‘I am doing my utmost, sir, but there are certain—’ He glanced at Miss Tatton, who sat placidly in the next seat, absorbed now by the hail against the window. She was perfectly indifferent still to everything that was said, but it seemed indecent even so to speak of her as if she were not present. ‘Well, sir, she is hardly amenable to instruction. I kept her from view as well as I could.’
Cutter only grunted, and when they had climbed into the carriage he turned to the window and folded his arms, his manner making it plain that he wished for no further conversation. Once they had left the town behind them, they travelled in dreary silence, relieved now and then – if relieved was the word – by Miss Tatton’s inscrutable chatter, her snatches of eerie singing. They made their way north, by a narrow but tolerably even road, and passed through farmland that gave way in time to wan and scrubby flatlands. Beyond these the sea could at times be glimpsed, iron dark under low swags of cloud.
It was some time before Gideon ventured to speak. ‘Since we have a moment’s leisure, sir, I wondered if we might return to the subject of the crystal.’
Cutter had been tapping at the face of his watch, which he now returned to its pocket. ‘Were we on that subject, Bliss?’
‘You mentioned that you had sought the opinion of an expert. I am eager to hear it, sir, and to understand how it might help us. It was I who found the item in question, as you may recall, and it would be most gratifying to know that—’
‘Yes, yes.’ The inspector brought up his hand. ‘God help us, Bliss, if I had any notion of your skills as a torturer, I might have made use of you in the cells. I had it looked at, your bit of glass, and it seems it is a rare bit of craftsmanship. Nothing like it is produced in England, my man says. It may be Flemish-made, though he cannot be certain of it. Beyond that, he could say very little, except that it was meant for more than decoration. The vessel it came from, he said, was made for strong stuff.’
‘Strong stuff, sir? Brandy and the like?’
‘No, Bliss. Chemicals, he meant. A “volatile agent”, whatever that may be.’
Gideon considered this. ‘I have no training in the natural sciences, sir, but a volatile substance, I believe, is one that lends itself to evaporation, and which may therefore be inhaled to some rapid effect. Like ether, for instance.’
‘Is that so?’ Cutter nodded and looked away, but it was Gideon’s impression that he was being humoured.
‘Am I right in supposing, sir, that you have some notion already of what the vessel may have contained?’
‘I have all kinds of notions, Bliss, but it takes more than notions to put a fellow in the dock. You know my ways by now, surely?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Another thought came to him, which he sought to suppress by sitting on his hands.
Cutter caught sight of him and cast up his eyes. ‘Out with it, Bliss, before you rupture your hydraulics.’
‘Forgive me, sir, it is just that I was reminded of something.’ He glanced at Angie, but she seemed entirely absorbed by her own thoughts. ‘When I came upon Miss Tatton in the church, she spoke of a “black air”. I mentioned it to you, I believe, when I gave you my account of what had happened. It was how she described it, sir, the drug she was given.’
‘Is that so?’ said Cutter again.
Gideon drew in a long breath. ‘Sir, I know you are right to be cautious in your hypotheses, but I have begun forming a theory of my own. All I ask is that you indicate your opinion of it. If you think it foolish, you need only shake your head.’ When Cutter said nothing, he was emboldened to continue. ‘A “black air” or vapour answers the description, it seems to me, of a “volatile agent”. If a substance of that kind had been kept in vessels at Strythe House – and if Miss Tull had come to guess at its purpose – might not her conscience have demanded that she destroy them, since she was bent already on destroying herself? You need only shake your head.’
The inspector’s expression remained comparatively mild. He scratched at his lower lip with a thumbnail, but made no other movement.
Gideon let out a sigh, and a gentle elation took hold of him. ‘Do you recall, sir, the undertaking I gave you?’
Cutter did not immediately reply. He had turned again to the window, and was gazing at the sullen landscape. ‘Undertaking?’ he said at length. ‘What undertaking was that, Bliss?’
‘I pledged, sir, that if you allowed me the opportunity of finding Miss Tatton, and of keeping my promise to her, I would give you my diligent service as a sergeant thereafter, and apply what little learning I have to the peculiar case that confronts us.’
