‘I have no reason to suspect so.’
‘Then why—’
Mr G rounded on me. ‘You think your return is an occasion for joyous chimes?’ He rapped again. ‘Perhaps you are expecting fire crackers and a military band.’
Molly admitted us. ‘Oh, miss, if I’d known you were coming out today I’d have got you a bottle of your secret gin.’
‘Tea.’ Mr G plunged his cane into the stand like a matador finishing off his bull. We went into his study, me to my chair on the right of the fireplace and he to his facing me. ‘Oh, March.’ He regarded me solicitously. ‘I do not suppose you feel like talking about it.’
‘Well, not at the moment.’
Mr G gestured compassionately. ‘I quite understand.’ He popped his eye out. ‘Nevertheless, you shall.’ He slipped the eye into a silk pouch and tied on his patch. ‘Let us start with an easy one. What on earth do you think you were up to?’
I put my hand to my brow but even the lightest contact sent a pain shooting through it. ‘I think my skull is fractured.’
‘No doubt.’ He opened the lowboy beside him. ‘But that does not answer my question.’
‘I had a letter.’
‘A letter?’ he repeated, as if he had never heard of such a thing. ‘I am sorry, March Lillian Constance Middleton, but this sounds increasingly like a yellow case.’ He ran his finger along a row of notebooks and drew out an amber book, much thinner but taller than the rest, with several orange marker ribbons looped through it. ‘I receive, on average, forty-two letters and seven parcels a day without becoming the sole suspect in a murder inquiry or engaging maids in near-lethal combat with cast-iron fireside companions.’ He whipped out his engraved Mordan mechanical pencil. ‘What exactly was so intriguing about this correspondence that you felt compelled to act?’ He jabbed the pencil towards me. ‘And you may save your indignation for your silly and sensational diary. Confine your answer to the facts.’
‘I only wish I could.’ My left hand in my lap was twitching as if it were playing a Scottish reel on the violin. ‘But I am bewildered.’
He raised the pencil towards the ceiling. ‘Do you seriously imagine that your not knowing things will save you?’ He straightened his arm, his pencil aloft like a regimental standard. ‘If so, I must rapidly disabuse you. Ignorance is not bliss, March. It is the quickest route to prison and the execution yard.’
‘They cannot hang me for something I might not have done.’
Mr G snorted. ‘Many a man – though not as many as I would like – has been executed for something he could not possibly have done. Might not having done something is just not good enough.’ His arm shot down and he entered something in his book in his tiny shorthand code. ‘Let us change tack and assume that you did it.’
I swallowed. ‘All right.’
‘The fact that you did not instantly deny it is the first point in your favour,’ my guardian commented.
‘So you think I did not do it?’
‘Dear March,’ Mr G spoke tenderly, ‘I think you may be telling the truth that you do not know if you did it – whatever it may be.’
Molly came in and put a tea tray on the table. ‘Cook said I was very rude to say that about your dress the other day, miss.’
‘It does not matter,’ I told her.
‘I just wanted to make it clear,’ she continued. ‘There wasn’t not nothing wrong with the dress. Anybody else might have looked pretty in it.’
‘Thank you, Molly.’
‘And—’
‘Get out,’ her employer commanded, ‘before Miss Middleton attacks you as she allegedly did the last maid who crossed her path.’
‘Oh, miss.’ Molly put her hand to her mouth. ‘I never even knew you had a path. I hope I never allegingly cross it.’
‘Go,’ her employer snapped and she did, and I wondered why he had not commented on the pennies of her eyes.
I dabbed my forehead with a napkin and saw a smear of fresh blood. ‘The letter came from Ptolemy Travers Smyth,’ I began but, seeing my guardian wince, corrected myself. ‘It was signed in his name and I assumed it came from him.’
‘All assumptions are dangerous,’ Mr G pronounced, ‘unless you know them for what they are, in which case they may be useful rungs as we clamber our way ever upwards in search of that elusive creature popularly known as the truth. What is the address on the letterhead?’
‘Saturn Villa, but I do not know exactly where it is. It was dark and I got disorientated,’ I said, and Sidney Grice cocked his head to one side like an intelligent spaniel but said nothing, so I continued. ‘I sent my reply to the Stargate Road telegram office.’
