Breaking the Circle, page 13
‘Can you think of anyone who would wish her harm?’ Kane asked.
‘Ah, you must ask the spirit world,’ Hilda said, fiddling with the bobbin of her Singer sewing machine. ‘Most of those we talk to are benign souls, wandering in the Void and wanting to reconnect with loved ones. Some, however,’ she looked around her, furtively, ‘are malevolent. The Tudors knew them as Kit-in-the-Canstick, Puck and Boneless, and that silly man Shakespeare turned most of them into elves and faeries. In fact, they are unhappy ghosts, demons of the night.’
She saw the scepticism in his eyes.
‘You must understand, Inspector, that the Evadne Principals of this world go boldly into the next. They cross the Great Divide with almost nothing to protect them. The spirits don’t like that. They whisper. They plot.’
‘But do they murder?’ Kane asked.
‘Oh, indubitably they do. Evadne merely annoyed the wrong one.’
‘I was thinking of a more … earthly … explanation,’ the inspector said. ‘Someone who perhaps had a grudge against Evadne.’
‘No, I’m sure I … oh, but wasn’t there another sensitive who came to a sticky end a week or so ago?’
‘There was,’ Kane nodded. ‘Muriel Fazakerley.’
‘Well, there you have it,’ Hilda said, poising her foot to begin treadling again. ‘If you won’t accept what is staring you in the face, Inspector – that the spirit world is behind all this – then you must needs look to another obvious source. Mean, disbelieving people seeking vengeance on the medium world. And you could start with those obnoxious bastards in the Society for Psychical Research.’ She bent to her task and sewed a fine seam, biting off the thread at the end. ‘Pardon my French.’
Kirk Merrington bored easily, as he had admitted to Margaret Murray some time ago. He had finished fifteen of the thirty drawings for her book and was beginning to dread the sight of another mummified corpse.
‘Isn’t it funny,’ the umpteenth visitor to the Petrie Museum would say, ‘how all these pharaohs had red hair.’
‘It’s the acidity in the soil of Egypt,’ he told more than one of them, yawning as he did so. Instinctively, they had moved away.
‘Hey, fella,’ one brash American of the Vanderbilt persuasion hailed him. ‘Those sketches are pretty good. Maybe one day you’ll be as famous as Meikle Angelo.’
That was when Kirk Merrington moved away, taking his pencils and pads with him. And he all but collided with Margaret Murray.
Both of them screamed.
‘Oh, Mr Merrington,’ she laughed, clutching her choker. ‘I’m so sorry. Are you all right? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
The artist chuckled too. ‘Dr Murray, I do apologize. Not looking where I was going, I’m afraid.’ Since the archaeologist barely reached to the man’s chest, he thought he ought to check on her general well-being. ‘Are you all right? I could have sent you flying.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. Now, do you have anything for me?’
‘Indeed I do,’ and they scuttled down the passageway to Margaret’s inner sanctum.
It was the end of another long day at the Petrie. Margaret Murray was putting on her hat ready to go home. Jack Brooks was sitting at a desk, sorting papers.
‘Shall I drop these round to Quaritch’s now, Dr Murray?’ he asked. ‘The Merrington drawings.’
‘Thank you, dear boy. That would be kind. I doubt at this hour that Bernard Q himself will be there, but I expect he has an army of underlings slaving away until the last moment.’
As one of those underlings himself, Brooks knew that feeling all too well. ‘May I be permitted to make an observation?’ he asked.
‘Please,’ she said, brushing a speck of dust off Mrs Plinlimmon, currently residing on her desk.
‘Well, the drawings are excellent, but the pharaoh’s faces – they’re all the same.’
Margaret chuckled. ‘It’s Mr Merrington’s way of portraying family likenesses,’ she said. ‘And we none of us knows exactly what they looked like, do we? Good night, Jack.’
She hummed a tune as she scuttled down the stairs, smiling at the cat god Bast as she usually did. Whoever had carved that basalt beauty in the days of the Middle Kingdom clearly had had a wicked sense of humour. Bast was smiling and licking her lips as the last of the cream went down.
