by David Ashton
The old woman was in her own admission weather-beaten by the bitter winds of misfortune and had been no raving beauty to begin with, but the bond of trust between the two of them, though stretched many a time, had never broken.
‘Ye should get McLevy in and show him the evidence,’ volunteered Hannah after deep thought. ‘That would be a sicht worth seeing.’
‘I’m sure he has a passing acquaintance,’ Jean said quietly.
For a moment there was a strange, lost look in her eye, but then the garden door opened and as the magpies spilled out to scatter all over the garden, Hannah rushed off to supervise and Jean was left alone.
‘I’m sure he has acquaintance,’ she repeated to herself as the rain ran down her face and the scarlet favours lay scattered round like so many discarded blossoms of desire.
Chapter 6
See how love and murder will out.
Congreve, The Double Dealer
What James McLevy had acquaintance with at this precise moment was a mounting irritation, though not a flicker of this showed on his features, which had settled into what Mulholland knew well as the inspector’s a wee bit out of his depth, self-important but not-too-bright official persona. This had its uses.
They both stood in a well-furnished respectable room, in a well-furnished respectable house in St Andrew Square, whence had one a telescope one could gaze a long way down at the teeming wynds of Leith.
McLevy could not stand wiseacres, especially with youth on their side and Daniel Drummond qualified mightily on both counts.
The young man was trying to disguise the obvious superiority of his intelligence as best he could, but it issued from the very pores. His companion, Alan Grant, appeared a more decent type not quite so comfortable with such supremacy of class and education.
Mulholland stood slightly back observing the play and noticed that McLevy had not shaved very well that morning, the moustache unfortunately remaining, but the chin nicked by razor and upon that feature various hairs celebrating their escape.
There was a heaviness to the inspector’s limbs and general demeanour that was not pretence; the animal vitality that fuelled that investigative hunger, and was the bedrock of the violent outbursts that terrified the criminal fraternity, lay it would seem in abeyance.
And yet. And yet.
What was it his Aunt Katy was wont to say?
There’s nothing darker than a wolf’s mouth especially when he’s yawning fit to burst.
Drummond and Grant had been identified from sources as the ringleaders of the White Devils, with address supplied by a professor at the university who owed McLevy a favour of a different kind, by dint of one wayward sister rescued from the toils of a blackmailer.
The sister sadly continued being a laudanum addict but the blackmailer ended up in a fishcart headed for Stranraer.
A fate worse than death.
And so here they were. Four figures in a room.
‘A bit of fun, inspector,’ Daniel announced airily. ‘Think of it as letting off steam.’
‘Steam?’ repeated McLevy ponderously.
‘A figure of speech, sir,’ said Alan.
The inspector nodded his head as if enlightened and Daniel was encouraged to elucidate further.
‘We have passed all medical examinations, and are soon to be qualified men of repute, but in the meantime . . . ’
‘You create havoc, Mister Drummond,’ Mulholland interposed.
Daniel smiled proudly.
‘We are the White Devils. The Scarlet Runners sniff at our heels. Daring deeds – in that we compete!’
‘Like breaking shop windows?’ asked the constable.
‘It does go a bit far at times,’ Alan allowed judiciously. ‘But compensation was paid.’
‘Whit about murder?’
At this sudden and blunt assertion from the grizzled specimen on the patterned carpet, both young men stopped as if something unseemly had been deposited on the thick pile.
‘An old woman was found by the Leith Docks, vicious assaultit, most certainly dead, her body bruised tae hell from the terrible beating it received. She lies on the cold slab in our station – like a plucked chicken.’
‘On her corpse was found a white favour,’ Mulholland slid in as a less lurid addition. ‘Your colours, Mister Grant.’
‘I – not me – personally,’ was the confused response.
‘We had a crowd down the harbour last night,’ Daniel offered swiftly, ‘but – I mean – a bit of a fracas with the Scarlet barbarians, but – no old woman.’
