‘Aye, Jupiter,’ he acknowledged. ‘Halloween’s over. I thought you’d be having a rest. Now, behave yourself.’
The man’s pale blue eyes burned with fierce indignation and he raised the placard as if to strike the infidel where he stood, but McLevy shoved past because he could hear a bell ringing inside the hall to announce that proceedings were about to begin.
Jupiter, white hair gleaming in the streetlights, called after McLevy and anyone else within range who had not yet lost their soul, a slight speck of froth at the edge of his thin lips indicating a man at the end of his Christian tether.
‘Where is your shame? You should be on your knees in church not crawling on your belly like a snake to feast upon this woman.’
For a moment his zealous gaze met with Sophia Adler’s, as her image on one of the posters to advertise the venue swam into his view.
‘Whore of Babylon!’ he howled at her. ‘The Lord will smite you down! You will not escape his wrath!’
To this somewhat apocalyptic statement she made no response; the last straggle of crowd had disappeared inside and Jupiter cut a pathetic figure as he stood there like an Old Testament prophet whose flock had gone astray.
Meanwhile the inspector collected his ticket inside an envelope with his name written in full,
He thought about the varied meanings of these words as he searched for his place, finding it to be an excellent vantage in the centre of the stalls.
As he pushed his way in towards the empty seat in the row, he saw that it was set beside a giant of a man who sat with his eyes fixed on the empty stage.
Arthur Conan Doyle.
Either Sophia had arranged this or the Fates were at work. Take your pick.
Doyle, who was on his own, his mother Mary considering that she had had a surfeit of the spirits for the moment, gazed at McLevy with slightly bulging eyes as if the inspector might trail some more murderous events after him.
‘I have been out of the city all day,’ he said.
‘Where?’ grunted McLevy, as he sat down heavily.
‘A fishing trip.’
‘Fishing?’ The inspector had wondered about Doyle’s whereabouts; a note had been sent requesting his presence at the station but to no avail.
So that was the reason.
‘Fishing?’ he repeated.
‘I needed to calm my mind.’
Indeed, Doyle had awoken with a welter of confused thoughts, grabbed his angling rod and spent an unsuccessful day attempting to lure a trout onto the fly.
It had eased his perturbation but reading some lurid headlines in the newspapers on his late afternoon return had set it off again.
‘How is Miss Adler?’ he asked, turning his eyes back to the empty stage. ‘I tried to contact her at the hotel on my arrival back but she was not available. Hiding from the press, no doubt.’
‘She has much to conceal.’
‘It is a dreadful business.’
‘And not over yet,’ said McLevy bleakly.
While they were talking he had been scanning the audience. Unless he was mistaken he glimpsed Jean Brash and Hannah Semple further back in the hall, no doubt celebrating Jean’s release while investigating the possibility of establishing a bawdy-hoose beyond the grave.
And was that not Lieutenant Roach ducking his head down, Mrs Roach beside him like a hungry chick waiting to be fed?
It would seem most of the players in this drama had gathered and McLevy wondered about the outcome.
He had retained the one letter from Sinclair, which rested in his pocket, naming the Morrison brothers.
But what did he hope to accomplish? Show it to Sophia and extract a confession of sorts?
Certainly it gave link and motive to her part in murder but provided no real proof.
He could just hear Roach’s voice.
Especially when you considered how he came by the letters.
He had risked a great deal and gained what?
He might hammer in at Sophia but would she crack?
McLevy became aware that Conan Doyle was gazing at him with a perplexed look upon his face.
‘Did you not hear what I said, sir?’ Arthur queried.
‘I did not. Miles away.’
‘I asked what you implied by
‘No,’ said McLevy. ‘Miss Adler has yet a part to play.’
‘In what fashion?’
There was a pugilistic set to Doyle’s face, suddenly, as if he suspected McLevy of dark designs towards his sweet Sophia, and the inspector sighed.
‘Has she not suffered enough?’ declared the young man, and as McLevy thought best how to answer he was saved from what would undoubtedly have been an extremely fraught exchange of differing points of view by the stage lights dimming and an earnest member of the Edinburgh Spiritualist Society stepping forth.
In halting, dry tones, the man welcomed them, spoke briefly of the tenets of the Society’s beliefs, made no mention of the unfortunate fate of Magnus Bannerman, spoke the name of Sophia Adler as one summoning up a presence from the deep, and then quit the stage.
She walked on. Veiled as usual, bride of the spirits, a circlet of silver round her head, arms bare, wearing a flowing dress, pale grey in colour.
The large honey candles were already in place and lit, the chair in position.
She sat. Silence. A held breath. Waiting.
For Sophia it was as if she was fixed in eternity. No audience, no outside trappings, completely held within her own being as she floated in the air, in darkness, her eyes closed, a nothingness, a void where the seeds of everything were held in suspension.
She waited for her father’s voice. To bless her.
And in the silence, a voice sounded.
‘Whore of Babylon!’
A scream of hatred from a mind that had festered for long years, nurtured on the image of a nailed Redeemer and no longer able to separate his own agony from that of the crucified Nazarene.
Jupiter Carlisle burst into the hall past the feeble efforts of the gatemen; in place of the discarded placard he held an ancient pistol, dusty and rust-clogged that he had stumbled on that very morning, a remnant of hunting days when he was a young man and had his own wits.
His eyes were rheumy and badly impaired so he saw only a dim wavering image of grey on the stage, aimed the pistol wildly in that direction and pressed the trigger.
It was a miracle the gun did not explode, the barrel blocked with dust and dead insects, but it fired.
And the bullet could have gone anywhere, hit anyone in front of that pistol.
Even James McLevy.
Yet it somehow found a path straight into the heart of Sophia Adler as she waited for a blessing.
On the impact she slumped forward and fell slowly to the side as she had done once before, but this time there was no steadying hand from Magnus Bannerman.
This time she toppled straight to the floor and lay there. Unmoving. Unblessed. Alone.
