Scotland Yard, July 1899
Detective Waxford and the butterflies
Ten years. Ten bloody years. White and Walnut pop into my head every day. Even the mad Mr Loveheart! I couldn’t find you, I am so sorry, I couldn’t find you. I dream of butterflies. They dance behind my eyes, soar in my brain. I am infested by them.
I sink back into my chair, peek at a file on a local strangler. Sip my tea, plop another sugar lump in and give it a swirl. Mrs Sultana, the tea lady, wheels her trolley in and gives me a sticky bun.
“Cheer up, ducky,” she says.
“Thank you Mrs Sultana,” I grumble in reply.
She squeaks her trolley off and I hear her in the corridor, “He’s such a big grumpy * cat.”
Constable Luck peeks his head round the door.
“Sir, there’s a gentleman here to see you. Says he has information on Professor Hummingbird.”
My brain wakes up, “Send him in, and get some more tea and buns off the trolley would you.”
“Yes, sir.”
A moment later a large black bearded man enters my office looking extremely uncomfortable.
“I am Detective Waxford. Please take seat Mr…?”
“Otto Ink-Squid,” he says, and he does, squashing himself into the wobbly chair.
Constable Luck appears and plops a mug of tea on the table and a plate of buns and retreats.
“So, what do want to tell me, Mr Ink-Squid?”
“I have some worrying information regarding this wedding announcement,” and he plops a copy of today’s Times on my desk and points to the newspaper article:
Announcement
Professor Gabriel Hummingbird, the eminent anthropologist, is to marry Miss Boo Boo Frogwish on August 8th at St Cuthbert’s Church in the village of Darkwound, Kent.
My heart full of butterflies. They pound within my chest. “Go on,” and I await his answer.
“It is something quite disturbing. I must tell you quite a story. I own a magic emporium in Spitalfields. I have had the business for over twenty years. Ten years ago a girl came into my shop for help. Professor Hummingbird had buried her alive.”
I see a butterfly on the window flutter past.
Mr Ink-Squid’s voice is full of sadness. “My shop is located on Beeswax Lane: I sell Ouija boards, Psychic Trays and tarot cards; that sort of thing. I don’t get many customers, mostly postal orders from a very peculiar cliental. So, I was quite shocked when she fell through my front door, covered in mud and in her night gown. Bare feet, hysterical. I told her to sit down, got her a blanket and a cup of tea. I tried to calm her down. She told me her name was Guinevere Harlowe and she was sixteen years old. She said she was the wife of a Professor Hummingbird, a marriage arranged by her father, whom she described as a famous collector of butterflies and moths. She told me her family had a large collection of fine specimens: ghost moths, from Peru, ‘worth a fortune to an avid collector,’ she said. She told me that was what Professor Hummingbird had wanted. That was what he was after.”
Mr Ink-Squid paused and drank some tea. He looked weary. He felt like me. He felt the weight of a world gone mad.
“Please continue, Mr Ink-Squid,” I said gently
“She told me about the wedding night. She said he was–” he paused,”–there was something abnormal about his desires.”
I waited.
“She said the morning after the wedding, a funeral carriage arrived. She asked him ‘Who is dead? Who has died?’ He had replied, ‘Why you of course, my dear.’”
I waited.
“He’s a monster,” Mr Ink-Squid shuddered. “A deranged collector. She told me she was screaming, tried to run, but they caught her, the Professor and his vile brother, Ignatius. Caught her, drugged her and stuffed her in a coffin. She said she awoke in darkness. Running out of air. She said she was dying.”
“How did she escape?” I leant forward
“A boy dug her up, opened the coffin. She said she would have thought him an angel, but he looked sinister. Said he had eyes as black as nightmares. Reminded her of a little shark. He opened the coffin lid and said to her, ‘Do not go back to your husband, as he will kill you. Do not return to your father, for he is murdered. Seek help from a man called Otto Ink-Squid who runs an emporium on Beeswax Lane.’”
“That is most queer,” I said taking another sticky bun.
“Yes, apparently he said he had saved her because he objected to people being buried who are not actually dead. Well, she pulled herself out quick as she could and made her way to my little shop. I have no idea who this young boy is and why he would have recommended me to her aid.”