"I can only wonder if he too endured the megrims that now returned to herald such transitions. I only know that for a time I suffered the tortures of the damned. It is only of late that such symptoms have finally given way. And unlike
Jekyll, my changes are more transitory, and when they come, I welcome them."
"Do you no longer have headaches?" Hester's query was born of confusion. "But both Captain Ellison and Murch told me—
"Exactly what I told them." The sly smile spread. "Once I retire, no one presumes to disturb me, or take note of my movements."
"By way of the rooftop." Hester nodded. "Just as Sallie said." She paused. "How many other children have you used so?"
"That is none of your concern. The shelter has proved valuable in satisfying demands both here and abroad."
Her meaning was plain, but Hester demurred. "One need not stoop that low to obtain income."
"Don't take that holier-than-thou tone with me!" The woman's smile vanished. "At first I had other plans. Once I realized the truth about Dr. Jekyll's disappearance, I meant to seek out his solicitor and exact a suitable sum from the estate in return for keeping silent. But before I could act, you came out of nowhere to spoil it all."
"Please, Mrs. Kirby—if you'll only listen—"
"Have no fear, I've always listened to you most attentively, my dear." There was a hint of sardonic amusement in the reply. "Your unwitting revelations prompted me to take action lest my own involvement come to light."
Take action? Mrs. Kirby had killed to protect her secret. Poole died because he knew about Dr. Jekyll's potion; Utterson, because he knew that much more. And now—
Hester voiced the thought as she shook her head. "It will do you no good to dispose of me. Bertha and Sallie share knowledge of your dealings."
"Bertha is my creature. She will never betray me!"
"How can you be certain of that?"
A clawlike hand dipped beneath the level of the desktop, then rose quickly. "This is my assurance."
Hester stared at the muzzle of the weapon. "And the child—?"
"Do not waste your sympathies on her. It is your own fate that must concern you now/'
"You wouldn't dare risk killing me!"
"No one will know. When they find you with this in your hand, the verdict will be one of suicide."
Hester frowned. "But they'll investigate. They'll realize I had no reason—"
A taloned forefinger tapped the typed document on the desk. "This is your reason. What you signed is a full confession of your perfidy—how you discovered Utterson's knowledge of Jekyll's identity as Hyde, forced him to assign the estate to you, then did away with him. And lest there be an autopsy performed on Hyde that might reveal he was Jekyll, you stole the body from the grave and destroyed it." The vulpine grin returned. "That is what I did, of course, but they'll never know. This account merely states you have undergone a last-minute change of heart and intend to destroy yourself instead."
Again Hester frowned. "But the money—"
"—will be mine." The forefinger stabbed down. "This is also a last testament. You direct that as partial atonement for your crimes, your estate shall pass to charity—namely to me and my good works among the needy."
"Are you mad?" Hester's outburst could not be contained. "They'll never believe you!"
"They? Who are these people you refer to? Who in London knows you well enough to judge your nature?"
"Albert." Hester spoke quickly. "Albert Prothore. He'll be here soon—"
Again the raucous laughter sounded. "Will he, indeed? The woman leaned forward. "What do you suppose Bertha was whispering about, eh? She told me that while you tended the child your precious Albert did appear. It was Bertha who dispatched him."
"She sent him away?"
"Once and for all." The woman stirred, cloak rustling as she rose, trigger cocking as she aimed her weapon. "Don't move." The murmur was faint against the seethe and crackle of the flames. "Close range. As if by your own hand."
Hester tried to edge back without seeming to do so. She could control the movement of her body but her thoughts trembled.
He was dead. Albert was dead. Now she knew the meaning of the blood on Bertha's knife. She was indeed the older woman's creature, the wretched, evil creature of her mistress's madness.
And Mrs. Kirby was mad, just as Dr. Jekyll had been, when the power of the potion possessed him. Hester inched away, feeling the heat of the fireplace fanning her back.
The muzzle was leveling. A talon tightened against the trigger.
"No—!" Hester screamed.
And screamed again, as a bullet tore through Mrs. Kirby's cheek, shattering bone. The second shot sounded from the doorway and the cloaked figure reeled back, stumbling against the projecting base of the hearthstone. One of the flailing arms caught fire and in a moment the cloak was ablaze.
It seemed to Hester that the rest happened very quickly; the turn to the doorway, her recognition of Inspector New-comen moving into the room accompanied by the constables, their attempts to smother the flames. But however swift, the effort came too late.
When at last the burning cloak ceased smoldering, it held only the charred corpse of what might once have been a human being. Perhaps something less than human.
Or more . . .
Chapter 23
The dreary, everlasting rain that had meant London to Hester since her arrival had apparently done its worst, ending in the heavy storm on that night now two weeks past, as if the last of its flood had been sent to wash away more than the grime that plastered walls and streets. Hester sat at the small desk, her journal in her hands. Maybe someday she would be able to read it again. She had made herself set down the details she had known of the adventure—her part in it—and what she had been told by others.
