Chapter 35
“Oye, there. Bear wants ter speak with ye!”’
The boy didn’t wait, darting back to the carriage. Kendra followed, keeping her expression neutral as the kid opened the door.
Kendra peered into the shadowy interior. “I hope this isn’t a social visit,” she said, mounting the steps and dropping into the seat opposite Bear. “Tell me you got something.”
The crime lord grinned. “I got news about the lightskirt. Isabella Russo.”
“I already know she had syphilis.”
“Aye, and it’s made her addlepated.” He tapped a thick finger against his temple. “She don’t have long for this world.”
“You’re saying . . . she’s alive?”
“Didn’t know that, did ye?” He looked pleased. “Her sister’s been takin’ care of her in Soho.”
“What about the medical experiments to treat syphilis, and other missing women?”
“I told ye, I can’t be knowin’ what happens ter every trollop in London. As for the other, there’s always gossip and canny folks tryin’ ter make a profit by offering remedies ter the dying.”
“Speaking from experience?”
He let out a booming laugh. “I might have a finger or two in those games. But trollops don’t have the kind of blunt that gets me interested. Would be a waste of me time ter scheme them out their coins. Can’t imagine why anyone would.”
“It’s not about money.” At least not in the short term, she reflected. In the long term, though, if you found a cure to one of society’s deadly diseases? Well, that would come with money, prestige, and the kind of fame that is written into the history books.
Names that she would know centuries later.
Bear frowned. “If it ain’t about money, w’ots it about?”
“Becoming a god,” she said softly. She leaned back in her seat. “Can I ask one more favor?”
“W’ot?”
“Can you give me a ride to Soho?”
***
Soho was only a ten-minute drive from Bedford Square, but the neighborhoods were vastly different.
At one time, Soho had been home to aristocrats and the affluent.
Yet the influx of immigrants— French, Italian, German—had the nobility fleeing to other, more fashionable enclaves.
Former mansions were now divvied up into apartments, businesses, and shops.
Savvy landlords had developed neighborhoods with small houses and cottages for the new arrivals.
Kendra knocked on the door to one of those cottages, a pretty, white-washed stucco with blue-trimmed sash windows and planter boxes exploding with colorful flowers, located on a quiet, dirt lane off St. Peter’s Street. An attractive, dark-haired woman in her late thirties opened the door.
“Yes? May I help you?” Her voice was musical, with just a trace of an Italian accent.
“Mrs. Chirone? I’m Lady Sutcliffe.” It was, she decided, becoming easier to use the title. Especially if it got her what she wanted. “I’ve come to talk to your sister.”
Mrs. Chirone’s lips parted in surprise. “You know my sister?”
“No, but I need to see her.”
The woman frowned. “No, mi dispiace. It is quite impossible, my lady. My sister, she is . . . she’s indisposed.”
“I know she’s ill, Mrs. Chirone, but it’s important that I speak with her.”
“You don’t understand.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Isabella won’t be able to talk to you. She is very ill. She is . . . she’s dying, if must know.”
“I know, and I’m very sorry. I promise you that I’ll only be a moment. I won’t tire her.”
“I don’t know what she’ll be able to tell you, my lady. She is not always lucid. And”—her breath hitched—“she is no longer the beautiful girl she once was.”
“I understand. I’ll only take up a few moments of your time.”
Mrs. Chirone hesitated, but finally acquiesced, stepping back to allow Kendra to enter the tiny foyer. “May I ask what this is about?”
“I’m hoping she’ll be able to give me information that I need in another matter.” Kendra followed the woman to the staircase at the end of the hall. It was so narrow that they had to ascend single-file. “How long have you been taking care of your sister?”
“All her life.” That was said with a sad smile. “She’s my youngest sister. It was very hard to deny her anything, even when she dreamed of the stage. Opera,” she added, pausing to wait for Kendra on the landing. “Isabella has . . . had the voice of an angel.”
Kendra didn’t know how to respond to that—offering her sympathy again seemed pointless—so she said nothing.
The upstairs hallway was a skinny strip with two closed doors on either side of the stairs. Sunshine fell from a window on the opposite wall.
“She may be asleep,” Mrs. Chiron cautioned, moving to the door on the right. “I give her opium. To ease the pain.”
They entered a tiny room dominated by a single cot and a nightstand with a candle, a glass of water, and a vase with several roses.
A chamber pot was under the window. Kendra took in the figure in the narrow bed.
The sun’s rays were merciless as they illuminated the woman’s face.
Boils and raw lesions pitted Isabella’s forehead and chin.
Horrific, but not as horrific as her nose—or, rather, the place her nose should have been.
The disease had eaten away the flesh and cartilage, collapsing the bridge, leaving a gruesome, skeletal gap in the middle of her face.
Kendra believed Mrs. Chirone when she said that her little sister had been beautiful. Unfortunately, the only thing left of her former beauty was her dark mane. It had been cut short, but it was still thick and vibrant, curling around the ravaged face.
Isabella’s eyes were closed, and she was breathing heavily.
“Isabella,” Mrs. Chirone crooned softly, moving to her sister’s side. “Wake up, cara. A lady has come to visit with you.”
