The Linking Rings

by John Gaspard

  McHugh had spent a good deal of that time on the phone with Detective Inspector Matthews, suggesting in which file she could find the original copy of Archie Banks’ suicide note and offering several possible directions in which the investigation could head. Most seemed reasonable to me but one felt absolutely gothic.

  “And they are actually considering exhuming Banks’ body?” De Vries said, turning back from his cab search. “Literally digging up the past?”

  “That would put one of the theories to rest,” Harry said quietly.

  “Nonsense,” De Vries repeated and returned to his taxi search. “Let’s get back to the Heath and see how Baxter is holding up.”

  One of the pieces of information McHugh had gleaned in his phone call was that the police had finished their initial interview with Laurence Baxter, and he had been released without any charges being filed.

  “What’s so odd about this,” I said, ignoring De Vries’ pique, “is how all the murders implicate Baxter. But at the same time, they don’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Harry said.

  I could see De Vries had turned slightly so he could listen while still pretending to be deeply engrossed in the hunt for transportation.

  “Well, he is the President of the Board at The Magic Circle, but he was not particularly involved in the set-up or rehearsal for the event which took Oskar Korhonen’s life. And he was the host for the house party where Borys was poisoned, but it was determined Borys’ teabags were likely tampered with long before he arrived at Baxter’s Folly.”

  I stopped myself, a little ashamed of having adopted Roy Templeton’s term for Baxter’s estate. “And finally, a third houseguest of his was found murdered, using techniques that require medical expertise. However, it didn’t happen in his house but instead at a hotel miles away.”

  Harry considered what I had said. “And what does all that mean?”

  I shook my head. “I actually don’t know. It might mean nothing at all.”

  De Vries had succeeded in hailing a cab and was ushering us towards its open rear door.

  “Well, here is one thing I do know that is absolutely true,” Harry said before we climbed into the taxi. “I really wish I had packed more than this one pair of shoes.”

  I looked down at his feet, sporting a fine pair of black, Italian leather shoes, which were as polished and pristine as the day he had bought them.

  “Why is that?”

  Harry turned and looked up at McHugh’s flat.

  “Because if I know my friend, I would imagine in the next day or so I will be wearing these very shoes while we traipse and trample through a muddy cemetery in search of a ghost.”

  He was partially correct in his prediction, but as it turned out, it was my far-less-expensive pair of Jack Purcell sneakers that were about to do all the traipsing.

  Chapter 15

  Dinner that night was intended to be a celebration of Laurence Baxter’s speedy release from custody. However, the grim events of the previous days succeeded in putting a damper on any festivities, and it quickly devolved into a dour affair, albeit a dour affair with top-notch food.

  There were eight of us at dinner, with three empty chairs acting as constant reminders that we’d lost three magicians and friends—Oskar, Borys, and Hector—in just about the same number of days.

  Ever the attentive host, Laurence Baxter, made several well-meaning attempts at benign conversation starters (“Looks like we’ll have a full moon tonight.” “Cook tells me tonight’s squash is direct from our garden.” “Have I mentioned Dame Judy Dench is practically a neighbor?”), but none of these topics really took hold, each dying out with barely a response. Instead, we enjoyed the excellent food in relative silence, with the household staff noiselessly bringing in new courses while mutely removing the remnants of the last.

  Roy Templeton, who I had never seen so quiet for so long, was clearly stressing out at the lack of verbal interplay, and finally, he could take it no more.

  “I see the tabloids had a field day with your afternoon under lock and key,” he said with a forced casual air. “Many classic headlines, I must say.” He began to list some off. “‘Is Prison Time in the Cards for Baxter?’ ‘Magician Hopes to Make Charges Disappear.’ ‘Escape Artist Unable to Escape Police Incarceration.’ Did you have a favorite?”

  Laurence Baxter’s expression suggested that, no, he did not have a favorite tabloid headline. “It wasn’t precisely an incarceration,” he said quietly. “I was brought in for questioning but not charged or held.”

  “Absolutely. But not according to the tabloids,” Roy said with an overdramatic shake of his head.

  “Bloody tabloids,” Angus Bishop said in a low growl. “You oughta sue them for candor.”

  There was a quick exchange of looks around the table.

  “Candor?” Davis De Vries said slowly.

  “I think he means slander,” Roxanne offered, and Angus nodded in agreement. “Well, in that case,” De Vries said, “in this instance the correct term would be libel. If anyone cares,” he added, because it was pretty clear no one did.

  “My solicitors are currently looking into pressing action,” Baxter said, not looking up from his food. After a long moment, he set down his fork and sighed. “I’m ashamed to say that I’m also concerned about the impact this may have on upcoming bookings. This is not the image I’ve cultivated, after all. Bound to feel the effects at the box office.”

  “Not to worry, back home, being a police suspect invariably has a positive impact on the crowds,” Roy offered cheerily. “Many’s the time I’ve suggested to Roxanne we’d be far better off, professionally, if she could manage just one juicy indictment. Nothing big, just a felony among friends.”

  “Sorry to let you down, hon,” she said, giving his face an affectionate pat. “So what are the police doing with the Archie Banks suicide note your friend dug up?”

