Shadow of the Serpent

by David Ashton

  ‘Dinnae mistake me. I enjoyed the recitation but it amounts to damn all. Not worth a spit in the fire!’

  She looked at him levelly, unmoved by his apparent indignation.

  ‘In 1843,’ she said, ‘William Gladstone shot the forefinger off his left hand in a hunting accident. He has worn a black stock ever since, to cover the loss.’

  McLevy thought for a moment. ‘Serves him right for such intent tae slaughter.’

  A sudden smile. Those lupine eyes caught colour from the flames and for a moment took on a yellow sheen.

  ‘But a scrap of cloth proves nothing.’

  Joanna Lightfoot spoke in formal tones as if laying out the terms of a will.

  ‘The night his daughter was buried, the 14th of April, William Gladstone, informing everyone that he had sore need of solitude, went through to Edinburgh New Town to stay at the family winter house in Atholl Crescent.’

  ‘I know Atholl Crescent,’ cried McLevy suddenly. ‘Not a kick in the arse from Leith!’

  ‘Not to a man who considers twenty miles on foot to be a mere stroll,’ she replied.

  He smiled. She realised her response had been too eager. Damnation.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘It’s your story.’

  Nothing for it. No turning back.

  ‘William Gladstone did not remain at the house. The servants were told that he was too restless, he needed to walk, to clear his head. He left just after supper and returned at two o’clock in the morning. On that night Mae Donnachie was murdered.’

  ‘Oh there’s no argument about the date,’ said McLevy almost placidly. ‘Just the rest of your insinuations.’

  He whistled softly under his breath, despite his better judgement he could feel a wee wriggle in the breadbasket.

  ‘Accepting for a moment, which I do not, not remotely, nevertheless, let us entertain a postulation that some of the events you describe may possibly have occurred, you mention a fragility of mind brought on by the weight of guilt, itself a result of a surrender to temptation.

  ‘Sin. I believe you may have even used the word … sin. What sort of temptation, Miss Lightfoot? What kind of sin are we talking about here?’

  My goodness, he thought, was that a blush on her fair cheeks? Or were maybe her drawers getting too much warm air from the fire?

  And why, he further thought, his mind entertaining these mad notions a wee touch further, would the killing of a pavement nymph expiate such sin? Then he remembered his own words to Mulholland, ‘These pillars of genteelity, they need their whores but they despise and hate themselves for it. And some of them hate the whores even worse.’ Was he wiser than even he knew? Was that possible?

  He almost laughed aloud. His mind had that effect on him sometimes.

  He looked into her blue eyes. There was an anguish of sorts lurking deep within, but whether it had connection to this present moment was impossible to gauge.

  ‘What kind of sin, Miss Lightfoot?’

  She took a breath, a shudder of sorts.

  ‘I hope to bring you proof of that shortly. One thing I can tell you more. After addressing the crowd at Waverley Market last night, Gladstone retired to the house the Earl of Rosebery has taken for him. In George Street.’

  ‘That’s in the New Town as well. What a coincidence!’

  Joanna ploughed on, in measured tone, regardless.

  ‘He insisted that he was too enlivened by the adoration of the people to rest indoors. He embarked upon an evening walk. For the good of his health, he said.’

  ‘When did he return?’ asked McLevy in an idle fashion.

  ‘After midnight.’

  ‘How d’ye know all this?’

  ‘I have a present connection. On hand.’

  He waited for more but she bowed her head as if too weary to continue. ‘And what about thirty years ago? Ye certainly werenae on hand then. Hardly even in conception!’

  A coarse laugh which she dismissed.

  ‘Please do not act the vulgarian, inspector. You demean both yourself and me by pretending to a brutish quality you do not possess.’

  ‘Oh, I would not be too sure of that and ye havenae answered the question.’

  ‘I cannot. Not at this moment.’

  Joanna lifted a small lady’s reticule she had laid beside her on the chair, opened it and took out a folded piece of paper.

  ‘But, I would implore you to visit the person whose name and address are contained therein.’

  She held out her hand but he did not respond in kind and she remained rather foolishly with outstretched arm.

  ‘Therein?’ he said mockingly. ‘What’s therein tae me?’

  ‘The truth. I must find it out.’

  ‘Then pursue for yourself.’

  ‘I am too personally involved.’

  ‘Are ye now? Do tell.’

  Her arm was beginning to ache and her temper rising.

  ‘It is everything I have in my life. I must know the truth, you are the only person I can trust!’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I am told you will not be deflected from justice, high or low. And, in this case, a case of murder, you are the investigating officer.’

  He pressed further. ‘A cold trail, a warm murder, and Willie Gladstone. What is your interest in all these?’

  ‘As I have told you. It is personal.’

  ‘In what way? What secret do you hug tae the bosom, Miss Lightfoot?’

  For a moment her eyes glistened and her outstretched fingers trembled.

  ‘Come along,’ said he. ‘Ye can trust a policeman.’

  ‘I already have. Please. Do not make me beg.’

  He still made no move. Her hand closed convulsively round the paper.

  ‘Take or leave. Go to hell, inspector.’

