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“I am telling you, Simeon, I honestly believe that the man who calls himself Edgar Bartholomew is actually his friend Wade Walker.”
Simeon was lounging in his favourite easy chair, and eating a pie that was probably mostly mutton, or so one could hope. His lips glistened with fat and grease. “I don’t understand why he’d do it. What does he gain?”
“I just don’t know. But look at the evidence which we have. He dyes his hair. Wade was blond. Wade has not been seen for weeks. Even for a couple of reclusive gentlemen, this is strange.”
“Have you been to this Wade Walker’s house? Have you spoken with his staff?”
“Yes, and yes. This morning, actually. It took some time to discover his address, but my father found it out. The house is a small but wealthy one, and it is empty save for the staff, who are confused and scared, because their master has not been seen for a while, and the police are ignoring their concerns. Which is no surprise to me,” she added bitterly.
“They should move on and get new positions.”
“They should – that is what the police told them – but it is not so easy, without references and the wages that they are owed. It is a wonder that they are so honest, and have not looted the house for all of its goods.”
“I suppose they expect that he will return, then, and is not dead at all. I still do not fathom why one of them would impersonate the other. And then, you say, he is visiting a medium to try to speak with the dead friend? Why impersonate one and then try to call him up? It makes no sense at all. And his son? The son of one of them, at any rate – he is also dead. The whole thing is a mess, Marianne. You should go back to the police of course. Or ask your father to go instead. They will listen to a man.”
“I know it, but if we can gather more evidence they will have to listen to me.” Marianne got up and prowled around the messy workshop. “The son, and Anna, are also involved. But Anna is involved with my own cousin-in-law, and he has attracted the interest of Jack Monahan. I am starting to understand that we are standing in the centre of a very tangled web, Simeon, and there is one link.”
“That link is you,” he said, his eyes opening wide. “Oh!”
“It could be co-incidence.”
“Hardly. So what have you been up to, Marianne?”
She flapped her arms against her sides in frustration. “Nothing. I don’t know! It all centres around me and it’s a mystery. I am nobody.”
“No – wait,” Simeon said. He wiped his mouth and sat forward. “You are not the link. Price Claverdon is.”
“Really?”
“He was the one to invite George to your house for dinner in the first place, do you remember? And he invited him because of the business links, and they were both in Prussia, though at different times.”
“Yes, that’s true. It was only after that when George asked me for help. He said he had not expected to see me at the dinner.”
“And Monahan has used you to gain access to your house, so that he could get into the study, to look at Price Claverdon. You were useful to him.”
“The scoundrel. He tried to break in. Then he tried to flatter me. Then he said to his friend that he would get to me through my mind. In the end, I allowed him in because I had used him. But he has used me more. Simeon, I fully intend to shoot him the next time that I see him.”
“You will hang.”
“I will lightly wound him, that is all, just to make a point. And I will cry a little and claim it was an accident due to a feminine issue. Green sickness, perhaps. Hysteria. Something plausible.”
“You’ve never been hysterical in your life.”
“No, but if society says that I am, then so I shall be.”
“Marianne, please don’t shoot anyone.” He sounded worried, as if he had realised that she really did have it in her. She was pleased.
“What triggered this chain of events?” she mused. “Was it George’s return from the continent, do you think? He came back and Anna followed.”
“Something must have happened before then.”
Marianne cast her mind back. “I spoke with the gatekeeper. Two men came to the house, the Bartholomew’s old and empty place. One remained, and claimed to be Edgar Bartholomew. A week later, George turns up, and gets a frosty reception and decides the man is an imposter. So let us say that in the week between the two men arriving, and George coming home, one man kills the other. And it is Wade Walker who kills Edgar Bartholomew, and takes his place. He did not expect Edgar’s son to turn up.”
“But luckily, his son was long unknown to him, and so does not recognise the difference. He must have hidden his hair under a hat until he could dye it,” Simeon said, eagerly taking up the narrative. “The son begins to ask questions, and he comes to you for advice and help.”
“Which I dismissed,” she injected gloomily. “I should have listened from the beginning!”
