The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal

by KJ Charles

  Dr. Berry gave a hiss of contempt. “Devils and demons. Mockery.”

  “A suggestion,” Simon said to Miss Kay, over the spectral sobbing.

  “What?”

  Simon jerked his head at me. “He has heard it now. He has sense. If we have one in, it will fend off the rest.”

  “Are you mad?” said Dr. Berry, with the most animation I had seen from him. “A filthy penny-a-line merchant, observing our work?”

  “Mr. Caldwell has discretion,” Simon said, without looking at me, or at Dr. Berry.

  “And he has heard the cries,” Miss Kay added. “What do you propose to do about him, Doctor? That I shall permit,” she added icily, as he made to speak.

  “I do not require your permission,” Dr. Berry said, with a corpse’s smile.

  “Then we are agreed,” Simon told Miss Kay. “Mr. Caldwell, a word.”

  I followed him into the next room, a lavishly appointed drawing-room that stood at the front of the house, very conscious of the other ghost-hunters outside. Simon glared down at me. “For God’s sake, Robert, what were you about?”

  “My profession,” I told him. I would not apologise, not now I was away from Dr. Berry and his unmanning influence. I had rendered myself loathsome in Simon’s eyes, no doubt, but he would allow me to stay. I would still get my story.

  I might yet be forgiven.

  “Be damned to your profession,” Simon muttered. “There are interests at play—” He straightened away from me a second before Miss Kay stalked in, and went on, “If we allow you to stay, it will be as the sole representative of the Press. Your fellows must not intrude further. And we will see your copy before it is submitted.”

  “Of course,” I said with promptitude.

  “Very well.” Simon sounded a little surprised at my ready agreement. Evidently he was not aware of the distinction between seeing my copy and having right of approval over it.

  “What is happening?” I asked him, as he drew me over to the window, away from the centre of the room, where Dr. Berry and Miss Kay settled themselves, a good eight feet apart. It was a comfort even to have his solid body near me. Had I been permitted to touch him without disgracing us both, I might well have flung myself into his arms like a whimpering child and thus disgraced myself alone. Since I could not, I bade myself play the man, although I did turn around so that Dr. Berry was not in my peripheral vision. This did not prove comforting, as it simply meant he was behind me. “Are those children?”

  “We do not know.” Simon looked worn, and I realised that he must have been up all the night. “This is a new building. No child has died here, so we are told. But there has never been a haunting reported on this spot before.”

  “And…” I gestured at his burly chest, hidden by his frock coat, under which the runes on his skin would be moving.

  “Nothing,” he said shortly. “I have tried. But a child too young to tell its story…” He shrugged.

  “Can they not do anything?” I asked quietly, with a jerk of my head towards the other ghost-hunters.

  “We have tried. We will keep trying.” He pushed a hand through his grizzled hair. “In truth, Robert, I am at a loss, Miss Kay too. And Berry has only one technique and that…” He made a face.

  “What?” I asked.

  Simon took a pace closer to the window, hand closing on my arm to bring my head nearer his. I felt his breath on my ear, and my skin shivered delightfully at the sensation. “Dr. Berry is an exterminator,” he said softly. “He does not understand stories. He does not find the conclusions. He simply cuts the thread.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I believe that each haunting is an unfinished tale, of some kind,” Simon said. “If the story can be concluded, so is the ghost’s presence. The untold story is agony, whether it is the fact of a murder or the location of a will, or simply…unfinished business, as with your ancestor’s spirit.” There was a slight reddening on his stern face at the mention of that business, as I’m sure there was on mine. “I believe, I know that the story must be concluded for the spirit to find rest. Dr. Berry disagrees.”

  “What does he believe?”

  “That any ghost is a manifestation of evil. That they must be sent away howling, without sacrament or comfort. That we do not listen, we simply extinguish.”

  “But they’re just children,” I said. “You heard them.”

  “I know.” He shut his eyes briefly. “The duke of Sarum wants them gone, by whatever means prove effective. Dr. Berry can do that. Miss Kay and I, it seems, cannot.”

