And they'd been feasting on Mr. Uppity.
A Leg Up
Pieces of Mr. Uppity's body lay scattered in the rubble. An arm here, a leg there—still clothed, I might add. They could've belonged to another human if not for the head. That familiar item lay near my front paws, nose pointing north like a sundial. Covered by a milky veil, his eyes were no more useful than Caroline's, an irony that did not escape me. Yet even in death, the blue orbs still had the power to terrify. I let the rats slither into the corners, undisturbed, and contemplated this bizarre outcome. Even if Mr. Uppity had been the one to kill those women, someone else had killed him.
The front door opened and slammed shut.
I waited, hoping I wouldn't be discovered. A spry human with a bed sheet could've caught me here, given the cramped space and lack of escape choices. My gaze traveled to the ceiling. What luck! The floorboards of the bedchamber hadn't given way, increasing the odds of my deception. If need be, I would stay here all night and slip out in the morning. I'd just settled into my predicament when I recalled the basement door. I'd left it ajar.
Footsteps struck the wood overhead with irregularity. Thud, clack, thud, clack.
If escape was my first priority, evidence finished a close second. I couldn't leave without a piece of Mr. Uppity. Setting aside my disgust, I clawed loose the body part that would convince Eddie: an eye. If I made it out alive, I would show it to him, he would show it to the constable, and my killer would be caught. I grasped the item gently between my teeth and headed for the door.
Thud, clack, thud, clack. The villain stood in silhouette at the top of the stairs. A match strike. The hiss and crackle of a candlewick. I narrowed my eyes to protect them from the light.
"Hello, kitty cat. What'cha doing here?"
Mr. Limp. What was he doing here?
"I see you found Mr. Ferris. We've been keeping peculiar company since last night, me and him." He sat on the top step and took a flask from his pocket. "He talked like a book, that one, always calling me a border ruffian. Wobbled his chin about President Tyler and the guv'ment so much, a body couldn't think. So I heshed him up. But he still makes noise." He swallowed, sliding his Adam's apple along his throat. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you? I can see it on your face. You heard it, too." When he unscrewed the lid and took a drink, I sneezed and dropped the eye. I recognized the smell at once from Shakey House and the plateau of Fairmount Water Works. Eddie sampled the occasional dram of hard alcohol, but none carried this strength.
"I see corn liquor's not to your satisfaction." He grinned. "That Abbott fella didn't like it either, 'specially when I spilt it on him in the tavern. Damn fool had it coming, though. Made me drop the old bat's eye afore I could give it to Mr. Ferris. I looked under the bar for the damned thing, but never found it. What else could I do? I had to steal another." He took a sip and grimaced. "Hoo! Mother's milk to a miner, ain't it? Also comes in handy for washing blood off knives and hands…and such." He laughed louder and longer to himself than he should have.
Mr. Limp had changed since rescuing me in the park. And it wasn't the alcohol. Madness had overtaken him, dimming his eyes, turning them dark. "I declare. This new leg a mine's giving me terrible blisters." He tucked the flask away and pushed up his pant leg to reveal a shiny metal prosthetic with springs at the knee. This had caused the change in his cadence, different from the night we'd met. "Like it? The invalid who owned it afore just laid in bed all day." He let the hem drop, covering the limb again. "What call did he have to use it? None, I tell you. None."
I slunk across the plaster mound and picked up the eye again. Light from the candle shone down upon his jacket collar, illuminating the red stain I'd seen that night at the park. I'd initially thought it my own blood. But now I realized it had come from the poor woman he'd killed earlier that day. I'd found my murderer, or rather, he'd found me.
"What'cha got there, kitty cat?"
I took the bottom steps, thinking to dash past him when I reached the top.
"If that's what I think it is, I can't let you leave." He stood and held out his arms to grab me.
We stared at one another.
Then I ran.
I darted between his legs and into the kitchen with the precious evidence still in my mouth. He rattled and squeaked behind me on that metal contraption, gaining momentum in the hallway. By the time I reached the parlor, only a few paces separated us. Freedom, however, was mine. I leapt for the window, hit the glass, and fell back to the ground.
"Closed it when I got home," he said with a wink.
Still clutching my proof, I flew past him and up the stairs, thinking the climb would slow him down. And it did, just long enough for me to secure the last bedchamber on the hall. Even more barren than the first floor, the second held no furnishings in which I could hide. What's more, I'd begun to salivate, making the eye that much harder to hold. Rounder and fuller than its glass counterpart, it occupied my mouth to the roof.
Thud, clack, thud, clack. "Here, kitty, kitty," Mr. Limp said. He laughed again—a maniac's laugh—as he strode hallway.
Frantic, I scaled the drapes, cleared the curtain rod, and dove—physics be damned—onto the candelabra that hung from the ceiling. I wobbled and kicked with my back legs, depositing my bottom in the shallow brass bowl that formed the fixture's base. My luck, however, did not hold. A single taper fell to the ground with a clatter.
Mr. Limp entered and spied the candle at once. He lifted his gaze. I swung several lengths above his head on a most precarious perch. Mr. Uppity's ceilings were higher than those in the Poe house, and they provided my salvation. He jumped, missing by a comfortable margin. "We're gonna dance now, you and me." He jumped again. His fingertips grazed the lower arm of the fixture and swung it round, making me queasy. But I held fast, each claw grasping as it never had before.
"Think you can outsmart me?" He grinned, flashing pointed canines. "Mr. Ferris thought he could outsmart me, too. Just 'cause I'm a poor coal buster from the Allegheny don't mean I can't think for myself. Don't mean I can't fall in love with the young lady of my choosing."
How I longed to understand Mr. Limp's arguments, the last to grace my ears for eternity. For despite my peril, I wanted to know why he'd killed those women. I trilled, prompting him to speak again.
"Hesh up, now. I wasn't born a murderer." He rubbed his face, thick with blond stubble. "The whole thing was Mr. Ferris's idea. Paid me to cut those women and take their eyes. 'Look for the petite ones,' he said. 'Look for the ones with the smallest sockets.' I didn't want to at first, but after I met his niece…" His gaze drifted to the floor. "I couldn't refuse an angel like that. No man could." After a moment's reflection, he sat down and began unstrapping the artificial leg from his misshapen thigh. "I tell you, once a body starts killin' it's hard to stop. Mr. Ferris shore found that out."
Mr. Limp pushed himself to standing using the prosthesis as a crutch. Slowly and carefully, so as to maintain his balance, he lifted the metal limb and stood below me on his one good leg. He had more control of his muscles than I'd thought possible and didn't sway, as one would expect. "The old man had no call to stop our courtin'. No call! 'Owen,' he said, 'leave Caroline alone. She's a Ferris, and she's not for you.' And now he's mocking me from the Great Beyond." He rubbed the blisters on his stump and grimaced. "I know you heard it. Bump-bump, bump-bump. That's his heart beatin' beneath the floorboards. Don't know how, after I cut him up, but it keeps a goin'."