The Candlelit Coffin (Lady Fan Mystery Book 4)

by Elizabeth Bailey

  “Perkin said Truggery and Stowe sold bodies to the surgeons at the hospital in Dorchester.”

  “Very well, and so?”

  Ottilia smiled into the relative gloom as the last candle was extinguished. “I don’t know, Sybilla. A detail is nagging at me, but I cannot place it.”

  “Back to bed, my love.” Francis was at her side, setting an encouraging arm about her. “We’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

  Tired out, Ottilia slept. But she woke in the night and the missing piece of the puzzle had surfaced. How had she not recognised it before? The conversation with Hilde was days ago. The tiny fact slotted into place and her certainty grew. Only where was the proof?

  As Cecile was folding and packing the last of the costumes into the second of the two wicker trunks set in the rear of the stage, she was plagued with wistful question. Might George speak before she left for Poole? Unlikely, since he had not yet made an arrest. His soldiers, who were to go with them, had already arrived and were lounging about outside, awaiting the cavalcade’s departure.

  They would wait awhile. No one had told them how difficult it was to round up a set of players the night after a performance, when they must dress, breakfast and pack and were in general accustomed to make a song and dance about their preparations. Cecile had formed the habit of waking early, collecting her belongings together in her portmanteau and, with only a minimal meal since travel invariably made her unwell, to slip away to the theatre to pack up the costumes. She was relieved not to have Dulcie’s effects to deal with as Madame Ferdinand had seen to them after the funeral.

  She had already packed the costumes not in use in her leisure moments last night, but those strewn about the dressing rooms had to be stowed away. Wat and Aisling were also up early, whistling and chatting as they dismantled scenery and stashed it in the wagon.

  Aisling came up. “That one ready, is it, Cecily?”

  He nodded towards the other trunk, which she had already fastened and strapped.

  “That you may take, yes. This will be but a moment.”

  “Leave it, Ais,” called Wat, passing by on his way to the open dock doors where the wagon waited. “We’d best put them two in last. Hilde is bound to fret as there’s something missing and I don’t want to go clambering over everything to find it.”

  Wat being small, it was invariably he who had to work inside the wagon. Moreover, Cecile knew he was right. Despite her careful lists, which Hilde largely ignored, a last minute panic too often occurred.

  “I’ll get the props then.” With which, Aisling went off to fetch the smaller wicker basket into which he had already packed the books, quills, platters and other such articles as the players used on stage. He had just gone out to the wagon when a voice from the auditorium hailed Cecile.

  “Mademoiselle! I fancy these must be yours.”

  She turned to see the theatre manager approaching down one of the aisles, burdened with a dark bundle. Her consciousness of George’s suspicions of this man threw her pulse out of kilter, but she strove to appear normal as she moved to the front of the stage to meet him.

  “Oui, monsieur?”

  Fitzgerald’s dark-featured face wore its customary remote expression, overlaid with faint repulsion. “I found them in the foyer. Somewhat damp, I think you’ll find.”

  He dumped a pile of rumpled black material on the edge of the stage.

  “But I have all, monsieur, already in the basket.”

  He waved a hand at it. “Well, it’s got nothing to do with me. I checked. Some sort of cloak. There’s a hat wrapped up inside it. Oh, and a mask in the hat. It must belong with your costumes.”

  The words rang in Cecile’s mind and she felt as if the blood were draining from her head. A mask! This was the cloak and hat of the murderer. And Fitzgerald brought it to her.

  Coursing fear drove her to her knees. She set her hands on the bundle, her head woolly as she struggled to think what to do. She dare not show her realisation. He was standing there, watching her. If she gave so much as a hint of her thoughts, would he dispose of her too?

  She felt about the bundle, which was indeed damp, a stale aroma arising from its folds. Beyond wondering why that should be, Cecile came out with the only thing her mind presented to her.

  “In the foyer you say?”

  Her voice, to her combined surprise and relief, sounded steady enough, impersonal even.

