The Shadow in the North (3 page)

great balks of timber that took the weight of the scenery, and the suggestion of further levels of platform, tunnel, and vault in an infinite recession into the darkness, and the yawning abysses below, where sooty figures manipulated fire, all made Jim think of a picture of hell he'd once seen in a print shop window.

Mackinnon was swaying, clinging with both hands to the railing.

"I can't!" he was moaning. "Oh, God, let me down!"

His voice had become much more Scottish than his usual upper-class drawl.

"Don't be soft," said Jim. "You won't fall. Just a little bit farther—come on .. ."

Mackinnon stumbled blindly along where Jim directed him. At the end of the walkway, Harold the workman was waiting with his stepladder and put out his hand to guide the performer. Mackinnon seized it with both his hands and clung tight.

"It's all right," said Harold. "I got yer, sir. Take hold o' this."

He guided Mackinnon's hands to the stepladder.

"No! Not more climbing! I can't—I can't do it—"

"Shut up," said Jim, who'd heard a disturbance below. He peered over the railing but saw only the swaying curtains and the ropes. "Listen."

Voices were raised, though they could not make out the words.

"We got about two minutes before they find their way up here. Hold on to him, Harold."

Jim swarmed up the stepladder and unfastened a small window high in the darkness of the dusty brickwork. After propping it open he slipped down again and pushed Mackinnon toward the stepladder. This, to be truthftxl, was rather risky; the ladder spanned the gap between the end of the platform and the wall, and to get through the window it was necessary to let go and reach up into the darkness with both hands. If you fell. .. But there was a clatter from below. Someone was climbing the first ladder.

"Get up," said Jim. "Don't stand there wetting yourself. Get up and get through that window. Move!'*

Mackinnon had heard the noise and set his feet on the stepladder.

"Thanks, Harold," said Jim. "You want another tip? Belle Carnival for the Prince of Wales Handicap."

"Belle Carnival, eh? I hope I get better odds than the last one," grumbled Harold, holding the ladder steady.

Jim put his hands on the ladder on either side of Mackinnon's trembling body.

"Go on! Get up, for Christ's sake!"

Mackinnon moved upward, step by step. Jim stayed close behind, urging him on. When they reached the top, he felt the other man sag downward, unable to go any farther, and hissed up at him, "They're coming! They're on their way! Five great big blokes with knives and coshes! Now reach up till you find a window and pull yerself through. There's a three-foot drop the other

side onto the roof next door. Both hands—go on, that's the way. Now pull —"

Mackinnons feet left the ladder and kicked wildly at the air, nearly sending Jim to his death; but after a second or two of frantic scrabbling, Mackinnons legs disappeared upward, and Jim knew he was through.

"All right, Harold?" he called down softly. "I'm going up now."

"Hurry up, then" came the hoarse whisper.

Steadying himself against the wall, Jim felt for the window, then found the sill and pulled. Another second or two and he was halfway through, and then he tumbled out onto the cold, wet lead under the open sky.

Mackinnon was being sick beside him.

Jim got up careftilly and took a step or two away. They were in a little gully between the wall of the theater, which reached up another seven feet or so to the edge of the roof, and the triangular pitched roof of the pickle factory next door. A series of these triangular sections, like waves in a child's drawing of the sea, led away for sixty feet or so, glinting wetly in the light from the low sky.

"Better now?" said Jim.

"Aye. Heights, you know."

"What's it all about? Who are those blokes?"

"The wee man's called Windlesham. It's a complicated matter. . . . There's murder involved."

He looked uncanny: chalk-white face with black

eyes and lips, black cloak, white shirtfront; he looked bleached and inhuman. Jim looked at him closely.

"Murder?" he said. "Whose murder?"

"Can we get down from here?" said Mackinnon, looking around.

Jim rubbed his chin, then said, "There's a fire escape at the other end of this roof Dont make too much noise—there's an old feller on watch inside, guarding the pickles."

He shinned up the sloping side of the first seaion and dropped silently down on the other. They were about six feet in height, and slippery with the recent rain; Mackinnon slipped and fell twice before they reached the fire escape. What am I doing this for? thought Jim, helping Mackinnon up and marveling at his frailness. He was as light as a child.

But he'd meant it about the murder. He was terrified, and not only of heights.

