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

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘Och, just get out!’

  What odd dreams I had.

  My mind was a whirl of witches, theatre fires, men falling from cliffs and beetle wings being crushed. And they all mingled with the faces of my father, the deceased Alan Dyer garishly wounded, Miss Terry cackling at me, Henry Irving reciting from Hamlet with a blood-dripping skull in his hand, McGray and Caroline Ardglass promenading by the arm, and finally Bram Stoker on his knees, begging for mercy from a howling banshee that swirled around him, her white rags floating in the air like trails of smoke.

  A strip of those rags touched my skin, so cold it felt like a sting, and the fright made me jump up and open my eyes.

  It had been Layton’s hand. He looked mortified. ‘Do, do excuse me, sir. I tried to wake you but you were too fast asleep.’

  I wiped some cold sweat from my face and inhaled deeply. Suddenly my bedroom felt strangely cold. ‘What is it? What time is it?’

  ‘It is a quarter past ten, sir. I would not have disturbed you, but there is a gentleman at the door who claims to be the head of Edinburgh’s police.’

  I groaned. ‘Oh, good Lord! By any chance does he look like a grumpy, scruffy, undernourished old lion?’

  Layton cleared his throat. ‘Your depiction is most accurate, sir.’

  Begrudgingly I left my bed. Had it been any other visitor (or had I been one year less embittered) I would have at least tried to flatten my hair and my shirt. Superintendent Campbell, however, deserved no such gallantries.

  I found him pacing nervously in the downstairs parlour, his walking cane leaving deep marks on Lady Anne’s Turkish rug.

  ‘Would you please not do that?’ I said bluntly. ‘This is not my property.’

  Obstinately, Campbell dug the cane firmly into the weave. ‘Where is McGray? And for both your sakes I hope he is at work whilst you take the morning off.’

  ‘Are you unable to find him or simply did not want to face him?’

  ‘Answer the bloody question, Frey!’

  So it was the latter, I thought. ‘Inspector McGray is leading the investigations as we speak. You may have heard by now that a reporter from The Scotsman perished last night.’

  By the speed at which his faced turned white, I realized he had not.

  ‘What the –’

  I briefed Campbell on everything that had occurred the previous night, and by the end of my telling his left eye was twitching.

  ‘The scandal …’ he mumbled, pressing his walking stick even harder on the material.

  ‘Dyer was in a very compromising position,’ I added. ‘Trespassing, far too close to the banshee writings for his own good, attempting to flee, resisting arrest and putting policemen’s lives at risk – mine included. I doubt the newspaper will want to admit publicly that a member of its staff was up to such dubious deeds. If you still need further guarantees, I am sure McGray can charm the editor into silence.’ Then something struck me as strange. ‘Sir, if you knew nothing about last night’s affairs, what on earth brings you here?’

  I realized I had never spoken so brusquely to a superior – even those I’d heartedly disliked. I had spent too much time around McGray.

  ‘Mr Irving came to me less than half an hour ago. He is distraught.’

  ‘Distraught?’

  ‘Yes. Somebody’s gone missing. Abraham Stoker, or whatever his name was. I damn well hope McGray is looking for him as we speak.’

  ‘Indeed. As I told you, he is taking care of it. Half a dozen men are helping him.’

  I rubbed my eyes, feeling another hour in bed would have worked wonders. ‘Do you want me to assist the search right now?’

  ‘If it is not too much bloody trouble to Your Majesty! I have told you, Henry Irving is distraught!’

  ‘Did he mention Miss Terry being missing too?’

  Campbell nearly lost his balance. ‘No. What do you mean? Did she also …?’

  I shrugged. ‘She disappeared briefly in the small hours, but she must have returned to the hotel by now. Otherwise Irving would have also bleated on about her to you.’

  There was the bluntness again. I did want to keep my good manners, but polite language felt like an impossibility right then.

  ‘Just find him,’ Campbell snapped as he made his way out. ‘Preferably before you have to file yet another report about a mutilated corpse found in New Town’s sewers!’

