I recalled Stoker’s words: How desperately we crave what we cannot have. He knew Miss Terry very well indeed.
‘So what happened?’ asked McGray. ‘I guess ye made it to Regent Bridge?’
Again Miss Terry blushed and looked sideways.
‘And?’ Nine-Nails pressed.
‘I saw no one,’ she spat, her face still askew. ‘I was there at the right time, not a minute late, but there was nobody around. And I waited for almost two hours.’ She saw our disbelief and cried: ‘That’s the truth!’
McGray stroked his still incipient stubble. ‘We don’t want to destroy ye, miss. If this deceit took place I’m sure ye can give us evidence. Did ye tell anyone about Carroll sending these messages?’
‘No … I …’
‘Did ye take a cab there? We can get a statement from yer driver.’
Miss Terry began fidgeting with the yarn of her dress. ‘No. I walked. I didn’t want even a coach driver to see me.’
‘And then the alleged Mr Carroll did not use the post,’ I said, ‘but that mysterious man that was seen lurking around here … only to attack Mr Stoker a few hours later.’
‘I’m not lying!’ she snapped. ‘I remember his face. I could identify him!’
‘We will have to find him first,’ I said, producing my notepad. ‘Miss Terry, tell us more about this man’s characteristic smell.’
Miss Terry ran shaky fingers through her ginger wig, so intently I thought she’d tear it out. ‘Yes … he … He always left a little nasty whiff. I would always spray my scent of camellias when he left. That was the only perfume strong enough to get rid of his trace.’
‘Pray, describe the man, to the minutest of details.’
‘Oh dear … Forty-something, though he might have been older, with leathery skin. Very thin, with pronounced bags around his eyes. And he wore very threadbare clothes, even though he sounded a little too refined for them. He had the peculiar gait, as you mentioned; as if he’d had an old injury, but it had not been treated properly.’
As I jotted down her portrayal McGray asked more questions.
‘D’ye ken anything about him? His name? Address? Any means to contact him?’
Miss Terry shook her head.
‘So how did you summon him when you wanted to send a message to – Lewis Carroll?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t. He came to me with messages and waited until I wrote my replies. That’s how it worked from the beginning.’
‘And he didnae want to be seen,’ McGray added.
‘No … he said that Charles – Mr Carroll – didn’t want his servants to be seen around me. He said it was because people would talk!’
‘So ye kept it all quiet,’ McGray added again. ‘A wee bit too quiet.’
I went to the first entries in my notebook. ‘And Miss Terry, there is the issue of the brains you found …’
She covered her mouth, as if the mere memory of that day made her retch. ‘He’d just delivered a message, right before I found the ghastly parcel.’
McGray raised a brow. ‘Is that the reason ye were washing yer hands in the middle o’ the corridor? To allow for the man to go?’
Miss Terry nodded. ‘Yes. I had just sent him out with a small present for Charles.’
It was curious that she mentioned that. I remembered Miss Ivor’s statement: that night Ellen Terry had brought a bag ostensibly full, and Miss Ivor had seen it empty after the brains had been found.
‘Had you carried that present in a …’ I read aloud: ‘blue, pouch-style handbag?’
There was no need for a reply; her eyes confirmed it all.
McGray paced around her. ‘Miss Terry, how come ye didnae suspect the man?’
Miss Terry shook her head, her face all confusion. We could tell she’d been dwelling on the fact all along.
‘I … I did … a little. But he had just brought me a very loving letter from Charles. And he was so charming! If someone brought you letters from your dearest friend you’d not suspect him capable of something like that. That’s the reason I didn’t want the matter investigated by the police. I’m sure Irving would have had people guarding my dressing room at all times; I wouldn’t be able to receive more messages.’
McGray and I exchanged incredulous looks.
‘Miss Terry,’ I said, ‘you arrived in the theatre with a bundle, left without it after the brains appeared, and you were seemingly desperate to keep people away from your dressing-room door. If I had to speculate, I’d say you put the brains there yourself.’
‘What?’
