The Demoniacs

by John Dickson Carr

  “Sir, is time so important?”

  “Yes; pray hear me. Miss Ralston and I entered this house together, when we heard Grace Delight cry out. Or at least—”

  Briefly he paused, turning his gaze towards the bloodstain at the foot of the stairs, and then dismissing some notion that had begun to nag him like minor madness.

  “We found her dead or dying, as you shall see in a moment, with a face to affright children but no visible mark of violence. We were men interrupted by a certain gentleman called Hamnet Tawnish, who moves in the best society of St. James’s and Kensington Palace. None can say how he has entry there, unless it be his sister’s doing. He is a rogue and a card-cheat, though too nimble to have it proved against him.”

  “Jeffrey,” cried Peg. “I loathe the odious man. But are you sure of this? I had not heard it.”

  “Perhaps not. You have seen his hands, though; they are a card-cheat’s hands, not a swordsman’s. You have seen the wide, deep cuffs of his coatsleeves.”

  “Well, so are all men’s cuffs above the wrist-ruffle. So are yours.”

  “Mine, Peg, are not stiff-wired on the inside to hold hidden cards. And I know this, Dr. Abel, because I am a thief-taker of Bow Street.”

  “A watchman, you would say? Come. You are not one of the Charlies?”

  “No, though I have the same authority as a watchman to arrest and take into custody. I am one of the more despicable officers, Doctor, who do this for blood-money.”

  “And boast of it?”

  “Sometimes; but hear me. Hamnet Tawnish interrupted us. There was a scuffle of swordplay, and I wounded him. He said he had followed me to punish a slight against his sister, which was a lie. He followed because he knew I should lead him to this girl here. If any person stands in danger of arrest, it is Peg Ralston herself.”

  “Arrest?” breathed Peg. She took a step backwards, her very dark eyes widening and glistening against a flood of pallor. “Arrest? Foh, you are mad!”

  “No. You were not in that upper room at the Golden Cross; you failed to hear what sweet Madam Cresswell has in store for you. I am not mad, though I may be mistaken and I hope I am.”

  “Then where is the need,” snapped Dr. Abel, “to alarm her so much? Has this young lady committed a crime? Can any say she has?”

  “There will be no charge of felony that means Newgate Prison. But there may be a lesser charge, a false one, that could get her committed to Bridewell if they dare lay information before a magistrate.”

  “Sir, this is fantastical.”

  “Doctor, do you truly think so?”

  “I do, and even in a world like ours. Young ladies of birth and breeding are not put in Bridewell to beat hemp or pick oakum as though they were—as though they were—” Dr. Abel stopped. “What of her parents? What of her friends? Surely there must be someone who cares for her?”

  “No, there is none,” Peg said clearly. “I have thought there was; I had prayed there was; but I know now there is none.”

  “Peg, for God’s sake!”

  “Bridewell!” said the girl, as though a spider had crawled across her flesh. “Bridewell. Do you know what else they do there?”

  “Yes. But I have every hope of your uncle. He loves you; and he is the only man with authority. I take precautions, that is all.”

  “Then let us take precautions,” said Dr. Abel, “but try to understand what we do. Why do you tell me this, young sir? How may I serve you?”

  “You may tell me, if you can, how Grace Delight died. Or, at least, whether there is a physical wound. Afterwards, if you will, you may take Miss Ralston into your home and guard her there while I explore the rooms above-stairs for ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes. Will you oblige me in this?”

  Broad-faced under the shabby wig, his eye now grown so bleary as to seem almost blind, Dr. Abel stood clutching cane and lanthorn-handle and instrument box.

  “Doctor,” Jeffrey said in desperation, “Much is being asked of you. Yet I take my oath it may be the only means of delivering Peg from two most unsavoury rogues; or, if the worst should befall, of delivering her from a month in Bridewell as a common strumpet”

  “As a—”

  “Yes. Forgive my bluntness. Will you do this?”

  “I will do it”

  Taking up one corner of his coat-skirt to avoid burning his fingers, Jeffrey opened the panel of the lanthorn and kindled the wax taper he carried at the broader, larger flame inside. He thrust the taper at Peg, who took it so uncertainly that she almost let it fall.

