‘Hence the scraping of boot polish on the front wall,’ my guardian observed.
‘I thought your shoe was slightly scuffed,’ I recalled.
‘The coalman’s wagon was making a delivery to number 28 Burton Crescent, the house next door,’ Hesketh resumed his account, ‘but he had to park outside Gethsemane because of a trench in the road. I remembered that we were due a delivery too and I couldn’t risk him seeing me, so I took a sharp stone and put it under the horse’s tackle. The animal reared up and bolted. It was something we used to do as boys in Nuneaton and what I think Mr Nathan did the day before the slaughter.’
‘There is an agreeable symmetry in that act,’ Mr G approved before reminding me, ‘I instructed you to note water mains repair.’
‘I rang the doorbell and Mrs Emmett let me in,’ Hesketh said. ‘I told her my mother had just had a turn – she had faked one for the doctor, thinking Mr Mortlock might demand proof. Then I went into the sitting room, saying I was checking the decanters.’
‘Hi ham sorry for that, Mr Hesketh,’ Easterly apologized. ‘It was only the occasional nip.’
‘It hardly matters now,’ I reassured him.
‘I put the padlock back on,’ Hesketh recited, ‘and went about my duties. The rest you know.’
‘Indeed.’ Sidney Grice sucked on his pencil as a man might on a cigar. ‘Remember how I said I might give you time with the murderer?’ He tapped off the imaginary ash. ‘Well, Austin Anthony Hesketh, it transpires that you shall be spending the rest of your life with him.’
97
✥
The Last of the Grices
SIDNEY GRICE CLOSED his notebook with great deliberation. I had not noticed him open or write in it.
‘Oh, Austin Hesketh, once faithful and almost ancient retainer, if only death were as simple as life. Life has a beginning and an end but death has only a beginning, and what end can there be to that of Nathan Roptine Mortlock?’
‘Hi do not understand you, sir.’ Easterly spoke tremulously for all of us.
Mr G drummed the tabletop with his fingertips. ‘Are you, with your absurd affectation of an accent, going to inform your beautiful, tall and slender young mistress that her late father was a savage slaughterer of the household that loved and sheltered him?’
‘Hit his not my place, sir.’ Easterly looked away.
‘What about you, Hesketh?’ Mr G swung round. ‘Are you going to relate the history of Miss Mortlock’s father’s actions to her? Or are you going to wait for it all to come out at the trial to be tacked on to the knowledge that the valet she trusted, and of whom she is undisguisedly fond, tortured and killed her father?’
Hesketh rotated his right hand as if remembering what he had done with it.
‘I do not see how Miss Charity can be spared the knowledge unless,’ he chose his words carefully, ‘I confess to the crime but give another motive. I could say he was going to dismiss me about the stolen drink or some other pretext. If I plead guilty it will be a very short trial.’
‘But you can’t do that, Mr Hesketh.’ Easterly was aghast. ‘You can’t let Miss Mortlock think you did that to her father for such a…’ he struggled for the bon mot, ‘silly reason.’
‘Better she hates just me than me and her father,’ Hesketh said calmly.
‘An almost noble sentiment.’ Sidney Grice pressed down on the table as if stopping it floating away. ‘But I cannot permit myself to permit you to do that.’ The table rocked. ‘I would be called as a witness and I shall not perjure myself for you or any man, not even for money.’
‘Then the truth must out,’ Hesketh said simply.
‘The truth has myriad manifestations,’ my guardian expounded. ‘It can be the great healer and bring consolation. It can rampage like the foaming sea, destroying all, indiscriminately, in its path. I could reveal things that would rock this world of ours to its rotten foundations, but I would prefer to have a nice cup of tea.’
‘Shall I make it, sir?’ Easterly offered.
‘Perhaps later.’ I signalled for him to stay seated.
Sidney Grice stretched like a man awakening. ‘If you had a child, Miss Middleton – repulsive though that concept is – what would you do with the man who murdered him, her or it?’
His eyelids were looking bruised as they fought to retain his new eye.
I ignored the insults he was heaping upon me for the time being. ‘I should want him hanged, I imagine.’
