The Ladder Dancer

by Roz Southey

  Hugh sighed. ‘I’ve vowed off travelling.’ He tapped the broken arm significantly.

  ‘Until the next time you get restless feet.’

  ‘No, no – never again. And particularly not on barges. You’ll never get me on water again. Never.’

  ‘I know how you must have felt,’ I said. ‘Too damn wet.’

  ‘Your clothes feel three times as heavy as normal. And cold.’

  ‘Clammy,’ I agreed. ‘We’d know if there was a Londoner in town. At least if he’d come into contact with Ridley or Nightingale.’

  We were silent as the sky lightened. I rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last night I’d actually spent in my bed; I was becoming nocturnal, forced into sleeping during the day. And even in the warming sunshine, I couldn’t stop shivering.

  ‘Scissors,’ Hugh said with a frown. ‘What kind of killer attacks with scissors? Knives are easy enough to come by, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘Damn it,’ I said. ‘You’re right. That’s a very good question.’

  Heron and I escorted Ridley back to the Old Man in the grimmest of silences, broken only by the squelching of our footsteps. He strode between us with a swagger, as if he felt he held a winning hand of cards. God knows what the passers-by made of us, all sodden, despite the brightening sunshine, and filthy.

  At the door of the Old Man, Ridley turned to face us with a grin.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said as if we were resuming an interrupted conversation, ‘you’re not the fellows to let someone get away with murder. I know people, you see – I can read ’em like books. I know you inside out.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Heron said.

  ‘And I know you’ll come round to my way of thinking sooner or later.’

  ‘No,’ Heron said.

  ‘And leave Kate alone,’ I added.

  Ridley winked at me. ‘Treading on your toes, am I? And you newly married as well!’

  Heron gripped my arm and held me back. ‘One thing is for certain, Ridley,’ he said, coolly. ‘You are not a man to live long.’

  ‘A short life and a merry one!’ Ridley grinned as he sauntered into the Old Man. We were left, wet and fuming, on the Key.

  I was beginning to think I’d be the one to dispose of him.

  I made it to All Hallows in time, without any sleep at all, and played by instinct, my only pleasures the feeling of good dry clothes and the mellow sound of the organ, about the only decent thing in a church that is rapidly falling down around everyone’s ears. The church was crowded as always and the congregation were good-humoured and dozed discreetly while the Rev. Mr Orrick stuttered and stammered through his sermon. I thought of Cuthbert Ridley; I was convinced he’d taken his imitation of a bashful young man from the curate – but that was part and parcel of his cruelty.

  I dozed fitfully and tried to keep myself alert by surveying the congregation through the small mirrors above the organ console. There was Esther, in her neatest and smartest clothes, with Kate sitting mutinously beside her, openly yawning from time to time. The servants were in a little row at the back of the church, just behind the landlord of the Fleece. And I spotted the Jenisons too. At least, Mr Jenison and Mrs Annabella were there; Mrs Jenison was absent; I wondered if she was still unwell. Mrs Annabella sat with her handkerchief to her face, occasionally dabbing at her eyes, but, thankfully, not audibly sobbing. I even caught her casting a quick glance at a young gentleman in a pew opposite; I fancied it wouldn’t take long for her to recover.

  I wandered off into speculation about Ridley and Nightingale and the death of the child and whoever it was that Ridley was blackmailing, so absorbed I almost missed my cue for the next hymn and was only brought back to my senses by everyone echoing the vicar’s amen at the end of the sermon with some relieved force. I nodded to the bellows blower, the organ wheezed and I launched into the first lines of the hymn; the last thing I saw as I glanced into the mirror was Cuthbert Ridley’s grinning round face.

  Esther and Kate waited for me outside the church after the service so I could escort them home. Kate was behaving remarkably well, generally keeping quiet; my only fear was that she’d yawn in the face of some merchant or alderman. The sun cast long shadows from the gravestones across the path; two children and a dog were running about giddily, shrieking and laughing, and caring not a bit when they fell over. The organist’s cat watched with disdain then began to wash itself.

