Breaking the Circle, page 10
‘That’s it, then.’ General Boothby said, but Margaret couldn’t help but notice that he patted her thigh rather than his own and she moved subtly away.
The nearest port in a potential storm for Margaret was Robert Grimes. He stood furthest away from the general, which was a good start, and he had less of the old lecher about him. Conversations were breaking out in the sitting room as Agatha Dunwoody was handing out the pastries. She may have just dropped a mortar, but Margaret didn’t want to be the first to leave.
‘Mr Grimes,’ she smiled up at him. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask how you came to join the Circle.’
‘My local, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I used to attend Finsbury Park, but it all got a bit tame.’
‘Excitement?’ She took up the theme. ‘Is that what attracted you to Spiritualism?’
‘I suppose so, yes. It all goes back to when I was a lad.’
Margaret suppressed a laugh. Robert Grimes was still a lad, not that much older than her students at college. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said, keeping a weather eye open for a general with wandering hands.
‘Oh.’ They sat on the sofa, side by side. ‘I’d have been about twelve, I suppose. A relative took me. He said – and I’ve never forgotten it – “Do you want to see a ghost, Robbie?”’
‘And did you?’
‘Did I want to? Or did I see one?’
‘Either,’ Margaret chuckled.
‘I wanted to, yes. I was brought up on Dickens – Marley, Christmas Past, all that sort of thing. So we went along.’
‘Was it usual for one so young to attend a séance?’
‘I suppose not,’ he laughed. ‘But the Grimeses are an unusual family. It was raining, I remember. And it was a Friday.’
‘Where was this?’
‘Walthamstow – don’t ask me why. We all sat round an oval table and it was dark. The curtains were thick and closed. There was no fire, even though it was winter and I remember shivering. I’d never seen a glass moving before, but it did that night. We all placed a finger on the upturned stem and when the medium – a terrifying old bag … er … lady as it seems to me now – asked the time-honoured question “Is anybody there?” the thing slid to “Yes”.’
Margaret winked at him. ‘It would have put you all in a pickle had it said “No”, wouldn’t it?’
Grimes laughed. ‘I wasn’t as cynical then, Henrietta,’ he said. ‘In fact, I believed that everything I heard and saw that night was real.’
‘And what did you hear?’ she asked. ‘What did you see?’
‘Whatever it was moving that glass had a message from beyond,’ he told her. ‘A message that seemed directed at me.’
‘At you?’ Margaret frowned.
‘The glass spelled out “Boy”.’
‘And what did the message say?’
‘Nothing. Not at first. The glass began to spell out a word, but it didn’t make sense. Then, the thing went berserk. It scraped across that table with a screech that froze my blood. It was moving so fast. And then, it shattered.’
‘Of its own volition?’ Margaret was sceptical.
‘Yes. No one was touching it at that stage and it just fragmented, then and there.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Somebody screamed; I don’t know who. That’s when it started.’ Suddenly, the carefree young man with the debonair approach to life became still, his face a mask of memory.
‘What, Mr Grimes?’ Margaret asked. ‘What started?’
He was staring into the middle distance. Wherever he was at that moment, it was not in Agatha Dunwoody’s parlour at Thirty-One Cavendish Street. ‘The voice,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll never forget the voice. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from either. It seemed to echo around the room as if its owner were moving about, moving among us.’
‘What did it say?’
‘“No. No. No.” Over and over again. And then, there was a choking sound and a laugh.’ Grimes shuddered. ‘I’m sorry, Henrietta,’ he said, back from wherever he had been. ‘That laugh was how I imagine the devil to sound, mocking us all the way from hell.’
‘You had quite an imagination,’ she said softly, ‘for a twelve year old. Alexander the Great was twelve, allegedly, when he first rode Bucephalus and his father told him to find a kingdom big enough for him because Macedonia was too small. He went on to conquer a third of the known world.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Grimes was smiling again, ‘that the Stock Exchange can quite compare with that.’
‘Was there anything else that night?’ Margaret asked.
‘An intense cold,’ Grimes remembered. ‘I told you the room was cold anyway, but we could suddenly see our breath, as though we were outside on a frozen winter’s night. And there were the words.’
