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

by Oscar de Muriel

  Elgie had waited patiently while I pondered, and I realized how surprisingly soothing his company was, even if we both were silent. Again I thought how sad it would be to see him go.

  ‘Have you slept at all?’ I asked him.

  ‘I went to bed, but did not sleep. This all brought back bad memories.’

  Indeed, it must have. Perhaps Elgie would welcome his return to London, after all.

  I took a deep breath, stood up and patted Elgie on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for keeping me company. I should lie down for an hour or so. There is still plenty of work to do at the City Chambers.’

  So much, in fact, the mere idea made me want to scream.

  There would be a full inquiry, and it would be a very long one, although I could already tell it would lead nowhere: whilst we attempted to bring Mrs Irving to justice, her very victims would be making every effort to absolve her. This was a scandal Henry Irving would never allow to become public, and he’d pull every string at his disposal, just as Florence had predicted.

  She must have weighted all those factors long before embarking on her suicidal plot. And now, having dragged three men and one woman to their early graves, she’d simply walk away, alive and well, and most likely having accomplished what she wanted for her sons from the very start. What a conniving woman she was.

  In the end I would have to write all that down in a hefty report that would be read with suspicion by everyone; then not a single party would be found guilty, and after long days of arduous work the entire affair would be filed away. Forgotten. Never to be spoken of again.

  But before that, of course, I would sleep.

  Epilogue

  I tightened my dressing gown as I walked downstairs. I would have stayed a little longer in bed, it being my last day on leave, but the rattle of carriages on the street woke me, and when I opened my curtains the sun was already quite high in the sky – rather than sun I should call it the slightly lighter spot behind the grey clouds, for the weather had lately turned for the worse.

  I was tempted to pour myself a small glass of port, but refrained from doing so. Ever since the entire Frey family – Elgie included – had left, fortified wine had become my customary breakfast. That had been nearly a week ago, so I decided I could not go on like that.

  Before I reached my parlour I heard a knocking.

  ‘Who is it, Layton?’ I asked from the top of the stairs. A moment later I saw George, McGray’s old butler, come in with a crate of whisky under his arm. Behind him came Nine-Nails himself. He sneered at me.

  ‘Och, ye lazy sod! Freshly out o’ yer four-poster, are ye?’

  I must say McGray did not look that well – and not only because his stubble was as prickly as ever and he again wore his preposterous tartan trousers and cheap overcoat. His hands were still bandaged, for he’d received some nasty burns while trying to help the unfortunate Freddie, and he’d taken the worst while fighting Tarvin on the rafters. There was a particularly bad burn on his cheekbone, where Tarvin had thrown hot charcoal. Most of my burns were only superficial and would clear soon enough, though the ones on my hand, from saving Mr Wheatstone, would probably leave a permanent scar.

  ‘Is this a social visit?’ was my incredulous question. I noticed McGray carried another bottle of whisky, the label old and faded.

  ‘Take those to Percy’s cellar,’ McGray told George. ‘We’ll start with this one.’ He looked at me. ‘Aye and nae. I’m sort of paying a gentleman’s debt.’

  Before I could say anything McGray was already in the upstairs parlour, pouring the golden drink into two of my cut-glass tumblers.

  ‘McGray, it is nine in the morning.’

  ‘Nah! A wee dram or two for breakfast once in yer lifetime won’t kill ye.’

  Since I could not refute his argument without mentioning my recent morning-port addiction, I simply took up the tumbler and we toasted.

  ‘To unsolved cases,’ said McGray.

  ‘Unsolved! McGray, it is so clear it was not a banshee. I thought this was the first delivery of my ten years’ supply!’

  ‘Ha! Ye cannae prove there was nae banshee. Ye only have yer theories. I read the report ye sent to that Monro in London.’

  ‘Oh, McGray, the evidence –’

  ‘Circumstantial. Yer own word. Neither of us can convince the other, so I thought this was a good compromise. I’ll let ye keep yer mare, but only out o’ the goodness o’ my heart – and ’cause I still miss my good auld Rye.’

