That Old Black Magic

by Cathi Unsworth

  “Ralph Nicholson is dead,” the Chief cut her off. “And you supplied his killer with the weapon. The High German Black Book was what De Vere was after, wasn’t it? And you brokered the deal with Price for him that night at the Ghost Club. Did you know at the time what he wanted to use it for?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” her voice was shrill now. “Why are you hounding me?”

  “You know as well as I do,” said the Chief, “that De Vere is no longer in England.” His eyes travelled across the room to the radiogram beside the cocktail cabinet. “I expect you listen into his nightly broadcasts from Berlin like the rest of the country – only unlike the neighbours, you are aware of who Lord Lucifer really is. And how he managed to book his passage, bringing gifts of the highest value to Himmler – Price’s book and the scalp of one of our top agents. It’s not Borley Rectory the Ghost Hunter needs to investigate,” he added. “There are more skeletons in your own closet.”

  “I say!” Behind them, the lounge door banged open and the admiral stood there in his dressing gown and slippers, eyes flashing wildly around the room, the remaining strands of his grey, frizzled hair standing on end like exclamation marks. “What’s going on here?”

  The admiral was a drinker too, but twenty years older than his wife, he was less able to deal with its ravages. Mirabelle sprang to her feet. “It’s all right, dear,” she said. “Go back to bed, I won’t be much longer.”

  But his bleary eyes had focussed on her unwelcome guest. “You, sir!” he bellowed. “What are you doing in my house?”

  The Chief got to his feet. “I’m giving your wife advance warning that I mean to see her in court again,” he said, “and this time the evidence will be irrefutable. I’ll see myself out, Lady Wynter, it’s a shame all this nonsense has left you without the staff.”

  As he walked towards the door, this final allusion to her innate snobbery hit its target more surely than any threat of imminent prosecution.

  “Simon left last Christmas, it’s true!” she screamed at his departing back. “He went right from under your nose to where you’ll never find him again! Never!”

  The glass ashtray she threw after him hit the rim of the closing door and shattered. He waited behind it for a moment before he opened it again.

  “If you want to avoid spending tonight behind bars,” he said, “then you’d better tell me exactly what you know about it.”

  *

  The Chief took a taxi to his next destination, stopping on the Embankment so he could walk the last stretch over Lambeth Bridge towards the stark modernist building on the other side. He entered a foyer lined with shops through a stone portico, taking the lift up to the top floor, which was listed as the premises of the Texas Oil Company Ltd. The doors opened onto an anteroom, through which his footsteps echoed as he walked towards the much quieter, linoleum-floored offices of MI5.

  He had been summoned by his own CO, a lithe little man who might have been mistaken for a trader of second-hand cars on Warren Street with his receding hairline, pencil moustache and camouflaging cloud of cigarette smoke. He certainly shared a similar sense of humour with traders of that nature, perhaps equally as essential to his work.

  Another man was already present in the wood-panelled office, one whose round glasses and charcoal grey suit signalled another profession that could hardly be mistaken.

  “May I introduce Cecil Forbes-Dixon, assistant undersecretary to the Home Office, C-Division?” the CO said. Both men rose to their feet and everyone shook hands.

  “The Duncan situation,” the CO came straight to the point. “I’m not convinced that we should proceed. There are some in Fleet Street reading this situation as a potential martyrdom, and I must confess I share their concerns. It’s my feeling that any move to prosecute now might serve to legitimise what she was supposed to have done in Portsmouth and give Hannen Swaffer and his friends a heroine to champion in court.”

  The Chief raised his eyebrows. “Yes,” he said, “the thought had crossed my mind.”

  “Furthermore,” the CO went on, “Cecil here has been talking to the Assistant DPP about the likelihood of securing a prosecution under the Vagrancy Act, and neither of them is convinced this is the right way to proceed, either. Cecil?”

  The civil servant nodded, opening a yellow folder he had brought with him. “Given the limited evidence that we have against her at this stage, we felt that a charge of Conspiracy to Defraud might have more chance of securing a conviction,” he said, consulting his notes. “We’ve been looking at the transcripts sent from Edinburgh CID about her prosecution under a similar charge in 1933.”

