Breaking the Circle, page 23
Margaret went to the head of the table and sat down in the chair recently vacated by Hilda Ransom.
‘It’s all right, Edmund,’ she said. ‘They’ve all gone.’
Reid sat up, hauling the wig from his head and blowing out a relieved breath.
‘Was that all right?’ he asked, in the tones of one who actually knows it was superlative.
‘It was more than I could have ever dreamed it would be,’ she told him. ‘The candles. The feathers. How on earth did you do that?’
‘Trade secrets,’ he said, a finger alongside his nose. ‘The Magic Circle would never forgive me if I told.’
‘Oh, surely,’ she said. ‘Would you tell me if I told you that you persuaded a member of the Society for Psychical Research that you are genuine?’
‘No, really?’ Reid blushed under his rouge. ‘How very satisfying. But no, I still can’t tell you, except that everything in magic is misdirection. You were not looking for a trick, because the result of the trick was so much something you wanted to see. Feathers falling from the ceiling are far more intriguing than seeing some old geezer in a dress pulling a string and opening a sack propped up on a pelmet. I had cracked the window a tad so there was a draught, so they fluttered.’
‘The noise of the hanged man? That gave me the willies and I wasn’t the only one.’
‘Excuse me.’ Reid hauled up his skirts and showed Margaret the rubber membrane wound tightly around an embroidery frame. When he parted his knees, it gave out a funereal twang.
‘That wasn’t the noise, though.’
‘Yes, it was. You heard some of it, imagined the rest.’
‘I don’t understand the thief thing, though. What was that?’
‘Goodness me.’ Reid tutted theatrically and cast up his eyes. ‘That was the easiest bit, though I confess I didn’t have the butler down for a wrong ’un.’
‘I would imagine that Sir James will be going through the accounts in the morning,’ Margaret smiled. ‘But … why robber?’
‘Because of the poem in Florence Rook’s mouth.’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘A page from ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. I think that the boffins at the Yard were worrying about the words, but it could have been any page at all.’
Trying to look intelligent, Margaret shook her head.
‘Father Christmas. Santa. Saint Nicholas. The patron saint of …’
Margaret clicked her fingers. ‘Thieves,’ she said.
‘And murderers, as it just so happens. If the butler hadn’t broken up the party, I would have gone on to that. But I think we achieved quite a lot tonight, don’t you? We’ve rattled our lad, if nothing else.’
‘We certainly have,’ Margaret agreed. ‘Now we have to see what crawls out of the cage. For now, though, let’s get your wig back on and get you downstairs for a bit of making it up as you go along.’ She looked at him, fondly. ‘Are you all right, though? You look tired.’
He turned his face to his shoulder. ‘Tired?’ he said, and the voice boomed round the room, enhanced by the membrane in his wide sleeve. ‘Not a bit of it.’ He patted his hair. ‘How do I look?’
‘Exactly like a fifty-year-old Italian peasant,’ Margaret said. ‘In other words, perfect.’
FOURTEEN
The soirée had finished early for a Lady Sylvia Brooks event – everyone had gone home by two thirty in the morning and everyone who should not have been there had left by four, the usual magic being wrought by caterers, florists and maids so that when Jack Brooks came down to breakfast, it was as if the evening before had never happened. Except for one very significant difference – his mother was sitting in her place jotting down notes for when she interviewed the new butler.
‘So, Bennett, eh?’ Jack took a piece of toast and buttered and marmaladed it while planning what to have next. Breakfast was, after all, the most important meal of the day.
‘Darling,’ his mother murmured. ‘Please try not to sound so common.’
‘Sorry, Mater,’ he said, hiding a grin. ‘Now Bennett’s gone, are you going to be the martinet around here?’
Lady Sylvia put down her pen and sighed. ‘It came as a very great shock,’ she said, solemnly. ‘Your father and I had always put the utmost faith in Bennett, as you know. So to find that he had been …’ she faltered and put delicate fingers to her brow, ‘had been …’
‘Robbing you blind?’
