The Curse of the House of Foskett

by Kasasian, M. R. C.

  I cried out something but I do not know what. I probably called to God again. But there was only Sidney Grice, clicking switches and pulling levers behind me. He managed to stop the motor and put it into reverse, and it was only then that I noticed the chains hanging loose into the tub. They straightened and tightened, and the motor whirred and strained before it stopped running. It had been strong enough to lower him but was not able to pull him out.

  Sidney Grice ran round the tub and turned a horizontal brass wheel by its handle on top. There was a gurgling noise and the water began to fall, and all I could see was a scalded lump like something in a butcher’s shop, lying in the bottom of the tub, trussed with silken cords tied in neat knots to a hook on the chain belt.

  Sidney Grice re-sheathed his blade and used the cane to turn Prometheus Piggety’s head up, but there was nothing distinguishable as a human face any more except the teeth, still gaping in wordless agony through a bloated fluid-filled purple sac. He withdrew his cane and a long strip of flesh came away with it.

  ‘The gypsy was right about him dying in the bath before he was eighty,’ I said.

  ‘And Piggety was right about one thing too,’ he observed bleakly. ‘Writhing alive in boiling water does loosen the skin.’

  47

  Touching the Stars

  There was vomit on the floor about two yards from the tub and Sidney Grice crouched to survey it.

  ‘Mutton, roast potatoes, carrots and peas, and what looks like plum pudding.’

  I turned away. ‘Does it matter?’ I was aware that my voice was trembling.

  ‘All evidence matters. How important it is remains to be seen. Assuming he produced this, Piggety did not chew his food very thoroughly. Either this was his habit or he was in a hurry today.’ He leaned over the pool and breathed in as one might with a rare truffle. ‘No smell of wine, beer or spirits, so this was not some drunken escapade.’ He took a cigar tube from his satchel and unscrewed the top to bring out a medical thermometer in cotton wool. He unwrapped it, shook the mercury into the bulb, checked the reading and inserted it into a big fatty lump of mutton. He brought out his hunter and flipped open the lid. ‘When I was a child I had scarlet fever,’ he told me, ‘and was kept out of school for several weeks.’

  ‘A sensible precaution,’ I said, trying to block out the image of what lay in the tub behind me.

  ‘I have to confess,’ he continued, ‘that, when the nurse used a thermometer, I deliberately tampered with the results.’

  ‘You warmed it up to get more time off school,’ I guessed and he frowned.

  ‘Quite the reverse. I cooled it so as to be able to return to school. I was concerned that the masters were teaching my fellows without me there to correct them.’

  ‘Your teachers must have loved you.’ I spoke automatically, glad of anything to distract me.

  ‘I can truthfully say that they did’ – he clipped his watch shut – ‘not.’ He stooped. ‘Vomit travels an interesting thermal voyage. The food may be at a higher or, with cooks like mine, lower, temperature than the body. It then reaches equilibrium with the stomach, which is two or three degrees above body temperature of ninety-eight point four. Once expelled it cools to room temperature, the time taken to do so depending on the temperature difference, the flow of air and the insulating properties of the substance ingested. This is at room temperature and therefore produced at least one hour ago.’ He wiped the thermometer and put it away. ‘What is that?’

  There were a thousand stars sparkling on the wooden floor and I crouched to examine them. ‘Powdered glass.’

  ‘What sort of glass?’

  ‘How many sorts of glass are there?’ I put my finger out.

  ‘Twenty-two. Do not touch it.’ He came over. ‘The glass of my eye is very different from that of a whisky tumbler, a house window, a church window, a pair of spectacles, et cetera, et cetera.’ He bobbed down beside me and clipped his pince-nez on. ‘Et cetera,’ he said absently. ‘Note the line here.’ I could just make out what he meant – a faint arced impression. ‘See how the glass on the concave side is much finer than that on the convex. What does that tell you?’

  ‘The glass was broken and then crushed by something curved,’ I suggested.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The heel of a boot.’

