Pound bent and nuzzled the top of my head. ‘You have been in the jaws of hell and you would not have found him there.’
‘Perhaps your mother’s ring kept me safe.’
His hold tightened and his voice caught. ‘I want to talk to you about that.’
The door handle rattled for longer than could possibly have been needed and Sidney Grice returned to find the inspector by the window and me ensconced in my armchair, flicking through the first journal that had come to hand, The Parasite Periodical.
‘We are in for a blowy night,’ Pound forecast.
‘There is a storm brewing,’ Mr G concurred grimly. His skin was sallow, I thought.
53
The Listener
GROGGY CAME THE night before my father left. The two men sat a long time by the fire, drinking whisky and reminiscing half-heartedly for my benefit. Eventually I took the hint and rose to go.
Groggy had aged dramatically in the last few years. The death of Daisy and his wife and the continuing ill-health of Barney had dealt him savage blows. He managed a smile, though, and squeezed my hand when I wished him a good night.
I am ashamed to say I eavesdropped from the landing. It was obvious that they were going to discuss something important and I felt old enough to know what it was.
My father talked in a low voice about assessing somebody and then Groggy said, ‘I know I promised to look after March should anything happen to you, Middlers.’
I smiled, for nobody else addressed my father in such a familiar way.
Groggy continued, ‘But the fact is I am unlikely to outlive you—’
‘Nonsense,’ my father broke in.
‘Even so,’ Groggy continued, ‘it might be a good idea to look for somebody else.’
‘All you need, my good fellow,’ my father assured him with forced gusto, ‘is another whisky.’ I heard glasses clink and my father added more seriously, ‘We will talk about it when I get back.’
‘There will be much to talk about then,’ Groggy said, ‘one way or another.’
A wet log cracked in the fire and I jumped back and went to bed. Who else would take me, I wondered. My father and Groggy apart, there was no one.
54
The Shade of Merry Murray
I WENT TO bed early that night and, somewhat to my surprise, had a long dreamless sleep and, when I awoke, the sun was struggling through one of the thinner clouds into my room. I had forgotten to draw my curtains. It must have rained in the night for the panes were heavy with drops. I lay on my back and listened to the confusions of city life – millions of people battling for the space to move; tens of thousands of horses dragging heavy loads; countless men, women and children imploring people to buy their wares – and the next I knew Molly was shaking my foot.
‘Mr G sent me to check you ain’t not died.’
‘Well, as you can see, I have not.’
Molly eyed me uncertainly. ‘In “The Shade of Merry Murray” what you told to me and Cook, Merry Murray talks to the red-hooded highwayman for nearly an hour before he finds out she is a dead,’ she recalled. ‘Oh, me and Cook couldn’t not sleep when we was supposed to be polishing cutulery for weeks after that.’
‘Merry Murray could walk through walls,’ I reminded her. ‘I can only bump into them, but I am not going to demonstrate.’
‘I hope not.’ Molly went pink. ‘I hate it when Mr Grice demonstates with me.’
‘I think you mean remonstrates.’ I was getting a bad headache. ‘Anyway, “The Shade of Merry Murray” was a made-up story.’
Molly puffed contemptuously. ‘No, it wasn’t not. ’Cause the red-hooded highwayman says at the end This is a true story.’ She flung her unanswerable logic at me so confidently that I saw no point in telling her it was a story I had made up for Maudy Glass and Barney when we were children.
‘I shall get up in a moment.’ I stretched and yawned. ‘What time is it?’
‘A quarter before lunch,’ she told me.
I dragged myself into a sitting position. ‘Please do not tell me it is leeks again.’
‘I won’t.’ Molly picked up my boots. ‘But it is,’ she added as she left the room.
*
Sidney Grice lowered his slender new book and slid his pince-nez to the tip of his nose.
‘You seem refreshed,’ he commented. ‘It is most unbecoming.’ He marked his page with a knife.
A grateful client, knowing Sidney Grice’s vegetarian habits, had given him a consignment of leeks from his cold store, and Cook had made good use of them with a gallon of leek broth which she reheated twice a day. This was the fourth meal we had begun with her creation and I had not especially enjoyed it the first time.
