The Diabolical Miss Hyde (18 page)

Griffin raised his brows. “Keen, isn't he?”

“Naturally,” said the theater manager at Her Majesty's, an hour later. “Everyone here knows Geordie Kelly.”

His name was Underwood, and his craggy, deep-wrinkled face seemed a hundred years old. He was fabulously tall and thin, hunching over on a slender black cane that quivered under his weight, ready to snap. His creaking black hat sported a net of cobwebs on its brim, and a tiny brown spider scuttled underneath into his scraggly white hair.

Eliza tried not to stare. Behind her skirts, Hippocrates gave an electric titter.

Griffin coughed to cover a smile. “Everyone? Why? Does Geordie visit the theater often?”

Underwood's snow-white brows bristled. “Take me for a fool, do you? I still have my wits, you know. I already told that other young fellow all about it. Smart chap, fine red coat. A detective from India, you know. Tigers and nabobs, say what?”

Inwardly, Eliza groaned.

Lafayette sauntered in the office door, resplendent, hat under his arm. “Dr. Jekyll, my dear lady.” Hippocrates clattered up to him, his
happy
light flashing, and Lafayette gave him an indulgent pat on the head. “I say, Griffin, we really must stop meeting like this. People will think we're working together.”

Underwood blinked. “Yes, that's the chap. Told him all about it. No stone unturned, all that.”

Eliza smiled faintly. “Excellent. Hipp, come here, please. Mr. Underwood, sir, would you mind telling us what you've told the captain?”

“About what? Oh. Yes, this Geordie. Theater nut. Harmless fellow, really. Well, except for . . . Ah-CHOO!” Underwood wiped his nose on a vast scarlet handkerchief that he dragged from his coat pocket. The spider dangled from its web into his eyes, and he batted it away. “Confounded crawlers! Sorry, what was I saying?”

“Geordie,” prompted Griffin.

“Who?” Underwood peered vaguely at Eliza. “I say, young lady, have we been introduced?”

“Indeed we have, sir. Eliza Jekyll, Metropolitan Police.”

“Not you,” he said crossly. “The other one. Saucy girl, dark hair.”

Faintness washed her mind thin. Was Lafayette glancing at her oddly? “I'm sorry, who?”

“Who what?” Another sneeze, louder and wetter than the last. “Never mind. What were you saying?”

Griffin smiled patiently. “The boy is harmless, except for . . . ?”

“The showgirls don't like him, for certain. He spies on them, they say. Steals things from their dressing rooms. Never saw it myself. The filching, that is, not the spying. Of course he spies. Dancing girls with no clothes on, eh? Who wouldn't spy?”

“And the late Miss Pavlova?”

“Who?” Another bristling white frown. “Oh, yes. Russians, dead girl. Terrible thing. Their
Giselle
was so popular. Now I'll have to find another show for my theater, I suppose. Acrobats, I'm thinking. Whistling about on the flying trapeze, ahoy!”

“You were just telling me,” interrupted Lafayette, with a steel-edged smile, “that Geordie had admired the late Miss Pavlova. Sent her flowers, that kind of thing.”

“Poor girl didn't speak a word of English, but that didn't stop him. The more exotic, the better, that's our Geordie.”

The spider on Underwood's hat climbed down its thread towards the old man's coat lapels, and Eliza resisted the urge to grab it and pull. Perhaps he'd unravel. “So he's . . . an obsessed theater lover?”

“You could say that. Once, we had an opera diva from darkest Africa. Lovely young thing, six-octave voice. Sang like an angel. He mooned after her for weeks. Poor lad was heartbroken when her company moved on.”

“He's a regular patron?” suggested Griffin.

“Good God, no.” Underwood's eyes crinkled, incredulous. “Are you all idiots? He works here.”

W
HAT?” ALL THREE OF THEM SPOKE TOGETHER
, and Eliza saw Griffin hide another smile. At last, something Lafayette hadn't been able to find out first.

Underwood scratched his flea-bitten hair. “In charge of the electric lights. Swings about in the rafters, flicking switches on and off all night and making puppy eyes at the leading ladies. Moons about in the corridor outside the dressing rooms, picking up feathers and sequins from the girls' costumes. As I said: harmless.”

“How frightfully convenient of the lad,” murmured Lafayette in Eliza's ear. His hand on her waist made her jump. “Tell me you're not buying into any of this.”

