The Spider- Chapter 18-19

As part of the investigation, Muldoon finally visits Frances Bryant.

Oct 20, 2024

The spider is a gothic horror novel set in lateVictorian Liverpool. Recap: Part 1 ended with the seance. Muldoon undertakes his investigation of number five, Percy Street, and the mystery follows him home.

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18

30th September, 1892

Dear John,

We are having a seance tonight. I want to end this madness. Elsie is saying terrifying things again about this Mary woman. Only this morning, I asked her who she was playing with and she said “Mary” again!

She told mother that she sees things in her room. I fear that if this house is haunted, it is by more than one ghost. I imagine you laughing as you read this.

I was as sceptical as you are until mother said that there is a man in the nursery. He watches Sarah while she sleeps.

Elsie is something of a little liar, though. She can be a wicked child. Those dolls, it must be the dolls. Why does she lie to me so? I will burn every single one of them.

You’re going to wake me up tomorrow and inform me that this is all a dream.

Sincerely,

Your loving madwoman.

4th October, 1892

Dear John,

The seance was the strangest thing. I can see why they are so popular in high society! Mother, Mr Kingsley and a solicitor called Fred… oh forgive me, I cannot remember his name. Wilcox, I think. Anyway, we conducted this meeting as per Mr Kingsley’s rules and it was riveting. Not only did the flames of the candles misbehave but when Mary appeared across the table, the glass smashed to smithereens. She’s petrified, but I don’t know of what. I told everybody what I saw, what I felt and what I thought. Mother suggested that I should seek some rest, so I did. Then, oddly, when I woke the following morning and wanted to continue the investigation, she said no!

Nobody will tell me why they are so unsettled.

Oh, I hear the scratching again. Mary used to scratch the walls when he wouldn’t let her out.

I had the strangest dream, John. Am I Mary? Are you trapping me here, John? Where are you?

Sincerely,

Your loving madwoman.

15th october, 1892

Dear John,

This house is strange. It feels like it doesn’t belong to me. I know you say I’m a madwoman, and perhaps I am, but you must listen to me. Those ornaments in the parlour room— they move around. Maggie swears she doesn’t move them and I was so embarrassed to find them exactly where I’d left them this time. It’s as though they’re playing tricks on me. I cannot prove anything.

And the walls, John. It’s as though we have rats. Mrs Mckinnon asked the rat catcher to come at my request and he found nothing, but I still hear the scratching, the shuffling, the dragging. They must have a nest in the walls and under the floorboards. It keeps me up all night!

Mother doesn’t believe me. She has been overly concerned since the seance. How ridiculous she is!

I do worry, John. I’m worried not just for myself but for Elsie. I’m worried because I’m going to die here, John. Please come home.

Your beloved madwoman, Frances.

28th of October, 1892

Dear John,

Please come home. I don’t give a damn about Mr Ellman– I need you here with me. Tell me where he is and I shall go to him myself. He has no right to keep you from me.

Mary reached out and touched me. A few weeks ago now, Mr Kingsley did come. We did have a seance. I am so very sorry that I did not laugh with you. I should have said no. But Mary told me everything– well, she can’t ‘tell’ me but she shows me. It’s not safe here, but nobody believes me. Swinson gives me tonic upon tonic and won’t let me out! Mother listens to him. She cannot look at me without crying. I assure her that there is nothing wrong, but she cannot believe me.

They won’t let me see Elsie, John. They won’t let me see her.

I have nothing else to do but pace my bedroom, drink tonic, cod liver oil and swallow these wicked tablets that he says I need. The way he looks at me is so patronising. I loathe this man. Come home. Please, please. I need you. Forgive the delay in my response. These tablets, they put me to sleep, but I’m not really asleep. I see everything. Mary comes here. He comes here. I don’t like him watching me.

Why do you visit me in my dreams but not when I wake? It has surely been months now.

What Mary says about you cannot be true. The other night, I read your letter. I imagined you were speaking to me as I read it and it comforted me so, but you must understand that I was as torn as the paper that rested on the table. I ripped it up, but that wasn’t the strangest thing. When I returned to the table, the pieces had been rearranged, and they said:

He Will Kill You All

Who is He, John? Why does he mean to kill me? Please help me. I am lost.

