The Dark Between (29 page)

Kate raced down the stairs as quietly as she could, all the way to the small basement kitchen.

She’s still conscious, still awake. There’s a chance
.

I couldn’t save Mum, but I can save her
.

In the dim light of the oil lamp, she fumbled through cabinets until she found the medicine store. After scrutinizing a seemingly endless array of remedies—cod liver oil, dyspepsia powders, paregorics—she finally found what she wanted. Kate plucked the bottle from the shelf and ran back up the stairs, sliding in her stocking feet on each landing.

She’d been gone the lesser part of ten minutes, but already Elsie looked worse. Her head now slumped against the wall, and her color was unnatural. Kate set the bottle on the bedside table, then hefted the porcelain basin from the washstand and
placed it on the floor. She sat on the bed and pulled Elsie near. The girl was taller and better fed than she was, not to mention heavy with sleep, and Kate struggled to pull her into a half embrace.

“Wake up, Elsie.”

When she slapped her cheek, the girl’s eyelids fluttered slightly. With her free hand Kate fetched the bottle from the table, pulling the cork with her teeth. Then she tilted Elsie’s head back and forced her mouth open with the bottle.

“Swallow this a little at a time. It’s nasty, but drink it like a good girl and you’ll feel better.”

At least a third of the liquid streamed down either side of Elsie’s mouth, but Kate thought she’d swallowed enough. She held her breath … and nearly wept with relief when Elsie finally gagged and heaved into the porcelain basin.

Once Elsie’s spasms had eased, Kate bunched the pillow and coverlets together, creating a large bolster at the head of the bed. Lifting the girl’s light cloak from the floor, she draped it over her legs.

“Good Lord, that was terrible,” Elsie gasped. “What
was
that stuff? I’ve never tasted anything so foul.”

“It was ipecac, and it may have saved your life. Thank God your aunt keeps her medicine cabinet well stocked, or I’d have been sticking one of your hat feathers down your throat.”

Elsie groaned. “And ruined a damned expensive hat.” She squirmed against the makeshift bolster.

Kate’s fingers itched to shake the girl’s shoulders. “What were you doing? Were you
trying
to kill yourself?”

“I just wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to worry about my mistakes anymore. But after two doses my mind was still racing. I wasn’t thinking properly.” Elsie yawned. “But I think I can sleep now.”

“Not likely,” Kate snapped. She pulled a chair near and sank into it. “I should fetch your aunt. She’d be horrified to know what you nearly did to yourself tonight, and she would have my hide if she knew I’d kept it secret.”

Elsie’s eyes widened. “Please don’t tell her. I’ll be sent away to some horrid sanitarium, perhaps never to come out again. It was just a mistake, Kate! I didn’t want to die. I know that now, don’t you see?”

“Well, then, I’m going to keep you awake until dawn at least. There’s no way to be certain all that filthy drug is out of your system.”

Elsie swallowed another yawn. “What if I fall asleep anyway?”

“You won’t. I’m going to keep you talking.” Kate quietly scooted the chair closer. “You can start by telling me where you went tonight.”

Elsie’s mouth dropped open. “How did—”

“You took the bicycle.”

“Oh.”

Kate waited a moment. “Where did you go?”

Elsie opened her mouth to speak, but a strangled sound was all that came out. Finally her face crumpled. “Stonehill. I had to see Simon Wakeham.”

“Oh, Elsie. Why would you do that?”

“Because I wanted to make an idiot of myself, apparently.”

Kate gentled her tone. “You’re in love with him?”

“Yes. And I … well, I needed to tell him before he left Cambridge, but it all went horribly wrong.”

“How? Surely he didn’t hurt you?”

“No, much worse than that. He told me he loves someone else—someone who happens to be dead.”

“
That’s
why you swallowed too much Chlorodyne?”

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Elsie turned away and closed her eyes.

Kate looked up at the ceiling and sighed. How to keep the girl talking now? If the conversation weren’t steered away from Simon Wakeham, Elsie would be reaching soon for the spare Chlorodyne bottle. Kate looked around the room, desperate for inspiration, until her eyes settled upon Elsie’s camera.
Perfect
. A neutral topic, and one that Elsie understood better than anyone she knew. “I want you to tell me everything you know about photography. Starting with all the important parts of the camera. Explain it to me like I’m a child who’s never seen or heard of one of these contraptions before.”