‘Now you tell us this rather implausible tale –’
‘I am telling the truth!’ Miss Terry insisted, her eyes now bloodshot. There was a hint of madness in her pupils. ‘I wouldn’t even dream of touching that filth! It was all very stupid of me not to suspect him, I know that much now! But I’m telling you the truth!’
Neither of us replied.
‘What about his letters?’ Miss Terry appealed, pointing at the book. ‘That’s his hand!’
I chuckled. ‘How can we be certain you did not sign that book yourself?’
Miss Terry’s jaw dropped. ‘How dare you imply that? Many people know his hand. He’s signed countless books! You have but to look for one. Or better still, ask him in person to write you a damn limerick!’
Her voice had become raucous.
‘Miss Terry,’ I said, ‘please calm down. You must see how suspicious this all seems to us.’
‘I do, and I’m just as baffled. This must be a trap!’
‘Trap?’ I echoed. ‘I am afraid I find it somewhat difficult to believe your story. Nobody knew of these communications, and apparently nobody saw you where you claim you went. But Mr Stoker did. He saw you in that very dress you wear now, and which you wore last night at the ball, in everybody’s sight. And we know for fact you were not on Regent Bridge, because Stoker also found that missing beetle wing on Queen Street.’
‘I told you I went to Regent Bridge. I walked a straight line on Princes Street, no detours there or back.’
‘Stoker thinks otherwise,’ said McGray.
‘Then Bram lied!’ There was more animosity between those two than either openly admitted.
‘He says he saw ye and he gave us this beetle wing,’ McGray said, ‘which he could have picked up from anywhere, I admit, but his story rings true to me. Yers, Miss Terry, doesnae. And ye have no witnesses to support what ye’ve told.’
‘It cannot be …’ she whispered. There was true despair in her features. And then, like the flip of a coin, her expression changed. ‘Unless …’
Her stare fell on some spot on the wall. For a moment I feared she too was losing her wits.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
I could see a spark glowing in her pale eyes, the epiphany forming in her head. She looked straight into McGray’s eyes, and her mouth was dry when she spoke.
‘There are two dresses.’
Right then the door burst open, almost falling off its hinges, and the dark figure of Henry Irving stormed in.
‘Leave Miss Terry alone! I will not allow –’
McGray turned to him, unsheathed his gun and pointed at the floor. ‘Shut yer gob now, or I’ll accidentally shoot yer bloody clown feet!’ Irving said no more and McGray, gun still at the ready, looked back at Miss Terry. ‘Go on. Two dresses.’
If the actress had seen the gun, she was too absorbed in her own thoughts for it to sink in. Her eyes moved from side to side while she spat words at full speed.
‘Of course! We always make two dresses – one for me and one for my understudy. Our measurements are not the same, you see.’
‘Yer understudy?’ McGray repeated. ‘Who’s that?’
Ellen’s mouth was dry. ‘Miss Ivor. You … you know her. She plays Hecate.’
‘Miss Ivor, of course!’ I could hear the exhilaration in my voice. Miss Ivor, the disillusioned, middle-aged actress whose only scene had been cut out following Miss Terry’s wishes;
the woman who’d been so keen to give evidence against her.
The woman from the same town as the manufacturer of the bloodstained leather purse.
I was about to air those thoughts, and I could tell from the spark in McGray’s eyes that he was coming to the same conclusions, but then Irving spoke.
‘Ellen, I have no idea what this is all about, but I thought that dress had been taken apart.’
Quite innocently, Irving himself had just thrown the scent back on to Miss Terry. She’d seemed momentarily relieved, but now her chest had swollen.
‘Oh, Henry …’ she mumbled, almost coming to tears.
‘So it wisnae in Miss Ivor’s hands?’ McGray jumped in.