  “She was fined £10 that time,” the Chief recalled. “While I’m sure that would have hurt, it’s not really the result Brigadier Firebrace is after.”

  “Exactly,” said the CO. “We need to take a different approach. I would like Mrs Duncan’s supporters to think that we have lost interest and leave her to get on with it in Portsmouth, where DI Fraser is amassing evidence about the Master Temple. I’m happy for him to go on, liaising with Cecil, until such time the DPP judges we have sufficient evidence to bring about an actual custodial sentence.”

  “Makes sense,” agreed the Chief. “Do you want me to continue any lines of enquiry?”

  “Not if they are likely to stir up trouble from across the river,” said the CO, glancing over at the civil servant, who nodded his agreement. “Thank you, Cecil.” The CO dismissed the civil servant, waiting until he had closed the door behind him before continuing.

  “Will you do me one more favour?” he asked. “Break the news to Firebrace for me?”

  “I’ll take him to Rules,” agreed the Chief. “That’ll soften the blow.”

  “Good,” said the CO. “Now, about this other matter. You have news on De Vere?”

  “Not good. I’ve been speaking to our old friend Lady Wynter. It seems she was consorting with him at the Ghost Club, along with our dead agent Nicholas Ralphe, in order to help him get his hands on a book of German black magic sought by SS High Command. When I threatened to make her an accessory to murder and treason she got angry enough to admit she knew De Vere left last Christmas. Which ties up one matter, at least.”

  “Yes?” The CO raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, according to both Ralphe and Kohl, that was the same time Belladonna was summoned back to Germany. The timeframe fits as well as the company he was keeping. I’ll wager it was she who got him to Berlin.”

  19

  IT’S BAD FOR ME

  Friday, 20 February 1942

  Now this, thought Spooner, gazing up at the white mansion, is the sort of place you want to go to for a séance. A brass plaque beside the gate informed him he had arrived at the Christian Spiritualist Greater World Association. Tonight, in more notable surrounds than the Master Temple on Copnor Road, he was finally going to see Helen Duncan in action.

  It was his editor who had insisted that he should go, saying that this was the perfect opportunity for Spooner to see what Two Worlds would be fighting for, should any harm come Helen’s way. He thought it might make a pleasant excursion, a reward for all the hard work Spooner had put into investigating events in Portsmouth, the eye-witness statements he had so diligently prepared, now deposited in Oaten’s solicitor’s safe.

  Spooner didn’t need to be asked twice. The past couple of months had moved frustratingly slowly and no one else had called him to London on other business.

  Miss Moyes greeted him at the door, resplendent in her best grey moiré. By her side, Mr Hillyard had for once left his boiler suit on the peg and instead wore a black suit and bowtie. “Mr Spooner, so wonderful to meet you,” she said, taking his hand. “Ernest has told me so much about you. Please, let Mr Hillyard take your coat.”

  Spooner did as he was asked, only just stopping himself from gawping when he realised that one of the caretaker’s outstretched hands was made out of wood.

  “Do come through.” Miss Moyes led Spooner into a lounge th
at, in any lesser residence, would have seemed more akin to a ballroom. She steered him through the throng to a table of drinks and directed him to help himself to a glass thimble of sherry.

  “Now, who can I find to take care of you?” She scanned the sea of heads until her eyes rested on the copper curls of one of her regular circle. She crooked her little finger in the woman’s direction. Spooner followed her gaze. The woman – short in stature and probably in her early forties, immaculately dressed and coiffured and looking back at them with penetrating green eyes – was somehow familiar. As she made her way towards them, he realised why.

  Back in 1938, his then DCI Ted Greenaway had organised a raid on a brothel on Dover Street. It had been a delicate operation – the premises were not any common or garden knocking shop, but a specialist “House of Correction”, known to be frequented by MPs from both sides of the House, a couple of famous QCs and, rumour had it, some of their own superiors. Therefore Greenaway carried out his operation in the middle of the day, when the House was sitting, the Old Bailey was in session and he was least likely to embarrass any prominent members by sweeping them into his dragnet.

