The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 1 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  I was amazed to find myself in a pleasant and expansive courtyard, elegantly paved and set about with vines and jessamine. A screen wall surrounded the courtyard, broken in the centre by an impressive iron-grille gate. The gate was guarded by two stone lions, fiercely rampant, yet with expressions of unshakeable piety. I stepped into the court and turned to look at the house.

  It was a middling sort of house, a square rose-bricked edifice. The contrast between its frontage and its rear was remarkable. The façade was charming, strong and placid, with no frippery. The shutters were painted a gay yellow and the large front door had both a canopy and a fanlight.

  For a moment, I believed that I had made another mistake. But no, the sedan chair rested in a corner of the courtyard, cooled by the shade of a fragrant tree.

  This, I saw, was the house I was looking for. But how had Murrell got here from that warren of dirty lanes behind me? No doubt I could find that out when I faced him. I walked up the broad steps and pulled at the bell-rope.

  The bell pealed deep inside the house and I waited for the echoes to die away before I pulled the rope again.

  I waited two minutes more and then set the bell a-jangling. There was no response.

  After twenty minutes of futile bell-pulling and frustrating door-knocking, it seemed obvious that either the house was deserted, the occupants were deaf or I was going to be ignored. Once again, I had a strange feeling of being watched. I felt that even the lions had their pious gaze upon me.

  I tried to peer into the ground floor windows, but I could see nothing; the heavy curtains were drawn tightly against the evening light.

  I turned away from the house and decided to leave by the front gate. It was, of course, locked.

  For a moment, I was lost for action. It must, I knew, be obvious to whoever was inside (if anybody was) that I, too, had entered through the back-premises, and this must have greatly alarmed them.

  And forewarned them. For I would have to return by that direction. I felt a proper annoyance at my lack of thought. Indeed, I seemed to have taken no thought in this matter so far! It was apparent to me now, from the assistant’s unusual behaviour in the shop, that the Doctor was the type of man to have any number of enemies of a greater or a lesser sort. It was also apparent from the Doctor’s subsequent behaviour that he was a sly and nasty individual who would deal with his enemies in a sly and nasty manner. No doubt, at this very moment, some thoroughbred bruiser lurked below, waiting for my hesitant steps. The criminality is audacious and brutal, I am a brave enough man, but I don’t believe in courting ill-fortune. I had no intention of returning through that treacherous black tunnel.

  Without further ado, I set one foot on a lion’s backside, put the other foot on its kingly head and, making sure that the street was empty, heaved myself over the wall. I dropped down on the other side to find myself in a broad street.

  “What street is this?” I foolishly asked a passer-by.

  “Why, Paradise Close, to be sure,” the surprised man replied.

  I pointed at the house I had just left.

  “What house is that?” I asked.

  He looked affronted.

  “Why that, Sir, is the notorious Temple of Health!” and chuntering furiously, he hurried away.

  Dr. Godbold’s notorious Temple of Health. What had “Cunning” Murrell, alias Dr. Asclepius, to do with that hot-bed of quacksalvery?

  And how had the wise man managed to transport himself from the squalid streets of St. Giles’ to this ample and respectable close? By magic? More likely by sleight of mind. He certainly hadn’t entered by the back-gate through the mucky yard. I had followed the track of only one man through it; and, besides, the sedan chair would never have passed through the narrow confines of the tunnel.

  How, then? Was there a third entrance to the house? I decided to try to trace one, should it be so. I would have to accost the slippery fellow in the street if he continued to refuse to meet me. And if the man made use of secret entrances and exits, as seemed likely, it would be as well to know.

  The Doctor, I could see, was going to be the devil to catch.

  VII

  I had walked around the house three times and had come to the conclusion that the chair had travelled from the street where I had lost it by way of an intricate maze of stinking alleys and ill-lit wynds. It was the only possible way that I could trace, and not very satisfactory, but I was now convinced that there were no secret entrances or exits.