‘You are very jaundiced.’ I picked at a dry slice of bread. ‘And I do not mean just your manner.’
His skin was a distinct mustard colour.
‘It is a minor bout.’ He wiped his mouth on his napkin.
I skipped the soup course, cleared our bowls, put them in the dumb waiter and rang the bell.
‘Bleedin’ ’eck,’ a voice came up the shaft, ‘can’t a woman get any rest.’
‘There are plenty of beds in the workhouse for unemployed cooks,’ my guardian bellowed.
‘Ruddy ’ell,’ Cook said. ‘D’you fink ’e ’eard us?’
‘I shouldn’t not think so,’ Molly reassured her as the dumb waiter began to descend.
I went to the window. The clouds were so heavy now that it might have been night-time and the rain flung itself so hard that the panes rattled. A black pigeon huddled on the sill, desperately seeking shelter, but I knew better than to draw it to my guardian’s attention.
‘I know you do not like theories,’ I began.
‘I do not like unfounded ones,’ he agreed.
‘But can you think why Uncle Tolly shot himself?’
‘I could speculate but I shall not.’ He flattened a crease in the tablecloth. ‘I can tell you one thing. Whilst Turpin, Turpin and Turpin, the genealogists, have confirmed that your second cousin was who he claimed to be, much else about him was fraudulent. When I engaged him in conversation he claimed to have visited the Longgong Caves from Xining, whereas they are a good two thousand miles apart by very difficult roads.’
The dumb waiter rose with three covered bowls and two unwarmed plates, and I put them on the sideboard.
‘He told me he had fled there after my mother rejected him and a judge’s daughter sued for breach of promise.’
My guardian’s eye fell into his glass of water. ‘You cannot know how ironic those lies are.’ He fished it out with a dessert spoon. ‘Converse and Bligh, the penal investigators, sent me their report today. Ptolemy Travers Smyth travelled no further than a cell in Brixton Prison, where he served twenty tears for robbery with violence.’
I knew that Mr G would only mock if I protested that Uncle Tolly had seemed such an innocent, so I said, ‘He changed before he killed himself.’ I put a boiled leek on his plate, where it sat in a light green puddle. ‘He became hard and menacing, like a madman almost.’ I gave him three potatoes and a boiled onion that sagged in the middle with a cloudy tarn on top. ‘He said that Geoffrey had begged for mercy and then he shot him.’
‘There are too many third-person singulars in that last sentence for it to be unambiguous,’ he scolded. ‘But it is an interesting piece of information, thank you.’ He looked at the offering I had placed in front of him and rubbed his hands. ‘Leeks.’ He beamed in delight. ‘Anyway, why are you clearing and serving?’
I gave up trying to drain my vegetables and settled for one of each.
‘I wanted to save Molly the trouble with all those stairs.’
‘The point of servants is to save us trouble.’ He mashed his onion with the back of his fork into a beige pulp.
‘But why would he say that?’ I persisted.
Mr G opened his book. ‘The mind of a man is a mystery even to himself,’ he philosophized, and immersed himself in his readi
ng – Finger Smudges, the Eighty-Four Variations In Their Patterns. ‘Tosh.’ He tore out the upper half of a page and let it drift to the floor. ‘Twaddle.’ He ripped the lower half out and rolled it as one might a cigarette before wedging it behind his ear.
‘If you could have seen him,’ I persisted.
‘I should not have permitted his actions,’ he mumbled. ‘Shush now.’ He whipped out his pencil. ‘I am getting to the good part.’
Sidney Grice shovelled a mound of squashed leek into his mouth, chewing it thirty times as he scribbled a comment in the margin.
*
We had hardly got into the study before the doorbell rang and Molly cantered down the hall to answer it.
‘Mrs Prendergast to see Miss Middleton,’ she announced, presenting me with the silver tray.
‘Well done, Molly.’ I took the card. ‘You got her name right first time.’
Molly grinned. ‘I did what Mr Grice advised the other day and cleaned out my ears with carbolic. You wouldn’t not belief the muck that came out.’
