As if by Magic

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ agreed George, anxious to make amends. ‘Absolutely. Anything you say. We’ll go now if you like.’

  Jack looked at the clock and laughed. ‘If we turned up at half past six in the morning he really would think the pair of us had lost our marbles. Let’s leave it until after breakfast, shall we?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  George Lassiter flicked through the pile of magazines on the waiting-room table, decided that the Windsor Magazine looked marginally more interesting than the four-month-old Punch and took it to the stiffly buttoned shiny leather chair under the window. He was feeling distinctly ill at ease. Dr Kincraig’s waiting room was furnished in gloomy good taste, with an oak table, substantial chairs and a solid Victorian sideboard, complete with a Nottingham lace mat and two Chinese vases. A Turkish carpet, its colours faded with age, lay in front of the brilliantly polished brass fender of the cast-iron and tiled fireplace. A reproduction of Landseer’s The Stag at Bay hung over the mantelpiece. Presumably The Stag at Bay was a reference to Dr Kincraig’s Scottish origins, but George thought it was a tactless choice.

  Dr Alistair Kincraig, a tall, stooping, sandy-haired man with ferocious eyebrows, had greeted Haldean with restrained but genuine pleasure. Both Major Haldean and Mr Lassiter would have to wait, but yes, he could see them that morning. Jack had gone into the consulting room first and had been in there for a good twenty minutes. George, who was not in the mood to be entertained by the Windsor Magazine or, indeed, any other publication, felt as if he’d spent most of his life sympathizing with The Stag at Bay.

  Eventually the door to the consulting room opened and Jack, with Dr Kincraig behind him, came out.

  Jack looked very pleased with himself. ‘I’m on the right lines, George,’ he said. ‘Dr Kincraig has been absolutely terrific. He’s explained a lot of things to me.’

  Dr Kincraig permitted himself a smile. ‘I merely confirmed what you already knew, Major.’

  ‘You confirmed what I’d guessed,’ corrected Jack. ‘Anyway, George,’ he added, inclining his head towards the consulting room, ‘will you come and join us? I’d like Dr Kincraig’s opinion on a few of the things which have been puzzling us.’

  George put down his magazine and reluctantly followed them into the room. The consulting room, with two sash windows looking out on to Harley Street and modern, comfortable furniture, was a much brighter place than the waiting room and his spirits unconsciously lifted.

  ‘Take a seat, Mr Lassiter,’ said the doctor, indicating an armchair. He sat down at the desk and looked forebodingly at George over the top of his gold-framed spectacles. ‘I understand you’ve got a problem with cats.’

  ‘I haven’t any such thing,’ said George firmly. He glared at Jack. ‘What’ve you been saying, Jack? Look, I like cats. So what? I like dogs too, and horses. I like all sorts of animals.’

  Dr Kincraig cleared his throat. ‘D’you have the urge to rescue any other animals apart from cats, Mr Lassiter?’

  ‘I don’t have the urge to rescue cats!’ George said indignantly. ‘Besides, what if I do? You make it sound like something to be ashamed of.’

  ‘Come on, George,’ put in Jack. ‘What about when we were at the aircraft factory? You were convinced there was a cat on the roof.’

  ‘That’s because there was a cat on the roof,’ countered George. ‘The poor thing was stuck. It was in distress. I know about animals. I care about them. I even know about wild animals, big game and so on, what they will and won’t do and how they behave. Sometimes,’ he added with a significant look at Jack, ‘they’re a lot easier to understand than human beings.’

  ‘And the cat in St James’s Place?’

  George wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. ‘What about it? If it wasn’t for my arm being crocked I’d have had it down in no time, no matter what you or Bill Rackham had to say about it. I like cats, Jack. I can’t abandon the poor creatures, even if you seem to have different ideas.’

  He got to his feet and paced round the room. ‘Look, doctor, I don’t want to seem ungracious, but I don’t really know why I’m here. Major Haldean – Jack – assured me you could help but I don’t need any help.’ He gravitated to the bottom of the tall bookcase which stood between the sash windows, eyeing it up and down. ‘If you wanted to help, you could try to help me find out who pinched my money –’ George put his hands on the shelves as if to test their weight – ‘or tell me what I can say to my grandfather about David –’ he stood back from the bookcase and looked around the room – ‘or, at the very least, tell me what on earth I can say to Anne.’ He walked to the desk, picked up a wooden chair and brought it back to the bookcase. ‘Anything else seems to me to be a bit irrelevant.’

