Island of Bones caw-3

by Imogen Robertson

  Crowther studied the canaries in Mr Leathes’ aviary, such small lives in their pretty plumage. He remembered bending over one tiny corpse, Mr Leathes guiding his hand as he made his first cut with a borrowed blade. ‘He was killed by his opponent, I presume.’

  ‘Murdered, sir,’ Mr Hudson said. ‘Murdered as certainly as poor Mr Askew. The devil he fought was a grown man. A man who had done military service. The boy was only eighteen and had never fired a gun other than in sport. His opponent could have shot wide but he shot to kill. I am sure he did so in order to escape with the money he had so dishonestly won. I call that murder, sir. As does the boy’s father. The first the tutor knew of the business was when the body was returned to the lodging-house in a hired cab.’

  Harriet worked her fingers into the brass wire of the aviary. ‘And what became of the man who murdered him?’

  ‘He fled with the money he had won, and we have had no trace of him since. Inquiries were made, naturally. We found something of the man’s past, offered rewards for information leading to his discovery, but the moment he rode away from the scene of the duel, he disappeared. We let it be known in every large town in Europe that we were seeking him in the hopes that he would find himself among people who knew him under the name he used in Vienna. Men do not change. I was certain he would find himself among the card tables again. For five years I have had a stream of correspondence across my desk from Paris, Rome, as far away as Moscow. Every similar scandal, any resemblance, any hint of a name. Each I have pursued to the best of my ability, and each time, whatever iniquity I discovered, there was no trace of the man I searched for.’

  Crowther was still watching the birds whistling in their few square feet of comfortable captivity. ‘What became of the tutor, Mr Hudson?’

  The lawyer was silent for a moment, as if he needed to compose himself before speaking. ‘The tutor was my own son. He did not forgive himself and would never accept that the fault was not his. He felt he had failed, and dishonoured me. He took a commission with the Sixteenth, and was killed in seventy-nine during the shelling of Fort New Richmond at the Mississippi River.’

  ‘My condolences,’ Harriet said quietly.

  Crowther looked at the lawyer and said, ‘You were advertising for Mr Hurst because he wrote to you offering you information about your fugitive.’

  Hudson unfolded a letter from his pocket and passed it to Mrs Westerman, who released her grip on the aviary to take it.

  I know where the man who shot the boy is. He is hiding in plain sight. I shall be waiting to hear from you at the Seven Bells in Cockermouth on the evening of Monday, 14th July and am ready to give you his current name and address when I have bills in my hand for?100. Gottfried Hurst.

  Harriet looked up from the paper. It was quite plain, no return address, no date. It seemed Mr Hurst had decided not to use one of the sheets printed with the Royal Oak name that Mr Postlethwaite provided. ‘A considerable sum. You kept the appointment, Mr Hudson?’

  ‘Naturally. My client sent the letter to me as soon as he received it. I remained in the taproom of the Seven Bells from five o’clock in the afternoon until midnight, with the money ready. No one came.’ His voice sounded hollow. Harriet thought of him during his vigil, the hope that his search might be ending, and his growing disappointment.

  ‘Why did you think the appointment was not kept, Mr Hudson?’ she asked.

  ‘I hoped, Mrs Westerman, that he had only been delayed by some accident or inconvenience. I feared that he had been offered more money to stay away. By my advertisement I hoped to encourage him to believe he might ask for more. Even if the man I seek had fled, his trail might still reek enough to follow it. But I had no idea where Mr Hurst was precisely, so no idea where to begin until I heard from my partner where you were staying. Then I realised that Mr Hurst’s information must be good.’

  ‘How so, Mr Hudson?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I had no success in tracing the man’s movements after he murdered the young gentleman, but I had some in finding out about his past. The name he used in Vienna was von Lowenstein, but he was born Grenville de Beaufoy, only son of the last Lord Greta.’

