A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray)

by Oscar de Muriel

  I looked around intently, trying to take in every detail mentioned, and the inspector enquired with some harshness whether I had lost something (the language he used impossible for me to write down). I told him – rather recklessly – that I had an interest in the occult, after which his general attitude towards me softened considerably – I might even tell him …

  The woman herself, Madame Katerina, is quite a character, ripped from the pages of a folklore guide: swathed in richly coloured veils, adorned with all sorts of cheap jewellery, pierced on the ears, nose and eyebrow, her round face painted with make-up thicker than what we use for the Weird Sisters. Middle-aged and robustly built. I shall not describe her bust; sufficient to tell that it was most indecently sported.

  She and Insp. McGray greeted each other most fondly. She looked at me quizzically and said, ‘Adolphus, what did you do to the London snob? This ginger gentleman doesn’t look like his replacement.’

  Insp. McGray laughed and said with much animosity that the ‘London lassie’ was busy elsewhere, but that he could come round for tea if she so wished. Madame Katerina roared.

  When she offered us seats – by a small round table at the centre of the room – she showed her very long, curved fingernails painted in black, like a raven’s talons.

  Inspector McGray introduced me and began to explain the banshee affair, but Madame Katerina had read the newspapers (which indeed surprised me) and said she had been expecting us all along.

  ‘Is that what you want me to see?’ she asked, and she pointed at the bundle which Inspector McGray had placed on the floor. She asked him to put it on the table.

  ‘You don’t want me to do that,’ said the inspector. ‘It’s a wee bit disgusting.’

  The clairvoyant’s response was positively intriguing. I may have misheard, but think she said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Adolphus. It can’t be more disgusting than that severed hand you brought last November.’

  ‘True. When you’re right, you’re right.’

  The Gypsy woman bent down to have a closer look. Mme Katerina was not daunted even when the inspector opened up the sack. She opened and closed her hands, warming up her fingers, and then sank them into the sticky mess.

  Her face underwent a most shocking transfiguration. She lost all colour; her green eyes, framed by encrusted mascara, were fiery beacons. Drew in a hissing breath and dug her nails into the cloth, squeezing it so hard some of the still damp blood began to ooze, as though she were wringing a living thing.

  She shuddered, lightly at first, but her quivering grew and grew until the very floorboards beneath her feet shook. She faltered and nearly fell backwards, but Inspector McGray jumped up and caught her, then carefully placed her on his own chair.

  She raised her hands and stared at them. She was careful not to touch anything. She couldn’t have looked more upset had she submerged them in acid.

  I asked what the matter was, and Inspector McGray explained that this woman had the eye. He was quite surprised when I nodded in perfect understanding.

  She looked intently at her stained palms, opened her mouth and tried to speak. Managed, but with broken voice. My hand trembles even now, as I write down her horrid words:

  ‘At least one will die on the thirteenth, my son. There’s nothing you can do about it. You might be able to save most … but spare one and you’ll doom the other.’

  7

  The auditorium and foyer represented only a small fraction of the Lyceum building. The rest of it, behind and around the stage, was entirely dedicated to prop rooms, scenery, dressing rooms and storage, all interconnected in a maze of corridors through which I soon became lost. The place was dusty and smelled like an amalgam of train station and carpenter’s workshop.

  We walked along a passage crammed with lighting pieces, which must run right behind the stage, for I heard the muffled echoes of the orchestra, from time to time accompanied by the sound of thunder.

  ‘They’re rehearsing one of the most complex scenes,’ said Mr Howard. ‘Lots of fire and mist and light effects involved. And the witches singing. We pride ourselves on having equipment for effects as sophisticated as any you could see in London.’

  We entered a wide storeroom that smelled of naphthalene and damp. There were rows of racks where an extensive collection of costumes hung: wide Elizabethan gowns, Ancient Greek robes, Marie Antoinette wigs, Nefertiti headpieces, swords and weapons for every war from the Roman to the Napoleonic.

