The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4)

by Harriet Smart

  “I shall,” said Giles.

  “Please, do sit down.”

  Giles took the chair on the other side of the table and said, “Your son is out running errands for you?”

  The old man crumpled his brow for a moment.

  “No, he is at his work.”

  “Oh, I understood that he was on leave, because of your health.”

  “He told you that?” said the Professor.

  “Mr Hardie told me,” said Giles.

  “You know Mr Hardie?”

  “Only slightly. He is related to your late wife, I think?”

  “Yes. A good man. He helped us when no-one else would. We were in some difficulty. He has been good to Georg.”

  “I went to speak to your son at the mill this morning. I thought I had better give him a report of your health, but he wasn’t there. Mr Hardie said he had given him leave from work.”

  “How kind of Mr Hardie,” said the Professor after a moment.

  “But Georg has not been home this morning?” Giles said.

  “No.”

  “When I spoke to Mr Hardie this morning he touched on a slightly disturbing matter concerning Georg,” Giles said. “The proceeds from a cheque appear to have gone astray. I was hoping I might speak to him about it.” The old man glanced away. “It is probably just a misunderstanding, but I have to look into the matter.”

  “Yes, yes, of course you must,” said the Professor. “But I cannot help you in finding Georg. If he is not at work, then...” he shrugged. “I suppose he will be back for his dinner?”

  “I will speak to him later, then,” said Giles getting up. “And as I said, it is probably just a misunderstanding.” He glanced about the room, and noticed an elaborate pipe rack containing an array of fancy pipes. There were also two brown tobacco jars. “Are those yours, sir?” he asked.

  “No, I do not indulge. That is a young man’s vice. My son is fond of his pipe, though I tell him it is a poison! But do the young ever listen? I think not.”

  Giles nodded and took his leave.

  -o-

  Sukey had been right about his need for coffee. Carswell’s report of Louisa Rivers’ testimony was harrowing. Yardley had, it seemed, used the threat of exposure to reduce both girls to state of concubinage, and had raped them on many occasions. It left him angry with himself at having failed to locate Yardley. He tried and failed to form any coherent strategies to do so, and turned his mind to the simpler matter of the purloined cheque. It had occurred to him where Holzknecht may have disposed of it, given his taste for tobacco.

  Naturally there were many tobacconist’s shops in Northminster – smoking was a universal vice. However, there was only one where the owner had recently been transported for forging signatures on bills of exchange, namely, Gale’s in Healygate.

  Giles made his way to Healygate, a narrow, twisting street of antique construction. It was busy, for people were drawn there by the many small shops selling a large variety of goods for little money. All of them were brightly tricked out to attract customers and the shopkeepers were neither shy nor discreet. Some of them even stood at their doors and called out their latest bargains. It had the feel of a market.

  Gale’s shop was signalled by the customary Red Indian statue at the door. In this case it was a particularly large one and appeared to have been recently repainted in the most gaudy colours. Judging by this, and the bright gas lights inside, the shop seemed to be thriving despite the notoriety of its now absent proprietor. Giles had heard that Mrs Gale had taken over the management of the establishment and he suspected she had also taken over the forgery business. He had not met the lady in person, but he was sure that she was not the fashionably-dressed young woman minding the shop. She was resting her elbows on the counter, leafing through an illustrated magazine showing the latest modes. She looked up at Giles as he came in, with more than a touch of suspicion.

  He wandered over to a display of fancy pipes, some of which he had already seen in Holzknecht’s rack.

  “How much is this one?” he said, pointing to a bearded Jack Tar.

  “Shilling,” she said.

  “Are they popular?” he said.

  “Suppose so,” she said.

  “Have you had a young man in here, a German, buying these?”

  “German?” she said, straightening.

  “Young and good-looking. About my height, fair hair, slightly curled, and a moustache? Very striking.” She considered the point. He went on, “Does anyone like that come in here to get his tobacco?”

  “May do,” she said, with a practised evasiveness that made him wonder if this might be Miss Gale. This idea was confirmed a moment later by the entry from the back of the shop of a handsome middle-aged woman, who from her manner and sumptuous dress had to be Mrs Gale herself. There was a marked resemblance between the two women. However, her manner was a great deal more accommodating.

  “Sir, good morning to you! May I help you?” she said. “Cigars, I should say, sir, from the look of you, and choice ones, yes? If so, you are in luck. I have only today had a delivery of some fine Havana oscuros. Quite the rarest, sweetest tobacco, from an estate –”

  “He’s asking about a German,” said the girl, with an emphasis that suggested she meant a particular German.

  “Oh, is that so, sir?”

  “I do have the right place, ma’am?” Giles said. “My friend Herr – well, you know his name as well as I do, he told me he found you most attentive. Not just on the matter of his pipe tobacco, which he is particular about, but –”

  “This is a tobacconists, sir,” she said. “Plain and simple.”

  “Then perhaps I am mistaken,” he said. “Perhaps I mistook his directions. I am speaking to Mrs Gale?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But –”

  “I am new to Northminster,” Giles went on. “I find the tradesmen here are suspicious and won’t take anything but ready cash. The word of a gentleman seems to be worth nothing here. So I am need of some tin and I believe you may be able to help me.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” she said.

