Murder As A Fine Art Part 14

"Thomas."

Unsure if he was imagining the voice, he stepped from the path. His boots crushed dead leaves as he s.h.i.+fted between bushes and tree trunks, straining to see in the acc.u.mulating shadows.

"Ann?"

"Here I am, Thomas."

"Where?"

A woman stepped from behind a tree.

He stared. Then he gasped and stumbled backward, certain that he was indeed experiencing a nightmare.

The woman was wizened, almost bald. Her face was gaunt, her eyes sunken. Sores festered on her cheeks.

"Here, Thomas. Take me. Your Ann."

"No."

"You didn't return when you promised. You abandoned me."

"No!"

"But now we're together." Dressed in rags, the festering woman held out her arms. "Love me, Thomas. We'll always be together now."

"You can't be Ann!"

"This is what you want." The woman raised her ragged coat and skirt, exposing her wrinkled nakedness. "Love me, Thomas."

As a scream formed in his throat, another plaintive voice startled him.

From another tree, another wizened, festering woman emerged, raising her coat and dress, exposing herself. "Here I am, Thomas. Your sister Jane. Do you remember me? Do you remember playing with me in the nursery? Do you want me? You can have me."

Now he did scream as another woman stepped from a tree, raising her coat and dress.

"Here, Thomas. I'm your sister Elizabeth. Remember how you sneaked into the room where I lay dead? You stared at my body all afternoon. Then you kissed me. You can kiss me again now, Thomas. You can have me."

"I'm Catharine, Thomas." Yet another woman emerged, exposing herself. "Remember me? The little girl who lived near you at Dove Cottage? Wordsworth's daughter? Remember how you lay on my grave for days, sobbing, thinking of Jane and Elizabeth and Ann. The terrible loss. But not any longer. We're here, Thomas. You can have us all."

Weeping uncontrollably, De Quincey watched even more women step from the trees, their features destroyed by pustules.

"I'm Ann!"

"No, I'm Ann!"

"I'm Jane!"

"Elizabeth!"

"Catharine!"

"Love us, Thomas!"

He shrieked, the wail coming from the depth of his soul, from the pit of his despair. His tears burned his eyes. He sank to his knees, screaming, "No! No! No!"

WE NEED TO SEPARATE!" Ryan said. "You take that path! I'll-"

"Wait. I hear something," Becker said.

"Voices. Women's voices," Emily said. "They're calling names."

"That way!" Ryan pointed to the left and started to run.

Becker hung back, needing to stay with Emily and protect her. But she surprised him by rus.h.i.+ng ahead, her bloomer dress and her frantic need to reach her father giving her a speed that Becker had difficulty matching.

They rounded a corner.

"No!" De Quincey's voice shrieked from the trees.

"Ann! Jane!" the women's voices shouted.

"Here!" Ryan charged into the undergrowth.

"Elizabeth! Catharine!" the women chanted.

"Emily, stay back!" Becker warned.

But she was too determined. Branches snapped as they forced their way through the trees.

De Quincey kept wailing.

"Ann! Jane! Elizabeth! Catharine!" the women chanted.

Becker pulled his truncheon from beneath his coat, charging past bushes.

Emily hurried to follow.

Ahead, Ryan abruptly stopped at the sight of De Quincey on his knees, sobbing. Becker joined him, gaping at ragged women-streetwalkers, old and infected-who shouted the mystifying names.

"Emily, you shouldn't see this!"

"But what's happening?"

Becker had no idea. He braced himself, scanning the trees for a threat. All he saw was the women.

De Quincey's shoulders heaved, his convulsions rising from the deepest part of his soul.

"Father!" Emily ran to him. "Are you hurt?"

De Quincey sobbed too forcefully to answer.

The women focused on the truncheon in Becker's hands. With panicked sounds, they backed into the trees.

"Stop!" Becker ordered.

But the women hurried away.

De Quincey sank all the way to the ground.

"He doesn't seem injured!" Emily said, straining to hold him up. "I don't understand!"

Becker removed another piece of equipment from beneath his coat-the clacker that he used to sound emergencies. He gripped the handle and spun the blade. Its ratcheting alarm was ear-torturing, easily heard throughout the gardens.

The last of the wizened women vanished into the trees.

"Inspector!" a man yelled. The newcomer hurried toward them through bushes, one of the plainclothes constables who'd arrived earlier and positioned themselves throughout the grounds.

