The Humbug Murders (33 page)

A sharp echoing
CRACK
split the night, and I gasped, waiting to feel the searing pain of the bullet tearing through me. But instead, Roger was lowering his gun even as I heard the unexpected clomping of hooves through the snow as a spooked horse raced away. Roger's legs bowed as he took a step this way, then the other, a drunken stumble, while his head bobbed and wobbled. He exhaled deeply and dropped face-first into the snow, suddenly looking smaller than ever, a frail bird.

The back of his head was a reddened nest, a cavity that should not have been.

Shen Kai-Rui stood a half-dozen yards behind the dead man, a smoking pistol in his hand. The horse that I guessed he had ridden here was now racing down a narrow alley, vanishing past the moonlit cobblestones.

“Why would you save me?” I asked, my heart thundering.

He smiled. “If anyone is going to take your life for your transgressions, it will be me. I am not done seeing you suffer. As for my change of heart where your woman is concerned, well, all she's been put through since meeting you . . . She has suffered enough, wouldn't you say?”

A look passed between Adelaide and me. The chains of trust between us had been broken, yes. But, as Marley had said, links might be strengthened and repaired, though at a cost.

She nodded slightly, as did I. Our fates were again bound, it seemed.

“As for our business, I was following you so that I might catch you alone and tell you—” Shen froze, his gaze fixing on something on my coat.

Had I been wounded after all?

Shen stalked closer, his gloved hand pointing at my pocket. “I know that handwriting! The
Lady!
”

I looked down even as he snatched away an envelope that had been half-sticking out of my pocket. “I've never seen that before!”

He ignored me. Tearing open the envelope with shaking hands, he drew out a folded sheet and scanned its florid writing. Lips trembling, breath catching, he dropped the letter to the snow and fished about for his watch. “The time . . . the
time
! I must know!”

I snatched up the letter and read:

Sir,

How does it feel to speak to a corpse? That is what you've just done, Mr. Scrooge. Think me and my words a Humbug, if you will. But the whore Nellie Pearl dies at midnight at St. Paul's Cathedral. Perhaps I'll see you there? The little slut always adores an audience.

—An Admirer

Shen was casting his gaze wildly about. His horse had bolted, and the cathedral was miles away.

A carriage stopped halfway down the street, the driver suspiciously eyeing the wreckage before us. Shen broke into a run, charging the surprised driver. He drew up his reins, as if to turn his alarmed horses and flee at once.

“One shilling!” Shen shouted. “I'll give you one whole shilling, but hold!”

The driver held.

“What is it?” Adelaide demanded. “What's happening?”

“Humbug,” I said. “He's taken Nellie.” He or
she,
I inwardly corrected myself. Was The Lady also Humbug? Or just the killer's sponsor?

More carriages drove into view. The police rounding corners, converging on us from all sides except the street ahead. There Shen was shoving coin into the driver's palm while eyeing me impatiently. I understood. Humbug had slipped the letter into my pocket, had invited
me
to the latest performance. Shen must have worried what might happen to Nellie if I was not at his side when he reached the cathedral.

“Go!” Adelaide said. “I'll deal with the police.”

I ran into the night even as the shouts of bobbies and blaring whistles were drowned out by the screeching wind at my back.

SHEN BURST FROM
the carriage as it ground to a stop before the tallest and most striking building in England: St. Paul's Cathedral. Beneath its great dome—topped by a baroque lantern—stood the mourning stone figure of St. Paul flanked by St. John and St. Peter. A bell tower containing the Great Paul, a single sixteen-ton bell, speared the night sky on the southwest corner; a second empty and waiting tower the other. The statues peered down at two figures mounting the stone steps leading from the street to the column-strewn portico towards the propped-open center door. One wore a black cloak and veils, the other the same billowing white dress I'd seen her wear at the theatre only an hour ago. The murderer hauled the stumbling, dazed, yet oddly compliant Nellie Pearl into the darkness; I trailed behind Shen in his mad dash to catch them.

I found him inside the dull, featureless nave, panting, pistol in one white-gloved hand, whipping his head about as he searched for any sign of our quarry. But Nellie and the killer were nowhere to be seen. Great stone arches towered above us, and the long aisle stretched with endless shadows towards the vast central crossing. White bolts of thin cheap fabric hung down over the abandoned stepstools, ladders, planks, platforms, and scaffolding left over from the recent rounds of repairs done here.

Darkened doorways and niches taunted us with a wealth of shadowy hiding places. The choir with its great organ was housed in the eastern apse, beyond the central crossing. I knew that the morning congregation at St. Paul's faced east for the sunrise, a metaphor for resurrection. Before resurrection might be possible, though, there must first be death.

“Can't have gotten far,” Shen whispered, teeth gritted. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His breath was ragged. Rage and fear danced in his dark eyes.

“Miss Pearl was drugged,” I said, panting. “She is outside herself. Compliant. Humbug was practically dragging her. The killer used chloroform on Fezziwig. A small enough dose . . . ?”

“No. An opiate, surely.” Shen's voice was cold, distant.

“Shen, is this one of yours?” I asked. I'd recalled Dickens remark that the killer moved much the same as a Chinese acrobat. Was it not possible that we had all become caught up in some power play between Shen and a rival opium dealer? That Fezziwig had been silenced for information he had innocently stumbled upon and it was our connection to the kindly old man that had marked the rest of us?

He stared at me as if I were an insignificant gnat that had suddenly gained the power of speech. “Enough.” He stepped away from me and called out, “Miss Pearl! Miss Pearl, if you can hear me, say something! Make a sound. Do it now!”

A candelabra teetered and fell a dozen yards ahead. We were in motion before it toppled and spilled an armful of three-foot-long candles across the floor. The robed murderer broke from behind a pillar, and Nellie shrieked as she was pulled along. She looked like a rag doll, legs wobbly, hair flopping over her face.

