Friday 16th May 1879: The Coffee House

After a restless sleep, this morning I finally paid my visit to Detective Inspector Clement, as requested by Superintendent Williamson—‘Dolly’—some days ago.

I was summonsed mid-morning as we prepared the Coffee House for the days activities (including Mr Chan’s visit at midday). A very nervous young Constable fumbled his way through ‘ordering’ me to Scotland Yard forthwith, and, after some light flirting that caused the young fellow to blush redder than a beet, I was escorted to Clement.

A handsome younger man with sandy hair and tidy moustache, looking slightly confused

Detective Inspector Clement

It was immediately obvious that he was in no mood for japes—he had his serious face on from the moment I walked into his room. He gruffly asked me to take a seat and ordered coffee, which I had no intention of drinking but thought it would be fun to watch him fume as I let it go to waste.

As it turned out that would not have been possible. Under some pretence of anger, Clement slammed my coffee to the table in front of me, smashing the crockery into so many pieces. Much to his frustration I sensed what was coming and stepped daintily out of the path of the explosion of lukewarm liquid, leaving him rather covered and myself still spotless. It was most satisfactory!

His line of enquiry started with questions regarding the O’Hara family, and rapidly devolved into baseless accusations that he threw with the clear intent of trapping me. “Isn’t it rather a coincidence, Ms Harrow (oh how he detested using Ms instead of Miss!), that you just so happened to be at the séance where the only suspect in the murder of the O’Hara’s was herself killed?!” he tried. “Tell me the truth, Ms Harrow: how did you kill her!” he prodded. “What did you stand to gain?” he struggled.

It was child’s play to parry and retaliate each attack, and before long the poor man was a slumped and disconsolate mess. He eventually confessed to being entire confused: “I know there is a link, I am sure of it, but I cannot for the life of me solve the riddle!” He had nothing, and found out nothing more from me.

I, on the other hand, discovered several things that were new. It seemed indisputable that Jessica had indeed murdered both her parents—I still shudder at the disturbance in her mind that must have driven her to such acts. Clement informed me that she had lived there for fully three weeks with the bodies already in the coal-loader. Imagine! How could she stand it, knowing her very parents lay dead at her hands only a matter of feet away. Jessica dismissed all the stuff, bar the housekeeper, Mrs Buckle. I must tell the gentlemen of this, and the Baron I suppose, as she may be of great interest—what did she know, and did she hide it?

Secondly, Clement was convinced that something untoward—murder most foul—had occurred at Blackburn Lodge. He would not accept my repeated claims that lightning strikes and subsequent fire had caused everything (amusingly he said that the lightning strike seemed highly unlikely, to which I re-joined that isn’t that the case with all lightning? Clement was all at sea by this point!). In any case he eventually settled on a plan to make enquires as to the state of the bodies found in the ruins of the house. I made a note to pass this on to Silas: surely the bodies were destroyed in the flames? If not, there could be some explaining to do when the discovered Jessica dead by gunfire. My gunfire.

He said the Abernathy case was outside his jurisdiction, but he intended to make enquiries of Detective Inspector Hamlin of the Thames Valley Police. If there was any moment I may have wavered it was this, but Clement did not notice and I took my leave with him none the wiser. “Always a pleasure, Detective Inspector,” I smiled graciously, and he was good enough to accept defeat with equal magnanimity. “I look forward to seeing you again,” he bowed. I wonder…

Some hours later I welcomed Silas and Mr Blackwood to the Coffee House for our interview with Mr Chan. Mr Blackwood was kind enough to bring me flowers and a selection of dried fruits—delicious, and most kind, but still a most peculiar man. Daphne was nowhere to be seen, even some minutes later, so we retired to a dining room and awaiting the great magician. Eunice prepared Mr Blackwood’s flowers for the table and took everyone’s orders.

An oriental man with narrow dangling moustache and goatee, wearing a top hat and black robe

Mr Chan arrived in good time and I introduced Silas and Mr Blackwood. Mr Chan also had an offsider, who he introduced as Mr Wing. He was a very diminutive gentleman, also from the Orient. Mr Wing introduced himself without words, producing instead a flower from his sleeve when Mr Blackwood knelt to introduce himself. Delightful!

After some light flattery we got down to the business of Foedemere. Daphne was still in absentia, so I led the initial questioning. I apologised in advance for having to ask a magician about secrets (Mr Chan quickly confirmed that the Circle of Magicians never rat on each other: it goes against their principles), assuring Mr Chan we were not interested in his own magical wonders, but we were extremely interested in what a great magician such as himself made of Doctor Foedemere’s trick.

The look of scorn that flashed over Mr Chan’s face told me everything. “Doctor Foedemere not member of Magic Circle,” he huffed, clearly put out. “He appear only year ago, whisper say he from Sweden, and has had most profound rise to prominence.” All of which supported my suspicion that Foedemere’s act was a sham. This was all interesting fodder, but what we wanted to know was the mechanics of the mirror.

