The Secrets of Gaslight Lane

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  ‘Let us imagine that the Garstang household was not murdered by Angelina Innocenti,’ Sidney Grice proposed.

  ‘She was seen covered in blood and standing over a body,’ Cherry objected.

  ‘I have been like that more than once.’ I shook off the images. ‘But that does not make me a murderess.’

  Oh, Edward, I could not tell her that that I killed the man I loved, how I drove him away, how he risked and lost his life trying to get back to me, how I left him to die because I did not know him. Nothing I can do will ever wash that guilt away.

  ‘But she was the only person left alive in an impregnable house.’ Cherry wrapped her shawl around her. ‘Besides which I am not concerned with their deaths, unless you believe the same man killed my father.’

  ‘I think that unlikely.’ Mr G put his spoon down. ‘Though so many unlikely things have occurred in the course of my investigations that the unlikely may be the most likely explanation. However, let us return to my original thesis.’

  ‘If the Spanish maid did not do it, who did?’ Cherry challenged. ‘And what has this to do with the drayman’s horse? The Garstangs would not allow alcohol through their front door.’

  The shawl slipped down Cherry’s left shoulder.

  ‘I have yet to come across a troop of servants who embrace teetotalism as enthusiastically as their betters.’ Sidney Grice rang the bell.

  If I had revealed myself as Cherry was doing, my guardian would have rushed to throw a blanket over me, but he did not seem to mind in the least.

  ‘So they smuggled drink in through the coal cellar,’ I realized.

  And my guardian scowled. ‘You might have let our guest surmise that.’

  ‘So when the horse bolted, the murderer climbed in through the coal-hole,’ Cherry deduced.

  ‘In broad daylight on a busy road?’ I objected. ‘And how could he be sure that he would not be found if he hid in the cellar all day and half the night?’

  ‘What if the killer used the opportunity to wedge the lid open a fraction so that he could come back later to climb though it?’ Cherry proposed.

  ‘It would still be very risky.’ I reached for the wine and refilled our glasses. ‘There are always homeless people roaming the streets who might see him.’

  Cherry clicked her fingers without eliciting any signs of disapproval and I began to think that, if she had danced on the table singing ’ave you ever seen plums like these? Come and give them both a squeeze, Sidney Grice would have applauded warmly and asked why I never did that.

  ‘There used to be a privet hedge at the front of the house which could shelter an intruder from view,’ she recollected. ‘I remember my father having it torn down.’ She turned over her thoughts. ‘But the door into the coal cellar would have been bolted from inside the house,’ Cherry realized, ‘even though it was not padlocked in those days.’

  ‘Love knows no locksmith,’ Edward said, or I thought he did.

  ‘Excellent,’ Sidney Grice rubbed his hands. ‘At this rate we will have this case solved in good time to invoice dear Miss Mortlock for a considerable portion of her estate.’

  The dumb waiter began to rise.

  ‘You think you have made progress by establishing that nobody broke into the house via the coal-hole?’ Cherry Mortlock recapitulated in disbelief. ‘All of which points straight back to Angelina Innocenti as being the only possible suspect.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sidney Grice rubbed his left eye sleepily. ‘I had not realized that we had reached that conclusion.’

  The dumb waiter juddered to a halt.

  ‘You go round in circles, Mr Grice,’ Cherry accused him.

  ‘I prefer to think of my mind moving through a tangle of helixes, ever spiralling towards the central truth.’ He interlocked his fingers.

  ‘Well, that must be very stimulating for you, I am sure.’ Cherry’s patience was fraying. ‘But what about my father’s death? The lid was padlocked as was the coal-cellar door. And, apart from the impossibility of entering or exiting Gethsemane, I would like to know how somebody could have killed my father and got out of his bedroom, leaving it securely bolted from the inside. The murderer could not have climbed out of the window or up the chimney.’

  Molly’s boots clacked up the stairs.

  ‘Indeed not,’ Sidney Grice agreed heartily, ‘and I anticipate demonstrating exactly how it can be done before this marvellous evening is concluded.’

  Molly trudged in and put out the plates, each piled with something that looked and smelled like the so-called soup, converted into a dried lump.

