The Curse Of The House Of Foskett (The Gower Street Detective Series) Read online

  ‘How inconvenient.’ The bell clinked weakly as I closed the door.

  There was no shortage of cabs on the street, and a weak sun came through the clouds and filthy air as we clambered aboard.

  ‘I had thought about visiting Lady Foskett today,’ he said, ‘but she will never see me at this hour.’

  Our horse looked lively and a red plume waved merrily on its head.

  ‘Would you like to know how Inspector Pound is progressing?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  A cart in front dropped a bundle of empty sacks, too late for us to avoid, and we bumped over it. Children were already scrambling for salvage.

  ‘I saw Dr Berry this morning.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ He tightened a strap on his satchel.

  ‘She said she would call on us this evening.’

  ‘I will probably be out.’ He polished the handle of his cane with his glove. ‘I must have a second flask manufactured or I shall be forced to go without my tea on every return journey.’

  But a moment later he was whistling between his teeth, something which might have been intended to be Beethoven’s Fifth but may have been nothing at all.

  59

  Rubber Boots and Kisses

  Dr Berry came in very wet.

  ‘I thought I would be safe enough just walking from the hospital but Zeus was waiting behind a cloud with a gigantic bucket of water just for me.’ She struggled out of her sopping cape and handed it to Molly. ‘They have a very childish sense of humour, these Greek gods.’

  ‘Like most men,’ I said.

  ‘Except Mr Grice.’ Molly hung the cape on the coat stand, creating an instant puddle on the floor tiles. ‘He is too clever to have a sense of humour at all.’

  ‘I am afraid he is out at the moment but he should be back soon.’ I directed Dr Berry to the study and into my armchair, pulling up a chair for myself from the table.

  ‘Why do you not use the other armchair?’

  ‘It belongs to Mr G.’

  She furrowed her brow. ‘He cannot be an easy man to live with.’

  ‘He has his ways,’ I said, ‘but I am getting used to them. Did you see Inspector Pound?’

  She looked very businesslike in a black coat and white blouse.

  ‘He seems to be healing well. I have made him up a tonic.’ She produced a brown bottle two thirds full of medicine. ‘But please do not tell anybody. We doctors can be very possessive of our patients and if Mr Sweeney found out I was interfering… well, I am there under sufferance as it is.’ She looked at me. ‘You seem very agitated, March.’

  ‘We witnessed another murder today.’ I told her about Warrington Gallop. ‘And now we only have two members left.’

  ‘Goodness.’ Dr Berry fingered her hair. ‘I am getting very worried about you, March. This is no profession for a young girl.’

  ‘I am not as young as I seem, Dr Berry.’

  ‘Call me Dorna, and please do not be offended.’

  I shifted in my chair to face her. ‘You of all people should understand. You must have seen such horrors as I have, and I believe that I can help save lives by studying the forensic sciences, as surely as you can with the practice of medicine. I would prefer people not to be murdered just as you would prefer your patients not to be mutilated in factories or ravaged by disease.’

  ‘But you put yourself in such danger.’ She wiped her right eye.

  ‘Why, Dorna, whatever is wrong.’

  ‘Oh, March, I feel so vacuous.’ She took a handkerchief from her handbag. ‘When you first came to my house I thought Sidney was one of the most objectionable men I have ever met and I have come across many in my battle for recognition.’

  ‘But what has happened?’

  She unfolded the handkerchief. ‘As I got to know him I began to see another side.’ She blew her nose. ‘And I found myself increasingly… attracted to him.’

  ‘But, Dorna, that is lovely.’

  ‘No, March. It is not.’

  ‘But I am sure he has a good opinion of you. You should have seen how angry he was about those newspaper reports.’ I looked at the floor and Dorna touched my hand.

  ‘I admire Sidney enormously, March. He is quite the cleverest man I have ever met. Why, he knows more about some aspects of medicine than I do, and I am so very fond of him. But Sidney only loves three things – his work—’

  ‘You cannot blame him for that.’

  ‘I do not blame him for anything.’

  ‘And second?’

  She crumpled her handkerchief into a ball. ‘He could never love me as much as he loves his past.’ She shuddered.

