‘Untie it,’ he commanded. My eye followed the rope from her neck up to a butcher’s hook on the ceiling, where it looped through and then down at about thirty degrees from the vertical to an iron ring on the wall by the back door. ‘Hurry, March.’
I ran across and tore at the knot. ‘It is too tight.’
Dorna was making choking sounds and her face was dark, and I could see my guardian was having trouble holding her and balancing on the stool, which was wobbling beneath him. I snatched a meat cleaver from a rack and slashed at the knot three times as hard as I could, impacting into the whitewashed wall, and ripped the last few frayed strands apart. The rope fell loosely away and I dashed back to steady the stool.
Dorna Berry’s eyes were closed as we lowered her to the floor, and she was not breathing, but her fingers between the noose and her chin had taken most of the pressure, and the moment we loosened the rope she shuddered and inhaled noisily.
‘You are safe now,’ he said, raising her head to take the rope from under it.
Dorna’s limbs jerked. ‘Thank God,’ she gasped hoarsely. ‘Thank God you came.’
67
The Poker and the Rope
In a few minutes Dorna was recovered enough to sit up and, shortly afterwards, to be helped on to a chair. I filled a glass of water, but, when she took it from me, she was shaking so badly that she could not drink.
‘I really thought…’ She rubbed her throat gingerly. ‘I really thought…’ She broke down in tears.
‘Try not to speak,’ I said, but my guardian batted my words away.
‘Try to if you can.’ He steadied her hand and she managed a sip of water.
‘If you had not come when you did…’ She sobbed again and I took her hand. ‘I am sorry.’
‘What happened?’ Sidney Grice pulled up the stool and sat beside her.
‘I hardly know,’ she wept, cradling the air around her face with open fingers. ‘Somebody came to the door.’
‘Was it a ring or a knock?’
She swallowed painfully. ‘What?… A ring, I think… Yes, just one ring. Emily answered the door.’
‘Where is your usual maid?’ I enquired.
‘Jane had yesterday off and a half day today. Emily came from an agency. I have used her a few times in the past.’
‘Did you see her go to answer the call?’ my guardian rattled off.
‘No. I was in my consulting room with the door closed, but I heard her footfalls in the hall and the front door open, and she told somebody to wait. Then—’
‘How many people?’ he asked abruptly and she put a hand to her brow.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ I said. ‘Dorna has just escaped death.’
‘And her memory of it will never be fresher,’ he snapped, but added to her more tenderly, ‘If you can manage, it will help enormously.’
‘I will try.’ Dorna Berry worried at her forehead in quick little pinches. ‘I could not tell at that stage because I did not hear any voices except Emily’s saying, Please wait here. Then there was a sound, a loud thud, and she cried out – no words – just a cry of surprise or pain, and then a crash as if she had fallen over, and three more thuds. I heard them all separately but in rapid succession, the sort of speed that one might…’ she hinged her hand down to cover her eye, ‘beat a carpet.’
I took her left hand in both of mine. ‘Are you sure you can go on?’
Her right hand fell on to mine. ‘If it helps to catch them…’
‘Them?’ He pounced and she nodded twice.
‘I went out and saw her.’ Her grip spasmed. ‘That woman – the one I saw in the square. I am sure it was her – the one with the birthmark.’ She touched her cheek silently.
‘Primrose McKay,’ I said and she nodded again.
‘Just her?’ my guardian asked.
‘At first. Then I saw Emily. She was lying face down towards the front door and it was open, and the McKay woman was standing just behind her with a poker in her hand, raised’ – she held out her fist – ‘like a weapon.’
‘Where could the poker have come from?’ I asked. There was no fireplace in the hall. Dorna unclenched her fist.
‘Jane kept it in the umbrella stand…’ She laughed ironically. ‘For our protection as we were frightened, after I saw that woman in Tavistock Square, that she might come for me.’
Sidney Grice caught his eye. ‘You never told me.’
