Pandora(102)

Use the gold-and-black key, the note said.

The Bramah key, obviously. So why is it he cannot find a bloody lock?

He presses his hand against the wall, groans deep into his chins. His leg is agony. The pain is unbearable, the smell equally so, but he will not give in to it now. He will find a way in first, secure his fortune and then, only then, will he relinquish himself to the hands of a doctor.

Hezekiah groans again. Sweat drips like a river down his back.

He must be missing something, Hezekiah thinks. In desperation he runs his hand along the uneven wall, palms scraping against the roughness. Again and again and again he does this until, panting, he changes tack. He limps to the far left side – leaning on the wall for support – and starts a slow run of it from top to bottom. He moves as slowly as he can take, bites back his anger, his frustration, his impatience, his pain until then, then!

Hezekiah stops, runs his hand over the spot once more. He feels for a fleeting second nothing, or rather, the absence of something. He bends to squint.

There. A small oval indent, the exact size of the disc on the Bramah key.

Hezekiah’s heart soars.

He has done it! He has found it! By God, he knew he would win in the end!

He laughs, laughs wildly, laughs so hard that he forgets the pain in his leg and then he is fumbling for the key, laying the oval flat, pushing it in …

Nothing.

He tries again.

Still nothing.

Once more.

Nothing.

Nothing nothing nothing!

It does not work. It will not open.

Hezekiah removes the disc a final time, presses his finger against the indent, again and again and again and then, his nail catches on a ridge. He stops, leans in closer. It takes him a moment – his vision blurs before it comes into focus – but then he sees it; an image in the relief. A bearded face.

He stares at the gold Bramah key in his hand for one long, unfathomable moment, staring at the smoothness of the disc. There is no face.

There is no face.

A hum. A sigh.

Hezekiah turns around. The pithos looms. Tall, imposing yet beautiful, and in his anguish it seems to him that in the dim light it taunts him. Then with a scream he throws the key to the floor as he realises that even in death, Elijah and Helen have thwarted him once again.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO





The note from Dora’s housekeeper came at midday when Edward, Cornelius and Dora were taking tea in the parlour. She had greeted Edward awkwardly, still seemed unable to meet his eye, and he was so gratified Dora had decided to acknowledge him that he had been hesitant to ruin the fragile peace between them by revealing the full import of Hezekiah’s transgressions. Indeed, it was painful to watch Dora listen to them in silence, but it was altogether worrying that she did not give even the merest flinch when he divulged the gruesome manner of the Coombe brothers’ deaths, and so it was almost a relief when the note arrived. Come now, it said, he won’t be back until tonight, and so Dora collected together her things – binding her sketchbook with string so the pages would not fly open in the gale that had picked up its ferocious wings the night before – and Edward and Cornelius fetched their coats.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked as they pushed their arms down into their sleeves.

‘Coming with you,’ Edward replied, wrapping his scarf around his neck. ‘After everything I’ve just said do you honestly think we would let you go alone?’

Dora paused, unsure. ‘Both of you? I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘We’re coming,’ Cornelius said then, pulling up his collar. ‘No arguments.’

Edward watched the play of emotions cross Dora’s face, could see how she battled to come up with an excuse. But after a moment she simply nodded, so Cornelius called for the carriage and they find themselves alighting outside Blake’s Emporium within the hour.

Dora’s stocky housekeeper lets them in. Edward notes the cracked lip, the black eye. The bruising, he deduces by the mottled green at the edges, is a few days old. Hezekiah’s handiwork, undoubtedly.

‘He’s gone to organise the bidding, that much I know,’ the housekeeper says as she takes their coats, Dora’s cape. ‘He told me not to expect him home until this evening.’

Edward looks at her. ‘The bidding?’

‘He had the smaller items collected this morning.’

‘Do you know where they were being delivered?’ Edward asks, his hopes lifting. If the housekeeper knows that then they may be able to do something after all, but his hopes are dashed when Lottie shakes her head.

‘He’s never told me things like that. But Coombe knows. You should ask him.’

‘Coombe is dead.’

Lottie covers her mouth.

Cornelius looks at the woman. ‘Knew this Coombe well, did you?’

The housekeeper lowers her hands, begins to wring them in her apron.

‘Not well, exactly, but well enough to care that he’s dead. How?’

Dora’s lip thins. ‘Hezekiah, of course.’

Lottie pales, fleshy chin trembling.

‘Missum, I … I’m so sorry. For all of it. I should have told you.’

‘Told me what?’ Dora’s voice comes sharp, and tears begin to well in Lottie’s eyes.