  ‘Where is the rest of it?’ her employer demanded and Molly wiggled her right thumb about in her left ear.

  ‘I think there’s more in the pan. Shall I call down and check, sir?’

  ‘Are there no potatoes or carrots or anything else?’ I asked and Molly planted her hands on her considerable hips.

  ‘For once I aintn’t wrong,’ she asserted. ‘The master said to tell Cook we were to have turnips, and that’s what I told her and that’s what it is.’

  ‘I did not say turnips, more turnips and nothing but turnips,’ her employer raged. ‘What are we to have for pudding? Turnip pie?’

  ‘Oh, you are a laugh, sir.’ Molly rocked in a figure of eight. ‘Quite the Jolly Gentleman Joe what sings those songs about the Zeololical Gardens.’

  I was as nonplussed as my guardian, but Cherry giggled and sang, ‘Oh, the lions in the zoo they ate the kangaroo. Now I ain’t got no pouch to ’ide me money.’

  I laughed; my guardian could not have looked more stunned had she just decapitated herself. But Molly tucked her hair under her hat and said quite severely, ‘No. That’s all out of tune.’

  ‘Go and tell Cook to make something else,’ Mr G said icily. He rose and beckoned. ‘Come, Miss Mortlock. There is just time to show you my bedroom.’

  ‘Is March coming too?”

  ‘Of course.’ He tossed his napkin into his chair. ‘We shall need to lock her in there – unless you would rather we used you.’

  69

  ✥

  Snakes

  I HAD ONLY ever been in Sidney Grice’s bedroom once and that was when he had collapsed with a recurrence of a fever caught when he was in Africa.

  ‘I do not allow any women to see in here as a rule.’ My guardian put a hand to the door.

  ‘Such a privilege,’ Cherry said uncertainly.

  ‘Indeed,’ he agreed.

  ‘What about Molly?’ I objected. ‘She must go in to clean.’

  ‘Molly is not a woman, though we refer to her as she out of kindness. Molly is a servant.’ Mr G opened the door. ‘Enter.’

  His room was much as I remembered with its red Regency striped wallpaper, the thick Turkish rug by his bed, the pyramid of books on the bedside table. There were two frames on the wall to either side of a chest of drawers, but the pictures had been removed, leaving white oblongs in their place.

  The reel of pink ribbon lay on the top of his three plump pillows.

  ‘Knife.’ He held up his hand – a surgeon waiting for a scalpel – but the knife miraculously materialized in it and the blade flicked up nastily.

  Sidney Grice cut off two lengths of ribbon, each about six foot long.

  ‘Like your slaughtered father, I have bolts on my door, though twice as many as he did.’ He tied the ends together into simple knots. ‘For the purposes of this demonstration, I shall only use the top and bottom devices.’ He looped the ribbons round the handles of each bolt. ‘You shall stay here, Miss Middleton, to readmit us upon demand. Come, Miss Mortlock.’

  With that he closed the door, taking the knotted ends with him.

  ‘Observe – if you can manage to pay attention long enough – me pulling these tapes,’ I heard, muffled through the woodwork.

  The ribbons tensed and the bolts slid across into place.

  ‘Watch – if this is not too tedious for you – whilst I untie the knots... and pull.’

  A moment later
the ribbons snaked away and I was left behind the locked door.

  The handle rattled. ‘Quite secure.’ A brief quietness. ‘You may readmit us at your earliest convenience, Miss Middleton,’ came through the barrier.

  I had a childish urge to pretend not to hear, but it hardly seemed appropriate given the reason he was performing the demonstration.

  ‘I learned that trick as a child,’ I said.

  ‘It is a pity you unlearned it then.’ Mr G wrapped the lengths of ribbon around the middle fingers of his left hand. ‘You might have saved Miss Mortlock the price of a reel. Good heavens.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  Sidney Grice help up his hand. ‘The girth of my second and third digits has been increased almost twofold.’

  ‘Well, they would be.’ Cherry looked at him sideways.

  ‘A percipient and intelligent remark.’ Mr G began to unwrap his fingers. ‘If only Miss Middleton were capable of such incisive perceptiveness, my referrals to her as my assistant might be more than the overly generous courtesy title they are at present.’

