Ghosts by Gaslight

by Jack Dann

  McIntyre’s brow lowered, a frown compressing his rather bull-like features, a likeness now accentuated by the narrowing of his mighty nostrils.

  “I don’t appreciate having a May-game made of me—” he began.

  “I beg your pardon, Inspector,” interrupted Susan Shrike. Her voice was cool and commanding and both soothed and dominated all the menfolk in the room. “Sir Magnus sometimes gets carried away. My name is Miss Susan Shrike, and I am almost a doctor, in that I am in the final year of my medical studies at the London School of Medicine for Women. I also am upon occasion employed to care for certain patients who are allowed excursions from Bethlem Royal Hosp—”

  It was the inspector’s turn to interrupt. He raised a finger to point at Magnus.

  “You mean . . . you mean to say he’s a lunatic from Bedlam!”

  “Well, I am getting better,” said Magnus reasonably. “I wouldn’t be allowed out otherwise, even with Almost-Doctor Susan.”

  “Sir Magnus is not at all dangerous,” said Susan. “He has been at the hospital for a few months recovering himself after an unfortunate accident. He is now well enough to begin to resume everyday activities. My presence is merely a precaution insisted upon by his aunt.”

  Magnus grimaced.

  “Lady Meredith Foxton,” he said in a stage whisper. “Ghastly woman. Specialises in making people miserable.”

  “Now then, Inspector,” said Susan. “As I must have Sir Magnus back at the hospital before nightfall, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us exactly what your problem is and we shall see if Sir Magnus can assist you.”

  “Sir Magnus assist me?” asked McIntyre. He was having difficulty comprehending what was going on and was wondering if perhaps he wasn’t better suited to a more lowly rank after all. If only Lestrade hadn’t gone on holiday!

  “I like to help,” said Sir Magnus brightly. “Sherlock said you had a case that was right up my alley and that . . . let me see . . .”

  He strode to the fireplace and leant one elbow on the mantelpiece, then turned his head back to look at the inspector. Somehow his face had assumed an entirely different aspect, and he now looked far more hawklike and acute, with a hint of suppressed arrogance.

  “Magnus, my boy,” he drawled, in a voice that McIntyre recognised as a very good imitation of Sherlock’s. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth—and the very highly improbable is I suspect exactly what Mr. McIntyre is facing. As this is very much more your area of expertise, I suggest that you answer the inspector’s clarion call and leave me to my practice.”

  Magnus dropped his elbow, and the likeness with it.

  “Revolver practice, that was, not violin,” he added in his own voice. “Shooting initials in the wall. And they say I’m mad.”

  “What is your area of expertise, Sir Magnus?” asked McIntyre. He felt that this was perhaps a foolish question, but the truth of the matter was that he needed help, and if Sherlock Holmes really had said those words, which after seeing that impression he was inclined to believe, then perhaps this unlikely lunatic might be of some assistance.

  “I am a s . . . s . . . s . . .” Magnus started to say, stopping suddenly as Susan looked at him intently. “That is, I have made a study of the unusual, the arcane, and the occult. Also I make things. I am an inventor and have a supple and surprising mind. Sherlock said that, too, by the way. Mycroft says that I am a throwback to another era and should be burned at the stake, but he doesn’t mean it, not after that business with the . . . the . . . things that I’m not supposed to mention. Let’s go into your office, shall we, Inspector?”

  McIntyre surprised himself again by swaying back to allow Magnus to slide past him, and he held the door open for Susan Shrike, before letting it swing shut on Cumber’s inquisitive face.

  “Go and get my guests some tea,” ordered McIntyre through the door.

  “Yes, sir,” came the muffled response.

  “I trust he won’t have to wait for the tea,” said Sir Magnus.

  “No, I shouldn’t think so,” replied McIntyre, rather baffled by this new conversational sally. He returned behind his desk and indicated the chairs on the other side. “Please, do sit down.”

  “If he had to wait in a line, then he would be a queue cumber,” said Magnus.

  “What?” asked McIntyre, who had opened the file again and allowed his thoughts to wander. “What?”