The fire escape was a slender iron staircase bolted to the side of the factory. It led down to a yard that was dark, fortunately, and this side of the building was quiet. Trembling, sweating, ghastly with fear, Mackinnon inched himself over the edge of the roof and found the first step, then went down on his backside, eyes shut tight. Jim reached the ground ahead of him and took his arm.

"Brandy," Mackinnon was muttering.

"Dont be soft," said Jim. "You can't go into a pub

dressed like that— yo\x wouldn't last five minutes. Where d'you live?"

"Chelsea. Oakley Street."

"Got any money on you?"

"Not a penny. Oh, God ..."

"All right, come with me. I'll take you somewhere you can change your clothes and have a drink—and we'll talk about this murder business. Sounds a prime lark to me."

Mackinnon, drained of will and even of the capacity for surprise, showed no reaction as the young stagehand with the green eyes and the rough clothes led him around into the street, hailed a cab, and in the most authoritative manner imaginable, gave an address in Bloomsbury.

(ZJne Cjnoiograpk

ers

Jim paid off the cab in Burton Street, a quiet lit-tle row of three-story shops and houses not far from the British Museum, and while Mackinnon glanced around nervously, unlocked the door of a neat, double-fronted

shop with GARLAND AND LOCKHART, PHOTOGRAPHERS

painted over the window. He led Mackinnon through the darkened shop into a warm, well-lit room behind it.

This was furnished as an odd mixture of laboratory, kitchen, and shabbily comfortable sitting room. A bench laden with chemicals stood along one wall; a sink occupied one corner, and a battered armchair and sofa stood on either side of a black-leaded range. A pungent reek filled the air.

Most of the reek came from the short clay pipe being smoked by one of the two men in the room. He was about sixty years old, tall and powerfully built, with stiff gray hair and a beard of the same color. He looked up from the table as Jim came in.

"Hello, Mr. Webster," said Jim. "Wotcher, Fred."

The other man was much younger: mid-twenties, about Mackinnons age. He was lean and sardonic-

looking; his expression was a vivid mixture of sharp humor and a cool, intelligent thoughtfulness. Just as Mackinnon compelled attention, so did something about this man—though it might have been the dramatically disordered fair hair, or the broken nose.

"Greetings, O strange one," he said. "Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn't see you ..."

These last words he directed to Mackinnon, who was standing in the doorway like a phantom. Jim turned to him.

"Mr. Webster Garland and Mr. Fred Garland, photographic artists," he said. "And this is Mr. Mackinnon, the Wizard of the North."

They got up to shake hands. Webster said enthusiastically, "I saw you perform last week—marvelous! At the Alhambra. You 11 have a glass of whiskey?"

Mackinnon sat down in the armchair while Jim perched on a stool by the bench. As Webster poured the drinks Jim said, "We had to get out over the roof The thing is, Mr. Mackinnon had to leave in a hurry, and he's left his normal clothes in the dressing room, not to mention his money and other bits and pieces. I can probably pick 'em up in the morning, but he's in a fair bit of trouble by the look of things. So I thought we might be able to help."

Seeing Mackinnon's doubtful look, Frederick said, "This is Garland's Detective Agency, Mr. Mackinnon. We've tackled most things in our time. What's your problem?"

"Fm not sure I. . .," Mackinnon began. "I don't know whether it s a suitable case for a detective agency. It's . . . very vague, very . . . shadowy. I don't know ..."

"It can't do any harm to hear it," said Jim. "There won't be any fee if we don't take it on, so you've got nothing to lose."

Webster raised his eyebrows slightly at the coldness in Jim's voice. Jim had begun to be irritated by Mackinnon, by his shifty, furtive manner, by his unpleasant combination of the helpless and the sly.

Frederick said, "Jim's right, Mr. Mackinnon. No engagement, no fee. And you can trust our discretion. Whatever you tell us here will stay secret."

Mackinnon looked from Frederick to Webster and back again and made up his mind.

"Aye," he said. "Very well. I'll tell you about it, but I'm not sure whether I want any detecting done. It might be best to let the whole thing blow over. We'll see.

He drained his glass, and Webster filled it again.

"You mentioned murder," Jim prompted.

"I'll come to that. What d'ye know about spiritualism, gentlemen?"

