The Music Box Enigma

by R. N. Morris

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘Would you have her cast out on the street?’ Charles let his glance flit to the storm-lashed window, as if to underline his point.

  ‘I don’t care! Why should I care where she goes?’

  ‘But to get up a petition? I … I … I … Isn’t that rather harsh?’

  ‘This is a decent, respectable block. Or at least it was until she moved in here.’

  ‘But what about the child? The child is innocent in all this.’

  ‘If she does not go, then we must go. I will not live in the same building as that harlot.’

  Cavendish picked up the teapot and felt the weight of it. The handle of the pot felt precarious. He imagined it snapping off, the pot smashing against the wooden surface, the hot tea spilling everywhere, dripping off the edges of the table and scalding his lap. He would welcome the physical pain as a relief from the intractable misery of his emotions.

  But there was something instantly comforting about the trickle and gush of the tea into the cup. It made it seem possible that there would be a solution, that they would find a way through. If only they could all just sit down and have a cup of tea together.

  Ursula was not a heartless woman. He knew that. She did not really want Anna Seddon cast out on the street. Not just before Christmas. Not when there was practically a storm raging outside. Not at any time. In any weather.

  It’s just that she was hurting. And the only way she knew to process her hurt was to inflict a greater one on someone else.

  There were things he needed to say to his wife, but it was not a conversation that he wanted to have. Not now, not ever. It was a conversation that, once begun, could take them to a very dangerous place. It might easily destroy everything. But perhaps everything needed destroying.

  Charles Cavendish sighed deeply. ‘Sit down, Ursula. Come, drink your tea.’

  She glared at him in outrage, as if he had just struck her. But she did as he had bade.

  ‘It seems to me that this is not about Anna.’

  Her fierce eyes bulged at the mention of that name. Not merely at the mention of it, but at the provoking sympathy in his voice as he said it.

  But he pressed on. He had begun the conversation now. He had no choice but to see it through. ‘It seems to me that this is about him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Sir Aidan. Fonthill.’ He added the surname as an afterthought, as if to distinguish between multiple Sir Aidans of their acquaintance.

  ‘What about him?’

  He sensed that somehow the balance had tipped in his favour. There was a tremor in her voice, trepidation – fear, even. He thought about standing up to push home his advantage. But he had no wish to make this more difficult for her than it was already.

  ‘I know that you’re in love with him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I understand. Practically all the women are.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ But the flinch of her head away from him told him that he had hit home.

  ‘Apart from Emma, and that’s only because she knows him better than the rest of you.’

  Ursula pursed her lips in distaste at the mention of Fonthill’s wife.

  ‘Would it make you happy if you had his baby?’ He had not meant to ask such a question, so directly. And the boldness of it almost took his breath away. Almost had him laughing out loud. It was something he had thought, but never meant to voice.

  ‘Are you suggesting that Sir Aidan is the father of that bastard?’

  That was not the response he had expected; he considered it a diversionary tactic on Ursula’s part. ‘Who else could it be?’

  ‘Who can say?’

  This was getting away from the point. Cavendish laded three sugar cubes with determined energy into his tea. He pressed on. ‘Perhaps not have his baby. But become his mistress. Would that make you happy?’

  ‘What has got into you, Charles?’

  ‘I am just trying to find some way forward for us. I am just trying to discover what it is that you want. What would make you happy, as I so evidently do not.’

  He had her attention now. She watched him closely, her mouth gaping. ‘You sound like you are about to make some kind of a proposal.’

  Cavendish stirred his tea thoughtfully. ‘It’s not for me to propose anything. For one thing, I do not know what has occurred between you and Sir Aidan. For all I know, your present unhappiness may be the result of his already having rejected you.’

  ‘Why do you say that? He has not rejected me!’

  ‘So you are lovers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But that is what you want?’

  ‘Are you sure you want me to answer that question, Charles?’

  Cavendish raised his teacup to his lips. The drink was satisfyingly strong and sweet. ‘It depends what the answer might be.’ He gave a disarming smile. ‘I have been thinking, Ursula. The war, and everything, rather focuses one’s mind. I am not too old to sign up. Or rather, apply for a commission. They might have me. I am not the most splendid physical specimen, I know that. But they might overlook my obvious shortcomings if things get any more sticky over there. A word in the right ear might do the trick. If there was nothing for me here, no one who wanted me to stay, then I should think it would be a good thing to do, all things considered.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go off and get yourself killed, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, I don’t intend to get myself killed, either. I’m pretty sure I could get myself a cushy billet, what with my accountancy qualifications and all. The army needs bean counters, I dare say, as much as it needs frontline soldiers. I’ve pretty much made up my mind to do it, if I’m honest.’

  ‘Then I don’t see why it is necessary to have this distasteful conversation.’

  ‘Because I want to know how things stand between us. I wouldn’t want to entertain any false expectations. Especially if anything should happen.’ He left that thought ominously vague. ‘And after it’s all over, it would be good to know if I have anything to come back to.’ At that he risked a glance at her over the top of his teacup and added: ‘Or not.’

  ‘This is all rather unexpected, Charles.’

  ‘And there’s one other thing too.’

