The Darker Arts

by Oscar de Muriel

  ‘How can it be unlikely?’ McGray snapped. ‘There’s nae way to prove Katerina murdered the six.’

  ‘I know how things work at juries, Nine-Nails. They tend to gather in a rush, most of them looking forward to their evening beers, and pass sentence based on who spoke louder. Why do you think I quit the law?’

  ‘Because yer an—’

  ‘The fact,’ I interjected, ‘that there were poisonous metals in the six bodies will be proof enough for them ; and her providing the knife they used to bleed themselves will seal the deal. The only actual missing piece there is a motive, and I bet Pratt must be doing everything he can to find one.’

  ‘Aye, that bastard’s goin’ to be trouble. I went to check on Katerina’s brewery. Her lad, Fat Johnnie, told me that some fancy court’s sod, as bald as a boiled egg, had already been there asking questions. On Saturday evening, when most of the clients were already half blootered and their tongues were very loose.’

  I raised a brow. ‘And you fear Katerina’s reputation may not be totally unblemished?’

  He snorted. ‘Aye. But she had nae reason to kill those six sods. Five o’ them were nae even clients!’

  I sighed and looked at the last telegram.

  ‘One more suggestion of theirs – which is rather a preparation for the guilty verdict – is to find people who can vouch for …’ I had to repress a smirk ; these were serious matters, ‘who can vouch for Katerina’s good character. We should definitely do that. If all else fails, that may at least save her from the gallows. All in all, it will take a superb lawyer to influence the jury and judge.’

  McGray sat on his desk, arms crossed, and looked at me with cheeky eyes. ‘Aye. I … I wanted to talk to ye about that.’

  I held my breath for a second. ‘W-why?’

  Nine-Nails stroked his beard. ‘I’ve heard yer dad was the best lawyer in Chancery Lane.’

  Silence.

  Then I threw my head back and cackled so hard I nearly fell off the chair. I looked at him, cackled again, this time for longer. I looked at him one more time. His expression had not changed.

  ‘I am not going to do that,’ I said, my hilarity slowly receding.

  He raised his eyebrows and his forehead furrowed.

  ‘I am not!’ I repeated.

  He was not blinking now, and I grunted.

  ‘Nine-Nails, I can assure you, for everything that I hold most dear – I will not ask my retired, obnoxious, elitist lump of a father to travel all the way here to defend a clairvoyant with a reputation.’

  McGray was beginning to smile.

  ‘It is absolutely and categorically out of the question!’

  I handed the telegram over and walked away before I changed my mind, but I still ruminated furiously as we crossed High Street on the way back.

  ‘He hates Scotland, he hates foreigners, he hates women and he hates the poor. There is not a chance he will agree.’

  ‘Och, stop moaning. Ye always drown in a thimble. At least we have to try.’

  ‘I can picture him and my bitch of a stepmother reading my message, roaring in laughter until their sides split.’

  ‘I thought they did that with yer letters anyway.’

  I scowled at him, and McGray put his palms in the air.

  ‘All right, all right, Frey! Actually I have to thank ye. Katerina will appreciate ye doing this for her.’

  But that did not improve my mood. ‘Even if he agrees, he will have to come in a rush and will barely have time to go through the evidence and—’

  ‘What’s that?’ said McGray.

  He was looking at the cluster of reporters who had become a fixture of the City Chambers, ever more specimens from other cities joining into the blasted scrum – curse their notebooks and pencils and damn their tasteless bowler hats and baggy raincoats. Right then they were gathered around a woman with a toddler in her arms. The lady was shouting in utter abandon, her face red and soaked in tears, and the toddler’s sobs could be heard all across the street.

  Constable McNair was begging her to go away, but each time he tapped at her shoulder, the woman jerked away and shouted with renewed energy.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ McGray asked as we drew closer.

  ‘They’re the ones defending the gypsy!’ one of the reporters cried for the benefit of the woman.

  She immediately ran to us and pulled at McGray’s coat. Her shouting, the reporters and the cries of the child became an unintelligible cacophony drilling my ears.