  ‘Well done.’ He brought out a six-inch steel rule and measured the line in both directions. ‘Not Mr Piggety’s boot. He had unusually large feet and this is small enough to be a woman’s—’

  ‘Primrose McKay,’ I said. ‘She would have enjoyed doing this.’

  Sidney Grice put his head to one side briefly before he declared, ‘The curve would indicate that the wearer was standing facing the pulley some three and a quarter feet away from it.’ He took his rule and scraped the powder either side of the line into two envelopes, then folded and sealed them with four rubber bands, making notes on them with a stubby pencil. ‘What are you looking at?’

  I bent down. ‘Just behind you. It looks like droplets of blood.’

  He shuffled round. ‘Good perception. They were not easily distinguishable in the shadows, though, of course, I would have observed them myself. Thirty-three drops, the largest being one eighth of an inch in an apparently random pattern over…’ he held his ruler above them, ‘an area of two foot four inches by one foot nine.’ He dabbed a couple with his fingertip. ‘And freshly clotted. Clearly from a minor haemorrhage and therefore of major importance. You may write this in your journal as the first clue you have ever discovered, though it will take my intelligence to calculate its significance.’

  ‘Of course.’ I spoke automatically.

  ‘Right.’ He steadied himself on the wall to get up. ‘What now?’ And with a shock I remembered.

  ‘Those poor cats,’ I said and ran back through.

  ‘I have turned the hot water pipes off,’ my guardian said, but the room was stifling and I hastily cupped my handkerchief over my nose again. ‘If you try to find the tap which turns the water on, I will open the skylights.’

  I ran up the aisle and found a tap, and the moment I turned it there was a clear hiss and water trickled into the bowls of every cage.

  ‘I fear we are too late,’ my guardian said.

  ‘I am astonished that you care.’

  ‘I have a degree of respect for cats,’ my guardian said. ‘They kill for food and they kill for pleasure. It is all the same to them and they make no attempt to wrap their cruelty in sentimental fabrics.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Then if we find one alive—’

  ‘No, March.’

  ‘It would get rid of the mice.’

  ‘It is just as likely to bring them into the house.’

  I went up and down the aisles. One fluffy white ball was moving slowly, crawling towards the fresh water with sawdust in its fur. It managed to raise its head and flop it over the rim but it seemed that the effort had been too much for it until I saw a pink tongue creep out, curl and scoop up a drink. Four more times it lapped before it struggled to its feet.

  ‘I have a friend who wants a pet,’ I said. ‘I shall take her.’

  ‘How do you know it is a female?’

  There was a box with some straw in the corner and I placed her carefully in it.

  ‘Because,’ I said, ‘she has spirit. Perhaps my friend will call her that.’

  ‘Spirit,’ Sidney Grice repeated thoughtfully. ‘What a puerile name. Well…’ He bent, reached into his satchel and crouched to pincer something on the floor with a short pair of tweezers. ‘What have we here?’

  I looked at the pallid soft squirming creature in his grasp. ‘A maggot.’ I recoiled.

  ‘What a fine fat specimen he is too.’ He popped it into a test tube.

  I took a bowl of water to put in the box. ‘What shall we do now?’

  He recorked the tube. ‘I shall summon the police. You shall go home. The cab is still outside.’

  ‘But I might be able to help here.’

/>   ‘Help who? Piggety is beyond help and I do not need any.’ He touched my arm. ‘Go home, March. I shall wait here. This is no place for anyone with human feelings.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’ He guided me up the steps. ‘I am in my element. This is quite the finest murder I have witnessed in three years.’

  ‘God help you,’ I said.

  ‘He is welcome to try.’ We stepped outside and the stink of the cesspit suddenly smelled like fresh air.

  48

  Parasites, Monsters and Fat Hens

  My guardian saw me across the jetty to our cab.

  ‘You there,’ he shouted at a small boy who was peering out from behind a capstan. ‘I paid you to keep a lookout.’

