“Um, well there’s…I mean…you always…Ah, hell, why did I have to quit smoking today?”
She smiled in triumph and then heaved a sigh, for he was having none of it. Not yet. She would have to find the most propitious moment to coax Al Grant into discussing his feelings. Perhaps a romantic dinner.
“Shall we?” she said, getting up. “I must have a chat with Eddie Castle, my boss at The Swan, to tell him I mean to start dancing again next week. Will you escort me? Or have I taken up too much of your time already? I know this is your day off, but I wouldn’t want to be a burden.”
“It would be my pleasure.” Al paid the bill, gathered his frock coat and hat, and then held the door open for her. As she passed, he said, quite matter-of-factly, “We can have an early dinner together tomorrow, if you’d like. I’ve been known to cook a mean beef casserole. And my sister is dying to meet you.”
“Thank you. I’d be delighted.”
The following morning, Embrey, the red-haired constable stationed in the corridor outside her room, brought Julia a copy of the London Daily First. She thanked him and then rushed back to her bed, eager to find out what had happened in London—specifically, was there any further mention of her ordeal in the Observatory?
Page one had a wonderful artist’s rendition of the iron mole. She felt a lump in her throat when she began the accompanying article, titled “The World Beneath Our Feet!”
Is this the beginning of a new era for scientific exploration? At five-thirty last night, a Morse code message received from ten thousand fathoms under the earth’s surface announced the existence of a lost subterranean world. Professor McEwan detailed his first glimpses of the exotic land many miles beneath us. His discovery marks the first successful burrowing venture into our planet’s crust, though many are now speculating that Professor Perry, the American designer of the iron mole drill, who vanished during his own expedition three years ago, may be alive somewhere in this underground realm.
Professor McEwan described “breathtaking flora,” “a vast, subsistentocean kingdom with its own weather” and “pockets of strange, biologically generated, purple light.” He conjectured that the latter “may be emitted by some type of abundant organism, endemic to this underworld.”
While officials wait for his next message, scheduled for tomorrow morning, plans are already in motion for a second expedition, to be funded this time by the Royal Science Institute, the same learned body that first dubbed the venture ‘McEwan’s Folly’ early this summer. Officials meeting in the Leviacrum have yet to comment on Professor McEwan’s success, although—
A deliberate knock at the door made Julia sit up with a start. She folded the paper, straightened her skirt and blouse, and answered.
“Hello, Julia. How are you?”
“Harriet?”
“I’m not intruding, am I?”
“No, I was just…Please, come in. I was just reading the most amazing thing.” Julia picked up the newspaper and pointed to the drawing of the iron mole. “Have you heard?”
“Yes,” Harriet Law answered, unexcited. “He has done well, if it is true.”
“You doubt Professor McEwan?”
Harriet tapped the drawing with the tip of her parasol. “Until a thing is proved, sadly it can only be fiction.”
“Oh, but you must have been young once,” Julia protested. “Is it not the most exciting thing in the world, or even under it?”
“If he returns with evidence, then yes, it will go down in history. But that is unlikely.”
Julia shuddered. Lord, that was eerily reminiscent of her mother’s cynicism in those last, bitter days. Allergic to dreams and optimism.
Somewhat deflated, she asked, “So what news have you got?”
“You may want to sit down, Julia. I prefer to be as thorough as I can,” Lady Law suggested, brolly tucked under her arm as she scanned the rest of the drab hotel room. She picked up Julia’s book on the bedside table to check the title. The Moonstone. “Mm, you have good taste. Wilkie Collins is a marvellous writer.”
They both sat on the bed.
“So what have you found out?” Julia suddenly felt anxious to dispense with the small talk.
Lady Law set her parasol down, then crossed her legs. “It was a tricky case to solve, with an unexpected outcome. A downright peculiar outcome, in fact. Have you ever heard the name Joshua Cavendish?”
“Yes. Constable Grant mentioned he was friendly with Georgy. He disappeared last week.”
“How about Sir Horace Holly?”
“Of course. Everyone knows his adventures.”
