‘He must have a secretary,’ I said, glancing up at the crucifix. ‘So all those years she was selling secrets to the gossip writers? Maybe she was feeling guilty at the very end. She must have turned to religion to save her.’
‘You said she screamed,’ Mary said, frowning, as she unfolded another letter. ‘Some gossip selling hardly seems worth the eternal damnation of her soul, half the maids in London do it.’
She had a point. Sarah Malone had been certain something horrific was awaiting her on the other side. I made a remark about women trusting their lady’s maids, but there was no reply. I looked up.
Mary was holding the other letter in her hand, and she was shaking. She had gone as white as the paper she held and she stared down at the letter as if it burnt her.
‘What? What’s wrong?’ I demanded. Wordlessly she handed the letter over to me.
I knew that handwriting. It made me feel sick to look at it. I had seen it so many times before. It was the handwriting of the blackmailer.
That man had destroyed people, mentally, socially, physically. He was a murderer. He was mad. He was supposed to be dead now. And yet here he was, still on paper, still threatening.
‘It’s dated two days before he died,’ Mary said quietly. Two days before I . . . but I couldn’t finish the thought. I daren’t think it. I read the letter.
Malone,
I hear you are ill. You require hospital treatment. West has already arranged a bed for you. You know I know this.
Emma Fordyce is your quarry this time. Find out everything. Don’t flinch in that way. Don’t think I can’t see you at all times. You used to enjoy this so much. Remember the power! Remember the joy in destroying these people.
I expect you to learn everything. Do not fail me. I hear you’ve found religion. All the crosses and Bibles and magic words in the world won’t save you. I will come for you if you fail.
The letter was horrifying. What an awful fate, to be torn between fear for her soul and fear of this creature.
‘That damned man,’ I said softly. ‘Will he never leave me?’
‘No wonder she was terrified,’ Mary said, sitting beside me. ‘If I were dying and had spent my life serving him, I’d be scared he was coming too. I wonder what secret he knew about her, to make her work for him? That was always his way, secrets and threats.’
‘It was all supposed to have ended,’ I said, shaking, putting the letter down carefully, as if it would explode. ‘Instead here he is again, rising from the grave.’
‘ “I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave”,’ Mary quoted softly. I laughed, a short, bitter laugh.
‘Did you just compare me to Macbeth?’ I asked. Mary sprang forward and rummaged through the other letters.
‘Don’t be insulted, I quite like Macbeth,’ she told me, glancing at them and stuffing them in her pockets. ‘At least he did something. Not like that awful Hamlet, procrastinating all over the place. I always want to slap Hamlet over the back of his head and tell him to get on with it.’
I smiled. I couldn’t help it.
‘These are all letters he wrote asking her to gather information,’ Mary said, as she put the last of them in her pocket, where they formed an unsightly lump. ‘There’re a few names I don’t recognize. I’ll write to them.’
Mary had taken it upon herself to write to the victims of the blackmailer telling them they were free.
‘Sarah confessed,’ I said suddenly. ‘To Miranda Logan.’
‘The young woman who wasn’t sick at all?’ Mary asked. ‘The one with the interest in Emma?’
‘That one,’ I confirmed. ‘I thought she was there to protect Emma, but what if she wasn’t? What if she was there to make sure Emma didn’t talk?’ I stood up and began to pace around the room. ‘But when she heard Sarah’s confession, she realized that other people had been sent there to spy on Emma too. If Sarah was a spy, why not someone else as well? Surely it would be far easier just to shut Emma up?’
‘It seems a bit extreme,’ Mary said dubiously.
‘It’s all about Emma, I’m certain,’ I insisted.
‘But the other death, the shadows, the atmosphere in the ward . . .’
‘Set-dressing!’ I said triumphantly. ‘There’s no actual definitive proof anyone died before Emma. I could have imagined the whole incident in my drugged state. No witnesses, no tests, nothing more than a general feeling that something isn’t quite right. Just like the giant footprints and the howling on the moor and the whole Baskerville legend are all simply diversions from the actual fact of one person killing another.’
