Verity Sparks and the Scarlet Hand (18 page)

“Emeric Mallard. He’s Helen’s brother. He arrived on the day of the kidnapping.”

“He was expected?”

“No. It was quite a surprise. In fact, Harold – that’s Mr Petrov’s great-nephew – didn’t know Helen had a brother. She never mentioned him.” I thought of Harold’s phrase. “He’s an odd fish. I think he wanted to borrow money from Helen; he seems rather down on his luck. But he does seem terribly upset by what’s happened to her.”

“Hmmm.” He stroked his moustache, the way gentlemen do when they are thinking. “Does Mr Mallard know I’ve been called in on the case as well as Mr Melmoth?”

I nodded. “And he’s dead against either of you being involved.”

“Is he indeed?”

That’s all we had time for, because Papa returned with Mr Mallard shuffling along behind him sporting a sullen expression. He was wearing a silk dressing-gown – red and purple stripes, very flashy – and shabby red slippers. Papa introduced the two men and they shook hands.

“So you’re the detective,” said Mr Mallard, looking SP up and down. He obviously didn’t like what he saw. “You look very young. What experience have you had? I hope you realise that my sister’s safety – her very life – is at risk.”

“I do.” There was a steely tone to SP’s voice as he added. “The same is true for Miss Deane. I will do nothing to place either of them in danger.”

Well, that one word – danger – set Mr Mallard off. “Now she’s going to be in danger with you fellows interfering. What if the kidnappers get wind of your involvement? I was against it from the start. She’s my sister, after all.” His voice grew louder and more shrill. His eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of his head. “Surely I have some rights in the matter?”

I intercepted SP’s quick glance at Papa. Papa understood the message and put his arm around Mr Mallard’s shoulder. “Calm down,
mon ami
,” he said. “Come now, let us go into the house. Perhaps a glass of brandy for the nerves?”

SP stroked his moustache again as Papa led Mr Mallard inside.

“Is he always like that?”

I nodded.

“There’s something about him, isn’t there? I think I’d better do a bit of research on Emeric Mallard.” He reached into his pocket for the familiar notebook and pencil.

“Excuse me for interrupting.” Hannah stood in the doorway. Her face was ashen, her eyes red-rimmed. “Mr Melmoth has arrived. He’s asking for the letter.”

SP handed it to her. Before I could ask if she was ill, she hurried away.

SP frowned as he watched her go. He seemed about to ask me something but changed his mind. “Now, Verity, tell me everything.”

“Including visions?”

“Especially visions.”

Half an hour later, Hannah came out to the verandah again.

“Verity, Mr Melmoth said to bring you to the drawing room. He’s still talking to Mohan, but he asked if you would come now. He said he doesn’t want to waste any time.”

“Yours or his?” said SP, quizzically. “I’ll come with you, Verity.”

You’ve heard of love at first sight? Well, this was the opposite. Though Mr Melmoth was an unattractive man – short, burly and muscular, with a purplish-red face and beady eyes – it wasn’t his appearance that put me off. Nor was it the way he strutted around as if he owned the place. It was his rudeness to Mohan.

“But sir,” Mohan was saying. “What I am telling you is true.”

“You’d say anything to save your skin.”

“But sir–”

“That’s enough. Get out.”

Mohan, outwardly calm, bowed and obeyed.

“Stupid lascar,” said Mr Melmoth. “Waste of time trying to get any sense out of him. So.” He looked me over. “You’re the young lady who witnessed the kidnapping, eh? And you, sir? Who are you?”

“I’m Saddington Plush, a family friend.”

“You fancy yourself as a detective, Mr Leviny tells me,” sneered Mr Melmoth.

SP didn’t allow his expression to change. “I will do whatever I can to help Miss Deane and Mrs Petrov.”

Mr Melmoth’s lip curled. “What you can do is stay out of my way. I don’t want any interference from amateurs.”

SP nodded. “I won’t interfere.” With Drucilla missing? I thought it wasn’t like him at all.

“Very well.” With a contemptuous smile, Mr Melmoth turned away from SP and greeted me. “Good morning, miss. Please be seated.” Those were the first and last polite words I heard from him. He began firing questions like bullets from a gun. “How many of them?”

“Three.”

“Were they armed?”

“No, I am definite they were not armed.”

“How were they dressed?”

I thought carefully. All the while Mr Melmoth tapped his fingers impatiently on the marble mantelpiece. Then he began to crack his knuckles.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered. “It’s a simple question.”

