Depths of Deceit

by Norman Russell

  ‘It’s just outside the door, sir. You pour yourself a brew, and I’ll bring it in.’

  Box watched as Charlie limped out of the dim room. Charlie had been night-helper at the Rents for well over thirty years. He’d been invalided out of the Royal Engineers after suffering an accident to his spine, and had been given light work in the Metropolitan Police. He’d come to the Rents in 1862, and had worked there ever since.

  ‘You don’t look your usual cheerful self tonight, Mr Box,’ said Charlie, when he had returned with the toast. ‘I hear you’ve been out for most of the first watch.’

  ‘I have, Charlie. I’ve been across the river, solving a silly little murder which didn’t need a detective to do it. This toast’s lovely. And so is this tea. Thanks very much. You’re a shining ornament, Charlie.’

  The old man chuckled, and walked round the table. He pulled down one of the chains on the mantle. The burners spluttered and hissed, and the shadows receded a little into the corners of Box’s office. Discreet use of the poker coaxed a little spurt of flame from the remains of the fire.

  ‘Mr Mackharness came in here just after ten, Mr Box,’ said Charlie. ‘Just called in on his way back from his club, he said. He wanted to know where you were. When he heard that you’d been called out to a case, he said he’d see you first thing in the morning. “Tell Mr Box not to go off duty until he’s seen me”, he said.’

  ‘I wonder what he wants?’ asked Box, half to himself.

  ‘He didn’t say, sir. He said he wouldn’t keep you more than a few minutes.’

  ‘He always says that, Charlie. Mr Mackharness’s “few minutes” can last half an hour.’ He yawned, and covered his mouth with his hand. ‘I don’t think I’ll finish this report tonight,’ he said. ‘I’m too tired to be bothered.’

  ‘Why don’t you go up to the bunks for a couple of hours, Mr Box?’ said Charlie. ‘No one’s going to bother you again tonight, and there’s a sergeant borrowed from “A” Division manning the front office for the night.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Charlie,’ said Box, rising from his chair, and stretching. ‘Maybe things will be more cheerful in the morning. Good night.’

  ‘Good night, Mr Box.’

  Box left the old man in the office, and made his way slowly up the stairs from the vestibule, where a dim gaslight glowed. He glimpsed the duty sergeant in the office – the man borrowed for the night from “A” – but didn’t recognize him. He passed the door of the superintendent’s office on the first floor and ascended to the floor above. There was no gas laid on above the first storey, and the little passage at the top of the second flight was lit by a shaded oil lamp standing in a tray of sand on a ledge.

  He entered a small room overlooking the cobbled square in front of King James’s Rents. It contained two double bunks, furnished with pillows and blankets. There was no light provided, and Box left the door half open, so that the oil lamp in the passage would help to illuminate the little room. He removed his jacket and shoes, and stretched out on one of the lower bunks, pulling the blanket up over himself.

  Even up here, you could hear the creaking and settling of the fabric, and the scuttling of rats in the passage, inured, apparently, to the trays of poison left out for them. That Father Brooks…. There was a man who spoke in riddles. He’d go out to Highgate and see him. He might have something useful to tell him. This bunk was very comfortable, and he was very tired. Charlie was right. No one would disturb him again tonight….

  There came the sound of footsteps in the passage, a sudden leap of shadows across the wall, and Sergeant Knollys entered the room. He sat down on the adjacent lower bunk, and looked at Box for a moment. Then he spoke.

  ‘Sir,’ said Knollys, ‘we’re making no headway with this Mithras business. What have we achieved, so far? No one’s been brought to book. Poor young Walsh is still unavenged, and your investigation of Barnes’s murder led to nothing. And what about tonight’s escapade? Maybe it’ll be the first of many.’

  Knollys shifted on the bunk. Box could not see his features, as he was silhouetted against the lamplight in the passage. But he could sense a growing aggression in the big sergeant’s demeanour.