  “Stuffed under a chair.” Fitzgerald was eyeing her in a way that sent a chill flying through Cecile’s veins. “You’d best look at them, hadn’t you? I assume you’ll know if they are part of the company’s effects.”

  “Yes, I will know.”

  She was riding on automatic, her mind twisting this way and that as she scrabbled with the bundle, trying to unravel it with fingers suddenly numb and unwieldy.

  Why did not he go? For what did he stay, watching her with those paralysing eyes? At any moment, Wat or Aisling would come back in. Or should she run to them now? But she must not. She must remain and keep Fitzgerald here. Get word to George. How? How?

  “It is a cloak,” she said unnecessarily as she rose with the bulk of material and shook it out. The hat fell out and rolled. The fatal three-cornered hat.

  Cecile dropped the cloak and grabbed for the hat. The mask lay on the stage floor. She stared at it, her limbs growing cold.

  “I told you,” came from Fitzgerald in a tone that filtered through to Cecile as mockery. “Lord knows why it should all be bundled up beneath a chair.”

  “It is that someone has borrowed it, I think,” Cecile dared, casting him a glance as he reached out a hand and picked up the mask.

  He twirled it by the strings, his eyes on hers. “For what purpose, I wonder? There has been no masquerade at the Assembly Rooms.”

  Oh, why did not Wat or Aisling come back in? What could she say now? He knew! He was playing with her.

  The thought gave her courage. She picked up the hat and felt it.

  “This also it is wet. I cannot put them in the basket.” She took up the cloak again and doubled it over her arm, and then held out her hand for the mask. “I will set all aside, monsieur, until they are again dry.”

  He did not hand it across. “Yes, but it’s odd, don’t you think? It was raining last night.”

  “C’est ça,” Cecile agreed, forgetting to use English under a stare that she fancied was growing baleful. “It must be that it was used last night.”

  “Just what I was thinking. But why? And by whom, do you think?”

  Cecile managed a shrug, though her breath felt tight in her chest. More to deflect him than anything else, she proffered the obvious. “One of the players, it seems.”

  “For what purpose?”

  Inspiration came. “Perhaps it is Jasper who has taken it. He likes to play tricks, that one. Sans doute he has a rendezvous with a — with a…”

  “With a prostitute? Or a married woman? That would explain the excessive disguise, you think?”

  Parbleu, but why must he torment her so? Was it to test her? Did he know she was in George’s confidence? Did he suspect she knew his guilt? Ah, it was enough!

  “Give to me the mask, monsieur. I must finish my task so the men may put these baskets in the wagon.”

  Fitzgerald held it out, a smile twisting his lips. “Take it. But if I were you, mademoiselle, I should be rid of those items altogether. They stink of sweat and mayhem.”

  Cecile took the mask with fingers that quivered despite all her effort to appear unconscious. Without doubt he knew just how these clothes had been used. Was it a threat? The mask dangling by its strings from her free hand, she watched him turn and walk up the aisle. She remained where she was, irresolute, as he vanished through the auditorium door.

  What to do? Once the manager was safely in his office, she might escape the theatre. And do what? Go in search of George? Or, no. Closer was the lodging of Madame Fan. She must take these things there without delay.

  She hear
d Aisling’s heavy step and breathed a little more easily. She was not alone.

  “Are you done now, Cecily? Wat and I want to finish and get to the coffee shop for a bite.”

  The ordinariness of his utterance served to calm her a little. She moved towards the trunks and met him there. “Oui, mon ami, it is finished.”

  His eyes fell on the articles she was holding. “Put them in and I’ll strap it for you.”

  Cecile’s heart missed a beat. She could not say the truth. “Ah, these have become wet. They cannot go in.”

  The big man’s brows flew up. “Wet? Dang me! Someone left ’em in the rain, did they?”

  “It seems so.” She dared say no more. In a bid to deflect him, she smiled. “It is good that you help me to close the trunk. These I will take elsewhere.” With which, she clutched the items closer to her and headed for the dock doors. George’s soldiers stood idly by, exchanging desultory conversation. Should she accost them? How would she explain? Did they know, these men, all that she knew? No, better she persist in her plan.

