The Spider- 28-29

Walls have ears

Chapter 1-4| Chapters 5-6| Chapters 7-8|Chapters 9-11| Chapter 12|Chapter 13|Chapter 14-15|Chapter 16-17|Chapter 18-19 | Chapter 20|Chapter 21 |Chaper 22-23|Chapter 24-25|Chapter 26-27

28

August 1st, 1888

Mary looked up at the pale light filtering in through the bricked up windows, and held her knees closer to her chest. Her chamber pot, full and foul-smelling, rested by the door. She shivered uncontrollably as the fever soaked her blood-stained dress. She closed her eyes and imagined what her loved ones were doing right at that moment. She tried to visualise their faces, but her daydream was interrupted by the knocking on the door.

“Mary, do you want to come out?” The sound of his voice made the hairs on the back of her neck stand erect.

“No,” she said, trembling.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mary. Just tell me and I’ll let you out. I’ll even get you a doctor.”

“No,” she said again. “It’s a trick.”

“Mary,” he said, “why must you torment me like this? You can come out.”

She ran her hands down her body to her abdomen, which was still soft and swollen, but its emptiness further highlighted how alone she was now. “No. You will hurt me.”

“I would never hurt you, Mary, as long as you don’t misbehave. Unfortunately, you have misbehaved, and for that you must be punished.”

She thought of the life that was no longer inside of her, and with a broken voice, said, “I am punished enough.” She broke into a sob.

“Maggie is here, Mary.”

Mary gasped and held her breath.

“Yes,” he continued softly. “Maggie is right here, and she can help you.”

“You’re lying!” she cried, trembling again as beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. Her lips, cracked and in desperate need of water, parted again to take another deep breath. She licked the salty tears as they stung the sores around her mouth.

“Mary?” she heard a woman’s voice ask.

“Maggie? Oh Maggie! Is that you?” Her tears merged with the dirt and blood on her face as she brushed them across her cheeks like warpaint. There was a thud and he returned to the door.

“See, I brought Maggie to see you. Now come out. The sooner you face your punishment, the sooner we can be happy again.”

She heard Maggie whimpering somewhere on the other side of the door. “Please don’t hurt her! Please.” Mary heard the crack of a belt as it made contact with what she presumed was Maggie’s skin, as her shrieks and sobs followed soon after. “Please. Stop it!” Mary screamed, covering her ears. “Stop it!”

“If it bothers you so much, Mary, you should do the honourable thing… and come and take her place!”

🕷

“Well that puts a cat amongst the pigeons,” Gill snarled, lighting his pipe. They looked down at the dead body on the table. Muldoon studied the gash on Maggie’s neck, and looked across to the razor that rested on the trolley. It was the same style as the one found under Mrs Mckinnon’s bed, but it did not belong to John Bryant.

As Bryant’s bags were held in the storeroom of the bridewell while he was detained, Muldoon took it upon himself to search through the suspect’s belongings. The razors that he found bore the inscription Hargreaves, Smith & Co SHEFFIELD on the smooth, steel face of the blade. The faces of the two razors found in the house were Milton & Sons, SHEFFIELD.

“I suppose we’ll have to let Bryant go then.” Gill puffed at the pipe for a minute and muttered, “bugger. Any family we need to notify?”

“A sister,” said Muldoon. “In Allerton.”

“Have someone write to her. Let her know she needs to come and identify the body. How’s Mrs Mckinnon?”

Muldoon brought Mrs Mckinnon a cup of tea in Gill’s office. “I’d just gone out for some things,” she said with a trembling bottom lip. Gill cast his eyes downward and waited for her to compose herself. “I was gone for half an hour, no more. Just to get some more soap… more soap for me and Maggie. When I left her, she was cleaning the grate, you know, as the Bryants weren’t around and we didn’t need to have it lit… I popped out for some more soap and…” Violet Mckinnon held her chin in her hand as the first tears gently ran from her eyes. “And then she was dead. Just like that? It was only Maggie and myself in there. I only went out for soap!” Mrs Mckinnon broke into a sob and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing and wiping her tears away. “It’s all such a shock.”