“You weren’t to know. And then the son is ejected from the house, and dies a painful death the next day. Poisoned, we know, by phosphorus.”
“That is the strangest way to kill someone,” she said. “It is not the poison that I would choose.”
“First you are to shoot men, and now you intend to poison them. Marianne, have a care. I am a sensitive man.”
“Oh, you are safe. Also, I think it unfair to have the poison be so painful. Poor George; he died hard. Now, why would someone, and I think it likely to be this imposter, this Wade Walker, use such a specific poison?”
Simeon ticked off the reasons on his long fingers. “One, it could be that it was the only thing he had to hand. Two, perhaps he did not know it was poisonous and it was some kind of accident. Three, that he chose it deliberately as he wanted to cause confusion. An unusual poison is more easily overlooked. Any half-witted coroner can spot arsenic these days, but no one is looking for phosphorus.”
“I am going with your first one. It was all that was to hand. Now we must ask why. And I know. It is used by false and fake mediums to cause things to glow in the dark. Do you remember the girl that I ... er ... stabbed in the face? She had phosphorus on her cheeks.”
“Shooting, poisoning and stabbing. And yet you are still unwed? It is a mystery to me.”
“Shut up, Simeon. He might not have fully realised what it was that he was using. He was inviting mediums to the house, if you remember. One might have left it behind. If he did recognise it, perhaps he decided to use it and not be aware of its fatal effects. He could have been trying to warn George, you know, scare him.” She stopped and thought about it. “No, that doesn’t work. He already knew that George was dead. He did intend to kill him.”
“And he believes in the mediums. Would not the phosphorus, the fake stuff left in his house, have shaken his conviction?”
“He does, but even the most ardent believers know that some of the mediums are false. And so he trawls from place to place, looking for a real medium, seeking connection with his dead best friend.”
“If he is dead.”
“I think that he is.”
“But,” said Simeon, “did you not posit that Wade has killed Edgar? Why, then, would he now seek out his spirit?”
Marianne ceased her circuits of the workshop and flung herself into an armchair. “To say sorry?”
“You mean, it was an accident?”
She closed her eyes. “It could be. And so he would cover it up ... try to look for a way forward to evade the law ... and his plans would be thrown into confusion by the arrival of the dead man’s son. To avoid raising suspicion, then, Wade takes the place of Edgar.” Her voice got faster and faster as she imagined the chain of events. “Yes, does that not make sense? It does make sense to me. He never intended to impersonate the man he has killed. But George’s arrival complicated everything! He panicked and reacted.”
“And George came back in disgrace. He was not likely to go away again quickly.”
She nodded. “And he came back pursued by the other party in that disgrace, Anna. Or whoever she is. But now this all falls apart. For Anna appears to be engaged in immoral activities with Claverdon, and I wonder how long that has been going on? And, given that she is young and beautiful, and he is not, why? Did Anna perhaps come here before George? Or did she follow him, as we are suggesting? If so, she has not had much time to get her hooks into Claverdon. She moves fast.”
“What about the blackmail?”
“It is linked. She is probably blackmailing him about the affair. I doubt she has true feelings for him.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. I am a woman.”
“You’ll be having hysterics next. What about science?”
“Shut up again, Simeon.”
He pouted in mock indignation. “So what do you intend to do about Claverdon and Anna?”
“I don’t know. I have given him the money and he should have paid her off. Perhaps we ought to pay her a visit and give her a stern warning.”
“Do you think she will still be there after that foreign man burst in like that?”
“If she has any sense, no, she will have gone,” Marianne said. “I’ll call at the hotel on my way home and double-check, though.”
They lapsed into silence, their rush of energy depleted by the unknowns and the unanswerable questions. Marianne began to feel quite gloomy about the whole affair, and she realised she hadn’t eaten for some time. “Have you another pie?”
“No, sorry. Would you like some bread and butter?”
“How mouldy is the bread?”
“It’s trimmable.”
“I think not. Perhaps I will head out to find some food. I cannot think on an empty stomach.”
“I will accompany you. You need to eat to think, and I need to move to think.” He leaped up and began to hunt around for a decent outdoor coat and hat.
