The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 (2 page)

And of course, it would hurt Virginia awfully if she ever found out.

He could hear her now.

Oh, Perry, how could you!

This was the damned awkward thing about having to be in London while one's wife remained in the country. One was driven to such measures. Having said that, he had to admit that even when they were living in the same house, they seldom slept in the same room, let alone the same bed. Virginia had made clear almost from the outset her distaste for all things
animal
, as she termed it. Certainly there was no question of it after the boy had come along. He was curiously grateful to her. He felt it relieved him of the obligation of trying.

But she was no fool. A damned sensible woman, in fact. He wouldn't have married her if she hadn't been. And so, she had to know that he looked elsewhere for his gratification.

At first he had meant it to be a single, solitary indulgence. Something that he could explain in retrospect, if it ever came out, as a lapse. One visit to one prostitute to get him through a particularly difficult patch. At the time, it was not simply the satisfaction of his physical urges that he had craved. Even more shaming was the terrible loneliness that came upon him in the middle of the night. The feeling that everything that made him what he was had been scraped out of him, leaving him empty, bereft, a weeping wreck in the darkest hours. Inexplicable, in the cold light of day. That he had been so weak as to hunger for the warmth of another human being. Humiliating.

Once it had occurred to him as a possible solution, he had been unable to get the idea of it out of his mind.

He had been confident that one discreet visit was all it would take to get the whole sordid fascination out of his system. His self-loathing and disgust would be such that he would never want to repeat the experience.

Strangely – if he was honest with himself – it was the self-loathing and the disgust that drew him back. The knowledge that he was sinking as low as a man could, debasing himself, as well as betraying everything he held dear. Putting himself, his good name, his family, his reputation, his honour – not to mention his country's security – in jeopardy. It was part of the attraction, part of the excitement.

And so he indulged again. He was careful to spread himself thinly, to frequent different brothels and ask for different prostitutes, so as not to give any one woman power over him. But his appetites were such that before long he found himself going back to the same women. He became well known in that world. Naturally, he used an assumed name. But sooner or later there was bound to be someone who recognized him, if not as an individual, then at least as a type. The type that could be blackmailed.

The simple truth was the more he used prostitutes the more he needed them.

He began to wonder if this was the only true thing that could be said about him. Everything else – his family, his lineage, his position, his upbringing, his club, his role within the government – none of that meant anything. None of that was real. Or true. None of that was
him
.

All that he was, his core, his truth, was the hot ache throbbing beneath his trousers.

It felt a little wet in there. A small amount of pre-ejaculate had leaked out from the tip of his penis. It would not take many strokes to have the whole joyous spend shoot hotly out.

That was his truth: that moment of immense release. And there were times when he didn't care who knew it. When he almost longed to be discovered naked in a moment of high engorgement and its messy aftermath. When he wanted the world to see him for who he really was.

Dangerous thoughts. Dangerous thoughts for a senior official in the Admiralty, with access to state secrets.

He looked up just in time to see one of the club's servants enter the breakfast room. He arranged his newspaper carefully, but felt his erection wither anyhow.

The man placed a silver tray of breakfast things on the table by his chair. Coffee and a soft-boiled egg, with toasted bread soldiers.

Lord Dunwich noticed a small square package neatly wrapped in brown paper on the tray. ‘Thank you, Etherington. I say, what's this?'

‘It was delivered for you this morning, My Lord.'

‘Was it, indeed?' Lord Dunwich studied the address. The script was formal, calligraphic. It was not a hand he recognized. ‘Green ink? Who uses green ink?'

‘I cannot say, My Lord. Shall I pour the coffee, My Lord?'

‘Please do, Etherington, there's a good fellow.' Lord Dunwich frowned down at the package. The colour of the ink unnerved him. He noticed too that there was no postage attached. He was beginning to have a decidedly uneasy feeling about this package. Perhaps the moment he had so long dreaded had at last arrived. And yet it seemed the wrong size and shape to contain incriminating photographs. Besides, he would have known if anyone had ever taken photographs of him
in flagrante delicto
. He would have seen the flash gun discharge. ‘I say, Etherington. Did you see who delivered it?'

