by David Ashton
Now what he needed was a chance.
McLevy suddenly let out a tremendous roar and pointed to the window as if Satan had just flown in.
An old trick for sure. But old are often best.
Alfred’s turn to be distracted. For a second his head turned and the knife came away a fraction from Ballantyne’s neck.
Not much, but enough.
Mulholland’s arm swept up in an arc and the hard tip of hornbeam crunched against Binnie’s left elbow, numbing the arm like a bolt from the blue and enabling Ballantyne to pull himself free while McLevy stepped forward to confront the cursing Binnie.
The little man flipped the knife over to his other hand.
‘I’m just as good with the right,’ he said.
‘That’s nice,’ replied McLevy.
He stepped up so that there was hardly arm’s length between them, and before Binnie could make his move, the inspector’s hand was a blur in the air as the barrel of his gun crashed against the side of the killer’s head.
As Binnie slumped downwards, McLevy adroitly relieved him of his knife, turned him, slapped on the restrainers to pinion his hands behind the back, and then threw the man bodily into the corner like a sack of coal.
In almost the same motion he moved to kneel by Mulholland who was wincing in pain, supporting himself on the one elbow.
‘How are ye, Martin?’ McLevy questioned anxiously.
‘Terrible, if that’s you on my Christian name,’ gasped the constable.
‘Jist asking.’
They both looked down to where the blood was oozing slowly through the thick serge of Mulholland’s uniform.
‘I think only a flesh wound,’ muttered the constable, ‘but it’s a deal of flesh.’
‘I can help,’ said Ballantyne, suddenly pulling a pure Egyptian cotton sheet from the bed of Jean Brash and ripping it in pieces.
He knelt down and gently undid the buttons of the uniform and pulled up the shirt to uncover a nasty looking gash mercifully not near any vital organs, which he neatly wiped clean and then began to wrap round with the makeshift bandage.
‘My mother’s a nurse,’ he explained.
Then he looked up for a second at Mulholland.
‘I am sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I brought this on.’
In spite of it all, Mulholland was oddly pleased to be called ‘sir’.
‘Just don’t do it again, constable,’ he replied with a grimace of pain. ‘Lest the luck run out.’
A low moan from Jessie brought McLevy over to her side. This wound was not so hopeful.
The death sheen was already on her face. It was something the inspector had observed before and he could see in her eyes that Jessie knew she was going into darkness.
‘Are you of the faith, McLevy?’ she murmured faintly.
‘No. Jist a policeman.’
She managed a crooked smile at the answer.
‘I need tae confess.’
‘Consider it so.’
He motioned the other two over to listen in as evidential proof; Mulholland had to inch along, wound or no wound. Every dying testimony needs a living witness. That’s the law.
Her eyes closed and McLevy knew there was little time.
‘You were planted, were you not, Jessie?’
‘Aye. The Countess had doubts on Simone. I was to go with her. Wherever. Spy the land.’
‘And Galloway?’
‘That jist happened by accident. But I sent word tae her that he might be an enemy of Jean’s. And the Countess made a plan.’
‘What would he get out of it?’
‘Promised him free rein. The Countess. A’ the women in the world.’
She coughed and a little smear of blood fell out of the corner of her mouth. Ballantyne leant forward and wiped it clean with a rag of Egyptian cotton.
‘Good looking boy,’ said Jessie.
Ballantyne retreated in confusion.
McLevy considered it time to help the girl along.
‘So Galloway was a dupe. He thought Jean was to be enticed, then kidnapped, stuck on a boat tae South America, lost at sea, whatever. Disappeared, at all counts. He didnae realise he was to be the corpse, and she get the blame.’
Jessie nodded slowly.
‘Aye. No flies on you, inspector.’
Jessie tried to laugh but the effort was too painful.
‘That’s whit I thought as well. That she’d be stuck away somewhere. But when the killing happened. Too late. No going back, the Countess said.’
‘Why did ye do it all, Jessie?’
‘I’m jist pure evil.’
‘No, you’re not.’
For a moment she looked into his eyes.
‘Sure you’re no’ a priest?’
He smiled bleakly. Shook his head. She sighed.
‘The Countess. Promised me my own place. I’d be queen bee. Never had anything. Of my own. Ever.’
For a moment he looked into her eyes and saw a lonely child who had never known love or anything close to it.
‘And I’ll wager ye locked wee Lily in the cellar to keep her safe? Once the fire had started, let her out, say it was all an accident. No Mistress Brash tae worry you?’
Jessie nodded.
‘Jean was fair. I felt bad. But I did it anyway.’
An epitaph for humankind.
I felt bad, but I did it anyway.
McLevy assumed official tones.
‘Jessie Nairn, do you swear in the presence of these witnesses that what you have told is the mortal truth?’
‘I swear.’
He took the letter he had filched from the bosom of the Countess and waved it in front of her dying eyes.
No mercy. Not while there’s breath.
‘And this is in your own hand to the Countess?’
‘I do so swear,’ said Jessie. ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned.’ Her eyelids closed then her head fell back.
