by Evelyn Weiss
terraced town houses fronting out onto Grafton Square: beyond the sill, I look out onto a roof of gently sloping slate tiles. In the moonlight, dark silhouettes of chimneys rise above me, their shadows stretching out across the wet slates like black fingers. Kitty is out there somewhere. I lift my leg over the sill; my skirt hitches on the window catch, but I pull it free. I feel slates beneath my feet. I’m out in the night: I hear voices behind me, and answer.
“Kitty’s gone, Chisholm! She’s not in her room: she must have climbed out of the window.”
“Come back in, Agnes. It’s dangerous out there. Axelson and I will look for her.”
“We can all look for her. I’ll go left; you gentlemen go right. The rooftop stretches much further over to the right.”
Indeed, to my left, I take only a few careful steps, making sure of the grip of my shoes on the slippery slates, before I come to the parapet that surrounds the roof of our block of houses. I look over the parapet and see Grafton Square fifty feet below me. I shiver: I’m reminded of looking over the rail of an ocean liner. The cobbles of the square, shining in the lamplight, are like a pattern of ripples on a black ocean. The Titanic is vivid in my mind: I’m looking far, far down, as if down the side of a ship into dark, threatening waters. I feel faint, like everything is reeling, circling me. My feet struggle to get a safe grip on the slates, but I hold the parapet. Focus, Agnes, and keep your head clear. I look at my hands, gripping the stonework. And I see something, caught on a rough edge of brick. A tiny piece of white thread. Cotton, like Kitty’s chemise. I reach out my hand and feel it with my fingertips. It’s dry – so, it was left here after today’s rain.
“Here! Chisholm, Professor Axelson – she came this way.”
I can see the men, moving towards me across the roof. But Kitty – has she fallen from here? Did she escape her room with the thought of jumping, dying? Despite the anguish I’ve seen so often in her face these last few months, I can’t believe that she would take her own life. No, there is some other explanation.
I look along the line of the parapet to where it turns a corner. Maybe forty paces further along, it adjoins the next block of town houses, a terrace like our own: all the best streets in Kensington are laid out this way. What’s unusual is that, at this corner of Grafton Square, there is no road separating the blocks. Our block practically touches the next. Within a minute I’m at the corner, and looking at the gap. It’s lit starkly in the vivid moonlight. Maybe four feet wide.
“Agnes. What the hell are you up to?”
That’s Chisholm calling from the dark behind me. And I can tell, he must be frightened: I’ve never heard such language from his lips before. The two men are still maybe twenty yards behind me. I look down into the deep, narrow gap between our block and the next: my head spins like a fairground carousel. But we must find Kitty: every moment counts. I tense for one second, then spring forward over the void.
The stonework on the far side hits my face, my elbow. I feel a scratch on my nose, taste blood on my lips. But I’m holding on firmly. I look over this new parapet. As before, wet slates, shiny in the moonlight, march off into the unseen distance. I see nothing else. Kitty has gone. Our search is hopeless.
I feel utterly bewildered. I can make no sense of what has happened tonight. I hear the force of Chisholm’s landing behind me: he found the leap easy. He’s standing beside me.
“That leap, Agnes – truly dangerous.”
“You’ve just done it too.”
“I’m not wearing a full-length skirt. Take care. I don’t want to lose two members of my household tonight.” He looks across the rooftops for any sight of Kitty, but there’s no-one there. After two minutes he looks back at me, grimly. “She’s gone, Agnes. There is nothing more for us to do here.”
Chisholm takes my hand. As if to reassure me – but then, I realize he’s helping me get back across the gap. This time, I don’t look down at the drop below me. I just do it. A few seconds later we’re both standing safely on the parapet of our own block of houses. I’m still looking around, as if Kitty might suddenly reappear.
“What’s going on, Chisholm? Why has Kitty escaped?”
I see Chisholm’s face outlined in the moonlight: he’s still scanning the rooftops. “I’m mystified, Agnes. Do you think the hypnosis was all too much for her? Maybe she’s – lost her mind.”
Tracing our way back to Kitty’s window is easy: the moon is behind us, illuminating our way across the sloping slates. The white-painted casement of the window glows like silver. As I lift my foot to climb over it, I notice something caught between the sliding sash and the window frame. Something that flutters gently, white in the light of the moon. I reach out my hand to hold it still.
