by Gary Dolman
“And you stabbed Samson Elliott through the heart because he had given it, his love that is, to your first wife?”
Sir Hugh nodded. “I know that we are like-minded, Atticus, so you must appreciate the symmetry of it all. Yes, it did seem the appropriate way for him to die. I sliced off his miserable head too. He had told Igraine he had lost his mind to her.”
Atticus stared, incredulous as he wrestled with the words that Lowther had spoken.
“And the wounds across his abdomen; they were the sign of the gift – of giefu?”
“They were. They sealed each slaying as a seventh part of my gift to my Ladies the Norns.”
Atticus glanced at Uther who stood, trembling and cowering, with his head bowed.
“We have discovered only six bodies so far. There is a seventh?”
“There is to be a seventh,” Sir Hugh corrected him.
“In addition to your first wife and Mr Gibson?”
Sir Hugh nodded. “And in addition to the three Gypsy smugglers and the regimental padre. You see, in her diary, Igraine confessed her… her love for Michael Britton. Gibson, Elliott and the others were apparently ‘mere diversions to add a little excitement to an otherwise dull and lonely existence in a rain-sodden wasteland.’ She certainly had a way of expressing herself, don’t you think? But she also had the temerity to actually fall in love with Britton.
“I regretted killing her at first – for a time anyway. I kept asking myself if I could not have forgiven her the adultery. Perhaps I had neglected her after all. Maybe I could just have had her horsewhipped and kept her as my wife.
“But then I read that she had fallen in love with Britton. I was glad then that I had killed her, because then I could begin to forgive her.”
His eyes crept over the puzzled frown on Atticus’s face.
“‘Only by the shedding of blood can there be remission from sins.’ Isn’t that what St Paul wrote in the Good Book? Once there is death, then all sin is forgiven, or so our old padre told us before I shot him.”
His face darkened once more as he added, “And in any event the Norns ordered it. It was our fate, all of our fates, carved indelibly in runes.”
“So you intend to kill Michael Britton now I take it, Sir Hugh? Is he your seventh victim?” Atticus needed to keep Lowther talking. The fusiliers must find them soon.
“Michael Britton, the one more than all the others who has so profoundly humiliated me. No, he is not one of the seven. But his life has been given to me all the same and I am determined to humiliate him before he dies just as he has humiliated me. The dishonour will be purged, make no mistake.”
“His life has been given to you? Given to you by whom?”
The blue of Sir Hugh’s piercing gaze grew steely.
“By the Fates themselves, of course, by the Norns. They told me many years ago that his life was mine to do with as I wished.”
“But how could they have told you?” Atticus asked.
Now it was Lowther’s brow that wrinkled in puzzlement.
“In the plainest sense of the word, Atticus; in the same way
that you or anyone else speaks to me – in the same way they speak to you.”
Atticus Fox stared in disbelief.
“He doesn’t believe you,” Verthandi’s voice thundered. “He chooses to deny us, as all the rest deny us. Now you know why we have commanded he be killed.”
“So you needed to keep Michael Britton here, dependent on the alms you provided until you could move against him. You needed him to be insane.”
“Quite so. When Igraine disappeared, Britton’s insanity returned with a vengeance, you might say.” He smiled briefly at his own choice of words.
“Because he had fallen in love with Igraine and, yes, fathered a boy called Arthur and, according to Hickson, because of the association of this whole area with King Arthur, Britton began increasingly to have delusions that he was actually Uther Pendragon.”
“You said that the boy’s father was Gibson?”
“That’s what Igraine told me at first. Later I learned from her diaries that Britton there was the boy’s true father. Apparently she told me it was Gibson because she believed I would never act publically against a fellow officer, especially an officer of the Fusiliers.
“Publically I would not of course, but she hadn’t counted on the possibility that I might kill him in private.
“She never believed me, Atticus, when I told her that the Norns spoke to me, so she never realised that she could never hide her secrets from me.”
“Foolish girl,” Urth agreed.
“And so you began to plan your revenge on Britton?” Atticus prompted.
