The Darke Chronicles

To friends Barry Forshaw and Peter Guttridge

– two fellows in the know

Title Page

Dedication

1     The Curzon Street Conundrum

2     The Puzzle of the Innocent Murderer

3     The Mystery of the Missing Black Pearl

4     The Riddle of the Visiting Angel

5     The Curse of the Griswold Phantom

6     The Vampire Murders Intrigue

7     The Illusion of the Disappearing Man

About the Author

Copyright

‘Crime
is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon logic rather than upon the crime you should dwell.’

Sherlock Holmes in
The Copper Beeches
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Blood was flowing from the wound, forming a neat crimson pool on the carpet. But at least now he was safe. Surely he was safe? And the wound … well, certainly it was serious, but not fatal. He would survive. He tried to reassure himself of this fact as darkness edged in from all corners of his vision, like ink seeping across blotting paper.

Inspector Edward Thornton leaned forward and gazed out of the tiny window of his office in the upper reaches of Scotland Yard. It was a cold November day in 1897 and grey swirls of fog wreathed the adjacent rooftops, reducing them to vague silhouettes. They loomed like giant ghosts, ready to envelop the building.

Thornton sighed wearily at this fancy that so easily took his mind from the very difficult matter in hand. Sergeant Grey looked up from the case notes he was scribbling in his crabbed hand. ‘It’s not that Curzon Street business is it, sir?’

Thornton replied without moving. ‘Of course it is, Grey. There is something not quite right about it, but I cannot fathom out what it is.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. We’ve got the blighter who done it safely locked up in the cells. Case solved.’

‘Oh,
yes, we have someone locked up in the cells, but I’m not so sure it’s the “blighter who done it”. And if Armstrong really is the murderer, we have so little evidence.’

‘There was the blood on his coat.’

‘Blood on his coat and the knowledge that he was in great debt to the murdered man. There’s not enough material there to weave a hangman’s hood, Grey. A good lawyer would blow those flimsy suppositions away in no time. And besides, I need to know how the crime was committed and how the murderer escaped from a locked room.’

Grey dropped his pen on the desk in a gesture of mild irritation. ‘Then you know what to do, sir. You know where to go. Don’t you? When you’ve had a real puzzle in the past…’

Thornton turned to his sergeant and pulled his thin, pale face into a mournful grimace. ‘Oh, I know all right. I don’t need you to tell me. Luther Darke. I have been trying to put off that inevitability for some time.’ He stroked his chin in an absent-minded fashion as his eyes flickered with mild irritation. ‘There is an element of humiliation in seeking his help. It’s an admittance of defeat.’

‘Go on, sir. Go and see him. At least it will put your mind at rest.’

Thornton emitted a sigh of resignation and returned his gaze to the grey curtain of fog beyond the windows.

Luther Darke poured himself a large whisky and sat back in his chair. As he did so, a lithe black cat leapt onto his lap with practised ease, curled up tightly, and began to purr. Absent-mindedly, he stroked the contented creature as he stared across at his visitor, his dark brown eyes shining. He raised his glass in a mock toast. ‘It is good to see you again, Edward. I am sorry that you will not join me in a drink. However, I am sure it is a wise move. Respectable gentlemen should not drink before noon, and then decorum decrees that it should be a sherry aperitif.’ He took a gulp of whisky, rolling it around his mouth. ‘Whisky is the milk of the Gods; sherry is their urine.’

Thornton
remained silent. Like an actor waiting for his cue, he knew when it would be his time to speak. This preamble was a variant of the usual extravagant felicitations that he always experienced when he visited Luther Darke.

‘To be honest, Edward, I am surprised to see you under my roof once more,’ said his host, affably. ‘You disagreed with me so strongly in the Baranokov affair – until my theory was proved correct that triplets had been used as a ploy in the theft of diamonds – that I thought I had lost your friendship for ever.’