She started to rock to and fro. ‘I thought you would tell me not to be silly. How could she even know who I am or where I live?’
My guardian touched her shoulder. ‘She would have known where I live and seen us together. All the world knows where I reside and it would have been a simple matter to have tracked my movements. I am sorry if I led them to you.’ Something in his apology sounded hollow. Perhaps it was just that I was unused to hearing him use the word sorry. ‘What happened next?’
‘I stepped into the hall.’
‘That was brave of you,’ I said and she crinkled her brow.
‘Brave or stupid? I think I did not really believe what I was seeing. It was like one of those bad melodramas that my foster parents put me in as the village beauty.’ She smiled tightly. ‘And that was when I was attacked – a man grabbed me.’
‘Thurston Gates—’ I began but Mr G hushed me.
‘Continue,’ he instructed and Mary struggled on.
‘He must have been standing behind the door. He got me in a bear hug and lifted me off the ground as easily as I might pick up a pillow. I tried to scream but he clamped his hand over my mouth. I tried to hit him but he did not seem to notice, and then that woman came towards me and raised the poker and I thought…’ She put her knuckles to her teeth and tears sprang in her eyes. ‘I thought that she would dash my brains out and the first thing I thought about’ – she coughed – ‘was that I might never see you again.’
‘That would have been one blessing for you.’ Sidney Grice polished his eye with a square of blue cotton, but Dorna shook her head.
‘It was the one thing I could not bear.’ She put her hand on his. ‘I have seen death so often that I believed I was not afraid of it… He carried me here, down the hall. I kicked and tried to bite his fingers but he held my jaw so tightly. No matter how I struggled, I was no more than a child in his grasp. He pinched my nostrils and I could not breathe, and before I knew it I was standing on a stool while he tied a rope to that ring on the wall.’
‘Where did they get the rope from?’ I asked and she flared up.
‘How should I know? They probably brought it with them.’ She forced herself to calm down. ‘He slipped the noose over my head and tightened it and’ – she closed her eyes – ‘kicked the stool away. I only fell a few inches. Either they miscalculated or they wanted me to die slowly. I clutched at the rope and tried to loosen it around my neck.’
‘I wonder why they did not tie your hands,’ I said.
‘Perhaps to prolong the struggle even more.’ Sidney Grice prised his eyelids apart and forced his glass eye into its raw socket. He drew a sharp breath but waved away my concern to ask, ‘What next?’
‘She stood there watching me. Dear Lord, Sidney, the look of pleasure on her face. I have never seen such undisguised evil.’ Dorna took a deep breath. ‘Then you arrived. They glanced at each other, shrugged and walked very calmly out into the garden. She looked back at me and she was still smiling, almost serene. She blew me a kiss and left… I could not hear any voices then. And I thought whoever had come in might have run off, on seeing Emily, to find a policeman. And I could be left here to die.’ She pulled the collar of her dress as if re-enacting her words. ‘The drawer was partly open and I managed to pull it out with my feet and stand in it to support myself.’
I gave her my handkerchief. ‘That showed great presence of mind.’
‘But I could not get my fingers out from under the rope and I was choking and…’ She burst into tears. ‘Nobody came and I was choking.’
‘I
think you have had enough,’ I said and my guardian concurred.
‘Would you like a proper drink?’ I asked and she managed a half-smile.
‘There is some sherry in that cupboard. Cook was going to make a trifle.’
‘Where is Cook?’ Sidney Grice stood up and Dorna looked about her as he went to the back door.
‘Oh, you don’t think…?’ Dorna began as he went outside.
He kneeled over the prone form.
‘Dead,’ he said as he returned, ‘in the rose bed – attacked from behind, almost certainly with the cleaver which is lodged in her occiput.’
‘Sweet heaven,’ Dorna whispered. ‘Will it never end?’
‘Yes.’ My guardian closed the door. ‘It will all end today. Stay with Dorna, March, whilst I go next door and summon help.’
