Music Macabre

by Sarah Rayne

  Charles said, slowly, ‘You hadn’t better take this too seriously and I would probably have to deny I ever even said it – but the only other thing I could do is to see whether the door of a certain cell – and I mean the cell – inside Newgate Gaol could be left unlocked before eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’ He looked at them. ‘It’s the maddest thought in the world, though.’

  ‘Completely mad,’ said Rhun, staring at him. And then, ‘Or is it?’

  Rhun, with Daisy and the Thumbprints, sat in the familiar room in Maida Vale the following day, looking across the dark gardens.

  Rhun said, ‘The maddest thought in the world.’

  ‘D’you think he’ll do it? Get someone to leave the cell door unlocked?’

  ‘D’you think he can?’ said Cedric.

  ‘I think he was telling us he’ll try,’ said Rhun.

  ‘And warning us to be ready,’ nodded Thaddeus. ‘Well, we can be. We can be there – outside the gaol. Rhun, where would you take her? If it were to succeed?’

  ‘Paris,’ said Rhun, at once. ‘I’m taking the twins back there anyway – they can’t stay in London to hear all the talk.’

  ‘We’d all come under suspicion.’

  ‘Oh, yes. But I think it will seem perfectly acceptable for me to take the twins away from London,’ said Rhun. ‘Daisy will come with us to look after them. That, too, would be normal and believable.’

  ‘What about Joe?’

  ‘Joe could come with us, too,’ said Rhun. ‘There are one or two artists over there I got to know – people who might help him to get into one of the art schools. It’s what he’d like, I think.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it look like a kind of mass exodus?’ said Thaddeus. ‘Attract more attention?’

  But Cedric came in eagerly at that. ‘Not if there seemed to be a different reason for Joe vanishing,’ he said. ‘We could say he’d disappeared – that we didn’t know where he was. We could even advertise him as missing.’

  ‘Even put out a news-sheet asking for information about him,’ said Thaddeus. ‘Something about information being sought regarding the whereabouts of the young artist known as Links. That would make him seem unconnected to Daisy and the rest of you,’ he said.

  They looked at one another. Then Rhun said, ‘We’ll do it. All of it. I’ll make the arrangements right away. Tomorrow night – or the next night – we’ll all be in Paris.’ He paused. ‘But I don’t know whether we’ll have Scaramel with us,’ he said.

  THIRTY

  ‘St Martin’s Lane?’ said Arabella, regarding Phin across a table in a Paris restaurant a week later. ‘You came out of the ghost river tunnel in St Martin’s Lane?’

  ‘Well, near enough. But Toby had to call out the police and they had to call out a water board – no idea which one. And I think the fire service might have been involved at one stage. They got us out through the street grid – they thought it was safer than the sluice gate, because we’d have had to go all the way back through the tunnel, and Roland was in a good deal of pain. But,’ said Phin, ruefully, ‘it was all very dramatic and public.’

  ‘I wouldn’t care if it had been screened on national television and across the entire world if it meant you were safe.’ Arabella reached for Phin’s hand across the table, and held it for a moment.

  ‘Actually, by that time, I was beyond caring,’ said Phin. ‘The paramedics insisted on carting us off to the nearest A&E. I was pronounced as a bit concussed, but they let me out next day. They kept Roland in for a couple more days.’ He paused, as the waiter placed before them plates of wild salmon.

  Arabella said, ‘Did Loretta really trap you both in there?’

  Phin hesitated, then said, ‘It seemed like it at the time, but it all happened so fast and I wouldn’t swear to it now. Roland’s sticking to his story that they were testing the gate for an insurance check, and I got the impression that he won’t be bringing any charges against her. I think it’d probably be difficult to prove she did anything criminal, in fact, and she’s a tough lady – she’d fight her corner strenuously. But I have the feeling that there’ll be a quick divorce, and I bet Roland will try to keep her from getting her hands on a share in Linklighters.’

  ‘Will he keep it on himself? Maybe put in a good manager?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Phin ate a mouthful of the salmon, which was very good, and said, ‘Farrant’s a bit of a wimp on several levels, but I suspect that when it comes to the sordid matter of coinage, he’s no fool.’

