The Osiris Ritual (15 page)

Newbury searched around. He could see the stairway to the basement levels, and doors to apartments one to five. Blake’s residence was obviously on the first floor. He took to the stairs, admiring the portraits that lined the wall as he climbed. The people represented there were obviously members of the owner’s family, going back, he guessed, over a hundred years. Their baleful faces watched him as his footsteps rang out on the marble steps.

The first floor landing was a mirror image of the hallway below. The staircase continued up to a second floor, and a series of doors, all painted royal blue, suggested that the floor plan of the apartments on this level matched precisely those of the apartments beneath. Newbury crossed the landing towards the door marked with a brass number “6”. A few feet from the door, however, he stopped short. From the angle of his approach he could see that the door had been left slightly ajar.

Stepping carefully across the landing, walking on the balls of his feet to ensure that his footsteps were not heard, Newbury edged closer to the door. He stopped just before the threshold, hovering in the hal way. The door stood open by just a couple of inches, but it was enough to cause Newbury to hesitate. Why would Blake have left the door open in such a manner? More likely, an intruder wanted to ensure a quick getaway without the need to fumble with a lock. He put his head close to the opening and listened. There were sounds of someone moving around inside: papers being shuffled, drawers being opened.

What if someone had broken into Blake’s apartment? Newbury realised he would have to tread carefully. He was unarmed and alone, and he hadn’t told anyone where he was going that afternoon.

If he found himself in a difficult spot, he’d only have his wits to get him out of it.

There was a gust of sharp, cold air from along the hallway, and Newbury stepped back from the door, glancing to his left. Along the landing, past the row of doors that led to the other apartments on this floor, was a large window. This window, he assumed, looked out over the back of the house and the streets below. The netting that covered the window was bil owing luxuriously in the breeze.

Someone had lifted the sash.

Taking care not to make any sounds, Newbury walked to the end of the landing and examined the window frame and ledge, holding the netting back from the frame with his right hand. It was far too cold for someone to have opened the window for air. He ran his other hand around the frame, looking for signs that it may have been forced from the outside. It didn’t appear to have been forced, and the catch was perfectly intact.

Holding on to his hat so as not to lose it to a sudden gust, Newbury leaned out over the window ledge. To his surprise, the drop on the other side was only a few feet, terminating on a small roof terrace that must have been accessible from one or more of the apartments themselves. Beyond that, the building was buttressed by a number of other, single-storey buildings, with only a network of thin al eyways between them. If someone planned to use this window as an escape route — or, indeed, a makeshift entrance — it would not have been difficult to get away over the rooftops and from there, down into the relative anonymity of the backstreets of Regent’s Park. He considered climbing down to take a better look. He glanced back in the direction of Blake’s apartment. He was conscious of the fact that there was stil someone poking around inside, and it wouldn’t do to let them get away unchal enged. The window could wait. The likelihood was that whoever was in the apartment — assuming it wasn’t Blake himself — was responsible for opening the window anyway.

Newbury crept back to the door to apartment number six. Steeling himself, he gently pushed on the open door, hoping that the creak of the hinges wouldn’t betray his presence to the person inside. He realised he was holding his breath as he tried not to make a sound. The door caught a little on the deep pile of the wine-coloured carpet on the other side, but Newbury was able to side-step into the hal way beyond.

The apartment appeared to be well furnished and clean. The hallway comprised a long corridor, with three doors stemming off it and a small table just behind the door, its surface covered with a scattering of unopened letters. The first thing that struck Newbury, however, was the rank stench.

An all-pervasive odour of rotten meat and decay filled the hallway, assaulting his nostrils and causing bile to rise in his throat. He knew immediately the source of that smell. Ashford. He must be the one in the other room.

Newbury edged along the hallway, staying close to the wall. He could see into the room at the far end of the corridor, which appeared to be a kitchen. He paused, listening for sounds of movement. Just as before, it was clear that someone was rifling through Blake’s belongings, in the room just behind where Newbury was standing, his back to the wal . It must have been the drawing room.