  ‘What do you propose to do next, sir?’ Knollys continued. ‘All we’ve done so far is take a genteel luncheon with our only suspect, and then walked away from him! What use is that? Why don’t you admit defeat, and hand the case over to someone else? You’re not fit to be on this case. You’re not fit to be an inspector —’

  Box jerked awake with fright. His stomach churned, and he could hear the blood drumming in his ears. The room was empty. Jack Knollys would never have spoken to him like that. The dream-figure had been a vehicle for his own misgivings and sense of failure. Something would have to be done, and soon. The ‘ghost’ had been right: he wasn’t fit for the case.

  He lay back disconsolately on the bunk, and immediately fell into a deep, untroubled sleep, from which he was awakened at seven o’clock by a rough shaking of his shoulder by the incoming duty sergeant.

  Downstairs, Charlie accosted him at the door of his office.

  ‘There’s a bacon sandwich and a mug of tea for you on your table, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve put a bit of soap and a razor out in the ablutions, and a can of hot water. Mr Mackharness came in at six, as usual. I’ll be off now, sir.’

  It was too early for Jack Knollys to have come in from Syria Wharf. Perhaps it was just as well. He could still recall the dream-figure who had told him that he wasn’t fit to be an inspector. He ate his sandwich, drank his tea, and went out to the ablutions, a chilly stone passageway, half open to the sky, in what Mr Mackharness called ‘the exercise yard’.

  The shaving things had been arranged neatly beside one of the brownstone sinks, and behind them was propped a piece of cardboard, upon which Charlie had written in chalk: ‘For Use of Insp. Box.’ As Box shaved, he thought to himself, I’ve gone badly wrong over this case. I’m getting nowhere…. He wondered why Old Growler wanted to see him so early in the day. Well, in a minute or so, he’d find out.

  ‘Sit down in that chair, will you, Box, and listen carefully to what I’m going to say.’

  Superintendent Mackharness sat behind his ornate desk, upon which he had placed a collection of folders and papers, all neatly arranged for instant reference. He waited for Box to sit down, looked fixedly at his inspector for what seemed to Box like minutes, and then began to speak.

  ‘Over the last few days, Box,’ he said, ‘I have been reading through your reports on these murders in Clerkenwell and Carshalton, together with your account of what seems to have been a social visit to Professor Roderick Ainsworth out at Epsom.’

  Box moved uneasily. In his mind he could hear the words of the phantom Knollys: ‘All we’ve done so far is take a genteel luncheon with our only suspect, and then walked away from him! What use is that? Why don’t you admit defeat, and hand the case over to someone else?’

  ‘Throughout your reports,’ Mackharness continued, ‘there are many references to the cult of Mithras, the significance of honey and mercury to the various kinds of sacrifice connected with Mithraism, and a very cogent account of your interview with – what was her name? – Miss Mary Westerham, an expert in these matters. Am I right in assuming that you regard all these details as germane to the cases in hand?’

  ‘You are, sir. I’m convinced that there is a hidden society at work, some kind of fanatical brotherhood that won’t scruple to sacrifice its members to the god of their choosing. I’m afraid that I’ve made no progress in uncovering that brotherhood. For a time, I suspected Professor Ainsworth himself of being involved in the business, but I can see now that I was entirely mistaken. But it was his uncovering of that ancient shrine, sir, that animated the members of this secret cult to resume the abominations that I believe must have been practised there in antiquity—’

  ‘Tripe!’

  Superintendent Mackharness’s face had grown redder and redder as Box talked. His sudden verbal
explosion was accompanied by the crashing of one of his massive fists on the table. Box jumped in alarm, and stared at his master as though he had gone mad.

  ‘Tripe, I say! Tripe and drivel! I’m sorry to use such language, Box – I’m usually calling you to book for employing the expressions of the fishwife or Billingsgate porter – but I’m horrified to hear you spouting all that rot to me as though it were true. It’s not. I’ll tell you what it is: it’s obfuscation. Legerdemain. Do I have to tell you what has really happened in this case?’

  ‘Sir—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt. Just listen. We have here, Box, two murders. Never mind all the fancy dressing. Gregory Walsh was murdered in the Mithraeum by a single blow from an adze. I have the autopsy report here, on my desk. Abraham Barnes, the cement manufacturer out at Carshalton, was similarly murdered by a single blow from an adze. There’s the autopsy report on that.’ He flourished a paper briefly at Box, and then threw it down on the desk.

