Dead for a Spell (7 page)

He looked hard at me, and I think he saw the resolution in my eyes. “As I recall, it was brought in and later picked up by a young boy—street arab. But I should have a note of the owner. Just a moment.”

He turned to a shelf of thick ledgers and pulled down the end one. He flicked back the pages and then suddenly stopped.

“What's wrong?” I asked. A frown had creased his brow, and he turned a page or two back and forth.

“That's strange! Some deviltry! Someone has torn out a page from my account book!”

*   *   *

“S
o that was something of a dead end,” said Stoker, when I reported back.

He had just finished his Indian clubs exercise regimen and was standing the heavy objects in the corner. I was happy that I hadn't arrived any sooner. Mr. Stoker whirling clubs about his person always unsettled me. I had visions of him losing his grip and allowing one of them to go flying off through the air to land I knew not where.

“So far as tracing the person who had it sharpened, yes,” I said. “Though Nick said he would keep an eye out and see if he could spot the street urchin who brought it to him.”

My boss nodded, pursing his lips and squinting up at the overhead gas mantle. “Harry, it may be as well to acknowledge to Inspector Bellamy that this was somehow stolen from the Guv'nor's dressing room. At least we may then have it returned to him. I'm sure that even Scotland Yard would not entertain the possibility that Mr. Henry Irving slew one of his own actresses.”

“You don't think Bellamy might view it as a terrible accident that we were trying to hide?” I suggested.

“Possibly.” His auburn head nodded up and down. “But I think we can dissuade him from that line of thinking.”

“So what is our next move, sir?”

“We obviously need to find who murdered Miss Burton and their objective in doing so. And we also need to discover why—if such be the case—they are trying to implicate the Guv'nor, if that is in fact their intention.”

“The cast and crew have been talking of nothing but the murder since it happened,” I said. “John Saxon is of the opinion that the killing of Miss Burton is somehow linked to that recent report about Reginald Robertson's regrettable comments. John, Anthony Sampson, and Guy Purdy see it all as part of a plot by Robertson to destroy the reputation of the Lyceum and of the Guv'nor in particular.”

“Yes, well we both know how much thought John Saxon puts into anything, don't we, Harry? If it's not wearing a skirt then his mind won't focus on it for more than ten minutes. And as for Tony Sampson and Purdy, well, they are two of a kind and we both know what kind that is.”

I had to admit that what he said was true. Messieurs Sampson and Purdy were “very close friends,” as Miss Connelly phrased it, and were easily led by the masculine energy of John Saxon.

“But is there any possibility of Reginald Robertson actually being involved, sir?” I asked.

Stoker thought for a moment. “I rather doubt it, Harry. He's busy with his troupe up in Oxford. It's one thing to make contemptible remarks to the newspapers but quite another to actually put words into actions, especially when immersed in a theatrical production of his own.”

“I suppose so,” I said, though I was not entirely convinced. After all, Oxford was only two and a half hours away by the Great Western Railway.

*   *   *

T
wo days later Inspector Bellamy visited again, to see what progress we had made on the murder weapon. Mr. Stoker told him of the dead end we had reached on following the blade-sharpening route and then acknowledged that the knife did in fact belong to Mr. Henry Irving. He convinced the policeman that the weapon, as a theatrical prop, had long been discarded and forgotten about and that Mr. Irving was as surprised as we were to find it suddenly turn up under such disconcerting circumstances. The inspector, after much hemming and hawing, accepted that no one at the Lyceum seemed to be involved in the actual murder, though he did insist on retaining the knife for the time being, as part of the ongoing police investigation.

“This spurned boyfriend of the victim would seem to merit further investigation,” said Bellamy, as he hovered in the doorway of Stoker's office. “Young Mr. Ben Gossett seems to have disappeared. We did find where he had taken rooms, but he has subsequently fled them—also leaving his unpaid account—and gone off without providing a forwarding address. Not an encouraging sign, we would say, sir.”

“Indeed,” agreed Stoker. “Quite the contrary, I would imagine. But the actual conduct of the crime would seem, to my humble mind, to be somewhat beyond that of a spurned would-be lover, especially one of such tender years.”

The inspector raised his eyebrows and waited for my boss to further expound. As did I.

“The setting for the murder,” continued Stoker. “It was in the rehearsal hall, with chalked signs and symbols on the floor. Most decidedly ritualistic, to my mind. Not at all the action of an impulsive youth.”

“We see what you are saying,” agreed Bellamy. He stroked his beardless chin and then scratched his bushy sideboards. “Not unlike the case we had up in Warrington, it turns out.”

My boss's eyes widened with interest. “A similar case, Inspector? When was this?”

Bellamy seemed to suddenly realize that he had spoken out of turn. “We should not be speaking of it, sir. Our mistake.”