Hippocrates whirred, indignant. “Impertinence,” he trumpeted. “Inappropriate manners. Recompute.”

Coolly, Eliza ignored Lafayette and plucked the letter they'd found in Ophelia's dressing table from her pocket. “Could this be his handwriting, Mr. Underwood?”

“Shouldn't think so,” said Underwood briskly, without glancing at it. “Boy's an idiot. Dull-witted. A fuse loose. Whacked with the glocky stick. I doubt he can read or write.”

“Care to discuss your thoughts?” whispered Lafayette. “I'm free this afternoon. Your little brass idiot seems an efficient chaperone, if you're bothered with that sort of thing. Or we can just call it an interrogation.”

She fought strange laughter.
The very devil in scarlet . . .

Her cheeks flamed, and she elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop it,” she whispered fiercely. “This is serious.”

“So am I. You smell fabulous, by the way. For a revolutionary.”

Griffin cleared his throat. Eliza smiled weakly at Underwood. “I see,” she said loudly. “Thank you. Can you, er, tell us where Geordie lives?”

Underwood's spider crawled over his lapel and disappeared inside his shirt. “Right here, of course,” said the old man. “A loft in the rafters. Our very own Quasimodo!”

They bustled in single file through corridors crowded with machinery, old scenery, piles of lumber, and tools. Looms of electrical wiring hung along the walls, clumped with dust. The air was musty with the smell of old makeup and sweat. Eliza and Hipp dodged harried servants, small boys with buckets and brooms, dancers in rehearsal costume. Many of the dancers were fey, with graceful spindly limbs and huge eyes, their long-suffering feet crammed into pretty satin ballet shoes.

Craggy old Underwood halted in the stage wings, at the foot of a huge red velvet curtain. He pointed with his stick at a rickety iron ladder that climbed the wall on metal pins, stretching upwards into the dark. “Rafters. Lads swinging about like gibbons, eh?” His top hat slipped down over his eyes. He fumbled it back, and wandered off, muttering,
“Watch out for rodents. Hungry critters, size of small dogs. They spread madness, you know.”

“Apparently,” murmured Eliza. She peered up the ladder and glanced down at her skirts.

Lafayette was already grinning.

She eyed him sternly. “Don't even say it.”

“I wasn't going to say anything.”

“Why don't you wait down here, Doctor?” Griffin suggested. “I'll call if I need you.”

“That won't be necessary.” Briskly, she tugged her satchel tighter over her shoulder. “Wait here, Hipp. After you, gentlemen, please.”

“Wait here,” agreed Hippocrates eagerly, and folded his legs with a happy
whir!
of cogs.

“Good dog.” Lafayette vaulted up the ladder, climbing swiftly. Griffin followed. Eliza gripped the highest rung she could reach, and started to climb.

The air grew warmer, the light dim. The curtain beside her grew dustier. Ropes creaked, wind whistled in the roof above. From the stage below, piano music rippled, the bright notes of a
pas de deux
. The ladder creaked under the combined weight of three. Her heartbeat quickened. She fought not to grip the rungs too tightly.
Don't look down. Don't look down . . .

Lizzie giggled, and clapped invisible hands.
Whee hee!
Now here's some fun . . .

“Landing,” called Lafayette from above.

Sure enough, after a few more rungs, a narrow wooden platform stretched along the wall, where a dozen ropes were wrapped onto a rack of belaying pins, like those on a ship's deck. The web of ropes stretched out over the stage, echoing
the spider's weavings on Underwood's hat. Curtain ropes, plus others holding scenery and lighting arrays that swung over the stage on wooden beams.

Eliza dusted off her hands and peered downwards. Her vision swam. Why was she always compelled to look down? Twenty feet at least to the stage, where dancers twirled and stretched to the music. Nothing to stop you from falling. She craned her neck upwards, pushing back her spectacles. In the dim light, she could just make out criss-crossing rafters, disappearing into the gloom.

“There's another level.” Griffin squinted up, resting his hand on the next ladder. “This Geordie must be a veritable monkey . . . I say, who's there? Stop, man—oof!”

Griffin stumbled. Lafayette swore. A shadow slipped by, just a blur, too fast to see, and something hard banged into Eliza's shoulder.

She overbalanced, arms waving, and the earth beneath her dropped away.

