The Curse of the House of Foskett

by Kasasian, M. R. C.

  ‘Where does this go?’

  ‘To the servants’ quarters.’ He was running now, his body dipping with his shortened leg and, with the lantern in front of him, I could hardly see to keep up. The passage sloped down, yard after yard, windowless and airless. ‘More torn webs.’

  There was a light in the distance and we raced towards it, almost tumbling as we emerged into an old kitchen dominated by a long, central pine table and a huge cooking range, copper pans resting empty upon it.

  I touched the back of a chair. It had a streak of fresh blood on it. ‘They must have come through here,’ I said.

  ‘You astonish me.’ An open side door led into another corridor. ‘As I recall from when I played here, this wing is more of a maze than Hampton Court.’

  We ran along to a flight of stone steps going down and he held out his lantern. ‘They did not take this way. The steps are littered with dead beetles and not one of them has been crushed.’

  ‘What—’

  ‘Listen.’ Sidney Grice cocked his head and I heard the dogs, their barks hurtling down the passages.

  ‘Something has agitated them,’ I said. ‘Where is that draught coming from?’ He licked his finger and held it up. ‘I have never found that works,’ I said.

  ‘This way.’ My guardian darted to the left. ‘The back way is open.’

  The barking was nearer and wilder.

  The corridor was lit by the day now and a breeze blew along it from outside, carrying the fresh air and the yips of the dogs and a cry that pierced through it all. Sidney Grice broke into a run, drawing his revolver from his pocket as he went, with me close at his heels, out into a courtyard garden, the raised squares of what must have been herb beds overflowing with nettles. The side gate was ajar and, as we rushed round the beds towards it, there was a rattling and clatter and the squeal of rusty wheels.

  ‘Cutteridge. Listen to me. I am Baron Foskett, the master you are sworn to serve.’

  We rushed through the gate on to a stone path. ‘This way.’ My guardian slithered on the wet moss as he swung to the left and round the corner. The clattering was louder now and the barks more frantic.

  Rupert stood trapped in an iron-barred run, leading from the dog pound to the garden and gated at either end. He was stooping, the boat hook still jutting from his shoulder and dangling into the ground. Behind him, yapping wildly and throwing their solid bodies at the inner gate, was a pack of huge black mastiffs, teeth bared as they snarled and snapped at the barrier separating them from him.

  ‘I swore to serve your father and your mother,’ Cutteridge declared and I looked over to see him standing to one side, turning a corroded metal wheel, and I saw that it was pulling on a wire and that the wire was connected to a heavy bolt which was sliding steadily backwards on the inner gate.

  ‘And, for your mother’s sake, I was of service to you, but no man could command my obedience when he has turned my lady into an obscenity.’

  The bolt stuck but the old man strained one last quarter-turn and it clunked fully back. And as the gate flew open under the weight of the slavering animals, Rupert turned and flung himself helplessly on to the outer gate, but the first dog was on him the moment he touched the lock. He wrenched at the handle but it would not give and the whole pack tore in behind, ripping at his legs and flailing arms.

  ‘Sidney!’ he begged. ‘Save me.’ And I saw that my guardian was slipping a bullet into the chamber of his revolver and walking forward, taking careful aim, from two feet away.

  Rupert fell to his knees and the biggest mastiff leaped over the others, scrambling across their backs as they battled for a share of their quarry. There, at the top of the seething pile, it steadied itself, snuffled at Rupert’s hair and licked his ear three times before curling back its lips to take his cheek between its front teeth and tear it away. Sidney Grice took one more step so that the barrel of his gun was between the bars and Rupert’s bloodied hand came through and clutched at his trouser leg. Three of Rupert’s fingers were missing. One of the mastiffs rammed its jaws out, gripping the hem of Sidney Grice’s coat, and he tried to yank away.

  ‘Let go, you filthy animal.’ He levelled the gun again and fired, and after the detonation there was a stillness such as I have never witnessed before. The dogs froze in their attack and a black hole appeared in the middle of Rupert’s forehead, and it seemed an age before his skull broke.

  The silence shattered and a dog behind him yelped and fell back. The rest looked up and then down and set again about their prey, snapping their bloody jaws, squabbling with each other for a portion of his worm-riddled flesh.

