The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4)

by Harriet Smart

  “Louisa Rivers – there is something wrong with her. I think she’s – oh, I don’t know what’s wrong, but there’s something. I was sorting the linen and there’s a bucket where they put the napkins – you know, the sort of napkins that women use when they have their courses, and when I tipped it out to put with the other washing, they looked all wrong.”

  “How do you mean?” he asked, sitting down and beginning his plate of ham and eggs. There was a gravity in her manner that could not be ignored and he sensed the urgency of the moment.

  They don’t look like they have been used the way they usually are. They’ve got blood all over them, but it’s in the wrong places and it looks different. Oh, it’s hard to explain. It just made me wonder. You’ve been talking so much about bloodstains lately, and the different density and colour – that’s what you said, isn’t it?” He nodded. “It’s as if she has used them on a different sort of wound.”

  “That sounds strange,” Felix said, his mouth full.

  “And she’s as pale as pale, and, and weak as a kitten. She’s not well, but she’s pretending she is. She fainted in her chair last night. I found her slumped in it, passed out. She came round soon enough and then she ordered me out of the room. I am sure she’s not well. You have to come and look at her.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Felix. “Just let me finish my coffee.”

  “And comb your hair,” she said, reaching out and attempting to smooth it.

  In less than half an hour they were at the little cottage in St John Street.

  “I’m sorry to have stepped out, ma’am,” Sukey said to Mrs Rivers, who seemed rather surprised to see Sukey coming into the house. “But I thought it best to fetch someone. This is Mr Carswell. He’s a surgeon. It’s your daughter, ma’am, I believe she’s not well.”

  “What do you mean?” said Mrs Rivers.

  “She’s not got up yet, has she, ma’am?”

  “No.”

  “I think you should let Mr Carswell see her,” Sukey said. “She was faint last night – well, I found her passed out, but she would not let me help her.”

  “She did look pale,” Mrs Rivers said. She turned to Felix. “You are not practising here?”

  “No, I work for Major Vernon,” said Felix. “May I see her? From what Mrs Connolly has said, she may need assistance.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. This way.”

  She led them up a narrow staircase and tapped on the door to the girl’s room.

  “Louisa?”

  There was no answer and Mrs Rivers went into the room. She at once exclaimed, “Oh, dear Lord!”

  Felix followed her at once.

  The girl lay there, staring up at them with glassy eyes, with blood-soaked bedclothes twisted up round her. On the floor was a large fragment of glass.

  He grabbed her wrist. Her pulse was still in evidence but worryingly feeble. The amount of blood already shed was alarming. She swooned into unconsciousness as Felix pulled back the bedclothes and pushed up her nightgown to find the source of the haemorrhage.

  “Cradle her head,” he said to Sukey. “Keep her with us. Use salts – there are some in my bag.”

  “I have salts,” said Mrs Rivers running from the room.

  “Come on now,” said Sukey, lifting the girl up into her arms, and tapping her cheeks. “Miss Rivers, come now!”

  Felix looked down at her belly. It was ripped to shreds, and there was not much flesh to shred. He glanced at the piece of glass on the floor – that had been the object responsible, he was sure of it, and he was certain this was self-inflicted.

  “I’ve got some mending to do here,” he said. “I think it’s mostly superficial. But I can’t see until we have cleaned her up.

  The girl’s eyes flickered open and she gave a moan.

  “It’s all right,” said Sukey, brushing her hand across the girl’s forehead. “Mr Carswell is going to put it all right.”

  “No, no...” she began and tried to rise from the bed, turning her face away. “No!”

  Mrs Rivers came back now with the salts, which when applied, brought her coughing and spluttering. “Leave me alone!” she gasped. “Leave me.”

  “No, I’m not going to let you die, Louisa,” said Felix taking off his coat, “no matter how much you may want to. Mrs Rivers, will you sit where Mrs Connolly is now, and keep your daughter calm? Sukey, I need warm water, a sponge and some muslin dressings. I may have a few in my bag, but you will need to improvise the rest.”