“But there are similarities?” urged Stoker.

“Well, yes, sir,” the policeman acknowledged, obviously reluctantly. “It would seem to have been, as you put it, a ritual type of killing—once again.”

“Can you tell me more, Inspector?” Stoker was obviously very interested. “As you know, I do have a certain expertise in this field. Perhaps I can be of assistance?”

Bellamy came more fully into the room. He had been preparing to leave, but now he purposefully closed the door behind him. He glanced at me and seemed to recognize that I was part of Mr. Stoker's furniture, in a manner of speaking.

“Warrington,” he said.

“Lancashire?” I asked.

He nodded. “A young woman—not of the theatre, I hasten to add—was murdered in an old stone barn. Also with her throat slashed. And also amidst a number of strange symbols crudely written, again in white chalk.”

“You have note of these symbols?” asked Stoker.

Inspector Bellamy pulled his notebook from his pocket and turned several pages to find what he was looking for. He then opened it wide and laid it on the desk in front of my boss. I moved around to be able to see it clearly.

“Aha!” murmured Stoker.

“Sir?” asked Bellamy.

“You may not see the similarity, Inspector, but I do. I can assure you that these glyphs were part of a scenario not unlike that acted out for Miss Burton's demise.”

The inspector looked blank.

“The Words of Power were slightly different, as I would expect,” continued Stoker. “And of course the symbols were in a unique configuration. But the intended purpose was the same.”

“The intended purpose?” I asked.

“And what would that be?” asked Bellamy.

Mr. Stoker ignored our questions and put one of his own. “What was the date of this murder, Inspector?”

Bellamy turned back a page in the notebook. “We estimate it as having taken place on the last day of January, sir. The thirty-first of that month.”

Stoker nodded. “Of course. As I suspected.”

“Would you care to elaborate, sir?”

I could hear that the Inspector's patience was wearing thin. I think my boss knew that also.

“Let's just say that, based on the dates of these two murders, we might expect there to be a third such sacrifice,” he said. “And if my suspicions are correct, it will take place on the thirtieth of April.”

Both my jaw and that of the inspector dropped.

M
r. Stoker had refused to elaborate on his prediction of a third ritual slaying, and Inspector Bellamy had left in a huff.

“It is too soon to state categorically that such will occur,” Stoker had said. “I personally believe it to be a strong possibility, but we will first need to do more investigating.”

“Well, you let us know just as soon as you can, Mr. Stoker. And just where you think this murder will take place. We must prevent it, if at all possible.” So saying, the inspector had hurried away.

“You really believe there will be another one, sir?” I asked, when we were alone again.

Stoker's great head nodded up and down. “Oh yes, Harry. I have no doubts. But I don't yet have enough evidence to give details to Scotland Yard.” He paused for a moment before adding, “I may have to ask you to go up to Liverpool and take a look around for me.”

*   *   *

I
didn't fancy leaving the theatre in the middle of a production and going north to Lancashire. It wasn't my favorite part of the country at the best of times. And besides, I thought, what good could I do? I wouldn't know what to look for; how to recognize clues if they were there. But I had faith in my boss and presumed he would give me full instructions when the time came.

On my way back to my office I met Miss Edwina Abbott; she of the tarot cards. I smiled and nodded and moved to pass her but she reached out and grasped my arm.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Rivers, sir, but I need to speak with you. Urgent like.”

Her eyes were big and round and, I thought, pleading.

“Of course,” I said. “Come into my office.”

She followed me in, and, not for the first time, I wished I had a door to close. I waved her to the chair in front of the desk and, squeezing around behind it, sat down and cleared a space on the desktop.

“Now, what can I do for you, Miss Abbott? Is it the cards again?”

She nodded and produced them from her reticule. “I was doing a reading for Tilly Fairbanks. Just funnin', you know, sir. I told Tilly it was too soon—you have to wait a bit between readings 'cos the forces takes time to move, if'n you follow me, sir? Best to give it at least a moon's span.”

I nodded, even though I was not too certain about what she was saying.

“Well, sure enough, as I was trying to do her cards—Tilly's—I got this stuff that was about someone else.”

“Someone else?”

She nodded. “The struck tower, it were. Calamity. It's really a windmill on the card but the name is the Tower.”

I recalled the picture I had seen the time before, when Edwina first showed me her cards, of the figures being thrown from the windmill.

“Someone done to their death,” she continued. “In some sort of old building, I reckon.”