"Run to the entrance!" Ryan shouted. "Lock the gates! Don't let anybody out!"

As the newcomer raced away, other constables charged through the undergrowth.

"There are women in the forest!" Becker told them. "Prost.i.tutes! Catch them! Be careful-they might not be alone!"

Continuing the Journal of Emily De Quincey In all my years with Father, I have seen him weep only twice before: at the deaths of my brother Horace and that of my beloved mother, his dutiful wife, Margaret. But now the severity of his grief far exceeded his deep reaction to those losses, and when I came to realize the significance of the names the women had shouted, I understood why.

Constable Becker lifted Father and carried him through the trees. The constable is so tall and Father so short that Father seemed like a child in the constable's arms. Inspector Ryan walked with me, warily looking around at the forest as if he expected that at any moment we might be attacked. That Becker now wore street clothes instead of his uniform and Ryan now wore go-to-church clothes instead of his ruffian's costume only made the world seem even more upside down.

We reached the performance area of the gardens, pa.s.sing the hot-air balloon and the tightrope walker, who now stood on the lawn and looked fearfully at the commotion.

The spires, arches, and towers of the East Indian pavilion beckoned us. Inside, a spreading flower was painted on the vaulted ceiling. The walls depicted Oriental scenes: a tiger in a jungle, a turbaned man on an elephant, a magician playing a flute to an upright hooded snake, a crowd marveling at wonders in a colorful bazaar.

Constable Becker set Father on a bench against a wall. No matter how fervently I tried to calm Father, he didn't seem to hear me. His sobs came from a part of him that I couldn't reach.

Becker and Inspector Ryan were manifestly disturbed by this dramatic show of emotion. I suspect that they had never seen a man weep before, ever, so strenuously have most people been taught to keep their feelings to themselves.

The constables who brought in the pathetic women I'd seen in the forest were disturbed by Father's weeping also, as were the captives who almost certainly had never seen a man weep and who had probably allowed themselves to weep only if alone or with a few trusted friends. Everyone in the strange pavilion had been trained to believe that a show of emotion is a weakness, and Father's helpless display of absolute sorrow was something they couldn't comprehend, almost as foreign as the Oriental scenes on the walls.

More constables came in, bringing more women. Many of the prisoners were weak from visible illness, but all of them struggled as best they could and cursed with such crudity that heat singed my ears.

"Perhaps you should go," Ryan told me.

"I won't leave Father," I responded.

The women were handcuffed in a line, right wrist to a neighbor's left wrist, then led around a pillar where the final two wrists were secured and the group formed a circle.

Although I had witnessed streetwalkers in Edinburgh, I had never seen any in a worse condition. Disease had ravaged them. Their faces were riddled with sores. Some had almost no hair. Their shriveled mouths showed gaps where teeth had been. Their complaints reverberated off the arched ceiling.

"Quiet!" Becker yelled.

"You won't get my money!" one shouted.

"We don't want your money!" Ryan yelled back. "Not that I believe you have any for me to steal."

"Got plenty of money."

"Sure."

"Earned it, I did!"

"I'm definitely sure of that."

A constable brought in another woman and handcuffed her to the others.

"How many so far?" Ryan asked.

"Twenty-three," Becker answered. "And here comes another one."

"Found these on her," the arriving constable said, holding up two gold coins.

"Them's mine! Give 'em back!"

"Two sovereigns. That's more than most clerks earn in a week. Where'd you steal them?"

"Earned 'em."

"Tell me another one," the newly arrived constable said. "n.o.body paid two sovereigns to play Bob-in-the-Betty-box with you."

"Constable," Ryan warned and nodded in my direction, making the newcomer aware of my presence. "A lady's here."

"Oh. Sorry, Inspector. I apologize, miss." The man turned red. "Sometimes they don't understand unless I speak to them in their language."

"Didn't play Bob-in-the-Betty-box," the woman objected. "Earned 'em, I tell ya. Honest work."

Becker studied the women and said, "If one of them has gold coins, maybe others do." He approached a woman on his left. "What's your name?"

"Doris."

"Show me the inside of your pockets, Doris."

"No."

"I'll search you if you don't."

"Now I'm scared. He wants to search me, girls."

They laughed.

"I charges for men to search me," Doris said. "How much do you want to pay for me to search your pollywog?"