The Ring

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Matthew, does this tie look right to you?’

  Grand looked at it with his head on one side and grimaced. ‘It depends,’ he said, enigmatically, and went back to primping his own appearance in the mirror above the washstand. Maisie stood ready with hot water and a soft, warm towel. Batchelor gave her a sidelong glance and made a mental note to discuss engaging a valet; this household was definitely too female and the hot look in Maisie’s eye was more than a little unsettling.

  ‘On what?’ He stepped over to the mirror and examined himself over Grand’s shoulder.

  ‘On whether you want to look as if you tied that tie this year or about five years ago. It is a little passé, James. Look at mine. Lady Caroline says it is up to the minute; up to the second, actually. Ow!’ He jumped back. ‘No more hot water, Maisie, please. You nearly scalded me, there.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the girl muttered and looked down mulishly. Grand might be up to the second, he might even be a good enquiry agent, but when it came to spotting doglike devotion under his very nose, he left a lot to be desired.

  ‘As for your tie, it will do as well as any other. I’ve been to this theatre before; you will see all sorts there, so you won’t stand out.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Batchelor gave the errant tie another tug. ‘I wouldn’t want to let you down.’

  ‘No, really. I have met Lady Hester before as well; a lovely woman. Not at all …’

  ‘Not at all what? Picky? Good-looking? Normal? What?’

  ‘I was going to say not at all one to bother if her escort’s tie isn’t in the first flight of fashion. She is something of a blue stocking, so you two can talk poetry or whatnot all night if you want to. That’s all. She is perfectly pretty, perfectly normal.’ Grand turned from the mirror and grabbed Batchelor firmly by the shoulders and gave him a shake. ‘You look very much the man about town. Handsome, wouldn’t you say, Maisie?’

  Her eyes widened and she took a deep breath. ‘That depends,’ she blurted out, and fled.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if that girl is quite the ticket, James, I really do.’

  Batchelor rolled his eyes, but it would get neither of them anywhere to get involved in long explanations now. ‘As long as you’re sure the tie will pass muster, we should be going. Don’t want to keep the ladies waiting.’

  Grand laughed and shrugged into his jacket. ‘You can tell it’s a while since you accompanied a lady anywhere, James; the last lady I kept waiting was my mother when I was born two weeks later than expected. Since then, I have done nothing but wait for them. But you’re right, we should be gone. We don’t want to miss the first turn. As memory serves, it is quite funny. Some kind of comic juggler, but I won’t spoil it for you.’

  And, putting aside the cares of Selwyn Byng and the rest of the world, they went down the stairs, chattering like schoolgirls.

  Mrs Rackstraw watched them go from the shadow under the stairs. She was glad they were having a night off; they were spending too much time with lunatics, and that rarely ended well, as she knew only too well. To stop herself from dwelling too much on painful memories, she made her way to the kitchen, to find fault with some of Maisie’s handiwork; that always made her feel rather better.

  Despite – or it may be because of, Batchelor didn’t like to overthink it – his unfortunate tie, the evening was going well. Caroline and Grand didn’t seem to notice anything or anyone around them, having eyes only for each other. Batchelor and Hester were in the middle of a complex argument on the subject of the symbolism of Morris’s The Earthly Paradise. Were Batchelor to have been questioned and he decided to tell the truth, he had hardly any idea what the woman was talking about, but her eyes were soft and blue, her lips pink and sensuous and her cheek smooth and rosy, so he didn’t really care. He had not fallen into the obvious trap of saying how much he admired the man’s fabric designs and so the evening was going well. The bell for the second half sounded and the ladies suddenly realized that a call of nature was essential and went off, twittering together as Grand and Batchelor made their way back to their box.

  ‘What do you think of Hester?’ Grand said.

  ‘She’s very pretty,’ Batchelor said. ‘And intelligent, of course. Lovely, in fact.’

  ‘You don’t mind, then?’ Grand was enigmatic.

  ‘Mind?’

  ‘About the wooden leg.’

  ‘The what?’ Batchelor was aghast. He now had only one choice; he either made his excuses and left or made the best of it. ‘She doesn’t limp or anything …’ His eyes were wide and stricken.

