The Darker Arts

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘You have your fists and your townhouse and your distilleries …’ she indulged in the aroma of the drink. ‘I had none of that. I was a pauper girl with a funny foreign voice, all by herself. I traded anything you can imagine for a loaf of mouldy bread or a night indoors. Sometimes—’

  She went silent, suddenly swallowing whichever words she was about to say. She took a long sip and cleared her

  throat.

  ‘But I made my way up in the world. I’m not desperate or helpless and I never will be again. Believe me, I’m not here to beg or take advantage. I’m here to help, even if nobody helped me when I was on the streets.’

  McGray twisted his mouth in a mixture of compassion and annoyance. The gypsy smiled at that faint glimpse of empathy. That was her chance ; a crack in the young man’s shell.

  ‘You think you saw something,’ she whispered, her voice entrancing, like the hiss of a snake. ‘Something you can’t explain … You have even thought you might be mad yourself.’

  McGray said nothing. He stared at her, not blinking, his chest swelling slowly.

  ‘You saw the devil, didn’t you? You saw his horns and his burned flesh. You saw him running away. Didn’t you?’

  McGray drew in a troubled breath. ‘How can ye tell?’

  The gypsy displayed both hands on the table, her nails like the talons of an eagle.

  ‘I see these things, my boy. I see that something terrible happened to your little sister. Something dark and too horrible to bear.’

  A draught came in then, pushing the door ajar and making the embers quiver.

  ‘These things leave a trail, my boy,’ she insisted. ‘They reek. This all reeks of demons.’

  McGray’s lips parted. By now everyone in Edinburgh talked of nothing but Clouston’s statement. Pansy had mentioned the devil ; it was all over the papers. He wanted to say so, to grab the woman by the arm and throw her out ; however, there was something in her eyes he could not ignore. She was looking at him with a rather motherly gaze.

  She leaned closer and whispered. ‘You saw what really happened, didn’t you? You saw what I see.’

  The cold from the street began to creep into McGray’s bones. Hardy as he was, he could not repress a slight shiver.

  ‘And there’s something else I see,’ the gypsy said at once, as if that brief tremor had lowered McGray’s guard. She smiled, but it was a warm, relieved smile. ‘Your little sister may not be lost. Not yet.’

  McGray tensed his entire body ; that stiffness felt like a shield that somehow kept the gypsy at bay. Here was this woman, telling him the very words he so desperately yearned to hear. All the more reason to remain cautious.

  He said nothing, and the woman leaned closer. Her eyes too were like embers.

  ‘I can help you.’

  McGray raised his chin, clenching his fist more tightly. And yet, he could not look away.

  The gypsy smiled wider.

  ‘We can help each other.’

  1889

  PROLOGUE

  Friday 13 September 1889

  11.30 p.m.

  ‘Your damn gypsy is late,’ Colonel Grenville barked, staring out the window at the gloomy gardens. His teeth had been clenching the cigar so tightly his mouth was now full of bits of crushed tobacco. He spat them as he turned back to the darkened room, but the sight of the others only worsened his temper.

  Leonora was hunched over her blasted book of necromancy and related nonsense, and the many candles on the round table cast sharp shadows on her gaunt face.

  ‘She will come,’ said the twenty-two-year-old with her dreamy airs, as if intent on looking like an apparition herself. Colonel Grenville thought the silly girl deserved a good smack, fancying herself a consummate fortune teller.

  Mrs Grenville, at the edge of a nearby sofa, fanned herself anxiously, the insistent ruffle of the feathers the only sound in the tense parlour. She cast a fearful look at her husband – the colonel had seldom been made to wait. Even when asked to marry him, she had been shaken and forced to provide an answer with military promptness. She’d thought it so romantic back then. Now, though …

  She let out a tired sigh.

  The old Mr Shaw, her grandfather, sat rather stiff by her side. The man’s white beard and whiskers, and the golden frames of his round spectacles gleamed under the candlelight, but little else of him could be seen. Like a spectre, he brought an infirm hand to the light and grasped his daughter’s wrist, forcing her fan into stillness.

