Trick of the Light

by David Ashton

Then strangely, as if a hand had been laid across them, they stilled the noise and the place once more fell silent.

  All eyes were upon him.

  The inspector stood like an actor who has forgotten his lines.

  His mind was full of thoughts he could not share.

  Was it just bad luck or had the spirits taken revenge for the misuse of power?

  McLevy would never know.

  He bowed his head to signal death and the whole audience followed suit.

  One voice broke that terrible silence. It came from a man face down on the floor, hands cuffed behind his back.

  Jupiter Carlisle chanted to himself in a cracked harsh croak, like a frog in the night.

  ‘The Lord anoints. The Lord provides. He will weigh you in the balance. The Lord provides. The Lord anoints.’

  41

  Times go by turns, and chances change by course,

  From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

  ROBERT SOUTHWELL, ‘Times Go by Turns’

  When McLevy entered the station next day, the first person to meet his eyes was Muriel Grierson.

  In truth so much had happened in the interim that he almost did not recognise the woman. Also she had somewhat changed in appearance and attitude.

  Her eyes gazed at him with level strength as opposed to their usual bird-like distraction, and she was dressed in a style more befitting to her age.

  As if she had come to terms with something.

  As if she meant business.

  She was sitting on the little bench at the station desk, ignored by Sergeant Murdoch, who was laboriously filling out some official forms, and seemed content to be there, hands quiet and still upon her lap.

  ‘Can I assist you, Mistress Grierson?’ asked James McLevy.

  ‘No. I am being dealt with, thank you.’

  She did not rise or particularly acknowledge him and so he went on his merry way. One problem less to solve.

  Ballantyne looked up from his desk and shook his head warningly; was it the inspector’s imagination or did that birthmark seem not so livid this morning?

  In any case for a moment he was reminded of Mulholland, who often shook his head in similar manner, and wondered how the constable was faring. He was missing the reservations that Mulholland often brought to bear on their activities.

  But on to present times. McLevy took a deep breath and rapped upon the object of Ballantyne’s caution and his own reckoning-to-be.

  The door of Lieutenant Robert Roach.

  ‘Enter,’ said a voice within, and that he did.

  Ballantyne pondered a little at his desk; the insects could fend for themselves this moment.

  He had already been hauled over the coals by his lieutenant for unauthorised entry of a hotel room and given a severe flea in his ear as regards being party to any such events in the future. To his relief he was not going to be taken off the patrolling but partnered with a more sober, older constable to guide his wayward footsteps.

  And yet. And yet. Ballantyne bent low so that no-one could see the grin upon his face.

  He had stuck to the story McLevy had instructed in the hansom cab.

  A fabrication, but he had stuck to it under Roach’s questioning. In a way it undermined authority but he had found an odd delight in doing so.

  What a time it had been.

  Now he knew what it felt like to be a criminal.

  Worth its weight in gold.

  Meanwhile in Roach’s office, strangely enough, other than official stricture, things weren’t going too badly.

  McLevy, the previous night, as the raving Carlisle was shoved into the cells to sing hymns from then on for the salvation of the Moxey gang and Silver Samuel, had brought the lieutenant up to date with his doings.

  In his version, however, he had merely pressed upon the hotel door, having a few more questions to ask Miss Adler, only to find it spring open not unlike the lieutenant’s own portal, thence into the room to find the door to the alcove wide open and so on and so on.

  Roach did not believe a word of it but Ballantyne had backed the inspector up and, in truth, the lieutenant was not inclined to push too far.

  The morning papers were full of the shooting of Sophia Adler and great play had been made of Roach’s capture of the madman. He was assuming heroic status and so was inclined to magnanimity as befits that assumption.

  In any case, as he was forever saying to the inspector, where is your proof?

  In fact the last exchange between him and McLevy the previous night encapsulated the matter.

  ‘You entered that room without approval,’ he had accused his man.

  ‘The woman’s dead. Murdered to boot. We’d have been in there sooner or later. It was jist sooner.’

  Unanswerable, if flawed, logic.

  Roach now looked thoughtfully at McLevy who sat opposite, hair combed neatly, hat placed primly on Roach’s table.

  Indeed the lieutenant had now had a chance to reflect on all the facts of the case and had something up his sleeve for his all-knowing inspector from this very morning.

  After delivering an expected and formal admonition, he sat back, while Queen Victoria still looked out sideways.

  ‘How do you think we should proceed with the Morrison case?’ he asked quietly.

  McLevy blinked. The reprimand had been like water off a duck’s back but he had been anticipating more of the same.

  ‘Bannerman committed the killing and can be officially held culpable but that’s all,’ he answered. ‘We cannot prove Sophia Adler’s influence over him one way or the other. The father’s betrayal and the letters provide a motive, but with her own death we have nothing to offer a judge.’

  ‘My thought also,’ said Roach, who liked things neat, tidy, and filed away. ‘We have Binnie and the Countess coming up on trial for murder and the Moxey gang in the dock for aggravated assault and theft. Let sleeping dogs lie.’

  He twitched his jaw to the side thoughtfully.

  ‘I am assuming that Walter Morrison will not make a fuss either?’

