Now the horror was real.
9
The four operators of the slide projectors were finally allowed to go home. It was well after eleven. Slevin felt it highly unlikely that any of them had been involved in the death of Georgina Throstle, but he nevertheless had to go through the formalities of interview and statements, and he decided to carry those out on the premises. The audience – none of whom had come into direct contact with the deceased woman – had left. Some of them had even grumbled, complaining that, as the slide show had been prematurely ended, surely they were entitled to some recompense.
Mr Herbert Koller, on the other hand, had disappeared.
Once the confusion had turned into horror, there was a veritable Babel of noise, of barked orders and screamed obscenities, and in the midst of all the uproar, the young actor had apparently taken the opportunity to make his exit.
‘Find him!’ Slevin ordered, giving the gathered policemen a brief description along with the address of his lodgings in Darlington Street.
The body had been removed and taken to the mortuary at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary. Slevin had politely sent a request to Dr Bentham for a post-mortem as soon as was humanly possible – he wanted to know the exact cause of the woman’s death. Then one of the policemen reported to him that the office by the stage had apparently been broken into and the small safe prised open with a crowbar. All of its contents had been removed. With the situation rapidly going out of control, Slevin braced himself for the hurricane of charges that would blast his way when he next came face to face with his chief constable: ‘You were present at a murder and a burglary, detective sergeant?’
Worswick, the manager of the hall, had assured him that Mrs Throstle had seemed in good spirits (considering her recent tragic bereavement, of course), on arriving at the Public Hall. She had seemed most anxious for Mr Koller to be shown every courtesy, and had asked if, at the conclusion of the night’s demonstration, he would make available his office for a little personal business.
‘Were Mrs Throstle and Mr Koller left alone together at any time?’
‘Of course not.’
‘What refreshments did Mrs Throstle take?’
‘None that I am aware of. She told me she had dined earlier.’
‘And Mr Koller? Was he left alone at any time?’
‘I don’t think so. No, I am quite sure he wasn’t. He seemed rather anxious to get on with the commentary and be done with the whole thing. Nerves, I suppose.’
‘Of course. Thank you, Mr Worswick.’
‘Er, there is one thing I should perhaps mention, Sergeant Slevin.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Mrs Throstle had asked that I make a certain package available for her at the conclusion to tonight’s performance.’
‘Package? What kind of package?’
‘Something she and her husband had stored here in our safe. I promised that I would see to it personally.’
‘What was in the package?’
‘I have no idea. But it was around twelve inches square. Quite bulky.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s quite fortuitous, in a sense.’
‘What is?’
‘Well, the safe being prised open like that.’
‘And how is that fortuitous?’
‘It’s obvious that whoever broke in was not only responsible for Mrs Throstle’s ghastly end, but also after the night’s takings.’
‘A fair conclusion.’ Slevin wondered how on earth this could in any way be seen as fortuitous.
‘But you see, I failed to carry out her instructions.’
‘What?’
‘When the young man at the entrance came with the evening’s receipts, I counted everything, gave the fellow his wage for the evening, and put the money in my bag.’
‘Your bag? Why not the safe?’
‘We have already been the victim of one break-in, as you are aware. And the safe was interfered with on that occasion, too. I felt it was only a matter of time before the miscreants returned with the necessary tools to open it. I intended to take the money home with me rather than leave it here overnight and wait for the banks to open.’
‘So you think the words scrawled on the wall were a subterfuge?’
‘I am by nature a suspicious and precautionary person.’ He reached down and picked up the brown leather bag he had placed on the floor. ‘Having put the money in my bag, I then opened the safe and removed the package. I put it into my bag, which I then placed beneath my desk. Who would think of looking there, eh?’ He opened the bag and pulled out a brown paper parcel.
Worswick proudly handed Slevin the parcel, which was surprisingly weighty. Slevin wondered if it contained money. If so, there was a princely sum wrapped up here, he thought. He thanked the manager and moved over to where Bowery was speaking with a few of the other constables.
