‘Macadam, you and I will search the area for evidence.’
‘What are we looking for exactly, sir?’
Quinn angled his head sharply. He looked down at the woman. Dr Casaubon still held the folded handkerchief in place over her wound. Quinn felt a strong urge to ask to see the empty socket again, and was trying to work out a way he might justify such a request on the grounds of the investigation.
The woman’s groans increased in volume and frequency. Casaubon glanced up uneasily. ‘I fear the worst if we do not get her to a hospital soon. She has suffered a tremendous shock. The effect on her nervous system, not to mention her heart, we cannot conjecture. She is only a woman, after all.’
‘Help him,’ Quinn ordered Bittlestone and the other man. They sprang forward and crouched down to hold her under her armpits. Quinn watched as they struggled to lift the lifeless woman to her feet, the doctor still trying to cover the wound with his handkerchief, which had somehow managed to retain its pristine, white crispness.
‘Won’t you help us?’ demanded Bittlestone.
‘I have work to do.’ Quinn narrowed his eyes as if it pained him to say this. But really he did not see why it should take more than three men to get the young woman into the hansom. She was of slight build, and the walk to the cab on Charing Cross Road was only about fifteen yards.
At that moment, the lights in the shop window went out, plunging the narrow passage into semi-darkness. ‘Damnation. Get them to switch the lights back on, will you, Macadam. And talk to all the businesses along here to see if there were any witnesses to the attack. Someone must have seen something.’
As always, Macadam was quick to obey.
The woman had partially revived and was able to take faltering steps with the help of the three men attending to her. Quinn noticed that one of her hands was tightly clenched. The other one splayed tensely, as if to push against her assailant.
‘One moment. I will help you.’ Quinn took the clenched hand in one of his, while stroking her knuckles soothingly. Her single eye looked into his face uncomprehendingly. He felt her fist tighten in his hand.
They walked her slowly towards the cab. Quinn had his back to the direction of travel, keeping his gaze fixed on her eye. As they neared the Charing Cross Road end of the alley, he cast a glance back over his shoulder, just at the moment a boisterous crowd was rounding the corner. At their head was Porrick, still carrying the Yorkshire terrier. The dog was perched in his arms, its head cocked in an angle of entitlement, the gleam of latent aggression in its nasty little black eyes. As soon as it saw Quinn, it started yapping.
The rest of the party was made up of the other film people and their entourage. Waechter appeared to be in jubilant mood; he had his arms around his two principal actors and was singing in German at the top of his lungs. All seemed to be affected by nervous stimulation of some kind. They might not have been blotto – yet – but they had the air of those who were determined to become so, and as quickly as possible.
They appeared intent on revelry. Quinn could only assume that they had not heard about the attack.
He had less than a second to take all this in. For in less than a second Porrick had collided with him, pushing him into the woman he was guiding. She let out a sharp scream, more of surprise than pain. He felt her grip relax. Something passed from her hand to his.
In the commotion, the dog jumped out of its master’s arms and ran off, with a blast of high-pitched yelps that sounded like the canine equivalent of bad language. ‘Scudder! Scudder!’ cried Porrick. ‘Heel! Heel now! Come on, boy.’
Quinn glanced quickly into his hand. A piece of card lay crumpled and balled in his palm, damp and flaky with sweat. He looked up to see Waechter considering the wounded woman with a look that was, for the time being, impossible to interpret. It seemed to hint at some kind of affinity – a recognition of kindred bonds. But perhaps there was more to it than that.
Some instinct made Quinn watch the dog. The animal ignored all commands, but did at least stop barking. He was sniffing the air with the serious concentration of a concert pianist about to perform, having apparently picked up a scent. After a moment, he trotted away purposefully, oblivious to what was expected of him, aware only of the scent, and his own need to get to the bottom of it.
Just then the lights in the shop came back on. The dog’s pace quickened, he gave one happy yelp and then pounced on something. He turned proudly, his head high to show what he had caught.
Held between his jaws, pointed out at them, was a single human eye.
There were screams. A woman fainted. Someone else was sick.
Quinn rushed towards the dog. ‘Come on now. Drop it. There’s a good boy!’
But the dog just curdled a snarl in the back of his throat.
Quinn appealed to the owner. ‘You – Mr Porrick, isn’t it?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can you get him to surrender it?’
‘I don’t know … I … He is a very wilful creature.’
‘You must have some control over him!’
‘He likes his treats.’ Porrick held out a dog biscuit. ‘Come on, Scud. Drop it now. There’s a good Scudder boy.’
The dog cocked his head from one side to the other as he made his calculations. He evidently realized that the man very much wanted the interesting object he had in his mouth. More than he himself wanted a dog treat. And for that reason, he decided to hold on to the object. This was power beyond his size. He was not going to give it up easily.
Quinn drew his revolver and pointed it at the dog. ‘If he will not give up the eye, I will be forced to put him down.’ There were cries of horror. ‘I am a policeman,’ he added, somewhat superfluously.
Porrick pleaded with his dog. ‘Come on, old chap. Give it up, give it up now.’
Quinn released the safety catch on his gun.
‘You can’t! You can’t do that!’ cried Porrick. He desperately scattered a handful of dog treats on the ground in front of Scudder. ‘Look boy! Delicious treats!’
It took the intervention of a third party to induce the dog to comply. Eloise startled them all by bending down and inserting a finger behind the eye, which was held at the front of the animal’s jaws. The finger induced the gag reflex, releasing the eye. She deftly seized the dog and handed it back to Porrick, leaving Quinn to retrieve the valuable piece of evidence, which he wrapped in his handkerchief.
When he turned back to face the Charing Cross Road end of the alley, he noticed that the waiting hansom was no longer there. The woman whose eye he was holding had gone, together with the mysterious Dr Casaubon and the man who had first raised the alarm.
PART TWO
Money
NINETEEN
‘Must you insist on carryin’ that blarsted thing around with you?’ The question was asked by the lady with the spreading bosom. Porrick’s wife, Edna, it turned out. Her manner was naturally imperious, though her accent betrayed her origins. She had the look of a woman who believed that everyone else in the world was there to facilitate her comfort and convenience. It would not be long before she started giving him orders. She could not be an easy woman to be married to, he speculated. Uppity, was the word that came to mind.
They were in the offices of Visionary Pictures, the premises next to the kinematographic equipment shop. They had been admitted by a bald man with a drooping handlebar moustache, who had turned up shortly after the main group of film people. Soon after his arrival on the scene, Quinn spotted Inchball walk past the end of Cecil Court. His sergeant gave the most minimal of signals in the direction of the newcomer.