Beyond the Grave (10 page)

The nurses exchanged grim looks then the newcomer bustled off.

"Excuse me," I said to the desk nurse. "I think I'd like to speak to this Dr. Merton." I hurried after the disappearing midwife, dragging Seth with me.

"You can't go through there!" the desk nurse called. "Staff and patients only."

"We'll just be a moment. I'm sure your colleague will show us to his office. There'll be a generous donation given to the hospital when we learn which doctor delivered my housekeeper's baby!"

"Housekeeper's
niece's
baby," Seth muttered as we rushed through the door and caught up to the other midwife. "Keep up."

The nurse eyed us curiously but didn't order us to return to the reception room. It would seem the words "generous donation" had worked their magic.

"I'm glad for your company," she said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Very glad."

We followed her through a ward lined with beds on either side. Each one was occupied by a heavily pregnant woman, some moaning, others lying on their sides, and one who was clearly about to give birth, if her groans were an indication. A doctor and two nurses attended her, and they were obviously about to inspect her
down there
. Beside me, Seth went white and slowed down, gawping at the scene. I grabbed his hand and pulled him along just as the poor woman let out another low groan.

"Are you all right?" I asked him. "Are you going to be sick?"

He swallowed and wiped his brow with his handkerchief. "I think I'll manage."

I patted his arm. "You've been very brave, dear. Well done."

He blanched at my sarcasm. "Thank you,
dear
. I do hope you're taking notes for when we are as blessed as these patients. I'm sure it won't be long before you find yourself in one of those beds, as large as a whale yet somehow still radiant."

"Oh, I won't be confined here. Our marriage bed will do nicely."

He pulled a face, but at least he had his color back.

We followed the nurse along a corridor, her stiff skirts snapping at her ankles with each step, up three flights of stairs then into another corridor with several doors leading off it. She asked the nurses, orderlies, and doctor we passed if they'd seen Dr. Merton, but none had for some time.

"Excuse me," she called out to an orderly dressed in an ill-fitting brown jacket and trousers. He had his back to us and paused with his hand on a door handle. His shoulder-length black hair was tied back in a leather strip.

Lincoln.

He turned to her. He did not look at Seth or me, and he didn't seem at all surprised to see us there. If he was, he was good at hiding it. I wasn't quite so adept. My eyes bulged, but I managed to suppress my gasp before it left my lips. The nurse didn't notice.

"Yes, miss?" Lincoln asked.

"Have you just come from Dr. Merton's office?"

"Is this his office?" He indicated the closed door. "Only I'm new here, and I was sent up to fetch him." His accent placed him directly in London's east end, not at all from Highgate.

"It is," the nurse said. "I've not seen you before. You must be new."

"Just started today, miss."

"And they sent you looking for the doctor alone?" She clicked her tongue then eyed the door with wariness that didn't sit well on her. She'd been energetic and brisk up to this point, but now she hesitated.

I came up close behind her. "Shall we go in?" It was more a question for Lincoln than her, but it was the nurse who answered.

"Of course. There's no reason to delay."

"Let me go in first," Lincoln said.

If the nurse thought his offer odd, she didn't say so. She seemed quite happy to have him open the door. What was she expecting? Her willingness to have Seth and me along, her strange behavior now that she was outside Dr. Merton's office…something was wrong.

Lincoln opened the door and blocked the entrance with his body. None of us could see past him, not even Seth.

"Is he there?" the nurse asked.

Lincoln backed out and shut the door. "No."

She blew out a long breath. "So the search continues. Where could he have gone?"

Lincoln's gaze met mine. I didn't need to be told that all was not right in Dr. Merton's office. The simple fact that he had an interest in Dr. Merton too was enough to make me think I'd been right to be suspicious about the doctor being in the basement with Estelle Pearson when she died.

The nurse headed off again but paused a few steps away. "Are you coming, sir, madam?"

"If it's all right with you, my wife and I will wait for Dr. Merton in his office," Seth said. "Please tell him we're here when you find him."

"Of course." She cast another glance at Lincoln, smiled prettily, then bustled away.

"What's going on?" I asked when she was out of earshot.

"We've found Estelle Pearson," he said.