Stepping closer, Kendra had to brace herself against the smell. The roses couldn’t cover the stench of rotting flesh, urine, defecation, and impending death.
“Isabella?” Mrs. Chiron said a little louder.
Isabella’s eyes fluttered, then opened. Blue eyes filmy with encroaching blindness searched for her sister. “Bianca?”
“Sì. I’m here, cara.” She darted a quick, agonizing look at Kendra. “And Lady Sutcliffe. She would like to speak with you.”
“Lady, my lady . . . oh, to be addressed by the high-born,” Isabella smiled mistily in Kendra’s direction, then frowned.
“Ladies don’t know women like me. Is she a spirit, Bianca?
Come to take me away?” Skeletal fingers clutched at the quilt covering her.
“Take me to the heavens to soar with the angels?”
“No, no, cara. Lady Sutcliffe is real. She is here.”
“The lords like me. Not the ladies. Nine ladies leaping . . . no, that’s wrong. Nine ladies dancing. Yes, that’s right!” She giggled. “Ten lords a-leaping.”
Kendra stepped closer. “Isabella, I need to ask you a few questions.”
Isabella frowned. “How can there be nine ladies and ten lords? There are too many lords. They need to match. How can the lords and ladies dance if they don’t match?”
Mrs. Chirone shot Kendra an apologetic look. “This is the way she’s been for the last several weeks, my lady.”
Kendra nodded, but kept her eyes on Isabella. “Do you remember Clarice, Isabella?”
“Clarice isn’t a lady dancing. She isn’t a lady.
She’s my friend. We will perform on stage.
White roses will be thrown at our feet. The lords will be a-leaping then.
” She threw her head back and laughed. In that joyous sound, Kendra could almost imagine the flirtatious girl that Isabella must have been.
“We will be the sun and the moon. Glory be . . .
“Gloria. Glo-ri-a, glo-ri-a,” she began singing. Her voice was hoarse and thready, but again Kendra caught the echo of another Isabella. “Glo-ri-a in excelsis De-o.”
“Cara—”
“Sposa son disprezzata.” Isabella’s voice gained in strength as she switched from Vivaldi’s famous church hymn to an aria written by Geminiano Giacomelli. “Fida, son oltraggiata…Cieli che feci mai? Cieli che feci—”
“Silenzo!” Mrs. Chirone snapped, rubbing her temples. “Per amore di Dio. Mi scuso—I apologize, Lady Sutcliffe, but my sister’s wits have fled. She can be of no help to you.”
Kendra was beginning to think Mrs. Chirone was right, but she had to try. “Isabella, did you help Clarice when she told you that she had the pox?” she asked. “Did you send her to someone who might cure her? The same person who promised to cure you?”
Isabella had stopped singing at her sister’s sharp rebuke. Now she whispered, “They will save us. They will clean our blood and make us whole again. And we will save the world.”
“Who, Isabella? Tell me who told you that you’d save the world?”
“God spoke through Vivaldi,” she murmured dreamily. “Glo-ri-a in excelsis De-o—"
“How were they going to save you?” Kendra tried again. “How were they going to clean your blood?”
“Sposa son disprezzata . . . Fida, son oltraggiata . . . Cieli che feci mai?”
“Where did they give you treatments?”
“Cieli che feci mai?. . ..E pur egl′è il mio cor . . . Il mio sposo.”
Kendra struggled to contain her frustration. “Who tried to save you, Isabella? Give me a name.”
“I told you.” Isabella’s eyes fluttered shut. “Vivaldi and the saints.”
Saints. “How many saints, Isabella?”
She smiled but didn’t open her eyes. “The heavens are filled with saints. Bianca, are you there?”
“Sì, cara.” Mrs. Chirone touched her sister’s hand.
“I’m so very tired,” Isabella whispered. “So very cold.”
“Go to sleep, cara. Rest now.”
Kendra watched tears gather in Mrs. Chirone’s eyes as she leaned over to smooth the quilt. Isabella was already slipping into slumber. After a moment, Mrs. Chirone straightened, lifting her watery gaze to Kendra.
“She cannot help you, Lady Sutcliffe,” she said quietly, moving to the door.
In the hallway, Mrs. Chirone fished a handkerchief out of her sleeve, dabbed her eyes, and blew her nose.
“She didn’t mention anything to you about being treated for syphilis before . . . ?” Before disease rotted her brain and insanity took over?
“No. I wasn’t aware Isabella was sick until recently.
” She sniffed and blew her nose again. “We grew apart when she joined the theater troupe. She always wanted to be an opera singer. She dreamed of performing at the Teatro alla Scala and dazzling Europe with her voice. I think . . . I think there was a time when she might have accomplished it too.”
They fell silent as they descended the staircase.
“Thank you, Mrs. Chirone,” Kendra said when they reached the bottom. “I know this has been difficult for you. I appreciate you letting me talk to her.”
“I’m only sorry you didn’t learn anything, Lady Sutcliffe.”
She was wrong, Kendra thought, stepping outside. Isabella had confirmed her suspicions when she’d spoken of the saints—plural.
The killer had at least two partners.