  “Hush,” said Susan Shrike to Magnus. “Why don’t we let the inspector tell us about the matter in question.”

  “Queue,” muttered Sir Magnus. “If Cumber grew his hair long at the back, then it could—”

  “Magnus,” said Susan Shrike softly.

  Magnus nodded.

  “Yes, yes, awfully sorry. Please do explicate the matter, Inspector.”

  McIntyre picked up the top paper from the file, gripping it as if he might hurl it to the ground and throw himself upon it in a wrestling check.

  “These are the salient points,” he said. Clearing his throat, he began to read.

  “On the morning of the ninth instant, that is to say yesterday, at twenty-one minutes past five o’clock in the morning, P.C. Whitstable was proceeding upon his usual beat and had reached the corner of Clarges Street and Piccadilly when he heard a shout on the other side of the road, at the point where a path exits from the Green Park. Dawn was approaching, the gas lamps were still lit, and there was no fog. He clearly saw a man in a long coat and unusual wide-brimmed hat run out of the park and start to cross the road. But on seeing P.C. Whitstable approaching, he turned to the left and increased his speed. P.C. Whitstable, blowing his whistle, set off in pursuit, and was joined by Park Keeper Moulincourt—”

  “Moulincourt?” asked Sir Magnus. “I knew a fellow called Moulincourt. He wasn’t a park keeper, though—”

  McIntyre shook his paper and resumed reading. “ . . . and was joined by Park Keeper Moulincourt, who was shouting ‘Stop! Stop the murderer!’ Moulincourt, who had already pursued the suspect for some distance, fell back as P.C. Whitstable took over the chase. Whitstable, a champion runner and keen footballer, soon caught the fellow. However—”

  “There’s always a however,” said Sir Magnus. “Had to be. I was expecting it to come in before this. However.”

  “However!” blasted McIntyre, shaking his paper in barely suppressed fury. “When Whitstable gripped the fellow’s arm, the coat and hat came off, and there was no one inside, only a great shower of daffodils that fell onto the road.”

  Sir Magnus tilted his head until it was completely sideways and peered at McIntyre.

  “Daffodils,” he repeated. “Stolen from the park?”

  “Yes,” said McIntyre, through gritted teeth. “Stolen from the park, and a park keeper murdered in the process.”

  “It wasn’t Moulincourt who got murdered, obviously,” added Sir Magnus, whose head was slowly righting itself again. “Were they the first daffodils of the spring?”

  “I don’t know!” protested McIntyre. “No one’s ever tried to steal flowers from the park before. There are daffodils all over the place. Why bother with those ones? And anyway, how did the bloke escape—”

  “First flowers of spring from a royal park, cut with a silver blade between dawn and moonset,” mused Sir Magnus, almost to himself. “Your park keeper had his throat cut?”

  “Yes, how on earth . . .”

  A look of suspicion crossed the inspector’s face. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes was not playing a game with him, but sending him a suspect.

  “Where were you yesterday morning between five and six o’clock?”

  “Locked up,” replied Sir Magnus. He looked across at Susan Shrike and gave her a cheery smile.

  “Yes, that’s true, Inspector,” said Susan. “Sir Magnus is locked inside his rooms at the hospital from dusk to dawn. It is part of his treatment.”

  “Then how did you know about the throat cutting?” asked McIntyre. “None of
this has been in the papers. Did Sherlock tell you? He has his ways of finding out.”

  “No, Sherlock didn’t tell me,” complained Sir Magnus. “Why does everyone always think Sherlock does my thinking for me? No, I deduced it, from my knowledge of folklore and ritual.”

  “What are you talking about?” demanded the inspector.

  “It’s quite simple, really,” drawled Sir Magnus. He slid his chair away and leaned backwards for a moment, precipitating a mad grab at the edge of the desk as he almost tipped over. “There is a . . . belief . . . among certain quarters that if flowers from a royal park are cut with a silver knife at a particular time, it will enormously enhance their natural poison. Lycorine, as Sherlock would tell you. Nasty stuff in general, but a moondawn daffodil’s poison is far, far more dangerous.”