She looked slowly around the room, from the cheerful fire on the hearth to the silken draperies at the windows, the bed with its coverlet of delicate flowers embroidered by skillful fingers perhaps two generations ago. Never, she knew, could she successfully express to dear Lady Farlie, Margaret as her hostess had insisted upon being called, or to Sir Henry what their instantly offered assistance had meant in the days just past.
It had been Margaret, when Hester was still dazed and distraught, who had appeared in a carriage, carried her off from that sinister house to this nest in the Farlie's own home.
While both Margaret and the Colonel had been with her in full support at her last interview with Newcomen, even now she gave a small shiver remembering that.
Quickly she glanced at her watch. A quarter hour yet before it would be time to go. She put aside her pen and wondered how long she would continue to feel that small stab of fear. It was all over, yes. She was welcomed into this fortress protected by friendship and the warmth of family she had never known before.
But—
Albert, as she had seen him last, braced against the pillows on that narrow bed in Dr. Hammond's nursing home. Albert who could have so easily have been lost had Bertha not aimed an inch or so too high with that murderous blade of hers. Bertha whom she had liked so well, had accepted so eagerly—Bertha whose outer form might not have been twisted, but who, inside, was as blackened and shrunken as—
Hester put her hands over her eyes. Much of the comfort of the room had vanished—as if it had been a blown-out candle. Bertha—and that—that other.
The girl thought she could even begin to believe that there was absolute evil in this world. The more of the story she had learned from Inspector Newcomen, the darker and stronger seemed to be the webs wickedness could spin.
Bertha and her prisoner, Sallie, had been taken by the inspector's men even as the older girl was forcing her captive into a waiting cab. There were others whose part in the crime had not been known until she whose will held them fast to serve her purposes was gone. The cabman, two other ruffians Sallie could identify—the ill-favored Murch—
Only the one who had been the center of the web had esc
aped; if indeed her terrible fate might be called an escape.
Even as Dr. Jekyll, Mrs. Kirby had lived two lives. Unlike the doctor she had not regretted her metamorphosis from the gentle, ministering widow, whose actions had aroused admiration and respect, to her role as a notorious procurer.
Sometimes Hester thought now she could never again be quite sure of anyone. What did lie behind the respectable mask-faces of many of those she saw passing in the street?
Bertha and the men were in prison awaiting trial but even that would not be what justice demanded—only what men thought to be justice. Newcomen admitted that he had had orders "from above." Scandal, that unforgivable sin that must ever be avoided, dictated that the true story be locked in the minds of a few. Bertha, murderous though she had planned to be, would be charged under a lesser crime.
And Sallie. The second shock of Bertha's attack on top of her own frightful experience had changed the once bright and happy child into a white-faced, shivering creature who cringed from any touch and seemed to have lost all the lively intelligence she had once shown.
Captain Ellison had taken her—she would be protected, treated gently, sheltered from anything that would hold evil memories. She had been moved already down to a cottage in Cornwall belonging to Captain Ellison's sister and there she would be given a quiet life, treated with kindness, which might someday break through the barrier evil had set around her. Hester was told she could not see her, that it was best for Sallie to be in no way reminded of the past.
But even if she might not see Sallie, she could provide for her future and she already had, working through Sir Henry's solicitor, who had taken over her affairs at the Colonel's request.
Thus she had learned about the will. Mr. Utterson had moved to make very sure that she would be provided for. Since the will of Dr. Jekyll had given him the property, he had, in turn, drawn up papers passing it along to her, binding the gift as tight as any man learned for nearly fifty years in the law could. But she would never enter that house again. Sir Henry had assured her it would be sold.
She might not be any great heiress but she would be provided for in a comfortable fashion—and perhaps her own wishes that some of the small fortune be given to the Army and used for such as Sallie would take the taint from it.
There was a knock at the door.
"Hester, dear— ?"
She was out of her chair in a moment, already reaching for her hat.
"Coming, Margaret!"
There was her mantle, her gloves, and, last of all, what had been waiting since this morning in a vase on the windowsill, a bouquet of fragrant roses—not red, but a pale cream that had caught her eyes at once when she and Mamie had been on an errand to match thread for Margaret.
The stems were wrapped in damp cotton and then in the silver paper to make a festive gift and she smelled them as she took them from the vase.
"Why, Hester, what beautiful flowers!" Margaret was waiting in the hall for her. "They are so fragrant. Gentlemen often make the pretense that such things as fine scents do not mean much, but I have seen Albert pick a rose such as these for his buttonhole at times. And—oh, Hester, such marvelous news!" Lady Farlie laid a hand on the girl's arm. "Henry had a word with Dr. Hammond this morning—they will let us bring Albert home tomorrow!"
Hester felt the warmth of color in her cheeks. She had gone every day to the nursing home with Margaret—first tense with guilt for it was because of her and her concerns that he had been nearly killed. He had been found, after great loss of blood, by Newcomen. But somehow Prothore had not allowed that guilt to linger. Even on that first day when he had been so weak and white, and Dr. Hammond seemed to her to radiate a false cheerfulness, Albert had looked to her and smiled a little.
Through the other days they had talked generalities, with Margaret to start cheerful topics of conversation. Then once, when his sister had left the room to confer with the head nurse, Albert had spoken hurriedly and urgently to her.