Thornton blushed slightly; partly for being reminded of his failure in the Baranokov case, and partly because this strange man referred to him as a friend. He didn’t think anyone could get close enough to Darke to become his friend. He was too enigmatic, too self-possessed, too complicated to give himself to straightforward friendship. There was Carla, of course, his lover, but she in her own way was just as mysterious and enigmatic as Darke himself.

Luther Darke was the son of a duke but, because of his undisciplined and outrageous behaviour, he had become estranged from his widowed father at an early age. He had been a rebel and hated the arrogance and pomposity of the aristocracy. Although Darke had inherited a considerable amount of money on his father’s death, he had passed over the title and the family home to his younger brother, of whom he saw little. Ducal respectability and responsibility were abhorrent to him. He now occupied most of his time in being an artist – a portrait painter – and was gaining a growing reputation for his work. But even here, his energies were erratic. On a whim he would drop his brush halfway through a painting in order to follow up one of his other passions, which were very varied and eclectic. He had a fascination for the unexplained and the unknown. He took a great interest in the work of spiritualist mediums and unsolved crimes. It was his offer of assistance in the Carmichael mystery, when Foreign Office official Ralph Carmichael, his wife and two children – along with their pet spaniel – apparently disappeared into thin air that had brought
Inspector Thornton into contact with this unique individual for the first time. Darke helped to solve the case and Thornton had sought his assistance several times since. However, after the Baranokov affair, over which they had disagreed violently, there had been a rift in their relationship. Thornton was well aware that it was he who, suffering from the humiliation of being proved wrong, had turned his back on his strange associate. But here he was again, seeking Darke’s assistance and hoping earnestly that it would be offered.

Luther Darke took another gulp of whisky. ‘Ah, we see the world from different hilltops, you and I, Edward. You are the professional, scientific detective with a demand for rationality and feasibility; whereas I am the amateur, an artist, doomed to view things from a different angle and able to see shifting and often unusual perspectives. We are two halves of the perfect whole.’ He grinned at his own conceit and his eyes glittered mischievously. He had a broad, mobile saturnine face that possessed a wide, fleshy mouth. Dark, expressive eyebrows topped a pair of soft brown eyes that radiated warmth. His head was framed by a mane of luxurious hazel-coloured hair. He would have been handsome, but the crooked nose, broken in one of the many fights he had at school, robbed him of the classical symmetry of male beauty. He was not handsome then, but he had a magnetic presence that compelled one to watch his face with fascination as Thornton did. Every conversation was a performance. It was as though he was acting out his life.

‘So, enough teasing. The Curzon Street murder? Am I right?’

Thornton nodded. ‘I am not happy about it.’

‘From what I have read in the papers, the case seems a straightforward one.’ Darke placed his whisky glass on the table by his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘Let me see. Shipping magnate Laurence Wilberforce is murdered at his Curzon Street mansion – stabbed – and one of the guests in his house at the time was a certain Richard Armstrong, who owed the magnate a considerable amount of
money that he could not repay. To make matters worse, I believe that blood was found smeared on the wretched fellow’s overcoat. Have I caught the essence of the matter?’

Thornton gave a thin smile. ‘You knew I’d come to you.’

Darke’s eyes twinkled with humour. ‘Indeed, I did. I was sure my worthy Thornton would not be taken in by such a simplistic solution. No doubt your superiors are quite content with Armstrong’s arrest and cannot wait to see him dangling at the end of a rope.’

‘They are indeed, despite the fact that one essential element of the case still remains a mystery.’

‘And that is?’

‘How the murder was committed.’

Darke laughed. ‘Just a minor irritation. Not worth considering, surely? Pull the lever and let’s have done with the scoundrel.’

Thornton’s sensitive face darkened. There was more truth in Darke’s flippant observations than was comfortable.

‘I presume that Armstrong has not confessed in some fit of madness?’

‘On the contrary, he professes his innocence most strongly.’

Darke beamed, his face alive with excitement. ‘So, young friend, we have come to that precious, that essential moment: give me the facts. Give me the minutiae.’