The Osiris Ritual

Chapter Thirteen

Arbury House, Regent's Park, was exactly the kind of respectable, middle-class address that Newbury expected a successful bachelor such as Wilfred Blake to keep. It was a large, austere building, a Georgian edifice: square, with tall sash windows and a feature entrance. It was, Newbury considered, a fine example of the less ostentatious architecture of a time that had now passed.

These days, it was difficult to avoid the horrors of the neo-gothic, and one risked facing gargoyles and other grotesques at every turn.

Clearing his throat, Newbury examined the row of brass address plaques on the wall, and then rapped the knocker with three sharp bursts. He stepped back onto the street, awaiting the attention of the doorman.

To the casual passer-by, Arbury House had the air of a large townhouse about it, but on closer inspection it became apparent that the house was in fact divided into a number of smaller -but no less desirable – apartments. Wilfred Blake, Newbury gleaned from the address plaques, had taken up residence in apartment number six.

Newbury waited for a moment longer, and then stepped forward and rapped the knocker again.

This time he called out. "Hello?" There was no response. "Hel o?" Shrugging to himself, Newbury tried the handle. It turned. He pushed the door open, surprised by the weight of it, and stepped inside, clicking it carefully shut behind him.

If the exterior of the house had seemed impressive, the hal way proved even more so. The foyer was expansive and well lit by a series of large sash windows in the south wall. The afternoon light spilled through these in long, lazy shafts, picking out the dust motes that swirled chaotically in the air. The floor was tiled in black and white Minton, and a huge staircase curled up to the next floor, and beyond. It was startlingly quiet, save for the barely audible strains of someone playing a violin elsewhere in the building. There was no sign of any doorman.

Newbury searched around. He could see the stairway to the basement levels, and doors to apartments one to five. Blake's residence was obviously on the first floor. He took to the stairs, admiring the portraits that lined the wall as he climbed. The people represented there were obviously members of the owner's family, going back, he guessed, over a hundred years. Their baleful faces watched him as his footsteps rang out on the marble steps.

The first floor landing was a mirror image of the hallway below. The staircase continued up to a second floor, and a series of doors, all painted royal blue, suggested that the floor plan of the apartments on this level matched precisely those of the apartments beneath. Newbury crossed the landing towards the door marked with a brass number "6". A few feet from the door, however, he stopped short. From the angle of his approach he could see that the door had been left slightly ajar.

Stepping carefully across the landing, walking on the balls of his feet to ensure that his footsteps were not heard, Newbury edged closer to the door. He stopped just before the threshold, hovering in the hal way. The door stood open by just a couple of inches, but it was enough to cause Newbury to hesitate. Why would Blake have left the door open in such a manner? More likely, an intruder wanted to ensure a quick getaway without the need to fumble with a lock. He put his head close to the opening and listened. There were sounds of someone moving around inside: papers being shuffled, drawers being opened.

What if someone had broken into Blake's apartment? Newbury realised he would have to tread carefully. He was unarmed and alone, and he hadn't told anyone where he was going that afternoon.

If he found himself in a difficult spot, he'd only have his wits to get him out of it.

There was a gust of sharp, cold air from along the hallway, and Newbury stepped back from the door, glancing to his left. Along the landing, past the row of doors that led to the other apartments on this floor, was a large window. This window, he assumed, looked out over the back of the house and the streets below. The netting that covered the window was bil owing luxuriously in the breeze.

Someone had lifted the sash.

Taking care not to make any sounds, Newbury walked to the end of the landing and examined the window frame and ledge, holding the netting back from the frame with his right hand. It was far too cold for someone to have opened the window for air. He ran his other hand around the frame, looking for signs that it may have been forced from the outside. It didn't appear to have been forced, and the catch was perfectly intact.

Holding on to his hat so as not to lose it to a sudden gust, Newbury leaned out over the window ledge. To his surprise, the drop on the other side was only a few feet, terminating on a small roof terrace that must have been accessible from one or more of the apartments themselves. Beyond that, the building was buttressed by a number of other, single-storey buildings, with only a network of thin al eyways between them. If someone planned to use this window as an escape route – or, indeed, a makeshift entrance – it would not have been difficult to get away over the rooftops and from there, down into the relative anonymity of the backstreets of Regent's Park. He considered climbing down to take a better look. He glanced back in the direction of Blake's apartment. He was conscious of the fact that there was stil someone poking around inside, and it wouldn't do to let them get away unchal enged. The window could wait. The likelihood was that whoever was in the apartment – assuming it wasn't Blake himself – was responsible for opening the window anyway.

Newbury crept back to the door to apartment number six. Steeling himself, he gently pushed on the open door, hoping that the creak of the hinges wouldn't betray his presence to the person inside. He realised he was holding his breath as he tried not to make a sound. The door caught a little on the deep pile of the wine-coloured carpet on the other side, but Newbury was able to side-step into the hal way beyond.

The apartment appeared to be well furnished and clean. The hallway comprised a long corridor, with three doors stemming off it and a small table just behind the door, its surface covered with a scattering of unopened letters. The first thing that struck Newbury, however, was the rank stench.

An all-pervasive odour of rotten meat and decay filled the hallway, assaulting his nostrils and causing bile to rise in his throat. He knew immediately the source of that smell. Ashford. He must be the one in the other room.

Newbury edged along the hallway, staying close to the wall. He could see into the room at the far end of the corridor, which appeared to be a kitchen. He paused, listening for sounds of movement. Just as before, it was clear that someone was rifling through Blake's belongings, in the room just behind where Newbury was standing, his back to the wal. It must have been the drawing room.

Newbury moved across the hal, switching sides so that he was facing the door into the drawing room, his back protectively to the wal on the other side. He shuffled a little closer, until he could see through the open doorway into the room beyond. From the angle he'd achieved, he had a fairly good view of the back half of the room. There was a large, cold fireplace, stark in its simplicity, a large mirror in a gilt frame over the hearth, a busy mantelpiece covered in photographs and statuettes, and the corpse of Wilfred Blake, sprawled messily on the floor. Newbury almost gasped aloud. Blake was still dressed in his evening wear, a black suit and white shirt. But the white shirt was spattered with a spray of dark, arterial blood, turning it a dirty crimson. More of it had pooled on the floor beneath his head, matting the back of his hair. His face was turned so that Newbury could see the gaping, silent mouth and the milky eyes which had rol ed back in their sockets. His throat had been cut, roughly, with a blunt blade. His body was surrounded by scattered papers and Ancient Egyptian artefacts which had been cast unceremoniously to the floor during the kil er's frantic search. This time, Newbury mused, there hadn't been time for ceremony. Blake, unlike Winthrop, hadn't even been given that honour.

Newbury felt his ire rising. The person on the other side of the wal – Ashford, he was sure – was pacing back and forth. Newbury knew from his brief encounter with Ashford that he was a big powerhouse of a man, but Newbury had the element of surprise. He hoped that would be enough.

He had no idea what Dr. Fabian may have done to upgrade Ashford's rebuilt body, but he was certain he was about to find out.

Quietly, Newbury removed his hat, placing it on the floor beside him. He flexed his neck and shoulder muscles. Then, before he allowed himself time to reconsider, he pushed away from the wall, propelling himself forward into the drawing room to face Ashford, and, quite possibly, the fight of his life.