Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  Holding the torch between his teeth, he hopped up and pushed himself head-first into the gap. A wriggle, a shuffle, a jerk of legs: he shot forward and was gone.

  Silence.

  George and I waited.

  Dim light shone beyond the wall, and with it came Lockwood’s voice. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I lost the torch for a minute. It’s OK, it is the cellar. Come on – Lucy next.’

  It didn’t take me long. Once my arms and head had reached the other side, Lockwood was there to pull me out.

  ‘Keep guard while I see to George,’ he whispered. ‘The night’s getting old, so I’d assume the other Visitors are growing quiet now, but you never know.’

  So I stood by, with torch and rapier, while Lockwood wrestled George through the aperture. I could see only a little way. Thick shadows lay across the curved vaults of the cellar; beyond the nearest arch, shrouded lines of wine-racks stretched into the murk. All traces of ghost-fog had gone. Perhaps our attack on the well had already affected the entire cluster. It was impossible to say.

  But ghosts, right then, weren’t my main concern. I was thinking of the blonde girl in the photograph, and the man beside the fountain. The implications battered at my mind.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ Lockwood whispered, once George was through. ‘We’re going to leave the house and cross the park, fast as we can. I want to reach the ruined gatehouse by the road. If we can get there by dawn, we’ll be—’

  ‘Tell me something first,’ I said. ‘You think Fairfax planned the burglary too?’

  ‘Of course. When that failed, he fell back on his second plan, which was to get us here.’

  ‘So he wanted the locket?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s all about the locket, and what it proves.’

  ‘And what does it prove, Mr Lockwood?’ a deep voice said.

  Metal clinked. Two figures stepped forward from beyond the arch. They had the shapes of men, but with monstrous, distorted heads. One held a revolver, the other a lantern that swung directly in our eyes; its strong beam blinded us, gave us searing pain.

  ‘Stop there!’ the voice said. Our hands had strayed to our sword hilts. ‘There’ll be no more rapier-play tonight. Put your weapons on the floor or we’ll shoot you where you stand.’

  ‘Do as he says,’ Lockwood said. He undid his rapier and let it drop. George did the same. I was the last to obey. I stared fixedly into the darkness, in the direction of the voice.

  ‘Quick now, Miss Carlyle!’ the voice commanded. ‘Or do you want a bullet in your heart?’

  ‘Lucy . . .’ Lockwood’s grip was on my shoulder.

  I let the blade fall. Lockwood moved his hand away, and with it made an urbane gesture. ‘Lucy, George,’ he said, ‘may I present to you once again our host and patron, Mr John William Fairfax – Chairman of Fairfax Iron, noted industrialist, onetime actor and, of course, the murderer of Annie Ward.’

  24

  He was still dressed in the same white shirt and grey suit trousers he’d worn at the beginning of the night, but everything else about the old man had changed. His jacket had gone, replaced by a tunic of shiny steel mesh that hugged his chest and hung loose below his belly in a shimmering cascade. His upper arms were shirt-sleeved, but metal gauntlets protected his wrists and hands. As before, he supported himself on his bulldog-handled walking stick – only now the wooden membrane had been removed, revealing a long, slim rapier within. Strangest and most grotesque of all was the helmet that he wore: a smooth steel skullcap with a projecting rim around the back of the neck, and bulging leather goggles strapped below the brow-plate. The lenses shone glassily; his eyes could not be seen. All in all, Mr Fairfax had the look of a demonic frog: both horrible and ridiculous at the same time.

  He raised the lantern and stood in its swirling smoke-filled light, considering us. Then he smiled, showing his silver-coated teeth.

  ‘Oh, you’re a cool customer, Mr Lockwood,’ Fairfax said. ‘I’ll grant you that. I’m more and more impressed with you. It’s a shame we didn’t meet in other circumstances. You could have had a permanent job with me.’

  I don’t know how Lockwood did it, but despite the revolver pointed at his chest, despite the torn coat, the bloodstains, the spots of plasm, magnesium, salt and ash on his clothes, despite the trailing cobwebs in his hair and the scratches on his face and hands, he still made a decent stab at looking unperturbed.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ he said. ‘But – aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?’ He glanced at the figure with the gun. ‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.’

