Against the Brotherhood by Quinn Fawcett

Author:Quinn Fawcett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Holmes, Mystery, Murder, Spy, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, plot, Victorian, assassin, Intrigue
Publisher: Event Horizon EBooks
Published: 2015-05-09T05:00:00+00:00

I HAD JUST witnessed a murder of utmost ferocity. I was stupefied, unable to move. There was nothing I could do or say that would change anything of what I had seen. Again my danger struck me, but with renewed force, for as a witness to this unspeakable ritual, the Brotherhood could not afford to let me live. Surely they would do away with me when my work was done, possibly in a fashion as hideous as the atrocity was.

A short while later, my guard dragged me to my feet and directed me toward a room off one of the corridors leading to the chamber. I was able to keep my wits about me only to the extent that I carried my carpetbag with me, for more than ever, the notebooks it contained heralded my guilt to the Brotherhood.

The chamber assigned for my use was little more than a cell, containing an unmade army bed, a small chest with a gate-leg writing table at one end, and a commode. About eight by nine feet, it had two high, small windows which looked out on the ruins of a kitchen garden lit by three torches: I was below ground level at the rear of the building, and so isolated I might as well have been in the grave. I sat down on the cot provided and tried to make my mind work. The unsteady light from the torches in the courtyard provided irregular illumination that was much in accord with my wavering thoughts. At last one notion came to me—that I must do something about my covered eye. Desperately I tried to recall the tricks I had seen Edmund Sutton do, and set myself the task of using what my observations had taught me.

In my toiletry kit I found a wad of cotton lint. I took a little of this, my concentration driven by dread and the need to do something so that I would not feel so utterly in the power of the Brotherhood. I took also my iodine bottle and stained a little of the cotton with it. Then I rummaged in my things for my mucilage for stamps. I spread some of this vile-smelling glue on the cotton and pressed the cotton onto my closed eyelid, holding it with my fingers until it dried in place. The appearance, once the whole was set—at least as much as I could determine in the shine of the torches—was of a badly puckered scar. Satisfied that the effect might stand a superficial inspection, I then put the patch back in place, trying to find some reason for optimism in the efforts I had made.

Tempting as it was to try to find a place to conceal the notes I had been keeping somewhere in the room, I was unable to convince myself that this was wise, for any disruption of the room might bring unwanted attention to my activities, and I suspected the tattoo would not banish all doubts from the minds of my captors.

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