Dead for a Spell (22 page)

*   *   *

T
he hansom deposited us outside a small, cheap hotel in Belgravia. I followed my boss as he surged up the steps and into the foyer. A tall, thin lady with a lantern jaw and what I believe is described as a hatchet face stood from where she sat behind the counter. Her black eyebrows rose in questioning mode, though she said nothing.

“Mr. Seth Hartzman?” said Stoker. “I believe he is one of your guests? Is he presently in residence?”

“I am unable to divulge any particulars of my guests . . .”

“Is he in residence?” thundered my boss.

The eyebrows rose even higher. “Sir!”

Stoker slammed his hand down on the counter and looked the lady squarely in the eyes.

“This is no time for shilly-shallying, madam! Mr. Hartzman. It is imperative that I speak with him.”

To her credit, the lady looked straight back at Mr. Stoker without flinching. “As it happens that particular guest of the hotel is not in residence at this time, sir. He left yesterday evening with his bag packed. It was my understanding that he would not be back for several days, though he did request that we hold his room.”

“Damnation!”

“Sir, I must ask that you leave this establishment immediately.”

I was surprised at my boss's outburst. It showed me, in no uncertain terms, that he was more emotionally involved with the approaching ritual, and the fate of my dear Jenny, than he cared to say. He raised his hat to the lady.

“My apologies, madam. I forget myself. It is certain circumstances that bring unexpected pressures.” He looked briefly at me. “Come, Harry. Let us take up no more of this good lady's time.”

I trotted after him as he swept out of the hotel.

“N
ow where, sir?”

A light rain had started to fall, and I felt we should do rather more than simply stand in the middle of the pavement looking up and down the street.

“Damnation! I should have acted yesterday, when I knew our man was still here. I should have confronted him before this. I blame myself.”

“Our man?”

“Hartzman. He is the key to much that is going on, Harry. We need to track him down and have a heart-to-heart talk with him.”

“I hesitate to suggest it, but would Inspector Bellamy be of any use here?” I said. I turned up my coat collar.

Mr. Stoker pulled out his gold watch, looked at it, and then thrust it back in his pocket. “It's a Sunday and late in the afternoon. I very much doubt that the good inspector will be at his post right now. But let us not forget him, Harry. Perhaps we can squeeze him in tomorrow?”

“I'll make a point of it, sir,” I said.

“Good. Then don't keep me here in this rain any longer. Let us repair to an eatery for some tea.”

We found a tea shop open on Wilton Crescent, though it looked as though they were preparing to close for the day. We took a table in the window, and the waitress bustled about bringing us tea, sandwiches, and pastries. Mr. Stoker inspected the assortment of savories. Apparently satisfied, he sank his teeth into one of the sandwiches and sat back while I poured the tea.

“I had alerted Inspector Bellamy to Hartzman a while ago,” he said, gazing out of the window. “If he had only acted at that time, instead of putting it off, we might have apprehended the young man. Now he may have to institute a search.”

“What is it you think you'll discover about him, sir?” I asked, stirring a lump of sugar into my tea.

“I'm not certain. I have one or two theories but nothing firm as yet. I intend to do some further digging tomorrow morning, while you are busy with the inspector.”

“Mr. Hartzman should be at the theatre this week for
Othello
rehearsals,” I said. “Wasn't that the reason the colonel wanted him in the cast, so that he could be a part of it when Mr. Booth was onstage?”

“That was the suggestion, yes.”

I thought he sounded unsure.

“You think there may have been other reasons?”

“Once again, time will tell, Harry. Now eat up and let us allow these poor people to close the shop and go home.”

*   *   *

O
n Monday morning we received a note from Scotland Yard saying that Inspector Bellamy would be obliged if Mr. Stoker would come by. He didn't mention me, but I presumed to accompany my boss. When we got to the Yard we found Bellamy in conference with another police officer. I immediately recognized him as Inspector Whittaker of the Warrington police. How could I forget that short, bald-headed official with the receding chin? I thought. I didn't see his baton in evidence, but I was sure it was in the room somewhere. I wondered what brought him to London all the way from Liverpool.

“Come in, gentlemen,” said Bellamy, and he waved us to two chairs set out beside the one occupied by Inspector Whittaker. He made no comment on the fact that I had accompanied my boss, but that there were two chairs ready showed that he was not altogether surprised.

“Your note intimated that there was some urgency,” said Mr. Stoker.