  In a corner of the room, close to the battered double doors that opened to the street at the rear of the building, there were several brass racks quite different from the rest. These were reserved for medieval costumes. Most of the garments were coarsely woven shirts painted in metallic grey, which from a distance appeared quite convincingly as chainmail.

  ‘The costumes for The Scottish Play,’ said Mr Howard. I calculated there must be at least a hundred of those, along with a few more extravagant outfits.

  Mr Howard nodded at a little door nearby. ‘Mrs Harwood is working there …’ before knocking he whispered at me, ‘I don’t know her well, Inspector, but I must warn you. She does seem – a little odd.’

  ‘I have seen my share of oddities,’ I assured him.

  He knocked then and a female voice, rather lethargic, bid us in.

  The place looked more like a wide wardrobe hurriedly adapted as a workshop, with a large sewing machine and rolls of lustrous material piled around it.

  Standing in the centre of the shabby room, and radiant like a jewel amidst rags, was one of the most beautiful dresses I have ever seen. Dark green wool cascaded in gentle folds, the yarn crocheted in an intricate pattern that made it look like a delicate fishing net. The borders were all embroidered in Celtic designs: knots and thistles embellished with red and white gems, yet the most striking feature were the countless beads sewn all over the garment. I could not quite tell what they were, for their emerald tones had a metallic, iridescent quality, which made me think of dragon scales from the illustrations in my childhood books.

  Mrs Harwood was kneeling on the floor, meticulously stitching more of those thumb-sized scales to the skirts.

  She instantly struck me as an extremely nervous woman. Her hands, gnarled and roughened by work, quivered visibly as she handled the needle, and with every movement I feared she’d prick her own skin. I could not quite guess her age; besides McGray, I had never seen a face so mercilessly marked by premature wrinkles, cut deeply around her mouth and forehead, and forming long crowfeet that extended all the way to her ears.

  She looked at us without lifting her face, her eyes studying us in a rather mousey attitude. ‘Can I help you, sirs?’

  I raised a hand, not wanting Mr Howard to tell her the reason of my visit straight away; she looked quite apprehensive already. I took a step closer and admired the frock.

  ‘Impressive work, madam.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. This is Lady Mac– Miss Terry’s main dress.’

  ‘Are those beads made of …?’

  ‘Why, they’re no beads, sir. They’re real beetle wings. Very fragile. At least a few get crushed or fall off every time the dress is worn, so I have to retouch it before each performance.’

  I nodded in awe. ‘That is quite a task.’

  ‘It surely is, sir,’ she said with a clear note of pride, ‘especially after the poor thing was handled like a fishwife’s rag on the trains.’

  She combed the last few wings she’d attached so that they fell gracefully across the woollen mesh. They seemed precious to her.

  ‘May I ask you a few questions, Mrs Harwood?’

  Her face became stern, her wrinkles deeper. ‘You’re a policeman, are you not?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector Ian Frey.’

  She looked away. ‘I don’t wish to talk about that.’

  ‘I am afraid I will have to insist. Troubling as I am sure it is, your statement is crucial to my investigation.’

  ‘I still hear her in my head!’ she said, fidgeting
with her fingernails, pulling at the cuticles and biting off bits of dry skin between sentences. No wonder her hands were raw and chapped.

  I made an effort to speak as soothingly as possible. ‘I understand that it was the last performance.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  ‘And that you were – out of view for a while.’

  ‘Out of view? Well, I was doing my job, running round like a headless chicken! I had to pack all the gowns. As soon as the actors took them off I’d collected them and began preparing them for transport. They wouldn’t have arrived here on time otherwise.’

  ‘Did you happen to go into a dark corridor, by any chance?’

  Her chest swelled a little. ‘Why, I saw that horrible, wretched man, Mr Wheatstone, cutting the gas for some reason. I shouted at him; told him I couldn’t do my job like that, but he took no notice. He just ignored me and walked into the dark! He’s such a –’ the woman covered her mouth.

