The Strings of Murder

by Oscar de Muriel

  One of the hounds was lying on the floor, turning its head nervously as it watched the maids dashing.

  ‘I know how you must feel,’ I told the animal.

  I dispatched the people as swiftly as possible, but it still took me long hours to go through them all.

  The half-intoxicated neighbour who scratched his privates throughout the questioning: ‘D’ye know who I’ve got to kill to get another o’ those coffees?’

  The youngest maid: ‘No one could have come in without us noticing, sir.’

  The bony spinster (again), who had inhaled enough salts to deplete the Dead Sea: ‘What a ghastly, ghastly night, sir! I’m so shocked I can’t remember …’

  The not so young maid: ‘There’s another door in the back yard, but only my lady and me have the keys.’

  Alistair Ardglass: ‘Oh, Inspector, I hope this incident doesn’t give you a bad impression of Edinburgh, or keep you from joining us for the ball on –’

  Each useless statement eroded my patience a little more. The coffin, which I could see clearly every time the maids or the witnesses in turn opened the door, was a constant reminder of how vital my assignment was.

  I thought it would be all in vain, but then came the declaration of a very old, yet lucid enough gentleman who claimed to have been seated by the door to the study almost the entire evening. The only people he’d seen passing through that door had been the Carolis, McGray and myself. Senile as he seemed, he described accurately how Ardglass had tried to intercept me and how I’d slammed the door in his face.

  ‘Did you move from that seat after you saw us come out?’

  ‘Nae, sir. I stayed there all the time until Mrs Caroli screamed, and you went back into the room, I remember, and it was then when you came out shouting.’

  I let out a weary sigh and let the man go. Right then I heard yelling in the main hall: another hound was at large, and it had pulled away the black cloth that had been covering a large mirror. I had to step out to restore order, but the oldest lady would not cease yelling until the glass was concealed again. Everyone considered that a terrible omen.

  There were a dozen people left to question, but none gave me useful information. Once they were all gone the clerk and I went through the list of names and his notes, and then I had more liberty to inspect the house without curious eyes around.

  The first place I looked over was the study.

  A quick scan was enough to tell me that, if nobody had entered the room after us through the door, there was only one other way.

  ‘The fireplace!’ I remember saying out loud. I instantly kneeled by the hearth and felt the ashes with my fingertips. They were quite cool, reminding me that the fires had not been burning since before McGray and I arrived. The ashes were freshly disturbed, but I could not make out any clear footprints; on the other hand, two small stains in the fireside stones immediately caught my eye. I bent over until my nose almost touched the bricks. Undoubtedly, those were two marks of fingers, smeared in a hasty movement … coming from inside the chimney.

  I cannot remember how many times my eyes went from the marks to the narrow fireplace, for their conjunction was utterly impossible; that flue was incredibly narrow, only a little wider than the head of a grown man. Larry the chimneysweep would have fitted in there, but only just.

  I grabbed the first oil lamp I found and made haste to the back yard, which I found dark and silent like a grave. Looking up, I saw that the study’s chimney ascended with other shafts on the back wall of the house. The roofs of the neighbouring houses were too far for anyone to jump to, and I felt a chill when I realized this, for it meant that the only way to leave the house was by descending to the very yard where I was standing.

  I unholstered my gun at once. I was not expecting the robber to be still about, but decided to inspect the entire place all the same.

  The Carolis owned only one old horse, and the somnolent beast barely moved when I threw some light into the stable. As I expected, there was nobody hiding there, only a very thin layer of hay scattered on the floor.

  Next to the stable, and almost as large, was the hounds’ shed, with its door ajar and a soft snoring coming from within. I kicked the door open and found that the third hound was there, dribbling and sleeping at leisure.

  The animal lay on a neat pile of straw, covered with some ragged blankets that gave off the distinctive stench of dog. I thought wryly that many East London beggars would envy the hounds’ lodgings.