Lady Law offered a reassuring nod. “The very same. It so happens that one of those adventures—or rather, a forthcoming adventure—lies at the crux of this case. Sir Horace and his protégé, a science student named Joshua Cavendish, had planned a secret expedition to Namibia, Africa, to find a priceless archaeological site. Their map, probably obtained by Sir Horace on one of his journeys to the Dark Continent, is a valuable commodity. Sir Horace had sworn the young lad to secrecy. As it turns out, Joshua was under a lot of strain at the Leviacrum, due to his academic commitments. No doubt planning for the expedition took its toll as well. He was prescribed a mild sedative—one that I learned can result in erratic behaviour. A rare side effect, but all too coincidental here, as you will see.
“Some time in the week preceding Georgina’s murder, she became romantically involved with Joshua. I don’t know where they first met, but several eyewitnesses saw them enjoying a meal together at the Red Lion pub-restaurant on Marlborough Street. Apparently they seemed close, affectionate, and in good humour. They also had a fair bit to drink that evening.”
Julia repressed a smile. Imagining Georgy while she flirted with a new boyfriend—perhaps her last moments of pleasure on this earth—struck a bittersweet chord in her heart. Poor Rupert would have been left bellowing through the letter box in any event!
Lady Law continued without a trace of sentiment, “The night of the murder, Joshua telephoned Sir Horace at his home and told him to make his way over to Freeborn Avenue, to look after Georgina. He said she was in danger. Now that was the first Sir Horace had heard about the girl, so naturally, when he turned up at the murder scene and found police there, he was more perplexed than anyone. No one ever saw or heard from Joshua again. That is, until he showed up on the Pegasus and tried to kill you, Julia.”
“Excuse me?” Too many facts at once, too little sense. “You’re saying Georgy’s boyfriend murdered her, then tried to murder me?”
“I’m afraid so. It took some time to identify the body from the canal. But it was Joshua. His beard was fake and his clothes were borrowed, perhaps stolen, but it was definitely him.”
“Why? Why would he want to kill us?”
Lady Law retrieved a folded-up sheet of paper from her pocket and passed it over.
“What is this?” Julia was hesitant to even touch the thing lest it cause her mind to spin further.
“Take a look.”
It was the most well-drawn, detailed yet unintelligible map Julia had ever seen. African place names littered the scrawled or shaded background of mountains, desert, oases and rivers. A cross marked a spot a few inches right of centre.
“Is this supposed to mean something to me?” Julia challenged, losing patience.
“It is a copy of Holly’s map. The genuine one—Joshua’s map, that is—has been taken into evidence by Scotland Yard. I found it in your garbage.”
Julia bunched her face into a scowl and shook her head.
“My conclusion is this,” Lady Law announced, her eyes burning with momentum. “Joshua walked Georgina home after dinner and he accidentally left the map there. He’d had a lot to drink. Maybe it slipped out while he took his jacket off. Later, after he’d left, Georgina, a little tipsy herself, thought it was a piece of rubbish and threw it out. But when Josh realised he didn’t have the map, he became frantic. A priceless secret like that, in someone else’s hands. He rus
hed back to Georgina’s house and accused her of stealing it from him. Perhaps he’d boasted about it earlier over dinner. She was still a little tipsy and didn’t recall throwing away that piece of rubbish. But he grew furious. Georgina didn’t care for his accusations and ordered him out, said it served him right for flaunting it in the restaurant.
“Flared temper, too much alcohol, stress from his Leviacrum studies, a prescription medication with erratic side effects, losing a priceless secret belonging to his mentor and idol: Joshua simply lost control and snapped. Georgina fought back bravely. I found hair fibres and traces of Joshua’s boot polish in your kitchen. Then he murdered her and fled. Before he got home, his mind addled with guilt and alcohol, among other things, he telephoned his mentor with a fanciful tale—said he was being followed, and that Georgina was in danger. A poor attempt to cover his tracks. That’s when he disappeared and also why he disappeared. He knew that if he showed himself, the police would want to question him, and they would soon find out he was the last one to see her alive. Am I going too fast, Julia? Please tell me if I am.”
“No, no. It may take a while to sink in, but please go on.”