"Thank goodness. Is she in there?" I felt a weight lift off my chest. I could breathe again.

He nodded. "She is. Crouched beside the dead body of Dr. Merton."

T
he office smelled
like a ten-day old ham had been left in it. Estelle Pearson must have been inside for some time. She squatted on the floor beside the body of the man I assumed was Dr. Merton. Her flaky, bloodless lips moved as if she spoke, yet no sound came out. Perhaps she was praying for his soul. Or hers.

I took a step toward her, but Lincoln's hand flashed out and caught my arm. He had closed the door, leaving Seth outside to keep watch.

"Miss Pearson?" I said. "Are you all right?" Perhaps it was an odd thing to say to a corpse, but she didn't seem at all like the woman I'd met during the night. She looked dazed and the hand that clutched her throat shook.

"Will I pay for this, do you think?" she asked, her voice sounding far away.

I followed her gaze from the feet of Dr. Merton, over his deep barrel chest to his neck. A large purplish bruise formed above his collar, shaped like fingers. I felt the blood drain from my head as if a plug had been pulled. I swayed and Lincoln slipped his arm around my waist.

"Wait outside," he said.

I shook my head and rallied. I drew in a deep breath and felt the blood returning, my nerves settling, and my head clear. "I did this. I must stay and do what I can to fix it."

"You did
not
do that."

Estelle Pearson's head jerked as if I'd slapped her. "He's right, Miss Holloway. This is not your fault. It's mine and mine alone. I killed him. I will face the consequences."

"Consequences?"

She lifted her gaze ceiling-ward. And that's when I saw it.

Dr. Merton's spirit.

The white mist clung to the corner as if he were trying to get as far away from Estelle as possible. His huge eyes flicked between his body and hers, trying to fathom what had happened. He didn't see me staring at him.

"We should go," I said. There wasn't a thing the spirit could do to us now but I would feel better if I couldn't see his shock and the slowly dawning horror at his demise.

Lincoln pulled out a length of rope from beneath his jacket. One end was tied into a loop with an impressive looking knot. Was he going to capture her and tie her up?

"There is no need for that," she said, her hand out to placate Lincoln as if he were a maddened animal. "I'll come with you and return to my grave. I've finished my business here." She cast another glance at Dr. Merton's body. "He'll not harm anyone again."

The spirit twisted and twirled like a pile of leaves caught in a whirling breeze. Then he suddenly whooshed down from the ceiling, straight at Estelle. "You bitch!" he cried. "You raving, maniacal bitch! You killed me!" He crashed into her.

And came out the other side. She'd not felt a thing and didn't bat an eyelash. In her reanimated form, it would seem other spirits were invisible to her. She glanced around the room, as if she suspected his spirit was there somewhere, listening, and one side of her mouth lifted in a bitter, gruesome grin.

"Do you hear me, you monster? You can't hurt anyone now."

He swished around the room, dashing up to the ceiling, down to the floor, left and right, shouting vile words I'd not heard since leaving the slums two months ago. He seemed unaware that I could hear him, and I had no intention of telling him.

"Enjoy your afterlife in hell, doctor." Estelle picked a hat off the floor. It must have come off during a scuffle with the doctor. It wasn't the same hat she'd been buried in, but had a wider brim to cover her face. She also wore a long coat over her dress. "Perhaps we'll meet there, if my actions today outweigh all the good I did in life. If so, it will still have been worth it." She rose. Her knees creaked and cracked, as if her bones were grinding together. "We should go before someone returns. I don't want anyone accused of this."

It was going to be difficult to blame natural causes with a bruise on his throat shaped like hands.

The door suddenly opened and Seth tumbled inside, shutting it behind him then turning the lock. "That nurse is coming back and she has another doctor with her. We need to leave. Now."

"But we'll have to go past them," I said.

Lincoln nodded at the window. "That way."

"It's too high," Seth said. "For Charlie, I mean."

The spirit chuckled from its resting place on top of the filing cabinet. He crossed his arms and watched the proceedings with interest.

I crossed to the window, gratified that Lincoln had faith enough in my climbing abilities to suggest it. "I can manage. There's a drain pipe just there."

