The Strings of Murder (13 page)

My pride still injured and the wounds still fresh, I tried to lock myself away from any feeling. I tried to convince myself that I had never truly loved
her
; that I’d merely fancied the idea of having a wife, a home and a family, and that Eugenia was but a compulsory piece in that picture.

However, looking at it objectively, it really was a regrettable loss. Had my life continued in London, Eugenia would have been the most perfect match for me. We would have complemented each other with our imperfect tempers, our haughty characters and our social pretences … perhaps to the world we would not have been the most affable of couples, but indeed we would have made each other happy.

Things would have been so different … for both of us.

I remember going to bed in the most exhausted state of mind and, as I laid my head on the pillow, tossing the cufflinks aside.

I never knew what happened to them. Perhaps Agnes took them and sold them for a few shillings …

10

My jaw hit the floor when McGray showed me our ‘office’, which turned out to be a dingy storeroom in one of the basements. There were narrow barred windows right below the ceiling, through which I could see people’s feet and horses’ hooves moving about the courtyard.

McGray lit an oil lamp and the room’s mess fully hit my eyes. There were as many books and bizarre artefacts as in his personal library, but also countless formaldehyde bottles preserving things that were too ghastly to keep at home.

‘I’m a bit scruffy,’ McGray said, ‘but that’ll change now that yer here. That’ll be yer desk, by the way.’

He pointed at a small writing table in the corner, half hidden among the debris. I stared perplexedly at the miserable piece of furniture and the old wooden chair behind it, a thick blanket of dust covering both.

‘Do you truly expect me to clean up this hole?’ I cried. ‘I am an inspector, not your bloody maid.’

‘Someone’s got to clean this up and it ain’t gonna be me.’ McGray threw a thin file at me. ‘Oh, and take yer transfer paperwork to the archive.’ Constable McNair came in as I said that, followed by a little old man in a grey suit.

‘Inspector McGray, this man wants to talk to ye.’

McGray, who was already looking at some old witchcraft book, lifted his eyes slowly. ‘Who? And what for?’

The little man stepped forward. ‘I’m Charles Downs, the late Mr Fontaine’s solicitor. I was told I should talk to you regarding his will.’

‘I’ll take care of it, McNair.’ The officer left and McGray invited Downs to have a seat. ‘What can we do for ye?’

Downs was already producing a bundle of documents from his briefcase. ‘I have recently been to my client’s residence and was told the police had restricted all access. I am Monsieur Fontaine’s executor, you see.’

‘I see.’

‘Monsieur Fontaine left almost all his possessions to his nephews and his housekeeper – everything but four objects …’

The man paused dramatically and McGray lost his temper. ‘Stop yer theatre shite and speak!’

Downs startled and reddened visibly. ‘Well, Monsieur Fontaine wanted his collection of violins to be distributed among his students and colleagues in the Edinburgh Conservatoire of Music.’ He handed the will for McGray to read. ‘As you can see, the late Monsieur Fontaine explicitly wanted those violins to be delivered as soon as possible. He assigned each specific violin to a given recipient.’

McGray read and then nodded. ‘And I guess ye want us to give ye those fiddles.’

‘That’s correct, Inspector. I was told by the housekeeper that you locked the room where they are kept and took possession of all the keys to it.’

‘We are investigating that room, Mr Downs,’ I
intervened. ‘We cannot release any objects until we have completed our inquiries.’

‘I do understand, but my client’s last wish was …’

‘With all due respect,’ I interrupted, ‘anybody’s wish, whether last or first, is utterly irrelevant at the moment. We are investigating a murder, Mr Downs, not hosting a garden party.’

McGray sat back, stroking his stubble. He looked at me. ‘Ye wanted to get out, didn’t ye, Frey?’ I gave a grouchy nod. ‘Ah’m thinking we can get round this nicely: ye can go with Mr Downs to Fon-teen’s house, check the room again if ye want and get the fiddles for him, then he’ll show ye the way to the Conservatoire, where ye can do the questionings yer all mad about. In the meantime I’ll do more research here.’

‘Excellent. Sounds like you are not completely devoid of sense, Nine-Nails.’

I feared he’d punch me for calling him that, but he simply raised an eyebrow. ‘Och, I got yer approval. Now my life’s complete!’ He looked at his pocket watch. ‘Lunchtime already! Fancy goin’ to the Ensign?’

I could not possibly eat there again, neither could I keep on punishing my stomach like that – a few days eating like the day before and I would starve. Fortunately, Mr Downs misunderstood McGray, thinking that the invitation was extended to him too, and he refused first.

‘You’re very kind, Inspector, but I prefer to eat at the New Club. I can come back at any time you request.’

McGray asked him to return that afternoon and Downs set off. I frantically jumped to my feet: ‘
Pray, wait!
Where did you say you prefer to eat?
’

The New Club proved to be a proper gentlemen’s establishment with edible food, fine whiskies and decent cigars. Its best asset, however, was its location at the very centre of Princes Street, within a relatively short walk from the City Chambers. Regarding food, it would be my salvation.

Since it was a private club, Mr Downs signed me in as his personal guest (the gesture almost made me feel guilty for treating him so harshly but a few minutes earlier). Once inside I was told that I could join for a very reasonable fee – I was so hungry I would have happily paid three times the price.

It was quite hard to keep my manners while eating that huge, juicy, well-seasoned piece of sirloin and a glass of French wine.

Invigorated by the food, I thought I could use the time to find out some more about Fontaine’s character.