  If not quite as tall as Fairfax, this man was very heavily muscled and broad across the shoulder. His face – what I could see of it – was young and clean-shaven. He too wore a frog-like helmet and a set of body armour, and carried a rapier at his belt.

  Fairfax chuckled drily. ‘Percy Grebe, my chauffeur and personal assistant. Used to be an agent with the Hambleton Agency, before it was swallowed up by Fittes. A very capable fellow, and still an excellent swordsman. In fact, you’re already acquainted. Percy paid you a little visit the other night.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lockwood said. ‘Our masked intruder. I stabbed you, didn’t I? How’s your stomach doing?’

  ‘Bearing up,’ Grebe said.

  ‘Just another little injury to add to the long list you’ve caused us, Mr Lockwood,’ Fairfax said. ‘Look at this wall!’ He gestured at the pile of stones and the ragged hole through which magnesium smoke still gently drifted. ‘Really, I’m shocked. I did request that no incendiaries be brought into my house.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Lockwood said. ‘On the bright side, we’ve located and destroyed your Source, so we’ll be looking forward to our second payment as soon as the banks open later this morning.’

  Another chuckle. ‘Insane optimism is another quality I admire, Mr Lockwood, but I must say it’s your ability to survive that most astounds me. I truly thought the Horror in the Red Room would have killed you hours ago. I watched you go inside, I locked the door . . . Yet now I find you re-emerging like a dusty woodworm from a completely different part of the house! Quite extraordinary. Clearly you found a way out of the room, which is impressive enough, but to discover the ultimate Source . . . Tell me, was it the Red Duke? That was my favourite theory.’

  ‘No. It was the staircase and the monks. We found their well.’

  ‘Really? A well? Through there?’ The opaque goggles flashed in the lantern-light; the voice grew thoughtful. ‘How interesting . . . You’ll have to show me presently.’

  At my side, George stirred uneasily. ‘Yes . . . Not necessarily a great idea to mention the well there, Lockwood.’

  Lockwood grinned. ‘Oh, Mr Fairfax is a reasonable man. Besides, he wants to talk to us first – don’t you, Fairfax?’

  Silence from beneath the helmet. At Fairfax’s side the other figure did not stir; the revolver hung suspended in the dark, directed at our stomachs.

  ‘Yes.’ The voice was suddenly harsh, decisive. ‘And we can do it in more comfortable surroundings. I’m tired and I need to sit down. Grebe, take our friends up to the library. If either of the boys tries anything, feel free to shoot the girl.’

  Lockwood said something, but I didn’t hear what. Beneath my shock and terror, anger stirred. This was Fairfax’s immediate assumption: that I was least danger, the weak link of the team. That I could be used to bind the others to good behaviour, and was scarcely a threat myself. I set my face into a neutral mask, and stared straight ahead as we filed past the old man and away towards the stairs.

  In the library the electric lamps were turned up high. After so many hours in blackness the effect was viciously bright; we stumbled to the nearest chairs with our arms across our faces. Grebe motioned us to sit; he took up position beside the bookshelves, arms loosely folded, gun held pillowed on a bulging bicep. We waited.

  Finally there came a slow, painful tapping of a stick across the lobby, and Fairfax entered. Light gleamed on the
metal skullcap; it shone too on the great hook-nose, giving him more than ever the appearance of a stooped and hulking bird of prey. Hesitantly, he advanced to a leather chair below the wall of photographs and, with an extended sigh of relief, sank down into its depths. As he sat, the edges of his metal corset spread out about him with a gentle clinking sound.

  ‘At last,’ he said. ‘We were hanging around that cursed cellar for hours after we heard the explosion. All right, Grebe; you can take it off. We’re safe from ghosts in here.’

  He bent his neck and removed the helmet, before pulling off the goggles. They’d left a red weal across his brow. The jet-black eyes were screwed up with discomfort; the face was etched with age.

  Up on the wall the photo of his youthful self stared out in all its swash and swagger: Fairfax the actor, smooth and handsome, all codpiece, earrings and too-tight leggings, moodily contemplating a plaster skull. Below the picture, the real thing slumped bent and careworn, wearily coughing in his chair. It was strange to see how completely the years had changed him, how they’d steadily devoured his strength and drained that vitality away.

