The Strings of Murder

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘Don’t dwell on that, missus,’ McGray said in the most soothing manner. ‘Just go on.’

  ‘I was already engaged to Danilo,’ she said after a gulp, ‘and we had already decided that we would live in London, so Giacomo had to come with us.’

  McGray leaned forward. ‘What did yer husband think o’ the arrangement?’

  It was like throwing salt into her wounds. ‘Oh, he hated the whole affair. He never wanted Giacomo in our house. He said that he should be in an institution. He was right, of course …’

  I remembered Danilo glaring at her when she said she wanted to name their child Giacomo.

  Mentioning her dead husband made Lorena tremble again, so I changed the subject before she fell apart; we needed her level-headed. ‘How did Giacomo cope in London?’

  ‘Badly,’ she replied, struggling to stay calm, ‘it was then that things went wrong. Giacomo missed my uncle and he abhorred the English weather, but what affected him the most was not being able to work on his glass any more. We couldn’t keep a furnace or all the tools and pigments he needed – not without half the neighbourhood noticing.

  ‘I remember him staring at his old pieces, the poor boy. He did a lot of wood carving then, but it was too … easy for him; he made some wonderful pieces he liked us to give away, but it bored him very soon. I could see him thinking and thinking when he worked on the wood. He became unruly, started to ask questions. He wanted to go out and a couple of times he did manage to escape. The neighbours gossiped, of course. That’s why we had to move here, where nobody knew us.

  ‘One day, almost by accident, Giacomo picked Danilo’s violin and began to play. He had heard my husband practising many times and he simply imitated the sounds. He learned so quickly we couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Did you encourage him to learn?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course we did. That kept the boy busy. If he found a melody he liked he would practise it all day long. The questions stopped for a short while … at least until I met Guilleum.’ She sobbed, her face distorted, and her next words were barely intelligible. ‘I – I introduced them. It was me who asked Guilleum to teach Giacomo …’

  She jumped up and started pacing again. It was as if her body could not contain the remorse. I could imagine that quality in her nephew; his restless, brilliant mind locked within walls that surely felt horrendously narrow – and then Katerina’s words hit my memory. An encaged genius.

  ‘It was fine at first,’ Mrs Caroli was saying, ‘but then Giacomo wanted to learn more and more. He escaped at night to meet Guilleum. He could crawl through every crevice – through the chimneys …’ Lorena shuddered. ‘One night, God, one night I woke up and found him perched at the foot of my bed, watching us; just watching Danilo and me sleep. I still see him in my nightmares, perched right there, like a crow!

  ‘The months passed and he became more distant and strange. Even poor Guilleum was frightened, but he managed to keep him appeased with his music. He was so understanding. Then odd things began to happen: some of the vases and figurines disappeared, and the neighbours began to gossip about strangers lurking around our home …’

  I jumped in, remembering Joan’s words. ‘Did they talk about a demon walking round your house at night?’

  ‘Yes! And I knew it was him, going out at night and not returning until the small hours. Some nights Danilo had to lock him in the hounds’ shed. I never knew what he was up to, until I found something in his bedroom …’ She went to her bedside table, rummaged through a drawer and produced a small shard of glass. It looked like an arrowhead, skilfully pointed and sharpened; the glass had beautiful specks of cobalt blue amidst a cyan base. ‘I discovered why the glasswork had gone missing. This was part of a figurine: it came off the skirts of an Andalusian dancer Giacomo made when he was twelve. One of my favourites. When I asked him what this meant he – he –’

  She shook from head to toes. I knew we did not have much time before she fell apart.

  So did McGray, and he had to cut to the point: ‘Did ye ken he was doing the killings?’

  Lorena shook her head, once more pressing her temples, ever pacing. ‘No! No! I … Part of me guessed. One can feel these things. The servants told me the bottles of bug killer kept disappearing, but I never thought that my nephew …’ She hit the table with her hip, lost balance and McGray had to hold her before she fell. ‘Why would he do it?’