‘Why?’
‘It was the only address he gave.’
‘And that aroused no suspicions?’ My guardian made a putting noise like water being poured from a carafe. ‘And where is the aforementioned letter now?’
‘I think I left it at his house.’
He regarded me. ‘That was stupid of you.’
‘I was not expecting any of this to happen.’
Sidney Grice pressed the dimple on his chin with the joint of his left thumb. ‘Why not?’
‘Nobody goes into a house expecting their host to be murdered.’
‘I do.’
‘Nobody normal.’
‘If you want to be normal find employment in a hat shop.’ He gestured towards the tray. ‘Pour the tea.’
The pot seemed much heavier than usual and my right wrist ached as I filled our cups. ‘I thought he was the uncle I never knew I had.’
Mr G crossed out a line of notes. ‘What do you think I would do if a letter arrived in four minutes’ time purporting to be from Abigail, a niece who does not exist, inviting me to meet her up an unlit alley in Limehouse after midnight?’
‘You would make some enquiries first,’ I conceded and then remembered, ‘but he said Inspector Pound would vouch for him.’
My guardian stirred his black sugarless tea. ‘And did that moderately capable and exceptionally honest officer do so?’
‘No.’ I dug my spoon into what I supposed to be the sugar bowl but it came out writhing with maggots. ‘I have been a fool.’ They wriggled up the handle. I stifled a cry, threw the spoon in the fire and brushed them off my fingers.
Sidney Grice raised an eyebrow. ‘Not in itself a crime,’ he conceded, ‘though it should be.’
‘The handwriting was very difficult to decipher,’ I recalled. ‘So I made a copy.’
‘And?’ He shook his spoon dry.
‘It is in my room.’
A darkness was lurking under my chair.
He put the spoon in his saucer as if afraid that both would shatter. ‘Then trot up and get it.’
I closed my eyes. Even the grey daylight was painful to them. ‘I do not feel like running.’
‘And I do not feel like wasting my time on this case. For goodness’ sake, March, the wording of that letter may save you from a fate no worse than death.’
The darkness was gathering around my feet now.
‘Very well.’ I struggled to my feet. The room swayed and the blood rushed through my head, and I was dimly aware that the darkness had clambered on to my lap and was rushing up to swallow me.
25
Christmas
I FOUND MYSELF lying on my back on the floor, feet together, my dress pulled modestly down to my boots and my arms crossed over my breast as if I had been laid out for my wake.
Sidney Grice was perched on the arm of his chair, surveying me over his cup. ‘You do not paint your face?’
‘Not since I was Minnehaha in a village play.’ My guardian dipped a corner of his napkin into his tea and dropped to his knees to vigorously wipe my left cheek. ‘That hurts.’
‘I am very sorry,’ he said softly, ‘that you are making such a fuss.’ He clipped on his pince-nez and leaned down until his nose almost brushed mine. ‘Keep your head still and look to your left… Now your right… Interesting.’ He pulled aw
ay quickly. ‘You have a slight green discoloration of the skin, which was not apparent while you were flushed but is obvious to my acute observational powers whilst you are pallid. It is also evident in your sclera and the beds of your fingerplates. Do you desire a glass of water?’
‘Yes, please. I am very thirsty.’
He leaped to his feet. ‘Splendid. Any other symptoms you wish to report?’
‘Apart from the pains in my head—’
‘Of course,’ Mr G broke in. ‘But we cannot spend the rest of our lives – especially as yours may be violently curtailed very shortly – gossiping about that.’
‘My feet and hands tingle.’
He started to pace round me. ‘Why did you say feet and hands? Most people talk about their hands and feet?’
I felt giddy watching him. ‘I suppose my feet feel worse than my hands.’
‘Do your boots feel too tight?’ He stopped at my head and peered down at me.
‘A little.’
‘Good.’ Mr G clicked his fingers. ‘You may arise now.’
I managed to get on to my elbows as he marched off towards his bookcases. ‘A helping hand might be nice.’
