May 13, 1885 - 08:12 a.m. - Clear
Charlotte Blythe
It didn't take long for Charlotte to reach Lady Kent's estate—not when she'd been given permission to move at the speeds she was truly capable of, hurling herself across rooftops with what would have been reckless abandon were she any less capable than she actually was.
Getting to the right address took a little longer, because this time she was carrying the Lady on her back when she jumped, and that did slow her a bit, for aerodynamic reasons if no others. Lady Kent wasn't afraid of the heights or the speed, but she could not help the way her body tensed when Charlotte took a particularly perilous-looking jump.
By the time they hit the warehouse cluster, Mr. Ramsey was already present, standing on the roof of the building immediately south of the address he'd given. Charlotte landed lightly next to him, letting their landlady down. After no more than a moment to push a few cornsilk-blonde hairs out of her face, Lady Kent set about loading her rifle with the special rock-salt ammunition that she used for practice, on the grounds that such cartridges were much cheaper than actual bullets, and less likely to accidentally kill someone.
"So, Ephy. Why exactly did you send Charlotte to interrupt my morning meeting?"
"Amelia Lancaster was kidnapped," he replied tersely. "They will be appearing at any moment. I need you to keep your gun trained on the Briar Rose."
"Briar Rose?" Lady Kent didn't bother to disguise her shock. Charlotte was surprised, too, but now she understood what Mr. Ramsey had been getting at, when he said the scent on Mr. Morton wasn't quite right.
"Yes. You'll shoot when you hear me do the same. Not before and not after." His tone was cold, firm, but rather than berate him for his rudeness, Lady Kent's face hardened in reply, and she gave a terse nod.
"I understand."
It wasn't much longer when the carriage arrived, and it was Miss Lancaster who exited the carriage, first. Briar Rose was close behind her as Miss Lancaster took a quick glance around. She spoke, only to have a young man—aged to his mid-twenties—give her a quick shove towards the warehouse. Miss Lancaster merely tilted her head slightly forward, before walking off in the direction she was pointed to. Her posture had not changed, even as they disappeared inside the building.
Mr. Ramsey moved then, leaping down from the warehouse roof as soon as the three of them were inside. He landed lightly enough that Charlotte could not even hear him, then disappeared. For her own part, Charlotte knew she'd best serve as a spotter for Lady Kent, so she helped the other woman get set up, handing her cartridges when she asked for them and providing her with exact data on the direction and speed of the wind.
She also picked up a brick. If necessary, she could throw it with enough force to break the window and cause a distraction, in case the plan didn't go exactly as Mr. Ramsey had intended it. He was very good at predicting people, but Charlotte knew that humans could sometimes do very unexpected things. It was better to be prepared for that.
Lady Kent, not bothered in the least by getting her dress dirty, lay down on her stomach on the roof, pointing the barrel of her rifle down towards the window and peering through the scope.
Once they were inside the building, the Briar Rose and the man led Miss Lancaster to a table. Both she and Briar Rose sat across from each other with two vials placed neatly in front of them. It seemed that Miss Lancaster was asking questions, though. The two of them sat for a while, exchanging words, before Miss Lancaster placed her hand around the vial to her left.
She spoke something before lifting the vial towards the other woman. It appeared she intended to drink the one she chose.
As soon as she'd placed the tablet inside on her tongue and raised the glass of water to drink with, the familiar crack of a gunshot rang out. It was followed swiftly by another from right beside her as Lady Kent fired, too. There was a cacophony of breaking glass—the water fell with some shards of it into Miss Lancaster's lap and onto the floor. It would appear Mr. Ramsey had shot it right out of her hand, while missing her fingers. More of the glass was Lady Kent's cartridge piercing the window, the rock salt hitting the stunned Briar Rose directly in the shoulder. The force was enough to knock her clean out of the chair, and her head hit the table on the way down, probably rendering her unconscious.
Before the man standing behind her could so much as react, Mr. Ramsey was there the point of a long, elegant sword held steady half an inch from the stranger's thyroid cartilage. Charlotte could not hear him, but she tilted her head, reading the words off his lips and murmuring them aloud in a quiet echo.
"I hear you have a fondness for blades. Perhaps mine will be to your liking."
With his free hand, he gestured to Charlotte and Lady Kent, beckoning them to come down, so she took up their landlady in her arms and jumped, landing softly on the ground and setting the other woman down as well so they could enter.