“I do not need to eat to think,” she complained, almost automatically, as she pulled on her gloves and got ready to leave.
He ignored her routine comments. “Oh, now, look at this – I had forgotten I’d been working on this.”
“A new trick?”
“Oh, no, simply a new device for a very old trick.” He shrugged into an ordinary-looking jacket. It was cut quite long, and had a slight bagginess to the arms, but was presentable enough and would not have attracted comment.
That was, until he raised up one arm and a bunch of flowers shot up out of the cuff, arranging itself around his hand. They were silk and wire, but nicely made and convincing enough from a distance if you were on a gas-lit stage.
“Oh, pretty. But now what?” she said, clapping her hands.
“This is the extra part; I can reverse it just as easily.” He brought his arm down in a steady manner, the elbow first, and the flowers slid back into their hidden housing, the petals folding in neat and symmetrical ways. “I pulled it out on a seller of muffins and she let me have one half-price as I had charmed her.”
“Try that charm when you are on stage. Come on,” she said, and they left the workshop, Simeon still fiddling with the sleeve.
***
THE STREETS WERE AS busy as ever. London never slept. It slumbered at night, in places, while other areas kept the beating heart of the city alive, albeit in a tawdry manner. Still, business was business, and at any time of day or night, there would be a business transaction taking place somewhere in London. Marianne felt proud of her capital as they pushed through the crowds, heading for a street seller of hot food that Simeon particularly recommended.
She was not too high up in society that she could not purchase food on the street, but still Marianne baulked at eating it there, standing up on a corner like a fishwife. They ducked into a narrower side street which was more residential than trade, with a maze of narrow alleys and courts running off to either side. Here she was still watched, but she didn’t think the ragged children and dirty animals counted as “being in public” quite so much. They wandered, feeling perfectly safe in the daylight. A few urchins came to beg for a penny, but they were astute children, and could see that this pair was not a wealthy church mission couple come on a sight-seeing and charity tour. Marianne’s habitual dress was plain, and Simeon was ever so slightly crumpled.
So the children begged a little, for form’s sake, and left them alone as they passed along the street.
“Are we being followed?” Simeon said suddenly, and drew to one side.
“Oh, not again,” she said. “If we are – and I am not indulging your paranoia, because we are probably not – but if we are, then it will only be Jack Monahan, I would think. And I have something to say to him.”
“Marianne, no, we talked about this! You are not to shoot him.”
But when she turned around, she could see no one. Monahan would have revealed himself by now; he would be lounging against a wall and grinning at her. She shook her head, and they went on.
They turned a corner into an alley that led along the back of a row of houses as a short cut to Simeon’s workshop. They were only fifty feet from sanctuary. They didn’t run but they went along a little more briskly. The alley was deserted and suddenly she longed for the children to be following them and plaguing them for money. It was narrow, cold and dark, with the windowless brick buildings either side seeming to lean over as they rose, making it feel more like a tunnel. At the end, the alley stopped abruptly, but there was a door to the right which would open into another narrow passage and lead them to the stairs at the bottom of the building where Simeon lived. It looked as if they were heading into a dead end, if you did not know the place well.
The hairs on her neck prickled when she heard a noise behind them, a rustle and a crack. It will be a rat in the rubbish, she told herself, well used to such things in London.
But she turned around anyway.
Of all the people she thought she might see there, holding out a tarnished and heavy pistol, it was not Anna Jones.
Marianne blinked. Or was it? The woman looked like Anna, with her high cheekbones and curious almond eyes, and some golden locks escaped the dirty length of cloth she had wrapped around her head, like a lopsided turban. She wore seven shades of brown and dirt, and a shapeless dress. Could this be some evil twin? Or, well, an even-more-evil twin?
Anna kept walking towards them, and she was frowning and laughing at the same time, a twisted and triumphant glee of madness. “I have you now, don’t I? Clever science woman. And some fancy-man too, well, that is a shame.”
“What has happened to you, Anna?” They had not parted as friends, but this current incarnation was a terrifying vision and Marianne could not work out why.