“They were dressed alike, in brown coats and broad-brimmed hats. No, that’s not right. One man was hatless. Their boots …” I always looked at feet, for the Professor had taught me the importance of footwear.

Mr Melmoth cut me short. “Their boots are irrelevant. Masked?”

“Yes, they had scarves–”

“Scarves over their faces; yes, I know. Did you see their eyes? Hair?”

“Well, one of them had light hair. His eyes were an odd colour, a kind of yellowish-brown, like a topaz.”

“Very poetic, miss. The others?”

“The man who took hold of Beauty was dark. The one who stayed on his horse had red hair and a bushy beard.”

“Aha! All reports say that the leader of the gang was red-headed. He must have liked the colour.” He pointed to the red hand drawn on the note. “Well, he’ll be sorry.” He paced the length of the room with a self-satisfied smile on his face. “This will end badly for the Red Gauntlet and his gang.”

“I’d like to ask a question, Mr Melmoth,” said SP. “Do you have any theories on why they kidnapped the two ladies? I mean to say–”

Mr Melmoth had no intention of hearing anything SP had to say.

“Well, it’s obvious. Or at least, it is if you know the case as intimately as I do.” Mr Melmoth was enjoying himself, showing off in front of SP. “Mistaken identity,” he said.

SP and I were equally mystified.

“Yes, yes, it’s quite obvious. The Gauntlet Gang knew that Mrs Leviny and Mrs Petrov were due to drive out in the buggy. Servants’ gossip is the obvious culprit – that Indian fella blabbed to someone, I’ll be bound. They thought your governess – Miss What’s-her-name – was Mrs Leviny.” Mr Melmoth’s tone was patronising. “You may not know that it was Mr Leviny’s offer of a reward that led to the break-up of the Red Gauntlet Gang.”

“When was this, Mr Melmoth?” asked SP.

Mr Melmoth didn’t like being questioned. “In the autumn of 1861,” he snapped. Then he smiled, if you could call it that, as if recalling a particularly pleasant memory. “I discovered that the gang was holed up in a cave to the north of Bendigo. With a large reward posted for the return of Mr Leviny’s silver cup, they began to mistrust each other. They quarrelled. Unfortunately, when the troopers surrounded their hide-out, they found that the birds had flown. Well, two birds out of the three. One of the gang was left.”

“What did he say?” asked SP.

“He said nothing,” said Mr Melmoth with obvious relish. “He was stone-cold dead. Throat cut from ear to ear. Honour among thieves? I think not. So now, at last, the Red Gauntlet is back. He wants money – and he wants revenge. And so do I.”

SP thought for a few seconds and then scratched his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but …well, I don’t quite understand. If he wants revenge, why would he send the communication to Mr Petrov and not Mr Leviny?”

That wiped the satisfied smile off the great detective’s face. He glared at SP. “No doubt for some twisted reason of his own,” he snapped. “It is widely known that the two men are friends. Perhaps, by ignoring Mr Leviny, the Red Gauntlet is trying to increase that poor man’s distress.”

SP nodded slowly. “You may be right.”

“I know I’m right. I have the information I need. My next step will be to stir things up. Get the cockroaches crawling out of the woodwork, so to speak. Will you ring for the servant, Mr Plush? I’ll go back to Mr Leviny’s now, but I’ll keep you informed about Miss … Miss Whatever-her-name-is. The governess.”

“Miss Deane,” said SP in a quiet voice.

“Yes, that’s her. And Mr Plush … keep out of it, won’t you?”

Hannah came to the door with Mr Melmoth’s hat and coat. He snatched them from her – no thank you or good day – and hurried away.

SP took a deep breath. He made a fist and then slowly uncurled his fingers. “What a toad of a man,” he said. “He is not only rude, he is incompetent. And stupid.
Miss Whatever-her-name-is.
”

“SP, you’re not really going to stay out of the investigation?”

“Hardly! But – this Red Gauntlet business – I’m not convinced. It was such a long time ago. How can he be so sure?”

“That.” I pointed to the mantelpiece. The glove was still sitting where Papa had put it. “A red glove was the bushranger’s calling card. And this was on the seat of the phaeton when Harold found it.” I reached out and picked it up. Then everything went black.

A piece of paper with one word written on it. At least I thought it was a word, for the characters weren’t English. Were they Greek? Then the paper seemed to catch fire. It flamed up and in an instant nothing but grey ash was left.