‘ “Sound and fury, signifying nothing”,’ Mary quoted.
‘Sorry, Macbeth really is my favourite play.’
‘No, that’s exactly right,’ I said, excited, the blackmailer’s letter forgotten, my fear dissipating. ‘All of it, all of it means nothing except for the actual fact that Emma was murdered.’
‘The attack on Nora . . .’
‘She was investigating, too. It wouldn’t have taken Sherlock to have spotted that – she wasn’t subtle about asking questions.’
‘So, we have a crime,’ Mary said, taking the letter from me. ‘At the heart of all the mystery there is an actual crime. But as for suspects . . .’
‘I did a see a shape over Emma’s bed,’ I insisted. ‘It wasn’t one of the women, but I think one of them worked with whoever it was. I think he hit Nora, and killed Emma, on someone else’s command. He had to be informed by one of the women, patient or nurse, in that room, because they knew Emma had changed beds.’
‘So now we have suspects,’ Mary said, far calmer than I, but smiling gently. It ought to be wrong to take such pleasure in crime, but I did love the joy of solving the puzzle.
‘Betty Soland, Flo Bryson and Eleanor Langham were all patients on both occasions, Emma’s death and the attack on Nora,’ I said, counting them off on my finger. ‘Sister Ruth Bey was present too – I know she was out of the room, but we’ve already established that is no bar.’
‘And Miranda Logan,’ Mary added. ‘A patient the first time, a visitor the second. Why would she visit Flo anyway?’
‘Emma talked to Flo a lot,’ I explained, as we left the bedroom. ‘She may have wanted to find out what Emma told Flo.’
I stopped as we reached the door. I had just had another thought, a memory really.
‘What is it?’ Mary asked.
‘The shape that I saw that night,’ I said to her. ‘I know what it looked like. It was like a boy – a pale boy all in black.’
THE LAIR
Mary was lost in her own thoughts as we walked back down Henry Street. She only noticed I’d stopped when she walked past me a few yards. She came back to where I stood in front of the empty house I used to own.
‘Feeling nostalgic?’ she asked.
I shook my head. ‘Not really,’ I told her. ‘I never lived here, just rented it out. It’s just – something seems wrong about it.’
Mary looked around her.
‘Isn’t this the area where Wiggins and the boys thought the Pale Boys went to ground?’ she asked. I nodded. The house was tall and pale, the paint peeling from the walls. It was bigger than all the other houses around it, the wings of the building spreading far apart. Once it had been gracious and elegant, the perfect rich man’s London home, but it had fallen from grace from long ago. It was too big now, too chilly, too unfashionable. It suited nobody now. I walked forward, to the rust-encrusted gates, and tried to peer in. I could see nothing through the filthy windows. Just huge, empty, echoing rooms. It looked deserted. The garden was full of rotted leaves, the detritus of more than one autumn, piled up against the walls and . . . Ah, I saw it now.
‘Why are the steps swept?’ I asked. Mary turned sharply to look at the clean, brushed steps to the front door.
‘To hide footprints,’ Mary said, smiling slowly. ‘There must be people in and out of there all the time, people who don’t want anyone
to know they’re there. Let’s go in.’
‘We can’t just break in,’ I objected.
‘Yes we can,’ Mary replied. ‘I’ve got my lock picks, remember?’
‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ I muttered, as Mary pushed open the gate. It opened easily though rusty; the hinges were obviously oiled. She gave me a significant look. I followed her. It seemed that since becoming a detective, I was making a habit of breaking the law.
Oh well, at least it was in a good cause.
Mary was getting very skilled with her tools, and we were inside in a moment.
The house seemed empty. It felt too big, as if the rooms went on and on forever. The hall itself was filthy, covered with leaves that had blown in, and cobwebs heavy with dust. I thought I heard a rat scuttle away, the scratching echoing the deserted corridors. Before us rose the stairs, where once the hostess would have stood to welcome her distinguished visitors. No one welcomed us now. The walls, once brilliant white, were dingy, with the stains of old paintings long gone dotted here and there. The doors around the hall, cracked and pale, hung open, leading only to echoing empty rooms. The hall rose above high us, right up to a cracked and dark glass dome. It was freezing in here, the marble floor chilly underfoot. The windows were filthy, letting in only the haziest of light. It was the very definition of a once great house gone to rack and ruin.
