The Mannequin House

by R. N. Morris

  ‘Spiggott! Don’t be a fool!’ cried Quinn. But even as he shouted the words, he knew he didn’t mean them. Wasn’t this, in fact, the very event that his visit to the church had been intended to precipitate?

  The shot, when it came, was the most absolute and appalling sound imaginable. Quinn had heard guns discharged before, of course. Often when they were held in his own hand. Or in the hands of those who were directing their fire towards him.

  But somehow the sound of a gun is always more shocking to a bystander than to anyone directly involved in an exchange of gunfire, even if that bystander is a seasoned police detective. There can be no sense of control over or responsibility for what is happening. One is overwhelmed instead by a haphazard and profoundly inimical world.

  This was the chaos of which Father Thomas had spoken.

  Blackley fell to the floor. Blood pooled around his head. The gasps and spasms of his dying held them fascinated. Then it was over.

  The people on the street were screaming. They had probably been screaming for some time. But this was the moment that Quinn became aware of it. It needed the reverberating punch of the gunshot to die before he was able to process any other sounds.

  He noticed too that the musical box had not yet reached the end of its melody.

  Spiggott kept his right arm outstretched, as if he wanted to hold the gun as far away from him as possible. Smoke curled up from the tip of the barrel.

  There was a strange blankness in his eyes. Whatever combination of rage and hatred had caused him to fire the gun had been expelled along with the bullet. ‘I loved her.’ His voice was quiet but strangely firm, as if this was the only explanation necessary for what he had done.

  The hand holding the weapon began to shake. Slowly the direction of the barrel rotated. Quinn held up one palm as if he believed he could fend off a bullet with it. But it was soon clear that Spiggott did not intend to shoot the detective. Instead he inserted the barrel of the revolver into his mouth. A moment later there was a bloody mess where his head had been. The force of the gun’s explosion threw his body backwards on to the pavement.

  ‘I ought to have seen that coming.’ The ballerina in Quinn’s hand finished her final pirouette. He pushed her down and fastened the lid.

  Quinn stayed late at the department that night to write the report that DCI Coddington had requested. It was worth it for the privilege of watching the evening form in the attic window. The sky’s twilight transformations took him to a place above the fray. The death of Blackley in particular would not play well with his superiors, he knew. But as he glimpsed the vast, subtle shifts of colour in the square panes it was hard to care.

  The hammer was about to fall. Let it fall.

  He wrote the report by longhand on carbon-backed papers, producing one copy for Coddington, another to be delivered directly to Sir Edward, and a third which he kept for himself.

  At last, it was done. The full weight of dusk gathered at the window – one final transformation away from night.

  Quinn left Coddington’s copy on his own desk, which Coddington had appropriated. Not for too much longer, he hoped. He had not been able to keep Coddington’s withholding of vital forensic findings out of the report.

  He donned his bowler, shrugged himself into his herringbone Ulster and headed out with the other two copies under one arm. It felt as if he was leaving the department for good.

  He could still feel the weight of the musical box in his pocket. He knew it could be considered evidence but he doubted anyone would miss it. And he had plans for it.

  She was not at her desk, of course. Her typewriter squatted beneath its dust cover, the surface of the desk scrupulously cleared.

  He placed the musical box where she could not miss it, right in front of the machine at which she spent so much of her day working. But he was immediately dissatisfied with the positioning. There seemed something obstructive about it. He tried balancing the gift on top of the typewriter, but that looked too ostentatious. Putting it behind the typewriter ran the risk that she would not notice it.

  At last, he went back to his original choice, on the edge of her desk, just in front of the typewriter.

  He knocked on Sir Edward’s door. There was no reply and when he tried the handle it was locked. He wanted to be sure that Sir Edward read his report, so he pushed the single sheet of paper under the door. He folded the other copy and placed it in the inside pocket of his Ulster.

  On his way past Miss Latterly’s desk, he snatched up the musical box and slipped it back into his pocket.

  What on earth had he been thinking?

  He sat on the top deck of the number nine omnibus, up in the open night. Around him the lights of Piccadilly hung like fallen stars. He was part of the darkness he had earlier seen forming. Under its influence, he allowed himself to entertain impossible dreams: that tomorrow he would find his nerve and give her the musical box in person.

  Some part of his rational faculty was not yet obliterated by exhaustion. And so he ultimately accepted that this would never happen. But he was only able to replace one preposterous fantasy with another. In short, he imagined himself giving the musical box to Miss Ibbott.

