‘I would love a gin,’ I agreed and followed him through. ‘Especially as I have brought my own.’
35
Mr Snuffly and the Skull
UNCLE TOLLY GAVE me a tumbler and, while I half-filled it from my flask, poured a sherry for himself.
‘Dear March.’ He ushered me into an armchair and sat cautiously on the edge of his seat opposite. ‘Your face is so serious that I feel we must be seated before I swoon in terrified terror.’
The fire glowed cheerfully today, but I could not help remembering when my words burned and filled the room with yellow smoke.
I took a good swig of my gin and watched Uncle Tolly – so little and frail – sipping with quick dips of his wispy head.
‘Do you really have no idea what happened the night I stayed here?’ I asked eventually and he opened his sunken eyes wide.
‘I only know that I am very glad to have made your acquaintance, March, very glad indeed. But, goodness, what a topsy-turvy world has resulted from that meeting. I hardly know what to think any more and now my home… my lovely home…’ His voice wandered away and was lost. ‘My private things,’ drifted across the space between us. ‘Strangers…’
‘I am sorry,’ I said and we fell silent again.
I heard heavy footsteps in the hall and Inspector Pound being summoned, but I resisted the temptation to investigate.
Uncle Tolly fumbled in his trouser pocket and dragged out a red and white checked handkerchief. ‘I do not suppose you meant to bring this trouble upon me.’
I took a breath. ‘Some very strange things happened when I first came here and I do not pretend to understand them.’
Uncle Tolly dabbed his eyes. ‘It is sometimes better not to pretend.’ He tied a knot in one corner of his handkerchief.
‘Those cacti,’ I said. ‘Did you pickle poisonous ones by mistake?’
‘I know that Mr Grice suggested as much.’ Uncle Tolly knotted the opposite corner. ‘But three days ago I was desperately desperate to try my new batch of pickles so Colwyn and Annie and I consumed an entire jar.’ He patted his middle ruefully. ‘I had a bad tummy – I can say tummy, can I not? – and Annie felt what she described as collywobbly and Colwyn said he never wanted to eat another pickle as long as he lived, not even if I doubled his salary, which, I am ashamed to admit, I have not. But none of us had any bad dreams as a result.’
‘It was not a dream,’ I insisted. ‘I saw you murdered.’
Uncle Tolly waggled his head as vigorously as a puppy imagining a glove to be a rat. ‘But we have discussed this, March and, as you can see…’
‘What did I see then?’
‘Who can say?’ Uncle Tolly bowed his head. ‘The night brings strange fancies to us all. I well remember the faces I imagined in the recesses of my room when I was a child.’
‘But I am not a child,’ I protested. ‘And what I saw was no shadow. I lifted the axe. I felt it solid in my hand, the weight and smoothness of the handle.’
He tied another knot. ‘What can I tell you, dear March?’ His eyes glistened in the gaslight. ‘I heard nothing amiss and I saw nothing amiss.’ He folded his handkerchief and for a moment I thought he was going to do a trick as my father used to when he made Mr Snuffly, the cotton mouse.
There were more footfalls and men talking, and the door opened.
‘The inspector would like a word, sir.’
Uncle Tolly stuffed the handkerchief away. ‘You had better send him in then.’
Inspector Pound’s usually immaculate hands and cuffs were grey and he was carrying a shallow wooden box, the sort that might be used for seedlings in the garden. ‘I should like you to take a look at this, Mr Travers Smyth.’ He put the box on to the table.
Uncle Tolly arched forward. ‘What is it?’
There was a piece of sacking over a domed object, and the inspector lifted the cover away to reveal the upper jaw and part of the vault of a human skull. Uncle Tolly made a mewing sound and put his hand up, tilting his cap to the left.
‘Oh my goodness.’ He cupped his face in both hands. ‘I had hoped he would be completely burned by now and he would have been if that nasty Mr Grice had not extinguished the furnace. Oh dear, oh dearie me. You have found the remains of Geoffrey.’
36
Empty Sockets
INSPECTOR POUND BROUGHT out his notebook and a wooden pencil. ‘Geoffrey who?’