Before we could probe further who should burst into the room but Daphne, more than fashionably late. He was bursting at the seams. “She said yes!” he thundered with great import, before tossing fresh oranges to all present. Mr Wing plucked his out of the air with serpent’s swiftness, and was soon making it spin and vanish, much to Daphne’s delight. “Oh I like him!” he buffooned loudly. “Are you from the Orient? China? My father owns one third of China, I think?” Oh Daphne.

We weren’t to discover until later who ‘she’ was, but Daphne then surprised us all further by speaking Cantonese to Mr Wing! I’m not sure what he said, and he got no verbal response, but Mr Wing was clearly thrilled.

Eventually we got back on track. Mr Chan explained that he and Mr Wing both had theories to explain it. He had only seen it once, as on subsequent visits it was made very clear to him by Foedemere’s hired help—Quill and Sayers, he named them—that Mr Chan was not welcome at the performance. “And same for all London magicians,” Mr Chan said with a raised eyebrow.

Mr Chan’s theory was the same as mine: a double was employed to step from the second mirror. “Choreography is quick remarkable,” Mr Chan admitted, and he also admitted that, like me, explaining how someone could hide in the narrow gap between curtain and mirror was hard to explain. “But if we see mirror, we know answer,” he hinted.

When we asked what Mr Wing’s theory was, he merely burst into a string of Cantonese (I think?) and laughter. Mr Chan was good enough to translate: “Mr Wing think it simple case of economics.” I was at a loss to understand, but Daphne came to the rescue: if we find out how the trick is done, Mr Chan and Mr Wing will buy the trick off us! Mr Wing seemed to find this hilarious, laughing as he peeled open his orange to reveal the contents already segmented, much to Daphne’s amusement. So impressed was he that he insisted Mr Wing be present at his next party, cost no object.

The magicians eventually took their leave with much bowing from them and praise from us—and another burst of Cantonese from Daphne, who watched both carefully as he spoke: I could see he suspected something wasn’t quite kosher, but I don’t know what. Mr Chan had a special farewell for Silas, with whom he had been discussing the magic of sword swallowing and lady-sawing, which we all enjoyed greatly: “Man who swallows sword cannot have too many doctors,” Mr Chan smiled. Silas was very pleased to receive such rare Oriental wisdom!

As we settled for a real coffee, Daphne entertained us with his tale of love. It turned out his adventures with Miss Susanna Thompson were not over yet! He had received a handwritten note this morning from the same, announcing that she would he pleased to receive him as a caller the following day, Saturday 17. “She signed it with a kiss and it was perfumed!” he crowed triumphantly. It was hard to stop Daphne’s patter, so excited was he, but we eventually managed to turn to other matters.

Silas explained to us that he had been unexpectedly met by Dolly when he arrived at his rooms yesterday. It turned out that the Superintendent wanted Silas to perform an autopsy on the bodies of Mr and Mrs O’Hara. My stomach turned at the thought—they had been dead for three weeks, surely there was nothing left? But apparently the bodies had preserved surprisingly well in the coal, and kept on ice ever since being discovered.

Dr Hawthorne also simultaneously received a letter he received from the Baron, reminding him that he should only look for ‘mundane’ causes of death—the implication being anything supernatural was to be kept from the official record. It appeared Superintendent Dolly was also of this mind, slapping Silas on the shoulder as he departed with a knowing nod: “Good to you on the team…”

Curiously, DI Clement was present in the operating room when Silas prepared, and observed the entire procedure. This was well before he saw me the following morning, for reasons that became obvious as Silas went on.

Thankfully Silas didn’t go into too many details regarding his work. He found that Mrs O’Hara had been killed by ‘blunt force trauma’ to the head over a wide area, she had a broken neck and ankle, and there was the remains of plaster in her hair. In other words she had been bodily thrown into a wall or ceiling, killing her and breaking her neck. Her ankle was either from falling from the ceiling or being tossed into the coal-loader. Horrible visions of Jessica bodily lifting Mr Blackwood flooded my memory.

Mr O’Hara was no better. Silas described how there were no external injuries, other than a deep discolouration of the chest cavity. He opened the body (I hate to even imagine this, I do not know how Silas manages! He did mention that he himself had developed the procedure to cut a chest in this way, wanting to name it the ‘Hawthorne cut’, but was overruled to the far more boring ‘Y section’) to find Mr O’Hara’s heart, and here I quote, was ‘pulped’. Again I tried my best not to think too hard on this.

Silas told us his official report was simple enough: that Mrs O’Hara appeared to have been killed by force, and Mr O’Hara died shortly after of heart failure. This seemed simple enough, but apparently Clement wanted more.

“So no sign of foul play on him, but the missus? Murder?”

Silas assented this was a possibility, given the force of the blow.

“And he just happened to die at the same time?”

Here Silas explained that the shock of finding his wife dead by unknown hand and in a state of bodily disarray would be quite enough to stop a man’s heart on the spot.

“That seems like a mighty coincidence,” Clement accused, “And we have a saying here in CID—”

“—that there’s no such thing as a coincidence?” Silas finished, to a scowl from Clement. Bravo Dr Hawthorne! That was the second time today Clement had been bettered by our small company.

