BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery)

by D. M. Mitchell

  The huge house was in darkness, not a single candle alight in any of the windows. As he came closer he heard a noise from the bushes and froze to the spot, aiming the pistol in the sound’s direction. A black, sweating horse hobbled into view, its white staring eyes fixing on Blackdown.

  He searched the undergrowth for any sign of its rider, but it appeared to have been tied to a tree and abandoned. Blackdown moved towards it, the creature shaking its head as he reached up to pat its glistening neck. He noticed how it kept its front hoof off the ground. It had been badly lamed, perhaps in its mad ride across the notoriously uneven ground. But he could not waste time on feeling pity for the beast, nor put a bullet in its brain to put it out of its misery. He fixed the house in his sights and silently stole across the gardens.

  Blackdown stopped dead when he spied something lying before the stone steps leading to the main entrance. Checking all around him, he bolted from the cover of trees and flattened his back against the wall to the house beside the lower windows. He crept stealthily along the wall till he could make out quite clearly what was lying on the gravel.

  It was a body.

  He listened. Not a sound. Was this some kind of trap? Ravenbard was here somewhere, there was no doubt. But where, and why?

  A couple of minutes passed as he searched for a hidden figure ready to pounce once he came out into the open, but in the end he decided it was safe enough to scuttle over to the body.

  The man was lying face down, dressed all in black save for his white stockings. There was a pool of blood beneath the head. His heart fell, for he knew who the man was before he turned him over.

  It was Reverend Bole.

  24

  To Blame a Ghost

  Tenderly, Blackdown turned Reverend Bole over. There was a gash on his forehead that wept blood, smearing his eyes. Those same eyes opened as Blackdown began to fear the worst.

  The man attempted to speak, but all that escaped his bloodied lips was a painful gasp, and he screwed his eyes up.

  ‘Who did this to you – Ravenbard?’ Blackdown asked quietly. Bole’s lips quivered in response but it was plain to see he was about to pass out again. ‘Where is the man who did this? Is he inside?’

  ‘How could you, Thomas...?’ he gurgled faintly.

  ‘Reverend?’ he said.

  But Bole fell unconscious. Blackdown hoped the blow to his head was not too serious and ensured the man was lying as comfortable as possible before rising swiftly to his feet and running at a half-crouch along the house, making for the rear of the building. Where were the few servants that his father employed? There was still no sign of life from the dead house.

  In the almost pitch-black shadows at the rear of the house he located one of the rear doors that led to the kitchens. It was locked, but he cushioned the butt of his pistol with his neckerchief and smashed a hole in one of the windows, reaching inside and unfastening the catch. He eased himself through the small opening, his boots powdering a few shards of glass on the stone floor.

  The kitchen was in darkness, shielded from the light of the moon, and he could vaguely make out the large wooden table in the room’s centre, the bulky stone fireplace and the rows of copper pans and containers lining the walls. He allowed his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom and paused only to grab a long kitchen knife from the table which he slipped into his coat. The servants’ quarters were located down a long corridor adjoining the kitchen. Blackdown eased himself silently down the black tunnel, a couple of loose boards groaning at his footfall, and he carefully pushed open the doors.

  All the rooms were empty.

  Blackdown made his way through the house, entering the main rooms through carefully concealed doors, designed to mask the entrances to the kitchens and servants’ quarters. No candles or lamps burned. Nor were there the faintest signs of life.

  In his father’s study a fire was flickering, the room’s only illumination, casting curiously dancing shadows on the walls, the homely glow corrupted by the frosty tincture of dread. His father’s cabinets, containing his prized collection of Spode, Bow and Wedgwood, and his souvenirs from the Grand Tour, were transformed into what appeared to be shelves of shining white skulls, the flitting shadows giving them the semblance of life.

  Pausing outside the drawing room he thought he heard something coming from within. Faint, hardly audible. Movement. The sound of stiff cotton rubbing against cotton accentuated by the deafening silence of the old house. He was concentrating so hard on what his next move should be, which was the best way of entering the room – there were two doors he could choose from – when the voice calling out to him threw him completely off balance.

