The Curse of the House of Foskett

by Kasasian, M. R. C.

  ‘Get the lantern.’

  ‘Right away, miss.’

  The candle blew out as he opened the door. I reached Mr G. ‘Do not dare to be dead, you miserable old devil,’ I whimpered as Cutteridge returned, turning up the wick on his lantern. My guardian was waxen and his eyes were closed. I slid his sleeve up to feel for a pulse.

  ‘Oh, my lady,’ Cutteridge whispered as I unbuttoned my guardian’s waistcoat.

  ‘Ouch,’ Sidney Grice said, coming up on one elbow and rubbing his chest.

  ‘How on earth…?’ I released his wrist.

  ‘It was a blank, but the impact of the wadding had quite a punch.’ He scrambled to his feet and checked himself. ‘It has torn my favourite Ulster.’ He shook himself down and patted his trousers.

  I dusted my dress. ‘A good job you were wearing it.’ And we turned to look at the box.

  ‘My lady,’ Cutteridge gasped.

  The baroness’s hair was fastened back by a silver comb, her hands resting on the arms of her throne, her fingers bare except for one gold band on the left, her eyes unblinking and membranous white, her head thrown back a little. Her skin was grey, blotched with maroon and splattered with dark streaks, a grotesque, shrivelled distortion, white teeth bared in silent mirthlessness.

  ‘Is her ladyship…’ Cutteridge could not bring himself to finish.

  ‘Dead,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘And for quite some time. She is starting to mummify.’

  ‘That perfume,’ I said. ‘It is myrrh.’

  Sidney Grice looked at me. ‘You smelled it before and did not mention it?’

  ‘I assumed you—’

  ‘You knew I was incapacitated by a cold. If I had known… Dash it all, Miss Middleton. I would have thought even you would know it is used to preserve bodies.’

  Cutteridge set the lantern down heavily on the floor. ‘But…’

  ‘The speaking trumpet is connected to this brass pipe.’ My guardian indicated with his cane. ‘Which goes under the chair and back through that hole in the panelling. Why do you knock before you enter, Cutteridge?’

  Cutteridge looked confused. ‘Her ladyship instructed me to do so, sir.’

  ‘Servants never knock,’ I remembered. ‘Not unless the occupant of the room wants some warning to be ready.’

  Sidney Grice raised his voice. ‘You might as well join us now, Rupert.’ And almost immediately a panel in the wall at the back of the box hinged open, and out stepped a man. He was tall with faded and thinning red hair, and had to lower his head slightly to go under the lintel.

  ‘Hello, Sidney.’ The voice was husky and quite faint. ‘I could never stop myself scratching those numbers. It drove my father almost into a frenzy.’

  ‘We thought you had been eaten by cannibals,’ I said.

  ‘If only I had,’ he responded. ‘Something far worse than that feeds on me now. Oh, Sidney, you have no idea what it was like out there.’

  ‘I have a very good idea,’ my guardian said. ‘I went looking for you.’

  ‘You knew I was alive?’

  ‘No.’ Mr G gazed at him. ‘I intended to bring your body home, and I believed I was getting close before I was stricken by malaria and shipped back against my will.’

  ‘Malaria? Oh, fortunate man,’ Rupert cried derisively. ‘You deserved far worse than that, Sidney. It was because of you I journeyed to that unutterable pit of Hades in the first place. I had everything – a title, wealth – I was one of the most eligible bachelors on the kingdom and you destroyed it all by convincing me that it might all turn to dust.’ A brown liquid trickled down Rupert’s chin. ‘I went looking for God. I thought I could find him by spreading his word.’

  ‘And did you?’ I asked and a great sigh came from him.

  ‘I lost him – or rather he lost me – and you cannot be lost by something which does not exist. It was in God’s abandonment of me that I found him for certain.’

  ‘That is the biggest perversion of logical syllogism—’my guardian began but Rupert doubled up in spasms of coughing.

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ Rupert screeched when he had recovered sufficiently. ‘I hate you.’

  Mr G flinched. ‘It is not my fault that there is no proof for you to cling to.’

  ‘Do not ask for proof. It shall not be given,’ Rupert quoted.

  ‘I should be out of a job if that were the case,’ Sidney Grice said wryly, and Rupert caught his breath.

