by R. N. Morris
Perhaps sensing his professional authority, she allowed her hands to be teased slowly from her face.
There, where her right eye should have been, there was a rusting circle of gore around a black chasm that not even the lights from the kinematographic supply shop could illuminate.
Quinn stared for a long time into that hole. Its darkness was like nothing that he had ever seen, or wanted to see again. It seemed to go on forever, to extend far beyond the dimensions of the young woman’s eye socket, further even than the extent of her head.
‘I must staunch the bleeding,’ said the doctor. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and placed it over the empty eye socket. The woman whimpered at his touch but allowed it.
The doctor turned to Quinn. ‘I have a cab waiting. I can take her to the nearest hospital.’
‘She has been attacked. I am a police detective. I will need to take a statement from her.’
‘First we need to get her to a hospital. We must stabilize her condition. She is in severe shock, of course. You will get nothing out of her now. She will need sedation and medication for the pain. When she has had a chance to rest, you will be able to talk to her.’
Quinn ignored the doctor’s opinion, which he had not solicited. ‘Who did this to you?’
The woman became agitated, turning her head rapidly from side to side in fearful denial.
The doctor placed a hand behind her head to protect her from the effects of her own agitation. ‘I must protest!’
The victim’s teeth locked together, as if in spasm. A stifled gargling sounded in her throat. Quinn leaned forward, edging the doctor out of the way. He lowered his head to place his ear close to her mouth.
‘You would do better to help me get her into my cab! Our first duty is to preserve her life. Then, there will be time to go after the perpetrator.’
But Quinn was insistent. ‘Did you see him? The man who did this to you?’
A strangled stuttering eked itself out between her clenched teeth. ‘T-t-t-t-d-d-d …’
‘Yes?’ Quinn nodded encouragement.
He sensed her body tense. She seemed to be gathering her powers for a supreme effort.
‘My dear! You must not exert yourself.’ The doctor cast a disapproving scowl at Quinn. In an undertone he hissed: ‘Stop this now! You are putting her life at risk!’
‘You saw the man! You saw him!’ It was no longer a question, but an urgent insistence.
The woman raised herself in the doctor’s arms. ‘Tayyy-vvvvl!’
‘What did she say?’ Quinn turned to the doctor.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t hear.’ But there was something suspect about his demurral.
She repeated the sound, more quietly, but also more calmly. ‘Tayvl.’
‘Table? Is she saying something about a table?’ wondered Quinn.
‘No, I don’t think so. I think …’
‘Is it German? Is she German? Are you German?’
‘I am not German. My name is Casaubon. I am French.’
‘But you understand what she is saying?’
‘I know that she is not speaking German.’
‘Tell me, what language is she speaking?’
‘I believe it may be Yiddish. Tayvl is the Yiddish word for—’
But the woman herself cut in: ‘Day-vil! The day-vil did this!’
Quinn was aware of a stir behind him, footsteps running, a flash of light. He looked around and saw Bittlestone of the Clarion with his photographer. ‘Sensational!’
Sergeant Macadam was on their heels.
Quinn turned back to the woman in time to see her one remaining eye swivel and judder as it lost focus before closing. She fell back limply.
‘We must get her to a hospital!’
Quinn stood up and turned on the journalist angrily. ‘You will not publish that photograph. You will not release any details of this crime, not without my authorization. Do you understand?’
The photographer scuttled away under the force of Quinn’s ire, though Bittlestone stood his ground: ‘You cannot stifle a free press, Inspector.’
Quinn relented a little. ‘There may be an aspect of national security here. Even your proprietor must have some sensitivity to that. I must consult with my superiors. I suggest you do the same. In the meantime, you can make yourself useful. Help Doctor Casaubon.’ He turned to the man who had led him there. ‘You too.’
