The Darker Arts

by Oscar de Muriel

  Pratt grinned. ‘Of course, my Lord. Given Inspector McGray’s well-known friendship with the accused, I think this detail is most relevant. You see, this is all a very nice chain of influence : Miss Maclean is a … liaison of Inspector McGray, who has been in charge of this case’s investigations. He has been seconded throughout by Deputy Inspector Ian Frey here’ – I nearly cried I am not a deputy! – ‘who in turn happens to be the son of the honourable barrister Mr Frey, who has travelled all the way from London, interrupting his well-earned retirement, only to defend this woman, a very unlikely client for a man of his stature. And only God knows how this Mr Frey managed to coerce a statement from such a respectable character as Lady Anne.’

  ‘Refrain from speculating,’ Norvel interrupted, and I allowed myself a smile. He was clearly on nobody’s side.

  ‘Sorry, my Lord. That last sentence may well be speculation, but the greater truth remains : Miss Dragnea clearly has played her cards well. She knows perfectly where and how to place her influence. She—’

  ‘I believe you have no further questions for Miss Maclean?’ Norvel interrupted again.

  ‘No, my Lord.’

  ‘Well. We shall now conclude by hearing the statement from the accused herself.’

  33

  As advised, Katerina retold the events without sentiment and adding nothing to the common knowledge. However, she still kept the entire chamber hanging on her every word. Father did not ask anything regarding the spirit of Grannie Alice, and did not mention the photograph of the hand of Satan again. Katerina concluded by telling the court how she’d felt stifled and then had passed out. Just like she’d told us, the last thing she remembered was Colonel Grenville and Mr Willberg steadily gripping her hands, and the last burst of flash from the camera.

  ‘I understand that Miss Leonora Shaw was a good client of yours,’ said Father.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she pay well?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Very well. Always promptly. And she tipped me all the time too.’

  ‘So her death is in fact a great loss to your business?’

  Katerina’s face went sombre. ‘Not only for the money. She was a fine young lady. People thought she was a little strange, but I liked her. She was a kind soul.’

  I was not sure whether that was true or just some embellishment.

  ‘And you had no relation with any other of the victims?’ Father asked.

  ‘None. I had only heard about the colonel, but I’d never seen him in the flesh. I knew nothing about the others. I met them all for the first time that night.’

  ‘And you are absolutely sure of that?’

  ‘Yes, I’m under oath,’ she grumbled.

  Father smiled. ‘Of course you are, madam.’ He turned to face the jury and judge. ‘So there you have it. This woman had no connection with the deceased, no grudge and no business other than the occasional custom of Miss Leonora Willberg. Why murder six individuals about whom she knew next to nothing?’ he went on with grandiloquence. ‘Where is the motive? Where is the benefit? Where is the logic?’ A few men from the jury nodded or whispered into each other’s ears. Father looked at them with satisfaction. ‘You can tell there is none.’

  Katerina almost managed to smile at him, but then Father gave her a most condescending look.

  ‘How could this woman possibly have known more about such honourable people? How could she have a grudge against a colonel? A war hero? She? A woman of such decidedly inferior origins? Uneducated, vulgar – foreign!’

  Katerina was grinding her teeth, glaring at Father with so much wrath I feared she was jinxing him there and then.

  ‘The lack of forensic evidence,’ Father went on, none the wiser, ‘has been well established. There is neither evidence to incriminate this lady, nor to prove what killed those most unfortunate people. So …’ he then counted theatrically with his fingers, ‘no motive, no means and no murder weapon.’

  Norvel feigned a yawn, despite the jury’s evident attention, and Father took the hint.

  ‘In conclusion, this miserable wretch is but a victim of shameful prejudice against her outlandish looks, her preposterous line of business, her ghastly intonations and her inferior blood. I am in fact surprised that this judiciary has kept her imprisoned for this long without a shred of solid evidence.’

  Katerina was not the only one offended by the statement.

  ‘Are you done making a mockery of the Scottish law, Mr Frey?’ asked Norvel.

