36.

Easy Tricks Sidney Grice listened in silence. He was even paler than usual.

He held the letter up to the light and said, *No watermark.' He put his elbow on the desk and tapped his forehead. *Cheap paper. HB pencil not sharpened during the writing. See how the lines progressively thicken.'

*These are easy tricks, Mr Grice,' Inspector Pound said, *but what are we to make of the contents?'

*There is no doubt that it came from James Hoggart's pocket?'

*Mr Rawlings found it himself.'

Sidney Grice sniffed the letter.

*And it has certainly had a long soak in foul water. Who else has read this?'

*Only Mr Rawlings and he gave it directly to me.'

*This must be kept quiet at all costs,' Sidney Grice said urgently. *It would be a powder keg in the hands of agitators.'

*We can depend upon Mr Rawlings' discretion.'

My guardian looked at the letter again. *May I borrow it?'

The inspector shook his head. *It could be crucial evidence, Mr Grice.'

*Of what?' Sidney Grice said. *We have already caught and hanged the murderer of Sarah Ashby.'

*I hope so,' Inspector Pound said quietly.

*Miss Middleton will make a good copy,' Sidney Grice said. *I trust you have no objection to that?'

*None whatsoever.' Inspector Pound opened a drawer and gave me a sheet of blank paper, and indicated to the inkstand and bra.s.s-tipped pen. *Caligula,' he said as I set to work. *That is an Italian name, is it not?'

*It was the nickname of a Roman emperor infamous for his cruelty,' I said. *It is said he murdered his own mother and had knowledge of her and his three sisters. He is supposed-'

*Is that what they teach young ladies these days?' Inspector Pound broke in.

*They taught me how to read,' I said, *and my father had a volume of The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. Do you want me to copy this exactly?'

*Of course,' my guardian said.

*Including the spelling mistakes? He has spelled Ashby as Ashbey.'

*Let me see.' Sidney Grice took the letter from me. *Why would he do that?'

*Because he was Italian,' the inspector suggested.

*He was not Italian,' Sidney Grice said.

*And he has spelled Caligula with two double L's.'

*Not very Italian of him,' my guardian said sourly.

*This blood test of yours...' Inspector Pound brought out a box of matches. *I suppose there is no possibility of a mistake?'

*It is not my test.' Sidney Grice fiddled with his eye. *And Professor Latingate is respected throughout the Empire. Besides which, the case against Ashby was based on a whole gamut of forensic and circ.u.mstantial evidence. Even if I had never found the knife, he would have hanged, and rightly so.'

I dried my copy carefully on a much used blotter and turned it over.

*All the same, it was the test that clinched it,' the inspector said.

*What are you implying, Inspector?'

Inspector Pound rubbed the back of his neck and hesitated. *Just that I would feel more comfortable if we had had more evidence, and if Ashby had not been such an unlikely murderer and this letter had not turned up to corroborate his story.'

Sidney Grice laid his palms upon the desk and tensed his lips. He started to say something but no sound came. His fingers drummed the wood and he blew out slowly.

I re-dipped the pen. The ink was India Blue, almost black in my shadow.

*We thought there was trouble before William Ashby was hanged,' the inspector said. *My G.o.d, if it got out that he was innocent...'

*I hardly think...' Sidney Grice's voice wandered off.

*You were nearly lynched last time,' I said, but he did not seem to hear me. He brought out his halfpennies and flipped them absently.

I turned to the inspector. *Have you sent anyone to investigate Chandler Street?'

*Not yet,' he said. *I only received this an hour before you came and I wanted Mr Grice to see it first. I was hoping he would be able to dismiss it.'

My guardian roused himself from his thoughts.

*Then we must go there immediately.' He pushed his chair back. *And give the lie to this tasteless prank.'

I finished and dried my copy, and my guardian slipped it into his satchel. On the way out we saw the constable who had stood over William Ashby in the interview room.

*Good morning, sirs, miss.'

The men replied and walked on, but something was troubling me.

*Do you remember fetching that bowl of water?' I asked.

*Of course, miss.' His shoes were scuffed on the toes and his trousers a fraction too short.

*Why did it take so long?'

The constable stiffened indignantly.

*We don't keep that kind of thing here. I had to borrow it from the shop next door.'

*Drayton and Son?'

*Yes, miss.'

*Thank you,' I said. *I meant no offence.'

