The Devil's Mask (13 page)

The words on the page read as follows:

I stared at the script. It being dark outside, I'd had to wait until I came upon a lit shop before opening the Captain's note to read it, and in that brief delay the thing had become a flame pressed against my chest. Yet reading the message neither soothed my guilt nor quenched my curiosity. The only thing I was certain about was that this note was not what it seemed. And yet I couldn't quite put my finger on the oddness.

The handwriting was uneven, the ink smudged, the page itself crumpled.

That all made sense.

The document reflected – embodied even – a disordered mind.

And yet, looked at in a different light, the slash of words and ink conveyed something other than anguish. They suggested
haste
. That was it; the message looked as if it had been written in a rush.

I thought for a moment. Perhaps Addison had determined
to kill himself and scribbled this down quickly so as not to give himself a chance of changing his mind? No, that didn't quite add up. If he'd feared a sudden weakening of will, he'd not have paused to write a final missive at all. It wasn't even as if the note conveyed anything of particular importance. His thoughts weren't addressed to anyone in particular. Vagueness was what made the note notable, in fact. Looked at straight, it appeared less a man's impassioned final words than a jerkily penned sham. I folded the piece of paper carefully back into the pocket of my greatcoat.

I would do the right thing. I had begun on the right track, after all. Fallen chest of drawers aside, the room was exactly as we'd found it. If ever a man was trustworthy, the epithet applied to Blue. You could see it in the way he held himself. And he clearly had a sense of allegiance to his unlucky Captain. So the sailor would definitely guard the room until the Justice arrived, and from then the matter would be in sensible hands. I was headed there now, Wheeler's house in Stratton Street; going straight there was the honourable thing to do.

I strode out, my pace fanning my sense of self-righteousness.

But what I really wanted to do was get beyond the Justice and back to Carthy's house. Availing myself of his help was suddenly more important than everything else. For with the discovery of Addison's death, I was irretrievably out of my depth. His dead weight, leaden upon the rope, changed everything. It gave substance to my suspicions. Never mind that I didn't understand quite how; that was where Carthy would come in. He would not expect me to soldier-on alone now.

One of the Justice's children opened the house to me. She was carrying a cat which squirmed madly in her arms upon spotting the canary inside its cage. I had interrupted the Justice at his supper. The man appeared behind his daughter with his napkin still tucked into the collar of his shirt, his sleeves turned back for what his jowly, solid appearance suggested was, for him, the important business of eating. He wasn't pleased with my news. The cat must have scratched the girl at this point; she dropped it unceremoniously and aimed a kick at it which it evaded by leaping on to a pile of pallets to one side of the doorway. Girl and cat hissed at one another from a distance. Wheeler rolled his eyes and tore the napkin free, neither shocked nor surprised, and his brusqueness somehow made it easier for me to pass on a diluted version of the facts, as follows:

In routine pursuance of my duty I, together with one of the sailors from Addison's old ship, had that afternoon called upon Captain Addison at his lodgings, only to discover, together with the landlady of the premises, the unexpected news of the Captain's death.

Downplaying my role in the discovery in this way felt prudent. The Justice huffed and grumbled and sent for a lantern as he crammed himself into his coat. I checked my pocket-watch and declared myself late. Wheeler knew where to find me if I could be of further assistance. For now, I trusted that my civic duty was done.

Besieged troops fight with renewed vigour ahead of the arrival of reinforcements, the prospect of help itself being enough to lift their heads. Despite the now sullen ache in my upper back, and the continuous ringing in my left ear, my decision to ask for Carthy's guidance buoyed me before I'd even reached Thunderbolt Street.

I crossed the imposing square and glanced at the Alexanders' high-fronted house, its windows boastful with lamplight. Lilly would be somewhere inside. I'd call on her again soon. In fact, I'd make a drawing for her … something as direct and honest as one of Edie Dyer's poems. Recalling the poetess at that moment irked me. I looked away from Lilly's house and shifted the birdcage from the crook of one arm to the other. At least I'd be rid of this … absurdity … soon. I rounded the final corner with long strides.

