The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4)

by Harriet Smart

  “If you are sure,” he said, feeling her clasp him a little tighter. “You will tell me, if there is something?”

  “Yes,” she said, but it seemed to him that she did not sound certain she would. The pleasure of having her so close was quite spoilt by the fear that she was suffering, and would not tell him of it.

  “Promise?” he said.

  “Promise,” she said, and pulled herself away. “Now I have to go, and so do you. I have to see to those cheeky birds of yours, on top of everything.”

  “Yours now,” Felix said.

  “Only if they take the trouble and lay for me,” she said. “Otherwise I shall put them in the pot.”

  “You will not,” he said and tried to be encouraged by this show of levity. Yet he could not quite believe in it. “Oh, for the Lord’s sake,” he exclaimed, “what is it? You can tell me anything, you know that.”

  “Nothing, I told you!” she said. “Can’t you just take my word for it?”

  “I would, if I could believe it, but I can’t. Something has happened. What? Was it something I did?”

  “No, no,” she said. “Please, Felix, I don’t want to talk about this any more. I’ve far too much to do, as do you. Now, will you go and look at the poor Professor, before he dies in his bed!”

  -o-

  Hardie’s ribbon mill was not strictly in the direction that Giles had intended to go that morning, but finding he had a little time in hand, he made a detour and went in search of young Holzknecht.

  He went up to the manufactory offices and found a dozen clerks on their stools, while below the looms in the giant weaving sheds were ploughing inexorably on, making miles and miles of ribbon. It was one of those establishments where the looms never ceased, and only the hands changed at night.

  The entrance to the offices had a large window overlooking one of the weaving sheds, and he gazed down on the curious world beneath while his card was taken in by one of the clerks. He had a good view. It was as brilliantly lit as a theatre. The hands were predominately female and they struck him as too young, despite the recent restrictions in law. What sort of life for such creatures was this, he wondered. Until recently, they would have been country dwellers, spinning wool on their distaffs and weeding the crops. Now they were crawling beneath the warps to pick up loose threads, or bent over the great tide of threads to correct a mistake, or adjust the tension, always in danger from a flying shuttle.

  They were no doubt tired, bored and ill-paid. A life of immoral ease would be tempting, he reflected, as women had always been tempted, sometimes to their cost but sometimes to their advantage. It was a question of what one was prepared to risk to feed oneself adequately – the question that any labourer, male or female, had to face daily. If men like Hardie paid their female hands a little better, might there be less of a plague of whores in some of the districts of Northminster? The question came to him as he watched a girl frantically winding threads on a shuttle, her overseer glaring at her. But Hardie no doubt would say he paid the going rate, and that there were plenty of hands asking for jobs at his door each morning.

  He began to speculate whether Yardley liked to come to Northminster not because it was full of whores, but because it was full of girls who were not yet whores: girls who could be tempted to supplement their meagre wages, or even simply bribed with food and drink to surrender their innocence to him.

  “Major Vernon, how may I help you?” Mr Hardie said, coming out of his office to greet him.

  “I did not mean to disturb you, sir,” said Giles. “I was looking for Georg Holzknecht. I believe he works here.”

  “Yes, he does,” said Hardie. “But he isn’t here at present. His father is not well. The Professor was married to a distant cousin of mine. Georg seemed concerned. It seemed unkind to chain him to his stool in such circumstances.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Giles.

  “And is that all?” said Mr Hardie.

  “Yes,” said Giles. “He will be at his lodgings, then?”

  “Yes. In Martinsgate, I believe.”

  “Of course,” said Giles, suppressing his surprise. Was Hardie mistaken, or had he been given a false address for some reason? “I shall try there. I am sorry to hear about the Professor.”

  “A famous scholar, I understand,” said Hardie, nodding. Then he hesitated a moment, and said, “And what was it you wanted with young Georg, sir, might I ask? It was not police business, was it?”

  “Has something been troubling you about him?” Giles asked.

  “It is probably nothing,” said Hardie. “And he is kin, albeit distant, and I should not, but... perhaps we might step into my office for a moment?”

  Giles assented and followed him through the large general office and into a little cubby-hole of a room at the far end. Hardie did not waste money on show, it was obvious.

  “I have discovered a few discrepancies in the books of late,” he said. “And a payment from a customer has gone astray. It was a customer that Georg is supposed to deal with. I hate to think that he may be responsible, but I cannot find another explanation. When Fred handed in your card, I wondered if this was the reason. It was a cheque, you see, that went astray. It has been cashed. My customer has told me that much, but I can find no sign of the money.”

  “And you think this is connected to Holzknecht?”

  “Yes. Most of the other men have worked here for years, and I can vouch for them. And they are not clever enough, if you know what I mean. Georg is clever. He is like a machine with numbers. That is why I took him on, that and the family connection. I was trying to help him and his father, but I rather fear...”

  “I shall make some enquiries,” said Giles, taking out his notebook. “How much was the payment?”

  “Twenty-four pounds, six shillings and ninepence. From Mr Arthur Parsons in Stafford. He has a warehouse – a good customer. It was a cheque drawn on the Northern Provincial Bank, made out to Hardie and Co, as usual.”