  ‘Thanks, Hector,’ said a hoarse voice from the depth of the shadows. The voice of a man the colonel despised : Mr Willberg, clad in black and almost invisible standing in a darkened corner. The man took a few steps into the light, as if materialising from nowhere, and began pacing. Peter Willberg was almost a decade older than the colonel, and the only man present who’d dare challenge him. Colonel Grenville knew this, and glared at Willberg’s bushy beard, which was curly and jet black, even if the hair on his scalp was thin and growing white.

  ‘You’ll have to ask someone to clean that,’ Mr Willberg told the colonel, nodding at the flakes of tobacco on the red carpet.

  ‘Go to hell, Pete,’ snapped Colonel Grenville. ‘This is my bloody house!’

  Mr Willberg sneered. ‘Oh, is it now?’

  Nobody spoke. They simply waited for the colonel’s reaction. Leonora was the only one who moved, stretching an arm to squeeze Mr Willberg’s. Her eyes pleaded for his composure.

  Defiantly, the colonel tossed his cigar onto the floor and produced a new one from his pocket.

  ‘The last thing we need is more bloody smoke, you fool!’ Mr Willberg snapped.

  In that at least they all agreed. The air in the small chamber was thick, with wafts of sickly smoke floating in-between the flickering flames.

  The colonel roared, ‘Then tell your bloody niece to put those damn things out!’

  ‘We need to cleanse the room!’ Leonora cried just as loudly, raising her arms as if readying herself to defend the set of candles. The same ones her grandmother had blessed so many years ago, which were – according to the gypsy – key to their success tonight. ‘We need them to talk to the dead!’

  ‘There, there,’ said the old Mr Shaw, applying an already damp handkerchief to his forehead. ‘We are all … we are all very tense.’

  They all sensed the fear in his voice, and at once fell silent. If the séance succeeded, the poor old man was about to face demons none of the others could even imagine. Mrs Grenville placed a hand on her father’s, but the man twitched and pulled it away.

  ‘Is that scaredy-cat Bertrand ready?’ the colonel asked.

  At once, a tiny voice came from the parlour’s door. Bertrand had been standing next to the door frame.

  ‘A – aye. I’m here, sir, sorry. The room is stifling.’

  The colonel snorted as he cast him a derisive look. Bertrand embodied everything he hated in men : he was weak, sheepish, soft in the knees, with a squeaky voice and fidgety hands he always rubbed by his chest. Many times the colonel had remarked on Bertrand’s apparent lack of gonads – more than once to his face, but the stupid fella simply giggled as if it all were a joke. His manners might be childish, yet the chap was not even young ; his oily hair, always parted and flattened with obsessive care, was already going grey at the top. The colonel’s wife was Bertrand’s first cousin, and it still infuriated him that his three children shared blood with such a gritless oaf.

  ‘Here she comes!’ said Mr Willberg, peering through the window.

  Bertrand squinted, for he’d feared the prospect all along. He was present only because his Aunt Gertrude had backed down that very morning and, according to that gypsy woman, the ceremony needed seven souls.

  Mrs Grenville stood up, fidgeting with the pearls of her choker, and saw the light of the coach approaching through the gardens. The night was so dark, the sky lined with clouds so dense, that it looked as though the carriage floated amidst an endless void.

  She went closer
to the window. Her shoulder accidentally rubbed Mr Willberg’s, and they both flinched. She’d never seen the man thus altered, his customary stench of ale stronger than usual.

  The colonel brusquely pushed her aside to have a look, and saw Holt, his fleshy valet, jumping off the driver’s seat and helping down what looked like a bundle of extravagant curtains.

  Soon enough, Holt entered the parlour, and when the gypsy came in, everyone froze still. It would take them a moment to scrutinise the woman, and even the colonel had to admit there was something unnerving about her.

  She was squat, solidly built, wrapped in countless multicoloured shawls, scarves and veils. Nobody could see her face, shrouded in black tulle trimmed with cheap pendants, which tinkled softly at her every movement. The many layers of fabric gave off a pungent herbal smell, strong enough to overpower the parlour’s mist. Her hands were wrapped in black mittens, so all that could be seen of her were the tips of her stout, pale fingers, each one armed with curved nails – she moved them slowly, as if drumming on an invisible table.