  McGray took a deep breath and then howled from the bottom of his stomach, his lips vibrating like a sousaphone, the echoes bouncing all across the street. His call for quiet prolonged itself until everyone along the Royal Mile had turned their necks toward us, either daunted or baffled. The toddler, far from scared, simply stared at Nine-Nails with her mouth open and embellished with a trickle of dribble.

  ‘Who are ye?’ McGray asked the woman, who raised her chin and spoke truculently.

  ‘Mrs Holt.’

  ‘Ohhh, I see.’

  ‘My husband didnae kill anybody. Youse know that! Yer going to send him to the gallows only to save a scheming gypsy killer!’

  ‘Madam—’

  ‘And without him they’ll evict us! We have nowhere else to go!’

  ‘Who’s they? Yer landlord?’

  ‘Aye!’

  All the reporters around us were scribbling at unthinkable speed. McGray knocked a bowler hat off the nearest head.

  ‘Oi, the spectacle’s over! Get yer sorry arses out o’ here!’

  ‘We are only reporting a matter of public—’

  McGray took a sharp step forwards and the men instantly backed off, one of them nearly falling on his back.

  ‘Come in, missus,’ he told Mrs Holt. ‘Now that yer here, we’ll ask ye two-three questions. McNair, look after the wee lassie.’

  He’d not finished the sentence when the woman dropped the child in McNair’s arms. The toddler immediately went for his bright ginger hair, which she pulled as she let out the most delighted of giggles.

  We led Mrs Holt to one of the questioning rooms and offered her some tea to calm her down. She demanded milk and two sugars.

  ‘My husband didnae kill anybody,’ she reiterated as soon as the cup was placed before her. ‘The colonel adored him.’

  McGray’s retort did not help. ‘Mrs Holt, we found yer husband stealing from a crime scene.’

  ‘He wisnae! He was taking what’s ours.’

  ‘Oh, here we go again,’ I muttered, and while they argued the same point over and over, I went through my notes and the existing files. I heard McGray asking her the same questions we’d asked her husband, and though everything she told him matched, in my opinion that proved nothing (the jury would most likely disagree with me, especially if the woman showed up carrying her doe-eyed daughter). As I pondered, something in the records caught my eye.

  I banged the papers on the table as loudly as possible.

  ‘Mrs Holt, we would like to search your … residence.’

  I discreetly pointed at a line in Reed’s report, and McGray understood at once.

  ‘Aye!’

  As soon as she heard that, Mrs Holt tensed every single muscle on her neck.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘And we would like to go there immediately,’ I added.

  She lost all colour. ‘Youse are nae going to nose around my home!’

  Had McGray smiled wider, he would have dislocated his jaw.

  ‘D’ye have something to hide, missus?’

  Mrs Holt’s chest swelled, her hands shaking around the cup of tea.

  And she would not meet our gazes.

  21

  The reason for her apprehension became evident as soon as we opened the door to the tenement.

  We were instantly hit by a smell that was a mixture of stale ale, flatulence, orange peel and meat gone bad. The table was crammed with dozens of dirty dishes, fish bones, congealed gravy stains, greasy tankards and bowls
with dregs of three-day-old broths. A nearby chair was piled with a mountain of dirty linen and clothes, and I will not even attempt to describe the kitchen.

  McGray whistled. ‘My, oh my! The Holts really are a pair o’ pigs!’

  ‘And they keep a child in here!’ I said, putting the key back in my pocket. We’d purposely asked Mrs Holt to wait for us at the City Chambers, for neither of us wanted her looking over our shoulders as we searched the place. ‘Where to begin?’ I sighed, tempted to use my own socks as gloves. McGray, on the other hand, was almost diving into the rubbish with enviable confidence.

  ‘Ye can look at the bedroom.’

  ‘Urgh …’

  ‘Or ye can sort out all that rotten crap on the table.’

  Instead of answering, I produced my handkerchief, covered my nose and made my sorry way to the adjacent room.

  The bed was a tangle of grimy sheets and there were countless clothes and undergarments scattered on every surface. It struck me why Mr Holt would own quite so many union suits. At least the chamber pot had been emptied and washed – even Mrs Holt had her limits.