  “That can’t be true,” protested McIntyre. “How could it make any difference?”

  Sir Magnus shrugged.

  “Clearly someone believes they need moondawn daffodils to make a terrible poison. I wonder what they intend to use it for?”

  “And what about the empty coat?” asked McIntyre. “The running man who was . . . was just daffodils?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” said Magnus. “The adept would have cut the keeper’s throat, and when the blood spilled on the earth he quickly fashioned a kind of simple golem from the resulting mud, using cut daffodils for the arms and legs. He threw his own coat and hat over it and sent it away to create a diversion.”

  “Magnus . . .” warned Susan Shrike. “Remember?”

  “Or, far more likely,” Magnus continued after a moment’s pause, “in the relative darkness—he was between two gaslights, I expect—as the constable took his arm, the murderer spun about, at the same time turning himself out of the coat and throwing the daffodils at the policeman’s face, blinding him for the few seconds required to drop to the ground and then crawl away along in the darker shadows next to the park railings.”

  “I prefer the second explanation,” said McIntyre. He stared at Magnus for a few seconds, then stood up, casting an air of finality over the proceedings.

  “Thank you very much for your time and thought, Sir Magnus,” he said, shaking hands over the desk. “You have given me something to think on, to be sure. A pleasure to meet you, likewise, Miss Shrike. Sergeant Cumber will show you out. Please pay my respects to Mr. Sherlock Holmes when next you see him.”

  “But the adept . . . the murderer . . . you’ll need my help to find him and bring him to justice,” protested Sir Magnus.

  “We’ll get our man,” said McIntyre. “Thank you again, but this is pure police business now. Good day.”

  “Sherlock said that apart from Lestrade and . . . and Gudgeon or someone . . . you were—”

  “Sir Magnus! We really must be going,” said Susan forcefully. “Thank you, Inspector.”

  Outside the inspector’s office, Sir Magnus turned to Susan. “We didn’t even get our tea,” he grumbled.

  “I expect there was a queue, after all,” said Susan. She took Magnus by the arm and led him out into the corridor, hustling him along past the startled Sergeant Cumber and the department’s best silver tea tray loaded with the good china.

  “You know we can’t let you out if you will insist on telling people the truth,” she admonished him as they climbed into their hackney cab, which was not, despite its very ordinary appearance, one for hire by the general public.

  “I can’t help it,” said Sir Magnus. “Krongeitz really knew what he was doing with that curse. It’s all I can do not to babble out all sorts of esoteric stuff.”

  “It is fading, though,” remarked Susan. “You’ll be right as rain in a few months.”

  “The forced veracity is fading,” said Magnus. “But the transformations continue.”

  “My, you are cheerful today. Magister Dadd says it will go in time, with the treatment, and he should know.”

  “He also said it will get worse before it gets better,” said Sir Magnus. He leaned over and took Susan’s hand. “Promise me that you’ll act at once if it seems to be . . . spreading into the daylight hours of its own accord. I mean, without the use of the blue pill to bring it on.”

  Susan gently withdrew her hand and rested it on her Gladstone bag.

  “You know I will do whatever is necessary, Magnus,” she said. “But I am sure it won’t be necessary. Now tell me, do you have any thoughts about who might be behind this moondawn daffodil business?”

  “An adept who can make a golem from blood, mud, and flowers on the fly? And who wants moondawn daffodils to reap their poison? I’m not sure we should try to find whoever it is. Could be very dangerous.”

  “Magnus. We can’t leave it to the police. Tell me about this moondawn poison business. Does it really make the flowers that much worse?”

  Magnus chuckled grimly.

  “I didn’t even tell the inspector the best part. If you distil the poison properly, you don’t even have to deliver it physically to the target. You can use the poison on something sympathetically attuned to a similar object the victim will use. A comb is quite popular.”

  “A comb?” asked Susan. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s quite straightforward sympathetic magic,” said Magnus. “In essence, the adept makes an identical copy of the target’s favorite comb, using some of their hair. Then, some distance away, they drip moondawn daffodil poison on the copy and by magical transference, the poison soaks into the real comb. The next time it is used, the poison enters the victim through their scalp and kills them instantly, with the perpetrator nowhere to be seen. Even better, someone else may have been plying the comb, so they get the blame.”