‘As you say, dear, robbing us blind.’ She was too much in shock still to remonstrate. ‘Your father is checking the accounts as we speak. It won’t leave us in penury, of course, but at first glance it looks as though he was skimming off, as I believe the phrase is, some six pence in the pound. Which doesn’t sound much until you think of the upkeep of this place, and the country house …’
‘What was he spending it on, do we know?’
‘Before he was turned out bag and baggage at dawn, your father asked him that. It turns out, he has a family in Isleworth, a wife and two daughters.’
‘Goodness.’ Jack paused with his fork in a sausage. ‘I wouldn’t have had him down as a family man.’
‘And also, a second family in Tooting. Not sure of the details. At that point, your father had some kind of explosion and kicked him out without waiting to hear the rest.’
‘Is Pater all right?’ Jack was suddenly concerned. His father was the mildest of men.
‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ his mother said. ‘He doesn’t like change, we know that, but like the rest of us, he did find Bennett rather hard to live with. He’s very grateful to Eusapia for forcing the issue and very impressed that the spirits knew about Bennett being such an out-and-out bounder. He had a little chat with her after the séance and found her very perceptive, he said. Though he wouldn’t tell me what they discussed.’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘Do you have any idea?’
‘Come on, Mater, there’s a good chap.’ Jack was back in his place with a loaded plate. ‘I’m sure Pa has a completely spotless record. But apart from Bennett – and, can I just ask you, when you replace him, choose someone who at least looks alive, even if they’re not – did everyone have a good time, do you think?’
His mother smiled. ‘Yes, it was a great success. Everyone had such a marvellous chat with Eusapia. Even the Duchess of Blaenavon, who is as deaf as a tree, says she could hear every word she said, so that’s a supernatural skill in itself! Your father did share something with me, however, which you can pass on or not at your discretion.’
‘Ma!’ Jack was touched. ‘Here I am, two degrees and another pending, and you’ve never said I had discretion before!’
‘I didn’t say you actually had any, darling, but if you do, you may use it now. Your father thinks that Dr Murray is a fine figure of a woman. But then, he said the same about Eusapia, so I think we can assume his judgement is a little impaired by the shock of Bennett and his shenanigans.’
Jack spluttered over his poached egg. ‘The prof is a little … pocket, for Pa’s taste. And as for Eusapia – she has biceps like George Hackenschmidt.’
‘As I say, dear,’ Lady Sylvia picked up her pen again and resumed her list-making, ‘it was probably the shock talking.’
‘Probably.’ Jack went back to his breakfast, but he had images in his head that he wished weren’t there and he couldn’t manage his fourth kidney at all.
Margaret Murray was not one for late hours and the night before had rather taken it out of her. By the time she had made sure that ‘Eusapia’ was back at her hotel and had helped her – with eyes averted – out of her bombazine, it had been well past six before she had finally tumbled into bed. She had broken the habit of a lifetime, therefore, and had not reached her desk until nearly ten and found a somewhat disgruntled Flinders Petrie waiting for her when she finally shouldered the door open and threw her capacious bag on to the floor.
‘Margaret,’ he said, gruffly.
‘William.’ She looked at him. ‘Here to yell at me again?’
‘I don’t yell.’
‘If you want to be pedantic, that’s all right by me, but if you are here for social purposes or just to bully, I must ask you to, pardon my French, bugger off, because I am rather busy.’ She gestured to her bag. ‘As you see, many marked papers to be discussed with their authors, if that is actually the word. Many appear to be the ramblings of baboons, but no doubt things will be clearer after a chat.’ She smiled a wintry smile at odds with the glowing June day outside. ‘Chats are good.’
Petrie slapped his knees and got up. ‘I came to apologize,’ he muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’
‘Correct. You shouldn’t.’ She edged round to the seat he had vacated behind her desk. ‘Shall we give it a while until we have both calmed down?’
‘I am calm,’ he said. He was worried; he couldn’t envisage a life without Margaret Murray in it.