  Whenever possible, I kicked about the clothes, especially the undergarments, but more than once I had to lift them with my bare fingers, especially those under the bed, which were also embedded with fluff made entirely out of dust.

  I was about to call the search fruitless, but then I heard McGray’s eager voice.

  ‘Oi, look at that!’

  I found him in the kitchen, looking into a cupboard, from where he drew out two amber bottles.

  ‘Bedbug killer and rat poison,’ he read. ‘Is this what ye had in mind?’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said, recalling the line I’d signalled at the questioning room.

  Reed had made a very long list of candidate poisons, highlighting that many of them, like mercury, could be extracted from normal household items. If those bottles contained the same substances found in the bodies, we’d have a good case against Mr Holt.

  ‘Though now that I see this pigsty,’ I added, looking at the surrounding mess, ‘I would not raise my expectations too high. It looks like they do have a lot of creepy-crawlies to kill here.’

  We searched for a good while further but found nothing more. Just as we walked out of the medieval building, rejoicing in the fresh air, a middle-aged man with a grey beard and an impeccable tweed jacket approached us.

  ‘Good day, gentlemen! Are youse the inspectors? Here to talk to Mrs Holt?’

  The man looked jovial enough, but we still regarded him with suspicion.

  ‘What are ye to them?’

  The man swiftly removed a leather glove and offered a hand to shake. ‘Their landlord. Nick Saunders. Pleased to meet

  you.’

  ‘Ye own this dump?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a dump, sir, but yes.’

  ‘Did ye come to evict the missus and the child, now that Holt’s in jail?’

  Mr Saunders stroked his beard, visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘Inspectors, I would have to evict them even if Holt was free. I was going to do so on the thirteenth. I’ve only allowed Mrs Holt to stay for a little longer precisely because her husband is awaiting trial.’

  ‘And it does nae make ye feel bad?’

  ‘Why, of course it does! Especially with the wee child, but I’m not a rich man, inspector. I don’t rent out mansions, like that Lady Glass. I barely make a living out o’ my tenements.’

  ‘What can you tell us about Mr Holt?’ I asked, for nothing would come out of chiding the man. ‘Did you ever notice he might be … up to something?’

  Mr Saunders shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t say so. The first few months he lived here – that is, before he began hiding from me to avoid paying rent – he spent almost all his free time at home or at the pub around the corner. Not that it was often. I believe the colonel, rest in peace, kept him very busy most of the time.’

  ‘Would you say they had a friendly relationship?’

  Mr Saunders frowned. ‘I – I’ve answered these same questions already. To a fiscal, I believe.’

  McGray laughed bitterly. ‘Don’t tell me. Bald, snooty, with a golden tooth and a face like he’s smelling shite?’

  Mr Saunders chuckled. ‘That’s a very accurate description.’

  ‘Humour us, please,’ I asked him.

  ‘Well … I never met the colonel in person, but I can tell you they were on good terms. The colonel sent me a couple of payments when Mr Holt was falling behind with the rent. You wouldn’t do that if you disliked your valet.’

  McGray seemed quite disgruntled.

  ‘Could ye do us a favour?’ McGray asked the landlord.

  ‘If it’s in my hands, of course.’

  ‘Don’t kick ’em out before the trial.’

  ‘I was not intending to do so, inspector. As I said, I feel sorry for the child.’

  ‘Thanks. I can tell ye Mr Holt has come across some money. If he goes free, I’ll make sure that goes to ye instead o’ the pub.’

  ‘That sounds like a fair deal.’

  Mr Saunders and McGray shook hands on that, and then the man bowed and went away.

  Nine-Nails would not stop grunting as we strode across the pebbled streets of the Old Town.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked him, but we walked a full street before he answered.

  ‘He’s innocent, Frey.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Holt’s innocent. I ken. I’ve felt it ever since we caught him.’

  ‘You do not know that yet,’ I said, and then brandished the bottles. ‘We still have these to analyse.’

  But I had precisely the same feeling. Mr Saunders’s statement, however brief, was perhaps the most telling. Why would any man want to kill a generous employer who even took care of his debts? And Holt, as much of a rogue as he might be, did not strike me as a murderer. One learns to foresee these things. Guilt almost always reeks. And that was precisely what made my suspicions on Katerina all the more worrying.