  Agnes’s fingers touched something. Smooth, worked wood. She tried to pick it up, only to find it resisted. It had been driven into the soil, even after all this distance. It would have gone through her head and dropped her like a stone. She eased it out of the ground. That it had been meant to kill her was no fault of the arrow, and she had better plans for it now. She turned round very carefully and reached out her right hand to the wall. Good. The arrow she slipped into the waist of her skirt at the back to leave her left hand free. She began to sweep it back and forth as before as she crawled back towards the barricade, but this time she paused more often, plucking loose splinters and sticks from among the stones and stuffing them into her pockets.

  Harriet felt unsure if she could speak. ‘The son of Lord Greta is here?’

  Mr Hudson raised his hands. ‘We must assume so, or at the very least we must think that he has been here very recently.’

  Crowther raised his eyebrows. ‘Given the unfortunate demise of Mr Askew, I think we may assume he was also here last night. Do we know what age he is, Mr Hudson?’

  ‘He was born shortly before the rebellion of forty-five.’

  ‘In his late thirties, then. Any description of his person?’

  ‘A gentleman speaking English, German and French like a native. Medium height.’

  Harriet cast up her hands in frustration. ‘I saw a dozen men of that age and height at the garden party at Silverside, all with a quiver of arrows at their side, and as many such at the fireworks, though I cannot answer for their linguistic abilities. No limp, sir? No disfiguring mark? Has he a wife, children?’

  Mr Hudson shook his head. ‘No duelling scars or obvious injuries I know of, madam. Though he may have acquired them, and a wife and children in five years of travel.’

  ‘Do not despair, Mrs Westerman,’ Crowther said quietly. ‘There are only two good inns in town. We shall ask there if any of the gentry have been in residence since — when did you receive that letter, Mr Hudson?’

  ‘In the morning of the twelfth of July.’

  ‘Since before the eleventh then, who remain in residence or have left this morning and are of a suitable age. There can be relatively few.’

  ‘Why did he not leave at once, having killed Mr Hurst? Why wait longer?’

  Crowther did not waste his breath with a reply. ‘Mrs Westerman, as you have already an acquaintance with Mr Postlethwaite, perhaps you might enquire at the Royal Oak. Mr Hudson, if you might make a similar call on the proprietor of the Queen’s Head. I should like to spend a little more time with the body of Mr Askew.’

  ‘And you will think on that portrait, Crowther?’

  ‘Naturally, Mrs Westerman.’

  V.4

  When Harriet returned to the museum, frustrated and disappointed, she found the main part of the museum being swept. The body had been removed — Harriet guessed that Mr Askew’s office had become his mortuary. The girl who had offered to keep watch over the body was completing her labours and her friend was arranging the fallen rock samples on Mr Askew’s counter. The girl looked up as she came in and nodded to her.

  ‘Lord Keswick is in the back room, Mrs Westerman.’

  Harriet began to unbutton her gloves. ‘Stella, have you ever heard the stories of the ghost of Lord Greta walking the hills in times of trouble?’

  She smiled. ‘That was just old Farmer Willocks used to say that, madam, when he came into town for the market. He always had a story for the fire, and that was just one of them. He used to say the Northern Lights celebrated on the day Lord Greta escaped from custody, and that there was a witch in Thornthwaite Forest could turn herself into a hare, and he had a story of some bogle or other for every month in the year.’ She chuckled and started the broom moving again, the glass cracking like ice in the pail on winter mornings.

  ‘D
id you hear the story? Is he living?’

  ‘No, bless you, madam. There aren’t that many like Lottie Tyers, who are too stubborn to die. We shared out the arvel bread for Willocks when I was right small. Twelve years ago, maybe. But I heard the story. It was the time of. .’ she dropped her voice a little, ‘when the First Baron was murdered. Willocks said he was out in the evening seeing to his pigs, and he saw the ghost of Lord Greta on a black horse crossing Pow Beck. Then next day he heard there had been horrible murder done at Silverside Hall, so he reckoned he’d seen a bogle sent as a sign.’

  ‘Where is Pow Beck? And how did he know it was Lord Greta?’

  Stella snorted. ‘Said he knew him by his bearing. And Pow Beck lies along the way to Braithwaite. I thought his other bogle stories were better, but he told the story of the ghost of Lord Greta enough times for it to drift around after we buried him.’