Bittlestone and the other man took a step closer to the wounded woman but, for the moment at least, would go no further than that. It was as if they had walked into an invisible fence. A vacant inertia came over them both. They showed no sign of horror, but rather watched her writhing with fascinated frowns. They seemed to have become disassociated from the moment.
‘Macadam, you and I will search the area for evidence.’
‘What are we looking for exactly, sir?’
Quinn angled his head sharply. He looked down at the woman. Dr Casaubon still held the folded handkerchief in place over her wound. Quinn felt a strong urge to ask to see the empty socket again, and was trying to work out a way he might justify such a request on the grounds of the investigation.
The woman’s groans increased in volume and frequency. Casaubon glanced up uneasily. ‘I fear the worst if we do not get her to a hospital soon. She has suffered a tremendous shock. The effect on her nervous system, not to mention her heart, we cannot conjecture. She is only a woman, after all.’
‘Help him,’ Quinn ordered Bittlestone and the other man. They sprang forward and crouched down to hold her under her armpits. Quinn watched as they struggled to lift the lifeless woman to her feet, the doctor still trying to cover the wound with his handkerchief, which had somehow managed to retain its pristine, white crispness.
‘Won’t you help us?’ demanded Bittlestone.
‘I have work to do.’ Quinn narrowed his eyes as if it pained him to say this. But really he did not see why it should take more than three men to get the young woman into the hansom. She was of slight build, and the walk to the cab on Charing Cross Road was only about fifteen yards.
At that moment, the lights in the shop window went out, plunging the narrow passage into semi-darkness. ‘Damnation. Get them to switch the lights back on, will you, Macadam. And talk to all the businesses along here to see if there were any witnesses to the attack. Someone must have seen something.’
As always, Macadam was quick to obey.
The woman had partially revived and was able to take faltering steps with the help of the three men attending to her. Quinn noticed that one of her hands was tightly clenched. The other one splayed tensely, as if to push against her assailant.
‘One moment. I will help you.’ Quinn took the clenched hand in one of his, while stroking her knuckles soothingly. Her single eye looked into his face uncomprehendingly. He felt her fist tighten in his hand.
They walked her slowly towards the cab. Quinn had his back to the direction of travel, keeping his gaze fixed on her eye. As they neared the Charing Cross Road end of the alley, he cast a glance back over his shoulder, just at the moment a boisterous crowd was rounding the corner. At their head was Porrick, still carrying the Yorkshire terrier. The dog was perched in his arms, its head cocked in an angle of entitlement, the gleam of latent aggression in its nasty little black eyes. As soon as it saw Quinn, it started yapping.
The rest of the party was made up of the other film people and their entourage. Waechter appeared to be in jubilant mood; he had his arms around his two principal actors and was singing in German at the top of his lungs. All seemed to be affected by nervous stimulation of some kind. They might not have been blotto – yet – but they had the air of those who were determined to become so, and as quickly as possible.
They appeared intent on revelry. Quinn could only assume that they had not heard about the attack.
He had less than a second to take all this in. For in less than a second Porrick had collided with him, pushing him into the woman he was guid
ing. She let out a sharp scream, more of surprise than pain. He felt her grip relax. Something passed from her hand to his.
In the commotion, the dog jumped out of its master’s arms and ran off, with a blast of high-pitched yelps that sounded like the canine equivalent of bad language. ‘Scudder! Scudder!’ cried Porrick. ‘Heel! Heel now! Come on, boy.’
Quinn glanced quickly into his hand. A piece of card lay crumpled and balled in his palm, damp and flaky with sweat. He looked up to see Waechter considering the wounded woman with a look that was, for the time being, impossible to interpret. It seemed to hint at some kind of affinity – a recognition of kindred bonds. But perhaps there was more to it than that.
Some instinct made Quinn watch the dog. The animal ignored all commands, but did at least stop barking. He was sniffing the air with the serious concentration of a concert pianist about to perform, having apparently picked up a scent. After a moment, he trotted away purposefully, oblivious to what was expected of him, aware only of the scent, and his own need to get to the bottom of it.