  Sukey left without another word, closing the door behind her. He heard her speaking to a child on the stairs.

  She came back soon enough with the water.

  “I’ve sent the boys to school, and the girls to your neighbour, ma’am,” she said, setting down the water.

  It was as well she had done so. The work of the next half hour was not pleasant. The girl would not be calm – she writhed and resisted at every touch. She was suffering, it was apparent, under a double burden of physical and mental torment. She wept and screamed and protested, and at times Sukey and Mrs Rivers were both obliged to hold her down so he could finish putting in his stitches. At last it was done, and since the blood loss had been stemmed, at least for the present, he gave her a large dose of laudanum (which again she tried to refuse) and watched with some relief as she drifted into sleep. Mrs Rivers broke down utterly, and Sukey gently took her from her room. Felix covered Louisa with one of the bloodstained blankets.

  Sukey came back a little while later with more hot water and a cup of tea for him.

  “Did you have a cup yourself?” he said, drinking it gratefully.

  “Yes,” she said, looking down at Louisa. “Do you think she did that to herself?”

  “Definitely. See this?” he said and showed her the burn on his arm. “I did this with a spoon Major Vernon found in Miss Barker’s room. I heated it up in the fire. She had burns like this all over her thighs.”

  “Mortification of the flesh, I suppose,” said Sukey, gathering up the bloodstained bedclothes he had thrown onto the floor. She gave a slight shudder.

  “You saved her life,” Felix said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it.

  “Oh, I believe that was you,” she said.

  “She’d have died if you hadn’t come to get me.”

  “Do you think she wanted to die?”

  “It’s possible,” Felix said. “It felt like it, didn’t it?” Sukey nodded.

  “Will she ever talk to me now?” she said.

  “You will find a way,” Felix said. “I am sure you can. Major Vernon thinks you can and he rarely gets these things wrong.”

  -o-

  “We are both early risers, I see, Major Vernon,” Mrs Maitland said, smiling at him as he came into the sunny breakfast parlour. She was seated at the table, the cloth spread in front of her. “The best of the tea and the toast shall be your reward. And we have a pork pie – of my own making, I am not too proud to admit that, these days.”

  “I wonder you have the time for such feats,” he said.

  “It is an excuse to see that all is well in the kitchen,” she said. “Did you sleep well? I hope you were comfortable.”

  “Yes, very,” he said.

  “I wonder if Charles will join us,” she said.

  “It might be a kindness to send him some coffee and bread and butter,” Giles said, sitting down at the table.

  “Is that your best remedy for dissipation?” she said.

  “I did see him again last night,” he said. “And he was rather the worse for wear.”

  She gave a sigh and stirred the tea pot.

  “He is too young to handle spirits, certainly,” she said.

  “He probably realises that now,” Giles said.

  “Was he very ill?” she said.

  “Somewhat.”

  “I should have locked them up,” she said. “But he is not a child. He must take a little responsibility for himself, but then again, his grief over Gosforth seems to have ma
de him lose what common sense he had.” She poured out a cup of tea and offered it to him. “Is that too strong for you?” Giles shook his head. “And thank you for dealing with that. I am not sure I should have been equal to it. I have nursed him through a hundred trifles, of course, but that...” She gave a shrug and offered him the plate containing the raised pie, as yet uncut. “Now you must have some pie, Major. I command you to it!”

  “And destroy its perfection?” said Giles. “It’s a work of art.”

  “Cut it and eat it. There is mustard here,” she said.

  “With pleasure.”

  He could not help smiling at her eagerness to have him sample her cooking. The pie was excellent and he had no trouble complimenting her on it.

  “I’m lucky to have raised pies and leaking gutters to distract me,” she said. “If I had only Charles to fret over I would be in a sorry state. I do fret too much about him as it is, probably more than is healthy. I suppose it’s because it has been just the two of us for so long. If I had had a husband and other children, then perhaps...”