“If we are to abide by your prediction of an upcoming murder, sir, and if this ties in with your missing young lady, yes, there is indeed urgency.” He moved a bulky file into the center of his desk and opened it. “We have had the good inspector, here, dig back through his files to the murder of Miss Elizabeth Scott. He has been good enough to bring those files with him to Scotland Yard, at our request.” His eyes settled on Mr. Stoker's face. “We felt it would save time if you were present while we went through them since you have, on previous occasions, managed to put a somewhat different perspective on things.”

I thought it very magnanimous of Inspector Bellamy to admit to Mr. Stoker's brilliance. I grinned. If Bellamy saw the smile, he ignored it.

“But surely you have already been through these files with a fine-tooth comb?” Stoker looked surprised. “Have you, then, discovered something new and of note?”

Inspector Bellamy looked uncomfortable.

Whittaker knitted his brow. “It was a complete . . .” he started to say, but Bellamy cut him off.

“What our colleague is trying to say, is that the Scott murder occurred at a time when the Yard was going through changes. Our predecessor was retiring, and we were just starting to take the helm. There was some, er, mismanagement, perhaps . . .”

Inspector Whittaker could contain himself no longer. “The Yard made a complete mess of things! That ridiculous Inspector Watson—thank the gods he did retire—he came in and took over what was most decidedly
our
case. The first good murder we had had in years. Just snatched it right out of our hands! Then the fool goes and retires and the new man . . .” Here he had the grace to incline his head to Inspector Bellamy and nod. “Well, no doubt . . .”

“We were pushed into this with no preparation,” pleaded Bellamy. “Too many cases suddenly thrust upon us. It's no wonder the murder did not get the full and complete examination that it deserved.”

“You are saying—‘admitting' might be the more accurate word—that the Elizabeth Scott murder was not properly examined?” Mr. Stoker sounded amazed.

“Oh, it was all done properly,” pleaded Bellamy. “It was just that we didn't have the time or the manpower to look into it as thoroughly as we might have done.”

“And wouldn't allow the Warrington force to work it,” grumbled Whittaker.

“Water under the bridge,” muttered Bellamy. “Water under the bridge.”

“Properly done but not thoroughly done.” Mr. Stoker sat forward and turned the file around so that he might read it. “Well, no matter, gentlemen. We are here now, and let us get on with it.” He turned to Whittaker. “Inspector, would you be kind enough to give me a complete rundown on the case from your point of view? What have you learned, both from your original, if sparse, investigations and from your subsequent perusal? Harry, you might take notes if you would.”

Over the next four hours the three of them worked their way through the large file, the two inspectors bickering from time to time but being brought to order by Mr. Stoker. To my mind the only really new information was the fact that although locally there had been the occasional “juvenile high spirits”—it seemed that Inspector Whittaker thought along the same lines as did the vicar—there had never been any real problems in the area until the beginning of this present year. Then suddenly there seemed to be a number of previously unknown people, “undesirables,” as the inspector termed them, who appeared in the area around Warrington and then as quickly disappeared right after the murder of Miss Scott.

“You say that you were not familiar with many of these malcontents?” asked Stoker.

Whittaker shook his head. “I was born and raised in Warrington, Mr. Stoker. Certainly we have changed over the years. Being so close to Liverpool, it's no wonder. But I have never seen such an influx of strangers in so short a time. It is a small community, so a dozen strange faces suddenly appearing can be disconcerting. I had mentioned this to the original Inspector Watson, but he seemed to have thought it insignificant. He did not even record my remarks.”

“And you say these new faces disappeared as quickly as they had come?”

“To the best of my knowledge.”

“Exactly what time period are we talking about?”

“From the start of the year up until the first week of March. Only about eight or nine weeks.”

“But what we find of especial interest, Mr. Stoker,” said Bellamy, “is the name of one of those persons. Hartzman. Seth Hartzman. The gentleman you are looking for, I believe?”

Mr. Stoker pursed his lips and fingered his beard. “So our Mr. Hartzman was definitely on the scene at the time of Miss Scott's murder. Very interesting.”

“More than simply ‘on the scene' as you put it, sir,” said Whittaker. “It is my belief that he was some sort of leader, or organizer, of these interlopers.”

“Why do you say that?”

“One of the problems that we had was the burning of bonfires. They built and lit one the night of Miss Scott's murder. Hartzman was noted as organizing the building of it. It was at the opposite end of the village and was what drew our attention away from any activity we might otherwise have observed at the old windmill. Then a second, admittedly much smaller, bonfire was lit on the night of . . .” He dug into the file on the desk. “The night of the twenty-first of March.”