  I returned to Paradise Close and settled down to waiting. It was growing dark and a faint gleam of candle-light showed between the curtains. I tried the gate once again and found it locked. I saw no point in vaulting over the wall to hammer on the door. In this uncertain light, I couldn’t be sure of the welcome I’d receive.

  I found a convenient waiting-place, about five houses away from the Temple, sharing an alcove with a battered Venus. She was a most formidable lady with a monstrously ostentatious bosom, and I felt rather relieved that she was cast in bronze.

  The rainclouds swelled and the watery night gathered in, the sun bidding a tearful farewell to the West.

  An hour passed and the broad street became deserted. An hour more and it was dark, hot and heavy – the prelude to a storm.

  A light showed at the door of the Temple. There were coarse voices raised in anger, and the scrape of steel on a wall. The Doctor, it appeared, was about to take to the streets once more. And this time, his servants were to be armed.

  The gate opened and the chairmen jogged into view. A link-boy preceded them, the flame of his torch smoking steadily in the still air. The chair was followed by the Negress, saddled as before with numerous parcels. The chairmen each carried a short sword.

  The small procession disappeared into the murky streets. I followed from close enough behind, the link-boy’s torch leading me steadily onwards.

  They had travelled for about half an hour when the storm broke. What happened then was too confusing for me to understand from a distance. The rain fell in a sudden sheet, and it was either the rain that quenched the light, or else the boy deliberately plunged it into the mud. With a terrified cry, he fled.

  Cursing heartily, the chairmen dropped the sedan, and scrabbled in the mud for the torch. One man struck his tinder in an attempt to make some light for the search. A peal of thunder shook the sky and lightning streaked above the black houses.

  What happened next occurred with inexpressible speed.

  A group of men came running from behind the houses. They were armed with cudgels and cutlasses, and they were yelling like savages. They encircled the sedan and tried to wrench open the door. The chairmen turned and ran, without waiting to defend their master. Only the Negress tried valiantly to ward off the swarm of men, but she was sadly hampered by her harness. She fought like a demon, straddled between the bars of the chair, but a well-placed blow from a cudgel knocked her roughly to one side and she fell over, rolling about the street like a tortoise turned upon its back, trying desperately to rise. Even whilst lying helpless on the ground, she managed to take hold of a stout leg to try to throw a man on his back.

  Inside the sedan, the terrified old man kept a desperate hold on the door, but his efforts were futile. With a crack of splintering glass, a sword broke through the window and, plunging into his breast, pinned him firmly against the back of the cabinet. Then the sword was drawn smartly out again and the old man slumped against the window, the shattered glass tinkling to the ground.

  The men ran off into the darkness.

  I ran to the sedan chair. The Negress had managed to pull herself to her knees, moaning and chattering to herself in some outlandish tongue.

  I pulled open the door and reached inside. Blood ran over my hand and the old man groaned horribly. For a moment, I thought that he still lived, but blood gurgled throatily from his lips and he died with a dreadful rattle even as I pressed against his chest. I quickly searched his pockets, only to find them empty.

  The Negress c
ame up behind me, hissing fiercely. I turned in time to catch the arm that plunged towards me wielding a wicked looking dagger. I deflected the blow, pushing her heavily to one side. She fell against the sedan chair, which toppled over and fell with an ear-splitting crash to the ground, the momentum of the fall taking her with it. High above the street a few shutters were opened and lights showed at the windows. The citizenry were beginning to take a tentative interest in the affair.

  I wasted no more time, but ran off in the same direction that the ruffians had taken. I stopped at the corner of the street, faced with three different directions. Of the murderers, there was no sign.

  VIII

  I walked quickly away from the area. When the Negress revived, she would no doubt rouse the neighbourhood and the night-watch would take care of the corpse. I saw no point in implicating myself in Murrell’s death.

  As I walked through the mean streets, my mind was busy with various conjectures. Who had killed the old man? Was it a purely fortuitous incident? Violence and death were only too common in these streets at night, the Great Unwashed are infinitely more dangerous than any savage tribe. Murrell was, quite possibly, simply an ordinary casualty.