‘I did not, My Lord. I could ask Mr Cork, if you wish. He took delivery of it, I believe.' The servant replaced the china coffee pot on the tray with delicate precision.

‘No need. All will be revealed when I open it, I'm sure. Thank you, Etherington.' Lord Dunwich made his voice sound cheerier than he felt.

The servant bowed. ‘Will there be anything else, My Lord?'

‘No, thank you. That will be all, Etherington.'

Lord Dunwich waited until the man was out of the room, then cast sidelong looks at his neighbours in the breakfast room. All the other members were thoroughly engrossed in their morning newspapers. No one appeared to pay him any heed, at any rate.

The package was heavier than he expected it to be. He held it to his ear and shook it. There was an audible rattle. He felt the contents shift minutely within the tight constraint of the box. It was a single object, he reckoned. Solid, hard, possibly spherical. Not photographs, then. That was cause for some relief.

Lord Dunwich took out his pipe knife and opened the blade. The sun flared in the unsheathed steel. The string on the package popped as he cut it. He pulled the brown paper away, revealing a white cardboard box, a cube of approximately two inches along each side.

No card enclosed. And nothing written on the box.

Lord Dunwich could not imagine anything more sinister than this plain, white box.

The hand holding it began to shake, once again rattling whatever was inside. The only way to quell his fear, he realized, was to confront it. He lifted the lid.

A gleaming white eye, its iris a circle of blue, grey and brown flecks, stared up at him.

With a cry that startled the other occupants of the breakfast room, he threw the box away from him. The eye bounced and rolled along the carpet, before coming to a stop.

The beautiful, fascinating iris was fixed in his direction.

Q
uinn opened his eyes, tearing himself away from the darkness, as if from urgent business. The day was already established. The April sunshine intruded into every corner of his room, an unwanted busybody. No wonder spring was always associated with cuckoos.

He pulled aside his bedding and sent one foot out to test the reality of the floor.

He pulled his green candlewick dressing gown together over striped flannel pyjamas and tied the cord protectively, before venturing out of his room. He was never anything less than aware of the proprieties. At least here at the lodging house. Some might say he was less scrupulous in his professional life.

As he descended the stairs, he rubbed his Adam's apple, half-remembering the dream he had just woken from. Something to do with his time in Colney Hatch asylum. He had been lying down in a darkened room, recounting a sordid dream to an unseen doctor. But he could not remember any details of that dream within a dream.

He reached the landing below and paused. His heartbeat hardened into a muscled pounding. One of the doors had been left slightly ajar.

One of the doors!

He realized immediately how disingenuous – how downright deceitful – was his initial reluctance to acknowledge which door. Or rather,
whose
door.

It was the door to Miss Ibbott's room.

He stood and tensed, straining to listen. Was she in there? Or had she gone down to the bathroom herself, beating him to it? Perhaps he could justify his standing there outside her door on the grounds that he was merely trying to settle that one, perfectly reasonable question.

It certainly could not justify what he did next, not even to himself.

He moved closer to her door, lifting and placing his slippered feet with deliberate stealth. He put his ear to the inch-wide gap.

His heart, his pummelling heart, must give him away! Its tocsin clamour surely filled the house. Certainly it made it hard for him to ascertain whether she was in her room or elsewhere.

But if she was in her room, why would she leave the door ajar? At this time of day, she would no doubt be engaged in her toilet, perhaps combing her hair before her mirror. Or perhaps she was still in bed, rousing herself drowsily from whatever dreams girls like her experienced. Not wholly innocent dreams, he speculated. But perfectly natural ones. Dreams, perhaps, coloured by cruelty and spite.

Whatever she was about, it would be of an intimate nature. She would brook no intrusion. And yet this door-ajar business, did it not have about it something of the aspect of an invitation? Or if not that, an expectation?

The question was, an invitation to whom?

Not Quinn, that was for sure. A man more than twice her age. Leaving aside all his other disadvantages.