  ‘You don’t sound as if you believed him?’

  It was the young man who replied. ‘If Lord Greta’s ghost came in times of trouble, he’d have been seen when the small-pox came. And if he came in times of murder, then he’d be outside the window now, wouldn’t he?’ His voice lowered a little as he finished, and Harriet found herself looking towards the shutter.

  ‘Mrs Westerman?’ She jumped a little and turned to see Crowther in the doorway to the office. Stella set to work again with the broom and the young man busied himself with the rocks. ‘Perhaps you might join me?’

  She followed him into the office trying not to blush, and as the door closed behind them, she asked, ‘Did you hear any of that, Crowther?’

  He nodded. ‘Any news of significance from the Royal Oak?’

  ‘Three gentlemen are currently in residence. Of these, two are of an age and have been here ten days or more. The first was having lunch when I arrived and was extremely surprised to be engaged in light conversation by a respectable widow. His name is Bloodworth, which gave me hope for a moment, but if he is a murderer, then I abandon all hope of ever knowing my fellow man. Charming, handsome, but I would swear him innocent. The second left this morning, a family man travelling with his two young daughters.’

  Crowther looked up with his eyebrows raised, but Harriet shook her head. ‘He was a man of enormous girth who, Mr Postlethwaite said, had to rest on his way up the stairs to his chamber. The thought of him dragging Mr Hurst’s body into a cave and covering it with stones is impossible. Have you had word from Mr Hudson?’

  ‘He left before you arrived, Mrs Westerman, but his information was much as your own. He is determined to widen his search and has taken horse for Kendal in hopes of finding his nemesis there.’

  She looked at the body of the museum owner, lying across his own desk. ‘Poor Mr Askew. Did he have any family?’

  ‘His maid tells me there is a married sister in Cockermouth.’

  ‘And have you learned anything more from his body?’

  He nodded and indicated Mr Askew’s left hand. She went to it and took the cold fingers between her own. The locking of the body was just beginning to pass; the muscles were still tensed, but she could open them just enough to observe the flesh of the palm. The skin was torn at the base of the fingers, though there was no sign of blood.

  ‘I see it, Crowther. But I cannot pretend to understand.’

  He looked at her as she cradled the dead hand. ‘Those injuries can only, I believe, have been caused after death, since such abrasions should bleed. I believe some jagged object was torn from the hand when it was already clenched in death.’

  She straightened, her green eyes clean and dancing. ‘The struggle! Mr Askew had something in his hand that his killer feared might identify him?’

  ‘That is my speculation, Mrs Westerman.’

  ‘Then at some time in the night he realised it was missing and came back to collect it.’

  ‘It was fortunate,’ he said rather dryly, ‘that the murderer kept the key to the front door.’

  Stephen found Casper by his old camp. He had not expected to see the man himself there, but rather hoped to leave some secret signal for him that his mission of the previous night had been successful. He had not thought what that signal might be, and was standing by the firestone feeling rather lost when he suddenly found Casper at his side. He looked ill to Stephen’s eyes. The bruises on his face were blossoming against the pale of his undamaged skin, and his eyes had the haunted air of a man who has slept little. Joe hopped down from his shoulder and hunched in the sun.

  ‘You have it?’ Stephen nodded and patted his waistband. ‘Good lad.’

  ‘You have not found her.’

  Casper suddenly picked up the kettle from its place by the fire and threw it with all his strength across the camp. It clattered loudly against the rocks on the far side of the clearing. Joe fluttered up and cawed. Stephen remained very still. ‘Nowhere! Nowhere! I know every mine dug on these hills since Queen Bess! Every nook and cranny of them! I’ve hammered and yelled at every seal to the mines. Any that are open I have crawled through like a rat and nothing! Nothing! And the nails on the barriers rusted and old each one. Where is she?’ He dropped onto one of the stone benches and put his head in his hands. ‘I lose hope, boy. Three days, and she is gone as a ghost! His clothes smelled of earth, deep earth. But nothing, nothing and nothing. They must have drowned her. Poor Agnes, poor clever Agnes.’