  ‘He was complicit in an earlier crime. Hard tae prove in court, mind you, but enough to keep his mouth shut.’

  They nodded agreement on all of that.

  The lieutenant had a strange expression on his face as if he were waiting for McLevy to ask something, and one item did come to the inspector’s mind.

  ‘I saw Mistress Grierson. Does she want her music box repaired?’

  ‘No. She does not.’

  Roach had something between a smile and scowl upon his face. The smile on account that he was for once one up on his inspector; the scowl was because what he knew did not please him. Yet it would be a fine morsel for his wife, who was still trying to recover from events of last night, so back to the smile, though the scowl suited his face better.

  Thus he continued with fractured delivery.

  ‘She will not press charges against Samuel Grant.’

  ‘Whit?’

  ‘She has admitted to a relationship between them and confirmed that he was acting on her behalf by trying to recover the brooch.’

  ‘Ye mean he confessed to save her name?’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘And she’s confessing to save his bacon?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Wonders will never cease.’

  While McLevy ruminated upon such, Roach admitted to himself at being impressed by the steadfastness of Muriel Grierson as she sat in his office and virtually ruined her reputation. She would have to testify at the Moxey trial and admit her liaison in open court.

  Yet, after confounding him by dropping the charges against Samuel Grant, she had answered all his questioning succinctly and ended with a simple yet telling statement.

  ‘I believe Samuel to be an honourable man; it is not right that he should suffer and I do not care what the world thinks of me. That includes your spouse, sir.’

  One in the eye for Roach, and he was tempted not to act as expected but the
n word would get round in any case and it would cheer Mrs Roach up no end; sudden death such as last night always depressed her, running as it did in the family.

  While all this passed in a jumble through the lieutenant’s normally ordered mind, McLevy’s thoughts had been proceeding much the same minus the gossip.

  She had a bit of ballast, this wifie.

  Ye can never tell with human beings.

  Especially women.

  ‘I saw her at the desk. Would ye believe it, eh?’

  ‘She will be waiting for Sergeant Murdoch to complete the papers of release.’

  ‘I’ll away and hurry him up; he’ll take forever.’

  McLevy rose. In fact he was nosy to see the couple before they left, Silver Sam and wee Muriel…what a prospect.

  Wonder what Big Arthur would think of that?

  Roach knew full well what was on McLevy’s mind.

  ‘Oh, inspector?’

  McLevy stopped, one hand on the door.

  ‘When will your Mister Doyle honour us with a visit?’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll arrive to make statement this day, sir.’

  ‘Let us hope so. He has much to state,’ said Roach dryly. Then something else came to mind.

  ‘I received a note from Constable Mulholland. He has recovered somewhat and will report for duty shortly.’

  ‘We have missed his reassuring presence, sir.’

  ‘Uhuh?’ said Roach dryly. ‘But you managed to lead Ballantyne astray quick enough – and James?’

  By now McLevy was three-quarters through the door, only one leg left to go.

  ‘Try not to lean against any hotel doors in the foreseeable future, eh?’

  ‘Your servant aye, lieutenant.’

  Roach let out a caustic laugh at that idea and for a moment their eyes met.

  ‘Eventful days, James. Even for Leith.’

  ‘More to come, no doubt,’ replied the inspector, not realising the truth of that remark.

  He vanished out the door.

  Roach looked up at Queen Victoria.

  No matter what angle, she never did quite meet his eye.

  When McLevy strode through the station, he found someone heading his way.

  Silver Sam. A bit ragged from his sojourn in the cells but looking well enough. Over his shoulder McLevy could see Muriel waiting at the station door, a sheaf of papers in her hand.

  Murdoch must have put a bit of speed on.

  ‘I have something tae tell you,’ said Samuel.

  ‘Tell away.’

  ‘I heard your constable talking.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Wi’ the red face.’

  ‘Continue, if you please.’

  In fact Ballantyne had been gossiping to one of the other constables as they fed the prisoners their breakfast.

  The Countess and Binnie had been moved to the main Edinburgh jail to await trial, so it was just the Moxey gang and Silver Samuel; mercifully Jupiter Carlisle had fallen into a deep sleep and no-one wanted to wake him.

  The breakfast was not much of a repast, being a handsel of grey-bread with a smear of butter, passed carefully through the bars with a tin mug of water.

  The constable was especially careful because he had once, due to his kind heart and a prisoner pretending that his own was under attack, ventured in the cell to help.

  He was then rendered unconscious and by the time he woke up, the prisoner was long gone.

  However, Ballantyne was more experienced now – had he not accompanied the great McLevy on patrol?

  The young man could not help but revel in the envy and admiration of his colleagues, nor resist the revelation of some juicy details.

  ‘Such as that – and here’s your bread, Mister Grant – the motive for murder would seem to be the death all these years ago of one Jonathen Sinclair in the Leith Docks.’

  Samuel heard this and had his own thoughts, which he intended to keep to himself, but the glorious advent of Muriel had come just in time before he cracked and admitted that Seth Moxey’s allegations of entanglement and disclosure were in fact true, though much good it might have done him because the police would aye take the word of a winsome widow over a jumped-up street keelie; anyway she had come for his sake.

