“The book of my brethren!” Evie exclaimed. “Hot socks!”
“ ‘But I do not trust a word he says,’ ” Will continued. “ ‘For he seems to lie as easily as some laugh. He lies to gain sympathy, or to frighten. Once he told me that he had the power to raise the Devil if he wished. There is a foul stench in the house, as if the very walls are corrupted, and I hear the most terrifying noises. People come and go at all hours of the day and night. Most of the servants have left us. I fear something wicked is at work in this house, dear cousin. Oh, please do send the authorities to investigate, for I am too ill to see to it myself.’ ”
Will fell silent as he read through Evie’s stolen newspaper accounts.
“So how did this Naughty John fella end up?” Sam asked.
“Ida Knowles disappeared,” Evie said, relishing the wickedness of the tale. “The fuzz came to investigate. Naughty John tried to give them a wad of chewing gum about Ida running away with some drugstore cowboy. He said that he and Mary White hadn’t spilled it for fear of ruining her reputation because”—Evie put a hand to her forehead in melodrama fashion—“they loved her as a sister.”
“What a load of bunk,” Sam said.
“You said it, brother. The police didn’t believe a word of it, either. They searched the house and found ten dead bodies, which Mr. Hobbes confessed were related to his work supplying stiffs to medical schools. But the police couldn’t be sure about that, either.”
“That’s where the song comes about,” Jericho said.
“Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells ’em off for a coupla stones,” Evie sang like a saloon chant. “The topper is—”
“ ‘When they looked further,’ ” Will read aloud, “ ‘they found the body of a woman. She happened to be wearing a brooch belonging to Ida Knowles.’ ”
Evie dropped her hands to her sides in disappointment. “You stole my big finish, Unc.”
Will ignored her. “ ‘Though he and Mary White protested his innocence, John Hobbes was found guilty of her murder on the strength of her letters and the brooch, as well as the ten bodies, and sentenced to hang.’ ”
“I wonder if they sold his body to a medical school,” Sam joked.
Will took a cigarette from his silver case and searched his pockets and paper-strewn desk for a lighter. “He was buried in a pauper’s grave. No funeral home wanted him, and he had no next of kin to claim him.”
“Do you think there could be some connection to our killer? Could our killer be familiar with this story? Is he taking a page from history?” Evie asked.
Sam reached behind a stack of books for the silver lighter with Will’s initials etched into it and handed it over. The cigarette sparked and Will blew out a stream of smoke. “I still think you’re grasping at straws, Evangeline. I’ll allow that there are some correlations….”
Evie ticked them off on her fingers. “The comet. The Book of the Brethren. The song…”
“How did you know about that song, anyway?” Jericho asked.
Evie looked to Will, who shot her a warning glance. “Women’s intuition,” she said.
“The book of my brethren, Hobbes said—not the same at all,” Will corrected her. “Semantics.”
“Gesundheit,” Evie said. “Well, here’s something that’ll put the ice in your shaker.” She sat forward, relishing their attention, though in truth Will seemed more impatient than held in suspense. “There was a mention of some missing persons and an unsolved murder that took place in the summer of 1875. A body was found with strange markings on it!”
“Fifty years ago,” Will said pointedly. “And you don’t know what those markings were. I fail to see what that has to do with our case.”
Evie sighed. “I do, too. But it is interesting.” Evie drummed her fingers on the end table, trying to make connections that vanished like smoke.
“What happened to John’s tomato, Mary White?” Sam asked.
“After John Hobbes swung, she married a showman named Herbert Blodgett in 1879. They moved away from Knowles’ End. There’s a mention of her falling from a horse and suffering from ill health, but there’s no record of her thereafter.”
“She probably died,” Sam said.
Suddenly a furious knocking sounded through the museum. Evie raced to the door and opened it to find a group of nearly a dozen people lined up outside. The fellow in front held T. S. Woodhouse’s Daily News article aloft. “We’ve come to see what all the fuss is about.”
Within a few days of T. S. Woodhouse’s first article, which was followed quickly by a second and a third, the museum was seeing more business than it had in years. Will had been asked to lecture everywhere from private clubs to high-society ladies’ luncheons where, try as he might to keep things on a scholarly level, all anyone wanted to know about was the murders. In New York’s more fashionable quarters, the smart set, who were too swell to admit fear, organized “Murder Clubs” where they swilled cocktails with names like Pentacle Poison, Voodoo Varnish, and The Killer’s Cocktail—a potent mix of whiskey, champagne, orange juice, and crushed cherries said to make anyone wish she were dead the next morning. Murder was just another reason to drink and dance the night away. It was very good for business. Everyone, it seemed, had caught Pentacle Killer fever. And Evie had every intention of capitalizing on it.
During Evie’s guided tours of the museum, a simple linen cap became the coif of a Salem witch who’d been accused of dancing with the Devil in the woods. A bowl of water Evie had poured that morning and placed on a table with two lit candles was “a blessing from monks to keep the room free from spiritual corruption.” She made a small altar and placed the bone fragment from the Chinese railroad worker alongside a spirit photograph taken in western Massachusetts and told gullible guests it was the bone of the girl in the picture—a girl who still haunted the museum. At that, Sam would blow a hidden bellows, making the curtains move, and the jaded Janes and their dapper dates would gasp and chuckle, thrilled by their close call with a ghost.
It was on one such afternoon that Will returned from a lecture to find the museum crowded with visitors spilling out of the objects room. He tried to get closer and was rebuffed by a young man: “Wait your turn, Father Time.” Will peered over the heads of two flappers and saw Evie holding forth: “Of course, you must be very careful around these objects. They’re quite powerful. You wouldn’t want them to haunt you after you’ve gone.”
“They can do that?” a woman in the front row asked. She looked alarmed.
“Oh, yes!” Evie said. “But that’s why we sell the charms in the gift shop. They’re replicas of ancient tokens said to ward off evil.” Evie held up a small silver disk. “I keep several on me at all times. You can never be too safe, especially with an occult killer loose in the city.”
“Evie!” Will barked from the corridor. “May I speak to you in private for a moment?”
Evie forced a smile. “Of course, Dr. Fitzgerald. This is Professor Fitzgerald, the museum’s curator and the city’s top academic in the field of Things That Go Bump in the Night. As you know, Dr. Fitzgerald is aiding the police in their investigation of the heinous murders terrorizing the city. As am I.”
As one, the crowd turned to look at Will, fluttering with excitement.
“Do tell us more about the crimes, won’t you, Professor,” a young woman called. “Is it true he drinks their blood and wears their clothing? Is he really committing these horrid crimes as a judgment against Prohibition?”
Will glared at Evie, who immediately busied herself with rubbing an imaginary spot of dirt from the wall.
“Evie, in my office. Now, please.”
“Certainly, Unc—Dr. Fitzgerald. I’ll be with you in a moment, ladies and gentlemen. Please do be careful. I wouldn’t want you to disturb the spirits. Anyone who wants to shell out the rubes for some protective charms, please see our associate Mr. Sam Lloyd in the gift shop.”