  Sidney Grice raised his gun again, slowly exhaled and lowered it, uncocking the hammer in one practised movement.

  ‘Filthy animal,’ he repeated as he turned away. ‘And so the last Baron Foskett dies just as the first, torn apart by a pack of dogs,’ my guardian mused aloud and bowed his head. ‘Come, March.’

  I looked around. ‘But where is Cutteridge?’

  ‘He has gone back in and bolted the door but there is a shortcut to the front.’

  Our way was tangled with brambles but Sidney Grice scarcely seemed to notice as he trampled round the side of the house, the thorns ripping at his clothes and mine.

  ‘Why did the Hamlet quotation matter?’ I asked.

  He snapped a sapling that blocked our way. ‘The baroness was a respected Shakespearean scholar. She would never have got it wrong by mistake, so either she was trying to tell us something or—’

  ‘It was not her.’

  ‘Precisely. Rupert was taunting me.’

  Several times I had to stop to wrench my torn dress free, but he marched determinedly ahead until we came out on the gravelled clearing. Sidney Grice put his gun into his satchel.

  ‘The door is still open,’ I said. ‘Do you think—’ But my question was drowned out by a loud hammering.

  We ran up the steps and inside, just in time to see the great staircase tipping away from the wall and hanging for a moment before, with a great groan, it collapsed then crashed into the hall, no more than a pile of splintered timber now, and Cutteridge at the top with an axe dangling in his left hand, clouds of dust billowing up around him and the lantern at his feet.

  ‘He did not deserve to be put out of his misery,’ he shouted. ‘He should have lived to see his rotten heart torn from his breast.’

  ‘Come down, Cutteridge,’ my guardian called. ‘I shall not tell the police what you have done.’

  And Cutteridge tilted his head to one side. ‘You were always an honourable boy,’ he said, ‘and you are a true gentleman, sir, but my mistress needs me one last time. I cannot let her be burnt alone.’

  ‘Burnt?’ I queried and Cutteridge bowed.

  ‘I am sorry to have manhandled and threatened you, miss.’

  The dust was still rising when he swung the axe back and with hardly a glance let it swing forwards again, sending the lamp flying from the edge of the top step, arcing brightly through the gloom as it fell, smashing into the wreckage and spraying oil in every direction. For a moment it looked like the light had been extinguished, but then a hub of blue appeared and a dozen spokes of yellow ran outwards in every direction, and three more up the wall, where the shards of shattered oak dangled from ancient fixings. The wood was dry and burst into flames like seasoned kindling and soon there was a huge bonfire blazing in the hall. The paintings blistered and the wall hangings smoked and ignited.

  Cutteridge stood for a moment peering down at his work.

  ‘Please do not risk your lives by trying to come up the back stairs,’ he called. ‘I have secured the doors at the top.’

  ‘Go to a window,’ I shouted above the crackle of fire. ‘You can easily climb down the ivy.’ And Cutteridge put a handkerchief over his mouth and nose.

  ‘My place is here,’ he said. ‘Please excuse my not showing you out. The key for the gate is in the left lodge. Goodbye, sir, miss, and God bless you both.’

  The s
moke was thick now and it was difficult to see exactly when Cutteridge disappeared, but the ceiling had already taken and the floor was hot beneath our feet as we went out through the front door. We stepped back on the gravel and looked up. The flames were visible through the shattering first-floor windows and as we backed slowly up the path, transfixed by the sight of Mordent House ablaze, we heard it – muffled but unmistakeable – the single shot of a gun.

  We made our way to the gatehouse and found the key, and put it in the lock as Cutteridge had done so many times before.

  ‘Shall we call the firefighters?’ I suggested.

  ‘What for?’ His eye was out and the socket oozing, and his right eye was trickling too. His gaze was fixed on the conflagration. There was a deafening crash and then another and the very building shuddered. He spun round and slashed his stick into a pillar. Again and again he smashed it into the old bricks. The cane cracked and twisted, its steel core bending under the fury of his blows. ‘Damn you to eternal damnation!’ He raised his arm once more and flung the shattered cane into the undergrowth. It hit a branch and tumbled into the bushes as he turned to me, his face contorted in a strange terrible passion. ‘Nothing…’ He fought to control himself. ‘Nothing can save the House of Foskett now.’