“I’ve found something, Chisholm. A piece of paper, I think.” I climb back over into the room. Axelson is already inside, peering at Kitty’s few belongings as if they might speak and tell him where she’s gone. I turn back to the window, and I carefully prise the paper out from where it’s wedged in the window frame.
“I found this, Professor Axelson. Wedged between the window frame and the sash.”
The three of us stand at the window, and I hold out the paper to catch the moonlight so that we can look at it. It’s a letter, crumpled and scuffed. The professor points at the writing, which is an illegible spidery scrawl.
“Chisholm – is this Kitty’s handwriting?”
“No. It’s totally unlike hers.”
The professor’s face is serious. “Despite her reactions to the hypnosis, Miss Kitty does not strike me as the sort of girl to run away. Nor, to foolishly harm herself.”
Again I see the outline of Chisholm’s face in the moonlight. He’s thinking as he speaks. “I agree, Professor. We must reckon on the possibility that she has been –”
The professor says the word. “Kidnapped.”
“In which case, we must alert the police immediately. My God, that this should happen to one of my staff…”
I look at the piece of paper in my hands. “So – this letter. If Kitty was taken away from her room by force, then how did it get here? Did the kidnappers struggle with her at this window, maybe she grabbed at their pockets? Perhaps she even took it from them and wedged it there, to leave us a clue?”
Chisholm looks at me grimly. “I think our first action must be to notify the police. Let’s see if they can make sense of it.”
Despite his words, I continue to look at the letter. In the moonlight I can make out only one word “Black” at the end. There’s one more word after that, perhaps a surname. Those two words are at the bottom of the page, like a signature. I say my thoughts out loud.
“It’s a letter from someone? – signing themselves as Black Something?”
The professor’s voice is calm, logical. “Yes, I think you may be right, Miss Agnes. We have to at least consider the possibility that Miss Kitty has been abducted, and that this letter may provide a clue. We must contact the police, as you say, Chisholm – but in the meantime, there may be more that you and I can do out there on the roof. There may be more clues.”
“Yes, of course, you’re right, Professor – we’ll look out on the rooftops again. Agnes, could you go downstairs, telephone the police, and speak to Blanche? And, could you take that letter with you?”
In a moment they’re back outside, in the night. Through the window I watch their two silhouettes move away across the rooftops: Chisholm tall, strong-looking: Axelson a smaller outline, moving more awkwardly. Then I turn and leave Kitty’s room.
At the foot of the stairs I bump into Blanche. I tell her what’s happened, and see the shock register in her face. Then I telephone the police.
Fifteen minutes pass: fifteen minutes of commotion in the house: Baxter’s commanding voice rings out above Blanche’s shrill tones and the panicked voices of the servants. Chisholm and Axelson are still not back from the roof. Blanche bombards me with inane questions. In my hand I still hold the creased letter – hardly a letter at all: ju
st a scribbled note really. But someone went to the bother of signing it. I look at the letter again, and I peer closely at the word after ‘Black’. Unlike the body of the letter, the word is neatly written, but I still can’t make it out.
Suddenly there are different noises among the high-pitched hubbub. A door bangs, and I hear deep voices. I turn round, and see Chisholm and Axelson enter the room.
“Did you find anything else up there on the roof?”
“Yes, we did. We found what may be an important clue.” I can hear an edge of satisfaction coloring Axelson’s voice. “Not far from where you found the cotton thread, Miss Agnes, I spotted a boot print, in some dirt that was on a ledge. I have inspected it carefully by flashlight, although of course I haven’t touched it. It is large – definitely a man’s boot print. It’s also very recent – it was made since the rain stopped. Unless there was some other reason for a man to be up on the roof within the last four hours, this is evidence that we are indeed dealing with a kidnapping.”
I breathe in sharply. Up to now I had somehow clung onto the hope that there was some other explanation for Kitty’s disappearance. The professor carries on speaking.
“The police will be able to use the boot print, I am sure. There is a very distinctive stitching on the sole. Three lines of stitches. Very unusual. Shoes like that – I have not seen them in