"Indoor plumbing," Estelle said. "I'll go down first and break your fall if it comes to that."

Voices filtered to us from the corridor outside. "Go," Lincoln hissed.

Estelle was already through the window and climbing down the pipe like it was something she did every day. It was amazing what a lack of fear could do. She slipped when she was still some feet off the ground and fell the rest of the way. She landed on her back, cracking her already caved-in skull. She got up and signaled for me to hurry.

I hiked up my skirt and petticoat to above my knees, wishing I had some way of securing them there, and slung them up over one arm. Lincoln and Gus helped me through the window, and I let the skirts drop. Climbing down pipes wasn't as easy, dressed as a girl, but at least I could breathe properly since I refused to wear a corset.

I glanced down to see Estelle standing below, her arms outstretched to catch me. She wouldn't be the most comfortable cushion to land on but she would be enough to break my fall. Above me, Seth emerged through the window.

Beyond him, I heard the office door rattle. Thank goodness we'd locked it. Hopefully they would need to fetch a key from somewhere, giving us time to escape.

I glanced up again, but Lincoln had not followed Seth through the window yet. What was he doing? I continued to climb down and reached the ground safely, some considerable distance ahead of Seth, who felt carefully for every foothold.

"Where's Fitzroy?" I planted a hand on my hat and craned my neck back to look up. "He's taking too long."

"What are you doing?" cried the voice of Dr. Merton's spirit.

A gunshot cracked. Birds in Regent's Park squawked and screeched. Seth's hand slipped and he let go of the pipe. Fortunately he was close enough to the ground that he landed without hurting himself.

I opened my mouth to scream Lincoln's name, when he suddenly leapt out of the window, planting his feet on the pipe. As quick as a monkey, he descended. He dropped beside me before Seth had even picked himself up. He grabbed my hand just as raised voices from the third floor window exclaimed in horror.

We ran to the front of the hospital, then walked in a calm, civilized fashion toward Gus and the waiting coach. "Was that a gunshot?" he asked.

"Yes," Seth said, assisting me up the steps and into the cabin. He practically shoved me inside at the last moment. "Fitzroy shot a dead man."

Seth handed Estelle up behind me, his fingertips barely touching her boney ones, then he and Lincoln followed.

"Highgate Cemetery," Lincoln barked. Gus had the horses away before we'd even shut the curtains.

"You shot him?" I asked as we rounded a sharp corner.

Lincoln nodded. "In the throat, with a gun and bullet I found in the drawer. I placed the gun near his right hand where it would have landed if he had fallen. A competent coroner will know he was shot after death, but an incompetent one might miss it and declare suicide. A corrupt one certainly will."

Estelle snorted. "The one from this jurisdiction is certainly corrupt. My death certificate says I suffered a heart attack. I lingered in spirit form long enough to hear Merton and his crooked crony planning it. For a fee, of course."

"Oh, Estelle, I am sorry." I laid a hand on her arm, gently so as not to disturb what was left of her decaying skin and wasted muscle beneath the layers of clothing. "Are we to understand that Dr. Merton killed you?"

She bowed her head, but not before I saw sorrow shadowing her eyes—eyes that weren't dead, but weren't quite alive either.

"Tell us how it happened."

She clasped her hands in her lap and lifted her chin, once more the no-nonsense woman I'd first met in spirit form in my sitting room. "Dr. Merton is the worst kind of man. He preys—preyed—on women, particularly the young and vulnerable. I was neither, so I avoided his notice until I confronted him over his misdeeds."

"He hurt the other nurses?"

"Yes, Miss Holloway, he hurt them. Two midwives under my supervision came to me after he'd raped them in that same basement storeroom where I came to my end."

"Bloody hell," Seth muttered. "The man deserved his death then."

"That's why the nurse didn't want to go to his office alone," I added. "She was happy for us to go with her rather than face him on her own."

"There were other stories too, of attempted rape and indecent acts," Estelle went on. "I brought them to the attention of both the hospital board and the local constabulary. Unfortunately, the poor girls were frightened of him and of the effect a trial would have on their reputations. They refused to testify, and it all came to naught." She shook her head. "It sickens me that they would have suffered if he was found innocent."

