Death Descends On Saturn Villa (The Gower Street Detective Series)

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  Four people died, all natives. My father told the colonel-in-chief that Edward should get a medal, but Sir Terrence guffawed and asked, ‘What for? Helping old ladies cross the road?’

  A splinter of wood had flown up when Edward fired his gun. It cut his cheek quite deeply and he was delighted later, hoping that it would look like a duelling scar, but it healed with hardly a trace.

  Drowning in the Dark

  I LAY IN bed, forcing myself to breathe slowly and deeply, and telling myself that the dark is not a thing. It cannot hurt me. It is just an absence of light. It cannot crush my chest and suffocate the life out of me.

  But the dark has a cruel sense of humour and what I know to be logical is no longer true when my eyes might as well have been plucked, like one of Sidney Grice’s, from their sockets, for all the use they are to me. Even though I feel my ribs rise and fall and the cold damp air being sucked into my lungs, I cannot truly breathe. The oxygen is not getting into my blood or being circulated by the rapid percussive shocks of my heart.

  My lungs are filling. I held a man once while he drowned in his own fluid and watched his eyes locked on mine in helpless desperation until I could no longer support him and he fell lifeless into my armchair. We hanged his murderer. I try to rise to relieve the congestion but I am strapped to the bed by terror and nothing can snap the bands whilst darkness rules my earth.

  I have a pain in my chest and I cannot even cry out except in my mind. ‘Not yet, Lord, and not like this.’

  Waiting

  WILL YOU BE waiting for me and how will you be? Happy to see me? Ashamed of how I got there? Angry that I took another’s ring? Or will you enfold me in your arms?

  What am I thinking of? I shall be cast down where the flames shall lick my bone and the worms eat my flesh.

  I remember a man being eaten alive by worms. I remember him picking maggots out of his face. He found hell long before he died.

  Lancelot

  I AM HUMMING the tune that the mice sang so long ago in Uncle Tolly’s house when the visitor comes, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand like the shield of Lancelot in a poem.

  ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘Who are you?’

  He looks very familiar but people have a habit of looking familiar – even that valet once – when they are not.

  ‘Who do you think I am?’ he asks unhelpfully.

  I suck my little finger to help me concentrate and almost make a suggestion. Something tells me it can’t be him but I can’t remember why. I close my eyes but when I open them he is still there and the word sobs out of me. ‘Daddy!’

  I hold out my arms but another man rushes in, panting for breath. ‘I did it.’

  ‘She is very confused,’ my father tells him, though he looks nothing like my father any more. ‘Is there nothing you can do?’

  But I shoot back inside myself before he can reply for I realise that this is not my father come for me, but the man who murdered my mother.

  Gloves and Dead Mice

  SIDNEY GRICE HAS a new eye: limpid blue, but with a golden glint to it. He sits on the end of the bed.

  ‘You seem more lucid,’ he observes.

  He is always observing things. Sometimes I find that inspirational for I want to follow in his footsteps or even walk alongside him, but mostly it irritates me, especially today.

  ‘Tell him,’ Dorna urges.

  I try to shush her. ‘Not now.’

  He takes off his gloves as if it were a surgical procedure to do so. ‘Why not now?’ And places them on the bed by my feet, like Spirit offering me a dead mouse. I make a mental note to ask him about her, but Dorna nudges me.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Very well.’ I fill my lungs with air and say, ‘One thing troubles me.’

  ‘Only one?’ The gold vanishes from his eye. ‘What a delightful life you must lead in here.’

  ‘His cane rests across his knees and I wonder which one he has brought. The Grice Patent Get Your Ward Out Of Gaol Stick?

  I pounce on a glove. ‘When I last spoke to her,’ I still did not dare speak the name, ‘she said that if she were reprieved she would be unpicking ochre. She must have known that it is oakum.’

  I was so busy trying the glove on and finding that it fitted – but not like a glove – that I did not notice the silence at first, but as it lengthened I glanced up. Though Sidney Grice hastily composed his features, I had glimpsed something. I did not know what, but it involved suffering.