  She could hear Wat whistling from inside the waiting wagon as she slipped past, making her way to the noisome alley that ran along the back of the theatre and down the side to give access to the general frontage. Cecile hurried up the street, casting a fearful glance back at the theatre, hoping Fitzgerald was by now in his office and therefore unable to look through the foyer windows to see her running away, burdened with the evidence of his misdeeds.

  The Esplanade proved to be relatively free of people, though the salty tang was stronger after last night’s rain. At the back of Cecile’s feverous mind she thought the visitors must be at breakfast, the invariable practice once early morning dips were over. A few stragglers were coming in from the beach and several walkers strolled the grass verge.

  Head down, Cecile quickened her step, intent upon her mission. She failed to see an oncoming figure and almost slammed into it.

  If a pair of hands had not seized her shoulders, she would have come to grief.

  “Hold hard there, Cecily!”

  Steadied, she looked up. “Rob!”

  The actor released her, a frown leaping to his face as his eyes roved the items she carried. His gaze rose from them to hers and his expression became direful.

  “Lord in heaven! What the deuce are you doing with those?”

  Cecile drew back, clutching them tight against herself. “They are wet.”

  His eyes bored into hers. “Where are you taking them?”

  Confusion wreathed her brain. What was it to him? Why should he ask?

  Her heart lurched as the snaking truth slithered into her head. Not Monsieur Fitzgerald, no. But Rob! Rob was the killer.

  She saw his eyes change and knew she had given herself away. Instinct bade her to flee. Terror held her rooted. A hand bit into her arm as he seized her. His voice came, low and guttural.

  “Damn you to hell! You don’t ruin it for me now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  At breakfast, Ottilia’s appetite had deserted her, so strong was her conviction she had missed the obvious throughout, ignoring the little details that now made sense. She could not be still, rising yet again to tap impatient fingers on the mantel.

  A narrow look came her way from Francis, who was keeping watch from the window. “Stop fretting, Tillie. There’s nothing more you can do until George gets here.”

  Her spouse had needed no urging to send Tyler to the barracks first thing this morning with a note to the colonel relating the night’s events. Ottilia, acting on her jumping nerves, had despatched Hemp to watch the players’ lodging. Nevertheless, her heart misgave her. Had she gauged it right this time?

  “So stupid,” she muttered. “We almost allowed him to slip from the circle, going round and round with the others.”

  “You had no real reason to suspect him.”

  “I had every reason. Aside from Hilde saying he gave up his apprenticeship for the theatre, you spoke of Hemp saying he quacked the company when you related your discussions at Mrs Horniman’s and I did not pick it up then. Moreover, his wife and children live in Dorchester.” She drummed her fingers and gave out a mewl of frustration. “If you care to say I have been blind, you will not be wrong, Fan.”

  He crossed the room with swift steps and caught her by the shoulders.

  “I won’t let you do this. You were not yourself. You are still weak in body and it’s hardly surprising if it affected your mind.”

  “Oh, a poor excuse.”

  But she sighed and sank against him, taking the balm of his affection as of right as he held her close, stroking her back.

  A thunderous knocking on the front door made her pull away. “George!”

  Releasing her, Francis went to the door and flung it open, walking out to lean over the bannister. Ottilia, her pulse rippling, remained where she was, her mind flying over the pieces of the jigsaw she meant to present to George to convince him of the truth. Perhaps she was not so very much to blame after all, if she felt so great a need to turn him to her mind. Where it was so clear now, it had escaped them all these last days.

  “George, come up at once!”

  An indistinct response and voices in the hall below followed her husband’s command, but footsteps thumping up the stairs signalled the colonel’s presence. Francis could be heard ushering him along the gallery and Ottilia braced. The first sight of his face showed her a look both grim and determined. She spoke before he was well in the room.

  “George, I’m so sorry, but we had it all wrong. It is not Fitzgerald.”

