Suspended In Dusk by Ramsey Campbell, John Everson, Wendy Hammer Page A

what I meant. I remembered the hooded figure.
    “However, there was something a little unsettling about Henry’s painting, and I don’t just mean what it was about. No, there was a hooded figure in it that Henry didn’t remember painting.”
    The colour drained from Ellen’s face and her fingers curled around the edge of the table. Her knuckles turned white and a muscle worked in her jaw.
    “The girls fear something worse than the loss of their virtue, sir.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Oh nothing!” Ellen pasted a false smile on her face. She stood to leave, her hands trembling as she knotted her fingers together.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I’m sorry, sir.”
    Ellen disappeared into the gloom of the club. I rose to follow her, but the shadows swallowed her, leaving me with only darkness for company. Two men near the door cast suspicious looks in my direction, and I hurried out of the club and into the cold London night before questions could be asked.
    Once outside, I thought again of the peculiar conclusion to our conversation. Ellen spoke of fear, yet refused to divulge the contents of her thoughts. She evidently believed I could offer no aid in the face of some nearby danger, yet I could only speculate as to the nature of this threat. Perhaps one of the local men was to blame, growing fat on the profits of the female bodies he sold, and keen to threaten them if they chose to leave.
    I wandered the streets for around half an hour, where I passed furtive men on their way to the Virginia Club, and gentlemen heading home after late-night visits to friends. The hook of a story nagged in my mind, and I found that I turned in the direction of Blackfriars Bridge. As I walked, I turned the topic over in my mind. I wanted to give the fallen women a voice, but I could only do that by speaking to them myself and hearing their stories with my own ears. I needed affirmation of my suspicions about a shadowy underworld figure, intent upon ruling the unfortunate women with a rod of iron.
    I approached the bridge in search of another muse, but I spotted blond curls farther up the street. I peered closer and realised they belonged to Ellen. She hurried towards the bridge, her hair loose around her shoulders. She darted glances in all directions as she walked, her arms drawn tightly across her chest. Her boots beat an irregular rhythm in the quiet street as she varied her pace. She was clearly terrified of something. Maybe if I took her somewhere warm and gave her a drink, she might speak. Indeed, I was shocked to see her alone in such a place so late at night, and after her sudden fright at the club, I was concerned as much as I was curious.
    “Ellen!”
    Ellen stopped and turned. Recognition sparked on her face, but her expression was unreadable. Before I reached her, someone stepped out of the darkness of the alley to Ellen’s left. Ellen turned and threw her arms up in a defensive gesture, but a pale hand shot out of a dark cloak and covered Ellen’s mouth, cutting off her scream. I broke into a run but Ellen was dragged into the alley.
    I reached the narrow lane. I expected to see her skirts bunched around her waist, or the flashing blade of a knife in the gloom. Instead, a hooded figure bent over Ellen’s prone body, obscuring her face. Wet, sordid chewing sounds filled the air, and my stomach churned to hear them.
    “Hi there, stop!” I found my voice, but it bore a waver that betrayed me. I tried to move into the alley, but my feet refused to obey. They held fast, rooted to the spot, while my knees quivered from the exertion of my run. My heart pounded, and my ribs vibrated within my chest, though from terror or exercise I could not say.
    The stranger stood. Blood clotted in the bite marks around Ellen’s mouth. The figure leaned down and held its hand—a horrible skeletal hand of bleached bone, over the wound. It tore upwards in one savage motion. For a moment, a white mist, the same shape and form as Ellen,