  “You are quite sure about that?” Giles said. “You didn’t see the cheque before it disappeared?”

  “No, but Mr Parsons is scrupulous. His cheques are always properly made out.”

  “And how long has Holzknecht worked for you?”

  “Since September.”

  “Thank you,” said Giles. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  There was a knock on the door and a man came in, holding a spool of broad ribbon woven in a pattern of oak leaves.

  “Just thought you’d like to see this, Mr Hardie,” he said, holding out a length. “The new design. Comes out nice, don’t you think, sir?”

  Hardie took the ribbon and examined it.

  “Colours are excellent,” he said. “That’s a good result. See this, Major Vernon, this is Northminster beating the Frenchies at their own game. I dare say you’d know a lady who’d like this for her bonnet?”

  “Certainly,” said Giles, thinking of Mrs Maitland, and how pleasant it would have the excuse to call upon her with a length of it.

  “Take it,” said Hardie. “With my compliments.”

  Giles shook his head and left.

  -o-

  Felix found Louisa Rivers deep in his own well-thumbed copy of Hutchinson’s ‘Principals of Chemistry’.

  “Do you think a woman might become a doctor?” she said.

  “Who knows?” said Felix.

  “You don’t think it would be wrong?”

  “Not if she passed all the necessary examinations,” he said. “And many female patients might prefer it. Especially when it comes to childbearing, and so forth.”

  “That is what I thought,” she said.

  “But whether she would be allowed to sit the examinations,” Felix said, “is another matter. Perhaps one day.”

  “When I am dead and buried,” said Louisa Rivers, laying down the book, and sighing. “I should like to try: to do something like that. I would like to be the person who tried, at least, but...” She looked away, her voice choking up with
emotion. “But I suppose that is impossible now. I have to...” And then she broke down completely, and began to cry in earnest, picking up the chemistry book again and flinging it down on the bed. “They are going to hang me, aren’t they?” she burst out. “Aren’t they? Oh God above, if He exists, which I...”

  Felix tried to calm her as best he could, but her wretchedness was not easily dismissed.

  “Your best chance is to tell us everything,” he said, when she was a little calmer. “Everything. We need to know why you did this thing. Make me understand it, if you can. There must have been a reason why you made the stuff, yes?”

  She dried her tears on her sleeve and sank back on the pillows.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So tell me the man’s name.”

  “You are sure it is a man,” she said.

  “Yes, and not Latimer, I think?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We are going to get him. He’s going to the gallows, and not you, I’m sure of it.”

  “And what power do you have in these matters?” she said.

  “Evidence. Very good evidence. And that is the foundation of everything.”

  “So he can be got?”

  “Yes, certainly. And with your help it will be even easier.”

  “It’s like a nightmare,” she said, after a long pause. “I don’t like to think about it. I try not to. What happened... I think so often I could have prevented it, somehow, that it was our fault for not being more careful.” She looked at him with imploring eyes, her face still beautiful despite her distress.

  “It was not your fault,” he said.

  “What do you know?” she said.

  “It was not your fault. You did not consent.”

  “He will say –”

  “We will prove otherwise.”

  “How?” She said this with a bluntness that for a moment silenced him.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said. “Tell me his name.”

  “You know his name,” she said. “Surely?”

  “We have an idea. Mr Earle has told us a great deal,” he added, and saw her flinch at the mention of that name. “Don’t worry, he will certainly be punished for his part in this.”

  “You will truly believe me if I tell you?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “But against his word and Mr Earle?” He noted how she forced out the name.

  “Yes. They have every reason to lie and you have every reason to be honest. Your desperate actions speak of the distress you and Miss Barker were caused. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

  “What did Earle tell you?” she said after considering his words for a while.

  “I want your account of it first.”

  “You will not believe me. I know it,” she said, twisting up the edge of her sheet in her fingers. “Sometimes, I don’t even believe it myself. I don’t want to believe it, I suppose. Then I could say it was a nightmare or some such, couldn’t I?” She screwed up her face for a moment, took a deep breath and said, “It was Squire Yardley.”

  Felix nodded, and asked, “Where?”

  “At his house. Bel and I were there having tea with Mrs Yardley, as we had done quite a few times I suppose.”

  “Just you and Miss Barker?”

  “Yes, on that occasion.”

  “And can you say when this was?” Felix said.

  “Oh yes, I remember well. It was September the third,” she said. “And it was unusual in that my mother usually came with us, but for some reason she did not. And often Lord Milburne and Mr Gosforth, and Miss Yardley were always there, but that day it was just the three of us, which was pleasant enough and then he came in, which was nothing strange, as he often did when Mrs Yardley was at home. He liked the iced cakes – he would gobble them up,” she said with a shudder. “It was so disgusting. The crumbs in his beard.”

  “I’ve seen him do that,” said Felix.