I thought of the woman Bellamy had mentioned, murdered up near Liverpool. “Let me ask you something, Miss Abbott. If what was shown to you in your cards was something that had already happened—perhaps as much as a month or more ago—why would it suddenly appear now? And why in someone else's reading?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn't know
when
it happened, if'n it
has
happened, sir. I can only tell you what I seen. I knows it wasn't Tilly's stuff, 'cos she was all about lovey-dovey over this boy she's wantin'. Then this Tower card suddenly drops in. Here!” She looked up at me as a thought suddenly struck her. “Now as I think on it, the Tower
did
come up inverted. Upside down. I wondered about that. P'raps that was to show it was already done for?”

“Perhaps,” I agreed. “Though you would know better than would I. Thank you, Miss Abbott. Thank you very much. I will pass on this information to Mr. Stoker.”

*   *   *

F
riday morning I sat in the second-class compartment of the London and North Western Railway carriage bearing me north to Liverpool. It seemed to me that I had left Euston Square station at an ungodly hour and was suffering a seven-hour journey costing the Lyceum Theatre twenty-one shillings and ninepence each way. Mr. Stoker had insisted that I go and speak with the local police in Warrington and glean all that I might about the murder that took place there on the thirty-first of January.

Inspector Bellamy had initially been strongly opposed to what he termed “interference in the affairs of Scotland Yard” but had finally acceded that Mr. Stoker's special expertise might help break what was turning out to be an insoluble case for the Warrington police.

The train proceeded by way of Rugby, Crewe, and Stoke-on-Trent. At Liverpool I had to change onto the Cheshire Lines Railway to Warrington. It seemed to me to be a far cry from the backstage of the Lyceum Theatre, and, more importantly, the trip meant that I would be unable to meet with Jenny on this weekend. I sighed. The things I did for Mr. Abraham Stoker!

The train sat for a lengthy stop in Stafford, affording me a fine view of Stafford Castle, situated on a hill overlooking the countryside. Stafford is on the River Sow above its junction with the Trent. Its claim to fame is the manufacture of shoes and boots and as the onetime residence of Izaak Walton. I was not sorry to hear the plaintive whistle of the locomotive and to suffer the lurch as the train once again moved forward, gathering speed as it hurried toward the Potteries and Stoke-on-Trent. Soon chimneys rose in all directions, with furnaces, warehouses, and drying houses for the pottery industry.

I must have dozed off but awoke to the changing rattle of the wheels as the train started across the long iron viaduct over the River Mersey. Shortly afterward the locomotive passed through the deep cuttings in the red sandstone and steamed, breathing heavily, into the Lime Street station where, with a long, loud sigh, it came to rest at platform three.

Clutching my portmanteau, I escaped the confines of the carriage and consulted the listings to find the branch line to Warrington. I discovered that I had a wait of a little over an hour for my connecting train and sought refuge, and refreshment, in the station waiting room. I sat nursing a cup of weak, lukewarm railway tea and nibbling on a digestive biscuit, and thought back to Edwina Abbott and her tarot cards. If, as seemed faintly possible, the emergence of the Tower card in the midst of Tilly Fairbanks's reading had a connection with the crime I was about to investigate, why had it suddenly turned up now, two months after the actual murder? Miss Abbott had not seemed surprised, telling me that the tarot revealed its secrets when they were most needed. Some divine hand, presumably, was dealing the cards.

*   *   *

W
arrington is a busy little town on the right bank of the Mersey. It is a town of some antiquity, dating to Roman times when it was a major crossing point of the river. Today it manufactures cotton, iron, and glass. After making my connection and then finally arriving, I walked the half mile along to the Patten Arms, an ancient oak-beamed tavern with gleaming polished brass proclaiming a pride of ownership on the part of the landlord. I secured a room for a couple of nights and decided to wait till the following morning, a Saturday, to pay my respects at the police station.

Apparently Scotland Yard had originally been called in to investigate the murder of Elizabeth Scott, a local girl who had scraped together a living selling flowers in the market square. Her brutalized body had been discovered on the floor of a hayloft in a barn alongside the parish church. Inspector Bellamy's predecessor had been in charge of the investigation but, being on the eve of his retirement, had not pursued matters as thoroughly as Bellamy felt he should have done. However, Bellamy himself had visited the site only briefly, due to his recent promotion to inspector and to the inherited workload at Scotland Yard. I had been told that the case was very incomplete. Mr. Stoker was intrigued that the pattern of the murder seemed to follow so closely the ritual slaying of Nell Burton, and had Lyceum business allowed it, I know he would have come to Warrington himself. I felt proud that he had entrusted the investigation to me, but nervous that I might not ask all the necessary questions nor get all pertinent information.