‘Any of you men got a knife?’
One of the constables pulled out a shiny silver object and handed it over. Slevin slit the edges of the parcel so that he could peer inside without ruining the entire package. Then he cut down the left hand side until the contents were exposed. He handed the knife back and tore the rest of the packaging away to reveal a dark red box, divided into four compartments. On the front of the first compartment were etched the words ‘Rose Blossoms’ in fine italic script. In each compartment appeared to be six or seven square frames, measuring around three inches, and edged in dark grey. Slevin lifted one from its slot. As he held it up for them all to see, they noticed the frame contained a piece of glass upon which were imprinted diminutive figures too small to distinguish.
‘What the blazes is that lot?’ Bowery asked.
‘Unless I’m mistaken, Constable Bowery, these are magic lantern slides of a most specialised nature.’
‘What sort of specialised?’
‘Remember what Violet Cowburn told us?’
Bowery leaned closer to the glass image. ‘Blow me, sergeant! You mean there’s that sort of stuff on here? But you can hardly see it.’
Slevin pointed to one of the slide projectors standing a few yards away. ‘That’s their job. To magnify the image.’
‘What stuff would that be, Jimmy?’ said Constable Turner, one of those remaining behind to keep guard on the premises. He moved nearer, until Bowery pressed a hand against the young constable’s chest.
‘Nowt that would interest you, lad. What’s on these here slides would give you nightmares for a week, and no mistake.’
Slevin turned and called over to the manager, who had just finished counting the contents of his bag for the fourth time. ‘Mr Worswick! I wonder if you can help?’
He walked over to the manager and whispered something in his ear. Whatever he had said, it was met with a frown, then a contemplative closing of the eyes, then finally a decisive nod and the words ‘Of course.’
‘Right!’ said Slevin, returning to the gathering of constables. ‘I want every one of you to take up strategic points all around the perimeter of the building.’
‘What?’ said Paintbrush.
‘He wants us all outside,’ Bowery explained. ‘Guarding the place.’ He ushered the others outside, but as he got to the exit door he turned and gave his sergeant a rueful look that expressed in more than words his disappointment at not being included in this next phase of the investigation.
‘Right!’ Slevin said, when the door had banged shut, leaving only himself and the manager in the vast hall. ‘You know what to do.’ He handed the wooden box and its contents to Worswick, who walked quickly over to the nearest projector.
‘I’ve watched them during the week,’ Worswick said. ‘One of the assistants showed me how they use these gas cylinders to produce sufficient heat to light the block of limelight inside. It’s just a matter of getting the right mix . . .’
Cautiously, Slevin stepped back.
‘The ones on wheels,’ said the now engrossed manager, ‘are pushed to and fro to give the illusion of
movement, making the ghastly images seem to move closer or farther away.’
‘I don’t need movement to see what’s on here,’ Slevin snapped.
‘Ah!’ Worswick declared as the combined gases lit the block of limelight. ‘Success!’
A bright white light was cast onto the screen before them. Slevin took a deep breath as he handed the first of the slides to Worswick.
*
Later, much later, Slevin sat in the darkness and watched his son’s chest as it rose and fell with a regular rhythm. The curtains were closed, but a tiny gap between them allowed a shaft of moonlight to rest exactly where his small hand lay above the bedclothes. Beyond the window, the snow was swirling manically, caught up in angry gusts of wind.
‘What is it, Sam?’ Sarah had asked earlier. ‘What’s on your mind?’
He couldn’t tell her, of course. He had simply reached across to pat her hand and say he was simply tired. Now, as she lay asleep next door, he sat beside little Peter, trying to let the sound of his son’s breathing banish the dreadful images that lay floating around his brain like a phantasmagoria out of control.
