The Devil's Workshop

“Can you hear me in there?” He licked Griffin’s earlobe, bit gently on the flesh. “Surely some part of you can hear me. I know you. I didn’t know what you looked like until now, but I know the smell of you, your foul breath. You have been delivered unto me as I knew you would be. You are the first. I will bring the others here. But for now, I will let you rot, hanging from these chains as I did for so long. I will let you stew in your own sour sweat, let you fear every approaching sound lest it be me. And I will return. I will do wonderful things to you. I will transform you as I have transformed so many others and, with your last breath, you will thank me as they thanked me. Wait for me now.”

Jack stepped away, feeling stronger, feeling mighty in his righteousness. He held up the lantern and let its light shine on the black walls that no longer held any power to cage him. He walked away from the cell and found Cinderhouse in the darkness and led him away through the passages, across the rivers and the graveyards and the ancient silent city streets.

Up and back to London.

16

Fiona knocked lightly on Claire’s bedroom door and waited until she heard Claire answer before she turned the knob and entered. The room was dark, only a single candle on the windowsill to dispel the shadows. Or perhaps the tiny flame was there to serve as a beacon for Walter, to bring him back safely. Claire was curled under an old off-white coverlet that was pulled up under her chin. Her blond hair glowed vivid orange in the candlelight, and the pillowy folds of the coverlet were grooved with deep purple bruises.

“Constable Winthrop is settled in now,” Fiona said. “He ate all the biscuits we had in the place. And he drank three cups of tea with milk. It’ll be a wonder if he can stand up from the chair.”

“He ate them all? All the biscuits?”

“I think so.”

“I was saving those.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Claire said. She laughed. “I wasn’t really saving the biscuits. I suppose I’m just put out that we have a policeman underfoot and it’s the wrong one.”

“Yes,” Fiona said. “Why couldn’t they have sent Mr Hammersmith? We know him already. We would have felt completely safe with him right away.”

“I was talking about my husband. He’s a policeman, too.”

“Of course he is!” Fiona covered her mouth and turned to leave. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t go,” Claire said.

“I have things. I should do them.”

“Would you bring me a glass of water before you leave?”

“Of course.”

Fiona kept her eyes down and let her long hair fall across her face. She was a slender, pale girl with a calm demeanor and an inexpressive face. The youngest Kingsley girl had grown up without a mother. She had spent much of her childhood helping her father at his work in order to be close to him. She had walked around countless crime scenes with him, observing the bodies of murder victims, sketching the placement of their limbs, and making note of their wounds, a junior coroner’s assistant. Until the day Dr Kingsley decided that the morgue might not, after all, be the best environment for his daughter. He had sent her away, asked her to assist Claire until a permanent housekeeper could be found. But it was not the sort of work Fiona enjoyed.

She went to the washstand, where a ceramic cup sat next to a pitcher of water that had gone room temperature over the course of the night. Fiona noticed that the pail of dirty water from the morning’s stand-up wash was still sitting on the floor under the table. She wondered if she was supposed to empty it. Her duties in the Day household were still unclear, and it sometimes frustrated her that she didn’t know exactly what Claire wanted from her aside from simple companionship. She filled the cup and carried it to the bed, put it in Claire’s waiting hand.

“We ought to interview housekeepers again,” Fiona said. “And cooks. Cooks especially.”