The scene was carefully-ordered chaos, the order part probably only apparent to Charlotte because she had been trained to look for it.
"My my, what a mess," Lady Kent tutted, the effect of this rather different than it would have been in most cases, since she was unloading her second shell even as she said it. She'd only needed one shot, and Briar Rose was definitely unconscious.
Charlotte, knowing what Mr. Ramsey would want her to do before he asked it, gathered up the unconscious woman, securing her arms behind her back before hefting her in both arms.
"Are you all right, Miss Lancaster?" she asked politely.
Miss Lancaster didn't seem perturbed by the events that had just happened. Instead, she merely pushed herself from the table, took the pill from her mouth, and set it carefully on the table top. “I'm quite fine, Miss Blythe. Thank you for your concern," she replied, setting her gaze upon Charlotte before it shifted. She brushed her dress off, perhaps to rid it of any glass fragments that might have fallen. “Quite a mess indeed," she spoke in response to Lady Kent's earlier statement.
“I suppose it couldn't be helped,though," she continued, sighing softly through her nose. She seemed disappointed about something, but she did not say what it was. “And I suppose an expression of gratitude is in service for the three of you," she stated, her head tilting slightly to the left. “You did, after all, save my life, in some fashion."
Mr. Ramsey shrugged, finishing the process of detaining the prisoners and neatening his gloves. His pistol, he'd already sheathed at his thigh. "It's just the job."
Lady Kent rolled her eyes visibly at him, then smiled slightly at Miss Lancaster. "That's his way of saying 'you're welcome'. And you are, my dear, but forgive me for firing a rifle in your general direction before properly introducing myself. Veronika Kent; please call me Vera."
“There was no harm done, though it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Vera. I am Amelia Lancaster," Miss Lancaster greeted before turning her attention towards Mr. Ramsey. “And I do not believe that all lives are saved in your profession, nor are they required to be, Mr. Ramsey, but you have my thanks, regardless."
“I would have preferred not to have brought you all here, however; it appears that the circumstances were still in favor of the job being completed. I will see to it that father compensates you for the job," she spoke simply, her lips pursing into a fine line. “I am a bit curious, however, as to how you knew where we were," she stated, her brow arching slightly higher.
This was always Charlotte's favorite part: Mr. Ramsey was so very clever, and though she was learning his trade, to think like he did, she was still quite far from being as accomplished as he was, and so half the time the explanations seemed as much magic as science. "The bottles," he said quietly, picking one of them up and giving it a light toss in Miss Lancaster's direction. "They're unlabeled, so either they came from a pharmacy before the pharmacist used them, or from a warehouse like this one. They're too old to be factory-direct, as this particular variation ceased production five years ago."
He nodded slightly to the only other man in the room. "The same time period, incidentally, as Eugène's father's pharmacy went under. He was on the list of customers who've been rejected from the Red Moon. Putting the two together made him by far the most probable accomplice, and this location is still registered in his father's name. It would also be ideal for committing a murder, given its derelict status and the fact that it's not exactly a place anyone would accidentally wander by."
Lady Kent furrowed her brow. "But how did you know who he was accomplice to?" she asked. "I'd never have suspected one of Liang's girls." Clearly, she was familiar with the establishment also.
"Her perfume," he replied. "Roses aren't uncommon in perfume mixtures, but French roses are. They smell slightly different than the typical English rose. And roses are one of the few things the English typically think they do better, and so imports are rare. Briar Rose, however, was born in France—a fact she had expressed to me some time ago. She missed it." The sentimentality of the declaration was lost somewhat in his flat delivery.
Lady Kent, however, seemed delighted. "Quite the charmer, aren't you, Ephy?"
Mr. Ramsey, of course, did not respond.
"So..." Charlotte began, glancing between the two of them. "What happened, really?"
He sighed, almost inaudibly. "You could likely put the pieces together yourself, Miss Blythe. Eugène and Briar Rose were lovers. When Liang banned him from the establishment, he was enraged, and enlisted Briar Rose's help to be rid of her. Rose wanted the business for herself, and so it was not a difficult choice for her to make. They elected to throw suspicion on Liang and the Red Moon itself, and used its tolerant reputation as a jumping-off point and a lever both. Briar Rose lured Miss Chatham with the typical intimate insinuation, and Mr. Morton by the promise of information about his best friend's murder. In the first case, it worked perfectly. They gave her the same choice they gave Miss Lancaster—what seemed like a fifty-fifty chance of survival was in fact a guaranteed death sentence. And then they carved the Chinese characters in her back to implicate the Red Moon's owner."