  I was here for my story. It had cost me already, and it was foolish to focus on anything else. But I saw the pain in his eyes, and I still had the sound of lost children in my ears.

  “Let me help,” I said. “What can I do?”

  The approval in Simon’s face was reward enough. He gave me one of his rare, brief smiles. I felt, I was sure, that had we been alone, he would have kissed me, and the awareness tingled through me almost as much as the kiss would have.

  “Thank you, Robert,” he said softly. “You comfort me.”

  “Simon!” called Miss Kay.

  Simon turned from me and strode over, I following. The lady ghost-hunter sat on a chair, hunched over in a way that suggested her governess had not made sufficient use of the backboard. Her fingers were ungloved and tightly interlaced, and she stared at her thumb. So did I.

  The left thumbnail was very long, ludicrously so, over an inch and a half at my estimate. And the nail was…black? Bruised? No, neither. It was a dark, oily colour, with swirls of green and blue—and they moved, I realised, staring down at it. Her thumbnail was a pool in the world, opaque to my eyes, but deep, very deep indeed…

  “I should not look too close,” Simon murmured at my side.

  “He might as well, for all the use it is.” Miss Kay straightened her back with an irritated grunt. “There’s foulness here, why can I not see it?”

  “What can you see?”

  She gave a frustrated wave of her hand. “Death, unnatural death. Fear and pain. But nothing clear, blast it.”

  “If we cannot see, we cannot act.” Simon scowled.

  “In which case Dr. Berry will. Must,” Miss Kay added. “God forfend their graces should endure an unpleasant noise for an hour if it might alleviate the suffering of others.”

  “Theodosia,” Simon said wearily. “It is not the family’s fault they are haunted, or that they want the spirits gone.”

  “It will be their fault if that repellent brute extinguishes those souls before we can free them.”

  I was taking a liking to this forthright lady. “Are their graces safe here?” I asked. “Could they endure a few more days without danger?”

  “Could, but won’t,” Miss Kay snapped.

  “We don’t know what danger there might be,” Simon rejoined.

  “The family could move out.”

  “It’s their house.”

  “It’s their ghost!”

  I noted for future consideration that implacable Mr. Feximal and intimidating Miss Kay bickered like children, and enquired, “But you do not predict immediate danger for their graces?”

  “Probably not,” Miss Kay said brusquely. “This house is protected.”

  “By what?” It is a measure of how much I had already learned that I did not ask By whom?

  “There are various means to hold back that which is outside,” Simon told me. “Some as simple as a horseshoe, cold iron over the door—”

  “Others more complicated,” Miss Kay added. “This is the latter. The house is undeniably protected. And it is also haunted, and we cannot tell why.”

  “There is no why,” said Dr. Berry right behind me, breath hot on my ear.

  I started. No, let me be honest: I cried out with fear. Simon’s eyes darkened with fury, but Miss Kay was already surging up from her chair with a snap of, “You,” jabbing her forefinger into Dr. Berry’s chest.

  Simon pulled me to one side
as Miss Kay hissed savagely at Dr. Berry. “Stay if you must, but I want you to leave before Dr. Berry acts,” he told me, voice low.

  “What will he do?”

  Simon’s jaw tightened. “Tear them from this world. Hurl them into the outer darkness, where there is…wailing, or nothing at all.”

  “Will you witness it?”

  “I must. They should have someone who regrets their passing.” His face was full of pain, and at that moment I decided I should not let the foul Dr. Berry do this, to children or to Simon, if there was any means by which I could prevent it.

  “I asked you if I could help,” I reminded him. “Could I…” I searched for any way in which I might be useful. “Have you researched the history of the house? I could visit the archives of the Chronicle. See if there is anything to be learned.”

  “It was only built a year or so ago. If there had been any mysterious deaths, they would be remembered.” He evidently saw my disappointment, because he went on, “But it is a better idea than any I have. If you think it worth your time—”

  “I could not bear to think of Dr. Berry doing—what he does—and to know I had left a single stone unturned to prevent it.”

