The Devil's Breath

by Tessa Harris

  Lawson nodded. “Yes, your ladyship,” he said. He rose to leave, but Lydia stopped him.

  “There is another pressing matter, Mr. Lawson,” she told him. He frowned. “I am sure you have heard that Lady Thorndike is missing.”

  At the mention of the name, Thomas noticed Lawson’s eyes shot to the floor. “I had heard,” he replied.

  “We need to organize a search party on the estate,” Lydia instructed him. “We must spare at least half a dozen men for the task. They should walk the footpaths, looking for any clues as to her whereabouts.”

  Lawson nodded his unruly head. “I will see to it right away,” he told her. He glanced at Thomas in a vain attempt at deference.

  “Keep us informed, Mr. Lawson. That will be all,” she said, dismissing the steward.

  As soon as he had left the room Thomas walked over to Lydia and put his hands on her shoulders. “He knows something about Lady Thorndike’s disappearance.”

  Without turning ’round Lydia reached for one of his hands and clasped it to her chest. “We shall see,” she said. “All I can do is show willing for the sake of poor Sir Henry.”

  The men worked in four teams of two, each taking a specific area of the estate. Ned Perkins was in charge of the search in Boughton’s southeast corner. They had been combing the footpaths for a little over an hour and had found nothing. Visibility was poor, but not so poor that they could not see the hedgerows and the ditches on either side of the uneven tracks. With their staves they prodded gorse bushes and hawthorns, but to no avail.

  When they came to a fork in the path, Ned Perkins stopped. A short lane led up to the steward’s lodgings.

  “You and me shall take Plover’s Lake,” he said, pointing to Adam Smith, a scrawny youth. “The rest of you go on to the threshing barn and we’ll catch you up.”

  So the men parted ways and Perkins and Smith started off on the five-minute walk to the lake. The path soon became uneven, but was still passable, and it was not long before they were standing on the reed-fringed bank. The stretch of water was long and thin, narrowing to just a few feet in the middle, and curving on the eastern shore. Lord Crick had built a small fishing lodge there, with a jetty jutting out over the water, although it had not been used since his death. Without sunlight, and no wind, the lake looked like a flat piece of slate bedded in among the withered irises and bulrushes. Two geese bolted out of the reeds and cackled off into the fog. A moorhen lay dead in its unkempt nest.

  Ned Perkins cupped his grubby hands around his mouth and shouted. “Helloooo! Hellooo!” His rough voice, like the crack of a flintlock, sent another two geese scudding to the far shore. On the other side of the water he could see Adam Smith, using his staff like a scythe, swishing through the head-high weeds. They would soon meet up at the fishing lodge as planned. He could see it clearly now; a strangely ornate thatched building, sitting on the water’s edge. He remembered when it used to be filled with the late lord’s friends from London during the trout season. Now, however, it looked oddly forlorn, its roof greened over and melding in with the surrounding reeds that were encroaching upon it, inch by inch.

  He scanned the shoreline. There was nothing there. He would call to Smith and tell him not to bother to beat a path all the way ’round to the lodge. He was just about to signal to him to return the way he had come when he saw something in the shallows by the jetty. Could it be a sack floating? No, it was plum-colored, voluminous. His mouth went dry as he edged closer. It was then that he saw the red hair swirling on the surface, the long tresses of a woman, and he knew he had found Lady Thorndike.

  Chapter 25

  Thomas arrived on the scene in under an hour. Perkins and Smith had dragged the body from the water and the younger man had run to call help. The doctor rode over to the lake on horseback after instructing Lovelock to bring a covered cart. He also sent word to Sir Theodisius, the Oxford coroner, who needed to be informed of the death. Lydia was given the unenviable task of telling Sir Henry.

  Perkins sat a few feet away from the corpse on the bank, looking out onto the lake. The foreman looked as gray as the flat water.

  “You have done well,” Thomas reassured him.

