The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 (28 page)

He kept moving through the shrouded streets. But didn't hurry. It was important to keep his step steady and consistent. No shrinking from the beam of a passing vehicle. No cowering from doorway to doorway. And if there was a street lamp ahead, his step wouldn't waver or deviate.

You see, it wasn't just a question of donning false whiskers, dying his hair and stuffing a pillow up his shirt front. He had to become the character. And for that he needed a new walk. He had experimented with a stoop, and then a limp, but rejected them both as too obvious. They would only draw attention, when what he wanted was a walk that would render him invisible.

Novak looked upon it as an acting challenge, although his objective was exactly opposite to an actor's. An actor wanted to be noticed, to steal the scene if possible. The audience couldn't love you if it didn't see you.

And so it took some self-control to tone down his walk, to draw it organically from the character he was seeking to create. To imagine a man, and then imagine how he would move.

Of course, Novak congratulated himself on understanding all this. There were few actors he knew who would be able to pull this off. They were all such show-offs.

His first real test came at the end of Albion Street. A policeman, held in a cone of yellow light from a street lamp, bobbing on the balls of his feet (
Was that why the limeys called them bobbies?
he wondered), flexing his wrists against interlocked fingers. Looking for trouble, up and down the street, with one eye larger than the other. They always had one eye larger than the other.

The thing was not to panic. Hold steady. Trust the whiskers. Trust the padding. But most of all, trust the walk.

He passed the bobbing bobby without provoking anything more than a courteous nod of greeting. To which he responded with a more deliberate bow, in keeping with the character that his walk imposed on him. He was careful, at any account, to look the policeman squarely in the eye. The golden rule.

It was all a question of timing. Don't hold the gaze for too long. That would seem bold, provocative. As much a sign of guilt as shifty evasion. Keep it natural, that was the thing.

Oh, he was good. There was no point pretending otherwise. He didn't even allow himself a small smirk of triumph once he had left the bobby in his wake.

He heard the chug of trains and the screech of steam whistles. A moment later he saw the looming shadow of King's Cross station ahead of him.

As he stepped out of the churning smog into the flux and bustle of the station concourse, it occurred to him that perhaps he needn't be in such a hurry to leave the country. His experience with the policeman had given him confidence, and the beginnings of a new plan. As long as he had his theatrical make-up and his talent, he could go anywhere he pleased.

T
he house was in darkness when Quinn got home. He had remained at the department for as long as possible. Not because there was much that he could usefully do, more because of a reluctance to return home. This, he knew, was connected to the arrangement he had established with Mrs Ibbott concerning Miss Dillard's rent.

His mouth stretched into a private grimace as he closed the door behind him.

He was surprised to see Mrs Ibbott coming towards him with a candle in her hand. ‘Oh, Mr Quinn. I'm afraid something has happened to the electricity supply. Mr Timberley and Mr Appleby are looking into it for us. They think it is something to do with a fuse.'

‘I see. Thank you for telling me, Mrs Ibbott.'

‘We never had this problem with gas, I have to say.'

‘That's true. But there are other advantages to electricity, are there not? It is cleaner and safer, I think.'

‘It's all very well when it works, Mr Quinn. Would you like a candle for your room?'

‘I believe I have some candles, thank you, Mrs Ibbott.'

‘Very well, Mr Quinn. I shall light your way upstairs for you.' Mrs Ibbott turned and then hesitated. ‘Oh, Mr Quinn …' There was an ominous tone to her voice. Quinn recognized an old detective's technique, to begin the conversation with something inconsequential, before dropping in the main thing on your mind, as if as an afterthought. ‘I'm a little worried about Miss Dillard.'

Quinn said nothing. He felt a weight of dread settle inside him. His feet dragged to a halt behind her.

Mrs Ibbott still had her back to him. ‘I'm afraid she found out about your generous offer.'

‘She found out? Mrs Ibbott, I asked you not to tell her!'

‘I did not. I did, however, tell my daughter, who must have let it slip to the Misters Appleby and Timberley. I fear those two gentlemen may have conducted some indiscreet banter on the subject, which Miss Dillard somehow overheard.'

Quinn groaned.