  I poked the improvised bed, looked under the blankets and through the straw, even though I already knew there was nobody hiding there. My fingers did touch something smooth though; a small glass bead. I pulled out what proved to be a rosary. I could not look at it properly under the dim light of the oil lamp, but I saw enough to know that the beads were made of colourful Murano glass. I assumed that Mrs Caroli kept it there to ‘protect’ her dogs, so I left it where it was and went back into the house. I had nothing left to do but help McGray and the officers outside.

  I dragged my feet towards the door, my back aching, and heard Mrs Caroli letting out further piercing yells. Her voice, together with the hounds now lurking around the lonely coffin, made one morbid scene.

  A young maid was coming downstairs, carrying a basket with bloodstained towels. The girl’s hands were trembling – her entire body, in fact, like an old woman balancing on strained legs.

  ‘How is she doing?’

  ‘She’s holding up well. It should all be over soon …’ She inhaled deeply, her eyes darkened with tiredness.

  ‘Is she having a difficult labour?’ I asked and the girl stuttered, her cheeks blushing. ‘It is all right, you can speak freely. I have some medical experience.’

  I saw her gulping painfully, repressing tears. ‘Babies in this family never do well, my mama told me … and now I know what she meant.’ I was about to ask for details, but then the girl said something that shocked me: ‘This would have been difficult enough with a proper doctor to help us, but we had to fetch the first midwife we could find and I’m afraid we hurt more than we helped.’

  ‘Why, a midwife! Mr Caroli could not find the doctor?’

  The girl grimaced and cast me a sombre look. ‘Mr Caroli hasn’t come back, sir.’

  She curtsied and hurried back into the kitchen, leaving me standing by the staircase, flabbergasted.

  I left the two officers guarding the door and instructed them to keep a record of anyone coming in and out. I specifically asked them to inform me as soon as Caroli returned. I did not like his sudden disappearance at all.

  The air outside was damp and frosty, and even though the fog had cleared a little, the world still looked as if painted only in hues of white and grey. I saw a couple of our officers patrolling the street and asked them where McGray could be found. One of them led me to a neighbouring road, where McGray was questioning a young watchman. Once he was done I told him about the finger marks in the fireplace. He was thrilled to hear that, but when I told him about Caroli not returning home, his jaw almost fell to the pavement.

  ‘I cannae believe it!’ he murmured, ‘with the wife givin’ birth and all! Something must have happened to him.’

  ‘That is my same thought; this feels very wrong. Caroli seems to adore his wife.’

  McGray pondered for a second. ‘I’ll ask the lads to look for him too. Ye can check with the men from Hill Street to the east and I’ll look on the west side. My home’s that way so I ken the area; that might help.’

  We walked in opposite directions and went on searching for a couple of hours.

  While trotting about the darkened streets of Edinburgh, surrounded by officers, yelling commands and almost passing out from exhaustion, it seemed almost as if we were not after a person, but a handful of that very fog around us.

  A horrendous feeling of hopelessness invaded me. The case was doomed; McGray and I were meant to fail … I felt it in my guts with cruel certainty. We would find nothing in that blasted mist, then we woul
d go on interrogating useless witnesses and making ludicrous assumptions, while Campbell and Monro would keep pressing ever harder for results, and my career would be in ruins even sooner than I had predicted in my most pessimistic predictions. As I dwelled on those thoughts my feet felt heavy, as if the Scottish mist had turned into shackles.

  Just when my frustration was about to become unbearable, a grey figure emerged from the fog. I recognized Constable McNair, running towards me as he yelled.

  ‘Inspector Frey! We found something!’

  ‘The violin?’

  McNair bit his lip. ‘Not … quite, sir.’

  Trotting ahead, he led me to a narrow close between two large Georgian mansions. The first thing I saw was McGray’s tall figure, black against the beams of five bull’s-eye lanterns, all directed at the cobbled street.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked as I approached, but McGray only pointed at the spot that the officers were lighting. A wave of nausea invaded me when I looked down. I saw a pool of freshly spilt blood, a black mess that turned out to be a charred human hand … and a familiar twisted symbol roughly drawn in red.

  Nine-Nails took one step ahead.

