Hunting Down the Darkness

by European P. Douglas

  “Come on,” James said angrily, “This is a complete waste of time.”

  “One more moment,” Edwards said holding up a hand to James, “Did you get any sense of what this fury pertained to, I mean in the person who hated Thompson?” he asked the woman.

  “No, it was very well hidden,” she said. Edwards looked at her a moment longer and then took the ladle from her hands gently. He dipped it in the cauldron and took a sip of the broth. “Not bad at all,” he said, “I may be back for more.” He winked at her as he moved away.

  “You will be back for more,” she told him, “You and the dark man.”

  “What dark man?” James asked and then seeing that he was getting caught up in nonsense he said, “Never mind, are you coming Edwards?”

  They moved on without further comment about the old woman. A man appeared out of a house and he seemed surprised to find two gentlemen in the area. James introduced himself and Edwards and the man told them he was Peter, the gamekeeper.

  “I hear that’s a tricky business down in this part of the world,” Edwards grinned. He knew full well what these people got up to.

  “I suppose it’s the same difficulties all over the world,” Peter replied.

  “Did you know Thompson well?” James asked not wanting to get bogged down in chats about poachers.

  “Well enough,” he admitted, “We didn’t have too much to do with one another but I saw him from time to time.”

  “Did you ever have a falling out with him?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Did you ever see anyone else having trouble with him?”

  “No, Sir, he was not known for causing trouble.”

  “Everyone seemed to have liked this fellow,” James said in annoyance, “I wish I could have met him myself!” The man made no reply to this but looked to Edwards as though for a cue.

  “Was he known to do well with the girls about here? Perhaps someone he shouldn't have?” Edwards asked.

  “Sir?”

  “Is there any chance he upset a rival for a woman's heart?” Edwards clarified.

  “Oh, no, never anything like that!” Peter answered as though scandalized by the idea.

  “The man was a living saint by the sounds of it,” James said. He was put off by not having anything but the footprint to go on and these repetitive statements of the man's goodness were becoming tiring in their uselessness.

  “If anyone knows anything,” Peter said, “It will be old Molly up the road there,” he pointed.

  “We’ve already spoken to her,” James said dismissively.

  “I don't know what else to tell you, Sir?” the man said.

  “Never mind,” James said waving him away, “Go along with your business.”

  As he walked away, James looked down at his footprints and the way he walked and was not surprised to see they did not match those of the killer.

  Chapter 26

  Swifts hospital was much farther from the road then Mary had imagined. She’d come off Watling Street onto Cooks Lane as directed by a woman she met on the street. There was then a long path through a large green area leading to the secluded hospital. This must have been what the woman referred to as the ‘Galway Walk.’

  To her right as she walked along this path she could see the green field slope down to the river. Down this far inland, there were no longer walls and the water level was right up to the land. She had never seen the Liffey looking this way before. She could make out ducks on the water and there was more greenery on the far bank of the river. It suddenly felt as if she was out in the countryside and this scared her a little. Mary had never been out of the throng of the city before and though it looked amazing and the air seemed fresher in her lungs, she couldn’t help but think how isolated and alone she was. No one would hear her calling if something were to happen to her out here.

  Soon she came to a small guardhouse but the person staffing it didn’t seem too alert.

  “Excuse me?” she said to get his attention. He looked her up and down and then said,

  “What?” in a surly tone.

  “I’m here to visit someone in the hospital,” she said.

  “Hospital!” he snorted contemptuously. Mary didn’t know how to go on. “Who is it you’re visiting anyway. Visits are normally on Wednesdays,” he asked.

  “I’m here to see Colonel Spencer,” she said. This took the man by surprise and he finally stood up properly to regard her.

  “He’s not Colonel Spencer in here,” he said. “You do know what kind of place this is don’t you?” There was a mean slur to his question and she felt it hotly.

  “Yes, I know it is an asylum if that is what you’re getting at,” she said to him. He looked at her a moment longer and then seemed to lose interest- perhaps her willingness to talk back to him put him off.

  “Go along around to right of the main building- that’s the real hospital,” he said. “You’ll come another gate for the looney bin, talk to the guard there and he’ll decide if you’re going in or not.” Mary thanked him though only perfunctory and set off on her way.

  At the next gate, Mary was greeted with greater wariness. The guard asked her who she was and then he went off to talk to his superior. Both men soon came back and the superior spoke to her,

  “Excuse me Miss, who are you here to see?”

  “Colonel Spencer,” she said as she had to the first man.

  “Do you know Mr Spencer?”

  “Yes, I was the person he confessed to,” she said thinking this might get her a little farther than anything else she could say.

  “He hasn’t had any visitors since he came here,” the man said.

  “Well, then I am his first,” she answered.

  “Wait here please,” he then said, “I will have to go and see if he is willing to see you. What name should I tell him?”