  ‘Or knows people who aren’t. Yes, I see. Phin, you haven’t said anything about this restaurant.’

  ‘I like it – you made a good choice. Or is there something special about it?’ said Phin. ‘Because I thought you simply wanted to gaze at me across a candlelit dinner table, and anticipate the moment when I’d sweep you into a cab and we’d go back to the apartment, and—’

  ‘Well, that is partly the reason,’ said Arabella. ‘But didn’t you see the name over the door when we came in?’

  ‘I had eyes only for you,’ said Phin, solemnly. ‘Well, and for avoiding the puddles, because it was raining like fury. Why? Where are we?’

  ‘This,’ said Arabella, with gleeful triumph, ‘is the famous Maison dans le Parc. It’s where Scaramel and her merry band held that supper party for Rhun Rhydderch. Reported in La Vie Parisienne.’

  ‘Are you sure they haven’t just used the name?’ said Phin, sitting back and looking about him with more attention.

  ‘I am. Because,’ said Arabella, standing up and pushing back her chair, ‘when I came in yesterday to book the table, I found this.’

  She led him to the far side of the restaurant, where several small alcoves, clearly meant for semi-private dinner parties, opened off the main restaurant area.

  In the second of these was a series of framed sketches – some of them lightly tinted. Arabella slipped her hand into Phin’s. ‘Look,’ she said.

  Over the sketches was framed lettering. It said, ‘La série macabre, Darkness, par l’artiste Anglais, Links – b. 1878 (est), d. 1946.’

  Phin said, softly, ‘The macabre Darkness series by the English artist, Links.’

  ‘Born around 1878, and died in 1946,’ said Arabella. ‘That would make him about sixty-eight.’

  ‘And it means he was found,’ said Phin. ‘Or he wasn’t missing in the first place.’

  ‘Or even that somebody made a mistake.’

  ‘Whatever it was, I’m glad.’

  ‘I was, too, when I found this.’

  The first sketch showed a narrow street with crammed-together buildings and low arches across the road. Shadows lay across the cobblestones, and there was the impression of a single figure standing menacingly within the darkness, and the silver line of a knife. The title was, The Darkness Begins.

  The next showed a crowded room, clearly a tavern, with drinkers at the tables, and a brightly dressed figure wearing scarlet and magenta at the centre. She was holding out what were obviously sheets of music. The expressions in all the faces were very vivid; there was absorption in them, and in some there was fear. The title was, Driving Back the Darkness.

  ‘It’s the music we found in Linklighters,’ said Phin, leaning over to inspect it more closely. ‘Can you see the lyrics on some of the music she’s holding? Tiny, but readable. Links often seems to have done that – reproduce every last detail. It’s “Listen for the Killer”.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I found an article in Fossan’s Journal, which I think referred to it,’ he said. ‘There was something about local people hearing it sung after a fire at an old asylum in Whitechapel – and how the older ones recognized it from music once used as a sort of warning against … well, against Jack the Ripper. I do know how gothic and melodramatic that sounds.’ He studied the tavern sketch more closely. ‘It’s making a bit of a leap,’ he said, ‘but I wonder if that’s Scaramel at the centre.’

  ‘It’s not much of a leap,’ said Arabella. ‘If you look rea
lly closely, you can see she’s wearing a tiny necklace made up of harlequin diamond-shapes.’

  ‘You’re right. The motif again. Then it could well be Scaramel.’

  The third sketch showed an underground tunnel with a curved roof. Two figures – one male, one female, were walking along it, and there was the impression that they were walking along the edges of a river that was not quite there – a river that was partly hidden by smoky mist and drifting shadows. But what was definitely there was a dark figure engulfed by fire – flames blazed up around it like scarlet licking tongues, and its arms were flung out as if imploring for help. Eyes, just discernible, stared out with agonized terror. The title was, The Darkness Dies.

  ‘Could it,’ said Arabella, ‘possibly be the tunnel under Linklighters? With the ghost river?’

  ‘It looks like it. Although I should think most of those old tunnels look the same. But …’

  Arabella said, ‘But you and Roland Farrant found those bones down there.’