‘Umm.’ Uncle Tolly twiddled at his beard. ‘Umm, just Geoffrey, I’m afraid. I never knew his real name and so I called him Geoffrey. It was just an affectionate nickname really.’ He shivered. ‘I should have buried him, I suppose, but I hated the idea that somebody might be digging about and find him – poor, poor Geoffrey.’ He exhaled.
‘How did he die?’ Pound asked.
And Uncle Tolly stroked his beard. ‘I am sorry, I cannot help you there, Inspector.’
Pound sat on the arm of a small leather sofa close by. ‘It will go all the worse for you if you do not cooperate with my enquiries, sir.’
Uncle Tolly chewed his lower lip. ‘Oh dear-dear-dear.’ He let go of his beard. ‘I would love to be able to help you more, Inspector, honestly I would, but I really have no idea how he died. I know he did not have any major head injuries.’
Pound watched him quietly. ‘What was he to you? A friend? A servant?’
‘A sort of friend, I suppose.’ Uncle Tolly giggled. ‘But he would not have been much use as a servant.’
‘I am glad you find it so amusing, sir.’ Pound shut his notebook and Uncle Tolly’s face fell.
‘Whatever must you think of me?’ He sighed. ‘Am I a very bad person, Inspector? I do not mean to be.’
Pound tapped the box. ‘Can you make anything of it, Miss Middleton?’
‘Not much.’ I picked it up. ‘He was obviously a mature adult – the bones are fused and the wisdom teeth are fully erupted. His right canine is missing and the gap closed.’
‘I estimated he was about fifty,’ Uncle Tolly agreed chattily.
‘When did he die?’ I tried, and Uncle Tolly scratched the side of his nose and said, ‘I am not sure, March.’
‘That’s enough.’ Pound banged his book on his knee. ‘If you don’t start telling us the truth I will take you to the police station, where my colleagues won’t be quite so gentlemanly about the way they ask questions.’
Uncle Tolly’s eyes welled up. ‘Oh but, Inspector, I have told you nothing but the truth, I promise.’
I tried again. ‘Uncle Tolly, you must realize that having human remains in your furnace and admitting that you knew they were there is highly suspicious.’
‘Suspicious?’ Uncle Tolly’s mouth fell open. ‘Suspicious of… oh my goodness me, I understand now. You think I murdered Geoffrey?’
‘If you didn’t kill him, who did?’ Pound snapped.
‘I am not sure that anybody did.’ Uncle Tolly took off his glasses and his eyes shrank from capuchin to fledgling. ‘I believe that most of these people die of illnesses and have no families to claim them.’
The light dawned on me. ‘Geoffrey was a skull.’
‘He still is.’ Pound scratched the back of his hand.
‘No, I mean he was just a skull,’ I said.
‘Well, actually he was an entire skeleton,’ Uncle Tolly informed us, ‘when I bought him from Dr Kershaw’s widow.’
‘So you’re telling us that this is the skull of an anatomical skeleton,’ Pound reiterated sceptically. ‘Then why the hell didn’t you say that in the first place?’
‘I assumed you knew that.’ Uncle Tolly hurred on his lenses. ‘And I thought I was in trouble for not giving him a proper funeral.’ He polished the glass on his cravat.
‘But why did you want to get rid of him?’ I queried, and he hooked the wires over the backs of his ears.
‘He frightened me,’ he said simply. ‘I kept looking inside his head and wondering what thoughts had been there, and if they were still in there and thinking ill of me. I could not
bear those empty sockets staring at me and those teeth always grinning, grinning, grinning, and so I put him in a canvas bag. But then I worried about what he was grinning about in there. And then you had your terrible dream that did not seem to be a dream, March, and I wondered if Geoffrey were playing tricks on you. The day after you ran away Annie thought she saw him creeping about this library when I was in my greenhouse, and so I decided he had to be destroyed – cremated. I am sorry.’
Inspector Pound stood up. ‘I shall want proof of purchase.’ He towered over us both.
‘I do not have a receipt,’ Uncle Tolly faltered, ‘but I believe I would have heard if Mrs Kershaw had died. She will vouch for the truth of what I say – about purchasing Geoffrey from her, I mean. She cannot bear witness about my fears, my fears, because I never discussed those with her or anybody else at all.’
