The Devil's Making (15 page)

The conversation became hushed as Aemilia began to sing the words, which she pronounced quite adequately, in contrast to the curate in
Caro Mio Ben.
‘Lascia ch'io pianga, mia cruda sorte': ‘Let me weep my cruel fate.' She might not understand it all, but she must have understood the words were about grief, and with a powerful instinct for the music she was uttering each syllable in a detached, almost staccato way, as if choked with feeling – which she was surely too controlled to be. I was moved. Quietly I rose and went over to her left side and stood ready to turn the page. This required a long reach since her dress on the floor kept me at a distance, and I leaned across her, close to her head and into the aura of lemon scent. I managed to turn the page noiselessly, and stood still, observing her fine long-fingered hands, and her bosom, encased in the lilac dress and an over-layer of transparent muslin and lace. I liked her creamy skin. I turned the next page. She sang to the end, quietly, as if partly for herself alone.

‘Bravo,' Beaumont murmured from the other side of the room.

‘Lovely, dear,' sighed Mrs Somerville. ‘Do let us have another. Handel's
Largo
is there, surely.'

‘Of course, Mamma.' Aemilia dutifully sought out the inevitable Largo, under its true title,
Ombra mai fu.
She began playing it, not singing, but playing louder, allowing the piece's gloomy strength to come through. But at the end of the first section, she stopped. ‘Do you sing, Mr Hobbes?' she said. ‘What we need is a baritone or bass for this. Or' – without waiting for my answer – ‘Mr Quattrini?'

‘I don't sing,' said Quattrini. But he got up and came over to the piano on Aemilia's right side, gazing down happily at the book which was causing such pleasure.

‘What does this mean?' Aemilia asked him. ‘Something about a dear vegetable? Not fitted to the tone of the
Largo,
surely.'

This caused a laugh, because of Quattrini's known association with the vegetable business. He took it in a good part. ‘The vegetable in question is a tree,' he said. Then in an attempt at humour: ‘as if you were singing to one of your apple trees.'

Aemilia smiled. ‘
I
can't sing it. Mr Hobbes, I think it devolves on you to give it a try.'

‘I shall,' I said. Aemilia began the piece again and I gave it my best. By the time we reached the end I was almost ecstatic. Like my mother – again! – she seemed to know how to match the piano to my voice, unusually capable of listening carefully as she accompanied.

Again there was a chorus of Bravos. At least the tea party was in full swing. Aemilia flipped through the pages and stopped at Paisiello's
Nel cor piu non mi sento.
‘Another for baritone,' she said. ‘One moment.' She tried the first bars of the rather difficult accompaniment, and succeeded. ‘All right?'

It was a short, playful song with which I had no difficulty. But the words – which since I had done some reading in Italian and knew Latin, I understood – were embarrassing. ‘Mi pizzichi, mi stuzzichi, mi pungichi, mi mastichi' must mean something like, ‘You pinch me, you poke me, you prod me, you chew me.'

This song was so popular that I had to sing it again, but before starting Aemilia asked me, in her teasing way, ‘Do
you
know what all this means? The words sound so dramatic.'

‘It's a song about the torments of love,' I said, with a glance over Aemilia's head at Quattrini.

‘Yes, yes,' said Quattrini. ‘The torments of love; the words are made of suffering.' Perhaps he was embarrassed that the song was in the book he had given.

‘You make suffering sound very cheerful, Mr Hobbes,' Aemilia remarked.

‘That's in the song. I suppose the composer was making fun of it all.'

We did the song again, with verve. But it would not have been right for Aemilia to monopolise the piano. It was Cordelia's turn. After much rearrangement, so that Quattrini and I might be replaced by Frederick and Beamont, she played some pretty little pieces by Sullivan. A talented family indeed …

At some point in all this, the curate had taken his leave – his nose out of joint, I thought conceitedly, aware of having made a good impression and rendered my presence less baleful.

Then Beaumont looked at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, pulled out his fob watch to check it, and announced that he must be off. The brave lads would be waiting to row him across the Strait before it became dark. Frederick announced that he and I would walk with Beaumont the first part of the way, but Quattrini offered us all a lift in his buggy. ‘You can all squeeze in, Gentlemen'. Beaumont as far as St Mark's, Frederick and I into town. The party's ending was well timed. The alienist had had his due, but something of a cheerful atmosphere had been re-established.

