ONCE BITTEN

BRITTNEY ELLEBRACHT

I

Brittney Ellebracht lived in a townhouse on White Lion Street in Spitalfields, a haven of refinement between the City and the East End.  To all appearances, Brittney, looked to be well to do.  Her home appeared to be freestanding, with hedges and even a scrap of garden at the rear, and employed two staff: a residential maid and a housekeeper who live a short way east.

            Her neighbours if they noticed her at all, would have thought her an unusually young widow, or even a favourite daughter being indulged to the very edge of scandal.

            A more accurate assessment would have been that was a kept mistress, a financial arrangement of a long term but not indefinite nature, complete with an agreed-upon weekly stiped that ensured her an amazingly comfortable existence.  It would be unseemly here to disclose the name  of her benefactor, it had no bearing on her murder, and discretion is a virtue in the eyes of the Crown.

            On the morning of the 25th of June, the day after the sixth full moon of the year, Inspector Bitten and his men made their way to White Lion Street.  A short distance to the south-east, Spitalfields Market was clearly audible as a swelling hubbub.  As they approached, one of a pair of policeman walked over them from beside the front door.

            “Sergeant House, and that there is Constable Brook.”

            “DI Bitten, SID.  This is Dr Loup and Constable Wilk.”

            “Good to meet you, Inspector.  I hear good things about you.”

            Bitten blinked.

            “You do?”

            “Very much so.  You’ve had the basics of this one, I assume?”

            “The victim is Brittney Ellebracht.  She lived here at the discretion of the owner of the property.  She was found dead late last night, and had been killed in such a manner as to warrant her assignment to my team.”

            “Yes, word is you get the messy ones.”

            Bitten frowned.

            “Whose word?”

            “It’s just what I’ve heard, sir?”

            The sergeant said apologetically.

            “Very well.  What else can you tell me about the situation?”

            “Miss Ellebracht was poorly yesterday, and spent most of the day in bed, in the main suite upstairs.  Her maid, Julie, checked in on her occasionally to ensure she didn’t want anything, and said Miss Ellebracht remained dozing at eleven p.m. Looks to me as the killer came in through her bedroom window, which opens onto the garden.”

            “I see.  Please continue, Sergeant.”

            “The maid is still knocked for six, but she is able to answer simple question.  Mrs Wheatley, the housekeeper, seems sterner.  They’re both in the reception room.  The initial bobby who answered Julie’s shrieks described the scene as ghastly, and closed the door.  The station’s had people here at the door since then.  Constable Brook and I have already had to see off three vultures from the fourth estate since we came on two hours ago.”

            “Good work, Sergeant.”

            Bitten said.

            “I’ll let you know if I need anything else, but keeping the press at arm’s length is a priority.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            He gestured to his constable.

            “Open up for the Inspector.”

            “Sir.”

            Brook said, and swung the door open.

            Bitten went inside.  A tastefully understated corridor in cream with teak wainscoting led into the house.

            They were closed doors either side, a stairway led up, but the doorway at the end opened into a tidy kitchen.  Windows at the end opened onto a small garden, giving the house an attractive sense of peace.

            “Let’s have a look at this bedroom window, Wilk.  Doctor, feel free to head upstairs.”

            “I shall.”

            Loup intoned.

            “It does not do to leave a lady simply waiting around.”

            The Inspector carefully kept his response to a nod, and he and Wilk made their way out through the kitchen door and into the garden.  It appeared to be about twenty feet to a side, bordered away from the house with high wooden fences.  A long hedge ran down the left and right sides.

            Empty, well-turned flowerbeds edged the tidy lawn on all sides, apart from the path from the kitchen door.  A pleasant-looking white steel lawn table and chairs sat to the left of centre on the grass, and croquet hoops were scattered across the remaining space.

            The rear fence had a big piece cut from it, easily large enough for a man, and the dimness beyond suggested a hole had been cut through thick foliage on the other side.