  ‘Oh, I cannot believe what you are claiming, simply to save yourself some whisky.’

  ‘The omens came true, dandy. Somebody fell on the stage, and more than one died on the thirteenth. The more we delved into it, the more people died, and remember that line: The ghost’s white fingers –’

  ‘On thy shoulders laid,’ I completed. ‘Yes, as always, obvious only after the fact in question has occurred. Excuse me if I find your theories a little far fetched.’

  ‘Och, just shut it and drink up yer ill-gotten whisky.’

  We drank in silence for a moment, and Layton brought some cold meats to avoid me becoming inebriated on an empty stomach.

  ‘I had a letter from Stoker,’ said McGray, helping himself to cured ham. ‘He told me all that’s been happening in London.’

  ‘Did he? How very solicitous.’

  ‘Aye, and he asked me to lend him a couple o’ my books. For a play he’s working on, or something. He says that Susy is already on her way to New Zealand, the poor lassie. And Miss Terry is spending a couple o’ weeks resting in her country house – Stoker doubts they’ll be doing any Shakespeare plays for at least a couple o’ years.’

  ‘I cannot blame them.’

  ‘Also, Irving has “all of a sudden” been allowed to see his sons. The laddies might be breaking into the theatre, after all.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Mr Stoker seems strangely keen to keep us well informed.’

  ‘Nae strange at all. He finished his letter begging us to keep all the evidence of the case – statements, reports, newspapers, his confiscated journal, the lot. He wants us to file it all properly and keep it safe, in case Irving’s bitch of a wife ever attempts anything against him or Miss Terry.’

  I nodded. ‘He is a clever man, that Stoker.’

  ‘Indeedy. He’ll probably keep in touch, if only to make sure we’re protecting those documents. Can ye take care o’ the filing tomorrow, first thing?’

  ‘Of course. I shall be well rested, and I doubt we will have any more pressing cases so soon.’

  McGray laughed loud. ‘Ye never ken, Percy!’ He downed his glass and stood up. ‘I should go now. Dr Clouston is back. I want to ask him how Pansy’s been doing.’

  It was good to see he managed to talk about his sister without being overwhelmed by gloom, and I sincerely hoped the doctor had brought good news from the Orkneys.

  ‘By the way,’ said McGray, before crossing the threshold, ‘Joan will bring ye some o’ the scones she says ye love more than ye do yer dad. I offered to bring ’em but I think she didnae trust they’d make it here. As if I were such a gorger …’

  Nine-Nails left soon afterwards but I lingered in the parlour, alone with my thoughts, and there was one I could not postpone any longer.

  There had been somebody else on that bridge above the stage. I had seen those cat-like eyes, I was sure of it, and even though I only regarded them for a split second, they will forever remain imprinted in my memory. I could mull on that image for as long as I wished, yet I would never come to a satisfactory conclusion.

  I sighed, thinking I’d better follow Lady Macbeth’s advice: Things without all remedy should be without regard …

  And I drank the last drops of whisky left in my tumbler – the spirit was far too precious to be wasted.

  Joan did arrive, but a few hours later, bringing a mountain of the promised scones. Larry, her twelve-year-old helper, also came along, carrying a basket with several jars of jam.

  Just before leavin
g, Joan came to my parlour, where I’d been reading all morning. The good woman replaced the lukewarm pot of tea with a freshly brewed one.

  ‘Oh, sir, I nearly forgot. I’ve been meaning to tell you this for days. Do you remember when you came to Mr McGray’s house, asking me about them butchers and pints of blood?’

  I closed my book at once. ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

  Joan smiled. ‘Just yesterday I was chatting to Mrs Sandson, the wife of my favourite butcher. He told her that last week a very odd gal came on market day to buy a gallon.’

  ‘Odd? In – in what respect?’

  ‘Well, she covered her face with a strange shawl all the time. They never saw her full on, but Mrs Sandson says her husband thinks the girl had a very nasty scar.’

  Before Joan finished the sentence I was already picturing that little face, half sweet, half mangled, embarked towards the South Pacific, enveloped in the sea mist, satisfied by her revenge against her brother and grinning back at the now-distant old continent.