‘No,’ said Miss Terry. ‘We left that dress with Mr Sargent, so that he could finish the portrait without me having to pose for so long …’
‘Mr Sargent?’ I asked. ‘Could he –’
‘No, no,’ said Miss Terry. She moved her fingers nervously, as if tying invisible threads in the air. ‘This dress I’m wearing was damaged on the train, on its way here. That was a couple of days before we travelled here. We were in such a rush to mount the play for Edinburgh we had to take beetle wings from Miss Ivor’s dress, so we had it fetched before leaving London. That’s why John – Mr Sargent – had to come all the way here with that mammoth canvas. He wants to exhibit that painting very soon at the New Gallery in London – apparently there’s a very important patronage at stake, so he needs it finished. Dear Oscar heard of his conundrum and funded the trip.’
‘All that is traceable,’ I said, remembering the telegrams mentioned in Stoker’s journal. ‘But it does not clear you entirely. We could –’
Irving leaped forwards. ‘What do you mean, not entire–’
McGray raised the gun but an inch and Irving went quiet.
‘Who was the last person to handle that second dress?’ I asked.
Miss Terry’s frown deepened. I had seen that expression before: the first time we’d met her and I’d thought she looked riddled with guilt. Only now it was amplified a thousand times.
‘Well, I wrote the necessary letters to Mr Sargent, but I never touched the dress myself. I had it sent directly to … God forgive me … It was delivered directly to Mrs Harwood.’
Final letter from the partially burned stack found at Calton Hill
The top of the sheet was completely charred. – I. P. Frey.
[…]
and I will cry and count my tears and I’ll collect them in a thimble, and then in a wine glass, and then in a tureen, and I will count them one by one, and I shall always know how many tears I’ve shed for you.
I’ll cry like Ophelia before she drowned herself in that ghastly Danish brook.
I’ll cry like Romeo when he found the corpse of Juliet in that icy grave.
I’ll cry like Lavinia when the Goths raped her and then cut her hands and tongue.
I’ll cry like Othello when he realized he’d been tricked into smothering his beautiful wife to death.
And I will count those tears and I shall always know how many tears I’ve shed for you.
Love,
X
38
Once again I found myself looking through Mrs Harwood’s window. The backyard’s floor was now completely clean, and one of the scullery maids was there, sitting on a tiny stool peeling a mountain of potatoes.
‘It would not take much agility to go in or out through this window,’ I said. ‘If Mrs Harwood was silent enough, our guards would not have noticed.’
McGray pulled the curtains to have a look. ‘Aye. And she had a very good view; could’ve seen when that chap Cooper lowered his guard – and then strike him. She’s proven she can be violent.’
I noticed the undertone in his voice. Being reminded of his own tragedy had brought McGray’s spirits to a dangerous low, and now he dragged his feet and moved lethargically. He had no energy to defend his banshee theory any more, but he seemed so crestfallen I decided not to boast about all the whisky he’d soon owe me.
Avoiding my eyes, he searched the room slowly but conscientiously. The silence was oppressive, but fortunately it did not last.
‘Here it is,’ he said, on all fours and looking under the unmade bed. He pulled what at first sight looked like green rags, but then I realized it was the torn remnants of tinsel and yarn.
‘The second dress!’ I gasped. As I spoke, McGray pulled the full garment from under the bed, and we heard a metallic clink. A little golden thing fell from between the folds, and McGray caught it as it rolled across the floor. I saw it was a thin, cheap wedding ring, too small for a man’s finger.
‘Mrs Harwood dropped something,’ McGray said, pocketing it, and then he spread the spoilt material on the bed. There was no doubt; it was a perfect copy of Ellen Terry’s dress.
‘How anticlimactic,’ McGray said.
‘Two dresses,’ I muttered, suddenly recalling my first encounter with Mrs Harwood. ‘Her only alibi for the night of the first sighting was Miss Terry’s dress. Everyone saw a torn dress in the evening, and the following morning it was restored. That is how she attempted to prove she’d not been at Regent Bridge, but busy at work at the Lyceum. Of course, if there always were two dresses … That changes it all.’ I shook my head. ‘And I consciously avoided mentioning the dress alibi in front of Miss Terry … perhaps that would have sent us in the right direction from the very start.’
McGray sighed deeply. ‘We should ask the lads to take this to the City Chambers and store it. This is proper evidence.’
