by Issy Brooke
It was fruitless. She went to the corridor and listened hard, but Mrs Newman had not come out from her hiding place. Marianne went across to the room opposite to the Grand Bedroom and resumed her search. She had to pull the drapes back from the window, and when she turned to face the room, she had a little jolt of fear until she recognised the pale, grinning face as nothing but a child’s doll. She’d noticed it before.
There was something horrible in its blank eyes and the mouth was half-open like it was singing. It was a female doll, in layers of lace and satin, and was propped up against the wall, facing the door. She tried to recall where it was the last time she’d seen it. Had it been moved? Other toys remained on the table.
She picked it up and found that it was heavy, with a solid body and articulated arms and legs. As she moved it, something clicked, just like last time. She had thought it was its mechanism but now she began to ask herself – what mechanism, exactly?
She turned the doll over and looked at its back. There was a handle protruding out of it. Intrigued, she carried it to the window to make the most of the moonlight, and unlaced its frilly dress. The metal body had a spiral of holes in the front.
She turned the handle at the back, just a few revolutions, and stopped in horror as an unearthly noise began to come from the sound hole in the chest. She pressed it to her skirts to muffle the screeching. She could hear in the tones that once, it had indeed recited a nursery rhyme. As the sounds died away, she turned the doll over again, and looked at the mechanism in its back. There was the wax cylinder but it was pitted and degraded now. No wonder it had descended into terrifying noises.
This was the source of all the anguish. She still didn’t know why, but at least she had the how – and it certainly didn’t involve ghosts. She rearranged the doll’s clothing to something more seemly, and headed for the door.
She opened it quietly, stepped through, and then it all went black with a bang.
Twenty-four
She came around slowly, as if she were swimming to consciousness out of a dream, becoming aware of her surroundings bit by bit. She didn’t move. She was lying on a wooden floor, and there was a cruel cold draught by her hand. Her head throbbed. She opened her eyes slightly and saw nothing, making her panic at first, until she realised that it was still night.
She was still upstairs, in the passage between the Grand Bedroom and the room where she had found the doll. She listened carefully but could hear nothing. She wriggled just enough so that she could reach a hand to the top of her head, just above her temple, where she had received the blow, and there was already a lump forming. Her skin was hot to the touch.
She sat up. She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious for. Probably not long, or Jack would have battered the place down by now. She was apparently alone, but who knew if Mrs Newman was watching from a crack or a hole somewhere. And perhaps others, too. There was no sign of the singing doll. She got to her feet, steadying herself against the door frame as her vision blurred and her head swam. Her newly-purchased bonnet remained on the floor and she didn’t think she could bend to pick it up without swooning. She’d go home hatless; it was a good job she was not returning to Woodfurlong. Mrs Davenport would have had even more to berate her about.
As for Rosedene, her cover had been completely blown.
She still assumed it was Mrs Newman hiding in the house, and now she could assume that Mrs Newman was also behind the doll’s screaming, or why else would she have taken it from Marianne? It was evidence.
She couldn’t even begin to grasp why any of this might have happened.
But Mrs Newman had blown her own cover, too. Until that point, she must have realised that Marianne could not tell for sure if the house was unoccupied. Now it was obvious that someone else was there.
Marianne had to move fast and get to the police station. But moving fast was difficult, and made pains stab in her head, and she inched her way down the stairs. She rescued her bag from where she had hidden it in the kitchen, and let herself out of the back scullery door.
Jack was waiting for her on the street outside, leaning against a tree and smoking. He grinned and waved as he saw her. “All sorted? Well done, you. How did – oh my God, Marianne, what in blazes have you done?”
“Does it look bad?”
“It makes me wince to see it. Come here. Is your skull cracked?”
“Can you see my brains?”
“No. Perhaps you don’t have any. That would account for all of this. But I can see your hair, and there is blood in it, and it is matted and they will not let you into a cab in this state.”
“I can walk,” she said weakly. “I was hit on the head. But it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters!”
“No, well yes, but listen. I know how the screaming was created, and it proves someone else was in the house. I should tell Inspector Gladstone at once.”
“You should be attended to by a doctor at once. Anyway, the Inspector will be at home now, like a normal person. Oh, this is going to cost me money. Come here, Marianne.” He put an arm around her, and she sank into his weight immediately. He held her up with the rough practicality of a soldier carrying a fellow through a battlefield, without ceremony or attention, and half-dragged her along the street until they found a late-night cabbie who could be persuaded – with enough money – to ignore the head injury and strange state of Marianne, and drive them to the police station.
Jack wouldn’t let her sleep again. Every time she drifted off, he jabbed her or spoke sharply to her, keeping her awake until they rolled up to the police stationhouse. Inspector Gladstone was known to work late and start early, but he was hardly at work in the small hours. Luckily another constable recognised her. They were admitted, and by the time that the Inspector came in to work before dawn a few hours later, she had been cleaned up, examined, and plied with food and drink and medicine. There was a matron employed at the station, one of a new breed of severe spinster women concerned with morality and good manners, who attended to the women and children. She dealt with Marianne with the same brusque manner that she would deal with prostitutes and runaways. But she was not cruel, and she had even found a partly-decent bonnet for Marianne to wear.