Newbury moved across the hal , switching sides so that he was facing the door into the drawing room, his back protectively to the wal on the other side. He shuffled a little closer, until he could see through the open doorway into the room beyond. From the angle he’d achieved, he had a fairly good view of the back half of the room. There was a large, cold fireplace, stark in its simplicity, a large mirror in a gilt frame over the hearth, a busy mantelpiece covered in photographs and statuettes, and the corpse of Wilfred Blake, sprawled messily on the floor. Newbury almost gasped aloud. Blake was still dressed in his evening wear, a black suit and white shirt. But the white shirt was spattered with a spray of dark, arterial blood, turning it a dirty crimson. More of it had pooled on the floor beneath his head, matting the back of his hair. His face was turned so that Newbury could see the gaping, silent mouth and the milky eyes which had rol ed back in their sockets. His throat had been cut, roughly, with a blunt blade. His body was surrounded by scattered papers and Ancient Egyptian artefacts which had been cast unceremoniously to the floor during the kil er’s frantic search. This time, Newbury mused, there hadn’t been time for ceremony. Blake, unlike Winthrop, hadn’t even been given that honour.

Newbury felt his ire rising. The person on the other side of the wal — Ashford, he was sure —

was pacing back and forth. Newbury knew from his brief encounter with Ashford that he was a big powerhouse of a man, but Newbury had the element of surprise. He hoped that would be enough.

He had no idea what Dr. Fabian may have done to upgrade Ashford’s rebuilt body, but he was certain he was about to find out.

Quietly, Newbury removed his hat, placing it on the floor beside him. He flexed his neck and shoulder muscles. Then, before he allowed himself time to reconsider, he pushed away from the wall, propelling himself forward into the drawing room to face Ashford, and, quite possibly, the fight of his life.

The streets of Soho were, as was typical at this time in the afternoon, bustling with people, as Veronica made her way from the bus stop towards the Archibald Theatre. She was dressed in a smart mauve jacket, with matching culottes and a white blouse. Her hair was pinned back beneath a small mauve hat that completed her professional ensemble. She’d come directly from the home of Miss Rebecca Irlam, the most recent of the missing girls, where she’d spent the last two hours consoling the girl’s mother and digging around for any information that may help to put her on the trail of the girl’s abductor. As anticipated, the details were sketchy, but everything the girl’s mother had told her matched what was written in the police report, of which Veronica had managed to obtain a copy from one of Sir Charles’s young protégés. Sometimes, being an attractive young woman had its advantages.

The girl had attended the performance of “The Mysterious Alfonso” the previous evening, where, with her fiancé, she had taken a seat in the stal s and enjoyed the ensuing show. The last anyone had seen of her was when she had volunteered for the disappearing act at the end of the show, when she had made her way up onto the stage before the large, gathered audience, and been vanished away by the il usionist. The pattern was exactly the same as that witnessed by Veronica and Newbury earlier in the week. Yet something was fundamentally different. This time the girl had not made it home at the end of the performance. Her family and fiancé had searched frantically for her in the hours that fol owed, but there was no sign of her whatsoever. The police had been cal ed and Alfonso had been taken away for questioning, but a cursory search of the theatre had thrown up no leads. Alfonso himself had assured the men at the Yard that he had seen the girl into a hansom cab — much as he had assured Veronica and Newbury earlier in the week — and without evidence he could not be held accountable.

Veronica, however, felt differently about the matter. For some time now she had suspected that there was a connection between the events at the theatre, and not only the disappearance of Miss Rebecca Irlam, but a string of girls throughout the whole of the Home Counties where Alfonso had toured with his il usionist show.

Veronica had come to Soho alone, expressly against the wishes of Sir Maurice. She knew she was playing a dangerous game, that she risked exposing the truth about her situation. She found herself wishing — as she did most days — that she were able to reveal the truth to Sir Maurice: that she, herself, was also an agent of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and that she was quite capable of managing a case of her own. She was fully aware of the risks, and saw nothing unduly dangerous about her choosing to tackle Alfonso on her own. If he proved difficult, she had the wherewithal to incapacitate him and call for the police.

Telling all of this to Sir Maurice, of course, was out of the question. Her Majesty had specifically forbidden it, and besides, she was already abusing her duty to the Crown. She could hardly claim that she had fulfilled her primary mission, of late: to keep a watchful eye on Sir Maurice. She had been entirely absorbed in the case of the missing girls. Something about the case, something about the manner in which the girls had been plucked from their daily lives, seemed to strike a chord with her. It made her blood boil.