‘That’s whit you tell me?’
‘That is the truth.’
‘Is that your experience, Mister Grant?’
McLevy ignored Drummond and his eyes were piercing deep at Alan.
For a moment all was frozen and then Daniel’s right arm jerked involuntarily, breaking the stillness.
Alan Grant took a quick breath and nodded.
‘It is. Indeed.’
There was a feeling of palpable unease, possibly the result of murder being thrown in to mar the boyish pranks but McLevy’s attention was suddenly fixed elsewhere and an almost imperceptible movement of his head signalled Mulholland to provide distraction.
‘Who stuck the underwear up the mast, sir?’ the constable enquired with guileless curiosity.
‘Not a clue,’ answered Daniel. ‘Someone in the crowd. Dark, you see.’
‘Were they purloined?’
‘What?’
‘The corsets.’
Daniel roared with laughter and Alan, who had been silent since his statement, managed a half smile, but then McLevy came back into the fray with blood in his eye.
‘The old woman was scourged raw with some implement. It left narrow welts. Deep in the flesh.’
His attention had moved to a gloomy corner of the room where he had remarked a glittering object.
‘Like a cane,’ he said slowly. ‘A thin whippy cane.’
Daniel flushed at the insinuation and, despite his impaired gait, moved quickly to return with the stick that he presented with some irony to the inspector, holding it out in both hands.
‘A gentleman should never be with one,’ he remarked.
McLevy took it and rubbed his hands up and down its surface as if prospecting.
‘My sister had it made specially for me. A birthday present. Silver Birch.’
The inspector’s hands were clear of any traces of dirt or blood from the stick and he deliberately brought it up to his nose and sniffed through his moustache like a dog at a bone.
There was something intentionally crass in the action and Daniel’s lip curled a little.
‘Ye polish it well,’ McLevy muttered.
‘A gentleman should always look after his cane.’
The inspector handed the stick back and Daniel in a weird excess of spirit brandished it skilfully in the air.
‘Have at you, sir!’ he exclaimed, thrusting the tip towards McLevy, who did not move a muscle. Mulholland’s hand crept to his own hornbeam stick which had its lodging in a long pocket on the inside of his coat.
The end of the cane had come to rest precisely over the inspector’s heart, beating in muffled animosity behind the thick coat, and McLevy yet did not budge, while his hands hung limply by his side. The very stillness was itself a warning that Alan Grant was alert enough to register as he stepped forward to twitch the implement aside with an assuaging smile.
‘Daniel is the university champion,’ he explained.
‘Whit at?’ was the obdurate response.
‘Fencing, of course!’ Daniel announced, twirling the cane in the air to tap against his crooked leg. ‘Despite the handicap. One can always overcome handicaps.’
‘Unless one is dead,’ said McLevy.
A gleam of battle in their eyes, youth against authority, boy to man, young bull to old; wrap it up how you will, a challenge had been issued. And for the inspector’s part he had contemplated ripping the cane away to prod it into
a socially unacceptable place but, happily, had thought better.
Mulholland blew out a breath. The same thought had crossed his mind about his inspector’s next move.
In the tense silence a door opened and into the room stepped a striking young woman, not beautiful, but charged with such energy that the whole atmosphere lifted, as it often does when a female enters the male domain.
She had rich chestnut-coloured hair that strayed from its confining bun so that some strands curled around her ears and neck in a most becoming fashion.
Whether accident or artifice was hard to tell.
‘Ah, Jessica,’ her brother welcomed. ‘Perhaps you can help us? These gentlemen are wondering where the White Devils may have laid their hands on some corsetry.’
‘I rarely make use of it,’ was the cool reply.
Alan’s face relaxed into an admiring smile, Daniel laughed and struck a pose, Mulholland noted a quicksilver resemblance between brother and sister, but Jessica’s focus had fixed firmly on the bulky figure that seemed glued to a spot on the carpet.