Her stomach shriveled. She flailed desperately but caught nothing but air . . . and then
wumph!
A hanging beam slammed into her chest. A bone in her corset snapped, and she clung there like a barnacle in billowing skirts.

The beam swung wildly to and fro, creaking under her weight, and at one end, the knot holding the rope began to unravel.
Oh, bother.

She heard Griffin cursing. Lafayette scrambled to the landing's edge. “Hold on, Eliza. Don't let go!”

“Wasn't planning on it . . . uh!”

The beam swung again. The sharp edge of a light fixture dug painfully into her upper arms. Something fell from her
satchel, hit the stage and smashed. Somewhere below, Hippocrates squealed and screeched, “Danger! Danger!”

Her arms ached with fatigue, weakening. Her heart lurched, sick.
Don't look down. Don't . . .

Dizzy depths, swirling into blackness.

Her grip slipped, and Lizzie yowled like an angry cat.
Pull yourself together, girl. You'll not get rid of me like this. Climb!

Gritting her teeth, Eliza heaved herself up. But her muscles must have turned to water while she wasn't watching, because her arms just strained uselessly. The beam swung wildly, banging against the landing, and her spectacles dislodged and fell into nothing.

Wonderful,
snarled Lizzie.
Climb, you useless mopsy, or I'll climb for you.

And the familiar, raw sickness clutched at Eliza's guts. Her pulse cartwheeled.
Not now . . . not now!

But her muscles spasmed, a shuddering cramp of pain and pleasure, and bright electric rage raced along Eliza's nerves. It was her, Lizzie,
it's me,
me,
you stupid girl, are you so afraid that you can't even save your own life?

My face is quivering beneath hers, like the real face under a mask. My skin's juddering, my hair's springing alive, desperate to escape, to
change
. That Captain Lafayette is leaning over the edge and his knowing gaze meets mine, a stinging blur of color,
her
eyes and
mine
and
hers
again and I can't breathe and I can't think and God fucking help us if this happens
now
.

“Eliza! Give me your hand!” He's barely holding on while he reaches out to me. One hand gripping a rope, the other teetering above nothing, Captain Smart-Pants Lafayette of the
god-rotted Royal in his scarlet coat and oh-so-pretty chestnut curls, only there ain't nothing pretty or weak about him now. There's fire in those heaven-blue eyes, fire and hatred and screw-it-all defiance that lights a familiar flame in my heart.

He knows pain, this golden soldier-boy. He knows death, and today, death's picked the wrong man to screw with.

The ancient knot at the beam's end slips some more—who tied this bleeding thing anyway, Noah?—and I grab the wood and haul my body up, up, hand over hand. My muscles screech at me, whining like pampered babies, but they can just shut the hell up or
die,
and Lafayette strains for my hand and his knuckles bang mine and finally, his big fingers clamp my wrist like a Newgate shackle and don't let go.

My elbow wrenches. The beam tries to swing back, away, yanking my shoulder joint apart, a white-hot spike of
ouch
. Lafayette heaves, and I let the beam go and come flying onto the landing, ker-
bang!
into a knot of tangled skirts and pounding pulse and holy Jesus, I'm still alive.

I lie panting on my back, sweating. The beam crashes to the stage,
bang!
Glass shatters. A girl down there screams.
Eliza
screams, clawing at my face, struggling inside me, over me,
through
me, our skin crawls and our guts twist into knots and I writhe and fight and open my mouth to yell . . .

Air rushed into Eliza's lungs, and she jerked upright.

Her heart galloped, her breath in deep gasps. Her bodice was soaked with sweat. Her stomach ached, her insides felt weak and stretched, as if someone had wrung her out to dry. But Lizzie was gone.

For now.

“Are you hurt, Doctor?” Lafayette scrambled up beside her.

She let him haul her to her feet. Her legs shook. She gripped the wall for balance and pushed him away, catching her breath. “Just a little shaken.”

“Pleased to hear it.”

She blinked, short-sighted. She'd have to fetch her spare spectacles from home. She dusted off her dress. A bone in her corset had snapped. She'd have to get it mended. “What hit me? One minute I was standing there, the next . . .”

“Our glocky-sticked Geordie, presumably.” He regarded her strangely. As if he'd never seen her before.

Her throat crisped. Had Lizzie . . . come out? Had her face changed, her hair? “What? Kindly stop staring, sir.”