“Yes I did, and with the splendid luxury of having time, plenty of time, to do it. Britton’s delusions were a heaven-sent opportunity for me to ensure that he was crushed utterly.”
“And of course you knew that the real King Uther Pendragon died after having his water supply poisoned by his enemies. That is presumably what gave you the idea of the carroting liquid.”
“A magnificent stroke of genius don’t you think? I needed Britton to be completely mad, so yes, for these many past years, I have been tampering with his water supply.”
“What, Mr Fox, what does he mean?” Jennifer spoke for the first time, her voice barely louder than the hissing of the lantern.
Atticus turned to her. “I’m sorry, Jennifer, but you will know that your father owns a hat maker’s in Hexham?”
She nodded. Her stricken eyes, wide and unblinking, danced in the lantern light.
“There is a material used in such factories to soften the animal fur before it is made into the felt used to fashion hats. It is called nitrate of mercury and it has a distinctive orange hue, hence its nickname of ‘carroting liquid’ or ‘carrot juice.’”
He lifted his cane towards the kegs stacked on the bench. “The letters ‘AR’ burned onto those kegs do not stand for Artorius Rex at all. They are simply the initials of the Alkali and Reagent Company of Jarrow on Tyneside, makers of, amongst other things, nitrate of mercury and suppliers of that particular material to your father’s hat factory.
“Your father had a quantity specially packed in those little kegs and delivered to his factory along with the usual full-sized barrels. Being small and light, he could easily transport them to this cave, ready to be used in his plot.
“Nitrate of mercury has been shown over time to cause profound symptoms of madness in the workers who use it, together with tremors, drooling and yes, delusions. That is the origin of the popular saying ‘as mad as a hatter.’ I recognised Mr Britton’s symptoms in a pair of your father’s factory workers who were taking a rest break as we happened to pass.”
“Igraine was a hat. She was often felt,” Skuld quipped and her Sisters laughed raucously.
“Please don’t say that,” Sir Hugh begged.
“She needs to know what has been happening, Sir Hugh,” Atticus retorted. “Jennifer, your father has been adding nitrate of mercury to the pump behind Mr Britton’s cottage for years.”
Jennifer Lowther looked directly at her father.
“Why, Papa?” she asked simply.
“Because he took my wife from me, Jenny, and because he broke my heart.”
“And because he wanted Michael Britton, in his madness, to be blamed for the murders of Samson Elliott, your own grandfather, Dr Hickson, Albert Bradley, James the footman and Bessie Armstrong.” Atticus spat.
“James the footman, Bessie Armstrong?” exclaimed Jennifer, “James and Bessie are dead? When? How?”
“We found Bessie Armstrong’s body late last night on the road from Twice Brewed,” Atticus replied. “She had been impaled on the lance Mr Britton believed was the Spear of Destiny. James’s body lies right now at the foot of the Sewingshields Crags with his head resting on the Holy Platter.”
Atticus had hurt Jennifer already by blurting out the news of Bessie’s murder. He did not now want to add to that hurt by desc
ribing how James had died. His tone hardened. “Your father wanted Britton to be disgraced as a lunatic murderer and so he left a series of clues for the police and for Mrs Fox and I to find.”
Sir Hugh stood tall and triumphant, glowering at each shocked and bewildered face in turn Then, all at once, his boastful expression faltered and fell.
“Where is she, Fox?” he bellowed. “Where is your wife?”
He looked around, wildly now, his eyes frantically searching the vault.
Now it was Atticus’s turn to smile, even though the smile was formed from the most brittle of veneers.
“My wife isn’t here. She remained outside the vault when the rest of us entered. Be warned, Sir Hugh, Lucie will have seen you come in, she will have listened to every word you have said and she is doubtless, even at this very moment, summoning the forces of justice.”
“He lies,” Verthandi sneered.
Sir Hugh regarded Atticus with something akin to delight.
“Damn it all but you impress me, Fox. I commend your extraordinary coolness under fire. You really would have made a very good Fusilier officer.
