Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [135]
A couple appeared at the end of Dorset Street, moving towards him. It was Seward and his whore. They did not matter. It would be useful to have witnesses to this business. Jack Seward would serve the cause of Arthur Holmwood after all.
‘Jack,’ he said, ‘I have a criminal trapped. Stay by this court and summon a constable if one happens to pass.’
‘A criminal,’ exclaimed Marie Jeanette. ‘Faith, in Miller’s Court?’
‘A desperate man,’ he told them. ‘I am an agent of the Prime Minister, on urgent official business.’
Seward’s face was dark. Marie Jeanette could not keep up with the developments.
‘I live in Miller’s Court,’ the whore said.
‘Who is the man?’ Seward asked.
Godalming was peering into the fog. He thought he could see the Sergeant, standing in the courtyard, awaiting him.
‘What has he done?’
Godalming knew what would most impress these fools. ‘He’s the Ripper.’
Marie Jeanette gasped and held her hand to her mouth. Seward looked as if he had been stomach-punched.
‘Lucy,’ he said, a hand inside his coat, ‘stand back.’
A chink appeared in Godalming’s confidence. Dravot dared him to enter Miller’s Court. Seward and Marie Jeanette were pestering fleas and should be brushed off. He had a destiny to fulfil. But something tiny was wrong.
‘You called her Lucy,’ he said. ‘Her name isn’t Lucy.’
He turned to Seward, who pressed close against him, arm moving fast. Godalming felt a silver shock in his chest. Something sharp was stuck into him, sliding swiftly and smoothly between his ribs.
‘And that man in there,’ Seward said, nodding into the courtyard...
Great pain spread through Godalming’s chest. He was packed in ice, but a white-hot needle transfixed him. His vision blurred, his hearing was a fuzzy jangle, all senses were stripped from him.
‘... his name isn’t Jack.’
51
IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS
Midnight was hours past. She sat in Jack’s chair, contemplating the disarray of papers crawling over his desk. On her return, Morrison had recounted five separate crises that had arisen since her departure yesterday afternoon. As tactfully as possible, the young man accused her of neglecting her duties, as of late had the director. The shot had gone home. Something would have to be done soon. Jack was off with his vampire minx, and Geneviève had hardly been any better, with Charles.
The purpose of the Hall was changing. Lecture schedules had fallen into disrepair with Druitt’s death. The institution’s primary educational purpose was collapsing. In the meantime, with the Infirmary worked ragged, the Hall was taking more and more of the medical slack. Lecture halls were becoming wards. Jack, when he could be distracted from his own interests, authorised the engaging of more medical staff. The immediate problem was sparing enough qualified people for a board of interview. And, as ever, money was in short supply. Those who had been generous in the past seemed to be finding other interests. Or turning. Vampires were notoriously uncharitable.
She was torn between the fast-fading elation of her last feeding and the thousand gnat-bite problems of Toynbee Hall. Recently there had been too many strands to her life, too many demands on her time. Important matters were neglected.
She stood up and wandered about the room. One wall was lined with Jack’s medical books and files. In its corner, under a glass case, was his prized phonograph. As Acting Director, this office should be her home. But she had been haring off to the Old Jago, to Chelsea. Now, she wondered whether she had been hunting Jack the Ripper or Charles Beauregard.
She found herself standing by the tiny window that looked out on to Commercial Street. The fog was thick tonight, a street-level sea of churning yellow that lapped at the buildings. For the warm, the November cold would be as sharp as a razor. Or a scalpel.
The