  Harry looked up from his meal. “They are looking into it. And, difficult as it may be to believe, they’re also looking into digging up Archie Banks himself.”

  “Waste of effort, really. I doubt we’ll recognize him after all this time,” Roy said, doing a poor job at suppressing a chuckle. He turned to Roxanne for support. “Get it, we won’t recognize him?”

  “Nice one, hon. But I wouldn’t recognize him regardless,” Roxanne said. “I never had the pleasure of meeting the man.”

  This brought Roy up short. “You knew Archie Banks,” he said, the confidence draining out of his voice as he spoke.

  Roxanne shook her head. “Not on your life or, for that matter, his. I didn’t meet up with you and this gangrene gang until at least a couple years after he kicked it.”

  “I could have sworn you were there,” Roy said. “I guess the memory is the first thing to go.”

  “That’s what I hear,” Roxanne said. She waited a practiced beat and then added, “What’s the first thing to go?”

  “I forget,” Roy said, which sent them both into a fresh wave of laughter.

  All eyes turned to our host to see his reaction to the comedic duo’s latest round of playful banter. It took a few seconds, but finally, the stupid joke made Baxter chuckle and once he broke, the rest of us followed suit. The remainder of the meal didn’t have the same energy as earlier gatherings around this table, but—at least for the time being—Roy and Roxanne had succeeded in lifting the pall which had come over the group.

  I didn’t know if we were conforming to gender norms, but the men once again spent the rest of the evening chatting away in Baxter’s study while Roxanne and Megan went off on their own for “some quiet girl time,” as Roxanne coyly put it.

  “Well, in that case, you’re going to need to find yourself a quiet girl. Let me call around,” Roy suggested, but his riposte came too late, as the two ladies had already disappeared toward the second floor.

 
Fresh decanters of alcohol were delivered by Gwendolyn under the watchful eye and silent glare of Miss Hess, who directed the young maid with sharp jerks of her head and low, almost predatory growls. The nature of the interaction was such that all conversation ceased while we observed the tense encounter. Once the vessels had been set and rechecked for errors of placement, Miss Hess gave Gwendolyn a silent nod, and the girl scuttled out of the room like she had just encountered a particularly aggressive spider.

  Miss Hess surveyed the room and then made her own measured exit, turning to close the study’s large, double doors behind her. This task took what felt like a full minute as she slowly pushed the heavy oak doors into place. It wasn’t until we heard the reassuring snick of the door latch that any of us felt safe to breathe, let alone talk.

  “That one really sucks the air out of a room, doesn’t she?” Roy finally said, breaking the silence. “Where did you find her, Gorgons-R-Us?”

  “I think she’s basically just shy, actually,” Baxter said in response, and if all of us had been drinking at that moment, the room would have experienced a giant, simultaneous spit take.

  “Yes, like Mussolini was shy,” Angus Bishop said, getting up and helping himself to a cocktail.

  “I would have said Goering, but you’re on to something there, Doctor.” Roy agreed, joining him at the drinks table.

  “Poor Hector,” Davis De Vries said quietly, immediately shifting the mood of the room. “As they say, what a way to go.”

  “What a way for all of them to go,” Harry said, nodding to Roy who had appointed himself the designated bartender. “Ghastly, just ghastly.”

  “And to what end, really?” De Vries continued, also nodding at the offer of a drink from Roy. “A hack magician dies thirty-odd years ago, and now this?”

  “Unless it’s all just an elaborate scheme designed as a cover for something else,” I suggested as the thought occurred to me. I turned to Harry. “You always taught me, in magic, a big move covers a small move.”

  “Indeed it does,” he agreed, taking the drink Roy handed him. “But what small move, if any, is being covered by this killing spree?”

  “The question always comes back to who benefits from this?” De Vries said, sipping his fresh drink.

  “Follow the money,” Roy said emphatically as he returned to the drinks table. His task of serving drinks complete, he was ready to pour one for himself. He looked up and was greeted by a roomful of blank faces. “Sorry. I have no idea what that means in this context,” he admitted sheepishly. “It’s just something they always seem to say in criminal investigations. Follow the...” His voice trailed off and he returned to mixing a drink for himself.

  “Well, in the case of Archie Banks there was precious little money, as we all know,” Baxter said. “But, for that matter, which of us hasn’t held a grudge against one or the other at some point in our careers?”

  I turned to Harry, who was silently musing with his drink in his hand. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “A big move covers a small move,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. Maybe it’s a small move covering a big move.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “Here’s what I know,” Roy said, drink in hand as he settled into a chair. “And you can take this to the bank: when you look at a question using rose-tinted glasses, all of your herrings are going to appear red.”

  He held up his glass in a quick “cheers” motion and took a sip, while the rest of us considered what—if anything—that statement meant.

  For being such an old house, Baxter’s mansion was unexpectedly free of the peculiar creaks and groans you might anticipate hearing in an old English manor home. Which is why it surprised me to encounter an odd, high-pitched whimper as I made my way back to my room later that night.