  “Now, Doctor, be pleased to light the way upstairs. Peg, remain here.”

  “Here? Alone? And at a time like this? You’d use me so, would you?”

  “Yes; I fear I would.”

  “Then go,” the girl said angrily. “Go, God damn you! I’ll have no more of your mock sympathy, either now or in future.”

  “Young sir—”

  “Doctor, there are the stairs.”

  Rather blindly, though with some agility despite his encumbrances, Dr. Abel mounted the steps. Still blindly, with the lanthorn-light in his eyes, he had turned towards the rear of the living-quarters before Jeffrey guided him into the bedchamber.

  For Jeffrey it was not easy. He could hear Peg, half sick with uncertainty and fright, sobbing her heart out in the passage below. He could hear the noise as she struck her clenched fist against the wall. But he shut his mind to this. And Dr. Abel, once bent above that grotesque figure on the bed, had eyes or ears only for the task of examination.

  Handing the lanthorn to Jeffrey, he put down his other burdens and fitted on a pair of oval spectacles. All bleariness dropped away from the broad, shrewd, ugly face, though it grew even broader and redder. At length he rolled the old woman’s body on its back again. He closed the staring eyes, put two pennies in them, and straightened up.

  “There is no wound here. Or, that is to say …”

  “Is it to say, Doctor, only that you can find none?”

  “Sir,” retorted the other, straightening up still more, “I could not swear my findings at the Almighty’s judgment-seat. Yet I can so testify to the parish clerk, and abide in honour by a verdict I now to be true. A stab-wound to the heart, for example, hath at times caused that same simulacrum of terror and that same rigidness of the muscles. But there is no wound. This shock was of her mind; it stopped the heart from fright.”

  “You said you were acquainted with her. Did she consult you in the way of physic?”

  “Yes; I have been here more than once.”

  “Was it a heart-ailing, then? So that a sudden fright might carry her off?”

  “No, it was in the matter of her dropsy. I urged her to consult a surgeon and be tapped for it. She would not do this, though to be tapped for dropsy is a small thing. And so I could only dose her with Bishop Berkeley’s tar-water, which is useless.” Dr. Abel looked down. “But certes the dropsy would enfeeble her heart. And now it is not seemly she should be without face-cloth or decent covering. Are there no bedclothes here?”

  “She had a blanket. It is otherwise employed now. When Tubby Beresford came shouting under the windows, I used it to hide that painting in the corner there.”

  There was a pause like the impact of a blow.

  “Painting? What painting?”

  “You shall look at it,” Jeffrey said, “but speak low when you answer. We must not be overheard.”

  He held the lanthorn high.

  Rats scuttled inside the wall. Another breakneck stair mounted towards a trap-opening to the stationer’s abandoned lumber-rooms above. The painting, half-length canvas unframed save for its own wooden binding, had been propped in the angle of the wall beyond the fire-place and hidden by a fouled and greasy blanket draped from the top. Jeffrey strode towards it, stamping hard on the floor, and then swung round.

  “Doctor,” he went on, “you have divined already there is some secret as touches that old woman on the bed?”

  “Granted; yet what’s the
manner of it? She had some education, I thought. She was miserly, they said. But who shall call his neighbour miserly when all on the bridge are poor? There was no painting when I called here a fortnight past.”

  “It was here, I think; she kept it hid in the cupboard. Would you see Grace Delight as she looked in the prime of her beauty, near to sixty years ago? Would you remember her if you saw the image?”

  “Remember her?” said Dr. Abel, stung to resentment at last “Come, sir, I have lived in this world scarce more than five decades. I am not so ancient as you seem to think.”

  “True.” Jeffrey bit at his fingernails. “True; pray forgive me; I had been thinking of another man who must be of much the same age. Are you familiar with the green-room at Covent Garden Theatre?”

  “I go seldom to the play, Mr. Wynne. Above all I avoid green-rooms.”

  “A dissenter? A methodist-man? A scorner of all play-acting?”

  “Why, to speak truth, the sight of these actresses in the greenroom, only half clad and with breasts showing, is not a sight that is good for me. Do you find this ridiculous?”