  Cherry’s eyes widened. ‘Do you ever feel like striking him, March?’

  ‘She launches glassware and books at me sometimes,’ he told her, ‘but she is an atrocious shot.’

  ‘Perhaps she does not really want to hit you,’ Cherry suggested.

  ‘No, I am a bad shot,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Come and get it,’ Molly bawled up. ‘Cook has squashed some carrots and a butato and sort of fried them.’

  ‘My mouth is watering,’ Cherry murmured as we set off.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that.’ Sidney Grice handed her a clean white handkerchief.

  70

  ✥

  The Dead File

  THE FOG LAY patchily, here a damp haze, there an almost suffocating wall of wet smoke suddenly all around us. I covered my nose to no avail. If there is not enough air to breathe, you cannot breathe whatever you do.

  ‘What do you know about Dr Critchely?’ I asked before he asked me the same.

  A riderless horse hurtled in the opposite direction, saddle askew and stirrups flapping. It mounted the pavement, scattering pedestrians, and was lost to sight.

  ‘He claims to specialize in nervous diseases.’ My godfather leaned back. ‘Turn right after that pothole.’

  ‘What pothole?’ came through the hatch as the left wheel dropped into a rut.

  ‘I think it was that one,’ I contributed helpfully.

  Dr Critchely occupied a narrow three-storey end-of-terrace house – not one of the more prestigious addresses of Bloomsbury, but a respectable area. The brass plate on the house next door advertised the services of an architect.

  ‘Obviously not a very good one either,’ Mr G remarked, ‘or he would have a bigger house.’

  ‘Is that how you evaluate people – by their earnings?’ I knocked on the door.

  ‘It is a reasonable rule of thumb.’ He tapped the single step with his cane. ‘The Duke of Westminster is of more value to our nation than the mudlark. One creates wealth. The other sifts effluent in search of a scrap of it.’

  I was about to argue that the duke, splendid fellow though he might be, did not actually earn the vast wealth that had been passed to him, when the green paintwork swung back and a large angular head poked through the opening, crowned with a tangle of grizzled hair which looked as if it might have been plopped on when his maker was distracted by plans for a hyena.

  ‘Surgery hours are nine until twelve and—’

  ‘I am perfectly capable of deducing that for myself from your copper-and-zinc alloy plaque,’ my guardian butted in. ‘I, to save you the trouble of enquiring, am Mr Sidney Grice.’

  In many places mentioning that name might have opened the door; in other places it would have been smartly shut. But here his introduction only resulted in: ‘Do you have an appointment with me?’

  ‘Are you practising under the name of Dr Ottorley Critchely?’

  ‘I am.’ The doctor scowled.

  ‘Do you have an appointment with me?’ Mr G enquired amicably.

  ‘No.’ The doctor’s face was dreadfully pockmarked. I had seen no worse in smallpox survivors.

  ‘Then I cannot possibly have one with you.’

  Dr Critchely bared his worn-down teeth. ‘Do you wish to make one?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ My guardian recoiled. ‘I have taken an almost instant and equally almost intense dislike to you.’

  The head withdrew and, rapier fast, Sidney Grice’s cane extended, telescoping to three times its original length and shooting out into the gap, wedging the door open.

  ‘Take that out.’ The doctor kicked at the stick but it ended far behind him. He slammed the door and dented his woodwork. ‘I shall call the police.’

  ‘How?’ Mr G raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘The nearest constable is in Brian’s Café, eating a bowl of jellied eels, some one hundred and four yards away if the Ordinance Survey 1 in 500 scale map is to be trusted, which I am inclined to do with ninety-six reservations.’ Sidney Grice began to walk to his right, holding his stick like an oar high on his chest, as he forced the door further open. ‘He will not hear you unless you manage first to muffle the traffic and second to acquire a functional megaphone.’ He stopped walking. ‘My assistant, Miss Middleton, is of slight, some might say scrawny fabrication. I believe she could squeeze past you and, once behind you, belabour you with her parasol or spray perfume in your eyes – she is quite fond of doing that – with a view to inflaming them.’

  ‘This is an outrage.’ The doctor’s neck muscles fanned out with the effort of restraining my guardian.