  He stood on the chair and reached up, his hands clasping the top of the fortunately solid bookcase. ‘We have to help David, Jack. If you could tell them about Culverton, then that has to make a difference. Come on,’ he added in a coaxing voice, apparently addressing the empty air on top of the bookcase. He made a clucking noise with his tongue. ‘We’ll soon have you down from there.’

  Dr Kincraig and Jack exchanged glances. ‘Er . . . George,’ said Jack. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m getting the cat down, of course,’ said George. ‘How on earth it got up there, I don’t know.’

  Alistair Kincraig rubbed his hands together with deep satisfaction. ‘That’s absolutely splendid. That’s a wonderful demonstration, Major.’

  He walked over to George. ‘Perhaps if you left the cat alone, Mr Lassiter, it’ll find its own way down. I’d be obliged if you’d just be seated for a moment. I’d appreciate a word with you . . .’

  Forty minutes later, Jack stood on the pavement outside Dr Kincraig’s consulting rooms on Harley Street, looking at George’s departing back. He was off, he said, to Eden Street, to see Anne and his grandfather.

  Jack was faced with a decision. He knew enough to go to Bill Rackham but he wanted to know more. He wanted to be sure, completely sure, before he told Bill. He had run through his plans with Kincraig. Kincraig had been dubious but he was a doctor and a professional man who would always err on the side of caution. Kincraig had a full account of what Jack believed to be the truth and instructions to give that account to Rackham should anything go wrong.

  He took the black cardboard matchbook out of his pocket, the matchbook George had so casually tossed on to the table at Eden Street last night. It was such an insignificant object and yet it was proof, incontrovertible proof, Culverton had been to the Continental. However, there was nothing to say when he had been. There were plenty of innocent visitors to the Continental. Culverton might very well have been one of them. He might, thought Jack, be barking up the wrong tree. The only way of finding out was to go and look.

  Damn it, thought Jack, making his mind up, why not? He grinned to himself. It was about time he had some fun.

  It was just on eleven o’clock when Jack walked up the cobbled slope of Tilford Lane towards the Continental. In his pocket was a new rubber-covered torch, complete with batteries.

  There were a few passers-by on the pavement but no one paid him any attention. The Continental was getting ready for lunch. The dark blue double doors were open and a white-aproned waiter was sweeping the steps. Jack glanced upwards. The Continental shared a common entrance with the businesses on the upper floors of the building which were, according to the brass plate set into the wall, Wallace and West, Fruit Importers, and the Macedonian Refugee Benevolent Fund. However, unlike the Continental, there were no lights and no sign of life in the upper floors. Business, he thought, must be very thin indeed. In fact, he was prepared to bet there wasn’t any at all.

  Jack turned the corner, past the end of the terrace which housed the Continental, and on to Saffron Place. A few yards further brought him to a narrow passageway running between the backs of Tilford Lane and Jutland Street. It was called optimistically and, thought Jack, looking at the grime-blackened sign, misleadingly, Da
inty Alley. It was an uninviting sort of place, reeking with decay and too narrow for any natural light to ever reach the green-slimed packed earth underfoot. The bricks of the walls, once light yellow London clay, were black with decades of encrusted soot. However, this was the back of the Continental and that made it very attractive indeed. Jack glanced over his shoulder to check he was unobserved and walked down the alley.

  Most of the buildings backing on to Dainty Alley had ordinary high wooden gates leading, at a guess, on to minuscule yards. The back gate of the Continental, though, had, as well as a wooden gate, new iron bars set across the entrance. That, thought Jack, was a mistake. It showed there was something to guard. He heard noises from the kitchen and walked on. Sounds drifted up from the shops and houses roundabout. A laugh, a shout and the rattle of dishes told him he had reached the vegetarian restaurant, more than halfway down Tilford Lane and, two doors on, he came across a gate which made him pause. It looked, even by the lax standards of Dainty Alley, so completely neglected. On his walk up Tilford Lane he had noticed a disused draper’s shop near the vegetarian restaurant with a faded To Let sign in the window. He gave a grin of triumph. This was the place he had been looking for.