  ‘Very well then, how about this for evidence?’ He raised his head. At first I thought it must be a trick of the light, but his skin was as white as bone and his nose had been eroded so that the turbinate bones were clearly visible through the few shreds of skin remaining. His left lower eyelid was gone too, exposing a raw eyeball.

  ‘Cochliomyia,’ Sidney Grice said in shock and Rupert laughed hollowly.

  ‘Well diagnosed, Sidney. Most people would think I was a leper and, in every other sense of the word, I am. As it is, I am a modern-day Herod, rich and powerful and being eaten by worms, blowfly maggots burrowing into my putrefying flesh.’

  ‘Can nothing be done?’ I asked and he grinned gruesomely.

  ‘When it began I was told it was just a question of picking them out with tweezers. They come up for air sometimes and then you grab them, but they are too numerous for that – and to think it all started with an insect bite. Then the doctors tried surgery, cutting them out of me, but the new wounds only helped them burrow deeper. I have bathed in mercury and been soaked in paraffin. I have been cupped and bled and burnt. The most expensive doctors in England were as effective as the witch doctors’ charms I endured in that accursed place. They are inside me now. They burrow into my gut and hatch out in my lungs. I cough them up in gouts of foaming blood. They are destroying my face. I was such a handsome fellow once, was I not, Sidney?’

  My guardian did not respond, but Rupert clutched his own head and cried out, ‘They are in my brain. I can feel them – loathsome.’ He fought for air. ‘My mother hid me away and this house became my prison, with Cutteridge the jailor. She could not let the world see what the last Baron Foskett had become and I had no wish to be gawked at by society, pitied and repellent, and with no hope of carrying on our ancient line unless a remedy could be found. She nursed me. Every penny she had went on quack treatments and tricksters. She gave eight thousand pounds to a man who had cured a maharaja and brought him along to show us, but they both turned out to be shipping clerks from Southampton. The Foskett fortune went to swindlers and cranks.’

  Sidney Grice said, ‘And so you formed this murderous society.’

  ‘It was not meant to be murderous,’ Rupert said. ‘You were supposed to prevent that.’

  ‘Oh, Rupert.’ My guardian straightened his cuffs. ‘Every step of the way was calculated to destroy me.’

  Rupert coughed. ‘I know nothing of that. The only crime that I have committed was to cover up my mother’s death. If it were known that she had passed away, then the prize would have gone to one of the other members.’ Rupert pinched at his face and tugged and held out a squirming, hook-headed, bloated maggot for our inspection before tossing it away. ‘You see what lives in my flesh. My mother tended to me. She spent hours with needles, digging these disgusting creatures out of me, but they were too many for her and they burrowed too deep. I thought that she was safe so long as none of the flies hatched – they do not live long in this climate – but some survived and she got bitten. She did not notice until it was too late. I tried to help. Can you imagine it, Sidney – the last surviving members of one of the greatest families in England sitting picking at each other like monkeys in a cage? In the end she was blind, clawing at her eyes as they tunnelled behind. We called in Dr Simmons. He had treated the family for years and at least we knew he would be discreet, but he was hopeless. He injected caustic soda under her skin and into her stomach. She died horribly, Sidney, beside herself in agony. I could have killed the man but he saved me the trouble and killed himself with his gluttony, and here I
was, penniless and alone save for Cutteridge.’

  ‘And so you set up the speaking tube to make it appear that the baroness was still alive,’ I said.

  Cutteridge was staring at the shrivelled remains of his mistress. ‘So I have been serving a ghost.’

  Rupert cackled. ‘I thought about tying wires to her wrists to make them move, but I was worried you might spot them.’

  Cutteridge picked up a long pole from the dais floor. ‘And may I ask what this boat hook is for, sir?’

  ‘I tried to turn her head with it when they first visited but it made too much of a clatter.’

  Cutteridge exhaled heavily.

  ‘But how would you claim the money?’ I asked.

  ‘Once the other members had expired I intended to get Dr Simmons to explain that he had been treating me secretly, and to certify that my mother’s heart had failed, but then he died.’

  ‘How inconsiderate of him,’ my guardian said. ‘But what good would money be to you in your condition?’

  ‘It will buy me a cure. There is a cure now, Sidney, but it is expensive.’