  She threw the paper towards the flames of the fire, snatched up her belongings and was through the door in a trice while McLevy stood completely flummoxed by the sudden change in events.

  He made as if to follow her then realised that the paper was curling up in the heat and hastily fished it out at the cost of a singed index finger. As he blew upon the injured digit, the outside door of the house slammed shut and he went swiftly to the window and threw it open.

  Down below in the street he made out the tall figure of Joanna, who banged her hat upon her golden hair and strode purposefully towards the corner then round and out of sight. She had a somewhat mannish gait, strange he hadn’t remarked that fact. He stuck his head out into the night and strained to listen.

  Yes. Faintly. Jingle of a carriage. The mysterious Miss Lightfoot, like Cinderella, had a coach at her disposal.

  Interesting. A hansom cab probably and she’d been with McLevy a fair passage, that would cost, these buggers wait for no one a length of time without their pockets being lined. Money to burn, eh? And her clothes were expensive.

  Was she being kept? And, if so, who was keeping her? Who was up to what with whom?

  Somewhere in the night, a cat shrieked as if in terrible pain. McLevy hoped it wasn’t Bathsheba. After mating, the male would be withdrawing its member and the barb at the end would be causing sore agony, a dirty trick nature played on the female of the feline species.

  He produced the paper slightly blackened round the edges, shuffled it open, and peered at it in the moonlight.

  It contained a name and address. At least that much was true. But only that much.

  17

  The Diary of James McLevy

  They say the child is father to the man. I shall not dispute that assumption.

  My own childhood was spent staring into the face of a madwoman. My mother.

  Madness is such a strange visitation. The mad do not realise that they are so. They merely see a different world where everyone else is a demon in disguise.

  It took some time to realise the insanity before me. It was quiet and insidious. I wonder how much seeped into my soul, a fear that never leaves me.

  Most of the time, she was normal.
A dressmaker. Good at her job. The room was clean. Then her eyes would shift to a far country and she would pour poison in my ears.

  She would take to her bed and lie there in the most terrible stillness, her hair raven black on the pillow.

  Black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat. So said our neighbour, Jean Scott, a wee round woman, scolding and kind, who took pity on such a boy as I was, birthed to insanity.

  She lay on the pillow. Maria McLevy. Her mother was Italian, her father was bog Irish and my own father, she insisted, was an angel of God who came to her one night.

  The son of a madwoman and an angel. Who am I to argue?

  18

  As who should say, ‘I am Sir Oracle

  And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!’

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice

  The accustomed early morning hush in the parkland of the Earl of Rosebery’s Dalmeny estate was broken by the biting sound of an axe on wood.

  A sycamore tree shuddered under the weight of the assault as the blade cut deep, wielded with great force by a man whose white hair waved accompaniment to each precise and fearsome blow.

  The face was a mask of concentration while he hewed at the timber as if his very life depended upon the process.

  Shirtsleeves rolled up above the elbow, the left hand gloved, but his weskit more than held its own, fob chain aglitter, as he lifted up the axe and crashed it home.

  William Ewart Gladstone, three score years and ten with the vigorous strength of a man half that time-span, wrenched the blade free from the deep wound inflicted, sighted down the edge, then once more swung with such desperate, savage energy that it seemed as if he were trying to eradicate some insult perceived in the innocent grain of the tree.

  It being spring, the sap oozed from the wounds of the tree like arboreal stigmata but he cared not a fig for such fancy. Up went the blade and down it chopped.

  The splinters of wood flew over his shoulder and fell brokenly to the ground.

  There had been times when enthusiastic followers collected these splinters like holy relics, but for this moment he was observed only by a gentleman, one of his private secretaries, and a woman who had the great man’s frock-coat draped over her arm, lightly pressed against her body.

  ‘The forest suffers Mr Gladstone’s desire to work up a righteous sweat,’ murmured the secretary.

  The woman made no response except to press the grey frock-coat a little more firmly to her angular frame. The secretary glanced down at her with no great relish.

  Jane Salter suited her name. She was a stooped skinny virgo intacta, he observed. Lank brown hair scraped in a middle parting, pointing the way to a sharp nose which sniffed a little dismally in the dank dew of early morning. Perched on the nose was a pair of pebble glasses without which she was practically blind.

  The secretary, Horace Prescott, took a deep draught of air, exhaled, and watched with interest as the released breath smoked from his mouth like ectoplasm.

  He was tall, languid, silver locks swept over the brow, adopting the aristocratic air of his master the Earl of Rosebery. Prescott had been affiliated to Gladstone’s staff to help with the campaign and under his ironic affected tones could be discerned a certain bitterness.

  He had the appearance of a leader of men, but not the power. That lay elsewhere.

  Jane Salter studied him from beneath lowered lids. How deep did that bitterness go? Despite Rosebery’s apparent total commitment to the Liberal champion, she could detect a tension from the earl and his followers.

  Nothing in politics was what it seemed and friendship only lasted till the next broken promise. Treachery was rife. Like the plague.

  The Great Man, she knew, held himself above such venality, but it only made him the more vulnerable to betrayal. High moral ground. A slippery slope.