Your Frances

17th November 1892

Dear John,

I got out. Nobody knows. They all went out for the morning on various errands. Only mother was here and she was asleep. It was my fault. I had been up all night screaming and shouting because you are here but I cannot reach you. I understand now—you are trying to reach me. I hear you on the landing. I see you through the keyhole. I hear you scratching in the walls.

Are you dead, my love? Do you need me to come to you?

Last night as I lay on my pillow,

Last night as I lay on my bed,

Last night as I lay on my pillow,

I dreamed that my Bonnie was dead.

If you are not dead, you must come back to me and end this madness. I will surely die if you don’t. This is torment. I will die if you don’t come back, John. Perhaps I am already dead.

They think I can’t hear them as I lie there. They say I shall have to go to a special hospital if I don’t recover. Recover from what? There is nothing the matter with me. I have tried with all my will to tell them what has happened here but they think me mad. Stop playing games and come home.

Anyway, I climbed to the attic. Mary showed me the way. I slipped into the entrance. It was so dark, but the potpourri was comforting and I slid the panel with ease. The little staircase is rather cold, but the room remains usable. There she was, on her hands and knees, looking right at me. Early morning light was trying its best to shine through the bricked up windows, and I could make her out clearly. I bet she was beautiful once. She stared at me with these sad, doll-like eyes and bountiful waves of chestnut hair hung from her face. She cannot speak, what with her throat being cut but she can touch things and move things. She lifted the lid of a chest beside her and passed me a razor. I believe I fainted after that.

Some time after, I found my way back downstairs. Mother was looking for me on the ground floor and Mrs Mckinnon had just returned. I lay in my bed and pulled the covers up.

If he comes for me, I have the razor now.

He is the spider; we are the flies. Evil crawls where we cannot reach it, and watches through the gaps in the walls. This isn’t my house.

Your beloved wife, Frances.

Muldoon dropped the letters into a box and closed the lid when he heard a firm knock at the door. “Come in,” he said.

Mae Magnusson strode into the room, her bustle bouncing behind her as she turned and closed the door with a quick slam.

“Mae, how lovely it is to see you,” Muldoon said. He was leaning back in his chair with his feet crossed over the desk. In one hand was a cigarette and in the other, a tumbler of scotch. Mae raised an eyebrow.

“I hope you haven’t bought those cigarettes with your rent money.”

“Absolutely not.” Muldoon placed the scotch back on the desk and sat up. With his cigarette in his mouth, he pulled out the desk drawer with his right hand and extracted a chunky envelope. “I always have rent.”

“You’re late this week, Daniel.”

“And very sorry about that I am,” he said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Say, Mae, would you like one?”

She took the envelope from him and stuffed it into a pocket in her skirt. “How much have you had to drink, Muldoon?”

“Only enough to feel a bit relaxed, Mae. I was meaning the cigarette but you can have a scotch, too.”

“The cigarette will do fine, thank you.”

He removed the case from his pocket and opened it, holding it out for her to choose one. With long, slim fingers she took one from the case. “Matches are just there,” Muldoon said, nodding at the matchbox at the end of the desk. She took a match and ignited it on the first strike, her face aglow in the quickening flame. Mae had been a pretty young woman, once. The sharp lines around her lips deepened as she drew in the smoke. Her brown eyes, once bright and feline, drooped slightly like those of a basset hound.

“You look like you’ve had a day,” she said, perching on the edge of the desk.

“It’s been unusual, to say the least.” Muldoon looked at his landlady with tired eyes.

“What has that Gill got you doing now?” she asked. It was no secret that Gill was one of Mae’s least favourite people.

“Ghosts, Mae.”

She threw her head back with a cackle. “What next? Ghosts?”

“It’s quite interesting, actually,” he mused, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “There’s definitely a mystery, but I don’t think it’s as simple as ghosts.” Their eyes met. “I had a vision.”