‘You must come again, Mr Hobbes,' said Mrs Somerville in the general melee of farewells. ‘But you didn't interrogate us,' she added with an attempt at coyness. She must be relieved, I thought. But since we were face to face for a moment with no one immediately close by, I risked:

‘There's just one thing I'd love to know, Mrs Somerville, since your friend was such a man of mystery. How did you happen to meet him in the first place?'

But this did not in the least faze her. ‘At one of his lectures. On Mesmerism. Afterwards many of the audience remained behind in conversation. He asked if he might call, and I invited him for the following Sunday.'

How very simple it was. But I could not resist: ‘It's a long way into town on a winter's evening to attend a lecture.'

This time she did seem to be put off balance for an instant. I hoped my question had not been insulting. But, ‘Why that's no trouble at all,' she said. ‘Whenever I go into town of an afternoon, whether with one of the girls or alone, driven by Mr Jones, and I might stay the evening, I go to the Hotel Argyle. Mrs Larose is an old acquaintance of mine. I shan't say exactly a friend because, frankly, our positions in life are rather different. But you probably understand that us older colonists were thrown together willy nilly, and English social distinctions could not always obtain. And she's a dear soul, a widow like myself. There are always empty rooms these days, I'm afraid, and I and my girls are always welcome.'

Mrs Somerville turned to say goodbye to the others. I sought out Aemilia, who held out her hand. I took it for just a moment, imagining that there was a special current of feeling between us. ‘I've never so much enjoyed singing,' I said, and meant it.

10

I had received a reply from the HBC at Fort Simpson which, though remote, happens to be on the new Western Union telegraph line to Asia.

TSALAK RIVER ON PRINCESS ROYAL ISLAND LAT FIFTY THIRTY STOP LOCAL TRIBES UNFRIENDLY HBC STOP ACCORDING TSIMSHIAN INFORMANT HERE WILADZAP MEANS LUCKY IN HUNTING INFORMAL NAME STOP REAL NAMES CEREMONIAL STOP SEVERAL CHIEFS OF EAGLE CLANS AT PRESENT COMPETING FOR NAME LEGEX STOP MAKING ENQUIRIES RE COMPETENT INTERPRETER BUT UNLIKELY FIND AS SOUTH TSIMSHIAN SKEWUNK DIALECT KNOWN TO FEW STOP ADVISE CAUTION DANGEROUS SIGNED CAMERON HBC.

I had already ascertained that there was no one in the HBC in Victoria who spoke Tsimshian. I decided to visit the subscription library later in the day, to see if I could obtain further information on the Tsimshian. As it happened I was going to visit the other library, the Mechanics' Institute, but had no hope of the books there.

The Institute's director, Mr Nally, had little to say about the alienist's two public lectures. McCrory had paid £2 each time for rent of the premises. It was part of the Institute's mission to propagate knowledge, and phrenology had always proved a popular subject. Mesmerism was also of great interest. Mr Nally had enjoyed both lectures greatly, found them most enlightening. Why, the great Dr Eliotson of Edinborough, inventor of the stethoscope, had induced mesmeric trances in his patients and effected cures of certain dementias, the ‘Vapours' and, in particular, women's troubles. Yes, Nally would say there were more women than men present at the lectures, but the married ones came with their husbands. Dr Powell had attended and asked some sceptical but polite questions. They had been evenings of intellectual stimulation, a credit to Victoria, if Mr Nally might say so, and he ventured to say that even though Dr McCrory had been an unorthodox practitioner, it was nothing less than a tragedy that such a fine man should be
butchered
by savages …

Before Nally began to froth at the mouth, I brought him back to earth by asking him to list for me all the people who he recalled attending the lectures. I began writing in my notebook, a formidable list which kept growing: everyone in town seemed to have attended one lecture or the other. It would have been more easy to list who had
not
attended. I stopped writing the names down. There was not much to do in Victoria in midwinter, which of course McCrory would have known. I reproached myself for a certain callousness in my attitude to the murdered man. I told myself that as an investigator I could not afford feelings of either pity or revenge. But it was going to be difficult to know the real man who had occupied that unreal corpse.

