The Mangle Street Murders Part 27

Sidney Grice thrust some coins into my hand and said, as he alighted, *That should pay your fare back to my home, or do you want your forty pieces of silver?' He slammed the door and shouted, *Drive on, cabby.' And the hansom lurched forwards, flinging me back into my seat.

I leaned over and looked out, and saw a head bobbing jerkily to the right, but the crowd closed in and Sidney Grice was lost from view. Swamped, for the first time I had known, by humanity.

40.

Diogenes I waited for two hours in the study but my guardian did not return.

*Gone to his club, most likely,' Molly said, tucking one stray strand of hair under her hat and making two more fall out.

*What club is that?'

*Why, the Diogenes. Mr Grice taught me how to say that,' she told me, tossing her head proudly. *He often stays there when he is perplexicated. They have no women and no talking. He likes both those rules a great deal.'

*I imagine he does,' I said. *Turn round.' I tied the bow of her ap.r.o.n for her. *How long have you worked for Mr Grice now?'

*Two years and two months.' She flicked the hallstand half-heartedly with a feather duster. *Which cook says is two years and one month longer than anybody else ever.'

*So why do you stay?' I pinned her hair back up.

Molly wrinkled her nose. *Well, I know he shouts a lot and says cruel things, but I like that. I can't abide masters or mistresses who think you are the best of friends. If I am their friend, why do I have to fetch and carry for them? Mr Grice knows my place and so do I. Also, he is very kind at heart.'

*Kind?'

*Very.'

I went to my room, where I wrote my journal. I took the letters out and held them but I could not read them that night. I touched the gold and put them away to smoke a cigarette out of the window. The city was curiously quiet and there were a thousand stars glinting. At about midnight the front door slammed and heavy jerky footsteps came up the stairs. A few minutes later I heard the bath filling, the pipes clattering against my wall, and an hour later I heard it emptying, the water rushing down the drainpipe. I stood by my door and flung it open the moment I heard his.

*Oh,' I said, *I did not realize you were home.'

My guardian stood in a full-length red silk dressing gown. He had matching slippers on and a turban made from a white towel. He did not have his eye in or a patch on.

*Well, you do now,' he said, and turned towards his room.

*Why did you take me in?'

Sidney Grice stopped with his hand on the doork.n.o.b, but kept his back to me.

*As I told you, from the charity of my heart.'

*But as you have also told me many times you have no charity and precious little heart.'

He kept hold of the handle but turned to face me.

*Out of vanity,' he said.

He looked so comical, seeming to wink at me with his headdress bobbing about, that I wanted to laugh, but I only said, *How does my presence flatter that?'

For a moment I thought he would say that he had come across my photograph and that he wanted to be seen about town with a beautiful young ward, but he shrugged and said, *There are so many downright lies written about me. I read your book about your father. It was more than a little naive and had a number of factual errors and omissions but-'

*Errors and omissions?'

*Yes.' He wiped a trickle from his temple. *But it made me wish that I had known him... better. I thought you might do the same for me a record my cases a be my Boswell, as it were. Your diaries are not very flattering, but they describe my methods and character far better than anything I have-'

*You have been reading my diaries?'

*Every day.'

I drew myself up and looked him in the eye, but he did not seem the least bit abashed.

*How could you? I suppose you will try to tell me it is part of your duty in caring for me.'

He shook his head and the towel unravelled a little.

*Certainly not. I have little or no right at all to read them, but I have always been inquisitive. It is the fuel of my profession.'

I said, *My diaries are private. I confide things to them that I would not disclose to any man or woman alive. You have gone too far this time, Mr Grice. I cannot stay here to be spied upon. I shall leave in the morning.'

His face fell.

*That would be a great pity.'

*Do not pretend you would miss me.'

*I should not pretend that,' he said, *but it would be a pity for both of us. I should lose my honest chronicler and you, who have nowhere else to go, incidentally, would lose the chance to see that poor girl's murderer brought to justice.'

*I shall stay until the case is solved,' I said, *but you had better be quick about it.'

My guardian's mouth twitched.

*I shall do my best.'

*What errors and omissions?'

Sidney Grice smiled.

*Goodnight, March,' he said. *I shall see you in the morning.' And he turned the handle of his bedroom door.

I went to bed and tried to stay awake, but sleep conquers all in the end.