  ‘You clearly dislike him,’ I said, thinking I could learn more about the man, but Mrs Harwood said nothing. I moved on. ‘I hear you and Mr Irving were the first ones to find the – prophecy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me how it happened. Please, omit no detail.’

  ‘I was getting ready to pack this very dress – I had to do it at the end. Miss Terry likes to wear it for the last ovation – but I’d left its cover on the opposite wing of the theatre. I ran behind the scenery, which was the quickest way, and then …’

  Mrs Harwood wrapped her arms around herself, as if struck by a sudden draught.

  ‘It has all passed now,’ I said softly. ‘What did you see?’

  She gulped. ‘Just a white shape, sir, sneaking through the canvases. Looked like a woman, only – well, there was something in her, in the way she moved … I can’t explain it, sir! I just know it was terrifying. And then she screamed!’

  Mrs Harwood’s face became utterly distorted, copious tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks. ‘I dropped on my knees. I couldn’t stand her cry. It was painful, painful to hear. My face was touching the floor, and it was then when I – I touched that mess!’

  I remembered Mr Wheatstone’s detailed statement. Her hands had been dripping blood when Irving found her.

  She looked at me with frenzied eyes, recognizing my suspicion. ‘I didn’t mean to, sir! I just happened to drop there! It was hell!’ The woman shuddered from head to toe, losing all self-control.

  I asked Mr Howard to fetch her some brandy. In the meantime I leaned closer to calm her down, and realized she could not be much older than thirty-five. The brandy arrived very soon, and I jotted down my impressions as Mr Howard and a theatre maid assisted the poor seamstress.

  Things were beginning to look bad for her, and it would only become worse in the following minutes. As soon as she’d recovered a little, I asked about her whereabouts the previous night.

  ‘I was … here, sir. I’ve been here since last night.’

  I tilted my head, wishing this had been my first question. ‘By yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How so?’

  Mrs Harwood sniffed, pressing a borrowed handkerchief on her nose. ‘There was work to be done. Didn’t you see Miss Terry’s dress?’ She looked at Mr Howard. ‘You knew about this, didn’t you, sir?’

  He nodded. ‘I can vouch for her in that, Inspector. My associate, Mr Wyndham, in fact telegrammed Mr Stoker, telling him the green dress had arrived in a shocking state.’

  I pondered on those words. ‘So, Mrs Harwood, you arrived in Edinburgh … yesterday, on the evening train, with the rest of the company?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you simply came here to work?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I only went to the Palace Hotel to leave my two children there. Then I came back here and began my mending. I had some bread and cheese and a big pot of tea,’ she pointed at the leftovers. ‘I haven’t left the room since.’

  If she was telling the truth, I thought, she could not yet know about the banshee story in the papers. She had indeed spoken as if she did not know; I gathered she would have been – if possible – even more distressed.

  ‘So you have not slept in more than a day?’

  She assented, and I examined her face under that light. The skin around her eyes was indeed puffed and bluish, but amidst her haggard features the fact could have gone unnoticed.

  ‘Was anybody else in the theatre?’ I asked.

  Her eyes moved in circles. ‘One of the clerks knew I was coming back to work, so he stayed to let me in, but he left as soon as I arrived. After that I didn’t hear anyone until the cleaners came, just before six o’clock this morning. I heard them, you see, because the back door is right next to my workshop.’

  I sat back, stroking my chin. This woman had no alibi, no witnesses, and she’d just volunteered the fact that an exit from the theatre was very handy to her. She’d been alone for at least nine hours; plenty of time to make her way to Regent Bridge and set up the spectacle – it would have been a long walk, but by no means impossible. And then she would have had time to return and clear all evidence – blood on her hands or clothes – at leisure.

  ‘If I needed you to give me evidence of your whereabouts,’ I said, ‘what could you offer me?’

  She looked at me in utter confusion. Either she ignored the fact that a banshee had been sighted last night, or she was acting quite convincingly. ‘Why would you need proof?’

