The Secrets of Gaslight Lane

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  Hesketh struggled to control a smile. ‘Indeed not, sir.’

  ‘Oh, Hesketh.’ Mr G sighed. ‘Though I scarcely know you, I am not convinced that you are so bizarre as to arrange your features in such a diverted fashion when you are not diverted. Austin Anthony Hesketh, you have just disbarred yourself from my club and now I shall be all alone at its annual dinners.’

  ‘How disappointing,’ I murmured, ‘but at least you will get to choose the menu.’

  If I ever thought I had ceased to be puzzled by my guardian’s shenanigans, he had disillusioned me yet again.

  ‘Might Hi ask a question, sir?’ Easterly craned his neck in a futile attempt to see what was going on.

  ‘I feel it only fair to advise you,’ Mr G crouched to examine the front-door locks with his magnifying lens, ‘that such a process may not merit a response or elicit that for which you were hoping.’

  Easterly looked at me, baffled, and I said, ‘That almost means yes.’

  ‘Hi presume—’

  ‘Stop.’ My guardian clutched his left eye as if expecting it to fall out as easily as the right. ‘People who do that always presume the wrong things and it unbalances my gentle disposition and, if I were not out of your line of vision, you would see that I have adopted an attitude of despair which I am about to discard.’

  The footman flicked about in confusion.

  ‘Go on,’ Hesketh advised as my godfather made a little ball of cotton wool appear between his thumb and forefinger.

  Easterly gave the matter some thought. ‘Hi assume…’ But Mr G groaned and Easterly continued rapidly. ‘Hiv you tied me and Veronique up to stop us hinterfering with clues we have had all the time in the world to hinterfere with them already. Not that we have,’ he added hastily.

  ‘I shall not tell you the proportion of criminals who have almost every opportunity to dispose of evidence, but only try to do so as the police are breaking down their doors, for I am unsure of the exact figure.’ Sidney Grice clipped the ball in a pair of locking tweezers and poked it into the upper keyhole. ‘But it is approximately somewhere between eight- and nine- thirty-sevenths.’

  ‘Hi am not sure Hi understand,’ Easterly admitted and Sidney Grice jumped up behind him.

  ‘The ways of a personal detective are recondite.’ Mr G walked round to confront Easterly with the cotton wool. ‘And I do not fully comprehend them myself. This small sample of wadding is faintly begrimed but dry.’ He dropped it into a large white envelope, which he folded. ‘Therefore the lock has not been oiled for many a year.’ He slipped his the envelope into his satchel and sighed.

  I took a look. ‘You can easily see if the bolts are across or not, so you would risk it being noticed if you only locked one of them.’

  ‘She speaks the truth,’ Sidney Grice intoned, his hand raised in a papal blessing.

  ‘Did the Garstangs sleep up there?’ I touched the newel post.

  ‘No, miss.’ Hesketh indicated the general direction of the north wing. ‘Mr and Mrs Garstang shared a room in the main body of the house.’

  *

  ‘Holford Garstang was lying on his side, turned towards his wife,’ Inspector Pound told us. ‘His neck had been cut in two places; the second wound was much deeper.’

  ‘How do you know it was the second?’ Sidney Grice had two halfpennies flat on the palm of his left hand.

  ‘Because the other cut was only about an eighth of an inch deep and two or three inches long.’ Pound brought out his meerschaum pipe. ‘Why would you wound a man fatally and then nick him?’

  ‘I can think of thirty-nine reasons.’ Mr G closed his hand on the coins. ‘But I do not wish to suffer your company long enough to declaim them.’

  George Pound’s lips moved.

  ‘That would be most uncomfortable,’ Sidney Grice told him.

  I dabbed at a tea stain on my sleeve. ‘So do you think the murderer had a tentative go and then steeled himself to deliver the fatal attack?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Pound blew down the stem. ‘Augusta Garstang’s death was even more violent. The killer had climbed over the bed.’

  ‘Again, how do you know?’ Mr G clicked the halfpennies.

  ‘There were foot- and knee-prints on the cover.’ The inspector unbuttoned his tobacco pouch. ‘Clumps of her hair were torn out. Most likely she was woken by the attack on her husband and the murderer leaped at her, wrenched her head back and killed her with one wild slash. The force of it broke the gold chain with crucifix that she always wore.’ He gripped the pouch. ‘The chain was buried in her throat.’