  Ever the drinking lightweight, I had left the rest of the crew of old magicians in the study, none of them giving the slightest indication the evening’s end was anywhere near. I said my good nights and made my way upstairs, hoping to avoid another sudden and surprising encounter with the spooky old housekeeper.

  Instead, upon reaching the second floor landing and turning the corner, I was surprised to nearly collide with the young maid, Gwendolyn. She was leaning against the wall, a delicate handkerchief to her eyes. She had clearly been the source of the whimpering I had heard.

  “Oh, excuse me, sir,” she said quickly, straightening up and giving her face one last pass with the handkerchief. “Sorry, so sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s fine. Is everything alright, are you okay?”

  She glanced around to ensure we were alone. “Oh, it’s that dreadful old woman,” she said, her voice a cracking whisper. “Nothing I ever do is right. It’s always, ‘Second girl, pay attention,’ or ‘Second girl, where are your brains?’ It’s endless. Simply endless.”

  “There is nothing worse than having a bad boss,” I said sympathetically, thinking of some of the clients I had done shows for in the past but would never agree to work for again. The kind of people who, if they walked in front of your car, you’d really have to think about whether to hit the brake...or the gas.

  “The thing is, I need this job and can’t let her scare me out of it. Plus, what kind of reference am I likely to get from the old crone if I quit?”

  I nodded supportively, not sure what the correct response was in this situation. And, to be frank, I was also a little terrified the silent old crone would suddenly appear out of nowhere.

  “Do you want me to talk to Mr. Baxter?” I suggested. Her eyes went wide, and she began to shake her head vehemently.

  “Oh no, that would get me sacked for sure,” she said, the tremor returning to her voice.

  “I wouldn’t have to name names,” I said. “Just, you know, man to man, tell him I thought he should know Miss Hess isn’t treating some of the household staff with the sort of regard he would expect. That sort of thing.”

  She continued to shake her head. “She’d know,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “She knows everything that goes on around here. Simply everything.” She dabbed at her eyes again and pushed past me. “I’m sorry to have troubled you, sir. I must get back to the kitchen. I am behind my time.”

  She rounded the corner, and I could hear her running down the stairs. Moments later, I heard her shoes on the marble floor as she crossed the foyer.

  And then, once again, all was quiet.

  Chapter 16

  As my uncle had predicted, McHugh persuaded the London police to exhume Archie Banks’ grave. This, it was felt, would set to rest any fears that Archie might have somehow faked his death and was now exacting a murderous vengeance on the magicians he felt had wronged him. It was a long shot, and McHugh was the first to admit it.

  “But,” he had gone on to say, “experience has taught me there is value in leaving no stone—or, in this case, grave—unturned.”

  Consequently, a small band of us found ourselves seated in a surprisingly cheery pub just a stone’s throw from the lovely but remarkably creepy Highgate Cemetery. We were eating a traditional pub lunch while waiting to hear the results of the nearby grim excavation. Baxter, of course, sat at the head of the long table with Harry and the Templetons taking up one side, while Megan, Angus, and I sat on the other.

  Once again Baxter’s celebrity status paid off, as the barman himself provided table-side ordering and delivery, a rare occurrence “you’re not bloody likely to see repeated at other pubs” Angus was quick to point out. Our food had been served and we were all in the midst of eating when the door swung open and McHugh entered. He spotted us and made his way across the room.

  “What have they found?” Harry asked as he stood and reached for another chair. McHugh waved it away and gestured for Harry to sit back down.

  “Nothing
as of yet,” he said, looking over our small group. “The earthmover has just been loaded off the truck. I told the Yard I’d be right back, I just needed to pop over and pick up my assistant.”

  We all looked around, wondering where in the bar this new colleague might be seated, and then noticed McHugh had trained his gaze upon me.

  “My eyes are not what they once were,” he said. “And so another pair might be of help. Plus, I’m guessing your friends here would appreciate a play-by-play. Grab your phone, your sandwich, and follow me.”

  I did as I had been instructed, and moments later, we were walking through the ancient arch that welcomes you into the sprawling confines of Highgate Cemetery.

  “Can you folks hear me okay?”

  “Red Six, we read you loud and clear. What’s your twenty?”

  I recognized the voice as Roy Templeton’s. “Just a few feet from Archie Banks’ grave,” I said quietly as I adjusted my Bluetooth earpiece’s position in my ear. “They’re just getting ready to fire up some of the heavy equipment.”

  At McHugh’s suggestion, I was talking to the group back at the bar via my mobile. They were all huddled around Megan’s phone, which was on speaker.

  “Have a little respect,” I could hear Roxanne shushing Roy. “He’s surrounded by dead people.”

  “Just like a regular Wednesday matinee for me,” Roy answered. This was followed by a small yelp from Roy, which was probably the result of a punch on the arm from his long-suffering wife.

  The location of Archie Banks’ grave was easy to spot, at least today, as it was surrounded by various police officials—from uniformed Police Constables to Detective Inspector Matthews and her compatriots. DI Matthews was conferring with what appeared to be the leader of a group of groundskeepers, one of whom sat atop a small earthmover, waiting for the official word to get started.