Ghosts by Gaslight (13 page)

The door shut before McIntyre could answer. He sat there with his mouth open for an instant; then with an explosion that this time did send his tea slopping over the saucer and on to the desk, he erupted from behind the chair and stalked to the door. A big man, who had fought heavyweight for his uniformed division before joining Scotland Yard, he flung the door open with a weighty fist and was all set to bellow again when he saw that he was being stared at by a lady and a gentleman, and by Cumber, who clearly had not quite gathered the intellectual power to tell them to go away in a nice fashion suitable to their obviously superior social standing.

McIntyre saw a relatively young man, perhaps twenty-eight or thirty, with a not very memorable face, short pale hair, and something on his upper lip and chin that could charitably be viewed as a Vandyke beard. He was only of medium height, had a slight build, and was wearing a very well-cut grey morning suit, made somewhat eccentric by a curiously shaped and very heavy gold watch-chain visible on his waistcoat, which was surmounted by a pearly white stiff-necked shirt with a dark red ascot tie, again made odd by the large and peculiar tiepin that was thrust through it, which had the appearance of being made of a bundle of small golden sticks and so looked rather raffish.

The woman next to him was a very different matter. She was of a similar age, but where he was very much of average appearance, she was striking, dark-haired, and blue-eyed. Her charms were subdued under her not very flattering black-and-white dress that was somewhat reminiscent of a uniform, though it was drawn in tightly at the waist and had an elegant ruffled neck of obviously very expensive lace. She carried a small leather Gladstone bag, which was not at all a normal item of apparel for a lady of quality. McIntyre automatically noted she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

“Inspector McIntyre!” called out the man. “We were just trying to impress on the good sergeant here that we had come to call upon you, at the express request of my cousin Sherlock.”

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” asked McIntyre warily. “He is your cousin?”

“Second cousin, actually,” said the man. “Something to do with our grandfathers. I can’t quite recall, but my father grew up with Sherlock, and when my grandfather gambled away the old place and my father had to turn to trade, Sherlock was one of the few who stood by him, or so Father always said, though I don’t—”

“And you are?” asked McIntyre, cutting short what otherwise seemed likely to be a long discourse on Holmes family history.

“Oh, I’m Sir Magnus Holmes,” said the man happily. “Just plain Magnus Holmes till Father dropped off the perch last year. He was made a baronet in ’87, services to the Worshipful Company of Tallow Chandlers . . . Lucky for me, if they’d left it any later I’d have missed out inheriting. Makes it easier to get a decent table, don’t you know, and theatre tickets—”

“Indeed,” said McIntyre. He looked at the door to the corridor, which had a glass window and thus might show the shadows of any observers, as he was beginning to wonder whether Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself was playing a trick upon him. Seeing nothing untoward, he glanced at the lady, who had maintained her station a pace or two away from Sir Magnus and was looking with detached interest at both the inspector and the baronet.

“And Miss . . .”

“Allow me to introduce Almost-Doctor Susan Shrike,” declared Sir Magnus. “My . . . um . . . keeper.”

McIntyre’s brow lowered, a frown compressing his rather bull-like features, a likeness now accentuated by the narrowing of his mighty nostrils.

“I don’t appreciate having a May-game made of me—” he began.

“I beg your pardon, Inspector,” interrupted Susan Shrike. Her voice was cool and commanding and both soothed and dominated all the menfolk in the room. “Sir Magnus sometimes gets carried away. My name is Miss Susan Shrike, and I
am
almost a doctor, in that I am in the final year of my medical studies at the London School of Medicine for Women. I also am upon occasion employed to care for certain patients who are allowed excursions from Bethlem Royal Hosp—”

It was the inspector’s turn to interrupt. He raised a finger to point at Magnus.

“You mean . . . you mean to say he’s a lunatic from Bedlam!”

“Well, I am getting better,” said Magnus reasonably. “I wouldn’t be allowed out otherwise, even with Almost-Doctor Susan.”

“Sir Magnus is not at all dangerous,” said Susan. “He has been at the hospital for a few months recovering himself after an unfortunate accident. He is now well enough to begin to resume everyday activities. My presence is merely a precaution insisted upon by his aunt.”

Magnus grimaced.

“Lady Meredith Foxton,” he said in a stage whisper. “Ghastly woman. Specialises in making people miserable.”