  *

  Sidney Grice closed his eyes and lowered his head.

  ‘Come, Hesketh,’ he cried, so suddenly that the valet blinked. ‘Escort me and my fledgling accomplice to a higher level of this reputedly accursed house.’

  And up the wooden stairs we go.

  *

  Up the grand marble staircase I go. Step after step after step, on and on, ever higher, never higher, towards that red light but never any closer.

  I wake up and thank God I never reached it.

  ‘You reached it,’ Holford insists fiercely, his rotting breath a stench in my nostrils.

  Up I go again and sometimes I wake again, but sometimes I reach the top.

  The house is very dark, not a ray of moonlight through the shutters and curtains, and the gas turned off for safety. I don’t like it. I’ll never let on to anyone but I’m frightened of the dark. That’s why I keep a lamp hidden in my wardrobe.

  But at least I know my way. I should do after all the times I have sneaked in and out at night, all the time I spent teaching Lionel to feel his way around.

  The door swings open.

  I had a dog that snored worse than them, Hesketh reminds me, until it got stabbed.

  It upsets me to think of that. I hate cruelty.

  Somebody opens the door.

  A candle glares in the red-glass lamp in front of a statue of Jesus carrying a lamb, and I feel sick. What do they think a shepherd does with his sheep? At the end of the day he kills them. I’ve seen it.

  ‘Sacrilege,’ Augusta hisses.

  Holford and Augusta are lying facing each other. His hand is on her arm. I always thought he was a big man, but he looks quite little in bed and his face has collapsed. He’s taken his teeth out. That knocks me back – this man who always preaches to the women about vanity – I never knew he had ivories. They’re in a glass on the table by his bed, grinning at me like a skeleton.

  ‘You killed me the first,’ Holford reminds me.

  I had to so you couldn’t protect her.

  I see his skin part, a white line going dark, and his eyes pop open and he puts his hand to his neck and turns, and he says, ‘Nutty! What are you doing?’

  And he tries to sit up and Augusta is stirring, so I grab his whiskers and pull his head back and his throat parts, the air and the blood rushing out.

  ‘It hurt, Nutty. It hurt so much.’

  Augusta is up on one elbow.

  ‘I did not know what was happening at first. I thought Holford was having a bad dream.’

  She’s trying to catch her breath for a scream and I jump over. He sort of grabs at me, but he’s gone, and I get hold of her hair and she pulls away and leaves a clump of it in my hand, and she’s scrambling out of the bed but I’m over it and grabbing hold of her nightgown and pulling her back, and she’s gasping and saying, ‘Nutty, no!’

  ‘We always treated you well,’ Holford says in my ear.

  Too late for that. I push her down with the pillow over her face, but that gets in the way so I stab her in the breast. Five times.

  ‘Like the five wounds of Christ,’ Augusta says, sanctimonious to the last.

  Five times, deliberately, and with each blow I tell her: ‘Do... NOT… call… me… Nutty.’

  They made a mockery of my name. They laughed at the way I talk, like saying Hi instead of I, as though not having all their advantages made me stupid.


  I stop.

  She’s quiet, just the sound of her blood gushing on to the headboard.

  It’s then I think about how they used to be, and I wish I could put them back together. They were good to me in their way, as much as anyone is with an underling, and the saddest thing, I realize, is I loved them. And I think, Enough is enough, no more, but then I stiffen my resolve.

  Be a man, I tell myself. You are doing this for Nathan.

  20

  ✥

  The Staple and the Spikes

  THE STAIRS WERE disproportionally wide and two men could have walked abreast, but we went in single file, with Sidney Grice in the lead and the valet to the rear.

  ‘There were handprints on the walls, long wavy smears,’ George Pound was seeing them still. ‘They said Kate Webb must have made them as she tried to flee Angelina Innocenti.’

  ‘But you are not sure?’

  He pulled his right moustache. ‘They were both covered in blood.’

  ‘Who found Mr Mortlock’s body?’ My petticoats were fighting each other for the right to wrap around my legs.

  ‘I did,’ Hesketh told me.