A faint smile played at Elsie’s pale lips.

“Thanks, Kate.”

“Just tell me about your camera, Elsie. Start with the lens. I’ve never understood how it works.”

Chapter 30

A
sher woke late, having stayed up half the night wondering at the horrors Marshall might have committed. His head and stomach ached, and his mouth tasted sour. He rose from bed and bathed his face at the washstand, then dressed quickly and packed his things.

Marshall’s sitting room was quiet, his bedroom door still shut. Asher scribbled a quick note of thanks, making vague mention of a morning appointment, and crept quietly toward the door. It was only once he was past the porter’s gate that he could breathe normally.

The Summerfield Gatehouse was a pleasant prospect in the late-morning light—a most welcome sight. When Millie opened the door, her face broke into a broad grin.

“Mr. Beale!”

“Where is Miss Atherton, Millie?”

The grin faltered. “Why, she’s in the garden with Miss Poole, sir. Shall I take your bag?”

He wanted nothing more than to go directly to them, but his clothes were sadly rumpled and still reeking from the cloud
of cigar smoke in the Senior Common Room. “I fear I must make myself more presentable,” he said.

Millie nodded knowingly, and he flashed her a grateful smile before bounding up the stairs to quickly bathe and dress in clean clothes. Before leaving his room, he retrieved the notebook containing their notes from under his mattress.

When he finally saw Elsie and Kate sitting comfortably in the grass near one of the younger trees, the tightness in his chest eased a bit. He took a deep breath, removing his hat as he approached them.

Kate was the first to notice him. “Asher!”

A smile widened her thin face. Asher wasn’t sure if her cheeks were flushed from the sun or at the sight of him. Next to her Elsie was pale, her eyes shadowed.

“We’ve missed you, Asher,” said Elsie.

“I’ve not been gone
that
long.” His heart swelled at the greeting, but there was something odd about her manner. She looked beaten down, listless. When she averted her eyes from his, he turned a questioning eyebrow to Kate, but she merely shook her head and frowned.

“May I sit?” he asked.

“Of course.” Kate shifted closer to Elsie and patted the blanket. After stifling a yawn, she smiled at him. “How was Trinity?”

“It was fine.”

Kate seemed altered, too. Her lip was swollen and her eyes as weary as Elsie’s.

“Fine?” Kate’s smile faltered. “Is that all you have to say?”

“No, I have plenty to say … but not really about Trinity.” He paused to take a breath. “It’s Billy. I learned something, and I raced back here to tell you.”

Kate stiffened at the mention of Billy, but she said nothing.

“Go on,” urged Elsie.

Asher turned to Kate. “Do you remember when we saw his body, and he had the red marks on his chest?”

“And the bruise on his face,” she said.

“Yes, but no fatal violence to his body, at least as far as the police could tell. Based on what I’ve learned, however, I think the marks on his chest
were
the evidence of fatal violence.”

“How?”

He struggled for the right words. “Well, this is very theoretical, and I confess that my strongest evidence comes from Elsie’s conversation with Billy during her spell at the Castle End cottage.”

“So you believe her now?” Kate frowned.

“I want to. Certainly more than I did before,” he said, glancing quickly at Elsie. “If we take her evidence as fact, we know a man stood over Billy’s body while the boy’s limbs jerked and flailed. I fear I’ve seen something frighteningly similar.” He explained what he’d encountered at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

As Kate listened, her mouth fell open. “You think someone
electrocuted
Billy? But why?”

He pulled the notebook from his pocket and searched out the correct page. “I do think his killer electrocuted him, but I don’t know whether it was part of that ‘improving experiment’ Billy mentioned, or if it was merely a way to … silence him.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “You are quite enthusiastic all of a sudden. You hardly seemed to care about poor Billy before.”

Asher closed the notebook. She was right—he’d clung to his doubt so stubbornly. They must have thought him quite beastly at times. But they couldn’t understand without knowing about his father … and Letty.