            Swinging round, Bitten saw that a ladder, pine by the look of it, had been rested on top of the mud of the flower bed, leading directly up to an open window.  From the nearly inaudible murmurs within, Dr Loup was up there talking to himself or to his ‘patient’.

            The Inspector sighed and turned to his companion.

            “Well, Wilk? Did he come through the bedroom window?”

            “From your tone, I’m assuming not sir.”

            “Quite right.  But can you tell me why?”

            “Yes, sir.  I can.  The ladder is resting on top of the loose, muddy soil of the flowerbed.  If any pressure had been placed on it, it would have sunk down into the ground. So, it must have been unused, sir.”

Ii

“Excellent, Wilk.”

            The Inspector congratulated and Wilk nodded his thanks, dutifully.

            “If the ladder is a decoy as we suspect sir, what do you think to the hole in the fence?”

            “I don’t know enough to judge that yet.  Bluff or double-bluff?  Tell you what, why don’t you have a closer look? See if you can whether or note the hole is fresh, and what sort of marks there are.  I’m going to speak to the staff.”

            A grin lit up the constable’s face.

            “Yes, sir!”

            Permitting himself a smile as he turned back to the house, Bitten went back through the kitchen and up the hall.  He found a pleasant reception room that appeared to be an interesting mix of restrained taste highlighted with splashes of exuberant colour.  The housekeeper, Mrs Wheatley, sat on a beige ottoman, looking pensive.  The other woman, Julie, sat in misery in a large armchair.

            “Good morning, ladies.  I am Inspector Bitten.  I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you a few questions.”

            “Ask away.”

            Mrs Wheatley said.

            “I’m Alison Wheatley.  I keep house here and have done for ten years.  I’ll tell you what I can, but I’m not sure the girl here will be much use.  Not said more than two words in a row all morning.  Not that she’s over-chatty at any time, she’s a bit cloth-eared, the poor lamb, but she’s taken it badly.”

            “I see.”

            Bitten said.

            “Well. Would I be right in assuming that Miss Ellebracht was not the first mistress of the house?”

            “That you would.  She was a dear, but barely twenty.  She’d been here a year-and-a-half.  Before her another young woman, and another before her, each as lovely as the next.  They all knew their role would be temporary, even if some of them hoped otherwise.  Their arrangement doesn’t bother me one bit, mind.  I do what I can be who they’re wanted to be. It’s tough out there, and the cold is hard on roses.”

            Julie flinched, but said nothing.

            “Did you know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Miss Ellebracht?”

            Bitten asked.

            “No!”

            Julie barked.

            The Inspector turned to her.

            “No?”

            He asked gently.

            The girl just shuddered.

            “Me neither.”

            Mrs Wheatley said.

            “I never saw a hint of any animosity towards her.”

            Bitten nodded.

            “Anything odd or out of place in the last week or so?”

            “Odd?  No more than anything in this city is ever odd.  A scrawny little man going door-to-door with a score of shrieking monkeys three days ago.  An old fool in a judge’s wig and not a stitch else standing in the middle of the road singing two lunchtimes ago.  All perfectly normal, in other words.”

            “What about uncommon visitors or callers you didn’t know?”

            “We had a rag-and-bone man through yesterday, one I haven’t seen before, so I sent him packing.  Oh, and a delivery man brought Miss Ellebracht a bunch of flowers yesterday.  I didn’t recognize him either.”

            “What did there visitors look like?”

            “Undernourished.”

            Mrs Wheatley said, patting her generous belly for emphasis.

            “In that wiry sort of way, you get with a lot of hard work.  Tall, but no, giants.  Rag-and-bone man had a large forehead.  Delivery man appeared to be a bit stooped over.  Beards, brown hair.”

            “What about the dog?”

            Julie mumbled.

            “Just lost its way that’s all.”

            Mrs Wheatley said dismissively.