‘I am not satisfied.’ Pound picked up the box, sprinkling ash on the table. ‘But I need to get back to my men.’
‘Oh dear,’ Uncle Tolly whispered when the inspector had gone. ‘I think I could do with another drink.’
‘Would you like a cigarette?’ I offered and his hand tremored as he took it.
37
Charred Bones and Vices
WE SAT AND drank and smoked, and I thought how much more pleasant my life would be if Sidney Grice would join me in what he regarded as my vices, or even allow me to indulge in them openly. There were voices outside the door and somebody clomped up the stairs and somebody else down the hallway. I had finished my cigarette and tossed the stub into the fire before Uncle Tolly spoke again.
‘Do you think I shall be in trouble, March?’
‘Not for burning Geoffrey,’ I reassured him, ‘if you are telling the truth.’
‘Oh, I always do that, dear March. It is too, too complicated not to.’ He held his cigarette like a piece of chalk and drew pictures between us. ‘I get confused enough as it is.’
‘If your conversation with Inspector Pound is anything to go by, I can see your problem.’ I lit another cigarette and watched him through the smoke.
Uncle Tolly fluttered his eyelids. ‘Oh, it is too awful,’ he moaned. ‘All these strange officials rummaging through my life, confronting me with Geoffrey as if I was – Oh, March, what have I done?’
The door opened and Colwyn showed Inspector Pound back in. ‘We have finished upstairs, Mr Travers Smyth,’ he announced. ‘They found a few more charred bones in the boiler room so, as I said, we shall need proof of where they came from.’
Uncle Tolly quivered. ‘So you are not arresting me?’
Inspector Pound frowned wearily. ‘Not today, sir.’
‘And did you find what you were looking for?’ I asked.
‘I assume this is what Mr Grice wanted.’ He held out the test tube for my inspection. It held three ash-caked woodscrews.
‘What is it?’ Uncle Tolly straightened his spectacles.
The inspector shrugged. ‘Not very much to me, sir, but I have known Mr Grice solve a case on the strength of one crushed peppercorn.’
‘The Musty Grave Ritual.’ Uncle Tolly shuddered. ‘I have read about that.’
38
Shelley and the Seagull
ONE OF THE constables fetched us a hansom while Sidney Grice examined their finds.
‘Not a bad morning’s work,’ Mr G commented.
‘Where do you think the skeleton came from?’ I grasped the front fender to steady myself on the slippery footboard, but the horse moved and I slithered into the running gutter.
‘I do not know… yet.’ My guardian watched me struggle to my feet and into the cab. ‘But I do know there is a nice little cafe three hundred and forty-four yards from here.’
‘But I cannot go in a cafe like this,’ I objected. ‘I am splattered in mud.’
‘You could wait outside whilst I have a quick pot,’ he suggested.
‘I am not going to stand on a street corner dressed like a vagrant,’ I protested and Mr G huffed.
‘Very well,’ he grumbled. ‘Though I never thought, when I took you in, that it would come to this, being denied refreshments because of some silly fuss about your apparel.’
‘For pity’s sake.’ I slammed my hand on the seat between us. ‘I have just been trying to console my only relative, who may or may not be a murderer, and all you can worry about is your precious tea.’
‘It was not worrying enough about tea that led to—’
‘Why do you always dredge up obscure cases whenever I say anything?’
‘Roger Spedding’s untimely death,’ he continued.
‘Stop it,’ I shouted and the hatch opened.
‘Can’t stop on this corner,’ the cabby said.
‘I was not talking to you.’
The driver winked and tapped his nose. ‘Being a naughty boy, is he?’ And the hatch slid shut.
‘What a peculiar reversal of roles,’ Mr G called up, ‘when the dumb animal drives and the more intelligent one pulls the cab.’
‘Whoah.’ The driver hauled on his reigns, and apparently we could stop there after all. ‘Apologize or get out.’
‘The second option is preferable to me. Keep the change.’ Mr G tossed up a coin.