  He gave a curt nod as he stepped up and his tone matched it. “I know. Sullivan discovered our man’s identity at the bawdy house last night. Robert Collins is a regular there.”

  Ottilia struck her hands together. “Why didn’t I think of that? He is in an unsatisfactory marriage, to say the least.”

  “We didn’t know about any bawdy house until yesterday, Tillie,” her spouse objected. “You need not berate yourself for that.”

  Ottilia paid no heed, her eyes on the colonel. “But you made no arrest last night, for the wretch came here as Fan told you, looking for the boy. Is there more, George?”

  His lips twisted in a quick smile and his grimness relaxed briefly. “Acute of you, Ottilia. It wasn’t enough on its own. Hetty Mason knew nothing more than that he took a room that night, and she could not swear to the date either, since he had done so often.”

  “You mean he was in the habit of taking women there?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Then have you come because of my note?” Francis cut in.

  “That and another I received this morning from Justice Shellow. Collins’s name came up when he was seeking help about the resurrection men from Keymer, the surgeon who runs the hospital at Dorchester.”

  “I knew it! Oh, I should have seen it before,” Ottilia said, agonised. “That is where he learned doctoring, before he took up acting. He gave up his apprenticeship.”

  Triumph entered George’s features. “He did not give it up. He was expelled for having dealings with gravediggers.”

  “Good God, then he did know them,” Francis exclaimed. “I dare say he knows that ghastly tavern as well as Jasper too.”

  “The Old Fiddler? Yes, it is known as an underworld haunt,” said George.

  “Do you mean to arrest him then?” Francis was crossing to the window. “Have you got your fellows outside?”

  “Sullivan is waiting for me downstairs in the hall. But Puckeridge and two of our fellows are already at the theatre, ready to go with the company to Poole.”

  “Yes, but they’re going nowhere today, I presume?”

  “I doubt it, though I’m expecting trouble from Ferdinand. They’ll none of them believe it.”

  Ottilia sighed. “One can scarcely blame them, for —”

  She was interrupted. Francis gave a sudden shout, leaning into the window embrasure.

  “What the devil’s afoot out there?�
�

  Ottilia looked across and George moved in that direction as her spouse turned his head to glance round.

  “It’s Hemp!”

  Alarm ran through Ottilia. “Then Rob is here!”

  Francis had turned back to the window. “Yes, but what the deuce should take Hemp to go careering off down the beach?” Then he swore. “Hell and the devil, he’s after Collins! George, look! Isn’t that Collins? Who’s he got with him?”

  Watching in bewilderment and question, Ottilia saw the colonel peer into the window. He cursed and straightened, the colour draining from his face.

  “He’s got Cecile!” He turned on the words, leaping for the doorway and crashing through, shouting for his lieutenant. “Sullivan, open the damned door!”

  Ottilia, her heart in her mouth, made to follow and found herself stopped by her husband, who seized her before she could reach the door, speaking over the top of the cacophony of shouting and footsteps belting down the stairs.

  “No, you don’t, Tillie! You’ll only be in the way and you haven’t the strength. Wait here!” With which, he shot through the door, adding to the thunder of running footsteps already on the cobbles outside. Ottilia went out into the gallery and came face to face with her mother-in-law, standing open-mouthed above the stairs. Sybilla had retired after breakfast to try and catch up on her sleep.

  “Has the whole place gone mad, Ottilia? What in the world is going on? Last night wasn’t enough of a disturbance? One might as well be living in Bedlam!”

  Ottilia wasted no words on refutation. “Robert Collins has captured Cecile.”

  Sybilla stared. “What? How?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  She gave a brief account of what she understood as she went back into the parlour and headed for the window, the dowager on her heels. She could see two flying figures in scarlet coursing down the beach, her spouse in hot pursuit, but Hemp and their quarry were now too distant to be fully made out.

  Sybilla raised a hand to shade her eyes from the sun as she too peered through the window. “Heavens above! Well, if nothing else, they are attracting a crowd of spectators.”