by David Ashton
‘I had no idea.’
‘Had not of what?’ asked Roach, who was beginning to lose the thread.
‘That the Spider of Rome was weaving this web.’
Roach took a deep breath.
‘Our country is founded upon the decent God-fearing bedrock of Protestant Christianity, McLevy. Undermine that, and anything can happen.’
‘So, in the defence of your realm,’ said McLevy, his tone changing of a sudden to reflect the angry contempt he felt within, ‘you would hammer in upon a glaikit wee boy who seeks to rid himself of the brand our deeply compassionate Lord has seen fit to burn upon his face?’
For the second time that day Mulholland felt the ground swallow him up but, strangely enough, though a muted hiss escaped from Roach’s lips, he did not respond in a fashion the constable would have anticipated.
‘It is not our task to question the ways of the Deity, inspector,’ he replied firmly. ‘And, I would remind you, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’
‘That’s between him and me,’ was the equally obdurate response.
Roach, in his lieutenant’s garb, was an immaculate assembly of straight lines and knife-edge creases. He had a long snout of a nose, dry skin and irregular snaggled teeth that were the bane of his life.
A crocodile in uniform.
He was half a head taller than his inspector who, despite the mild late-October weather, was muffled up in his heavy coat looking like some bad-tempered winter animal newly emerged from its lair.
Just leave it, Mulholland begged silently of McLevy. While you’re still at the races.
But no. Too much to hope.
‘If Ballantyne chooses to delude himself that some mysterious magnetism can change the workings of his body cells and leave him with a skin to match the purity of his innocent intentions, then good luck tae him.’
For a moment McLevy’s voice thickened and Mulholland guessed the cause to be either bile or sentiment. He hoped sincerely it was bile; the idea of his inspector having finer feelings was an alarming one.
‘It’s his delusion,’ went on McLevy, his eyes shifting to where Ballantyne sat disconsolately at his desk, trying to impose order onto what indeed was an irredeemable mess. ‘His delusion, and he is welcome to it.’
Roach narrowed his slightly bloodshot eyes.
‘What the Lord lays upon us, we may not avoid. His mercy is infinite. His burden is heavy.’
McLevy sniffed, and then, with a mercurial change of mood, grinned savagely as a random thought struck home.
‘Anyway, ye should have let him finish the job.’
‘And why, pray?’
‘Because had he done so to no effect, it would have proved that the forces of the occult could hold no sway with the malediction of a Presbyterian Almighty.’
The inspector let out a wild whoop of laughter.
‘Now Ballantyne will be in doubt for the rest of his life. You have created the opposite of your intent. Jist like God.’
What Mulholland found bewildering was the way these two went from one level to another.
‘That is close to sacrilege, James,’ said Roach quietly. ‘The pagan in you rises.’
‘It’s near Halloween,’ came the reply. ‘I’ll be dancing at the bonfire.’
Before Roach could muster a response to this profane assertion, there was an altercation of sorts at the station desk and, having had little satisfaction from Sergeant Murdoch who had his inert domain there, a young man strode towards them.
He was almost as tall as Mulholland but broader of frame, wearing what looked like an old sailor’s coat with brass buttons; he wore a naval cap of sorts, set at a rakish angle tipped to the back of his head. The fellow was fresh complexioned, open faced, with a thick walrus moustache, obviously an attempt to add gravitas to the twenty-two-year-old countenance chosen for its domicile. His eyes protruded slightly, almost fish-like, pale blue, but they had a fierce directness of purpose.
He committed himself to Roach, totally ignoring McLevy who stood aside in mock deference, a gleam of amusement in his eyes. Indeed there was something childlike and disarming about the whole presentation before them, a brash young boy caught inside a giant’s body.
‘Are you in charge here, sir?’ he asked, the voice a little higher-pitched than the frame would warrant.
‘There may be some who would dispute such,’ replied Roach, dryly, ‘but that would seem to be my function.’
The young man blinked a little at this, and looked round all three policemen as if they were in disguise.
‘I am here to report a crime,’ he announced finally.
‘You’ve come to the right place then,’ said McLevy.
‘No denyin’ that,’ added Mulholland.
Roach, of course, at this point, should have handed the case to McLevy and walked off to gaze at the portrait of Queen Victoria that hung in his office, comforting himself with the thought that both his sovereign and the Supreme Chief Constable in heaven would find no fault with their loyal servant, but some imp of perversity seized him and so he stood there as a member of the silent trinity.
It is the habit of policemen when they are in any way uneasy – as Mulholland was with the roasting he was expecting from his inspector, Roach with the realisation that the persecution of Ballantyne had unearthed a streak of cruel intolerance in his nature that he had himself suffered from greatly under the rigid edicts of his long dead father, and McLevy with inappropriate ribald images still surfacing from his dream – that they will displace the emotion in accusative form upon the first member of the general public unfortunate enough to swim within the murky depths of their oceanic authority.
And so they stood. Not one regarding the other, all focused on a stranger in their midst.