  It was the first act of unselfish love Samuel had ever witnessed on his behalf, and he was fierce proud of his wee Moumou.

  His woman. When he came out of the cell, she looked at him and said, ‘From this moment on, Samuel Grant, you will walk a straight line and I will walk it with you.’

  He could have kissed her right there and then but didn’t want to get her a bad name in a police station.

  But then when they emerged and she went to get the papers, Samuel saw McLevy on the prowl and decided to display his new credentials of respectability.

  So, he continued his declaration.

  ‘Jonathen Sinclair. The murder. I saw it.’

  ‘Whit?’

  McLevy’s jaw dropped for real this time.

  ‘I was sleeping rough. By the water. I saw it happen.’

  The Leith Docks, 1864

  Young Samuel Grant, having had a coin pushed between his teeth, looked into the cold eyes of the American and ran for his life.

  But not far.

  The boy was curious. Why would the man pay him to go away? Was there more money to be found?

  So he crept back to the head of the wynd in time to see the blond hair shining in the dim radiance from the jostling ships as the man headed for the cluster of boatyard offices in the distance.

  One window was illuminated, shining like a lighthouse in the dark.

  Samuel watched.

  The man he now knew as Jonathen Sinclair walked on, whistling a jaunty air, a tune the boy had never heard before. American probably.

  Then another man stepped out from the shadows ahead, lifted a pistol and fired.

  Samuel saw the impact of the bullet striking the body before Sinclair went down like a felled tree.

  He did not move.

  The other man, who wore a long oilskin coat and wide brimmed black hat, moved towards the fallen man, confident in his aim.

  The boy could not breathe, such was his terror. This was a deadly business.

  Then it got deadlier.

  As the man bent over the still body another shot sounded and the killer was jolted back from short range.

  His hat flew off to reveal a similar shock of fair hair while he staggered back then fell in his turn.

  For a moment both bodies were still, then Jonathen Sinclair slowly rose to his feet, a long pistol gun held in his hand, the barrel still smoking.

  For a long instance he looked down at the corpse, then he came to a decision.

  He removed the man’s oilskin coat and fitted his own coat in its place. Then he emptied all the pockets of the dead man, working swiftly while glancing around. He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket and put them in place to be in the other’s possession.

  Then he took a ring from his finger and put it on the stiff hand lying there.

  That done, he sighted down the long pistol, put the nozzle in close and then blew the dead man’s head clean off his shoulders.

  The boy took to his heels this time and did not stop.

  McLevy absorbed all this as Samuel brought his rendition to a close.

  ‘Ye didnae think to tell the police?’

  ‘I was a wee boy. Who would believe me?’

  ‘Ye could have tried.’

  ‘I’m no’ that enamoured of the police.’

  But Samuel hastily qualified the remark with a glance back to Muriel who was waiting with some impatience at the station door.

  The bouncy mattress was calling. If she was going to lose her reputation, it might as well be worth her while.

  Her mind flipped back to the time yesterday when, miserably going through her dead husband’s desk for the want of anything better to do, she had opened the secret drawer again and stuck her hand to the back. There she f
ound a small embossed knob which when she pulled, produced another aperture.

  Undertakers have many boxes.

  Inside this one was a letter addressed to her husband at his business address from a woman who signed herself your loving creature and playmate, Beth Ryder. The hand was not uneducated and the words to the point.

  They promised further amatory adventures and were fairly graphic as to how this would be achieved.

  They also thanked him for his generous offerings both in love and cash.

  Which is when Muriel realised that a scamp who would go to jail for you was worth a hundred respectable men who keep a mistress to give them pleasure and a sour face to give their wife.

  She had told the maid of her decision and Ellen’s only comment was that she’d have the tea ready for them when they got back. And turn the bed down.

  Muriel winked at Sam. Most unladylike.

  ‘I’m better disposed now,’ said the bold Samuel to the inspector.

  And to prove the truth of that, he volunteered further endorsement of his new qualities.

  ‘I’d seen him before. Sinclair.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’ asked McLevy, quickly.

  ‘The Happy Land. He had a wee magpie there. My cousin Mamie worked the place, God rest her soul. She’d pass me a bite to eat and I’d watch them a’ arrive frae the upstairs window. I saw him twice.’

  The Happy Land had been a notorious bawdy-hoose, run and owned by one Henry Preger. A villainous type who had died in mysterious circumstances and was mourned by no-one.

  ‘Sinclair was mad keen on that wee lassie. And she on him. Lovey-dovey. She was aye playing wi’ his hair.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I don’t know, and Mamie’s dead now, but I can tell you one that does.’

  McLevy did not need to be told. The woman who had plied her trade there was suspected of helping Henry shuffle off this mortal coil and who then opened her own place, the Holy Land, followed after a fire and insurance money by that quintessence of bordellos, the Just Land, was none other than Jean Brash.

  And she owed him her sweet existence.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said to Samuel.

  ‘You know where tae find me,’ replied Samuel, proudly, then turned and walked to the door where Muriel put her arm through his and off they walked to another life.