  ‘And they were charred,’ said Phin. ‘As if whoever it was had—’

  ‘Had burned. And this is called, The Darkness Dies,’ said Arabella. ‘Phin, was the “Darkness” Jack the Ripper?’

  ‘I wonder if it was,’ said Phin, thoughtfully.

  Arabella shivered, then said, ‘Look at the fourth sketch. In some ways it’s the strangest of them all.’

  The fourth sketch was called, The Darkness Cheated. It depicted a vast grim-looking building, with a courtyard packed with people.

  ‘It’s Newgate Gaol,’ said Arabella, indicating a tiny oblong with the words on it on one side of a grilled gate. ‘You said Links put in all the details.’

  The sketch was tinted in shades of dark greys and near-blacks, and the famous old gaol, long since demolished, but its legend woven into the warp of London’s history, crouched beneath a lowering sky that might have been a sullen dawn or a thundery twilight. But there was a single piece of colour in the sketch. It came from a figure falling headlong from a high roof ledge – a figure dressed in scarlet and purple, with dark hair streaming wildly in the wind, and a cloak billowing out like wings. But here and there, the underside of the cloak had been touched with tiny harlequin diamond-shapes.

  ‘If that “Listen for the Killer” song really was written as a warning about the Ripper,’ said Arabella, ‘then the second sketch in a pub – Driving Back the Darkness – definitely links Scaramel to him. Because she’s fairly obviously distributing the song to the locals, isn’t she? And then there was a body in the ghost river, and then there’s the rumour that Scaramel committed a murder that nobody ever talked about … Am I getting carried away?’

  They looked at one another, then Phin said, ‘You’re saying Scaramel killed the Ripper.’

  ‘And was going to be hanged, only she staged a dramatic escape. Or somebody tried to stage it for her,’ said Arabella.

  ‘Yes, that’s credible. You can imagine they’d want to try setting the killer of Jack free.’

  ‘Only it went wrong.’

  ‘I wonder if that’s the truth,’ said Phin, looking back at the last sketch. ‘You know, somehow, it’s like her to have failed to escape so spectacularly. I’m glad, though, that she never had to perform that last dance on air.’

  Arabella shivered again, and he put his arm round her. ‘Let’s go back to our table. Is that our pudding being brought over?’

  ‘It looks like it,’ said Arabella. ‘Crêpes Suzette, flambéed with curaçao.’ She regarded him as they sat down, then said, ‘After we’ve eaten it, I thought maybe we could go back to the apartment.’

  ‘For coffee?’

  ‘Well,’ said Arabella, demurely, ‘we can certainly have some coffee. But I was thinking more that you could finally help me to unpack that black silk underwear.’

  Roland had spent two days in the hospital ward, and once they had strapped up his broken rib and administered pain relief, it had not been so uncomfortable. It had even been possible to think – about what had happened, and to decide whether he had handled it all correctly, and then to decide what he would do about the future.

  On the whole, he thought he had done right to let Phineas Fox believe that being in the ghost river tunnel had been a pure accident. The hospital staff had wanted to know if there were any charges to be brought – any suspicious circumstances – but Roland had said, as firmly as he could, that there was most certainly no question of that. They had been checking the sluice gate prior to an insurance inspection, and his wife had muddled the operation of control wheel. She had gone off to get help, but it had taken some time, because it was difficult to know exactly who to call for in that situation, and people could not always be easily reached. Meanwhile, he and Phineas Fox had managed to find their way out by themselves.