  Ursula cocked her head.

  ‘If I should take myself off and leave you to … to do whatever you want. With him. You must promise me one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you will leave that poor girl alone. That you will not petition for her to be evicted. You do realize, don’t you, that it is the height of hypocrisy when the thing you want most of all is to be his mistress?’

  Cavendish drained his cup and replaced it in its saucer with meticulous care, as if the blue willow china tea set was his most treasured possession in the world.

  TEN

  Fonthill left the box on his desk and hurried back into the drawing room.

  The man was still there. Standing opposite the house, his collar still turned up against the weather, flat cap pulled down tightly on his head.

  This time, he didn’t even bother to withdraw when he saw Sir Aidan watching him through the window. He was daring Fonthill to acknowledge his presence.

  Fonthill felt his face burn with shame. By now he had no doubt who was keeping vigil on his house. If he was honest, he had known it from the moment he had first seen him. But he had dreaded this man’s reappearance in his life for so long that his mind had obliterated the memory of their first encounter, just as earlier the sudden hailstorm had obliterated his form.

  He thought back to the night in question. It had started off innocuously enough. That is to say, when he had left the house he had not been aware of any intention on his part to go down the path that had led to his present difficulties. Perhaps there had been a vague and nagging sense of resentment against Emma, which is always a dangerous mood to start the evening in. But at the time he had simply wished to put distance between himself and h
is wife.

  The business with Anna had come to a head, and so Fonthill had taken himself off to his club. The place was a refuge – a bolt hole – when things got too sticky on the outside. It did him good not to see a female face for a while. It was like a respite from himself, from his nature, his appetites. To compensate, he always tended to indulge what might be described as his other vices, though they were mild enough. Before the war, he could always count on the club to provide a slap-up dinner. Admittedly, the fare had become somewhat more frugal in recent weeks, testing the chef’s initiative and the members’ forbearance, but the cellar was well stocked with enough French, and even German, wine to hold out for some time yet.

  And the company was invariably convivial. One always bumped into someone. That evening there had been quite a party. Old ‘Soapy’ Soames had been there, together with the incorrigible Symington and the mercurial Lucas, and some fellow called Parker or Porter or Potter or some such, who apparently had been at Sandhurst with Winnie. He must have been a new member, or someone’s guest, because Fonthill didn’t remember seeing him before. Lucas had a quite appalling story to tell about him, which he imparted in a confidential undertone, tapping the side of his nose at the finish. Fonthill paid no attention to it at all, as Lucas had a reputation as an outrageous peddler of scurrilous lies. Quite understandably, Winnie himself was not there, what with the war and everything. There were a few others, whose names eluded him now, and whose faces had blurred into anonymity.

  The other chaps had persisted in a rather tiresome joke, which he seemed to remember had started with Lucas. As Fonthill had been at Harrow at the same time as Churchill, Lucas thought it was amusing to get Fonthill and the Parker/Porter/Potter chap mixed up. It was part of his joke that he claimed they were virtual doppelgängers, which of course they were not.

  After God knows how many brandy and sodas, and several bottles of Château Pomys 1890 (a good year, as it happened), together with a snort or two of ‘Doc’ Symington’s pick-me-up, he had felt capable of anything. At a certain developed stage of the proceedings someone – he could not for the life of him remember who – had gleefully and inanely pronounced, ‘The night is young!’ The phrase had appealed to him inordinately. He declared himself to be very much in favour of the night and all young things. Someone else, he suspected it was Lucas, had suggested they move on. The fellow was strangely sensitive to subtle shifts in atmosphere and mood, and unerringly knew when it was time to vacate one location for somewhere more conducive to whatever was afoot.

  And so, capes and hats had been called for. They had bundled noisily out of the club, picking up a few extra roisterers along the way. Taxis had been hailed. Directions given. And off they had hurtled, into a night which, though young, was undeniably dark. Fonthill had no idea where he had been taken, except that it was to a nondescript room in a nondescript house on a nondescript street, where there were tables, and men seated at those tables for the purpose of playing cards for money. Gambling, in other words. For high stakes, too, judging by the seriousness of the participants’ demeanours.

  It was all oddly exhilarating, and irresistible.

  ‘You know where we are, don’t you?’ Lucas had whispered. ‘This house used to belong to a murderer, a very nasty murderer, or so they say. It was here where he used to commit his grisly crimes.’

  ‘Here?’ Fonthill had looked around open-mouthed.

  ‘Right here was where he used to drain the blood from his victims.’ Lucas’s eyes had widened with excitement as he had murmured his thrilling confidences.

  Somehow the knowledge of the crimes that had been committed there made the whole thing even more intoxicating.

  When he crossed the threshold to that room, he felt himself stepping into a place of danger and risk. And he could feel Emma’s disapproval dogging him, which of course made him all the more eager to throw himself into whatever excitements the evening offered.

  Yes, it was all very well with hindsight saying that he should have known better. He remembered only too well the way things had ended the last time he had been tempted to woo Lady Luck. (He felt a second flush of shame at the memory of that, his hands tightening on the sharp-edged object in their grip.) But that had been at roulette. A game of chance. This was different. All he had to do was keep his wits about him. To watch the cards and read the faces of his opponents.

