The Curse Of The House Of Foskett (The Gower Street Detective Series)

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  ‘Clockwork mice and dogs,’ I said.

  ‘Just so. He would not have run the stall himself but no doubt he visited it often. He was not a man to leave his employees unsupervised. Remember he told us that he would not trust a boiler man to work unattended.’

  ‘So how did Primrose leave?’ Dorna asked. ‘Presumably she was somebody who might stand out in a toy market.’

  ‘Through the rectory,’ I said, ‘either after we had gone or when we went into the church.’

  ‘But what grounds do you have for suspecting Mr Piggety?’ she asked.

  ‘They are threefold.’ Mr G swung his watch like a mesmerist. ‘First, there is a limited number of suspects and he is one of them; second, I took a sample of mud from the floor of St Jerome’s. It had an elongated moulded shape and I intended to keep it in case it fitted the defect in a suspect’s boot, but it dried and crumbled in the envelope so that when I came to re-examine it I found a small white hair imbedded inside.’

  ‘Like the cat hairs?’ I asked.

  ‘Very like,’ he confirmed. ‘Third, I was so intent on examining the torn page of the Bible which was forced into the vicar’s mouth that I paid insufficient attention to the book from which it was torn. On scrutinizing it later, I found a number of what at first appeared to be bloody fingermarks, but there was an odd bluish tinge to them.’

  ‘And Mr Piggety suffered with coloured sweat,’ I recalled as he put his watch away.

  ‘Chromhidrosis,’ he confirmed.

  ‘I told you there were still answers to be found in the Bible,’ I reminded him.

  ‘You cannot pretend that is what you had in mind.’ He nibbled the tip of his carrot.

  ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways,’ Dorna quoted. ‘This coffee is cold. Let me ring for some more.’ She got up and went to the bell pull. ‘Oh, March.’ She was a little drawn now. ‘I would not have your job for all the tea in China.’

  ‘Imagine you could cut cancer out of your patients,’ I posited. ‘The process might be painful and gory, but you do it to save lives. I hope to save lives by ridding the world of something just as insidious as cancer, the calculating murderer.’

  ‘Why, March,’ my guardian crooned, ‘you almost make it sound worthwhile.’

  72

  Four Minutes and Forty-eight Seconds

  Jane came and cleared the tray.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Dorna asked and Jane’s head went back.

  ‘Yes, thank you, ma’am.’ She was clearly close to tears.

  ‘I know this has been a great shock,’ her mistress commiserated. ‘Would you like me to request a police guard?’

  Jane looked at my guardian, who said firmly, ‘There is no need.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence until Dorna said, ‘Then you shall sleep with me tonight.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘Why do you not come to Gower Street?’ I urged. ‘I am sure we can fit you both in.’

  ‘That is a kind offer but I hope you will be the first to agree that, just because we are women, we are not helpless,’ Dorna retorted.

  ‘But I am frightened for you,’ I burst out and Jane looked at us all.

  ‘Bring a fresh tray,’ Dorna told her.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She bobbed and left.

  Sidney Grice stretched his arms up as if about to dive. ‘There is something quite addictive about sleep. Hardly a night goes by without me craving it in one form or another and I had none last night. However…’ He lowered his arms and rotated his shoulders. ‘Since you are not helpless, let us consider the penultimate murder.’

  Dorna held her head. ‘Remind me, dear.’

  ‘Mr Piggety,’ I said. ‘I suppose there was some kind of natural justice in what happened to him since he intended to do the same to thousands of innocent animals but, even if he did kill Reverend Jackaman, I would not wish that death on any man.’

  ‘The manner of his death was exceedingly unpleasant,’ my guardian conceded, ‘and the greatest proof yet that the deaths were planned in such a way as to taunt me.’

  ‘The coded messages seemed to serve little other purpose,’ I said, ‘except to make sure we arrived at the right time. Do you think Rupert wrote them?’’

  ‘Probably.’ He rested his right heel on the toe of his left foot. ‘Whilst few men could equal the last Baron Foskett’s numerical prowess, his lyrical skills were rather more limited, which is why I was so slow decoding them.’ He waggled his right foot from side to side. ‘I was looking for something clever, but they were so elementary that even March was able to work them out.’