  Grebe took off his helmet too. He turned out to have a remarkably thin head, much too small for his body’s muscled bulk. It looked like an upturned skittle. He wore his hair in a cropped military cut, and his mouth was thin and cruel.

  Fairfax set his goggles and the helmet down on the nearest side-table, on top of the books Lockwood had studied several hours before. He glanced around the room with an air of satisfaction. ‘I like this library,’ he said. ‘It’s my frontier. At night it forms the borderland between the worlds of the living and the dead. I come here often to test the latest equipment my factories are producing. All the iron keeps me fairly safe, but I have my armour too, which allows me to walk deep into the house unscathed.’

  George stirred. ‘That armour: it looks like you’re wearing a dress.’

  Fairfax’s eyes narrowed. ‘Insults at a time like this, Mr Cubbins? Is that wise?’

  ‘Well, when you’re being held at gunpoint by a geriatric madman in a metal skirt, you’ve kind of hit rock-bottom anyway,’ George said. ‘It can’t really get much worse.’

  The old man laughed unpleasantly. ‘That remains to be seen. But you’re wrong to be so dismissive. This “dress” is made from an advanced type of steel – mostly iron, which gives it its warding power, but with an aluminium alloy that makes it much lighter than usual. Ease of movement and full protection! The helmet is state-of-the-art too. Did you know that the most vulnerable part of every agent is the neck, Mr Lockwood? This rim removes the danger . . . Don’t you wish you had one?’

  Lockwood shrugged. ‘It’s certainly . . . unique.’

  ‘Wrong again! It’s sophisticated, unusual, but not unique. Fairfax Iron isn’t the only company to be working on remarkable innovations. These goggles, now—’ He collected himself. ‘But perhaps we’re getting off the point.’

  Fairfax sat back in his chair and regarded Lockwood for a few moments without speaking. He seemed to be weighing his words. ‘Down in the cellar,’ he began slowly, ‘I overheard you discussing a certain locket, and certain proofs attached to it. In a spirit of casual interest, I’d be keen to know what you mean by “proofs”, if indeed you mean anything. And after that’ – he smiled thinly – ‘perhaps you can tell me where the locket is, and how exactly it may be found.’

  ‘We’re hardly likely to help you there,’ George said. ‘You’ll only chuck us down the well.’ His pale and bloodied face was set in an expression of fierce defiance. Mine (I guessed) was similar, though also laced with deep repulsion. I could hardly bring myself to look at Fairfax at all.

  But Lockwood might have been chatting with a neighbour about the weather. ‘It’s all right, George,’ he said. ‘I can give the man his proofs. It’s important we show him just how hopeless his position is.’ He crossed his legs and sat back with every appearance of contentment. ‘Well, Fairfax, as you guessed, we found the locket on Annabel Ward’s body. We immediately knew that it had been given to her by her killer.’

  Fairfax held up a hand. ‘Wait! You knew this? How?’

  ‘Thanks to a psychic insight by Lucy here,’ Lockwood said. ‘In touching it, she detected strong emotional traces that linked Annie Ward’s unknown admirer with the moment of her death.’

  The great head turned; the black eyes considered me for some seconds. ‘Ah yes, the sensitive Miss Carlyle . . .’ Something in the way he said it made my skin recoil. ‘But, legally speaking,’ Fairfax said, ‘that’s hogwash. There’s no proof in it at all.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Lockwood said. ‘Which was why I wanted to understand the inscription we found on the locket. On the outside, this was Tormentum meum, laetitia mea: “My torment, my bliss”, or similar gibberish. This told us little, other than that the guy who’d had the necklace made was a pretentious, self-regarding sort of fellow. But then, so many murderers are, aren’t they, Fairfax? We needed something more.’

  Silence in the library. The old man sat motionless, gnarled hands resting on the studded arms of his leather chair. His head jutted forward in an attitude of strict attention.

  ‘Next,’ Lockwood said, ‘we came to what we found inside. This, if I recall correctly, was: A ‡ W; H.II.2.115. Three letters, A, W and H, plus the mysterious set of numerals. To begin with, the letters foxed us; in fact, they led us into a serious error. Our instant assumption was that AW stood for Annabel Ward, and that the H might therefore stand for her admirer’s name. The newspapers of the time had highlighted her relationship with Hugo Blake, so this seemed a strong possibility. He’d been the last to see her alive, and had been the only original suspect in the case. The police today also remembered Blake and soon arrested him.