“Very well. That leads us to the horrific events of two days ago when he attacked you, too. I submit that by that time, his mind was irrevocably turned. He was no longer thinking rationally. A character such as his—withdrawn, tightly-wound, given to anxiety—is most susceptible to the queering aftermath of trauma. The guilt fed his paranoia and he became convinced you were his biggest threat. Georgina’s sister, her confidante, you were the one most likely to have the map, and the one most likely to pursue the investigation—pursue him, in effect—indefinitely. He approached us in the church, remember? The man in the green bowler hat?”
Julia bowed in deep concentration, then gave an emphatic nod. “Yes, I remember him.”
“Well, I thought he was going to follow me into the park, but he must have waited and tracked you instead. He bided his time throughout the Dover flyover, then made his move. The rest you know.” Lady Law paused. “But we will never truly know what went on in his twisted mind. It is a shame; he was a highly promising young scientist, well thought of by Sir Horace. What strain he must have been under to snap like that. Yet, that can never excuse a murderer, nor should it.”
Silence. A busy, interminable moment, for Julia couldn’t quite grasp how a benign man could turn so ruthless and insane in so short a time. Over a map? A treasure map? Such things abounded in adventure books and cheap fiction but not in the real world and certainly not on Freeborn Avenue, where nothing more exotic than a half-Canadian milkman called Frank had ever shown up. No, Lady Law’s account might fit neatly enough into one of her miraculous case files, but it was all a little too, for want of a better word…miraculous.
Julia eyed the tight, creamy pallor of the lady’s face. Untouchable. Sculpted in beguiling and hardened wax mystery. But hollow somehow, inanimate inside. Lady Law ought to be a showpiece in Madame Tussaud’s, if she wasn’t already.
“Well I’m sorry to run, but I have another appointment, Julia.” She got up, stiffer than Julia remembered her in the church. “I just wanted to tell you what happened personally. Unless there’s anything else I can help you with, I’m glad to say the case has been solved. Scotland Yard will confirm it with you later.”
“So that’s that?”
“Yes, I must go on to the next, I’m afraid. For what it’s worth, your escape the other night was one of the most admirable feats I have come across in all my years. I have earmarked it for a special mention in my next book.”
“You’re most kind.”
“My pleasure, Julia. I wish you well.”
“Goodbye, Harriet and thank you.”
Julia watched her leave, then sank back on the bed, studying the map. If this was the crux of the whole affair, its story had better be a good one. Sir Horace Holly? She hadn’t realised he lived in England, or for that matter, that he was still alive. But Al would help her find him. He had to. This investigation would not become just another footnote in Lady Law’s memoirs. Perhaps Al’s protests had made her sceptical of anything Lady Law said, but the more Julia considered the woman’s account, the more far-fetched it felt. It would undoubtedly read well and convince the rest of the world, but…
There had to be more than…Oh my God. Why hadn’t that occurred to her before?
She slammed the map onto the mattress and jumped up, then listened through the open window for the Hi-wheel leaving outside.
It was time to get to the bottom of another mystery.
Chapter Eight
By five o’clock the gas lighter was already making his rounds, lighting the streetlamps with surgical precision. Steam-powered cranes billowed white clouds as they raised workmen to dismantle scaffolding from the new submarine factory. Tired shopkeepers dragged their advertisement stands inside, paid the window cleaners and errand boys, and then set about tidying their storefronts. Men with faces blackened by oil and coal lumbered home from the factories. As dusk descended, London wound down for the day.
Meanwhile, Al snapped at the reins to rush the horses and police carriage over a junction of tram lines. Julia held her black touring hat in place, but the wind ripped out one of its red feathers. With her free hand she waved to Francine Mowbray, one of the girls in her chorus line who stood outside a hairdresser’s shop.
She turned to Al and shivered at the fierce determination in his face, the rage spurring him on. Longing swarmed inside her. He was in rare form and it was woe betide anyone who stood in his way this evening.
“How much farther is it?” she yelled over the clattering hooves.
“Not far now. Three more blocks, then it’s at the far end of Wellington, adjacent to the park.”