Jack had long since disappeared. He said he still had the card game to attend, but she knew it was a lie; he had missed it by many hours. He just didn’t want to be around the police, much like Simeon though for different reasons.
When Inspector Gladstone saw her, he commented on her bonnet at once. “Miss Starr. Interesting headwear. My grandmother wears just the same.”
“I cleave to an older, more honest style,” she replied, patting the deep bonnet that effectively shielded her face like a pair of blinkers for a horse.
He laughed and then grew serious. “They tell me you have been violently assaulted.”
“That’s a dramatic description. I have been whacked on the head and left unconscious, and robbed.”
“Robbed?”
“Well, not exactly. I returned to Rosedene last night, and during the course of the evening I have discovered the source of the noise. I was bringing you the offending instrument when I was struck a blow on the head and knocked unconscious. When I came to, the article had been taken.” She described the doll and how she thought it had worked. “So you see, the place is not empty and I know it is Mrs Newman who hides there still.”
The Inspector listened carefully. “This is, indeed, worrying. I just wish I knew why she has gone to all these lengths – especially now, when the will is done with and all is settled. What more can she hope to gain?” he asked.
Marianne laughed. “I can help you answer that, sir. There is a set of jewels that has been hidden in that house, and she knows of their existence, and she has been trying to discover their secret hiding place.”
“And you are going to tell me you know where they are?”
“Yes. They are in a box under the bed in the Grand Bedroom, and I know it for certain, as I p
ut them there last night.”
Inspector Gladstone rubbed his temples. “You will have to start at the beginning, and I fear we will need coffee.”
She outlined how she had discovered the existence of the jewellery through Tobias, and proceeded straight to the plans for a séance. Gladstone interrupted her.
“How did you persuade the auction house to let you borrow them for this little escapade?”
“Ahh.” She smiled nervously. “They are, as yet, unaware of their role in this.”
Gladstone put his head in his hands. “I need to arrest you.”
“I’ve admitted to nothing.”
“You have. You have literally just told me...”
“What? Nothing. You have plenty of other things to worry about, Inspector. Now, we need to prise Mrs Newman out of her hiding place, am I not correct?”
“Yes. But how? Do we burn the house down?”
“We’ve dismissed that idea. A woman cannot hide in a house forever!” Marianne said. “What about a priest hole? She must be in a priest hole. It is an old house. Now, you could return with measuring rules and string and chalk and make a note of all the dimensions of each of the rooms. Somewhere, she will be hidden, in a secret cubby hole. But this will take a great deal of time, and she can evade you, sneaking from place to place. Tobias told us that. So I have devised another way. We will hold a séance and contact the ghost of poor Miss Dorothea. She will tell us where the jewels are.”
“But you already know where they are. And you don’t believe in ghosts.”
“No, but Mrs Newman does; she has tried to pretend not to, but that is her underlying belief. And when the fake Miss Dorothea reveals the hiding place to us, you can bet that Mrs Newman will be listening. She will go immediately to the place and she will be caught red-handed. Do you see?”
“She will not believe that you are involved in such a scheme.”
“Perhaps not. But she will believe that you are.”
“No. I cannot.” Gladstone was shaking his head vehemently. “There is absolutely no way that I can be involved in these shenanigans.”
“We need a figure of authority from the police,” she insisted. “As you say, she will not believe me, and I shall play the part of a sceptic the whole way through. Well, I shall simply be myself. But if an official presence is there, we are given a veneer of respectability.”
“You can have Constable Bolton.”
“He is hardly a figure of authority.”
“He wears the uniform and quite frankly, Miss Starr, it is more than I ought to offer you.”
“Thank you,” she managed to say with grace. She started to get to her feet. “It happens tonight. There is still much planning to be done. Is Constable Bolton on duty? I will speak to him.”
“Not right now, you won’t. Sit back down. I will call for someone to take you home.”
“That won’t be necessary. Anyway, I am ... lodging ... with my friend.”
“You have been injured in the line of duty. It is the least I can do. And by ‘friend’, I assume you’re with that moon-touched lad, Simeon Stainwright. We know where he lives, don’t you forget. Just tell me, before you go, where you want Bolton to be, and when.”
SIMEON WAS APPALLED by her state and she allowed herself to be led to the bed where she collapsed onto it. Her eyes felt gritty and dry, and her throat ached. Her head was throbbing. The doctor at the police station had given her a little bottle which smelled acrid and brown, and she took another two drops of it on her tongue. There was a hint of opium in it, and who knew what else, but it took the edge off the pain. She lay flat on her back, as lying on her side in her corsets was not comfortable. And she drifted away while Simeon clattered and scraped and knocked and banged and thumped away with tools and wood in the other room.
She woke to voices. She picked out Jack’s low rumble, and his occasional laugh. There was Phoebe, speaking in a rapid and high tone, which suggested her excitement or perhaps her fear. And another laughing male voice, which she realised was Constable Bolton.
So, she thought. It is time. I wonder if we can really pull this mad scheme off?
