Nor Will He Sleep

by David Ashton

  Stevenson forbore to mention that the man had spent all his treasure money, one thousand pounds, in nineteen riotous days. However, the fellow had ended up in church and sang to the Lord of Pirates plus their prey.

  ‘And what did he say that you most remember?’

  A slow smile crept reluctantly over the young man’s face.

  ‘Many’s the long night, I’ve dreamed of cheese – toasted mostly.’

  Stevenson’s laugh and the father’s shout coincided to send John Gibbons on his way, his eyes showing a shaft of feeling that was oddly touching.

  ‘Bring the book,’ called the writer. ‘And I will sign it with the utmost alacrity!’

  He smiled as he watched both men disappear into one of the crooked wynds that spread out like broken blood vessels from the main thoroughfare.

  Then Robert Louis finally lit up a deep-desired cigarette and coughed so long and loudly that the skittering seagulls of the harbour waters took to the skies in alarm at such hideous discord.

  Homeward bound then, the writer turned his steps.

  Oh, that he might dream of cheese.

  Chapter 30

  The time I’ve lost in wooing,

  In watching and pursuing

  The light, that lies

  In woman’s eyes

  Had been my heart’s undoing.

  Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies

  James McLevy stood gazing at Jessica Drummond, wondering why he had volunteered himself for such a twist in the gut.

  At the station they had battered away at Daniel, but the young man, while finally admitting that he had obscured the truth as regards discordance with Agnes Carnegie, stuck firmly to the assertion that he had not returned to wreak a murderous vengeance.

  He maintained his absence was due to a ridiculous duel with one of the Runners, where the two had chased each other in and out of the wynds, the other wielding a wheelbarrow, himself a flailing stick, until they had both collapsed in laughter and called truce.

  Yet he could not name or identify his opponent under the masking scarlet, and that was all he had to offer by way of alibi.

  When confronted with his own identification by a casual passer-by, a man with no axe to grind, a man who had pointed a finger at his culpable countenance, who had seen him trail the old woman – Daniel shot bolt upright in the same small chair that Alan Grant had found so uncomfortable, his eyes blazing with fury.

  ‘Bring me this fellow and I’ll wring his damned neck!’

  ‘Will you now?’ said the inspector.

  ‘Without mercy!’

  ‘You could do it easy, he’s a wee bit timorous fellow.’

  ‘Easy meat,’ Mulholland agreed.

  ‘He’s a liar!’

  This very anger more than hinted at an uncontrollable temper, which might well have fuelled a killing frenzy, and Drummond was intelligent enough to realise the fact.

  ‘You try to provoke me, sirs.’

  ‘No,’ replied McLevy. ‘But you are a deep suspect in murder. You had motive, the instrument to hand, which you well may have cleansed later, and you were witnessed on the poor woman’s heels.’

  ‘The man is a filthy liar!’

  Another flash of that temper and Daniel bit his lip.

  A tremor of weakness and McLevy was on it like a shot.

  ‘You pushed an auld woman so she fell to the ground, is that not so?’

  Daniel crunched his eyes together for a second; Alan Grant had betrayed him – a man he had considered his true comrade. How could he have done this?

  ‘I don’t deny it.’

  ‘Are you proud of such?’

  ‘No, but – ’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She – provoked me.’

  ‘An auld wifie? You’re gey easy provoked!’

  Mulholland in his guise as treacherous peace-maker, stepped into the ring.

  ‘She drew attention to your impairment, is that not so sir?’

  ‘It was mentioned.’

  ‘In what way, I wonder?’

  ‘She – suggested it was God’s punishment.’

  ‘For your wicked ways, perhaps?’

  ‘Stupid but – yes.’

  ‘And that’s why you shoved her?’

  ‘She hauled at my coat!’

  ‘A terrible sin,’ said McLevy, firing in from the side with some heavy irony.

  ‘I’ve seen murder committed for less than that,’ said the constable thoughtfully.

