TITLE: The Case Of The Severed Hand
AUTHOR: Talepiece
RATING: 12 cert.
PAIRING: Vastra/Jenny
SERIES: The Casebook Of Madame Vastra
CONTINUITY: This is the fourth of the Vastra/Jenny detective stories.
SUMMARY: Vastra and Jenny investigate the strange occurrences at Paternoster Row.
DISCLAIMER: Own them, I do not; sue me, please do not.
CREDITS: This story is based on Clark Ashton Smith's The Return Of The Sorcerer and WF Harvey's The Beast With Five Fingers. The character of Hoogstraten comes from a short story by Reginald Bretnor that will be more closely referenced in a later part.
NOTE: I've decided to split the Casebook series into volumes of four stories each. So I suppose that makes this a series [season] finale of sorts and something of a Halloween special too. I'll take a break for a month or three to plan out the next couple of volumes and maybe even write something else. I hope to start posting Volume Two early next year and there'll be a Christmas story before that.
Feel free to play Spot The Lovecraftian Adjective while reading :-)
POSTED: October 2013
Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint are most often associated with a particular house in London; their home on Paternoster Row, now so sadly destroyed by the Luftwaffe. However, how they came to take up their residence at that esteemed address is less well known. It was during an investigation more strange even than that which introduced them to the presence of alien beings on this Earth, one that found them in the most dire of supernatural circumstances.
Jennifer Strax Vastra-Flint
London, 1948
Jenny Flint settled down by the fireplace and sipped at the hot tea that she had just prepared for herself. She had finished her few morning chores and was confident that her friend Madame Vastra would complete the tasks she had agreed to tackle. Now she had a couple of hours to herself and Jenny had decided to make the most of it.
Jenny glanced down at the little table beside the chair. It held the slightly crumpled Bath paper that she had purchased from a street stationer a few weeks before, a fine pen that Vastra had given to her as a gift and a little book that Jenny looked forward to reading once she had written her letter.
Vastra was in the upstairs room that had been converted into a labratory of sorts, filled with the strange items that they had acquired, in a manner of speaking, from the Terileptil's warehouse in the Docks. Jenny still wasn't sure if it was a good idea to have such equipment in a house like this but it seemed to keep her friend happy and that made Jenny happy. It also kept all of Vastra's tinkering in one room, which made Jenny happier still.
Jenny picked up the pen and considered what she wished to say to her friend Alice, one of the few people from her old life who she remained in contact with. She was just inking the pen when the explosion rocked the house. At least Jenny imagined that it had, though it could have been the shock that made it feel that way. She was out of her seat and up the stairs in a moment, rushing headlong towards the growing cloud of smoke that was seeping out from around the door to Vastra's lab and was gathering on the landing.
The door flew open, the handle clattering into the wall as a great gust of smoke billowed out and Vastra emerged from within its folds. The tall, usually immaculate figure was bent over, her dress speckled with dust, her usually green face stained black with soot.
"Madame?" Jenny said, rushing towards her, "Vastra, are you alright?"
Vastra coughed, her eyes streaming with tears despite the rapid movement of her multiple eyelids, the few patches of visibly green skin darkening with embarrassment.
"I appear to have had a mishap, my dear."
"I should say."
"I believe I should avoid combining those particular substances in the future; saltpetre in particular, I fear."
Jenny pulled out her handkerchief and spat on it, rubbing the dampened cloth over Vastra's face, "Perhaps so, Madame," she said, relieved to find no real damage beneath the stains.
Vastra studied her friend's twitching lips and said, "I could have been quite badly hurt, you know?"
"Oh, I know," Jenny's face broke into a broad grin, "and I'll not say I told you so, obviously."
"Obviously."
Vastra coughed again hoping to encourage a little more sympathy from her friend but she recognised that twinkle in the eyes and though she knew Jenny had been greatly worried by the accident, she also knew that her concern had now passed into good humour. Vastra looked down at herself and her own lips quirked into a smile.
"You do look a sight, if you don't mind me saying so," Jenny indicated the room with a tilt of her head, "Is everything alright in there?" .
Vastra turned to look into her labratory. Most of the smoke had cleared from within and was settling across the landing and down the stairs; the whole house would smell quite strongly for some time to come. The room would require a good clean - and Vastra knew exactly who would be told to do that job - and a good airing too.
She looked up and saw the angry stain that now fouled the ceiling, looking down again quickly in the hope that Jenny would not notice it. Too late. Jenny edged forward until she was leaning on the doorframe and stared up at the ceiling.
"Oh," was all she said.
"Indeed," was all Vastra could bring herself to reply.
She was saved by the door bell, the loud sound making them both start. Jenny harumphed but withheld any expletives that may have troubled her mind. She looked Vastra up and down and said, "You'd best get cleaned up, Madame," before hurrying down the stairs. She wafted her arms around as she went but knew that it was a futile gesture.
By the time she was at the door, Jenny had her pinny straightened and the little maid's bonnet on her head. It was what folks expected and she had learned the hard way that showing people what they expect is much easier than showing them the truth. Besides, Jenny thought as she opened the door, who on Earth would believe the truth in this house?