Recognition, it would seem, had struck and caused her no particular pleasure.
‘You are James McLevy, are you not?’ she said.
‘Uhuh,’ was the dour response.
‘The Thieftaker?’
‘I have been so described.’
He looked slightly downwards at lively dark eyes set in a broad face. She was obviously younger than her brother but had a more settled appearance.
Her form was not at all lacking in the contours that interest the opposite sex but it was the feline quality in her movement combined with a restless intelligence that drew McLevy’s attention.
Many expressions flitted across her face, rather as the moon might show through an edgy night, but for this moment the predominant one was of dislike.
‘A friend of mine,’ she remarked crisply. ‘Lucy Clayton. Her father. You arrested him for embezzlement.’
‘He deserved it.’
‘We arrest people all the time, ma’am,’ Mulholland volunteered, leaning in like the Tower of Pisa.
‘Mister Clayton committed suicide.’
‘Hanged himself. In the office of his bank. He had gone tae clear out his desk before trial,’ said McLevy.
The pair had not taken their eyes off each other from the beginning of the exchange.
‘You have a fine recollection.’
‘I was there when Mulholland cut him down. His reach is higher – a matter of elevation.’
The tone was matter of fact but the constable noticed that McLevy had sparked into life suddenly, the dark ironic humour provoked by her incisive thrusts.
‘His name was Andrew – did you know that?’
‘I saw it on the death certificate.’
‘It broke her heart. Lucy. It broke her heart.’
McLevy smiled grimly and, for almost the first time, moved to put himself directly in her line of fire. He could smell fine quality soap from her skin; God knows what she was getting from his.
‘I do not make the law, Miss Drummond. But I come down heavy on those that break such. That’s my profession.’
With that he jerked his head at Mulholland and they both made for the door, where McLevy wheeled round to address Alan Grant.
‘Her name was Agnes – did ye know that?’
‘What?’
‘Agnes Carnegie,’ said Mulholland quietly. ‘The dead woman. That was her name.’
‘She was a miserable wee body,’ McLevy added. ‘But she had a life. And now it’s gone.’
His eyes bored a hole into Alan’s, and then he looked back to Jessica, lips holding to the strange twist of that dark humour.
‘However I will find the killer,’ he said. ‘That’s my profession. Born and bred.’
Daniel, perhaps missing being the centre of attention, threw in his pennyworth as the policemen reached the door.
‘Oh, inspector?’ he called cheerfully. ‘I intend to specialise in forensic science. Who knows that we may not meet in an official capacity?’
‘A prospect to savour,’ was the dry response.
‘What think you to anthropometry?’
‘Anthro-whit?’
‘Pometry,’ Daniel supplied with an innocent air. ‘I’m sure you know the work of Bertillion?’
‘Oh, foreign by the sound,’ replied McLevy with what Mulholland recognised as his glaikit face. ‘Aye – aye – right enough.’
He jammed the low-brimmed bowler on so that it came far down, as if to emphasise the idiotic cast of his features.
‘Uhuh. Right enough. Alphonse Bertillion. The method of identifying habitual criminals through recorded measurement of their physical bodies. Useful wi’ recidivists and the like, but too prone tae human error for my liking. No!’
He suddenly held up a stubby thumb towards the three young people.
‘Fingerprints. That’s the prize. Henry Faulds is your man. No two are the same. They are left everywhere. Record them with printing ink. Compare. Theory at the moment but find a way to do that and not one criminal will sleep easy ever again.’
In the silence, Jessica suddenly spoke.
‘I agree with you about Bertillion, Inspector. It is but a step along the path.’
‘Are you of a medical bent, Miss Drummond?’ was the almost courtly response.
‘I study privately. Many doors of the university are closed to women.’
‘Then kick them down.’
‘That is our intention.’
An unexpected smile appeared on his face.
‘Mulholland will show ye how. He’s an expert.’
