If truth be told I was glad of a rest and sat on a log under the thin shade of a jujube tree – having checked it first for anything crawling. My feet were burning as I pulled off my boots and stockings. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a cold stream to soak them in.’
‘I cannot provide a babbling brook but this might help.’ Edward kneeled before me and began to massage my left foot. It felt like heaven but I pulled away.
‘I thought you were interested in starting a school too.’
‘I am sorry,’ Edward said. ‘I was hoping to surprise you with good news, but I do not think you will let me live that long.’ He took a breath. ‘I have written to Mr Rawlings to ask if he would let us use the house if we promise to renovate it. He is away at present, but his agent replied this morning that Mrs Rawlings had been very interested in educating local children and he thought his employer would look kindly upon the idea.’
‘Oh, Edward.’
He took my right foot and a blue swallowtail butterfly landed on my little toe. Edward blew it away. ‘Apparently there is an old stable block at the back that we could clean up for a classroom,’ he said.
‘Oh, Edward.’ It was all I could say before we kissed. It was all I needed to say. He knew I would love him forever.
Mr Rawlings’ encouraging letter and offer of financial assistance arrived three days after Edward’s funeral.
76
Blankets, Buckets and Changing Walls
I HAD A cell to myself this time but it was as sparsely furnished as before – a hard mattress with a thin blanket; and a slop bucket. Edward often told me that public school was much like prison with its spartan accommodation and awful food, but at least he’d had something to eat. I had missed dinner and was only permitted a jug of water to drink and wash in.
After I had been remanded, I would be taken to Holloway Prison, Quigley told me with relish, and I would find that a great deal less comfortable. He had questioned me for two hours, by which I mean he harangued me. I had adopted a policy of listening in complete silence to his threats and attempts to interrogate me and, in the end, he had worn himself out.
‘Take her away,’ he commanded the two constables who stood behind me. He stuck a finger in front of my eye. ‘Don’t think you have seen the last of me, Middleton. We’ll talk again in the morning.’
‘You might,’ I thought. ‘But you will not get a word out of me.’
A man was singing nearby. ‘Oh, my mother was a mermaid in the sea. My father was a captain in the Queen’s naveeee.’
He held the last note for a long time, so long that I thought it would never end, and then I heard a scream, very close by, even longer and higher, and I wondered if it might be me because the walls were changing, moving, alive, squealing even higher than the scream because they were made out of rats, thousands upon thousands of them, writhing as they fought each other, clawing and biting to be the first to feed on my flesh.
There was no point in calling for help. Nobody could have heard me as the first rat broke away from the others, a giant black creature with teeth like razors hurtling through the night towards my throat.
Publisher’s Note
At this point Miss Middleton was unable to continue her account and Mr Grice was persuaded to provide details of what ensued.
We experienced some difficulty in reproducing Mr Grice’s notes because of his abhorrence of apostrophes, commas and quotation marks, all of which, he tells us, resemble maggots. We eventually compromised with him permitting us to insert the first two punctuations but omitting the latter.
Mr Grice refused to share any information with us about his methods of reasoning, arguing that this was an impertinent intrusion and would only serve to aid criminals in their futile attempts to outwit him.
I have removed, with Mr Grice’s eventual permission, his recordings of the dimensions of every room he entered, the thirty estimated measurements of everybody he saw and the timing to the exact minute of every event. I have also omitted his twenty-eight-thousand word description of his observations on the incremental growth patterns of fingerplates. These can be found in an addendum to the limited special edition.
Part II
Extracts from Mr Sidney Grice’s Notes
77
Tuesday Morning, 23 January 1883
I SLEPT FITFULLY and, when I awoke, found myself lying on top of my bed fully clothed with a wet flannel placed over my face. I lifted the cloth away, placed it with great care on my counterpane and checked my hunter watch. Nobody had thought to wind it, I was relieved to find, for I could not bear the thought of anybody else doing so. Observing the shadows cast by the sun across my room, however, I judged it to be about nine o’clock in the morning.
I got up, feeling disconcertingly enervated, and, after ringing the bell five times to signal for breakfast, performed my toilet and went down to the dining room.
The papers had been stacked on a chair next to mine as per my usual instructions, but the pile was two and one third higher than usual, and it was then I realized it was Tuesday and I had been unconscious since Sunday afternoon. That I had not recognized this by the growth of my fingerplates is an indication of how my illness had reduced my mental faculties until they were scarcely greater than those of a highly intelligent person.
I crumpled my burned toast into my prune juice, stirred it carefully, selected three of the most symmetrical hard-boiled eggs and drank my tea. Clearly Miss Middleton’s predicament required urgent attention, so I only read four of my newspapers and restricted myself to perusing the others.