  ‘In fact,’ Lockwood continued, ‘Blake was a complete red herring, which I might have realized after a careful study of the inscription. Wasn’t it a bit odd that Annie Ward’s initials were spelled out in full, while her admirer’s were confined to a single letter? And what about the numbers: II.2.115? Was it some kind of code? A date? I’m sorry to say that I was stumped.’

  He glanced at his watch for a moment, then grinned across at me. ‘Lucy made all the difference, Fairfax. She found a photo showing you in the same group as Annie Ward. At once I knew you’d lied about your purpose in bringing us here. On the train down I read about your early years in the theatre and remembered that Annie Ward had acted too. I guessed that might have been your connection. I also noticed that you acted under your middle name: Will Fairfax. At once that gave a new solution to A ‡ W. Not Annie Ward, but Annie and Will.’

  Still the old man hadn’t moved. Or perhaps his head had dropped a little. His eyes were in deep shadow now and could not be seen.

  ‘I didn’t figure out the meaning of the final bit until this evening,’ Lockwood said. ‘We were on the Screaming Staircase at the time, and have been a little busy ever since, so I haven’t had a chance to check yet. But I think we’ll find that “H.II.2.115” is a reference to one of the plays you acted in with Annie Ward. I bet it’s some soppy quote that somehow binds the two of you together and which, if we investigated, would prove you knew each other very well indeed.’ He glanced up at the painting on the wall. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say Hamlet, since that seems to be your personal favourite, but who can say except you?’ He smiled and folded his hands across his knee. ‘So, Fairfax – how about it? Perhaps now’s the moment to fill us in.’

  Fairfax didn’t stir. Had he actually fallen asleep? It was almost possible, given how long Lockwood had been talking. Up by the bookcase, the man with the gun shifted; clearly he at least had grown impatient. ‘Almost four-thirty, sir,’ he said.

  A cracked voice from the chair, from the shaded face. ‘Yes, yes. Just one question, Mr Lockwood. You had the inscription. Why didn’t you instantly show it to the police?’

  For a few seconds Lockwood didn’t answer. ‘Pride, I suppose. I wanted to decode it myself. I wanted Lockwood and
Co. to have the glory. It was a mistake.’

  ‘I understand.’ Fairfax lifted his head, and if he had looked old before, now he looked positively deathlike, his eyes bright and ghastly, his grey skin clinging to the bones. ‘Pride does terrible things to a man. In your case, it will be the death of you and your colleagues. In my case, it’s led me to a lifetime of regret.’ He sighed. ‘Well, your proofs are good, and your intuition better. That last reference is indeed to Hamlet, in which Annie and I acted long ago. It’s how we met. I was Prince Hamlet, and she played Ophelia, his betrothed. The locket refers specifically to Act II, Scene 2, lines 115 to 118, which run:

  ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire,

  Doubt that the sun doth move,

  Doubt truth to be a liar,

  But never doubt I love.’

  The old man paused; he stared into the dark. ‘That’s Hamlet to Ophelia,’ he said at last. ‘He’s saying that his love for her is utterly certain, more certain than anything else in the universe. Of course, in the play she drowns herself, and he’s poisoned, but the principle holds true. It’s all about the passion between them . . . And passion is what Annie and I shared.’

  ‘Didn’t stop you killing her,’ I said. It was the first time I’d spoken.

  Fairfax glanced towards me, black eyes dull like stones. ‘You’re still a child, Miss Carlyle. You know nothing of such things.’

  ‘Wrong.’ I let my full scorn show. ‘I know exactly what Annie Ward experienced. When I touched the locket, I felt it all.’

  ‘How nice for you,’ Fairfax said. ‘You know, I’ve always thought that your kind of Talent must be far more trouble than it’s worth. Feeling another person’s death pain? I can’t say that’s ever appealed to me.’

  ‘It’s not just her death that I understand,’ I said quietly. ‘I felt all the emotions that she experienced while she wore the necklace. I know everything she went through with you.’ And the memories had hardly faded, either. I could still taste the girl’s hysteria, her wild jealousies, her grief and anger; and, finally, right at the end—