‘A very quiet man,’ Downs told me, munching on a steak even larger than mine, ‘very quiet indeed.’

‘How long had you represented him?’

Downs looked up, counting in a mumble. ‘Thirteen, four– no, wait, fifteen years! Lord, time flies!’

‘Oh, so I presume you knew him well?’

‘Not at all, Inspector. As I said, he had a quiet life, which gave me very little work; some conveyancing, a couple of insurance policies, and now his –’

There was a sudden commotion in the club. We heard the slightly high-pitched protests of the head waiter, and I had to cover my face when I saw him chasing the towering figure of McGray. His absurd clothes were like a beacon amidst the black suits and white tablecloths, and for some reason he was carrying a bull’s-eye lantern.

To make matters worse, next to him was a short, slender boy, who could be nothing other than a chimneysweep. He appeared to be around twelve, but he could have been older; those ill-fated children rarely get enough food to grow properly. I thought he had dark hair, but as he drew closer I saw that he was actually blond, his head utterly blackened by soot. He was wiping his face with a handkerchief so stained that he only made himself blacker.

‘Sir,
please
, I must ask you to leave. Our dress code –’

‘Laddie,’ Nine-Nails grasped the waiter by the collar, ‘Ah told ye Ah’m CID, so shut that hole in yer face or I’ll break yer twiggy arms right here.’

‘I am afraid he is not joking,’ I said, and the poor man was wise enough to step back. ‘What is it, McGray?’

He leaned down to whisper. ‘Change o’ plans. I ken how they broke into Fon-teen’s study.’

11

‘The fireplace, McGray?’ I asked in the privacy of the coach, as it drove us back to Abbey Hill. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Can ye think of another way?’

‘Well, no, but you saw that narrow thing! Besides, Fontaine died at night. A November night, so the fire must have been lit. Had some wretch tried to sneak in through the chimney, they would have roasted their feet! Not to mention all the smoke coming up.’

‘Can ye think of another way?’ I tried hard to find another explanation but, to my dismay, McGray was right. The chimney was the only feasible explanation and it was our duty to investigate it further.

‘I also have my doubts,’ McGray said, ‘but if there’s anything up there we’ll find out with the boy.’

Sooner than I expected we were by Holyrood Palace once more – fortunately, for the temperature had been dropping quickly. When we got out of the carriage, an icy breeze was blowing.

The boy hopped off from the driver’s seat.

‘This is Larry,’ McGray told me. ‘He’s been cleanin’ my chimneys for the past two years, haven’t ye?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘But today I got a more exciting job for ye. Ye’ll help us solve a murder!’

The boy smiled, but the poor creature was so skinny
I thought a bowl of stew would have excited him much more. I thought I’d give him a handsome tip once we were done.

Mr Downs, who had followed us in his own carriage, arrived a few minutes later.

Goodwife Hill received us as attentively as before, yet she was a little surprised to see us again so soon. McGray, Larry and I were going upstairs with Mr Downs following us closely. McGray raised his hand to stop him.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Downs, it’s police business.’

Downs groaned in a most exasperating way. ‘But that is my client’s property and it’s my duty to –’

‘
Can you please stay downstairs?
’ I snapped. ‘For the love of God!’

Downs cast me a filthy glare and spoke bitterly. ‘We’ll see who shows you where to eat next time!’

Hill addressed him with an appeasing voice. ‘Would ye like a cup of tea, sir?’

McGray winked at her as she took the man away.

‘You may not like what you will see,’ I told Larry in a concerned tone. ‘A man was murdered here.’

Under normal circumstances I would never expose a child to such a ghastly sight. However, far from being frightened, Larry’s eyes widened in excitement, and McGray’s smile told me that he was expecting that very reaction. I realized that the boy had, probably on a regular basis, seen tragedies as bad as anything I’d seen on the job.

We stepped inside and found the room exactly as we’d left it. The one difference was that the foul smell had diminished a bit.

Larry walked in, his blue eyes flickering all around the
room, but his sight finally fixed on the huge stain of blood on the carpet. ‘Woooooow!’

I also looked around, but far from excitedly. I had been trying to pinpoint what had been out of place in that room, but being there again just puzzled me more. I had not missed any detail: there was the stain of blood, the black mark where the Devil’s symbol had been, the stained violin and the splattered stand. I shrugged, thinking that probably I was being paranoid, trying to find clues where there were none. After all, the case was very important for my career.

McGray patted Larry’s bony shoulder. ‘Laddie, we need ye to look up into that chimney ’n’ tell us exactly what ye find there.’ He set the bull’s-eye on, a white beam lighting the dull afternoon, and handed it to the boy. ‘Up ye go.’

The lantern had leather bands that Larry passed around his shoulders – he was so skinny that he had to turn the straps twice around his torso. As he went into the fireplace I thought that he looked filthier than the very chimneys he was supposed to clean.

I expected McGray to kneel down and peer up into the flue, all excitement, but he simply stood still while stroking his stubble. ‘What ye see, Larry?’

Larry’s voice reverberated across the hearth. ‘Erm … I see bricks, master … ’n’ a Hell of a lot of ashes!’

‘
Really!
’ I whispered in my most barefaced sarcasm.

Nine-Nails elbowed me in the ribs. ‘Looks like it’s not been cleaned in ages, ye think, laddie?’

‘Ermmm, aye and nae.’

‘What d’ye mean?’

‘Looks like someone scraped it, master.’