He watched my struggles. ‘For you perhaps, but not for me,’ he decided, unlocking a fruitwood casket and sliding out a familiar thick, stained leather-bound tome. ‘The Secreta Botanica,’ he declared, fired with a strange passion and laying it reverently upon his desk as he sat in his captain’s chair, gazing at it with something approaching awe.
I remembered something about a monk. ‘Is that…?’
‘Be silent.’ He donned a pair of white cotton gloves and opened his prize, turning the pages with great care, then began to read. ‘As I thought.’ He made a note on his blotter. ‘Exactly as I thought.’
I got myself into an awkward sitting position. ‘What is?’
He tilted sideways to open a lower drawer. ‘But thinking things is little use without proof.’ He rooted about. ‘Close your eyes, March.’
‘Why?’
‘The reasons are dual. First, because I have commanded you to – and do not trouble to feign indignation – and, second, because I have prepared a surprise for you.’
‘You make it sound like Christmas.’ The dull January light was giving me a headache so it was something of a relief to obey.
‘Nine similarities instantly occur to me.’ I heard the drawer shut. ‘Shall I enumerate?’ The voice came nearer.
‘Please do not trouble.’ I was feeling sleepy.
‘It would perturb me very little to do so.’ His knees clicked. ‘In fact I have a predilection for explaining things which is frequently useful in my profession.’ He took hold of my wrist and rotated it. ‘Especially when I have solved a case.’ He tapped the back of my hand gently. I found it rather soothing. ‘Which I almost invariably—’
‘Bloody hell!’ I tried to pull away but he had a firm grip on me.
‘I shall not have the language of the conduit in this house.’ Mr G was more shocked than I had ever seen him, even when confronted with a mutilated corpse. ‘Keep still.’
‘It hurts.’
‘Yes, but only you.’ He pulled back the plunger and slipped the needle out.
I sat up. ‘In what way was that like Christmas?’
‘Well, you did get a surprise.’ Sidney Grice got to his feet.
‘Apart from that?’ I clamped my thumb over the freely flowing puncture wound.
He squirted my blood into a test tube and placed it in a little wooden box, scrunching up some newspaper as wadding. ‘Second, it was not the actual birthday of Jesus the Christ.’ He put three rubber bands round the box. ‘Third, it ended in tears – yours. Fourth—’
‘When did you last sharpen that needle?’ I asked and he took hold of the bell rope.
‘That presupposes that I have ever sharpened it.’ Molly must have been standing in the hall for she answered his summons almost immediately. At least she had taken the pennies off this time, though there were still white rings around her eyes. ‘Take this box to the University College building,’ her employer commanded. ‘The one down the road with the big dome – I take it you know what a dome is – and give it with this concise note to the desk porter.’
‘Give the dome to the porter, sir?’
‘Box and note to porter.’ He shooed her away. ‘Now.’
I leaned back against the side of my armchair. ‘Do you think I might have been poisoned?’
He wiped the needle. ‘How?’
‘By eating cacti.’
‘That is possible.’ He put the syringe away. ‘Except that even you would never do anything so reckless.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Well…’
26
The Man with the Twisted Ear
I WAS LYING, propped up, on my bed, reading through my account of The Man With the Twisted Ear, when a child came into the room. I lowered the manuscript.
He was twelve or thirteen years old, I estimated, and his frock coat must have been a hand-me-down from an older brother, for the shoulders jutted out and it hung halfway down his calves. His hair was black, parted in the middle and gummed down, and he wore spectacles with thick round lenses.
‘Have you come to amuse me?’ I asked. When I was eight I was sent to sing to an elderly lady who lived on Tan House Lane, but luckily for us both she died before I got there.
‘I am here to cure you.’ He had adopted that thinly booming tone which boys sometimes imagine sounds grown-up.
Sidney Grice appeared behind him, a head and half a neck taller. ‘Miss Middleton, this is Dr Crystal.’
I looked at the flamboyant yellow polka-dot bow tie and asked, ‘Are you a magician?’
And the boy coloured shyly. ‘Some say I perform miracles.’
‘Dr Crystal is the best available authority in alkaline toxicity in the empire,’ Mr G assured me.