  The real banshee.

  Historical Note

  The idea of a Macbeth case came to me well before completing the first draft of The Strings of Murder, and it originally involved a fictitious theatre company on the verge of bankruptcy. It was a really happy accident that Henry Irving and Ellen Terry (the Judi Dench and Ian McKellen of their day) were presenting this very play exactly at the time my Ian Frey was solving his first cases in Scotland, and that their manager turned out to be none other than Bram Stoker.

  Irving’s Macbeth is one of the best documented productions of Victorian theatre. The material available well after a century (correspondence, sketches, photos, paintings, reviews, etc.) is outstandingly detailed, to the point we are able to tell on which words of her lines Ellen Terry paused for breath. This is, of course, a double-edged sword, so I must begin this note with a little expiation.

  As the well-learned Irvingites will be quick to point out, he did not take his Macbeth to Scotland on the dates this novel takes place. The play, however, did premiere in London on 30 December 1888, with its last performance on 29 June 1889, the date for my overture. According to the Scottish Theatre Archives, the Royal Lyceum was in fact closed from 1 July to 22 July for their summer holiday. As I was not going to allow this ‘minor’ detail to get in the way, I interweaved this in the dialogue as an apology to historical fact (and to prove that I had indeed done my homework!).

  As mentioned in my initial note, I hardly had to make anything up with regards to Bram Stoker, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. In fact, the more I delved into their lives, the juicier the novel got.

  Sir Henry (not yet knighted in 1889) did court the upper-class Florence partly in secret, since he was not considered a suitable match for her. Ultimately, he did walk out on her when Florence was heavily pregnant, in the exact circumstances described in chapter 15. Their unhappy marriage was common knowledge, and so was Irving’s on-and-off affair with Ellen Terry. Florence and her sons – quite understandably – abhorred the actress, and in their letters did refer to her as ‘the wench’. The Irving boys were not so keen on Bram Stoker either, whom they saw as their father’s spy. Irving tried to keep his sons away from the theatre, for the reasons here mentioned; however, father and sons did reconcile, rather inexplicably, from the summer of 1889 onwards, and both Harry and Laurence (the latter I have recast as Sydney, his middle name, to avoid confusion with Frey’s brother) went on to have careers in the theatre, one as an actor-manager and the other as a playwright (Laurence’s plays, however, were not financially successful and eventually forced Irving to sell the London Lyceum). The fictitious events in this book would have explained this sudden change of heart. Florence Irving, as far as we know, never spoke to her husband again, but she did make people address her as Lady Florence after Irving was knighted (the first knighthood ever bestowed upon an actor). Her having a lover is the one fictitious element in the story – as far as we know she remained faithful to Irving – but she did enjoy attending public trials.

  Dame Alice Ellen Terry (again, not yet honoured in 1889) was so ahead of her time she even seems anachronistic in this text, but her background is entirely real. She married three times (twice by 1889), had an incredibly long list of romantic liaisons (all the names mentioned by Catherine are real) and her two children were indeed born out of wedlock from a relationship in-between her first two marriages. Her friendship with Lewis Carroll did end at some point due to Terry’s reputation, and the acquaintance would not be resumed until much later in their lives. Terry’s children were very fond of Henry Irving, who gave them many opportunities in the theatre; this gave even more grounds for Irving’s two sons to become jealous.

  Much has been speculated about Bram’s Stoker sexuality and his relationship with Henry Irving. Stoker managed Irving’s company for twenty-seven years with so much dedication he became estranged from his wife and only son (whose names were indeed Florence and Irving, though the latter preferred to be addressed as Noel, his middle name). Stoker’s commitment to the theatre did not diminish even after the success of Dracula; upon Irving’s death Stoker wrote a lengthy biography, which includes very suggestive passages. Noteworthy is the line he devotes to the signed portrait (the one Frey finds in Stoker’s journal), which Irving gave him on the night they first met, and which Stoker kept for the rest of his life: And the sight of his picture before me, with those loving words, the record of a time of deep emotion and full understanding of us both, each for the other, unmans me once again as I write. It is my personal interpretation that Irving recognized this and used it in his favour, though I am not the first one to suggest so. I do, however, doubt that Stoker consciously based his Dracula on Irving (which has also been suggested by many scholars); having said that, it was a treat to the imagination to pour all those vampiric traits into my depictions of him (my heartfelt thanks to actor James Swanton for his comments on the first draft).