The Patten Arms
provided a most satisfactory evening meal, and I sat at a table close to the hot, if slightly smoky, log fire that filled the enormous fireplace. My knife and fork rested on my plate in the midst of a steak and kidney pie, with peas and carrots, flanked by a tankard of their best porter. I eased my belt out a notch and smiled about me. There were two taverns in Warrington: the Patten Arms
and the Lion. I had been advised by my host that the Patten Arms
was by far the superior of the two, and from the crush of customers I could well believe it. Three bosomy serving wenches moved rapidly around the big dining room, ensuring that no one waited on food or drink. Mr. Peregrin Atherton, the portly landlord, stood at one end of the bar, puffing on a churchwarden pipe and smiling around at all and sundry. Suddenly I didn't miss my little theatre office at all.

*   *   *

B
right and early Saturday morning I presented my credentials at the Warrington police station and found myself facing an Inspector Whittaker, a bald-headed, red-faced gentleman no taller than myself but full of self-importance. He read the introductory letter from Bellamy three times, holding his steel-rimmed spectacles at various distances from his face as he screwed up his eyes to focus. I saw that one of the earpieces had broken off the spectacles, which was why he held them rather than wore them. He finally paused in his perusal, looked up, and sniffed.

“Scotland Yard thinks itself to be so much cleverer than the provincial police force, does it not?” he said.

I opened my mouth to respond, not quite sure what to say. I was saved from comment by his continuance.

“They come running in here when there is an unusual murder, as if to say that they are the only ones capable of solving it. And what do they do?”

This time I waited. Sure enough he went right on talking as though I wasn't there.

“Nothing! That's what. Have they solved the crime? Do they have the murderer safely under lock and key? May Warrington—nay, all of Lancashire—breathe easily again? I think not! And now, after leaving everything sitting for weeks, they send some
civilian
 . . .” He pronounced it as though it were a dirty word. “Some civilian here to pry into what should be
our
case, and ours alone.”

He sat up in his high-backed wooden chair and pressed his lips tightly together. He was without facial hair and had a receding chin that almost disappeared as he glared at me over the wavering spectacles.

“I—I do apologize, Inspector Whittaker,” I said. “I'm sure you must think . . .”

“I must think, must I?”

“No, sir.” I hastened to explain myself, but he would have none of it.

“Scotland Yard has spoken!” He tapped the letter with his spectacles. “I might as well be a mere constable on the beat, so far as they are concerned. ‘Afford Mr. Rivers every courtesy,' they say. ‘Every courtesy.'” He paused briefly to take in a deep and noisy breath. “They'll be telling me to offer you a cup of tea next.”

I cleared my throat. We were not getting off to the friendly cooperation for which I had hoped. “Again, I apologize, sir. But we do have a very similar murder in London, and I—we—were rather hoping that . . .”

“Aye! Aye!” He sat silently for a long moment, staring off in the direction of an ordnance survey map of the area, drawing-pinned to the wall close to the door. I swallowed and again prepared to speak. Again I was beaten to the post. “Well, Mr. Rivers, it is no fault of your own, I suppose. High-handed of Scotland Yard, but I expect no more from them. All right.”

He rose to his feet and came out from behind his desk. He put on his cap and tucked a short baton under his arm.

“Come!”

He marched out of the room, and I had to break into a run to keep up with him as he moved briskly along the passageway and out past the sergeant at the front desk. We emerged from the police station and stood for a moment on the topmost of the five stone steps leading up to the double doors. Whittaker pointed his baton in the direction of the church, visible at the far end of the road off to our right.

“Saints James and John,” he said. “Did you know those two always go together?” I shook my head. “Heaven knows why, but they do.”

“Is that where the girl's body was found?” I asked, feeling it was time I made my voice heard.

“There is a barn close by the church—you cannot see it from here—and that's where we found the body. Aye.” He seemed to have mellowed very slightly, I thought, now that we were outside and on the case.

“Might we proceed there, that I may view the site?”

He mused for a moment, once again gazing off into the distance, tapping his baton on his gloved hand. Finally he turned back as though to return into the police station.

“I have work to do. Important work. I shall have Constable Hudson escort you to the murder scene. You will interfere with nothing, of course. Merely observe—make notes if you so wish—and return here if you have any questions. Do I make myself clear?”

He disappeared inside, through the doors, before I had a chance to respond. I stood there for a long moment, wondering if I had been meant to follow him. Eventually, one of the doors opened again, and a large-girthed police constable emerged, carefully positioning his helmet on his head.

“Constable Hudson?” I asked.

“P.C. Hudson it is, sir. Am I to understand correctly that you was wantin' to be escorted to the Scott crime scene, as it were, sir?”

I smiled and nodded. “You are correct, Constable. Thank you.”

“Follow me, sir.”

He labored down the steps and then set off at a leisurely pace along the road. I matched strides with him and tried to engage him in conversation, hoping for greater success than I had had with his superior. He seemed to be of a friendly disposition, stroking his large black mustache and beard as he walked and nodding in friendly fashion to occasional passersby.