The door to Carthy's house stood open. Anne was sitting on the front step, bouncing a doll on her bare knee. Her father would be doubly annoyed. He didn't like her playing in the street unsupervised, and he insisted, in milder weather than this even, upon her wearing a coat outdoors. I squatted on the paving stones and reminded her as much.

Anne nodded and re-fixed her squint upon her doll.

Sorry that I had chastised her, I went on swiftly: ‘I have something for you.'

The little girl's expression sharpened instantly, her attention switching to the basket under my arm. ‘What is it?'

I turned sideways so she couldn't see the bird. ‘I'm not sure how well this will go down with the authorities,' I nodded over her head.

Anne's eyebrows dipped. ‘What is it?' she repeated.

‘There's a chance you won't be allowed to keep it,' I warned her. ‘Meaning I probably shouldn't have bought it in the first place …'

‘Let me see.'

I tumbled the basket forwards, a ham magician, and Anne took it and held it up, delighted.

‘We'll have to get it a proper cage, I know,' I went on. ‘Just let me do the talking if your parents object!'

Anne nodded, still squinting at the canary as it – gratifyingly – put on a twittering, flapping show. ‘Nobody will mind today,' she said. ‘Not now Daddy has gone.'

I began warning Anne that the bird would no doubt fly away if released from its cage outdoors, or within reach of an open window, and was about to elaborate when I
simultaneously
realised what Anne had said and heard a movement in the house behind her.

‘Does it have a name?' Anne asked.

There were heavy feet coming down the stairs. A pair of women's boots, flashing beneath full skirts, stumped into view. A set of wringing hands appeared above Anne's head. They connected themselves to a woman, Anne's aunt Beatrice. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes, expectant as a bride's, were too large in her face.

‘Oh, thank goodness!' she said.

‘What is it?'

‘Come in, come inside. Oh, thank goodness you're here.'

‘What's the matter?'

‘Bedtime, Anne. Go upstairs.'

‘I've got a bird, but it doesn't have a name.'

‘Upstairs!'

Beatrice's sharp tone cut concern with excitement. She bustled ahead of me, energetic. Whatever was going on, there was something annoying about the way the woman appeared to be relishing her involvement in it. I could not stop myself from snapping at her. ‘Stop! What's happened?'

Beatrice paused and looked meaningfully – theatrically so – at Anne, unwilling to explain herself in front of the child. I put a hand on Anne's head. The softness of her hair was suddenly heartbreaking. I knelt before her again and said, ‘This little bird is very curious, Anne. Keep him safe in his basket, and take him up to see your bedroom. Explain where you keep things. Your shell collection, the conkers and so on. I'll be up in a minute.'

The child nodded hard and skittered away upstairs.

I rounded upon Beatrice, backing her purposefully through the door into my office. ‘Where's Adam? Where's Mrs Carthy? What is going on?'

‘Why, Mrs Carthy is taken to bed. That's the reason the maid sent for me. She's never been much use in a crisis. The shock … They didn't know where to find you. So the carriage was sent for me and –'

‘An explanation!' I thundered.

The woman sucked in her cheeks and rolled her lower lip
over her bottom teeth. She would not be hurried into spoiling her surprise. My heartbeat hushed in my ears.

‘A note has arrived!' Beatrice said, finally. ‘A note about Mr Carthy. It says he has been taken for a prisoner. Kidnappers have him! And he says they will kill him unless you do exactly as they say.'

‘Where is this note?' I said coldly.

Beatrice produced a folded wedge of paper from her housecoat, triumphant as a magician: she would let nothing undermine the melodrama of her moment.

I took the paper from her without speaking, corralled her from my office, and shut the door behind her. Then I spread the note out on my blotter.

The blank threat of these words sent a shiver through me. But it was as nothing compared to what I confirmed by spreading out Addison's ‘suicide note' next to the demand. I'd thought as much from the jerky lettering on the front of the ransom note. The same jagged ‘f's and ‘s's. It was as if these sounds were hissing in my ear. Undoubtedly, both missives were penned by the same unhinged hand.

