The Curse of the House of Foskett

by Kasasian, M. R. C.

  ‘For goodness sake, man,’ Sidney Grice shouted up. ‘You will lose your licence.’

  I disengaged myself just in time to see a very well-dressed lady and her three equally smartly attired children scatter like driven pheasants from a beater.

  ‘Wanted to get home before Christmas, didn’t you?’ Gerry answered with a laugh, bumping us back on to the road.

  A ginger cat shot out of the way as our horse sidestepped an eel stall and whinnied.

  ‘Were it not for his promise, I would think he has been drinking again,’ my guardian said. ‘But Gerry is one of the few men I have ever met whose word I can rely on.’

  ‘Are you not angry with me?’ I asked and he straightened his collar.

  ‘I myself was sorely tempted to do what you did, but there is no point in trying to sneak into a ball before the orchestra has started to play.’

  ‘On the day I arrived in Gower Street you told me that you disliked metaphors,’ I reminded him.

  ‘And so I do.’ He shook the last few drops out of his cup. ‘But I find them useful devices for communicating with those of meaner mental capacities than my own.’

  ‘By which you mean everybody.’

  ‘It would be immodest of me to respond.’

  Gerry started tapping his boots in a kind of dance on the roof.

  ‘What about Chigorin?’ I persisted.

  ‘The Russian chess player? I imagine he could give me a game.’

  Gerry was whistling tunefully.

  ‘I have never met such an arrogant man in all my life,’ I said and Sidney Grice showed polite interest.

  ‘Really?’ He put the cup back on his flask. ‘I was not aware that you had met him.’ And Gerry started singing ‘Tell Me Ma’ in a rich baritone.

  ‘He is not even Irish.’ My guardian rolled his eye.

  ‘They pull my hair and they steal my comb,’ Gerry sang and clicked his reins, and the horse shook its mane and lifted its head as it clipped along the side street.

  *

  After a late lunch I went to the hospital. There had been a fire in one of the operating theatres and they were dragging blackened equipment out into the corridor. The ether had leaked from an anaesthetic machine and an electric light had sparked.

  ‘Was anyone hurt?’ I asked a medical student who was helping to carry a half-incinerated table away.

  ‘Just a nurse,’ he told me. ‘She won’t live the night.’

  They were wheeling her out as he spoke, a small charred figure hardly recognizable as a woman, and she let out a sob as she heard his words.

  ‘He does not know what he is talking about,’ I told her and her eyes swivelled towards me and she wheezed.

  ‘I hope he’s right,’ she managed as they took her away.

  Inspector Pound was conscious when I got to his bed. ‘Miss Middleton, I believe I am indebted to you again.’

  ‘If I ever need blood I shall know who to ask for it,’ I said. ‘At least I know we are compatible.’

  He managed a smile. ‘Oh, I already knew we were that.’ And, before I could think of a response, he added, ‘Sounds like I had a lucky escape. They were going to take me down to the operating theatre to clean up my wound today, but it’s healing so well they decided not to bother.’

  He was shifting constantly.

  ‘Are you in much pain?’

  ‘None at all.’ His expression did not convince me. ‘And how is Mr Grice?’

  I took his hand and turned it to check his pulse.

  ‘Struggling,’ I said, and told him about the Last Death Club and the murders of its members.

  ‘For the first time I am glad to be here,’ he said when I had finished. ‘I can imagine how my superiors would be on my back. How is Inspector Quigley dealing with it all?’

  ‘By pretending that the murders are suicides or accidents.’

  The inspector bristled. ‘I sometimes wonder why that man became a policeman, other than his personal ambition… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. No doubt he will get his promotion and I shall have to call him sir.’

  ‘I should not have worried you,’ I said.