68
The Staking of Lives
I sat with Dorna Berry sipping sherry and saying little, while Sidney Grice examined the bodies. He paced round the hall and spent a long time in the garden, apparently taking soil samples and measuring footprints, before rejoining us in the kitchen.
The police came, two constables, a grey-haired sergeant and Inspector Quigley.
‘Do not leave me,’ Dorna begged and I put my hand on her shoulder.
‘Well, you have excelled yourself today,’ I heard Quigley say as my guardian went to meet them. ‘Two brutal murders for the price of one and very nearly a third.’
Dorna buried her face in her hands.
Mr G tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat pocket. ‘You seem to forget that whilst I am under no obligation to protect these people, Inspector, you have a sworn duty to do so.’ He lowered his voice but it was still clear. ‘These women were not clients of mine and I am only here as a courtesy to Dr Berry.’
I walked across and shut the door but could still hear the muffled voices coming from the hallway, intermittently raised as Sidney Grice and the inspector debated heatedly. There was silence for a while and they must have gone out of the front and through the side gate, for I heard them again in the garden, their voices getting angrier, until the back door flew open and they all marched into the kitchen.
Quigley picked up the noose from the dresser and held it out to Dorna. ‘Show me how it fits round your neck.’ But I snatched it from him and shouted, ‘Leave her alone. Can you not see she is in a severe state of shock?’
Quigley coloured indignantly. ‘I have to question her.’
‘Of course,’ Mr G agreed. ‘But not today. ’
‘She will come to the station tomorrow then.’
Dorna buried her face in her hands while the constables poked about, opening and shutting drawers but showing little interest in what they contained. The sergeant lifted the kettle from the side of the range. ‘Any chance of a cuppa?’ he asked hopefully.
‘None at all,’ I told him, and the constables grunted in disappointment as they all trudged back into the hall.
‘I will have these corpses taken to the morgue,’ Quigley announced.
He put on his bowler hat and patted it down, and, bidding us a crisp goodbye, marched out of the house. The constables took the bodies on blankets into the back of a black van and rode off with the sergeant.
‘Is it all right to clear up?’ I asked, and Mr G shrugged and went back to Dorna. I found a mop and bucket to wash the hall floor and, once the bloodstains were gone, he brought Dorna through to her consulting room.
Jane, the maid, returned and I sat her down in the back parlour and explained what had happened, but there was nothing I could say to lessen the horror of events. She swayed in her seat and for a moment I thought she would vomit but she steadied herself, though her face was white as candle wax.
‘Oh, miss, if it had not been my half day…’ She did not need to complete her words for us both to know what she had escaped.
I poured her a sherry and for once I did not have another. Sidney Grice came in. ‘Ah, Jane, I have convinced your mistress that she needs to eat. She thinks she can manage a ham sandwich.’ I glared at him and he returned my look. ‘Yes, I know what you are thinking, Miss Middleton, but this is no time for me to preach a civilized diet to her.’
‘No.’ I stood up. ‘Nor any time for you to consider Jane’s feelings.’
‘Oh.’ He waved airily. ‘There will never be a time for that. It is inconvenient enough having to be so attentive to my own servants. I will have three peeled raw carrots.’
He wandered away.
‘I will make it,’ I said, ‘if you tell me where the meat safe is.’
But Jane struggled to her feet. ‘No, miss. I can’t sit back and watch you work. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘If you feel unable to continue, I can contact the agency,’ I offered, but she set her expression.
‘My place is with my mistress.’
I tried to help by cutting some bread but Jane put my rough blocks to one side, trimmed the loaf and cut four perfect thin slices.
‘And we will take coffee.’ My guardian reappeared. ‘I have tried to persuade Dr Berry to stay in Gower Street for a few days but she is determined to remain here.’
‘Will you and I stay to protect her?’ I asked and he flicked his hair back with a jerk of the neck.
‘She is adamant that we shall not.’
Jane hung on to the tabletop and I stood by ready to catch her.