  Grand nudged him. ‘Just joshing,’ he said. ‘She has as many legs as you require and from what I hear, they are stunners. Play your cards right, James my boy, and you’ll find out tonight.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so crass.’ No man had a higher horse to mount than James Batchelor.

  ‘Crass won’t come into it,’ Grand assured him. ‘She’s been having an affair with some old geezer in the city or something for years, so she’s no prude, I can assure you. But if you’d rather take your time, well, some women like that too.’

  Batchelor was still aghast but not in quite the same way. The non-Puritan half of him was rather looking forward to the rest of the evening. The lights began to dim and the women rejoined them in the box, Hester snuggling up close to Batchelor and stroking a thigh with a practised hand. Yes, this evening could end very nicely, thank you very much!

  The second half of the show was announced by the master of ceremonies as a drama set in an old haunted house, fit to chill the blood. The curtain rose and slowly the limelight picked out the detail of the set which seemed to be mostly made up of cobweb-hung furniture of antique style. The silence was split by a scream followed by a scraping violin from the orchestra pit and a girl dressed in very little ran into the middle of the stage and stood there, eyes wide and arms outstretched to the audience.

  ‘Help me,’ she cried to every man in the theatre. ‘My wicked uncle Septimus is trying to kill me. Hark!’

  Every ear strained to hear it and yes, there it was, the dragging step of a deranged guardian in search of young flesh to strangle and destroy.

  ‘He comes!’

  On a drum roll and a clash of cymbals, a misshapen creature lurched on from the prompt side, causing all the women in the audience to gasp and clutch their companions. Because of the position of her hand, Hester’s clutch also caused Batchelor to gasp, but he turned it into a cough and it went unnoticed.

  The evil creature on the stage had wild white hair and an outdated suit of clothes. His feet were encased in oversize shoes which gave him a lop-sided gait. One arm seemed longer than the other, but that was probably caused by the enormous hump on his back. He drooled. His eyes swivelled madly in his head. All in all, when the director had chosen him for a homicidal maniac, he had done his job well. With a background of screams from his ward who hid behind furniture, always making sure to leave a pert bottom or heaving bosom on show, he capered to and fro, brandishing a blood-dripping knife which had appeared from nowhere.

  Grand leaned across to Batchelor and whispered, ‘Not very realistic. Whose is that blood, for instance?’

  Batchelor laughed and whispered back, ‘I expect the comic policeman will soon solve that.’

  Nodding and smiling, Grand straightened up and turned back to the stage, then stiffened. He looked at Batchelor to see if he had seen it too.

  ‘Matthew?’

  Yes, he had.

  ‘Is that … can it be?’

  ‘It certainly seems that way. It’s Selwyn Byng’s butler.’ Grand disentangled Lady Caroline’s arm from around his neck. ‘Do you think we ought to follow this up?’

  Batchelor looked down at his lap. Lady Hester’s fingers certainly seemed quite firmly enmeshed in his unmentionables and it might be rude to intervene. ‘No, we can catch him backstage after the performance.’

  Grand’s eyebrows rose to unprecedented height. ‘If you’re sure …’

  ‘I’m quite
sure,’ Batchelor smiled. ‘After all, he isn’t going to lose all that makeup in five minutes, is he?’

  ‘True.’ Grand settled back. ‘Later, then. We’ll catch him later.’

  There had been no discernible ‘later’ that night. Before the enquiry agents knew what was afoot, they were being bundled out of the carriage at their doorstep, with a delicate sheen of lip rouge on their cheek and some rather tumbled underclothing. The ladies were already in a giggling huddle before the carriage had turned the corner; what a night that was.

  ‘So, the mad old uncle, then?’ Batchelor said over his shoulder as he tried to fit his key into the lock.

  ‘I said I’d seen him somewhere, didn’t I?’ Grand was just a little smug.

  ‘Yes, I don’t really understand that,’ Batchelor said. ‘Had you seen that performance before?’

  Grand shrugged. ‘Bits of it.’ He only ever saw bits of anything when out on the town with Lady Caroline. ‘They change the sketches from time to time. I seem to remember him being the evil squire last time.’

