The Humbug Murders (25 page)

Yet . . . if Adelaide was the murderer, why had Fezziwig's spirit shown her such kindness?

Not wanting to “give away my hand,” as a gambler might say, I shrugged and told her, “I was wondering if you had seen Shen anywhere,” I said. “Or any of his entourage?”

She shook her head absently. “Why?”

“Later,” I promised, unable to add even a trace of false pleasantness to my tone.

Dickens returned, Crabapple laboring to catch up to the long-legged writer, and, acting a bit more sauced than he actually was, giddily informed us of everything he had told the constable so that our stories would line up. He had played down our ongoing investigation into Humbug and instead focused on what he had learned about Miss Annie Piper, the woman who still might alibi Mr. Guilfoyle. He'd also spoken of Humbug's overall physique, so far as we might gauge it.

“You were seen speaking to Rutledge,” Crabapple said, pressing his angry face close to mine. “First, you have a chat with Sunderland and he dies. Now the same with Rutledge. What did the two of you discuss, eh?”

“He was afraid,” I said, which was true enough. But then my words and the truth parted ways. “He spoke of a man he had run afoul of. A criminal he believed to be a worse threat than the Colley Brothers and the illicit importers of opium into our ports combined. Someone he felt was pulling Humbug's strings, so to speak. But it had to have been nonsense, surely?”

Crabapple's hand gripped my arm. “Are you an imbecile? He says he's in fear for his life and then he's murdered? I think there just
might
be a connection. Did he name this man?”

“Yes, yes, he did,” I said, shaking my head. “He said the man goes by the name of Smithson.”

“There in the Quarter,” Crabapple said. “The same man Miss Annie has taken up with. Makes sense. Only—no one has ever laid eyes on this Smithson. No one willing to talk to
me
, that is.”

“He said that Smithson has another identity completely, that he is a respected man of business. But it could not be. It could not.”

“The name!” he demanded.

“It is a man I once knew very well, or so I believed. Jacob Marley. And if you ask me, time is of the essence. Word is sure to reach him quickly, and that will give him time to hide his books, dispose of illegal goods and other evidence. . . .”

“It may take most of the night to get this arranged, but I know a few decent men I can trust for another raid,” he said, looking away from Inspector Foote, who was still toadying up to Lord Dyer. “And I don't want
him
knowing about this.” Ambition and greed danced merrily in the constable's eyes. A fine and gratifying sight.

“A wise move,” I said. “Inspector.”

He was about to correct me when my intent sunk into his thoughts and he grinned. Getting to the bottom of all this and dismantling a criminal empire would go a long way towards ensuring his rise to power.

Just then, an icy breath whispered in my ear.
Your turn comes soon, Ebenezer. Then you
.

Leaping to my feet, I cast my frantic gaze about for Fezziwig's specter, but I saw nothing in this lovely ballroom other than the grim sight of two men hauling away Rutledge's corpse, a white sheet tainted with crimson tightly wrapped about the body.

I RETURNED TO
Furnival's Inn with no other plan than to fall into a dreamless slumber. With the strokes of two after midnight tolling from the clock tower near the inn, I ascended the staircase to my rooms. My footsteps dropped a concrete thud against the wooden steps, my joints groaned despite my youth, and my eyelids were half-closed under the weight of the night.

I yawned as I fumbled for my keys with numb fingers.

Then my heart stopped.

The doormat had been disturbed, and scratches had been etched in the paint around the keyhole as if someone had used a butter knife to force the lock open. Black and smudged fingerprints were smeared on the brass knob. The door was ajar, a faint glow from perhaps a single coal in the hearth, and a faint and deathly whistling.

Fezziwig? Absurd. Then a thought struck, winding me—could it be
Humbug
? No, more likely one of Colley's goons waited for me inside, with a clear order to bring back my eyeballs for Baldworthy. Summoning the last of my resolve, I gripped my cane, heaving it over my head, and kicked in the door.

“Ah, crikey, Mr. Scrooge sir!” cried a small lad in a thick green scarf warming his hands by my fire, a top hat falling off his head as he jumped. “Scared me 'alf out me wits, you did! Would 'ave fought a fine gentleman like you would fink to knock before bursting in!”

Dodger.

Relief washed over me, but the exhaustion in my body experienced it as a wave of hot ache rather than the pleasurable release of a fear that had, only seconds ago, been of a mortal nature. I leaned my cane against the wall, put my hat on the hat rack, and slumped into the armchair by the fire, right beside the one occupied by Dodger. Wearily and with heavy arms, I untied my boots and struggled to pull the wet leather off my feet. I chucked the boots to the side and sat back, feeling every vertebra in my back as I rested against the upholstery.

“Phwoar, sir! What a whiff!” laughed Dodger, pointing at the steam rising from my wet, darned socks as my feet were warmed by the fire. “Been out dancing till the wee hours? Good fing I lit the fire for you, warm this place right up, eh?” Yes, he had lit my fire. With
four
lumps of coal, no less!

The boy unwound his lengthy scarf and placed it absentmindedly on the side table. Without its bulk hiding his frail neck, I could see just how thin the young boy was.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “How did you get in?” The boy was about to speak, and I raised a hand to stop him, thinking better of it. Stealing and picking locks were second nature to him, surely. I pressed my eyes closed, rubbed my temples, and observed the yellow stars bursting against a deep-red canvas on the inside of my eyelids.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I've got 'ere, upon my person, for you, sir, a treasure of great importance.” His chest was puffed out, and with one hand he restored his worn top hat while the other retrieved a small velvet box, identical to the one housing Shen's ring in his desk. I knew precisely what was coming, though I tensed, remembering the horror that had unexpectedly resided along with Shen's ring.