  The young Leonora jumped to her feet and ran to the woman, reaching for one of those menacing hands.

  ‘Madame Katerina, it’s an honour! I knew you’d come.’

  ‘I always go to those who need me,’ she replied with a hoarse, foreign voice.

  ‘Or who pay you,’ the colonel said between his teeth.

  Leonora turned to him, ready to retort, but the gypsy grasped her arm.

  ‘Leave it, child. This room is already quite disturbed.’

  ‘Oh, but I cleansed it as you said, madam! Like Grannie Alice herself would have done.’

  The colonel went to Holt and barked at him. ‘What took you so long?’

  Holt had barely opened his mouth when the gypsy answered herself.

  ‘I was in the middle of something else.’

  The colonel let out a loud ‘HA!’ which the gypsy ignored. She pulled off one of her mittens, rested a palm on the wall, and leisurely ran her hand on the oak panelling. Her long fingernails, painted in black, shimmered under the candlelight. She then turned to Leonora.

  ‘You did well, girl. We can do the rituals here … but only just.’ She came closer to the table and candles, and the light went through her veil’s thin material. They all managed to see the twinkle of her cunning eyes, going from one person to the other. She only spoke again once she had studied them all. ‘Yes, only just. There’s too much guilt here.’

  Those words caused more than one gulp.

  ‘The chairs, Bertrand!’ snapped Mr Willberg, and the fidgety man, after a jump, began dragging seats from the adjacent dining room. The screech of the wood proved unbearable for the old Mr Shaw, and his grandaughter had to go to him and hold his hand.

  Leonora led Madame Katerina to the little round table. ‘We dispatched the servants, ma’am. They were all gone before sunset, just as you requested.’

  The woman assented, casting an approving look at the table.

  Bertrand placed the seventh chair and Leonora offered a seat to the gypsy, as reverently as if addressing Queen Victoria. The woman sat down as Bertrand brought a tripod and installed it clumsily by the window.

  ‘What’s that for?’ she said. ‘A camera?’

  Leonora sat by her side, her eyes burning with excitement. ‘Oh, do, do humour me, ma’am. I want photos of this session. I read the spirits sometimes show in the plaques.’

  The gypsy remained silent, her face inscrutable. ‘I never heard such a thing.’

  ‘Do you not like to leave evidence behind?’ said the colonel, sitting next to the clairvoyant. He puffed at his cigar with an insolent look.

  The gypsy set her hands on the table, as she liked to do to prove she was in command of the situation. ‘No more than you do, little man.’

  The colonel made to stand up, dropping his cigar on the floor. It was Mr Willberg’s hand that pushed him back down.

  ‘Will you stop it, Grenville? You of all people here—’

  ‘Oh, save it, Pete!’

  Mrs Grenville sat next to her husband but did not say a word. She knew any attempt to calm him down only enraged him further.

  ‘Do you have the offerings?’ the gypsy asked.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Leonora, already rushing to a side cabinet. She brought a cut-glass decanter that made Holt shudder. It seemed to contain blood.

  As if feeling his agitation, the clairvoyant turned her head towards him. ‘He has to leave.’

  The colonel let out an impatient sigh, rose and dragged Holt out of the parlour. The middle-aged valet could only be relieved.

  ‘Here,’ the colonel said as he pulled a generous amount of notes from his pocket. ‘More than I promised. If you intend to spend it on beer or women, make sure it is not tonight. I need you here in the morning.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ replied Holt, barely repressing the urge to count the money. ‘What time do you need me back?’

  ‘Break of dawn,’ he said, and he then clasped Holt’s collar. ‘Not a damn minute late. The sooner I get all these vermin out of my house, the better.’

  Holt had always wanted to spit on the man’s face, but the colonel paid too handsomely, so he simply bowed.

  ‘I won’t fail you, sir.’

  Colonel Grenville straightened his jacket, casting Holt a warning stare, and went back into the parlour.