‘Whit’s that in your poche?’ said McLevy out of the blue. He had noticed a suspicious bulge to the right side of the stranger’s reefer jacket. ‘No’ a revolver I hope?’
The young man looked down at the pocket and frowned; this encounter was not turning out the way he had seen it in his heroic imagination. He plunged his hand into the deep recess of the garment and brought out the suspicious shape.
‘A cricket ball,’ he declared.
‘Ye indulge at the cricket?’ asked McLevy, as if it was a sign of anarchist leanings.
‘I play cricket, football, hockey, swimming and rugby,’ was the proud response.
‘What about golf?’ queried Roach.
‘A splendid pastime.’
Roach nodded approvingly but McLevy was not yet finished with his line of enquiry.
‘I’ll wager ye also try your skill at boxing?’
A look of surprise flashed into the stranger’s eyes.
‘I do.’
‘Last night I’ll be bound.’
‘Indeed.’
The young man hesitated but curiosity got the better of him as the inspector knew it would.
‘What draws you to that conclusion?’
‘The skin on the knuckles of your right hand is somewhat abraded,’ McLevy remarked. ‘Of course ye could have received such chasing a ball, but there is also a bruised discolouration indicating impact and I also note the marking of a mouse under your left eye.’
The inspector pursed his lips and assumed the manner of a discriminating deductor.
‘It is therefore my premise that your opponent had a hard head and got lucky wi’ a swipe or two.’
Mulholland and Roach exchanged perplexed glances; this was not McLevy’s usual mode of speech or behaviour. The young man, however, let out a burst of spirited laughter.
‘By God you are right, sir. He did indeed have a frontal skull bone fit for a granite quarry. And I made the error of aiming down.’
‘Ye should aye punch up,’ said McLevy. ‘More leverage.’
He was enjoying the looks of bafflement on the faces of his lieutenant and constable so decided to put another dent in their brainpans.
‘I also surmise,’
he pontificated, ‘that such a wealth of sporting activity and the leisure time available to pursue such, can only point to one vocation – that of a university student.’
This time when the young man laughed the face expressed merriment and humour but no sound emerged, as if the laughter was choked at source.
‘Almost exactly so, sir, except,’ and here he stepped up before McLevy with some purpose, almost as if he was about to engage him in a bout of fisticuffs, ‘that I have not long before attained my degree.’
‘In medicine, no doubt,’ the inspector punched up as his opponent towered over him. ‘Ye have the natural arrogance necessary to the medical profession but not enough brains tae disport yourself in the legal.
‘Besides,’ he continued, as the young man let out a puff of air as if slightly winded, ‘you would seem tae me to lack the requisite treachery to succeed in law.’
‘You represent the law,’ came the shrewd response.
‘And I am steeped in perfidy,’ the inspector replied urbanely. ‘You, on the other hand, are jist beginning.’
A blink of the eye showed the blow to have gone home and McLevy decided that was enough deductive intuition for the moment.
‘Ye came to report a crime, I believe?’
‘Yes. A friend of my mother’s. Her home.’
‘Up in flames?’
‘Broken into and robbed.’
‘In Leith?’
‘No other place.’
‘Indeed there is not,’ said McLevy with a fierce smile, as if mortally offended. ‘It is a well known fact that we are the centre of the universe, here.’
The young man looked at Roach and Mulholland to see if this statement contained a trace element of irony but the lieutenant’s long upper lip gave no hint of such, and the constable’s blue eyes and fresh complexion told of nothing but unperceived insignificance.
Which brought his attention back to the inspector, who regarded him with what seemed dark suspicion.
‘Ye can put the cricket ball away,’ he said.
The young man did so.
‘Whit is the precise address in Leith?’
‘42 Bonnington Road.’
‘And the victim of this criminal depredation?’
‘Mistress Muriel Grierson.’
A small bell rang in Roach’s head but he decided to hold his counsel. Best to keep his own wife out of it, she had a habit of creeping into just about everything.
‘And your name?’ McLevy asked in official tones.
‘Doyle,’ said the young man who felt that he had just lost a round and been punching air. ‘Arthur Conan Doyle.’
‘Well, Mister Doyle,’ said his elusive combatant. ‘I am James McLevy, inspector of police. Let us go and investigate criminality thegither.’
5
I tell you what I dreamed last night
It was not dark, it was not light,
Cold dews had drenched my plenteous hair
Through clay; you came to seek me there
And ‘Do you dream of me?’ you said.
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, The Convent Threshold
Magnus Bannerman whistled cheerfully to himself as he laid out the cards.
Two pack solitaire, shuffle and deal. Forty Thieves. Otherwise known as Napoleon at St Helena, it being the pastime with which the defeated Emperor beguiled himself on his last and lonely exile.
Magnus enjoyed the idea of himself and the little Corsican reading the tableau and making their plans.
The Frenchman dreaming of a lost empire and he on rich pickings in a foreign land.
As in many other solitaires, kings were a drawback. Took space, were hard to move. You had to build up foundation from the aces. Royalty gummed up the works.
Careful planning. You saw a space; the first impulse would be to fill it up, but then a vital link might be lost for it was necessary at some point to dig into the covered talon of cards; the past must be resurrected.