  McGray gave her the most compassionate look. ‘Only he can tell us …’

  He helped her to the bed and we gave her a moment to grieve. Telling her about the horrors Giacomo had perpetrated – and the even more disturbing deeds we imagined he was up to – was simply out of the question. Later, perhaps.

  As she wept I thought how much of her tragedy had always been there, just underneath the surface, waiting to happen. Despite the pity she inspired I perfectly understood her guilt.

  ‘Mrs Caroli,’ I said, ‘we have reasons to believe that Giacomo may harm more people if we don’t act quickly. We need you to help us find him. Do you have any idea where he might be hiding? Any hint at all?’

  Mrs Caroli lifted her face and looked at me with grim eyes. ‘What will happen to him then?’

  I wanted to give her an earnest answer, but McGray and I could only look down. Suddenly the rain outside was deafening.

  ‘I don’t have any clues for you,’ she mumbled, her eyes fixed on the little blue blade.

  McGray and I exchanged frustrated looks. We were about to stand up when she spoke again.

  ‘I know for sure.’

  33

  It was well past midnight and an icy wind blew hard along the Royal Mile. Nobody would want to go out in such inclement weather, even less after the recent headlines, so the street was as lonely as a grave.

  McNair was leading the horses with extreme care, for the snow had turned into dark slush and the wheels of the carriage skidded whenever we took a turn. The ride felt eternal, until I finally saw the outline of Holyrood Palace; the lights from its windows were casting gloomy shadows on the road, and as we turned right we found the imposing outline of Arthur’s Seat. The mount looked like a sleeping giant, the woods around it pitch black.

  ‘We are almost there,’ Mrs Caroli said, pointing at the darkened fields. ‘Right here,’ she announced when we reached a jagged wall of rock. McNair stopped the carriage and Mrs Caroli alighted before either of us could offer help.

  She walked with faltering steps and pointed at a rather narrow crack at the foot of the mount: the entrance to some sort of cavern. It was barely noticeable; I would have taken it for a simple fracture in the rock had Mrs Caroli not identified it.

  ‘There,’ she whispered, her eyes watering.

  ‘Ye don’t need to go any further,’ McGray said, gently holding her arm.

  ‘I do not dare go any further,’ she replied, wrapping her shawl tighter around herself.

  ‘McNair, look after the lady,’ I told him and the constable nodded. ‘We shan’t be long … I hope.’

  As we made to enter the cavern Mrs Caroli grabbed us by the arms and gabbled with a desperate voice: ‘Do not harm him, I beg you! He’s the only family I have left.’

  McGray forced a smile as he patted her shoulder, his blue eyes all benevolence. ‘We’ll do our best not to,’ he said, but I knew that he was only trying to comfort her.

  I had to squeeze myself through the opening, but McGray had it much worse: he snorted and jerked for some time before his broad shoulders passed through.

  Fortunately the narrow entrance gave way to a much wider tunnel. We both lit our respective gas lanterns and pointed the beams forwards, but the passage was too long and winding for its end to be visible.

  ‘Ladies first,’ McGray said, but I was too anxious to mind his idiotic humour. My hands were quivering in the cold cave as we descended, and the grim stories Mrs Caroli had told us kept playing tricks in my mind. At any moment I expected to see those five demonic eyes emerging from the darkness, yet there was
nothing but silence. Every time I directed my lantern at a new nook in the rocks, the shadows trembled in a macabre dance, making my heart leap once and again. Every crack in the rocks was the claw of a new monster, and every eroded stone was the teasing face of a new fiend. My heart leaped again when we finally heard a soft noise. McGray halted and asked me to listen. We heard it again; the soft echoes of a distant dripping.

  We moved on.

  After a few yards we reached a bend in the tunnel and McGray unholstered his gun silently. I did the same, and just as we turned we found a most dreadful vision waiting for us: five eyes flashing right in front of us!

  I screamed and jumped sideways, crashing against McGray and knocking his lantern from his hand. Out of pure reflex I pointed my gun at the horrendous face, expecting to be attacked there and then, but the eyes did not move; their vertical pupils stared incisively at me, glimmering under the beams of our lanterns.

  My heart was still pounding when I realized what I was really looking at.