We stood there in silence for a moment, simply looking down at the few cracked wings that were still attached to the weave.
It could have been the end of it, both of us satisfied that enough clues pointed at Mrs Harwood, but right then something happened in my mind; something shifted in me and it would never go back.
‘No,’ I mumbled. ‘There is something here I do not like at all.’
‘What d’ye mean? Ye won! Ye were always right. It was the mad Harwood woman.’
In the vast majority of cases I’ve dealt with the culprit is always the most obvious person. There is always glaring evidence; everything pointing at a sensible truth. And it looked like the rule also applied to this case: all the clues and evidence pointing at the seamstress. However, there were still many unexplained details, and it bothered me.
I told McGray all of this, and he laughed wryly. ‘Are ye saying – ye do think there was a banshee?’
‘No no no. Step back. I am saying I believe there is something odd here.’
‘Do ye doubt what yer seeing? Do ye doubt Mrs Harwood was the figure Stoker saw last night?’
‘My most rational side says it can be the only answer – however …’
McGray let out a sour laugh. ‘Are ye having a hunch? A premonition? I can ask Madame Katerina to give ye a beginners’ course.’
‘McGray, think about it. The anonymous messenger, Miss Terry’s illogical tale, the blood – God, I still need to trace who bought the blood from the butchers! And remember that sonnet predicting somebody’s death tomorrow. Could an unbalanced woman have the wits to write those lines? I refuse to believe this is it. This case is far from over.’
But first we had to tell the children. It was a dire prospect, but it was our duty.
Miss Terry had requested the deed be done in her chambers, so we headed there.
Mr Clarke, the hotel manager, intercepted us. ‘Inspectors, this nurse here insists on seeing you.’
Miss Smith came behind him, looking rather grim, but I truly welcomed the sight of her. She’d be invaluable when breaking the news to the children.
McGray cast Clarke a killing stare and the man had the tact to retire at once.
‘How bad is she?’ I said.
‘I had to sedate her, Inspector. I knew she was on the edge, but I didn’t expect she’d crack so soon.’
McGray told her we had found the torn dress and that everything pointed at Mrs Har
wood being responsible for the ‘apparitions’. ‘Looks like she should remain under yer care,’ he concluded.
‘That would be the best, and Dr Harland agrees. Now I only need to wait for Dr Clouston to return and give the second opinion. You mentioned that Mrs Harwood doesn’t have any family or next of kin?’
‘Only her two children, as far as we know,’ I said. ‘We were just on our way to tell them about their mother’s situation. Do you think it is the right thing to do?’
Miss Smith’s face went sombre. ‘Sadly, yes. In my experience delaying this type of news only makes things worse.’
McGray rubbed his eyes, looking terribly tired.
‘Dr Clouston should be back in a few days,’ said Miss Smith. ‘He sent a telegram saying so. I’m sure he’ll have news for you then.’
McGray did not answer immediately. He lowered his face but could not bring himself to look at his mutilated hand.
‘Let’s get it done, then,’ he said at last.
Just before I knocked at the door, a long, pale hand, as cold as a corpse, held me by the wrist.
It was Irving.
‘Inspectors,’ he whispered, ‘I must ask you – well …’
‘Speak,’ McGray huffed, not a trace of patience left.
Irving took a deep breath and spoke with a most supplicatory tone. ‘I know what you are going to tell them, I’m not an idiot. Mrs Harwood can’t leave the asylum.’
‘Yer so clever,’ McGray said in a monotone.
Irving had to take a deep breath. ‘Could you possibly – tell them after the premiere?’
I frowned at the request. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Inspector, please, they are going to find out anyway. But if we tell them now … it might ruin their performance. Particularly the girl’s.’
McGray threw his head back in the loudest cackle imaginable. ‘Ye unbelievable piece o’ scum!’
He pushed Irving aside and banged at the door. When we stepped in we found Miss Terry already there. She’d changed into a lilac muslin dress, and sat at her parlour table which was full of biscuits, cakes and tea. Susy and Freddie were on the sofa, at the foot the imposing oil painting.
A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray) Page 26