  He justified this to himself by arguing that there would be nothing meant by it. It would be seen as the disinterested gift of a grateful lodger for his landlady’s daughter, a way of showing his satisfaction with his accommodation. A gift, effectively, from an adult to a child, comparable perhaps to a fond uncle treating a favourite niece. It was patently not the gift of an admirer to a lady about whom he entertained hopes; no one would be able to construe it in that way, except perhaps Messrs Timberley and Appleby, and they would only do so ironically, to make mischief.

  Of course, he realized that the best thing to do with the cursed object was simply throw it away. But he could not quite bring himself to do that.

  It was approaching eleven o’clock as he walked the last stretch of his journey home. The night was warm. He was glad to be out in it. He saw more people in the quiet residential streets of South Kensington than were usual at that time. The balmy weather after so much rain drew them out. He had the sense of something lively at large. But then his recent experiences made it hard for him to believe in the good-natured fellowship that seemed to be communicated in these strangers’ glances.

  Perhaps it was the policeman in him. He couldn’t help suspecting that they were up to no good.

  He couldn’t help speculating, too, about the lives that were lived in the houses he passed. Outwardly so respectable, just like the mannequin house, the flat, stuccoed facades repelled him. In contrast, Quinn found the warmth of the night welcoming.

  Mrs Ibbott had left a light on. A soft glow seeped out from the semicircular window above the street door, dispensing a gleaming edge on to the area railings.

  Waiting for him on the front step was Mr Percy, the cat whose complacent air of prerogative had come to mind when he had seen Blackley in the garden with the mannequins. The cat sprang to his feet and preened demandingly around Quinn’s ankles, mewing his complaints. Sleek, black and overfed, the animal was like a small bundle of the night that had come to life solely for the purpose of importuning Quinn.

  As Quinn opened the door Mr Percy slipped in through the smallest possible gap. The cat shot off, his self-importance reflected in the pertness of his tail; Quinn was utterly forgotten now, having served his purpose.

  Closing the door behind him, he felt a chill weight settle in his heart. His life closed down to what it was – no more, no less. Whatever potential he had possessed in the night was lost to him.

  He was Silas Quinn. A man approaching middle age. A bachelor. Possessor of certain talents and uncertain qualities. In his professional life a fearless – some might say reckless – pursuer of dangerous criminals. In his private life, in the pursuit of his own happiness, he was an abject failure. A coward.

  It was that failure that he was coming home to.

  He would never give the mu
sical box to Miss Latterly. And he realized just in time what a terrible mistake it would be to give it to Miss Ibbott. But he wouldn’t throw it away. He would keep it hidden in a drawer, a secret reminder of – what? He could not say of what might have been. More accurately, of what never could be.

  At the very least, it would serve as a reminder of his emotional cowardice.

  For once, he didn’t worry about making a noise coming in. The door hinges screeched a gleeful mocking chorus. He hardly heard it.

  The other occupants of the lodging house had evidently already retired for the night. No one came out to quiz him on his late return. That’s to say, his landlady, Mrs Ibbott didn’t; it was invariably she who sought to involve him in the life of the house.

  As he reached his landing he heard the tread of someone coming down from the floor above. He turned to see Miss Dillard in her nightie and dressing gown. A faint whiff of sherry preceded her.

  ‘Oh, Mr Quinn, it’s you.’ Miss Dillard looked down in embarrassment. ‘I left my novel downstairs.’ She evidently felt her presence was something that needed to be explained.

  She kept her eyes away from his out of embarrassment, but at that moment he found himself craving a glimpse of her irises. He needed to remind himself of the startling metallic clarity of their grey.

  He reached out a hand and tilted her face up.

  The colour was like a shot of fortifying liquor. It was objectively, absolutely beautiful. And so it made up for a lot.

  ‘You have very beautiful eyes.’ Quinn released her jaw. She kept her gaze on him. He felt the spasm beneath his eye flare up again.

  ‘Good night, Miss Dillard,’ he said at last, turning away from her.

  She made a small, disappointed sound.

  Quinn broke off from opening his door with a self-conscious gesture. ‘Oh, Miss Dillard.’ He straightened up and pulled the musical box from his pocket. ‘I was wondering . . . I thought perhaps . . .’ He thrust the gift towards her. ‘It’s a musical box.’

  Her face lit up. Her smile was not beautiful like her eyes, but there was a wan sadness to it that touched him. She wound the key and opened the lid. The tiny ballerina danced in her hand. She turned her eyes on him in delight. And once again he was granted a glimpse of that beautiful clear grey.