            “What dog?”

            Bitten asked Julie.

            Julie threw a glance at Mrs Wheatley before speaking.

            “At the bottom of the garden, one night, where the hole in the hedge is. I’m telling you detective no natural dog could be so big. Teeth gnashed in a frenzy of feeding, but it was the eyes that got me, sir.”

            “What about them?”

            “His eyes were almost human.”

            “I told her it she must have dozed off doing her duties and dreamt it.”

            Julie looked at the Inspector almost pleading.

            “I promise you, sir.  I didn’t dream it!”

            Bitten turned back to Mrs Wheatley.

            “Would you recognize either of those men who called again?”

            “Well, I suppose so.”

            The housekeeper said.

            “It’s not as if I paid much attention, though.  I can’t describe them much better than I just did.”

            She paused momentarily.

            “You don’t think…”

            “Just being thorough.”

            Bitten said bluntly.

            “You left around half six, last night?”

            “That’s right.  That’s my usual time.  Julie checked in on Miss Ellebracht just before I left.  Everything seemed to be fine then.  By midnight, a constable had brought me back.  Julie was like she is now, and I gathered she had been since she’d found the…the mess at eleven.  Least I can do is to look out for her.”

            “Julie.”

            Bitten said softly.

            “Julie, I’m Benjamin.”

            He knelt down beside her.

            “Did you notice anything last night?  Did you see or hear anything before…well, before?”

            The young woman shook her head slowly.

            Mrs Wheatley sighed.

            “Julie’s room is before the main bedroom upstairs.  There’s a spare room up there as well, ,but that’s off the other way towards the bathroom. She’s usually in bed by eight.  Before that, she’ll have been around the house tidying.  She saves it to last.  I don’t like to think it, but someone must have crept in while still up.  Her room is next door to the master bedroom, so once she had gone to bed…surely not without her knowing.”

            Bitten nodded.

            “Nothing, Julie?  No floorboards creaking or windows rattling, not even after you went to bed?”

            Another slow head-shake.

            “No. Nothing.”

            A long pause.

            “Couldn’t sleep, see.  Not after I’d seen that dog.  No way that…”

            She fell silent.

            “How about before?”

            The girl’s eyes widened.

            “No!  Nothing at all after I went to bed, I promise.”

            “And you didn’t know anyone who wished your mistress ill?”

            “No.”

            She whispered.

            “She’s kind.”

            “Certainly patient.”

            Mrs Wheatley interrupted.

            “Happy to indulge Julie and I in our foibles.”

            Julie somehow shrank in on herself even further.

            “She saved me.”

            The girl breathed.  Tears started running down her cheeks.

            “I’ll look after Julie.”

            The housekeeper said.

            “Don’t you worry about her.”

            The Inspector gave her a sympathetic look.

            “Thank you for your assistance, ladies.”

            He said.

            “I’ll leave you be for now.”

            He left the room.  Upstairs, the sturdy construction of the house appeared to be more evident than below, the walls thick and heavily wallpapered, the doors deep pieces of solid oak.

            Bitten started with the furthers room from the master bedroom, which turned out to be the bathroom.  It suited the rest of the décor, conservative with creative highlights.  Nothing seemed to be disturbed or otherwise stood out.

            The same held true of the two smaller bedrooms.  The maid’s room scattered with personal touches, and looked pleasantly homely, while the other room far more neutral, but both were tidy and with nothing out of place.

            Bitten looked at the main bedroom door, ever so slightly ajar.

            Despite Julie’s assertion that no one came past her, the walls, and doors of this part of the house are think, and the girl’s hearing is poor.  It’s not hard to imagine stealthily getting past her room, so the intruder could have entered any time between Mrs Wheatley leaving and the discovery of the body.

III

Inspector Bitten pushed the bedroom door open and went into Brittney Ellebracht’s bedroom.  The centrepiece of the room unsurprisingly turned out to be, the big, ornate four-poster bed, the beauty of which stood in stark contrast to the savage gouts of blood drenching everything.