Shen raised his weapon, cursed, lowered it. He could not chance hitting Nellie.

It would be over in seconds, I knew. The killer could not move quickly enough while pulling the drugged actress along.

“Let her go!” Shen screamed.

Humbug obeyed. The cloaked figure darted from Nellie, leaving her hunched forward and teetering like a puppet hanging by a single frail thread, arms sweeping this way and that. Shen rushed for her—

And Humbug dove into another alcove and yanked at a rope. I heard a mechanism whirl above me, a hard, ratcheting sound. With a sudden rush of air, a steel boxed lantern nearly eight feet high flew down and crashed to Shen's side. Glass shattered and rained upon me as I flung up my arms and spun to protect my face. A few tiny stinging glass splinters dug into my arms and I heard footsteps, a woman mumbling, muttering confusedly. I turned back to see Shen crawling and dazed, groping for his pistol.

It was no coincidence, I now realized, that Humbug appeared yanking Nellie onto the steps after our carriage arrived. It wasn't just that we had been given a set time for this “performance.” The killer had been waiting for us and had waited for our arrival as the cue to begin. This had all been carefully planned.

“This is a trap,” I said hoarsely.

“Fool. You think I don't know that?” Shen said. He found the pistol under a chunk of fallen wood and pried it loose. We heard a door creak in the distance, an echo from the central chamber. “Nellie!”

He shrugged off my hand as I tried to help him to his feet. Glass crunched beneath our boots as we flung ourselves ahead, passing through a carefully arranged gauntlet of shrouded platforms and the like. Why put on a show like this? Why not just kill Nellie and have us arrive too late to do anything about it?

Wide arches and coffered vaults flanked us, buttresses and saucer-shaped domes were all about us. We reached the central crossing, where it appeared—though it was not so—that eight corridors connected it like spokes jutting from a wheel. Four were mere illusion. I flicked my gaze high, to the very inner core of the dome, and my breath caught at its magnificence.

“There!” Shen commanded. I followed him to a heavy wooden door. We passed through it into a narrow winding stone staircase. He vaulted up the steps, and I followed behind: we could go but one at a time. The stones were narrow, the ledges high. The cold and uneven walls to either side of us were barely wider than my shoulders. Up we ran, while above, a woman's sobbing and the echoing of footfalls mockingly drifted down. Only an occasional shaft of blue moonlight caressed the way. Otherwise, it was black as pitch, which retarded our movement.

Ours, but not that of the killer. I smelled oil and guessed that Humbug had an already burning lantern waiting at the top of the stairs.

Incensed, Shen shouted Nellie's name again and again. He threatened the killer, he screamed and bartered and pleaded, but the only voice that ever met his was that of the confused and near-breathless actress.

“Why?” Nellie asked piteously. “What harm could I possibly . . . You . . . ? You!”

She recognized the killer!

Clattering footfalls, more sobs, our own labored breathing. A hundred steps, I was sure. Two hundred. The muscles in my legs were on fire. I could barely breathe!

Then, finally, we heard Nellie's echoing cries from somewhere ahead, and we climbed out through a passageway, down two more steps, and stood upon the Whispering Gallery. We were on a small circular walkway that hugged the inner dome well into its heights. The tight circular railing stood out only a few feet from the wall. It rose to my mid-chest, and peering down past it was like looking down a near incalculable height to the very hall in which we'd stood minutes ago. A fall from this height would smash any man to pulp.

But where was our prey? And Nellie?

“
Please . . . help me, please!”

Who is it, who has you? I wanted to yell, but Shen put a finger to his lips for silence.

Nellie's whisper drifted from our left. We whirled, chased the sound, ran a quarter of the way about the circle, and stopped as another whisper came to us from the spot we had just vacated.

“
I'm sorry, I didn't know . . . I couldn't . . . don't . . .”

This was why it was called the Whispering Gallery. Whispers from any point about its radius could be heard at any other point, but one never knew quite where the sounds originated.

Shen whipped his gaze from side to side. In the dim light, we could not see Nellie or the monster that held her. Had the killer wrapped them both in that infernal nightmare-black cloak and crouched low to hide them away?

A sharp gasp of pain from the far end of the gallery drove Shen into a frenzy. He flew forward, racing for where he'd heard this sound land, unmindful of the many doorways lining the round gallery. Winded from the sharp climb and aching from the bruises and bumps I'd received during the madness of the carriages and the harm I'd endured in the Quarter yesterday, I could not keep up with him.

But I saw the danger as, in the pale light, he passed one of those doorways and the cloaked killer sprang out behind him, knife raised high.

“SHEN!”

My shout thundered through the gallery, echoed off the walls, and he stopped, startled, and turned slightly in my direction, an act that saved him. The blade came down and bit into his shoulder instead of the nape of his exposed neck. Shrieking in pain, he nevertheless spun in his attacker's direction, reaching out for the killer. Humbug was too quick, withdrawing the blade and darting back into the doorway, vanishing into the black beyond.

I reached Shen even as his knees threatened to give. My hand went for the wound, but he was already clutching it, staunching the flow of blood, at least for now, the pistol tucked in his waistband. An amber flicker caught my eye from the door before us, and footsteps scraped more steps.

His fingers tightened about his shoulder, his left arm dangling uselessly. He launched himself ahead, drops of blood marking his passing. He took a sharp turn in the direction from which the light had lapped out at us—the killer's lantern—and cursed as he stumbled over another trap: an array of bricks and debris piled about the base of a second flight of curving steps. By the time I had him back on his feet, I saw how Humbug could easily have stepped over these. The drugged Nellie must have already have been deposited on the next landing, then the beast had doubled back.