The Mannequin House (3 page)

The north side of Caper Street was a row of three-storey Georgian houses. The ground storey was neatly rendered in cream-coloured stucco, with rather grand arched windows in the
piano nobile
above, and plainer windows on the top floor. The row presented a unified facade of primness and propriety. And yet Arbuthnot felt the thrill of transgression as he approached number seven, the house where the mannequins lodged. Under normal circumstances the mannequin house, as it was known, was barred to male employees – to all except M. Hugo and Mr Blackley, that is. This had naturally led to much speculation as to what went on behind its door. Some even referred to it as ‘Blackley’s harem’, with M. Hugo in the role of eunuch, no doubt. Now, here was Arbuthnot, about to cross the threshold and discover the secrets of this forbidden precinct.

The door was opened by a woman who was evidently the housekeeper. She was dressed in a black skirt and high-necked white blouse. Her tightly bundled black hair was streaked with white. Arbuthnot guessed she was aged somewhere in her forties but had kept herself well. Her figure was stocky: muscular rather than corpulent. Her arms and upper body appeared fashioned by hard work and hefting. Her complexion was clean and fresh, as if she had been recently polished; but as Arbuthnot peered into her face, he noticed a lattice of fine lines, a palimpsest of woe beneath the untroubled surface.

There was the smell of cleaning fluids about her. She regarded Arbuthnot with a calm curiosity that was perhaps a little too controlled and calculated. For some reason, she reminded him of the Mother Superior of a particularly austere order of nuns.

Arbuthnot was reassured by the thought that she did not appear to be a woman who would stand for any nonsense. Whatever rumours about the mannequin house he might have heard were suddenly and conclusively dispelled. ‘Miss Mortimer? My name is Arbuthnot. Mr Blackley sent me.’

The housekeeper began to brush invisible grains of dust from the sleeve of her blouse. Arbuthnot suppressed a smile. She was almost like a bird preening itself. Suddenly her eyes narrowed as if she was angry that he’d seen her moment of weakness. Her expression became suspicious. ‘Mr Blackley, you say?’ Her voice was loud, almost a shout.

Arbuthnot thought she was probably a little deaf and raised his own voice to answer her: ‘Yes.’

‘Mr Blackley usually comes himself. He doesn’t like the men to know where the mannequins live.’

‘He couldn’t come.’ He spoke slowly, making allowance for her presumed deafness. ‘He’s with an important customer. Obviously he felt that he could trust me, otherwise he would not have chosen me for the errand.’

Miss Mortimer looked Arbuthnot up and down before glancing past him down the short street. ‘You’d better come in.’

As the door was closed behind him, Arbuthnot breathed in deeply as if he expected to detect strange, intoxicating scents in the air. Instead there was just the homely smell of wood polish.

The hall itself was narrow. A bold, floral wallpaper, which bore the influence of William Morris, gave the impression of entering a kind of bower, faintly medieval and altogether fantastical. A rich carpet of Turkish design ran over the floorboards.

A mirror was placed just inside the door, presumably for the girls to check their appearance as they left for work each morning. Beyond that on the wall hung a couple of framed prints showing a variety of Parisian scenes rendered in what Arbuthnot presumed to be a modern style. A third picture was propped up against the seat back of a chair which partially obstructed the hallway. A bent nail projected from the wall ready to receive it. A hammer lay on the chair seat.

Miss Mortimer pushed the seat out of the way, causing the picture to fall over on to its face. There was a sharp crack as the glass hit the hammer head. When Miss Mortimer righted the picture, a jagged line of fissure ran across one corner. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do! Mr Blackley will be furious. I was to hang these up today. I shall have to get the glass replaced now.’

‘I’m sorry but I hardly think . . .’

‘What’s this all about?’ demanded Miss Mortimer. Her voice was still loud and abrupt.

More than a little deaf,
thought Arbuthnot. ‘He’s sent me to find out what’s happened to Miss Amélie. She didn’t appear for Lady Ascot’s costume showing.’

‘I’m sure I don’t know where she is.’ Miss Mortimer frowned as she considered the broken picture glass. She propped the damaged picture against the back of the chair again and turned her frown on Arbuthnot.

‘Perhaps she’s unwell. Did you see her at breakfast this morning? Did she not leave with the other mannequins?’