“Is there anyone who may have wanted to hurt Maggie, Mrs Mckinnon?”

“No!” She dabbed the wet patches on her cheeks with her handkerchief and continued, admirably. “As far as I knew, she didn’t have anybody. She certainly never mentioned anyone, but then, she hardly spoke!”

🕷

Fred Wilcox, despite not having his services required any more, was more than happy to assist Muldoon with his investigation. Muldoon, sure that the secretary would have recognised him, or been alarmed at the sight of a uniformed constable, asked Wilcox to ‘get a feel for Ellman’s diary this week,’ and pretend to be a salesman. Wilcox was successful, and managed to find out that Ellman was in his offices all week. Rather than write to Cecilia Ross, they decided to take a train to Allerton and see her personally, during the hours that Ellman would not be there.

They were not granted an audience with Miss Ross because the gatekeeper had allowed them to come in, but because Paulie McCrae had been flung over the wall first, sneaking around the back in search of the lady with the dog. When he found her, she followed him to the gate, the magic word to win her cooperation being no other than the name of her sister: Maggie.

“I always knew this would happen,” she said, her shoulders sinking. Muldoon took note of how angry the young woman was.

“Do you know who might have done this, Miss Ross?”

“I do.” She lifted her sad, blue eyes and looked at him. “It was my brother.”

Wilcox and Muldoon looked at one another. Muldoon tilted his head and said, “your brother, Miss Ross?”

“My surname isn’t actually Ross. Rather, it was my mother’s family name. My name—and Maggie’s name, is Ellman.”

Fred almost choked on his tea, hearing the revelation. “Maggie is Thomas Ellman’s daughter?” asked Muldoon, remaining calm. Margaret Ross’ letters had briefly mentioned her father, after all. “And you too, are his daughter?”

“Yes. From his second marriage. Maggie and I are twins, in case it wasn’t apparent.” She flashed a brief smile, and returned to her deep thoughts. “My father loves us, you see, but he doesn’t love all of his children equally… Teddy—Edward Thomas Ellman—is a cruel man, and had been a wicked, unnatural child. I would put my inheritance on him being the killer. Ever since we were small, he has despised us and controlled us. When father would go away on business, he would lock us in the cupboard for hours. Once, we were in there for two days, with my mother worrying sick at being unable to find us. You see, he told us not to make a sound, or he’d drown our kittens in the well, or cut our hair off, or whatever cruel threat he could think of. On many occasions, we would come out of a cupboard, a wardrobe, or a crawlspace crying and soaked in our own filth. Mother would try and tell father but he simply laughed and said Teddy was just teasing us, and that boys will be boys.

His torment only grew worse over the years. He would cut our skin, torture our pets…” she brought the spaniel in her arms closer to her face and cuddled it, “and have us offer ourselves up in their places if it was bothering us.” She let the little dog jump off her lap, pulled her collar down and revealed a long scar on her neck that ran down to her collarbone. “Father wouldn’t believe me, so I stopped trying. Maggie stopped trying, but she resisted his cruelty for the longest. She despised them both, in the end. I learned quite soon that if you just did as Teddy said, you would be left alone, and father wouldn’t be so angry with you for telling tales.

One day, when we were fourteen, we found our mother's body at the foot of the stairs. Her neck was broken. I’ll never forget it. It was him. She got in the way of father’s affections and by extension—so did we. My father hasn’t been the same since. He is still mourning her death, which was almost ten years ago now.”

Wilcox listened, horrified. “Miss Ross, why did you not inform the police?”

She shook her head, her top lip curling into a sneer. “When your father is as rich and powerful as mine, who would believe me? Besides, I depend on him for a roof over my head and food in my belly. Such is the curse of a woman of my class. I am property.”

Muldoon reached for the photograph of Mary and laid it on the table. Cecilia stared at it, letting the tears roll down her rosy cheeks, each one splashing onto her lap.

“Who is Mary?” Muldoon asked quietly, “and why did she write you so often before her murder?”

