The alley adjacent to Sylvie March's residence was a narrow corridor, its walls damp and mottled with mildew.
Rain had left behind chalky imprints on the bricks, and the wrought iron staircases on either side curled inward like skeletal ribs.
Darwin lingered outside the building for several minutes, adopting the guise of a man uncertain of his destination.
His fingers brushed against the brooch concealed in his pocket, a habitual gesture born of mild confusion.
An elderly tenant passed by, prompting him to nonchalantly adjust his hat.
When a young couple exited the building, their laughter piercing the quietude of the hour, Darwin seized the moment. He slipped inside behind them, silent and unobtrusive.
Ascending the staircase with measured steps, he reached the door to her flat.
Police tape, slack and lazily affixed, adorned the entrance; one end had already begun to droop.
One he found the coast clear, he tested the knob and discovered it conveniently unlocked.
He entered and closed the door behind him with the quietude of a thief.
Inside, dust motes frolicked in the sharp rays of moonlight filtering through the window.
He remained still, just within the threshold, allowing his eyes to survey the scene methodically.
The room had been stripped of valuables, save for the larger pieces of furniture. Among them stood a mirror, its oak frame partially visible beneath a thin sheet.
After a final scan of the room, Darwin approached and removed the covering.
The mirror creaked within its vanity as the sheet was lifted, revealing a scratch across the glass.
In his draft, Darwin had included this detail to divert the detective from concluding it was a suicide, and steer suspicion toward the sister rumored to be disfigured after a tragic accident.
The tale unfolded thus: Sylvie and Eveline, sisters of the March family, ventured one evening onto the fog-laden lake behind the willows, commandeering a boat that wasn't their own.
In the moments following, the boat had managed to tip over and plunge the two young women under water.
Sylvie emerged unscathed, but Eveline struck her face against a submerged iron mooring spike as the boat overturned.
The ensuing infection darkened her cheek, distorting the symmetry she once shared with Sylvie.
Though her health returned, Eveline never forgave her sister for resuming a normal life.
In the months that followed, Eveline grew silent and peculiar, shunning mirrors unless to gaze into them for hours, sometimes an entire day.
On the night Eveline vanished, presumed to have fled after her sister's suicide, she left behind a solitary scratch on Sylvie's vanity mirror, seemingly traced with dried rose oil and blood.
It had been hastily etched with Eveline's hairpin.
Darwin pressed his fingers gently against the mirror, letting his hand glide downward without leaving a smudge.
He merely pressed his thumb over the knuckle of his middle finger before turning to examine the room further.
Even the rug lay askew, just as he had described.
The paperweight on the desk was a smooth piece of glass with air bubbles trapped inside.
Darwin's throat clicked as he began to mumble incoherent phrases to himself.
"Only I would be aware that she was made up…"
He scanned the room once more before approaching the bookshelf.
He had nearly turned away when something caught his attention: a slip of paper wedged between two inexpensive books, likely poetry collections given their unadorned covers and ornate engravings.
Reaching between them, Darwin extracted the paper.
It was unadorned bearing only a name in spindled cursive: 'Noé Cendreuil,' along with a stamp suggesting it originated from a facility in France.
The Medical Asylum of Saint Audric's Heath
Beneath the institution's stamp, a hastily scribbled note provided additional information:
'East Wintrime, the 17th of November, 1876
To Miss Sylvie March,
Rue d'Aubépine No. 17,
Fontainebleau, France'
Darwin frowned at the paper, gently pressing its top corner against his fingertip before turning it over, seeking further inscriptions.
Indeed, the reverse side bore a lengthy letter, penned in the same meticulous handwriting.
Curiously, this letter was absent from his earlier writings. Darwin felt a surge of surprise that such a potentially pivotal document had been overlooked during the investigation.
Its contents could have steered conclusions away from the presumption of suicide.
Retrieving a small box of matches from his pocket, Darwin approached the large windowsill. Striking a match, he lit the central candle of a brass candelabrum, then tilted it to ignite the adjacent candles, enhancing the room's illumination.
The text on the letter was minuscule, challenging to decipher in the dim light.
Casting a cautious glance over his shoulder, he knelt, positioning the paper close to the flickering flames. His eyes began to trace the letter's contents.
. . .
Dear Miss Sylvie March,
Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delayed correspondence concerning your brother, Mr. Llewellyn March. I am acutely aware of your persistent inquiries regarding his condition over the past months. It is the severity of his case that has necessitated careful consideration before committing my observations to paper.
Mr. Llewellyn March was admitted to our care in the early months of spring, presenting with signs not unusual in cases of nervous deterioration: prolonged mutism, withdrawal, and episodes of fugue during the night hours. Our initial diagnosis of melancholia of a hereditary bent proved, regrettably, insufficient. What began as a simple decline has transfigured into something far more grave.