  Father faced the crowd most eloquently – he and my eldest brother always revelled in doing so – and delivered his conclusion with a powerful tone. ‘I am done stating what is fair and just. Thank you, my Lord.’

  And then he sat down.

  ‘Will the prosecution wish to question the accused?’ asked Norvel, with a clear note of impatience.

  Pratt stood up somewhat sluggishly, but the look on his face was of pure joy. It seemed he’d been waiting for this moment all along, and was now dragging it out as much as he could.

  ‘Indeed, my Lord, and I am glad that the counsel’s questioning has brought up Miss Dragnea’s connections with the victims.’

  I felt a horrid discomfort creeping up my chest. I saw Father shifting in his seat.

  Pratt picked up a thin file and raised it like a trophy. ‘I have two pieces of new evidence, which Inspector McGray was too busy to find himself,’ he cast us a derisive look. ‘I must add that his entire investigation has been clearly biased in favour of this … woman, and my findings, which were not difficult at all to obtain, will demonstrate that.’

  ‘What the bloody hell …?’ McGray whispered.

  Pratt heard him, and his smile widened as he addressed Katerina. ‘Madam, selling watered-down ale is your main business, is it not?’

  She went red with fury. ‘I have never watered down my ales!’

  ‘Oh, of course not. It must be the work of evil spirits.’ He leisurely opened the file. ‘And you also loan money, do you not? At extortionate interest rates.’ Katerina barely nodded before Pratt bombarded her again. ‘And you also charge interest on your clients’ taps, I understand.’

  ‘None of that’s illegal,’ she spluttered. ‘Every pub keeper does it when monies are not paid for a while.’

  ‘Not illegal, indeed.’ Pratt laughed, and then paused for an unnervingly long time. ‘Madam,’ he said at last, reading from the file, ‘does the name Mackenzie sound familiar at all?’

  ‘Mackenzie?’ McGray mumbled, his frown deeper than ever. ‘Willberg’s dog?’

  Katerina had gone ghostly pale. Her voice came out as a mere whisper.

  ‘Yes.’

  Pratt grinned. ‘Please, enlighten the jury.’

  Katerina gulped, her well-restrained bosom starting to heave, her skin slowly turning paler. ‘That’s … one of my debtors.’

  ‘Your greatest debtor, I have heard. I believe he owed you nearly eight hundred pounds, both from drink and from arrears on personal loans. Is that correct?’

  ‘Y-yes …’

  ‘Oh God,’ I whispered, beginning to see where this was going.

  ‘And have you met this man?’ asked Pratt.

  ‘No. He sent servants to collect the barrels … They paid well at first but … then the servants vanished. I never saw the master himself.’

  Pratt had never resembled a vulture as much as he did then.

  ‘Of course you have not!’ he exclaimed. ‘Because he does not exist.’

  There was a general outcry, which Norvel had to appease, and Pratt enjoyed every instant before resuming.

  ‘Several of your regular clients – of your ale business, that is – heard that you repeatedly sent out threats to this debtor.’

  Katerina attempted to speak but Pratt again raised his voice, pulling three sheets from the file and brandishing them for all to see.

  ‘I happen to have the most recent ones here! Sent to a residence on Inverleith Row, by the Botanical Gardens. Do you know who really lives there?’r />
  ‘God …’ McGray and I whispered in unison.

  ‘I see the inspectors do know,’ Pratt said. ‘That is the address of the late Leonora Willberg, who shared her residence with her uncle, and the real debtor, Peter Willberg.’

  Katerina jumped to her feet and roared, ‘I didn’t know that was a fake name!’

  Some people giggled, others gasped. Father covered his face and McGray clenched his fists.

  ‘A woman like you?’ asked Pratt. ‘Whose job entails knowing things? I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘I am under oath. I’ve told you—!’

  ‘It would have been very simple,’ Pratt interjected, ‘to send one of your brutes, like the one who’s been selling pies here today, to enquire who lived in that address. You would have soon pieced the clues together. Mr Willberg’s was indeed a poor deception.’ He went on spluttering as he approached Katerina, the poor woman sinking in her seat as if the words were bullets. ‘This she-wolf had a clear motive. She found out the identity of the defaulter, she saw there was no hope of getting her money back, so she planned a swift revenge.’