  The figure, silhouetted by morning sun, raised the blade like a pagan priest at a sacrificial offering.

  Gladstone’s energy was astounding. He had arrived by carriage this early hour from Edinburgh almost in a frenzy, woke the whole household, then grabbed an axe and got to work as if the Furies were after him.

  One more blow would suffice, calculated the People’s William, as the sycamore lurched. The knack was in knowing when to strike and escape the consequence. One more blow. A look of almost fiendish glee fell over his countenance and he peeled back his lips to show his teeth as if prepared to bite through the very bark of the tree.

  Some four years before, Disraeli had calculated he was secure, that Gladstone was too old and would never again lead the House of Commons. Disraeli therefore considered it safe to accept the offer of a peerage from his adoring queen. He would still remain prime minister of course. But lead from above.

  Lord Beaconsfield, he was thus dubbed. But much good it had done him. At the opening of Parliament, this very February, his emaciated figure had struggled to carry the Sword of State in the official procession. Could the Jew not carry a sword? Then Gladstone would swing the axe.

  From the french windows of Dalmeny House, the stately figure of Catherine Gladstone emerged, a woman of some humour, great loyalty, and an ability to ignore what she did not wish to contemplate.

  ‘William?’ she called. ‘The kidneys will congeal on your plate and I cannot be held responsible.’

  He straightened up. For a moment he looked like a predator cheated of its quarry.

  ‘I shall arrive,’ he announced, stood back, then delivered the final coup d’etat. The axe chopped in and, after some hesitation, as if yet holding on to its green life, what had once been a proud growth of nature crashed to earth, shuddered like a stricken animal, then was still.

  All four people watched, then Gladstone raised his right fist in the air like a triumphant pugilist.

  ‘The arm of the Lord is bared for work!’ His resonant tones echoed in the silence.

  Catherine Gladstone shook her head in exasperated amusement and disappeared back inside.

  William rolled down his sleeves and, with measured tread, approached Jane Salter who held out the frock-coat for him to don as if he were a medieval knight who had just slain the dragon. He nodded a dignified thanks.

  ‘Have you partaken of breakfast, Miss Salter?’ he asked.

  Prescott concealed a slight shudder of distaste. For some reason the old man had a soft spot for this desiccated creature who had attached herself to the campaign in the last few months. A volunteer. An amateur.

  ‘I rose early and broke my fast with some bread, Mr Gladstone,’ she replied, her voice low-pitched, a pleasant and merciful contradiction to the rest of her as far as Prescott was concerned.

  William’s face, which was deeply fissured in lines like the cracked side of a cliff, frowned in some concern, the mouth down-turned to indicate gravity of situation.

  ‘Bread is not enough. We shall need all our strength in the days ahead.’

  His right hand, he felt, might blister up tomorrow, but it was worth the pain. With suffering came release.

  He glanced back at the felled and fallen tree.

  ‘The Tories are incorrigible, impotent for reformation, a parasitic growth. But they will cling. You cannot cut them down without sinews of iron.’

  He shot out his sleeves in a strangely flamboyant gesture, perhaps even in the manner of a Mississippi gambler, but the faint smell of his morning soap, the disinfectant odour of phenol, discouraged further comparison.

  Prescott had thought Gladstone’s flight of fancy a mite overburdened but William’s fierce gaze precluded any niceties of discrimination. The statesman turned and stomped off towards Dalmeny House.

  ‘Fuel in the boiler, Miss Salter,’ he called back. ‘Politics is a field of Christian action. Action cannot sustain itself without fuel in the boiler. Although …’

  He came to a halt as if struck by a sudden insight.

  ‘What Mr Disraeli nourishes himself upon these days is open to conjecture, wouldn’t you think?’

  Gladstone sudden
ly emitted a harsh laugh and then continued on his way pursued by a rather flustered Prescott.

  ‘I have mapped out your timetable for the day, sir.’

  ‘And I shall observe it, sir, but I must warn you that at the hour of five I address the good people of West Calder and I shall need a quiet interlude for preparation. I have a long speech fomenting and I feel …’

  He turned back again and looked at the woman who was watching them both.

  ‘I feel … not unlike a loaf in the oven.’

  His mouth quirked in what might even have been the ghost of a smile. She lowered her gaze and the same ghost crept across her lips.

  He resumed his march and Prescott though longer in the legs, struggled to keep up with the energetic steps of the older man as they breasted the hill.

  Jane Salter observed them leave, then walked slowly over to peer down at the tree. The sap was still flowing and the axe had been driven into the bark so that it stood up at an oddly phallic angle, which she affected to ignore.

  The second time this week William Gladstone had cut a sycamore down. It gave him life, he said.

  Fuel in the boiler.

  19

  As Tammie glowr’d, amazed, and curious,

  The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.

  ROBERT BURNS, ‘Tam o’Shanter’

  Constable Mulholland was not a happy man. His Aunt Katie had once put it in a nutshell.

  There’s the lion’s mouth, go on make a name for yourself.

  Of course you had to hear the underlying scathing tone to fully appreciate, but the meaning was clear, the advice infallible, and his own inspector hell-bent on ignoring such nuggets of wisdom.