His journals, seized upon during routine examination, introduced a persistent figure referred to only as "The Lord of Vesania." According to Mr. March, this being is indistinct in form, bearing the likeness of men, yet none of his own. He is described as clad in faces taken from the dead, and worn until the borrowed expressions sour, at which point they are replaced. Mr. March wrote, "He bears a friendly smile at first, until the skin stiffens, and he must peel it off like fruit rind to wear another."
These delusions, if I may term them so, escalated with alarming rapidity. Mr. March began to assert that this man not only kills but inhabits his victims, arranging their hollowed bodies in lifelike tableaux until decay renders them unconvincing.
When questioned, he remained calm, even apologetic. "He speaks very little," he once wrote, "but he has told me that I am a cracked door. He says he will crawl through my eye and live behind it like a wasp."
Such language is profoundly disturbing, even to those of us accustomed to the manifestations of profound madness.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. March began removing pages from his journal, wrinkling them into the semblance of faces upon which he scrawled childlike expressions, most with their eyes either scratched out or crossed in red ink. He affixed them to the wall with bits of bread paste or fingernail pairings, always in the same pattern: four in a row, then one positioned upside down beneath.
We confiscated the journal, leaving him only the pen. Within days, he began inscribing dozens of faces directly onto the walls, all seemingly directing their gaze toward a crudely rendered door at the center of the chamber.
One of our night nurses, Miss Aurembel, attempted to retrieve the pen. As she approached, Mr. March seized her by the throat and, with frenzied precision, attempted to carve along her cheek.
Thankfully, she survived the attack and is currently under the care of our surgical ward, though she bears unfortunate scarring. Mr. March was restrained and sedated, yet no sedative has yielded lasting calm. Since the incident, we have removed all instruments, including bedding seams and even the stitching from his garments.
He had taken to biting the pads of his fingers, using the blood to write anew. The word most frequently repeated is: "Sylvie."
I must now address a matter of immediate concern.
Despite every security measure, Mr. March escaped his ward late last night. The attending orderly found the door ajar, and the hinges blackened with a peculiar soot. We are still investigating how this was accomplished. Most alarming is the discovery that several of his self-fashioned paper "faces" were missing, along with the spare coat of a visiting clergyman. He was last seen by a stablehand at dusk, walking into the tree line with what the boy described as "a friendly grin."
Given Mr. March's acute cleverness and lucidness during his worst episodes, we must consider that he may fabricate a new identity and travel some distance under false pretenses. The Channel, as you know, is porous, and we have alerted customs authorities in both Dover and Calais.
Miss March, I do not wish to alarm you unnecessarily. However, as you reside alone, it may be advisable, at least for the time being, to avoid entertaining visitors whom you do not personally recognize, even if they claim to be messengers or acquaintances of your brother.
Should you receive any correspondence in his handwriting, or notice any strange markings upon your door or walls, particularly the number four followed by a peculiar figure, I urge you to contact your local prefecture without delay.
We remain in close cooperation with the constabulary, and I shall write again should any development arise.
With earnest concern and sympathy,
Dr. Noé Cendreuil
Senior Attending Physician
Saint Audric's Heath
East Wintrime, England
. . .
Darwin remained still, and let the letter fall limp between his fingers.
The candlelight beside him flickered, casting shadows that danced upon the ink, making it appear freshly penned.
Molten wax dripped onto the floorboards, each drop punctuating the silence that enveloped the flat.
Darwin had noticed prior to lighting the candles that the windows were impeccably clean, as if someone had meticulously sealed the rooms past.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, allowing his thoughts to coalesce, methodically arranging the fragments of information.
'...While it's conceivable that she might have been a figment conjured from the remnants of my shattered psyche, the circumstances of her death defy the simplicity of suicide.'
Darwin's gaze returned to the crease where the doctor's name was inscribed, 'Cendreuil.'
He resisted the impulse to trace it with his thumb, as if tactile confirmation would affirm its reality.
The name 'Sylvie March' resonated more tangibly here than it ever had in the newspaper's print.
'A woman, ostensibly murdered by a relative, likely her brother rather than the sister portrayed in the fictional account. The 'Lewellyn' referenced in this document appears to have harbored a longstanding madness. Perhaps he resented her for committing him to an asylum, and in his descent, she became the casualty.
'Though no other killings have surfaced in the city, it seems implausible that she would take her own life solely out of fear that her brother might do so first. If not death, then perhaps she feared something more…'
Though Darwin often indulged in the analysis of crimes and murders as a form of escapism, the current circumstances stirred his mind in a way that dissected each detail as a matter of course.
Despite the disquiet these new stories brought, an undeniable thrill settled in his veins.
It was as if his very being resonated with the macabre rhythm of the unfolding mysteries.
His scrutiny returned to the paragraph describing the faces on the walls.
A constricting sensation gripped his chest.
Notably, the newspaper made no mention of her brother.
He absentmindedly rubbed his jawline, as his attention drifted to the side table positioned diagonally across from the vanity.
A small frame rested there with its back turned to the room.
He had intended to examine it earlier but had been sidetracked by the letter.
The chill in his chest no longer stemmed from the ambiguity surrounding her brother's absence, however, instead from the palpable sense that he was no longer alone in the flat.
