The Secrets of Gaslight Lane

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  ‘Music?’ My guardian raised his voice bitterly. ‘This is not a tea dance, man.’ He whisked round to face the sergeant. ‘Have you any idea how many of your victims are still alive?’

  Horwich’s face went blank. ‘I am sorry, Mr Grice, I don’t know to what you are referaling.’

  ‘Angelina Innocenti,’ I suggested.

  But Sidney Grice took three steps back, his eyes fixed on the policeman, and Spirit, who had been about to rub herself against his leg, shot out of the way.

  ‘Who is to tell Miss Mortlock that her father was a savage and habitual murderer?’ he demanded. ‘Who is to tell your recently bereaved wife or your recently bereaved and crippled daughter that their husband and father was an accomplice to these grotesqueries? And what will happen to them with no master of the house, no income, no pension and heaped with opprobrium because of your deeds? Have you any idea what poverty and abuse they will face?’

  ‘You cannot imagine how I felt when they kissed me goodbye this morning.’ Horwich’s voice came thick and broken. ‘They thought I was just going to work.’ He coughed. ‘I changed in the Cat and Dragon – told the regulars I was sneaking off to go fishing. Jim’s keeping the uniform behind the bar for me.’

  ‘Did your family not sense that anything was the matter?’ I asked.

  And Horwich hung his head. ‘I told them I was upset about some nasty murders – which was true in a way.’

  ‘And what about your constables?’ Sidney Grice clutched at something invisible just in front of his shoulder and tore it down. ‘They look up to you as their exemplar, Nettles and Harris and all the other fools.’

  ‘They are good men at heart,’ Horwich defended them.

  ‘And Miss Middleton?’ Mr G ranted. ‘She has been like a bereaved hag since you were exposed. Am I expected to live with that?’ My godfather brought his right hand to his left shoulder and hurled his nothing away. ‘Get out of my sight, Ezekiel Trueblood Horwich.’ His foot lashed out, bringing one of the central wooden chairs crashing to the floor, and a second kick sent it skittering away. ‘Out.’ He pointed towards the hallway, arm rigid with rage. ‘And the next time I see you, make sure you are wearing your uniform.’

  Horwich covered his face. ‘I don’t understand.’

  I reached up to touch his hand. ‘He is letting you go,’ I said, scarcely able to believe my own words.

  ‘On two conditions,’ Sidney Grice said, instantly under control.

  ‘Anything, sir. Anything.’

  ‘First, you do not say another word to me until we meet at Marylebone Police Station,’ Mr G commanded, and the sergeant nodded dumbly. ‘Second,’ Sidney Grice went back to his desk, ‘you will never, under any circumstances, accuse me of having acted out of kindness. Go.’

  My guardian shook himself like a wet dog, went to his desk and busied himself with his scrapbook.

  I saw Sergeant Horwich out.

  ‘God bless you, miss,’ he whispered. ‘I will never let you down.’

  And I wanted to hug him, but I only said, ‘You still owe me that drink.’

  I was still shutting the door when Sidney Grice came out of his study and limped upstairs.

  ‘The greatest point in Horwich’s favour,’ he announced, ‘is that he never once mentioned that I owe him my life.’

  ‘But how? When?’ I called after his disappearing back.

  82

  ✥

  The Bloodhound and the Beast

  CHERRY MORTLOCK CAME.

  ‘Can I not even devour my luncheon in peace?’ Sidney Grice tossed his napkin on the floor in a dudgeon and for once I shared his disappointment. Cook had actually managed – probably by luck – to produce quite an agreeable approximation to a vegetable fricassee.

  ‘Perhaps she will not be very long,’ I speculated. ‘I shall ask Molly not to clear yet.’

  Cherry kissed me. ‘I shall not keep you long,’ she promised.

  ‘Good.’ Sidney Grice clapped his hands together.

  ‘Let Molly take your cloak,’ I prompted.

  ‘Miss Mortlock may not even be staying long enough for that,’ Mr G said hopefully.

  ‘Nonsense.’ I motioned to Molly, who tried to wrench the garment from Cherry’s shoulders before she had unhooked it.

  Cherry coughed and unclipped the neck clasp just in time to stop herself being throttled. I took her arm and led her into the study.

  ‘It is really Miss Middleton I came to see,’ our visitor said.