“Mary was our friend.” She wiped the tears away with the back of her petite hands. “She was a dear friend. Her parents, the Hobbs's, live only a mile west of us, and we were good friends growing up. When she was sixteen, she became besotted with Teddy and by eighteen, she was gone.”

Muldoon picked up his cup of tea. “We found letters that she’d written.”

“Then you will know that she feared for her life. She told us everything, when she had the chance. Maggie found her eventually, living in Percy Street, but once you’ve stepped into the spider’s web, you can’t get out.”

Frances Bryant’s ramblings came to mind. He is the spider; we are the flies. He swallowed. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“He wouldn’t let her leave. He kept her there to help him…” As strong as Cecilia’s reserve had seemed, holding back more tears became too much of a challenge. She couldn’t keep them at bay forever. “When… when Mary was murdered… father told Maggie to keep it a secret, and not to tell a soul. If she did, he would strip both of us of everything we had and turn us out. You see, our mother didn’t have much. She had been the housekeeper when he was married to Teddy’s mother. When Mrs Ellman died, my mother was a source of comfort for my father. Their marriage was a happy one… most of the time, but because mother had no wealth of her own, their marriage rendered us completely dependent on him and by extension, Teddy. Had either Maggie or I had the good fortune to have been born a boy, I believe with all my heart that Teddy would be rotting away in an asylum, and father would have given us the world.” She smiled, despite her tears. “Do you believe in karma, gentlemen?”

“I know of it. I have friends in India,” Wilcox said. “It’s Hindu, I think, is it not?”

She smiled and nodded gracefully. “My brother is a murderer, and he is cruel. He is the favoured one, but his name will fade into obscurity. With any luck, you’ll have him hanged, and his wealth will pass to my niece.”

“Your niece?” Muldoon asked.

“Yes,” Cecilia nodded. “Mary, during her marriage, bore that monster a child.”

The two men looked at each other. Muldoon turned his face back to Cecilia and asked, “Where is the child now?”

Cecilia looked about the room nervously and lowered her voice. “The child is with her mother’s family. Teddy thinks that Mary had a stillborn and hid it from him. This was the only way we could think of that wouldn’t result in him hunting his heir down. Maggie left her in a basket for me to collect at the hotel she used to send me letters from. I took her back to her grandparents, and asked them to arrange for a wet nurse for the poor, hungry thing. This was what Mary wanted, and she had attached a note for them to read, so they knew it was genuine. They asked no questions, and raised no alarm, for they knew. They knew that Mary’s life was in danger.” Cecilia wiped away more tears. “And he killed her anyway. After all that.” Cecilia looked up at the ceiling and back to her inquisitors, resolute. “That little girl will never know of what her father did, if I can help it.”

“Does your father know about the child?”

Cecilia shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

“Do you know where your brother is?”

“No, and that is what vexes me.” She gave a wry smile. “I would help you push him off the nearest cliff, if I could find him.”

“Miss Ross,” Muldoon said, pulling Sarah’s sketch out of his pocket and unfolding it onto the table. “Is this your brother?”

She nodded slowly, and said, “that’s certainly his likeness. I haven’t seen him for some time, but that is him.”

29

“There’s someone watching that house around the clock. If Edward Ellman has access to Percy Street, he’ll have a hard time getting past the front gate,” Gill said to Lacey. “It’s your watch at eight o’clock tomorrow. Go home and get some rest.”

Lacey left Gill with Mrs Mckinnon and John Bryant outside the main entrance of the bridewell, where a cab driver was strapping their bags to the back of the vehicle.

“Well, I suppose that’s it for now then,” Gill said, shaking Bryant’s hand. “You’ve been put through the mangle.”

John Bryant half-laughed, and looked up at the bridewell. “Glad to be on this side of the wall again.”

“We’ll be in touch when we have more information on your case.”

Bryant looked at Gill and frowned. “He would have had me sent to the gallows.” He looked down at his shoes and shook his head. “I don’t know how someone could do that.”

“You’d be amazed, Mr Bryant,” Gill said, placing a cigar in the breast pocket of Bryant’s jacket. “Take care.”