“Oh aye?” Mae looked down at him with her heavy, velvety eyelids and flicked some ash into the ashtray.

“Someone was murdered there. Some poor lass I don’t know the name of.”

“It’s a murder case then? What’s it got to do with you?”

“Well, that’s the thing, Mae. Until we find a body, it’s just me and my visions. Can’t take that to court. So far I’ve got the letters of a madwoman, a strange child, a maid who seems to be lying through her teeth, a missing husband, and a body somewhere.”

“I wouldn’t want to be you today,” she said, smiling. Muldoon laughed.

“You sure you don’t want a break from the punters?”

“No,” she shook her head and flashed him a seductive smile. “My work doesn’t follow me home, darlin’. Besides, one of the perks of being as old as I am is that you spend more time counting money than anything else.”

“Surely you still get customers, Mae?”

“That’s very kind of you,” she grinned. “One or two, but I’m as old as the hills. I bet some of them would feel like they were shagging their mother, you know?”

“I don’t, personally,” he said, shaking his head, “but I see what you mean.”

“Speaking of which, I’d better get back.” She stood up and stubbed out the cigarette. “Goodnight, Daniel.”

“Goodnight, Mae.”

Mae closed the door behind her and returned upstairs. Muldoon opened the box again. Reading the ramblings of Frances Bryant wore his eyes out, tiring his mind with every word. He didn’t know if her letters were intended to be riddles, but he read them as such. After some time, he lifted out the last letter and began to read until his concentration was broken by the movement in the corner of his office. He lifted his eyes from his work and saw only an oilskin hanging from the door’s hook. It was nothing. He returned to France Bryant’s letter. It read:

“She can only scream when he takes what isn’t his.”

Lowering the letter from his face, he found himself within an inch of the face of a dead woman, paralysing him with her stare. With sunken, dead eyes, she held him there. He watched the lifeless, white lips open into a blood-red chasm. The scream that came from it pierced his ears, vibrated through his skull and made his teeth ache. “Jesus!” he exclaimed, falling backwards in the small, rickety chair he was sitting on. Rolling out of the fall, he stood up quickly, his heart pounding, and looked around the room breathlessly. He was alone. Muldoon grabbed the tumbler containing the last dregs of scotch and with a shaking hand, poured himself another.

19

Beatrice Larkin opened the door to Muldoon when he returned to Percy Street the following morning. He immediately noticed her swollen, red eyes that she’d tried to fan with her handkerchief behind the door. “Inspector Muldoon!” she said, sounding surprised. “Thank you for coming. I’m Beatrice Larkin—Frances’ mother.”

Muldoon stepped forward and wiped his feet on the mat. The rain outside pelted the windows, washing the world clean as it rolled down the crevices between cobbles in shallow streams. The light from the candles and lamps in the hall glowed with a welcoming warmth as he hung his hat and coat on the stand. “Inspector, you’re soaked,” Beatrice remarked looking at his dripping overcoat.

“That’s just the coat, Mrs Larkin. I am all right, thank you.” His hands, red and throbbing, briefly found some warmth in his pockets before he realised he was being rude and brought them back out.

Beatrice rushed to the first door on the right and gestured for him to follow. “We should go into the parlour room and sit by the fire.”

“Thank you.”

Entering the parlour room, the warmth of the fire smothered him with its heat, crackling in the hearth. His wet, damp clothing had become a thing of the past as he felt his skin flush in accordance with the temperature. He was suddenly overcome with a comfortable feeling of drowsiness as the deepening warmth of the air penetrated the chill in his bones. He looked down at the fire: there was enough coal in it to warm a docker’s family for a week.

They sat down on the white sofas, separated by a Queen Anne coffee table. Muldoon desperately stifled a yawn while Mrs Larkin picked up the lace tablecloth and placed it down again gracefully, ironing out any creases with her hands. Although blotchy from the crying, Beatrice was a good-looking woman, with greying blonde hair and hooded, blue eyes. “Would you mind waiting until after the meeting for tea? It’s just that…” Beatrice put her hand to her bottom lip to steady it. “Mrs Mckinnon is with Frances right now. I thought I should make myself available in time for your arrival.”