"Guaranteed because... the water was actually the poison," Charlotte inferred. It would explain why Mr. Ramsey had shot the glass right out of Miss Lancaster's hand: the pill wasn't really the problem, so it didn't matter if she swallowed it dry.
He nodded. "Rather than take his chances, Mr. Morton tried to fight, but the two of them together were more than enough to match him. He died with greater mess, but other than that it hardly mattered. The choice was only for their enjoyment, not necessary to the plan itself." He paused, shifting his eyes to Miss Lancaster. "When they discovered a noble was involving herself with the investigation, and had indeed visited the Red Moon, they had the perfect target. Your death would be impossible to ignore, and probably incite mass anger. If the courts would not try Liang, the masses would lynch her, and with much less evidence."
Miss Lancaster's brows furrowed at Mr. Ramsey's last statement, but she'd given him her undivided attention as they had spoken. She remained quiet for a moment more before she let a soft sigh escape her. She didn't seem too pleased with the information given to her, but her face smoothed over slightly as she lifted her head.
“To think that they would go to such measures," she spoke, trailing off slightly as she glanced towards Briar Rose and the man, Eugène. She tsked at the two, shaking her head before allowing her attention to fall back to Mr. Ramsey and Lady Kent. “They deserve no less for what they inflicted upon Jane and Jonah," she started, her hands clenching for a brief moment.
“But for now, perhaps we should leave such a dreary place behind, and escort Briar Rose and Eugène to the Yard," she continued, turning on her heel to leave. She must have realized something, though, since she paused in her steps, and her eyes widened slightly. Not in surprise, but in a manner similar to a sudden realization. “Unless they have already been notified," she stated, her eyes flickering between Mr. Ramsey, Lady Kent, and Charlotte.
Mr. Ramsey nodded slightly. "They should be by presently. For now, Lady Kent and Miss Blythe will escort you home while I deal with the Yard." He paused for perhaps a few moments too long, and then inclined his head slightly to her.
"Farewell, Miss Lancaster."
Getting to the right address took a little longer, because this time she was carrying the Lady on her back when she jumped, and that did slow her a bit, for aerodynamic reasons if no others. Lady Kent wasn't afraid of the heights or the speed, but she could not help the way her body tensed when Charlotte took a particularly perilous-looking jump.
By the time they hit the warehouse cluster, Mr. Ramsey was already present, standing on the roof of the building immediately south of the address he'd given. Charlotte landed lightly next to him, letting their landlady down. After no more than a moment to push a few cornsilk-blonde hairs out of her face, Lady Kent set about loading her rifle with the special rock-salt ammunition that she used for practice, on the grounds that such cartridges were much cheaper than actual bullets, and less likely to accidentally kill someone.
"So, Ephy. Why exactly did you send Charlotte to interrupt my morning meeting?"
"Amelia Lancaster was kidnapped," he replied tersely. "They will be appearing at any moment. I need you to keep your gun trained on the Briar Rose."
"Briar Rose?" Lady Kent didn't bother to disguise her shock. Charlotte was surprised, too, but now she understood what Mr. Ramsey had been getting at, when he said the scent on Mr. Morton wasn't quite right.
"Yes. You'll shoot when you hear me do the same. Not before and not after." His tone was cold, firm, but rather than berate him for his rudeness, Lady Kent's face hardened in reply, and she gave a terse nod.
"I understand."
It wasn't much longer when the carriage arrived, and it was Miss Lancaster who exited the carriage, first. Briar Rose was close behind her as Miss Lancaster took a quick glance around. She spoke, only to have a young man—aged to his mid-twenties—give her a quick shove towards the warehouse. Miss Lancaster merely tilted her head slightly forward, before walking off in the direction she was pointed to. Her posture had not changed, even as they disappeared inside the building.
Mr. Ramsey moved then, leaping down from the warehouse roof as soon as the three of them were inside. He landed lightly enough that Charlotte could not even hear him, then disappeared. For her own part, Charlotte knew she'd best serve as a spotter for Lady Kent, so she helped the other woman get set up, handing her cartridges when she asked for them and providing her with exact data on the direction and speed of the wind.
