a doctor?”
“Several. They could do nothing. We went to the police, but would you believe there is no crime on the statute books that deals with hypnosis? It is something I shall be writing to my MP to have him remedy at the earliest opportunity.”
“And Charlotte…?”
“On Wednesday,” said Mrs. Elmwood tremulously, “she slipped out of her room when the maid forgot to lock it behind her. She hasn’t been seen since.”
“Obviously, given her state of mind, she could be … well, anything could happen to her,” said Mr. Elmwood. His wife sobbed wildly, and he looked imploringly at Gideon. “Please, Mr. Smith. Can you help?”
Gideon felt at a loss. If the police couldn’t intervene, then what could he do? He said carefully, “You will appreciate that this is not my usual purview, Mr. Elmwood. I have no jurisdiction greater than the Metropolitan Police, and—”
“I have brought a photograph of Charlotte,” said Mr. Elmwood quietly, the fight seeming to have gone out of him. “Perhaps if you will just look at it…”
Gideon took the picture and said, “I still cannot … oh.”
He stared at the photograph: Charlotte Elmwood in her Sunday best, holding a parasol in a photographer’s studio, a painted backdrop of a sun-drenched park behind her. He stared at it for a very long time.
“Mr. Smith?” asked Mr. Elmwood.
“Yes,” said Gideon eventually. “Yes, I’ll help you.”
He held the photograph in his hands and could not stop them from shaking.
Charlotte Elmwood, said her parents.
But the photograph was the image of Maria. The living image of his beloved Maria.
I NTERMEDIO : N OT E NOUGH , N OT E NOUGH
He sat in candlelight in his rooms, the leather bag on the table, its clasp shut tight. Beside it was a newspaper, freshly bought.
J ACK THE R IPPER S TRIKES A GAIN! screamed the black ink. It was the late edition, detailing in lavish, grotesque language the scene in the alley where he had stood earlier that day. The victim had a name: Emily Dawson, a young woman in the employment of Professor Stanford Rubicon. He shrugged.
He was bored already. And so was the blackness in his soul. Where once he—and it—had thrilled at such murders, now they were old hat.
Not enough, the imaginary ghost had said. Not enough.
Familiarity breeds contempt. Man cannot live on bread alone. Variety is the spice of life.
He reached forward and unfastened the bag, the candlelight glinting off the metal that scraped and shrieked together as he lifted the leather case onto his lap. One by one he took out the items.
His hungry soul received no succor anymore from the clean, clinical swipe across the forehead. It thirsted for sweeter blood, that which was torn with greater violence and passion from its host. It had to be fed, lest the blackness grow and consume him from the inside. It had to be quieted.
He turned the saw, which had tiny, vicious teeth and a wooden handle, this way and that, the dancing candlelight glancing off its wide blade. For the severing of bones. He laid it on the table and took out a pair of long-handled tongs, each of the jointed grips ending in a rusting spike. To spear and hold slippery internal organs that needed to be removed. A wooden-handled corkscrew ending in a sharp-edged tube, for swiftly slicing a circle of flesh, fat, and muscle to allow access to the abdomen. And so on, each one more cruel and exciting than the last.
Instruments with which to create a symphony of pain.
Not enough, had said the ghost, which he now recognized as his own black soul, not the departed spirit of a murdered girl at all.
It wanted more. It wanted sweeter blood. He would provide.
He picked up the newspaper. He was so very far from home, from the heat where his black soul was birthed. London shivered beneath snow, and he found it hateful and frozen, a sluggish dead thing, almost. It was fear that iced London’s heart as well, fear of Jack the Ripper. The lurid description of the
“Several. They could do nothing. We went to the police, but would you believe there is no crime on the statute books that deals with hypnosis? It is something I shall be writing to my MP to have him remedy at the earliest opportunity.”
“And Charlotte…?”
“On Wednesday,” said Mrs. Elmwood tremulously, “she slipped out of her room when the maid forgot to lock it behind her. She hasn’t been seen since.”
“Obviously, given her state of mind, she could be … well, anything could happen to her,” said Mr. Elmwood. His wife sobbed wildly, and he looked imploringly at Gideon. “Please, Mr. Smith. Can you help?”
Gideon felt at a loss. If the police couldn’t intervene, then what could he do? He said carefully, “You will appreciate that this is not my usual purview, Mr. Elmwood. I have no jurisdiction greater than the Metropolitan Police, and—”
“I have brought a photograph of Charlotte,” said Mr. Elmwood quietly, the fight seeming to have gone out of him. “Perhaps if you will just look at it…”
Gideon took the picture and said, “I still cannot … oh.”
He stared at the photograph: Charlotte Elmwood in her Sunday best, holding a parasol in a photographer’s studio, a painted backdrop of a sun-drenched park behind her. He stared at it for a very long time.
“Mr. Smith?” asked Mr. Elmwood.
“Yes,” said Gideon eventually. “Yes, I’ll help you.”
He held the photograph in his hands and could not stop them from shaking.
Charlotte Elmwood, said her parents.
But the photograph was the image of Maria. The living image of his beloved Maria.
I NTERMEDIO : N OT E NOUGH , N OT E NOUGH
He sat in candlelight in his rooms, the leather bag on the table, its clasp shut tight. Beside it was a newspaper, freshly bought.
J ACK THE R IPPER S TRIKES A GAIN! screamed the black ink. It was the late edition, detailing in lavish, grotesque language the scene in the alley where he had stood earlier that day. The victim had a name: Emily Dawson, a young woman in the employment of Professor Stanford Rubicon. He shrugged.
He was bored already. And so was the blackness in his soul. Where once he—and it—had thrilled at such murders, now they were old hat.
Not enough, the imaginary ghost had said. Not enough.
Familiarity breeds contempt. Man cannot live on bread alone. Variety is the spice of life.
He reached forward and unfastened the bag, the candlelight glinting off the metal that scraped and shrieked together as he lifted the leather case onto his lap. One by one he took out the items.
His hungry soul received no succor anymore from the clean, clinical swipe across the forehead. It thirsted for sweeter blood, that which was torn with greater violence and passion from its host. It had to be fed, lest the blackness grow and consume him from the inside. It had to be quieted.
He turned the saw, which had tiny, vicious teeth and a wooden handle, this way and that, the dancing candlelight glancing off its wide blade. For the severing of bones. He laid it on the table and took out a pair of long-handled tongs, each of the jointed grips ending in a rusting spike. To spear and hold slippery internal organs that needed to be removed. A wooden-handled corkscrew ending in a sharp-edged tube, for swiftly slicing a circle of flesh, fat, and muscle to allow access to the abdomen. And so on, each one more cruel and exciting than the last.
Instruments with which to create a symphony of pain.
Not enough, had said the ghost, which he now recognized as his own black soul, not the departed spirit of a murdered girl at all.
It wanted more. It wanted sweeter blood. He would provide.
He picked up the newspaper. He was so very far from home, from the heat where his black soul was birthed. London shivered beneath snow, and he found it hateful and frozen, a sluggish dead thing, almost. It was fear that iced London’s heart as well, fear of Jack the Ripper. The lurid description of the
Similar Books