‘Of Miss Middleton’s forty-nine most virulent faults –’ my godfather touched his new eye – ‘the worst is her gentle nature. It corrupts her mind with generosity and poisons her heart with kindness.’ He dabbed a pink tear from his cheek. ‘If I had a splendid son, which I shall never have, and he was cold-bloodedly killed by a man posing as his and my friend – though I hope never to have one of those – I should be devastated to see that man hanged.’
‘Hi do not—’ Easterly began and we all knew what it was he did not.
‘I would devise an ingenious method of killing that murderer, preferably over many years, with the most sophisticated methods of inflicting exquisite pain that I could devise,’ Sidney Grice announced, as if discussing a shopping expedition.
‘This is all hypothetical,’ I pointed out. ‘What are you saying?’
‘What I am saying is of little importance.’ He rubbed his injured shoulder. ‘What I am about to say is monumentally significant.’ My guardian stood up. ‘I cannot judge you harshly, Austin Anthony Hesketh, and, if our two companions are of the same mind, I shall not heap further miseries upon your mistress. I do not intend to point the finger of guilt in your or anybody else’s direction.’
‘I shall never tell a soul,’ Easterly vowed, his hand clamped over his heart.
‘And you?’ Sidney Grice inclined his head towards me.
‘I cannot agree to this,’ I said.
98
✥
Broken Glass
SIDNEY GRICE RAISED a quizzical eyebrow.
‘Has the milk of human kindness finally run dry?’
‘I am astonished that you have so much in you,’ I retorted.
My godfather bridled. ‘My decision is pragmatic. On what grounds would you hand this man over to the police?’
‘First, we would be breaking the law which we are sworn to uphold,’ I began.
‘I have never made such a vow,’ he demurred, ‘and I was not aware that you had. Perhaps you could remind me when and where that was.’
‘It is our job,’ I persisted.
‘Our job is to discover the truth and we have done so.’
‘Also,’ I avoided Hesketh’s eye, ‘what this man did was cruel in the extreme and premeditated.’
‘You would prefer he acted stupidly and impulsively?’
‘I would have understood it better,’ I replied.
‘Mr Mortlock was a very wicked man, miss,’ Easterly contributed. ‘He deserved what he got.’
‘The decision was not Hesketh’s to take,’ I argued. ‘My father was murdered—’ how easily that sentence escaped my tongue – ‘by a man he was trying to help. And I had his killer in my power. I admit I toyed with him but I did not use that opportunity to take such extreme revenge.’
Hesketh upturned his palms. ‘As Mr Grice has told us, you are a kind lady.’
I riled at this. ‘Do not presume upon my kindness to think it gives you the right to commit such a savage deed and walk away as if nothing had happened.’
Hesketh considered my words. ‘I can’t be so mealy-mouthed as to fake repentance, Miss Middleton. I have never hurt a soul before and do not believe I shall again.’
‘He won’t, miss,’ the footman vowed desperately.
‘You cannot guarantee that, Easterly,’ I disagreed. ‘You would have sworn that he would never have hurt your master in the first place.’
‘Miss Middleton is right,’ Hesketh agreed wearily. ‘Only God can see into another man’s heart.’
‘Do
you ask him for forgiveness?’ I hunted for straws to clutch at.
‘For the great harm I have done Miss Charity,’ he admitted at last. ‘She was so badly estranged from her father that I did not think she would take his loss so hard.’ He breathed heavily. ‘You are a good lady, Miss Middleton, and you must do your duty.’
‘And put a noose round your neck?’ I found myself saying. ‘I cannot bring myself to do it.’ Hesketh’s lips parted but I burst out, ‘And do not dare to thank me.’ I jumped to my feet. ‘Do not say another word, Austin Hesketh, nor you, Easterly Nutter, and especially not you, Mr Sidney Grice.’ I went to the sideboard, poured myself a huge gin and gulped it down in three draughts. ‘Terrible, terrible things have happened here and you – all three of you – have made me a party to that.’
Easterly opened his mouth.
‘Do not say it,’ I shouted as I stormed towards the hall.