But it was impossible. The more he became aware of Peter’s breathing, of his presence, of his future, the more he felt his heart sink under a cold and heavy weight. Although he tried most desperately, he simply couldn’t shake from his consciousness the sights he had seen tonight, the degradation he had witnessed on those abhorrent slides. Worswick had been physically ill and begged leave to retire to his office, leaving instructions on how to change the slides and maintain the focus of the image, so that Slevin watched the bulk of the images in a dreadful silence pierced only by the unheard screams and pitiful pleas of those poor children up there on the screen, whose smiles and poses were so obviously forced that it was a matter of wonder how the photographer got them to remain still for the length of the exposure.
But it was the final set of slides that made him shake with loathing: worst of all was the face of a young girl who could have been no older than eleven. It was the way her eyes looked up at the man forcing himself on her that made him retch with disgust. The man’s face was of course out of shot, but he could see hers clearly. Innocence and depravity framed for ever in a hellish vision of evil. That there were men who delighted in viewing such things! Her eyes gazed upwards, where heaven should be, but where only wickedness leered back.
He had felt an overwhelming wave of pity for the poor child, a sensation that still flooded his entire being now as he gazed down at another such innocent.
He knew with certainty what he would do to the monster who perpetrated such vileness. But he also knew that what he had in mind had already been done, for Richard Throstle had been the man in the slide, the man defiling the innocence of childhood.
He saw the shaft of light slowly fade as a cloud drifted across the moon. Tomorrow, he promised himself, this will all be concluded.
*
‘Phosphorus poisoning?’
‘Just so.’
Slevin looked at Dr Horatio Bentham and shook his head. They were standing on either side of the covered remains of Georgina Throstle. Her brother Edward had been brought down to the mortuary to provide the formal identification of the body, and had flatly refused to leave her side until he had recited innumerable prayers for the sanctity of her ‘sinful soul’. Now, as the Reverend Edward Malvern was waiting in the visitors’ room under the watchful gaze of Constable Bowery, Slevin looked at the pitiful outline of a woman he had spoken to a matter of hours ago.
Bentham pointed to the contents of a large crucible, fortunately also covered by a cloth.
‘It’s quite easy to detect, post-mortem,’ he explained. ‘All we do is lower the lighting and watch.’
‘Watch?’
‘The organs glow, you see? Phosphorus is a very illuminating poison. It caused the glowing from her mouth you described to me earlier. Still, I conducted a few tests to make sure. Oxidisation by nitric acid, mainly.’
‘How could she have taken it?’
Bentham shrugged. ‘Orally, of course, but the means . . . well, not my area, really. More in your line.’
‘Isn’t phosphorus used in match-making?’
‘Yes. But you’d have to crush a number of matches to provide a fatal dose, and there are other agents involved in making matches. I think rat poison’s your man. Probably Rodine.’
‘But what about the taste? Wouldn’t it be impossible to disguise?’
‘Difficult, but not impossible. You see, phosphorus has a sharp tang of garlic, so the food or drink you need to mix it with has to be quite strong, strong enough to mask the taste.’
‘I see. Is there anything else, doctor?’
‘Oh no, I don’t think so. Not with this one at any rate.’
‘What do you mean?’
Bentham raised a finger and gave him a mischievous smile. ‘If I hadn’t got your message about this unfortunate lady, I had planned to contact you anyway. It may be something or it may be totally unconnected, but I think you might at least wish to take it into consideration.’
‘And what might that be?’
The surgeon escorted him to another part of the mortuary, a long, dark room that seemed somehow much colder than the examining room they had just left. Bentham lit a small gas lamp fixed to the wall and picked up a small oil lamp which he also lit. Its tiny flame danced eerily as they moved quickly down a narrow passage with darkened alcoves spaced to right and left at regular intervals. These alcoves, he knew, were the penultimate resting-places of those unfortunates who were awaiting some sort of interment at the expense of the parish. Poor, desolate souls whom no one came forward to claim and for whom no one came forward to grieve. He shuddered and kept close to the feeble yellow light before him.
‘Here we are!’ Bentham announced like a museum guide.