  Instead, he had brought in the six-foot-tall Jamaican madam, still wearing her thigh-high leather boots, three other women who had been playing poker in the kitchen, and the rumoured brains behind the operation, the copper-haired, green-eyed maid. The same woman who was just about to offer him her hand.

  “This is Mr Ross Spooner. He’s a journalist from Two Worlds magazine,” he heard his hostess inform her. They had called her the Duchess because she looked so regal. She still did. He, however, had altered considerably from the last time they would have laid eyes on each other from opposing sides of a cell door.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Spooner said, taking her slim, cool palm into his own. Her eyes appraised him with interest. Was there any recognition there?

  “A journalist?” she said. She spoke very carefully, finessing her vowels to cover any traces of the Cockney that lurked beneath. “How interesting. Have you been writing for the magazine for long?”

  With a nod, Miss Moyes turned back towards the hallway to greet her remaining guests. Spooner played the innocent. “Tell you the truth, it’s the first time I’ve been trusted to do a lead story,” he said. “I hope I don’t make a hash of it.”

  “And it’s Mrs Duncan you’ll be writing about?” she enquired. A smile danced across her lips. He remembered how she had infuriated DCI Greenaway. Got right under his skin.

  “Aye, that’s right,” said Spooner. “She’s quite a fearsome reputation with the ectoplasm, hasn’t she?”

  The Duchess raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “I don’t doubt she’s full of it,” she said. Then she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Do you know of her from Scotland, then? I’m afraid to say I’m not so familiar with her talents myself. I’m only really what you could call a dabbler, you see.”

  “Oh aye, yes, well,” Spooner tried not to reveal his amusement at this last comment. His cheeks flushed with the effort. “Mrs Duncan’s from Callander, she’s a Highland lassie, whereas I’m from Aberdeen. We’ve no’ actually met before, but I have been taking a keen interest in her career for a wee while now.”

  She looked disappointed. “Well, I’m sure your story will turn out fine,” she said, her glance moving over his shoulder. “It’s a shame Mr Swaffer isn’t here,” she added. “He would have been able to give you some tips on getting a scoop, no doubt.”

  Hannen Swaffer. Spooner flashed back to the white-haired old reporter sitting opposite Greenaway in his office when he was bringing in the files on the Dover Street women. Though the others had left long paper trails and many different aliases, this one had never so much as stepped into a magistrate’s court. Had Swaffer clocked him on that occasion? Greenaway’s Fleet Street pet was famous for his uncanny fact-collecting abilities. In fact, he was famous, full stop. He had better seem suitably awed.

  “Mr Swaffer?” he jerked his hand upright, spilling drops of his sherry down the front of his waistcoat. “Hannen Swaffer, you mean? The Hannen Swaffer?”

  “That’s right.” His companion’s eyes continued to scan the room, settling somewhere over his left shoulder. “Though, we have got another of his protégées with us – that lady there,” she pointed, “Daphne Maitland her name is. She does the in-house magazine for Miss Moyes. Puts the whole thing together and then prints it in the basement here. Would you like to meet her?”

  Spooner saw a willowy woman in a dove-grey suit leaning over a man in a bath chair who was holding up an ear trumpet for her to talk into. Although the room contained a lot of clearly well-off people, the simple lines of her outfit and the sleek cut of her hair made the shows of diamonds and furs of some of the older matrons look cheap by comparison. He wondered what had brought her here.

  “Oh, aye,” he said, shooting a quick glance back at his companion. Was she starting to slip into a procuress role here, he wondered? He cleared his throat. “I mean, yes, please.”

  “I’m not really a journalist,” Daphne Maitland seemed embarrassed by the suggestion. “It’s just a few skills I learned with a friend of mine, who sadly passed away recently.”

  “She was murdered,” the Duchess put in bluntly, traces of the Cockney surfacing. “Swaff brought Daphne here to help her recover, didn’t he? Where’s he got to tonight, Daph? I thought he’d have been the first through the door.”

  Daphne did a good job of turning a wince into a smile. “I’m afraid he’s not going to be able to attend,” she said. “He’s been called away on urgent newspaper business.”

  “Aw, that’s a shame,” the Duchess pouted.