  ‘She said that?’ His voice was unsteady. ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Does he think you are stupid?’ Dorna is indignant on my behalf.

  ‘Of course not,’ I tell her. To him I say, ‘Of course… but I did not see any point in correcting her.’

  My guardian’s fingerplate beds are blanched as he grips his cane like a bicyclist about to crash.

  ‘It was a message.’ He stares at something behind me. ‘Dear God! If I had known.’

  I would have asked what he meant, but he was up and muttering something about an appointment and the door was locked between us before I realized that I was still wearing his glove.

  Follow

  ‘ARE THEY TREATING you well?’ Sidney Grice asks and his face tics – a spasm of emotion from the man who prides himself in having none. In happier times I would have teased him for that and he would have got all stiff and starchy.

  How strange to think of them as happier times, the days we dealt with death, and yet in an odd way they were. I witnessed people being murdered. I saw things more horrible than my worst nightmares. I helped send murderers to the gallows. And yet I was happy. I was the avenging angel, the righter of wrongs. How did the huntress become the hunted? Perhaps it will always be so.

  ‘They are very kind,’ I tell him, and the thought of kindness makes me want to cry. But I have no tears left for myself, I hope.

  ‘And how are you?’ I ask.

  ‘I am always well.’

  ‘Except when you have your fevers.’

  ‘Except then,’ he concedes.

  ‘Or the time you had an upset stomach from those unripe peaches.’

  He shifts on the rickety wooden chair. ‘Then too.’

  ‘As I recall I advised you not to eat them,’ I remind him.

  ‘You did.’ He is getting annoyed now.

  ‘But you did not listen,’ I point out and his irritation bursts to the surface.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, March.’

  But I am so happy to see him not gazing at me as if I were a dying kitten.

  ‘How is Spirit?’ I ask and he blinks.

  ‘As mischievous as ever. Yesterday she plucked my Versailles rug.’

  ‘Did you punish her?’

  He looks sideways. ‘I did not speak to her for nearly an hour. And I ignored her attempts to get me to play with a ball of wool.’

  ‘You talk to her and play with her?’

  Mr G touches his glass eye and says gruffly, ‘Only for your sake.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I burst into a deluge of tears and throw my arms round him.

  ‘Rules,’ the guard grunts, but makes no attempt to separate us. And my guardian holds me closer, I should think, than he has ever held anyone before.

  ‘I am sorry.’ I unfold myself from him.

  ‘You have always been over-emotional.’ He is taking out his handkerchief and I think he is going to offer it to me, but he blows his nose and stuffs it away.

  ‘I am sorry, sir, miss,’ the guard says, ‘but it is past the hour.’

  ‘When the hour comes…’ I whisper. ‘When they take me out, will you be here?’

  Sidney Grice inhales and looks me in the eye. ‘I shall always support you, March.’

  And I shiver. ‘But I am going where you cannot follow.’

  I cannot stop shivering for a long time after he leaves. I have never seen him looking helpless before.

  The Rainbow

  SIDNEY GRICE COMES. He was always a natty dresser but today he is exceptionally spruce.
He has forsaken his usual Ulster coat for a long black cloak and I might have thought it was for a funeral were it not for the sheer scarlet lining. He carries a top hat – silk brushed to a high sheen – with white gloves, which he deposits inside as he places the hat on the end of my bed.

  ‘Good morning, March.’ This must be the most civil greeting he has ever given me. Normally he can hardly be bothered to grunt from behind his newspaper. ‘I trust you are well.’

  I sit on the bed and he on the wooden chair, dusting it first with a flourish of his red handkerchief, and hitching his trouser legs a little to stop them bagging.

  ‘Tolerably,’ I respond.

  ‘How long have you known me, March?’

  ‘It must be about nine months, I suppose.’

  He clears his throat. ‘And what opinion have you formed of my sense of humour?’

  ‘It is like the unicorn,’ I tell him. ‘A lovely idea but I have given up any hope of finding it.’