John Bryant thanked him and waited beside the cab as Mrs Mckinnon turned to speak to Gill.

“I need to take care of the poor man, and I’m sure there are some people over the water desperate to see him,” Violet Mckinnon said, shaking Gill’s hand.

Much to Gill’s delight, Violet Mckinnon was as sweet and as kind as she had appeared to be, and she had made a comment about what an excellent cup of tea he made in spite of being such a busy and hard-working man.

“I hope you find whoever did this, Mr Gill,” she said. “That girl… she didn’t deserve that.”

“I know, Mrs Mckinnon. We’re doing all we can.”

The old lady looked up at his grave face and smiled faintly. “Well, goodbye then,” she said, pulling her shawl closer to her neck.

“Safe journey, Mrs Mckinnon.”

Gill waved farewell to Mrs Mckinnon and John Bryant as they climbed into the cab. After the driver closed the door, Gill instructed the man to take them to the ferry terminal. The driver stirred the bay horses into action, and Gill watched the animals gracefully pull away, their heads bobbing rhythmically to the clip-clop of their hooves. One turn around the corner and they were gone.

Gill stood for a moment and watched the late afternoon sunset descending onto the rooftops, casting its pink halo around their sharp-angled silhouettes. Anger and frustration bubbled in his gut.

“Well, Mulders, what now then?” he asked, looking straight ahead.

“How did you—?”

Gill smiled and turned around to look at Muldoon. “I’ve come to expect you lurking there in the shadows, my friend.”

“Thomas Ellman is under house arrest, as you asked. He knows why, but he won’t talk.”

“Twat.”

“Indeed, Gov.”

“How’s the girl?”

Cecilia had made them promise not to say a word. She assured them that the servants felt no loyalty to their master, and could be persuaded to support her in a time of need. “They’ve witnessed every horror this family has endured. They are as helpless as I am,” she said as she bade them farewell. There was no telling how the trial would go when Ellman had the money to guarantee witness intimidation and the cover up that would follow, but Gill was trying to be optimistic.

“She’ll be all right,” Muldoon said. “Her father doesn’t know we’ve spoken to her, and she’s devastated about her sister. She’ll testify against both of them in court. We’ve got a stack of evidence on him as high as that wall,” Muldoon said, indicating at the severe, brick walls surrounding the fortress that was The Main Bridewell. “We’ve got Thomas Ellman for forgery, blackmail, bribery, and now he’s an accomplice in not one but two murders. He was happy to have John Bryant fitted up for his son's crimes, and would have let us hang the poor bastard.”

“We’ll go and speak to him tomorrow, and we’ll meet his army of solicitors, no doubt.” Gill placed his hands in his pockets and walked closer to Muldoon. “I’d say let’s go for a drink but, I don’t think it’ll do anything to take away the bitter taste of defeat. I have sent a warrant out though, for Edward Ellman. Not sure what use that would be, when no one’s seen him for ages.”

“I know someone who’s seen him,” Muldoon said.

“A drawing doesn’t count, Mulders.”

“She must have seen him though. He’s been in the house. He stole her drawers for Christ’s sake.”

“He hasn’t come back to Madame Chloe?”

Muldoon shook his head. “No. They’re shit scared of him now, so they’d definitely tell me if he does.”

“What to do then?” Gill sighed.

“We could take another look at the crime scene?”

Gill frowned. “Yes, right. That’s what you do for fun, isn’t it Mulders?”

“I won’t sleep ‘til this is solved, Gov. Might as well be productive.”

They approached number five at sunset with a lantern and a bag of tools. Robertson was stationed on the doorstep when they arrived, but Gill offered him a leg stretch. He took it without hesitation, and assured them he’d be in earshot if they needed him.

The street was eerily quiet in the crisp November twilight. In the fading light, Muldoon lifted his lantern so Gill could see the lock. He fished for a key in his pocket and finding the right one, unlocked it. They entered the silent, empty house and closed the door behind them. “Well then,” Gill said, putting the key back in his pocket. “You got your whistle, just in case?”