  He leant forwards and said, “I have a cheque for one hundred. What can you give me for it? I would be obliged, ma’am, if you could assist me? You may be assured of my complete discretion.”

  She pursed her lips, thinking for a moment.

  “We should be able to help, yes. Perhaps you would care to step this way for a minute, sir?”

  He followed her into the back of the shop, which was fitted out as a snug little parlour, complete with a pair of spaniels dozing in the best armchair. There were also engravings of spaniels on the walls, china spaniels on the mantel, a spaniel in Berlin wool work on the fire screen and several copies of Harrops Annual of Sporting Dogs lying about the room.

  “What charming little beasts, ma’am,” he said, bending over and petting them. “Quite magnificent!”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I do think they are rather pretty.” He suspected she was more fond of them than her daughter or her absent husband.

  “They must be related to the Rothborough Cavalier spaniels, surely?” he said. “May I?” he added, venturing to pick one up.

  “Oh, as you like, sir. I can see that you have a way with dogs,” she said, as the dog in his arms responded to a good fussing.

  “No, she is just well-mannered and well-managed. My compliments, ma’am.” He held the bitch out and looked her over. “Her points are really just as fine as my Lord’s dogs.”

  “You know Lord Rothborough, sir?” she said.

  “I do,” Giles said.

  “I don’t like to flatter myself, but I have always thought there is a touch of those lines in these two. I was fortunate to get them.” She scooped up the other dog and kissed her on the nose. “I am hoping to breed them soon.”

  “Have you a sire in mind?”

  “Yes, but I am not quite sure about it.”

  “I wonder if I could help you,” Giles said. �
��If you could help me? My Lord owes me a favour.”

  “He does?” she said.

  “I should be happy to expend it on your service, ma’am,” he added. “In such a good cause.”

  “Perhaps you’d like a glass of wine, sir?” she said. “And we can discuss terms? And a cigar? Compliments of the house, of course. You are a cigar man, I think?”

  He put up his hands to refuse.

  “No, no, I cannot impose any longer, regretfully, ma’am. You have been too kind already,” he said, catching her hand and kissing it. She looked a little surprised by this but not displeased. “I know that you will help me in my difficulty, which is all I need to know at present. I shall come back later, if I may, and we can settle properly? And perhaps talk a little more about spaniels? Nothing could be more delightful.”

  “Of course,” she said, and then added, with a flutter of cap ribbons, “only if you promise you will come back, sir? Oh, but you haven’t told me your name?”

  “Long, ma’am – Colonel Henry Long.”

  Her hand was on his arm for a moment.

  “Delighted to know you, sir,” she said.

  A rather easy conquest, he thought as he left the shop, and wondered what Emma Maitland would have said about his impersonation.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “I’m glad you were able to come,” said Mr Harper. “That was a neat manoeuvre.”

  “Time will tell if it has worked,” said Felix, not entirely satisfied with what he had achieved.

  “I have read about it, of course, and thought it an excellent plan, but I was still at the theoretical stage with it. Very glad to see it performed.”

  “It’s only the third time I’ve done it,” said Felix.

  “Didn’t look like it,” said Mr Harper.

  Felix was relieved, and a little flattered. It had been a risk, but it had to be taken, in his opinion. He had made the suggestion to Mr Harper, hardly expecting to be taken up on it. Instead Harper had nodded, and said, “That is my opinion also. But perhaps you would like to do it?” And so he had.

  Harper was an experienced surgeon, who had recently taken over as Chief Surgical Officer at the newly expanded Northminster Infirmary. A native of Bristol, he spoke with a gentle burr that lulled his patients into a state of trusting calm. Felix had attended one or two of his operations previously and had been impressed at his skill and knowledge. On this occasion the patient had been run over by a cart, causing an open compound fracture that required the bold and novel strategy of suturing the broken bones with silver wire.

  “I was talking about you with Captain Lazenby at dinner the other night,” said Harper. “He said you had saved a man’s leg in similar circumstances. I thought a second opinion might be useful today and I was fortunate to be able to get you. You seem to spend more time with the dead than the living.”

  “That does seem to be the case.”

  “You know there is plenty of work here, should you want it,” said Harper. “In fact, there are at least four cases I would like you to have a look at. There is a distinct shortage of surgical talent in this town. I must find who I can to help me. It’s important work.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Felix, thinking of his quiet laboratory and his investigations and experiments. It was a different world from the infirmary where difficult decisions had to be made in a moment. He had found it exhausting and was in need of a glass or two of brandy, in addition to the strong sweet tea that Harper had supplied.

  “A Christian must use his talents wherever he can,” Harper went on, mildly enough, but behind him on his office wall hung an engraving of St Paul on the road to Damascus. His evangelical sympathies were well known.