“However, I know very well that you’re playing a game of bluff with me. If your wife had gone to summon help, she could not have heard my, shall we call it a confession? If she has lingered to hear it, then she is still here, around Sewingshields. No one gets out of the Fogy Moss quickly.
“Notwithstanding, my men are fast closing the net on this place so I must make quick work of my business here and then ride her down before she has opportunity to make mischief for me. Her fate has already been sealed. It is futile for her to resist it.
“But yes, Atticus; I wanted you all to believe that Britton had masqueraded as the risen King Arthur in committing the murders. Not only could I settle the long overdue debts of honour and make my gifts to the Norns, I could also have Britton take the blame for it all. He would suffer the complete ignominy and shame he so richly deserves. A quite brilliant strategy, don’t you think?”
“In certain respects, yes,” Atticus conceded. “Except that your clues were not only rather too obvious; they were also fatally flawed.”
The smile died once more on Lowther’s face. “What did you say?” A hint of alarm touched returned to his eyes for just the briefest moment.
“Allow me to explain, Sir Hugh. In the case of Samson Elliott, the first of your latter-day victims, the thing that struck me immediately was that although you generally left the running of your estate to a ‘Peasant-in-Chief,’ as you called him, this year you took a keen interest in one, single field. It was the field adjacent to Mr Britton’s cottage. You insisted, against advice, that it be ploughed and sown with wheat. The consequence of this was that in order to avoid running over the growing crop on his way to the Appleby Horse Fair, Samson was forced to take the headland path around the outside of the field, right past Britton’s cottage.
“You ensured that not only could your ambush be carried out with much more certainty, but the finger of blame would also point directly at Mr Britton.
“Elliott, superstitious as he was, believed that he had seen the ghost of a knight-at-arms on the moors. You, Sir Hugh, were that ghost! You were wearing the armour, which bore the Lowther emblem – the dragon argent, passant; the White Dragon – whose sabatons left the prints in the earth. You knew that Elliott would confide his fears to someone and you hoped that after his death, that person would come forward to tell the police, or us, about them. We would naturally link the knight to Mr Britton, who kept an identical suit by his bed and who would not venture out of his cottage without wearing at least the breastplate and as often as not the entire harness.
“Then we come to the sword stroke that killed Elliott. The necropsy on his body concluded that the blade of the sword used to kill him was long and slender and not a bit like the great two-handed sword Elliott thought was Excalibur. It was more like a modern-day regimental sword in fact. It also had a full hand guard rather than a simple crosspiece.”
“How in God’s holy name do you know that?” thundered Sir Hugh.
“I quite easily deduced it for myself,” Atticus replied. “The angle of the wound in Elliott’s chest was approximately thirty degrees to the vertical. I tried your own sword, you will recall, before our first dinner at Shields Tower and the hand guard had that very effect when I made a lunge with it. A sword with a simple crosspiece, like Elliott’s would have left a vertical wound.
“And next we come to the bugle call that was heard over the moors on the morning of Elliott’s murder. You blew it to lure Britton away from his cottage so that you could lay the trail of footprints and spring your ambush. Artie was also out on the moors that morning with Jennifer. He also heard the bugle call and was able to describe its note exactly to me. It sounded very similar to the one we heard ourselves last night and again earlier today, the one I confirmed with your butler as being the modern parade ground call to ‘Rise to Arms.’”
He looked pointedly at Lowther who simply shrugged.
“Then we come to the next murder; that of your own father Sir Douglas. He was killed by choking, by strangulation and by having his heart torn out.”
Sir Hugh smiled the gaping smile of the dragon of his crest.
“Yes, he choked on her.”
“He choked on whom, Sir Hugh.”
“He choked on Igraine, of course; who else?”
“That biltong, it surely wasn’t…”
Sir Hugh gaped once more.
“Yes, Atticus, that biltong was what remained of Igraine’s body. Properly made, it lasts almost forever.”
“I don’t understand.” Artie appealed to Atticus.
Urth answered for him. “What is there not to understand? It’s quite simple; your mama seduced your grandpapa, time and time again. She needed a proper man in her bed, don’t you see – a real warrior!”