Mrs Ibbott at last turned to face him. ‘She has practically kept to her room since, although Betsy saw her coming out of the kitchen earlier. She seemed to be hiding something, according to Betsy. We wondered whether she had stolen something to eat. The silly woman, she knows she only has to ask. At any rate, no one saw her at dinner. I do not believe she has any gin left to consume, or money to buy more.'

‘I truly wish you had not said anything to anyone about our arrangement.'

‘I am sorry, Mr Quinn. I do regret my indiscretion.'

‘What is to be done?'

‘Perhaps we might … look in on her … together. You and I. As concerned friends.'

‘Is it not rather late?'

‘I do not think Miss Dillard has been keeping regular hours recently. I do feel that it would be better to have everything in the open, if we are to move to the arrangement you suggested. I feel Miss Dillard has a right to know who is paying her rent. And why.'

Quinn had to accept the justice of this remark. He nodded for Mrs Ibbott to lead on. ‘Very well.'

They came to the first landing. Mrs Ibbott tapped on Miss Dillard's door. There was no reply. Mrs Ibbott pressed her ear against the door. Her eyes widened in alarm.

‘What is it?'

Mrs Ibbott stood back, allowing Quinn to listen at the door. He braced himself for the sound of weeping. But that was not what met his ear. It sounded like someone was throwing furniture around. Or using the bed like a trampoline. If he had not known Miss Dillard better, he might have said she was entertaining a lover in a violent and energetic act of coitus. ‘Good grief!'

‘I don't like the sound of that,' cried Mrs Ibbott.

Quinn rapped on the door. ‘Miss Dillard? Miss Dillard? Are you quite well?' The thumping inside the bedroom intensified in speed and volume. Quinn tried the door. It was locked. He turned to the landlady. ‘Do you have a key?'

She produced a large fob from her apron. Her hand shook as she held out a key. ‘I'm all fingers and thumbs.'

Quinn snatched the fob from her and began trying the keys in the lock. It seemed an age before he had the door open.

They were in the same room now as the thumping. It was like a heaving of the darkness. A giant hand pounding a box of springs. The bed: it was coming from the bed. It was the sound of the bed rattling and kicking against the boards. It was not quite rhythmic. There were pauses in it. Then it would come back with renewed force.

‘Give me the light!'

Quinn held the candle out in front of him. Miss Dillard, wracked with convulsions, was throwing contorted forms of herself around on top of her bed. Her body would lie in a backward arch of tension and then spring upwards, clearing the mattress by an inch or so.

‘What's the matter with her?' cried Mrs Ibbott.

‘She appears to be having some kind of a fit,' said Quinn. ‘Is she an epileptic, do you know?'

Mrs Ibbott could not answer. She too was shaking now, uncontrollably. She held her hand out to a small dark bottle on Miss Dillard's bedside table.

‘What is it? What's in that bottle? Do you know? What has she taken?'

The answer came from Mrs Ibbott in a shriek: ‘Strychnine!'

That raised any number of questions, which would have to wait for now. ‘We must get her to a hospital!' Quinn tried to hand the candle back to Mrs Ibbott, who seemed incapable of doing anything other than making a small, helpless whimpering sound. She stared at the candle, as if he was offering her the extracted spleen of her daughter. Eventually he was able to thrust it into her hands.

Quinn then stooped over the convulsing woman, looking for a way to lift her. Her body shifted position constantly, arching and collapsing, closing down his opportunities to get a handhold.

Her eyes were open, more than open, bulging starkly from her head. The pupils were fully dilated; the wonderful, miraculous pewter grey of her irises shrunk almost to a fine circle. For all their dilation, it was clear that she saw nothing.

Her mouth was stretched back into a grimace of helpless agony. Flecks of foam appeared on her yellow and grey teeth, seeping out through the gaps between them. The flecks grew quickly to an abundant froth.

He knew that the longer he hesitated the worse it would be for Miss Dillard.

He touched her quivering frailty, and was repelled. This was a strange, unasked-for intimacy. The effect on Miss Dillard was catastrophic. Her convulsions redoubled in ferocity. It was as if she was trying to throw herself away from herself, to escape the misery of her existence by some final, doomed act of self-discarding.

