A Ghastly Catastrophe

Chapter

1

London, 1890

Do you want to do the deed or shall I?" I asked as we stared down at the carcass.

Stoker sighed. "I suppose I will." The lackadaisical air he adopted would have been cause enough for concern; the sigh was terrifying. Stoker had always been a man of extraordinary vigour, striding with purpose and energy through all of his endeavours, no matter how small.

But our lives had, in recent weeks, grown very small indeed. Despite a physically hectic and thoroughly enjoyable winter holiday together in the Isles of Scilly, Stoker and I had returned to a London bedevilled by bad weather and worse moods. After an autumn which had seen us crack our most extraordinary case yet, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness had given way to choking fogs and a deep, creeping damp which settled into our very bones. Both of us had suffered through a series of lengthy colds, snuffling and sniffling until we were quite mad with it. We smelt of mustard plasters and liniments and other assorted unguents. The tip of my nose was, for the whole of March, the unbecoming shade of a ripe plum. Spring was slow in arriving; a series of late frosts blackened and withered the snowdrops, and the daffodils shivered in their pretty yellow caps. It was, in short, a dismal time, and if it had been only the weather and our various ailments to assail us, our spirits might not have fallen so low.

But I was conscious of a new and unwelcome feeling that spring. I had, for the first time since I had made Stoker's acquaintance, experienced ennui. My boredom lay not with him-never think it! He was as engaging and maddening a companion as ever, offering sustenance for both body and mind through a combination of vitality, intellect, and charm that was as heady as it was rare. No, our intimate friendship was as intimate and friendly as it had ever been.

Our regular work was likewise fulfilling. We had been engaged by the Earl of Rosemorran to catalogue his extensive collection with an eye to someday opening a museum. While Stoker and I were natural historians by trade-he a naval surgeon turned taxidermist and I a lepidopterist-we had been given charge of the entire collection with the result that all of our spare hours were spent in study of the various artefacts in our care. From coins to corals, stamps to suits of armour, the previous earls had collected it all, and it was the present earl's task to bring order to the hotchpotch of his forefathers. The collection was enormous and not particularly orderly, but most of the entries were exquisite, chosen with taste and purchased at great expense. (I do not include the present earl's acquisitions in this assessment. Whilst his ancestors applied standards of beauty and worth to their additions, the present earl simply buys what he likes. This accounts for the puppet theatre, the moth-eaten camel saddle we use as seating for guests, and an assortment of prosthetic limbs in questionable states of hygiene.)

The collection had come to be housed in an enormous freestanding ballroom on the earl's estate at Bishop's Folly in the heart of Marylebone. The ballroom-called the Belvedere-was only one of the various buildings that had been placed at our disposal. Stoker and I each had a folly for our private quarters, and an elegant glasshouse had been refurbished for my use as a vivarium where I might breed and study butterflies and their mothy kin. We had been given free rein over the collections, empowered to either deaccession or purchase as we saw fit, and we were beholden to no one for our time. We lived in extraordinary comfort, and we enjoyed interesting work as well as harmony in our own relationship-spiced with the occasional spirited debate when Stoker proved overly emotional. (I have long held that the male is the less logical of the species and have yet to see evidence to the contrary.)

What then ailed us that long and gloomy season, I hear you wonder, dear reader. With so many advantages, we ought to have been content-nay, we ought to have been as happy as angels.

And yet. We did not speak of it, but souls cannot be as linked as ours and have secrets. I intuited Stoker's restlessness as clearly as I felt the itch in my own blood, and the cause of it was the same as my own: we wanted a mystery. It had been nearly six months since our last investigation, and while we were certainly not professionals, we had fallen into the habit of murder-the sleuthing and not the committing, I hasten to add. And we had found it a difficult one to break. How could any mind trained to logic and observation, any person that thrilled to challenge, not find these deductive puzzles utterly intoxicating? They were as delicious to us as the rarest of wines, and we were, quite simply, suffering from the lack of a body.

I stared down at the corpse in front of me, knife in hand.

Stoker's lack of enthusiasm for the present job was not lost upon me. "Oh, let me," I said to Stoker as I bent to my task. Swiftly, the deed was done, and I held the bone out to him.

He curled his littlest finger around the bone and I did the same.

"On three," I instructed. I counted in Latin, and we pulled. There was a moment of hesitation, and then the bone snapped with the larger part resting in my hand.

"The wish is mine!" I crowed. I closed my eyes and made it quickly.

"What did you wish for?" Stoker asked as he helped himself to a drumstick.

"I cannot tell you or it will not come to pass," I reminded him.

Just then, George, the hallboy, entered brandishing a letter.

"Post, miss!" he called as he fought his way through the pack of dogs which we had somehow acquired in the course of our adventures. From Huxley the bulldog to Betony, the enormous Caucasian sheepdog, they represented every possible variation of the canine species. We had lazy dogs and dogs possessed of enough energy to pull a sled of Olympian proportions; we had affectionate dogs and dogs that would very probably stand by and watch us be devoured by Stoker's collection of dermestid beetles. The only thing they had in common was an abiding adoration of George, doubtless because he invariably smelt of interesting things. The boy had come from impoverished circumstances, and it was not until he had come into his lordship's employ that he had known food that was both wholesome and delivered at regular intervals. Still, the habits of the starveling are difficult to break, and George invariably tucked away some portion of each meal against any future hunger. A chicken wing, a bread roll, a sliver of good English Cheddar-his pockets were emptied each day either into his own stomach or that of one of his grateful siblings, but the delectable aromas remained for the dogs to sniff out.

By the time George had fought his way clear of the snufflings of each wet black nose, Stoker had finished carving the chicken and was portioning slices of juicy fowl onto our plates.

"Have you eaten, George?" he asked, poised to serve another portion.