*That's all right, miss,' he said but I could see it was not, so I said, *You look very smart in that uniform.' And the constable simpered just in time for Sidney Grice to come back and drag me away.

37.

The House on Chandler Street Chandler street was little more than a narrow cobbled walkway, almost a tunnel at times where the upper floors of houses nearly met over our heads.

We stopped at a door hanging inwards on broken hinges, and Inspector Pound pushed but it would not budge. He climbed in through the gap and I followed.

*h.e.l.l,' I said as my hem snagged on a rusty screw, and Sidney Grice pointed to the gutter.

*Kindly leave such language where it belongs, Miss Middleton.'

*You should try scrambling through in a dress,' I said and Inspector Pound chuckled.

*I would give a guinea to see him try.'

He took my hand to help me through, and in the dim light filtering between the planked windows I saw we were in a large high hallway. A staircase tumbled upwards and the floor looked in no better condition. Inspector Pound put one foot forwards and leaned his weight on it.

*Hear that creak?' He leaned again. *The joists are rotten. We must keep to the sides and well apart. I shall go first.' He edged his way round the room on the right-hand side. *And you must stay there, Miss Middleton.'

*You should know by now that I am not a girl who does what she must,' I said, and made my way after him.

The walls were bulging with laths jutting through in places, and I caught the back of my dress this time, but I had resigned myself to ruining my clothes now. The inspector reached an archway on the wall opposite the front door and pa.s.sed through it.

*The stairs are here,' he said as I caught up with him.

They went disjointedly down an unlit pa.s.sage.

*And in equally poor condition by the look of them,' Sidney Grice said as he joined us. *See all those holes? They are riddled with woodworm. It would be safer for you both to stay here.'

Upstairs a baby cried weak hungry wails, but I heard no mother soothing it.

*I have a better idea,' I said. *Being the lightest, since I do not have a huge masculine brain to weigh me down, I shall go first.'

*I am afraid I cannot allow that.' The inspector held up his hand but I was already on my way down.

The stairs groaned and sagged under my feet, but I made my way easily enough down them to a plain pine-plank door at the bottom.

*I cannot think a man the size of James Hoggart came along this way,' the inspector said. *He was more heavily built than us.'

*Wait there,' Sidney Grice called from the top, but I had the handle in my hand and turned it.

There was a faint humming, getting louder as I pushed the door open, and it did not take me long to recognize the source of that sound. The cellar room I was entering was swarming with flies.

38.

The Plague of Flies The air was thick with them a fat buzzing blowflies. They swarmed around my face, metallic blue, bristly and loathsome.

I gagged on the rankness of rotting meat.

The inspector came clattering down and, more cautiously behind him, my guardian, who peered in. *Carrion flies.' He tried to bat some away. *And look,' he pointed, *over there.'

On a sack blanket on the floor in the far right corner was a rounded lump. It was shrouded in a swarm of big slow flies but, even in the half-light, we could see that this thing was not a woman's body. It looked more like a head, hacked off and covered in thick black hair. Inspector Pound went over.

*Some mangy old cur,' he said, *and crawling with maggots... And that would be how our man got in.' He strode across and threw open an unbolted door at the back, which led to a small sunken area with iron steps. The floor was smeared with footprints and littered with dead bluebottles crunching under his feet. *I think I will get this outside.' He picked up the sacking by its corners with undisguised distaste and took it up the steps.

It was a bare brick room with a sagging ceiling and the only furniture was a low unmade bed. In one corner, floor to ceiling, was a wire-netted cupboard which would have been a meat safe when the house belonged to a family. A dried puddle had oozed from it into a dip in the floor.

*Her wardrobe.' My guardian opened the door, revealing a few sc.r.a.ps of clothing hanging from butchers' hooks above a pine blanket box.

*Watch out,' Inspector Pound called, *if you come up here. There is a sewer with the manhole cover missing and that, I think, is the best place for this.'

*No!' Sidney Grice rushed to the door.

I followed him up into a high-walled courtyard bordered by straggling shrubs. An iron-gated arch led into a backstreet.

*Too late.' The inspector wiped his hands on a handkerchief. *I did not realize you wanted to give it a Christian burial.'

*That animal could have been evidence,' Sidney Grice said, but the inspector shook his head.

*I do not investigate dog murders, and if it was a witness it was not going to tell us anything.'