  The doctor could tell immediately that the woman in the plum-colored dress was indeed Lady Thorndike. She was lying face up. He recognized her striking features; those high cheekbones and the dimple at the center of her chin. Only now her rouged lips were blue and her skin as white as alabaster. Tiny nuggets of gravel pitted her nose and forehead and duckweed flecked her hair. Already the flies were buzzing around her.

  Thomas’s mind flashed back to the face of Agnes Appleton. She had shared a similar fate in London only two days before. He recalled how a thin line of foam had laced her lips, but on Lady Thorndike’s face there was nothing, save for a fly that had landed on her cheek. Bending low he placed his palms on her chest and pressed hard. Nothing. No liquid spurted out from her mouth. Thomas tried again, but with the same result. He straightened himself.

  “Where exactly did you find her?” he asked Perkins.

  The foreman pointed to the spot, just by the jetty. “There, sir,” he said.

  Thomas walked over to inspect the area more closely. One or two of the timbers on the jetty were rotting away. Some had splintered and cracked. It certainly did not look safe enough to stand on.

  “Her ladyship must have slipped and fallen off,” ventured Perkins, cocking his head toward the lake.

  Thomas did not reply. He was too preoccupied. Up until last month the sun had been so hot that much of the water had evaporated, leaving the level considerably lower than usual. He could tell from the exposed algae coating the gravel like green slime that the lake was only half full. There were signs on the piers of the jetty, too, where weed clung tenaciously to the wood way above the water line.

  “She was facedown?” The gravel embedded in her face told him as much.

  Perkins shivered at the recollection. “Yes, sir.”

  “And how deep was the water, would you say?”

  The foreman shrugged. “Less than six inches, sir.”

  Thomas agreed that the lake at this point was, indeed, shallow. He had heard of grown men drowning in a few inches of water, but they had either been unconscious at the time or their faces had been held down until they could no longer breathe. There was, of course, another and, in his opinion, more likely alternative, but he would need to conduct a postmortem to prove that theory.

  Arriving back at Boughton Hall an hour later Thomas found Lydia seated with Sir Henry in the drawing room. She sprang to her feet as soon as he walked in, relieved that he could share the burden of a husband’s grief. Sir Henry himself remained seated, his heart condition making it difficult for him to stand.

  “Silkstone,” he said gruffly. Thomas recalled the last time he had seen him was after the unfortunate incident with his wife.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, bowing. “Please accept my condolences.”

  The old man huffed. “Told her maid she was going for a walk. She must’ve lost her way in the fog and fallen.” His dry lips trembled and Lydia reached out to him in a gesture of comfort.

  Thomas nodded, managing to keep his features expressionless. If Sir Henry thought his wife had ventured out in the fog simply to go for a walk, then he was even more deluded than he had feared.

  At that moment Howard appeared and announced the arrival of the Oxfordshire coroner. Sir Theodisius Pettigrew lumbered grim-faced into the drawing room and went straight over to Sir Henry, his flabby hand extended.

  “My dear fellow, this is terrible news,” he lamented. “Terrible news. How did it happen?”

  Sir Henry lifted his head slowly. “She told her maid she was going for a walk,” he repeated. “A walk, in this fog!” He was half laughing as he spoke. “She must have wandered by the lake and lost her footing.”

  Sir Theodisius settled his large backside onto a chaise longue.

  “A tragic accident,” he said.

 
“Indeed,” agreed Sir Henry, nodding his bewigged head, his eyes moistening as he spoke.

  Switching ’round to Thomas, who had just joined him on the seat, the coroner whispered: “Has he formally identified her yet?” The young doctor shook his head. It was an unpleasant duty that needed to be performed and Sir Theodisius took the lead.

  Lydia had thoughtfully ordered Lady Thorndike’s body to be laid on a bed in one of the guest rooms upstairs, so that when her husband saw her, it appeared she was merely sleeping. Her hair had been combed, her face washed, and her dress smoothed. Her white hands were clasped on her breast, as if in prayer.

  Sir Henry heaved himself upstairs with difficulty and gazed on his wife’s face for the last time. “Yes, that is my Julia.” He nodded wistfully.