Oddly though, it didn’t smell disused. Empty houses smell of dust and dead animals. I could smell – pies. Pies wrapped in newspaper. I looked around. There was newspaper lying on the floor. The date was only a few days ago. I showed it to Mary.
‘It could be a tramp,’ I said.
‘Look at the stairs,’ she whispered. I don’t know why she whispered, but I too did not want to disturb the silence. I looked.
The dust had not been cleared here. It lay heavily on the wooden stairs, and there were dozens of footprints left in it, none very large. Some were quite small indeed.
Children.
‘We found it!’ Mary whispered. ‘This is their lair.’
‘Lair?’ I questioned. ‘That’s a bit over-dramatic. Mary . . .’
But it was too late. She was running up the stairs ahead of me, following the footprints. I followed her, more slowly. I didn’t like this place. I felt like I didn’t belong here. Nothing living did.
I had been over the house to clean it top to bottom each time I let it out. I knew the layout, and I saw that Mary was heading for the reception rooms on the first floor. She paused in the doorway to the old ballroom. It was a huge room, stretching back to the front of the building, and lit by windows running all along one side. On the other side lay a row of mattresses – at least ten.
‘Who did you sell this to?’ Mary asked in a low voice.
‘I’m not sure: my solicitor sold it on my behalf.’
‘He didn’t tell you?’
‘He thought women shouldn’t have to bother their heads about such things,’ I said, walking the length of the ballroom. There were some rooms at the other end, I knew. Small rooms for private meetings, for ladies to adjust their dress, and for gentlemen to have a quiet smoke. They led onto the first-floor balconies. ‘I sacked him the third time he told me that.’
Mary followed me through the door at the far end into a corridor. The doors on this floor were mostly closed and warped shut. Mary tried a few, but they wouldn’t open.
‘I don’t like this,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t feel welcome here.’
‘You’ve just had too many nightmares lately,’ Mary told me, as she tried another door.
‘You don’t feel it?’ I asked. ‘Like we’re not wanted?’
She turned to look at me.
‘You only feel like that because we broke in,’ she reassured me. But she didn’t seem so certain herself now. The door she was trying opened suddenly under her hand, and she almost fell into the room. Then she gasped, and froze.
I walked in. It was just a small, square room. Nothing important. Nothing unusual – except the handprints on the wall. Dozens of handprints, all quite small, all over the wall, all red. Blood red.
‘Mary, we have to leave,’ I insisted.
‘Wait, just a moment,’ she said. She went up to the handprints, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket. She touched one, gingerly.
‘It’s dry, but I think it’s blood,’ she said quietly.
‘I’m certain it is. We have to go,’ I told her. I felt a cold draught down my back and turned to look, but nothing was there. Mary was scraping some of the blood onto her handkerchief.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘I’m going to use Sherlock’s blood test to see if it’s human,’ she told me. ‘I’ve got enough, let’s go.’ She folded the handkerchief into her pocket. We turned to go, both thoroughly frightened by now, although we’d never admit it to each other. We walked back down the corridor to the ballroom. It was all so depressing here. These rooms had once been full of people, and laughter, and bright lights and hope, and now it was all returned to dust.
I shook myself. I was being ridiculous. My illness had left me weak and overly sensitive and it was time I got over it. I walked forward firmly towards the door to lead me back to the ballroom.
That was when the laughing started.
Children’s laughter, high, but not kind, echoing through the walls, so it seemed they were above us, around us, behind all those closed doors. I couldn’t tell where it came from. Was it behind that door, or the other? Below us, above us? We froze, then ran.
The door to the ballroom was shut. I could have sworn I left it open. Mary shook it, then bent down to the keyhole.
‘It’s locked, I can see the key.’