  “I see,” mused Susan. “And is this process of distillation difficult to manage? Does it require any particular apparatus?”

  “Yes it does,” said Magnus. “And I see what you’re thinking. Interestingly, and I never realized it before, it also ties in with a comb being the typical sympathetic object of moondawn daffodil poisoning.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the ritual involves the daffodils being cut up with a silver blade and placed in a retort with a scented oil. A silver razor, or scissors, would work a treat, and for the scented oil you could use the barber’s favorite—”

  “Macassar oil!” interrupted Susan.

  “Indeed,” said Magnus. “So the adept works with hair, silver razor or scissors, and hair oil.”

  “What else?”

  “It needs to take place underground, with the usual harmonization requirement,” mused Magnus. “An old Mithraeum, or something like that. An Anglo-Saxon crypt would work, maybe a Norman one at a pinch. It all points to one of those below-street barbers—”

  “How long does the ritual take? How much time do we have?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, never having undertaken the dastardly deed myself. But I seem to recall the daffs have to fester for several days in the oil, with lots of highly repetitive incantation . . .”

  “So we need to look for an underground barbershop on the site of an old temple or church.”

  “Yes . . . it will also be relatively close to Green Park, as the daffodils have to be in oil before the sun is fully up. Even so, it could take a while to find out somewhere that matches all that. There are a lot of barbers about. Damned tedious to sort through them all, looking for old temples or whatnot.”

  “You could ask your cousin.”

  “Sherlock? He hates this kind of . . . oh . . . Mycroft. I suppose I could think about that.”

  “It might even be in his bailiwick, as it were,” said Susan. “After all, who would our adept want to poison in this way? Someone difficult to reach by other means.”

  “Yes,” said Magnus. “The Queen is one possible target, though perhaps the prime minister is more likely. Easier to get his hair, anyway. I suppose if I put it like that, Mycroft might even be polite.”

  He tapped the ceiling twice, and the small hatch beneath the driver’s seat s
lid back.

  “Carstairs! The Diogenes Club, thank you.”

  FOLLOWING HIS VISIT, Sir Magnus returned to the hackney in a bad mood and handed Susan a note on which an address was written in Mycroft’s distinctive copperplate.

  “It really is the most boorish place,” complained the baronet. “All I said was ‘Good morning, Mycroft.’ I whispered, but you would have thought I was bellowing out ‘Hello, ladies, I’m just looking in’ from the way they carried on. Mycroft wouldn’t even talk to me, I had to write everything down for him.”

  “You know their rules,” said Susan. “I believe you talk just to annoy him. Anyway, you got an address.”

  “Gregory Cornet’s in Curzon Street is the only barbershop that fits all the criteria,” said Sir Magnus. “Its lower cellar was a temple to Bast, once upon a time.”

  “The Egyptian goddess?”

  “Yes, the fiscal procurator for several successive Roman governors was Egyptian and had a thing for the old cat . . . I get my hair cut at Cornet’s by Radziwill. I do hope he’s not involved. A good barber is hard to find.”

  “Really?” asked Susan, pointedly staring at the not very successful Vandyke which was a fairly recent addition to Magnus’s upper lip and chin.

  “Yes. It makes the whole thing so much more difficult. Maybe we should hand this over to Dadd and the Peep O’Day Boys.”

  “Because of your barber?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. I suppose I’ve lost confidence after the whole Krongeitz business.”

  “I think we should go to Cornet’s and you should get your beard shaved off,” said Susan. “I will wait and observe, making caustic comments, in the role of your fiancée.”

  “I wish you would be my fiancée.”

  “You know we’re not going to talk about that until you’re completely recovered,” said Susan. “As I was saying, this will allow us to get a feel for the place, and we may well sense any unusual vibrations that would confirm the location.”

  “So we walk into what is probably an enemy lair and I sit down and ask to have a razor put to my throat,” said Magnus. “Besides, what do we do if it is the place?”