  ‘Even?’ I seethed.

  ‘Sulk later,’ he told me.

  ‘Do not worry, I will.’

  Dorna rubbed her neck uneasily. ‘So presumably I was responsible for killing Mr Piggety too.’ A strand of hair fell forwards from behind her ear but she let it stay. ‘Did I have an accomplice? Thurston Gates, perhaps?’

  But Mr G shook his head. ‘Rupert,’ he said.

  ‘How can you be sure?’ I asked, and Sidney Grice looked at the carrot in his grasp as if surprised to find it there.

  ‘Quite simply, because he was seen, or rather he deliberately showed himself.’

  ‘To the boys who were supposed to be keeping watch,’ I remembered. ‘He frightened them off by pretending to be a monster.’

  ‘And there were few men more monstrous than Rupert in their appearance.’ He put the carrot on to the table as if it were an exhibit.

  ‘Or in their actions,’ I said.

  My guardian tugged at his earlobe. ‘And, whilst he was sending the boys packing, you, Dorna, were bribing a gaggle of gutter girls to warn if anybody else came near.’

  ‘Which they did when I turned up,’ I said.

  ‘By yourself?’ Dorna looked alarmed. ‘You did not let March go by herself?’

  My guardian put his third finger to his eye and rotated it a fraction. ‘First, I forbade her to go but, as I am sure you are aware, March may not have much of a mind but it is very definitely her own.’

  ‘Why are you always so rude about me?’ I asked.

  ‘I cannot be blamed if the truth offends you.’ He twisted his eye a little the other way.

  ‘Sidney would not tell a lie to save his own mother,’ Dorna said.

  ‘And she would be the first to condemn me if I did. Second, I took the precaution of waiting nearby with a cab and a burly ex-policeman.’ Jane returned with another tray of coffee and a plate of shortbread. ‘Four minutes and forty-eight seconds,’ he observed when she had gone. ‘We are lucky if Molly brings our tea in twice that time, no matter how much I shout at her.’

  ‘Perhaps your shouting flusters her,’ Dorna suggested.

  ‘Nonsense.’ He coaxed his lower right eyelid up. ‘She likes being bullied.’

  ‘I think she probably does,’ I agreed.

  ‘In that case I shall stop it immediately,’ he said. ‘Happy servants are lazy servants. Where was I?’

  Dorna touched the coffee pot but did not pour. ‘You were about to tell me how I killed Mr Piggety.’

  ‘Simple enough.’ He drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair. ‘You rang the doorbell. He was either expecting you on some pretext or you bluffed your way in. Either way you go down to his killing room. One of you points a gun at Piggety and tells him to undress. The other binds him – probably not Rupert, who was hopeless at knots as a youth – fixes him to a hook, turns on the hot water supply and starts the motor. You time his progress for a while. He kicks out wildly and knocks the watch out of Rupert’s hands, smashes it and one of you steps on the broken glass. At some point March turns up, probably as you are about to leave, since the building is unlocked. She takes fright, runs away and becomes embroiled in a pugilistic match on the docks. You write a telegram and give it to a street urchin to deliver. Later you send the letter and key with another boy. You pay well and scare them to be sure they carry out your instructions.’

  I teste
d the pot but it was so hot that I decided to leave it. ‘How can we be sure the monster was Rupert? There is no shortage of men who look like ghouls in this city.’

  He scratched his cheek. ‘Would you say Piggety was neat in his person?’

  ‘No. He had a scruffy air about him.’

  ‘What man carefully folds his clothes when he is being forced to undress, let alone a man who has little interest in sartorial matters already. Rupert, however, was an obsessive man. Apart from being driven to write numbers he was compulsively tidy. He could not have abided seeing a messy heap of clothing and would have had to rearrange them. Also…’ He stood and took out his hunter. ‘Knock this out of my hands – and that is not an invitation to perform an act of violence.’

  I got up and swiped his watch from his grasp. It fell six inches, swinging on its chain, and he flipped it open.

