Cold Stone and Ivy

Cold Stone & Ivy

Published by Tyche Books Ltd.

www.TycheBooks.com

Copyright © 2016 H. Leighton Dickson

First Tyche Books Ltd Edition 2016

Print ISBN: 978-1-928025-48-1

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-928025-49-8

Cover Art by Lane Brown

Cover Layout by Lucia Starkey

Interior Layout by Ryah Deines

Editorial by Allison Campbell

Author photograph: Alan Dickson Photography

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage & retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party websites or their content.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to persons living or dead would be really cool, but is purely coincidental.

This book was funded in part by a grant from the Alberta Media Fund.

For Subby

Of Floating Arms, Blobs of Ink,
and a Murder in Manchester

September 11, 1888

Grosvenor Railway Bridge, London

IT LOOKED LIKE
a dead dog floating on the river.

Three boys had been sitting on the bank, counting the airships over the stacks of the Battersea Shipyards. It was dusk, and the lights of the yard turned the ships into dragons hovering over a land of smoke and volcanoes. For the boys, it was a magical sight, and as they sat on the bank they imagined worlds where friends carried swords, not coal shovels, and where enemies breathed fire, not steam.

When they spied the floater, however, they scrambled to their feet.

“What is it, then?” called Sharpie. He was nine and all grown up. His name was Cyril Sharp, but you’d get a shiner if you called him anything but Sharpie.

“It’s a dog.” Martin Alcorn now, all of eight and tough as tack.

“It’s not a dog, I tell ye,” said Sharpie. “Dogs ain’t pink now, are they?”

“Mrs. Tumblemorey’s dog’s pink.”

They stared at him.

“It’s got a disease.”

“It’s a
disease
-dog, then.” Sharpie grinned. “A skinny pink disease-dog.”

“Maybe it’s a snake . . .” Ronnie Shipley now, the quiet one, and the boys’ eyes grew round at the thought of a snake. Not many snakes in Battersea. Dead ones were almost as much fun as the living.

“Coo . . . a snake-dog . . .”

“Can ye grab it, then?” asked Martin. “Pull it over! Let’s get a look!”

Sharpie began to tug on the branch of a sapling growing on the bank. The others joined him, and within moments, the branch peeled away from the trunk into their hands.

Sharpie turned and slapped the switch into the water, trying to drag the snake-dog to shore. It was tangled in branches and floating timber, and as usual, the current of the Thames was strong.

“Get it, get it!”

“I got it . . .”

He dragged it in closer, and the dog rolled once, out from under the soggy brush.

Cyril Sharp screamed and dropped the switch, bolting up the bank as fast as he could. Martin Alcorn began to back away and tripped over his feet before turning and scrambling up after him. Ronnie Shipley watched them for a moment, but he turned, picked up the switch, and dragged the floater to shore.

“That’s no dog,” he whispered to himself.

It was an arm, tied off by a piece of string, floating down the river toward Whitechapel.

“
YOU, SIR, ARE
a fiend and a murderer,” said Penny, and she turned to her father, Chief Inspector Charles Dreadful. “Arrest him, Father. This man is your culprit.”

“Bully for you, Penny,” said her father. “I knew you’d jump this case. You’re a crackerjack girl, you are.”

She smiled at him, knowing it to be quite true.

He turned to his men, Penny’s favourite boys in blue.

“Come along, chaps. Let’s get this bludger into the claps!”

As they dragged off the nefarious Alphonse Lemieux, Penny turned to her companions.

“I always knew he was a villain,” she said merrily. “He had a certain
sang-froid
about him!”

They all laughed and lifted their claret by way of a toast.

And that is how Penny Dreadful, Girl Criminologist, not only caught the infamous Rue Buffon killer, but still had time to enjoy the new summer palette of French Chardonnay.

The Conclusion of A Murder in Pari
flb

IVY SAVAGE GROWLED
as the front door slammed, causing ink to spurt from her fountain pen.