  ‘Excellent.’ And from halfway up the stairs my guardian called, ‘But do not consume any more of my ostensibly superlative brandy.’

  ‘I have gin if you do not mind that.’ I showed Cherry my father’s flask and she said she did not mind at all, so I fetched two tumblers from the sideboard. ‘Cheerio.’

  ‘I want to ask a favour of you, March, and I will quite understand if you say no.’ Cherry sipped her drink.

  ‘I will do what I can.’

  Cherry took another nip. ‘I am going to sleep in my family home tonight,’ she announced suddenly and then, more hesitantly, ‘and I was hoping that you would come to spend the night with me.’ Cherry’s lips quivered. ‘I am afraid to sleep there alone, March.’

  We went to the window. The drapes were drawn together but I separated them a foot or so. I liked to see London at night. We had gaslights on Gower Street, but they were too dim and far apart to illuminate everything and it fascinated me to watch people and horses emerge from the night and melt back into it.

  ‘Do you think your father’s murderer is still in the house?’ I asked.

  Cherry shook her head. ‘Can you really imagine Hesketh or Easterly or Veronique as a deranged killer?’

  ‘No.’ I gave us both a drop more.

  I could not tell her that I had never imagined Sergeant Horwich as aiding and abetting the crimes either.

  ‘I have always been frightened in Gethsemane,’ she confessed. ‘Can you imagine going to live there as a child after all that had happened? Every noise and shadow terrified me.’ The drink rippled. ‘Oh, March, the nightmares I had in that place.’

  An advertising van hurried by, presumably on its way home since the boards were almost unreadable – something about restoring your hair. I would have preferred to replace mine.

  ‘Do you have to stay?’

  ‘It is that or poverty,’ she replied unhappily as Sidney Grice reappeared.

  ‘That stupid wench has cleared away,’ he groused. ‘If I had wanted her to, she would still be dithering in the hallway.’ Mr G sniffed like a bloodhound. ‘Gin,’ he suspired, only slightly less disapprovingly than he might if he had surprised us indulging in human sacrifice.

  ‘Yes, I brought some with me,’ Cherry said.

  ‘What a poor liar you are, Miss Mortlock,’ my guardian told her amiably. ‘An unusual trait in the weaker sex.’

  ‘And in women,’ I put in, adding immediately, ‘Cherry is going to spend tonight in Gaslight Lane.’

  Mr G’s eyes narrowed. ‘Might I ask why?’

  ‘Because Veronique and Easterly are threatening to leave.’ Cherry put her glass on the sideboard. ‘They are convinced that the house is haunted. So I am going to prove otherwise – to them and myself.’

  ‘It is impossible to prove that a place is not haunted.’ Sidney Grice looked at his watch. ‘One can only say that one has not detected any supernatural presences at a particular time.’

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ Cherry asked and the detective sniffed.

  ‘I have seen a great deal of evidence for their existence but none of it compelling.’ He clicked his watch shut. ‘I have thus far found the supernatural to be anything but super.’

  I divided the residue of the gin, ignoring his censorious looks. ‘Cherry has asked me to keep her company.’

  ‘I am going to sleep in Veronique’s room.’ Cherry picked up her glass. ‘She is convinced that my father stalks her room.’

  ‘It is not Easterly then?’ I had no
t forgotten how his gaze caressed the French maid’s figure.

  Cherry half-smiled. ‘She keeps the door wedged.’

  ‘And where shall Mademoiselle Bonnay slumber?’ Mr G enquired.

  ‘There are plenty of rooms to choose from,’ Cherry flopped her shoulders, ‘though I cannot imagine she will want to be too close to my father’s room.’

  ‘Good,’ my godfather said. ‘It does not do to sleep with servants. I make it an almost invariable rule not to.’

  Cherry’s mouth twitched but straightened immediately. ‘I only hope that I can persuade her to stay another night. She is not at all happy about being alone.’

  Sidney Grice held my tumbler up towards a mantle. ‘It is fascinating how precisely the pattern of finger ridges can be recorded on a vitreous surface.’ He dragged himself out of his reverie. ‘An animal might help.’ He clipped on his pince-nez and rotated the tumbler, light bouncing off its lead crystal walls. ‘If your pretty Gallic servant had a substantial beast to protect her, one that she was confident would not harm her but would savage any intruders, would that make her feel more confident?’

