Spider Silk

by A. Wendeberg

  One who was truly desperate, or utterly out of his mind.

  Third Act

  Run my dear,

  from anything

  that may not strengthen

  your precious budding wings.

  * * *

  Khwāja Shamsu ud-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez-e Shīrāzī

  Messengers & Ruffians

  Higgins stood by the mulberry hedge, one hand pinching a cigarette, the other scraping something off the sole of his boot with a stick. Olivia acknowledged him with a nod and entered her home.

  She came to an abrupt halt, gazed at the flickering lamp on the wall to her right, and stepped back out of the house. She shut the door and rang the bell.

  Netty opened the door, and her expression of busy professionalism was at once replaced by puzzlement. She patted her apron as though creases there needed smoothing.

  ‘Good evening, Netty. Please pretend I’m Dr Johnston,’ Olivia said. ‘And do precisely what you did when he visited. Take your time. I want you to remember every detail.’

  Netty’s hands shot up to the frills of her white cap, then slid lower to check her severe hairdo — a bun pulled so tight that her scalp shone through her greying strands. Her eyelids fluttered.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ Olivia added.

  Netty sucked her lower lip between her teeth.

  ‘It’s all right, Netty. Just…shut your eyes and try to remember the night of the second of July. If you would, please,’ she said, infusing her voice with enough impatience to let the housekeeper know she’d had enough of the fidgeting.

  Netty squeezed her eyes shut, a blush colouring her cheeks.

  ‘What am I wearing?’ Olivia began softly. ‘A bowler…’

  ‘Damp at the inside of the brim,’ Netty continued, eyes firmly closed. ‘White shirt, black waistcoat, black tie. He…tucked his watch back into his pocket and bade me to take the bag and the hat. I brushed off his hat and placed it on the hatstand.’

  Netty opened her eyes and cleared her throat. ‘I was thinking he must be ill.’

  ‘Why?’

  She opened her mouth, shuffled her feet, and finally said, ‘Perhaps… Well, he… He was pale and sweating, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Where’s the bag?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘By the hatstand, as he wished it. He walked past me as I placed the bag down. Went up the stairs. To the smoking room.’ She accompanied every sentence with a nod. ‘Would you like to take your supper now, missus?’

  ‘Not quite yet.’ Olivia gazed toward the stairs and back at the hatstand. ‘Stand over there and watch me climb the stairs,’ she said and walked away. ‘What was different that night?’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Take your time.’

  She reached the first floor and then walked back down, watching Netty gnaw on the inside of her cheek and blink nervously.

  ‘Well?’

  Netty produced something between a shrug and a curtsy. ‘Begging your pardon, but… I don’t know how the fashion of Dr Johnston climbing the stairs might be in any way…suspicious.’

  ‘Did he stumble? Did he sway? Did he stop and turn to look at you, or did he walk up the stairs as he always did, with a little spring in his step like a man of twenty?’

  Netty dropped her gaze, and produced a shrug. ‘I couldn’t tell.’

  Olivia took in the stiff set of Netty’s back and jaw, her tittering lashes. ‘Thank you,’ she finally said. ‘I’ll be taking supper in the smoking room. And I may be needing your assistance again a little later.’ With that, Olivia turned and stared up the staircase toward the first floor. She waited for Netty to shuffle to the kitchen, then directed her gaze down to the bottom of the stairs, recalling the position of Johnston as he lay there, Sévère’s hand on his throat.

  ‘Not yet,’ she muttered, and went up to the smoking room.

  * * *

  She sat in Sévère’s armchair and eyed the closed door. No, that was wrong. She rose and opened the door, then sat back down. She found a cigar in a box on the desk, stuck it between her lips, lit a match, and sucked fire into compacted tobacco.

  ‘Gah! What a vile concoction!’ Coughing, she placed the cigar onto the rim of the ashtray, then leant back and slowly took in the room.

  A door made of dark wood, panelled, about three-quarters open. Its knob reflecting dim light from the corridor.

  The walls. Panelled below throat level, painted light green above that. She wondered if the paint had been made with arsenic. But Johnston wouldn’t visit Sévère to lick poison off the walls.