It was here that proceedings took an unexpected turn, one that explained Clement’s attitude toward me this morning. From out of the blue he asked Silas: “how well do you know Ms Harrow”!? Silas was momentarily at a loss for words, before explaining he had been an associate for quite some time, and latterly a friend. Clement pressed on with his fanciful theory, strongly implying that I had some hand in the elder O’Hara’s deaths!

Silas scoffed at this presumption, explaining that I was in no way strong enough to have brutalised Mrs O’Hara as she was (I am stronger than Silas may know, but not that strong, I concede). “She’s the kind of woman who has friends,” Clement accused. Silas, to his credit, did not bite: “I’m not sure what you’re implying,” he said sternly, “And it is my professional opinion that you are barking up the wrong tree, building a house without foundations.” Clement was forced finally to back down. “Just trying to establish the facts, Doctor. I expect your full report forthwith.”

I was stunned by this turn of events, my coffee forgotten and cold in the cup. When I recovered my wits I recounted my adventures with Clement this morning, which now made more sense. He so desperately wanted a way to tie everything together and had landed on me, of all people, as the protagonist!

In any case, we agreed that the report from DI Hamlin was of immediate concern, but Silas had no way of intercepting or participating in any medical examination that far from London. So all we could do was wait—and wonder if Dolly and the Baron would manage to cover up any inconsistencies. I did voice my concern that we were following the Baron’s instruction to obfuscate matters rather blindly, and perhaps that was a mistake. Silas assured me that it was for the best that we should see how things unfolded before challenging anything, and I could see the logic in his words. For now.

At this point we realised we had very few leads and no concrete plan. Daphne’s mind who wholly occupied by what he would wear to his appointment with Miss Thompson, Mr Blackwood was busy scribbling in his ever present notebook, and Silas sat quietly enjoying his coffee.

In my aforementioned restless sleep I had dreamed another approach to uncovering the mystery of our mysterious mirrors, and now seemed the perfect time to discuss it.

“Gentlemen. It seems we have reached a dead end in our investigations. The Colopinto Brothers appear to be profiteers only, though undeniably talented. And Mr Chan is as much in the dark as we are as to Foedemere’s methods. Given this turn of events, I have two proposals for our next steps.

The first you already know: we conceal ourselves within the Dock Street theatre, break into the room where the mirrors are stored, and set about understanding their mechanism. It appears Mr Blackwood would be well suited to this latter task, being a man of obvious invention—your theatre glasses were quite something,” I added warmly. Mr Blackwood blushed appropriately, not used to receiving attention let along flattery from a woman, I suspect.

“It is too dangerous,” Daphne exclaimed, “And anyway I am busy.”

“Gideon Daphne is right, it will be no small task breaking into a London theatre,” Silas concurred.

“You are both quite incorrect,” I explained, “I assure you that break-ins happen every night and in every locale. Trust me on this. But if you find the risk as unpalatable as DI Clement’s coffee, I have a second proposal. One that will get us access to the mirrors with minimal chance of interruption.

As I have already expressed, I believe that Foedemere’s entire act is a clever charade designed for making profit. Daphne’s explanation of the good Doctor’s behaviour back stage made clear that he knows precisely what he is doing, providing excellent champagne and lavishing his prized attention on the cognoscenti in return for a slice of the Colopinto revenue. If I know that kind of man, and I do, he will look to increase his take wherever and whenever possible.

Thus I strongly suspect that the women chosen from the audience each evening have purchased that singular honour. I propose that we do the same.”

“You want one of us to be selected…” Silas said, light dawning on his face.

“Not me!” Daphne harumphed.

“No Daphne, me. Dr Hawthorne, being a respected man about town, will write Mr Foedemere and request that I be selected from the audience for the ‘prestige’, as I believe the magicians call it.”

“And what will you do if you are?” Mr Blackwood asked, entering the conversation in his random way.

“That is a question to be answered,” I nodded. “I see two options: one, I pull the curtains aside to reveal whatever Fodemere is hiding. Dramatic, but it will mean the performance will rapidly draw to a close as Fodemere’s thugs take action. The second, and the one I favour, is simpler and less likely to be stopped: instead of passing the written message through the mirror, I step through the mirror.”

“No Gideon,” Silas said immediately, “That is far too dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” I smiled. “Why Silas, I do believe you are starting to imagine the supernatural in every shadow! I fully expect that I will step into a solid glass pane, and the worst danger would be some slight bruising if I move too fast. You can’t seriously tell me you think these mirrors are a magical portal?”

Silas sighed. “Gideon I don’t know what I think.”

After some robust discussion it was agreed that the stage plan had greater appeal. We agreed that if Fodemere did not respond within a few days, we would revert to the break-in plan instead. Silas promised to write Fodemere, and later told me he wrote an appropriately apologetic letter (“I do not presume, and forgive my lack of grace, but if there is any way that my good friend could be selected from the audience on her birthday…").

We departed in good spirits with a plan in place. There was no point in doing anything before Daphne’s little adventure in any case, so we agreed to reconvene three days hence on Monday 19, unless circumstances changed. Perhaps Daphne would be engaged next time we saw him!