  ‘I didn’t know—!’

  ‘She had but to seize a knife, rub it in something she knew for sure a forensic man could not detect – she’d know well where to source such things, of course – and pass the poisoned blade on to her victim to do the job himself.

  ‘Her sickening disregard for the rest of the attendants’ lives simply speaks of her abominable nature. She is a most dangerous woman ; the spawn of dubious nomads who only disembarked in our country to pollute Her Majesty’s lands.’ He glared at Katerina, whose wrathful tears now rolled copiously down her cheeks, and then he hissed, ‘I have nothing further to say.’

  There was a moment of befuddled silence, everyone struggling to take in all that. Then, rising gradually, there came an outburst of thunderous applause.

  For once, Norvel could not silence the crowd.

  34

  We retreated to the waiting room while the jury deliberated. The entire building seemed to have gone colder and darker, my father’s cigar shining like a glow-worm as we waited for Katerina.

  The constables brought her, and as soon as she stepped in she thrust herself into McGray’s arms. She clasped his lapels, letting out tearing cries.

  ‘I didn’t know, Adolphus! I swear! I swear on my life!’ Now, in utter distress, her accent sounded Scottish enough to believe she indeed hailed from Dumfries.

  McGray embraced her like he would have an old aunt. She buried her face in his chest and wept uncontrollably.

  ‘Yes,’ she said after a while, her voice muffled, ‘from time to time I’ve had to bully my debtors. But everybody does! I might send a thug or two to collect my monies, or a wee letter telling them I’d have to break their legs if they didn’t pay – but I’ve never carried out the threats! Never! They almost always pay at the first warning!’

  ‘There, there,’ said Nine-Nails. ‘Ye couldnae have suspected this.’

  Father puffed at his cigar, staring sombrely at the distraught gypsy. He cast me a quick glance and shook his head. There was nothing further to say.

  I offered Katerina my handkerchief, but she barely had time to mop her tears. McNair came in right then.

  ‘The jury’s ready.’

  ‘So soon!’ McGray cried.

  ‘I am surprised they even bothered moving to the jury’s room,’ said Father, extinguishing his cigar with utter displeasure. ‘I am surprised I bothered lighting this again.’

  We marched back to the courtroom in silence. Hardly anyone else had left the room, surely predicting the swift outcome.

  The jury were filing back in and taking their seats, their faces ominous. I recognised the foreman, a full-bellied man who walked in last, holding a piece of paper with a very short statement. As soon as the courtroom settled down, he addressed Norvel with a shaking voice.

  ‘My Lord, we have arrived at a verdict for both of the accused.’

  Norvel had sat down as confidently as before, his arms resting comfortably on the sides of his chair as if it were a throne.

  ‘Proceed,’ he said.

  My eyes went to the dock. Red-eyed as she was, her make-up smeared across her face, Katerina still looked far more dignified than Holt, whose legs trembled like jellied eels.

  The foreman raised the document, his hands stiff on the paper, and he read.

  ‘We find Mr Alexander Holt … not guilty of any of the six Morningside deaths.’

  Mrs Holt jumped to her feet and thanked God with raucous cries, only to be pushed back to her seat by a nearby officer. Holt himself seemed to be deflating like a punctured bagpipe, letting out the longest sigh of relief I’d ever seen. I even thought he’d pass out, but then the foreman spoke again.

  ‘We do, however, find him guilty of breaking into premises clearly demarcated by the police, deviating the course of the inspectors’ investigations with his mere presence. We recommend a fine, as well as imprisonment.’

  At this Mrs Holt shouted all manner of protests. Norvel, with just a nod of his pointy chin, commanded an officer to take her away. The poor constable had to lift the woman by the waist and carry her out of the courtroom as she thrust and kicked about, her two petticoats flapping in the air for all to see. Holt, on the other hand, looked pleased enough with the verdict – if anything, he seemed more concerned by his wife’s behaviour.