  ‘No.’ He moved uncomfortably. ‘I like to know what’s happening on my patch.’ For a moment he drifted but then he shook himself, as if out of a dream. ‘It sounds like Miss McKay might be worth questioning again – an extremely unpleasant character if ever there was one. When I was a sergeant I arrested her for what I can only describe as a vile and violent attack on her housekeeper. The victim was anxious to testify and we had an independent witness in the cook. Miss McKay did not trouble to deny the offence and I was confident of a conviction and a stiff sentence. But I reckoned…’ He looked blank for a moment, then forced himself awake. ‘I reckoned without her father’s influence and all charges were suddenly dropped, and – as I discovered later – this was by no means the first time it had happened.’

  ‘But that is disgusting.’ I felt his grip sharpen.

  ‘I tendered my resignation.’ He was fading. ‘But they made hints about my prospects and I told myself I could do more good inside the force than…’ We were still holding hands when he fell asleep.

  I took some scissors out of my handbag and trimmed his moustaches, but it was more difficult than I expected and, if anything, they looked more ragged than before I had interfered. I put my scissors away, checked that no one was watching and kissed his forehead. One eye popped open and he mumbled, ‘Water.’

  And on the way out I came across the younger nurse. Her face was pink and she had been crying. ‘Oh, miss, I have just heard some terrible news about Hilary Wilkinson.’

  ‘Hilary?’

  ‘The nurse who is usually with me.’

  ‘Was that her in the fire?’ She gnawed her lower lip but did not reply. ‘I hope she will be all right,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, miss.’ She burst into tears. ‘I don’t think she will.’

  I took her hand. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘Oh blimey, here comes Matron. I’ll be for it if she sees me like this.’

  ‘Go into the ward and keep your back to her.’

  Matron came marching down the corridor and her face darkened when she saw me.

  ‘Flattery,’ my father told me, ‘is like make-up – cheap and false – but, if you must use it, lay it on thickly or people will see straight through it.’

  ‘Might I have a have a word, Matron?’

  ‘What is it now?’

  ‘I have worked in several military hospitals,’ I said, ‘and we always prided ourselves on our efficiency.’

  Her eyes glinted. ‘What of it?’

  ‘I just wanted to say that I have never come across a better run ward in my life.’

  I cringed at my own insincerity and hoped she did not think I was mocking her, but Matron grunted and her face softened. ‘I am glad you think so but, if you will excuse me, I must talk to Nurse Ramsey. I know she was very attached to Nurse Wilkinson.’

  I froze. ‘Was?’

  Matron’s mouth compressed as she controlled herself.

  45

  Coal Dust, Fingerprints and Death Traps

  We were just picking at the remnants of some cold potatoes and re-boiled cabbage when Molly came in, sleeves rolled up and arms coated in flour. ‘Special delivery, sir.’ And Sidney Grice put down his fork to take a thick white envelope from the tray.

  ‘Why is it special?’ He held it by the corner.

  She looked skywards for inspiration before deciding. ‘I think it’s because the boy said it was.’

  ‘Was he a post-office messenger?’ I asked

  ‘No, miss. He was a ragamuffin – horrible he was, coughing and spitting. He—’

  ‘Get out,’ her employer said, and Molly went pink.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Now.’

  Molly pouted. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And no pouting,’ he said without looking up as she left. ‘Come, March. Let us go downstairs and examine this keenly anticipated
correspondence in the heart and mind of this house, my study.’

  We went down and stood behind his desk, and Sidney Grice shook the envelope. ‘Feels and sounds like the key.’ He held it up to the light. ‘Looks like the outline of a key and therefore quite possibly a key. Plain white envelope with nothing written on it and no impression of anything having been written over it. No hallmark but not cheap paper. Four finger smudges and…’ He perched his pince-nez on the tip of his nose. ‘What do you make of this, March?’

  I went to his side. ‘They are a child’s prints but the tips look clubbed.’

  ‘What would cause that?’ He brought out a pocket magnifying glass to look more closely.

  ‘It can develop with lung diseases. I have seen it in people who work in mines or cotton mills, but never in a child.’

  ‘What about soot?’

  ‘He would have had to inhale a lot of it – a climbing boy could have.’

  ‘An ex-climbing boy in this case,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘There is not a grain of soot on it, and even Molly would have noticed if he were a sweep’s apprentice.’