  ‘Do you know of such a creature?’ Cherry asked uncertainly.

  ‘I possess one.’ He thrust my tumbler back at me. ‘A female by the name of Molly. She is intensely loyal and can be quite terrifying. I was happier doing battle with the Uxbridge Urologist than I would be against Molly in full tilt.’

  ‘I have not forgotten how she reacted when I broke the tea service,’ Cherry admitted ruefully.

  And Mr G rubbed his hands. ‘So that is you and Miss Middleton, Mademoiselle Bonnay and Molly organized, and I shall take your father’s room.’

  ‘But Cherry did not invite—’ I began.

  ‘Indeed she did not.’ Mr G took the glass from Cherry’s hand to compare it with mine. ‘There are at least nineteen differences in the patterns.’

  My guardian thrust my tumbler at me, as if he resented my making him hold it, and gently returned Cherry’s.

  ‘But you cannot sleep in there,’ Cherry protested. ‘It has not been cleaned.’

  ‘Dear, lovely Miss Mortlock,’ Sidney Grice replied. ‘Do not concern yourself on my behalf. I once braved a railway hotel in foulest Surbiton. I am sure I shall be quite confortable there. We shall set off directly after dinner.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Parsnips tonight, I believe.’

  And Cherry Mortlock hurried away before he could issue another invitation.

  83

  ✥

  Ghosts, Ghouls and Demons

  MOLLY WAS VERY excited about coming with us.

  ‘The last time I slept out was on a train, but you’ll never know about that because you were mad as a clock, and Mr Grice was chasing monks in some foreign country.’

  ‘I did have a wisp of suspicion when I got a bill from the Great Western Railway.’ Her employer selected a cane. ‘But, with Miss Middleton facing either execution or a lifetime in the madhouse, your misdemeanour was relatively trivial and I deducted the expense from your wages.’ He changed his mind and selected another. ‘You may anticipate your next payment in June twenty thousand and sixteen.’

  ‘Oh, thank gourd.’ Molly clutched her pelvis where she imagined her heart to be. ‘I thought I wasntn’t not never going to get any money again.’

  The doorbell rang and she opened it to Gerry.

  ‘Take our bags to the hansom,’ Sidney Grice ordered. ‘That poor cabby cannot manage them all himself.’

  I had packed my Gladstone and lent Molly an old carpet bag but she had also filled a canvas sack tied with string round its neck. Sidney Grice required a steamer trunk.

  ‘We are only staying for one night,’ I reminded him.

  ‘I only need nine per centum of the contents,’ he admitted. ‘The rest I choose to take. I dislike going far without my two photograph frames, for example.’

  ‘But they are empty,’ I objected.

  My guardian checked his collar in the mirror. ‘And were I to have packed the teapot I should take that empty too.’ He made some tiny adjustment to his neckerchief.

  Molly’s sack clunked metallically on the floor. ‘Oh.’ She felt the side of her carpet bag anxiously. ‘You didntn’t not say nothing about emptying it.’

  The fog had not shifted and it was dark well before we inched into the murk.

  ‘That date he said.’ Molly chewed on a loose lock of hair. ‘Is that next Thursday? Only I like Thursdays.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘and stop sucking my hair.’

  Easterly admitted us into a hallway lit only by two candles in glass chimneys on the long table.

  ‘Hi ham sorry but we have no gas hat the moment,’ he apologized, taking my bag from me.

  ‘Do you have any oil lamps?’ I could hardly see as far as the bottom step.

  ‘Mr Garstang did not like them.’ Easterly helped Molly with the trunk over the threshold. ‘There was the risk of fire, hespecially with hevrything being so barred hand bolted.’

  I could sympathize with that, having witnessed the speed and violence with which flames could spread from spilled paraffin.

  Hesketh materialized into the glow, his eyeball bloody, with the pupil dilated, and his ear mulberry-coloured and scabbing over.

  ‘Good evening, sir, miss.’ He took us to the sitting room, his movement stiffened by the beating he had suffered.

  Cherry sprang up to greet us. ‘It is so kind of you to come.’

  There were more candles here, four naked on the table and the same number enclosed on the mantelpiece but, when you have been spoiled by gas mantles, these were feeble indeed.