  ‘False cures invariably cost more than real ones.’ Mr G peered at his old friend. ‘Step forward, Rupert.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just one step for the lady… Thank you. I see you still drag your foot a little from the broken ankle.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘You are wearing a lot of cologne,’ I remarked.

  ‘It masks the stench of my decay, and it might even kill a few of the worms.’ Rupert had a hole through his hand, an unholy stigmata. ‘It deters the blighters from coming to the surface at any rate.’

  ‘That could be why we did not find any in Mr Gallop’s storeroom,’ I said, and he eyed me sadly.

  ‘Plus I wore a balaclava helmet to attract less attention.’ He wheezed in a laugh that I had come to think of as his mother’s. ‘And to think at one time I craved it. You have no idea how hard I tried to impress you, Sidney.’

  ‘I saw them use blowpipes when I went to look for you,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘There were footprints in Warrington Gallop’s storeroom showing his killer to be a tall man with small feet and a slight limp.’

  ‘Do you really think that any jury will convict an aristocrat of murder on such a sketchy conglomeration of evidence?’ Rupert said.

  ‘I have much more evidence than that,’ Sidney Grice told him. ‘Show me your watch, Rupert.’

  But Rupert laughed. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, but how do you think you can even get out of here, Sidney?’ he challenged. ‘I released the dogs the moment you came in the house.’

  Cutteridge cleared his throat. ‘I feel it my duty to inform you that I bolted the cage gate this morning. The catch is rusty and I did not want any mishaps while we had visitors.’

  ‘Gerry will be cross,’ my guardian said. ‘He could have had an extra hour in bed.’

  Rupert coughed a spray of black blood into his clawed, torn hand.

  ‘That is why we saw blood droplets on the floor in Mr Gallop’s shop,’ I realized.

  ‘Precisely.’ Mr G wiped his face. ‘But tell me, Rupert, how did you plan to divide the money?’

  Rupert blinked, but his upper eyelids had been too badly chewed to meet the lowers. ‘Divide?’

  ‘You do not think I believe that you alone committed all those crimes?’ Sidney Grice poked a finger through the hole in his coat.

  ‘We were to be married.’ Rupert smiled ruefully and behind the ravages of his disease I glimpsed the remnants of a shy young man in love, but my guardian flapped his hand in contempt.

  ‘Do you really imagine you would survive twenty-four hours after whatever mockery of a wedding you entered into?’

  ‘She loves me.’ Rupert wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve and looked down, as if suddenly realizing the implausibility of his words.

  Sidney Grice’s face was ashen. ‘You are going to hang, Rupert, and your lovely partner in crime will hang with you.’

  ‘I am afraid I cannot allow that, sir.’ Cutteridge licked his dry lips. ‘I am sure you have not forgotten that you are not the only one who carries a gun, but mine is loaded with bullets.’ He brought a revolver out of his inner pocket and Sidney Grice took a step towards him. ‘You know I will use it, sir.’

  Sidney Grice froze.

  ‘Will you kill me too?’ I asked, stepping in front of my guardian.

  ‘Get out of the way, March,’ Sidney Grice commanded.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I cannot but salute your loyalty and sacrifice, Miss Middleton,’ Cutteridge said, ‘for they are qualities which I have always sought to cultivate. And your guardian is the man I admire above all others, but you must realize that my first loyalty is to the house I have served as my father served, since childhood.’

  ‘And you would murder innocent people for this vile creature?’ I asked.

  ‘When Baron Rupert was but five years old I dived into the stormy seas at Calais to save him, though I could not swim.’ Cutteridge swallowed. ‘I shall do my duty to the end, miss.’

  ‘And so shall I.’ I straightened my body in an attempt to stop it from shaking.

  ‘Why are you protecting this man, March?’ Rupert sneered.

  ‘March, please…’ Sidney Grice spoke urgently.

  ‘Because he protects me.’

  ‘Please stand to one side, miss.’ Cutteridge steadied the gun with his right hand.

  ‘He is all I have,’ I burst out and my guardian took hold of my shoulders.

  64

  The Web and the Cage

  ‘You will never get out of London, let alone England,’ Sidney Grice told him, and the old servant frowned thinly.