The glass was still in my hand. I spun and hurled it over them and, to my great satisfaction, it shattered on the wall.
99
✥
Characters and the Vixen
CHERRY CAME LATE that afternoon, pale but as tall and slim and lovely as Sidney Grice kept saying she was.
‘I have spoken to the Trust committee and they have agreed, in view of events, that I should not be expected to live at Gethsemane. I may keep up my allowance if I restore the house to its former glory and promise not to sell it,’ she announced as she kissed me. ‘Oh, and thank you for looking after Veronique.’
‘Molly will miss her,’ I forecast. ‘I have never seen her so happy. She has just been teaching Veronique how to spit sideways.’
Cherry smiled distractedly. ‘I hope her new employer finds a use for that skill.’
‘You are not keeping her?’
We walked to the window.
‘I will have no need of her.’ She tidied her veil. ‘Veronique is a good maid and pretty. She should have no difficulty in finding work. Easterly may have more difficulty – he is not really cut out to be a footman. But I shall give them both excellent characters.’
‘They are unlikely to find positions in the same household.’
‘I am sorry about that.’ And, to do Cherry justice, she looked it.
‘I thought you were very keen to keep them,’ I protested, ‘and, if you are to get your income—’
‘And so I was,’ she interrupted me. ‘But there has been a change of plan. Fabian despises the servant–master relationship. He and I are to be wed as soon as I am out of mourning and we shall lead a simple life.’
‘And what of Hesketh?’ I could not be bothered to argue that Fabian supposedly despised marriage.
A performer was walking on his hands up the street, begging bowl balanced on his feet.
‘We shall keep him,’ she declared, a little too casually, I thought. ‘Fabian could do with a man to save him from the mundane tasks and allow him to concentrate on his genius.’
It struck me that part of the great Fabian Le Bon’s genius might be in hooking and landing a wealthy heiress and persuading her to dump her servants whilst retaining one for himself, but I only said, ‘I see.’
‘Hesketh would not find it easy to get a new position at his age,’ she continued. ‘He has served my family for nearly forty years and stayed loyal to my father when everyone else deserted him. I think that deserves some reward, don’t you?’
‘Indeed.’ Sidney Grice materialized in the room. ‘People say that loyalty is its own reward. They are fools. I have run up enormous expenses on your behalf, pretty Miss Charity Mortlock.’
‘And you shall be reimbursed plus ten per cent, as we agreed, when my father’s murderer has been convicted,’ she con- firmed.
Mr G puffed his lips. ‘Then I have tidings to gladden the heart of any young lady wishing to remain financially continent.’ He cupped his right ear. ‘I am writing those expenses off, Miss Mortlock, for I have come to an end of my investigations.’
A trace of colour invaded Cherry’s complexion. ‘Then you can tell me the name of my father’s murderer?’
‘I deeply regret to inform you that I cannot.’ My guardian stood before Cherry Mortlock, all at once small, in a way I had not seen before.
‘So you are just giving up?’ she asked incredulously.
Mr G met her gaze but his was far from comfortable. ‘I do not wish to proceed when I am confident that I shall know no more of significance about this case tomorrow or this time next year than I do today.’
‘So all that talk about how you always get your man—’
‘I fear you are confusing me with the Northwest Mounted Police Force of Canada,’ he broke in as she drew breath, ‘an uncommon though not a unique mistake. I was once mistaken for Rumpelstiltskin, a fictional character from the pen of the brothers Grimm.’
‘So you are admitting defeat?’ She took hold of the unclosed drape to steady herself. ‘Sidney Grice, the great private—’
‘Personal,’ he demurred.
‘Detective,’ Cherry carried on without a pause, ‘cannot find the man who murdered my father.’
‘I am unable to reveal his identity,’ he admitted.
‘That is the same thing.’ Cherry gripped the drape so hard I feared she would bring it and the rail down.
‘I find it difficult to condemn you for reaching such an irrational conclusion,’ Sidney Grice told her.
‘You… find…’ Cherry wrenched the drape and something creaked. ‘This is unbelievable. I hoped your eccentricity might be a product of your genius, Mr Grice, but I have come to realize that it is only something behind which you hide your incompetence.’