‘I cannot be expected to keep tabs on them all.’

‘Mr Blackley has asked me to see if Miss Amélie is in her room. He wishes me to convey his solicitude to her.’

‘I do not believe she is there,’ pronounced Miss Mortimer with an air of finality.

‘He was very precise in his instructions. I was to knock on her door and deliver a message to her.’

‘You may give me the message,’ said Miss Mortimer. ‘I will see that she gets it.’

‘It is a verbal message,’ said Arbuthnot.

‘Then you may tell it to me.’

Arbuthnot was firm. ‘It is for Miss Amélie’s ears only.’

Something like a smile twitched on Miss Mortimer’s pinched lips. ‘She’s not in her room, I tell you.’

‘At any rate, I must try her door.’ Arbuthnot drew himself up self-righteously. ‘That is what Mr Blackley instructed me to do.’

With an impatient nod of her head, Miss Mortimer turned to lead him into the house. ‘Be careful,’ she snapped over her shoulder. ‘I don’t want you doing any more damage.’

As he progressed deeper into the bower-like hallway, the sense that he was penetrating a forbidden interior increased. And yet there was nothing so extraordinary about his surroundings. Looking in on the drawing room through a half-open door, Arbuthnot saw that it was furnished in the manner of a respectable middle-class home, more Basingstoke than Baghdad. A pair of enormous Chinese-looking vases was the only hint of the Orient that he could detect. And there was something familiar, as well as homely, about the comfortable furnishings. Of course, he realized – everything had come from Blackley’s.

He had to admit that the place did not exhibit the decadent luxuriousness that he had been imagining. However, it certainly provided a different level of comfort to the Spartan unisex dormitories where the rest of the live-in employees were obliged to sleep. He wondered if the mannequins were also forced to vacate their rooms every Sunday, eating solitary meals in cheap restaurants to pass the time. Somehow he doubted it.

Miss Mortimer stopped at a door on the first floor. Before Arbuthnot could prevent her she knocked and called out: ‘Amélie? Are you there?’

‘Mr Blackley specifically directed that
I
should knock on her door,’ protested Arbuthnot.

The housekeeper gave a disdainful snort. Even so, she stood aside. Like all of Blackley’s employees, it seemed she had learnt the importance of obeying the letter as well as the spirit of his law.

Arbuthnot rapped briskly. ‘Miss Amélie?’ He pressed his ear to the door. And pulled it away instantly as a piercing scream sounded from within.

‘What the devil?’ Arbuthnot’s eyes widened with horror. He tried the handle and pushed his shoulder into the door. It didn’t budge.

He turned to Miss Mortimer. ‘Do you have a key?’ The housekeeper appeared to be in a state of shock. No doubt it was the effect of the scream, thought Arbuthnot. He had never heard anything like it, except perhaps in his dreams. To describe it as inhuman would not have been an exaggeration. ‘I say, Miss Mortimer,’ he prompted.

She looked at him as if she had no idea who he was or how he came to be there. ‘Did you hear that?’ Her voice was a terrified whisper.

‘Yes.’

‘What was it?’

‘We must open the door to find out. I assume you have keys to all the rooms?’

From beneath her apron, Miss Mortimer produced an enormous bunch of keys on a long chain. She selected one and inserted it into the lock, or at least tried to. After a series of frustrated attempts, she stood up straight and turned to Arbuthnot. The door remained closed. ‘There appears to be something blocking it.’

Arbuthnot put his eye to the keyhole. ‘There’s another key in the lock. On the other side.’

‘The silly girl has locked herself into the room.’

Arbuthnot knocked on the door again. The fearful screaming had stopped, but he could hear movement from within. ‘Miss Amélie, are you all right? I have a message for you from Mr Blackley. If you will only open the door.’

‘Amélie! Open this door right now!’ Miss Mortimer seemed to be restored to her former self. And yet there was something quivering and uncertain beneath her composure.

‘Perhaps she cannot,’ suggested Arbuthnot. ‘She may be incapacitated in some way.’

The horrible screaming started again.

‘My God, what is the matter with her?’

‘I don’t think that is Miss Amélie,’ said Arbuthnot.

‘Who is it then?’

‘
Who
is it? Or
what
is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

But before Arbuthnot could answer, they heard the key on the other side begin to turn.