It was all a matter of recovery.
And careful planning.
His large spade-shaped fingers were surprisingly dexterous as he twisted the cards over to lay them face up.
Now he was left with the pack of the pasteboards held over, sixty-four in total. The hand. Face down in a solid rectangle. You may only turn them once.
If they had no place, thence to the talon.
Before he began, Magnus surveyed the spread. It had possibilities but would depend on the order of what ensued from the pack.
Now if he was a true sensitive he might intuit what was to come. But he was merely a gambler with a gift of the gab.
Before he made his first move, Magnus snapped open a small silver case and extracted a slim cheroot, which he lit up to puff out a thin spurt of smoke, eyes closed in tobacco heaven. Some preached against the leaf but they had no idea what it added to the pleasures of the flesh.
He opened his eyes once more and gazed round the well-appointed hotel room. Yes indeed, the lap of luxury, who would have thought a riverboat gambler down on his luck could have found such a sweet little ace in the hole?
His eyes flicked to the side door behind which Sophia was enclosed.
His own quarters were out across the hall for propriety’s sake but the woman shared her bed now and then if she had an itch to scratch.
Not presently though. Something in the tea house had set her mind inwards and Sophia had retreated to the separate small side room in her quarters she always insisted on possessing no matter where they had their lodgings.
And it had to have a lock. What she did in there was anyone’s guess; commune with the spirits?
Another mystery was the small leather suitcase she carried by herself everywhere they travelled. That case Sophia kept in the side room as well and when he had made the mistake one day of trying to spring the catch in a London hotel lobby, the Langham no less, while she was powdering her pudenda, the damned woman somehow knew and in a white fury warned him that if he wanted to keep his procreative means intact, he’d best contain his curiosity.
Or his testicles would pay the price.
She hadn’t exactly phrased it in such blunt fashion but Magnus had got the message. Yes, indeedy.
And the other message received was that of the milk cow. These fine young teats of hers, with a tug here and a tug there, brought forth rich reward.
But it was her milk. She provided. He merely managed the liquid flow. That was his talent.
Magnus had always been a showman, a gambler, a handsome brute, a lady’s man; he hid his card manipulations behind a ready smile and friendly, open face.
He was also blessed with a fine baritone voice and eloquent sincerity of speech; he could have been an actor or nostrum salesman but Lady Luck had claimed him as her own.
For a while.
Then the damned Civil War had blown the steamboats out of the water; not that he had taken sides, a gambler never takes sides so he cursed Abe Lincoln and Jefferson Davis in equal measure.
Between them, however, they had wrecked the fine currents that Magnus plied his trade in, and if that were not enough, then came the railroads.
No romance to the iron horse.
Where was the full moon shining on the Mississippi water, where a man might wander up to a pilgrim who had made a killing in some cattle deal, had money to burn, whisky on his breath, leaning against the rail dreaming of some woman who was never in a million years his wife, and offer up a friendly game of cards?
The air would smell of river blossom; some mulatto girl, bare-legged, with long slender arms, slowly washing clothes by the bank, a traveller’s mind wandering to some tryst with such a succulent creature, and in that splendid state of priapic suggestibility he would be a lamb to the slaughter.
A secluded cabin, a whisky bottle on the table, perhaps some other travelling men, a fresh deck of cards and that sweet thrill when the deal went down.
No such delight upon a train. Conductors, railway detectives and sour-faced women keeping an eye on their sad-f
aced husbands.
In the long years after the war, his luck had gone to hell even with the calculated skill he could bring to bear. He gambled now in saloons where the pilgrims were sharp-eyed and quick tempered.
Ended up in San Francisco, down by the docks, lost all his money in a game of poker. Some dewy-eyed kid turned over a full house and cleaned the table.
Magnus walked out of that bar with a five-dollar bill in his shoe, court of the last resort. He was over forty years and running out of luck.
Somewhere off to the side he could hear a bunch of heathen Chinee squabbling over a game of mah-jong on one of the junk ships. A crescent moon above hooked into the sky, and it seemed as if he was the last man left alive as he walked along the creaking waterfront.
How long he had wandered, he’d lost count of that. Hours, days, nights, his head was full of dark thoughts: damned Irish stock, Bannerman, a name for someone who carried the flag at the front and died first in battle.
Found himself, like something in a dream, in front of a tall building that stood alone, composed of slatted wood, weathered by the salt currents of the sea. By the door were pinned cards advertising the wares of various flowers of the night who promised innocence and satisfaction.
Penetrate the one to achieve the other.
Then, almost in keeping with the exotic macabre feel of the occasion, a melancholy pulsation as if it was his last moment alive, his attention was caught by a newly tacked-up piece of thin white vellum amongst the promised joys.
The paper was already curling up, as if recoiling from the company it kept, and on impulse he ripped it from the nail and held it out under the light to reread the words he had already registered.
What is your future? said the message.
Magnus came back to the present. A hotel in Edinburgh. Turned over a card. It was the jack of diamonds.