  As I approached, I saw Robert Jenison pause to speak to Esther before nodding rather wearily to her and walking away to his own carriage where Mrs Annabella was waiting in eager conversation with one of her cronies. Esther turned a thoughtful gaze on me.

  ‘Mr Jenison was wondering if I could go and see his wife again, this afternoon.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’ I asked surprised.

  ‘She is evidently far from well. He is very worried about her. He thinks she wants conversation, someone to confide in.’

  ‘Will you take her another of your cordials?’

  A mischievous smile touched her lips. ‘I have very fond memories of those cordials.’

  ‘So have I.’ I held out a hand to her. ‘Almost the first time we met you made one for me, after I’d been attacked.’

  She pretended severity. ‘And you got drunk on it! You are supposed to sip them genteelly.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m very good at being genteel,’ I admitted.

  She gave me a knowing look and rested her hand on my arm. ‘And – in certain circumstances – I am very glad of that.’

  ‘Esther!’ I hissed, glancing round in alarm.

  ‘Here,’ Kate said. ‘Ain’t we getting back? I’m hungry.’

  We went home, and Kate worked her way through a very large plate of cold meats in obvious good humour. She was meek when Esther talked to her and I had an uncomfortable feeling that she’d decided that working on Esther was by far the best means of influencing me. But for once everything was peaceful and I was happy to enjoy the fact. Tom was in a good humour; George was conspicuous by his absence. Which gave me time to consider whether I ought to apologize to him for ignoring what he’d said about Kate; he deserved an apology, but I rather thought it might encourage him to spy on her again.

  After we’d eaten, Esther dressed in her best clothes and went off to the Jenison’s house with her maid while Kate proved predictably recalcitrant about the thought of spending an afternoon listening to me reading from a book of sermons. As the prospect was no more attractive to me than to her, I dug out a book of suitably religious music – simple psalm tunes – and spent an hour or so teaching her how to play the harpsichord.

  We’d have got on even better if George hadn’t chosen at last to make his presence felt. He hovered just outside the library, loudly singing different tunes from the ones we were playing; my vague ideas of an apology disappeared abruptly. Kate responded by banging away at the harpsichord as if she thought she could persuade it to sound more loudly by sheer force of will. I started to develop a headache.

  George stopped singing. There was a moment’s eerie silence. Then he shot into the room, sizzling through the gap between door and jamb with amazing speed.

  ‘Got a message from Mrs P!’ he yelled. ‘She sent it by the spirit in Mr Jenison’s house. Wants you to go up there.’

  My first thought was of Mrs Jenison; she was worse than anyone had thought – she’d died suddenly. But Esther would not have asked me to go there for that. There was only one reason she would have asked me to go.

  It was connected with Nightingale’s attacker.

  Forty-One

  No man of breeding would ever consider interfering in the private affairs of another gentleman.

  [A Gentleman’s Companion, May 1732]

  Kate must have drawn the same conclusion because she wouldn’t let me go without her. She was prepared to stand and argue over it, too, while I simply wanted to get away and find out why Esther needed help.

  ‘He’s out to get you!’ she argued. ‘You got in his
way and he don’t like that.’

  ‘I’m going nowhere near Cuthbert Ridley.’

  ‘Don’t matter. He’s going near you. And I’m coming.’ She folded her arms and regarded me as mulishly as Ridley ever had.

  ‘You can’t take her, master!’ George said stridently. ‘The mistress didn’t ask for her.’

  ‘George—’

  ‘She should stay here and read her Bible.’

  Kate put her tongue out at the spirit. ‘Can’t read, so there.’

  I could not do with this delay. ‘You can come,’ I said, ‘on the strict understanding you say and do nothing. If you utter one word—’

  ‘Shan’t!’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘And tomorrow you can take me back to that field and we’ll find the scissors Ridley buried.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked blankly. ‘They’re just scissors.’

  ‘Some people put their initials or their coat of arms on cutlery,’ I said.

  ‘So they don’t get stolen,’ George said. ‘By nasty girls who worm their way into the household!’

  ‘George,’ I said. ‘When I get back, we’re going to have a very long talk.’

  ‘You mean the scissors might have the murderer’s name on them?’ Kate said awed. ‘Never!’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Fancy attacking someone with your name on the weapon,’ she said. ‘That’s just plain daft!’

