Chapter Two
The Hart Investigation Agency, London
“What progress have we made in retrieving Lady Blotescue’s journal?
” Jack asked her second-in-charge, Serafina Montague, who was sitting across from Jack’s desk as they conducted their weekly investigations meeting to discuss what needed to be done and actioned for each case they were investigating.
After all, in their line of work, where they often skirted the line of the law to retrieve stolen items on behalf of women who were being taken advantage of, it was imperative to maintain a high level of organization and planning.
“Lord Villier is hosting a soiree next week,” Sera replied, glancing up from the notes she’d been taking.
“A good opportunity for you to get into his house without detection.”
“Exactly.” Sera’s lips curved into a smile.
“I’ve arranged to meet with our informant from his household later this morning to put into place plans for him to ensure Villier’s study window is left unlocked on the night so I can slip into the room undetected and then secure the lady’s journal from inside his safe. ”
“Excellent work,” Jack replied, knowing that with Sera’s expertise in safecracking, she’d be in and out before even being noticed.
A skill Jack made great use of for many high-level jobs.
Though Jack could do an adequate job herself of cracking a safe, her skills were far better employed for sleight of hand and matters requiring distraction and illusion, whereas there was no better thief and safe cracking expert in all of London than Sera.
“Be sure to leave one of our calling cards in his safe along with a message of deterrence. Hopefully then, he won’t dare to steal another lady’s journal, nor try to blackmail her with it, either. ”
“Of course,” Sera replied, her tone, as usual, very matter of fact.
Her friend was nothing if not practical.
“Well, I think we’re on track with everything, then. When Cordy eventually arrives, I can check with her about how she’s going with the Valmont case.”
Sera’s sable eyebrow raised. “If it were anyone else, I’d be sending out a search party.”
Their friend, and Jack’s other second-in-charge of the agency, Cordelia Fennessy, was one of the most skilled art forgers in the hemisphere; she could paint any masterpiece with such finesse that not even the so-called best art experts in the world could detect it as a forgery.
It could have been a very profitable career for Cordy, had she gone down the same path her father had, but given he’d died in jail, Cordy had vowed never to use her skills for ill-gotten gain.
Instead, Cordy painted for her own amusement and used her outstanding skills to detect forgeries and catch those who wished to take advantage of others.
But when she was out doing her morning painting in the either the park across the street or down by the Thames, she tended to lose track of the time.
“If we’re lucky, we might see her for supper. ”
“I think you’re being overly optimistic, Jack,” Sera replied with a sigh and shake of her head, some strands of her long, dark hair, loosely pulled back into a chignon, slipping to her shoulders. “In any event, I best head off for my meeting.”
“Do be safe.”
“I shall,” Sera said with a nod as she stood then strode from the room.
Though Jack had made certain to teach Sera and Cordy, along with some of the other agents in her employ, her skills of blending into a crowd and practically staying invisible, they were all involved in investigations that had inherent risks, some far more than others, that warranted a great deal of caution.
Especially since most of the time, they were willing to do what the police were not, making them the potential targets of some very unsavory men, but also putting them in the crosshairs of the police too.
In any event, now that her morning meeting was done, Jack could focus on tallying up the ledger and the budget for the month.
Now it was she who was sighing. She much preferred field work to the mundane requirements of running a business, but when she employed over twelve staff, those mundane matters were imperative.
Five minutes later, the door to Jack’s office burst open, and in ran Cordelia.
Her cheeks were flushed, and her breathing was slightly labored, making it appear as if she’d run all the way to the office.
“Oh, my goodness!” Cordy exclaimed. “There’s been a murder over in Dalwart Alley. A genuine murder!”
“So that’s why you forgot to attend our meeting this morning,” Jack replied as she leaned back in her chair and glanced up at her friend.
Cordy’s mouth dropped. “Oh, my goodness, I forgot about the meeting!”
“So I’d gathered.”
“I’m sorry, Jack, though I’m sure you and Sera had it all organized.” She waved her hand around, dismissing the matter. “But, Jack! Did you hear me? There was a murder!”
“This is London, Cordy,” Jack said. “Murders are to be expected.”