  ‘Why don’t you come in, Thomas?’ a man said. ‘I know you’re there.’

  Blackdown’s face paled. His heart crashed. He could not believe his own ears.

  ‘Do not think of trying anything foolish, Thomas. One wrong move on your part and your precious Miss Tresham will have her brains blown out. So I urge you to open the door slowly, holding your gun by the end of the barrel.’

  Blackdown swallowed hard, his lips suddenly as dry as cracked leather.

  ‘I am not playing games, Thomas,’ the voice growled threateningly.

  Blackdown heard Julianne give a short whimper. ‘Don’t you dare hurt her!’ he fired.

  ‘I’ll count to three…’ he replied. ‘One… Two…’

  He swung the door open.

  Blackdown stood in the doorway staring across the darkened room, lit only by the low flames of a fire burning in the hearth and bars of moonlight that filtered in through the gaps in the long curtains. Curiously there was an overriding smell of lamp oil, as if a large amount had been accidentally spilled. He made out two dark shadows at the end of the room, Julianne in front, a tall man standing behind her, a pistol at her head. She had a lighted taper in one hand.

  ‘About time, Thomas,’ said the man. He tapped the gun’s barrel on Julianne’s shoulder and she put the taper to an oil lamp that rested on a cabinet beside her. She turned up the light and the gun went back to resting against her forehead.

  ‘Jonathan?’ said Blackdown, his voice hushed.

  It was not unlike staring into a distorted looking-glass, thought Blackdown, the man standing before him bearing an uncanny resemblance to him. And though younger, something cruel and blunt had chipped the face into a cold, emotionless mask. It was the face of his dead brother.

  ‘Un-cock the gun, Thomas, and toss it over to me.’

  His mind in a daze, hardly daring to believe he had heard his deceased brother’s voice from behind the door and now thrown into inner turmoil by the sight of Jonathan Blackdown standing as large as life before him, he threw the gun so that it landed a yard or so from the couple’s feet.

  ‘It cannot be!’ he said, aware of the tremor threaded through his words. ‘You are dead. Murdered…’

  The man smiled. ‘Very much alive, brother,’ he returned.

  Julianne’s eyes were rimmed with tears as she fought to stem her emotions. They shone like crystal droplets in the lamplight.

  ‘You are Ravenbard?’

  ‘The one and the same,’ he said. ‘Come closer so that I may see you better, Thomas.’ He motioned with the pistol. ‘Sit down, make yourself comfortable.’

  ‘All this time you have been alive and well…’ Blackdown shook his head, stunned by the revelation. ‘You faked your own death. Why…?’

  ‘I said sit, brother!’ he demanded, pushing the gun harder into Julianne’s temple. She closed her eyes, dislodging a tear, but her lips tightened into a straight, determined line, suppressing her fear.

  ‘You ask why?’ He gave a humourless chuckle. ‘Necessity, old boy. Necessity. I had to disappear. It is good to see you. It’s been far too long. But I have to say that the years have not been kind to you. You’re looking world-weary, brother, older than your years.’

  Blackdown eyed him intensely. ‘So the body they found did not belong to you. The real murdered
man wore your clothes and was so mutilated that no one could have truly identified him,’ Blackdown said, his breathing settling down. ‘How could you do this – to our father, your fiancé? And how could you think of betraying your country, its freedom, all it stands for?’

  Jonathan Blackdown ignored him, bent down to the carpet and retrieved the pistol. He checked it over. ‘Government issue,’ he said. ‘Poor quality, as usual. But what else can you expect from them?’

  ‘You will hang for treason,’ Blackdown said.

  ‘They will not find me,’ he replied, cocking the gun, pointing it at Blackdown.

  ‘Release Julianne,’ he demanded. ‘You can do what you like to me, but she can do you no harm. Release her.’

  Jonathan laughed. ‘Ever the valiant knight, eh, Thomas? Running to aid a damsel in distress. It is as if you hang onto those childish games we played long ago. Life is not so noble, brother. I thought you would have learnt that by now.’