  ‘He is probably too ill to work. I have seen four-year-olds sent up flues which are still hot from the fires and come down burnt all over and with seared lungs. And it is supposed to be illegal. Something should be done.’

  ‘I seem to have installed a social reformer in the bosom of my home,’ my guardian commented. ‘Look at that. See how clear the print is? You can make out every whorl. When I have the time I shall make a study of the ridges on fingertips. I am half convinced that very few people share exactly the same patterns.’ He opened the envelope carefully with a paperknife and sniffed the flap. ‘This has been sealed within the last hour or so. I can smell the gum quite strongly and it is still tacky… what is this stuck to the glue?’ He picked at it with a pair of tweezers. ‘In that second drawer down you will find a sheet of black card… Put it on my blotter.’ He laid his find carefully out, a long white strand.

  ‘It looks very like a hair from one of Mr Piggety’s cats,’ I said. ‘I am still finding them on my coat.’

  ‘Then go and find another one,’ he said, and I went into the hall and picked at my lapel. By the time I came back he had dragged the round table to the window and was setting up a microscope, twisting the mirror to catch the light. He took the hair from me, stretched it alongside the other between two glass slides and clipped them on to the stage. ‘I have scratched the numbers one and two at the ends of the slides.’ He peered down the eyepiece. ‘So that even you will not confuse the specimens.’ He fiddled with the focus and moved the slides side to side. ‘Interesting.’ He straightened up sharply. ‘Now, you tell me what differences you can see.’

  I adjusted the objective lens a fraction to sharpen the image and looked along the hairs. At two hundred magnification they had lost their smoothness and sprouted fibres all over. I touched the slide and the images jumped out of view. ‘I cannot see any differences.’

  ‘Look harder.’

  I brought the hairs back over the hole in the stage.

  ‘They are the same width and colour.’

  ‘Try harder. Use your eyes.’

  I tried again and rotated the slides a few degrees. ‘They still look identical to me.’ I gave up.

  ‘Good,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘I could not see any differences either and if I cannot see something it cannot be seen. So what can we deduce from that?’

  ‘That the hair in the envelope came from one of Piggety’s cats,’ I said.

  ‘Nonsense.’ He ran a hand over his head. ‘All we can deduce is that the two hairs are indistinguishable under this magnification and so we cannot say with any reasonable certainty that they came from different types of cats, if indeed they are cats’ hairs. If needs be I shall get Professor James Beart Simonds of the Royal Veterinary College to have a look at it. He was of great help in the Silver Beard goat-swapping scandal.’

  We went back to the desk where he looked inside the envelope, turned it upside down and tapped it over the card. ‘No dust.’ He slipped a letter out, smelled it and held it to the light before opening it out on to his blotting paper. It was a sheet of double foolscap paper and had been folded three times. On the top side it bore a message using cuttings from a newspaper.

  GRICE THIS KEY

  OPENS

  THE OUTER

  DOOR

  LOCK

  TURN

  ANTI CLOCKWISE TO

  GAIN ENTRY PIG GET Y

  ‘The Hackney Gazette typeface,’ Sidney Grice commented. ‘It should be easy enough to find when they last printed clockwise as one word, especially as it first appeared in print only four years and twenty-nine weeks ago. And why the anti rather the more usual counter-clockwise?’

  ‘This message is just as odd as the last one,’ I said. ‘I cannot make any sense of it. Why explain what the key does when you have already been advised that it was coming? And why tell you how to use it?’

  He picked at the top corner of the Y. ‘That which appears to be most stupid is sometimes the most clever,’ he said.

  I looked at the back of the paper. The gum had seeped through but it was otherwise unmarked. ‘Also, you have both been reduced to just your surnames in this letter and Mr Piggety has lost his esquire.’

  ‘The presence and absence of that word in the two communications is beyond question of immoderate significance.’ He rubbed beneath his patch.

  ‘Will you go?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly. You look uneasy.’

  ‘I know you will say—’

  ‘You never know what I will say.’

  I often did but I let that pass and restarted. ‘I suspect you will say that I have been reading too many shockers but, if Mr Piggety is the murderer, it could be a trap.’