Once in my study I summoned Molly and we engaged in the following intercourse.
I: You will take two telegrams to the local office.
She: But where shall I get them from, sir?
I: I am in the process of writing them.
She: But the local office is a solicitorers.
I: [with exemplary patience] The local telegram office, you stagnant dolt.
She: Dolts is pretty, ain’t they not, sir?
I: I am suspicious that you are confusing them with dolls.
I printed out my telegrams, the first to Inspector Pound: WHERE IS MISS MIDDLETON QUERY; the second to Inspector Quigley, identically worded. And Molly set off with them and the correct money. I have found from experience that small change from transactions is often missing by the time Molly gets home with a brace of cream cakes inside her.
Molly in motion bears some resemblance to a steam locomotive – she is slow in building up momentum but, once under way, hurtles almost unstoppably. And she was puffing in a manner reminiscent of the aforementioned mode of transport when she returned and we entered into the following exchange:
She: Will they send your message on to Inspector Pound, sir?
I: Explain.
She: ’Cause I think he’s still in hostibal. He had another turn when they took Miss Middleton away – I tried to stop them with your swordstick but it went all oily.
I: If you have broken my Grice Patent Pending Miniature Paraffin Lamp Stick I shall deduct the manufacturing cost from your wages.
She: Oh but, sir, I still ain’t not finished paying for all the times you fined me for saying ain’t – which you ain’t not done since Christmas when it tottered up to eight hundred pounds. Anyway, he bent over double like this. [Here I was treated to a great display of bowing and groaning.] He had all blood on his hands from grabbing himself in the middle, and they came and carted him off.
I: Why did you not say sooner?
She: I didn’t not think it was my place, sir.
I: You never know your place when I want you to.
At this Molly composed her features in a fashion intended to give the impression that servants are as capable of having feelings as are their betters.
She: Oh.
I: Then I must go and see him without delay. Fill my flask and fetch me a cab.
She: But, sir, it is only three spits away.
I considered her remark.
> I: Unless you have exceptional technique and a favourable wind, I would estimate eighteen expectorations from door to door. Perhaps you could test your theory in both directions on your next day off.
She: But you don’t not give me no days off, sir.
I: And now you know why. The streets are filthy enough as it is.
Some thirteen minutes later I was at Liston Ward.
Matron: Visiting time is at six.
I: Have you any idea who I am?
She: No.
I: Then I suggest you find out whilst I go about my business.
I brushed past her. There is an art to brushing past people which one must adapt to suit circumstances. The Dowager Baroness, Lady Parthena Foskett, taught it to me as a special treat on my two thousandth day. I have always been a quick learner and I brushed past this officious employee before she had a chance to formulate another thought – quite a long time, admittedly.
Inspector Pound was at the far end on the left, below a window, and I was interested to see that it had been re-glazed approximately four years previously.
He: Mr Grice.
I: Inspector Pound.
He: What news of Miss Middleton?
I: None. I have only just partially regained some of my exceptional faculties.
He: If Quigley has had his way she will be in Holloway now. [He struggled ineffectually to raise himself. I considered whether to assist him but decided that to be grappling with a man in bed in his bedclothes would be an undignified process.] When I get out of here I shall kill that man.
I: First you must consider the prospect that you shall never leave here alive.
He: Thanks a lot.
I: Your gratitude is unnecessary. Second, if we are not quick off the mark, he shall have her judicially killed before you get the opportunity to be violent towards him.
He: They can’t hang her, surely?
I: Juries hesitate to convict beautiful women of capital crimes and judges to pass the death penalty. Unfortunately, Miss Middleton cannot shelter under that protection.
He: Oh, I don’t know.
I: I have had more opportunity to scrutinize my ward than you, Inspector, and I assure you that she is irredeemably plain.
In the mirrored surface at the back of my hunter I saw an exceedingly large and excessively hirsute man approaching, with Matron in close attendance.
Man: May I ask who you are and what you are doing here?
I: I do not need to ask the same of you, Mr O’Brian. [He raised his eyebrows, which I have oft known people to do when they are mildly surprised, and so I continued.] From the gory saturation of your attire, it is clear you are either a maniacal murderer or a surgeon, though some might argue there is little, if any, difference. Your speech betrays your Hibernian descent, though, from the way you enunciated doing, you were educated in that establishment fraudulently posing as a place of education under the name of Eton College. The way you trim your fingerplates shows that you perform the task yourself and are left-handed. The scars on the backs of both your hands indicate frequent applications of Hirudo Medicinalis.
O’Brian: [for the benefit of a puzzled inspector] Leeches.
