buggery bastard,” Colin said, his face taut with fury. “Mrs. Connicle may warrant some treatment, but to commit her as he has done?! To discard her future as though it were piffle?! He is lower than a snake's balls.” Colin turned his gaze back outside as we rounded the corner from Queen's Gate onto Gloucester.

I considered correcting his reptile physiology before deciding instead to mutter, “He
has
been helpful. . . .”

“As it suits him,” Colin grunted as he sat forward and stared toward our flat. “And now Varcoe has come for yet another ruddy visit.” I turned and caught sight of Varcoe's coach parked at our curb, one of his blue-suited bobbies milling about with evident boredom. “Perhaps I'll have Varcoe look into that accident of Mr. Tolliver's!” he groused as our cab pulled to the side of the road. “I'm beginning to find that whole affair unsettling.” And before the driver could bring us to a full stop, Colin hopped out and strode to our door with such swiftness that the bobby only managed to come to attention after Colin had snapped past him.

“I suppose you'll be wantin' tea?” Mrs. Behmoth asked when I finally stepped inside after settling with the driver.

Heated words were already drifting down from overhead, and while I could not tell what was being said, there was no doubt of their disgruntled nature. “Yes,” I said as I headed upstairs. “I'd say we will need a distraction.”

By the time I reached the landing I knew I was right. Colin had planted himself in front of the fireplace and was swinging the poker around as though it were an extension of his arm. “I am
not
going over this again,” he was raging as he turned and stabbed at a burning log, which I suspected was a surrogate for the inspector himself.

“You
will
go over it again!” Varcoe howled from his position behind the settee, legs spread and hands on his hips as though he were about to draw his gun. “And you will go over it as many times as I
want
you to.”

Sergeant Evans was hovering just inside the room by the coatrack, his well-lined, round face peering at me with discomfort. He respected Colin with some consistency, unlike Varcoe, whose affections were as transient as a young girl's. “What are you two on about?” I asked with an overzealous smile.

Varcoe turned on me, launching a feral leer that warned me I was more at the center of this dispute than I knew. “Let's ask Pruitt again since he was there.”

“I was where?” I asked with the innocence of ignorance.

“In a deserted alley in the East End with a known felon.” A disingenuous grin bloomed across Varcoe's face. “A dead felon,” he added.

“You should be thanking us,” Colin put in gruffly. “Not grilling us.”

“Don't get cheeky with me, Pendragon!” Varcoe snarled. “We're supposed to be partners on this case and all you've done is shuffle around me like the whole of Scotland Yard is at your disposal.”

Colin gritted his teeth and sucked in a slow breath as he turned and hung the fireplace poker back in its place. “You're right,” he abruptly conceded as Mrs. Behmoth's thudding footfalls could be heard coming up the stairs. “I have been exclusionary and foolish.” He threw himself into his chair with a feigned look of contrition that appeared to placate Varcoe at once.

Mrs. Behmoth set the tray of tea paraphernalia down with a sneer and I knew she wasn't fooled, either.

“Sit down, Inspector,” Colin said. “Sergeant . . . We've some tea and Mrs. Behmoth's fine ginger biscuits.” Colin gave her a smile that earned him a roll of her eyes as she headed back out. “I will catch you up on our endeavors and perhaps you will do the same for us. I leave that to you.” He snatched the teapot and poured us all some tea as Varcoe settled onto the settee, followed by Sergeant Evans wearing an expression of barely concealed amusement. “So that sorry bloke turned out to be a felon?” Colin mused as he handed out our cups.

Varcoe snorted. “He had a litany of arrests going back almost twenty years. Some of them here, most of them in Budapest, Prague, and Munich. Not your stellar citizen. We can't even find a next of kin to notify of his death. Doesn't seem like anybody gives a ruddy shite.”

“Pity . . .” Colin threw in without much effort, though I could see he was paying close attention. “What was his name?”

“Name?” Varcoe looked over at Evans.

The sergeant checked his notes. “Eckhard Heillert,” he answered. “Prussian. Accused of his first murder at seventeen.”

