The Cunning House

by Richard Marggraf Turley

  Adams turned to Read. “The surgeons appear to have finished fighting over who gets custody of Sellis’s bones. I’d be grateful if we could discuss the remainder of the inquest schedule. His Majesty is obliged if the jury could convene half a day earlier.”

  A deep furrow formed above the bridge of Read’s nose. He reached into his blue-bag, drawing out a sheaf of documents, which he pushed at Wyre. “Digest these,” he said. “Mr Adams and I have a few things to discuss.”

  While Read stepped outside with the Coroner, Wyre took a seat at the Duke’s shiny table. He leafed through the legal vellums till he found Neale’s statement. So, what did the Duke’s shining white knight have to say for himself?

  Deposition of Cornelius Neale, Valet to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland,

  Who, being on his oath, says he attended his Royal Highness to bed last night at about twelve o’clock; and after his Royal Highness had passed the yellow room, which he always does when he goes to bed, the informant shut the door and is very sure he locked it, and afterwards remained in the Duke’s room until his Royal Highness had got into bed. No other person was in the room. The informant then went to bed in the valet-in-waiting’s room adjoining the Duke’s bedroom.

  While he was in bed, a little before twelve o’clock, the informant heard his Royal Highness call out “Neale! Neale! I am murdered!” On which he got out of bed and met the Duke of Cumberland at the door. His Royal Highness declared the murderer was still in his bedroom. The informant says he seized a poker, and ran towards the yellow room, seeing the door, which he had locked before going to bed, wide open. He immediately stood on a naked sword lying on the floor. He took up the sword and asked leave of his Royal Highness to pursue the assassin, but his Royal Highness desired that he should not. His Royal Highness then leaned on the informant’s arm, and they went together to the porter’s room. The porter was ordered by his Royal Highness not to allow any person to leave the house. They then returned to the Duke’s bedchamber and, on going downstairs, met Mrs Neale, whom his Royal Highness desired to summon Mr Sellis.

  His Royal Highness, faint from loss of blood, lay down on his bed. He would not allow any of his wounds to be examined until the arrival of his surgeon. Instead, he desired the informant to look for the assassin, to find where he could have been concealed prior to the attack. The informant opened the door at the foot of the bed leading to a small room that has three closets. In the second of these, the informant found a pair of leather slippers with the name Sellis written in each; also a dark lantern. At this time, Mr Jackson arrived and the informant assisted him in binding up the Duke’s wounds.

  CORNELIUS NEALE. Sworn before me, John Read.

  Wyre skimmed back over the document to find the bit about Neale’s wife. So Neale was claiming she’d been sent to rouse Sellis. In The Chronicle’s fugitive account, hadn’t Neale himself been assigned that task? It was a small detail, but most details were. That’s why they were details. He turned, sensing Read at his shoulder.

  “It seems we’re working to a tighter schedule now,” the magistrate said gruffly. “But it doesn’t change things. The crux of the matter – ” he pointed at Neale’s deposition “ – is right there in front of you.”

  Wyre looked at him. “Sir, Neale deposes his wife was dispatched to Sellis’s private room. In the newspapers – ”

  Read rode over him. “We go by the official interview, not some news rat’s fantasy.” He pulled again at his tight collars. “Right, if you want to see Sellis, you’d better get a move on. He’s not getting any fresher.”

  Leaving the Duke’s bedroom, Wyre followed Read through a bewildering succession of chambers, antechambers and connecting halls, which the magistrate negotiated with the sureness of a trained retainer. Wyre spotted Mr Paulet in one of the long corridors: he was perched on a high ladder, unhooking a casement. The valet waved down at them, earning a tut from Read.

  Fifty paces further along, they passed a flight of stairs leading off, which ended abruptly with a marble-effect door that looked as if it had been dropped from above. A heavy-set man was standing to loose attention beside it, a blue hat slouched forward over his eyes. He winked at Wyre. Leighton’s world again.

  When they’d moved on, Read anticipated Wyre’s question. “Leads up to the Duke of York’s tower. Lives there with his family. We’re not to disturb him.” He lowered his voice. “The maids tell me Princess Amelia is at death’s door. York’s half-mad with anticipated grief.”