Lily Baxter had stood in the doorway watching events unfold.
She recognised the inert form in the corner as the wicked man from the market, saw the policemen crouching over Jessie and then her friend crumple like a leaf.
Lily darted forward; the men stood up to give room as she knelt beside Jessie and reached out her hand to caress the cold face of death.
Jessie’s last words were in a broken undertone, from the childhood game that she and Lily had been playing in the Just Land to while away the time of occupation.
Indeed it was the ruse that had enabled her to lock Lily away in safety.
Hide and seek.
In the darkness.
It had been great fun.
‘Peeky-boo,’ Jessie murmured. ‘Here I come. Ready or no’. It’s not my fault.’
Lily bowed her head.
The policemen did also, McLevy removing his low-brimmed bowler while Binnie moaned softly in the corner.
Hide and seek.
Here I come.
Ready or not.
34
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Child’s bedtime verse
Lieutenant Robert Roach was a much-relieved man as he waited for the changing of the guard at the station.
He had an injured constable to consider but the wound had been dressed by Doctor Jarvis and Mulholland was no doubt at his lodgings now, sitting with his feet up in front of the fire, regaling his landlady with tales of bravery.
Roach did not know Mulholland’s landlady from Eve but imagined her to be a buxom lady of Irish extraction who doted upon her lodger’s every word and plied him with sweet tea and home-made ginger biscuits.
The lieutenant was content enough with this image; a man needs as much comfort as he can garner these days.
In his hand he held the letter from Jessie that had set McLevy off and running.
Just to make sure, he read it once again. Roach had b
een brought up to date with all the events so far but it never did any harm to re-examine the evidence.
Countess,
The coast is now clear. Only Lily Baxter and me, the house empty. I can deal with her. Hannah Semple is gone. I will let your man in by the gate. You must keep your promise to me. A murder has been done. Logan Galloway. It has all been to your plan and my reward must be soon.
Jessie Nairn
‘Poor lassie. She signed her death warrant.’
McLevy had ghosted up at his elbow in a manner Roach always found disconcerting; the man would have made a fine footpad.
‘Indeed,’ Roach observed. ‘Blackmail implicit. Not a good idea.’
‘I don’t doubt the Countess would have got rid of her anyway,’ said McLevy. ‘Once Binnie was safely back in London the only person who had knowledge of it all was Jessie. The threat in that letter just…hurried things on.’
McLevy pursed his lips as he remembered the pain in Jessie’s eyes.
I felt bad but I did it anyway.
‘It is also possible that when it came to the point of Jean being put away for the rest of her life, Jessie may have recanted.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Ye never know. And the Countess wouldnae take that chance either.’
‘It was a clever plan she laid.’
‘Very strategic.’
Roach handed the letter back to McLevy and reflected once more how his inspector could manage to land in a clump full of thistles and emerge unscathed.
As if he could mesmerically read his superior’s mind McLevy suddenly ventured, ‘Whit about the court official with the wig that jumped?’
‘He has decided to forgive and forget.’
‘In case his wife finds out?’
‘Exactly.’
McLevy’s lips quirked in amusement. They were standing in the middle of the station but the place seemed oddly empty and calm as if a great storm had just passed over.
‘In all this excitement,’ Roach remarked almost casually, ‘it rather slipped my mind. Samuel Grant? I assume we are to charge him with attempting to sell back stolen goods to the rightful owner?’
‘Aye. Providing Mistress Grierson attests to such.’
‘I assume she will. After all, what other explanation could there be? A respectable widow…’
In fact the lieutenant had been unwise enough to mention a hint of the happening to his wife; she had thrown her horrified arms in the air at the invasion into Muriel Grierson’s decency but also pressed him to keep her abreast of additional developments.
Thus widows attract curiosity by dint of standing alone in the field of matrimony.
An exception to the rule.
He glanced at McLevy who seemed to have forgotten the last question, so the lieutenant returned to the present crime.
When McLevy had sent word back to the lair of the Countess that he had taken Binnie to uncover proof on the murder of Galloway and the plot hatched by this woman, Roach had not hesitated to have her hauled in.
But the case was not yet nailed down to his satisfaction.
‘We may not have enough on the Countess,’ said Roach thoughtfully. ‘Even with this letter and Jessie’s witnessed confession, a good lawyer and she might wriggle free.’
‘That was before Mister Binnie offered to turn Queen’s evidence,’ replied McLevy with a certain inner glee. ‘I have just been in close conference with the wee toad and he is anxious to save his neck. He is at this moment writing out a formal confession naming the Countess as the Machiavelli behind these wicked deeds and he a mere tool in her hands.’
‘Machiavelli was a man.’
‘I am aware of that, sir.’
‘And what does Binnie wish in return?’
‘Some clemency from the judge.’
‘A word in His Honour’s ear?’
‘That sort of thing.’
‘The fellow has committed two murders, plus attempted arson and an acid assault to boot. Not a great deal of leeway, inspector.’
‘I know that. But I didnae want to hurt his feelings.’