‘But I am not,’ she said. ‘I don’t need a man to fight my battles, William, and as far as I could see, the battle was concocted from your bad temper. Mr Merrington is a very competent artist, if an odd man taken all in all. Jack Brooks is undertaking the sketches for the actual syllables and all would have been well, with or without your intervention. So, I’m sorry to seem curt, but I need some time and I would like it now. Please close the door on your way out.’
William Flinders Petrie, by some people’s reckoning and certainly by his own, the leading archaeologist of his generation if not of all time, stood irresolute in the doorway like a naughty schoolboy. He kept his temper in check, remembering where it had landed him the last time. Before either of the protagonists had time to blink, the door burst open and propelled Petrie across the room. Had it not been for a fortuitous armchair, he would have ended up in the coal scuttle.
‘Oh, goodness, I’m sorry, Professor Petrie. I didn’t know you were there.’ Jack Brooks was covered in confusion.
‘Don’t worry, Jack,’ Margaret said, smiling. ‘Professor Petrie was just leaving, were you not, William? Help the professor up, Jack, there’s a dear. Thank you.’
Jack Brooks watched Petrie go. There was a man who had just had a jolly good snubbing from Margaret Murray, or he was a Dutchman.
Margaret looked at Jack with an enigmatic smile. ‘Excellent timing, Jack. And an excellent thesis as well, by the way.’ She opened a drawer and pulled it out, blowing some dust off. ‘Congratulations, Dr Brooks.’
Jack Brooks blinked. ‘Just like that. No … no questions? No viva?’
‘No need. Vivas are just a lot of hot air, where a bunch of over-inflated egos think desperately of something not totally idiotic to ask. Probably the best written and presented thesis I have ever read. Well done.’
Brooks narrowed his eyes. ‘May I ask when this was ratified?’
Margaret flipped open the cover and then closed it again. ‘A while ago,’ she said. ‘But let’s not quibble. You have some sketches to complete, I understand. Let’s get to it.’ She looked up and gave him the sudden smile which made all her students her slaves. ‘But first, tell me – what is the latest gossip about Bennett.’ She looked around, then pointed. ‘Pull up a chair and crack out the garibaldis.’
Brooks pulled up a chair and began. ‘Well, it turns out, Bennett had a family in Isleworth …’
‘No!’
‘And another one in Tooting. It was like this …’
And the sketches had to wait for another little while.
Thomas was the only one in the room who wasn’t feeling just a little fragile. Although on duty, Kane and Crawford had imbibed a little of the champagne which flowed like water at any of Lady Sylvia Brooks’s events, just to blend in, as Kane had said. All policemen are used to staying up all night and it was by no means a new experience for any of them, but being Eusapia Palladino was more exhausting than anyone might think and Reid was not as young as he was. He had survived the night on a wave of pure adrenaline and was now feeling a little seedy. Margaret Murray looked as she usually did, interested in everything, ready for whatever life had to throw, but she was having to force her ears to listen and her eyes not to close.
‘Well, gents and Prof,’ Thomas said genially, rubbing his hands and leaning over them in best mine host fashion. ‘What’s it to be, this fine summer’s afternoon? How about a nice cream tea? A few muffins on the side, eh? Jam? Clotted cream?’ Eight eyes turned to him in mute protest and he made himself scarce. ‘I’ll just bring some tea,’ he said as he walked away. ‘See how we go on from there, shall we?’
‘He means well,’ Margaret muttered.
‘Still can’t get used to being this near a copper and not getting his collar felt.’ Kane was a touch curmudgeonly; he usually had quite a soft spot for old lags who went as gloriously straight as Thomas.
Reid was not in the mood for small talk. He had a lovely crisp bed at the Tambour House Hotel which had his name on it, and he wanted to be lying on it as soon as was humanly possible. ‘What are your views on last night, everyone? I assume we don’t count the butler as a serious suspect?’ He looked round as the others nodded in agreement.
‘I doubt he would have had the time,’ Margaret said, and told them all about the bigamous Bennett.
‘My money’s on the son,’ Kane said.
‘What?’ Margaret Murray was outraged. ‘I’ve just awarded him a PhD!’
‘May I ask,’ Kane said, ‘how that stops him from being an habitual homicide?’