  ‘Excuse me, that has happened only once!’

  But Campbell was already gone.

  Without a clear plan at hand, I first went to the Palace Hotel. It was much nearer than the City Chambers, and if Stoker had already appeared he’d be most likely to be there. Besides, I could as well inquire after Miss Terry, whom I was almost sure would be back in her rooms.

  As Philippa took me in a south-west direction, and with all those thoughts flashing through my head, I felt my heart pounding from the coffee and the brandy I’d drunk in the past ten hours.

  ‘I deserve a quieter life,’ I told myself.

  A young officer recognized me at the entrance and told me that Stoker had not yet been found, so McGray and a good number of men were still searching the breadth of New Town. He’d heard nothing about Miss Terry, but shared my suspicions of her being back.

  I rushed to the lobby and demanded to see the manager. The pompous man appeared swiftly.

  ‘Remind me of your name,’ I said.

  ‘Josiah Clarke, sir.’

  ‘Have you seen Miss Terry?’

  He went ghostly pale. ‘Oh, well … I haven’t had the pleasure myself, but one of our maids served her breakfast.’

  ‘Do you know what time she came back?’ I asked, but the man stammered, his eyes flickering in every direction. ‘You do know she was missing last night,’ I pressed. ‘When did she return?’

  ‘Oh, Inspector, I’m a true professional. I could not possibly divulge one of my clients’ most intimate –’

  ‘Miss Terry is suspected of illicit behaviour, so your refusal to “divulge” would de facto turn you into an accomp–’

  ‘Quarter past five. Almost to the exact minute. I had it from one of our sweepers. She saw Miss Terry come through the main door.’

  I smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Clarke. Is she in her chambers?’

  ‘Oh! You’re not thinking of … Might it not frighten her terribly? It is highly inappropriate to break into a lady’s room!’

  I raised a hand. ‘I am not planning to break in. Simply tell Miss Terry that she is not to leave the hotel before I speak to her, unless she wants to be arrested.’

  ‘But, sir!’

  ‘As to when that will happen, I am not sure; I want to search Mr Stoker’s room first. Will you kindly give me a key?’

  Mr Clarke obliged, still scandalized at the prospect of Miss Terry going behind bars. I truly hoped that things did not have to go that far; one does not want to be the man who imprisons the nation’s most beloved celebrity.

  As I made my way to Stoker’s chambers, I was reached by a very distressed Miss … I could not for my life remember her name, only that she played Second Witch (I recognized her as the most wrinkled of the three).

  ‘Oh, Inspector, thank goodness you’re here!’

  ‘Miss … Erm … Are you all right?’

  The woman, whose name I then recalled was Desborough, did not look it. Her face was set in a grimace, the skin around her eyes as creased as stone-beaten linen. She grabbed me by the arm.

  ‘Excuse my being so forward, sir, but something really odd has happened.’

  ‘Pray, speak, good woman. I am in a rush.’

  ‘Well, ever since I had my savings stolen during a tour around Somerset … gosh, that was twenty-five years ago! It was not a vast amount, you see, but I was young and making very little from my acting. Those few shillings meant the world to –’

  ‘Do you have a point?’

  ‘Of course, do excuse me. I meant to tell you, since then I always keep with me … well …’ she bit her prune-like lip, ‘a gun
.’

  ‘A gun? You?’

  She could not have looked any meeker. ‘Well, yes, but only a little one. A four-shot Derringer; point three-eight calibre. It’s a darling thing with an ivory grip and my name engraved in gold on the barrel.’

  I inhaled deeply. ‘And why is that relevant to me?’

  ‘Oh, Inspector, it has gone missing.’

  I groaned with exasperation. Things were getting more tangled before I had even undone a single knot.

  ‘When did it happen?’ I asked with a sigh.

  ‘Not half an hour ago. I kept it under my pillow, like I always do when I travel. I only came down for a late breakfast, went back to my room and it was gone! And I’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘Did you lock your room?’

