Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) Read Online Free

Row on August the thirty-first. Annie Chapman, killed in Hanbury Street, September eighth. I awoke in Limehouse directly after these two murders. And I have no memories of those nights. Anything could have happened! I could have done anything...”
    “Lord, man!” Lazarus exclaimed. “Surely you are not suggesting...”
    “I don’t know what I’m suggesting!” he cried. “I’m bloody scared, Lazarus! I don’t know what’s happening to me!”
    “But this is paranoid fantasy! Coincidence and nothing more. And besides, you only mentioned two of the killings. The papers say that there was a third; the earliest. Martha Tabram was also killed in early August. Did you wake in Limehouse then, too?”
    “No, I...”
    “There, you see? What you are suggesting is simply not credible.”
    “I don’t know what’s credible these days. All I know is that something frightful is happening to me that I have absolutely no control over.”
    “You need rest and perhaps a little diversion,” Lazarus said. “How about you come out to dinner with me tonight?”
    “I would relish a chance to catch up, but I am to dine with Stoker, the manager, tonight. We are to discuss the play’s performance and further promotion. You are welcome to join us, but I fear that all the business talk would bore you.”
    “Not at all. That is, if you are sure that I am not intruding.”
    “Certainly not. We would be most pleased to have you with us. Now, just let me finish getting changed and I’ll be with you.”
    Lazarus left Mansfield in his dressing room and hung around the stage door, watching the stage hands and gas men pack up for the night. All of the artistes had already left. Eventually Mansfield emerged, looking much more composed than he was moments previously. He wore his dinner suit with a white cravat and well-polished boots.
    “Ah, you have met my associate Mr. Stoker, Lazarus?”
    “Yes,” Lazarus replied as the theatre manager came over to them. “I introduced myself earlier.”
    “Bram here is the finest house manager in all England,” Mansfield said. “And also an accomplished writer.”
    “A hobby at present,” said Stoker.
    “A hobby with encouraging prospects! And my good friend Lazarus Longman here is a world-famous explorer.”
    “Yes, I do remember reading something of your exploits in the papers,” Stoker said. “Something to do with Great Zimbabwe?”
    “That’s right,” said Lazarus.
    “That’s just the tip of his exploits,” Mansfield went on. “He’s been to India, the Americas and Egypt too, if I’m not mistaken?”
    “Egypt?” Stoker said, his eyebrows raised. “You intrigue me, sir. “I have a good friend who has been many times. Brought back all sorts of jewels and mummies. Is it true that their religion involved the resurrection of the dead?”
    “Well not as such,” said Lazarus. “It’s a common misconception.”
    “Oh, I don’t mean mummies walking around as you or I do, I speak metaphorically of course. I refer to reincarnation.”
    “Mummies walking around?” Mansfield said with a snort of laughter. “You see, Lazarus, Bram here has a feverish and demented imagination. One never knows what fantasy he’s going to dream up next.”
    Lazarus forced a smile. “Shall we be off? I’m famished.”

Chapter Three
     
    In which our hero is introduced to a new acquaintance
     
    The following morning, Lazarus returned to Whitehall and met Morton in the long corridor outside his office. An Otis hydraulic lift took them down to a cellar deep below street level.
    Morton caught him gazing at the brick pillars and arches that looked Tudor at the very latest. “Never been down here, eh? It’s where we keep our tinkerers, tailors and quartermasters, not to mention the armory and rifle range.”
    “You said I was to meet my associate,” Lazarus said. “Is he one of your ‘tinkerers’?”
    “Not at all. I just wanted you both to get some practice in on the targets. Never know when