  I grabbed the banister rail to stop myself tumbling back. ‘But I thought you were visiting your mother.’

  ‘So I was, miss.’ Hesketh had put up his hands, prepared to catch me, his eyes wide with alarm. ‘But the train got in at nine twenty-five that morning and I was back here by ten o’clock.’

  ‘Exactly?’ Sidney Grice got to the top and stopped so abruptly that we almost collided. He skipped aside.

  ‘Roughly.’ Hesketh resumed his ascent. ‘I know that it was ten after the hour when I passed through the hall with Mr Mortlock’s shaving water because the grandmother clock chimed the hour, and it is ten minutes slow.’

  ‘Nine.’ Mr G tapped his way up with his stick.

  ‘Did anybody see you return?’ I raised my skirts a smidgen to avoid treading on them, but not enough to expose my repulsive ankles to the valet’s gaze.

  ‘Everyone, miss.’

  ‘I most certainly did not,’ my guardian retorted indig-nantly.

  ‘I meant all the other servants,’ Hesketh explained agitatedly. ‘Easterly, Mrs—’

  ‘When I require another list of their names, you may be the very man to compile it.’ Sidney Grice pirouetted morosely but, by the time he had completed a revolution, his expression was almost amicable. ‘Indeed,’ he whispered to Hesketh’s and my puzzlement.

  ‘Did Mr Mortlock always rise so late?’ I surreptitiously jiggled about to adjust my petticoats, which had risen and disarrayed during our ascent, but both men noticed and my guardian curled his upper lip. I had caught myself pulling that face a few times recently and I hoped it would not become a permanent part of my repertoire.

  ‘He was never a good sleeper, miss.’ Hesketh scrunched his brow. ‘Midnight was an early turn-in for Mr Mortlock, and he would often rise and go down to his study in the night. Then he would take his laudanum and have trouble waking up.’

  We stopped on the landing. Here a weak light oozed through a barred end window and I could make out a high wall a few yards away, topped in criss-crossing rows of spikes. Beyond that was still a sea of dun yellow.

  ‘What inhabited these?’ Mr G swept his cane to indicate the three brown-varnished doors either side of us.

  ‘This room is… was Mr Mortlock’s.’ Hesketh pointed to the first door on the right. It was broken and had been secured with a padlock. It hung at eye level, passing through two big iron staples, one of which went through the vertical stile of the door, the other having been driven into the post. They could have been removed but not without marking the paintwork. The wood around the handle was cracked and splintered.

  ‘How did the ingress to your dead master’s private chamber come to be secured?’ Sidney Grice marched jerkily ahead.

  I refrained from pointing out that we already knew the answer to that one.

  ‘Inspector Quigley insisted that we fit a padlock whilst the police investigations are under way.’ Hesketh was as puzzled by the question as I.

  ‘You are trying to make me ill and almost succeeding.’ Sidney Grice clapped his hands briefly over his ears. ‘I did not ask why. I know why. If I had wanted to know why I should have asked,’ he rattled out. ‘How did it happen? Answer, man, before our corporeal functions disappoint us and we return to the dust from which we reportedly came.’

  The valet shuffled perplexedly. ‘Miss Charity agreed to his request,’ he said hesitantly, ‘and I arranged for it to be done the same day. Fisher and Son, a local carpentry firm, did the job. Until then we were not allowed upstairs.’

  ‘Who used this room when the previous owners lived here?’ I asked as my guardian took his hands cautiously away.

  The carpet runner ran from the stairs straight along the corridor. It was edged by darkly varnished boards and, as far as I could see, neither it nor they had been disturbed.

  ‘Only occasional guests,’ Hesketh replied.

  ‘This one?’ Sidney Grice rapped with his knuckles on the next door along.

  ‘That was Mrs Mortlock’s.’

  ‘Do they interconnect?’ I asked.

  ‘No, miss. All the rooms are separate.’ Hesketh watched Mr G run a fingernail down a join in the wallpaper. ‘The last door on this side leads to the attic and the servants’ quarters.’

  ‘Who had that back room?’ I pointed towards the door opposite it.

  ‘Miss Charity.’ Hesketh’s expression softened as he spoke her name.