“Davis,” she moaned, looking down at the glistening papers on her desk. She had envisioned ending her story—
Penny Dreadful and a Murder in Paris
— with a bang. Instead, it was ending with a rather large blob.

“There’s been another one,” called her brother from the foyer. “The coppers are out in full.”

She sat up. “Another one? Where?”

“Dunno. Whitechapel, I ’spect. That’s where the last one was.”

She peered out through the rain-spattered window onto the black streets. A killing in London’s East End was nothing new, and in a policeman’s family, murder was a routine topic for conversation, along with burglary, pick-pocketing, and the treachery of four-wheeled steamcars. But with the recent slayings in Whitechapel, even her father was reluctant to discuss them. For a mystery writer like Ivy, however, it had only set her imagination racing.

“There’s a mob collecting at the stationhouse too,” said Davis, and he stepped into the room, peeled a soggy sweater over his head. His Welsh accent was thicker than hers. She had worked very hard to rid herself of it. “It’s a bloody riot out there tonight.”

“Did you see Tad?”

“He’s on his way. I think Remy’s with him.”

“Damn. It must be bad, then. Is it in the broadsheets?”

“Not yet.” He dropped into a chair next to her desk, rainwater collecting in puddles at his feet. “So? Are you going to write it?”

“Davis . . .”

“Why? Mum can’t hear you. She’s as dead as the girls in Whitechapel.”

“Davis! Hush!”

He rolled his eyes as she glanced over at her mother sitting by the hearth, hands held limply in her lap. With her dull eyes, gaunt cheeks, and black-collared dress, Catherine Savage looked dead. But, truth be told, she’d looked that way for years. She couldn’t feed herself, couldn’t clothe or bathe or change herself. Those were duties left to Ivy, along with the raising of her brother. At the ripe age of eighteen, Ivy Savage had already been a mother for seven years.

As dead as the girls in Whitechapel.

“C’mon Ivy, don’t be such a ‘good’ girl,” said Davis, green eyes gleaming. “You’ve been talking about it for weeks. The whole street’s waiting for it.”

She looked back at her brother.

“Tad’ll kill me . . .”

“What else is new?”

“Right.” She turned her chair to face him. “I’m calling it
Penny Dreadful and the Terror of Whitechapel . . .”

“Cor,”
her brother whistled. “I can’t wait to start the sketches on that one . . .”

“I’m certain it will be very gruesome.”

“Just the way I like it, blood splatters ’n all. I may need more ink.”

She smiled now, despite herself. Davis was only three years younger than she, a talented artist and very clever, with a rebellious streak as long as the Thames. He was set on the army, convinced his future lay in putting down rebellions in other parts of the world. But he was a boy. He couldn’t see past his own heart.

The set of clocks chimed ten and, as if on cue, the front door opened again, a gust of wind flickering the gaslight in the hall.

“Hallo, my girl,” called a voice, and she could hear her tad dropping wet boots to the floor. “Put on the tea! I’ve brought Remy with me.”

Her father entered the small sitting room, smiling under his moustache. A well-dressed young man followed him, top hat and town coat heavy with rain.

Ivy rose to her feet.

“Christien,” she said.

“Found him with Bondie and the other surgeons at the station,” said Inspector Trevis Savage, removing his bowler and tossing it onto the rack by the door. “Thought he might like a spot of tea with his fiancée.”

“I couldn’t refuse,” said Christien. He flashed her a smile and Ivy felt her chest tighten. He didn’t smile much, for he was a very serious young man. With sleek dark hair, clear blue eyes, and skin like fine porcelain, Christien Jeremie “Remy” St. John de Lacey looked like he had stepped off the pages of a French novel. One she could never write. “But I can’t stay long, Ivy. There’s been another discovery.”

“Ha!” yelped Davis, and he folded his arms across his chest. “Told ya.”

“Another murder?”

“Just an arm off the Railway Bridge,” said her father. “The rest of her’ll turn up sometime.”