‘The words?’
‘I can only describe it as a miasma, a glowing light or series of lights, hovering over our heads. It moved to the far wall and stayed there, curling like mist over a river. Then it vanished.’
‘And the words?’ Margaret was none the wiser.
‘Well, the session ended there. There were protests, but the hostess whose house it was, was thoroughly rattled by these goings-on and lit the lamps. There, on the wall where the mist had hovered were the words “Look at me”.’
Margaret frowned. ‘Do you remember, Mr Grimes, if this was in handwriting? A scrawl?’
‘Yes, very untidy,’ he nodded.
‘As if someone had done it in a hurry before the lamps were lit?’
Grimes laughed. ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘In the years since then, I’ve tried to rationalize the whole thing. I’ve been to séances without number trying to recreate the setting, to witness the same thing. I never have.’
Margaret smiled. ‘Could it be,’ she asked him, ‘that it was just part of your childhood that you never fully understood? A memory that has grown out of all proportion, like Alice when she was ten feet tall?’
‘Yes,’ Grimes said, wistfully. ‘Yes, I suppose it was something like that.’
SIX
It was more like an echo than anything else, no more than a whisper on the wet pavements. It had been raining while the Bermondsey Circle had been holding forth and, at this hour, the hansoms were getting to be few and far between, and so although the night was now fine and Margaret was a walker of some repute, over hill, dale and Egyptian sand, she suddenly felt safer in the leather-scented interior of a cab than in the open. She knew that when she reached the end of Gower Street, somewhere in the Bloomsbury darkness, Thomas had promised that he would be her shadow. He had wanted to be waiting outside the Dunwoody residence, but for now, Margaret didn’t want to tip her hand too obviously. So she had promised him she would hail a cab as soon as possible and that she would alight precisely at the corner of Gower Street and Torrington Place, near enough to home to make it convenient if no attack took place, far enough away to give any would-be assailant time to make their move. Thomas was unhappy about the whole shenanigans, as he told her, but what the Prof wanted, the Prof got and so he waited in a doorway with his eyes peeled in the gloom.
The black bulk of University College loomed over Gower Street along with the outlines of the other buildings Margaret knew so well. The lamplighter had been and gone and the streets glistened with the memory of the spring rain which had left the air smelling sweetly of distant countryside. It was the merest glimmer, but something pale suddenly flashed over her left shoulder.
‘Miss Plinlimmon …’ was all she heard before there was a crunch and a squawk. She spun round to see Thomas holding a man up against a wall, the man’s arm wrenched painfully behind his back, his face in much closer proximity to the grimy London brick than was strictly comfortable.
‘I’ll Miss Plinlimmon you, sunshine!’ Thomas growled. He lashed out with his left boot and the man crumpled to the pavement. ‘Oops,’ he said. ‘How careless of me.’ And he rested the same boot on the man’s head.
‘Well, well, Mr Mortimer,’ Margaret said. ‘I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you. Now, Thomas, don’t hurt him. Is there somewhere we can talk?’
‘The Jeremy B’s quiet this time of night,’ the proprietor said, hauling Mortimer upright, ‘seeing as how it’s well past ten o’clock and I’ve got the only key. But don’t you want this piece of wossname round the police station?’
‘Possibly,’ Margaret said. ‘But I’d like some answers first.’
‘You have absolutely no right to do this!’ Mortimer snapped.
‘Citizen’s arrest, mate,’ Thomas said, clicking closed the Hiatt handcuffs to the leg of Mortimer’s chair. ‘Just don’t ask where I got these.’
The three of them were sitting in the Jeremy Bentham. The shutters were closed and a solitary candle burned on the table.
‘Why did you follow me?’ Margaret asked the handcuffed man.
‘Because I believed you are not quite what you seem,’ he told her.
‘Are any of us?’ she asked. ‘You, for instance, are not called Mortimer, are you?’
‘No,’ he admitted, and the faux-Cockney had gone. ‘I am Archie Flambard. May I reach into my pocket?’
‘Slowly and carefully,’ Thomas said.