  ‘Ye had a good look at this, Frey?’

  I nodded, speechless, and then, before I could even open my mouth to protest, McGray swept away the five-eyed scribble with his shoe.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ I howled. ‘That was evidence, you idiot! It should have been properly documented! Photographed!’

  ‘We can document the rest as much as ye please, but that’s a damning symbol, Frey,’ McGray retorted, reminding me of the superstitious lady screaming at the uncovered mirror. ‘It invites the Devil to watch. I don’t want more people to see it.’

  I snorted, my face reddened with indignation. Infuriated as I was, there was nothing I could do but resume my work. Dawn was approaching and we did not want to attract curious stares, so some of the officers managed to find a dirty canvas to keep the scene from public view.

  Once the site was properly covered, McGray and I kneeled down by the charred hand to look at it in detail. The smell of burned flesh made my stomach churn. We found that it was a rather long hand, undoubtedly of an adult man. Half hidden in the ashes I saw the golden spark of a wedding ring.

  ‘That ring may have an inscription,’ I told McGray. ‘But I would prefer to have the whole scene photographed before moving anything else.’

  We ordered McNair to fetch the photographer and the young man made haste to his horse. Less than half an hour had passed when he came back, followed by a small cart loaded with the bulky camera and a box of plaques. I did not see it at first because of the fog, but behind them came a large, luxurious coach. The driver halted and hurried to open the door, and I immediately recognized the silhouette of Superintendent Campbell.

  The officers bowed before him as the man approached. Campbell had a slight limp and walked aided with a cane. Only then I realized I had never seen him standing, for he’d always been sitting at his desk during our meetings.

  He came towards the scene in utter silence, but that made his presence all the more intimidating. He peered over the pool of blood and stared at the burned hand for a moment. Then he clicked his tongue in a reproving manner.

  ‘Another death … Connected to this violin, I suppose?’

  ‘Ye would think so,’ McGray replied, his chin up high.

  Campbell shook his head. ‘When will you two begin your actual work? One would think that you are waiting for the murderer to knock on your front door.’

  ‘Sir, we mobilized as many agents as we could, and interrogated –’

  ‘Oh, but of course!’ Campbell interrupted me with a mocking scowl. ‘You interrogated everyone at that funeral, kept people waiting around for hours, and now you have kept half of New Town awake with your search.’

  ‘Sir –’

  ‘Does your pompous brain not understand that we want this matter dealt with quietly?’ He spat those words in a cruel hiss, giving me a killing stare. Then he looked at McGray. ‘You should be aware of that too, McGray. Do not forget that you are supposed to be in charge here.’

  For a moment neither McGray nor I said a word, but as soon as I opened my mouth Campbell interrupted again.

  ‘One more death,’ he said. ‘One more death, Inspectors, and your careers are over. Did you hear? O-V-E-R. I hope that is clear enough even for your sluggish brains to grasp.’

  Before we could say anything he was already walking back to his coach.

  I was red with anger and my mood would not improve for a good while, but McGray only had to spit a couple of coarse remarks to be back to normal. He had a way of following his own road, no matter who objected.

  We had the whole area photographed and then thoroughly cleaned. McGray himself picked up the ghastly hand with meticulous care and placed it in a leather bag. By the time we were done it was already mid morning. I did not realize it was quite so late until we saw a funeral cortège on our way to the City Chambers. It was, of course, Wood’s, and they were carrying his body down south to Grange Cemetery.

  There were thick clouds in the sky, and another thundering storm began before we arrived at the City Chambers courtyard.

  We went straight to the morgue and showed the hand to Reed. The young doctor was appalled by the sight, but carried out a thorough examination nonetheless.

  ‘I can’t tell you much more than you probably deduced yourselves. The hand belonged to an adult man; the bones look rather young to me, but it is so badly burned I can’t place the time when it was cut – or how it was cut.’

  ‘Can ye show us the ring?’

  ‘Of course. I will try to pull it off.’

  Reed removed the golden ring with tweezers. As he did so, the burned flesh tore, some of it stuck to the gold.

