Was it a woman? Was it anything at all?
The figure from his dream came in his mind and he felt a short stabbing pain in his chest. A cold sweat ran down his face and he gasped for breath.
Hold on. Hold on.
After some time, the pain passed.
He reassured himself. It was nothing. Running about on rooftops, all this exertion, thrown on his belly, proximity to violent death, no wonder he felt a wee bit of pain.
Any sensible man would.
It was nothing.
Though it was as if the dream were coming true and the case not yet solved.
By a long haul.
So…by the time McLevy had clambered down from the roof and got to the back green, Conan Doyle was already on hand looking down at the crumpled body, which lay face down upon the muddy earth and grass, the one arm outflung.
‘I’ll need that cricket ball as evidence,’ said McLevy, who by this instance had mopped up the blood with a large white hankie which he held against his nose.
Doyle nodded, not sure if this was a joke, both men’s adrenalin still pumping hard.
‘Have ye touched the corpus?’
‘I took the pulse. That is all.’
‘Good man. I take it death has occurred?’
Again Doyle nodded.
‘Nothing could survive that fall.’
McLevy took away the hankie and touched under his nose somewhat gingerly.
‘Whit’s that fancy word when the blood stops?’
‘Coagulation?’
‘It has occurred.’
The inspector looked at young Arthur.
‘I thank you, Mister Doyle,’ he said.
Doyle knew he was being thanked for more than just a fancy word, and said nothing.
They both gazed down at the body.
As well as not wanting to disturb the scene of the crime, Arthur had a strange dread of turning over the corpse where it lay.
Had he not partly caused the death?
‘Aye well,’ McLevy muttered. ‘Halloween is over now.’
He grasped the inert mass by the shoulder and pulled the body round with no great finesse; mind you, the beast had tried in its turn to end the inspector’s life.
An eye for an eye.
And there he was finally.
Facing up to heaven the handsome countenance distorted by impacted death and animal rage.
Magnus Bannerman.
McLevy bent down and sniffed the hair. Yes, and now he thought he might place the aroma. Sweet magnolia.
As the inspector came back up, Conan Doyle sighed.
‘Miss Adler will be devastated,’ he remarked in shock.
McLevy said nothing. One thing he knew. There would be hell to pay for this.
And a sore nose is a terrible thing.
36
Among the sheep set me a place and separate me from the goats, standing me on the right-hand side.
Sophia Adler indeed seemed devastated at first, the violet eyes glittering with incipient tears that she kept at bay while the watchful McLevy stood in her hotel room.
Just the two of them. He had arranged for the body of Bannerman to be transported back to the station in the carry wagon, and sent a somewhat shaken Conan Doyle home.
No doubt Big Arthur would have wished to be on hand with a manly arm for the delicate maiden, but as a civilian he had no place in the investigation at all, and Roach, when he discovered these events in the morning, would not be pleased that Doyle had even taken the part he did, without the young man being further embroiled.
Mind you, if it hadn’t been for that cricket ball…
However, Mister Doyle had a soft spot for Miss Adler and soft spots were not a requirement here.
So the inspector had kept his intentions away from Arthur and to himself, which was that despite the hour, having wrapped up the formalities as best he could and sent Doyle on his way with an admonition to leave things to the proper authorities at the proper time, McLevy had headed at once for the George Hotel.
He had been tempted to make detour to the lodging house and haul Walter Morrison from his uneasy bed, but that might come later.
No. First port of call was Sophia Adler.
The night porter had been most reluctant, given the unearthly hour, but a combination of the words
It did not take long for her to answer.
And it would seem she had not been asleep, the dressing gown and slippers already donned, blonde hair scraped back with a white headband to match her pale complexion.
McLevy was also parchment white, his pallor worse than usual from the painful proceedings of the night.
Accordingly they were like two ghosts as he entered, closed the door in the curious night porter’s face and then told her of the macabre series of events which had led to the death of Magnus Bannerman.
He left out the cricket ball and Conan Doyle in case it proved a distraction.
No gentle recitation. He wanted to hit her early and hard. This was murder and he himself had killed a man. It would haunt him for a long time and his mind would hold the vision of that body jolting with the impact of the bullets like the stuff of nightmare.
She was the key. He was now certain of that.
Yet he had never met someone so perfectly enclosed within themselves. So apparently untouchable.
And therefore he told her. Laid it on the slab.
Brutal rendition.
Her hand went to her throat and the aforementioned eyes glistened while he watched like a hawk.
The story so far.
‘Poor Magnus,’ she murmured. ‘I cannot quite believe –’
‘Oh it’s true enough. He fell like Icarus onto the back green. Broke every bone in his body.’
She went to the windows and pulled back the curtains to let the pallid light of early morning seep into the room.
‘And I have some questions I need to ask you, Miss Adler,’ McLevy continued.
‘Ask away.’