Muldoon nodded and put the lantern on the sideboard in the hallway. It cast a ghostly glow around the area, highlighting the shadowed fingers of the parlour palm as they stretched out in every direction. In the gloom, he retrieved his match box. He took a moment to light some of the lamps in the hallway and the parlour room: the focal point of the decor now being a chalk outline of where Maggie’s body had lain.

“Is it still haunted then?” asked Gill quietly. “Is the maid here with us?”

Muldoon looked at him and, seeing that he was uneasy, shook his head. “Not that I can sense.”

Gill grunted and lifted the lantern over the outline. “Right then…”

They were silent for a moment, and studied the room. Muldoon crouched down to get closer to the outline, and turned to follow the trail of broken pottery. He stood up and went to the windowsill. The little figurine, after all of the near misses, had finally succumbed to gravity, and lay smashed. He placed the larger of the pieces back on the ledge.

“Was the back door locked on the morning of the murder?” he asked.

“Yeah. That’s what Pinners said, anyway. No signs of forced entry. Mrs Mckinnon left for the shops through the front.”

“The struggle was here, and this is no doubt where it happened,” Muldoon said.

Even in the low light, the discoloration on the floor where Maggie spent her final seconds on earth represented the legacy of suffering: a permanent stain on the soul of the house. He imagined her wide eyes, looking helplessly at him through the window, where he couldn’t see her or do anything to help. I’m sorry, Maggie.

“So I have a theory, Gov,” Muldoon began. “Poor Maggie here, held against her will, had to do as she was told. What if the deeds—the real deeds—were stashed away?”

Gill cocked his head, listening. “What, like, in the floorboards?”

“Is that where you’d hide them?”

“Either that or I’d burn ‘em.”

“If you absolutely despised the men who were making you get rid of them, would you destroy them or just hide them in the hope they could be used as evidence one day?”

“I’d lose my rag and burn them,” Gill admitted.

Muldoon laughed and shook his head. “Think like a woman, Gov,” he said. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Get in her mind, Gov—what would you do?”

He pursed his lips for a moment in deep thought, and said, “I’d cry about it for a bit… then I’d stash it away."

***

“It’s not going to take long, is it? This house is… unsettling,” Gill said as Muldoon rooted through the toolbag.

“Big Bad Police Chief is scared of a haunted house, I see.”

“Piss off, you know what I mean.”

Muldoon smirked and handed Gill a crowbar.

They set to work in Maggie’s room first. “I hope Bryant doesn’t mind us ripping up his walls and floors.” Gill said, pushing the crowbar into the slats. “Nice wood, this. Varnished and all, even down here.” The wood groaned and creaked as Gill pulled the boards from the beams underneath. “Does make me wonder, Mulders,” Gill mused. “How did the bastard get in?”

Hours passed as they moved piece after piece, working into the night. “Oi,” Gill said, wiping some sweat from his brow. “Reckon they’ve got supplies in for us to make a cuppa?”

“They might,” Muldoon shrugged. “You go ahead, I think I’m nearly done here.”

Gill left him alone to push the bed out of the way and dig down into the floor. His fingertips touched something of interest, forcing him to stretch his arm even further to the point where he felt it would come out of its socket. He clumsily clutched the corner of paper—his fingertips like pincers, and he gently pulled. In the dim light, he brushed some dust off the documents. They were the deeds for the house, and more.

Hearing a thud and a crash upstairs, he quickly folded the documents, stuffing them into his inside pocket. “Gov?” he called. Gill didn’t respond, and the basement door slammed shut. “Gov, what’s going on?”

Muldoon, crowbar in hand, ran up the steps and tried the brass doorknob. Locked. He rattled it desperately. “Gov?” The crashes and the sounds of a struggle continued. “Gov?” Muldoon lunged at the door, smashing down on the knob with his crowbar. Blow by blow, he beat it until it sprang from the door, taking splinters of wood with it. He gave the door one more shove with his foot and broke out of the basement.

