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“Of course not, miss. The cook doesn’t allow it.”
I took a deep breath. A dark, hateful piece of me wished to witness the cook take a spoonful, to be certain she wasn’t the one who’d slipped the arsenic into our tea. I forced myself to clear those thoughts, adopting a smile instead. I motioned for her to hand me the tray. “I’d like to try them both first.”
Looking a bit confused, she nodded, then went to fetch the second tray, meant for Uncle. Thomas groaned beside me. I balanced the tray on my lap, removed the lid, then dipped the spoon into the clear, rich-smelling broth. Green flakes of parsley floated around innocently.
I brought the spoon to my face, sniffing, though it was a pointless endeavor. Arsenic didn’t have a smell or taste. Without hesitation, I sipped the soup. I made sure I’d had enough before setting the tray aside. I glanced at the clock. Now it was time to wait.
An hour later I felt as fine as I had before the broth, so I gently cradled Thomas’s head, angling his face up, and managed to get a few spoonfuls down his throat. I kissed his forehead, leaving him to tend to Uncle. His skin looked slightly better than Thomas’s—a flush crept into his face, indicating a fever. I hoped it’d burn the toxins out.
I sat with Uncle for a little while longer, silently watching as he fidgeted less and fell into a deep, restorative sleep. Once I was certain he was all right, I slipped out of his room and returned to Thomas’s side.
I cracked his door open, hoping against impossible odds that he’d be awake. It was a fool’s dream. If anything, his skin appeared more ashen, as if the poison was drinking every bit of life from his body in greedy drabs.
“Abigail?” I called down the corridor, forgetting I could have rung the service bell in Thomas’s room.
Footsteps hurried up the stairs, followed by the maid. “Yes, miss?”
“I’d like more blankets for Thomas and my uncle,” I said. “And if the fires could be a bit warmer, that would help keep the chill from their chambers.”
With a quick nod, she ran off to accomplish the newly assigned tasks. That settled, I drifted back into Thomas’s room, mind churning. What I needed to do was construct a list of suspects, all with cause to harm us. I sat down carefully, minding both my leg and Thomas’s body, and settled against the headboard. In Chicago, General Inspector Hubbard wasn’t our biggest supporter. He made it clear he didn’t appreciate our inquiries and wished we’d be silent and enjoy the magic of the White City like the millions of other visitors.
Though I doubted he’d poison us, he could not be taken from the list.
Mr. Cigrande, the man who’d lost his daughter and believed demons roamed the earth, might be mad, but I couldn’t imagine him sneaking in and tainting our food. Unless his madness was feigned… but I couldn’t picture him accomplishing something quite so diabolical. Not without drawing attention to himself in the process.
Noah. Mephistopheles. They were aiding us. But it could be a ruse, especially where the ringmaster was concerned. I also couldn’t forget members of our temporary household. I knew nothing of them or their lives or who they were acquainted with. It was entirely possible they wished us harm for reasons I couldn’t explain. Perhaps they knew the man we hunted.
I sighed. Almost everything circled back to our case. People around the periphery were always suspect, based on the nature of their involvement, but I wanted the person at the center. If I could only piece together who Jack the Ripper was, I’d be able to stop him for good and reveal his wretched deeds to the world.
“R-rose.” Thomas thrashed about, having another fit. “C-cubes.”
My chest ached. “Thomas… I don’t—Rose cubes…?”
The gears in my mind clicked as the puzzle slowly started coming together. Cubes. Sugar cubes. The ones doused in rosewater. Thomas had also muttered “hotel” earlier. There was only one place we’d come across the scented sugar cubes during our investigation.
I wasn’t sure if it was an actual hotel, but Minnie’s husband rented out rooms above their pharmacy. The very place that sold rose-infused sugar cubes. The pharmacy across the street had been a ruse on Minnie’s husband’s part. My few interactions with him collided in my mind. He’d walked in on me and Minnie during tea, knowing I’d be far enough away when he broke in and burned Nathaniel’s journals. He also had a connection to Trudy, since he knew her through his wife. The tremble running down my spine confirmed their pharmacy was the place where the devil lived.
Soon, once I’d introduced him to my blades, it would be the place where he died.
Thomas retched and I grabbed a pail. Once he’d finished, I smoothed hair away from his brow in loving strokes and silently plotted murder.
Holmes’ “Castle”
FORTY-FIVE
MORE WICKED THAN HE
GRANDMAMA’S ESTATE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
16 FEBRUARY 1889
It was comforting in a sense, to finally understand the reason darkness existed in my soul.
It was all so simple. To stop the devil, I had to be more wicked than he. I closed my eyes, picturing each deed that needed to be done in preparation. If there was one lesson I’d learned from Thomas Cresswell, it was to give myself over to that terrible place completely. To disconnect from my mind and judgment and become the thing I feared the most.
I had to consider each of the killer’s moves before he did. I had to take on his wants, his desires. Each of his depraved fantasies would become my own, until I craved his blood the way he longed to spill mine. I visualized my blade tracing the lines of his body, glinting in a shaft of moonlight. A lone beam that illuminated my dark act.
