Death Descends On Saturn Villa (The Gower Street Detective Series)

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  ‘Do you think they will get rid of him?’

  ‘He will try to drag me down with him if they do.’ He grunted as we swayed round a corner.

  ‘I do not want you to lose your job because of me,’ I said. ‘I would rather go back into custody.’

  He patted my hand and left his lying on it. ‘Not while I have anything to do with it.’ And we were both lost in our thoughts.

  I climbed out first when we arrived at 125 Gower Street and went round the back of the cab to ring the doorbell.

  Molly peered out before she admitted me.

  ‘How is Mr Grice?’ I enquired.

  She considered the question as if it were the last thing she had been expecting me to ask.

  ‘Oh, miss, he’s really gone down,’ she answered sadly.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He’s gone down to his study,’ she elaborated.

  ‘Molly,’ I said, ‘I cannot thank you enough for what you did today.’

  ‘You can try,’ she urged.

  ‘You showed great initiative.’ I glanced in the mirror and despaired. ‘I shall take you out and buy you a new dress.’

  She hung up my things before asking the inspector in a stage whisper, ‘Will it have to be a big brown one – to hide my big inis-inisvitive – the thing what I was showing?’

  ‘Miss Middleton means that you saved the day,’ Pound explained and Molly pushed out her ample bosom.

  ‘Hurrah for me! Which day was it? I hope it was a Thursday. I love Thursdays more than life itself. Christmas is always on a Thursday, ain’t it not?’ She had another thought. ‘And chocolates, I love them.’

  ‘I shall get you a big box,’ Pound promised.

  ‘Tea would nice, Molly,’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh yes, it would,’ she agreed heartily as she tried to fix her bow. ‘Why don’t I not go and make some?’

  ‘That is a good idea,’ I said and she wandered off.

  ‘Oh.’ She stopped halfway down the hall. ‘Would you both like some too?’

  ‘An excellent suggestion,’ the inspector told her and she smirked.

  ‘I don’t not know why Miss Middleton didn’t not think of it.’

  ‘Thank heavens,’ Sidney Grice cried hoarsely as we went into his study. ‘You are just in time to save my life.’

  69

  Beef Tea and Dr Zenith

  SIDNEY GRICE WAS in his armchair, a tartan blanket around his shoulders and another over his knees. The fire was blazing and his face poured with sweat. His eye was out and he had no patch on.

  ‘What happened?’ Pound asked.

  ‘The lower orders have risen,’ Mr G told him huskily. ‘They parcelled me up and set me by this blaze, and when I protested they defied me.’

  ‘They were trying to help,’ I explained. ‘I told Molly to keep you warm.’

  ‘Molly tried to press her fleshy lips to my brow. It took all my strength to ward her off.’ My guardian shivered violently. ‘I dismissed them both but they are still here. It is the French Revolution all over again.’ He mopped his brow with a hand towel. ‘Though fortunately without any foreigners.’

  ‘You seem quite strong now,’ I commented as he let the towel fall into his lap.

  ‘I do feel a little better,’ he admitted, before croaking in horror, ‘They tried to make me drink beef broth.’

  ‘It might have helped,’ I suggested.

  ‘Helped?’ He picked up the towel and squeezed it. ‘How would cutting the throat of an animal which has more intelligence than the average curate, hacking it apart and forcing its flesh down my throat help me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a mug if they’ve got any left,’ Pound said, and despite his protestations, I settled him into my armchair and got myself an upright from the central table.

  ‘I had a terrible dream.’ Mr G took a glass of water from the lowboy beside him and I hurried to steady his hand as he slopped it down himself. ‘You had been accused of yet another murder.’ He took a sip and waved me away. ‘But now I am not so sure it was a dream.’

  ‘I am afraid it was not,’ I admitted.

  ‘What a relief,’ he said, and I was still formulating a response when he fell asleep.

  ‘I will go and change,’ I told the inspector as Molly arrived with a tray. ‘And Inspector Pound will have beef tea.’

  Molly stood blankly. ‘But where shall I get it?’

  ‘Did Mr Grice imagine it?’ I asked. ‘He must have been even worse than I thought.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘It’s just me and Cook had it all. We had so much we were sick. It was lovely – just like a Thursday.’