  Sir Theodisius put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Very well,” he said. “You are free to make the funeral arrangements.”

  Thomas, however, cleared his throat and caught the coroner’s eye. He needed a private word.

  “I shall leave you alone for a few moments,” Sir Theodisius said to the new widower.

  Joining Thomas by the door, the coroner pulled an irritated face. “What is it now, Silkstone?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you suspect her death wasn’t an accident.”

  Thomas looked apologetic. “I cannot be certain, sir,” he replied.

  The coroner sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. It was almost time for luncheon and his stomach was beginning to growl, putting him in an irritable mood. “So, you want to perform a postmortem?”

  The young doctor nodded. “I am not convinced that her ladyship’s death was accidental.”

  Sir Theodisius arched a brow. “The woman went for a walk, lost her way in this cursed fog, fell into the lake and drowned. End of story, Silkstone.”

  From the look on the doctor’s face, however, the coroner could tell he remained unconvinced. “So, if she didn’t drown . . .” He stopped abruptly in mid sentence, suddenly reminded of Thomas’s habit of expounding scientific theories that were beyond the ken of most mortals. “Oh, very well. You have my permission to examine the corpse,” he said grudgingly. “But put it back as you found it, mind. I do not wish to upset Sir Henry any more than we have to.”

  Chapter 26

  The country residence of Sir Montagu Malthus lay three miles south of Banbury. Built around forty years before, Draycott House was a fine example of early Georgian architecture and had been home to the landowner and lawyer for almost all that time. It had served him and his household well over the years, although had he known that his wife, who had died a decade before, would be without issue, he might have chosen somewhere a little more intimate.

  He very often found himself rattling around in rooms that should have been filled with warmth and laughter, or strolling in the grounds without another soul in sight. Now and again he was enveloped by a desperate loneliness. So many of his friends had passed on; Richard Crick, then dear Felicity two years ago. He was himself in his dotage and was beginning to feel the lack of progeny most cruelly. Lydia Farrell was the nearest he had to a family and it pained him to see her making the same mess of her young life that her brother, his godson Edward, had before her. That was why he had sent his notary on a quest.

  It had been so remarkably fortuitous, he told himself. One might even say a sign. He had been sitting at Lydia’s bedside as she lay as still as a statue in the depths of unconsciousness a few weeks before. Her attempt to take her own life had, thankfully, backfired, and so there she was in her bed at Boughton, in a coffin of her own making; not dead, but then not quite alive. She would go for hours without a single movement or a word passing her beautiful lips and then suddenly, one afternoon, she began to mumble. Her eyes remained closed, but her mind was obviously active. At first she made odd croaking sounds, but they soon grew louder. It was then that her parched lips formed intelligible sounds and her face screwed itself up in terror. “No! No!” she had cried. “My baby!”

  Leaning forward, Sir Montagu had stilled her flailing arms. “Hush, my dear. All is well,” he soothed. A few seconds later her breathing had steadied and she appeared to fall, once more, into a deep slumber. But the seed had been sown. “A baby,” he repeated softly. He recalled he had been helping Lydia go through her late husband’s papers shortly after his death. There had been boxes and folders and cases full of ledgers and receipts and bills. Lydia’s grief had been so great that her mind was not fully on the task in hand. That was why he had said nothing when he had come across some invoices from a wet nurse in Hungerford for the upkeep of a child by the name of Richard Farrell.

  Putting together this written evidence and Lydia’s own, albeit involuntary, outburst, he had begun making inquiries the previous month. Could it really be that Boughton had a legitimate heir after all? His own visit prior to her ridiculous suicide attempt had shown her to be unwilling to remarry a suitable peer and produce children. He suspected that she was still besotted with that upstart from the Colonies. But now, no matter. He had received word from the notary, a reliable man, if a little slow in some respects, that his mission had been accomplished. The child was in his custody and would be arriving at Draycott House later on that day.