More likely it was either Appleby or Timberley, the two young male lodgers who made it their life's work – or perhaps their sport – to vie for her fickle affections. Who was in the ascendancy at the moment, he wondered.

Quinn had recently observed in Timberley signs of stress and upset – tears, in short. Quinn could think of nothing guaranteed to make a man less attractive to a woman than emotional weakness.

And so, he speculated that the door was left ajar for Appleby. Was this to be the moment he would finally snatch the coveted prize? A kiss from Miss Ibbott? And all before breakfast.

But was she even in there? The more he thought about it the less sense it made. Would they risk a liaison at this time of the day, when lodgers such as himself were trudging up and down the stairs? There had to be some other explanation. Either she had left the door open by accident. Or she had indeed slipped out of her room. If the latter were the case, she could return at any moment and catch him there in what could only be described as a compromising position. Not only that, by such carelessness she was laying herself open to the risk of burglary. Or, if she was in the room, to the risk of assault.

He knew better than she did what men were capable of. Any man; all men. The criminals he hunted down all lodged somewhere. The fact that she was the landlady's daughter was no protection.

He now realized that it was his duty as a policeman to settle the question of her whereabouts once and for all.

‘Mr Quinn?'

Quinn pulled the door to hurriedly and spun away from it. He held his head bowed, eyes averted from Miss Dillard's. For it was Miss Dillard, coming up the stairs to return to her own room, who now challenged him, her voice edged with confusion and fear.

No, he could not bring himself to look into those eyes. Not now. Not after this.

‘I was just … I … I couldn't help noticing that Miss Ibbott had left her door open. I thought it wise to close it for her.'

‘I see.' But her voice was reproachful, as well as hurt. And no, he still wouldn't look at her. He refused to face the same reproach, the same hurt, in her eyes.

‘One cannot be too careful. Even in a respectable house such as this.'

‘Of course.'

And then Quinn remembered that he maintained the fiction that none of his fellow lodgers knew the nature of his work. ‘Well, no, not that. But … you never know. Mr Appleby and Mr Timberley.'

‘What about them?' There was genuine alarm in her voice now, panic almost.

Quinn realized that he had made a tactical mistake. ‘Nothing! I say nothing against them. I know of nothing against them. Fine fellows, they are, I'm sure. We can all agree on that. But young. Youth, you see. Mischief and youth. You cannot rule it out. Young men such as them … not them, no … quite explicitly not them. But young men such as them might see her open door as …'

‘As what?'

He could not say
an invitation
; that would seem to put Miss Ibbott at fault. ‘A provocation,' he settled for.

Miss Dillard let out a little shriek. It was an unfortunate word to choose.

‘You must understand,' protested Quinn. ‘I know of nothing specific against them. Nothing at all, in fact. But you cannot blame me for taking precautions.'

At that moment, the controversial door opened and Miss Ibbott herself peered out. From what he saw of her shoulders, Quinn conjectured that she was in a state of
deshabille
.

‘What do you want? What's going on? Did you shut my door?'

‘Ah, good morning to you, Miss Ibbott. Yes, indeed, as I was explaining to Miss Dillard, I did indeed shut your door. A mere precaution, you understand. For your own safety. One can never be too careful. Did you, in fact, realize that it was open, I wonder?'

‘Betsy must have left it like that when she fetched me my hot water.'

‘Ah, there you are! Mystery solved! Betsy left it open. Careless girl. But good-natured. A careless but good-natured girl, I think we can all agree on that. Or perhaps not, as regards carelessness, at least. Not careless, no. Too harsh. Just overworked perhaps? No, that won't do, implying as it does criticism of your good mother, the irreproachable Mrs Ibbott. I will not hear the word overworked used in this house. Worked to just the right, proper and above all proportionate extent of her capabilities and … and duties. As your maid. As maid to us all. An onerous but worthy calling, no doubt. So, what are we to make of the door being left ajar? A simple mistake, it turns out, which I, in my foolish, fond – one might even say innocent … In my solicitude, at any rate … closed. On your behalf. For you. But no harm done, I'm glad to say.'