"How would he be found innocent if they testified?" I asked. "Surely a judge would believe their accounts."

"Your faith in our justice system is misguided, Miss Holloway. Dr. Merton would accuse them of being loose women and claim that they approached him in the storeroom, not the other way around. I knew he would stop at nothing to protect his reputation from this sort of scandal, but I had no idea that he would resort to murder. I was gathering evidence against him, you see. I talked to the girls and had almost convinced them to take the witness stand, but they only agreed to do so if there was an iron-clad case. That involved speaking to all the nurses at the Queen Charlotte, as well as those not associated with the hospital. It's possible there were other victims, you see, ones that we didn't know about. I checked inventory records for the storeroom, and cross-checked the dates and times of his signature in the dispensary book with the reported incidents. I was developing a solid case."

"So he killed you," I said, "then paid the coroner to cover it up by blaming heart failure."

"There's nothing wrong with my heart. My health was extraordinarily robust when I was alive."

"You appear to be alive again," Lincoln began, with his usual dark intensity. "How is that possible?"

Estelle bristled and regarded him down her nose. "I don't believe we've been introduced."

"My apologies," I muttered. "My manners are a little rusty. This is Mr. Lincoln Fitzroy and Mr. Seth Guilford. I work with them."

If Lincoln noticed me say "with" and not "for," he gave no sign. "Miss Holloway said you spoke some words in the cemetery before coming to life. Was that a spell?"

"You're an earnest man, Mr. Fitzroy, and quite unperturbed by the notion of spells, necromancers and the like."

"Answer the question."

Good lord, sometimes he had as much subtlety as a room full of dancing elephants. "We belong to an organization that wishes to keep the supernatural from harming the public," I assured her. "As you can imagine, having a corpse with incredible strength come to life is a worrying incident."

"Of course it is, and I'd like to assure you that I will return willingly to my afterlife." When Lincoln opened his mouth to speak again, she added, "Besides, I am not alive. Not exactly. I merely have the appearance of life. As to your question, Mr. Fitzroy, you are correct. I spoke a spell that my female ancestors have used for centuries to give consciousness to the dead, albeit for a brief time. It makes them act and look alive, but they are not. There is no air in their lungs, no blood pumping through veins, and the vital organs don't work. If there was, I would have died all over again when I fell from that drainpipe. In a way, it's similar to necromancy. I suppose that's why the spell overrode your orders, Miss Holloway. Perhaps you and I are two branches of the same ancestral tree."

Seth and I exchanged confused glances, but Lincoln's gaze didn't waver from Estelle's. "You're a witch."

"My ancestors were accused of witchcraft on occasion, so yes, I suppose I am. It's why I'm so good at what I do." At our blank looks, she elaborated. "Stillborn babies are common in my line of work, sadly, as is the death of the mother during childbirth. That spell allows me to buy them some time on this mortal coil. In some cases, only a few hours, in others, they continue on for a day or two."

"But…why?" Seth asked. "What's the point of giving a baby or mother a few hours of something that is not even a life? Why prolong the death and the pain?"

Estelle clicked her tongue and shook her head. "So that the mother can hold her child, Mr. Guilford. Just for a little while, and look into her baby's eyes, and know a mother's love. It's better to die in the arms of a mother than in her womb. On a more practical level, there is time to baptize the child and have other family members see the baby. In all cases, it's clear that the baby is sickly and will pass on, so I'm not giving false hope. The same in the cases of the deceased mothers. They know they only have a short time in which to continue, but I think they would all claim that is better than nothing. Some have older children they wish to hug one last time, and then, of course, there are burials or other matters to discuss with husbands."

"But you're playing God," Seth said. I was surprised to hear him say such a thing when he'd never shown much interest in religion. He never went to church, whereas Gus and I made the occasional effort on Sundays.

"If that is how you think, then I'm unlikely to change your mind," Estelle said stiffly. "I've never used my witchcraft on anyone outside childbirth until myself, this morning. When you raised my spirit, Miss Holloway, you unwittingly presented me with an opportunity for vengeance that I couldn't pass up. My decision to kill Merton was spur of the moment, but I don't regret it. Even if I have damned myself, I will face the consequences, not run from them. I do not shy away from my fate."