  The boy hobbled towards us, using a rough length of wood to support his bandy legs. ‘Sorry, mister,’ he said. ‘We was doin’ it like you said, three of us watchin’ all the time, but then ’e came and chased us orf and we was too terrorized to ’ang abart.’

  ‘Who chased you?’ I said.

  ‘The monster, miss. ’Orrible he was, like Frankunstein, and I ain’t larkin’.’

  ‘So why did you come back?’ Sidney Grice raised his cane. ‘Except for a well-earned thrashing?’

  The boy dodged clumsily, almost slipping over on to the wet cobbles. ‘I lorst a penny and I fought I might find it ’ere.’

  ‘Here it is.’ I reached into my purse. ‘Only it was a sixpence.’ His hand was gloved in warts.

  ‘Parasites, every one of them.’ Sidney Grice checked his pockets as the boy scuttled off. ‘Mind they do not bleed you dry as they suck the lifeblood of our nation.’

  He helped me into the cab.

  ‘I think we have a few crumbs to spare yet,’ I said.

  It was a long slow ride home, but I was scarcely aware of anything around me. All I could see through the fog was the torment of the frothing water and all I could hear were the screams and frantic splashes silenced at last by death.

  I shook my head, but you cannot shake off memories like ants from an apple. They cling and burrow and they breed in your mind, and I sometimes think they poison it. I closed my eyes and put my thumbs over my ears and my face in my fingers, but the sights and sounds only grew more intense and I was not even aware we had stopped until the cabby leaned down and poked my shoulder with his whip handle.

  ‘All right, miss? Or do you want to go round again? It’s your dosh.’

  I paid him and went up the steps over the cellar moat and into the house, where Molly was waving a feather duster around lethargically.

  ‘Oh, miss, you look awful, even awfuler than what you usually does. You look like you’ve seen a phantagasm.’

  ‘Worse than that, Molly,’ I whispered. ‘Much worse.’

  I turned my back on her but she could see my face in the mirror. ‘Don’t cry, miss.’ I spun back to her. ‘Why not? Somebody ought to in this godforsaken house.’ I brushed past her and ran upstairs, into my room, the only place I could call mine now, and even then only by invitation of a man I hardly knew.

  I poured myself a gin and held it in my mouth but it could not wash away the taste and, when I swallowed, it could not warm me.

  What would you have done? How could you have comforted me? This was a world more terrible than any battle you ever dreamed of. At least you would have known who you were fighting. At least you believed you would win and could dream of glory. Oh, Edward, I thank God you never had my dreams.

  You would have held me, but you could not have helped. Nobody could help me now. We all make our own way into the next world and sometimes there is only the hope that it will be better, and the slippery rocks of faith to cling to.

  I went into the bathroom and ripped off my clothes, and sat and waited for the tub to fill. But the rush of water and the rising steam frightened me and I turned off the taps and pulled out the plug and washed myself all over, standing at the sink, but the stench of death was too deep to scrub away and the towel did not seem able to get me dry. I took my bottle of Fougère perfume and put a drop on my face and another on my neck, and slopped it into my cupped hand and rubbed it over my untouched, untouchable body.

  Back in my room I put on my black dress, the one Papa bought me to meet Princess Beatrice but which I wore instead to his funeral. I had another gin and went back into the corridor and up to the attic floor where only Molly lived. There was a skylight at the end which served as a fire escape. I hooked down the ladder and climbed on to the roof and sat on the wall, smoking a cigarette and watching the traffic, a line of omnibuses with loud young men on the top deck, throwing apple cores at each other and pedestrians, and the busy people marching past the vendors unheeding of their cries – Pretty pins for the ladies, Buy my fat hens. A knife grinder was dragging his treadle-stone along the side of the road. Bring awt yer blades, yer scissors and yer axes.

  I stubbed out my cigarette in the wide, lead-lined gutter and wished I had brought my flask up with me, and that I was somewhere else, anywhere except this seething sulphurous city.

  If there had been time to think it over I would probably have handled things better, but you had a regimental dinner so I did not see you that night and the next morning you were off on patrol. In the three weeks you were supposed to be away I would have cooled down. I would probably have discussed the letter with my father, but you came to the hospital just before muster to say goodbye.