  ‘Let us simply assume I need it.’

  Mrs Harwood looked nervously around her. ‘Well, I – I don’t know. Where else could I have been? My boy and girl can tell you I wasn’t with them last night.’

  ‘I am more interested in proving that you were here.’

  The woman looked around for a moment, and then her eyes shone. ‘The dress! Of course, the dress. Miss Terry’s gown was an absolute mess yesterday, but now it looks as good as new. It couldn’t have been done so quickly unless someone stayed here all night working on it.’

  It struck me that she said ‘someone’, rather than ‘I’, but perhaps I was reading too much between the lines.

  Mr Howard again assented. ‘I saw the dress myself last night. I think Mrs Harwood is right. I’m no expert in haute couture, but I can tell you it did not appear a task that could be done in a few minutes.’

  I took a deep breath. I had just thought it was all a solved matter, but now that dress stood in my way. I looked at its hundreds of beetle wings, which seemed to mock my impasse with their arresting iridescence.

  I wondered if Miss Terry ever felt the urge to scratch, knowing that she covered her entire body with dead insects’ carapaces, pretending they were precious stones. A macabre illusion, yet perhaps one of the mildest I’d confront. I was about to meet the legendary Henry Irving, and then the leading lady herself, and I would learn of all the treachery, deceit and tragedy that crept behind the velvet and the gilded stage.

  Act II

  * * *

  BANQUO

  And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

  The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

  Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s

  In deepest consequence.

  Second letter from the partially burned stack found at Calton Hill

  The best preserved sheet of the lot. – I. P. Frey.

  My dear,

  I am so, so sorry! I was only trying to make you happy. I did not think. Yes, I should have told you. I knew I should but I was reckless.

  Last night I swallowed all my little pearls and all my silky locust-ale, and went to bed thinking of all the things I’ve never told you. All the things I will never have the time to tell!

  I never told you I spent weeks sleeping under the stars in the slums of Angel’s Meadow, begging for farthings, scavenging for food from the rotting heaps behind the market stalls.

  I never told you I did see the angel. The merciful angel that all the other dying beggars talked about. She had a beautiful face, shinin
g white and silver under the moon, and she wrapped me with her wings, and they were feathery and soft and warm.

  I never told you I have a little coffin. It’s beautiful. It fits in the palm of my hand. And it’s full of lies. And every time I open it the lies escape and fly and when I can’t catch them back they become ashes – like these letters will. All the lies we’ve told, my dear. All the lies that have been told to us. I have collected them all and treasured them, and every day I see them go a little drier, a little colder, and lose the lustre and the perfume that once seduced us.

  Oh, why did the limelight seem so tempting back then? Why did we all despair so much to catch it? The struggle, the pain, the humiliation we suffered – so gladly. The horrors, the back-stabbing, the things we did so willingly. The things that were done to us!

  And what is the limelight in the end? Nothing but lies!! A lying crowd of fickle temper, cheering for a moment and then getting bored. Leaving you, forsaking you the moment you can entertain no more.

  Oh, my dear, how these questions must haunt you – You, my dear, of all people – you –

  Love,

  X

  8

  My footsteps were concealed by the roaring orchestra, as a dim light rose very slowly upon the witches’ cavern.

  The music was undoubtedly by Sir Arthur Sullivan. The chords were powerful, dark, martial. With the harsh basses and the shrilling strings, the prelude had a barbaric ring to it, instantly making me think of a warlike, undeveloped age.

  The dark, jagged rocks that dominated the scene heightened that sense; the sky, in lurid red, was visible in only a little upper corner of the stage, and the witches’ cauldron was at the centre of it all. It was not the usual iron pot, but rather a natural cleft in an outcropping of rock. A cloud of steam and an orange glow emerged from it, as if it were a crater connecting the stage with the deepest pits of hell. The light increased gradually, like a sunrise, slowly turning from indigo to mauve, and then to red. It was an astonishing effect.