  “No; I find it honest. The same thought has been expressed by so staunch a moral man as ‘Dictionary’ Johnson. But it is not to our purpose.”

  He began to pace beside the canvas, still without touching its blanket.

  “A painting similar to this—not alike, but similar—hangs in the green-room at Covent Garden. The one at Covent Garden is a portrait of Mrs. Bracegirdle as she appeared in Love for Love at the end of the last century.”

  “Mrs. Bracegirdle? Anne Bracegirdle?”

  “The name is familiar to you?”

  “It is familiar to all. She was kind of heart, they say. Alone among actresses she was virtuous. She left the stage when she was still young; she is buried now in the Abbey. That portrait there,” and Dr. Abel pointed, “is also of Anne Bracegirdle?”

  “No. It is of her younger sister. There have been doubts of Anne’s great holiness; there can be no doubts regarding her sister’s. Rebecca Bracegirdle, who took the name of Grace Delight, was more greedy than a Mincing Lane pawnbroker and less virtuous than a Covent Garden drab. Now see for yourself why I am at my wit’s end.”

  He threw aside the blanket.

  Dr. Abel’s stolidity wavered. “But that is …”

  “Hush, for God’s sake. Lower your voice.”

  A woman’s face and figure had sprung out as though alive. Her gown, of orange-and-blue silk, was in a mode fashionable when King William coughed with asthma at Hampton Court. A great web of diamonds circled her throat and fell to the opening of the bodice. The head was carried a little back, the mouth smiling, the fair complexion set off by wired ringlets. Her face and figure were the face and figure of Peg Ralston.

  “Young sir,” said Dr. Abel, “I begin to understand.”

  “No, Doctor. Attend to me.”

  “I am waiting.”

  “My grandsire,” Jeffrey said, “was this woman’s lover for some years. He flung away a fortune for her whims. He decked her with half the jewels of Golconda. When she took a fancy to a younger man as the first wrinkles grew round her eyes, he cut his throat in a warm bath at the Hummums.”

  “I understand still better. You are much in love with Miss Ralston, it is plain.”

  “And if I am?”

  “I could wish you were not. She is bloodkin to the old woman who died here. You and this girl may well have the same grandfather, and be bloodkin to each other.”

  “No, Doctor. No, I say! I have sifted the matter too thoroughly. We are no kin at all.”

  “Then it need not trouble you, need it? Have you made mention of this to Miss Ralston herself? Have you shown her the portrait?”

  “No, damme! I had thought to; I had meant to; but at the pinch I could not bear to have her look on it.”

  “Would you wed the girl, feeling as you do?”

  “Why not? Even if the lie were true, our blood-line is none so close. And she shall never hear this tale from me.”

  “But what if she should hear it from another? As she is bound to hear soon or late. What then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Young sir,” returned Dr. Abel, rubbing a hand heavily and wearily across his forehead, “I am myself weak and I would not preach. Yet I count myself a judge of men. You can’t wed her; you can’t even tell her. ‘Behold this old woman,’ you would have to say, ‘first in her beauty and then in her obscenity. We share an incestuous passion, you and I; let all custom go hang; let’s marry and gratify ourselves, no matter how the world will behave towards you afterwards.’ Could you say as much to her?”

  “Doctor, have done with this!”

  “And yet, if you were wed to the girl, there could at least be no nonsense of haling her before a court to be put in Bridewell. You would be her master, her legal protector. How can you protect her now?”

  The whispered voices struck at each other and clashed. Jeffrey lowered the lanthorn; his arm was shaking. Then both of them started. Though they had heard no footstep in the street, they heard the fusillade of knocks as a fist hammered at the door from outside. They heard Peg cry out. Once more Captain Beresford’s voice rose up.

  “Open this door, Jeff. There’s a woman in the house, for all you told lies and denied it. She was seen at the Grapes; she enquired her way. Now open this door!”

  Jeffrey moved forward, thrusting the lanthorn at Dr. Abel. His right hand flew to his sword-hilt, and he drew the blade.

  “Doctor,” he said, “go below-stairs with the light and stand at Peg’s side. But don’t open the door.”

  “I have a kindness for you, young sir, though God He knows why I should have it. You’ll add no more to folly on folly. Put up that blade! What can a toy smallsword do against the military?”