  ‘Murders, Box! Not ritual sacrifices, offerings to pagan gods – where did you get those addled notions from? I blame the Press. That fellow Fiske started it all with his tosh in The Graphic. Fiske is a dangerous man, because he can serve up ignorance in a dressing of erudition. All reporters do that – even the gentlemen of The Times when it suits their convenience. Well, you’ve got to cleanse your mind of all that rot, Box, and concentrate on what it is that you’re supposed to be investigating. Murders! Your task is to find the killer, and bring him to book. Why do people commit murders, Box? Come on, tell me that.’

  ‘Sir, they commit murder for financial gain, or out of hatred, or to achieve security by silencing those who could uncover a misdeed—’

  ‘That’s right. So what you must do now, Box, is find out why Gregory Walsh was killed. You don’t know the whole story there. And find out why Abraham Barnes was killed. Forget these wretched legends. This case centres on archaeology, and it’s time for you to do much more digging and delving of your own than you’ve done so far. Go out, Box, and uncover the past. Look for practical motives, and see where your fresh investigations take you.’

  Box rose from his chair. The guvnor was right. He’d make a start that very day—

  ‘In God’s name, man,’ cried Mackharness, ‘where are you going? I haven’t finished talking to you yet. Sit down. Now, let me talk for a little about one very interesting lead that you were developing before all this … this tripe overwhelmed you. The man in the seaman’s jacket. You found him at Carshalton, and then at Croydon, and had begun to track him back across the river when you seemed to abandon that particular chase, even after Sergeant Kenwright had uncovered evidence of his presence in Clerkenwell. Why did you not follow up that line of investigation?’

  ‘Sir, I’d more or less made up my mind that the man in the seaman’s jacket was none other than Professor Ainsworth. But that could not have been so. The professor caught the nine-five train to Edinburgh from Euston on the morning of the fourteenth—’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He – he told me.’

  ‘Box!’ Mr Mackharness shook his head and sighed. ‘So he told you, did he’? Did you check up at Euston?’

  ‘No, sir. But he told me that he’d talked to a Canon Venables of St Paul’s on the train, and this canon had commented on Ainsworth’s smart turn-out – morning coat, pearl-grey stock, and so on. Dressed like that, sir, he couldn’t have been the man in the seaman’s jacket.’

  ‘And have you checked that little story with Canon Venables? No, I thought not. Didn’t it occur to you that Ainsworth was detailing his alibi to you? All that talk of morning coats, and so on – it sounds as though Ainsworth may have forced the topic on to this Venables so that he could repeat it to the police later. You’re not going stale on me, are you, Box? Do you want to be taken off this case—?’

  ‘No, sir! But you’re making me feel ashamed. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Yes, well, never mind all that. I want you to probe more deeply into this business of the man in the seaman’s jacket. Follow those trains that he took, and see where they went. Go to the stations, and ask questions. Take Sergeant Knollys with you.

  ‘Another little point: Sergeant Knollys recovered the adze, but what happened to the big carpet bag? Find out. Or if you can’t find out, draw some sensible deductions. Question this Canon Venables of St Paul’s. Ask him about Ainsworth, how he seemed on the journey. Did Venables really alight at Carlisle? Do I have to go on, Box?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Now, before I move on to other matters, you’d better tell me what happened to you last night. I gather from the duty sergeant that you were called out to Rotherhithe.’

  When Box had finished his account of the murder of John Cornish, Mackharness treated him to an unpleasantly triumphant smile.

  ‘There you are, you see? Obfuscation. Already, a common criminal crudely fabricates one of these so-called Mithras murders. Well, I’m suggesting to you, Box, that someone else had already fabricated two such atrocities. All the honey and mercury, all those little plaques with lions and so forth engraved on them, were put there to mislead an intelligent man like yourself into believing a lot of tosh, and mistaking it for truth.’

  Superintendent Mackharness began to rummage round on his desk, until he had gathered a number of specific documents, and placed them neatly on his leather-bound blotter.

  ‘I want to turn now, Box,’ Mackharness continued, ‘to the immediate vicinity of the site of Gregory Walsh’s murder. You furnished me with a very full and detailed account of that rough square bounded on two sides by Priory Gate Street and Catherine Lane. I was particularly interested in the building called Hatchard’s Furniture Repository, which you described as being in good repair, but seldom open to the public. Why do you think I should be interested in that particular building?’

