The Gentleman Killer, Parts V and VI - a Halloween Serial
Welcome to the third installment. This story is flying by and next week will be the fourth and final installment. I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to those who have been reading and talking to me about it. I appreciate it. It means a lot. If you haven’t caught up to this installment, below are links to the first two. Each installment is divided into two parts and each are short. It’s a pretty quick read to get through each installment.
Previously:
After reading, please sound off in the comments to let me know how it’s going. And without further typing, enjoy this week’s installment of “The Gentleman Killer.”
Rated R: Violence, child abuse, spousal abuse, sexism.
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Copyright © 2024 by Nat Weaver.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted by Artificial Intelligence (AI) or used in the training of AI, for either commercial or non-commercial purposes. For permission requests, write to the author, with subject “The Gentleman Killer” at the following email address: nat@weaver.wtf.
“The Gentleman Killer”
A Short Story by Nat Weaver
V.
The Good Doctor Questions Niamh.
Moody took out a gold pocket watch from his vest and checked the time. He had already spent an hour listening to Niamh talk about the orphanage, Cara, and the first kill she witnessed as a young girl. There was a lot to process about Niamh’s story, but he believed she was telling the truth. There were details about the Larrson killing that the papers had not printed, but that he was aware of through colleagues close to the case. There was no way a woman of her station could be privy to such matters.
He rolled a cigarette and used his tongue to help seal it. “Why do you think Cara wanted you to see Larrson die?”
Niamh stared at a corner of his desk, she was deep in contemplation. She finally took a deep breath, and said, “She wanted me to be like her.”
“And are you like her?” Moody asked as he lit the tip of his cigarette.
Niamh looked up from the desk and said plainly, “No.”
“That’s good,” Moody said. He took a puff of his cigarette and blew out three rings, each smaller than the last. The circles created a target and on his last blow he sent a small sphere of smoke through the center ring. “Do you think she was mad?”
“She would have to be, wouldn’t she?” Niamh said.
Moody cleared his throat and explained, “Not necessarily. Some people think they have some holy purpose and that can lead them to commit acts that others would view as madness. Some may just be hateful. Cara only kills men, perhaps she hates men, that would be logical. Still,” Moody took another puff of his cigarette, “Some are just evil. Being evil isn’t madness, it’s calculated aggression. An evil person might want to cause chaos, disrupt the order of things, or just watch people suffer.” Moody thought for a moment, and then continued, “Do you think she was mad? Or did she espouse some reasoning for the murders?”
“She had reasons, sure,” Niamh said, “But they didn’t make much sense. I always thought she was a little touched in the head.”
Moody licked his lips and tasted the tobacco on them. “The mind is not my expertise, but I know men, good men, who work in that arena. Through them I know a little.” He twiddled with his cigarette between his fingers, careful not to unravel it. “I wonder if you could tell me some of the reasons that compelled her to do what she did to those men.”
Niamh sat thoughtfully, the glass in her hand, but she still had not sipped its contents. “She believed men held too much power over others. That the order of things was unbalanced. She considered herself a good person, oddly, that she was doing good deeds for others.”
Moody shook his head.
“She would search high and low for men she considered reprehensible,” Niamh continued. “She would follow them around and learn their habits. And then, when she felt compelled and ready, she would kill them without remorse. And she’d make me watch from the shadows.”
“What she did was reprehensible,” Moody barked. “I knew Mr. Kincaid and he was an outstanding young man. A very talented and good person. No one ever spoke evil of the man. His murder was mourned among the highest of people and he was praised by the Queen herself. May Richard rest in peace, there isn’t a day goes by I don’t think fondly of him.” He took an unrestrained puff of his cigarette and quickly blew the smoke out from his nostrils. Some ash fell clumsily onto his desk. “Anyone, man or woman, who says otherwise of the good Mr. Kincaid, can answer to me. And anyone, man or woman, who did him harm like Cara did, may they rot in hell.”
A silence fell between Moody and his midnight guest. A light rain began to sweep across the windows in the wind as he attempted to calm his breathing after his outburst.
Niamh sat up in her chair and sat the glass on his desk, “Should I go?”
“No,” Moody said. “That’s won’t be necessary. I will remain quiet for a while so that you may continue to tell your story and I may calm myself. Carry on.”
Niamh left the glass on the desk and sat back in her chair, “Cara never married, but she sure had opinions about married men.”