  Such news had certainly put a spring in Sir Montagu’s step. He had ordered the principal guest room to be made ready. Pastries and sweetmeats were to be baked and even a pony and trap to be put at the young man’s disposal. Yes, it would be wonderful to have some young blood coursing ’round Draycott for the time being. Until, that is, Lydia acceded to his demands.

  The body of Lady Julia Thorndike lay on the marble slab in the game larder ready to be examined. A sickly sweet smell wafted around the corpse and Thomas lit a pipe to mask it as he worked. He had already divested her and covered her in a thin white sheet. Now he rolled up the sides to inspect her feet and hands. Taking her cold fingers, he turned them over so that he could see her palms. They were wrinkled, like parchment. The skin on her feet, too, was creased. Dozens of deep furrows lined the soles and between her toes. She had been in the water for at least two days, he told himself.

  Next he pressed down on her chest once more, keeping his eyes on her mouth. Just as before, no liquid dribbled from her lips. If she had drowned, then foam would have appeared. He had seen it so many times before. If victims were alive when they went into the water, as Agnes Appleton had been, then their lungs and, indeed, their whole respiratory passage would be filled with foam—the result of a great churning motion that occurs within the chest cavity when water mixes with mucus before the victim is starved of oxygen. Thomas saw for himself there was none here. He did not even have to use his scalpel to determine that Lady Thorndike had almost certainly not drowned.

  Thomas drew heavily on his pipe and straightened his aching back. He knew he did not have long to examine the body. Sir Henry did not even know that he was conducting a postmortem and would be engaging an undertaker within the next few hours. He looked at Lady Thorndike’s hands once more and in particular her fingernails. They were completely clean. No struggle was indicated. There were no deposits of gravel or mud from the pond bottom. He would have to start from the top: the head.

  Resting his pipe on a nearby stone shelf, he began to feel the skull. His fingers raked through the still-damp hair to the temples, then the crown, but he could feel nothing untoward. It was only when he lifted up the cranium and examined the smooth curve of the occipital lobe that he began to suspect. Quickly he turned Lady Thorndike over onto her face to take a closer look. Using a comb to part her thick red hair, he could see a deep livid bruise, almost as long as a man’s hand, covering the lower half of the cranium. Reaching for a pair of scissors from his bag, he cut away the hair near the scalp, then taking his magnifying glass he studied it more carefully. The contusion was, indeed, long, and there was a small cut of less than an inch. Nevertheless the area was swollen, with a great bulge of fluid protesting underneath.

  There was something more, too. He peered at the
wound more closely. There were two or three flakes of organic material dotted in the hair. Reaching for his tweezers, he teased them out, one by one, dropping them into a phial. Holding the glass tube up to the light, he examined the contents closely. They were leaves of some kind and definitely not duckweed from the pond. He sniffed at them. There was no perfume. Two days in the water had put paid to any scent they may once have had.

  His own back was already aching and he stepped away from the table to straighten his spine for a moment. The movement made the candle by the corpse flicker and as it did, the shaft of light caught something reflective. Thomas reached for his magnifier and, leaning over, inspected the wound once more. And there it was: a tiny flake of shiny material embedded deep in the tissue. Grasping his tweezers he plucked it out and held it to a flame. A piece of glass? A shard of mirror? He dropped the fragment into another phial and stood away from the slab. Picking up his pipe, he sucked on it once more. Lady Thorndike had, he concluded, been hit on the head with a blunt object from behind, causing a swelling of the brain. She had, most definitely and irrefutably, been murdered.

  Thomas told Lydia the disturbing news as she sat in the study, going over the accounts.

  “Lady Thorndike did not drown.”

  “Then what . . . ?”

  “She was hit on the head from behind before she either fell or was dragged into the water.”

  Lydia put down her pen. “Murder?”

  “I need to return to the lake to look for the weapon that was used,” he told her, turning for the door.

  She stood up suddenly. “No, wait,” she said. “Let me come with you.”

  Thomas shook his head. “The fog still lingers, my love. It is not safe to be outdoors for long.” But she set her gaze on him, and he could tell from her determined expression she would not take no for an answer.