  “You never thought of remarrying?”

  “No. I did have an offer or two at one time, but not for many years now, as you may imagine!” she added with a laugh.

  “I can’t imagine it all,” he said. “I’m surprised there is not a gaggle of admirers at the door this minute, waiting to ask.”

  “You need to practise your gallantry,” she said, refilling his cup. “That did not sound remotely sincere.”

  “I will try harder.”

  “Do,” she said.

  “But you were never tempted by those offers when they came?” he could not resist asking.

  “A little. It would have been pleasant to surrender the responsibility of bringing up a child alone, and have a husband to look after me. One of them especially did tempt me, and on reflection I should perhaps have accepted him, even though...” she glanced away. “But if one’s feelings are not truly engaged, whatever the worldly advantages might be – my goodness, Major Vernon, you have me being too frank at the breakfast table!” she added, with a nervous laugh.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have,” he began. “My curiosity got the better of me. You intrigue me.”

  “Is that you practising your gallantry?” she said.

  “No,” he said. “You’ve been honest, so I’m being honest in return.”

  She looked down into her tea cup, and he wondered if he had made her blush. He certainly felt a little warm himself. It was very pleasant to be alone with her like this, in a room filled with bright winter sunshine that seemed to illuminate her complexion to such advantage.

  Imbray the butler came in.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but Hicks is downstairs,” he began breathlessly. “He’s in a right state. Says he was clearing out the culvert in the East Quarter, as you told him to, and that he and the boy have found a lot of bones in there – and God help us, ma’am – he said he thinks they’re human.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Preliminary thoughts, Mr Carswell?” said Major Vernon.

  It was now noon as they stood in the bleak corner of the black field. A bitter wind was coming in vigorously from the east, with an attendant legion of gunmetal-grey clouds which blocked the already low sun entirely from view.

  The rain began to fall again as Felix hauled himself out of the culvert and onto the bank. He had been looking for other bones, but with little success, despite wading into the stream. He was now soaked to the knees and although the first cold bite of the water had been disagreeable, being in there for some time was even more so.

  “Human, definitely – but only a partial skeleton,” he said. “Given the force of the water through here, especially given it never seems to stop raining in this part of the world, some of the smaller bones will have dispersed with the initial disintegration of the corpse. We may not be able to recover them all.”

  “You’ve done pretty well as it is,” said Major Vernon, looking at the bones as they lay on the bank spread out on a piece of sacking, in the rough outline of a human form.

  “We need to get that inside,” said Felix glancing up at the sky. “There is no point continuing here just now.”

  “No, certainly. And you need to get dry. I have commandeered Lord Milburne’s riding school.”

  “He has a riding school?” said Felix.

  “Hung with expensive tapestries, no less,” said Major Vernon. “Now, I assume you wish that moved with as little disturbance as possible?”

  “Yes, that would be helpful.”

  “I’ll go and see to it. You go and wait in the carriage.”

  “Gladly,” said Felix, wondering how many inches of water he had in his boots and if he had ruined them.

  Major Vernon joined him a few minutes later, during which he had already got comprehensively soaked. It was no surprise – the rain was now beating down on the carriage roof.

  “This place is surely cursed,” said Felix. “Not that I believe in such things, but I might, if I knew no better.”

  “The bones are in the flat bed wagon, and well-covered,” Major Vernon said. “It is a ten minute drive, at most.”

  “It does not matter if they go a little out of order. I was not sure myself at times. I may have put in some animal bones by accident,” Felix said. “There was a lot of rubbish in there.”

  “How long does it take for a body to be reduced to that condition?” Major Vernon asked as the carriage drove off.

  “I can’t say exactly,” said Felix. “It depends when it was put there.”

  “Which is what I need to know, if at all possible.”