  ‘I do not understand.’

  Dr Berry stood up. ‘There are things that you should know, March, but it is not for me to tell you.’

  I stood too, and she put away the handkerchief and reached out her hand to stroke my cheek.

  ‘What happened that was so terrible that I cannot be told?’

  She put two fingers to my lips. ‘Oh, dear, sweet March. You have such a heart. It is not only Sidney that I have come to care for.’ Her left hand stroked my hair. ‘Have you ever been kissed?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I mean really kissed, long and tenderly, like this?’

  ‘Not for a long time,’ I said and kissed her back.

  Forgive me, Edward, but for one fragment of one second when I closed my eyes I could almost imagine it was you, somehow returned to me whole and beautiful and alive, and that all the pain and guilt and horror had been washed away.

  I opened my eyes and it all flooded back.

  ‘Oh, March.’ Her face was flushed. ‘Put your hand to me.’

  ‘I do not—’ She touched my mouth with her fingertips and took my right hand in her left, and placed it on her blouse.

  ‘Feel how fast my heart beats for you.’

  I felt the cotton and through it a pendant and a pulse, and her breath short on my cheek.

  ‘Someone might come.’

  Dorna sighed and pulled slowly away and pinched the bridge of her nose, pressing hard on the corners of her eyes.

  ‘I have come to tell you that I might be going away, March. A permanent position has come up in Edinburgh and I shall not get such an opportunity again.’

  ‘But when will you go?’

  ‘At the end of the month, if I take it. They want me to start as soon as I can, so I may not see you again, March.’

  I shuddered. ‘The last woman who said goodbye to me like this was a murderess.’

  She raised my jaw and looked deep into me. ‘Make sure Inspector Pound gets his medicine.’

  ‘What was the third thing Mr G loves?’ I asked, and her hand dropped from my face to the cameo brooch on her jacket.

  ‘Why, you, of course.’

  And I smiled unhappily. ‘At best he tolerates me.’

  ‘Oh, March.’ She put a stray lock of hair behind my ear. ‘He has such a good opinion of you, but he is afraid to make you swollen-headed. He loves you more than anyone.’

  ‘Or anything?’

  Her face fell. ‘I did not say that.’ She clipped her bag shut. ‘Perhaps you could tell your guardian for me.’

  ‘Surely you can wait and tell him yourself?’

  ‘Tell me what?’ I spun round to see my guardian coming into the room. ‘Good evening, Dr Berry. I trust you are well.’

  Dorna Berry flushed. ‘Oh, I did not hear you.’

  ‘I did not mean to startle you, but Molly already had the front door open to polish it and I was trying out my new boots.’ I looked down and saw that his feet were clad in two clumsy black lumps. ‘They are made of rubber,’ he said, ‘which means that no cattle have to be slaughtered and skinned to provide them. They also have the advantage of being completely waterproof and, as I have just demonstrated, much quieter than the leather and nails that one is accustomed to clack around in.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ I brushed past them both and went upstairs for a gin. I could not fl
ood away the memory of what had just happened, or my disgust with myself, but I could wash away the taste.

  I was not trying to replace you – why would I want to and how on earth could I? But I had such a hunger for love. It comes so rarely in this world that, for a broken instant, I thought I had glimpsed it.

  I smoked a cigarette. It was my last one and the tobacconist would close soon, but I dare not go down. I could not see her and I was frightened to see him. He might have looked human.

  60

  Word Games and Pickled Legs

  It was a chilly night but Sidney Grice rarely felt the cold. We sat either side of the unlit fire, which only served to cool us with the draught from the chimney.

  ‘My father used to say one sack of coal will keep you warm all year,’ he reminisced. ‘Whenever it is chilly, you go down to the cellar for it and, by the time you have lugged it up the steps, you are warm enough to take it down again.’

  ‘Why do you speak of your father in the past tense?’

  My guardian rubbed his shoulder. ‘I have not communicated with him for nine years and three weeks.’

  I wrapped a shawl around me. ‘But whyever not?’

  ‘We are not worthy of each other.’ He folded his arms. ‘What were you asking Dr Berry to tell me when I arrived?’