  He had definitely decided not to officially or openly accuse Loretta of anything. He had no proof that she had brought about Mother’s death, or that she had attempted to kill Roland himself, and he was certainly not going to have Mother’s name dragged into the spotlight and splattered across newspapers. On consideration, he thought the best way to deal with Loretta was to arrange a quiet divorce, and – here was the real crunch – to ensure she didn’t get her hands on any of the money. She would try to insist on her legal share, of course, but Roland would simply tell her that if she did that he would make a very damning statement to the police about her. Two murder attempts, he could remind her, and one of them successful. Nothing could actually be proved, of course, but it could all be very unpleasant, and it would certainly damage Loretta’s reputation and her future prospects. Roland knew, really, that he would never carry out such a threat, but Loretta would not know that. Yes, it was a good plan. Probably he would end up having to allow her something, but what he would not do was let her have any share in Linklighters. That would be a real punishment for her. He wondered whether he should sell Linklighters or whether he could put in a reliable manager. The present staff were all very good, and they were keen to make a go of the place, so there might be some kind of incentive that could be arranged – a small profit-share, perhaps. He would ask about that at the office.

  There was a nurse on the ward – a pretty little thing – who spent quite a lot of time with him. When she asked about his wife – would she be coming in to take him home? – Roland told her that she would not. The marriage had been an unhappy one, he said. A tragic mistake. There would be a divorce fairly soon. It was all very sad, but you had to move forward and see what might be ahead next.

  The nurse was sympathetic. She was very interested to hear about Linklighters, to know that Mr Farrant – well, all right, Roland – actually owned a restaurant in a central part of London. Would he be keeping that?

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Roland, suddenly realizing that the decision had already been made in his mind. ‘My wife cheated me and deceived me so severely that I’m determined she won’t get her hands on the restaurant – nor on very much of the money I got from the sale of my family’s house if I can help it.’

  The nurse thought this was all very brave indeed. She admired a man who could stick to his principles, and she was very sorry that Roland had had such a bad time. He must definitely look to the future – to the making of new friends. You never knew who you might meet. And what was the name of the restaurant? Oh, Linklighters. That sounded very interesting. She would love to see it sometime and hear about its history.

  Roland said, ‘You must come and have dinner with me there as soon as I’m able to get about.’

  ‘Don’t expect to find too much,’ said Phin, as he and Arabella sat at the corner desk in Tower Hamlets library. ‘In fact, don’t expect to find anything. The odds of turning up a piece of news about an escape attempt from Newgate Gaol over a hundred years ago are just about zero.’

  ‘But we’ve got the exact year,’ said Arabella, eagerly. ‘It was on the sketch. And it must have been a very vivid attempt at escape – always supposing Links’s sketch can be believed. It’s got to b
e recorded somewhere.’

  ‘I bet it won’t be.’

  ‘I bet it will.’

  Incredibly, it was. Phin was rather pleased that it was again in Fossan’s Journal. It was quite a short piece and there were no names, but it was too much of a coincidence to be referring to anyone other than Scaramel.

  REMARKABLE SCENE AT NEWGATE GAOL

  Newgate Gaol has its share of dramas and vivid tales, but last week’s event must rank highly among them.

  An execution was to take place at the traditional hour of eight in the morning – the hanging of a lady recently convicted of murdering a man whose identity, intriguingly, was never disclosed, even at the trial, which your diligent reporter attended.

  For legal reasons, we are not permitted to print the lady’s name, but can tell our readers that she has been very well known in the lively world of the music hall – both in London and in Paris – and is said to have caught the eye of several influential gentlemen.

  The rumour is that shortly after seven o’clock on the morning of the execution, the condemned lady’s devoted maid was permitted to pay her a last visit, to take her a set of clothes, since, so it is said, the lady had declared she would not go to the gallows in drab prison garb.

  The maid discharged her errand, was seen to leave, in considerable distress, and the turnkey locked the cell door.

  However, at half-past seven, with crowds gathering in the square outside (as crowds always do for a hanging of even the smallest interest), a disturbance broke out on a roof ledge on the older part of the gaol. The prisoner was seen not only to be free, but to be running across the parapet. She wore scarlet and black, and she had a long cloak that swirled about her. Perhaps if she could have been ten – even five – minutes sooner, her attempt might have been successful. As it was, two of the turnkeys, who were coming on duty, caught sight of her, and raised the alarm, sprinting up to the roof to give chase.

  The lady broke away from them, but in her headlong flight she missed her footing and tumbled straight over the parapet’s edge, plummeting to her death in the yard below, her cloak billowing out as she fell, like the wings and the plumage of an exotic scarlet and black bird of paradise.