‘What on earth was the point of that?’ I asked as we stood on the pavement near the cemetery gates, watching our hansom speed away, almost running over a small boy. ‘It will take ages to get another cab here.’
‘About twenty minutes,’ my guardian estimated. ‘I shall give that malodorous child thruppence to summon one for us, which should just give us time,’ he tilted his head towards Becky’s Coffee House across the road, ‘for a quick cup of tea.’
‘You planned that,’ I accused, and Mr G whistled a jaunty discordance as we crossed over.
There was a flower stall nearby.
‘What good are roses to a dead body?’ Sidney Grice wondered loudly as we entered.
The interior was packed with people in various stages of mourning.
‘You might as well ask what good a coffin is,’ I retorted quietly. ‘Why not use a sack?’
‘Why not indeed?’ He selected a seat by the window for he always liked to look out at the streets. ‘A corpse is just as comfortable in one as the other.’
‘I shall remember that when arranging your funeral,’ I warned.
‘First, although you are younger than I and the female of the species – if she survives her childbearing years – has a longer life expectancy than the male, you are unlikely to outlive me.’ There was a fork on the table and he swept it clattering on to the floor with his cane. ‘I am far too intelligent to die before you.’
‘If a good brain is what keeps you alive, why did Shelley die so young?’ I argued.
He snapped his fingers for service. ‘Percy Bysshe Shelley could have been of use to the world, mutilating people as a surgeon. Instead he frittered his life addressing Greek pots.’
‘That was Keats,’ I corrected him.
‘And ended up being outwitted by water,’ he persisted. ‘That does not sound like an especially good brain to me.’ He clicked again and called out, ‘Two teas, hot and fresh with a pot of steaming water.’
The young waitress had something of the look of a seagull about her. ‘Yes, sir, but I am just serving these gentlemen.’
Four undertakers were mulling over a plate of garishly iced cakes.
‘Have some sense, woman,’ he exclaimed and the room went quiet. ‘If you waste time fussing about their order I shall have to wait longer for mine.’ She put the plate down for them to continue their selection and went out through the back doorway, and gradually people stopped staring and started talking again, though several angry glances came our way.
‘So,’ Mr G asked me as the waitress approached with a tray, ‘what did your second cousin have to say about the presence of human remains in his outhouse?’
The waitress started.
‘His name was Geoffrey,’ I said, ‘and Uncle Tolly claimed that he on
ly incinerated him because he grinned a lot and the maid thought that he crept around the house.’
She unloaded the tray warily.
‘His teeth were broken in an interesting way,’ Mr G pondered.
The waitress froze.
‘It is all right,’ I told her. ‘We are actors discussing a play.’
She giggled uneasily. ‘I knew that, miss, from the fake blood on your costume.’ She edged away and I spoke to my guardian again.
‘I know it sounds stupid—’
He raised his hand. ‘Then why say it?’
‘I think Uncle Tolly is very naive,’ I said. ‘I do not think he could have killed a man and burnt his body.’
‘That sounds very stupid indeed to me.’ Sidney Grice motioned for me to pour.
*
‘Do not speak,’ Sidney Grice commanded as we set off in a cab.
‘You need time to think?’
Mr G closed his eyes. ‘It was not a difficult instruction,’ he said.
And so I did not say anything when I saw a man coming out of the New Imperial Hotel. He was tall and sinewy and I should not have paid much attention were it not for the way he carried his cane, pointing backwards in his gloved fist. He barged a little girl aside and was soon swallowed in the swamp of humanity, but I could almost have sworn that it was Jonathon Pillow.
I was sitting on my favourite log in the shade of the old apple tree reading Vanity Fair for at least the third time and imagining myself as Becky Sharp when the gate opened. As he rounded the yew tree I saw that it was Jonathon Pillow. He must have come up the hill from Swandale’s and he marched past, twenty feet from me, staring fixedly ahead.
He was a tall sinewy man and he carried a blackthorn stick pointing backwards in his fist. He went to the side door and rapped hard upon it and I saw him go into The Grange.
The windows were shut, but I could hear the raised voices and was just about to investigate when the door crashed open.
Death Descends On Saturn Villa (The Gower Street Detective Series) Page 12