  Her gaze strayed up to the lamp suspended from the ceiling. She shut her eyes and tried to recall odours. Cigar smoke, yes. But gas, no. Had there been a leak, Sévère would have been affected as well. Both men would have noticed the gas before anyone could have died. And Johnston’s lungs would have smelled of it.

  She opened her eyes.

  The fireplace. Cold now. And Sévère wasn’t here to warm his leg.

  She inhaled a sigh and her gaze slid to the window sill, the ebony elephant with it’s small ivory tusks glinting in the light. The tall brass lamp. The chess board on a side table. Some nights, Johnston and Sévère played chess and discussed a case.

  Had played.

  Nothing seemed out of place here, except Sévère and Johnston were missing. And the bottle of brandy. Height had taken it.

  Her mind went back to what Sévère had told her about Johnston’s evening. He’d attended to a patient. The patient had died. Johnston gave the certificate of death, then took a cab.

  He’d mentioned the bottle with tincture of digitalis. Did he touch it before he left? Did he sniff it to make sure it was correctly labelled?

  Olivia sat up straight. Sévère had confiscated the bottle and sent it to Dr Barry for analysis. She’d soon know precisely what that bottle contained.

  Her eyes flicked to the door. Johnston had appeared ill when he arrived. He said he’d been thinking about the brandy ever since his patient died. He drank quickly, tugged at his collar. Sévère had observed that Johnston seemed to swallow rather often, as though his throat felt swollen or his mouth dry. Thirsty. Johnston said he believed he had caught influenza. His pallor had worsened quickly. He’d wiped his brow frequently and…gazed at his hands and rubbed them on his trousers? Why would he do that? Sweat, perhaps.

  She’d had influenza once and recalled the aching of her skin and bones. But those were just her own symptoms. She didn’t quite know what was common and what was unusual. She’d have to research influenza symptoms. Perhaps they were similar to symptoms of poisoning, and with any luck, she might be able to pinpoint the substance faster than Dr Barry.

  Or perhaps not.

  Sévère said that Johnston had seemed to grow disoriented. He’d blinked as though his vision were impaired. Then he’d almost fallen over when he’d risen from the chair. Sévère had helped him down the corridor, and Johnston had complained about pain in his arm. You are hurting my arm.

  Something niggled at the back of Olivia’s mind. She scratched her neck and jerked up in her chair. Owing to his weak leg, Sévère had to support his left side with a cane or crutch. So when offering his arm to someone, it would have been his right.

  Johnston had complained about pain in his left arm, the one Sévère must have been holding. Pain in the left arm was a symptom of heart failure, wasn’t it?

  Ah, no, it couldn’t have been his heart. They’d already discussed it, and the postmortems had excluded a weakness of Johnston’s heart.

  ‘Focus, woman,’ she grumbled and rubbed her burning eyes.

  But if he’d been poisoned with digitalis, would his heart look any different? Would such a poisoning be visible in a postmortem examination?

  The maid, Marion, chose this moment to step into the room. ‘Netty said you wish to take your supper here.’

  Olivia lifted an eyebrow. Had Netty offered Marion the use of her first name, or was the maid being disparaging? She realised that she knew little of the goings-on be
tween the household members. How very unwifely.

  She waved at the desk, and Marion put down a bowl, a plate, cutlery, and a glass of wine.

  Olivia neither looked at the food nor did she notice the maid leave. Her mind was elsewhere.

  The brandy. That was the only substance Johnston had ingested during his visit. He had stayed in the smoking room for about ten, fifteen minutes, during which he had deteriorated quickly.

  That Johnston was given an aggressive poison seemed extremely likely. But who had wanted him dead?

  Olivia stood and strode to the door. Had Johnston grabbed the frame for support? She scanned the wood and sniffed it. It smelled lightly of beeswax and dust. She found no smudges on door, knob, or frame.

  She stepped into the corridor.

  It had been late, later than it was now. But the conditions were similar: Two lamps provided light. Then, no one was about the corridor, as the servants were soon to retire. Slowly, she made for the stairs, checking the rug for scuff marks, stains, smudges, or anything that seemed out of place.

  She reached the stairs finding nothing remarkable. Groaning, she sat and put her chin in her hand.