  ‘It’s a mask,’ McGray whispered, picking up his lantern and drawing it closer to the object.

  Nailed to the rock, it was the most intricate piece of carved rosewood I have ever seen. Grapevine leaves sprouted from the centre of the triangular mask, like those foliate heads sculpted in cathedrals. The borders of the leaves outlined three pairs of eye sockets, one of them purposely left empty. The other five sockets held eyes made of blown glass, each one of a different colour. The work was so detailed that I could even see streaks of coloured glass resembling fine veins around the vertical pupils.

  The wooden leaves formed a ferocious frown, and combined with the intense stare of the glass eyes, the mask looked frighteningly alive.

  ‘Wood carver, glass blower and violin player …’ I murmured, enthralled.

  ‘And murderer,’ McGray concluded, resuming his way.

  We walked past the mask and from that point on the temperature began to rise. The dripping sound also became clearer.

  After a few steps we reached another bend, and as soon as McGray lit it we heard a soft, metallic sound.

  McGray speeded up and we found that the bend opened into a large gallery.

  By lantern light I first thought that I was looking at a plantation of straight, very thin trees, but McGray’s nauseated gasp made me understand. I cannot describe the sheer horror I felt, for before my eyes lay one of the most disturbing spectacles I’d ever see: A jungle of human intestines, all hanging by hooks nailed to the ceiling and swinging like corpses on a gallows. Some of them were still dripping blood that formed ghastly pools on the ground. For a moment neither of us managed to move or utter a word.

  McGray was the first one to step ahead.

  ‘They’re sorted in three lines,’ he said, walking around the place with an inquisitive look. ‘From the freshest to the oldest …’

  I forced myself to take a deep breath. I expected the place to reek like a butcher’s shop, but instead I perceived a strong smell of soap and oil, more like a tannery.

  I saw McGray leaning over some shiny objects. Four long knives were displayed under the intestines, one in front of each line, and close to each of them there was a piece of paper bearing some scribble.

  Like the mask, each knife was a true work of art: the handles were richly carved wood and the blades were made of sharpened glass.

  They looked so beautiful yet so deadly, and I could only think of their advantages: a glass blade would remain sharp for much longer than a metal one.

  McGray walked closer to the line with the oldest guts, which looked dry and shrunken – almost ready to become violin strings. He leaned over the respective knife, which had a mighty broad blade made of green glass, mottled with tiny yellow spots.

  ‘The paper’s just got a letter G on it,’ McGray told me.

  I looked over his shoulder and the first thing I noticed was that the blade was missing its tip.

  ‘The G must stand for Guilleum Fontaine,’ I said, ‘and that is the knife he used to kill him. The missing piece of this blade ended up in Larry’s foot.’

  Nearby there was a stack of paper, soaked in blood. I had a close look and recognized the pages of the Devil’s Trill Sonata.

  ‘He used that score to wrap up the guts,’ McGray said. ‘Like newspaper from the butcher’s!’

  ‘Indeed, and I always thought that taking the score of that particular composition had some profound meaning …’

  I shrugged and went to the next line of bowels. Those ones also looked shrunken, but some of them still had a revolting, slippery look. The note next to the knife showed a D.

  ‘Danilo Caroli,’ McGray said, and the hanging guts appeared all the more unsettling.

  ‘Yes. Theodore was never part of Giacomo’s plan. Do you think he killed him just so that the violin kept moving from hand to hand?’

  ‘I cannae tell,’ McGray said.

  We moved on and found the blue knife I’d seen at Calton Hill, shining only inches from my face. As expected, the piece of paper showed an A.

  ‘Alistair,’ McGray said, and the very fresh, still bloody intestines proved it.

  Next to the blade I saw a pair of tiny, glittering eyes. I first thought it was a rat, but then I realized that it was the wooden lion head that had adorned the Amati violin. McGray lifted it to examine it closely.

  ‘So Ardglass was telling the truth,’ I said. ‘Giacomo did give him the violin! He must have sneaked in through the chimney and left it for him. And the stupid Ardglass thought he was looking at the Devil!’

