The Thirteenth Gate Page 3

  Neither of them spoke much. Vivienne stared out the carriage window, scanning the faces of the people on the street. The sober ones who had just woken up for work looked tired already, stoically ignoring the drunk ones who hadn’t gone to bed yet. Barefoot children played in the muck before rows of drab brick buildings. Vivienne’s gaze lingered on the children. Alec knew Brady had killed a boy in New York. An organ grinder.

  She’d been right about Dr. Clarence all along, but she didn’t rub it in his face, which Alec found surprising given Vivienne’s propensity for gloating. It occurred to him that perhaps she hadn’t wanted to be right, either.

  A few minutes later, Henry deposited them at the front door of 19 Buckingham Street off the Strand where the Society for Psychical Research kept a suite of rooms. It had been formed in January 1882 to investigate growing claims of spiritualist phenomena using rigorous scientific methods. That remained its primary mission, but following certain dire events at Buckingham Palace in 1886, a small and entirely secret subcommittee had been formed to deal with more dangerous aspects of the occult. This coincided with the creation of the Dominion Branch of Scotland Yard, and the two entities worked in tandem—with the Queen’s blessing—to contain the undead ghouls that plagued Britain.

  Vivienne and Alec went straight to the library, where Henry Sidgwick waited with a tray of tea. He sat erect, bushy black beard falling down his chest, a sheaf of papers held loosely in his large hands.

  “Well?” he inquired without preamble. “How bad is it?”

  “We have a problem,” Alec said, pouring himself a cup and dropping into a wing chair. “Potentially quite serious.”

  “Potentially?” Vivienne repeated. “I’d say it’s very serious indeed.”

  She removed her cloak and tossed it carelessly on an ottoman. Her ball gown was sleeveless. Gold glinted in the light of the lamps—a thick bracelet circling her right wrist. Words flowed across the metal in a script that had not been spoken aloud for more than two thousand years.

  “Do you know what this says?” she asked Sidgwick, holding up the cuff.

  “I’ve always wondered,” he replied dryly.

  “We are the light against the darkness. And now we’ve failed in our duty. Clarence is gone,” she said bitterly. “Escaped. He murdered an orderly. There’s no doubt it’s the same creature that ran loose in New York. None at all.”

  “Dear God.” Mr. Sidgwick turned to Alec, who could usually be relied on not to embellish the facts. “Is this true?”

  Alec nodded wearily.

  “Tell me everything.”

  So he did, while Vivienne paced the room like a caged lynx, skirts swishing.

  “What exactly do you think we’re dealing with?” Sidgwick asked when he’d finished.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Sidgwick shut his eyes. “I’m still coming around to believing in ghouls. Not that I doubt it anymore, their existence is an unfortunate fact of life in England, it seems. Now you’re telling me we have a creature that looks and sounds human but can burn iron bars with its hands and do God only knows what else. Is it undead?”

  “Probably.” Vivienne snapped her lighter shut and blew out a stream of smoke.

  “Most definitely,” Alec added cheerfully. The hot, strong tea—three cups of it—had worked its humble magic. It was one of the few English customs he embraced with open arms.

  “Dear God,” Sidgwick said again.

  Vivienne dropped onto a settee and crossed her ankles. “We need to consult Cyrus. He might know something.”

  “Agreed. I’ll send Mr. Ashdown a cable. When can you leave?”

  “It would be better if he came to London,” Alec said.

  “He won’t want to,” Vivienne pointed out. “You know he hasn’t left Ingress Abbey in more than eight years.”

  “If Barrett’s men do manage to find the good doctor, or whoever he’s taken, we need to stay close.”

  “Do you think you can kill it?” Sidgwick asked.

  “It’s already dead,” Alec reminded him.

  “That was a figure of speech.”

  “We can try to banish it back to the Dominion through a Greater Gate.” Alec had rolled up his shirtsleeves and propped his feet on the edge of the ottoman. He idly traced the curving script on his own cuff, a match of Vivienne’s. “So, The Serpentine. It’s by far the closest one.”