  The inspector struggled to get up, brushing aside my attempts to help him.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ Molly sympathized. ‘I have trouble getting out of that chair after I’ve been snoozing when I’m supposed to be working. What are you laughtering for?’ She blushed. ‘Snoozing ain’t not rude, is it?’

  ‘No, Molly,’ I reassured her. ‘It’s a lovely word.’

  ‘Oh, for a minute I thought it might be what courting couples do.’ She scurried off in embarrassment.

  Mr G snored.

  ‘Where are you going, Inspector?’ I touched his sleeve.

  ‘I have a few things to see to.’ He steadied himself on the back of the chair.

  ‘You promised to go to hospital after you had called here,’ I reminded him.

  ‘So I did,’ he agreed. ‘But I did not say how soon after.’

  I followed him into the hall and helped him on with his coat.

  ‘You are no use to me dead,’ I scolded.

  I wanted to tell him that I had already lost one man I loved through my stupidity and I did not want to lose another from the same cause.

  He put on his bowler. ‘And we are no use to each other if you are…’ He could not bring himself to say executed and tried to hide it with a cough.

  I stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly on the mouth.

  ‘I will be back in an hour.’ He winked.

  I went upstairs to get out of my clothes and have a cigarette and a gin and a long soak in a steaming bath. I washed and closed my eyes, and when I opened them the water was cold.

  I dried myself and dressed and smoked another cigarette, and it occurred to me as I felt the effects of the gin that I had not eaten since I had picked at yesterday’s lunch, so I had another tot to keep me going.

  By the time I went back down Inspector Pound had returned. He had a brown leather messenger bag on his lap and both men were asleep. I felt my guardian’s forehead and was pleased to find it cool. He woke with a start.

  ‘Why is Pound sleeping in your chair? It is positively indecent.’

  ‘You must let me get you a doctor,’ I cajoled him.

  ‘I absolutely forbid you to let one of those overpaid charlatans anywhere near me,’ he fumed.

  Spirit’s tail waved. She had crawled under his blanket.

  ‘You were quite happy for me to be treated by a veterinary surgeon.’ I tried to take his pulse. ‘Keep still.’

  ‘I was not in the least bit happy.’ He jerked away irritably. ‘That man charged me four guineas when I had provided him with an experimental subject.’

  Spirit poked a paw out.

  ‘Me,’ I said indignantly.

  ‘Stop fussing, Lucinda.’ Inspector Pound woke with a start and the two men looked at each other in bewilderment.

  ‘The tea is cold,’ Mr G complained, without even feeling the pot, and I rang the bell twice for more. ‘So…’ He unwrapped himself, emerging crumpled from his blankets like a moth from its cocoon, Spirit curled up on his lap. ‘Kindly explain yourself, Miss Middleton. Do so concisely and precisely. Refrain from expressing your vaguely feminine feelings and save the apologies for later.’ My guardian discarded his blankets on the floor and Spirit jumped down on to them. ‘Preferably before the moderately good inspector expires.’

  ‘I am trying to get him into hospital,’ I informed my guar
dian, and Mr G perked up.

  ‘When I was on the trail of the so-called Dr Zenith—’

  ‘The Danish Disemboweler,’ Pound recalled in repugnance. ‘I saw—’

  ‘I noted that there were nine per cent less patients walking out of the main entrance than had walked in,’ Mr G continued. ‘I did not find that statistic alluring.’

  Pound brought out his meerschaum pipe and looked at it wistfully. The bowl had been carved into a woman’s face with her hair streaming back.

  ‘I shall think about going back when we have got to the bottom of all this,’ he promised me. ‘But I still don’t know what happened when you went to Mrs Prendergast’s house.’

  ‘It was all a bit confusing,’ I began, ignoring Mr G’s groans. ‘Mrs P said she had a present for me, but it was a knife in a brown paper bag. She held it between us and walked into it. Then she pulled it out and I took it from her so that she did not fall on to it, and the maid came in and ran away.’

  ‘What was all that about the dog?’ Pound asked.

  ‘I tried to shoo it off because it was drinking her blood.’

