The Curse of the House of Foskett

by Kasasian, M. R. C.

  ‘Oh, my good Gawd.’ Waterloo Trumpington came to stand beside me and I glanced at him. But instead of the disgust I had expected to see, his eyes flashed with excitement and he narrowed them knowingly, with a peculiar look creeping over his lips.

  36

  Courcy’s Cravat and Sucking Lice

  For a long time Sidney Grice surveyed the monstrosity before us. He put on his pince-nez, leaned forward and took them off again. He whistled seven quick notes softly through closed teeth and crouched. He stood and walked to and fro, not taking his eyes off the body until he turned, paced three steps back and whipped round, as if he were a child playing statues and expecting the vicar to have moved. But the Reverend Enoch Jackaman was never again to move on this earth of his own volition.

  ‘May God receive and have mercy on your soul,’ I said, and my guardian looked puzzled.

  ‘Mine?’ He spoke as if half asleep.

  ‘Reverend Jackaman’s.’

  He raised an eyebrow and put his pince-nez back on to view the reverend more closely.

  ‘So that is how you did it,’ he murmured.

  ‘Surely it is obvious how he was killed,’ I said, but my guardian clicked his tongue.

  ‘The truth is rarely obvious and the whole truth never so. Look in your books,’ he gestured to a stack of Bibles, ‘and tell me how clear it is.’

  ‘There are more answers in the Bible than you seem to think.’ I slid on a dark puddle. ‘Should you not be chasing the murderer?’

  Sidney Grice seemed mildly hurt. ‘That is exactly what I am doing.’ He walked round the screen. ‘Courcy’s cravat,’ he said as he emerged.

  ‘But you should be finding out how he escaped.’

  Sidney Grice pulled his lower eyelid down a fraction to let his eye drop. ‘My dear child—’

  ‘Do not call me a child.’

  He tightened his mouth. ‘Then do not behave like one. You think you can blunder into my life for a few months and tell me how to go about my business?’

  I tried to calm myself. ‘I am sorry. It is just—’ But my guardian shushed me gently.

  ‘I know how the murderers escaped. They went through that exit by the side chapel, across the rectory garden and through the back gate into Mulberry Street where they will have been instantly swallowed up in the crowds that attend the Thursday toy market. If they can be tracked, your new friend will be hot on their heels as we speak. Waterloo Trumpington clings to me like a sucking louse sometimes, but once he is on the trail of something he is a veritable pig in a patch. He will turn the whole field over until he finds his turnip.’

  ‘Why more than one murderer?’ I asked.

  ‘Because one person could not hold a conscious and struggling vicar still and transfix him at the same time.’ Sidney Grice pinched the scar on his ear. ‘You need both hands just to hold a nail and hammer it.’

  ‘And you are happy for Waterloo Trumpington to catch them?’

  Sidney Grice blew his nose. ‘I would be delighted if Trumped-up Trumpington came across the murderers because I have no doubt who would come off the worse for the encounter. Do you seriously imagine that the people who did this could be bested by that jumped-up, slandering, penny-print guttersnipe?’ He held out a screwed-up ball of paper and shook off a gelatinous clot. ‘I found this crammed into his mouth.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  He straightened it out until I could just make out the words: Eloi El – a bloodstain – hani.

  ‘Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani,’ I said. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

  ‘A valid question under the circumstances,’ my guardian commented.

  I looked around the empty church, the clumsy pillars and the cold statues, and tried to clear the jumble from my mind. A life-sized crucifix lay smashed, wood and plaster in one corner. ‘What did you mean by Courcy’s cravat?’

  ‘Jean-Claude Courcy was a war veteran with a grudge against the Grande Armée. He was paralysed from the waist down by a bullet in the spine, but he had been caught stealing from the mess bar just before battle and forfeited his pension. He killed four officers from his wheelchair whilst going round the streets in uniform. If an officer stopped to give him alms, he would speak very huskily so that the victim had to bend his head towards him to hear. Courcy had a noose on a stick, which he would whip over the victim’s head, then pull the rope to tighten round the neck. A strangled man can lose consciousness in under a minute. Sometimes Courcy would toy with them by loosening the noose enough for them to come round before he tightened it again. A captain who he had left for dead recovered and told that story. The last intended victim escaped because he had a very large nose and ears, and Courcy had not opened the noose wide enough to go cleanly over.’