Her body, her flesh was patently present to his touch, a blazing heat beneath the delicate nightdress. She was on fire, it seemed. His touch wracked her like raging flames. He pulled her to him in a firm embrace, clinging to the muscular writhing of her body. Her convulsions were transmitted to him. He became convulsed too.

At first he carried her like a groom bearing his bride across the threshold, but she was a bride who struggled every inch of the way. So much so that he was forced to swing her over his shoulder into a fireman's lift.

It shocked him to discover how little weight there was to her. She could have been made out of crumpled foil for all she weighed. No, it was not her weight that made her hard to carry; it was the tensioned kick of her body, every muscle wrought and spasming at once.

A small group of the other residents had been drawn by the commotion, including Messrs Timberley and Appleby. ‘One of you run ahead!' shouted Quinn. ‘Flag down a cab on the Brompton Road. We have to get her to the infirmary.'

But the two young men seemed incapable of movement, like the specimens they pinned at the Natural History Museum. ‘What's the matter with her?' asked Mr Timberley, his face contorted with distaste.

‘She's dying. She will die, unless we get her to St George's.'

‘Dying?' Timberley regarded Miss Dillard with a scientist's interest, as if he had always wanted to see someone die and this presented a rare opportunity.

‘For God's sake, will one of you not go for assistance?'

Timberley held a balled fist over his mouth and coughed. If the cough was forced, it soon turned into an uncontrollable hacking fit. He turned reluctantly from the interesting spectacle and began to make his way slowly downstairs, one hand on the wall to steady himself against the crashing waves of his coughing.

‘Hurry, will you! This is a matter of life and death!'

Timberley waved a hand, an impatient gesture that seemed to convey that he was going as fast as he could. Quinn had to accept that he seemed like the wreckage of the man he had once been. He turned to Appleby and directed his gaze meaningfully towards the invalid.

Appleby seemed to take the hint. At any rate, there must have been something in Quinn's gaze that spurred him on. ‘I say, Timberley, wait for me. I'll come with you.'

‘I suggest you run ahead,' wheezed Timberley through his coughing. ‘I cannot run. My doctor will not allow it. Mr Quinn will have two corpses on his hands if I am forced to run.' He was projecting this back over his shoulder. Clearly it was intended for Quinn's benefit. ‘I am perfectly serious, you know. Perfectly.' He pressed himself to the wall and allowed his friend to thunder past.

By the time he got to Brompton Road, Quinn was staggering. Not under her weight. But under the certainty that he was too late. She was hammering against his shoulder, and her breath came in a rasping, strangulated whine. It was not the death rattle. It was something worse than the death rattle. It was the sound a body makes when it rebels against the action of breathing.

Appleby was in the middle of the road, shouting and waving both arms to stop the traffic. At last something of the urgency of the situation seemed to have struck him. Timberley stood at the roadside and hung his head disconsolately. He cast sly, fascinated glances towards the heaving burden over Quinn's shoulder.

At last Appleby persuaded a motor taxi to stop. He screamed the destination at the driver, who when he saw the intended passenger seemed about to refuse the fare.

‘I am a police inspector,' said Quinn. ‘If you don't take us to St George's I will kill you.' He had meant to say ‘arrest you', but the stress of the moment had added a certain bluntness to his words.

‘What's wrong wiv 'er, guv? She ain't gonna be sick in me cab?'

‘You had better hope that she does not
die
in your cab.' Quinn was bandying death around like loose change, in the hope that it would get things moving.

It was a hard job getting her into the back of the taxi. Her arms were flailing everywhere, her feet kicking out. Quinn received a punch to the eye and a knee in the groin that fair took the wind out of him. The blows landed so expertly that if he hadn't known better he would have said she had aimed them. At one point, one of her legs locked itself in an acute angle around his thigh. Eventually, he and Appleby together managed to prise it loose. They put her in head first and laid her down on the back seat. Quinn went round the other side and eased himself under her now freakishly juddering length. He nestled her wracked and quivering head against his chest and tried to soothe away her spasms by stroking her hair. Her feet kicked rhythmically and violently against the door. The driver's anxious glances back weighed his concern for his taxi against his fear for his life. In the event, the latter won out. He said nothing.