Team of Seven Heroes Shorts Tales 3; Chapter 14

14.

Mycroft took to walk past the doorway into the lounge and was greeted by the trio of scantily ladies. He smiled and offered his overcoat. The place was well lighted and furnishings luxurious if one were considered four divans and two sets of high back seater cramped into the area luxurious. The drapes there were thick but the shades reminded him of the erupting volcano. Or the pox infected buttocks.

“Is that all you are offering for me to remove?” The lady dressed in the thinly wrapped gown leaned towards Mycroft.

“Yes, I have a meeting with Madame X. Can you please tell her that I will await her arrival?” Mycroft stated his intentions. The lady seated there at the divan pulled at the servant’s bell. A burly man dressed like a Nubian slave appeared and then motioned for the gentleman to follow him.

“Mr. Holmes. I am delighted to be acquainted with you.” The lady greeted him was by the miniature garden with the fake palm tree. She was seated on the wooden garden chair and having a pot of black tea.

“Are you acquainted with the other Holmes; the detective?”

“No… Yes, but distant relative.” Mycroft decided a white lie will suffice then before he blurted out his intention of seeing her.

“Yes, I am aware of your reason to see me. There is no rush on a lady like me although we are accustomed to it.” Lady X replied. “Your unusual request came from a rather unusual source.”

It was Lord Fleming who initiated the meeting for Mycroft.

“We do participate at such parties. The ladies are well compensated although there are some who are …. Truly monsters. They do compensate more later. Their names are in the list but do not ever reveal that I gave it to you. I was thinking that to seal our pact, I might suggest a more direct approach. Perhaps if I seduce you, I may seal your trust not to reveal to anyone. I may be past my prime but I can show you a few tricks that even Cleopatra will not know.”

“I am … I meant I am married. Yes, I am married and taken the vow of one and only one.” Mycroft blurted out.

“Spare me your tinniest Holmes. I was thinking of doing you.’ The lady winked at Mycroft. At that moment, he felt his rear end crimped in tighter.

“Pardon me….” That was all Holmes could muster for words. He was then escorted by the Nubian lookalike slave to the exit while Madame X laughed at his hasty departure.

It was all that too for the heiress who was kept imprisonment for over two weeks then, and her only hope of leaving alive was to bore the kidnapper a child. It was his demand and he had not forced her into it. He did withhold the food and drinks if she was to disagree. She was given the comforts of a comfortable chamber and with three days of deprived nutrition, she had relented. He was a brute when it came to the act not for his hump back but the mode which he does it. He was selfish and beyond that, left on his completion. She suffered him a few times and when he was not around, she paced the chamber she was in. She knew she was in a dungeon but there were no avenues of escape. She heard voices but with the thick walls, she was not able to hear much.

“Mother, I am done.” Igor had approached the mother who was seated there. She was staring at the body covered on the table. She was thinking of her works there; the endless months of research and then the testing. The harvesting of the organs after her lover killed the lady. She was careful in her incision and then the removal. The rush back to preserve the freshness of the organs and the replication of the tests.

It was all futile.

“Are you well, my dear?” The man in the shadows crept up to the lady seated on the wheelchair. “Is Igor…”

“Yes, he has. It’s his seventh visit. She had not screamed or fight. I wondered why he asked for her.”

“It’s his choice as Shelly was. We all have our choices.” The man also known as Victor replied.

“Victor, am I a monster to …. Imprison the lady there? She does not deserve this.”

“Neither are you with legs and me with my ailment, and Igor with his back. We are all destined by fate. She may be too.” Victor replied. “Look on the good side. I don’t have to kill anymore. I am a repent now.”

“Yes, tell me of outside. I heard the parties have stopped and the commoners have drawn a battle line with the Elites.” Lady Illinois asked. “Matthew won’t tell me. He has not come over since. Are they still calling us the Ripper?

Lady Illinois heard of the name when she stumbled on the paper. She had since then ignored the papers.

Ignorance was beyond the understanding of the newly minted Inspector named Lestrade. He was ignored by his other peers and cited of being the ‘Chief Inspector’s pet’. Lestrade wanted to defend his promotion but the tasks head of him were overwhelming. He was castigated daily for not locating the heiress. He had no clue there and decided to work in the Ripper. As an Inspector, he had accessed to more reports than as a Sergeant. He took it to the streets and hauled up his usual suspects or informers.

“Tell me of the victims.”

There was nothing new from what he learned against what was recorded. They were whores and poor and died with their organs removed. He drew on parity with the two sets of murders; the organs were one but soon he found out that not all of the victims in the second spree were whore. Two of them were late night workers and turning tricks was a casual event. He then found out that one of them had worked for the missing heiress before.

Helen Innes; victim reference third, a blonde, in her thirties, was walking back from her work area. She could have worked the extra shift to earn a few more coins. She used to work as a cleaning maid for one named Madame Dorothy Bromfield who was the missing heiress. She came to the wealth on the death of her brother at Africa. She was divorced and have no children of her own.

“Helen was a fine woman. She worked days and nights since she lost the job at the house. She has three young ones and her no good lover was a washout. He cleans the chimneys when he was sober.” Lestrade was told by the neighbours and in one particular Mrs. Brown who had two weenies holding at her legs.

“I don’t know why she left the house but I heard talks.” Most of the neighbours talks. “She was said to be upset with the mistress who was coming onto her.”

“Pardon me.” Lestrade was puzzled then.

“The mistress was harassing her. I once told her take it like your lover do to you. Lie back and spread them legs. It ain’t going to hurt more than a few bite marks. You might enjoy it compared to the brute who passed you his lice and more mouths to your milk.”

Lestrade was raised a good Catholic and issues mentioned then was disturbing to him. He tried to clean the images from his head and ended up dunking into the bucket of cold water. He then took to questioning the household of Ms Bromfield. He had the garbage thrown to him by the cook but he managed to talk to the new house maid.

“Maggie Swans, I know your past works at the tavern. You were once …. held a reputation before you move to this job.” Lestrade had taken a hearing of his own from some sources forwarded to him by the informers. One was a playwright who ply the other trade line in the discreet manner. The threat of the truncheon moved the other to reveal more.

“I know of you, Maggie. Trevor told me. Or you may know him as Thierry.” It all came on then in a confession and Lestrade had to avert his eyes on the ladies he saw talking or walking on the street with his mind swarming then of lucid images. He controlled his emotions and then focussed on the investigation.

It led him to one Madame X. He had a hard time talking to her and was threatened with discipline if she reported him. He was relentless and in the end Madame X gave him some pointers.

“I can assure you, Inspector. There is no glamour in our work; only motivation of the wealth shed our inhibitions. We partake in the parties where there is nothing that we do are deemed unusual. Ms Bromfield was in one of it. She does bring her companion there. She considered it a training ground, although we have no lack of participators.”

Things were warming up for the Inspector but not in front side of his pants and more to his rear.