  “Do you hear me, Doctor? Pray do as I ask. You don’t know at all what I have in mind.”

  Nor did Jeffrey himself, though by instinct he ran into the other room and towards the shattered window. Then his heart sank still further. He saw not only Captain Beresford with the two soldiers; there were also two watchmen who might not have dared approach without the backing of the Guards.

  “You exceed your authority, Tubby.”

  “Do I so? The woman’s name is Mary Margaret Ralston. This Charlie here,” and Tubby tapped one watchman’s shoulder, “has a magistrate’s writ to take her in custody.”

  “The value of a writ, Tubby, may depend on the person who laid information against her. Since it must be Hamnet Tawnish or Lavinia Cresswell …”

  “Hamnet Tawnish? Lavinia Cresswell? The information was laid by her uncle, one Sir Mortimer Ralston.”

  Jeffrey lowered his head. Dr. Abel stumbled on the stairs.

  “Tubby, that can’t be! You are somehow mistaken!”

  “If you doubt me, come below and see the writ. She is to be conveyed to the nearest round-house and appear before Justice Fielding tomorrow. Now, do you open this door or is it to be smashed with a musket-butt?”

  Jeffrey waited while a man might have counted to ten. Then he walked to the trap-opening. Peg and the doctor were both staring up at him.

  “Dr. Abel,” he said, “you had best open the door.”

  “But you won’t let them take me, will you?” Peg cried. “This is mad and I am dreaming and you won’t let them take me?”

  “They may take you, Peg—”

  “No!”

  “They may take you, I say, but they will not hold you long. The damned world must be fought with its own weapons; let that be so henceforward. Dr. Abel, open the door.”

  VI

  Of Lavinia Cresswell in the Alcove—

  IN COVENT GARDEN, TOWARDS seven o’clock on the following morning, a murky sky stirred with smoke above the roof-tops.

  The day’s brawling, shrieking, whistling had hardly begun. These houses, still high and handsome in red brick with white window-facings, looked very little gone to seed from outside. But the fruit-and-vegeta
ble market, though not yet large, set up a din amid stalls and booths round Inigo Jones’s column in the centre of the square. And so any inhabitants with pretentions to gentility had moved away years ago. From arcades called the piazzas along the north and east sides to a bagnio called the Hummums at the south side, it was full of dubious places and still more dubious people.

  Prostitutes in some finery haunted the piazzas, picking pockets when they could not entice. Apprentices yelled at football round the market, using this as an excuse to run head-down at any stranger and butt him flat Fishwives with covered baskets screamed their wares in language thought to be highly humorous. Law or no law against the sale of cheap gin, you could buy it anywhere and get dead drunk for twopence.

  Jeffrey Wynne, at his lodgings above the snuff-seller’s in the northern piazza, awoke with a headache from efforts on Peg’s behalf that had lasted until two in the morning.

  Hopeless! So far, entirely hopeless. The law had her fast

  It was true that those he tried to find had avoided him or refused to see him. And, though this might be fraying on the temper, it meant no more than a postponement; he had still to play whatever cards he held.

  ‘Or if not …?’ it occurred to him.

  He was served his morning chocolate by a landlady who expected curses from all her lodgers and was astonished only when she got them from Mr. Wynne. He washed and shaved in the bucket of cold water provided (usually) each morning for that purpose. He put on his only other wearable suit of clothes: cheap fustian coat and breeches, though with clean linen and a sword to be proud of.

  But he had no money.

  On a post-chaise, on unaccustomed coaches and chairs, on a certain secret business too, he had spent every farthing received before yesterday from Sir Mortimer Ralston. If much more had been promised by the loud-mouthed old braggart in St. James’s Square, he swore to himself he would not accept it now.

  ‘When will you learn?’ he was thinking. When will you ever learn?’

  There was a chilly bite in the air outside. A dozen or so people were still sleeping off fumes under the shelter of the arcade. Towards his left, where Covent Garden Theatre loomed above the houses on the west side of Bow Street, Jeffrey glanced along and thought instead of Justice John Fielding preparing to hear this day’s causes in a cramped courtroom adjoining Justice Fielding’s house on the east side of the same street.