Mulholland looked down modestly at his huge feet; in female mythology they betokened a corresponding largesse in other appendages, but that fancy aside, had indeed battered down many a felonious portal.
McLevy saved his last words for Daniel as he held up his thumb towards the young man.
‘Not one criminal,’ he said softly. ‘Not one killer.’
Then he was gone, followed by the silent Mulholland.
Jessica Drummond’s laugh was a full-throated, most unlady like affair.
‘Well, my darling brother,’ she announced. ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it!’
‘A lucky guess,’ was the somewhat illogical answer, but Alan Grant was more troubled.
‘That man worries me,’ he said quietly.
‘Why?’ Jessica queried. ‘You have nothing to fear.’
In the interval that followed the remark, she marched over to a polished sideboard, selected an apple from the bowl of fruit, and bit in like a true daughter of Eve.
‘What about this poor old woman?’ she asked a little indistinctly.
Daniel’s response was light and smooth.
‘Oh? An accidental death down by the docks, we the prime suspects!’
She frowned.
‘You two must pull in your horns.’
‘Agreed,’ said Alan quickly.
Daniel wheeled round from the window, where he had been watching the figures of the two policemen disappear along the side of the square.
‘Nonsense!’ His eyes were glittering with temper as he confronted Jessica; he had been excluded since the advent of his sibling and the pique this had bred was augmented by a darker underlying emotion.
‘You, my dear sister, pretend to be wild at heart but underneath you are nothing more than a . . . conformist!’
Jessica was stung.
Nothing stings like family.
‘Am I really?’
‘Yes, you are!’
A somewhat childish exchange, but it produced a frozen silence, which was broken by a loud authoritative call from the next room.
‘That is our mother’s voice,’ said Jessica, throwing the half-chewed apple at her brother, who caught it neatly. ‘In case you do not recognise the timbre.’
She swept out through a side door, while Daniel flipped the apple, which landed tidily on a small salver.
‘Mater will giv
e it me in the neck,’ he grinned, but Alan had other matters on his mind.
‘Daniel? Why did you not mention our wrangle with the old woman?’
‘More trouble than it’s worth.’
‘In what way?’
‘Use your noddle, my dear chap,’ drawled Daniel, in the affected tones he and Alan were wont to employ while in heroic mode. ‘Once they knew that, never get them out the door.’
Grant was not quite at ease.
‘Last night – we were separated quite a time. After the chase.’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel, sighting down his stick like a rifle. ‘Press of the crowd, old chap.’
‘I wondered – where you had gone?’
‘A duel to the death,’ replied Daniel carelessly. ‘With one of the Scarlets. He had a wheelbarrow and I my cane.’
Alan nodded acceptance as the door opened and Jessica emerged with a malicious smile.
‘Our mother would like to know,’ she murmured, ‘the whereabouts of a certain set of corsets?’
‘They were decrepit,’ protested Daniel.
‘And fitted all the better. She is waiting.’
Daniel took a deep breath, limped towards the door, and slid it shut behind himself.
Appraisal from a woman can contain many elements. Jessica looked at Alan’s solid frame, decent demeanour, then had certain thoughts she kept to herself.
‘You are a good friend, Alan.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Because of his . . . infirmity, Daniel feels he has to prove himself. Twice over.’
‘I realise that.’
‘You must watch over him.’
‘A difficult task – at the moment,’ Alan replied wryly.
Jessica’s eyes widened innocently and she moved a little closer so that he could inhale, however faintly, the odour of sweet apple.
‘Perhaps,’ she breathed, a glint of mischief in her eyes, ‘I may provide assistance.’
Chapter 7
For commonly, wheresoever God buildeth a church,
The devil will build a chapel just by.
Thomas Becon, chaplain to Thomas Cranmer
John Gibbons heaved at the heavy pew, trying to wedge it back into the straight. It was a mystery how some mornings these solid receptacles for the nether regions of the worshipful congregation were skewed out of true.