‘Good night, Kirby,’ she called to the uniformed man on the door.
‘Good night, Dr Murray – oh, there’s something for you.’
He rummaged in his little booth and passed her an envelope. It had a Royal Artillery crest on the corner and a small red seal on the flap. She opened it.
‘Well, well,’ she said, and smiled at Kirby again. The doorman was a prey to gossip, especially concerning the staff of the museum, and he would have given Nefertiti’s right arm to know what the letter said. Margaret knew that perfectly well. She tapped her nose with the envelope, stuffed it into her handbag and marched out into Bloomsbury, a skip in her step and a possible solution to one of life’s little mysteries in her heart.
Members called it The Rag. To the outside world, it was the Army and Navy Club, a solid, square building along Pall Mall. Margaret had never crossed its portals before and she had no idea what to expect. What she had not expected, was a dinner invitation from a man she hardly knew, who, as far as she was concerned, knew her as Henrietta Plinlimmon. It was very intriguing and that was why she had accepted. There had been no time for a formal acceptance, but it was clear from the speed of the whole thing that her host was in something of a hurry. Margaret had no Thomas to watch over her, but then again, she was forearmed; would, at all times, be in the company of officers and gentlemen; and the murderous hat-pin that lay in her clutch bag was a deterrent made of the best Sheffield steel.
She showed her invitation to the flunkey on the door and he in turn took her through winding corridors where scarlet-faced soldiers of the late queen stared down at her from their canvases. At the last corner, the huge white marble nose of the Duke of Wellington shone like a beacon. The flunkey knocked on a side door and opened it.
‘Ah, dear lady.’ General George Boothby was tucked into his mess dress, all scarlet and gold lace. He took Margaret’s hand and kissed it. ‘So glad you could join me.’ He shot a glance at the flunkey that said, ‘Put this on my slate and keep your mouth shut’ and the man departed.
‘Can I offer you a sherry?’ Boothby ushered Margaret to a chaise longue, not the safest item of furniture to find in the private apartments of a man with wandering hands.
‘You can offer me an explanation,’ she said, sitting demurely, with her clutch bag firmly on her lap.
‘Ah, yes.’ Boothby poured for them both and she couldn’t help noticing that her glass was filled considerably fuller than his. In fact – she tipped her head and closed one eye – yes, she was right. The cunning old general was using a toasting glass, with a thick bottom; for every one glass he drank, she would be getting the equivalent of three. ‘I suppose you mean, how did I have my dinner invitation delivered to Dr Margaret Murray, when you are actually Henrietta Plinlimmon?’
‘Something like that,’ she said.
Boothby sat beside her, but at a gentlemanly distance. ‘Do you, by any chance, play poker, Dr Murray?’
‘I’m more of a bridge woman myself,’ she told him, ‘but I have been known to dabble.’
‘I thought so,’ he smiled. ‘I know a poker face when I see one. Someone who has the inner steel to meet trouble head on and yet come out smiling. Well, I have that ability too. As soon as you were introduced to us all at the Circle, I knew who you were.’
‘Really? How, pray?’
‘That old rogue Flinders Petrie. I met him in Egypt … ooh, now, let me see, six … no, seven years ago. I was advising the Khedive on how to bolster his southern defences and Flinders was rummaging up to his neck in sand. We became as thick as thieves. And he spoke of you constantly.’
‘He did?’
Boothby nodded. ‘If I remember rightly, you were the new girl at the school then, weren’t you?’
‘My first year as junior lecturer at University College, yes.’
‘Yes, well.’ Boothby sampled his sherry. ‘Saving your blushes, you came across as something rather more than that. Something a little more … extra-curricular, shall we say?’
‘I don’t think I care for the sound of that, General,’ she said, her drink untouched.
‘Forgive me, dear lady,’ he gushed. ‘I mean no offence. But Flinders was clearly smitten. And I, I must admit, was intrigued. When I finished my tour of duty and came home, I followed his exploits in the papers and, sure enough, there you were, photograph and all – a year or two ago, in the Valley of the Kings.’