  ‘What about the one next to it?’ I referred to the middle of the three doors on the left of the stairs.

  ‘The bathroom, miss, and that,’ Hesketh dipped his head towards the door opposite Nathan Mortlock’s, ‘was where Master Lionel slept.’ Hesketh closed his eyes and swallowed, and his next words came out huskily. ‘And died. Nobody ever goes in there.’

  Sidney Grice had been standing quietly for most of the conversation, but he perked up at the last announcement.

  ‘Then we shall.’

  Hesketh was nonplussed. ‘I am sure you know your job, sir—’

  My guardian moved close up, the top of his head only just above the valet’s shoulder. ‘It is not for you to be certain or uncertain about my professional competence.’

  Hesketh coughed. ‘I only meant that I understood you were to investigate Mr Nathan Mortlock’s death, sir, but Mr and Mrs Garstang were murdered over eleven years ago.’

  ‘What if the same person murdered the Garstangs and Mr Mortlock?’ I proposed.

  ‘But surely you know about Angelina Innocenti, miss?’ Hesketh objected.

  ‘Do you believe she killed those people?’ I asked, and Mr G groaned.

  ‘If what people believed was evidence, we should all be worshipping trees,’ he reasoned, ‘especially horse chestnuts.’

  ‘She certainly went mad,’ Hesketh said. ‘I believe it took three men to restrain her and she was not an especially strong girl.’

  ‘Show us the room,’ my guardian commanded.

  ‘There is nothing to see,’ Hesketh warned, but did as he was bidden.

  *

  ‘The boy was a sad case,’ Inspector Pound had told us. ‘Well, I call him a boy because I thought he was one at first. He had the face of one, but Lionel Engra was about twenty, I think. I’ve seen a lot of deaths, too many—’

  ‘What would be the optimum number?’ Sidney Grice interrupted with genuine interest.

  ‘None,’ I supposed on George Pound’s behalf.

  ‘Then the inspector is in the wrong job.’

  ‘You expect that sort of thing down the East End,’ Pound continued, ‘and you get hardened to it.’

  ‘I do not think I ever shall.’ I forced myself to drink my tea.

  ‘Women are made of kinder stuff,’ Pound asserted.

  ‘I could name a great many who were not,’ Mr G argued, ‘when I have nine days and six hours to waste.’

  ‘What upset you ab
out it?’ I asked, for the memory obviously affected him still.

  George Pound put his cup untasted back on the tray. ‘Most of the household were attacked in their sleep. And even those who weren’t tucked up in bed were dispatched as quickly as possible. But there was an element of cruelty in Lionel’s murder.’ The inspector hesitated to tell me. ‘He had been tied up for some time before he was murdered.’

  ‘How do you know?’ my guardian asked.

  ‘There was extensive bruising and rope-burn marks on his body,’ Pound replied, and my guardian nodded in approval of his method.

  ‘I read that you found him under the bed,’ I stated as matter-of-factly as I could, for the memories were clearly distressing him.

  ‘Strangled,’ Pound said simply, ‘with the curtain cord that was used to tie him up.’ He parted his moustaches. ‘Not a quick death, nor a painless one.’

  ‘There is more to it than that.’ Sidney Grice leaned forward like a panther about to pounce and our visitor edged a fraction away, and I could hardly hear his confession.

  ‘He was not found until the next day.’ The inspector ran a finger under his collar. ‘And I could not help but wonder if…’ he swallowed hard, ‘when my constables first searched the house he could have been alive.’

  And when I looked into George Pound’s eyes, they were lost in a nightmare.

  21

  ✥

  The Spare Room

  A NOISE, A sort of mewing.

  Oh God, is one of them still alive?

  How strange to pray to God on this of all nights.

  Has one of them come back from the dead?

  But a small man is standing just inside with his back to me, and in front of him the Garstangs are not people any more. They are monstrous.

  It’s Lionel and he’s hugging himself and whimpering.

  Oh, young lion. You aren’t supposed to be here. You should be with your mother.

  I creep backwards but Lionel is turning. The demon steps forward but I fight him off.

  Kill him.

  I drive the demon back into the spare room but Lionel comes too. It doesn’t occur to him that he could be following a murderer. He trusts everyone.