  65

  Soggy Messages and the St Leger

  We were quiet for most of the way back, our heads down against the wind and drizzle.

  ‘I was supposed to be calling on Dr Berry at half past,’ Mr G said, flipping open his hunter, ‘but I am not my usual effervescent self. I shall send her a message from home.’

  A thought struck me. ‘What did you mean about Gerry being disappointed?’

  He glanced across. ‘I anticipated Rupert releasing the dogs, for he must have known that he was close to being exposed, and arranged with Gerry to use his cricketing skills and toss four dozen poisoned lamb chops over the wall and deep into the grounds. What I did not foresee – for, near miraculous though my powers are, I am not a soothsayer – was Cutteridge’s locking the gates of the pound.’

  We rounded a sharp corner and I fell heavily against him. I was not sure where we were now. A gas pipe explosion had closed three streets to traffic.

  ‘I am sorry you have lost your friend.’ I pulled myself up.

  ‘As I have told you repeatedly, I have no friends.’ The corners of his mouth pulled down. ‘How could I, being such a miserable old devil?’

  I laughed involuntarily. ‘I am sorry about that.’ And he patted my hand.

  ‘I lost Rupert nineteen years ago.’ He inspected the torn hem of his Ulster. ‘What you saw today was the corruption of a man, not the person I knew.’

  ‘Do you think it possible that he was right and that the maggots were in his brain?’

  Sidney Grice pulled on a loose thread. ‘I think it unlikely. It is too pretty an explanation of what destroyed him and I dislike prettiness in all its manifestations. You cannot trust anything which is appealing if its appeal is the only reason to trust it.’

  ‘So how will we find Miss McKay?’

  ‘We have no need to.’ The thread was unravelling. ‘There is no one left to kill and if she does not come forward she cannot claim her prize. She will know as well as you or I that we have very little evidence against her.’

  I looked out at the ragged people trudging along the drab streets or standing listlessly on corners or sitting on steps. What could they hope for other than sustenance and shelter to keep their souls trapped a little longer in their malformed bodies?

  ‘I lost something else today,’ my guardian said suddenly.

  ‘Your faith in God?’ I asked and he humphed. ‘In human nature?’

  ‘I have never had any faith in that.’

  ‘Yourself?’

  ‘How could I possibly doubt myself?’ He snapped the thread. ‘No, March. I am not sure what I have lost or where it has gone, but I doubt that I shall ever find it again and I shall always be the poorer for it.’

  ‘Surely not a feeling?’ I said, but he was looking out of his window.

  I recognized the Edgware Road, and was turning to look at a new hat shop when the hatch shot open and the cabby appeared, his long, lank black hair hanging over his face.

  ‘Before I forget,’ he said. ‘Joe Dubbins said to let you know ’e picked one of ’em up this mornin’.’

  Sidney Grice cricked his head back. ‘Which one?’

  The driver screwed up his mouth and eyes. ‘The one wiv the stained face,’ he said.

  ‘Primrose McKay,’ I interjected.

  ‘What time and where did he take her?’ Mr G demanded.

  The hair flopped side to side. ‘Dunnow ’cause ’e writ it down and I missed my book learnin’ thru ’avin’ a kidley fever when I was a pup.’

  ‘Give it to me, man.’ My guardian put a finger to his eye, and the driver leaned so far forward that I feared he would fall through as I stood unsteadily to take a folded note from his gloved grasp.

  ‘This is sopping.’ It was disintegrating in my hand.

  ‘Swap places and see ’ow dry your pockets is,’ the driver challenged me as Sidney Grice tried to unstick and unfold the offering.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ he grumbled. ‘How can anyone be expected to read that?’ He fished out his pince-nez as I leaned over. ‘Dash it, the lenses are steamed up.’

  ‘Bryanston,’ I said. ‘It says Bryanston.’

  He polished his pince-nez with a handkerchief and took another look. ‘Dr Berry’s house.’

