Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) Read Free Page B

before, but this night I seemed to have hurt him. My cane struck his lip, although I always try to pull my blows.”
    “Accidents happen,” said Lazarus. “You were really very good. Quite remarkable.”
    “Thank you, old friend. You don’t know how timely your visit is. I am in need of a good companion at the moment.”
    “Are you all right, Richard?” Lazarus asked. He had noticed Mansfield’s hands shaking almost uncontrollably as he drank his cognac quicker than was considered civilized. The man seemed on the verge of some sort of breakdown.
    “I fear that I am not well at all, Lazarus. I have been having such frightful nightmares that leave me in the early hours drenched in sweat and gasping for breath.”
    “You overwork yourself. You always throw yourself into things, and this acting lark is starting to take it out of you.”
    “It’s not just the nightmares. Some days I feel that I am barely in control of myself. Rage grips me at odd times of the day for no apparent reason. I feel as if there is some hideous thing bubbling under my skin, threatening to consume me at any moment. You saw me on stage tonight. I almost lost myself up there and injured poor Patrick.”
    “Well look at the part you are playing,” said Lazarus. “Or should I say parts. You’ve embarked upon a disturbing character study of this Jekyll and his alter ego, and applied yourself so intensely that it has begun to affect you.”
    “I am not so sure that I don’t have an alter ego of my own.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Lazarus, you are an old friend and I trust you absolutely. I know that we haven’t seen much of each other in recent years, but I hope that time has not eroded the trust between us.”
    “I can guarantee that it hasn’t.”
    “Then what I am about to tell you must remain between us at all costs. My career, my life even, hangs on your confidence.”
    “Good God, man, spit it out. There has never been any cause for mistrust between us.”
    “I must tell you that upon two occasions in recent weeks, I have not woken in my own bed.”
    “Oh?” said Lazarus with a sly grin. “I don’t remember that was ever a cause for concern for you back in New York.”
    Mansfield did not acknowledge the jest. “I have woken in circumstances most alarming. In an old lime oast down river, my hands and clothes bloodied.”
    “A lime oast?”
    He nodded. “All alone on the dusty floor of some derelict building without the slightest idea of how I got there.”
    “Have you ever been there before?”
    “No, never! On the first occasion it took me the best part of the morning to find out where I was and how I was to get home, which I did… eventually. But what has me flummoxed is how and why I wound up there. And whose blood was on my hands.”
    “It sounds to me that you took a heavy night one evening and got into a fistfight that you don’t remember,” said Lazarus. “It’s happened to both of us before.”
    Mansfield didn’t answer, but reached to pick up a newspaper that had been folded over to display one page in particular. “Have you heard about this?” he said, passing Lazarus the crumpled paper. It was the Evening News dated the eighth of September, which was two days previous.
     
    ANOTHER EAST END MURDER
    EARLY THIS MORNING IN SPITALFIELDS.
     
    A WOMAN'S THROAT CUT AND
    HER BODY RIPPED OPEN.
     
    THE LEATHER APRON FOUND.
     
    TERRIBLE DETAILS.
     
    THE ENTRAILS AND THE
    HEART CUT OUT.
     
    Lazarus had heard of the Whitechapel Murders. Indeed it was hard to avoid the grisly details of what had been happening in the East End in the past month. Three prostitutes had been butchered in the most grotesque manner, all in the slum district of Whitechapel. The papers were full of it, claiming the killings to be the work of one man and a decided maniac at that.
    “Yes, I’ve read of this,” Lazarus murmured, setting the paper aside.
    Mansfield regarded him with bloodshot eyes. “Polly Nicols, killed in Buck’s