  Or was it deliberately designed? Had he been the victim of a plot? The old charlatan must have made many enemies in his career. No doubt Lady Wroth was not the only wealthy aristocrat to be challenged with such a demand. Ours is a licentious age. The possibilities of evildoing are limitless, and Murrell was a man to profit by them. It seemed more than likely that some poor catspaw, harassed beyond endurance, had decided to rid himself of a money-sucking leech. It is an easy enough business to hire an assassin, some men would do the task for the price of a gin, and this matter had a designed look to it. The way the link-boy had doused the light and fled at the precise spot where the bravoes had lain in wait suggested a collusion. Unless the butchers had been following? Then again, the chairmen had put up no fight at all, the Negress had shown more spirit. It could be that they had thought the battle too unequal, but the fact that they had fled in silence with no cries of help, or for the watch, seemed to point to their implication in a plot. It would be interesting to know if they were in the Doctor’s service or whether they were casually employed. If they were professional chairmen, then it was the more likely that they had been procured by assassins. It is easy enough to bribe a chairman, they are frequently in the pay of thieves and cut-throats and they will often lead their hirers into a trap, only to run and leave them to be murdered, raped or robbed. Yet Murrell must have trusted them to have had them carry him through the streets at night? He must have known of his danger, or else why arm his men?

  The more I thought on it, the more obvious it became that the affair had been managed in some way. The clearest evidence of this was that Murrell alone had been slain by the assassins. And they had not stopped to plunder him. That surely pointed to a planned attempt to silence him. Well, there would be many a timorous soul glad to have him silenced.

  How was Wroth involved in tonight’s doings? He knew of Murrell’s second house and the obscure ways to reach it. He had preferred to call upon the old charlatan in secret. Why had he gone there? To threaten the old man? To warn him? He seemed wondrously concerned to let his grandmother squander his own inheritance to stop the wise man’s mouth. What was the secret of Murrell’s hold over him? It must be grave to bring him rushing up to town in such a funk. Had he gone to Murrell to take the receipts by main force? And had he failed in his first attempt?

  The thought pulled me up short. Had Wroth been implicated in the murder? Having failed to secure the papers at that afternoon’s interview, had he arranged to take them by violence tonight?

  I shrugged the thought away. Even the foolhardy Lord Wroth would know that Murrell was unlikely to carry such valuables on his person. They would be safely locked away in some chest.

  Locked away! The implication struck me like a blow. Whoever had killed the old man had lifted the lid of a Pandora’s Box. The nasty contents would scandalize London to its very core!

  Once Murrell’s death was known, his house would be investigated by the Bow Street Police. Whatever evidence he had against Wroth would become public property. God knows what others would suffer also. Rather than silencing Murrell, they had done the reverse. If a dead man could talk, the old Cunning-man would shout from the rooftops.

  Confronted with this fact, I saw that I had two alternatives, both of them equally obnoxious to me. My commission had been to secure the papers by any means legally possible. To fail to do so would part me from a very powerful patroness. It might even put an end to my career at its outset. Yet in order to secure them I would have to place myself in an even more invidious position. Breaking and entering, however justifiable the reason, would not do me any good service with the authorities, should I be discovered.

  It was a fine point of morality. Yet, somehow, I must get hold of those receipts.

  Two hours later, I had raided the shop in Barnard’s Row. I had searched the place from cellar to attic, to no avail. What papers I found were straightforward accounts and bills of lading, quite innocent of double meaning. Either others had forestalled me, or else Murrell kept his secret papers in a less accessible locality. The latter seemed more likely. He was far too wily a rogue to leave such a treasure unburied.

  I decided to investigate the house in Paradise Close.

  I raised my head above the rim of the gate. The back of the house leaned towards me, as forbidding as God and as silent.

  Carefully I eased myself over the gate and dropped softly into the dust of the yard. I moved cautiously towards the house.