  ‘Undamaged,’ I said. ‘So why did the murderer’s watch get smashed on the floor?’

  ‘Rupert could not tolerate chains.’ He clipped the lid shut. ‘They hang untidily and clink, and he drove himself to distraction forever trying to straighten the links.’ Mr G put his watch away. ‘In the end he decided to forgo the chain and so, if the watch was knocked out of his hand, it would have fallen to the ground. I asked to see his watch – which used to be his father’s – and was about to press the matter when Cutteridge intervened. Also, I found this.’ He picked his satchel from the floor and delved inside to produce a test tube.

  ‘The maggot,’ I recalled.

  ‘And not just any old maggot, of which there is no shortage is this hub of empire, but a specimen of Cochliomyia. They are not native to our shores, but by this stage Rupert was shedding them liberally.’

  ‘And the last murder?’ Dorna asked.

  ‘Warrington Gallop, the snuff seller,’ I said.

  ‘Gallop was killed by Rupert alone.’ Sidney Grice put the test tube away. ‘There was only one set of footprints in the room from which the dart was fired and they were those of a man with a slight limp who exhaled blood. The type of dart used is typical of the region where he was disseminating his Christian doctrines and I do not doubt that, if Mordent House had not been razed to the ground, we would have discovered his blowpipe. Rupert could not bear to throw anything away. He saved every finger- and toenail clipping from the age of four – all these and many other things in labelled boxes. He loved organizing his files.’

  ‘I cannot think why he was your friend.’ I helped myself to a biscuit.

  ‘Everyone who has ever pretended to be my friend has betrayed me.’

  Dorna reached across. ‘Poor Sidney, but surely…’ she said, and he smiled wryly.

  ‘All of them,’ he said, ‘without exception.’

  73

  The Ashes of Mordent House

  Dorna went red. ‘But I have never—’

  He silenced her with a glare. ‘I would be more flattered by your concern if I did not know you have deceived me already.’ And she looked at him blankly.

  ‘But what—’ I began.

  ‘I tried to get a copy of your nib made by Harrington’s,’ he butted in, ‘but they told me there was no need to put in a special order.’ He reached inside his coat and scattered a dozen nibs on the table. ‘They already make them.’

  Dr Berry picked one up. ‘They are very like mine.’

  ‘Identical,’ he said and she grimaced.

  ‘Oh, Sidney,’ she said, ‘you were so overbearing and dismissive of my status when we met. The only thing you admired was my pen so when you asked who designed it, I unthinkingly blurted out that I had. It was a harmless deception.’

  ‘That is an oxymoron,’ he said. ‘All untruths harm somebody, if only the people who cheapen themselves by spawning them.’

  I am sorry I deceived you. It was almost a joke when I started.

  ‘Everybody tells fibs,’ she said and he humphed.

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘You told a mob they had cut your eye out once,’ I reminded him.

  ‘No, I did not. I told them it was an offence to do so.’

  ‘I am sorry. It was stupid of me.’ Dorna blushed.

  My guardian leaned forward and scooped the nibs off the table with the side of his hand into his other palm. ‘If that were your only deception I could probably forgive you. After all, it is not unknown for March to treat the truth as a toy to be broken and thrown away whenever she is bored with it.’

  ‘Perhaps I can redeem myself by pouring the coffee,’ I said.

  ‘You may pour but it will not redeem you,’ he told me as I picked up the pot.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Dorna Berry said in the awkward silence. ‘I hope that we can still be friends.’

  Sidney Grice watched her closely. ‘If only your other lies were so easily discounted.’

  And Dorna bristled. ‘What lies? I have never—’

  ‘You told me your parents were actors but I have consulted Jonathon Furbish, the foremost theatrical historian in Europe, and he could find no trace of them.’

  ‘Then tell him to look harder. They worked under the stage name of Marlowe, after the playwright.’

  ‘When and where were you born?’ he fired off.

  ‘Paris, April the first, 1850. I would imagine that all the records were destroyed in the crushing of the commune.’

  He blinked. ‘How convenient.’

  ‘Yes, it is, because I generally add a few years to my age to give me more gravitas.’