‘I forgive you for that remark,’ he told her magnanimously.
‘I know what you are up to.’ Cherry jabbed a finger in his face. ‘You are hoping I shall increase your outrageous charges.’
‘He is not, I promise you,’ I assured Cherry.
‘And this from the same plain girl who promised me he would find the murderer?’ she mocked, and I did not know how to reply to that. But I did not get the chance, for she had leaped to another conclusion. ‘You have another more lucrative case and you are dropping me in favour of it.’ She threw up her arms. ‘I should have listened to Mr Cochran’s warnings about you two – the one-eyed poseur and his deranged vixen, he called you, amongst other things.’
Mr G almost frothed as he chewed his mouth. ‘I shall not stoop to insulting that posturing, vainglorious, publicity-seeking, self-opinionated, jumped-up, inobservant, illogical, ineffectual, grasping braggart,’ he retorted, and I was much impressed for these were exactly the words he had used to describe his rival almost two years ago. ‘I shall not even mention his crass incompetence, the extreme anxiety he caused you and your servile minions with his incitements to false arrest, nor even seek to remind you that an escaped Broadmoor prisoner was granted ingress to your house by his demolition of your late father’s protective wall, and that as a result of this she died bloodily and in great agony, not to mention dramatically, in that hitherto unexplored netherworld twixt loft and bedroom and thereby giving your architecturally uninteresting and shoddily constructed house a reputation that would be the envy of the Tower of London. I shall now permit this tirade to expire.’
‘I shall sue for breach of contract,’ Cherry threatened.
‘And be the poorer for it,’ Mr G warned. ‘Clause five states that the provider of the service – id est me – may terminate the agreement without notice at any time. The contractor for my services – in this case you, Miss Mortlock – may not do so without my consent.’
‘But that is not reasonable,’ she protested.
‘It puts you at a disadvantage,’ he conceded, ‘though I did particularly draw your attention to that clause before you signed the document.’
Cherry crushed her handbag to her breast.
‘So that is it?’ She looked from my guardian to me and back to him incredulously. ‘This is not some kind of game?’
&nb
sp; ‘To answer your enquiries in reverse order – no and yes.’ Mr G smiled thinly. ‘Goodbye, dear lady, and fare thee well. I would ring for Molly to show you out but I have formed the impression that you do not wish to tarry.’
Cherry went crimson.
‘You walking pile of…’ she drew back her arm, ‘excrement.’ And Cherry’s open hand lashed out.
Sidney Grice had the reactions of a cat but he did not even attempt to draw back or fend off the blow that slapped sharply on to his left cheek. Mr G blinked and his right eye fell into his open palm, but he did not move as she readied to bring the back of her hand on to him.
‘In case you are under any illusions –’ the marks of her fingers sprang to the surface – ‘I would prefer you not to.’
And Cherry drew her hand quickly but harmlessly down.
‘Oh,’ she said and touched her own cheek as if hers, not his, were stinging. Cherry Mortlock sniffed convulsively and rushed away.
I hurried after her but what could I say? I could not tell her that we knew who had killed her father and why. I only said, ‘I am sorry, Cherry.’
‘Miss Mortlock,’ she corrected me. ‘Well, open the door, girl.’
I did so meekly and was glad to see a hansom pull over almost immediately.
Cherry paused on the threshold. ‘I should not have spoken to you as I have, for I believe you mean well.’ She pulled her cloak around her. ‘But that man has betrayed my trust, March.’ She almost turned on the top step. ‘And to think I thought he and I…’ Cherry Mortlock shook herself in disbelief at the feeling she had almost expressed. ‘Goodbye, March.’
She hurried down and into the hansom, and was hardly seated before it was away.
‘What a delightful woman.’ My godfather came into the hall, his socket staring into the street. ‘Though I doubt she will engage my services again or recommend me to her friends.’
‘I cannot help but wonder,’ I said in the doorway, ‘how accurate her description of you was.’
The Secrets of Gaslight Lane Page 43