*   *   *

My next visit was to the bank. In England, official warrants would be necessary for some of my procedures, but the Colony was a world of its own. Although I was accountable to the Superintendent and Commissioner, I could do whatever I needed without prior authorisation. The bank manager showed me the alienist's records. His account had started from an initial cash deposit of $150. Cheques were few, and for occasional bills from clothiers and grocers. Deposits had been in cash. $100 remained in the account.

I had already discovered in the land registry, conveniently in the courthouse, that the alienist had been able to buy his house by putting down a deposit of £150. The rest of the £500 price was mortgaged to a Jewish moneylender, Rabinowicz. This was normal enough. Victoria's Jewish community, immigrants from the United States, had become prosperous enough to build the only brick house of worship in town, the Beth Emanuel synagogue. They bought and sold merchandise, travelled in the Interior selling mining supplies, and lent money at higher interest than the banks, while not insisting on letters of reference from previous places of residence – an advantage during the ‘boom' years of the early '60's, now alas gone.

Rabinowicz's office was a mere shanty in a back street. Clearly no money was wasted on frills. I squeezed into a chair in a small space between Rabinowicz's desk and a wall while Rabinowicz, a little man who looked, in fact, no more Jewish than any other Victoria businessman, pored over the papers relevant to the alienist's mortgage – too long, I thought, since he would almost certainly have already revised them the moment he had heard of McCrory's death. I hoped Rabinowicz would not turn out to be as evasive as Lee. But no. Once Rabinowicz began talking he was direct.

‘I shall advertise here and in San Francisco in case Dr McCrory has a successor who wishes to take the house and sell it to regain the down payment. Otherwise in three months I shall sell it myself, to pay the mortgage and expenses. There will not be much left.'

‘Did he keep up his payments?'

‘On the nail. First of each month. He would send the money around with his Chinese servant, Mr Lee. Cash. Never a problem.'

‘Do you know why he came to you for the mortgage rather than a bank?'

‘I give good terms, Sergeant. You want to buy a house and take out a mortgage, you come and see me.'

‘Did he have bankers' or other references?'

‘I do not require references. I make my own assessment. It's none of my business what a person's financial situation
has
been. I want to know what it
is.
'

‘And what was your assessment of McCrory's situation?'

‘That he was a doctor who would have patients. He mentioned he saw them on a different basis from most doctors – for regular appointments for treatment, whether at the moment they were having symptoms or not. He said the doctor should keep the patients well, not only make them better when sick. He invited me to his public lectures, and he talked to me about his methods – the use of the Mesmeric trance and vital magnetism, the diagnosis through phrenology. He even told me I had a prominent bump of benevolence, which I do not doubt. But, you'll understand, this was to encourage me to lend him the money. And he urged me that if I, or my wife or my girls had any need of either a treatment or a diagnosis, he would be happy to negotiate with regard to the fees. As one businessman to another, you might say.' Rabinowicz looked at me with his lips pushed together, an expression of amusement in his eyes. ‘What more can I tell you?'

‘You're giving me a good idea of the man. I never met him. Please continue.'

‘I only met him a few times myself. He was energetic, very animated, an enthusiast, a sort of missionary for his methods, in that Yankee way – although I believe he was a Virginian. As a Jew I don't think like that: I make money and I'm not ashamed of it. Money is money. But for most Americans it is something else. It has got to be not only money but
good
– a reward from God. So although they are often shrewd and even cheats, they have to
believe
in what they do, to make money. I don't
believe
in lending mortgages, I just do it. But with Dr McCrory I did wonder – to put it frankly – if he was in reality a serious doctor, or what the Yankees call a snake-oil salesman. I would not have sent my wife and daughters to him for treatment, although he was clearly an intelligent man. He did believe in his methods, but of course he had to. I did not trust him as a doctor. But I trusted him to make money. That's all I can say.'

‘You're very helpful. I must ask you, though, a rather intrusive question. Do you know any patients of McCrory's?'