Sir Hugh stamped a glossy, black boot on the rock of the floor.
“It is very simple, Artie,” he said. “Even for one of your limited intellect. I fed your mama to your grandpapa too.”
“You are an abomination! You are a… a monster!”
Sir Hugh bristled and his black shadow swelled larger.
“Quo Fata Vocant,” he hissed. “My father seduced the wife of his only son. He paid his dues. The will of the Sisters be done.”
“James told us your father thought Igraine the most beautiful woman in Christendom; that she was so lovely she was quite good enough to eat.” Atticus was appalled by the revelations of his own recollection.
“That is exactly so, Atticus. Don’t they say: ‘be careful what you wish for, lest it come true?’” He chuckled without mirth.
Atticus continued. “And it was you who killed Dr Hickson.”
Infuriated by Sir Hugh’s lingering smile he added, “You claimed to have discovered his body on the Stanegate after he failed to keep an appointment. Actually his first appointment that day was not with Jennifer at all, it was with Mr Britton at his cottage and with you, Sir Hugh.
“I took the opportunity of reading Dr Hickson’s journals of twenty years ago. I read how he often used to call on Lady Igraine to administer ‘comfort’ for her frequent bouts of melancholy, melancholy that afflicted her only, mark you, during your own times abroad.
“Mrs Fox was told by his housekeeper how the doctor once had a secret sweetheart. She went missing on the moors around the same time as your own wife. Michael Britton also told us how his own fiancé also went missing on those same moors, again around the very same time. The disappearances of three women so close to each other should have caused an almighty brouhaha. Yet the long-serving constable had no recollection of any of them other than that of your wife.”
He jabbed the pewter tip of his cane towards Lowther.
“That is because they were one and the same, were they not, Sir Hugh? Dr Hickson’s sweetheart and Mr Britton’s fiancée were both, in fact, your wife.”
“Yes, Atticus, yet again you are qu
ite correct.” The grin had vanished and Lowther sounded weary now.
“While I was in India she asked her doctor – as many ladies do, I believe – to provide physical, what is politely called ‘comfort’ in my absence. Igraine found it irresistible and she soon persuaded Hickson to cross over the boundaries of proper medical practice and engage upon a full-blown affair. She wrote in her diary how excited she would feel to be offering herself up to him; how she would long for her next appointment. Forgive me, Jenny, but it is the truth.
“Of course he obliged her with no-end of appointments, flying up and down the Haydon Road in that damned cart of his. Few men would resist her I suppose.
“When Igraine fell pregnant, Hickson was mortified. He presumed it must be his own child knowing that I had been away in India for some considerable time. But when Igraine told him that the bastard was actually Michael Britton’s, he was desolate, especially since Igraine also told him that she loved Britton and intended to divorce me to marry him. It was then that Hickson stopped calling on Britton and only began again years later at my insistence, when I needed to monitor the progress of his insanity.”
Atticus stabbed the air with his cane again and the pewter tip left a faint orange trail in the gloom.
“You did meet him at Mr Britton’s cottage yesterday, but alone, since you had already frightened Britton off with warnings of Elliott’s brothers coming to take their revenge. You offered him a drink, a drink from Mr Britton-cum-Pendragon’s supposed Holy Grail to which you had added poison prepared from the fruit of Atropa belladonna.”
“Yes I did. He took the drink readily. It was a gloriously hot day after all and belladonna is sweet enough, if a little insipid. After he had drunk it, I told him what it was – witch’s nostrum, a preparation made from belladonna and monkshood. I prepared it myself, to a recipe I found in the book I bought for my daughter on her seventeenth birthday. Do you recollect that your wife had it open on her lap the very day you arrived at Shields? It gave me quite a turn! I thought that you had found me out even as I had only just begun.
“Belladonna has a most curious effect. Did you know, Atticus, it paralyses the vocal chords and renders the victim mute? Hickson couldn’t call for help or raise the alarm. All he could do was run. So he ran. And as he ran, my poison was driven deeper and deeper into his body.