  “Mary Sommers.”

  The wait seemed long but when the man came back, he was smiling and he told the guard to open the gate and admit her. Once inside it was closed again behind her and the superior led her through a doorway and down a hall before they started to ascend a stairway.

  “Mr Spencer has his own rooms,” the man said, “You will meet him in the one closest to the guard. You will be behind a gate but if you need us we will be just a few feet away.”

  “He’s not dangerous is he?” she asked nervous now as they approached. What had she done in coming here?

  “He’s been a model inmate since he got here and stopped seeing the Devil everywhere he looked.” This assured her. She thought of his letter again and of the man she knew from the sessions of his painting her.

  They came to the last gate and Mary was shown inside.

  “First room on the left,” the man said to her. Mary nodded and walked down the short distance to the door. She knocked gently,

  “Come in, come in, please?” the cheerful voice of Spencer came back to her. She opened the door and went inside.

  Spencer was across the room standing by a table. There was a huge smile on his face and his eyes were alive and lucid. He was nothing like the last time she had seen him.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Ms Sommers,” he said.

  “Hello,” she said back to him. She was standing by the door nervous to go in.

  “I would have opened the door myself, but one of the rules of our meeting is that I stay here behind this table. If they were to hear it move they would be in here like a shot and our visit would be over,” he said still smiling. Now for the first time she saw that though not trapped by any means, he was certainly hemmed in by the table in front of him.

  “I got your letter,” she whispered. Here he looked worried and put his hands to his lips,

  “Don’t talk about that,” he said softly, “Come closer, please. Have a seat.”

  Mary crossed the room and sat down on the other side of the table. Once she was seated, Spencer did the same and the smile returned to his face.

  “I’m so glad you ca
me,” he said, “You are the only person I could think of who might be willing to help me.”

  “You don’t think you killed all those people any more?” she asked bluntly.

  “No, in fact I’m almost sure of it. I admit I was mad for a time but I now believe I was set up. I just need to prove I’m innocent and then I can start to try to figure out who did this to me.”

  “What if you can’t find an alibi for any of the nights of the murders?” she asked him.

  “That is a possibility, but I’m confident that between my memory and my diary I will find at least one. One is all it takes to throw doubt on all the others.”

  “Where is your diary?” she asked.

  “That’s in my house. I’ll need you to go and get it too.”

  “How would I do that?” she asked.

  “There is a key hidden in the back by the servant’s entrance. It should still be there and my diary is in my bedroom by the bed.”

  “So you need me to bring you your diary and some news sheets from the time of the killings?”

  “Well you probably can’t bring those things in here, but if you could look through them and find a match we could talk about it. I should recall if it's in the diary.”

  “And that’s the whole plan?”

  “As much as there is to it at the moment,” he smiled.

  “What if that doesn’t work?”

  “Well, then I have to think of something else,” he answered.

  Mary looked at him and she could see the sincerity in his eyes. She was right to come here, she felt, and it was only right to help him.

  “I have a condition,” she said.

  “If I can do it, I will,” he said.

  “If we clear your name, you have to help me find out what happened to John?”

  “The boy you were courting, who went missing?”

  “Yes.”

  “I promise that if you get me out of here, I will leave no stone unturned until we find out what happened to him.”

  Chapter 27

  Having not made much headway in the morning at the village, James dined for lunch with the family and Edwards. They spoke of other matters as James mulled the case over in his head. He still wanted to talk to the two Stapleton children and decided he would approach them in the library which is where he’d been told they spent each afternoon to digest their lunch. Victoria and Henry looked at one another uneasily when James entered and asked if he could talk to them a moment.

  “Of course,” Henry said in a show of bravado.

  “Thank you,” James said and he walked across the room to the window giving himself some time to settle on the approach he was going to take with these two. He decided to come straight to his point.

  “The other evening, when we spoke about Thompson’s death, I asked if he was involved romantically with anyone,” he started.

  “Yes,” Henry said, “And we said we didn’t think so.”

  “Yes, that is how you answered,” James said now looking to Victoria who could not hold his gaze and looked away, “But Victoria, you seemed very uncomfortable with this question. You both looked like you may be hiding something, perhaps?”

  From the side of her face and her ear, James could see Victoria’s skin run raging red.

  “I can’t imagine what you saw, Alderman James, but I can assure you we are hiding nothing,” Henry said.

  “Is that so, Victoria?” James said knowing she was the weak link here.

  “It is,” she answered but she could not look in his direction. James sighed and looked the two of them over,

  “Well, I suppose we better get your father in here to clear this matter up,” he said. At this, Victoria spun and looked at Henry in horror.

  “I don’t see any reason to do that?” Henry said but he was no longer as composed as before.

  “It could be avoided if you tell me what secret you are both hiding?” They were both silent at this. “Might I remind you both a man has been murdered here.”