  ‘The blood was no use to her,’ Mr G remarked. ‘But what, in your admirably though possibly excessively abridged account, was confusing?’

  ‘Why did she do it?’ I wished I had another cigarette.

  ‘So it is the motive rather than the sequence of events that confounds you?’ Mr G got out the two halfpennies that he always kept in his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘Well, yes,’ I answered uncertainly.

  He flipped the coins over in his left hand lackadaisically.

  ‘Did she say anything?’ Inspector Pound enquired.

  ‘She screamed, No, Miss Middlington, please do not kill me.’

  Inspector Pound tugged at his moustaches. ‘Those words exactly?’

  ‘I think so. Yes, I am sure of it.’

  ‘It does not take much more than a half-hidden corner of a man’s intellect to detect a pattern here,’ Mr G commented. ‘I begin to wonder if it is safe to be alone in a room with you.’

  ‘That’s a bit unfair,’ Pound reproved.

  ‘Life is unfair,’ Sidney Grice pontificated. ‘And so is death. But I am fairness personified.’

  Inspector Pound and I exchanged glances, but neither of us said anything.

  70

  Messenger Bags and the Twickenham Triplets

  INSPECTOR POUND RESTED his hands on the bag.

  ‘I had an interesting conversation with our friend Quigley,’ he announced. ‘I told him that I wanted to take over your case. Needless to say he was violently against the idea. He accused me of trying to get a guilty woman acquitted because of my feelings for you—’

  ‘Feelings?’ Mr G broke in, as if even the word were an obscenity.

  ‘Stuff and nonsense, of course,’ I put in hastily.

  Pound lowered his eyebrows but carried on with his story. ‘And because of my indebtedness to Mr Grice.’

  ‘You do owe me a great deal.’ Sidney Grice tapped the tray for me to pour.

  Pound dangled a hand to stroke Spirit but she ignored him. Mr G was always her favourite. ‘I threatened to put in a complaint about his mistreatment of you.’ The inspector gave up his attempt. ‘But there were no witnesses and he was the only one showing any visible signs of the encounter.’

  Whilst Pound was talking, my guardian put the halfpennies very carefully one on top of the other on the corner of the table. He leaned back and put his fingertips lightly together. ‘Elucidate,’ he instructed me.

  I put down the teapot. ‘He pulled my hair,’ I said and saw the anger well up in the inspector, but Mr G’s face was a mask of unconcern. ‘So I stabbed him with a pen nib.’

  ‘And now,’ Pound rubbed his hands delightedly, ‘he has a beautiful India-blue tattoo under his chin.’

  ‘How much ink did you use?’ Mr G asked with interest.

  ‘I did not measure it.’

  ‘That was typically remiss of you,’ Sidney Grice reproved as he retrieved his coins. ‘Inspector Quigley shall rue the day he abused a member of my household.’ He tossed the halfpennies high into the air and caught them with a downward swoop. ‘Even though it was only you. Pray proceed with your mildly interesting account, Inspector.’

  ‘In the end I offered him a swap.’ Pound unclipped his messenger bag. ‘I am on the brink of capturing the Twickenham Triplets and the near certainty of three very public convictions to his credit, against one possible conviction with Mr Grice and myself opposing him, was too much to resist.’

  ‘I thought they had already been arrested for extortion.’ I lifted a black speck out of the milk with the handle of my spoon.

  ‘So they had.’ The inspector blew down the stem of his meerschaum. ‘But all the witnesses were too frightened to give evidence.’

  ‘Timmy, Tommy and Tammy,’ Mr G mused. ‘There is not a house of ill repute in Hounslow that does not pay them insurance. They are industrious fellows to give them their due.’ Mr G rattled the coins. ‘What have you got on them?’

  ‘The murder of six people in the Bell Inn arson attack.’ Pound straightened his moustaches. ‘The mother of one of the victims saw what happened and is thirsting for revenge, and one of their gang has turned Queen’s evidence rather than take the drop for his bosses.’

  I added milk and sugar to my own and the inspector’s teas. ‘What a pity you will not get the credit for it.’ I averted my eyes guiltily.

  ‘The people who matter will know what I have done,’ Pound said disdainfully. ‘He wants to be renowned. Good luck to him. I would rather be a good policeman.’