Stoker's head slowly nodded up and down.

“Pagan holidays, sir?” I ventured to ask.

“Oh yes, Harry. Imbolc, the night of the sacrifice of Miss Scott, and then the spring equinox, Ostara, the sacrifice of our own Miss Burton. Bonfires often featured as the focal point of pagan festivities; not that this group is necessarily pagan. The fire represents the sun. Even today, in various remote parts of England, bonfires are lit—usually on hilltops—to celebrate all the old feast days.”

“But why would they build a second bonfire in Warrington when that particular sacrifice was taking place in London, sir?”

“Merely a token to indicate the continuation of the rites, Harry. An indication that both sacrifices were connected. Inspector Bellamy! Do you have any evidence of a similar large bonfire being lit in your bailiwick on the night of Miss Burton's murder?”

“We get lots of fires around the city, sir, all the time.”

“I am talking a large bonfire, Inspector. Of the Guy Fawkes variety, but far from the fifth of November and without the fireworks.”

Inspector Bellamy had to call in a sergeant, whom he instructed to check on my boss's suggestion. In no time the sergeant returned with the news that yes, there had indeed been an unusual bonfire on that night. Not especially large but definitely unusual. Bellamy relayed the details to us all.

“On the river, not far from the warehouse where we discovered the body of your Miss Burton,” he said to Mr. Stoker. “Right on the water, a flat homemade raft was set adrift and floated downriver. There was a large pile of kindling, driftwood and the like, piled on the raft, and it had been set alight. It took the Thames River Police by surprise, we can tell you.”

“I am sure it did,” murmured Stoker. “I'm sure it did.”

“So we had bonfires up north and down here,” said Inspector Whittaker. “What of it? What about the people? What about this Hartzman you seem to know?”

“I am certainly of the opinion that Hartzman is a key figure in all of this, even in the two murders,” said Mr. Stoker. “But I still do not believe that he is the ringleader, the mastermind. I have my suspicions, but am not yet ready to point the finger. We need to look into this a lot closer.”

The meeting came to an end, and Mr. Stoker and I departed Scotland Yard, heading back to the Lyceum. There was much to do there, with
Othello
rehearsals proceeding apace and with scenery and props to be attended to.

*   *   *

I
was startled to be addressed by the Guv'nor himself, at the end of rehearsal. He stopped by my humble office on his way out of the theatre.

“Mr. Rivers. I suppose we have no further news regarding our missing young lady?”

“No, sir. I'm afraid not.”

“Such a shame. Young Jenny is very much missed back at my rooms, and I understand that you have a special interest in her?” He bowed and tut-tutted, sadly shaking his head.

He glanced up again. I noticed that he never actually looked at me. I couldn't help thinking that it was as though he were playing a part onstage. Not overly dramatic yet just not natural, to my mind. Still, I was grateful that he was even aware of myself and Jenny.

“Miss Terry and I have spoken of this on a number of occasions recently. Our thoughts and prayers are with you both, young man. Together we will pull through this trial.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” I said. I really didn't know what to say.

“Yes, we are all most concerned.” It was Colonel Cornell who had spoken. I was surprised to see that Mr. Edwin Booth and his manager had come up behind the Guv'nor. They were all on their way out of the Lyceum at the end of rehearsal.

Still sadly shaking his head, Mr. Irving moved on, and I was left once again with thoughts of my Jenny in the hands of the satanic abductors. I felt very depressed. The Guv'nor's words had not cheered me at all; in fact quite the opposite. I reached for my coat and made for the Druid's Head and a pint of porter.

John Martin, the tavern keeper, gave me a cheery wave, but I barely responded. I sank down onto a bench at a table close to the fireplace. The fire was low, the day having been quite warm for the time of year. A tankard brimming with beer appeared almost magically at my elbow, and the serving girl asked me if I'd like anything to eat. I didn't feel like facing Mrs. Bell's offerings so I settled on a piece of pork pie and some cheese. But I was not really hungry, and when it arrived I just toyed with the food.

“Not like you, Mr. Rivers, from what I've heard. Everyone always says that you are bright and cheerful all the time.”

I looked up to see Miss Abbott smiling at me from across the table. I waved for her to sit down.

“What are you doing here, Edwina?” I asked.

“We were at rehearsals. They were doing the crowd scenes this afternoon. I sometimes drop in here for a quick bite before going back to Mrs. Briggs's. Tilly Fairbanks said she might look in as well, though she had to do something first.”

I felt a little better just by virtue of having another member of the Lyceum family with me. I managed a smile.