Down These Strange Streets

approaching crisis.

She raised her fist to rap on the heavy oak, but at the very first blow, the door swung open.

Harcourt was at the far end of the room, by the window, displaying something in a flat wooden box to Jesperson. They both looked around sharply as we entered, Harcourt startled and annoyed. Clearly, he had not expected us, and I could only assume that he had neglected to shut the door properly.

“What’s the meaning of this disturbance?” he demanded, hastily shutting up the box.

“I must speak with you.”

“Let it wait. We have company.”

“I am happy to have witnesses.” She took a breath. “I shall not marry.”

I had tensed myself against the negative atmosphere upon entering the house, and had been particularly reluctant to enter Harcourt’s study, expecting it to be the epicenter, yet as I followed more slowly into that room, I found that what had been unpleasant and discordant was now harmonious. Using the metaphor of smell, consider bonfire smoke. A great waft in the face is horrible, but at the right distance, the scent of burning leaves and wood is pleasant.

“You’ve rushed in here to say that? I am at a loss to understand why,” Harcourt replied coldly. “Your change of heart is of no interest to me. I suggest you write to Mr. Randall.”

“You don’t understand. I mean I shall never marry.”

His eyes bulged. “Are you insane?” Suddenly, he turned on me. “What have you been saying? What sort of mad rubbish, to turn her mind?”

“Miss Lane had nothing to do with it,” Flora said swiftly. “I have been thinking matters over for the past several days, and only now decided to tell you—”

“Oh, very likely!” He had been casting a venomous glare on me, but now stared coldly at Jesperson. “I’m afraid I must ask you to take this female person away, immediately.”

I could see that my partner was at a loss: Should he leap to my defense, invent excuses, or pretend to a masculine solidarity that might leave the door open for future visits? Although I didn’t want to leave Flora alone with Harcourt, I didn’t know what we would achieve by trying to stay, so I left the room, just as Flora was demanding, “Am I not allowed to have my own friends?”

“As long as I’m your guardian, Flora, you will do as I say. You’ll have nothing more to do with that female, and you will not break off your engagement. We’ll forget you ever said anything about it. Mr. Jesperson, if you please!”

As they emerged, with Flora in the lead, I was surprised to see the hint of a smile on her face. She winked at me before turning on her guardian again.

“So, I am to be your object and meekly allow your will to prevail in everything, until my twenty-first birthday changes everything?”

“That will change nothing,” he said scornfully. “You don’t imagine you’ll be anything different than you are now? Than you’ve always been?”

She flinched, but held steady. “In the eyes of the law.”

“The law.” He snorted. “The law is an ass. It has nothing to say about you. It has no idea what you are.” His gaze on her was horrible.

“I may as well go now,” she said quietly.

“Go? What are you talking about?”

“You are right that a few months will change nothing. You are pleased with the situation; I am not. So I shall leave.”

She looked from me to Jesperson, saying, “If it’s not too much trouble . . .”

He was swift to take her meaning. “Of course, come with us. Any help we can give—”

I heard the rattle, and saw that the Chinese vase was rocking violently back and forth, until it tilted too far and fell, shattering against the hard floor, and spilling its burden of umbrellas and walking sticks.

Only one of the sticks did not come to rest with everything else on the floor, but shot through the air, straight at Jesperson.

If it had struck where it aimed, against his throat, I have no doubt it would have killed him, but he was quick. Almost as if he’d expected the attack, he stepped lightly aside, his arm rising, fluid and graceful, to catch the stick.

Unlike an ordinary thrown object, the stick continued to move after it was caught, writhing and pulling to escape, while he gripped it more firmly, frowning as he looked for a thread or wire and tried to work out the trick of it.

Certain there would be no invisible thread, I looked instead at Harcourt. His expression was nothing like those I’d seen on the faces of mediums or mentalists; he looked utterly astonished, and thrilled. If he had caused the stick’s activity, it was through a power hidden from his conscious mind, something he did not suspect and could not control.

Then another movement, glimpsed from the corner of my eye, caught my attention, and as I turned to look, I heard the terrible grating, grinding noise made by the stone gargoyle as it ponderously rocked itself across the floor. Although no one was near enough to be at risk if it fell over, I nevertheless called out a warning.

Flora took one look and shouted: “Stop it! Stop it right now!”

The gargoyle stopped moving, and so did the stick, although Jesperson still kept a tight hold and a wary eye on it.

Harcourt took a hesitant step forward, his eyes still fixed upon the stick. “Give—give it to me, if you please, Mr. Jesperson,” he said. “That—that is the weapon that killed poor Mr. Adcocks; and before that, a young man in Plymouth. If not for your exceptionally quick reflexes, you would have been its third victim.”

After a reluctant pause, Jesperson handed over the stick, saying, “You expected this might happen?”

“Never,” the man gasped, staring at the stick in his hands with an unhealthy mixture of lust and fear. “Who would imagine that the instinct to kill would be inherent?”

“You imagined it inherent in me,” said Flora. “A mindless, killing force so powerful that it could use me—a living, intelligent being—without regard for my own free will?”

“No, no, certainly not,” he said, without conviction. “You were a mere infant, with no ability to think or act for yourself, when fate used you to terminate the lives of three innocent souls. It is quite different now.” He had been looking at her, but the lure of the object in his hands proved too much, and he soon returned to staring at it like a besotted lover.

“You’ve always thought of me as another piece in your collection,” Flora said bitterly. “A mindless, soulless thing, and not even your favorite.”

“Dear Flora, don’t be absurd. I know you are no ‘thing.’ You have been like a daughter to me. Have I not always cared for you as best I could? Bought you whatever your heart desired? My only concern has ever been to see you safely and happily married to the man of your choice, when the time came.”

While my sympathies were entirely with Flora, I recognized that to an outside observer, she would seem hysterical, and Harcourt the sane one.

“Yet you must have wondered,” Jesperson said, as if idly. “Eh, Harcourt? You surely wondered if your ward was intended by Fate for family happiness. Perhaps you saw her first engagement as a scientific experiment. The result was not as you hoped, but perhaps as you feared . . . ?”

They exchanged a look, man to man, and although Harcourt shook his head ruefully, I saw the smug satisfaction beneath the solemn look.

“You’re vile,” Flora murmured. She cleared her throat and announced, “I can never marry. I won’t put another life at risk.”

This time, Harcourt did not protest. He shrugged and sighed, and said, “I would never force you to go against your will, no matter how foolish it seems to me.”

“That’s not all. I’m leaving your collection today, Mr. Harcourt—”

“Oh, come now. Don’t be childish. You can’t blame me for what you are!”

“Not for what I am; only for what you’ve tried to make me. The atmosphere in this house is hideous, not because of the objects, but because of your gloating fascination with murder and violent death. I’m going. I won’t set foot in this house again as long as you are alive.”

Having stated her intention, she made straight for the door.