  A wide corridor brought them into what Wyre assumed was the far wing. They climbed up to the second floor, where Cumberland’s “cosseted favourites” lived, “all grace-and-favour”, as Read put it. “The others,” he added, “kitchen maids and such like, share the dormitories below. Breathing in each other’s farts all night.” He laughed unpleasantly.

  Wyre paused at a narrow, unlit corridor that intersected the main passageway from the left.

  “One of those bloody dog-legs,” said the magistrate. “It goes down to the maids’ little dens. Keeps them out of sight till they’re called. Loops round, apparently, but I’ve not been all the way.”

  Wyre poked his head into the gloomy tunnel, immediately hearing that perfectly calm voice at his ear. Have a care. He stepped back, heart hammering.

  Read watched with a quizzical expression that said it all.

  The carpeted passage widened out into a saloon or antechamber, empty save for a mahogany table and two high-backed chairs. The lacquered door at the far end had been forced; ugly splinters of wood protruded around the hanging lock.

  “Come on,” Read muttered, giving the door a push, “let’s get it over with.”

  Sellis’s body was stretched out on a plain, narrowish bed, with what looked like a badly tied crimson cravat at his throat. Wyre’s stomach jumped, but he kept its contents down.

  Two men were locked in discussion at the single latticed window in Sellis’s off-duty bedchamber. They both turned. Wyre stared in mute surprise, recognizing the spectacled surgeon who just hours earlier had pronounced on Leighton’s remains. Did Mr Cline make a habit of attending suicides? Of course he did. Self-murderers automatically belonged to the hospitals. But weren’t they jumping the gun? The inquest jury hadn’t pronounced its verdict yet.

  A thought occurred to him: those scoundrels who took Leighton’s body, they’d delivered him straight to the anatomy room! Wyre hadn’t thought to ask, his intellect dulled by grief. The idea of Mr Cline’s fingers inside his friend . . .

  Surgeon Cline approached, and introduced himself to the lawyer as if the pair hadn’t already met. Wyre found himself giving his name awkwardly in turn.

  Before he could say anything else, the other man spoke.

  “Mr Jackson, Royal Surgeon at St James’s Palace. Pleased tae make yer acquaintance, sairrr.” He had a disagreeable visage, pocked cheeks surrounded by flaming locks, the model of a Scotsman. The air around him smelled of cinnamon and acrid eucalyptus. “If you’d care tae gie our traitor a final ance over,” he said briskly, waving at the corpse, “we’ll arrange tae have custody transferred tae Mr Cline.”

  Wyre nodded, and moved warily to the corpse. The gaping wound in Sellis’s throat had two pronounced lips, lumps of something waxy discernible between them. He’d been prepared for a slit throat, but this was practically a decollation. A sheet of coagulated blood had formed over the valet’s shirt; a pellicle of blue pearls shimmered dully on the surface. The picture was completed by a dark, gelatinous pool of blood and mucus, which had soaked into the pillow.

  Sellis’s face was strangely placid, as if he were only practising death, like a Tibetan. Wyre paused at the palms, which lay flat and clean, facing the ceiling. How could a man cut his throat without fouling his hands?

  It was difficult to estimate the valet’s height. Five and a half feet, at a best guess; certainly low-sized. Sodomy stunted physical as well as moral growth. As for his age, not above thirty. Dark hair, olive skin, regular features. Handsome,
even now.

  Sellis’s jacket, trousers and gaiters hung smartly over the back of a chair at the foot of the bed.

  To the rear of the off-duty bedroom was one of those washstands with the out-swept legs. Beside the enamel bowl, which was heavily soiled with blood, lay a pearl-handled razor, neatly folded up. The oval shaving mirror was splashed with dried drops of blood, each of the spatters given a gloomy twin by the silvered glass.

  Read turned to Cline, and grinned unpleasantly. “What do you say to our freak of nature?”