Panting, he peered out into the hallway. Not even the grandfather clock ticked any more. He crept towards the corridor leading to the back kitchen. Hearing another struggle characterised by the crash of pots and pans and Gill shouting something, he ran into the kitchen.

He found Gill lying in a pool of his own blood, clutching at a wound on his shoulder. In response, Muldoon’s own blood ran cold. He knelt down and assessed the damage. “What? What with?” he asked. Gill nodded at something behind him. There was a bloodied screwdriver on the tiled floor.

“Get the bastard,” Gill whispered. Muldoon rose from the floor and ran to the front door, opened it, and blew his whistle with fury.

***

Robertson was the first to arrive on the scene. Deciding that there wouldn’t be enough time to get Gill to a surgeon if they waited for a wagon, he threw the Chief Inspector’s good arm over his shoulders and bore his weight as they headed to the cab rank to flag a driver down.

Muldoon couldn’t wait any longer for reinforcements. The adrenaline rushing through his limbs compelled him to lock the front door, pick up a hammer and hunt the killer down.

He returned to the kitchen where he had to step over the drying pool of Gill’s blood. He looked up at the washing line: men’s shirts. He stepped forward and parted them, revealing nothing but a bare wall. Turning around, he tried the back door, but it was boarded up. He looked out into the corridor joining the kitchen to the hallway and heard nothing.

Returning to the kitchen, he raised his hammer in anticipation. “Where are you?” he asked, looking around the walls and up at the ceiling. His eyes stopped when he saw Maggie standing in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes, dead and frightened like Mary’s had been, lifted over him and focused on the wall behind him. She raised her hand and pointed. Without requiring any further explanation, Muldoon swung the hammer over his head. Plaster crumbled all over the floor, its dust floating into his nostrils and throat. He hammered again, finding more force to throw it with each time. Bricks gave way and he pulled them out with his bare hands to find a narrow gap between an interior wall and exterior wall. He looked closely: there was enough room for a man to have stood there and breathed comfortably. He held his breath, listening. Somewhere in the walls, he could hear shuffling. He followed the sound with his hands and stopped at a picture hanging on the wall beside a Welsh dresser. He removed it, and met the eyes of his prey. Before Muldoon could blink, the eyes disappeared, and he threw his hammer at the wall again. Reaching in, he found nothing. He bent down to the dresser and opened a cupboard door. As with the wardrobe in the nursery, the back panel had been moved aside and exposed the cavity of the interior wall behind it, but it was too late for Muldoon to climb in. The assailant had moved on. The sound of something rubbing against the wall left the kitchen, and he heard footsteps out in the hall, scurrying away like a rat. He turned to look at the doorway, and found Maggie still standing there. She turned her body away and, checking to see that he was still looking, gestured for him to follow.

Muldoon silently followed the apparition as she led him to the hallway, stopping outside the drawing room. She placed her finger to her lips as he heard a “shh” wash over him. It seemed to come from every room, echoing in his ears. The front door was locked. There was nowhere for Teddy Ellman to go. He followed the direction of where she had turned her face and slowly crept into the drawing room.

He waited.

The chalk outline of Maggie’s body caught his eye as he tried to process what her ghost was showing him. He entered, and turned to see Mary in the corner of the room, but for once, she wasn’t looking at him. Expressionless, she stood pointing at the hearth.

Without any further thought, Muldoon crept toward the black, unlit hearth and crouched down to look inside. For a moment, he was staring into a black abyss, until he could make out the whites of a man’s eyes. Lunging with both hands into the shadows, he grabbed the collar of a shirt. With a loud rip, it tore as the object of his pursuit pulled away and tried to clamber up the chimney. Muldoon lunged again and grabbed a bony ankle, ripping Ellman from the chimney with all of his strength. He threw the murderer onto the parlour room floor. Clouds of soot blackened the nearby upholstery as the pursuit came to a climax. Ellman, like a wounded animal, rolled around the floor and groaned as Muldoon furiously kicked him and pinned him in place. Ellman was thin, and covered in soot, but Muldoon knew that the eyes staring at him now had been the last that Mary Hobbs and Margaret Ross had seen.