Crawford wasn’t so certain Brooks was their man, but the statistics didn’t lie. There were many doctors who had met their end on the gallows, for example; intelligence was no bar to being a raving maniac. Pritchard, Palmer, Cream – they all had form.
‘I don’t mean that the degree in itself means he is innocent,’ Margaret said, crossly. ‘You’re putting words into my mouth. What I mean is … I know Jack Brooks. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Just give me one good reason why it is him. Just one.’
‘Fingerprints.’ Kane spoke with all the certainty of a man who knew he had right on his side.
‘What fingerprints?’ The archaeologist would be the first to admit she knew little of the fledgling science, but this seemed rather a leap to her.
Crawford leaned towards her and put a gentle hand on her arm. ‘There are prints from your rooms and the museum which are also found at the crime scenes, Margaret. I’m sorry.’
‘There are many people who it could be,’ she said, playing for time.
‘I know,’ Crawford said. ‘We have made a list and I’m sorry, Margaret, but it looks like Brooks is our man.’
‘But why?’ Margaret heard her own voice and realized it sounded plaintive.
‘He was the one who suggested the séance at his parents’ house,’ Kane said.
‘No. It was his mother.’ It was clear that these men didn’t know Lady Sylvia.
‘How do you know that?’ Kane was relentless.
‘It … it’s the sort of thing his mother would plan.’ As a reason, it sounded weak.
Reid cleared his throat. ‘If I may?’ Everyone looked at him. ‘I did my best to speak to everyone last night and, by the end of it, I hardly knew who I was. But most of the guests were just makeweights, people invited because Lady Sylvia doesn’t know how to give a party for less than a hundred people. Is that a fair summation?’ He addressed his question to Margaret Murray as the only one in the room with first-hand knowledge of their hostess.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s fair enough. I would say that there were probably only ten or so people there who could be considered serious suspects, less if, as I think is the case, you think these crimes could not have been committed by a woman.’
‘Hold on a minute, there,’ Kane said, his finger in the air. ‘That’s a bit of a wide assumption, isn’t it?’
Crawford and Reid shook their heads. ‘Surely,’ Crawford said, ‘no woman could have beaten Christina Plunkett so severely? And look at the savagery of the beating that killed Florence Rook.’
Kane laughed, a bitter laugh of sad experience. ‘I can see you have never patrolled the docks on a Friday night,’ he said. ‘You get two toms down there, fighting over territory, and you’ll see damage done that makes what happened to Christina Plunkett look like a goodnight kiss. Besides, I’m not convinced that that is connected.’
Crawford and Reid decided to let that one go. If they sat and argued every point all over again, they would be here until doomsday.
‘Shall we go through the people there who might be—?’
‘Brooks.’ Kane interrupted the archaeologist before she could get going. ‘I don’t see why we’re even talking about anyone else.’
‘But let’s all the same.’ Margaret Murray had honed this particular tone of voice on hundreds of students and it rarely failed. It didn’t now.
‘George Boothby; groper, but that’s the worst you could say. Robert Grimes; nothing known.’ Crawford began the list.
‘Except that his uncle was hanged for murder.’ Margaret let that little gobbet of information float around for a moment before it sank in.
‘Murder isn’t hereditary, though, is it?’ Reid pointed out.
‘No,’ Margaret said, ‘not as far as I know. But upbringing plays a part. Look at Caligula – a thoroughly nasty sadist. And who was his uncle and mentor? Tiberius. I don’t have to paint you a picture.’ From the look on the coppers’ faces, Margaret would have to take a photograph, but she swept on regardless. ‘Grimes’s uncle was Gregory Grimes, I don’t know if you remember the case.’
‘I do,’ Kane said. ‘He killed some woman he was conning money out of. Not even the same thing at all.’
‘As far as we know.’ Andrew Crawford wasn’t all that sure about the murderer being Brooks either.
‘And he did stove the woman’s head in.’ Thomas was back with the tea and, because he couldn’t help himself, a tray of scones, clotted cream and jam as well.
‘How do you know that?’ Kane asked, suspiciously.