  Simon regarded me steadily for a moment, then leaned forward, dropping his deep voice to a low rumble. “I have not sought your forgiveness for my absence yesternight.”

  “Oh, I understand—”

  “I hope you will allow me to earn it.”

  I could feel my skin heating under his steady regard. “If you choose to give me an explanation, Mr. Feximal, I am very willing to be satisfied by you.”

  That brought the colour to his cheeks in a most pleasing manner. Braced by anticipation, I found the courage to leave the room without escort, although also without turning my back on Dr. Berry, whom I edged past as I might a dangerous dog.

  Some hours later I was in the Chronicle’s archive room with box upon box of index cards in front of me, paper dust coating my fingers, and the beginnings of a headache.

  Simon was right. The house was new; any tragedy there would be fresh in memory. It had been built on an unremarkable site of which nothing was to be found in the records. Nothing had happened on Hartley House ground before this.

  Something had happened to its architect, one Mr. Glasport. That was the first thing I found when I started my search. Glasport had drawn up the plans, laid the foundation stone and applied the mortar to it with his own hand, raised a celebratory glass, gone home and hanged himself. His body was found in his rooms the next day.

  In the normal course of things—I use the word “normal” in Simon’s idiosyncratic sense—self-murder would surely be significant. I had scrawled a note to inform Simon of my discovery, with a promise of further researches, and sent it round to Hartley House by messenger boy. But my initial excitement had faded quickly. Our problem was not a despairing architect, but two young children.

  Could they have died near the house? Beggar children, abandoned babes? My fertile imagination sketched a scenario: the duke of Sarum fathers children upon a mistress and rejects her, she leaves his starving babes by the palace walls…

  It was possible, I supposed, but unsupported by evidence. By all accounts Sarum was a decent young man. And, in truth, if every abandoned child on the London streets left a wailing ghost, the living would not hear ourselves speak for their cries.

  No: these children had died an unnatural death, and an unrecorded one, too. I had nothing to tell Simon. No way to prevent Dr. Berry doing his work.

  I scrubbed at my face with the heels of my hand. I still had to write my piece. My editor was waiting; I had promised Murchison and Rodericks exclusives. I had not promised Simon copy approval, although he might think I had, but frankly, I had nothing worth approving. No scandal, no facts, no story.

  Then again, perhaps a description of the scene might jog some memories. Could I frame the article as an appeal for information? That would add weight to a very slim tale and perhaps it might even work. It was quite possible a reader would come forward to solve the mystery. This was truly a way in which I could help Simon’s work and my own at once, and I felt a pulse of excitement. I scribbled a note advising him of my intentions and gave it to one of the messenger boys, then got down to work.

  By eight o’clock I had placed my story on Mr. Lownie’s desk and arranged for one of the boys to send a fair copy to Simon. I had yet to meet my obligations to my fellow scribblers, but I was hungry, having missed the opportunity to take luncheon, and tired of eye. I would drop in at an eating house on the way home and write something more there.

  Perhaps I could give Roddy and Murch a sketch of the spook-shyers at work, I thought, as I took down my coat and hat. They could offer their readers pen portraits of Miss Kay, Simon Feximal and Dr. Berry. I should greatly enjoy describing Dr. Berry to the reading public, if the description was to appear under somebody else’s byline.

  The Chronicle’s offices stood on Fleet Street. I pulled open the door to a chilly, damp night with a peculiar tang to the foggy air, and almost at once heard a report, as of a pistol discharged close by. I jumped and turned, only to realise that it was a firecracker, thrown by a shadowy lout.

  Of course. It was the fifth of November, Bonfire Night. That would enliven my walk, and I decided on the instant to walk home along the Strand, rather than taking my usual route through Drury Lane, in order to see the procession. I had always enjoyed the celebrations of Guy Fawkes Night in my village, with hot spiced cider, coloured lights and showers of bright sparks, and the burning of the guy atop the bonfire. We boys would cheer and throw brands plucked from the burning as the traitor’s effigy blazed.