  ‘You are part of the way in achieving that ambition,’ Sidney Grice assured him, oblivious to my indignation.

  I passed Pound his tea to save him leaning over.

  ‘Anyway,’ he slipped the pipe into his breast pocket, ‘I am now the officer in command of your case.’

  ‘At least you are unlikely to assault me.’ I snagged a chipped fingernail on a loose thread in my dress.

  The inspector brought out a black cloth and laid it on top of his bag. ‘Is this the knife?’ He held it out.

  I had not examined it closely before. The blade was straight, about eight inches in length and honed on both edges. The handle was long, golden and elaborately ornamented with numerous raised scroll patterns, and there was a sigmoid cross guard.

  ‘That or a very good copy.’

  ‘Quigley had it washed, I’m afraid,’ Pound apologized to my guardian as he handed it over.

  ‘I am only surprised he did not throw it away.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘But I imagine he thought it would bolster his case rather than damage it.’ He turned the dagger this way and that, running his fingers along all the ridges and pressing the raised discs at the end of every swirl. ‘Let us hope it does the latter.’ He experimentally wiggled at the guard.

  ‘There is no maker’s name on it,’ Pound observed.

  ‘It is very poorly balanced.’ Mr G see-sawed it over a finger.

  ‘I think the handle is hollow,’ the inspector suggested, and Mr G pursed his lips non-committally and passed it on to me.

  ‘It is more like a toy than a weapon,’ I commented. ‘The guard is too thin. It would snap off in a fight and the handle is awkward to hold.’

  ‘Some toy,’ Pound said. ‘The blade is razor sharp.’

  I ran a fingertip lightly over it and nicked myself.

  ‘And yet the tip is rounded.’ Mr G took the knife back. ‘There does not seem to be any mechanism for folding or retracting the blade.’

  ‘Why would there be?’ Inspector Pound queried.

  ‘There should not be,’ Mr G conceded. ‘And I find the absence of such a mechanism very suspicious indeed. Remember the case of the house brick that was made of brick?’

  Pound scratched the nape of his neck. ‘I never quite understood your reasoning behind that,’ he admitted.

  Mr G sampled his tea and briefly closed his eyes blissfully. �
�When you and I are old and you pay me an uninvited and unwelcome visit on my Dorset estates with your three grandchildren, we shall sit in my cherry orchard and you shall suck on your unlit tobacco pipe and we shall reminisce about it.’

  ‘I wish I knew what you are talking about,’ I complained.

  The inspector smiled ruefully. ‘I am glad I’m not the only one who can’t follow him.’

  ‘Only a fool knows exactly what he is talking about,’ my guardian declaimed. ‘Often when I listen to myself – which I always attempt to do – I am completely baffled.’ He suddenly realized he did not have a patch on and produced one with a flourish. ‘I do know one thing, though.’ He raised the dagger like a beacon above his head. ‘You did not – and I hope you will not be too disappointed to learn this – kill the abominable Mrs Prendergast.’

  ‘I know I did not,’ I said.

  ‘How could you even think it?’ Inspector Pound asked him indignantly.

  ‘That is what separates me from the rabble, the middle classes, many travelling showmen and most of the architectural so-called profession.’ Sidney Grice deftly tied his patch. ‘I dare to think the thinkable.’

  71

  Goat Moths and Brick Dust

  SIDNEY GRICE REACHED down to retrieve one of his blankets and Spirit stalked off indignantly.

  ‘Are you cold?’ I asked as he wrapped it around his chest.

  ‘I am cold and hot in rapid alternations and intermittently simultaneously,’ he explained. ‘But whilst the fluctuations in my corporal temperatures are a source of endless fascination, it might be more pertinent to continue with our investigation. Do you have any more evidence in that useful receptacle, Inspector?’

  Pound delved into his bag again. ‘Only these.’ He brought out a cardboard folder tied in a brown string. ‘The statements of Gloria Shell, the maid, and Percy Brough, the passer-by who responded to her cries. And I have a report from Constable Nettles.’

  He passed the folder over and Mr G undid the bow cautiously, as if afraid he might detonate an explosive device, and clipped on his pince-nez to examine a sheaf of documents.