  “In some ways,” Felix said, “a culvert like that is the perfect spot to strip the flesh from the bones. If, for example, it was deposited in the summer heat – if they have such a thing here, that is – then that and insects and so forth would have got the flesh decaying nicely. And then the water from the burn washing it all away and breaking it up periodically. It was a good place to put it, from the point of view of concealment.”

  “If that is what happened,” said Major Vernon. “It may not be a case of concealing a corpse, at least I hope it isn’t. It is probably some poor old soul taking shelter, and dying there. Before this autumn, perhaps?” he asked. “Would the body be in a less extreme condition after, say, September?”

  “Perhaps,” Felix said. “It depends upon a great many things: the weather; the rate of flow of water; the condition of the corpse itself; and whether any wild animals got at it. So I am sorry, but the estimates will be hazy to say the least.”

  “We shall do the best we can.”

  “Of course, when I examine the bones in a good light there may be a few more hints. Oh, and I should not say ‘it’ – it was a woman, given the shape of the pelvis, and she was small in stature.”

  “That is something,” said Major Vernon. “Let us hope we can find a name and some kind soul to bury her properly.” He exhaled. “Although it is a complication I could do without. Especially with this business with Miss Rivers. She sounds distressed, to put it politely, to do that to herself.”

  “Yes,” said Felix, who had given Major Vernon the briefest outline of the morning’s events when he had met him at the culvert. “I can’t form an opinion on that yet, either, except she made a deliberate mess of herself on several occasions and she did not wish to be treated. I shall need to get back to her before too long. She’s in good hands with Mrs Connolly, though.”

  “Indeed,” said Major Vernon. “I sent a message to Earle to come here and see the body. He will want to talk to you and then you can go back to her. Oh, and I’m sure Mrs Maitland will find you some lunch and some dry clothes.”

  This lady was at the door of the riding school to greet them. Tall and plainly dressed, she did not strike Felix as particularly handsome, but she was energetic and cheerful in a manner that was welcome on such an occasion. She took one look at him and the parlous state of his boots, and came back a few moments
later with dry breeches, stockings and a pair of riding boots.

  “I think you are about the same size as my son,” she said. “There is a fire in there for you to change by.”

  The boots and breeches were not a bad fit, and Felix did not feel foolish as he went upstairs to a sitting room overlooking the covered manège.

  Here was lunch, just as the Major had said there would be: some excellent creamed barley soup and pork pie, served in picnic fashion. Mrs Maitland described the room as ‘Lord Milburne’s folly’.

  “In other circumstances,” she said, indicating the gaudy medieval trappings which lay about the room, “one might almost enjoy this fanciful stuff.”

  “But you are beyond enjoying it,” Major Vernon remarked.

  “I am hoping the tradesmen will take most of it back,” she said, fingering a velvet wall hanging. “But they will charge for that as well. We shall be out of pocket, whatever.” She sat down at the table with them and pushed the cheese plate towards Felix, with a smile. “May I tempt you, Mr Carswell?”

  He was just cutting his cheese when he noticed a pencil drawing hanging on the wall behind her – two young ladies drawn in profile: Miss Barker and Miss Rivers. In the light of what had happened that morning he could not help staring at it. Mrs Maitland turned to look at what had caught his eye, as did Major Vernon. The Major rose from the table, unpinned the drawing and laid it in front of their hostess.

  “What was your impression of these young women?” he said to her. “I don’t know how much you saw of them.”

  “Scarcely anything, and I’m now wondering why they have pride of place here,” she said, picking up the picture and looking at it. “This other young lady – that is Miss Rivers, isn’t it? Charles must have drawn this. He used to spend a great deal of time drawing when he was younger, but I thought he had given that up. I wonder when he did this. They were not here, certainly. I would have noticed if we had young ladies sitting for their portraits.”

  “Perhaps at Mrs Yardley’s?” Felix said. “Miss Yardley told me the girls went there quite often.”

  “Has your son being going there?” Major Vernon asked.