  I was feeling very hot and sick, but I forced myself to step forward and look more closely.

  ‘I can see the rope mark round his neck.’

  ‘And under the angle of his left jaw?’

  ‘A circular impression.’

  He bobbed down to turn a leaf over. ‘Made by the end of the stick.’ He jumped up. ‘That was the first choking sound we heard. The noose was tightened just enough to incapacitate Jackaman. He could then be led like a stray dog to the screen; the pole was passed through a hole in the screen and wedged the other side. At that stage it could be loosened. The killer wanted him to be fully aware of what was happening to him.’

  I closed my eyes in a futile attempt to erase the image before us. ‘How can anyone hate people so much?’

  Sidney Grice crouched to scrutinize a puddle of blood blotting out most of the Latin inscription on a memorial floor-slab. He took a pipette from his satchel and carefully sucked a scruple of darkness into the bulb. He put a finger over the top, took a test tube in his left hand and deftly removed the cork with his little finger, let the fluid flow into the tube and recorked it.

  ‘They may not have hated Jackaman at all.’ He put the test tube and pipette away. ‘It may be just me.’

  This was intolerable. ‘Why does everything have to revolve around you?’

  He went down on his knees and crawled with his nose almost on the floor in a wide circle round the blood. ‘Ah.’ He brought out an envelope and scooped a bit of dirt into it.

  ‘Because,’ he said simply, ‘it always does.’

  I could not bear any more – the disgusting suffering of the man who was dead; the disgusting arrogance of the man who regarded everything that happened as an intellectual jigsaw puzzle made only for him to play with. I went outside where at least the dead were at peace.

  Angelica, your youngest sister, the darling of your family, had died of scarlet fever at home in Shropshire, and you were very low and very drunk or you would not have told me about the war. You said that in the Afghan Campaign, when the tribesmen of the Northwest Frontier captured a Christian soldier, they would castrate him and then they would tie him to the ground and prop his mouth open with a stick and the women would crouch over him and drown him in their urine.

  I am not sure you believed the stories and I certainly did not. I could not imagine anyone being so disgustingly cruel – until now.

  I sat on a stone bench with my back to the wall of St Jerome’s and looked at a gravestone to my side. A whole family lay there, the parents and five children all dead within a three-year span ending in 1785. For almost a century they had lain undisturbed, awaiting the resurrection of their bodies. I could not imagine a soul and yet I knew we all had one. I wanted a cigarette but it seemed disrespectful. I closed my eyes and prayed until I heard hurried footfalls approaching and Waterloo Trumpington came breathlessly back. ‘No sign of ’im.’

  ‘Look in the church,’ I said. ‘There are plenty of signs of him there.’ And then I could not stop myself. Everything came welling out of me in uncontrollable sobs. ‘I am sorry.’ I took his handkerchief and caught myself. I knew how tears embarrassed men, but Waterloo Trumpington showed only concern.

  ‘What you need,’ he tou
ched my arm, ‘is a good strong drink… What’s so funny?’

  ‘I was just thinking’ – I wiped my eyes – ‘how nice it is to be with a man who does not add of tea.’

  37

  Great Naval Battles in the Snug

  The black boy was just round the corner, crowded, smoky and noisy, with a huddle of costermongers bantering round the bar.

  ‘Come in the snug,’ Waterloo Trumpington said. ‘You won’t get ogled there… unless, of course, you like being ogled.’

  I would not have minded in the least but I said, ‘We will go in the snug.’ And we passed through to a side room, pine-lined, with three tables made of upturned beer barrels and a fireplace with cold clinker settled in the grate. ‘I am sorry I cried.’

  Waterloo Trumpington pursed his lips. ‘Know why men don’t cry? They’re frigh’ened to. Women are braver than men.’

  ‘We don’t fight in wars.’