  The gate was hanging by one rusted hinge and, wincing at the noise it made as it scraped across the stone flags of the yard, Jack pushed it open. Once inside the yard, he paused. The clatter from the vegetarian restaurant continued unchecked and he relaxed.

  He didn’t know how long it had been since anyone had last entered the yard but, judging from the dark moss between the flags and the sickly ash shoot springing up in the corner, it must be a couple of years at least. The door to the draper’s was locked, of course, and he didn’t want to break a window because of the noise. He examined the kitchen window and smiled. Drawing out his clasp-knife he slipped it under the beading round the window. It came away easily, exposing the crumbling putty underneath. Within ten minutes he had scraped out the old putty and, digging in behind the glass with his knife, pulled out the entire sheet of glass and climbed in over the filthy sill. His trousers, he thought ruefully, would probably never recover.

  The house was deathly quiet and, coming out of the kitchen into the hallway, he saw that the door to the shop stood partly open. He caught a glimpse of the old mahogany counter, dim in the dust-filtered light, but it wasn’t the shop he wanted, it was the stairs.

  Flicking on the torch, for it was very dark, he climbed up the grimy wooden treads to the third floor. The odd rustle told him that the house had mice – he hoped it was only mice – but no human sound reached him. The door to the attics opened on to a steep staircase. Here, three floors up, there was light from a window high enough to catch the gloom of a November day. The attics had a scattering of junk – old bolts of cloth, some brown paper, parts of a sewing machine – and a little door was set into the eaves.

  It was secured by a latch and Jack needed his clasp-knife to open it. Once the door was open he switched on his torch, knelt down and peered inside.

  He felt like cheering. As he had hoped, the attic eaves stretched far beyond the confines of the draper’s shop, linking all the houses in the terrace. He took off his coat and left it in the attic. Stooping, for it was a small door, he wriggled through on to the sooty rafters.

  The wind blew through the narrow gaps in the roof, staled by grime and smoke. The underside of the slates shone with the reflected light. There was, once his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, enough light to pick his way and he pocketed the torch thankfully, glad to have both hands free. It wasn’t high enough to stand upright, but by keeping to the attic wall and crouching down he could step carefully from rafter to rafter. The last thing he wanted to do was break through the plaster.

  It took him some time to reach the eaves of the Continental but, granted it was the last house in the row, at least there was no possibility he would come out in the wrong building. He crouched down beside the door to the attics of the Continental and listened. He was at the front of the house and from under the slates came the noise of Tilford Lane – footsteps, voices and the occasional creak of a wheel or growl of a faraway car – but on the other side of the door was complete silence.

  A rim of light surrounded the little door, a black bar showing where the latch was. He inserted his knife under the latch and flicked it open. Again he waited, then put his hands on the door and lifted it up and out. The wood grated, sounding unnaturally loud, but no challenge met the sound and Jack, who had unconsciously been holding his breath, gave a sigh of relief.

  He gingerly climbed out into the attic. For a moment he stood rigidly, listening for any sound, then relaxed, stretching his cramped muscles and taking stock of his surroundings.

  The room was illuminated by a skylight and a partly open door and contained a collection of trunks and boxes. That it was used from time to time was evident from the footmarks on the dusty floor and by a book of matches and a used candle stuck into a champagne bottle placed on a trunk by the door. He picked up the bottle, weighing it thoughtfully in his hand. Now he was actually here he felt the need of a weapon and the heavy bottle would do nicely. Holding the bottle by the neck, he put the candle stump into his pocket and slipped out through the door.

  It led on to a small landing from which a substantial stairwell descended into the house. Through the filthy window at the top of the stairs he could make out a thin slit of sky and solid blocks of the houses overlooking Dainty Alley. These must be the back stairs. He could see the banister rail running down in a succession of decreasing squares to the ground floor below. The back door of the Continental was open, letting daylight into the bottom of the stairwell. A hum of noise came clearly up to the deserted landing.