Colin slid a glance to me and I knew I was meant to remember that name. “How is it that our dear city draws such types?”

“Never mind that.” Varcoe set his cup down and grabbed several biscuits. “What have you been up to? What brought a rogue like that into your line a sight?”

“It came to our attention that he'd been throwing money about,” Colin offered lightly. “Living in East End squalor but flashing the sterling of someone who's gotten himself into some fine game, say murder for hire, for instance.” He gave a dismissive shrug. “I thought it worth a look,” he went on. “But all Ethan saw was the result of a deal gone sour.”

“I suppose that's something Pruitt knows a bit about.” Varcoe snickered. Colin's eyes narrowed, but it, as with so much else, was lost on the inspector. “Never mind all of that.” He waved a hand through the air. “I want to know what you're up to on the Connicle case.”

“Then you'd best mind your tongue where Ethan is concerned.” Colin flashed a tight smile as he dug a crown out of his pocket and began coaxing it between his fingers.

Varcoe's eyes went hard as his face bloomed rose.

“Do you have any leads on who killed Mr. Heillert?” I asked, intent on returning the conversation to firmer footing.

“Nobody sees anything down there,” Varcoe grumbled. “Like we were the bloody enemy. The problem is that nothing down there draws the least bit of attention. A man could rampage down the street with a bloody knife in his hand and no one would raise an eye. The Ripper has about proven that himself.”

“Nevertheless”—Colin mustered a generous smile—“it would seem you put him out of business in spite of yourself. You must be pleased with that.”

Varcoe pursed his lips and threw an ill-tempered glare at Colin. “How about we stick to Edmond Connicle.”

“We have been searching for some correlation between the Connicles and Huttons beyond the proximity of their homes. We know that Edmond Connicle was a founding partner in—”

“Columbia Financial,” Varcoe interrupted crossly. “And the Huttons were clients there too. Tell me you can do better than that.”

“The man who was to have been the executor of the Connicle estate, Noah Tolliver, suffered a catastrophic riding accident several months back and has been rendered incapable both mentally and physically. As a result it appears control of their estate has reverted to Mr. Connicle's partner, Wynn Tessler.”

“So what?”

“Mr. Tessler already controls the Hutton estate,” Colin pointed out. “That would be the strongest correlation I have yet.”

Varcoe's eyes went wide even as his brows caved in. “That's it?!” He looked at Sergeant Evans and gave a snort as he got to his feet. “Well, thank bleeding hell I ain't paying you.” He sauntered over to the fireplace before turning back to us, smiling as though he were landed gentry surveying his domain. “The Yard, on the other hand, has learned a great deal,” he practically crowed. “We have found not one, but two other African groups who practice that voodoo twaddle here in the city, and one of them knows the Connicles' scullery maid by name.”

“Alexa?” Colin said with obvious disinterest. “I should think it a small population. It would surprise me if they didn't all know of one another.”

The smile dropped from Varcoe's face as he stabbed his fists onto his hips again. “Well, would it surprise you to learn that one of them accused her of malfeasance?”

One of Colin's eyebrows arced up. “It would surprise me if any of them knew what that word meant,” he replied.

“She is despised in her own community!” Varcoe thundered back. “She is said to be haughty and feral.”

“Feral, is it?” Colin repeated. “Did she bite someone?”

Sergeant Evans snorted into his tea, earning a momentary glare from Varcoe. “The poison they found in the stomachs of the Aston dogs was cyanide,” he said as he circled around behind Colin's chair. “Something any scullery maid can get her hands on without even leaving the house. And Miss Hollings told us Alexa was afraid of the missing Hutton boy. Like his condition was some balmy sign of evil mumbo jumbo.” He leaned over Colin. “We've also found something else you're going to be interested in, Pendragon.” He chuckled as he ambled back over to the fireplace, a grin tickling the corners of his mouth. “My men discovered a crude ladder half-buried in the brush not far from the Huttons' house. It's crafted from wood rails exactly like those Alexa's husband was using to fix the Connicles' fence. We believe the ladder was used to spirit William Hutton from his room. And can you guess what was stuck to one of the corners of that ladder?”