Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase (38 page)

In the library the electric lamps were turned up high. After
so many hours in blackness the effect was viciously bright; we stumbled to the nearest chairs with our arms across our faces. Grebe motioned us to sit; he took up position beside the bookshelves, arms loosely folded, gun held pillowed on a bulging bicep. We waited.

Finally there came a slow, painful tapping of a stick across the lobby, and Fairfax entered. Light gleamed on the metal skullcap; it shone too on the great hook-nose, giving him more than ever the appearance of a stooped and hulking bird of prey. Hesitantly, he advanced to a leather chair below the wall of photographs and, with an extended sigh of relief, sank down into its depths. As he sat, the edges of his metal corset spread out about him with a gentle clinking sound.

‘At
last
,’ he said. ‘We were hanging around that cursed cellar for hours after we heard the explosion. All right, Grebe; you can take it off. We’re safe from ghosts in here.’

He bent his neck and removed the helmet, before pulling off the goggles. They’d left a red weal across his brow. The jet-black eyes were screwed up with discomfort; the face was etched with age.

Up on the wall the photo of his youthful self stared out in all its swash and swagger: Fairfax the actor, smooth and handsome, all codpiece, earrings and too-tight leggings, moodily contemplating a plaster skull. Below the picture, the real thing slumped bent and careworn, wearily coughing in his chair. It was strange to see how completely the years had
changed him, how they’d steadily devoured his strength and drained that vitality away.

Grebe took off his helmet too. He turned out to have a remarkably thin head, much too small for his body’s muscled bulk. It looked like an upturned skittle. He wore his hair in a cropped military cut, and his mouth was thin and cruel.

Fairfax set his goggles and the helmet down on the nearest side-table, on top of the books Lockwood had studied several hours before. He glanced around the room with an air of satisfaction. ‘I like this library,’ he said. ‘It’s my frontier. At night it forms the borderland between the worlds of the living and the dead. I come here often to test the latest equipment my factories are producing. All the iron keeps me fairly safe, but I have my armour too, which allows me to walk deep into the house unscathed.’

George stirred. ‘That armour: it looks like you’re wearing a dress.’

Fairfax’s eyes narrowed. ‘Insults at a time like
this
, Mr Cubbins? Is that wise?’

‘Well, when you’re being held at gunpoint by a geriatric madman in a metal skirt, you’ve kind of hit rock-bottom anyway,’ George said. ‘It can’t really get much worse.’

The old man laughed unpleasantly. ‘That remains to be seen. But you’re wrong to be so dismissive. This “dress” is made from an advanced type of steel – mostly iron, which gives it its warding power, but with an aluminium alloy that
makes it much lighter than usual. Ease of movement and full protection! The helmet is state-of-the-art too. Did you know that the most vulnerable part of every agent is the neck, Mr Lockwood? This rim removes the danger . . . Don’t you wish you had one?’

Lockwood shrugged. ‘It’s certainly . . . unique.’

‘Wrong again! It’s sophisticated, unusual, but not unique. Fairfax Iron isn’t the only company to be working on remarkable innovations. These goggles, now—’ He collected himself. ‘But perhaps we’re getting off the point.’

Fairfax sat back in his chair and regarded Lockwood for a few moments without speaking. He seemed to be weighing his words. ‘Down in the cellar,’ he began slowly, ‘I overheard you discussing a certain
locket
, and certain
proofs
attached to it. In a spirit of casual interest, I’d be keen to know what you mean by “proofs”, if indeed you mean anything. And after that’ – he smiled thinly – ‘perhaps you can tell me where the locket is, and how exactly it may be found.’

‘We’re hardly likely to help you there,’ George said. ‘You’ll only chuck us down the well.’ His pale and bloodied face was set in an expression of fierce defiance. Mine (I guessed) was similar, though also laced with deep repulsion. I could hardly bring myself to look at Fairfax at all.

But Lockwood might have been chatting with a neighbour about the weather. ‘It’s all right, George,’ he said. ‘I can give the man his proofs. It’s important we show him just how
hopeless his position is.’ He crossed his legs and sat back with every appearance of contentment. ‘Well, Fairfax, as you guessed, we found the locket on Annabel Ward’s body. We immediately knew that it had been given to her by her killer.’

Fairfax held up a hand. ‘Wait! You knew this? How?’