I see you every day. But in the night I can touch you. We hold hands and walk, and the sun pounds on our bare heads. The earth is hard and the gra.s.s withered. We never talk. Sometimes we are happy a though we never laugh a and sometimes unbearably sad.

But it is always the same at the end. We stop and you turn to me and all I see is a confusion of black gouts and splinters of white bone, and it is only when my name breathes hollow through those raw lips that I know. And that is all you ever say because it is all you can say. That last lost word empties you of air and fills you with blood. It sprays in my face as I lean over you, and flows on to my hand, and I cannot wipe it off.

I sit up and the air is thick with terror.

Then I open my eyes and know what it was, but there is no relief. The cruelty of dreams cannot begin to match the savagery of being alive.

And I hold it inside me like a dead child, the heaviness of my guilt.

41.

Reasonable Doubt Inspector Pound had been drinking a I could smell the whisky on his breath a but he was not drunk. He was wet, however, for it was raining heavily.

*Miss Middleton.' He bobbed his head unsmilingly.

*A vile night.' My guardian shook his hand. *Will you take tea, Inspector?'

*Do you never have anything stronger?'

*On special occasions I am not averse to a drink,' Sidney Grice said, *of coffee.'

*Then I shall take tea.'

I poured for the three of us.

*Thank you.' Inspector Pound cleared his throat. *Well, this is a pretty thing, Mr Grice.'

*How so?'

*Because everything that happened yesterday supports William Ashby's protestations of innocence.'

*On the contrary,' Sidney Grice said. *I have neither seen nor heard anything to give me the slightest doubt that we hanged a murderer when we put a rope round William Ashby's neck.'

*How can you say that?' I asked and Sidney Grice smiled.

*Let me summarize the case against Ashby,' he said. *His story was absurd from start to finish. He expected-'

*We have been through all this at the trial,' Inspector Pound broke in, *but, as you are well aware, there have been developments since then.'

*Which are?' Sidney Grice stirred his black tea.

*Firstly' a the inspector dug his spoon into the sugar a *William Ashby told us that he had sold a knife identical to the murder weapon to an Italian with extravagant clothing and bright red hair. You and I and the prosecution ridiculed this account. It seemed so patently silly that it went very heavily against him. Now we have discovered the body of such a man, who may not have been Italian but made his living pretending to be one. Not only that but he has in his pocket a letter which he himself wrote, admitting-'

*How do you know he wrote it?' Sidney Grice asked.

*Who else could have written it?' I asked.

*The murderer or a confidant,' Sidney Grice said.

*But I am coming to that,' Inspector Pound said. *James Hoggart was the murderer.'

*That is an enormous leap of faith,' Sidney Grice said, *so great that its logic shatters the moment it hits the ground.'

*But surely,' I said, *he gave us details of the murder which only the murderer could have known.'

*No.' Sidney Grice leaned forwards. *The writer of that letter knew details which must have come from somebody who knew a great deal about the crime.'

*The murderer.' Inspector Pound brought out his pipe.

Sidney Grice raised his hand and said, *I do not permit the smoking of tobacco in this house. It deadens one's senses of smell and taste, m.u.f.fles one's hearing and weakens the eyes and brain, and I intend to keep my senses as acute as possible for as long as possible but, to stay with the subject of the letter writer's ident.i.ty, let us see who we can exclude. The man who knew most about the crime was the criminal himself. That much is obvious. You have not forgotten that I received a letter from Ashby, asking for my help?'

The inspector pointed with his pipe. *You have not forgotten that I was there when he wrote it?'

*You told me you saw him actually writing the letter.'

*I came in as he was finishing it and I read it. In fact I pointed out that he had misspelled your name, but he said it did not matter, that you would not ignore his plea. Lord, how he must have wished you had.' He rammed his pipe back into his outer breast pocket.

Sidney Grice lifted a small cardboard filing box from the table at his side and hinged open the lid.

*This is the letter?'

The inspector glanced at it and said, *You know it is.'

*Whose idea was it to write it?' My guardian put on his pince-nez.

*His mother-in-law's. She said if anyone could help him, you could, and that she would bring the letter personally to this house. She was overwrought, as one would expect, so much that when she stood to receive the letter she fainted. I believe I mentioned it at the time.'

*Did she hurt herself?' I asked.

*Thank G.o.d she did not, for she is with child.'

*I only asked because-' I began, but my guardian batted me away.

*Who went to her a.s.sistance?' he asked.