  ‘We are both guilty of that offence,’ I told her.

  Dorna dabbed her mouth with a little triangular napkin. ‘Now, if you will forgive my playful deception over the nibs, I will consider forgiving your unwarranted attack on my parentage.’

  Sidney Grice puffed his lips and exhaled. ‘You have a capacity for rebuttal which would do you credit in the Oxford Union.’ He surveyed her coolly. ‘Why did you not tell me you were Rupert Foskett’s medical attendant?’

  She held out her cup for me to refill. ‘I did not know you had any interest in Baron Foskett until today.’

  ‘I do find it a little odd that you did not mention it while we were discussing him just now,’ I said and she looked at me sadly.

  ‘Oh, March, do not let living with him make you as cynical as he is. First of all, I did not wish to interrupt your story and, second, there is the question of professional ethics. I am obliged to keep the details of my patients confidential. The Hippocratic Oath says—’

  ‘All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal,’ Sidney Grice quoted. ‘The case of Harkness versus the Crown established that this duty expires with the patient, and you are presumably well aware of this since you exhibited no such reticence when it came to discussing Edwin Slab with us.’

  ‘I would have told you, had you given me a chance,’ she snapped. ‘Anyway, how did you know?’

  ‘I use my eye,’ he told her. ‘And I saw an imprint in the dust at Mordent House when Cutteridge set his lamp down at the top of the stairs. Four clusters of berries in the corners of a rectangle, the same design you have on the feet of your case. I believe you told me it was fun.’

  ‘And so it seemed,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you would like to recite the names of all your clients for me now so that, if we have anyone else in common, I can accuse you of withholding information.’

  Sidney Grice drank thoughtfully. ‘I have accused you of no such thing,’ he said, ‘yet.’ He took a longer drink. ‘What concerns me more, though, Dr Berry—’

  ‘Dr Berry? Since when have we become so formal?’

  He replaced his cup as if it were a delicate artefact. ‘I am always formal when I interview suspects.’

  ‘That is rather harsh,’ I said, and Dorna Berry’s cup rattled in the saucer as she struggled to put it down. ‘Interview? Suspects?’ You have gone too far this time, Mr Grice.’ She rose from her chair. ‘I am afraid I must
ask you to leave my house.’

  My guardian laughed flatly. ‘That is the last thing you need be afraid of,’ he said. ‘If you choose not to talk to me I shall be forced to divulge my concerns to Inspector Quigley, who will no doubt wish to discuss the issues with you at great length in the comfort of Marylebone Police Station.’

  She froze. ‘Are you threatening me?’

  He smiled briefly. ‘Of course.’

  Dr Berry sat down gracefully. ‘Very well. Let us get this over with and then you may quit my house’ – her voice trembled – ‘never to return.’

  Sidney Grice leaned back. ‘I am not overly concerned with your having been Rupert’s physician.’ He crossed his legs. ‘For there is no doubt he was in need of medical assistance, though it might have been better for him had you consulted Professor Stockton who is the foremost expert in tropical parasitology and, as I am sure you are aware, lives less than two hundred yards from here.’

  ‘Baron Rupert forbade me to discuss his case with anyone,’ she said.

  ‘But he told us that his doctor had sought every expert’s opinion,’ I recalled.

  ‘He was confused,’ she said.

  ‘What concerns me more…’ my guardian produced his snuffbox, ‘is the fact that you must also have been attending his mother, the baroness.’

  ‘What of it?’ She smoothed her dress.

  ‘At what stage did you inform Cutteridge that she was dead?’

  She flushed. ‘Since when does a doctor discuss her patients with their servants?’

  ‘Since when does a doctor allow the servants to believe that they are receiving instructions from their dead mistress and allow that deception to carry on for weeks on end?’ I asked and she turned on me.

  ‘Oh, how you have changed. The last time we met it was all affection, but how you snap at my heels now. My first duty was to my living patient, Rupert.’

  ‘Concealing a death is a serious crime,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘particularly for somebody in your profession.’

  ‘I wrote a death certificate. It is probably in the ashes of Mordent House.’