‘Well, I’m flattered, of course,’ Margaret said, although that wasn’t exactly how she felt.
‘So, imagine my surprise when you turned up at Aggie Dunwoody’s out of the blue, posing as somebody else entirely.’
‘I had my reasons,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you did,’ Boothby nodded. ‘And I’d be delighted to share.’
‘Since you were kind enough to invite me to dinner, General,’ she said, ‘I’d be delighted to share a meal with you. More than that would be a step too far.’
Boothby drained his glass and went for a refill, regretting his choice of vessel. ‘That Scotland Yard business was intriguing,’ he said, watching the candlelight twinkle on the amber liquid. ‘It was a ploy, of course.’
‘Yes,’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘And it was true.’
‘Was it?’ He sat down again, closer this time. ‘I know for a fact that despite the protestations of the ghastly Women’s Social and Political Union, there is no such thing as a female policeman. So I was wondering in what capacity you can be so well informed.’
He was leaning over her now, relatively easy at six foot, and his left hand was resting on his knee, perilously close to hers.
‘The murder of Muriel Fazakerley has become something of an interest of mine.’
‘An obsession, even?’ A vein throbbed in his temple.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that.’
‘But you think it was one of us? One of the Circle?’
‘That is possible,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you can help me in that respect.’
‘Oh, Dr Murray … Margaret … I can help you in a number of respects.’
She felt his sherry breath on her cheek and saw his hand hover inches above her skirts but a knock on the door shattered the moment. Another flunkey stood there, as ex-soldierly as the first, but with the uniform of a mess waiter and a trolley covered with gleaming silver-topped dishes.
‘Dinner, sir,’ the man announced with a hint of the obvious.
‘Not now, Private!’ Boothby hissed, but Margaret was already on her feet.
‘When you invited me to dinner, General Boothby,’ she said, ‘especially at the Army and Navy Club, I assumed that it would be Ladies’ Night, at long regimental tables with toasts, claret and convivial company. I had no idea that I was to be lured into a cul-de-sac and propositioned by a man old enough to be my father.’
‘Cul-de-sac?’ Boothby was on his feet too. ‘Propositioned? My good lady, this is 1905!’
She rounded on him, standing on tiptoe. ‘I am well aware of the date, sir,’ she said. ‘But if the twentieth century has no more to offer than the ineffectual fumblings of an ageing roué, I’m heartily glad that I spend most of my time in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, when women were treated with respect.’
Margaret knew that that last bit wasn’t true, but she was confident that Boothby didn’t and it was a good exit line. She spun on her heel, then lifted one of the tureen lids. Damn! Devilled kidneys. And they looked and smelled delicious.
‘Devilled kidneys,’ she bridled. ‘How revolting! Waiter, could you see me to the door?’
EIGHT
Andrew Crawford had never been keen on visiting the sick. He remembered toe-curlingly embarrassing Sunday afternoons when the family visited his maternal grandmother, traipsing around her little village with her special nourishing soup, a concoction he knew for sure would be down the privy before their shoes hit the pavement. Now, his visiting was usually to people in extremis, who had been beaten, often to the point of death, and it was no easier. The nurses seemed to be a special breed, not very big some of them, but with the temperament of a bear with a sore head. One such met him at the door of Christina Plunkett’s ward.
‘Can I help you, young man?’
Sergeant Crawford looked down to meet the implacable gaze of a little turkey-like woman. There was so much starch in her clothing that everything would have stood there, whether or not she was inside. She positively crackled, with both attitude and laundering.
‘I’m here to see Miss Plunkett, if she is well enough,’ he said, politely. ‘I am a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police.’
Her lip curled with derision. ‘A policeman, are you? Well, you and your colleagues were doing an excellent job when Miss Plunkett was attacked, weren’t you?’
‘We can’t be everywhere …’ Crawford looked for clues on the woman’s uniform. There were no badges to denote rank, but the blue was quite deep in colour, something he had noticed before often meant someone a little superior to the usual, so he tried a leap of faith. ‘Sister.’