  Sidgwick swallowed. “I went boating in Hyde Park just a few months ago. Are you saying—?”

  “That there’s a portal to the Underworld beneath the lake? Yes, but only in parts.”

  “And they’re safely warded.” Vivienne looked at Alec. “Aren’t they?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “How do you know the wards haven’t been broken?” Sidgwick persisted. “I don’t find your explanation to be the least bit comforting.”

  “Because I know.” Alec gave a thin smile. “I have the only talisman.”

  Sidgwick grunted. “You should have told me all this before.”

  “It didn’t seem necessary. Nothing comes through the Gates anymore.”

  “So you believe it was summoned?”

  “Had to be. By a powerful necromancer, I’d say.”

  “But if it came from New York, that would be the American branch’s problem.” Sidgwick brightened.

  “The necromancer, not the whatever-it-is.”

  “True. I’ll send a cable to Orpha Winter. Any chance this”—he consulted the papers—“Becky Rickard was the one who brought it through?”

  “Brady’s first victim?” Vivienne said. “She was a medium, but that’s hardly the same thing as a necromancer. In fact, she was disgraced as fraudulent. It doesn’t seem likely.”

  “Whoever brought it through, the thing is loose now,” Alec said. “And the usual rules don’t seem to apply.”

  “We’ll have to tell the Queen.” Sidgwick’s tone was funereal.

  “I suppose you will.” Alec’s choice of pronoun was not lost on Henry Sidgwick, whose dark, close-set eyes narrowed.

  “She won’t like it one bit.”

  “Not much to like, is there?”

  “I need to be able to tell Her Majesty truthfully that we have the situation under control.”

  Alec picked up his teacup, saw with disappointment that it was empty, and replaced it in the saucer. “Of course. I don’t see a problem as long as you omit the word truthfully.”

  “Gentlemen,” Vivienne interrupted. “This is getting us nowhere. When Dr. Clarence is found, which we all hope will be sooner rather than later, Alec and I are fully capable of disposing of him.”

  Sidgwick brightened again. “Well, that’s good news.”

  “We are?” Alec said, earning a withering look from Vivienne.

  “Yes. So we’ll put off visiting Cyrus for now, at least until we hear from Inspector Blackwood. Do send that cable though, Mr. Sidgwick. Cyrus can search the archives. They go back quite a long way, as you know. Perhaps he can find a reference to something similar.”

  “What about your original interview with Dr. Clarence?” Sidgwick sifted through the sheaf of papers. “I have it here somewhere. Ah, yes.…”

  He began to read the transcript aloud. Alec knew it all firsthand. Vivienne had conducted the interview in the empty dayroom at Greymoor while he stood by at the door, ready to unleash a whip-crack of power should Clarence do anything Alec found objectionable.

  The doctor had sat in a chair facing Vivienne. He wore a woolen suit and held a small valise on his lap. It contained toiletries and a change of clothing. Alec had kept his black surgeon’s bag, with its syringes and vials and other tools of the trade. Including a set of exquisitely sharp knives.

  Even as Henry Sidgwick’s pleasantly deep and learned voice recited the transcript—he was a professor of moral philosophy at Trinity College, after all—Alec heard the echo of two other voices in his head….

  “Would you state your name, please?”

  “Willia
m Howard Clarence, of 34 Greenwich Street, New York.”

  “Do you know why you’re here, Dr. Clarence?”

  Clarence raised a hand to his forehead. “I…I’ve been suffering from headaches.”

  “Why did you come to England?”

  “I had a difficult case. A man used my scalpel to…” His fingers fluttered limply. They were small, delicate hands. “May I have some water? My mouth is very dry.”

  Alec signaled to the attendant who waited outside. A minute later he returned with a glass.

  “Thank you.”

  “You mentioned a difficult case,” Vivienne resumed. “Do you mean Leland Brady?”

  “Yes. I wished for a change of scenery.”

  “You booked passage on the RMS Umbria, which arrived in Liverpool on the 25th of August. What did you do then?”