Though she might not look the part in her red, two-piece walking suit trimmed with black lace, Julia suddenly felt like one of Wilkie Collins’s detectives, speeding to solve a labyrinthine case. All she had were inklings. Al’s long-held suspicions didn’t add up to much either. Indeed, if they were to confront Lady Law, it would have to be as a triumvirate. Sir Horace Holly had said over the telephone that he possessed actual evidence of her deception. More than that, he was willing to use it. His protégé’s good name depended on it.
But what exactly was his evidence?
Al stopped the carriage outside a small detached house with Tudor style windows. The curtains were drawn, two lights on downstairs. The front door was a heavy, gothic-looking thing, its brass knocker like something one would find on an Eastern European castle.
She knocked three times.
A short, appallingly ugly man with huge greying sideburns answered. He blinked small but alert eyes at each of them in turn, as though his mind were taking photographs. “Good evening Constable, Miss Bairstow. Horace Holly at your service. You may call me Holly.”
Julia gave him a nod. “How do you do?”
“Come in, come in. My housekeeper is away for the evening, so you’ll have to excuse the mess.” He led them into his study which was dimly lit by a single oil lamp next to a large pile of papers on his desk. He lit another lamp on the sideboard opposite.
“Please have a seat,” he said.
Al let Julia take the comfy armchair, while he sat on a wooden stool near the glassless display cabinet.
“Anything to drink?” Holly motioned to a crystal bottle of port on the sideboard. They declined. Rather than spin his writing chair to face them, he straddled it the wrong way. “Very well. Where shall we begin?”
“What on earth is that?” Julia pointed to a brass telescope, two feet long, lying beside the pile of papers on Holly’s desk. Strangely, its segments were notched and a silver oblong piece of metal, about eight inches wide, bisected the shaft.
“That is why you are here,” Holly explained, retrieving his pipe from his trouser pocket. “If my assumption is correct and my protégé’s findings are reliable,” he said as he stuffed a few pinches of tobacco into the pipe
bowl, “then Lady Law is going to have the surprise of her life.”
He lit the pipe and then added, “That instrument is the one thing she didn’t factor into her fiction.”
“Please explain, sir,” Al intrigued. “You said something on the telephone about evidence?”
“Indeed, my boy. I did indeed.” Holly fetched a journal from his desk drawer. “This belonged to Josh Cavendish. He wrote in it almost every day. His last several entries are of particular importance.”
He read Josh’s account of the portable psammeticum telescope, of the finding of 144 Challenger Row and of his brief acquaintance with Georgina. Then he described the desperate telephone call he’d received the night of the murder, which was also the night of Josh’s disappearance.
“That’s quite a tale, Holly. But what does it all mean?” asked Al, keeping a watchful eye on Julia.
She leaned forward, rapt in the carpet’s nondescript pattern, as realization washed through her. “I think I know.”
“Miss Bairstow?” inquired Holly.
When she didn’t answer, Al looked at her. “Julia?”
“Hmm. Yes, it’s all beginning to make a weird sort of sense,” she mused aloud. “Tell me, Holly, is the occupant of 144 Challenger Row…Lady Law?”
“Yes.”
“And did you trick her about the map? About its importance, I mean?”
Holly drew his pipe away from his mouth, midpuff. “Why, yes. How on earth did you—”
“I put the two halves of the story together, that’s all. Yours and mine. Each on its own would make little sense. But side by side…”
Al and Holly shared a look of bewilderment, as if to say, “If a woman can see through this, why the hell can’t we?”
“Please give us your account of the map, Holly,” Julia urged, “before I jump to any wrong conclusions.”
He cleared his throat. “Very well. You’re confoundedly tight-lipped about all this, but I’m glad to help. It was no great gambit. Lady Law visited me the other day and inquired after my upcoming African expedition. She seemed to know about the priceless archaeological site Josh and I had found. She wanted to know more about it and said it might be the reason why Josh was in trouble. I knew she was lying but I played along to see where she went with it. So I told her about a secret map Josh had in his possession—a map we were going to follow to make us rich.”
The Mysterious Lady Law Page 7