  ‘Well spotted, anyway,’ Batchelor said. ‘I’m not quite sure whether we’re any further forward, though. I grant, it’s unusual to have a butler moonlighting as an actor, but perhaps he doesn’t get top wages.’

  ‘Or an actor moonlighting as a butler,’ Grand pointed out.

  ‘True. What do they call it? Resting? Selwyn keeps a rather splendid house for someone who clearly gets a pittance from his father. Perhaps he can’t afford a full-time butler.’

  ‘True. And he didn’t have any other staff as far as I could see. Did you notice anyone else?’

  ‘No. It could be he just runs on a minimum, so he looks the part of the city gent. His father obviously lives high off the hog.’ Batchelor finally succeeded in working the key and they tiptoed across the hall. ‘He called the house in Milner Street poky. He must live in a palace to call it that.’

  ‘Or he could just not want to give Selwyn the benefit of being a person in his own right. I’ve known people like him – hates his children but doesn’t want them to leave home and live separately. Wants to control everyone.’

  Batchelor nodded. ‘You might be right at that. Byng senior is too tight to let anyone go.’ He giggled, the champagne again asserting its ascendancy. ‘I’ve heard he doesn’t fart. Too mean to part with it.’

  Grand guffawed. Batchelor wasn’t often funny, but that struck him as very funny indeed. As did the gas light on low to show them their way along the landing. As did his wardrobe and his bed, turned down lovingly by Maisie. He might not have seen the funny side of the girl standing motionless in the shadow cast by the drawn curtains, but that didn’t matter; he was already asleep.

  Breakfast was a solemn meal. Mrs Rackstraw tried her best to raise the mood with a few well-chosen sallies on the state of the nation but they fell on deaf ears. And whatever Mrs Rackstraw knew about the University Tests Act could be written on the head of a pin, when all was said and done. Maisie lay the toast extra quietly on the plates and picked out the more challenging bits of peel from the marmalade before placing the bowl in front of the object of her affections, but all to no avail.

  Eventually, Batchelor raised his head from where it had been resting in his hands. ‘I suppose,’ he ventured, in a low voice and taking care not to move his mouth too much, ‘we should go and see Mr Byng, senior.’

  ‘Why?’ Grand asked. ‘Remind me again.’

  ‘We wondered,’ Batchelor said, trying to be heard over the drummer sitting just behind his eyes, ‘you, me and Inspector Bliss, whether he might have been rather more friendly than is expected with his daughter-in-law.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember now. I suppose we should go and ask him. But … he doesn’t need money, does he?’

  ‘Who knows who needs money?’ Batchelor asked, rhetorically. ‘But it might not have been about the money, it might have been to destroy his son.’

  ‘And Emilia was in on it, you think?’ Grand’s brain cells were beginning to line up again and he risked a piece of toast, giving up when the knife scraping against its surface hurt his ears.

  ‘Yes. Don’t you?’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t know what to think.’ Grand shut his eyes. ‘I can’t think, not really.’ He carefully put down his knife and rose to his feet. ‘Look, James, I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I’m going to have a lie down. Send word to Daddy Bliss that we are going to see Byng senior and does he want to come. But later. Much later. How about after dark?’ And very slowly and carefully, he made his way to the stairs. Batchelor could hardly bear to watch him; it was not a nice thought that, if anything, he himself looked a lot worse than that. He closed his eyes and tugged the bell pull; Maisie could go. She should be out and about in the fresh air, girl her age. She was looking a bit peaky. He felt the air change as someone self-effacing came into the room and slowly, with lots of false starts, he finally gave her her instructions then, as she almost danced out of the room, let his head loll forward onto his chest. His last thought as he passed out was that he never, never ever wanted to spend another evening with Ladies Caroline and Hester. In fact, if he set eyes on them ever again, it would be too soon.