  “He’s been very kind to me,” Daphne looked at Spooner with sincere, oval-shaped eyes, the same colour as her suit and shaded very subtly with violet. “It was Mr Swaffer’s suggestion that I might turn my grief towards helping others by coming to work for Miss Moyes. I’m sure you are aware of all the good she does with her night shelters for bombed-out women and children. So, what I mainly do is try and find donors to keep the work going, via this small news-sheet I design and print for her each week.”

  “She’s good at that and all,” her companion added, craning her neck to see what else was going on in the room. Daphne ignored her.

  “Swaff always contributes. It is such a shame you won’t get to meet him, he was particularly keen on seeing Helen Duncan again. I gather she was here once before, last January, and it was all rather dramatic…”

  Daphne was cut off by the tinkling of a bell. Miss Moyes was about to begin the séance.

  “Would everybody please take their seats?” she asked. “Our special guest is ready.”

  “This way,” the Duchess took Spooner’s arm, propelling him to the front row. “You’ll be wanting the best seat in the house to write your article, won’t you?”

  “Ach, er, thanks,” was all Spooner managed to say before she plonked him right down in the middle, facing the cabinet – which was also a much grander affair than the one in the Master Temple, fashioned from mahogany and velvet curtains, like the one in Harry Price’s lab. Daphne sat down on the other side of him. From behind, Mr Hillyard turned off all the lights, but for a single red bulb beside the cabinet.

  Standing directly in front of them, Miss Moyes spoke. “I can’t tell you how happy we are to welcome Mrs Duncan, and her husband Henry, back to our circle. Some of you were privileged enough to see her last time she was good enough to visit us, and will feel especially grateful that she has returned. For all of us, this is an honour.”

  She turned towards the medium, who had made her way from the back of the room, resting her hand on her husband’s arm. Even in the dim light, Spooner could see that time had not been kind to Helen. The woman in the black satin pyjamas photographed by Harry Price was a slip of a girl compared to this black-clad behemoth, shuffling along in her long dress and Paisley shawl. It seemed that, as for her nemesis Harry Price, even the act of walking had be
come a troublesome thing for the medium. Her husband strode carefully by her side, his eyes darting from left to right, seeking out obstacles to their progress.

  “Thank ye,” she said, when she finally arrived at Miss Moyes’ side. “I hope to bring ye happier tidings this time.” Her voice wheezed with exertion.

  “To assist Mrs Duncan in finding the right vibrations, if we could all now say The Lord’s Prayer and then sing the 23rd Psalm,” Miss Moyes instructed. The assembled bowed their heads and began to intone the words to the prayer. Spooner kept his eyes on the cabinet. Henry Duncan tucked his wife’s skirts underneath her and offered her one last drag on his cigarette before he closed the curtains around her.

  From some distant corner of the darkened room, piano notes tinkled out. All around Spooner, voices tackled the singing with varying degrees of aptitude and he joined in, noting the tones of Daphne’s alto and that the Duchess didn’t sing along at all.

  As the last notes faded away, Henry Duncan pulled back the curtains. His wife sat slumped, her head on her chest and her eyes closed, her arms lolling over those of the chair. She began groaning, softly at first and then louder as a pale substance began to form around her mouth. With the emergence of the ectoplasm came that smell that Spooner had heard so much about, which must have hit his non-singing neighbour’s nostrils as swiftly as it did his own, as she coughed and wrinkled her nose.

  “Is this how it normally goes?” he hissed in her ear.

  “No,” she whispered back, “I can’t say I’ve ever seen it done quite this way before. Leastways, not here.”

  The medium’s head was surrounded by a cloud of the filmy material, which bulged and trembled as it hovered, then cascaded down the front of her, causing startled exclamations around the room. Then, just as dramatically, it began to rise up, fashioning itself into what looked like human form. A headless human form.

  “What a pleasure it is to see so many of you gathered here.” The voice of the apparition was not the same as the voice Helen had used to introduce herself. If anything, Spooner thought, it sounded more female, the words pronounced in an icy English accent. He stared, trying to work out how this was being worked if it was, as Harry Price had said, merely a length of cheesecloth. And which of the Duncans was so good at throwing their voice? As if wanting to give him a better look too, the spectre drifted towards him.