The inspector’s gaze remained fixed on the window. ‘That undertaking,’ he said. ‘Yes, Bliss, I do recall it. Do you wish to retract it?’
‘On the contrary, Inspector. I wish to reinforce it. I am at your service, even if my duty to Miss Tatton encumbers me somewhat.’
Cutter gave a low snort, and his expression darkened, but he said nothing in reply.
‘May I speak frankly, sir?’
The inspector detached his hand from his jaw, splaying three fingers in weary assent.
‘It is an inconvenience that poor Miss Tatton must accompany us in her present condition. I am sure she would not wish it herself if she were – if she were quite in her senses. But you would not have permitted it, sir, if you had not some notion of her usefulness, if you did not believe, as I do, that she has some connection with that melancholy business at Strythe House, and perhaps with what happened at Bethnal Green. We know now that Miss Tull’s last message was meant for my uncle, who had been trying to protect Angie. We know that it was Lord Strythe she meant to identify.’
Cutter stirred in his seat, gathering his coat about his bulk. His eyes narrowed but did not leave the window.
‘And if I may, sir, it is my belief that you know something of Miss Angie’s condition, of the appearance of her hand, or rather its disappearance. What we saw last night – well, I scarcely know how to describe it, and I am distrustful still of my own senses. Whereas you, when we were presented with this … with this phenomenon – well, you seemed to me, sir, to be no more than a little put about, as if you had seen nothing out of the common way.’
Now, at last, Inspector Cutter turned from the window, folding his arms in deliberation. Gideon cleared his throat at some length, working the heels of his hands into the greasy cloth that covered his seat.
‘Other officers have alluded to your work on “special cases”. Inspector Fox made mention of it, when he took you aside at the house in Charlotte-street, and Constable Canning said something of the same kind. They seemed to suggest, sir, that you are called upon when the circumstances of a crime do not appear altogether natural.’
The inspector yawned and worked a knot from his shoulder. ‘If you have a question to put to me, Bliss, will you come to the end of it, like a good fellow?’
Gideon glanced at Miss Tatton, who had plucked a cobweb from the window frame and was teasing it into a skein on the spindle of her gloved fingertip. He leaned towards Cutter and addressed him in a whisper. ‘Ghosts, sir. Do you investigate ghosts? Is that what Miss Tatton has become?’
‘Not yet, Bliss.’
‘Not yet, sir?’
Cutter leaned forward in his turn, confronting Gideon with a look that was at once weary and intent. Without warning, he reached for Angie’s hand, drawing it towards him without ceremony and tugging it from its glove.
‘Sir!’ protested Gideon.
‘You need not fear for her, Bliss. Look at her, she is scarcely sensible of our presence.’
It was true. She had not so much as turned to see who it was that held her wrist, only straining forward a little to clutch at the wisp of cobweb that had slipped from her grasp. Cutter took up a newspaper that an earlier passenger had discarded. Folding it across his knees, he laid Miss Tatton’s hand on it, pressing it flat. Gideon looked stiffly away, as if from some scandalous display of intimacy.
‘Look, Bliss,’ Cutter command
ed. ‘Look at it.’
Gideon obeyed. The newspaper was a recent issue of The Kent and Sussex Courier, whose front page was given over to advertisements of various kinds. Against this background, he saw that the translucent portion of Miss Tatton’s hand had grown larger, engulfing almost her entire palm as well as three of her fingers. As before, its substance appeared almost entirely absent, its contours dissolved, like syrup in warm water. Beneath it an irregular patch of newsprint could be clearly seen.
The inspector pointed. ‘Read it,’ he said.
Gideon gave a small cough, glancing towards Miss Tatton as if to ask her leave. ‘The finer type cannot be made out, sir.’
‘Read what you can, damn it.’ Cutter stabbed at the page with his forefinger. ‘The name of the merchant is not in fine print. Read that.’
‘He is a Mr T. Wagner, sir.’
‘And where is he established?’
‘At 66 and 68 Calverley Road, sir, in Tunbridge Wells.’
‘Opposite the Town Hall.’