I didn't know what to do. I had never felt so alone. I slumped into the leather chair behind my desk, and recalled Carthy wheeling it into the office the day I qualified. Upstairs
his daughter's footsteps skipped from left to right and right to left again. The heavier tread, of Beatrice, presumably, followed them. This was all my fault. I should have told Carthy I had been threatened, warned him. By trying to double-guess him I'd put him in danger.

The pattering footsteps upstairs drummed recrimination over my head. If anything happened to him … I could not complete the thought. What should I do? The question rolled round my head uselessly, evolving, eventually, into: What would Carthy want me to do?

That was easier to answer. He would not want me to give in. He would not want me to take the file up to the top of Clifton Hill as instructed, unless it was part of a wider plan. In any dispute, his reasoning was that a man put on the back foot should come out fighting.

But what did I have to fight with?

Well, the two messages on my blotter were a starting point. They were evidence of foul play. I could present them to Justice Wheeler and in so doing compel him to investigate Carthy's disappearance, as well as Addison's death. I'd have to explain how I came to be in possession of Addison's note, but so be it. It was evidence the Captain had not died at his own hand; Wheeler may well have reached that conclusion on the basis of what was in the room, anyway. Now he would have to.

I'd already shucked myself back into my coat; I buttoned it up forcefully, as if by doing so I could truss these addled, panicky thoughts into something solid. If I set off immediately, I'd stand a chance of intercepting the Justice back at Addison's lodgings.

Yet I had a duty to reassure Carthy's family before I set off. I took the stairs two at a time, then paused on the landing to force myself to breathe slowly. Beatrice jack-in-the-boxed from her easy chair when I entered Anne's nursery. I sidestepped her and knelt before the little girl.

‘You know how your father likes to set us small challenges,' I said. ‘Stories to find endings for, questions to answer ourselves?'

She nodded.

‘Well, that's quite like what he's done today. He's gone somewhere to do with work, and it's my job to find out where it is and bring him home. Understand?'

‘He likes puzzles,' Anne said. ‘As well as treasure hunts.'

‘Exactly. And while he's gone, and I'm gone looking for him, I've got a job for you. You must work out a name for the canary, a good name, one you think your father will like.'

Anne squinted at me thoughtfully and nodded.

‘You work that out then,' I repeated. ‘And I'll go and find him.'

By now it was horribly dark. Even the glow from the windows appeared muted, rendered ineffectual by the combination of an evening mist and lowering smoke from the city's countless chimney pots, which together blotted all memory of sun, moon and stars alike. It was as if the air had turned black and greasy; it dug cold thumbs into my collar and ran wet fingers through my hair. I knew which way I was going, more or less, but reckoned I would make hopelessly slow progress if forced to feel my way through the rat-maze of streets in this cloying dark. A lamp-bearer would speed my progress. But there weren't any visible from Thunderbolt Street, or even in Queen Square. I had to cut down to the Welsh Back in order to pick up the only available light for hire and, as luck would have it, the lamp-bearer himself was a decrepit old man, so
bowlegged
, wheezy and round-shouldered that he appeared to be expending most of his energy in lugging the weight of his final breaths every step of the way, never mind the lantern. I asked whether I might not carry it for us, and so speed up our way, in response to which the man managed, through some peculiar combination of sniffing, coughing, and clearing his throat, to suggest I'd insulted him. He picked up the pace. We scuttled through the snot-slick streets, over the black river, and back into the city's rotten guts.

I noticed something else about the little lamp man as we
stuttered back through the lanes. He kept looking round at me. At first I assumed he was checking my progress, but since I was hard upon his shoulder the whole way, that seemed a misreading: I was breathing in his ear. No, it became clear he wasn't looking at me, so much as past me, almost as if in search of some … pursuer. I said nothing, but fell subject to the fear that we were perhaps being followed. When I turned to check for myself though, I could of course see nothing beyond the meagre glow cast by our lantern, nor could I hear footsteps. The lanes were all but deserted at this hour; if anybody had really been following us, their progress would have written itself in echoes, would it not?