  ‘True enough,’ replied McLevy. ‘Ye remember the man wi’ his neighbour’s pig?’

  ‘Oh, that was terrible. Blood as far as the eye could see. This is much tidier.’

  Daniel found himself almost totally ignored, as if his guilt had been taken for granted.

  ‘I did not murder the woman!’

  ‘Agnes was her name,’ Mulholland offered helpfully.

  ‘Agnes Carnegie,’ added McLevy. ‘And I can understand how it would happen.’

  ‘What?’

  The inspector pursed his lips and smoothed at his moustache like a satisfied beaver.

  ‘Ye went back tae correct her misapprehension, her lack of intelligence. Stupid, ye said. How dare she invoke the authority of God to poke intae such a sensitive issue.’

  ‘So you followed her to bring her attention to the offence she had caused,’ added the constable.

  Mulholland was wide-eyed with earnestness and McLevy took up his tone.

  ‘But she would not accept her responsibility in this matter, perhaps provoked you further, insult to injury and when you tried to reason, you were met with scorn. There’s nothing worse than the scorn of the unco guid, eh, constable?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a fierce aggravation!’

  The inspector puffed out his cheeks.

  ‘So you tapped her sharp with your cane. Then again to bring her to heel. Then harder, as she would not yield. And harder again – until – she lay – admonished.’

  ‘A hard lesson. Hard delivered, hard learnt.’

  Both policemen nodded at the summation, as if the matter had been laid to rest, and for a moment Daniel was almost hypnotised into the same state of mind.

  Then he shook his head, as if to clear a fiendish spell.

  ‘I never tapped the woman with my cane. I never went back. I left her there.’

  ‘In the puddle?’ Mulholland asked, as if guile was the last thing on his mind.

  ‘Yes. I am afraid so.’

  ‘On her nether regions?’

  ‘That as well.’

  ‘Not a gentlemanly act, I’d say.’

  ‘I was – provoked.’

  Now the gloves were off. The inspector’s eyes bored in.

  ‘Agnes Carnegie met her death. Your violence began the process. And it is my contention that ye finished it off as well.’

  But Daniel did not flinch.

  ‘You are mistaken, sir.’

  ‘What did you do with the book?’ asked Mulholland suddenly.

  ‘Book?’

  ‘The book you took from her. With the bad binding.’

  Daniel shook his head.

  ‘This is like a nightmare,’ he said quietly.

  Now they moved to the second murder. All grist to the mill.

  ‘Ye have a carriage?’ McLevy’s turn for the unexpected query.

  ‘Carriage?’

  ‘Wheels and a cuddy, that sort o’ thing.’

  ‘In the family. Yes.’

  ‘Describe same, if you please.’

  ‘It is ordinary. Small. Roofed.’

  ‘The horse?’

  ‘Brownie.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Name and colour.’

  ‘Saturday night. Where were you?’

  ‘In my room. All night.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I had a . . . dreadful headache. I get them sometimes.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  A silence descended. Both policemen had previously decided that they would withhold accusations of the Mary Doug
an murder until they might think of bringing Tom Carstairs to peep through the Judas Hole, but the boy had been scrupulously candid that he could not distinguish the killer, and it would be a rough call at best.

  For the moment they could get no further.

  Leave him victim to his own guilty imaginings and then return, all guns blazing.

  But leave the laddie something to chew on.

  While the fleas nipped his blood.

  McLevy pushed up close and almost whispered the words in Daniel’s ear.

  ‘Somewhere. Somewhere deep in you, my friend. The devil has his dwelling. I can smell the sulphur.’

  A fine farewell.

  Now, standing with bowler twisting in both hands, it was the inspector’s turn to feel the prod of Satan’s pitchfork.

  He had related, with just sufficient detail, circumstances of Jessica’s brother’s plight – Lieutenant Roach had decreed that the family must be informed, according to the rule of law; there were also one or two sly investigations Mulholland might perform elsewhere in the house, though that had left the inspector face to face with Jessica.