  Other curiosities worth mentioning:

  Stoker’s family tree and his connection to the most ancient Irish chieftains are real.

  The cast list was copied word for word from one of the play’s souvenirs (just like the one Frey picks up). Lady Macduff really was cut out, and the fact that Fleance and one of the apparitions were both played by children named Harwood was the initial inspiration for their backstories.

  The ‘ladder of angels’ mounted for their 1886 production of Faust, and Ellen Terry spotting the top girl in the audience a year earlier are real anecdotes. Though Faust was truly plagued with all sorts of accidents, the fire on the last performance is fictitious.

  Every fact regarding John Singer Sargent and his painting of Ellen Terry is accurate (except, of course, his being in Edinburgh on those dates). The portrait, now part of the Tate collection (and now on display at London’s Tate Britain), is still considered a masterpiece. I loved being able to insert an explanation for Ellen Terry’s alarmed expression in that painting. The striking beetle-wing dress has been restored recently (reconstructed from two damaged dresses!) and is now in permanent display at Smallhythe Place, Ellen Terry’s last home and now a museum devoted to her life.

  The other portrait by Sargent mentioned by Frey, that of Mrs Henry White, does exist: it was painted in 1883 and I like to imagine that the woman in question could be a distant relation to Ian’s horrid stepmother.

  Oscar Wilde, one of my most loved authors, was a very close friend of Irving and company, and did write the sonnet partly quoted in the text. I might have tweaked it to fit the Shakespearean metrics, but that is fine between tocayos. My apologies if anybody thinks Nine-Nails treated him too roughly, but that meeting could not have gone any other way.

  Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum is said to be still haunted by Ellen Terry’s ghost. The auditorium is virtually unchanged and still looks as grand as it would have back in 1889 (special thanks to Ruth Butterworth and Jack Summers-McKay for organizing the private tour). The back- and understage, naturally, have undergone the necessary moderni
zations to keep the theatre functional, and for these spaces I took inspiration from a nineteenth-century cross-section of the Drury Lane Theatre in London.

  Lycopodium powder is still used for special effects, and it is one of the strangest substances I have encountered in my studies as a chemist: it ignites only when it is suspended in the air, while a heap of the stuff lying still on a table will never catch fire.

  The rheostat, great-grandfather of modern-day dimmers, was invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone, hence my insertion of a fictitious nephew of his.

  The first man in charge of painting the scenery for Macbeth was a major let-down for Irving’s company. Long after commissioning the work, and after asking repeatedly as to a date of completion, Stoker found that the painter (one Keeley Halswelle) had not even started the ‘charcoal outlines’. One of the men who rescued it all as a last-minute job was indeed named ‘J. Harker’. I suppose Bram Stoker remained forever grateful.

  1873

  28 May

  I never wanted the wee brat, thought Millie, looking down at the round, smooth face of the infant. The sway of the boat had lulled him into sleep: his chest went up and down as if following the rhythm of the waves, and his chubby little fingers clasped the ragged blanket.

  I even held the herbal tea, Millie recalled. I pressed my lips against the cup and smelled its poison. I wanted to purge you out of my body, as if you were an infection.

  A tear fell on the blanket, bursting without warning.

  Millie wiped it at once. Nobody had ever seen her cry. Nobody except –

  The child stirred in her arms and let out a soft moan, perhaps awoken by her sudden movement, but Millie cuddled him more tightly, rocked him and lovingly whispered, ‘There, there.’

  Where had all that come from? She had never been tender, or gentle, or sentimental. She had never played with dolls. How come she knew exactly what to do now? How to hold him, how to get him to sleep? Why was she feeling that painful gulp and that tearing oppression in her chest?