Mr G paused from shredding his book. ‘Who is Mrs Prendergast?’
‘A private client,’ I told him. ‘I helped her with a case whilst you were in Yorkshire.’
His eye narrowed. ‘What category of case?’ He took off his patch.
The rain had stopped now but there was still very little daylight. I turned up the gas.
‘She had lost her dog,’ I confessed.
Mr G polished his eye and forced it home. The lids were very inflamed.
‘And how much did you charge her?’
I rubbed the back of my neck. ‘Five shillings.’
‘Excellent.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘At thirty per centum I shall expect one shilling and sixpence for use of my facilities.’
‘Ask her to come in,’ I told Molly.
‘Mrs Pound O’Glass,’ she proclaimed proudly as the lady bustled in, her dress sopping and her bonnet disarrayed.
‘Oh, Miss Middleton,’ Mrs Prendergast cried. ‘It is Albert, poor little Alby.’
I tried to usher her to my seat, but she was pacing the floor in agitation.
‘Has he gone missing again?’ I asked.
Mrs Prendergast bit her lip and sobbed.
‘Have you searched the laundry room?’ I suggested.
Mrs Prendergast burst into tears. ‘It is worse than that,’ she cried. ‘Much worse. Albert has lost his reason.’
I forced myself to keep a straight face.
‘He has not joined the Liberal Party, has he?’ my guardian enquired.
‘If only he had,’ Mrs P wept. ‘At least they know how to bombard the Egyptians. No, Mr Grice, Albert has gone stark staring mad.’
Mr G leaned forward. ‘How intriguing,’ he said. ‘Well, Miss Middleton, it appears you have another case.’
*
For once Sidney Grice was wrong. We were welcomed at the door by Mrs Prendergast’s maid, smiling broadly.
‘Oh, madam,’ she said, ‘it is quite miraculous. Come and see for yourself.’
I followed them both through into the drawing room and there was Albert, a blue ribbon in his hair, wagging his tail and jumping up excitedly at his mistress.
‘But what happened?’
Mrs P swept her little dog up and rubbed her face on his head. ‘Squidgy-widgy-woo.’
‘He was sick, madam,’ the maid said, ‘all over the scullery floor, and straightaways he was back to his old self.’
The maid had a sweet face, almost classical in profile, and masses of blonde hair.
‘He probably ate something that disagreed with him,’ I suggested, and Mrs P projected her jaw.
‘It’s that boy from number 6,’ she asserted. ‘He gave Albert a sweet this morning after I told him not to. Boys have very dirty hands and pockets.’
‘Well, I am glad he is all right.’ I made to leave.
‘But you will stay for tea.’ Mrs P kissed Albert on the nose. ‘Who’s Mummy’s googly-woogly-poogly boy?’
From the way he enthusiastically licked her mouth, I assumed Albert knew that he was.
‘I will not, thank you,’ I decided. ‘I have just had some.’
‘A little bit of cake,’ she pressed. ‘Wazoo feeling poorly-woorly?’
I recoiled. ‘We shall be having dinner soon.’
‘Take a little home,’ Mrs P urged. And before I knew it the maid was passing me a packet of greaseproof paper, which I stuck into the pocket of my cloak.
I refused payment – though I felt sure my guardian would not have – and walked home. I needed the closest London could offer to fresh air, for I was feeling a little sicky-wicky.
*
‘An easy five shillings,’ Sidney Grice commented when I had told him about my visit.
‘I did not charge her.’ I nibbled a slice of bread.
‘That was foolish. You will have all her friends queuing down Gower Street with their sick pets, and put Dr Crystal out of business.’ He blew on his soup, presumably in an attempt to warm it up, and smacked his lips. ‘Do you think Cook has been taking lessons?’
‘Not in cookery.’ I pushed mine away.
55
The Bloomsbury Butcher
UNUSUALLY SIDNEY GRICE was proved wrong again the next morning. There were no queues of anxious pet owners down the street. He spent the morning devising a formula for the calculation of the volumes of ink of each colour used in a tattoo. He could not explain why it mattered but was convinced that it would one day. All truth matters was one of his favourite maxims, and he trotted it out again as he dipped his needle in red ink and stabbed at the sample of pig skin pinned out in a tray on his desk.