  His eyes grew vague. “I don’t know. I walked around. Looked for lodgings. I think I visited St. Paul’s Cathedral.”

  “Where were you on the evening of August 31st?”

  “What day of the week was that?”

  “A Friday.”

  “Well, I’m not sure. If my head was very bad, I might have gone to bed early.”

  “Have you experienced lost time?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Periods in which you cannot recollect your own actions. Places you might have gone.”

  “No.” The sun crept across the floor. A shaft of light fell across Dr. Clarence’s face and his pupils suddenly contracted. “Just the headaches.”

  “What about the evening of September 8th?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “September 30th?” Vivienne persisted.

  “Why are you asking me these questions?”

  “Mary Ann Nichols. Annie Chapman. Elizabeth Stride. Catherine Eddowes. Mary Jane Kelly. Are you familiar with these names?”

  Clarence held her gaze. “Of course I’ve heard about the murders. They’re all over the newspapers.”

  “What sort of man do you think the police should be looking for?”

  “Are you accusing me of these heinous crimes?”

  “Not at all. I’m simply curious about your professional opinion. Having just concluded the Hyde case.”

  Clarence folded his hands atop the valise. “He must be reasonably clever to have eluded the police. Whitechapel is a busy area.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “No. I read about it in the newspaper. I wouldn’t frequent that sort of place. It sounds like a cesspool.”

  “Why do you think he does it?”

  “Why?” A ripple passed over his features. “I’m not sure that question has a satisfactory answer, Lady Cumberland. Why does the earth suddenly slip its moorings and crush the little ants crawling across the surface?”

  Vivienne’s jaw tightened. Alec sensed the fury simmering beneath her calm exterior.

  “Are you saying these women are insects, Dr. Clarence?”

  He sighed. “You misunderstand.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment.

  “Or are you saying Jack is a force of nature?”

  Dr. Clarence smiled. “That might be overstating it. I merely mean that these killings strike me as perfectly senseless. There’s no more meaning to them than the eruption of that volcano in Japan last summer.” He grew solemn again. “I do hope they catch him.”

  “As do we all.”

  Dr. Clarence rose and walked to the window. It looked out across the grounds, brown fields meeting white sky in the soft, monotonous palette of midwinter. “Will I be staying here?”

  Vivienne looked at Alec. They’d reached the tricky part. Dr. Clarence had committed no crime, not that could be proven. He was an American citizen and member of the New York City Police Department. If he refused to admit himself to Greymoor and the consulate got involved, it would be a diplomatic nightmare. And Clarence would almost certainly end up slipping the net.

  Fortunately, he had no wife or children. No one looking for him. By all accounts, his life in New York had been quiet and solitary.

  “Dr. Cavendish believes he can help you with your headaches,” Vivienne said. She forced a smile. “A nice rest might do you good.”

  Dr. Clarence raised a hand and curled it around the iron bars. Something in the gesture struck Alec as calculated, deliberate, although Clarence kept his back to them.

  He’s toying with us.

  Alec pushed the unbidden thought aside.

  You’re letting Vivienne’s emotions cloud your judgment. Don’t.

  “That would be most amenable,” Dr. Clarence said, returning to his chair.

  Vivienne leaned forward and offered him a piece of paper. Their hands brushed and despite his misgivings, Alec’s heart beat faster.

  “Thank you.” Dr. Clarence laid the form on his valise. He patted his pockets. “I’m sorry, but do you have a pen I might borrow?”

  Vivienne gave him one. She waited, eyes fixed on the form.

  Dr. Clarence paused, pen hovering over the paper. “How long would I be at Greymoor?”

  “Just a short time,” Vivienne lied. “For observation. You can leave anytime you like.”

  “All right, then.” Clarence didn’t bother to read the form. He signed with a flourish and handed it back. “Here you are.”

  Vivienne scanned the document. It gave the doctors at Greymoor full legal authority to commit Dr. William Howard Clarence to the asylum until such time as they deemed him no longer a danger to himself or others. Alec knew that if Vivienne had her way, that day would never come.