  It was, Jack knew, dangerous, but there was no point in retreating now. He needed some solid facts to back up his theory and those facts lay downstairs. As quietly as he could and once more keeping closely to the wall, he stole downstairs to the next landing.

  This was a cleaner replica of the floor above, with a window and a door. He paused for a few moments outside the door, his senses twitching, alert for any sign of life, before he slowly turned the handle.

  Everything was quiet. Peering through the hinged side of the door, he could see shelves, a filing cabinet and a desk with a covered typewriter and a letter tray. Offices! He crept into the room, pausing by the desk. The letter tray contained about thirty small brown envelopes, each with a typed name and address, waiting to be posted. It was a bit risky but Jack took one of the envelopes and put it in his pocket. The letter it contained might make useful reading.

  He slid open the top drawer of the desk. It contained a desk diary and a bunch of six keys. The keys were labelled Club, Office, Bar, First Floor, Second Floor, Stairs. He took the bunch to the door opening on to the stairs and tried the one marked Stairs in the lock. It fitted. They, thought Jack, might be useful, but he could hardly walk off with the whole set of keys. With a sudden grin he took the candle stump from his pocket and a sheet of paper from the desk. He lit the candle so that the wax pooled on to the paper, then took impressions of the keys, leaving the wax on the desk to harden.

  He looked at the desk diary next. There were various entries, mainly of names. The entry for 31st October made him pause. With a lift of his eyebrows he read Culverton – the works. Yes! This was what he had been hoping for. This was real evidence at last. However, it was, frustratingly, all. He wished the diarist had been more specific about what exactly the works entailed. He flipped the pages forward. The entry for this coming Friday had a word underlined: Pegasus. Underneath it were three names: G. Stoker, A. McCann and S. Bierce. Pegasus? Friday, he knew, was the day on which the Pegasus would take its maiden flight, the day Anne Lassiter had arranged the glamorous and much-talked-about dinner in the air over London. He closed the diary and opened the second drawer. This contained a flat cardboard box. He opened it and drew out a handful of black silk. Masks, he realized, spreading the silk out on his hand. The box c
ontained about three dozen black masks. Of course! If Culverton was concerned enough about his privacy to cut the labels off his clothes, he’d want something to cover his face. He put one of the masks in his pocket, replaced the box in the drawer and looked at the filing cabinet thoughtfully.

  He would give an awful lot to go through that filing cabinet but he still had more exploring to do. He picked up the wax impressions of the keys, put them in envelopes from the desk, and, placing them carefully in his pocket, walked quietly across the room to the far door. Once again he paused and listened before he opened it a crack.

  It took him a few moments to make sense of what he saw. He was looking into a large, dark, thickly carpeted space. The office had been dingily but adequately lit by natural light from the windows, but the room he was looking into now seemed, at first glance, to have no windows at all. As his eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom, he could make out a sliver of light from above the curtained windows.

  Leaving the door open behind him, he went in. This was no use. He needed light. Taking out his torch, he snapped it on, blinking as the beam cut through the darkness. He swept the light round the room. It was set out as a nightclub with a bar at the far end. It looked, at first sight, very similar to the Continental. However, whereas in the Continental the tables and chairs were for eating and drinking, the seats in this room were large, luxurious sofas. The space in the middle looked like an ordinary dance floor but it was raised about a foot above the rest of the room. It was, in fact, a circular stage. The torchlight came to rest beside the bar. Here, painted on to the wall and running from floor to ceiling, was a mural of the Eiffel Tower.

  Paris! Jack gave a little sigh of satisfaction. He was in Paris, Culverton’s Paris. It was here Culverton had planned to come on 31st October. This was the Paris he had noted in his diary. Jack realized something else, too. Downstairs, in the Continental, this was the thing which had niggled him. The Continental was decorated with European landmarks but the Eiffel Tower, perhaps the most famous landmark of them all, the one object that signified, to the majority of Britons, France and the Continent, had been missing. He hadn’t spotted its absence at the time, but he’d known that something wasn’t right.