  ‘Like burned bacon in the pan,’ McGray remarked.

  Reed had to use a scalpel to scrape the shreds of charred skin off the metal before handing it to us. McGray took it without the slightest hesitation and even scraped the inner side with his nail.

  ‘Ye were right, Frey. There’s an inscription, but –’

  He said no more.

  Slowly, he handed the ring to me. I borrowed Reed’s tweezers to hold it, and had no difficulty in reading the inscription, for black ashes had encrusted into the fine engraving.

  My heart leaped when I saw that the words were not English, and even though I managed to decipher the meaning, one did not need to understand it to know who the ring had belonged to.

  Con questo ricevi il mio cuore, mio amato Danilo.

  I took a deep breath before translating the line out loud:

  ‘“With this receive my heart … my beloved Daniel”.’

  25

  ‘Caroli is dead! This is his hand!’

  ‘Poor Mrs Caroli,’ McGray murmured. ‘Her husband dead the very night she gives birth to their child.’

  I kept shaking my head. ‘I did not expect another murder …’

  ‘We were so stupid! ’ McGray cried as he kicked a chair, smashing it against the wall. His eyes were bloodshot.

  I cleared my throat loudly, for I did not want Reed to hear the most morbid details of our investigation; the young man looked anxious enough. ‘McGray, we should discuss this in the office.’

  We thanked Reed for his services, and before we left he handed me a file.

  ‘Here, Inspector. This is the first batch of analyses I’ve done on Mr Wood’s stomach.’

  ‘Can you summarize it?’ I asked him; my eyes were too tired to read anything.

  ‘The stomach was empty, as I told you, and I found none of the most common poisons: I looked for mercury, arsenic, cyanide, the usual agents. I will search for more obscure substances if you think it necessary. Also, I shall test his blood samples.’

  ‘So up to now you would say that the man died of natural causes.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  ‘Good work. Send us word immediately if you find anything.�
��

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  When we got back to the filthy office I sank onto my hard wooden chair and gave in to the widest yawn in the history of mankind.

  ‘There’s something that doesn’t quite fit here,’ McGray snapped, pacing around the room like a caged lion. ‘There’s something we’re not seeing.’

  ‘You are a master of the obvious, Nine-Nails,’ I said, all drowsiness.

  McGray was too euphoric to mind my sarcasm. ‘Caroli was taken by the same person that killed Fon-teen, that’s obvious. Everything was the same: The same mark, the pool o’ blood …’

  ‘Everything but one thing,’ I said. ‘The burned hand. There were no burned pieces of Fontaine in the previous scene.’

  ‘D’ye still have those photographs?’

  ‘I do.’ I opened the nearest drawer and produced them. ‘Here, but I do not think a piece of human flesh could have …’

  ‘It was burned,’ McGray interrupted me, although he’d only seen two photographs. He showed me an image and I understood immediately.

  ‘The fireplace.’

  ‘Aye. Remember Reed’s report: Fontaine was missing not only a good chunk of intestines, but also his heart and liver.’ McGray ran to a bookshelf and pulled out a tattered volume. He found a page and scanned it within seconds. ‘Everything fits: murder yer victim, draw the symbol to summon Satan, then burn an offering to make ’im happy.’ He ran his finger along the lines. ‘Any flesh from a victim’ll do, but the most precious organs are heart, liver, eyes.’

  I nodded. ‘Very well, but how does that fit in the puzzle? I do not see how that gives us any new information.’

  ‘It confirms that the killer did not just want the fiddle, but the intestines too. Caroli must have gone the same way as Fon-teen, but the killer didn’t have time to do the whole ritual in the middle o’ the street; he simply murdered him, made the offering (a hand would be much easier to chop off than some organ) and then took the body somewhere else to work in peace.’

  ‘But where? We made a thorough search.’

  McGray shook his head. ‘It’s not hard to guess, but leave that to me, Frey. What really intrigues me now is that the bastard decided to kill again even though he already had Fontaine’s guts … how many more murders has he got in mind?’