‘Just so, sir. Opposite the Town Hall.’
‘And what does this Mr Wagner advertise, Bliss?’
‘A great sale of unredeemed pledges, sir. He is a pawnbroker, I believe.’
‘What has he to offer in his great sale? Perhaps we might put ourselves out of our way to look in.’
‘Blankets and sheets, sir. Quilts and counterpanes. Warm shawls.’
‘Warm, is it? I suppose that is a virtue in a shawl. What else?’
‘I hesitate to mention the other items, sir, in the presence of a lady.’
Inspector Cutter enveloped his face with his hands, letting out a long breath as he drew them away. ‘A word that you hesitate – God help us, Gideon Bliss, if you are not entirely helpless in the sight of the world. You are reading this pawnbroker’s advertisement through your little flower-maker’s hand, and here you are worrying about the demands of propriety. Read it out, you miserable piss-puddle.’
Gideon coughed again. ‘Yes, sir. It refers, sir, to underclothing and baby linen.’
‘Very good, Bliss,’ said Cutter. ‘That will do.’
The inspector set about replacing Miss Tatton’s glove and, with some gentleness now, settling her arm once more across her lap. ‘I am obliged to you, miss. Now then, Bliss, you ask if I look into “special cases”, and whether I am an authority on ghosts, if that is indeed the right word. What I do, Sergeant, is no more than what you have just done yourself. I look at what is before me, and I get on with the business of learning from it whatever is there to be learned. As for the likes of Miss Tatton, I do not pretend to understand their true nature, though it is not for want of puzzling over it. I have made certain observations, nothing more. I do not trip over her kind every night of the week, and I am heartily glad of it.’
‘But what do you mean, when you talk about Miss Tatton’s kind? What has happened to her, sir? What is she?’
Cutter folded his arms and fixed him with a solemn look. ‘Be careful what you ask, Bliss. You may not like the answer.’
‘Please, sir. I must know.’
‘She is a half-shade, Bliss, or that is how I think of them. Perhaps there is a proper term.’
‘A half-shade? What does that … what does it mean?’
‘It means, Bliss, that she is passing from the world. She is slipping away from herself, as we do in our dotage, leaving only what we remember from the first – songs and rhymes, and what have you. But her mind is not gone, as a dotard’s is. It is elsewhere. She is passing from the world, but she has some business in it still. People talk of fearing ghosts, but it is not ghosts they should be afraid of. It is the likes of this poor creature.’
Gideon looked at Miss Tatton in disbelief. She had arranged her gloved hands in her lap, and gazed out in her vacant way at the greyish margin of the coast. ‘Afraid, sir?’ he said. ‘You cannot believe, surely, that she is capable of harm?’
‘You needn’t worry, Bliss. She will not trouble you or me. Her business is with those who brought her to this. I have seen it for myself.’ The inspector broke off for a moment, working with one knuckle at the corner of his mouth. ‘The worst of men, a slaughterer of children, brought to his knees. Brought to his knees, Bliss, without a word being uttered, before a creature who in life was not yet ten years old. I wrested the gun from his mouth myself.’
‘Are you speaking of the St Johns, sir? Was that how you came to—’
‘Never mind what cases I am speaking of. I have said all I mean to say about them. But it is some comfort to you, maybe, to know what preoccupies her. She seems miles away, and so she may very well be. She sees things we cannot see, and she has a long reach. But her time is short.’
Gideon stared, a coldness spreading in his chest. ‘What does that mean, sir? What will happen to her?’
But Cutter only shook his head, and at that moment the carriage rattled to a halt. They had turned into a narrow lane shadowed by a dark lace of elms, and the place seemed enveloped by a strange quietness. Gideon started when the driver opened the door.
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ the driver said. ‘Guvnor said I was to pull up short of the gates and keep it good and quiet.’
‘The gates?’
‘The Strythe place, sir. Them trees is part of the boundary, and the gates you can just about make out at the next bend. This is where the guvnor asked for, sir. This is the house on Vesper Sands.’