VI.
A Man of the House.
Cara sat on a park bench and fed birds with Niamh. To a passerby, it appeared the two were out for a peaceful time in the park. What no one could have known was that they were observing Oscar Bennett who was flirting with a woman who wasn’t his wife by a large fountain. He stroked his hair and twisted the corners of his mustache while he spoke to the young woman who was clearly not interested in the conversation with the overbearing Bennett. The man was incapable of taking a hint and kept trying to keep the conversation going, but an older woman eventually came over and took the young woman by the arm and whisked her away from Bennett who took a deep breath of rage. His nostrils flared.
“That man, Oscar Bennett,” Cara explained to Niamh, “Is a husband who controls every aspect of his wife’s life. He married upward and now controls all of his wife’s assets and money. Men can do that.” Cara dropped a few seeds to the pigeons at her feet. “He also controls who she can talk to, whether she can leave the house, where she can go when she does. Her entire life is under his control. If she doesn’t obey, he hits her. If she does something he doesn’t approve of, he hits her. If she says something he doesn’t like, he hits her. He’s a real son of a bitch.”
Niamh glared at Bennett who sat down on the edge of the fountain, but quickly stood up and patted at his backside. He had sat in a puddle of water. Frustrated from the situation, he stormed away through the park gates. Niamh’s blood was boiling.
Cara and Niamh stayed in the park until nightfall. After which they headed to the Bennett house. They climbed over a brick wall in back of the house and crossed the garden to a backdoor that led into the kitchen. Niamh pulled out a small tool and made quick work of the lock. Lock-picking was as skill Cara had taught her, this was her first time using the skill during a killing. They entered through the door and passed through the kitchen. Once inside the house, Bennett’s voice could be heard yelling and cursing at his wife. Alice, his wife, could also be heard defending her actions. She had gone to an opera with her mother without his approval, as he had been out all evening, and therefore she could not ask him. Her defense was interrupted with the sound of a crackling noise that was the noise one hears when the flesh of a fist meets the flesh of a face.
Cara slightly opened the door to the bedroom where sobbing could be heard while Bennett continued to verbally assault his wife. He stood over Alice, a towering presence to her small frame. His fists were clenched at his sides, ready to strike at any moment. He stood with his back to the door and didn’t hear Cara and Niamh enter.
Cara charged him quick with a dagger in her left hand. She wrapped her right arm around his neck and promptly stabbed him twice through the back. She held him tight in her arm, but his heavy body began to crumble at the knees, and she rolled him over to the floor. He held his back where the two wounds were made as blood poured out of them, through his fingers, down his back, and onto the rug. He looked back over his shoulder at Cara and gasped for air. She had punctured his lung.
She reached out her hand to Alice on the floor who stared at it in shock for a moment before looking up and making eye contact with Cara. Alice had a torn lip that was bleeding from the left corner of the mouth. She also had an old black eye that was starting to heal and finger print bruising about her neck. A single tear streamed down her cheek. She took Cara’s hand and stood up.
The three of them stood over Bennett who was still struggling for oxygen. Cara unsheathed her rapier and offered the hilt to Alice. “This is your fight, Alice. Do you want to finish it?”
“I couldn’t,” Alice pleaded, “They’ll kill me.”
“I’m The Gentleman Killer,” Cara said. “You’ll tell them it was me and that’s all they’ll want to hear. They’ll never believe this was women’s work.”
Bennett coughed up blood as he tried to call out to Alice and plead for her help. That was the moment Alice knew what had to be done. She took the rapier from Cara and stepped forward.
The next morning Cara and Niamh were back in Whitechapel. They sat in the tavern where they had met Larrson and carried out their plan. Cara could tell Niamh had been thinking of something all morning, she was thinking of it the night before even.
“Out with it now,” Cara said to her.
“Why did you have Alice finish it?” Niamh asked with a puzzled face.
“Because it’s not about us, Niamh,” Cara said. “Never was and never will be.”
Niamh seemed satisfied with the answer, but still sat quiet. She turned and looked across the tavern. A few men eating breakfast, a few women serving them. Mostly though, it was quiet, a calm after the storm. She breathed in the dank air of the tavern, the morning after a kill always felt fresh and new. She always felt warm the next morning. Rejuvenated. Refreshed. This morning she felt disappointed.
“Your time will come, Niamh.”