  ‘Because – because it stands on the site of the place where the Clerkenwell Treasure was discovered. It also extends backward from Catherine Lane to very near the excavated Mithraeum. In a street of thriving businesses, sir, it’s a bit of an anomaly, if that’s the right word.’

  ‘It is, Box. Well done! It struck me immediately that Hatchard’s Furniture Repository deserved special attention.’

  The superintendent picked up an envelope, and extracted a letter.

  ‘I wrote to the Registrar of Companies, Box, asking them about Hatchard’s Furniture Repository, and received this reply. The premises are owned by a holding company, called The North-Eastern Storage Association, with an address in Sunderland. That in turn is a subsidiary of Thomas Ainsworth & Son, shipbuilders, of Newcastle. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Sir, I’m stunned. That piece of information opens up all kinds of possibilities.’

  ‘It does, Box, and to my way of thinking they’re very sinister possibilities. So among other things, bring your attention back to Clerkenwell for a while, and to the milieu of poor Gregory Walsh’s murder. Investigate that building – you’ll have no trouble with warrants, if you need them. And examine all that business of the cement samples again. Find out who commissioned them. That piece of knowledge in itself could well provide the solution to the whole business.’

  ‘Sir, do you think I should visit this Father Brooks out at Highgate? He talked in riddles when I met him in Rotherhithe. Perhaps he’s just a well-meaning eccentric.’

  ‘Perhaps he is, and then again, Box, perhaps he isn’t. Go and see him; but before you do, go to the South Kensington Museum, and have a look at the Clerkenwell Treasure. This Father Brooks seemed to think that you should do so before you pay him a visit. Humour him, Box. It might lead somewhere.

  ‘Oh, yes. I knew there was something else. I think you and Sergeant Knollys should visit Sir Charles Wayneflete, who’s supposed to be Ainsworth’s rival in the field of archaeology. You’ve heard Professor Ainsworth’s biased account of the man; go and find out for yourself what this Wayneflete’s like, and what happened to that man of his – Crale, I
think his name was.

  ‘And now, Box, there’s something else I’ve found out for you – someone, in fact, that I feel you should visit. I was told about this person by my friend Lord Maurice Vale Rose, whose people live near her people in Essex. Lord Maurice had very kindly agreed to furnish you with a letter of introduction to this lady, whose name is Mrs Warwick Newman. She lives in an ancient former rectory in the village of Melton Castra, in the deep countryside a few miles north-west of Chelmsford. Go down and see her, and see what she can tell you.’

  ‘But who is she, sir? This Mrs Warwick Newman?’ asked Box in some bewilderment.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. She’s Professor Roderick Ainsworth’s second cousin. According to what Lord Maurice Vale Rose told me, the two of them became estranged many years ago, but she’s thought in the neighbourhood to know some very interesting things about Roderick Ainsworth’s activities in his youth. Delve, Box. Be your own archaeologist, and turn up old scandals and secrets to the light of day.

  ‘It’s just on eight o’clock, so I’ve not kept you beyond your time. I want you to take the rest of the day off, and to consider everything that I’ve said to you very carefully. Take all these documents with you, and let Sergeant Knollys know what you intend to do – draw up a plan of action with him, if you like. I think that’s all, Box. Good morning.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Box, ‘thank you very much for putting me back on the rails. I hate to think what you might have been thinking about—’

  ‘What? Nonsense. I have a very high opinion of your abilities, as you know. I just don’t like you being misled by superstitious tripe. Your almost instantaneous solution of that murder in Rotherhithe last night was typical of your special kind of expertise. So go to it, Box, and let me see some positive results next week. Send me a daily report each night before you leave.’

  In a secluded gallery leading off one of the cramped courts of the South Kensington Museum, Arnold Box sat on a bench facing a glazed cabinet that contained twelve chalices of gleaming gold, each one set with precious stones. They were standing on a strip of red velvet, which enhanced their overpowering splendour. Gold, they said, never tarnished, and these vessels looked as though they had been created only that week. But they were, in fact, centuries old.