  “Thank you.” She stood up. “The attendants will see to you now. Good afternoon, doctor.” She’d reached the door before she stopped and turned back. “I believe you still have my fountain pen.”

  Dr. Clarence looked down at his hands. “Oh, I’m awfully sorry. Here you are.”

  He rose and gave Vivienne back the pen. His eyes met Alec’s for a single instant. They seemed to sparkle with some private amusement.

  The attendant closed the heavy door. Alec waited to make sure he locked it.

  Later, when they delivered the admission forms to Superintendent Barrett, he’d asked if sedation would be appropriate….

  “Oh yes, give him everything you’ve got,” Vivienne was saying. “We promised Inspector Blackwood we’d share the full report from Miss Pell.”

  “I’ll see it’s done right away,” Sidgwick said.

  Alec came back to the present with a start.

  “Send the report to Cyrus too,” he chimed in, hoping no one would notice his long absence from the conversation.

  Sidgwick frowned. Vivienne sighed. “English, Alec. You’re lapsing into Greek again.”

  “Sorry.” He repeated the request.

  “He does that all the time.” She stabbed her cigarette into a heavy bronze ashtray. “It’s not even modern Greek. Some obscure third-century dialect only a handful of scholars have ever heard of.”

  Alec smiled apologetically. He’d probably forgotten more languages than he remembered, and he knew dozens fluently. Hundreds. Different places, different times. Different lives. It all swirled together in his head sometimes. Vivienne was much better at keeping the past neatly arranged. She was a perfect chameleon. It had only taken her a week to acquire a posh British accent, while Alec still sounded vaguely “Continental.”

  Alec spun the cane in his hands, suddenly full of restless energy. Outside the window, he could hear the clamor of London’s five million souls rushing through their day. He had been many places in his long life, but never had he seen a city quite like this one. He’d watched it grow from a backwater of the Roman Empire to the undisputed capital of the world. Watched the factories rise like smog-belching dragons. Stood under the bright glare of electric lights, Vivienne on his arm, to see one of her plays. The pace of scientific progress was as swift as the steam trains that fascinated him so. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the weather, he reflected.

&
nbsp; It was still lousy.

  “So what do we do now?” Sidgwick asked.

  “Either Blackwood and his men will find Clarence,” Vivienne said. “Or he’ll do something to draw attention to himself.”

  Kill again, she meant.

  “So we wait.”

  “Yes.” Vivienne lit another cigarette. “We wait.”

  Chapter 3

  Vivienne’s townhouse on Park Place was a five-minute carriage ride from the Society’s offices. The butler, Quimby, greeted them at the door. Tall and large-nosed with a rumbling baritone, he had served Lord Cumberland’s family for more than thirty years and was the soul of discretion.

  “Do you care for breakfast, milady?” he inquired.

  “Just coffee, Quimby, thank you,” Vivienne said with a tired smile. “We’ll take it in the conservatory.”

  Alec followed her through the black-and-white tiled entry hall to a glass-enclosed sunroom facing the rear garden. It was Vivienne’s favorite room, filled with comfortable wicker furniture and a riot of potted plants. Alec inhaled the honeyed scent of cymbidium orchids, their pink and white blossoms nodding like drowsy children.

  “I miss the old days when we were free agents,” Vivienne said. “The S.P.R. is well-intentioned, but they don’t seem to grasp the fact that this is a war—and we’re losing. Clarence was in our hands, Alec. Now he’s gone. We may not get another chance.”

  Alec sighed. “Even if we do, this thing can use fire. That puts me at a major disadvantage.”

  Vivienne said nothing, but her face could have been carved from stone. Alec knew she feared fire above all things, not for her own sake, but for his.

  “You’ll have to hold my power,” he said.

  She nodded. “As much as I hate doing it, I don’t see any other choice.”

  “So the question now is how to track him.” Alec sat down, resting his cane across his knees. “If only there was some pattern. But the murders in New York and London were random, senseless. Just as Dr. Clarence said. There’s no connection between any of the victims.”