  The Jenison household was in a tizzy. Servants came out of doors with dusters, looked startled and embarrassed, and disappeared again hurriedly. The footman who showed Kate and myself into the drawing room was red-faced and slightly dishevelled. ‘Not up to snuff,’ Kate said, in a wonderful imitation of Mrs Annabella. She spoke just a fraction of a second before the footman shut the door and I caught a glimpse of his angry face. I was far from sure Kate hadn’t spoken deliberately.

  ‘Sit,’ I said to her sharply. ‘And remember what I told you about not saying anything!’

  She flung herself into a chair, then suddenly sat bolt upright and tried to look demure. Esther had patently been teaching her more than how to read music.

  I could hear the servants muttering in the hall. Amazing how a household could go to pieces when a mistress’s firm hand was withdrawn. I wondered where Mrs Annabella was. Kate was peering at the paintings, and the ornaments, and the great bowls of flowers. She picked up a china cat from the table beside her, turned up her nose at it, and put it back down.

  ‘What’s this?’ She prodded at the box beside the cat.

  ‘It’s a sewing box.’ I remembered Mrs Annabella sitting with her sister-in-law’s embroidery opened out across her knees, trying to match the pinks and purples. ‘Mrs Jenison’s.’

  Kate lifted the lid to sneak a look.

  ‘Kate!’

  She put the lid down again, unrepentant. ‘She’s got an awful lot of stuff in there. What’s she making?’

  ‘Cushions, I think.’ I glanced around the room, feeling suddenly oppressed by all the clutter – the knick-knacks and ornaments, the feather pictures on the walls, the tapestry work on the chairs, the footstools scattered here and there. A huge peacock was staring at me from one of the chair backs, unnervingly cross-eyed.

  I wondered whether to go in search of one of the servants. But if Mrs Jenison was really ill, it was unfair to make demands; the servants would be dashing about, trying to sort things out.

  ‘Who’s that sour-looking man?’

  Kate lifted her hand to point at the picture of a long-dead Jenison over the fireplace. As she did so, she caught the edge of the workbox; it shot on to the floor, spilling its contents everywhere.

  I sighed and put out a foot to stop a bobbin that rolled towards me. ‘Kate, what did I say?’

  ‘I know, I know!’ she said irritably. ‘I’ll pick it all up.’

  We scrabbled around on the floor. Amazing how much there could be in one small box: cottons, silk, needles, a pincushion fashioned like a grumpy-looking hedgehog, scissors, odd corners of material.

  Scissors . . .

  I took the scissors out of Kate’s hands. They were a small delicate pair, with ornately engraved handles. Not the Jenisons’ coat of arms, but a dragonfly with wings spread, one along each arm of the scissors. I opened out the blades; right at the bottom, where they met, was a slight stickiness.

  And a faint brown stain.

  Forty-Two

  A gentleman should root out malefactors wherever he finds them.

  [A Gentleman’s Companion, June 1735]

  Kate was still crawling about, burrowing under chairs in search of miscellaneous trifles. I stared at the scissors. If this was the murder weapon, what had Cuthbert Ridley buried in that other world? And were these large enough to inflict the wounds? If only I could show them to Gale.

  I sorted out the facts. Mrs Jenison had been in London with her husband when they’d first encountered Nightingale; they’d been in his company frequently. Nightingale was a man for the ladies; he wouldn’t have hesitated to have paid court to Mrs Jenison, and she might have fancied he meant more than he did. But he would not have done more than flatter and flirt, surely, if Jenison had been in evidence. Or had there been more than that? Had there been assignations? It would have been difficult, though not impossible.

  What could such a man offer Mrs Jenison to tempt her to indiscretion? He couldn’t compete with Jenison in terms of money or social status. All he could have offered was love, and would Mrs Jenison have thrown away all she had for that? If she had indeed been prepared to do so, then any revelation of his true character might have pushed her over the precipice into madness. And if she’d then come to her senses again and been appalled by what she’d done, that would explain her malaise since the attack.