“It’s no bother, Mrs Larkin.”

She relaxed slightly, resting her hands on her lap. Muldoon leaned forward. “Mrs Larkin, I read some of Frances’ letters last night.”

Mrs Larkin turned pale. “Oh God,” she said.

“You knew about the letters, then?”

She nodded with her hand on her mouth again, waited a moment, and took a deep breath before speaking. “I told her to give them to Sarah but… there was no address for Mr Bryant.”

Muldoon sat back, feeling energised by the revelation. “Why do you think there was no address, Mrs Bryant?”

“I don’t know.” She looked in his direction, almost through him. “I fear the worst.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should have trusted my instincts. I thought I was wrong but… it looks terrible, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not sure I follow, Mrs Larkin.”

Her eyes flitted around the room until they returned to Muldoon. “The ghost? What if? What if John Bryant is…”

She froze, leaving the rest of her sentence to float away into the air between them. Muldoon looked right to the blazing fire for a minute and when he accepted that she wasn’t going to continue, he prodded.“What if John Bryant is what, Mrs Larkin?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head and sniffed. “Take no notice of me. I have no reason to say that.” She wrung her handkerchief in her hands. He watched her mind wander away from the room and suddenly reappear in the form of a gasp. “Frances—you need to see Frances, is that right?”

“That would be helpful, yes.”

She dabbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Very well.”

Beatrice stopped outside a closed door on the first floor landing. Muldoon decided to hold back and stand on the top step. She knocked on the door gently and waited until it opened slowly and revealed the anxious face of Mrs Mckinnon. She looked from Beatrice to Muldoon and nodded, opening the door slightly wider to let them in. Her eyes were alert, and she didn’t smile in her usual way. Muldoon silently followed Beatrice into the large, well-lit bedroom, furnished with chintz and mahogany. To his surprise, the natural light had been blocked by the closed curtains. The room, despite the potpourri and flickering candles, made him feel as though he had been summoned to keep watch over a body.

He blinked as he studied the surroundings. The carpet felt like soft clouds under his feet as he tentatively walked over to the bed with Beatrice.

For a second, he thought he had seen a corpse, but the weak blinking of the darkened eyelids assured him otherwise. On the bed lay a thin female figure with matted hair; her chest heaved and sank with a rattling breath. Muldoon noticed that her hands were bound to the bed posts and she stared vacantly at the ceiling. He narrowed his eyes when he saw her face: it was so ghostly, that he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t seen her before. He was reminded of the apparition that had frightened him in his office, knocking him out of his chair with her sudden appearance. He tried to think of the face again but the appearance of Frances’ face was too distracting. “Mrs Bryant?” he asked gently. Beatrice turned to look at him and smiled weakly.

“This is Frances, yes.”

Not wanting to spend a minute longer in the room, Mrs Mckinnon bowed and shuffled out, closing the door firmly behind her.

“Would you like to speak to her?” Beatrice asked nervously.

“If that’s possible?” asked Muldoon, looking at the tray of pill-bottles beside the bed.

Beatrice stepped back and gestured at the chair at Frances’ right. He sat down slowly, as though too much noise would cause her to spring out of the bed and attack him. He had visited asylums before, but he had also visited the sickbed, and Mrs Bryant presented him with a unique mix of the two atmospheres. “Hello, Frances,” he said.

Muldoon was surprised to see the woman move. He thought of the photograph Gill had shown him. She doesn’t look like that at the moment. The woman’s face, as gaunt as it was, turned to look at him. Her eyes, dark and sunken, lifted to meet his. At first, she seemed ready to say something, but her mouth closed as quickly as it had opened. Muldoon ran his tongue across his back teeth and thought of what to say next. Observing her thin, bruised wrists and ankles, he turned to Beatrice. “Why is she restrained, Mrs Larkin?”

“Doctor’s orders, Inspector. So she doesn’t do herself any harm.”

“Harm?”

Beatrice lowered her voice to a whisper. “There was a razor under her pillow, Inspector. We… we thought she meant to do herself harm.”