  For some reason this remark pleases him. ‘Then you will know that I am completely serious in what I am about to say.’ He puts his hands on his knees. ‘I should like to show you something.’ From his inside coat pocket he brings out a box. I have seen that shape and size before, but obviously it cannot contain what would usually be expected. ‘This belongs to my mother.’ He flipped open the lid and I saw it, rose gold with a tear-shaped diamond that coruscated even in the weak light of my cell.

  ‘Then why is she not wearing it?’

  ‘Her finger joints are swollen with rheumatism. She can hardly remove it and she hates the idea of it being cut off.’ A rainbow flashes from the gemstone. ‘So she wanted me to have it,’ he grunts, ‘now that I require one.’

  I lean forward. ‘You are planning to get engaged?’

  His irises are violet as they flick towards the bars and back at me. ‘I hope to.’

  ‘Have you been courting long?’

  ‘No time at all.’ His cheeks colour a little. ‘But my mother insists that, if I am to do it, I must do it properly.’

  ‘Well, of course you must,’ I agree.

  And my guardian coughs. ‘I know that I am not the sort of romantic hero you read about in that mawkish drivel you are so fond of dribbling over, but my finances are solid – I can produce my last three years’ accounts should you wish to examine or have them audited – and for all my sixteen faults I am a steady fellow, honest and superlatively intelligent.’

  ‘And I am sure you will make an excellent husband.’

  Mr G looks at me uncertainly. ‘You think so?’

  ‘I have little doubt of it.’

  For an instant I think he has slipped off his chair but Sidney Grice is falling on to one knee and, before I know it, he has my hand in his and is gazing up at me. ‘March Middleton, will you marry me?’

  I stare at him. ‘But you do not love me.’

  ‘That is true but do not take it personally. I love no one and nothing except the truth and possessions.’ His right eye has drifted inwards. ‘You need not worry about – how can I put this delicately? – physical matters. You may rest assured, March, that I find you just as unattractive as any other normal man.’

  ‘He should have asked my permission.’ Uncle Tolly puts a hand to his shattered head, but I shoo him away.

  ‘If not more so,’ Sidney Grice added.

  ‘That is of great comfort to me,’ I say.

  And I whisper to Uncle Tolly, ‘I told you to go away.’

  ‘So you could keep your own bedroom and I my own,’ my guardian continues doggedly.

  ‘Why?’ I demand and could have sworn that he blushes.

  ‘You cannot imagine I would want to share.’

  ‘No,’ I concur. ‘Even my imagination does not have such fancies. But, if I am mistress of the house, why should I not have the bigger bedroom?’

  ‘Mistress?’ He puts a finger to his eye but it stays obstinately fixed on the tip of his nose. ‘The arrangement is purely one of convenience.’

  ‘Whose convenience?’ I ask. ‘Go away, Uncle Tolly.’

  ‘Why, yours, of course.’ He holds up the box. ‘It would be nothing more than a nuisance and an embarrassment to me.’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Are you talking to me this time?’ Sidney Grice asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘No, I shall not marry you.’

  Mr G grimaces. ‘I am deeply hurt, March.’ He lets go of my hand. ‘That you should reject me so peremptorily. Have you any idea how repellent I find the whole idea?’

  ‘For once I can entirely empathize with you.’

  My guardian scrambles to his feet, levering himself up on my knee. ‘I receive proposals of marriage by the Royal Mail every week.’ He beats the dust from his knee. ‘Why, only this morning I had one from a Russian countess.’

  The ring flares in his hand for the last time before he snaps the lid shut and blots it out forever.

  ‘Then I suggest you accept it.’

  I nearly add that I cannot give my life to the man who took my mother’s, but Dorna appears at his shoulder and puts a finger to her white lips – It is our secret – and Sidney Grice glances back, wondering what I am staring at. How can he not see her – this man who sees everything?

  The Night of the Storm

  WHAT NIGHT IS it? Friday, I think – the night of the storm. The tempest that has been slumbering in my mind finally stirs and bursts out in an uncontrollable rage. Lightning forks, thunder shakes the window of my cell and a howling gale hurls oceans of water to burst against the glass.