“It’s true that I never knew Billy,” he finally said. “And I’ve
been skeptical about this business of talking to spirits. But in the past two days I’ve seen things that make all we’ve discussed more real, more urgent, than it was before. Something terrible has happened, and I … I need to understand it if we can hope to stop it.”

“I’ve learned something, too,” said Kate softly. “Yesterday was quite the day for dark revelations.”

Her voice was uncharacteristically somber—void of teasing or sarcasm. Even Elsie turned worried eyes to her. “What do you mean, Kate?”

“I paid a visit to my father’s widow early yesterday evening. She was in Cambridge with her politician husband, and I thought to speak to her at the Prince Albert Hotel.” She paused, frowning. “The woman took great pleasure in telling me how much of a disappointment my father was to her. In fact, she characterized him as a fool. But that hasn’t anything to do with Billy.” She bit her lip.

“Go on,” Asher urged.

“She told me that my father and his friends in the Metaphysical Society went to dangerous lengths to—how did she put it—‘lift the veil of the spirit world.’ Their research involved the use of narcotics. I knew already that my father died from taking too much chloroform, and that it was ruled accidental because he’d been treating his neuralgia. He did have a medical degree, after all. But according to that wretched woman he married, he was using narcotics as part of his research, and in the end it killed him.”

Elsie gasped. “Kate, why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“I was distracted,” Kate said drily.

“This chloroform … is it like Chlorodyne?”

“Actually, it’s much less dangerous.”

Asher noticed the flush that crept up Elsie’s neck. “What
exactly
happened
here?” he asked. “You both look haunted. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“I’m getting to the worst of it,” Kate continued. “I was upset after seeing that woman, so when I returned to Summerfield I told Mr. Thompson I was ill and went to bed. But later, long after dark, I left the college again. This time I went to Castle End to find Tec.”

“Hold on,” said Asher. “You left the college in the middle of the night?”

“There’s nothing to it.” Kate glanced again at Elsie. “I’m quite used to getting about at night. But that’s not important right now. Do you both remember the papers Billy talked about? The ones he found the night he was searching for information on my father?”

“The ones he took for his blackmail scheme,” Elsie said.

“Yes. When I went to see Tec he wasn’t there. But it occurred to me that the most likely place Billy would hide those papers would be somewhere in that house. Billy didn’t have any other home, after all—no permanent place to go anytime he wanted. So I searched Tec’s cottage.”

Elsie’s eyes widened. “Did you find them?”

Kate nodded.

“Did you bring them with you?” Asher asked.

Kate shook her head. “I started to read them, but Tec came back, and he … he took them from me and threw them in the fire.”

Elsie gasped. “I thought he was your friend, Kate. Yours and Billy’s.”

“He was different somehow. I can’t explain it, but he was quite rough with me.” Tears welled in Kate’s eyes. “I can’t show you what was written on those pages—I don’t even know who wrote them because they were torn from a journal and weren’t
signed—but I remember the most important details. Whoever wrote the notes said that he and my father, and perhaps others, worked together to reach the ‘dark spaces of the mind.’ They experimented on themselves with mesmerism and narcotics.” She frowned. “We know how that ended with my father. But the point of the journal entry was that this person—the very person who must have killed Billy—argued that it was better to experiment on ‘lesser’ people. Those who are unwanted, who contribute little or nothing to society. I think he meant the poor and those who live outside of the law. The sorts that proper people never see and care nothing about. Who would miss them?”

As a heavy silence fell, Asher felt the last piece of the puzzle clicking into place. “Dark spaces of the mind—are you certain that’s what this person wrote?”

Kate nodded.

“Unlocking hidden abilities, accessing the subliminal self—that’s Dr. Marshall’s line of research. And he knew Frederic Stanton well. He told me he testified at his inquest.”

Kate gasped. “I read that in my father’s obituary. How could I have forgotten? Do you think
he’s
behind all this?”

“I’m certain he’s experimenting with electric shock.” Asher turned to Elsie. “Didn’t he say that the subjects he’d studied—those who had a special ability—only gained that ability after some traumatic event?”

“Yes, he did,” said Elsie. “But Kate said he wasn’t at the séance.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “Just because Billy met his killer
after
the séance doesn’t mean the killer actually attended it.