I have the razor now.

Frances groaned and with her pale, cracked lips, mouthed something. Muldoon leaned forward to listen. “Water,” he said. “She needs some water, Mrs Larkin.”

Beatrice fetched the pitcher from the sideboard and brought it over to Muldoon, who had retrieved a glass from her bedside table. She poured it and set the pitcher down, bringing her hands under Frances’ head to lift it. Muldoon carefully tilted the glass against her bottom lip. She gulped it greedily as it flowed down the corners of her mouth and into her hair; she didn’t take her eyes off Muldoon. When she stopped drinking, he gently pulled it away from her.

“Who are you?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

“I’m inspector Daniel Muldoon, Frances. I’m here to help you.”

There was a pause before she coughed and said, “you cannot help me.” Beatrice gently laid her daughter’s head back onto the pillow and stepped back with a trembling bottom lip. Frances turned her face away to look at the drawn window. “No one can help me.”

“I think I can.” He reached into his pocket and presented her with a small wooden crucifix.

“Dear Lord,” she said, shaking her head weakly, “not you as well.” Her eyes rolled away and back to him, demonstrably fatigued.

“What do you mean, Frances?”

“You don’t see what I see,” she said, releasing a deep breath. “Nobody does. They think I’m insane. Or in your case,” she coughed dryly a few times, “possessed.”

Muldoon cleared his throat. “I’m going to hold this to your head and say a few words,” he said, wiping some sweat from his forehead with the back of his free hand. “Priests usually just crack on with it with barely a word, but I’d like to give you the courtesy of explaining what’s going on,” he said gently. “May I?”

She said nothing, and with a look of indignation, nodded once. She heard the words roll from his mouth in softly spoken latin. When he had finished, he sat back and sighed with relief. Nothing had happened. The room fell into a hush that was characterised only by the sniffling of Beatrice Larkin.

“Mother,” Frances said with a new found interest in Muldoon, powered by annoyance. “Leave us, please.”

Beatrice stopped immediately and looked at the Inspector, who said “it’s all right, Mrs Larkin. She can’t hurt me.”

“I’ll be right outside, Inspector.”

The sobbing resumed on the other side of the closed door. Frances rolled her eyes in irritation.

“Speak candidly, Inspector,” she said, coughing slightly as the air caught the back of her throat again. “Why were you brought here?”

Muldoon thought for a moment, and spoke softly. “There are those close to you who want you to be well, Frances. They worry that there are forces of evil contributing to your current state of being.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Bravo.”

“I read your letters, Mrs Bryant. They were meant for—”

“John!” Her face brightened immediately, as the mention of his name forced a rush of blood through the top layer of her skin. “Where is he?”

Muldoon shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know, Mrs Bryant.”

He watched her tragically sink back into a malaise and look away. “I am in hell, aren’t I?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then why are you here?” she snapped. “Why are you sticking that crucifix in my face?”

“I… I had to rule it out—”

“Distrust.”

Muldoon, taken aback by the accusation, found his face flush with the heat of embarrassment. “Procedure, Mrs Bryant. There are things about this situation that… they cannot be explained. I thought that, perhaps—”

“Perhaps I’m evil instead of mad!”

“If you’d let me finish, Mrs Bryant…” Muldoon said sternly. “I could explain.”

Her eyes widened. “Forgive me. I am out of practice.”

“Well,” Muldoon put the crucifix away, “now that we understand each other, perhaps we can solve this mystery. What do you think?”

“It depends,” she said, licking her visibly dry lips.

Muldoon looked at the ties and back to her face. “Depends on what?”

“Whether you believe me.”

“Let’s start again. I’m inspector Muldoon and I am here to help you. I promise to listen to everything you tell me. I am here to review the case. I am not the judge. How’s that?”

For the first time, she smiled. He spied a glint in her eye: hope. “I’ve seen her too, Frances,” he said reassuringly.

Frances remained still, as though he had asked her to freeze so that he could paint her portrait. “You have?”

“Yes. I’ve seen Mary, Frances.”

“Where did you see her?”