  ‘Let her go, Jonathan, I am warning you!’ Blackdown hissed.

  To his surprise, Julianne reached up and put a finger on the barrel of the pistol held at her head, gently forcing it away. Jonathan stood to one side, smiling.

  ‘It is time to stop playing these games,’ she said. ‘Thomas, you are too righteous for your own good.’ Her expression was cold. Gone was the whimpering captive, and in its place stood a marble-faced Amazon. ‘Your self-sacrifice is laudable, Thomas, but because of it you now find yourself unarmed and our prisoner with scarce a fight. I had expected a little more resistance, but in the end I suppose you are like all men, but mindless wasps attracted to jam.’

  Blackdown’s mouth was hanging open in shock. ‘What are you doing, Julianne? Tell me you are not in league with my brother, with Lansdowne and their revolution.’

  It was her turn to laugh. ‘In league with them? Thomas, they are in league with me!’ She stepped over to the window and pulling back the curtains to peer outside.

  ‘With you?’ he gasped, shaking his head.

  She squinted against the dark, but could not see any sign of movement outside. She closed the curtains and came to stand in front of Blackdown, though she maintained a discreet distance between them. Jonathan kept him covered with both pistols.

  ‘You are not being followed,’ she said. ‘For your information, Thomas, Ravenbard does not exist,’ she added. ‘He never did. Neither did his planned revolution. There is no massing of supporters ready to rise in arms against the government and crown; no great stockpile of weapons. Only the semblance of such. It never ceases to amaze me how the lure of power and fortune can scrape out a man’s eyes and make him blind to the truth.’ She cocked her head on one side, feigned a delicate smile and flashed her eyes seductively at him. ‘Or that they take no heed of a woman, credit her with virtues less than that of a helpless puppy.’ She gave a light chuckle. ‘Does that surprise you? Gentle, simpering Julianne Tresham?’ A cold smile played over her beautiful lips. ‘Women have their place, by the hearth, in the nursery, playing the piano and singing sweetly. We are but adornments, Thomas, for our fathers first and for our husbands to follow. We contribute little, for you will allow us little. You talk of our country’s freedoms – look at me, Thomas, am I free?’ Her smile vaporised as she patted her chest. ‘I have ambitions, I have dreams and I have goals that far exceed those allowed us by you and your ilk. I too wish power, money and respect.’

  ‘You had all those…’ Blackdown said. ‘And you have foolishly squandered each and every one of them.’

  ‘I did not have power!’ she burst. ‘True power! Nor my own money, nor true respect! If that is freedom then I spit on it!’

  ‘So you plotted this together,’ he returned.

  She nodded. ‘Jonathan and I are of a like mind. More than that, we are equals. Yes, we planned all this together. We created Ravenbard and his grand designs for a revolution, targeted at those who felt aggrieved and humiliated that they were being barred from rising in society and in power; those fools who felt shunned and looked down upon from an elite societal wall created by generations of landed gentry. We baited men of fortune – manufacturers, factory owners, men of new wealth with exaggerated visions of political as well as social power. We promised everything they desired in return for their support and investment in our scheme. If they were denied being a part of the established order, then why not create an order of your own? They took the bait like the savage, hungry pikes they are.’

  ‘We have made a vast fortune beyond even that we imagined,’ Jonathan interjected. ‘And it came about through pure chance,’ he added with a wry smile. ‘Yes, I admit I ran wild for a time – running free with my father’s begrudged money. I gambled – still one of my weaknesses, Thomas, as you can see – but while blind drunk one night I placed a wager so large that it could have been the ruin of me and my father in one fell swoop had it gone wrong. Fortunately it went my way. I was a little unnerved by the near miss, but elated by my huge win. It made me a wealthy man overnight. It was Julianne who talked me into investing in two northern woollen mills, and then in a number of lucrative canal companies. As it was Julianne who opened my eyes to the potential placed before us by the war with France. We sold wool and uniforms to both the allies and their enemy, smuggled over to the continent by a network of canals and by boats at a number of coastal towns. But as far as the people we dealt with were concerned – people like excise men and magistrates only too eager to be bought at the right price – it was the mysterious Ravenbard who ran the operation. We used our vast profits to secure a manufactory and won legitimate government contracts to produce a range of armaments from bayonets to bullets, but secretly shipped many over to France and Spain. How ironic, eh? That the lumps of lead the two nations threw at each other came from the same place?’ Jonathan laughed and shook his head. ‘So too their breeches!’