This sardonic exchange had been conducted as they watched the Countess emerge from a side room with two of the female helpers at the station. The procession was led by a bashfully triumphant Ballantyne.
‘More to that boy than vision would indicate,’ Roach allowed.
‘His mother’s a nurse,’ came the cryptic response.
McLevy and Mulholland had decided not to acquaint Roach or the world at large with Ballantyne’s error as regards the stab in Jean’s boudoir.
Anyone can make a mistake. Anytime. Anywhere.
As the Countess spied Roach she made one more effort to reassert a somewhat shrunken authority.
‘You make a misjudgement, Lieutenant Roach,’ she averred. ‘And I shall write to the highest in the land.’
‘Her Majesty may be a trifle occupied,’ Roach replied dryly. ‘Please avail yourself, however, of our facilities of pen and paper but you must purchase your own postage.’
As she turned away in contempt at this trifle, thus avoiding the stare of a stone-faced McLevy, the Countess found herself on a collision course with Jean Brash – who had just been released from the cells.
Hannah Semple at the side of her mistress. Patterson the lawyer with his large head made up the rear.
And so it came to pass that the War of the Bawdy-hoose Keepers had its final act in the Leith station.
‘Ships that pass in the night, eh McLevy?’ Roach uttered without moving his lips.
‘Uhuh.’
Silence as the two women appraised each other, then Jean stepped up to the mark.
‘Countess – you take my place, it would seem,’ she slid in sweetly. ‘One for the other.’
The older woman spat out her rejoinder.
‘I am worth twenty of you. You are nothing more than a common slut.’
Jean nodded as if in complete agreement.
‘What was it you said?’ She screwed up her eyes as if remembering the words. ‘In prison…each day is like a year, each year like an eternity. Very nicely put.’
For a moment it appeared as if the Countess would launch herself tooth and nail at Jean, then she gathered herself together for the last word.
‘May your future be as diseased as your body,’ she announced before turning with dignity to Ballantyne and linking her arm through his in a proprietorial fashion.
‘Lead me on, young man,’ she announced, as if he the consort and she the royal quality.
Ballantyne nodded, did not attempt to disengage his arm and led her off to the very cell that Jean had just vacated, the door still open, the lumpy mattress waiting like a sullen lover.
‘I’ll write ye a letter,’ Mistress Brash called after, but the Countess did not look back.
Jean watched her go then turned to Roach. She was conscious of all eyes in the station upon her, the various young constables in various corners and even Murdoch rooted at his desk, all ears aquiver.
Was she now a legend?
Imprisoned and released.
The queen bee.
‘I thank you for the hospitality, lieutenant,’ she said solemnly. ‘You must sample mine some day.’
Roach was not inclined to indulge in mythical exchange.
‘I would have left you to rot in jail, Mistress Brash,’ he retorted bluntly. ‘You may thank McLevy here.’
The inspector’s face was part hidden in the shadows into which he had stepped back as soon as Jean’s entourage had appeared.
She did not thank him. McLevy did not wish it so.
‘How is Constable Mulholland?’ she asked him formally.
‘Still alive.’
‘I am sorry for his wound.’
‘I’ll pass it on.’
Then McLevy hesitated a moment before a request.
‘Jessie Nairn. Make sure she gets a decent burial. She wisnae all bad.’
Jean thought about that for a moment before nodding a
cceptance; she owed the inspector that much at least.
Patterson stepped forward importantly to lead her from the station. As Hannah Semple passed, she winked at McLevy.
‘Ye’re a bloody menace,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know your equal.’
‘Oh, one thing?’ the inspector could not resist calling just as Jean reached the station door. ‘Your wee boudoir nearly went up in flames.’
‘That’s happened before,’ she replied a trifle enigmatically.
McLevy felt a sudden onrush of anger and let her have it with both barrels.
‘This is your fault, Jean. Your black pride was the cause of all this. Carry that with you to your bawdy-hoose.’
For a moment it was as if everyone else receded and it was just the two of them.
A spark of equal anger appeared in her eyes.
And then she was gone.
A few moments passed and a low murmur rose from the assembled constabulary. Whit a night.
The Countess had also left the scene.
Roach let out a huge exhalation of relief.
‘Would you care to join me in a wee libation in the office, James?’
‘No, thank you, sir,’ said McLevy, surprisingly.
He was on his way to the station door and turned, conscious that his part in these events might also be rendered into legend.
‘My work is not done and Halloween is not yet over.’
‘The Morrison case?’
‘None other.’
Roach thought to ask further then contented himself with a nod. The man was solving things right, left and centre; best let him get on with it.
As the inspector disappeared, Ballantyne came out of the cells and Roach crooked a finger at him.
Over walked the young constable.
‘Do you drink malt whisky?’ asked his lieutenant.
35
I beheld the wretch – the miserable monster whom I had created.
MARY SHELLEY, Frankenstein
Arthur Conan Doyle shivered in the dampness of Halloween night and gazed across at his companion, who seemed totally impervious to the clammy moist air that wraithed around them like a witch’s spell.