Just then the lights in the shop came back on. The dog’s pace quickened, he gave one happy yelp and then pounced on something. He turned proudly, his head high to show what he had caught.
Held between his jaws, pointed out at them, was a single human eye.
There were screams. A woman fainted. Someone else was sick.
Quinn rushed towards the dog. ‘Come on now. Drop it. There’s a good boy!’
But the dog just curdled a snarl in the back of his throat.
Quinn appealed to the owner. ‘You – Mr Porrick, isn’t it?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can you get him to surrender it?’
‘I don’t know … I … He is a very wilful creature.’
‘You must have some control over him!’
‘He likes his treats.’ Porrick held out a dog biscuit. ‘Come on, Scud. Drop it now. There’s a good Scudder boy.’
The dog cocked his head from one side to the other as he made his calculations. He evidently realized that the man very much wanted the interesting object he had in his mouth. More than he himself wanted a dog treat. And for that reason, he decided to hold on to the object. This was power beyond his size. He was not going to give it up easily.
Quinn drew his revolver and pointed it at the dog. ‘If he will not give up the eye, I will be forced to put him down.’ There were cries of horror. ‘I am a policeman,’ he added, somewhat superfluously.
Porrick pleaded with his dog. ‘Come on, old chap. Give it up, give it up now.’
Quinn released the safety catch on his gun.
‘You can’t! You can’t do that!’ cried Porrick. He desperately scattered a handful of dog treats on the ground in front of Scudder. ‘Look boy! Delicious treats!’
It took the intervention of a third party to induce the dog to comply. Eloise startled them all by bending down and inserting a finger behind the eye, which was held at the front of the animal’s jaws. The finger induced the gag reflex, releasing the eye. She deftly seized the dog and handed it back to Porrick, leaving Quinn to retrieve the valuable piece of evidence, which he wrapped in his handkerchief.
When he turned back to face the Charing Cross Road end of the alley, he noticed that the waiting hansom was no longer there. The woman whose eye he was holding had gone, together with the mysterious Dr Casaubon and the man who had first raised the alarm.
PART TWO
Money
NINETEEN
‘Must you insist on carryin’ that blarsted thing around with you?’ The question was asked by the lady with the spreading bosom. Porrick’s wife, Edna, it turned out. Her manner was naturally imperious, though her accent betrayed her origins. She had the look of a woman who believed that everyone else in the world was there to facilitate her comfort and convenience. It would not be long before she started giving him orders. She could not be an easy woman to be married to, he speculated. Uppity, was the word that came to mind.
They were in the offices of Visionary Pictures, the premises next to the kinematographic equipment shop. They had been admitted by a bald man with a drooping handlebar moustache, who had turned up shortly after the main group of film people. Soon after his arrival on the scene, Quinn spotted Inchball walk past the end of Cecil Court. His sergeant gave the most minimal of signals in the direction of the newcomer.
So, as he suspected, this was Hartmann.
Hartmann spoke impeccable English and seemed to be on good terms with everyone, particularly Lord Dunwich, who was also attached to the party.
Quinn gave no answer to Edna Porrick’s question, except to pocket the eye. He had got everything he was going to get from the feel of it in his hand. And yet, he could not quite give up all claim to the potent relic. His hand stayed in his pocket with it, feeling its springy rotundity through the fabric of his handkerchief.
As soon as he got in, Hartmann went round switching on all the electric lights. He seemed to be acting under some kind of compulsion.
Some of the lights were contained behind frosted-glass panels which lined the stairs down to the basement. An ethereal milky-white glow enticed the eye downward, as if inviting subterranean thoughts. It was of a piece with the office’s self-consciously modern style. Quinn noticed that the only two colours used anywhere were black and white. For example, the place was furnished with slightly uncomfortable-looking lounge chairs, perched on black wooden legs, upholstered in black and white zebra-striped fabric.