  ‘Why would she go there?’ I asked, but the thought was already in my head and my guardian pursed his lips.

  ‘Dorna is the only person who can definitely link McKay to the site of a crime.’

  ‘Tavistock Square.’ I hardly dared express my conclusion. ‘So with Dorna out of the way—’

  Sidney Grice jumped up and banged on the roof. ‘Bryanston Mews and quick about it.’

  ‘Make your mind up, guv.’

  ‘A sovereign if you make it before the hour is done,’ I called.

  ‘Of your money, not mine,’ Sidney Grice muttered. And the horse’s head turned to the right and all of a sudden we were on one wheel and almost overbalancing, and I was flung across my guardian. ‘Mind my flask, March.’

  An omnibus was coming straight at us but we just managed to get in front of it.

  ‘Who d’you fink you are? Fred fleckin’ Archer?’ the omnibus driver bellowed, hauling hard on his reins.

  Our driver laughed. ‘Wouldn’t be sitting on this ole dustcart if I was.’ He looked down at my companion. ‘You follow the gee-gees, squire?’

  Our left wheel came down with a bump, the horse straightened and lifted its head, and set off back down the road.

  ‘I can think of little more tedious.’ Sidney Grice unclipped his satchel to check the contents.

  ‘I did get five to two on Silvio at the St Leger,’ I told him, and my guardian glared at me.

  ‘You are talking like a flash mobsman.’

  I did not dare tell him I got the tip from a barman at The Bull, and we swung sharply across the road again – nearly upsetting a gig this time – and down Bryanston Road into the mews.

  The church bell was striking as we pulled up, our horse tossing its head proudly as if it had just crossed the finishing line first at Doncaster.

  ‘I do not imagine Dr Berry is in any real danger,’ I said, a little battered, as our driver pulled open the flap. We were a short way down the street from the house as a coal wagon was blocking the way.

  ‘Perhaps not.’ Sidney Grice helped me out. ‘But—’ He gripped my arm and I stepped forward to get a better look.

  The door to the house was ajar and, as we hurried towards it, I saw a woman. She was lying face down on the floor in the hall.

  66

  The Poker and the Cleaver

  Sidney Grice let go of my arm and ran. I rooted around my purse, passed the payment up to the cabby and followed. He was already at the front step and signal
led for me to stand clear. For once I obeyed, and watched as he stepped back and pushed the door fully open.

  ‘It is just a servant,’ he called and stepped inside. ‘All clear.’ I hurried in to find him crouched over the prone body of a housemaid. ‘See to her.’ He stood up and called out, ‘Hello? Dorna?’ Then he rushed into the consulting room.

  I kneeled beside the maid. Her hand was hot with a gold cross on a snapped chain wrapped around her fingers, but I could find no signs of life. Her face was towards me, eyes open and still shining, and mouth agape, showing her small grey teeth. I brushed her eyelid but it did not react. A pool of blood, still wet, had oozed from the back of her head but I could not see any wounds beneath her smashed-in stained hat and thick black hair.

  ‘Just a servant,’ I whispered as I closed her eyes.

  There was a poker lying nearby and I rose to look at it. It was bent near the end and caked in blood with a clump of hair.

  My guardian came back into the hall. ‘She is not in there and there are no messages on her desk.’ He looked about. ‘Good. You have not disturbed anything – except her eyes.’

  ‘She cannot have been dead for very long.’

  ‘And a probable weapon conveniently on display.’ He closed the front door and another door slammed. ‘What the…’ We set off down the hall, past the stairs and through an open doorway into the back of the house.

  The door ahead was closed and Sidney Grice flung it open to reveal a kitchen, small with a central scrubbed table. The moment he did so, we heard a crash and turned to see Dr Berry, hanging by her neck from the ceiling next to a pine dresser.

  ‘Dorna!’ I exclaimed.

  She had her hands clutching at the noose and her eyes were strained unnaturally wide, turned towards me in desperation, and her pupils were pinpoints. A wooden stool lay upturned beneath her. Sidney Grice snatched it up and scrambled on to it, grabbing a high cupboard door for support. Dorna’s feet were in an open cutlery drawer. He bent his knees, put his arms round her waist and straightened up to slacken the rope.