‘Available?’ Our visitor wrinkled his glossy brow indignantly.
‘As you are aware,’ my guardian explained unabashed, ‘Professor Cornelius Latingate is serving a short custodial sentence in Oslo.’
‘And well deserved.’ Dr Crystal licked his lips. ‘Latingate is an unscrupulous scoundrel.’
‘And I have had a disagreement with Dr Wembley over his wife’s death,’ Mr G continued. ‘He insists that he murdered her whereas I am certain that he did not.’
‘How old are you?’ I broke in and Dr Crystal looked down, as if the answer were pencilled on his palm.
‘Forty-two,’ he told me.
I stared at him. ‘Really?’
He blushed. ‘And a quarter.’
‘I am sorry,’ I said.
‘My age is not your fault,’ he assured me.
My guardian strolled to the far side of the bed and rested his palm on my Bible as if taking an oath. ‘Dr Crystal has discovered a possible antidote to the poison you so stupidly and ravenously devoured.’
‘I only had a couple of slices out of politeness,’ I protested and Dr Crystal put a hand on his head and asked, ‘Am I to understand that you took poison rather than cause offence?’
‘I did not know it was poison.’
Both men laughed, Mr G in a low sniff through his nostrils and Dr Crystal high and toothy like a beagle.
‘How could she not have known?’ Dr Crystal deposited a heavy brown bag on my shins.
‘Her ignorance knows bounds, but they are breathtakingly wide,’ Sidney Grice told him with perhaps a hint of pride.
‘I did notice it was bitter,’ I defended myself.
‘All alkaloids are bitter,’ Dr Crystal informed me.
‘The problem is,’ Mr G explained, ‘that, whilst Miss Middleton’s senses are young and acute, she stubbornly refuses to interpret correctly the messages they send to her brain.’
‘Lots of things are bitter,’ I objected. ‘Coffee and quinine, for example.’ But Dr Crystal was unclipping the tarnished brass catch and opening his bag. ‘What is that?’
He had p
roduced a small clear bottle three-quarters full with a fluorescent yellow liquid.
‘The antidote.’ He brought out a long metal box and opened it to reveal a syringe with an alarmingly long and fat needle.
‘It may have some unusual effects,’ he warned. ‘I have only ever tried it on a border collie.’
‘Will I develop a cold wet nose and a compulsion to round up sheep?’ I enquired.
Dr Crystal considered the question. ‘I think that unlikely.’
‘Or thick glossy hair? I should not mind that.’
He pursed his lips. ‘On the contrary, almost all my subject’s hair fell out within two days.’
I sat up. ‘Did it grow again?’
He patted his cheek. ‘I cannot say. The creature died a week later – but not of the antidote; at least I do not think so. Roll up your sleeve.’ The liquid was so viscous that he had great difficulty in drawing it out of the bottle. He held the syringe up and pressed the plunger to expel the air. At least the needle looked sharp as a glutinous blob appeared, hanging tenaciously to the tip. He took off his spectacles. ‘This will hurt,’ he told me as he inspected my left arm, flicking it with his fingertip, but did not add a little. He found a blue cord under my skin and gouged the needle into it. I yelped. ‘Shush.’ He gripped my wrist and I saw his thumb blanch as it fought to expel the liquid.
The plunger jumped down the barrel and the antidote spurted into me.
‘Streuth!’ I cried out. He might as well have injected paraffin and put a Lucifer to it.
‘I must apologize,’ my guardian said, but Dr Crystal shrugged and told him, ‘I have heard much worse. Blimid, for example.’
‘I will thank you both—’ Mr G began.
‘Or Frebbing,’ Dr Crystal continued.
The ball of fire stretched lazily, creeping up under my sleeve, burning a map of its progress along the vein. An inch or so along it forked and then again until my whole arm had a frame of white hot wires. I grabbed my elbow and squeezed hard in an attempt to create a tourniquet but the pain gathered speed, racing to my shoulder.
Every curse I knew streamed out of me as I jumped off the bed, nearly knocking our visitor over.
Death Descends On Saturn Villa (The Gower Street Detective Series) Page 8