  I was busy and cross because pilfering was becoming a major problem and a consignment of bandages had disappeared. I went outside to meet you.

  ‘I just came to say—’

  But I cut you short. ‘What?’

  ‘Goodbye,’ you said warily.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Well… yes.’

  ‘Goodbye then.’

  You tried to kiss me but I twisted away.

  ‘March, what is it?’

  ‘I was hoping you would tell me that.’

  You looked genuinely confused. ‘I honestly do not know what you are talking about.’ And you were not a good enough actor to have faked it.

  ‘Your father,’ I said, and the light dawned. It was one of the rare times I ever saw you angry, and the only time ever with me.

  ‘You read my father’s correspondence?’

  And instantly I felt guilty. ‘I could not help it.’

  You raised your voice. ‘You could not help opening my writing case, taking out his letter and reading it? Some things are private, March.’

  ‘We do not have secrets from each other.’

  Harry Baddington appeared, swaggering down the path towards us. ‘Eddy,’ he hollered. I hated him calling you that. ‘The men are waiting.’

  ‘I have to go. We will talk about it when I get home.’ You leaned forward and I turned so that you pecked my cheek.

  You stiffened. ‘Goodbye, March.’

  ‘Edward,’ I called before you had gone three paces. I wanted to say I loved you and to take care, but I only said, ‘Who is Hester Sandler?’

  ‘We will talk when I return,’ you replied firmly.

  How fine you looked as you strode away, your polished boots kicking up the dust, your helmet white in the white sun and your sabre swinging by your side. I think I saw you as you rode off, but the sun and the dust and the tears were in my eyes.

  49

  The Sleep of the Unjust

  The sun was setting over the rooftops – though I could hardly see it through the tainted air, just the darkening and reddening of the distance – before I clambered down. I changed again into my old mauveine dress and went downstairs.

  Sidney Grice sat upright in his armchair. He had taken his eye out and was massaging around it and wincing.

  ‘I used to go on the roof,’ he told me without opening his eyes, ‘and wonder at this city of mine.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Everything is mine in my world.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Sit down, March.’ His socket was streaked violet and the patch lay on his knee. He rubbed hi
s good eye and looked at me. ‘No one should see what you have seen today.’

  ‘You cope.’

  He wiped around his socket with the back of his hand. ‘If I do not cope nobody else will. Then who will stop these things happening?’

  ‘I could say the same.’ I fiddled with a button on my dress.

  ‘But you are a young woman and women have finer feelings than men.’

  ‘And my finer feelings tell me that I can help. Do you think you find murder more abominable than I do?’

  ‘No but—’

  ‘There are no no buts,’ I reminded him. ‘You will not push me out of the house quite as easily as that, Mr G.’

  ‘I was not trying to evict you, merely holding the door open.’

  ‘Then I suggest you close it before we both catch our deaths.’

  Sidney Grice’s mouth twitched slightly. ‘Very well, March, but you must promise to tell me when you have had enough.’

  ‘I will have had enough when there are no more crimes,’ I said.

  ‘Which will never happen.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  He replaced his patch and tied it behind his head. ‘If only your mother could see you now.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  My guardian frowned. ‘You have one failing in common, a sense of humour. She could light up a room with her wit – unfortunately. Otherwise there is no resemblance. You inherited your father’s rugged facade but your mother was the loveliest of creatures.’ He pinched the dimple in his chin. ‘Or so they say.’ He thinned his lips and stretched back to pull the bell. ‘Quigley came and went. Accidental death, of course. According to our good inspector, Piggety must have been testing his own machinery and got entangled in the silk cords.’

  ‘Nobody can accidentally entangle themselves in several neat knots,’ I said.

  ‘He knows that as well as you or I.’ My guardian polished his fingernails on his trousers. ‘I shall be glad when the promotions are decided next week. The man has never been much of a help, but now he is a positive obstruction.’