  The surgeon regarded him with evenly. “An interesting choice of words. Lusus naturae come in many guises.” He adjusted the bright ribbon that held up his spectacles, undoing them on one side. “I once heard of an infant boy, in all other respects apparently normal, who at eighteen months began to vomit. About that time, his abdomen developed a large protrusion. The boy’s mother sought advice, to no avail. Two years later he was brought to me. By that time, the poor fellow was little more than a skeleton. On examining him I was able to palpate a detached tumour. He died within six weeks.” Cline retied the ribbon into a bow. “Postmortem inspection revealed a cystic cavity filled with fluid not dissimilar to green tea – and floating inside was a foetus.” The surgeon pulled the pretty ends tight. “For the duration of his short life, the lad had been carrying his own brother.”

  Cline’s hands were small, eerily beautiful. Girl’s hands.

  “Such monsters don’t exist,” Read said bluffly.

  “Oh, they do, Mr Read. God is most considerate in this regard.”

  “Considerate?”

  “Indeed. Such cases give men of my profession a perfect opportunity to expand their knowledge. I assure you, the poor boy excited as much attention among surgeons as Bonaparte’s movements that season.” He smiled at the gathering. “Postmortem, or I suppose in the boy’s case, postpartum investigation is essential to the advancement of real learning. Who knows what dissection of Sellis will reveal?”

  “I’d prefer to see him quartered as a dish for dogs.” Read sniffed savagely. “Anyway, sooner the foreign bastard’s off the premises, the better. But before you cart him away, perhaps we could hear Mr Jackson’s opinion on the cause of death. For the benefit of our Courthouse representative,” he added, glancing sourly at Wyre.

  “Hardly an enigma, Mr Reid,” the Royal Surgeon said, lifting a bushy red eyebrow, “even tae the untutored. The cause was a single, self-administered wound tae th’ throat, five or a scuttle inches wide, inch-and-a-half deep. Both carotid arteries sliced clean through. It would hae bin impossible tae staunch such a wound.”

  “And the instrument of destruction?”

  “Only a razor could hae produced such a clean cut.” Jackson pulled his lips forward into an tight circle, as if about to whistle a tune.

  “Such as that found at his bedside?” Read said in the courtroom style. He cast a glance over at the washstand.

  Jackson nodded.

  “You concur, Mr Cline?”

  “Diagnostically speaking . . .” Cline moved to Sellis’s side, resting a hand on the dead man’s shoulder as if comforting a sick patient. “My esteemed colleagues in Saxony would no doubt speak of an arterial miasm.”

  “Rogues and rupture-healers,” Jackson muttered.

  “Let us say, then,” Cline continued with a private smile, “that the fellow died from a morbid derangement of the vital force. I think we can all agree on that.”

  Wyre coughed tactfully. “Is it feasible Sellis could have produced such a deep wound with his own hand?”

  Jackson’s lips dilated. “Depth is nae obstacle tae a verdict ay suicide, Mr Wyre. The cut was made exactly between the hyoid bone an’ the larynx, a weak point in the integuments. The incision extends through the pharynx, almost touching th’ spinal column itself, but wi’ a firm hain an’ determination ay purpose, it’s possible tae achieve. I’ve seen larger wounds inflicted by th’ hands of suicides.”

  “But the evenness of the cut – ”

  “It would be a rude stroke ay reason tae suppose the signature ay a biathanate injury in the throat tae be irregularity frae want ay steadiness in th’ hand. In that final act, suicides ur aft the calmest ay folk. The wound’s regularity provides nae presumptive evidence ay homicide.”

  “Well, there it is,” Read said, adding, in a blither tone, “I spotted a hulking fellow this morning down at the stables. Big as two men.” He winked at the surgeons. “Imagine him in a clinch with one of the sulky little maids you see scampering around here. What a race of Titans might be spawned. Assuming the brute didn’t split her in two.”

  Cline brushed something from his sleeve. “It’s often believed when a female is put out with a much larger male the breed is automatically improved. The truth with animals and humans alike is that the offspring is typically of an imperfect form.” He caught Read’s expression. “Oh, yes, Mr Read. When it was the fashion in London to drive large bay horses, farmers in Yorkshire put their mares to much larger stallions than usual. The mischief to the breed was considerable, producing a race of small-chested, long-legged, worthless creatures. Curiously enough, if the female is proportionally larger than the male, the offspring is generally improved.”

  “Either way,” Read said with a snort, “Sellis was a runt.”

  “Just as well for the Duke he was,” Cline replied, miming a scything motion that began its arc high and descended with surprising rapidity.