The effect of this on Miss Mortimer was striking. She began to shake her head in fierce denial. ‘No! No! No!’

The unseen presence struggled with the key, stopping occasionally to scream in frustration.

Then, all at once, the key turned fully in the lock.

But the door remained closed. There was no further attempt to open it from the other side.

Arbuthnot interpreted this as an invitation. He reached out a hand tentatively towards the handle, looking for encouragement from Miss Mortimer. But that lady’s expression was far from encouraging. Still shaking her head, she was now murmuring incomprehensibly to herself. Arbuthnot could not understand all that she was saying, but he seemed to hear: ‘This cannot be!’

He had not pushed the door more than a few inches when he saw a flash of silver speed out from the opening at ground level, brushing against his trousers as it hurried past him. ‘A monkey!’ he cried. The tiny shrieking macaque scurried down the stairs, a diminutive Turkish fez attached to its head.

‘But that’s not possible!’ cried Miss Mortimer, her habitual loud volume at last justified. ‘The girls are not allowed to keep animals. Wait till I see Amélie! The rules are quite clear. No animals in rooms! Mr Blackley will not stand for it.’ She shook her head somewhat self-consciously, it seemed to Arbuthnot.

Arbuthnot pushed the door completely open and stepped in.

The missing girl lay fully clothed on top of the bed. She was as still and lifeless as a plaster – rather than a human – mannequin. But unlike the inanimate white dolls that populated the windows and displays of the Costumes Salon, her face was swollen and purple.

Her eyes were open. Arbuthnot’s attention was drawn by the vivid bursts of red that showed in the corneas. As a salesman in the Costumes Salon, he couldn’t help observing to himself that the colour of these flecks matched perfectly the silk scarf around her neck.

S
ir Edward Henry received the bulging file from Silas Quinn with a disapproving glower. He signalled curtly for Quinn to sit down.

From time to time, Sir Edward winced as he read. The detective hoped that it was the commissioner’s old gunshot wound playing up. That was not to say that he wished actual bodily pain on Sir Edward, but it was better that than the alternative: that his wincing was due to the contents of the file. In Quinn’s defence, Sir Edward was rather given to wincing, and the cause usually was the bullet he had taken in the belly two years ago.

Quinn knew very well what was in the file. He had compiled it, and written the report that tied together all the statements, interim reports, post mortem reports, forensic analyses and crime scene photographs. The file, in essence, was the justification of Quinn’s conduct. If the file was causing Sir Edward pain, it was the same as saying that Quinn was causing him pain.

Now and then, Quinn craned his neck to look across Sir Edward’s desk to see where he had reached in his perusal. Once or twice he attempted to venture an explanation, but Sir Edward would cut him off peremptorily, raising his hand and barking forbiddingly. Sir Edward kept Irish Wolfhounds and it seemed that he viewed members of the Metropolitan Police Force and his dogs as being somehow equivalent. In both cases he evidently saw barking as the most economical way of asserting his dominance.

Certainly, after a couple of such attempts, Quinn was deterred from interrupting again.

Sir Edward replaced the last sheet with trembling hands. He closed the cover of the file and peered across at Quinn. His head seemed to rise out of his winged collar and extend towards Quinn, giving him something of the appearance of a moustachioed turtle. ‘Was it really necessary?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘Was it really necessary for him to die?’

‘Who, sir?’

‘Who? He asks who! The fellow you killed, that’s who.’

‘Ah, sir, it was a matter of self-defence.’

‘He was naked. And unarmed.’

Quinn appeared startled by this information. ‘I could not be sure, sir.’

‘You could not be sure he was naked? Could you not tell by looking at him?’

‘It was dark in that cellar, sir.’

‘There was a lamp, I believe.’

Quinn threw up his hands evasively. ‘The man was clothed when we went down into the cellar. I didn’t know he had undressed. I couldn’t take any chances. I knew he had killed five times at least. Possibly more. There was a member of the public there.’

‘Whom you had coerced into accompanying you. Whom you had endangered.’

‘No, not coerced. He came willingly. He wanted to help.’

‘But was it necessary, Quinn? Was it really necessary? Could you not have overpowered him? You had access to chloroform, I believe. You had already administered it to the other one, after all.’

‘Ah, but you see, the problem was, sir . . .’