  Stephen sat down next to him and put his thin arm across his shoulders. Casper turned towards him, and Stephen felt his forehead rest on his shoulder for a second. He smelled of air and sweat and tobacco.

  ‘Can you use the Luck to find her?’ He drew the case out of his waistband with his free hand and placed it on Casper’s knee. ‘Is there not some magic?’

  Casper wiped his face on his sleeve. ‘Nay, youngling. If the Luck wishes her found, it will find its own way to do it. It guides and protects and punishes in its own way, not by simple men like me mumbling over it.’ As he spoke he took the case in his hands and held it lovingly. ‘I hope it may. Perhaps it tests us.’ He was stroking the leather of the case. ‘My da made this for it a long time ago now. The pox came in fifty-four, and everyone was so afraid. It is a foul way to die. They say it strikes those who fear it most, like a devil. The skin breaks and bleeds and people go wild and desperate in their pain, spitting and screaming till they are not man or woman or child, but some lost demon.’ Stephen shuddered. ‘My da did his duty. He covered the Luck and each night took it to every house where the pox was burning some poor soul. You ever seen it?’

  Stephen shook his head.

  ‘Pray you don’t. Fever first, and cramps. Then they’d take to their beds and the pustules would come. Fat and seeping and the stink of them. . they make you rot before you die, and so many their own mother wouldn’t know them. The things they’d call out.’

  ‘Did the Luck help?’ Stephen said quietly.

  ‘It calmed them, and calmed their people. We thought it had passed. Then my dad fell, getting from his bed in the Black Pig. I put it under his pillow, but he went hard anyway. Whatever sin he ever did, he paid for it then.’ He turned and spat onto the ground, then handed the leather pouch back to Stephen. ‘You take it, boy. It’s safer with you for now — the magistrate might get me yet. Gentry you may be, but for now you are Luck-keeper of this place.’

  Stephen nodded and placed it back in his belt. ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘What, lad?’

  ‘That man from Portinscale, the young one?’

  ‘Swithun Fowler? Have you seen him scuttling about? What of him?’ Casper’s eyes had become bright and seeing again.

  ‘I saw him as I was coming out from the Black Pig last night. He was leaving his mother’s cottage and heading north. There was something strange about his arm. The sleeve was torn, and I think I saw blood on it. Looked like it was hurting him. It wasn’t when we saw him the morning after you got beaten.’

  ‘Was it now? North. . is he hiding in Thornthwaite? We’ve visited all the old holes th
ere, but I didn’t have an eye out for a camp. Thought they’d have fled further by now. What holds them?’ Casper reached down to where Joe was hopping and pecking at his feet. Stephen could feel the excitement in the man’s bones. The jackdaw stepped daintily onto his forefinger and allowed himself to be lifted up. ‘Arm hurt, hey? It wasn’t us that did that, was it? What do we say to that, Joe?’

  ‘Good, good!’

  Harriet heard a knock at the museum’s front door, then the sound of Stella greeting Ham. She stepped back briskly from the office into the main room. Even with her injured ankle Stella had made a fine job of clearing the space, and Harriet said so. The girl smiled.

  ‘Thought I’d never heal, madam. But it’s taking my weight better and better now.’ The museum looked as if it could be reopened within the hour, were it not for the body of the owner with his bruised and broken neck lying in the other room. Ham was looking flustered.

  ‘Ham, you have been sent to us again! Is all well at Silverside?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Westerman, or I don’t rightly know. Seems there might have been words between Mrs Briggs and the Vizegrafin, not my place to say, of course!’ he added quickly, as if he had just admitted to the murder of Mr Askew himself.

  Harriet smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, Ham. But do you have some message for us?’

  He looked startled again. ‘Yes, madam, just that Mrs Briggs asked if it might be possible to see you at once.’

  Harriet frowned. ‘Mr Crowther and myself, Ham?’

  ‘She just said your name, madam. She was right fretted to have missed you at breakfast and has been darting back and forth to the window looking for you ever since. Worse since we heard about poor Mr Askew, then that lawyer came and went looking white.’