  ‘Of course not, Inspector. This is still Britain!’

  I had to lean on the wall, my eyes shut and reaching for my last shred of patience. ‘Ma’am, allow me to summarize: you keep a gun underneath your pillow – yet you do not care to lock your doors?’

  ‘Well, if you say it in that tone, of course you’ll make me sound like a lunatic!’

  Count to ten, Frey, I told myself. ‘Did anybody else know you had it?’

  ‘Oh, yes! One wants people to know one’s not defenceless.’

  I rubbed my face in utter frustration.

  ‘I doubt this is a petty theft,’ I said at last. ‘And if it is, this is the most fiendishly ill-timed burglary.’

  I asked one of our officers to attend Miss Desborough and have some of the hotel staff looking for that gun. I would have liked to oversee it myself, but Stoker’s whereabouts were a far more pressing matter.

  His suite was one floor below those of Irving and Terry, in a rather secluded corner of the building. I noticed that the servants’ staircase was not too far away.

  I stepped into a spacious room, not as luxurious as Miss Terry’s but still very neat and comfortable. The view from the small window, however, was rather grim, over that infamous backyard.

  One could read Stoker’s character from that room as if it were an open book. The bed had not been slept in, there was a large trunk only half unpacked, and every surface – table, side tables, desk and some of the floor – was covered with a disarray of books, bills, ledgers and loose sheets packed with handwriting. This was the dwelling of a hyperactive man, one whose work never stopped.

  As I stepped forward my foot landed on a book that lay on the floor. It was a tatty penny-dreadful, cheaply bound and tastelessly titled Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood. I did not bother picking it up. Instead I went to the messy desk. On top of everything I saw a piece of old correspondence, dated December 1888, but not specifying the day:

  My dearest, dearest Bram,

  I know the grand Macbeth premiere will fall on little Irving’s birthday and how very busy you will be, but could you please come home, even if for just a moment, to see him? The poor thing is already turning nine. Are you to miss his entire childhood?

  Yours always,

  Florence

  The names in that letter made my heart skip a beat. Had Stoker named his son Irving? And who was this woman writing to him? Was Stoker’s wife also named Florence? Underneath there was another letter which answered the question: it was written in the exact same hand, which also matched the sender’s address on its envelope. It read Mrs Stoker. What a coincidence that Irving’s and Stoker’s wives shared the same Christian name! Or … could there be more to it?

  This second letter was much more recent, dated but a couple of days ago:

  Dear Bram,

  I must beg you again to come home. It has been days since we last talked, and your little Irving sorely misses you, as I have told you before.

  Yours,

  Florence

  I also found a handful of unopened letters, all from Mrs Stoker, which probably contained similar messages, and Bram, knowingly, had not even bothered to read them.

  Besides his wife’s name, there was a detail that caught my eye: Stoker had indeed christened his own son Irving.

  ‘Bram, oh Bram,’ I muttered. ‘I am only beginning to understand you …’

  I searched the room from end to end and then rummaged through the contents of the large trunk. Neatly piled in a corner was a stack of odd books. The titles alarmed me.

  Treaties on Irish faeries, anthologies of old European folklore, compendiums of superstition comparable only to those in McGray’s library. There were sixteen tomes there, and they were all underlined and profusely annotated in the margins.

  I realized with a thrill that Mr Stoker was obsessed with the occult.

  ‘Damn,’ I said out loud, sitting on the floor as I leafed through a particularly well-worn volume about Eastern European legends. ‘If only I’d known this before!’

  Could he be orchestrating it all? Drawing the police’s attention to his own made-up apparitions? He certainly had knowledge of such things.

  I tossed the book aside, and only by chance did I see the corner of yet another smaller one, sticking out from underneath the bed. I reached for it and saw that it was in fact a little leather-bound journal, dark reddish brown in colour, its corners rounded with wear.