  “Apart from that, he was quite amusing. He did some clever tricks with a pack of cards and told lots of silly stories. Mrs Yardley seemed quite pleased with him and he was affectionate with her. After a while, she got tired, so she went away to rest, and we were supposed to leave, but instead, Mr Yardley asked us to come and see the toys he had got from Germany for the baby. So we went downstairs to his library. There didn’t seem any harm in it. He was not being – well, you know.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “He was anxious about them – the toys, I mean. He so wanted Mrs Yardley to like them. He was almost worried she would not. So we went into the library and it turned out the toys were not there, but in a sitting room off the library, and of course, we followed him in, not thinking anything of it. Of course, one is always told not to be alone with a man in case of... but there were two of us. We both thought that there couldn’t be any harm in that. A married man who wanted to show us the toys he had bought for his unborn baby? In his own house?”

  She began twisting the sheet again.

  “I think my mother, if she had been there, she would have said: yes, go. He didn’t seem...” Felix nodded, thinking of Sukey’s story. “I didn’t like him much, that’s true enough, I thought he was a bit silly, to tell you the truth, and I hated the way he ate those cakes, but I didn’t think he was going to...”

  “So you went into this little sitting room?”

  “Yes, and he closed the door, saying he didn’t want the servants wandering in, because they would be tempted to steal the toys if they knew they were there. And he gave us each a glass of wine – it was very sweet and I could tell it was quite strong, so I decided I wouldn’t drink much of it. And he had dishes of sweets all about room, and he kept insisting we had some, as if we were little children or something. It was quite funny. I kept glancing at Bel and I could tell she found it funny as well, to have him fussing round like that, feeding us sweets and showing us these ridiculous toys, none of which you would have given to a baby. It was very hard not to burst out laughing. There was a clockwork one with a rabbit that popped out of a lettuce. It was the most silly thing I have ever seen, and so funny, and we could not help ourselves, and soon we were laughing fit to burst. And then suddenly he was on the sofa in between us, and tickling Bel, so she was laughing more and more, and could not help herself, and then, just like that he was all over her, kissing her and mauling her, and she started to protest, and he slapped his hand over her mouth, and told her to shut up or she’d live to regret it.”

  She stopped and covered her face with her hands. He saw her take a few deep breaths to steady herself.

  “I did try to stop him,” she said. “I tried and tried. I was beating him on the back, with my fists, but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept on at her, and so I thought I would make a bolt for it, and get some help, but just as I got to the door, he grabbed me and pushed me down me on the floor and his breeches were open and his thing was out and Bel was crying on the sofa, and I lay there, and he was on top of me, I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t move and he – oh God!”

  She was shaking violently now and her breathing was irregular and painful. She began to retch, and Felix grabbed a basin from the washstand. She was howling with misery at the same time. He sat perched on the bed beside her, supporting her as best he could, alarmed at the intensity of her distress, wondering if he had pressed too hard for this revelation. Her body was still fragile from her wounds, and her convulsions of grief were violent and exhausting. And as he held her, he wondered why she had not contrived to give the poison she had made to Yardley. It would have been a better use of the wretched stuff.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  After a morning spent at his desk, much to the satisfaction of his chief clerk, Giles went back to Silver Street. Meeting Sukey in the hall, he asked, “You don’t happen to know if Holzknecht came back yet?”

  “Why do you want to speak to him?” said Sukey.

  “I looked him up at work but it seems he has used his
father’s illness as an excuse to take a holiday,” said Giles.

  “He can stay out as long as he likes,” Sukey said and turned away down the hall.

  “Yes?” Giles said, following her down the passage to the kitchen door. “Has he offended you?”

  “No,” she said. “What makes you say that? Did Mr Carswell –”

  “Your tone was rather heartfelt,” he said.

  “He gets under everyone’s feet, that’s all. He’s better away,” she said. “Oh, and I have a message from Mr Carswell for you. He’s been called away to the Infirmary to assist Mr Harper. He’s left some notes on your desk. About Miss Rivers...” She sighed.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s in the notes. She told him everything. It’s not pretty – it was Yardley, it seems.” She sighed again and shook her head. “I was just sitting with her.”

  “How is she?”

  “Calm enough, but how do you ever get over such a thing? I can see why Miss Barker killed herself, to be honest. I hope you find him, and soon, Major – he deserves all the torments of Hell and worse!”

  “I will do my best,” he said.

  “Do you want some lunch? I know you don’t set much store by it, but there’s barley soup. All these invalids in the house...”

  “That would be excellent. In about twenty minutes? I want to speak to the Professor first.”

  “Of course. And I’ll make you a pot of coffee, just the way you like it. You are going to need it.”

  She went into the kitchen and he went to the Professor’s door and knocked gently.

  “Yes?” came the reply.

  “It’s Major Vernon, sir,” Giles said. “Might I have a word?”

  “Of course, of course!”

  The old man, in his snuff-coloured dressing-gown, his nightcap on his head, was sitting at the table with his back to the fire. In front of him and in no discernible order were piles and piles of paper.

  “Not resting today, then, sir?” Giles said.

  “I am, in truth,” said the Professor. “I am only moving papers from one pile to another. There is no purpose in it. You may tell Mr Carswell and Dr Pooley that.”