He folded the letter into a neat square, and slipped it into his coat pocket.
His fingers lingered momentarily before he rose cautiously and approached the frame on the table.
Darwin grasped the top of the frame, rotating it smoothly.
It was lighter than anticipated, constructed of hollow wood with silvering edges.
As anticipated, the portrait depicted a woman seated at the center, flanked by three children.
The two younger ones, a boy and a girl, appeared to be of similar age, while the third, an older child, stood slightly behind the woman's left shoulder, positioned just behind the boy.
Darwin exhaled audibly with a mix of relief and resignation, before turning the frame back toward the wall.
'The two youngest must be Sylvia and Lewellyn March, with the woman presumably their mother. But who is the third child? Is she elsewhere… still alive?' he pondered, his thoughts trailing as he slowly made his way back to the vanity.
Though the room offered little of interest, he decided to inspect the vanity's drawers before departing.
Opening them sequentially, each emitted a grating sound against the aged wood, revealing nothing of note… until he reached the third.
Inside lay what initially seemed to be mere detritus: a torn button affixed to a scrap of fabric, two spent matchsticks, and a bundle of letters bound with blue thread.
He carefully extracted the bundle, and flipped it over to examine the back. The final letter bore an address to "Sylvie," penned in the same hand as the one he'd read earlier.
'Ha… perhaps these contain further insights,' he mused, noting that the topmost letter lacked a postage stamp.
Swallowing hard, he clutched the letters tightly. 'I'll take these as well—if only to satiate my curiosity. Perhaps one mentions the third child.'
Tucking the bundle under his arm, Darwin reached back into the drawer, and probed the sides for any loose envelopes that might have slipped through unnoticed.
Though his fingers encountered no object, they brushed against a coarse texture at the drawer's front center.
It felt as if something had been repeatedly etched into the wood.
Driven by curiosity, he gently traced the markings and narrowed his eyes in an attempt to visualize the pattern.
Various images flitted through his mind with each pass:
"A triangle? Perhaps a sail… Could it be a letter or a signature?"
He paused and flicked his touch on the roof of his mouth.
"It might also be a number…" The thought struck him abruptly, prompting him to withdraw his hand as if something had scalded it.
Then, striding to the windowsill, he seized the central candle, disregarding the hot wax that began to drip onto his knuckles.
Without hesitation, he pulled the drawer out as far as it would go until it locked, then positioned himself beside it, and leaned down to illuminate the scratched area with the candle's flame.
Wax plopped onto the drawer's base, matching the initial pace of his heartbeat, which soon accelerated beyond the rhythm.
There, on the underside of the drawer's interior panel, a circle had been violently gouged into the wood.
The carving was crude, as if made by a child attempting to replicate a symbol from a recurring nightmare.
He crouched, steadying the drawer with one hand as he examined the symbol more closely.
Inside the circle, four jagged vertical lines descended like hanging strings, each terminating in a teardrop-shaped point.
Although the lines initially appeared as mere tally marks, the irregularity and force behind the carvings suggested a sinister resolve.
Beneath them in the center, lay a fifth mark.
It was an irregular shape bearing the semblance of a human eye, with a smudged dark pupil that stared back.
Adjacent to this unsettling symbol, the number '4' had been carefully carved, contrasting the erratic scratches surrounding it.
It was as though the hand that inscribed it had momentarily steadied, and channeled intent into that singular digit.
As Darwin continued to draw in, a faint, acidic scent wafted from the drawer.
"Dried vinegar blended with bile…?'
The longer he stared at the dark smear, the more his certainty of its nature eroded.
'It has solidified this…waxy flake.'
A sudden downpour of dread saturated Darwin's senses.
"What resides within this eye?" he pondered.
The heat from the candle's flame gradually neared the tip of his nose.
At last, he discerned the anomaly: the eye's center bore the faint impression of a thumbprint, seemingly imprinted in dried blood.
It was as if the individual responsible had pressed a gloved, damaged finger into the mark, leaving behind a grotesque signature.
Revulsion twisted Darwin's features.
He abruptly straightened, forcefully shutting the drawer.
As he retreated a few steps, he cleared his throat, and returned the candle to its holder.
'Perhaps reporting this is prudent,' he mused.
'Consequences be damned; the perpetrator of this is far too sinister to roam freely.'
THUNK!
A sudden slam echoed from the flat's entrance, jolting Darwin.
Moments later, a series of softer thuds resonated, ascending the staircase.
The thin walls that were likely once a source of mild annoyance, now served as conduits for impending tension.
Whether it was the authorities or someone drawn to the remnants of a deceased woman's abode, the implications were equally perilous.
Darwin briskly realized that he needed to depart swiftly, without arousing suspicion that could entangle him further.
He concealed the letters beneath his coat, ensuring they were secure, before hastily approaching the door.
His hand hovered over the knob, poised to flee, but as the footsteps ascended to his floor, his hand froze.
'Damned newspaper!!' he cursed inwardly.