  ‘And from there you duped others into thinking Ravenbard had other, grander plans,’ said Blackdown. ‘A revolution that would never happen. And recruiting gullible men like Sir Peter Lansdowne were crucial in giving your plans legitimacy and credibility.’

  ‘He was relatively easy to recruit. He was driven by his own greed. The promise of laying a canal across Blackdown land to feed his mines was but one financial incentive. The promise of more land and unrivalled political power another. There were others like him,’ said Jonathan. ‘Eager to be the vanguard, to feather their own nests into the bargain. Some were even naïve enough to believe in a new social order, inspired by the French revolution. But most were satisfied enough to rake in what profits they could from the venture. But yes, Lansdowne and his own greed became key; his political contacts were invaluable. His standing helped draw supporters to the cause like moths to a flame. And of course, there’s always the lure of the exclusive club. There are a great number of them, as you know, but membership of the secret Lupercal Club became highly sought after. High-stakes gambling, men in an arena fighting to the death, pretty women, fine living. It was all designed to feed the members’ primitive desires; part-theatre, part-reward.’

  Blackdown felt the knife he’d collected from the kitchen pressing against his chest, tucked away out of sight inside his coat. But with two pistols aimed squarely at him he had no opportunity to use it. And yet it bothered him greatly that he should even have to contemplate using it against his brother and Lord Tresham’s precious daughter.

  ‘You father is unaware of your involvement?’ said Blackdown to Julianne.

  ‘My father thinks me in danger,’ she replied.

  ‘You betray your own father?’ Blackdown said, shaking his head slowly. ‘How could you? Can’t you see how much he loves you? He loves you enough to put his life and reputation on the block in order to protect you.’

  ‘He is not my father,’ she said, her eyes narrowing, staring at Blackdown with an intensity he found unnerving.

  ‘What are you saying? Of course he is. Are you in the grip of madness?’

  ‘I was sold to him as a baby by
a man who could not afford to keep me. My roots are no nobler than that of a humble potato, Thomas.’

  ‘That is not true…’

  ‘Your father arranged everything, Thomas. It was Jonathan who accidentally came across the information in his father’s study. A document signed by a man called Patrick Deale.’

  ‘The man who tends his wife’s grand grave? The same man that I found skulking in the bushes on the night we were attacked?’

  ‘The same. My real mother died giving birth to me, and my real father, having a large brood of his own and hating me for bringing about her death was about to drown me in the river. But Reverend Bole stayed his hand and took the child into safe keeping. You father discovered what had happened and, knowing Lord Tresham and his wife were childless, agreed with Deale to sell me to him on their behalf. I have seen the document, Thomas, transferring all rights to me from Deale over to your father, to do with me as he saw fit; a bill of sale. Ten pounds. I have seen it with my own eyes. He bought me, and then gave me to Lord Tresham and his wife to bring up as his own. The only stipulation by Deale was that your father provides a large and fitting monument to his dead wife’s memory.’

  A dead wife Deale could never get out of his mind, a death he would never recover from, just like his father, thought Blackdown. And his father obviously saw similarities to himself in Deale’s exhibition of grief; the death of a beloved wife, the death brought on by a child, the need for revenge on the child. But why did his father go to such lengths to save the child? Did he secretly feel remorse at having effectively killed his eldest son after the death of his own wife and was trying to atone for his sins? Whatever the case, Deale, seeing how Julianne had grown up to resemble his dead wife, could not stop himself from wanting to see her, to spy on her whenever he could. For in her he plainly saw the image of his wife.

  And that was why his father had not approved of the marriage between Jonathan and Julianne, for though he had saved the child he could not allow the daughter of a common man to marry his noble son. Spoiling the bloodline of Blackdown.