  I was murmuring, “Remember, remember the fifth of November,” under my breath when a man stepped into my path. He was respectably dressed, with a hat of the bowler type and a good-quality greatcoat.

  “Mr. Caldwell?” he asked politely.

  “I am he.”

  The man leaned in. His moustache bristled a little as he spoke. I have always preferred a clean-shaven face. “You sent a message to Mr. Feximal today. I am to ask you, sir, if you have any further discoveries or ideas.”

  “I do indeed. Are you sent by Mr. Feximal?” He seemed rather well dressed to be a messenger, more of an upper servant, but doubtless their graces of Sarum were supporting the ghost-hunters with all the means at their disposal.

  “I am, sir. What message may I convey?”

  I did not want to tell their graces that I had found nothing. If this man was to report back to them, he should convey a message that would incline them to listen to Simon’s representations rather than Dr. Berry’s. “As I advised Mr. Feximal earlier, I believe we have now a path to the solution. I have already submitted my story to my editor.”

  “Story,” the man repeated. “To the Chronicle’s editor.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” I wondered whether to let him bring Simon’s copy of the story over to Hartley House, and decided against it. It would probably not be typed out yet and, in any case, I preferred to leave its delivery to him as late as possible. Once it was set, Mr. Lownie would resist any changes with all the strength at his disposal; he was notorious in Fleet Street for refusing to bow to pressure. “That has all been put in motion and sent on to him. I fear you’ve had a wasted journey, sir, but I hope the mystery may be solved and its effects undone.”

  The bowler-hatted man looked at me with odd intentness, his gaze skimming over me from head to foot. There was nothing indecent in it, more a dispassionate assessment, as if he were committing me to memory. “Very well, Mr. Caldwell,” he said at last and turned on his heel.

  I ate a meat pie at a Lyons coffee house on Fleet Street. The noise of the crowd was audible even inside, and when I emerged and headed left onto the Strand, it was to find a great mass of mostly unwashed humanity blocking the streets. The Bonfire Night procession had begun.

  Hundreds of people were congregated along the Strand, where ordinary traffic had been stopped. A
band played up ahead, and the procession shuffled along: men in the costumes of olden days, officers of the army and navy, clowns and masqueraders. Societies marched under bright banners and scattered along the slowly moving stream were torchbearers. Along the length of the street, houses and commercial premises blazed with coloured lights, flags, Chinese lanterns and other such gay adornment. There were cheerful cries, some chants, the pop and bang of firecrackers, the scent of gunpowder in the air. It was highly pleasing to the eye, and I did not have the remotest chance of making my way through such a mass of humanity towards Brewer Street.

  I decided to wait and watch, then head up Aldgate to take my usual path home. Accordingly I found a place on a shop’s doorstep that gave me a small advantage over the crowd (I am not a man of great stature). It was on the corner of an alley, in which a group of ragged children played a game, already bored by the spectacle before them, or unwilling to make an attempt on the crowd.

  They were singing that ancient rhyme:

  London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down

  London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.

  I leaned my shoulders against the door, watching a group of masqueraders clad as Chinamen dance around the edges of the procession.

  Build it up with wood and clay, wood and clay, wood and clay…

  The simple melody combined with the smell of smoke, hot chestnuts and warm mulled wine took me back to my childhood. I found myself mouthing the words of the song along with the children.

  Wood and clay will wash away, wash away, wash away…

  We had played at this game in my village as these London urchins did. Two children made an arch of their arms through which the others passed, ducking under the bridge thus formed, and hoping not to be trapped when it fell.

  Bricks and mortar will not stay…

  Strange that a child’s song should be about man’s work coming to ruin, I thought, and considered Caldwell Place, my mouldering, once-haunted ancestral heap. The bricks and mortar there certainly would not stay, and I had no means of paying for its repair. I pushed away the worrying thought.