  That afternoon concert was the key, I was sure of it. Nightingale’s behaviour had been outrageous. He’d flirted with every lady in sight; even a woman head-over-heels in love might have had her eyes opened. If only I could remember exactly what had happened . . .

  The door opened. Kate snatched the scissors from me, tossed them into the box, pushed the box on to the table and threw herself back into the chair, looking fearsomely innocent.

  Mrs Annabella hesitated on the threshold. She was wearing one of her befrilled white dresses, and rouge made two bright spots on her cheeks. The handkerchief was not in evidence, thank goodness.

  ‘How is Mrs Jenison?’ I asked.

  She burst into tears.

  Kate sighed melodramatically. I took Mrs Annabella’s arm, helped her into a chair. I would have liked to call for a footman to bring her some restorative but I didn’t want to expose her to prying eyes. On second thoughts, she’d probably enjoy the encounter. I compromised. ‘Shall I call for my wife?’

  ‘I’ll go!’ Kate leapt up and was out of the room in an instant, unmistakeably relieved.

  ‘I’m sure your sister-in-law will be all right,’ I started, but Mrs Annabella turned up tear-brimming eyes. ‘Mr Patterson . . .’ She faltered, put a thin hand on mine. Her fingers were ice-cold. She said in a melodramatic tone, ‘We both know that cannot be.’

  I was startled, uncertain what to say. She gave me a watery smile. ‘You have a reputation for catching malefactors, Mr Patterson. You cannot have— I mean, you must have—’

  Now she came to the fateful words, her courage seemed to fail her. She took a deep breath, said, ‘She met him in London, you know. And— and—’ Her voice sank almost to inaudibility. ‘Oh, she confessed all to me, swore me to silence!’

  I was certain I would never have confided secrets to Mrs Annabella. But Mrs Jenison might have had no one else to talk to.

  ‘And of course I said nothing. But—’ Her voice sank. ‘I thought that when we left London, all would be over, but it was not! He came here, you know.’

  ‘When he first came to this town?’

  ‘Before!’ She sounded a little excited, and awed. ‘Three or four days before. He rode up especially to talk to— I heard a noise
outside and looked out of my window and there he was!’ There was a pleasurable kind of horror in her voice; Mrs Annabella was enjoying all this excitement enormously, disastrous though it was for other people. ‘And . . . and . . .’ She took a grip on her emotions. ‘I saw them together,’ she said rapidly, staring at the floor. ‘He kissed her hand! He said he loved her and would love her for ever, but their love must remain a secret, at least for the time being, and she mustn’t say a word about it! Not at least until everyone had a chance to know him better.’

  It did not strike me that better acquaintance would make local society more sympathetic to a man who ran off with another man’s wife. Nightingale must have been panicking at that meeting. If he’d been lured into making rash promises in London, he must have felt secure he’d never have to carry them through; the Jenisons would leave London and he’d never see them again. But then he’d been tempted north, presumably by Jenison’s money, and found himself in a difficult situation. No wonder he’d been urging secrecy! If Jenison found out what had been going on behind his back, Nightingale would lose the concert engagement and find himself saddled with a woman he didn’t really want.

  Mrs Annabella sighed. ‘It was so romantic! Just like you and Mrs Patterson.’

  I didn’t see the cases were analogous at all.

  She clutched at my arm. ‘I’ve been so anxious, Mr Patterson. She went out several nights in succession, you know – she made an excuse, retired to bed early and then crept out. And later, when everyone else was asleep, I heard a noise and went out on to the stairs and saw her! Coming in through the servants’ door.’ She pulled me closer, said confidentially, ‘I think she bribed one of the servants to leave the back door unbolted. I asked her where she’d been but she wouldn’t say! She just told me to go to bed and mind my own business! I knew, Mr Patterson, I knew she must have been seeing— him.’

  I thought of what Kate had told me of the night of the attack. She’d seen an ‘old’ couple go down the Stair from the Castle Garth: a man and a woman. She’d talked of the woman lagging behind and the man not helping her. But suppose they’d not been a couple; suppose the woman had merely kept close behind the man to suggest they were together. And suppose that woman had been at the concert, had seen Nightingale flirting and felt betrayed . . .