“On the stairs. Where do you see her?”

“Everywhere.”

“Could you—?”

They were interrupted by an abrupt knock on the door. Muldoon stood up and waited for the door to open. Frances watched in terror as a doctor’s bag appeared, followed by Dr Swinson and Beatrice, who had finally stopped crying.

“Good morning!” The old man beamed as he reached out a hand for Muldoon. “I’m Dr Swinson. Mrs Bryant is due for her medication and, as it was rather quiet in the surgery this morning, I thought I’d pop in and see to her before my afternoon house calls.”

Muldoon looked from the doctor to Frances. “Of course, Doctor. May I ask how long this appointment will take?”

“As long as it needs to!” Swinson said. Both men stared at one another for a second before Swinson broke into jovial laughter, rubbing his round belly for added measure. Muldoon laughed along nervously and looked back at Frances. He didn’t know her well enough to read her, but he knew people, and the arrival of Dr Swinson certainly didn’t warrant a smile.

The doctor walked over to the sideboard, opened his bag and started to rummage for his apparatus when Muldoon heard a sharp whisper come from Frances. He attentively went to her and leaned in to listen.

“When you said those latin words… what was that?” she asked, her eyes darting to the doctor who was still busy with his bag.

“A prayer to St Michael, to protect you from evil.”

She looked at him and smiled. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

***

Muldoon left the room and loitered on the landing, caught between descent for a cigarette break or ascent to further investigate. The decision was made for him when he heard the heavy footsteps of a child running around upstairs, but something in the guest room drew his attention. He thought he saw a shadow pass across the open doorway.

Draping his jacket on the bannister, he crept slowly toward the open door of the other bedroom. “Hello?” he asked, poking his head into the room. The bed in the centre of it was neatly made with a delicate crochet lace blanket brightening the plum-coloured aesthetic. It was more modest than the master bedroom, with a single wardrobe and a smaller mahogany dresser in the corner, but his eyes darted to the dressmaker’s dummy in front of the window. He wondered if the straw-stuffed body was the cause of the shadow, and looked around again. Like the other rooms, this one also had a chest at the foot of the bed. He checked to see if anyone was behind him and knelt down in front of it. It was far more ornate than the ones belonging to the servant’s quarters, with a heavier lid. Just as he was about to unlock the clasp, he heard gurgling and let go. The curtain twitched slightly in the corner of his eye. He went to it, and paused for a moment, staring at the chintz fabric for more movement. Grabbing the edge, he swiftly pulled it back. Nothing. He did notice that the window was open slightly, and realising that it must have been a draft, closed it. The gurgling sound continued, this time from under the bed. Like a snake charmer approaching a wild cobra, he approached the edge of the bed with caution, and got down on his hands and knees. He held his breath and pulled the cover up. Nothing. He sighed a breath of relief and hung his head for a second.

Returning to the chest, he unlocked the clasp and lifted it.

Muldoon gasped at the sight of blood; his own ran cold. Everything in the box was soaked in fresh, copper-scented scarlet. His eyes moved up from the drenched linens and that’s when he saw it. The eyes of the dead woman met his. He froze: it was the face he had seen the night before. Her neck gaped open, slashed viciously. He could do nothing but stare into her lifeless eyes until he felt her hands reach up and grab his collar. Her pale, dead lips moved up and down, akin to a landed fish, in a desperate attempt to speak. He fell backwards, freeing himself from her desperate grasp.

Rubbing his eyes, he scrabbled up from his position and looked again at the chest: only clothes, jewellery and shoes rested where he had just seen a woman in red, horribly contorted and looking right at him. “Jesus,” he sighed. “You're in my head, girl.”

He sat for a short while on the floor, looking directly at the chest that just minutes before, had a woman crawling out of it, intent on grabbing his attention. Her neck came to mind as he remembered the words I have the razor now. “Where are you, Mary?” he asked quietly. The sound of footsteps upstairs compelled him to forget about the box, stand up and continue with the investigation.

The Spider- Chapter 18-19

As part of the investigation, Muldoon finally visits Frances Bryant.

18

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