"You must not in any way blame yourself—"
How had he guessed that this heavy guilt was her hourly burden, never to be forgotten?
"I was—I believed—" She tried to marshal her words properly but they would not come, and Albert's face was blurred by tears she hoped she would not shed. She had always been so sure—
"People with far more knowledge of the world than you have were equally deceived," he had continued quickly, hitching forward on his pillows. "Newcomen himself—and who could know more of the dark part of the city than he— had not the least thought of such imposture until the very last."
"Bertha—she—" Even after knowing the truth for so many days, Hester could not associate the Bertha who had been so cheerful and companionable in the sewing room with that stranger holding a knife, already bloodstained, to Sallie's throat. The Bertha she had believed in and trusted had never really existed.
"You are not to blame yourself!" His voice was an order, sharp, with that in it which once would have stirred her anger. "Look at me, Hester!"
Nor could she deny that demand. She blinked and blinked again and raised her eyes to his.
"You have been blind but with better cause than I can offer. This devilish affair started long before you came to London. Me, I was content never to look below the comfortable surface of the life I lived since birth. I did not want to know—you learned and were ready to strive to help. No one could have foreseen the hidden poison that Jekyll had released and left behind him.
"In the end, Hester, it was your part in the affair that brought that evil into the open. If you had not come to London, taken a part in this, what would that woman have continued to do? How many more Sallies would have fallen prey to her? In her own words you heard that she delighted in what she had done, in what that which was evil within her had been released to accomplish. Jekyll came to realize his sins, she gloried in hers. This is the truth, Hester, you must believe it."
Margaret had returned then and from that visit they had never had a chance to talk so intimately again.
Jekyll—the name now seemed like a brand to her. Some earlier trouble must have driven her father away from the company of his cousin, led him to change his name. What further horrors might lie hidden in the past?
Now as she was seated in the carriage and the scent of the roses strong, she longed to be away from here. Margaret had bustled in beside her, a lidded basket handed in by the footman, to be most carefully balanced on her knees.
"Mrs. Brodie's cream pudding," she informed Hester. "She was kitchen maid at our old home and she always had a soft heart for Albert—treats for his sweet tooth whenever Nannie wasn't around. We were lucky to get her again. Next week when we go to Marsden she will be so prepared to bully all the tradesmen that we shall be served the very best at every meal.
"Marsden ..." Lady Farlie smiled. "That used to mean! paradise to us when we were small! Oh, Hester, it will be such a delight to show it all to you. The old pony cart—yes, that must be furbished again so we can go berrying in the brambles. They grow so thick along some of the lanes. And Albert will be his old self in no time.
"You know that report that he was so determined to do for Sir John? Henry tells me that it has caused a sensation at their committee and there is a chance that Albert will be given a post if Sir John can prevail, which of course he will."
She nodded vigorously as she paused for breath. Hester had been nerving herself during that flow of words to say what must be said. She wet her dry lips with tongue tip.
"Margaret, I—I cannot possibly come with you to Mars-den. You have been more than kind, you have allowed me to be one of you for a little while. But there is rumor and there is gossip. I bear a name that is whispered about. The police have taken a deep interest in me and my affairs. Surely you know that I understand what all this must mean. Your brother was drawn into my troubles because he was a gentleman of courage. I shall not allow any shadow from what has happened to gather against him or any of you.
"There is
work I can do. Since I have means on which I can now live, I will also have time to give to some cause—"
"Hester!" There was something so peremptory in Lady Farlie's voice that it silenced her for a moment. "You are not one to hold to self-pity! Do not turn to that now. We are not of social London, nor do we have ambitions in that direction. Those we wish for friends will be our friends. Yes, there is always gossip. Too many so-called ladies lead such dull lives that gossip is their one main contact with their fellows.
"You are well served in that you have come from the colonies, you have not been known, and you need only be yourself to halt all gossip—or at least ride it out.
"Hester"—again her voice changed—"what is Albert to you?"
Hester colored. She had asked herself that question so often during the past few days.
"You have spoken of a career for your brother in politics," I she answered slowly, trying to straighten her thoughts out in her own mind. "There gossip can be indeed deadly. I am not suitable to attract a man who undoubtedly has a distinguished career before him."
"I asked," Lady Farlie repeated in a voice that approached sternness, "what is Albert to you?"
Hester tried to turn away her eyes from those blue ones that laid a demand for the truth upon her.
"I—I would be his friend."
"Hester, I know my brother. Though we are some years apart in age, still we were close until I left home. I said that my mother did not write me, but Albert did—very faithfully. Each mail brought at least two letters from him, sometimes more. He cultivated as he grew older the shell that made of him the proper young man of society, but underneath there was still the Albert I knew. He has never been interested in any girl before. You have been very good to him, that shell was growing far too hard. Albert wants more than friendship—are you prepared to grant him that?"
Hester swallowed. She had the feeling that she was in some train carriage being rushed along far too fast, to a destination that was so strange she might not be able to ever understand it. Albert—what did she want, truly?