  At this, Victoria burst out crying and threw her head into her folded arms on the table.

  “Oh, Henry, just tell him!” she wailed. James looked to Henry who looked stunned and completely lost for words. He looked to the door in terror as though he expected Lord Stapleton to come in to see what all the fuss was about.

  “What is it you know?” James addressed him sharply hoping to shock him into speech.

  “It’s nothing,” Henry said, “Only a tease!”

  “What was only a tease?” James asked. Henry squirmed and looked to his sister. She turned in her chair to face him now and the look she gave him was filled with fury.

  “Go on,” she said in a sneering tone, “Tell him what you did!” Now it was Henry's turn to go red and he was once more lost for words.

  “I was only teasing,” he said again in a pleading placating tone. He looked to James as if for understanding.

  “Tell me what happened?” James said.

  “I spent some time supervising in the stables to see how it was being run recently,” Henry said, “While I was there I got to know, Thompson a little. He really did know his business and I learned a lot from him.”

  “I see,” James said hoping to settle Henry and ease him better into telling his story.

  “While I was there, I began to notice him straining to see something every now and then and I endeavoured to find out what had piqued him so.”

  “What was it?”

  “I found that he had been looking at Victoria any time she went past and naturally enough I assumed that he found her attractive.”

  “You confronted him about this?” James said, feeling that perhaps brotherly protection could have been the motive for Thompson’s death.

  “No,” Henry said slowly and now it was clear to James something unpleasant had come about instead.

  “Henry thought it would be better to play with people’s lives rather than defend his sister’s honour.” Victoria said.

  “I was only having some fun!” Henry snapped at her, a typical sibling argument.

  “It wasn’t fun for anyone else!” Victoria snapped back.

  “What did you do?” James asked, he was more curious now than thinking it had any bearing on the case.

  “I told Thompson that Victoria liked him, that’s all,” Henry answered meekly.

  “That wasn’t all!” Victoria shrieked again, “You told him I liked him and you orchestrated a situation where he kissed me!” At this, Henry could not contain a small laugh.

  “You still think it’s funny!” Victoria shouted.

  “Calm down, Victoria,” James urged, “Any lounder and your parents will be in. I don’t think this kind of foolery is something you want them to know about?” Victoria took his point and sat back down, sticking her tongue out at her brother childishly for good measure.

  “Now, how did Thompson react to this ‘joke’?” James asked Henry.

  “He looked annoyed but he stormed away and I didn’t speak to him again after that.”

  “You didn’t see him again?”

  “I didn’t go back to the stables any more, but I saw him going about his work through the windows.”

  “You never spoke to him again before he died?”

  “No, and to be honest I feel bad about that. I should have apologised to him.”

  “You shouldn't have done it in the first place!” Victoria hissed. To this, Henry held up his hands.

  “Did you speak to Thompson after this embarrassing event?” James asked Victoria.

  “I most certainly did not; I couldn't even look at the man after what had happened!”

  “And this is all you are hiding from your parents in relation to Thompson?” James asked. They both said that it was. He nodded, thought on this a moment and then asked,

  “Do either of you put any stock in to the legends of this house?”

  The question seemed to stump them both and again they looked at one another for a moment before turning back to James.


  “I sometimes feel there is something off in the house,” Victoria said.

  “Off?” James asked.

  “Yes, like I feel like I am not alone, even if I am the only person in the room.”

  “I see, and what about you, Henry?”

  “I don’t believe in all that rubbish,” he answered, “But I can’t deny there are times when I don’t like being alone here either.”

  “Your mother is frightened too, I think?”

  “She puts an awful lot of stock in the stories,” Victoria said rolling her eyes, “She’s always trying to get Daddy to move to England and get away from the place.”

  “Lord Stapleton doesn’t want to leave?”

  “I think he likes the legends of the place,” Henry said, “And the place around here is very unique.”

  “It is a beautiful house and the lands around are spectacular too,” James agreed. Deciding he was not likely to get anything more of interest from the siblings, James thanked them and went back to his room to think on his morning’s investigations.

  Chapter 28

  Edwards was surprised when the letter carrier delivered a second letter in Steven Olocher’s hand. He had received the first telling in their coded language of how the killing had gone and that no one had seen the act committed. He couldn’t think why there would be another letter so soon unless something had gone wrong.

  “Anything else for the Alderman?” Edwards asked the nervous man.

  “This came last night, but I had nothing else for the house so didn’t bring it up until now,” he handed another letter to Edwards. He recognized the seal of the office of Sheriff Dunbar on the envelope, the same as the last one he’d intercepted on the way to James.

  “Thank you, my good man,” Edwards said tossing a small coin pouch to the man, “Make sure nothing gets through for the Alderman without my seeing it first.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the man said and he scurried away in to the rain that had fallen all through the night and into this morning.