She also picked up a brick. If necessary, she could throw it with enough force to break the window and cause a distraction, in case the plan didn't go exactly as Mr. Ramsey had intended it. He was very good at predicting people, but Charlotte knew that humans could sometimes do very unexpected things. It was better to be prepared for that.
Lady Kent, not bothered in the least by getting her dress dirty, lay down on her stomach on the roof, pointing the barrel of her rifle down towards the window and peering through the scope.
Once they were inside the building, the Briar Rose and the man led Miss Lancaster to a table. Both she and Briar Rose sat across from each other with two vials placed neatly in front of them. It seemed that Miss Lancaster was asking questions, though. The two of them sat for a while, exchanging words, before Miss Lancaster placed her hand around the vial to her left.
She spoke something before lifting the vial towards the other woman. It appeared she intended to drink the one she chose.
As soon as she'd placed the tablet inside on her tongue and raised the glass of water to drink with, the familiar crack of a gunshot rang out. It was followed swiftly by another from right beside her as Lady Kent fired, too. There was a cacophony of breaking glass—the water fell with some shards of it into Miss Lancaster's lap and onto the floor. It would appear Mr. Ramsey had shot it right out of her hand, while missing her fingers. More of the glass was Lady Kent's cartridge piercing the window, the rock salt hitting the stunned Briar Rose directly in the shoulder. The force was enough to knock her clean out of the chair, and her head hit the table on the way down, probably rendering her unconscious.
Before the man standing behind her could so much as react, Mr. Ramsey was there the point of a long, elegant sword held steady half an inch from the stranger's thyroid cartilage. Charlotte could not hear him, but she tilted her head, reading the words off his lips and murmuring them aloud in a quiet echo.
"I hear you have a fondness for blades. Perhaps mine will be to your liking."
With his free hand, he gestured to Charlotte and Lady Kent, beckoning them to come down, so she took up their landlady in her arms and jumped, landing softly on the ground and setting the other woman down as well so they could enter.
The scene was carefully-ordered chaos, the order part probably only apparent to Charlotte because she had been trained to look for it.
"My my, what a mess," Lady Kent tutted, the effect of this rather different than it would have been in most cases, since she was unloading her second shell even as she said it. She'd only needed one shot, and Briar Rose was definitely unconscious.
Charlotte, knowing what Mr. Ramsey would want her to do before he asked it, gathered up the unconscious woman, securing her arms behind her back before hefting her in both arms.
"Are you all right, Miss Lancaster?" she asked politely.
Miss Lancaster didn't seem perturbed by the events that had just happened. Instead, she merely pushed herself from the table, took the pill from her mouth, and set it carefully on the table top. “I'm quite fine, Miss Blythe. Thank you for your concern," she replied, setting her gaze upon Charlotte before it shifted. She brushed her dress off, perhaps to rid it of any glass fragments that might have fallen. “Quite a mess indeed," she spoke in response to Lady Kent's earlier statement.
“I suppose it couldn't be helped,though," she continued, sighing softly through her nose. She seemed disappointed about something, but she did not say what it was. “And I suppose an expression of gratitude is in service for the three of you," she stated, her head tilting slightly to the left. “You did, after all, save my life, in some fashion."
Mr. Ramsey shrugged, finishing the process of detaining the prisoners and neatening his gloves. His pistol, he'd already sheathed at his thigh. "It's just the job."
Lady Kent rolled her eyes visibly at him, then smiled slightly at Miss Lancaster. "That's his way of saying 'you're welcome'. And you are, my dear, but forgive me for firing a rifle in your general direction before properly introducing myself. Veronika Kent; please call me Vera."
“There was no harm done, though it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Vera. I am Amelia Lancaster," Miss Lancaster greeted before turning her attention towards Mr. Ramsey. “And I do not believe that all lives are saved in your profession, nor are they required to be, Mr. Ramsey, but you have my thanks, regardless."
“I would have preferred not to have brought you all here, however; it appears that the circumstances were still in favor of the job being completed. I will see to it that father compensates you for the job," she spoke simply, her lips pursing into a fine line. “I am a bit curious, however, as to how you knew where we were," she stated, her brow arching slightly higher.