  ‘What an idiot to just take it!’ McGray grunted. ‘Typical Ardglass! He knew we were looking for this fiddle; he knew it had been stolen but he simply kept it and played it ’til it made him puke his guts out!’

  I sighed. ‘I cannot say I am too aggrieved …’

  It was then chilling to find a fourth knife, lying by itself on the humid soil, no note attached yet. To me it looked like the most menacing one: the unusually long blade was dark red with black, tiger-like stripes. McGray lit the ceiling and we saw a line of empty hooks already nailed to the rock.

  ‘He’s prepared for the next one,’ McGray gasped. ‘I’d say he planned four killings from the very start.’

  ‘Maybe, but then why four?’ I whispered. ‘Perhaps we can find something here that will tell us.’

  We found a cheap violin, most likely an instrument the Carolis had given Giacomo to keep him happy. It lay on top of a pile of damp books, which spanned everything from history, theory of music and astronomy, to – of course – witchcraft and chemistry. There was a small volume made of scrap sheets neatly stitched together by hand. I leafed through it and found it full of childish scribbles. McGray drew his light closer and read aloud.

  ‘Blood! I hate blood! And how he squealed! Like one o’ those slaughtered pigs …’ he turned a few pages. ‘Scrape off … scrape off … scrape off the slimy stuff …’ McGray shivered. ‘Keep that, Frey. That’s evidence.’

  I shoved the notebook in my breast pocket and we moved along. Close to the books there was a pile of empty bottles, all labelled as bed-bug killer.

  ‘That explains the strong soapy smell,’ I realized. ‘It is here where he prepared the poison from common soap.’

  In the farthest corner of the gallery we found a bundle of blankets forming an improvised bed. There was a section of intestine lying there. Someone had been scraping the mucous coating from it. There was a slimy mash of scraped tripe piled alongside the clean gut, and we also found a small disc of brass lying right next to it: that had been the metallic sound we’d heard but seconds ago.

  ‘He was working here,’ McGray whispered, ‘using that disc to scrape the guts clean. He heard us coming and dropped it … so … he still …’

  ‘Still must be around,’ I mumbled, and then flashed my lantern about in mad movements, searching frantically. Again the shadows played tricks on my eyes and the wavering shapes projected by the intestines became an army of monsters.

/>   ‘Frey, stop it! ’

  Right then one of the shadows came to life and threw itself onto me. I leaped, Nine-Nails shot twice and after a blurry glimpse of a hooded figure I felt two potent kicks to my arm and stomach. I dropped my gun and lantern, and then saw the black cloak dashing towards McGray.

  He did not even have time to scream and I could not see more than a glimpse, for McGray’s lantern smashed on the rocks and the cave fell into the thickest shadows. Suddenly all I had before my eyes was blackness. Blackness!

  I was expecting to hear more turmoil, but all that followed was silence; the three of us had gone still in the pitch black cave.

  After a moment of utter confusion I felt McGray’s hand seizing my arm, and slowly pulling me to one side. We moved a few inches in utter silence and I understood what he wanted to do; we would move about quietly and pray for the beast not to find us.

  Can Giacomo possibly see in the absolute darkness? I thought. And how well? Perhaps he could see us perfectly, as in summer daylight, and was only basking in our terrified, slow motions.

  We heard a splash in the pools of blood and halted immediately, our hearts pounding.

  Then only silence.

  No sounds, no vision. For me, the universe had reduced to the pounding of my heart and McGray’s hand gripping my arm.

  Slowly, a terror began to grow in me. I could almost feel it like a solid mass swelling in my chest; the terror of not knowing when we were going to be attacked, or who would be wounded first, or where in my body I’d feel the first stab …

  Gently, McGray pulled my arm and we moved another few steps. Not even when dissecting bodies at Oxford had I thought so carefully before moving.

  There was another splash and we halted. Again, the deepest silence, and this time it felt like an eternity.

  McGray tapped my arm with a finger. I still do not know how I managed to comprehend what he was trying to tell me: Giacomo could not see either!

  He was hiding in the darkness, as cautiously as we were. And equally sightless.