  A photograph fell out from between the pages and landed on my lap. I nearly gasped when I saw it: a portrait of Irving. The man looked as dignified as at his best moments on the stage, but also somewhat younger – remarkable he’d not aged that much, given the portrait’s date, which I found on the back of the picture. It was signed and dedicated with a nearly illegible hand:

  My dear friend Stoker

  God bless you! God bless you!!

  Henry Irving

  Dublin

  3 Dec. 1876

  A peculiar memento to keep in one’s journal for almost thirteen years, I thought, although this behaviour was making increasing sense in my head.

  As soon as I opened the journal I found another piece of paper. Upon unfolding it I saw it was a meticulously traced family tree: Bram Stoker’s, going as far back as the ‘O’Donnell clan Chieftains’.

  ‘I can see where this is going,’ I mumbled, now turning the pages at full speed.

  The journal was almost completely full – understandably so, for the first entry was dated July 1882 – and I noticed that Stoker kept very regular entries, all dated methodically and some of them very long. I sat on the bed and turned the pages to 30 June 1889, the day after all the mayhem had begun.

  I was in for a riveting read.

  Act IV

  * * *

  MACBETH

  Is this a dagger which I see before me,

  The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

  I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

  Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

  To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

  A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

  Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

  Bram Stoker’s Journal

  Fragment from the first entry marked as significant by I. P. Frey.

  29 June. London. 11.45 p.m. – Before the day dies, before I describe the ghastly happenings at the theatre, let me say here what has to be said of myself.

  In my earlier years I knew much illness. Certainly till I was about seven years old I never knew what it was to stand upright. This early weakness, however, passed away in time and I grew into a strong boy.

  I was Athletic Champion of Dublin University. I won numerous silver cups for races of various kinds for rowing, weight-throwing, and gymnastics.

  I spent ten years in the Civil Service, engaged on a dry-as-dust book on The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions. I have edited a newspaper, and exercised my spare time in many ways as a journalist; as a writer; as a teacher.

  I am no hysterical subject; no green youth; no weak individual.

  My words are true. I write nothing but the truth.

  34

  ‘I hope he is still alive,’ I muttered, my pencil hove
ring over my own notes, ‘I have a thousand questions to ask him.’

  I ran my tired fingers through my hair. It had taken me two hours of intense reading, annotating and sorting Stoker’s accounts – some of them so hastily written I’d had to transcribe them myself. With Stoker’s statements interspersed with the happenings of the previous days, things now felt a little clearer in my head. But just a little. Like in my dream that morning, there was a torrent of names, personalities and situations swirling in my mind.

  Would all the pieces somehow fit together? Or was this tangle of loose ends the direct result of dealing with so many people, so many lives and so many stories converging in this one play?

  Two facts had struck me most forcefully: Stoker’s suspicious ancestry, and the many recent passages that were either obliterated or torn out (something which did not occur at all in the earlier sections of the journal).

  It was almost certain he’d witnessed (or thought he’d witnessed) something, both last night and after our tense meeting with him and Irving atop Calton Hill. Then again, why was he defacing his own words? Why had he not talked to us? Why hide such facts?

  Stoker could either be protecting someone, or – more worryingly – he could be mentally disturbed.

  I had seen such behaviour before: unbalanced people acting out their own fantasies, leaving traces and statements that blurred every investigation until they were proven unreliable. The dog sightings, traceable back to their last London performance, were particularly suspicious.

  I thought Stoker could be embarrassed about believing to have seen something otherworldly; then again, he had confided such things in McGray (no wonder they’d seemed so secretive around me) and he had tried to warn me about the dog last night.

  Could Stoker simply be a particularly shrewd fellow, orchestrating the publicity stunt I’d suspected all along? Could he even be enacting his own disappearance, after skilfully hinting at a hound-shaped harbinger of doom?

  I thought of the brains found in Miss Terry’s dressing room, and her missing leather purse. Stoker, as the theatre manager, would have had plenty of chances to place the former and take away the latter. Could he have done it all without telling anybody, so that the affair seemed more realistic?