‘My card.’ Flambard flourished it and Margaret read it.
‘The Society for Psychical Research,’ she said. ‘You’re a ghost hunter.’
‘We in the Society prefer the term occult investigator,’ he said.
‘A rose by any other name, Mr Flambard,’ she said, leaning back. ‘You are in the Bermondsey Circle to expose frauds.’
‘They’re all frauds.’ He leaned back too, as far as the handcuffs would let him. ‘Delusional people obsessed with nonsense. Trust me, there are no such things as spirits.’
Margaret smiled. ‘You have not stood in a pharaoh’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings,’ she said.
‘Granted,’ Flambard agreed, ‘but these people are obsessed. I have no problem with that. My quarrel is with those charlatans who make money out of others’ gullibility.’
‘Muriel Fazakerley,’ Margaret said.
‘I was on to her and was about to expose her when she died. And you don’t know what a relief it is to use that word instead of the silly euphemisms of the Circle – passed over, crossed the Great Divide, et cetera, et cetera.’
‘It is the manner of her passing that concerns us, Mr Flambard.’
‘Clearly,’ he nodded, ‘but one correct name deserves another. I took you for another occult investigator, but clearly you are something more.’
‘I am Margaret Murray,’ she said, ‘lecturer in Archaeology at University College around the corner. This is Thomas.’
Flambard nodded at the man who had manhandled him; introductions were all well and good, but the two would never be friends.
‘When did you see Muriel last?’ Margaret asked.
‘The day she died,’ Flambard said. ‘And I realize that that fact alone darkens my reputation. I needed to find out exactly what her modus operandi was. I visited her home, took the opportunity to find the usual apparatus. Without wishing to speak too ill of the dead, Muriel Fazakerley was not exactly top-notch. Eusapia Palladino, now – that’s a different matter. That’s why I pushed for the Circle to invite her. She won’t come cheap, of course, but it would be a huge feather in my cap to catch her in flagrante, as it were.’
‘What time did you leave Muriel?’ Margaret asked.
‘Ooh, let me see, it would be about eight o’clock. I felt I had enough information to put before the Circle at the next meeting and she had a private sitting.’
‘A sitting?’ Margaret echoed. ‘Did she say who?’
‘No.’ Flambard tried to put his hand to his forehead to aid his memory but was cut off short as the handcuffs did their work. ‘But it was someone she didn’t like.’
‘From the Circle?’ Margaret checked.
Flambard shrugged. ‘Who knows? I do know that they all had private, one-to-one sittings from time to time. General Boothby in particular.’
He raised his handcuffed arm again, rubbing at the wrist with his free hand. ‘Look, could we do something about this? It’s deuced uncomfortable.’
‘That’s the idea,’ Thomas said. ‘Prof?’
‘Unshackle him, Thomas,’ Margaret said. ‘We probably owe Mr Flambard the benefit of the doubt.’
Thomas did the honours with a flick of his key.
‘You were about to tell us about General Boothby.’
‘Look him up in the Gazette,’ Flambard shrugged, ‘and that will tell you very little. Commissioned in the Artillery, made his name in the Second Afghan War. The rest of his career was all about contacts, as these things usually are. It’s what the Gazette doesn’t say that’s interesting.’
Margaret and Thomas leaned in closer, their faces lit eerily from below by the candlelight.
‘Rather like poor mediums,’ Flambard said, ‘the general has wandering hands.’
‘Is there a Mrs Boothby?’ Margaret asked.
‘There was, but she left him back in ’93. It was all hushed up, of course. Only the Manchester Guardian tried to run an exposé but, as you know, no one takes any notice of provincial newspapers.’ Flambard lowered his voice. ‘There was talk of dalliance with the Duchess of Buccleuch.’
Margaret and Thomas looked at each other.
‘More,’ Flambard was in his element, ‘there was talk of dalliance with the duchess and a stable-boy – I am assuming on the same occasion or occasions, but I have not been able to find out his name or the precise details. However, Lady Boothby filed for divorce at once and polite society turned its back. Oh, there’d be no more promotions for him, of course, but he’d more or less retired anyway. And the pension of a brigadier is hardly to be sneezed at. The exit of Lady Boothby merely gave the man carte blanche to let his hands wander further.’