Slevin followed him into one of the alcoves on the left. He saw the edge of a hard wooden slab and a pair of whitened feet with a piece of card tied to one of the ankles.
Bentham read aloud the name on the card. ‘Enoch Platt.’
‘Clapper!’ Slevin said.
‘You knew him?’
‘Oh yes. A character about town, you might say.’
‘Well, this fellow was run down by a tram in the centre of town.’
‘Accident?’
‘Oh, indubitably. Several witnesses, you see. He just staggered out into the path of the tram and, well, that was it.’
‘So what has this accident to do with my investigation?’
‘A coincidence. Involving the man’s clothes.’
‘His clothes?’
‘Yes. One of the assistants was about to throw them away – they were dreadfully filthy – when she began to sneeze. Before I could admonish her – we were in an examining room, after all – she said it was hardly surprising, considering she’d just inhaled a mouthful of the vilest dust.’
Slevin grew more alert.
‘So I took the trouble of examining the man’s clothes.’
‘And you found asbestos dust?’
Bentham resembled an actor whose best line had been stolen and used by another. ‘As a matter of fact, I did. Your Mr Enoch Platt had asbestos dust all over his midriff. It matches exactly the dust I examined on the body of Mr Richard Throstle.’
*
The police constable who had been despatched to Mrs O’Halloran’s lodging-house the previous night had searched the bedroom where Mr Herbert Koller was staying. There was no sign of him, although he had evidently not planned to leave the town, for his clothes were still in the wardrobe and his suitcase was beneath the bed. When the policeman left, Mrs O’Halloran sat in her front room waiting for the arrival of Mr Morgan-Drew, who would doubtless know what to do. It had been a terrible misjudgement on Mr Koller’s part to leave his sickbed. Perhaps he had grown delirious and done something that was completely out of character?
When the actor-manager arrived, he had already seen the policeman standing outside and
was alarmed to be told the reason for his presence.
‘But did he say what they wanted to speak to Herbert about?’
‘Not a word, Mr Morgan-Drew.’
Benjamin sat there, pondering the situation. But as the night grew on, he had no alternative but to accept Mrs O’Halloran’s advice and go upstairs to bed. He was certainly not foolish enough to go out and look for him. After the lies Herbert had told earlier that evening, he would never deign to pursue him again. He lay down in his cold bed and waited for the tears to come.
It was after one o’clock when he heard the sound and sat up in bed.
He moved across to the bedroom window. He lifted the curtain and peered down into the darkness of the back yard. At first he saw nothing. Then, from the privy halfway down the back alley, he saw a murky shape detach itself from the doorway and run to Mrs O’Halloran’s back wall, where it raised an arm and was about to hurl another snowball at his window. Quickly, Benjamin undid the catch of the window and swung it open.
‘Herbert!’ he called in his quietest stage whisper. ‘Herbert? Is that you?’
The figure froze and stooped low; from behind the brick wall came the familiar voice. ‘Let me in, for God’s sake! I’ll die of frostbite out here!’
‘One minute!’ Benjamin said and closed the window.
He crept downstairs and went to the kitchen, where he carefully unbarred the back door and opened it. A second later, Herbert, shivering, slid inside and urged his saviour to close the door and take him to his room.
A few minutes later, as they lay together in bed, Benjamin could feel the chill on his skin, and a gloomy heaviness settle in the pit of his stomach. Despite his noble defiance, his vows of earlier, he was once again in thrall to this mendacious young god. But he knew that, for the time being at least, there would be no point in hurling recriminations or even in asking questions. He would let him thaw out first.
*
The two constables stood before Sergeant Slevin and tried to get their story straight. He had asked to see all those policemen who were present at the previous night’s accident at the top of King Street, an accident that had necessitated the closure of the street and the diversion of all horse-drawn vehicles. For half an hour the situation had been quite chaotic, and the unfortunate constables had borne the brunt of all manner of hostility. They had even come under attack from a flurry of snowballs.
Act of Murder Page 19