The woman smiled frostily and he sighed with relief. There was nothing worse than under-ranking a nurse.
‘My colleague did find her very soon after the attack and got her to the hospital with some despatch, as I understand it.’
There was no arguing with that and the sister was not immune to a pretty face, so she begrudgingly stood aside and half-opened the door, before stopping Crawford with a firm hand. ‘Please don’t expect too much from Miss Plunkett,’ she said in almost human tones. ‘She’s had a severe shock, let alone the physical injuries, which are not inconsequential. Like many women of her class, she had thought herself invulnerable from attack, so to be taken for a common street walker …’
‘Is that what happened?’ Crawford was surprised. He hadn’t heard that detail.
‘Well, surely?’ The nurse was now also confused. ‘There’s no other reason, is there, for her to be so savagely beaten? We had all assumed that a man …’ she managed to invest that single syllable with all the venom at her disposal ‘… had made an assumption and, on being rebuffed, had taken his revenge.’
Crawford felt he had to stand up for mankind in general. ‘I have certainly seen women beaten for that reason,’ he said, ‘but generally it is just a single blow, often just an open-handed slap.’ He realized what he had said as soon as the words were out of his mouth. ‘I don’t mean “just” as in not important, but merely to …’ He was hopelessly mired in what had once been a sentence and he dithered to a stop.
‘I know what you mean, Detective Sergeant,’ the sister said, with a slight twitch of the lips. Sometimes men were so easy to tease it was a sin.
Crawford got himself in hand. ‘Men who attack women for that reason usually do it out of frustration, if you will excuse my use of the word, and the only thing on their mind is to get on with business with someone else. Miss Plunkett was not interfered with.’ He made it into a question, although he knew the answer and the nurse shook her head. ‘So why did he linger to beat her so severely? I think there is a personal reason. I need to speak to her to see what it might be.’
The sister pushed the door open more fully and pointed. ‘Down there, on the right. Behind the screen.’
Crawford wasn’t quite sure on the details of screen etiquette. Did one call softly, tap a shoe on the floor lacking a door to knock on – what? He settled for a quiet ‘Miss Plunkett? May I come in?’
‘Who is it?’ The voice was soft and held more than a little sound of strain.
‘Detective Sergeant Crawford.’
‘The police?’ The voice became more anxious. ‘Have you caught him?’
Crawford risked putting his head around the curtain and she bridled a little but gestured for him to come in. A hard chair was pulled up next to the bed and he sat down, decently on the edge, not looking as though he meant to stay long.
‘I’m afraid not, Miss Plunkett. We don’t have a description, so we need your help, if that’s possible.’
She closed her eyes, still black and puffy. The dressing around her head was smaller than when he had seen her just after the attack, but was still substantial, looking like an outdated and slightly lopsided toque. Her leg was in a plaster, suspended by ropes and pulleys from the ceiling, and her left arm was in a sling, deposed on a pillow across her lap. All in all, Miss Plunkett had received a beating which would have killed many a lesser woman. Crawford thought that it was not just in outward appearance that she resembled Margaret Murray, although he suspected that the little archaeologist would probably have given her attacker a few mementoes to take away. Perhaps this woman had too.
‘For instance, did you manage to scratch the man, perhaps?’ He waited patiently for her answer.
Tears pooled under the swollen lids and she shook her head carefully, wincing.
‘Punch or slap?’
‘No, officer, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was walking home. I had a lot on my mind. The meeting had been rather … well, not very peaceful. I used to like the meetings, they were calming and pleasant. But since poor Muriel, things have become rather more confrontational and I was considering resigning my membership. There are always others wanting to join, so my chair wouldn’t be empty for long.’ She stopped and cleared her throat, pointing at a glass of rather dusty-looking water on the table at the side of the bed. Crawford passed it to her and she sipped, swallowing with some effort. ‘I think because of my being in somewhat of a brown study,’ she went on, ‘I didn’t hear the man come up behind me. I was aware of nothing before a savage blow to my head which knocked me into the railings. Then – nothing until the policeman who came to my aid.’