  He batted the thought away. ‘You’ve got more sense.’

  ‘You have a very good opinion of my sex.’

  ‘I like women. My mother was one.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘What’ll it be? Port? Sherry?’

  ‘A brandy would be nice.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ He went to the bar where it jutted into the room. ‘Couple of big Boney’s, sweetheart, and one for yourself.’ Then he rejoined me with two very large brandies.

  ‘I hope the alcohol kills the germs.’ The rim was smeared greasily.

  ‘The drinks ’ere will kill anyfink,’ Waterloo Trumpington told me cheerily. ‘Good ’ealth.’

  We clinked glasses and I took a swig, holding it in my mouth before letting it course down my throat. I blinked. ‘I believe you are right, Mr Trumpington.’

  ‘My friends call me Traf,’ he said, ‘and I ’ope you will do the same.’

  ‘Is that really your name?’

  ‘Waterloo Trafalgar Agincourt Trumpington reporting for duty, ma’am.’ He saluted. ‘My old man was very patriotic.’

  ‘Traf is certainly less of a mouthful.’ I laughed. ‘And please call me March.’

  ‘March it is then. Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Not if you give me one.’

  He grinned approvingly. ‘You’re quite the twist, March.’ And, seeing my bemusement, explained. ‘Twist and Twirl – girl – rhyming slang.’

  ‘Like Adam and Eve – believe,’ I said and he chuckled.

  ‘Why, we’ll make a cockney of you yet, March. ’Ow long have you known Mr Grice for then?’

  ‘Only a few months,’ I said. ‘Though it seems a lot longer.’

  ‘I’ll bet it does, living with that old devil.’

  ‘You do not like each other, do you?’

  Traf leaned back in his chair. ‘Our Sidney dislikes the world and the world returns the compliment.’

  ‘I do not think he dislikes everyone. We met a woman doctor recently and I think he holds her in some regard.’

  He swigged his brandy. ‘A woman doctor?’ he asked incredulously.

  I nodded. ‘Dr Berry.’

  ‘Oh yeah. I’ve ’eard of that old ’arpy.’

  ‘Dr Berry is neither old nor a harpy. She is still quite young and pretty and I think what she has achieved is quite wonderful. But he does seem to dislike most people. Do you have any idea why?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask ’im that one. I ’ave ’eard it said as ’e was disappointed in love.’ Waterloo Trumpington snorted. ‘Can’t imagine ’im being disappointed in anyfink but ’atred myself.’

  ‘But why you especially?’

  ‘Opposite sides of the same coin, me and Sid. We rake around scandals and we uncover things people don’t want uncovered. Only ’e’s so hoity-toity he can’t stand to be reminded of that.’ We smoked for a while. ‘Having a spot of bother with ’is latest assignment, ain’t ’e?’

  ‘Is he?’ I finished my brandy.

  ‘Same again?’ Waterloo Trumpington picked up both glasses without waiting for a reply.

  ‘I do not mind you trying to get me drunk,’ I told him when he returned. ‘In fact I do not mind if you succeed. But you will not get me to talk about him.’

  Waterloo Trumpington surveyed me in amusement. ‘Scratch me, you’re a cucumber.’

  ‘How did you come to be here?’ I asked.

  ‘Vicar in a deaf club where the members is dyin’ like rats in a ring.’ His chair creaked as he leaned towards me. ‘It ’ad to be worf an interview. Wasn’t expectin’ nuffin’ like that, though.’ And from his expression it was clear he was not disappointed.

  I sucked the last of my cigarette, downed my brandy in one and stood up. ‘Thank you for the drinks. I had better get back to work.’

  Traf raised his glass. ‘I know when I’m beaten.’

  ‘I cannot imagine anyone getting the better of you.’ I stubbed out my cigarette underfoot and left him to it.

  The costermongers had gone, leaving only a handful of old men staring into their futures though empty beer mugs. It was drizzling outside now and Sidney Grice was standing in the graveyard. His nose twitched. ‘You have been to a public house.’

  ‘The Black Boy.’

  ‘I do not care what colour, sex or age it was. You went unaccompanied into a drinking establishment?’