‘Then pick it,’ I demanded.
‘I can’t, not while the key’s in there. Oh!’ she said suddenly, standing up. ‘Someone’s turning the key. There’s someone on the other side.’
Mr Holmes and Dr Watson would no doubt have pulled out their revolvers and waited for that person to come through. I decided discretion was definitely the better part of valour and ran in the opposite direction, trying to pull Mary after me. She was calling to them.
‘We only want to help you,’ she shouted, as I dragged her down the corridor. I remembered this house. I had shown prospective tenants round every corner. I knew where to go. ‘We want to rescue you!’
They started hooting at that. I couldn’t tell how many there were, the sounds echoed around the house, multiplying the calls and hoots and laughter.
‘Mary, come on!’ I insisted, trying to get her to run down the corridor. Was it really so long? It ran down the back of the ballroom to the other wing of the house, but it seemed to last the length of the whole street now.
‘Let us save you!’ Mary shouted, and for a moment, they fell silent. Were they thinking about it? Did they want her help? Then the banging started. I still saw nothing, but I heard them behind every door, the walls of the corridor. They were slapping the doors and the walls all around us. I saw one door shake as we ran past, and knew they were in there.
We reached the door at the end of the corridor finally, and I pushed Mary through, shutting it behind me.
We were in another reception room, coolly elegant, a perfect square, at the other end of the house from the ballroom. This was once designed to be a lady’s drawing room, the ideal place to receive her visitors. I could hear the boys shouting behind us, and the slamming of doors as they came into the corridor. The door to our room, thankfully, had a bolt, and I shot it across, then looked round the room. One other door led out, on the same side of the room that we’d entered. It led to the stairs. The boys probably were expecting us to leave that way.
‘I don’t think they want to be saved,’ I told Mary, looking around for what I knew was hidden in that room. Mary looked pale and shaken.
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why are they so vicious? They’re like wild animals.’
‘We have to leave right now,’ I told her, feeling along the walls.
It was here somewhere, but very well hidden.
‘How? We’re locked in, and we can’t take the stairs, they’ll be waiting.’
‘There’s a servants’ door and staircase in the walls,’ I told her. ‘It was papered over, but I know it’s here, if I just press in the right place – it’s here!’
I ran my fingers over the damp and sagging wallpaper, and found the knot in the wood that opened the door set into the wall. None too soon, because the banging had moved to the door of the room we were in. I peered through the open door to the servants’ stairs. A lot of the old houses had these. Corridors and stairs ran behind the walls of the home, making a secret network behind the public rooms. It meant the servants could move about and do their work without bumping into any of their betters on the stairs. It had been sealed off for ages as none of the tenants had felt comfortable with secret corridors in the walls – but they were still there, and I had found the entrance. This staircase was dim, lit only by a skylight high above, but I could see the dust on the floor. It was undisturbed – they didn’t know about this. I got through the door and Mary followed me, closing it behind us.
It was very dark in there, with only the haziest trace of light, just enough to see our way. The dust was thick, and our dresses swept it up and into the air, choking us. We had to put our hands over our mouths so we didn’t cough. We daren’t run. It was too dark, and we’d fall. Besides, there was only a thin plaster wall between us and the boys. They’d hear us. We had to move slowly. We crept down that staircase, through the walls of the rooms, hearing the boys calling us, taunting us, laughing at us. We were as silent as the mice that ran over our feet, feeling our way down, waiting for the boys upstairs to break down the door and see the crack in the wallpaper and know where we were, and come after us, here, in the dark.
They banged on the walls, just an inch away from us, so close the noise rang in our ears, and I waited for them to come through. They must come through, they were so determined. They had their quarry and they called and taunted us, screamed that we could not escape, that we had no way out. Yet we stayed silent, and crept down the steps, holding our breath, in case we coughed on the choking dust, and they would know we were there. Once my skirt caught on my heel, and I stumbled, just as Mary caught me. I fell against the wall, and we waited, utterly still, waited to see if they had heard us. But we had to go on.
The Women of Baker Street Page 14