We ferreted our way through the lanes as fast as the little man's lungs would allow, and in the time it took us to reach Holt Court, my faith in the course I'd set out upon began to dwindle. Disclosing the handwritten notes to Justice Wheeler would mean explaining how I'd come to have them both, which was tantamount to admitting … what? That I'd tampered with a crime scene? Stolen evidence? Conspired to pervert the course of justice? Construed unfavourably, such accusations could prove at the very least problematical … perhaps even terminal … to my career.

My career? Ha! For an instant I saw the thing as it was, a pebble upon a beach. What did my fledgling ambition matter set against a man strung up from the rafters and Carthy abducted, apparently by the same hand? But even as I saw, in a flash, the true scale of things, I was standing before the boarding house door, my under standing foundering upon the stoop, leaving me fearful of revealing Addison's note to the Justice.

I knocked.

There was no immediate answer.

I knocked again, then listened for the sound of footsteps clumping down the stairs within the house. Nothing. Yet as I leaned towards the door it swung open abruptly, revealing the landlady, whose powers of moving around the house inaudibly now left us a foot too close to one another. I stood back. Behind her, on the half landing, sat the sailor, Blue. From down here he appeared shrunken.

‘Well?' the landlady said.

‘The Justice. Wheeler. I need to see him. If you'll excuse …' I made to go past her.

She lowered her head but held her ground, the hump of fat between her shoulders now giving her a bailiff's solidity.

‘He's not here.'

I rocked on the threshold. ‘But he must be. I gave him the address a good two hours ago. Something must have delayed him.'

‘No, he's been and gone.'

‘What? Already?'

Blue had advanced downstairs. ‘It's true,' he said, placing a hand on the newel post, which rocked uncertainly in its socket. ‘He was barely here ten minutes –'

‘It didn't take a man of his experience long to determine the obvious,' the landlady cut in, a triumphant note in her voice. ‘Disposing of a suicide is the undertaker's concern, not a matter for the Justice.'

Blue shook his head, looking at me from under his brows. ‘I explained your concerns –'

‘But the Justice Wheeler wasn't impressed –'

‘He said, if I was disposed to complicate so open and shut a tragedy, to
make a meal of it
, those were his words, then I'd be throwing myself into the pot ahead of the dead Captain.'

‘He said
what
?'

‘His meaning was plain. Since I, or we, found the man dead, he said, we'd naturally be the first subjects of an investigation.'

‘This is ridiculous!'

‘No, he was highly serious,' the landlady asserted. She'd grown defiant since the Justice's visit. I ignored her and spoke to Blue.

‘Did he not look at the room, the furniture, the open window?'

‘He did. I pointed such things out to him as you instructed. It made no difference. He merely drew the window shut and righted the chair, and then he had me cut the Captain's body free and lay him out on the bunk to await the undertaker.'

‘The coroner surely? Somebody to examine the …' I trailed off. There was something sorrowful in Blue's demeanour. He'd as good as been threatened by Wheeler, warned away, yet he was still here, awaiting the undertaker out of loyalty to his dead Captain. The landlady was kneading complacently at the back of her neck again; there was something sinister in her newfound composure. Who was going to pay for the undertaker's services? Not her, I was sure of it. If anything, the look on her face suggested she'd lost a farthing and found sixpence.

I paused, hand on chin, doing my best to give an impression of thoughtfulness. Then I nodded at the landlady, fought out a conciliatory smile, and turned to address Blue. I suggested
that the Justice was no doubt correct, that his professional eye must, indeed, have made sharper sense of the tragedy, which had so disturbed us all. Then I bade the sailor come with me. A frown cut purple lines in the darkness of his forehead. He opened his mouth to tell me, no doubt, that he had a duty to Addison still, but I headed him off with some nonsense about how we owed a greater debt to his remaining crew members, including the Captain's good friend Doctor Waring. We must inform them of the sad news. Though the prospect of starting out on such a chore after nightfall was little short of absurd, the big man caught my meaning and stepped forward. For a second I thought the landlady, unwilling to be left in the house alone with a corpse, might try to prevent us leaving, but when Blue moves he does so with something of a ship's momentum, and the lady, clutching at her crucifix, thought better than to bar his way.