  SEVENTEEN

  Later that day, as dusk was falling over London and hiding all her little imperfections and gilding her glory with pure gold, Grand, Batchelor and Bliss met on the pavement outside the Byng residence in Holland Park. Its perfect white façade gleamed in the sunset of the autumn evening and every window showed a glow of candles and lamps. Someone was definitely at home. The enquiry agents were feeling more their usual selves; a diet throughout the day of dry toast, tea and sips of seltzer had finally done its work and they could hardly wait to lock horns with Byng. Bliss was, as always, less enthusiastic. He felt ill at ease more than a street or two away from the River and this place was positively landlocked. He had read what notes he had on the Byng case and although the father had seemed a good collar at the time, now he wasn’t half so sure. But he was always up for a bit of overtime; Mrs Byng hadn’t had a new hat in a while, or so she told him every hour on the hour, so he would go along with this insanity, see where it led them. He was a man down while Gosling recovered from his brush with the lunatic, but things had quietened down on the river now the body count stood at zero. In any event, this evening should be good for a cigar or two, not to say a decent brandy. He mounted the steps and smartly knocked on the door.

  It was opened by a shadowy figure who ushered them in. When Batchelor, bringing up the rear, got through the door, the butler or whatever factotum it had been, had disappeared. The last hangover fragment in his brain made him think of Beauty and the Beast and invisible servants. Shaking his head to rid himself of the fantasy, he caught up with the others as they went through an open door into an opulent study.

  If Mr Byng was tight-fisted at his place of business, he stinted on nothing in his home. The room was elegant, tasteful and the very antithesis of his son’s home, but welcoming and warm. The fire crackled and the smell of apple wood overlaid the scents coming from bowls of potpourri placed strategically around on the gleaming mahogany furniture. Byng had clearly been seated by the fire but now stood up and came towards them, hand outstretched.

  ‘How may I help you, gentlemen?’ he said, pleasantly.

  The three looked at each other. They hadn’t expected this but in some respects, it made his role as kidnapper and seducer seem more realistic. If he could be so different here from when he was at the timber warehouse, how many other personas did he have tucked away somewhere?

  ‘Now that we have identified the body of your daughter-in-law, sir,’ Bliss said, ‘we must interview everyone who could possibly shed light on the subject. And you, as her father-in-law, are naturally our first port of call.’ He couldn’t help the odd nautical phrase; it had started as an affectation and now it was part of who he was.

  ‘I am confused, Inspector. Your card here tells me you are from Thames Division – the River Police.’

&nbs
p; ‘That is correct, sir.’

  ‘And these gentlemen are private detectives.’

  ‘Enquiry agents,’ Batchelor corrected him.

  ‘Is it usual, Inspector, for an officer of the police, whom I must assume to be a professional, to carry out his enquiries with amateurs in tow? You’ll be bringing some dotty knitting spinster with you next.’

  ‘Funny you should say that, sir,’ Bliss said, looking meaningfully at Batchelor, but he wasn’t laughing.

  ‘I do see that you need to pursue enquiries,’ Byng said, turning back to his seat by the fire, ‘but I don’t see how I can help. I didn’t … socialize … with my son and his wife. I disapproved of their marriage, of their domicile, of their … frankly bizarre way of living. I see Selwyn every day in the office. I had no need of his companionship in the evenings too.’

  ‘But Emilia?’ Grand asked. ‘Surely, you were fond of Emilia?’

  Byng waved his hand inviting the men to sit. ‘She was a nice enough little thing. Far too young to marry, in my opinion. I believe that young people should see the world, experience things before they marry. She had become a little housewife, far before her time. And now what? She is dead on a slab and had no idea of what she could have been.’ He picked up his cigar and puffed it vigorously. ‘Sad, I suppose.’

  Batchelor was relieved to see him revert to his previous self; the Nice Byng was a little frightening. ‘Of course it’s sad,’ he burst out. ‘Your son is prostrated.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’ Byng didn’t argue with that. ‘He is always prostrated. It’s a shame you never saw him when he stubbed his toe. Same thing.’ Another puff and a swig of brandy. ‘He is just rather dramatic. He’ll get over it.’

  This didn’t strike any of them as the demeanour of a man whose mistress was dead in horrible circumstances, but he was a difficult man to measure. While Grand and Batchelor cast around for the next subtle question, Bliss went in for the kill.

  ‘It is our belief, Mr Byng, that you collaborated with your daughter-in-law to make your son think she had been kidnapped. You then demanded money with menaces. We also believe that you and your daughter-in-law were indulging in unnatural practices which eventually led to her death.’