The Dark Palace

‘One of her eyes was forcibly removed from her head.’

‘The newspaper said that, did it?’

‘The woman in question was taken from the scene – it was assumed to hospital – by a man who claimed to be a doctor. Indeed, he gave his name – to me – as Doctor Casaubon. That is why I have come to see you today.’

‘You believe I was the doctor who took her away?’

‘No, it was not you. It was someone else. I apologize for wasting your time.’ But Qui

‘Rest a while. Before you press on with your investigation.’

‘I don’t have time.’ Qui

‘There is always time to tend to the needs of the soul.’

‘It was after my father died,’ said Qui

‘Your father’s death affected you badly?’

‘The inquest verdict was death by misadventure. But there were rumours that he took his own life. That was certainly what my mother believed.’

‘And you did not?’

‘Not then.’

‘And now?’

‘There’s a man, who claims he knows the truth about my father’s death. I … I ran away from him, from finding out the truth. I had always thought of myself as a seeker of the truth. And yet, when presented with the opportunity to find out the one thing that I most desired to know, I … ran away.’

‘If you don’t know the truth, you can make it be whatever you want it to be.’

‘They write about me in the newspapers.’

Qui

‘They have begun to call me Quick-Fire Qui

‘How does that make you feel?’

‘I don’t like it.’ But Qui

‘There is no truth in it?’

‘No … well, it is true that some of the suspects I have hunted over the years have … died at my hands. But it has been necessary. These are invariably dangerous men. I have a duty to protect the public, and my men.’

‘And yourself.’

‘Is that so wrong?’

‘Not wrong at all. You do what you have to do.’

‘But today, I thought … on the way here to see you … the thought occurred to me … What if I kill them for the same reason that I ran from this man? Because I don’t want to know the truth. I am afraid of the truth! After all these years in the force!’

There was a long pause. Eventually Dr Casaubon coughed, as though in some embarrassment. ‘You really are a policeman, aren’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘I believe I can help you. If you wish to be helped.’

‘I don’t need that kind of help.’

‘And yet you came here today.’

‘As part of my investigation.’

‘Of course. That’s how the unconscious works. It always provides a plausible specious reason – a rational explanation – alongside the true reason.’

‘What are you saying? I had no idea what kind of doctor you were before I came here. And I had no control over what name that man last night would give. My unconscious has played no part in bringing me here.’

‘I wasn’t talking about your unconscious especially. The world has an unconscious, you know. You may call it God, if you wish. Although sometimes it seems more like the Devil. In point of fact, it is both. In psychoanalysis, opposing forces are reconciled. The polarity of good on the one hand and evil on the other becomes resolved into a unity in which both good and evil coexist. For instance, it was undoubtedly an evil that this poor girl was attacked. And yet some good has come of it. It has led you here to me, and perhaps to your psychic salvation.’

‘It’s just a coincidence.’

Dr Casaubon chuckled, as if the notion of a coincidence was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. ‘The unconscious is cu

‘With respect, Doctor, this all sounds like mumbo-jumbo.’

‘Yes. That is how you feel about it now. I expect you will change your mind. At any rate, you have found me once. You may find me again.’

In the shadowed gloom of the doctor’s surgery, Qui

THIRTY-FOUR

Qui

‘There’s been a development, sir. They’ve found her. A girl with one eye missing. We’re to go to an address in Soho. Shall I fetch the Ford?’

‘How … how is she?’

‘She’s dead, sir. It’s a body they’ve found.’

Of course, he had known right from the start that that was what Macadam would say. He knew it as soon as he saw that gleam in his eye.

PART THREE

Death

THIRTY-FIVE

Qui

His encounter with the second Dr Casaubon had u

And now it seemed possible, if not likely, that this man was her attacker come to finish off what he started. If he had been wearing a mask at the time of the attack – a devil’s mask perhaps, in keeping with the woman’s insistence that she had been attacked by the devil – she would not have recognized him. Even more chillingly, perhaps he was a second predatory individual. One more violent than the original attacker, one drawn to the acts of horror that others had initiated, but prepared to take them to their ultimate conclusion. Prepared, in other words, to kill, whereas the first attacker had only maimed.

Macadam drove them north to Dean Street. A couple of uniforms on the street signalled the door they were looking for. Inside, Qui

A door was open on to a small rented room. It was even darker in there than on the landing, as the curtains were still drawn from the night before. Hard to see what was what, especially as a wall of burly backs filled the threshold, screening the scene of crime from Qui

Macadam took umbrage at this cluster of detectives from the local Great Marlborough Street nick. ‘What’s all this? Come on, out of the way, out of the way! Don’t you lot know anything about forensics? You can’t go clodhopping all over the place like this.’