‘Thanks to a psychic insight by Lucy here,’ Lockwood said. ‘In touching it, she detected strong emotional traces that linked Annie Ward’s unknown admirer with the moment of her death.’

The great head turned; the black eyes considered me for some seconds. ‘Ah yes, the sensitive Miss Carlyle . . .’ Something in the way he said it made my skin recoil. ‘But, legally speaking,’ Fairfax said, ‘that’s hogwash. There’s no proof in it at all.’

‘Quite so,’ Lockwood said. ‘Which was why I wanted to understand the inscription we found on the locket. On the outside, this was
Tormentum meum, laetitia mea
: “My torment, my bliss”, or similar gibberish. This told us little, other than that the guy who’d had the necklace made was a pretentious, self-regarding sort of fellow. But then, so many murderers are, aren’t they, Fairfax? We needed something more.’

Silence in the library. The old man sat motionless, gnarled hands resting on the studded arms of his leather chair. His head jutted forward in an attitude of strict attention.

‘Next,’ Lockwood said, ‘we came to what we found inside. This, if I recall correctly, was:
A ‡ W; H.II.2.115
. Three
letters, A, W and H, plus the mysterious set of numerals. To begin with, the letters foxed us; in fact, they led us into a serious error. Our instant assumption was that AW stood for Annabel Ward, and that the H might therefore stand for her admirer’s name. The newspapers of the time had highlighted her relationship with Hugo Blake, so this seemed a strong possibility. He’d been the last to see her alive, and had been the only original suspect in the case. The police today also remembered Blake and soon arrested him.

‘In fact,’ Lockwood continued, ‘Blake was a complete red herring, which I might have realized after a careful study of the inscription. Wasn’t it a bit odd that Annie Ward’s initials were spelled out in full, while her admirer’s were confined to a single letter? And what about the numbers: II.2.115? Was it some kind of code? A date? I’m sorry to say that I was stumped.’

He glanced at his watch for a moment, then grinned across at me. ‘Lucy made all the difference, Fairfax. She found a photo showing you in the same group as Annie Ward. At once I knew you’d lied about your purpose in bringing us here. On the train down I read about your early years in the theatre and remembered that Annie Ward had acted too. I guessed that might have been your connection. I also noticed that you acted under your middle name: Will Fairfax. At once that gave a new solution to A ‡ W. Not Annie Ward, but Annie and
Will
.’

Still the old man hadn’t moved. Or perhaps his head had dropped a little. His eyes were in deep shadow now and could not be seen.

‘I didn’t figure out the meaning of the final bit until this evening,’ Lockwood said. ‘We were on the Screaming Staircase at the time, and have been a little busy ever since, so I haven’t had a chance to check yet. But I think we’ll find that “H.II.2.115” is a reference to one of the plays you acted in with Annie Ward. I bet it’s some soppy quote that somehow binds the two of you together and which, if we investigated, would prove you knew each other
very
well indeed.’ He glanced up at the painting on the wall. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say
Hamlet
, since that seems to be your personal favourite, but who can say except you?’ He smiled and folded his hands across his knee. ‘So, Fairfax – how about it? Perhaps now’s the moment to fill us in.’

Fairfax didn’t stir. Had he actually fallen asleep? It was almost possible, given how long Lockwood had been talking. Up by the bookcase, the man with the gun shifted; clearly he at least had grown impatient. ‘Almost four-thirty, sir,’ he said.

A cracked voice from the chair, from the shaded face. ‘Yes, yes. Just one question, Mr Lockwood. You had the inscription. Why didn’t you instantly show it to the police?’

For a few seconds Lockwood didn’t answer. ‘Pride, I suppose. I wanted to decode it myself. I wanted Lockwood and Co. to have the glory. It was a mistake.’

‘I understand.’ Fairfax lifted his head, and if he had looked old before, now he looked positively deathlike, his eyes bright and ghastly, his grey skin clinging to the bones. ‘Pride does terrible things to a man. In your case, it will be the death of you and your colleagues. In my case, it’s led me to a lifetime of regret.’ He sighed. ‘Well, your proofs are good, and your intuition better. That last reference is indeed to
Hamlet
, in which Annie and I acted long ago. It’s how we met. I was Prince Hamlet, and she played Ophelia, his betrothed. The locket refers specifically to Act II, Scene 2, lines 115 to 118, which run:

‘Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.’