‘But what if they return, sir?’
‘I have given your mistress my word, and you have it too, that they will not,’ Sidney Grice told her.
Jane straightened up and let go of the table. ‘You are a gentleman, Mr Grice, and your word is good enough for me.’
My guardian crossed the room to view his reflection in the polished base of a hanging saucepan. ‘Rest assured.’ He tidied his cravat. ‘I will stake your life on it.’
69
Salt and the Spiteful Son
I stayed with Jane while she prepared the sandwiches, carrots and coffee, and I double-checked, at her request, that the back door was secured before she took the tray into the front room.
Dorna seemed much cheered. She stood up and embraced Jane and whispered something to her, but Jane said, ‘You took me in when no one else would give me an interview. I shall not desert you now, miss.’
Dorna kissed her cheek and took her hands. ‘I shall not forget this, Jane.’
‘I require salt,’ my guardian said, and after her maid had gone, Dorna explained, ‘It is a sordid story but all too common I am afraid. The oldest son of her household tried to take advantage of her and, when she spurned him, told his mother that it had been the other way round. Jane was dismissed without a reference and her ex-mistress was vindictive enough to put word about that she had behaved improperly with several guests. After a month of being offered nothing other than virtual prostitution she tried to gas herself, but was rescued and given three months in prison for attempted suicide. After that her position was hopeless.’
‘It was good of you to take her on,’ I said.
‘Or naive,’ my guardian grunted, but she addressed me unabashed. ‘Sidney has been telling me about your morning. It seems we have all had lucky escapes today and we must thank God that none of us was harmed.’
We sat in three padded upright chairs round a low, rectangular table, Dr Berry pulling her chair quite close to his. The rubber plant behind them was wilting and the leaves were yellowed.
‘I fear I have been more than a little harmed,’ he said. ‘I was not paid to protect members of the society, but that is generally assumed to be the case and every person in it met an untimely and violent end. And, if Primrose McKay is hanged, nobody will benefit from their deaths except me. Who is to say that I did not kill the others for personal profit?’
‘Why, that is nonsense,’ I said. ‘I was with you all the time.’
‘But you would scarcely be credited as an independent witness,’ he pointed out.
‘Help yourself to milk and sugar, March.’ Dorna poured coff
ee from a tall pot into three dark pink cups with silver rims. ‘But surely, Sidney, there will be no doubt as to Miss McKay’s guilt. I may not have had a good view of her in the dentist’s window but I certainly had a very good look at her today.’
Sidney Grice cleared his throat. ‘Unfortunately, it is your word against hers and I have no doubt that she could buy herself a dozen witnesses, all of good standing, who would swear that she was with them in Penzance from dawn to dusk to dawn again every day this week.’
‘But there was that gold cross on the chain,’ Dorna reminded him. ‘You told me she liked wearing those.’
I picked up the clawed tongs. ‘I do not remember that.’
‘Have a sandwich, March.’ My guardian thrust the plate under my chin. ‘She will argue that the cross could have been anybody’s. No, Dorna, what we must do is build a body of proof against her in which your evidence is but the keystone that supports our case.’
‘But how can we do that?’ Dorna was calmer by the minute.
‘Let us reason this thing backwards for a moment.’ He meditated as Jane came in with his salt. ‘I have long been convinced that at least two people were involved in all the killings, except that of Warrington Gallop. If we accept that premise for the time being and that Rupert was one of the murderers, who else – other than the youthful Primrose McKay – could have been involved?’
‘Cutteridge could have assisted, especially if he thought that Baroness Foskett was instructing him,’ I said, but he held up his hand.
‘Cutteridge had not left Mordent House in years. He did not know that Trivet’s Tea Shop was demolished eight years ago, and the leaves around the main gate had fallen weeks ago but not been trodden on until we made our first visit. I remarked that they were interesting at the time and I need not remind March how scornful she was.’ He took the salt cellar and blew down the hole.
The Curse of the House of Foskett Page 32