  I have always loved storms. When I was a child I would stand on a chair to watch the sky split and the world light up with jagged bolts of electricity, but tonight I am frightened. The power of it makes me feel so small and weak. I lie back in my bed and clutch my pillow, and the moment I close my eyes the door flies open.

  ‘Edward!’ He stands tall, backlit by the gas mantle, and at first I think I must have imagined him, but the storm lights up my cell and there is Edward, splendid in full uniform, his boots gleaming, his spurs glittering. ‘Is that you, my darling?’

  ‘Dear March.’

  His eyes are golden and flash through the chaos.

  ‘But how did you get in?’

  He grins boyishly. ‘Love knows no locksmith.’

  And I remember how he scaled the old fort wall, heedless of the rows of spikes in the dry moat forty feet below him, to pluck a wild rose. I was furious but I took it from his mouth and I have it still, crushed and dried in my journal.

  I get up and try to run towards him but we are drowning in the thickening air. It holds me back and, as I move forward, he drifts away.

  ‘Wait for me, Edward.’

  ‘Wait?’ He unsheathes his sword. ‘But you have another man now. You wear his ring, not mine, next to your heart.’

  ‘Only because…’ But I cannot speak the reason why. I am not sure that I believe it anymore.

  ‘You promised to love me forever, March.’ He holds his sword out, straight-armed. ‘You swore it.’

  ‘I do love you,’ I protest. ‘I never stopped.’

  Edward’s voice rises. ‘I cannot compete with him, March. He is alive and warm. He can hold you and dance with you and make you laugh,’ his voice is failing, ‘while I lie cold and rotten in the earth far away… far away.’ He slices the air with his sword and the lightning cracks and a long flame sizzles around the blade. ‘You must choose between us, March.’

  The flame dies.

  ‘You,’ I cry. ‘You every time.’

  Edward turns away. ‘But you are not ready.’ His voice is growing weaker. ‘When will you be ready to come with me, March?’

  ‘Now!’ I scream. ‘For the love of God, now!’

  I am tossed helplessly in the turbulent air but Edward stands firm, a rock in the tides of time. I flail frantically and, just as I think I am sinking, a rolling wave propels me towards him. I strain and my fingertips almo
st touch him.

  ‘Edward!’

  He spins back, the man with no face, my name spraying out in droplets of the blood he shed for me.

  ‘Murderess,’ he hisses as I shoot up in bed.

  The Shadow of Sadness

  SIDNEY GRICE VISITS me, grey with exhaustion, and semi-sits on the edge of my table.

  I watch him for a while, staring at his open snuffbox as if waiting for something to happen.

  ‘How did my mother die?’ I ask, so suddenly that I take us both by surprise.

  My guardian shuts the box. There is an enamelled figure of death on the lid and I hate it.

  ‘That letter,’ he says simply.

  I gape at him. ‘You knew what it contained?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sidney Grice flips the box open, clicks it shut and puts it away. ‘I knew the hand and so I read and resealed it.’

  I gasp. ‘Then why did you let me see it?’

  ‘It would still have been there.’ His left eye glances outwards then back at me.

  I jump up. ‘You could have destroyed it and I would never have known.’

  ‘I would have known.’ My guardian pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘Sit down, March.’ He says it so gently that I go meekly back to the bed and Sidney Grice crouches at my side and takes hold of my hand. ‘Your mother died of complications in giving birth to you.’

  ‘So you did not kill her?’

  He does not flare at the accusation, but a shadow of sadness falls over him and he answers quietly, ‘No.’ He looks at me directly. ‘I did not.’

  ‘You are lying,’ I blaze and he bridles, but even then only a little.

  ‘If I live to be a hundred,’ he vows, ‘you will never hear me tell a lie. I did not kill your mother, March. She was a wonderful woman, quite wonderful. Your father adored her and he was devastated when she died – that was why he rejoined the army – but he still kept in contact. He wrote me letters as a friend. Would he have done that if he had held me responsible?’