  Besides, he had had the conviction – the absurd conviction, he now acknowledged – that lightning does not strike twice. In other words, the very fact that he had lost so catastrophically at the casino in Baden-Baden all those years ago meant he could not possibly lose now.

  And he had been carried along by the momentum of the evening. Despite the fact that the game was taking place in a decidedly unglamorous room, its nondescript walls exuded a kind of allure. The room seemed to favour him. The flicker of its gas lights was like the flirtatious glance of a pretty girl. It fortified him. Somehow, from somewhere, he picked up the idea that he couldn’t lose.

  And there was something about the way the other players were looking at him. They seemed to acknowledge his superiority. He believed he could see the defeat in their eyes as soon as he walked in.

  Everyone accepted that tonight was his night. He was ‘the one’. Everything would go his way.

  He felt it. They knew it.

  Lucas, it was all Lucas’ fault. Lucas shouldn’t have raised his hopes with his confidential asides. How it was possible to make ten thousand a year as a professional gambler. If he hadn’t then proceeded to reel off the names of a whole host of chaps who managed to do so. Quite ordinary chaps possessing no special qualities, or skills. The least likely professional gamblers, in short.

  If it hadn’t been for Lucas, the fatal idea would never have taken hold of him: Well, if they can do it, so can I.

  At first the game had gone his way. Which had added to his already exalted sense of invulnerability. The compliments of his opponents lulled him. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was clear that everyone was in awe of him.

  They were meek and humbled, humiliated even. Some people even threatened to leave the game if things carried on the way they were going.

  But of course, things did not carry on the way they were going.

  The table had turned on him.

  And before long, the solemn mood that he had first picked up on turned gleeful. They scented blood. Their awe evaporated, if it had ever been there at all.

  IOUs were signed. Lucas – the damnable fiend – had vouched for him, up to a point that is. He would not, of course, stand as guarantor for his debts. But he had assured the room that Sir Aidan Fonthill was good for a long line of credit. Didn’t he have a rich wife, after all?

  Fonthill had laughed nervously at that but had been obliged to go along with it because he needed to win. And to be able to win, he needed to play.

  If he couldn’t play, he couldn’t win back his losses. And then go on to win the fortune that the room had promised him. Though, to be honest, it had lost whatever allure he had once imagined it to possess. It now looked positively sinister.

  The energy from the stimulants he had taken earlier in the evening suddenly deserted him. His palms grew moist. The cards slipped and slid in his fingers. At one point he even dropped his hand on the table, to much predictable hilarity among his opponents.

  The cards slipped through his mind too. The numbers confused him. He mixed up suits. He forgot the most basic rules of the game – even what game they were playing.

  Soon he could feel the beads of sweat trickling down his face, so that he was obliged to mop his brow with a handkerchief that grew quickly sodden. He pushed his fringe back out of his eyes and rolled his shoulders.

  ‘Are you all right, old chap?’ Of course, it was Lucas, feigning concern but secretly delighted.

  Like all the other players, he had grown fangs and talons. Or so Fonthill suspected – he could no longer look any of them in the face to confirm this impression.

&
nbsp; At some point he had noticed the unpleasant smell in the room and realized soon after that he was the source of it. It was his fear.

  One by one the others dropped out. Soapy, Symington, the Parker-Porter-Potter fellow, and all the nameless blurred faces, pocketing their winnings or cutting their losses before it was too late. Even Lucas eventually cashed in his final hand, leaving only Fonthill to face a man who was the most unprepossessing of them all, a man whom Fonthill had hardly noticed at first, but who had emerged over the course of the night to be his veritable nemesis.

  A man with the bulbous eyes of a frog, and a wide, loose mouth from which, at any moment, Fonthill had expected to see a long reptilian tongue whip out and snap a fly from the air. And a common, cockney accent, with a vulgar turn of phrase and a habit of sniffing noisily, so violently that it caused his eyes to pop out even more than usual. It ought to have been a tell, but neither Fonthill nor any of the others could work out what it told them, as he seemed to engage in it indiscriminately.

  At last, the end had come. The pop-eyed cockney had sniffed and pulled his winnings – so many scribbled IOUs – towards him for the last time. Fonthill’s whole body had turned to ice. He had simply no idea how much his losses amounted to. How much he would have to go cap in hand to Emma for.

  He remembered how his hand had trembled involuntarily on the baize surface of the table.

  And how the man’s eyes had stood out even more as he fixed Fonthill with a steady gaze, the very blandness of his expression more chilling than any histrionic demonstration of power.

  ‘You good for this.’ A statement, not a question. A slow blink offered no relief from the oppressive sense that time had stopped.

  ‘You’ll have to give me some time, of course.’

  The man’s eyes had stayed on him, growing even more bulbous if that was possible, as the most violent sniff yet drew half of his face up. ‘I don’t have to give you nothin’. You have to give me …’ Somehow the man kept his eyes on Fonthill while managing to tally up the various notes. ‘Five hundred and sixty-two pounds, thirteen shillings and six pence. I tell you what, I’ll let you off the six pence.’