  As he shut the door, Holt strived to catch a last glimpse of the young Leonora, setting up the photographic camera. He also saw the nervous faces gathered round the table and the dark liquid in the decanter amidst the candles.

  He pocketed the money and went straight to the carriage. Just as he crossed the garden gates, Holt cast a last look at the façade. He saw a flicker of intense light coming from the parlour’s window, surely from the camera’s flash powder. After that, the room went as dark as a grave, like all the others in the empty house. Holt thought he’d heard a hoarse, deep growl coming from the parlour, and felt a shiver.

  The colonel had told him nothing about that meeting, but Holt knew the family far too well. Something monstrous was about to happen within that room. Something far too horrible to be spoken out loud.

  The less he knew, the better.

  PART 1

  The Crime

  Cut out from The Scotsman

  Saturday 14 September 1889, afternoon issue

  THE DAWNING HORROR OF MORNINGSIDE :

  SIX DEAD

  The genteel neighbourhood of Morningside awoke to sheer horror when Mr Alexander Holt, personal valet to the illustrious Colonel James R. Grenville, walked into his master’s house to a most gruesome spectacle.

  Six bodies, his patron included, lay dead in the house’s main parlour. The discovery was made at approximately 7.45 a.m., when Mr Holt returned to attend his master’s morning necessities.

  Upon being notified by a dismayed Mr Holt, police officers hastily made their way to the site. There were no signs of violence or mutilation, and the police are still unable to ascertain the cause of the deaths. All bodies have been transported to CID headquarters, and a forensic investigation is pending.

  More intriguing still is the fact that a seventh person, a middle-aged female foreigner, lay unconscious amongst the six deceased. Initially thought a seventh loss, the well-built lady recovered her senses and, as if by the most unlikely of miracles, turned out to be unscathed. This very correspondent saw the woman in question walk out of the Grenville residence, unaided and without any sign of injury or illness.

  The identity of the lady was confirmed as Mme Katerina of No. 9 Cattle Market. She is well known in Edinburgh’s less reputable circles for her flourishing business as a fortune teller. It is understood that the honourable Colonel Grenville and his fine guests were attending a séance conducted by the aforementioned woman. Mr Holt refused to confirm this.

  The peculiar foreigner, now sensibly regarded as chief suspect for the deaths, shall remain under police custody whilst this heinous crime is investigated.
/>   Cries for justice can already be heard amongst the neighbouring residents. Colonel Grenville was a much-admired member of the community, best remembered for the gallantry and valour shown during the recent military campaigns in Southern Africa. The full list of the victims’ names has not yet been made public, but it is presumed that amongst the other fatalities were the good colonel’s wife and some of his extended relatives. Colonel Grenville leaves three young children, aged between six and twelve.

  Robert Trevelyan, CID’s recently appointed superintendent, refused to provide any further details, but this correspondent heard from a very reliable source that the case may fall under the purview of local detective Adolphus McGray, more popularly known as ‘Nine-Nails’.

  1

  Sunday 15 September 1889

  04.45 a.m.

  Gloucestershire

  I knew the carriage trip was going to be dreadful, but the corpse made it all the worse.

  Propped up next to me, his pale hands resting on his lap, his bowler hat still on his head, he could have passed for another passenger. I looked at his face, slightly bent forwards and swaying softly, following the erratic movements of the carriage. His cheeks were grey and dry, even veiny, and blue rings darkened his shut eyelids. Other than that, he looked as though he were simply dozing off ; resting his mind and waiting to alight, ready to jump off and demand a cigar and a warm bath.

  I wrapped myself in my coat, feeling as cold as him, my own skin only a little less pale. I even felt tempted to wrap him in one of the blankets kept under the seats, but realised how foolish that would be.

  In the end, I only leaned a little closer, stretching my arm to straighten his scuffed hat.

  And then he opened his eyes.

  I jumped up at once, panting and feeling the cold sweat running down my temples.

  My bedroom was as dark as my dream, with only a ray of moonlight filtering through a fine gap between the curtains. I could still see my uncle’s glazy eyes, as clear as if they were floating right before my face, so I rushed to the gas lamp and let out a relieved breath when its gentle glow lit my chamber.