The ash whirled and scattered and blew away, and I was in a city street. There was a row of shops and houses, almost new, almost identical … except for the doors. They were all painted different colours: red, white, green … Ah, the green door; that was the important one. Its paint glistened. The brass doorplate and knob shone with polishing. A lady’s hand, clothed in a lilac-coloured glove, reached out for it.

At the same time, a voice said something indistinct. It sounded like “Meet me at … at the line.”

I was back in the drawing room, on the sofa. SP was fanning my face with a folded newspaper.

“Did I faint?”

“No, but I thought you might,” said SP. “Are you all right? You’re as white as a sheet.”

I rubbed my eyes, trying come back to the here and now.

“You’ve seen something, haven’t you? Not … not Drucilla?” For a few seconds he let the anguish show in his face.

“No, not Drucilla.” I only wished it was. My vision seemed to have nothing to do with Drucilla or Helen.

“Tell me what you heard and saw.” He was the professional detective again, scribbling notes in his little book.

When I finished, he re-read what he’d written.

“
At the line
– it could be a railway line, a boundary line, a telegraph wire … And what about the word written on the paper? You said it wasn’t English. Any idea which language?”

“I thought perhaps it was Greek.”

“I learned Greek at school – ancient Greek, and I hated it, but I would recognise it if I saw it. Can you reproduce it, do you think?”

It took about five minutes of intense concentration. The moment I finished, I knew what it was. The script, not the word. “It’s Cyrillic, SP. Russian. I don’t know why I didn’t recognise it before. All we have to do is ask Papa.”

“Ask Papa what?” Papa closed the door behind him as he came into the room.

I picked up SP’s notebook. “This, Papa. It’s the best I could do from memory. Does this mean anything?”

Papa stared at it, puzzled. “The letters are very badly formed, but …” He sounded out something that sounded like “mirst”. “In Russian,” he said, “it means ‘revenge’.”

The word seemed to reverberate around the room.

“Revenge. And in Russian – which is Mr Petrov’s native language. We won’t tell Mr Melmoth about this,” said SP.

Papa looked from me to SP and back again. “How did you come to write this, Verity? A vision? I thought so.” He sighed. “Then I agree. It is better to keep it to ourselves. Melmoth is a hard-headed sort of fellow. I doubt he would understand.”

“Or even listen,” said SP. “I’ll tell you a thing or two about the great detective. He’s famous – or infamous – among the police force. His entire career relied on informers, spies and fizgigs – that is, criminals who entice people into wrongdoing in return for money. He solved a fair number of cases – on paper. The number of wrongful convictions can only be guessed at.”

Papa looked bewildered. “But … but it was Ernö who called him in to help us. Ernö would not have anything to do with spies and … and fizgigs.”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” SP reassured him. “He wouldn’t have known about Melmoth’s methods.” He began thinking out loud. “Let’s say that the kidnappers are out to punish Mr Leviny for something that happened twenty years ago, like Mr Melmoth says. So they snatch Drucilla, mistaking her for Mrs Leviny. And Mrs Petrov as well, in order to double the ransom. The ransom note is addressed not to Mr Leviny, but for some devious reason to Mr Petrov – and thus Verity sees the world ‘revenge’ in his native language, Russian …

SP’s voice was fading.

White hands with tapered fingers and a needle flashing in and out. Pink silk. A silver thimble …

What was happening to me? I was having a vision while I was awake. A vision, just a couple of seconds, slipping in between two heartbeats. For they were Helen’s hands. Her pink rosebuds on white linen. What was important about the embroidery? In a flash I knew.

“Her sewing bag, SP!”

“How your mind does jump around, Verity – from revenge to sewing bags. What about it?”

“She took it with her when we went out for the drive. And it wasn’t in the phaeton when Harold found it. One of the men must have taken it. Which is odd, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps they thought it contained something valuable,” suggested Papa.

“They’ve probably ditched it somewhere,” said SP. He didn’t seem to think it was worth noting. “Go on, Verity. Describe the men.”

As I talked, something else occurred to me. “It’s funny, SP, but I could tell that their boots were quite new. I tried to tell Melmoth, but he wasn’t interested. Their clothes were new too, but they were very dusty.”

“Aha,” said Papa. “I am beginning to understand how to investigate. With this dust, they were disguising themselves?”