  ‘Be that as it may, sir, I cannot let the last Baron Foskett hang like a common felon.’ His hand did not waver and he did not take his eyes off us as he backed away.

  ‘Got you this time, Sidney,’ Rupert crowed, stepping off the dais. Close up, I could see writhing under the blackened skin of his cheek. ‘You always thought you were cleverer than me.’

  ‘I,’ my guardian corrected him. ‘Cleverer than I. You are using than as a conjunction not a preposition. If you are going to make an ass of yourself, you might as well do it grammatically.’

  Rupert scrunched his body in a paroxysm of pique. ‘You—’

  ‘That aside,’ Mr G continued, ‘I have always had a very high opinion of your intelligence.’ And Rupert exposed more stumps of teeth in what might have been a vestigial smile before my guardian added, ‘for a non-Grice.’

  Rupert emitted a cry of rage. ‘I had you in my sights, Sidney. I should have put a dart in you while I could.’

  ‘Just out of interest,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘am I correct in assuming that you used viper venom and that you hollowed the dart out to carry a larger dose?’

  ‘The dead adder,’ I recalled.

  ‘Which you omitted to mention to me at the time.’

  ‘I see what you are doing.’ Rupert spat some blood into a sodden handkerchief. ‘You are trying to distract me, but it will do you no good.’ He turned to face Cutteridge. ‘They will raise the alarm if we leave them. Get rid of them, Cutteridge. Shoot them in the stomachs so they die slowly.’

  The old retainer frowned. ‘Do you remember when you were six, sir? You used the Devlin Plate as a toboggan and dented it, and I took the blame, though your grandfather laid into me with his riding crop. I have always done everything in my power to protect you and, if I could take your place, I would willingly do so, but this is beyond my powers now.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And I must do what I can for the family.’ Cutteridge swallowed. ‘I am so sorry.’ His arm jerked up as he raised the pole and thrust the boating hook squelching into his master’s shoulder. Rupert instinctively pulled away and howled. ‘You will find it hurts a great deal less if do not struggle, my lord.’

  Rupert forced himself to hold still. ‘Cutteridge, what are you doing?’

  ‘You made a pup
pet show of my mistress, the finest woman who ever graced this world, Lady Parthena the Dowager Baroness Foskett. You have desecrated her body.’

  ‘She was my mother,’ Rupert sneered, ‘not yours.’

  Cutteridge twisted the pole and Rupert shrieked, clutching at his shoulder.

  ‘You might be best not to encourage me to hurt you as much as you deserve,’ Cutteridge said. ‘Please pick up the lantern, my lord. We shall be needing it.’

  Rupert bent gingerly and did as he was told, and Cutteridge backed out of the room, leading Rupert like a bull by its ring.

  We waited, craning our ears. I heard the stairs creak and Rupert yelp in pain and Cutteridge saying, ‘I am so sorry, sir, but if you keep up, it will be less painful.’

  ‘Stay here,’ Sidney Grice whispered and rolled his eye when he saw that I would not. ‘Keep behind me then.’

  He brought out his safety lantern and lit it, and I looked back at Baroness Foskett as we quit the room. Was this husk really all that was left of the beautiful, wealthy, intelligent woman whose portrait graced the ballroom, who had lost the man she loved and died nursing her monstrous son? The long, lovely hands that must have cosseted her child were leathery claws now.

  Mr G picked up his gun and slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘Why did you throw it down?’

  ‘I knew that Cutteridge would be prepared to shoot me if he thought he was protecting his mistress.’ We crossed the corridor. ‘And I preferred him do it with a blank rather than his own gun.’

  ‘Do you not have any live bullets?’

  ‘Yes, but I shall not shoot Cutteridge.’

  ‘Because he spared our lives?’

  My guardian piffed. ‘I thought you would have known by now that gratitude is alien to my nature.’ There was light coming into the hall when we peered over the banister rail. ‘But I have never yet killed an innocent man on purpose.’

  ‘The front door is open,’ I said, the stairs swaying alarmingly as we set off down them.

  ‘But they did not go out through it. The cobweb in that archway is ripped.’ He raced into the passageway. A rotting velvet curtain had been tied back with what was probably once a golden cord, and it fell to dusty scraps when my shoulder brushed against it.