  I looked at the lower windows and at once ruled them out as a means of entry. Beyond the grimy glass they were either boarded up or covered by an iron grille. I turned my attention to the basement. It was pitch-black at the bottom of the steps, but covered. I risked a light, and struck my tinder. It was a strong looking door and had not been used for an age or more. Cobwebs glittered from the corners and the disturbed dust gleamed all around me. After a brief examination, I realized that nothing short of a battering ram wielded by a dozen men would have any effect on it.

  I walked back into the yard and looked up at the house. The overhanging eaves loomed above me. My eye was caught by a protruding object, a water-spout in the form of a gargoyle. If I could climb on to it, it would give me a foot-hold from which I could reach the upper windows.

  I looked about the yard and came upon the box that Wroth had used to climb the gate. I heaved it on to my shoulders and carried it back to the house. Placing it beneath the window, I mounted it and stretching my arms upwards towards the gargoyle, I grabbed the spout with ease. Slowly I pulled myself up.

  Five strenuous minutes later, I was precariously balanced upon the ugly stone head and my eyes were on a level with the window. I saw with relief that it was a simple affair of plain glass set in a flimsy wooden frame, fastened by an iron catch. I took out my jack knife and inserted it beneath the fastening. Rust flaked from it beneath my pressure and, with a faint squeal, I forced the clasp upwards.

  I opened the window and pulled myself over the sill. In a moment I was standing in a room bare of furniture, save for a deal table and three rickety chairs. It was a mournful place, the whitewashed walls were peeling and yellow, the ceiling blackened with decades of dirt.

  I creaked across the floorboards and stood behind the shabby door. There was no sound beyond it. My entrance had gone unremarked. I opened the door as quietly as I could, but the hinges still screeched slightly. I looked into a long and narrow corridor, as bare as the room behind me. Pools of water gleamed on the boards in the light of a dusty dormer window. Obviously, the back of the house was little used.

  Slowly and carefully I edged my way along the corridor feeling my way with every tread. My steps seemed to creak with devastating effect in the eerie stillness of an empty house.

  I came to the end door which was more solidly built. I waited a moment, liste
ning hard for a sign of life beyond it. There was an absolute silence. I turned the handle and pulled the door back inch by careful inch.

  A weird blue light filled my eyes. It blazed from a brazier, intense and fierce, and yet soft and lambent. I had never seen a light to equal it. It was a strange mixture of radiance and mystery.

  Lesser lights shone in odd corners of the room. One in particular attracted my attention. It was a monstrous lamp that stood on what appeared to be a black marble altar. It was lewdly designed in the shape of a bat, with an erect member.

  The lamps illuminated the strangest room that I had ever seen. It can only be described as “Dionysiac” – an orgiastic display of a wild and dissolute character. Over the entire length of the gaudily painted ceiling, naked men ravished naked women in a bewildering variety of postures. Seen from below, it was an outlandish sight; these couples seemed to be copulating in mid-air, and their freedom of movement enabled them to indulge in the most amazing amatory acrobatics.

  The murals on the walls were more prosaic, not to say more basic, though the models here, too, were supple in the extreme. The murals were poor copies of the indecent paintings from ancient Roman frescoes. All the known positions of sexual gratification were illustrated, and when human partners were exhausted, the animal kingdom took over, along with creatures from the ancient world: sileni, pans, satyrs and centaurs. But the females were always female, if not more than female.

  Along the sides of the room were arranged richly upholstered couches, and several statues stood about the room, all of them highly indecent. There were a number of Egyptian gods, including the god Min, with his proudly displayed phallus. Among the Greek entries were several metamorphoses of Zeus and a bronze Hermes holding a staff carved with a phallic symbol with the tip painted red. Rome was represented by a squatting Cloacina, the Goddess of the Sewer, befouling her own shrine.

  An oriental odour perfumed the air, and by the brazier a number of jars were placed. They were filled with “magical” herbs, waiting to be burned: belladonna, hemlock, henbane, verbena, mandrake. All of them powerful narcotics.