"I have, sir," George said, although he eyed the roast potatoes with avarice in his gaze.

I did not blame him. The potatoes were golden and crisp and piping hot. I plucked one from the platter and offered it. It disappeared with a conjuror's skill into his pocket as he handed over the letter.

"From Mr. Mornaday, that detective fellow," George announced helpfully.

Stoker and I were both eager to instill in George the skills and accomplishments necessary to make something of himself. He was a Cockney child, born out of wedlock to a mother who had repeated the process of giving birth without benefit of a husband several times over. As the eldest, it fell to George even at his tender age to contribute to the household expenses. Lord Rosemorran had employed him as a hallboy whose duties included the running of errands, some of the less arduous of the heavy cleaning chores undertaken by the footmen, and whatever assorted tasks might be reliably handed off to a diligent child. In return, he was paid a modest wage and given bed and board with leave to visit his family often. So long as he attended church once a week and kept himself free of vice, he was assured of a position which might one day lead to his promotion to footman, provided he grew to at least six feet and had shapely calves. Otherwise, he would be turned over to the gardener for training in heavier labours.

Everyone seemed thoroughly pleased with the arrangement-everyone except George. He was an ambitious imp who was determined to rise from the ranks of servitude. By way of his lordship's generous gift of a library for the servants' hall, George had taught himself his letters, believing literacy would be the key to his future ambitions. He had wheedled basic numeracy out of the butler, and Stoker had undertaken to give him weekly lessons in the essential sciences, including geography and astronomy. Stoker was pleased with his progress, saying that he was very nearly ready for the fundamentals of chemistry, but I had my own thoughts upon the matter.

It had occurred to me that a slender and unprepossessing child would make an excellent observer, undetected and underestimated by everyone. A wiry lad, small for his age and agile, George was slippery as an eel when it came to finding his way through the teeming streets of London. There was not a cobbled alley or paved court he did not know; from knacker's yard to noble's garden, he had made a study of the capital, committing its secrets to memory. Each day upon his various errands, I set him a task to develop his powers of observation. I would tell him to find a man with a bowler hat and follow him for thirty minutes to see where he went and give me an account of it. Or he might count the number of butchers in a given street and tell me the price each charged for a Cumberland sausage. On days when the weather was too abominable to permit such excursions, I would give him an envelope or a bit of brown paper that had wrapped a parcel, and ask him for his conclusions about the senders.

"Veronica," Stoker had inquired after one memorable day when George had deduced the contours of a concealed Wardian case from the size of its packing crate, "is there a point to these exercises? These are the sorts of skills one would expect to be mastered by a criminal apprentice. Do you intend to set George upon a career as a pickpocket?"

"Certainly not," I had replied with some asperity. "His talents may be put to excellent use in the pursuit of justice-as have our own," I reminded him.

"How?" Stoker demanded.

"In the course of our investigations, we would often have profited enormously from another pair of eyes, youthful and sharp eyes to keep watch upon suspects and inform us of comings and goings. I am training George to be our assistant."

"Our assistant?" It is seldom that one actually witnesses someone tearing at one's hair, but Stoker threaded his hands through his tousled witch-black locks, tugging in frustration. "Veronica, we are natural scientists. Teach the boy to identify one of your bloody moths, or let me train him to the taxidermic arts, but for the love of all things holy and good, do not think to make a sort of detective of him. We are not the police."

"No, and that is a pity," I told him as I made a mental note to introduce George to the study of handwriting. "If we were the police, there would be far fewer criminals about."

Stoker tugged harder upon his hair, and I let the conversation drop solely out of concern for his follicles. Naturally, I carried on with my plan to instruct George in the detectival skills with the result that he-quite correctly-identified the hand of our sometime partner in the investigative arts, Mornaday of Special Branch.

"Well done, George," I told him. "I imagine you noticed the peculiarity of his 't's.'"

"That it smells of macassar oil," he said. "I should like some of that. It's how a gentleman ought to smell," he added with a reproachful look at Stoker.

"If you mean to shame Stoker on that score, you shall be a long time at it," I advised George absently. "He will always smell of leather, honey, and good whisky." As these were not unpleasant to me, the reader must not mistake my observation for criticism.

"And glue. And linseed oil," George murmured under his breath. He was not wrong. The tools of Stoker's trade were often to be detected clinging to his person, but I found the combination quite arresting-intoxicating, even.

I skimmed the missive, reading it over a second time as a slow smile spread across my face.

"What is it?" Stoker demanded.

"Mornaday says he will call upon us shortly. And this letter is proof that wishes on a chicken bone may come true," I told him as I pushed away from the table, dinner no longer of any consequence.

George slid smoothly into my chair in my stead, picking up my fork and helping himself to a wing and another roast potato. He eyed the broken wishbone as he crammed a forkful of potato into his mouth.

"Whahdyewhshformis?"

"Chew, George," I instructed as I made preparations to receive our visitor. "And if you are endeavouring to ask what it is that I wished for, I am only too happy to tell you. A body, George. I wished for a body."

Chapter

2

Horsefeathers," Stoker said succinctly as he handed the note back with a gesture of lofty disdain. "Mornaday says only that he will call. There is nothing whatsoever about a body. Your rampageous imagination has got the better of you. Again."

I gave him an indulgent smile. I could afford it. I was certain we were perched once more upon the precipice of adventure, and the resulting exhilaration made me generous with Stoker's impatience.

"I know you have never properly warmed to Mornaday," I began.

Stoker made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a heave of unwellness. Naturally I ignored this and went on.

I cleared my throat. "As I said, I know you have never properly warmed to Mornaday, but I think he is quite fond of you."

[NB: Stoker's reply was unsuitable for delicate readers, and I decline to repeat it here. -VS]