  ‘She said nothing?’

  ‘Nothing of any great import.’

  ‘I think she had some news, but it is not for me to tell it.’ I pulled my shawl tighter. ‘I was thinking about those messages claiming to be from Mr Piggety.’

  ‘And what conclusion did you arrive at?’

  ‘It may be nothing…’

  ‘Almost certainly.’ He picked a speck from his lapel.

  ‘But it struck me that they both read like a children’s word game.’

  ‘How so?’ A lump of soot fell and burst on to the hearth.

  ‘Well, I cannot remember exactly what they said…’

  ‘I have them here.’ We went to his desk where the telegram was folded inside McHugh’s Explosive Devices, Their Construction and Concealment and Divers Means of Discovering Their Whereabouts and Thereafter Rendering Them Impotent. ‘It is patently a code but I find myself as yet unable to break it.’

  He flattened the paper out.

  MR GRICE YOU ARE LACKING VITAL INFORMATION COME FACTORY THREE EXACTLY NO LATER OR INDEED ANY EARLIER YOU SHALL GET INSTRUCTIONS BY NEXT POST YOU MUST OPEN LETTER UP IMMEDIATELY RECEIVED KEY HAS BEEN ATTACHED TO NOTE LEFT DOOR LOCKED SECURELY I SHALL NOT OPEN SO NEED TO OPEN YOURSELF HOPE OBEY ORDERS FROM PROMETHEUS PIGGETY ESQUIRE DONT FORGET KEY OR YOU REALLY CANNOT MAKE AN ENTRY.

  ‘We used to write messages where the first letter of every word made up other words.’

  He grunted and began to print in a hand so small I could hardly read it.

  MGYALVICFTENLOIAEYSGIBNPYMOLUIRKHBATNLDLSISNOSNTOYHOOFPPEDFKOYRCMAE

  ‘That does not appear to make much sense.’

  ‘What if we reverse it?’ I suggested. ‘EAMCR… No, that does not work. Sometimes we would use the letter before or after in the alphabet.’

  He printed out DZLBQ and then FBNDS.

  ‘It could be two or more letters in either direction.’ He tried a few combinations, and as he did so I looked again at the first letters, and then it sprang out at me.

  ‘My life,’ I said and he looked down.

  ‘Of course. What a dullard you have been. It uses the first letters of alternate words.’ He wrote them down.

  MY LIFE LIES IN YOUR HANDS SO NO HOPE FOR ME

  ‘Now the letter that came with the key said…’ He had it inside a copy of Exchange and Mart.

  GRICE THIS KEY

  OPENS

  THE OUTER

  DOOR

  LOCK

  TURN

  ANTI CLOCKWISE TO

  GAIN ENTRY PIG GET Y

  Sidney Grice wrinkled his brow briefly and printed GKT.

  ‘No, that is no use.’

  ‘Try starting with the second word.’

  ‘I was about to.’ He wrote TOOLATE. ‘Too late.’ He cricked his neck to look back and up at me. ‘They are toying with me, March. Do you still think I am imagining it?’

  We went back to our chairs.

  ‘Is that all it is?’ I asked. ‘A game?’

  My guardian closed his eyes and from his heavy regular chest movements I might have thought that he was asleep, except for the two halfpennies clicking around in his left hand while his right hand massaged his brow. I watched him for twenty minutes while my mind whirled in its search for a solution. Then, without opening his eyes, he spun the coins high in the air, caught them and announced, ‘I requested another interview with Baroness Foskett this morning but she refuses to see me.’

  ‘I do not think she believes she is in danger,’ I said.

  ‘Who’ – my guardian opened his eyes – ‘is in danger from whom?’

  We heard a thump and turned to see the window splotted with horse manure. ‘Botheration.’ He blinked and his socket welled with blood. ‘A cat-o’-ten-tails would be too good for them.’

  61

  Macbeth and the Guinea Prize

  Sidney Grice was usually a dapper dresser but that evening he had excelled himself – white tie and tails and a long black cloak lined in red silk.

  ‘Are you going to the opera?’ I asked and his face darkened.