  Sévère had said that Johnston’s knees gave way and then abruptly straightened. It was as if he meant to dive from a cliff into the sea. Sévère couldn’t hold on to him. The moment his fingers slipped from Johnston’s arm, Sévère realised something terrible was about to happen. Witnessing his friend pitching into the abyss must have been…impossible for him to forget.

  Yet, when Sévère had recounted the series of events, he’d appeared entirely detached. A list of occurrences. First A, then B, then C. That simple.

  Still, in their short time together she’d learnt how to interpret the twitch of his pupils and the subtle flattening of his lips. The stretching of skin around his eyes.

  Sévère said he wasn’t certain whether Johnston was already dead when he hit the landing. It had taken him a moment to remember to press his finger to Johnston’s neck. And when he did, he’d found no pulse.

  She recalled the moments before she glimpsed Johnston and Sévère at the bottom of the stairs. The agitated voices. Rose braiding her hair. Sévère’s hand at Johnston’s throat.

  The postmortem showed that Johnston hadn’t been throttled.

  According to Sévère, Johnston’s heart had stopped beating six minutes before she reached the bottom of the stairs. All the servants had been alerted and were present, except Alf, who returned later that night. He’d stated that he’d had gone on a stroll. She guessed he’d spent coin in a brothel.

  She made a mental note to interrogate the boy.

  Ah, interrogations! Dammit. Olivia pressed her knuckles against her eyes, wondering how long she could use Sévère’s warrant. He’d issued it for her to take witness statements in the Johnston case. As of ten o’clock tomorrow morning, the office of Coroner of Eastern Middlesex would be held by a Mr Baxter. News would spread quickly, and people would soon realise that the warrant she was waving at their noses wasn’t worth a fly’s fart.

  But there was nothing to be done about that now.

  She wondered what time it was. Nine? Ten? Her stomach felt hollow. Dimly, she remembered the food on Sévère’s desk, but she didn’t think she could eat anything.

  Her first instinct was to wait for the next day. It wasn’t an appropriate time to call on people. But then…perhaps it was the appropriate time to get answers.

  She stood and went to her room, found Rose reading in her bed, and told her she would be home late, and that if Rose was hungry, she might eat the supper left in the smoking room. The girl was eating like a dust bin these days.

  Olivia picked up her bonnet and heard a knock. Netty stepped in and held out an envelope on a silver platter. ‘You received a message, Mrs Sévère.’

  Olivia frowned. A note from William, perhaps? She ripped open the letter and found a small, typed note. The hairs on her neck rose.

  You are alone.

  There was no signature.

  Her head snapped up. ‘When was this delivered?’

  ‘A few minutes ago. By a boy.’ Netty’s eyes flicked to the note in Olivia’s hand, then up to her mistress’ face.

  ‘I didn’t hear the bell. Describe him.’

  ‘He…I…’

  ‘Spit it out, Netty!’

  ‘Higgins received the note, not I!’

  Olivia whipped her skirts around, rushed from the room and down the stairs. ‘Higgins!’ she called, and abruptly sucked in a breath when she spotted a dark figure standing by the entrance door.

  ‘You accepted this?’ She held up the envelope.

  ‘Yes.’

  She gazed up at his shuttered expression. There was something in his eyes she couldn’t quite identify. A darkness that reminded her of the men who frequented the cheapest of bawdy houses. And yet, something essential was missing. As if… As if he were a predator that was blind to its prey.

  She wondered once again what life the man had led before he’d been offered this post. Or how her husband had found him. At times she toyed with the thought that Higgins had spent time in gaol, and that it was there that Sévère had met him.

  She brushed the thought away. ‘I need you to describe the boy to me.’

  His gaze did not slide down to the envelope in her hand, but instead held hers calmly. ‘Dirty face, dirty clothes. A street arab, the sort you can find by the hundreds in East End or Whitechapel. Dark hair, dark eyes. Perhaps ten or twelve years old. I might be able to recognise him should I see him again. But I doubt he’d loiter in this area.’

  Olivia felt her shoulders deflate.

  ‘You might wish to send Alf to tail the next one,’ he added.