  A prospect both desired and distempering.

  At first she had been like her brother, the temper flaring, but she was without the dark undertow McLevy sensed in Daniel Drummond.

  ‘This cannot be true.’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Miss Drummond, a witness – ’

  ‘A snake in the grass!’

  ‘An old man. Whit motive would he have? We questioned both boys separately – ’

  ‘Boys?’

  ‘So they seem tae me.’

  Jessica assumed a haughty demeanour.

  ‘My brother is not a child.’

  ‘He belongs tae a class. Too much learning, no common sense. Spoiled rotten.’

  The inspector growled out the words, then Jessica made a move that left McLevy punching air.

  ‘I’m sure the same might apply to me,’ she murmured. ‘I regret my lack of manners, inspector. Please continue.’

  She moved a bowl of fruit, plucked out a red apple this time, and bit into the flesh, teeth white against the vivid skin of the fruit.

  Not realising this to be an already utilised feminine ploy, which may have been accidental with a younger man but now had perhaps a more deliberate nuance, McLevy tried to gather his scattered concentration.

  ‘Under questioning, Alan Grant has confirmed, as I have previously informed you, that your brother has no alibi for the time of the killing.’

  ‘Poor Alan. He must have felt dreadful.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To . . . inform upon his best friend.’

  ‘He told the truth!’

  ‘And the truth is your lodestar, is it not, inspector?’

  That was when she had simply looked at McLevy and he felt that twist in the gut.

  When a woman, no matter what age, simply gazes at a man, especially if she holds an apple in her hand and he has been close-gripped to her in a murky wynd, then a certain contortion of the heart might well ensue.

  As if the bottom has dropped out of the known world.

  She spoke gravely, in equality, or at least as equally as it can ever get between the woman and the man.

  ‘Daniel is boastful, inconsiderate, hot-blooded and selfish – but he is not a murderer.’

  ‘In hot blood. He might be.’

  ‘No. You are mistaken. He – an accident at birth left him with this crippled leg. His compensation is – ’

  ‘To win at all costs? De’il take the hindmost?’

  ‘I know him to the core. He is innocent.’

  ‘There is a darkness to your brother. I can sense it.’

  Jessica took another bite and moved closer, as if what she had to say was a confidence beyond all others.

  ‘Our father died when we were very young. Heart attack out of the blue. I was just a baby, but Daniel suffered . . . a terrible loss.’

  McLevy’s private thought was that such an original wound may well be the suppurating source of a homicidal response when opposed or affronted.

  As a child will lash out at the enemy.

  Blindly. Without care or regret.

  But Jessica had moved so near that he could sense the sweet fragrance of fallen fruit mixed with the odour of – wood smoke?

  Was that wood smoke he could smell?

  ‘Did you light a fire this morning?’ he blurted out.

  ‘In the garden,’ she replied. ‘The dead branches. I love to see the flames. Fire is my element.’

  ‘The devil’s gey fond of it as well.’

  Jessica laughed at the remark and her dark eyes sparkled for a moment before the face grew serious. Then she heaved a sigh that moved her bosom in perilous proximity to his official chest.

  Had she said she didnae wear a corset? Surely not.

  Every woman did. Somewhere.

  ‘It would break my mother’s heart.’

  Of course the mother had a corset, but it ended up on top of a mast.

  Why was his mind fixed on corsets?

  ‘My brother is innocent,’ Jessica said softly. ‘I know it.’

  She put the apple aside to lay her hand upon his sleeve and McLevy jolted as if galvanised by some promiscuous electrical charge.

  ‘Help me, inspector. I put my trust in you.’

  ‘Whit does that mean?’

  ‘In the wynd. You let me go.’

  ‘I got distracted.’

  ‘You let me go.’

  ‘Only the once.’

  ‘I saw it in your eyes. You are a good person.’

  ‘I’m jist a policeman!’

  As McLevy made this panic-stricken assertion, the door handle clicked and they sprang apart. Well, at least the man sprang. The woman stood her ground.

