Free Moonlight & Mechanicals by Cindy Spencer Pape Page B

trained to speak with a moderately educated accent, but traces of Wapping or Whitechapel lingered beneath her husky tones. The rasp to her voice was probably due at least in part to her injuries, which looked, from what Liam could see, like an attempted strangulation. Miss Archer was lucky to be alive.
    Liam leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee, hoping to put her at ease. “Miss Archer, can you tell me what happened?”
    “I told the other coppers,” she rasped. “They said I was drunk…or a lunatic.”
    Of course they had. The police liked simple answers, not complex or supernatural ones. “I promise you, I’m more open-minded than most. Whatever happened, you can tell me. No matter how strange or unbelievable you think it might be.”
    “Tell him, Lolly,” Mrs. Hawkins said in a voice that while soft, brooked no argument. “You can trust this one.”
    There was something in her tone that caused Liam to give her another look.
    “A small gift of my own, Inspector.” She slanted him a look over her coffee cup.” I can almost always tell when a gentleman is lying. That has proved…useful in both my previous and present occupations.”
    “I imagine so.” She was a pleasant-looking woman who’d probably once been more than passably pretty. Since she’d likely started in the business as a courtesan herself, knowing when a man was telling the truth could have meant the difference between life and death.
    “I screen each and every client personally. Whoever attacked Lolly, I can promise it wasn’t one of my clientele.”
    “I’ll take your word for that, ma’am.” Liam turned back to the younger woman. “In the report, you said something about the man being made of metal.”
    Lolly nodded. “He were…was. At least his hands and face. Couldn’t see nothing else, but he creaked and moved all stiff-like.”
    “And where were you when this happened?” Liam took out his notebook and pen. “Do you remember what time it was?”
    “I was down visiting my sister—she’s got a man, keeps her nice in a little flat. The bells had just chimed ten, and the streetcar doesn’t run that late. I was on Wapping Street, near the King Edward steps. He come out of nowhere, he did, grabbed me round the throat and started dragging me toward the stairs.”
    “That must have been terrifying,” Liam said with utter sincerity. Had there been a boat waiting? “However did you manage to escape?”
    “’Twas a cat I think. Or a little dog, perhaps. The man—the thing—stepped on it on the first step down. Squashed the poor blighter flat. But ’e was so stiff, you see, it threw ’im off balance. ’E let go of my neck to try and grab the wall, but I shoved him and he fell—arse over teakettle. Clanked the whole way down then splashed right into the water like a rock.”
    “And you ran?” Liam jotted down her words as close to verbatim as he could manage.
    “Bet your arse I did. Fast as my feet could take me.”
    “Wise girl.” Liam smiled at her. “Can you tell me exactly what he looked like? As much as you could see anyway. Was he tall? Short? Stout? Thin? Did his face look like a mask, or was it almost human? Iron or bronze?”
    She inhaled deeply, glanced over at her employer and then firmed her chin. “If I could borrow a pencil, I can show you.”
    “Lolly’s quite a good sketch artist,” Mrs. Hawkins said as she withdrew a charcoal pencil and a tablet of unlined paper from her desk drawer. “Pull your chair up, dear, and draw us what you remember.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Lolly scooted her chair forward and rested her elbows on the desk, the pencil clenched between her fingers.
    Then the charcoal began to fly across the tablet and a shape began to form. Man-sized, perhaps just a bit taller than average based on the scale of the wall beside him, the creature wore a caped greatcoat that swirled around him like the mist off the river. A crumpled top hat perched on a brow that did, indeed, look