“You, sir, are a gentleman of exquisite sensitivities and impeccable taste, the very characteristics we seek in our clientele. On account of bein' a high-class service, you see.” Dodger drew his breath, then opened the lid with a slow, suspenseful movement. He held the ring aloft as if it were the Holy Grail, his wide eyes staring at me as if expecting a gasp or swoon, and his bottom lip sticking out when none came.

Relaxing—no severed finger this time, just a ring—I took it from him, turning it over, examining it. As I expected, it was a heavy-set gold and ruby ring in the very same style that Fezziwig, Thomas Guilfoyle, Shen, and who knows how many more had worn.

“If it ain't too much trouble, Mr. Scrooge, sir,” said the young lad, assuming his exaggerated air of business acumen and credibility, “if it ain't too much to ask, you are to attend at the Doll House tomorrow at the request of the patron of this ring, and if it
is
too much trouble, I am to take the ring back and leave you with nothing but a solemn warnin'.”

I smiled. Dodger was a keen businessman indeed, if his short stature and hairless chin could allow him to be classified as a man at all. With a little mentoring, he could easily fine-tune that rough commercial acuity and find a path in business, but such a commitment was not one for me to make.

I opened my hands solicitously. “And this, I presume, is regarding the engagement with Annie Piper that Fagin was commissioned to arrange?”

Dodger said nothing but grinned and held out his grubby hand.

I stared at it, unease forming like a lump of coal in my gut. “Well?”

“A tuppence, sir? As per our business arrangement?”

“So you have indeed secured an audience for me with Annie Piper?” I asked, studying the boy in the giant top hat.

“Indeed I 'ave, sir. Though officially-like, my function tonight is messenger only, a little under my station perhaps, but I takes what I can get!”

I fished a coin out of my leather purse, feeling its smooth, cold surface between finger and thumb, as I would with my Belle's locket. Parting with any amount of hard-earned, well-deserved money was no less agonizing than her departure had been. I flipped the coin to him, and he caught it handily, securing it in his ratty coat.

His expression changed suddenly, his eyes darkened, and he lowered his voice. “And I gets what I takes.”

With that, Dodger pulled a thick envelope from inside the lining of his blue velvet coat and slid it across the side table between us, knocking his scarf to the floor in the process.

“I understands you're a man of business, just like meself,” he said, his eyes set on mine like burning coals. I nodded. “Business is good in the Quarter, truly sir, but I wouldn't mind makin' a better future for meself, not that I need much. So I've got a business proposition for you . . .”

The tiredness was melting away fast. I sat up and leaned forward. Dodger took a deep breath and carefully opened the envelope. From within it he pulled a packet wrapped in tissue, a bundle of thin cards, with what appeared to be very detailed illustrations.

“It's magic, sir,” he whispered. “Black magic. We could use it for good, you and me.”

I frowned, taking the package from him. They were certainly illustrations, but clearer than anything I had ever seen, extremely realistic. Illustrations of women, doing . . .

My heart sank.

“See how lifelike, sir?” Dodger jabbed at one of the cards with a dirty finger. “See there? Like it's real.
Photography
, they call it. I knows it ain't magic really. I've seen the scientist they use. Ain't many people who know nothing about it yet, but this is what it's used for. Gentleman's Relish.”

I flicked through the appalling cards, each depicting one woman or more, drugged or bound and to all appearances barely aware of what was being done to them. My stomach tightened and my head swam, and then I gasped. One of the cards featured Nellie—no, one of the Nellie “dolls”—performing a degrading, explicit act in what appeared to be the drawing room of an upper-class home. Views of the sprawling countryside reached out through a nearby window. Her hands were bound behind her back. I shoved it quickly to the rear of the stack but was surprised to see an identical one underneath, and under the next.

“They're prints, they can do as many as they like of each image, hundreds if they wants. And there are a few select customers what buys them—guess what they pay for one of these prints . . .”

I shook my head. No price could be put on such atrocity.

“Forty pounds.
Each
!” Dodger took the photographs from me and carefully bundled them together, wrapping them back in the tissue and sliding them carefully into their envelope.

I gasped. Forty pounds was well over six months of my business takings, and it became crystal clear that the true “treasure” Dodger had brought was not the gold ring. This packet alone was worth the rail investment I was seeking.

“What is your proposition, boy?” I asked.

“They're right idiots, I fink. Not them poor women, but the men that run this operation. On account of them using this science for Gentlemen's Relish alone, you see. They keeps it right under wraps, very exclusive indeed, mind you. Keeps it special, and they can charge a king's ransom for each and every print. But I say, if proper businessmen like me and you was in charge, we'd see that every household in England could have real portraits done like this. Instead of paintin's. I bet anyone would pay something for a photograph of themselves.”

The potential flooded my imagination. Parents and children, soldiers leaving for battle, distant sweethearts, architecture, crime scenes . . .

“I should say you were right, Dodger. It's remarkable technology. I've seen nothing like it.”

The boy beamed. “Well, what if I told you I could get the secret of how this new technology works? Already told you I seen the scientist. I'll share it wiv you, Mr. Scrooge, honest I will, and in return . . .” He drew himself up to his limited full height and puffed out his chest. “And in return you'll make me an equal partner in the legitimate business. I'll make you rich, Mr. Scrooge, you bet your cotton socks I'll make you a fortune.”

The ache once again began to creep up my legs and into my bones. A distant clock tower struck quarter past the hour and my headache reverberated with its hollow toll. I longed to be done with this gruesome Humbug affair, to escape the secrecy, the pursuit, and the terror.