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  ‘…if there’s a next one. It seems as if…you might be expecting it.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. I don’t even know who sent this.’ She had an inkling, though — the same man who had killed Johnston. ‘Thank you. You are dismissed,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Sévère, may I have a moment?’ He took off his bowler and clamped it between his fingers.

  ‘Of course.’ Olivia suspected that he was worried about his situation, and might have already received an offer elsewhere. Despite his ruffian-like looks, Higgins was reliable and lacked any tendency to gossip or drink. He would easily find a new master.

  ‘Now that Mr Sévère is in gaol, and you are investigating this case without him, I was thinking…’ He smoothed his rumpled hair and placed his bowler back on his head. ‘I see you are about to leave…’ He paused, eyeing her. ‘You’ll be needing a driver. And perhaps you can find use for a man who is able to…rough up people if the need arises.’

  She opened her mouth, but nothing appropriate came out, so she shut it.

  ‘The horses are ready,’ Higgins added with a twitch of his mouth.

  Witnesses

  Olivia pulled out the warrant and flattened it, careful not to smudge Sévère’s signature with her damp gloves. A violent shower had come down the moment she’d alighted from the brougham and hastened to Mr Frank’s lodgings.

  Higgins kept watch from his perch on the other side of the street. Hoping he wouldn’t fall asleep, Olivia knocked.

  A somewhat disgruntled Mrs Appleton admitted her and helped rub down Olivia’s dress with a towel, before showing her to the parlour, and taking her bonnet down to the kitchen to dry by the hearth.

  The clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven. It was late. She tapped her fingers against the windowsill, fingered the curtains and pulled them aside a fraction. A lamp spilled yellow light through the downpour and onto Higgins, haloing his hunched form.

  Olivia directed her attention back into the room. She pricked her ears. The ticking of the clock. Rain tapping against the windowpanes. But no creaking of stairs or floorboards, no footfalls or muttered conversations.

  Mrs Appleton hadn’t mentioned when Mr Frank would see her, if perhaps he’d already retired and now
needed a few moments to dress and come down to the parlour. In fact, Mrs Appleton hadn’t even asked the reason for Olivia’s late visit.

  How queer.

  Olivia turned and made for the door.

  ‘Mrs Appleton?’ she called. There was no answer. Olivia made her way to the kitchen.

  Copper and iron pans dangled over a well-polished stove. A cupboard with cans of salt, sugar, and flour. Bundles of herbs hung from a beam. Next to them, soup ladles, whisks, and other tools. Her bonnet was perched on the back rest of a chair, dripping water onto bare floorboards.

  A clanking noise drew her back through the door and farther down a narrow corridor. Mrs. Appleton was moving something into a corner of the laundry room. When she turned and spotted Olivia in the doorway, she jumped. Her hand went to her bosom. ‘Christ!’

  ‘Good evening. Again. You wouldn’t know where Mr Frank has got to, would you?’

  The housekeeper smoothed her apron. ‘Has he not come down yet?’ Her eyes darted to a pile of dirty laundry on a table in the centre of the room. She moved toward it and Olivia glimpsed the item Mrs Appleton had pushed about: a bucket with towels, adorned with a pile of…what was it? Crumpled waxed paper, perhaps?

  Mrs Appleton caught Olivia’s gaze, picked a sheet picked from the pile of laundry, and began to smooth it. Smoothed it some more. Folded it.

  ‘Is he feeling better?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Frank. He was ill last time I spoke to him.’

  Mrs Appleton stopped stroking the sheet. ‘Thank you for asking. Yes, he’s doing much better. Perhaps we should go up and find him.’ She shuffled past Olivia and into the corridor.

  ‘Mrs Appleton, would you please remind me what Dr Johnston did when he entered your house?’

  Mrs Appleton almost bumped into the doorframe to the kitchen. She patted her bun, and sucked in a breath with an unmistakable air of have-you-already-forgotten-it-you-goose. ‘As I said the other day, I fetched Dr Johnston, told him everything I knew about Mrs Frank’s ailment. He knew this already, but I thought it would do no harm reminding him. Then I led him into the house and up to the bedroom where Mrs Frank lay on the bed. And then—’