  Read gave him an incredulous look.

  Wyre crossed to the washstand. The razor’s white handle was smeared with congealed blood. “Was the basin found in this state?”

  “Exactly in that fashion,” Read replied, frowning. “The scoundrel was attempting to wash the Duke’s blood from his hands when they arrived at his door.” He looked distastefully at the bowl. “Royal blood, that is. Someone ought to clean it up.”

  “And the razor, was it found like this, folded beside the wash basin? I’m just wondering how Sellis could have closed the blade after administering such a wound to his own neck?”

  Read’s lips twitched. “As a matter of fact it was discovered lying open on the floor, a little way from the bed. One of my constables picked it up by mistake, closed it and set it on the wash table. Don’t fret,” he said, sullenly. “He’s been reprimanded.”

  Cline’s lips formed an amused smile.

  Wyre crossed to the small door at the rear of Sellis’s private bedchamber. From what he remembered, The Chronicle claimed the door was fastened from the inside. He turned the handle, which yielded, opening into a passageway immediately lost in shadows. Wyre peered into the gloom – was it part of the side alleys Read had referred to? The lawyer turned his attention to the locking mechanism, an intricate system of interconnected rods and levers, then stepped out into the passageway, closing the door behind him. Through the door he heard Read’s muffled tones; he could guess what the Chief Magistrate was saying. He tried the handle again – as he expected, it was immoveable. Wyre rapped to be let back in.

  Read glared at him. “I assume there was a point to all that.”

  “The lock, sir. It engages whenever the door shuts.” He opened the rear door and closed it again, holding his finger up at the precise point when the spring snapped to.

  Read looked unimpressed.

  “The back door to Sellis’s room wasn’t fastened from the inside that night, sir. Not on purpose, anyway, and certainly not to keep someone out. It would just have seemed that way to anyone unfamiliar with the mechanism. Even Sellis would have needed a key when he entered his room this way.”

  “What’s the difference?” says Read. “We’re wasting precious time.”

  “It means the door needn’t be taken as a sign of guilt.”

  “Christ, Wyre,” the magistrate said testily, “we don’t need a treatise on locks. Come on, we’re finished here.”

  Wyre bowed at the surgeons, and followed his superior out.

  As they traversed the antechamber, Read growled, “
Don’t you ever show me up like that again.”

  Wyre said nothing, but looked straight ahead. On the stairs, his thoughts turned to the lad made monstrous by his brother.

  43. Fairy Tales

  He remembered always demanding the same story from his nurse, the one where the queen begs for a cloth to be pinned to her caul at the block. He liked the bit where the crowd jeered as the executioner raised his axe best. The way his nurse told it, the head went with a lovely sickening thump and a little roll, followed by a slice of blood.

  A long pause. The royal skirts begin to heave and tremble.

  “What tricks are these?” says the executioner, stepping back, stumbling due to the weight of the axe. Curiosity overcoming dread, he pokes about in the Queen’s garters with his foot . . . and there under her petticoats is Geddon her pet terrier. The executioner takes another swing of his axe, dividing the animal in two.

  “And that’s what happens to people snared by popish superstition.” His nurse always finished the story that way.

  He was a man now. A soldiering duke, no less. But the thought of Geddon smuggled to the scaffold under the queen’s folds still made him quicken. He remembered hiding his twitching yard under the blanket. His nurse finding it.

  Like always these days, his thoughts turned to his marvellous boy, White, awaiting sentence in a Bow Street dungeon. Constable Rivett must have creamed himself. ‘Grab of the year’, the rags were calling it. Well, that Public Office quim-licker would soon be enjoying a grab of his own, courtesy of Long John Kitson. When the inquest was concluded. When things had settled down.

  Then he could visit his poor White. Comfort him the best he could.

  Quite out of the question now, though. As if it weren’t bad enough having that filthy magistrate worming around the house, a little Courthouse shuck had turned up. He’d find out who was behind that, and then they’d be sorry, too.

  Poor White. He pictured his little darling bathed in dusty shafts of sun, the boy’s perfectly hung gems with their light covering of hair, the day’s vein the thickness of a crow’s quill. Or was it an artery?