  ‘There we have found common ground,’ Sidney Grice assured him. ‘Even I find my behaviour atrocious at present, but do not concern yourself on that account. I am currently granting myself absolution.’ My guardian jerked his thumb towards the entrance. ‘After you, Miss Middleton.’

  I gawped at him. ‘I cannot force my way into this man’s home.’

  ‘You think you need more space?’ My godfather braced himself. ‘I am never quite sure how compressible your bustle is.’

  ‘No, I mean it is not right.’

  Sidney Grice took another step and Dr Critchely grunted with his exertions.

  ‘You have chosen an inconvenient time to commence acquiring scruples.’ Mr G’s face was unusually flushed. ‘Duck.’

  ‘What?’ I ducked just in time for my bonnet to be whacked off and sent flying into the road as Sidney Grice raised the cane over his head and let go, sending it scything back, the door slamming on to it and Dr Critchely sprawling on to the floor.

  ‘Had enough?’ my guardian called through the opening.

  ‘Yes,’ came the strangled reply and the door swung open.

  Dr Critchely got to his knees.

  ‘What on earth are you playing at?’ I yelled.

  Mr G tidied his cravat breathlessly. ‘Do you imagine for one-sixteenth of a moment that I enjoyed that?’ He swept back his hair.

  ‘Yes.’ I looked in concern at the doctor. ‘I believe you did.’

  ‘You are always telling me I should have more fun.’ Sidney Grice stepped over the threshold and offered his hand.

  ‘That was rather good sport.’ Dr Critchely took the hand and struggled to his feet. ‘You are the private detective, I take it.’

  ‘Personal,’ Mr G corrected mildly.

  ‘You have unorthodox methods, Mr Grice.’ The doctor held on to the detective’s hand. ‘As one might expect from a man with idiopathic atypical neurasthenia.’

  ‘And how did you diagnose that?’ I asked.

  My guardian pulled his hand away and made a great display of wiping it on a cloth from his satchel.

  ‘The signs are there, if you know where to look.’ Critchely shut the door. ‘He has a certain irritability, which you have probably not noticed. This is caused by overstretched neurons in the cerebral cortex – and a hint, perhaps, of erratic behaviour typical of synaptical
occlusion – and the keen diagnostician might also observe an underactive optical nerve resulting in a vacant, glassy look in the eyes.’

  ‘Both eyes?’ I tested him.

  ‘Of course.’

  I waited for Mr G to explode with wounded pride, but he only said calmly, ‘You exceed my truncated expectations. And what is your opinion of this unfortunate woman?’

  Dr Critchely looked me up and down. ‘Undoubtedly an hysteric. Does she ever have temper tantrums?’

  ‘No, I do not.’ I stamped my foot.

  ‘Yes.’ Mr G pressed the ferrule of his cane into the rose-patterned wallpaper to recompress it.

  ‘An hysterical liar then,’ Critchely concluded. ‘Shall we go to my consulting room?’

  Sidney Grice gave me a silencing look and we went through to a small back room, equipped with a helmet sprouting wires over the headrest of a dental chair, with restraining bands on both arms.

  ‘Is this where you electrolyse people?’ I asked.

  ‘I prefer to think of it as galvanically revitalizing the nervous system,’ he replied. ‘How many hours a night do you sleep?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Girls need ten or eleven.’ He motioned me towards the chair, but I rooted myself to the spot. ‘The connections in the brain are looser and less organized in the female sex, which is why forty-five times more women than men require treatment in mental institutions.’

  ‘It is the men who drive us there,’ I asserted, ‘and the men who build such places and decide whether or not we are put in them.’

  ‘A deluded hysterical liar,’ the doctor decided.

  ‘Because, when men are mad, they still have a number of career choices available to them.’ I warmed to my theme. ‘The army, the Church or the medical profession, to name but three.’

  ‘Deluded hysterical lying shrew,’ he completed his diagnosis.

  ‘Or accountancy,’ my guardian contributed, a little late, I thought.

  I considered landing a right hook under the doctor’s rectangular chin like Molly had taught me, but it suddenly occurred to me that this man might be able to get me recertified.