“This? Oh, this is a disguise. This is not me,” she spat. “This is necessary because of you.”
“I doubt it. I have done nothing to you. Can I help you, Anna?” In spite of it all, Marianne felt an affinity with the woman.
She laughed. “Help me? After all the trouble you have caused? No, no. And I do not see why you are so cool. You have walked into a place where there is no escape. See, I have a gun. And I will have revenge.”
“But I threw that man out of your hotel room,” Marianne said. “I do not understand! Perhaps you cannot thank me, but you surely cannot blame me.” Simeon and Marianne backed up the alley until they were against the wall, with the door now to their left, hidden in shadows. Anna came up close until she was only four feet away. A shot at this distance, Marianne thought with bile in her throat, would do a great deal of mess.
“You did, yes,” Anna said. “But you know about me, and Price, and George, and you have exposed me here, to them, you see. I do not think you even realise what you have done! Now I must start again. I have some money, still, but I wanted to stay in London. London is freedom for me. But now they have found me, and I must go, before they make me go back. Hence I wear the disguise. But before I leave, I want you to die. I am not as cool as you English women. I have a heart. And it is broken.”
“If you wanted us to die, you would have done it by now,” Marianne said. “You’re talking so that you don’t have to act. You’ve never shot a person in your life.” She hoped she was right. Anna had a determined glint in her eye and a desperate person was an unpredictable one. And Marianne realised that if Anna pulled the trigger, she would not have time to dive sideways through the door.
She’d be dead.
She needed a distraction.
Anna provided the opportunity. Marianne let her hand twitch toward her handbag. “Put your hands in the air,” Anna shouted, remembering suddenly what Marianne kept in there. Marianne put her hands up high.
“But I...” said Simeon.
“Do it,” Marianne said firmly. “Do exactly as she says.” She shifted her weight. She called to mind everything that the old gardener had ever taught her, in those summer days, tumbling on the lawn with Phoebe like a couple of reckless tearaway boys.
Hesitantly, Simeon began to raise his hands.
“All the way up,” Marianne said.
“Whose side are you on?” he muttered, and even Anna gave her a curious look, her attention already wavering. She took one step back, readying herself to shoot, although the muzzle of the pistol swung from one to the other. She obviously couldn’t decide who to kill first.
There was the tiniest of clicks, and the bunch of flowers shot up from Simeon’s cuff. The moment of surprise was all Marianne needed. She dived forward, not sideways, with no time to grab her own gun. She went in under Anna’s upraised arm and slid around her, so that she was clasping Anna from behind. Marianne’s right arm grabbed Anna’s, and hauled her hand down, digging her fingers into the soft space between the tendons on the inside of Anna’s wrist. It worked better with nails exposed, not gloved hands, but the pressure was enough to make Anna drop the gun.
Anna struggled and squirmed and screamed as Marianne rocked backwards and then went forwards, the same direction that Anna was trying to go in, adding her own force to Anna’s. They fell forward to the ground in a tangle, a classic move, and Marianne squashed down with all her weight.
Simeon had recovered the pistol from the ground and now he held it, his hands shaking, pointing at Anna. She twisted her head and stared up at him. Her head cloth was shaken loose and her blonde curls tumbled around her dirty, scuffed face.
“Shoot me then! Shoot me! For what else do I have to live for?”
“Go and call for the police,” Marianne said. “He won’t shoot you.”
“I know that he won’t – look at him! I bet he cannot kill a beetle.” And while Anna spoke, she took Marianne by surprise, spinning over beneath her. Marianne lost her balance and went to the right, and Anna jumped up to her feet, hunching like a spider, before running off down the alley and her freedom.
She knew that Simeon could not shoot her in the back.
They watched Anna go.
“She is injured,” Marianne said. “Injured and angry. What do we do about her now?”
“We have her gun. And are you injured?”
“No, just shaken.” Marianne felt icy-cold all over, and when she looked down, she was surprised to see that her hands were trembling. “I’m just realising what happened,” she said, “and I think I need to sit down.”
“Let’s get back to mine. I have gin,” he said. “I find that it makes everything all right.”