“Now then, Inspector,” said Susan. “As I must have Sir Magnus back at the hospital before nightfall, perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us exactly what your problem is and we shall see if Sir Magnus can assist you.”

“Sir Magnus assist me?” asked McIntyre. He was having difficulty comprehending what was going on and was wondering if perhaps he wasn’t better suited to a more lowly rank after all. If only Lestrade hadn’t gone on holiday!

“I like to help,” said Sir Magnus brightly. “Sherlock said you had a case that was right up my alley and that . . . let me see . . .”

He strode to the fireplace and leant one elbow on the mantelpiece, then turned his head back to look at the inspector. Somehow his face had assumed an entirely different aspect, and he now looked far more hawklike and acute, with a hint of suppressed arrogance.

“Magnus, my boy,” he drawled, in a voice that McIntyre recognised as a very good imitation of Sherlock’s. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth—and the very highly improbable is I suspect exactly what Mr. McIntyre is facing. As this is very much more your area of expertise, I suggest that you answer the inspector’s clarion call and leave me to my practice.”

Magnus dropped his elbow, and the likeness with it.

“Revolver practice, that was, not violin,” he added in his own voice. “Shooting initials in the wall. And they say I’m mad.”

“What is your area of expertise, Sir Magnus?” asked McIntyre. He felt that this was perhaps a foolish question, but the truth of the matter was that he needed help, and if Sherlock Holmes really had said those words, which after seeing that impression he was inclined to believe, then perhaps this unlikely lunatic might be of some assistance.

“I am a s . . . s . . . s . . .” Magnus started to say, stopping suddenly as Susan looked at him intently. “That is, I have made a study of the unusual, the arcane, and the occult. Also I make things. I am an inventor and have a supple and surprising mind. Sherlock said that, too, by the way. Mycroft says that I am a throwback to another era and should be burned at the stake, but he doesn’t mean it, not after that business with the . . . the . . . things that I’m not supposed to mention. Let’s go into your office, shall we, Inspector?”

McIntyre surprised himself again by swaying back to allow Magnus to slide past him, and he held the door open for Susan Shrike, before letting it swing shut on Cumber’s inquisitive face.

“Go and get my guests some tea,” ordered McIntyre through the door.

“Yes, sir,” came the muffled response.

“I trust he won’t have to wait for the tea,” said Sir Magnus.

“No, I shouldn’t think so,” replied McIntyre, rather baffled by this new conversational sally. He returned behind his desk and indicated the chairs on the other side. “Please, do sit down.”

“If he had to wait in a line, then he would be a queue cumber,” said Magnus.

“What?” asked McIntyre, who had opened the file again and allowed his thoughts to wander. “What?”

“Hush,” said Susan Shrike to Magnus. “Why don’t we let the inspector tell us about the matter in question.”

“Queue,” muttered Sir Magnus. “If Cumber grew his hair long at the back, then it could—”

“Magnus,” said Susan Shrike softly.

Magnus nodded.

“Yes, yes, awfully sorry. Please do explicate the matter, Inspector.”

McIntyre picked up the top paper from the file, gripping it as if he might hurl it to the ground and throw himself upon it in a wrestling check.

“These are the salient points,” he said. Clearing his throat, he began to read.

“On the morning of the ninth instant, that is to say yesterday, at twenty-one minutes past five o’clock in the morning, P.C. Whitstable was proceeding upon his usual beat and had reached the corner of Clarges Street and Piccadilly when he heard a shout on the other side of the road, at the point where a path exits from the Green Park. Dawn was approaching, the gas lamps were still lit, and there was no fog. He clearly saw a man in a long coat and unusual wide-brimmed hat run out of the park and start to cross the road. But on seeing P.C. Whitstable approaching, he turned to the left and increased his speed. P.C. Whitstable, blowing his whistle, set off in pursuit, and was joined by Park Keeper Moulincourt—”

“Moulincourt?” asked Sir Magnus. “I knew a fellow called Moulincourt. He wasn’t a park keeper, though—”

McIntyre shook his paper and resumed reading. “ . . . and was joined by Park Keeper Moulincourt, who was shouting ‘Stop! Stop the murderer!’ Moulincourt, who had already pursued the suspect for some distance, fell back as P.C. Whitstable took over the chase. Whitstable, a champion runner and keen footballer, soon caught the fellow. However—”

“There’s always a however,” said Sir Magnus. “Had to be. I was expecting it to come in before this. However.”