‘How far?’ Thomas felt it was his place to ask, rather than embarrass the professor.
‘Most of the way up Duke Street, at least. He joined three Spiritualist Circles before Bermondsey in the hope of getting lucky.’
‘And you believe he “got lucky” with Muriel Fazakerley?’
‘I believe he wanted to,’ Flambard said. ‘As far as I could tell, he had no affinity with the Other Side at all. He just enjoyed pressing himself between two women; the traditional seating arrangement of a séance was perfect for him.’
‘So he may have been Muriel’s visitor?’ Margaret persisted.
‘He may. Then again, it could have been Olivia Bentwood.’
‘Ah,’ Margaret nodded. ‘Almost literally the elephant in the room.’
‘You will have noticed, Margaret, that Olivia Bentwood is a most objectionable woman.’
‘I don’t judge,’ the archaeologist said, primly, at which Thomas snorted and quickly turned it into a cough.
‘She is not only terminally bossy, but was jealous of Muriel. Saw herself as a conduit to the Hereafter.’
‘Wouldn’t Muriel have been suspicious of both of them?’ Margaret asked. ‘Boothby and Bentwood?’
‘Quite possibly,’ Flambard nodded, ‘but never underestimate the arrogance of a medium, Dr Murray, even an average one like Madame Ankhara. She would have assumed, even against all common sense as we would see it, that Mrs Bentwood had come to hear her spout her rubbish for the good of her soul, or whatever. And of course, General Boothby admitted in front of all of us that he had often paid poor Muriel for her favours.’ He glanced at Margaret Murray to see if she were offended, not realizing that offending her was next to impossible.
‘And how do you explain the feather?’ Margaret looked at the man.
‘The what?’
‘A black feather found in the poor woman’s mouth,’ she told him. ‘Placed there, I have no doubt, by the murderer.’
‘Olivia Bentwood’s spirit guide!’ Flambard clicked his fingers. ‘Ojigkwanong wears feathers.’
‘You’ve seen him?’ Thomas sat open-mouthed.
‘Of course not. He’s a figment of Olivia’s warped imagination. She’s suitably vague in her description of him, of course. He’s anything from a Seminole from the swamps of Florida to a Yankton Sioux from the great plains. Recollections vary.’
‘Indeed they do,’ Margaret sighed. ‘But even if Ojigkwanong is a genuine manifestation, I doubt he is able to leave mementoes at scenes of crime.’
‘I’m glad we agree on that,’ Flambard said.
‘Thomas.’ The archaeologist smiled at her right-hand man. ‘Could you rustle us up a pot of tea and perhaps a rudimentary breakfast? I would very much like Mr Flambard to tell us about the rest of the Bermondsey Circle and I fear it may be rather a long night.’
The rain of earlier had passed but in Jamaica Road, Bermondsey, under the trees which overhung the road from the park, the pavements were still damp. The patrolling policeman, making his way at a stately two and a half miles an hour and looking forward more and more with every step to his midnight cup of tea, was therefore somewhat surprised to see a heap of bundled clothing against the railings separating the road from the shrubs which marked the edge of King’s Stairs Gardens. Vagrants were nothing new. Working girls were ten a penny – he thought back to his youth when that was almost literally true with some regret. But neither would choose to lie out on a pavement, albeit poorly lit, in such a damp spot. The gardens and the park further down the road both had benches and dry spaces under the packed rhododendrons where a relatively pleasant night’s sleep was to be had. He slowed his pace a little as he got closer, then put out a tentative toe.
Constable Arnold Boggs had not come to the end of a long if not very exciting career by meeting trouble halfway. If this pile of jumbled fabric covered something dead, he would walk on and leave it for someone else to discover. After all, a stiff wasn’t going to get that much stiffer if it had to wait a while. If it covered something alive, the decision was even simpler. And he tried that from the outset.
‘Move along, there,’ he said, making the nudge more of a kick. ‘Move along, there, missus. This is no place to take a nap.’