The walls were decorated with framed posters of the company’s various productions, including one for the film they had just seen. Beneath the title, a pair of isolated eyes looked out from a black background. The eyes were wide open, as if in terror, the enlarged whites gleaming starkly.
Quinn squeezed the eye in his pocket. It was almost as if it had become a talisman. And he hoped to absorb some of its power through touch.
He looked around at the crowd crammed into the office. The mood struck him as sullen, as if they resented the attack on the girl, not because of the injury perpetrated on the victim, but because it had curtailed their festivities. Glasses of champagne had already been poured and laid out on tables in readiness for their arrival. But there was a reluctance to be the first to take a drink. Quinn had the sense that they wanted him out of the way so that they could get on with their party.
The first thing to do was to establish the girl’s identity. He peeled open the crumpled card. As he had suspected, it was an invitation to the premiere. But there was no name written on it, whether in green ink or any other.
Quinn climbed on to one of the zebra-print chairs. There was a scandalized gasp. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. I am Detective Inspector Quinn. I believe many of you saw the girl who was attacked tonight. I have reason to believe that she attended this evening’s screening. Can any of you tell me who she is?’
All that his enquiry prompted was a bemused and faintly outraged rumbling, with much head-shaking. It seemed that his ploy to gain their attention by elevating himself had served only to arouse their indignation. After the attack on the young woman, this was insult added to her injury. Also, his behaviour seemed to give them licence to begin drinking, as if that transgression opened the door to others. There was a sudden crush at the champagne tables, a rise in the general hubbub, an unseemly sense of release.
Quinn jumped down. He was approached immediately by Lord Dunwich. ‘Good heavens, Quinn! Was that strictly necessary? These chairs are genuine Viennese Jugendstil. Have you any idea how much they cost?’
‘And have you any idea who that man is?’ Quinn kept his voice down as he nodded towards Hartmann.
‘Yes. I know full well who he is.’
‘He is German.’
‘I know that.’
‘I thought you wanted us to investigate Germans.’
‘Not all Germans are spies, Quinn.’
‘We believe he is. Indeed, we believe he is the head of a spy network.’
‘Nonsense. Osk
ar Hartmann is a businessman. In fact, he is a business associate of mine. I have invested in several of his companies, including Visionary Productions. We do have some friends in Germany, you know, Quinn. And we must foster and strengthen those links that do exist. It is not too late to avert the thing that we all fear. War can be avoided if we can forge an alliance of well-intentioned men on both sides.’
‘You might avoid war if you contrive to deliver England over to the Germans without a fight.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘That man, Hartmann, was seen at Dortmunder’s barbershop …’
‘I expressly instructed you not to investigate the barbershop.’
‘Yes, and now I am wondering why.’
‘You impertinent fool!’
‘Hartmann was witnessed by one of my officers handing over secret materials to the barber.’
‘What secret materials?’
‘We do not know the precise nature of the materials in question.’
‘Then how do you know they are secret?’
‘The lettering on the envelope was written in green ink.’ Some instinct persuaded Quinn that this was the one detail that would make Lord Dunwich take his suspicions seriously. Even so, the reaction was far in excess of what he had expected. Lord Dunwich’s eyes widened in fear. The colour went from his face.
‘What is it?’ Quinn’s voice became an urgent whisper. ‘There is something you are not telling me, I know it.’
‘Nothing. I … what happened to that girl has set my nerves on edge …’ Lord Dunwich’s gaze flitted wildly. His aggressive super-iority had abandoned him. He was afraid.
‘I cannot do my job if you’re not completely frank with me.’
‘You don’t know what you ask.’
‘Did something happen, Lord Dunwich?’
‘I was sent something. A package. The address was written in green ink. That’s all.’
‘What was it?’
‘Now is not the time, Quinn. It has nothing to do with Herr Hartmann, I am sure. It was just someone’s idea of a joke.’
‘What were you sent?’