  ‘No. Traf… Mr Trumpington took me.’

  My guardian shot a hand to his eye. ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What did he ask you?’

  ‘How long I had known you. I said a few weeks. Then he tried to get me to talk about these cases, but I told him I would not discuss anything with him.’

  ‘Good. What else did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Completely.’

  Sidney Grice grunted. ‘It is almost impossible to say nothing to the predators of Fleet Street. They could suck the juice from a diamond. However, we shall see what calumnies he begets from your socializing soon enough. I must find somebody to summon the police.’

  ‘At least Inspector Quigley cannot say it is suicide or an accident this time,’ I said.

  ‘I would not be too confident of that,’ my guardian disagreed, ‘but Quigley will not come. He would not want to get embroiled in a case like this at the best of times. No, March, he will send a subordinate or, better still from his point of view, a rival.’

  A large middle-aged woman came along with arms full of flowers.

  ‘I am sorry, madam,’ I said. ‘But the church is closed.’

  ‘Nonsense. I can see it is open from here.’ She pushed me aside but Sidney Grice stood his ground.

  ‘One moment, please.’ He delved into his satchel like a lady rooting though her handbag. ‘Here we are.’ He pointed a small, beautifully carved ivory-handled revolver straight at her and said pleasantly. ‘If you do not turn round and go away within nine seconds, I will put a bullet into your vestigial brain.’

  ‘How dare—’ She clutched her flowers as though expecting to be robbed of them.

  ‘Seven seconds.’

  ‘Well, really.’ The woman retreated to the pavement and called back. ‘I shall summon the police.’

  ‘Please do.’ He pulled back the hammer. ‘And tell them to hurry.’

  ‘That was a little extreme,’ I commented as she bustled through the gate.

  ‘I disagree.’ He lowered the hammer and put his revolver away. ‘It was very extreme. But she had the glazed eye of a slow-worm and it would have taken half an hour to achieve the same outcome by conventional means.’

  We waited until the police came – four constables, a uniformed sergeant and a plainclothed detective, none of whom I had seen before.

  ‘Miss Middleton saw less than I did,’ my guardian said. ‘I will not have her questioned.’

  The detective was ruffled. ‘I shall question whosoever I please.’ His voice came from somewhere in the back of his throat. ‘Stay there,’ he said to me.

  I sat on the low wall
with my feet at the side of a gravestone. It said John or Joan and Be, which I assumed was the start of beloved, and the words of Genesis came into my head: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Was that all there was to it? Could God not protect his own servant who had pleaded with him? I thought even the hairs on our heads were numbered.

  I heard some clattering and looked up to see my guardian coming out of the church.

  ‘They are taking him down.’ He took my arm. ‘Come, March. This is no place for you.’

  ‘It is no place for anyone outside of hell.’

  We made our way to the path and turned our backs on the dead.

  ‘You are shaking,’ my guardian said. ‘What you need is a really strong drink,’ he patted my hand, ‘of tea… What is so amusing?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all.’

  *

  There was a pretty tea shop at the front of Bailey’s Antiquarian Bookstore and they were about to close, but the manageress cheerfully admitted us and seated us beneath a giant aspidistra plant. Sidney Grice swept his arm back to push away a leaf which was tickling his head.

  ‘Did you find out anything else?’ I asked as he shifted his chair away from it and me.

  ‘Two things.’ The leaf was caressing his cheek now. ‘One tangible, the other intangible.’ He delved into his satchel for a brown paper bag and whipped out a greasy cloth cap, holding it up for my inspection.

  ‘The tangible clue,’ I guessed.

  ‘Quite so.’ He placed it on the table. ‘I espied it in the garden, caught in the overhanging branch of a fruitless Plymouth pear tree.’

  ‘Perhaps it was swept off the murderer’s head as he escaped,’ I suggested.

  ‘It is unlikely to have belonged to the vicar,’ he concurred, ‘and anyone who was not in an extreme hurry would have paused to retrieve it. The branch was only four feet-three inches from the ground, but then…’ He looked at me quizzically.