She pulled the door back to reveal a tall, broad gentleman in his fifties or so. He was obviously doing well for himself, given the rotund nature of his physique and the unhealthy tint to his cheeks. Apparently the walk from the road to the front door - all of five steps for a full grown man - had been a little too much for him. He smiled and his corpulent face looked a little more healthy. A very little.
"Good day to you, Sir," Jenny said with a bob, "and how may I be of assistance?"
"I would ask to speak with one Madame Vastra, if I may young lady? I am Cornelius Milton III of Milton and Milton, the agents."
His voice was soft, a gentle lilt to it that tempered the formality of his words. Jenny bobbed again and stepped back to bid him enter. He stepped into the hallway and sniffed, then tried to cover his reaction to the smell. Jenny liked him even more.
"Forgive the smell, Sir, if you would; I'm afraid we've had a bit of an accident just this minute past."
"I do hope no-one has been hurt?"
"Oh, just the ceiling in one room and perhaps a little dent to the pride too, Mr Milton."
"I am very happy to hear it," he sniffed more delicately this time, "I fear someone may have been playing with things best left alone. Madame Vastra has children?"
Jenny only just stopped herself from laughing in the man's face, though he didn't deserve such a response. It was a fair assumption after all and Vastra's labratory was a playroom of sorts, though Jenny kept the thought to herself.
"No, Sir, there's just the Madame here."
Mr Milton said only, "Ah," but covered his confusion with a few kind words about their home until Jenny had him settled in the sitting room and offered him tea, clearing away her own forgotten cup with a flush of embarrassment.
"Thank you, I will not," Milton said to the offer and nodded kindly when Jenny excused herself to take her own tray away.
She met Vastra at the bottom of the stairs as they both headed back to the sitting room and said, "A Mr Milton of Milton and Milton, the agents. Not sure agents of what, though."
"Estate agents, my dear, they handle the London properties of many of the best families in the city."
Jenny rolled her eyes, "Them again," she muttered before they entered the room and she gave Vastra a formal introduction.
Mr Milton stood and bowed, taking Vastra's offered hand firmly and thanking her for seeing him without the appropriate notice.
"Not at all, Mr Milton. All too often matters requiring investigation come upon us unexpectedly. Is that the case here?"
Mr Milton settled back into the chair and said, "Less unexpectedly, more urgently. I have a matter of some delicacy, Madame, and one that I find it quite difficult to speak of without appearing to be an utter fool."
"Do not be inhibited, pray, and I assure you, Miss Flint and I will not think you a fool, no matter what you tell us. Everything spoken in this house is considered quite confidential, you have my word."
"You are most kind but I fear you may change your mind 'pon hearing my story. I hardly know how to begin," he said and then stared at the carpet for long moments.
"Aloud?" Vastra offered but not unkindly and it prompted the man to begin his tale.
"Indeed, do forgive me, ladies. Now then, I have the great privilege to act as the London agent for a number of important families. One such is the Borlsover family. Or should I say, what is left of them. Poor, dear Augustus Borlsover passed some years back and the London house was taken by his young nephews, Charles and Eustace. I fear you will have read of them?"
It had been difficult not to, Jenny thought and glanced down at Vastra's veiled face to see a twitch of confirmation. The Borlsover brothers had been academics - one of anatomy, the other of religion, or so the newspapers had said - who wrote papers and gave lectures and the like, occasionally working together on other matters. Then something had happened, something that no-one could fathom, and the brothers became reclusive. Eventually, matters had deteriorated between even themselves and now one brother was missing and the other was locked up in the mad house.
Vastra said merely, "I believe I have read something of the Borlsover family, yes."
"A most difficult matter, quite the most terrible thing I have ever seen. Eustace gone and poor Charles quite mad - with grief, no doubt - and only a distant cousin remaining."
"Distant in both senses, I understand."
"Indeed so, Madame, young Albert is quite settled in Italy and refuses to return, even to deal with this awful situation."
"Awful in more than just the obvious sense?" Jenny said.
"A great deal more," Milton took a breath before saying, "We have been required to prepare the Borlsover residences for sale. In truth, the ancestral home is in a very bad way and I fear it will be demolished for land. The London residence is a much more pleasant prospect and I sent my assistant to begin packing up the brothers' belongings, their studies and the like.
"He's a good man, Thompson, dependable I should say. But he came running back with his tail firmly between his legs. Quite terrified, the poor man, and spouting on about ghosts and ghouls. I've never heard the like before and I told him to get back there and do his duty. Oh, I've heard tell of restless spirits and I've entered a few places myself and wondered if things were quite as they might be - though I would not admit such thoughts to just anyone, Madame - but it's all nonsense when it comes down to it and the Good Lord keeps a good man safe.
"So I sent him back, though this time with a few boys to help with the heavy lifting. And what do you know, all of them come running back. Excepting one young lad who ran clean away; haven't seen hide nor hair of him since! Such nonsense you have never heard, Madame, I certainly never have.
"For they say that the Borlsover residence of Paternoster Row is possessed!"