  ‘Mr Grice is never kind.’ I kissed her cheek.

  ‘I am sure that cannot be true.’ She leaned forward to my guardian.

  ‘For once, Miss Middleton speaks nothing but the truth.’ He dodged back and proffered his hand stiffly.

  ‘I expect Hesketh has explained,’ she said.

  ‘Then I must dash your assumption on the infrangible rocks of truth.’ Mr G dabbed his shaken hand with the tip of his tongue. ‘You are using a different soap. I preferred your Castille.’

  ‘The gas company thinks that the explosion might have cracked the main gas pipe.’ Cherry struggled to steer the conversation back on course.

  ‘It has not,’ he pontificated.

  ‘Well, they have cut us off whilst they check.’

  Veronique brought us tea wearily; her eyes were dusky-rimmed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked and she opened her mouth.

  ‘Of course she is all right.’ Mr G tugged a crease out of the tray cloth. ‘She is a servant.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ Veronique replied, her face mirroring the truth of her words. ‘I do not like to spend another night ’ere.’

  ‘Dontn’t not be scared,’ Molly’s voice shrieked out from nowhere. ‘I’ll look after you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Veronique said dubiously.

  Molly winked with both eyes. She could never manage one at a time. ‘And I brought something to frighten any ghosts.’

  ‘Your very presence should do that.’ Mr G turned an inverted spoon over.

  ‘And, when we are tuckened up, I’ll tell you the tale of the Ghoul of Gruelsome Green,’ Molly promised.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Molly,’ I cautioned, and she snuffled in amusement.

  ‘Dontn’t not worry, miss. I’ll blow the cangle out first.’

  ‘You will keep the candle lit,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Why do you not take Molly down for some refreshment,’ Cherry suggested to her maid and, when they had left, enquired, ‘Have you both dined?’

  ‘I said that we would.’ Mr G dusted his chair before he sat. ‘So we did. Wait here, Hesketh. Now, what is all this about a ghost?’

  Hesketh’s hand caught a ball. ‘There has been a lot of talk about this house being haunted over the years,’ he replied, ‘and I have never paid too much attention to it. The boards creak and the wind sometimes catches on the chimn
ey tops. It can unnerve imaginative people.’ He squeezed the ball. ‘But this is different.’

  The valet faltered.

  ‘In what way?’ I urged.

  ‘I heard something myself, the night I came back from Marylebone.’ He sucked his cheeks. ‘I always check the whole house before I retire to bed. Mr Nathan insisted upon it – though I could not think how anyone might break in – and old habits die hard. It was an odd shuffling noise, like a giant rat under the floorboards, and then…’ he hesitated, ‘a voice – a sort of husky rasp.’

  ‘Could you hear what it said?’ I asked.

  ‘Murderer,’ Hesketh whispered, seemingly afraid to even hear the word again. ‘Or murderess, I could not be sure.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Sidney Grice rearranged the crockery.

  ‘On the top landing, sir. I called out Who’s there? But there was no reply, just another shuffling. All the doors were shut but I forced myself to open them. I’ll admit it. I was scared.’ Hesketh cleared his throat. ‘Easterly and Veronique were in the basement.’ He touched his cheekbone. ‘There was nobody there.’

  ‘Did you tell anybody else?’ Mr G stirred the black tea that Cherry had poured for him.

  ‘Nobody.’ Hesketh’s hand was pumping now. ‘I tried to tell myself that my hearing was damaged by Mr Quigley’s blows and I was imagining things.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ I took two sugars.

  My guardian frowned and rotated the teapot and milk jug.

  ‘No, miss.’ Hesketh opened his hand. ‘I hear ringing noises now but I don’t hear voices. Then Easterly told me he heard something, but perhaps he should tell you about that himself.’

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes, sucklings and valets comes forth much wisdom.’ Sidney Grice pulled a corner of the tray to align it with something.

  ‘Thank you, Hesketh.’ Cherry pushed the tray back and shifted all its contents into a random pattern, with evident satisfaction and heedless of Mr G’s unsuccessfully suppressed tiny yelp of pain. ‘Send Easterly in now, please.’

  My godfather reached out to the tray. ‘No,’ Cherry said firmly and his hand retracted.