  Back at the City Chambers we immediately stumbled across McNair, who was chasing Holt’s daughter across the corridors.

  ‘Looks like she’s winning,’ Nine-Nails mocked.

  ‘Youse better go see the mother!’ McNair retorted, his temples covered in sweat. ‘She’s nae alone.’

  We went directly to the questioning room, and when McGray opened the door, the first thing that caught my eye was the world’s most lustrous scalp.

  Pratt was leaning over the table, just as Mrs Holt signed what looked like a very lengthy declaration.

  ‘Oi, Pratt!’ McGray roared. ‘What the fuck are ye doing here?’

  The man rose with a pompous grin, only exceeded by the downright joy in Mrs Holt’s eyes.

  ‘I am making sure this lady makes a formal statement. Something we can present at court. We do need to bring some formality to your clearly biased investigation.’

  ‘Biased!’ we cried in unison.

  ‘And you two were wrong to search her house without a warrant. There are laws in this country, inspectors. They won’t always bend in your favour.’

  ‘Why, ye son of a—!’

  McGray pounced on Pratt, nearly tipping the table, then seized the man’s collar and smacked him against the wall. Mrs Holt yelped, jumped to her feet and cowered in a corner, while I ran to Nine-Nails and did my best to pull him away.

  ‘This won’t help anyone!’ I shouted, nearly dropping the bottles of poison.

  Pratt was smiling with a sly twinkle in his eyes. ‘Oh, do beat me, Nine-Nails! Do! I beg you. It will look so good on the records for the trial.’

  It was I who threw him a slap. ‘Oh, shut up, Pratt! You don’t want me to set this brute on you. McGray, let the egghead go.’

  He did not, still breathing wildly, but apparently I’d taken the edge off his wrath.

  I turned to Mrs Holt. ‘And you have given your statement now, so go! Here is the key to your putrid den.’

  ‘Those bottles are my—’<
br />
  ‘Go! Bloody hell!’

  She sneered, snatched the key and then preened on her way to the door. ‘As you wish, sirs. I still need to talk to the press. They’re waiting for me.’

  Nine-Nails raised a hand, mentally strangling that blasted woman. At least that gave me a chance to prise Pratt from his grip.

  ‘What a sorry spectacle,’ he said, smoothing his jacket.

  ‘I’ll make ye a sorry spectacle if ye don’t fuck off right this instant!’

  Pratt was surely going to say something very smug, so I interjected.

  ‘And I will encourage that.’

  Pratt grabbed the papers from the table with a flounce, and finally left.

  ‘I’m his sodding challenge!’ McGray snapped as we walked into the office. He kicked a tower of old witchcraft books that flew everywhere. One landed on the lounging dogs, who did not seem disturbed by it. ‘He couldnae get my sister, so now he’s set on ruining Katerina like a bitch on a marrow-dripping bone.’

  McGray lounged on his chair, banging his boots on the desk, and just as he was about to burst again, there was a mousy knock on the door.

  ‘What!’

  A lanky young man walked in with hesitation, and I instantly felt sorry for him – tiny round spectacles, laughably fleshy lips and a soft chin that very much reminded me of the almost non-existent mandible of Queen Victoria. And his eyes had a dreamy expression, as if the cogwheels in his brain did not quite fit each other.

  McGray looked at him with unmitigated wariness. ‘And you are …?’

  The chap straightened his tie. ‘Elmer Sperry, sir. Since Miss Dragnea has no counsel, I’ve been assigned her defence.’

  ‘Och, for fuck’s sake!’

  Sperry moistened his disturbingly thick lips. ‘I was wondering, if it is not too much trouble, that you might allow me to—’

  ‘Piss off.’

  Sperry looked back, blinking as if he’d just heard another language. ‘Erm … e-excuse me?’

  ‘I said piss— Are ye deaf?’

  ‘Erm, no, no, sir. But I do need the files in preparation for—’

  McGray made to stand up …

  ‘Come back later, come back later!’ I gabbled as I ushered him out.