‘I have received a report from Artemis Rosenberg’s, the plebeian genealogy experts.’ He dabbed the puncture wound with a rolled cloth. ‘And they are in no doubt that Ptolemy Hercules Arbuthnot Travers Smyth, Esquire, was, as he laid claim to be, your second cousin.’
‘So I have found a relative only to lose him again.’ I opened my journal, the one I did not mind him seeing. ‘What do you think will happen to Uncle Tolly’s estate?’
‘If the coroner is satisfied as to the cause of death you might inherit it.’
‘Why only might?’
He selected a green ink. ‘His last will and testament would have to be proved.’
‘But why should it not be?’ I took up a pencil to sketch my guardian.
‘The signatures might be forged.’ He dotted the pelt.
‘Mine certainly was not.’ I was having trouble with his nose. It was long and thin and straight, but my effort bore a striking resemblance to Mr Punch. ‘And I watched the others sign their names.’
‘Yes.’ He dabbed his handiwork and wrote down a figure. ‘But did they use their normal signatures? If they wrote in a strange hand they might pretend that the document was counterfeited. Who knows – ouch.’ He shook his finger.
‘Are you all right?’ I started again on a new page.
‘Of course I am,’ he snapped and squeezed the wound. ‘I always suffix knows with ouch, or at least I shall in future.’ He sucked the finger. ‘And do not dare pick me up on that.’
‘It will be difficult not to,’ I forecast. ‘I suppose if the servants were mentioned in a previous will, they might be tempted to do that.’
‘Precisely.’ He picked up a magnifying glass. ‘The dye has not taken, thank goodness. I should hate my decomposing body to be identified by a stain rather than by the abundance of cerebral tissue contained therein.’
I tried his nose again but now he resembled a dolphin.
*
I decided to go out for lunch rather than face another leek and called at Huntley Street to see if my friend Harriet Fitzpatrick was in town. I had met Harriet on the train the day I first came to London and she remained my staunchest ally. She almost always came on the first Tuesday of every month, and often on other days, to escape her humdrum life in Rugby. But Violet, who ran the ladies’ club, answered my three
quick rings in her sequinned red gown and told me that my friend had not been in for over a fortnight.
‘Come in anyway,’ she invited me, with great wafts of eau de cologne, but I declined and made my way down Capper Street to Brown’s Grill House. There a resentful waiter in a grubby white jacket found me a table at the back of the restaurant where I could smoke. I ordered lamb chops, and Porter in two half-pints because they would not serve pints to a lady.
‘What vegetables?’ the German waiter snapped.
‘None.’
‘Very good.’ He snatched the sauce-stained menu back.
‘I do not care if you think it good or not,’ I said, a little taken aback by my own abruptness, and the waiter scowled.
‘Neither do I,’ he said. ‘I am hating this job. I am wanting to be an engineer in the army but I breaked my back spine and now I am waiting tables.’
‘If you give me two extra chops, I will give you a fifteen per cent tip.’
‘Twenty-five.’
‘Fourteen.’
‘One moment.’ He flicked something squashed off his notepad. ‘This is not how you are splitting the difference.’
‘I do not split differences.’
‘Very well, twenty,’ he bid again.
‘Thirteen,’ I renegotiated. ‘But I will make it fifteen for ease of calculation. If I go to twenty I might as well pay the extra bill, and I should like a very large gin.’
‘We do not serve the spirits to the ladies.’
‘As you have probably guessed, I am not a lady.’
He grimaced. ‘I am sorry, but they will be sacking me.’
‘Then serve it to me,’ the young man on the next table instructed, ‘and I will pass it over. You won’t stop me doing that, will you?’
‘I am beginning to like the English.’ The waiter bowed from the waist. ‘But not very much.’
‘Donald Livingstone,’ the man introduced himself, but I did not reply. I was not that much not a lady.
Death Descends On Saturn Villa (The Gower Street Detective Series) Page 18