She sat up slowly, feeling creased and crumpled. Her hair was a tangled mess at the back, but the wound had not opened up again, which was a blessing. As she moved slowly around the room, trying to find her hairbrush, Phoebe tapped on the partly-open door and came in.
“Oh, sit down,” Phoebe said. “You look like you’ve fought a rose bush, and lost terribly.”
Marianne sat, as ordered, and Phoebe produced a comb from her bag and set about arranging her hair.
“Are we doing the right thing?” Marianne asked.
“Of course not. It is ludicrous, every bit of it,” Phoebe said. “But isn’t it delicious? One day we shall be dead, Marianne. I do not know about you, but I intend to fill every moment with life and action. Not much is open to me beyond wife and mother, and I don’t mind; I adore my life. But that is no reason for me to turn down the chance to fill it with a little more than housekeeping records and dinner party gossip.”
“I wish I had your lightness of character,” Marianne said, wincing as Phoebe tugged knot after knot out of her hair. “There must be an easier way to get Mrs Newman out of that place. I suggested to Inspector Gladstone they measure every room.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. A day?”
“Then it’s an option, isn’t it? But this Mrs Newman, she already knows you are on to her, because she has taken that doll and battered you on the head – don’t worry, Simeon told me everything, and it sounds most thrilling. So she will be actively avoiding you. If you flood the place with police, she will simply hide, or flee.”
“That would be good. If she flees, she will be caught.”
“Definitely?” Phoebe asked. “How many police would you have to surround the place, to ensure she could not slip away unnoticed?”
“Rather a lot,” Marianne said. “But it is not impossible. I doubt there is a secret tunnel from the place.” Even as she said it, she worried that there might be.
“And how many police has the Inspector given you?”
“One. Bolton.”
“There you are then. Not enough for all the windows and doors.”
“Phoebe, are you actively encouraging me to simply dive headlong into the séance idea?”
“Yes, of course I am. I am your bad angel, sitting on your shoulder, urging you to be more daring. It might go terribly wrong, but what a hoot if you succeed!”
“You wish only to live vicariously through me.”
“Indeed so. Now, let us bundle up your hair out of the way. We can cover the worst of that bruise on your forehead easily. There. Now, you smell a little but I have some fragranced water with me. Let me spray your clothes and put a little powder on your face, and you are almost fit to be seen.”
Marianne submitted to the ministrations and sighed. There were easier ways to get Mrs Newman out of the house – measuring and tearing down walls, burning it to the ground, surrounding it with men that they did not have – but they had opted for the most non-destructive way, and that was that.
Twenty-five
They trooped into Rosedene through the front door, without a hint of secrecy about it. Constable Bolton had surprised Marianne by agreeing to his role instantly and with a certain amount of relish. As long as she told him exactly what to do, so that he need make no effort in having to think for himself, he was perfectly happy. Jack had rolled his eyes dramatically, and made a variety of sensible objections, but ultimately he, too, had accepted his suggested role. Phoebe seized upon her role with pure enthusiasm, of course. Simeon was quiet, watching and listening, too afraid to take on any particular character. Much like his stage presence, he appeared wooden and nervous. But that was going to be all right; it made sense to him, in the context of what they were pretending to do, after all. He was the one tasked with carrying the talking board.
And Marianne qu
ashed her worries and her fears, and decided that now was the time to simply act.
Jack, after his earlier faked cynicism, dived straight into his assigned character. He was to be a “scientist” of the paranormal, styling himself as a professor of the world of the spirit and mind, and he affected a booming, arrogant voice as he prowled around the large hallway as if for the first time.
“Oh, yes!” he declared. “I can feel a spirit here, for certain! What history! It is impossible, I tell you, simply impossible, for no mark to be left here. All the generations that have lived and died here have indelibly left their psychic imprints in the fabric of this building. Mark my words, Miss Starr, you shall have your preconceptions shattered. Quite shattered!”
Phoebe was reprising her role as the medium. It was far more accepted, in these circles, that a woman be the conduit for the “lost souls” to speak through – only a few men had made mediumship their speciality. Women were thought to be closer to the “other side” and more in touch with vague emotions, and far less likely to upset things by virtue of masculine rational thought and other manly occupations. Women, in their natural state of passivity, could simply let the words of the ghosts flow through them. A man, being more active and intelligent, would seek to control or interpret what was happening, and would thus disrupt the flow.
Marianne could scoff all she liked at those ideas, but it was what everyone said that they believed, and so she had to follow suit. And Phoebe was happy to be able to indulge in her theatrical fantasies. She was decked out in furs, and wore a hat that was a startling shade of red with half a peacock emerging from the top of it, in an eye-watering clash of colours. Phoebe followed Jack’s lead, and stood in the centre of the dingy, dark hall, inhaling deeply with her eyes closed. “Oh, yes, I can already feel the promptings of the spirit.”
“Utter nonsense,” Marianne barked. At least she didn’t have to feign or hide her own true feelings. “You can probably feel a chill from an open door, and maybe a hint of mould in the air. There is nothing here but a dead house. Whoever hit me on the head will be long gone, I am sure of it.”