  ‘Almost as bad.’ He selected a cane. ‘Dorna has invited me to the theatre – some Shakespearean tripe – and she had already obtained the tickets so I did not see how I could get out of it. And you know how I hate to offend people.’

  ‘You would rather kill yourself,’ I said.

  ‘And deprive the world of my genius? Never.’ He swapped his cane for another.

  ‘Which play are you going to see?’

  He frimped up his bow in the mirror. ‘Oh, Hamlet or something equally dreary – Macbeth, I think.’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking about that quotation…’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He polished the nap on his top hat. ‘We can discuss your opinions on henpecked Celtic regicides when we are stranded on a desert island and have dredged every other topic of conversation to the apogee of exhaustion. Where is my cab? I shall be even later than I hoped.’

  ‘Yes, but speaking of Hamlet, when—’

  ‘Macbeth, March. Do pay attention.’ There were four sharp raps on the door and Sidney Grice threw it open. ‘At last.’

  A cabby stood on the steps in a short woollen jacket and scuffed bowler. He put his arm over his eyes. ‘Cripes, Mr Grice, you quite bedazzled me. Goin’ to arrest the queen, are we?’

  ‘I do not know where you are going,’ my guardian said, ‘but I am going to witness the murder of a Highland king.’

  ‘Blimey. Can’t you put a stop to it?’

  My guardian shivered. ‘I am two hundred and seventy-six years too late, I fear.’

  ‘I wasn’t that slow in coming,’ the driver protested. ‘Oh, and the men wanted me to ask – does the guinea prize still hold?’

  ‘Until further notice.’

  ‘How will we know the other one?’

  ‘She has a large brown birthmark on the left of her face.’

  ‘So does my greyhound,’ the cabby grumbled and went back to his cab.

  ‘Do not wait up.’ Sidney Grice went down the steps. ‘I shall be too depressed for conversation.’

  ‘She got it wrong,’ I called after him, and he turned reluctantly.

  ‘Who got what wrong?’

  ‘The baroness. She said How weary, flat, stale and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world,’ I recited. ‘But she should have said, How weary, stale, flat, et cetera. I do not suppose it matters.’

  My guardian’s cheek ticked. ‘You knew that the first time we saw her?’

  ‘Well, I noticed, but it did not seem important.’

  ‘Important?’ The wind whipped at his cloak, wrapping it around his legs. ‘All clues are important.’

&n
bsp; ‘I did not know it was a clue.’

  ‘For gawdsake,’ the cabby complained from his high seat.

  ‘Of course you did not.’ He fought to untangle his legs and keep his hat on at the same time. ‘That is why you will never be a detective.’

  I took two steps back and slammed the door as hard as I could.

  ‘I do that,’ Molly said, running up to see what was happening. ‘When you are both out and clients call. Stop botherating him, I say. He’s got too much to worry about already.’

  ‘I would advise you not to tell Mr Grice that,’ I said and Molly screwed up her nose while she thought about it.

  ‘I will take your advise,’ she decided at last and went back down the basement stairs.

  I ran upstairs to bring Spirit down and we played with the tassels on a cushion until she grew tired and fell asleep on it, and I tried to read Jane Austen, but it was all simpering girls whose only ambition was to marry. The next thing I knew Sidney Grice was shaking my shoulder.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘Very nearly.’ My first thought was to hide Spirit, but she was already standing on her hind legs and trying to claw the hem of his cloak. Somewhat to my surprise, he ignored her.

  ‘You should not sleep upright. It drains blood from the brain.’

  He laid his hat on the table.

  ‘I am sorry I did not mention Baroness Foskett’s misquotation sooner,’ I said and he piffed.

  ‘Perhaps it means nothing.’ My guardian unclipped his cloak. ‘Perhaps it means everything. I shall find out which.’

  ‘Do you think she was telling us something?’

  He puffed. ‘I am not even sure she is mentally continent.’

  ‘So how was the play?’

  ‘Unutterably tedious,’ he said. ‘The only saving grace is that we missed the beginning because Dorna could not find her glove.’

  ‘At least Macbeth is one of the shorter plays,’ I consoled him. ‘You did not have to sit through Hamlet. That is a much longer play, though you might have found the murder more…’