  When the hustle and bustle died out, the foreman cleared his throat. He was holding the statement so tightly he was about to tear it in two.

  ‘With regards to the second accused …’ the courtroom went deathly quiet at this, ‘in light of the evidence here presented, Miss Ana Katerina Dragnea –’ the man drew in a short breath, barely a second, but that tiny pause felt like an eternity to us all, ‘has been found guilty of all the murders.’

  The echo of the man’s voice faded, and the icy silence lingered for a moment. It was like that pause between lightning and thunder, and then the court exploded in cheering, mocking and a shower of the most debased insults. Norvel, to my astonishment, did nothing to contain the people’s wrath. He lounged back, interlacing his bony fingers, as if feeding from the clamour.

  I could only wince at what I heard, appalled by the harsh, unforgiving verdict.

  What was this dark, hideous monster that lurked inside humanity – this thirst for blood and shame that only rose from the mob but never from the individual – cruel, merciless, almost animalistic?

  McGray, next to me, was so livid he could not even move, every single tendon on his neck and jaw protruding. I wanted to pat his shoulder, but I feared the slightest touch might make him burst like gunpowder.

  At last Norvel howled for quiet, his booming voice even more effective than earlier. The silence, however, was not the still, icy shush of a moment ago, but an agitated one, people fidgeting and murmuring in expectation.

  ‘I thank the jury for their swift decision,’ said Norvel. ‘Is this a unanimous verdict?’

  ‘It is, sir.’

  ‘Very well, I shall reciprocate with an equally swift sentence.’

  Everyone stood up automatically to hear him. I felt my blood rushing up my temples, almost buoying at my ears.

  ‘Miss Dragnea, your crime has shocked an entire nation. You have ravaged families, orphaned three young children of the most reputable background, and murdered one of the most illustrious military men that Scotland has begot in recent history.

  ‘It remains for me to pass the rightful punishment.’ He leaned forwards, placing a hand on the edge of the bench, like the talon of a bird of prey. ‘Miss Ana Katerina Dragnea is hereby pronounced for doom ; to be taken back to Calton Hill Jail, where, at a time appointed as per procedure, she shall be hanged by the neck, by the hands of the common executioner, upon a gibbet, until she be dead.

  ‘God have mercy on your soul.’

  Katerina stood almost perfectly still as she heard it all. From where I stood I could only see a fraction of her f
ace, but that was enough to assess her desolation. Her shoulders had slouched a little further, the corners of her mouth had pulled down into a dejected grimace, and she stared ahead without blinking, devoid of any hope.

  And yet, there was no shock in her gestures. She was facing her destiny with gloomy, stoic resignation.

  As if she had always known.

  PART 3

  The Punishments

  35

  FATE OF CLAIRVOYANT SEALED

  That was the front-page story in all the newspapers the following morning, and in some of the afternoon editions on the same day. I refused to read them, and only saw the massive headline when Father extended The Scotsman over his breakfast, shaking his head and still grumbling things he might have said.

  The date of the execution was named shortly after, and as soon as we were informed, McGray and I decided to pay Katerina a visit and tell her in person.

  She’d be the first female to be executed in years, so she was allowed certain perks. She had been transferred to a wider cell, with a barred window overlooking the jagged slopes of Arthur’s Seat, still lush with purple heathers. Farther away was the imposing outline of Castle Rock, the foot of the hill surrounded by morning haze, as if floating above a sea of clouds. Even the most expensive hotels on London’s Park Lane did not have such privileged views.

  Katerina was also allowed to receive visitors there, and when we arrived, Mary was helping her braid her hair. The young woman was smiling as she worked white ribbons into the plaits, but her lips quivered and her eyes were glazy, as if just about to burst in tears.

  The air was so peaceful I almost envied Katerina, sat on the edge of the bed, evaluating Mary’s work with a hand mirror. When she saw us enter, she even smiled.

  ‘She’s very good, isn’t she? I wish she’d told me sooner!’

  Mary could not contain herself anymore. She hunkered, covered her mouth and sank onto the bed, sobbing miserably.