  Felix drained his teacup and considered it for a moment. A year or two ago, he would not have hesitated. Harper was an impressive figure and he felt he could learn a great deal from him. There had been moments during the course of the operation when he had felt himself to be dangerously out of practice, but at the same time, he had relished the challenge of it. Bloodstains and incomplete skeletons, of course, provided puzzles of a different sort: more cerebral, less visceral. Which he preferred, was a difficult question to answer.

  “I shall leave that thought with you,” said Harper as Felix got up from his chair. “I have no doubt that you will be guided as you should. I’m a great admirer of your father’s sermons,” he went on. “It would be a privilege to hear him preach them. They are most distinctive. I seem to hear his voice when I read them...” He stopped, a little embarrassed by his own enthusiasm. “Excuse me.”

  “He’d be amazed to know anyone had read them,” said Felix. “He scourged himself for the vanity of publishing, especially when no-one seemed interested.”

  “They are read,” said Harper. “And much appreciated. You must tell him.”

  “I shall,” said Felix.

  “And it was he who guided you into our profession?”

  “I was told that I ought to be useful in life,” said Felix.

  He was used to being taunted for his connection to Lord Rothborough. Harper took him at face value as the son of a clergyman who had published a book he admired. It was rather a novelty.

  Walking back from the infirmary to Silver Street, he stopped at the Black Bull, deciding he wanted a brandy and hot water to steady his nerves. The atmosphere of the ancient inn, quiet and congenial and where the landlady knew him, was soothing, and he sat by the fire and took three tumblers full and smoked three cheroots before he made his way home.

  It was a little after four o’clock when he opened the front door, and saw Sukey limping through the gloomy hall towards him.

  “What happened?” he said, running forward and catching hold of her.

  “I tripped and twisted my ankle,” she said.

  “Let me look at it.”

  “No, it’s nothing. You know how clumsy I am. It happens all the time.”

  “Let me look at it.”

  He steered her into her sitting room and then towards the armchair where she sat down reluctantly. He pulled up the footstool and lifted her foot onto his lap. He saw her wince as he gently ran his fingers over the joint.

  “It really isn’t anything, she said, attempting to get up. “Really,” she added.

  “Stay where you are,” he said. “It’s obviously very tender.” He took off her shoe and then pushed up her skirts in order to loosen her garter.

  On past occasions, they had sat like this and he had taken off her shoes and stockings and rubbed her feet after a long day. It had been a playful exercise, not to say a stimulating one. She had been happy to lean back in the chair and allow further explorations. Today she sat bolt upright and frowned as he pulled loose the knot that fixed her garter. Then when his fingers touched her bare skin, she flinched and pushed him away.

  “Not now,” she said. “I’ve too much to do.”

  “You are not doing anything,” he said, and pulled off her stocking regardless.

  “Felix!” she exclaimed with annoyance, reaching forward and snatching the stocking from his hand. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “You must be in agony,” he said. “The swelling on this is quite impressive. How did you manage it?”

  “It’s just a little twist.”

  “And I’m the Emperor of China,” Felix said. “This needs to be elevated with a poultice. Are your wrists all right?”

  “What?”

  “Your wrists. You must have fallen on them.”

  “I think so.”

  “Let me see,” he said. “What is this?”

  “What?”

  “That contusion,” he said. “How did that happen?”

  “I must have knocked it.”

  “That’s impossible. It looks as if someone has been holding you by the wrist. I can see the fingermarks.”

  “You’re tired and bit tipsy,” she said, pulling her hand away, and tucking it under her other arm. “And the light in here isn’t –”

  “What h
appened?” he said, snatching her hand back.

  “Nothing, I told you! Will you stop fussing?”

  “I’m not fussing. You’re in a shocking state.” She scowled at him and he said, in a milder tone. “Will you at least let me put a poultice on that ankle and rest for a while?”

  “Oh, as you like.”

  “You’ll bitterly regret it if you don’t.”

  She thought for a moment and said, “If you turn up the lamp and pass me my work basket.”

  These attended to, he went to the kitchen to make up a poultice, more than a little puzzled and on the edge of annoyance at her behaviour. He could not believe her stubbornness. What was she about?

  He came back, applied the poultice and bound up her foot. She was calmly at her mending now, and seemed not to mind the attention.

  “Is that better?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is.”

  He plucked a half-knitted sock from her work basket and put it over her bandaged foot. The heel had just been turned and the needles stuck out of it, making a sort of spiked anklet. She laughed and shook her head.

  “There, that should tether you, ma’am.”

  “You make me sound like a wilful old cow.”

  “Your words, not mine,” he said, reaching for her hand and kissing it. At the same time, with the lamp brought near, he could see the contusions on her wrist more clearly. The impression of grasping fingers was disturbingly clear.

  “What happened?” he said. “Who did this to you? What happened?”

  “Does it matter?” she said. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Someone had you by the wrist. Who?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” she said.

  “You don’t want to tell me,” he said. “Why not?”

  “Why don’t you read me another chapter of Kenilworth? If you’re not too tired? What did they want with you at the Infirmary?”

  “Don’t try and change the subject,” he said.

  “I have to, if you speak to me like that,” she said, sharply. “How much brandy did you have at the Black Bull? More than usual, by the smell of it.”