This was always Charlotte's favorite part: Mr. Ramsey was so very clever, and though she was learning his trade, to think like he did, she was still quite far from being as accomplished as he was, and so half the time the explanations seemed as much magic as science. "The bottles," he said quietly, picking one of them up and giving it a light toss in Miss Lancaster's direction. "They're unlabeled, so either they came from a pharmacy before the pharmacist used them, or from a warehouse like this one. They're too old to be factory-direct, as this particular variation ceased production five years ago."
He nodded slightly to the only other man in the room. "The same time period, incidentally, as Eugène's father's pharmacy went under. He was on the list of customers who've been rejected from the Red Moon. Putting the two together made him by far the most probable accomplice, and this location is still registered in his father's name. It would also be ideal for committing a murder, given its derelict status and the fact that it's not exactly a place anyone would accidentally wander by."
Lady Kent furrowed her brow. "But how did you know who he was accomplice to?" she asked. "I'd never have suspected one of Liang's girls." Clearly, she was familiar with the establishment also.
"Her perfume," he replied. "Roses aren't uncommon in perfume mixtures, but French roses are. They smell slightly different than the typical English rose. And roses are one of the few things the English typically think they do better, and so imports are rare. Briar Rose, however, was born in France—a fact she had expressed to me some time ago. She missed it." The sentimentality of the declaration was lost somewhat in his flat delivery.
Lady Kent, however, seemed delighted. "Quite the charmer, aren't you, Ephy?"
Mr. Ramsey, of course, did not respond.
"So..." Charlotte began, glancing between the two of them. "What happened, really?"
He sighed, almost inaudibly. "You could likely put the pieces together yourself, Miss Blythe. Eugène and Briar Rose were lovers. When Liang banned him from the establishment, he was enraged, and enlisted Briar Rose's help to be rid of her. Rose wanted the business for herself, and so it was not a difficult choice for her to make. They elected to throw suspicion on Liang and the Red Moon itself, and used its tolerant reputation as a jumping-off point and a lever both. Briar Rose lured Miss Chatham with the typical intimate insinuation, and Mr. Morton by the promise of information about his best friend's murder. In the first case, it worked perfectly. They gave her the same choice they gave Miss Lancaster—what seemed like a fifty-fifty chance of survival was in fact a guaranteed death sentence. And then they carved the Chinese characters in her back to implicate the Red Moon's owner."
"Guaranteed because... the water was actually the poison," Charlotte inferred. It would explain why Mr. Ramsey had shot the glass right out of Miss Lancaster's hand: the pill wasn't really the problem, so it didn't matter if she swallowed it dry.
He nodded. "Rather than take his chances, Mr. Morton tried to fight, but the two of them together were more than enough to match him. He died with greater mess, but other than that it hardly mattered. The choice was only for their enjoyment, not necessary to the plan itself." He paused, shifting his eyes to Miss Lancaster. "When they discovered a noble was involving herself with the investigation, and had indeed visited the Red Moon, they had the perfect target. Your death would be impossible to ignore, and probably incite mass anger. If the courts would not try Liang, the masses would lynch her, and with much less evidence."
Miss Lancaster's brows furrowed at Mr. Ramsey's last statement, but she'd given him her undivided attention as they had spoken. She remained quiet for a moment more before she let a soft sigh escape her. She didn't seem too pleased with the information given to her, but her face smoothed over slightly as she lifted her head.
“To think that they would go to such measures," she spoke, trailing off slightly as she glanced towards Briar Rose and the man, Eugène. She tsked at the two, shaking her head before allowing her attention to fall back to Mr. Ramsey and Lady Kent. “They deserve no less for what they inflicted upon Jane and Jonah," she started, her hands clenching for a brief moment.
“But for now, perhaps we should leave such a dreary place behind, and escort Briar Rose and Eugène to the Yard," she continued, turning on her heel to leave. She must have realized something, though, since she paused in her steps, and her eyes widened slightly. Not in surprise, but in a manner similar to a sudden realization. “Unless they have already been notified," she stated, her eyes flickering between Mr. Ramsey, Lady Kent, and Charlotte.
Mr. Ramsey nodded slightly. "They should be by presently. For now, Lady Kent and Miss Blythe will escort you home while I deal with the Yard." He paused for perhaps a few moments too long, and then inclined his head slightly to her.
"Farewell, Miss Lancaster."