“Well, yes, but this murder happened not even a ten-minute walk away from us!” Cordelia pulled off her already precariously perched blue bonnet from atop her blonde curls, then hung it on the hat stand. “Aren’t you at all scared?”
“Like I said, murders happen all the time. You know that,” Jack felt obliged to point out before returning her attention back to the ledger on her desk. “Besides, if I ran around scared all the time about such a fact, I wouldn’t be in the right line of work, nor would I get any work done, would I?”
“But this wasn’t just any murder, Jack. It was a horrendously gruesome one!”
“Aren’t they all?”
“Well, yes,” Cordy admitted. “But this one was apparently even more so. The police had one of those big sheets up covering the murder because it was that bad! People are already whispering that perhaps Jack the Ripper is back, but rather than returning to Whitechapel, he’s targeting Finsbury instead! ”
“My namesake is on the prowl again?” Jack raised her eyebrow.
“How very annoying. I thought we’d seen the last of him since he hasn’t struck in over five years.
But given neither one of us partakes in the profession of being a lady of the night, I think we shall both be safe from the Ripper if he has made a reappearance. ”
“This is not something to be so cavalier over, Jack. A woman is dead, and potentially a very evil killer is back in London. Need I remind you, all of us here that work at the agency for you, are single women alone in the world. And though we might not be ladies of the night, we still do rather dangerous activities during the evenings, wouldn’t you agree? ”
Jack paused. Her friend did have a point.
She snapped the ledger closed as Cordy took a seat on one of the chairs across from where Jack was seated behind her desk.
The lives of the ladies whom Jack had personally handpicked to work in her agency were not something she took lightly.
“Do the police really think Jack the Ripper is back?”
Cordy sighed. “I don’t think they know what to think, in all honesty. I managed to convince one of the constables into giving me some information, and it certainly sounds bad.”
If anyone could convince anyone to do anything, it was Cordy.
With her cornflower-blue eyes, honey-blonde curls, and perfectly shaped face and figure, the woman could literally talk the Devil himself into going to church.
It was one of Cordy’s greatest assets, and why she was such a valued agent in Jack’s highly specialized agency.
Not to mention she, like every other agent in Jack’s employ, had no trouble skirting the law, which was regularly required as part of the jobs they took on.
Cordy was one of Jack’s best agents, in fact, and over the years had become one of her closest friends too. “What did the constable say about the murder, then?”
“Apparently, the woman was killed out in the open in the middle of the alley, though unlike the Ripper’s victims, this poor lady didn’t have her throat slit…
Instead, Jack, she was sawn in half while alive and locked in one of those magic boxes!
You know, the ones magicians use to saw a person in half and then put them back together. ”
“Yes, I’m familiar with those magic boxes.” She knew the mechanisms of them intimately.
“Well, this one apparently looked like a coffin.” Cordy shivered dramatically. “But with white hearts painted on its sides.”
Jack felt a thin shiver run down her own spine. “‘White hearts’?”
Cordy nodded.
“What was the color of the box itself?” Jack asked. It had to be a coincidence, especially today of all days.
“The officer said it was a black, lacquered box.”
Jack’s heart began to race. “Was the woman in the box also holding a white rose in her hands and wearing a white gown?”
“She was! How did you know that?” Cordy gasped, leaning forward and staring at Jack intently.
Jack placed her hand on the desk, feeling the solid oak of the surface as she focused on calming the sudden thoughts swirling madly about in her mind. “Because it is a magic trick, Cordy… It’s called ‘the Lady in the Coffin.’”
“How morbid,” Cordy replied.
“It’s meant to be.” Jack stared off into the distance as memories assailed her.
Memories she’d tried so hard to bury and leave firmly in the past. “The magician choses a woman from the audience, and then she’s placed into an empty black box with small, white hearts painted along its edges.
The lid of the box is then closed and the box itself locked, then the magician begins sawing it in half, much to the horror of the audience. ”
“I’ve seen the trick before myself,” Cordy added. “It wasn’t that scary.”
“This trick differs to most of the regular coffin saw-in-half illusions out there,” Jack replied.
“You see, with this specific illusion, as the magician saws the box in half, blood starts to pour from it, a thick, crimson pool of it onto the stage beneath… That is why the audience is terrified. They really do believe the woman is being cut in half.”