“However!” blasted McIntyre, shaking his paper in barely suppressed fury. “When Whitstable gripped the fellow’s arm, the coat and hat came off, and there was no one inside, only a great shower of daffodils that fell onto the road.”

Sir Magnus tilted his head until it was completely sideways and peered at McIntyre.

“Daffodils,” he repeated. “Stolen from the park?”

“Yes,” said McIntyre, through gritted teeth. “Stolen from the park, and a park keeper murdered in the process.”

“It wasn’t Moulincourt who got murdered, obviously,” added Sir Magnus, whose head was slowly righting itself again. “Were they the first daffodils of the spring?”

“I don’t know!” protested McIntyre. “No one’s ever tried to steal flowers from the park before. There are daffodils all over the place. Why bother with those ones? And anyway, how did the bloke escape—”

“First flowers of spring from a royal park, cut with a silver blade between dawn and moonset,” mused Sir Magnus, almost to himself. “Your park keeper had his throat cut?”

“Yes, how on earth . . .”

A look of suspicion crossed the inspector’s face. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes was not playing a game with him, but sending him a suspect.

“Where were you yesterday morning between five and six o’clock?”

“Locked up,” replied Sir Magnus. He looked across at Susan Shrike and gave her a cheery smile.

“Yes, that’s true, Inspector,” said Susan. “Sir Magnus is locked inside his rooms at the hospital from dusk to dawn. It is part of his treatment.”

“Then how did you know about the throat cutting?” asked McIntyre. “None of this has been in the papers. Did Sherlock tell you? He has his ways of finding out.”

“No, Sherlock didn’t tell me,” complained Sir Magnus. “Why does everyone always think Sherlock does my thinking for me? No, I deduced it, from my knowledge of folklore and ritual.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded the inspector.

“It’s quite simple, really,” drawled Sir Magnus. He slid his chair away and leaned backwards for a moment, precipitating a mad grab at the edge of the desk as he almost tipped over. “There is a . . . belief . . . among certain quarters that if flowers from a royal park are cut with a silver knife at a particular time, it will enormously enhance their natural poison. Lycorine, as Sherlock would tell you. Nasty stuff in general, but a moondawn daffodil’s poison is far, far more dangerous.”

“That can’t be true,” protested McIntyre. “How could it make any difference?”

Sir Magnus shrugged.

“Clearly someone believes they need moondawn daffodils to make a terrible poison. I wonder what they intend to use it for?”

“And what about the empty coat?” asked McIntyre. “The running man who was . . . was just daffodils?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Magnus. “The adept would have cut the keeper’s throat, and when the blood spilled on the earth he quickly fashioned a kind of simple golem from the resulting mud, using cut daffodils for the arms and legs. He threw his own coat and hat over it and sent it away to create a diversion.”

“Magnus . . .” warned Susan Shrike. “Remember?”

“Or, far more likely,” Magnus continued after a moment’s pause, “in the relative darkness—he was between two gaslights, I expect—as the constable took his arm, the murderer spun about, at the same time turning himself out of the coat and throwing the daffodils at the policeman’s face, blinding him for the few seconds required to drop to the ground and then crawl away along in the darker shadows next to the park railings.”

“I prefer the second explanation,” said McIntyre. He stared at Magnus for a few seconds, then stood up, casting an air of finality over the proceedings.

“Thank you very much for your time and thought, Sir Magnus,” he said, shaking hands over the desk. “You have given me something to think on, to be sure. A pleasure to meet you, likewise, Miss Shrike. Sergeant Cumber will show you out. Please pay my respects to Mr. Sherlock Holmes when next you see him.”

“But the adept . . . the murderer . . . you’ll need my help to find him and bring him to justice,” protested Sir Magnus.

“We’ll get our man,” said McIntyre. “Thank you again, but this is pure police business now. Good day.”

“Sherlock said that apart from Lestrade and . . . and Gudgeon or someone . . . you were—”

“Sir Magnus! We really must be going,” said Susan forcefully. “Thank you, Inspector.”

Outside the inspector’s office, Sir Magnus turned to Susan. “We didn’t even get our tea,” he grumbled.