Perhaps, in some way, it reminded her of her sister, Amelia, who had been wrenched away from the family home at a crucial age, only to be deposited in a series of increasingly bleak sanatoriums, where she had been left to suffer in isolation. Perhaps that was the root of her obsession with the case. Nevertheless, Veronica knew that the police were getting nowhere, and whilst Sir Charles was tied up with the Winthrop situation, Sir Maurice aiding him, all she could do was press on. She hoped to bring the matter to a conclusion before any more girls found themselves

“disappeared away” by the errant magician. It pained her to lie to Newbury, of course, and she recognised that it drove a wedge between them, a barrier that prevented them from ever being truly honest with one another, but she could see no other satisfactory recourse. One day, she knew, the truth would come out, and she only hoped that it would not result in Sir Maurice losing all trust in her, or pushing her away. She couldn’t bear that. She cared for him too much. She was, she reminded herself, only acting in his best interest — in the best interest of the Empire, no less — but in the back of her mind she knew, honestly, that Sir Maurice would not see it that way. It was a betrayal. A betrayal of the most gentle kind, but a betrayal nonetheless. She tried to put it out of mind.

She arrived at the theatre. It was clear immediately that the place was closed. A number of bills had been pasted on the windows, informing any potential theatregoers that the evening performance had been cancel ed. Inside, the lights in the lobby appeared to have been extinguished.

Frowning, Veronica tested the door. To her surprise, it was open. Glancing from side to side, Veronica crossed into the dimness of the foyer. There was no sign of the commissionaire. No sign, either, of any people manning the kiosks or ticket booths that ran around the edges of the lobby.

Like the rest of the now- dilapidated theatre, the lobby had once been grand, a reception hal worthy of receiving even the most auspicious of visitors. The floor was a stunning white marble, although it was now covered in a patina of dust and dirt, caused by the tread of innumerable boots. Tall Corinthian-style columns stood proud on either side of the archways that led through to the theatre proper. The ticket booths on Veronica’s left were now cast in darkness, with shutters pul ed low to obscure the glass partitions. To her right, a number of small kiosks had been set up to sell food and drinks to the hungry patrons, but were presently silent, like smal , abandoned islands in the murky light.

Veronica drew a deep breath. She almost turned on her heel and left, assuming the theatre to be empty, but then, from somewhere inside the auditorium, she heard a number of faint clanging sounds. She stil hoped to find and confront Alfonso before the day was out for, if he too had somehow disappeared, the trail would grow cold.

Quietly, so as not to disturb whoever was at work in the main theatre, Veronica approached the entrance to the stalls, sweeping aside the heavy velvet drape and peering into the dimly lit arena on the other side. The darkness, Veronica thought, had a kind of texture to it, an oppressive air. The empty stalls and seats were like a sea that stretched out before her, unmoving. She gave an involuntary shiver. The only sign of life in the entire auditorium was a man — Alfonso — who stood on the stage, spot-lit by the harsh glow of an electric lamp. He had a frustrated look on his face, as he tried, over and over, to insert a sword blade into his upturned hat. Clearly, he was practising a new illusion for his act.

Veronica stood in the shadows at the back of the hal , observing what was happening on the stage. She realised she was holding her breath. She studied Alfonso as he made another attempt. His top hat had been upended on a smal , round table that rested on the stage. She could see clearly between the three wooden legs. There appeared to be nothing underneath it, although Veronica fully expected the table to be rigged in some way. Alfonso raised a sword, placed the point of it inside the brim of the hat, and gave a sharp thrust, downwards. This time it appeared to work. The blade slipped down inside the hat until only the hilt was standing proud, still held firmly in Alfonso’s right hand. The blade itself, however, was nowhere to be seen. As far as Veronica could see, it had not pierced the tabletop. She could see nothing between the legs of the small table. It was rather a marvellous illusion, Veronica considered, and whether it was effected with a collapsible blade, or, as she had at first suspected, a simple trick of the light, she could not say. Most likely, the blade had passed through a notch in the table, and was simply not visible from the angle in which the audience were able to view the stage.