XIX
The house was not large, for a family of such means, but its isolation gave a stark grandeur to its appearance. It rose from a promontory overlooking the dunes, and might have served at one time as a seaside villa. There was a faded elegance still about its arches and mullions, but it had fallen into neglect. Years of salt air had roughened its stonework, and its gables were discoloured by lichen and rust.
The sleet had yielded to a cheerless drizzle, giving a dismal air to the unkempt grounds. They passed a disused greenhouse, its panes mottled and crowded by vines, and glimpsed a tennis court beyond an untended hedge whose net slumped into a drift of blackened leaves. Cutter strode ahead as always, while Gideon trudged by Miss Tatton’s side, keeping her beneath the inspector’s tattered umbrella when he could and urging her onwards when she fell into her trances.
As they drew near the house, he looked up to find Cutter waiting. His expression was bleak. ‘Show a leg, will you?’ he called out. ‘You are not strolling the botanic gardens with your sweetheart.’
‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Bliss. ‘I am doing my utmost, but Miss Tatton seems to grow more distracted. She caught sight of an old summerhouse just now, and it was all I could do to keep her from wandering away.’
Cutter shook his head in exasperation. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We will try the servants’ entrance first. I want to know who is here before our presence is announced, and whether anyone is lately arrived from town.’
When Cutter rapped on the kitchen door, it was flung aside by a serving woman of dour appearance with a shotgun braced under her arm.
‘What’s your business here?’ she demanded. ‘We ain’t expecting no callers.’
‘We are police officers, madam,’ said Cutter. ‘Will you put down that firearm, please, before I relieve you of it?’
‘What police? I ain’t never seen you before, and I know every constable from here to Ramsgate.’
‘We are not with the Kent Constabulary, madam. I am Inspector Cutter of the London Metropolitan Police and I have papers on me to prove it. But I say again, put down that shotgun before I am obliged to do it for you. I have had a good many guns pointed at me in my time, and it has rarely ended well for those doing the pointing.’
The woman gave him a surly look, but broke the shotgun with a practised movement and let it hang by her side.
‘You might give me your name, madam, since I have given you mine.’
‘Cornish.’
‘A very good day to you, Mrs Cornish. We hope to speak to the lady of the house, or to His Lordship, if he shou
ld happen to be present.’
‘We don’t see much of His Lordship,’ Mrs Cornish said. ‘What business you got with either of them?’
‘No business I intend to discuss with you. Now, madam, I have traipsed a good way in this weather, and I am standing here in a wet overcoat and a sour mood. Will you do me the kindness of showing us in?’
Mrs Cornish eyed them for a moment longer before standing aside. ‘Who’s the young miss? Looks like death, she does. You ain’t going to tell me she’s a police officer and all?’
‘You are right there, Mrs Cornish,’ Cutter said. ‘I am not going to tell you.’
They were shown to a musty drawing room whose French windows overlooked the dunes and the sea beyond. Miss Tatton was taken at once with the view, drifting to the window and refusing to be led from it even when Mrs Cornish returned with tea.
‘Ain’t no fire lit,’ the housekeeper said, setting down a rack of charred toast. ‘Lady Ada keeps to her rooms till near enough six o’clock most days, and she don’t much feel the cold. I’ve told her you’re here, but I can’t say when she might appear. You’ll have to put up as best you can. You may go at the bookcase if you’ve a mind for all that. Lady Ada is forever at the books.’
The inspector swallowed a mouthful of tea. ‘Did you mention that we are police officers?’
Mrs Cornish folded her hands on her apron. ‘I said who you was, but it won’t signify. Lady Ada ain’t the most regular in her thinking, God bless her. You could be Prince Albert himself, sir, and not be sure of seeing her until I put out the drinks tray in the evening.’
Cutter took up a position by the vacant fireplace, tugging in agitation at his damp collar. ‘It cannot be helped, then,’ he said. ‘We are obliged to you, Mrs Cornish.’
The housekeeper paused at the door, her attention drawn once more to the window. A kestrel hung intently above the dunes, and Angie’s attention was fixed on it. She had become still, clutching the frills of her cuffs. Her lips moved, as if in some silent recitation.
The House on Vesper Sands Page 21