  ‘One shocker is too many.’ Sidney Grice looked at the reverse of the letter. ‘But you may be right, March, and I certainly hope so. It is nearly six months since anybody thought it worth their while to lure me to my death and that was such an insultingly opaque attempt. A man can get discouraged so easily when nobody wants to kill him.’

  ‘If you must go, why not go early and take him unawares?’

  ‘Two reasons.’ My guardian took the slides from the microscope and wrapped rubber bands round them. ‘First, there is no point in trying to spring a trap before it is set. That is Grice’s twelfth maxim.’

  ‘And second?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘We have not yet had our postprandial cup of tea. Ring the bell, March, and I shall tell you the other thirty-nine maxims whilst we are biding our time.’

  46

  The Long Rows of Death

  Sidney Grice tried the door.

  ‘Well, it is locked now.’ He slipped the key in, turned it easily and rotated the handle. ‘Stand well back, March.’ He stepped to one side. ‘The last time I answered a cryptic summons, Princess Cristobel of Gladbach was waiting in the dark with a primed and loaded musket.’ He swung the door open with his cane, took a small rectangular mirror on a stick out of his satchel and checked inside with it. ‘Looks clear.’ He folded the mirror away, poked his head round the frame and almost immediately recoiled. ‘Handkerchief.’ He clamped his over his nose and I followed suit.

  The stench was even worse than before as we entered Mr Piggety’s factory, and the heat hit us immediately. Sidney Grice put out his hand.

  ‘Keep behind me.’ I could hardly hear him above the crashing of planks being unloaded from a cargo ship outside.

  We stepped on to the platform and looked down at the rows of cages.

  ‘Hello,’ he called and rattled the railings, but there was no reply. ‘Hello,’ he shouted.

  We waited a moment before descending and it was immediately obvious that things had gone very wrong indeed. The first cage held about a dozen cats and all of them were dead. We went to the next cage and the same scene greeted us.

  ‘Dear God,’ I whispered. It was not until the fifth that I saw any
sign of life, a tiny kitten lying on its side, panting weakly and with white-membraned eyes but, even as we watched, the breathing stopped. ‘Oh, you poor little thing.’

  ‘The water has been turned off,’ my guardian said.

  ‘And the heating up.’

  The clatter of timber ceased and Sidney Grice touched my arm. ‘Listen.’ There was a shrill noise in the background. At first I thought it was a circular saw being used to cut the planks, but the noise was higher than that and changed pitch too much.

  ‘The back room,’ my guardian said. ‘Wait here.’ He ran jerkily between the long rows of death to the far end. There he paused and unsheathed his swordstick. I hurried after him and he rolled his eye. ‘Canute had more luck in holding back the sea,’ he said.

  The sound was louder now and higher and fractured. I stood to one side.

  I turned the handle and flung open the door. The room was unlit except through one sealed glass panel in the roof, and it took a while to adjust to the dark and the air heavy with big drops of water and to realize that what we had been listening to was a scream, and that the steam and the scream were both coming from one of the enamelled tubs. There was a tremendous splashing. Perhaps Mr Piggety was having a practice run with a sack full of stray cats. It was difficult to get close with boiling water spraying in every direction, but as we edged nearer I opened my parasol.

  ‘Do not flap it.’ Sidney Grice hung back.

  ‘I shall try not to.’ I held it before us as a shield. The splashing stopped and the scream was silenced, but the machinery still whirred as I peeked round the frilled edge of my parasol. It was then that I saw a head projecting from the bubbling surface of the water and, as I watched, the head turned and I found myself looking at a face. It was barely recognizable under a mask of swelling blisters, but I knew that low brow and flattened head.

  Prometheus Piggety stared at me through the slits of his swollen scarlet eyelids. Time was petrified and no sound came now from his gaping mouth. Two ballooned hands broke through the surface, bound at the wrists, reaching out to me in supplication. But then the head went down, the mouth filling with scalding water, desperately trying to spit it out, but the water came over the nose and the tub became a frothing cauldron as the water closed over him.