Frederick raised his eyebrows. "Spiritualism? Funny you should say that. A man asked me today to look into some spiritualist affair. Fraud, I expect."

"There are many frauds, aye," said Mackinnon. "But there are some who have a genuine gift for the psychic.

and Tm one. And in my profession its a handicap, despite what you might think. I try not to let the two things overlap. What I do on stage looks like magic, but it s only technique. Anyone could do what I do if they practiced.

"But the other side, the psychic side . . . that's a gift. What I do is called psychometry. D'ye know the term?"

"I've heard it, yes," said Frederick. "You take an object and you can tell from it all sorts of things—is that right?"

"I'll show you," said Mackinnon. "Have you got something I can try it with?"

Frederick reached across the bench where he was sitting and picked up a little circular object of brass, not unlike a heavy pocket watch without a face. Mackinnon took it, sat forward, and held it in both hands, eyes shut, frowning.

"I can see . . . dragons. Red, carved dragons. And a woman . . . Chinese. She's dignified and very still, and she's watching, just watching. . . . There's a man on a bed or a couch of some sort. He's asleep. No, he's moving, he's dreaming. He's crying out. . . . There's someone coming. A servant. A Chinaman. With a . . . with a pipe. He's crouching down. . . . He's got a taper from the lamp. . . . He's lighting the pipe. There's a sweet smell, sickly. . . opium. There, it's gone now." He opened his eyes and looked up again. "Something to do with opium," he said. "Am I right?"

Frederick ran his hands through his hair, too amazed to speak. His uncle sat back and laughed, and even Jim felt impressed—by the brooding atmosphere Mackin-non evoked, by his still concentration, as much as by what he said.

"You've hit the bulls-eye," said Frederick, leaning forward and taking the brass object from his hand. "D'you know what this is?"

"Ive no idea," said Mackinnon.

Frederick wound up a small key in the side of it and pressed a button. From inside the mechanism a long thin ribbon of whitish metal unwound itself, coiling in a heap on the bench in front of him.

"It's a magnesium burner," he said. "You set the end alight and it burns down, and the spring shoves it out at exactly the same rate, so that you have a constant light for taking pictures by. I last used this in an opium den in Limehouse, taking pictures of the poor devils who smoke the stuff ... So that's psychometry, eh? I'm impressed. How does it happen? D'you see a picture in your mind, or what?"

"Something like that," said Mackinnon. "It's like having a dream when you're awake. I can't control it. It comes into my mind at the oddest times. And this is the point: I've seen a murder, and the murderer knows I have, but I don't know his name."

"Good start," said Frederick. "Promising. You'd better tell us all about it. More whiskey?"

He filled Mackinnons glass, and sat back to listen.

"It was six months ago," began Mackinnon. "I was performing in a private house for a nobleman. It's something I do from time to time—more as a guest, you understand, than a hired entertainer.'*

"You do it without a fee, you mean?" said Jim. He was finding Mackinnons condescending manner and high, slightly grating, genteel Scottish voice increasingly hard to bear.

"There is a professional charge, naturally," said Mackinnon stiflfly.

"Who was the nobleman?" said Frederick.

"I would rather not say. A man of great prominence in political life. There is no need for his name to be mentioned."

"As you wish," said Frederick affably. "Please go on."

"I was invited for dinner on the evening of the performance. That is my usual practice. I am one of the guests; that is understood by all. While the ladies withdrew after dinner and the gentlemen remained in the dining room, I went into the music room of this particular house and prepared the items I needed for my performance.

"I noticed that someone had left a cigar case on the lid of the piano, and I picked it up, meaning to put it out of the way somewhere, and at once I had the strongest psychometric impressions I've ever experienced.

"It was a river in a forest—a northern forest, with dark pines and snow, and a lowering, dark gray sky. There were two men walking together on the bare ground by the bank, talking angrily. I couldn't hear them, but I could see them as clearly as I see you now, and suddenly one of them took his stick, drew a sword out of it, and ran the other man through and through—not a moment s warning—in and out of his chest three, four, five, six times. I could see the dark blood on the snow.

"When the man lay still, the killer looked around for a clump of moss and wiped his sword clean, then bent and took the dead man by the feet and dragged him away toward the water. The snow was beginning to fall. And then I heard a splash as the body fell into the water."