            On one side of the bed, a simple but well-made nightstand, spattered with blood. Along that wall, a doorway that opened onto a combination water closet and lavatory which spoke of the financial benevolence lavished on this nest.

            Past the foot of the bed, two large wardrobes sat side by side.  One of them had a door open, revealing a dizzying array of blouses, chemises, and assorted flimsy things that shimmered in the faint breeze.

            Next to them, an ornate variety nestled beside the first of the bedroom windows, piled with assorted cosmetics in a haphazard stack.  Several items had fallen to the carpeted floor.

            The dead girl, sat on the floor beneath the bedroom’s other window, which remained wide open.  The ends of the ladder outside poked through, bracketing the back of her head.  Her hands were laid out to her sides, palms up, in mockery of the corpse in the tannery tub.

             Both the corpse and the carpet around it appeared wet from the rain blown in during the storm of the previous night, but the carpet beneath her crossed legs looked dry and relatively unstained by run-off blood.

            Dr Loup appeared to be bust with a foot when the Inspector arrived, and took a moment before looking up.

            “Inspector.”

            “Doctor.  What have you ascertained?  Any messages?”

            “Not this time.”

            He tittered.

            “Not in words.  But the death first.  Miss Ellebracht died from a s***h to the throat, although it is clear from abrasion and bruising around the mouth that she struggled hard for a few seconds.  Death already inevitable.  Once dead, he spent some time flaying her skin and hair off her cranium, being careful not to damage her skin.  Then he placed it back where it had been, perhaps in a mimicry of a wig.  The top of her throat cut open laterally from insider, but there does not appear to be any foreign objects in there.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “It won’t be possible to make absolutely certain until I persuade her to open her stomach for me back in my laboratory.”

            “I..see.”

            “Moving on, you’ll note that her breasts have been excised down her breastbone, which is a deeper cut have so far observed.  Her abdomen has been opened with not one but two vertical cuts, one descending beneath each of her breast wounds.  These were made before she had been moved from the bed.  Her kidneys were removed through these slashes, and one placed beneath each of her hands.  In a similar gesture, her lungs were removed, separated, and set beneath her feet, and she is fact sitting on her amputated mammary tissues.  Her heart is missing, at least to cursory examination.  It seems he is making up for not being able to finish his work in the tannery or Hampstead Heath.”

            “How repulsive!”

            Bitten said.

            “Speaking of which, you alluded to some sort of message?”

            “Our killer left items placed in Miss Ellebracht’s hands.  One is a small shoe of a curious design.”

            The sole was an inch wider than necessary, and almost necessary, and almost as thick

            “The other is theatrical facial hair made of, I think, horsehair.”

            “He’s trying to play with us.”

            Bitten said, suddenly furious.

            “The bloody scum.  A shoe with outsized platform soles.  False facial hair.  He know we’ve had a glimpse of him.  He want’s us to doubt Bob John’s eyes.  Well, it won’t work, damn him!  It won’t!”

            “Maybe it’s not supposed to.”

            Loup said, his voice calm, a little smug even.

            “Maybe he wants us to doubt this game and cleave to Mr John’s impression.”

            The Inspector bit down a nasty report and whirled away so that the doctor wouldn’t see the loathing in his eyes.  He composed his face into a pleasant mask and turned back to the hateful fellow.

            “Do you happen to know what time the storm began last night?”

            “A little before nine p.m., I recall.  Over by midnight, though.”

            Bitten nodded.

            “Thank you, Doctor.  At least that narrows our quarry’s window of opportunity down a little.”

            “Does it?”

            The doctor asked, puzzled.

            “How?”

            “Although the corpse is wet from the rain, Doctor, the carpet beneath is dry.  That means that the woman was dead, mutilated, and staged all before the rain began at nine.”