The old man paused; he stared into the dark. ‘That’s Hamlet to Ophelia,’ he said at last. ‘He’s saying that his love for her is utterly certain, more certain than anything else in the universe. Of course, in the play she drowns herself, and he’s poisoned, but the principle holds true. It’s all about the
passion
between them . . . And passion is what Annie and I shared.’

‘Didn’t stop you killing her,’ I said. It was the first time I’d spoken.

Fairfax glanced towards me, black eyes dull like stones. ‘You’re still a child, Miss Carlyle. You know nothing of such things.’

‘Wrong.’ I let my full scorn show. ‘I know
exactly
what Annie Ward experienced. When I touched the locket, I
felt
it all.’

‘How nice for you,’ Fairfax said. ‘You know, I’ve always thought that your kind of Talent must be
far
more trouble than it’s worth. Feeling another person’s death pain? I can’t say that’s ever appealed to me.’

‘It’s not just her
death
that I understand,’ I said quietly. ‘I felt all the emotions that she experienced while she wore the necklace. I know everything she went through with you.’ And the memories had hardly faded, either. I could still taste the girl’s hysteria, her wild jealousies, her grief and anger; and, finally, right at the end—

‘What a ridiculous skill you have,’ Fairfax said. ‘How terribly pointless and distracting. Still, you’ll know then what a dark and difficult person Annie Ward was. She had a volatile personality and a poisonous temper, but she was beautiful all the same. We both acted in a number of amateur productions, and this gave us the excuse to be together, for our relationship had to remain secret. Annie was not of the correct social standing, you see – her father was a tailor, or something of that kind – and my parents would have cut off my inheritance if they’d known about her. Well, finally Annie
demanded we go public. I refused, of course – the idea was impossible – so she left me.’ His lips drew back, teeth glinted. ‘For a time she went around with Hugo Blake: a fop, a worthless dandy. He was no good, and she knew it. Before long she was back with me.’

He shook his head; his voice grew louder. ‘I’m sorry to say that Annie was wayward. She socialized with people of whom I did not approve, including Blake, though I had forbidden her to see him. We often argued; our arguments grew worse. One night I came to her house in secret and let myself in. She was not there. I waited for her. Imagine my rage when I saw her being dropped outside the door by none other than the vile Hugo Blake himself. As soon as she entered, I confronted her. We had a fearsome row, at the end of which I lost control. I struck her. She fell lifeless to the floor. I had broken her neck with a single blow.’

I shuddered. Right at the end: the final pain and terror. Yes, I’d felt that too.

‘Put yourself in my shoes, Mr Lockwood,’ Fairfax went on. ‘Here was I, the heir to one of the largest industrial fortunes in England, kneeling by the body of the girl I’d killed. What could I do? If I called the police, I faced ruin – imprisonment, certainly, and perhaps the rope. Two lives would have been destroyed because of a moment’s madness! If, on the other hand, I left her lying there, there was still no guarantee I would escape. Perhaps someone had seen me
enter the house? I couldn’t be sure. So I resolved upon a third solution. I would hide the body and conceal the crime. It took me almost twenty-four hours, Mr Lockwood, to create my dear Annie’s impromptu tomb, twenty-four hours that have stayed with me for fifty years. I had to locate a hiding place, knock through the wall, bring materials into the house to conceal that hole – and do all this unseen. Every moment I feared discovery, every moment I had to labour with the body there beside me . . .’ The old man closed his eyes; he took a ragged breath. ‘Well, I got it done, and I have lived with the memory ever since. But in all my efforts – and this is the bitter irony – I forgot the locket! I didn’t think of it; it slipped my mind. It was only weeks later that I recalled its existence, and realized it might one day . . . prove troublesome. And so it has. As soon as I read your newspaper article, I guessed you’d found it, and were working on a solution. Subtle enquiries revealed the police knew nothing. That gave me hope; I turned my attention to you. First I tried to steal it. When Grebe failed, I was forced to use more radical measures to ensure your silence.’ He sighed; air whistled between the silver teeth. ‘Now the ghosts of Combe Carey have let me down too, and I’m going to have to finish the job myself. However, before I do – one simple question remains. What have you done with my locket?’

No one spoke. When I listened with my inner ear, the house was empty. The Visitors had gone. We were left
with only mortal enemies – a killer, his henchman, and a gun.