  Constable Mulholland entered, still on the case.

  ‘Well,’ he announced, apparently oblivious to the unstable atmosphere. ‘Searched his rooms and found nothing.’

  He inclined his head gravely towards Jessica.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Drummond, for letting me – poke around, as it were.’

  ‘My brother has nothing to hide.’

  ‘I’m sure I hope that might be true,’ replied the constable in a diplomatic but somewhat Irish fashion.

  ‘What were you seeking out – another body?’

  ‘No, ma’am. Biblical artefacts.’

  ‘Taken from the dead woman,’ McLevy butted in. ‘Perhaps as trophies.’

  Jessica ignored the implication that this might possibly be linked to the dubious honours list of the White Devils.

  ‘Find these and you’ll find the killer perhaps.’

  ‘You tell me my job once more.’

  She smiled at his grumpy countenance.

  ‘It’s a bad habit.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ muttered McLevy. ‘Oh jist one thing? Saturday night. Your brother’s whereabouts?’

  ‘That’s easy. In his room all night.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘Headaches. They plague him. He has to lie. In the dark.’

  ‘Did you visit?’

  ‘No. He is never to be disturbed. Until the morning.’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  For a moment their eyes met again, then the inspector stuck on his hat and made for the door.

  ‘I assume you will tell your mother and she will instruct the lawyers.’

  ‘I would imagine so.’

  ‘No’ be so easy this time.’

  ‘We may not need them.’

  As both policemen turned in surprise at this enigmatic comment, Jessica once more held McLevy’s gaze.

  ‘Do not forget your promise, inspector.’

  ‘Whit promise?’

  ‘The one you made. Goodbye.’

  Mulholland glanced sideways at his superior officer, who blinked as if stung by one of his constable’s bees, and then made a jerky movement of one arm to ward off some imaginary foe, but Jessica still had a last word in mind.

  ‘And
Mister McLevy?’

  He had stopped, comically, one half in, one half out of the room.

  ‘I’m sad to see you did not take my advice.’

  ‘Advice?’

  ‘As regards the . . . fungus?’

  She twitched fingers under her nose like a pantomime villain.

  Mulholland coughed to disguise the amusement best he could, while McLevy scowled like a child and strode huffily out of the door, followed by his lanky subordinate.

  Jessica listened to their footsteps go down the stairs

  and waited till the front door slammed.

  Only then did she let the tears flow.

  They poured down her face in a stream, and she placed her shoulder blades against the nearest wall to let her body shudder.

  Because she was not sure.

  McLevy was right. There was a darkness and had always been. A violence that ripped at the surety of their life.

  She would always have to watch. To guard. Until perhaps the day dawned when her brother could take command of that darkness.

  But was it too late?

  There seemed such a split in Daniel. He would talk about himself in a contemptuous off-hand way when alone with her, never at any other time.

  As if he were worth nothing.

  Her mother’s voice sounded once more in the next room.

  Time to tell events so far and set the lawyers in motion.

  Now she would be Jessica Drummond once more.

  Mistress of her fate.

  A great part of which was hanging in the strange brooding perception of a certain Inspector James McLevy.

  Chapter 31

  The bell’s main weakness was where man’s blood had flawed it. And so pride went before the fall.

  Herman Melville, Piazza Tales

  Sim Carnegie near jumped for joy as he saw the policemen approach. The evening edition of the Leith Herald had just hit the streets and he had been savouring the imaginary appearance of Lieutenant Roach’s face as the headline jumped up to smack him in the lugubrious official snout. ‘ARREST IMMINENT IN CARNEGIE MURDER CASE!’

  He watched McLevy pay good money for the paper then he and Mulholland, the constable craning his neck to get decent vantage, peruse the front-page story. This was a world better than a miserable lieutenant.

  The inspector’s face betrayed little, but Mulholland shook his head in a fashion that suggested the ground shifting beneath his feet.