I: From the bilateral mucocoeles on your lips it is evident that you play the oboe, and the shiny patch on the web of your right hand could only be caused by repeatedly drawing a pole-like object up and down it. And having read your excellent paper ‘The Effects of Oboe Music on the Feeding Habits of Hirudo Medicinalis’, I deduce that you can, therefore, be none other than the inimitable Mr S. R. O’Brian, the renowned left-handed billiard champion.
O’Brian: [chortling in delight at such childishly simple deductions] Why, sir, you must be a colleague of our detective patient here.
Pound: This is Mr Sidney Grice.
O’Brian: The author of Post-Mortem Scrutiny of the Human Ear Lobe? When is volume three to be published?
I: I shall send you a copy next month.
Pound: I expect the first two sold like hot cakes.
I: You have been in the company of Miss Middleton too long.
O’Brian: Miss Middleton, I know that name. [He clicked his fingers.] After this patient was stabbed last September I successfully transfused her blood into him.
I refrained from commenting: And her fondness for sarcasm, it would appear.
I: Then perhaps you would care to examine the clothing with which she is alleged to have assassinated an irritating widow.
I endured all O’Brian’s tedious exclamations of surprise that Miss Middleton should find herself in such a precarious position and reiterated that this was indeed the situation.
O’Brian: I finish here at six. Shall I call on you?
I: Yes.
O’Brian: Shall I bring my oboe?
I: No.
There was the distinct perfume of a feral cat about him.
O’Brian: Then I shall not.
We shook hands, and I wiped mine and gave my attention to Matron, who had been deprived of her wish to see me evicted.
I: I am sure that you are doing your best for this patient.
She: [simpering nauseatingly] Indeed we are, Mr Grice.
I: However, it is not good enough. I must have him restored to an ambulatory condition by the end of this week. A woman’s life may depend upon it. Goodbye, Inspector Pound. Do not die. Miss Middleton will be soured by your loss, I suspect, and I have come to find her cheerfulness less infuriating than I did initially.
78
Tuesday Afternoon
IRE-ENTERED MY Bloomsbury home and enquired of Molly whether there had been any responses, to which she replied that she did not know because no one had replied. A nice man had come offering to sharpen our knives, but she had sent him away and he was no longer nice. She chattered on whilst I occupied myself with re-stocking my satchel and selecting a cane, having first ascertained that my lantern cane had not endured irreparable trauma.
I transferred myself to Marylebone Police Station.
Sergeant Brickett was on the desk. He was a hopeless policeman, adipose and infragrant, the general opinion being that he was promoted in order to get him off the beat, where he was credited with having started an exhilarating riot. His handwriting is passable, however, and I was able (after flicking through his register to his vociferous indignation) to read upside down that my ward had been checked in three days ago and out the next morning.
He: Such information is confidenteral, Mr Grice.
I: Which is why I am reading it. Is Inspector Quigley on the premises?
He: [with a sneer] I would ’ave thought you could ’ave deducterated that yourself.
I: If all the H’s you and your comrades dropped could be swept into a pile they would fill the mouth of the Thames and bring the economy grinding to a halt. However, since you are feeling so uncooperative, I shall make my own deduction that he is.
He: And ’ow can you work that out?
[He poked the sharp end of a pencil into his ear.]
I: By using my remarkable observational powers.
I directed the officer’s attention, with an elegant sweep of my cane, to the corridor down which Quigley progressed in that peculiar amphibian style with which nature had so cruelly presented him.
I: Where is Miss Middleton?
Quigley: She has been arrested, charged and arraigned, and is currently awaiting trial in Her Majesty’s Prison at Holloway.
I: You are a perversion and a parasite. If the reputation of the police force has been dragged into the mud, you are that mud.
And I marched out, wishing that Miss Middleton were with me. She would have thought of something unpleasant to say about him, but that is not in my nature.
79
Wednesday Morning, 24 January 1883
HER MAJESTY’S PRISON Holloway was built in a vulgar facsimile of an imaginary (though not imaginative) castle with towers and turrets and a great gateway, which no doubt Miss Middleton would have tried to make sound menacing, but bricks are bricks no m
atter how you pile one on top of another.
People cannot just turn up at a gaol demanding immediate entrance so that is what I did, rapping smartly eight times on the door with the silvered handle of my cane.
The hatch grated open and a warder, whom I recognized from happier visits as Grief Herriot, said: Oh hello, Mr Grice. What you doing ’ere?
I let his appalling grammar pass and responded relevantly: I wish to gain admittance.
Herriot: Not many blokes wanting to do that. In fact there’s a surprising number that would rather be going the opposite way. Do you ’ave an appointment?
Death Descends On Saturn Villa (The Gower Street Detective Series) Page 26