The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries)

by Smart, Harriet

  Women were mysterious continents at the best of the times, but she was like a distant planet for which there was no hope of a guiding chart. It was all speculation, and as a man of science, that gave him no comfort. Then there was the matter of Kate Pritchard, another impenetrable, impossible mystery of a creature. Perhaps that was why men loved other men – at least there was a hope of comprehension there!

  The slatternly maid admitted him to Mrs Fildyke’s bedside. Of Mr Fildyke there was no sign, and the shop was closed up. Felix supposed that he made plenty of money from those books – enough not to have to keep regular shop hours.

  Mrs Fildyke was a great deal improved – she had not vomited for some time and the maid had seemed to take heed of his instructions and had taken reasonable care of her. However he was depressed to discover she was still confined to the same wretched dirty room, with the birds twittering and twitching in their miserable cages above.

  “Where is your son?” he asked, when he had finished examining her.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said.

  “Where is your master?” Felix asked the slatternly maid who stood on the threshold, her arms folded across.

  She pointed upstairs. “He’s got company,” she said.

  “Go and get him,” said Mrs Fildyke to him. “I want my boy.”

  The stair was concealed behind a door, and Felix climbed up into darkness. As he did so he became aware of a peculiar muffled bellowing and groaning. It sounded for all the world like someone in distress.

  “Mr Fildyke, are you all right?” he said, for the voice sounded like Fildyke’s.

  There was a door directly ahead of him from which the sounds seemed to be coming and he went and knocked on it.

  “Mr Fildyke? Are you there?”

  The noise stopped abruptly.

  He seemed to wait there for an eternity and as he did so he began to realise what it was he might have heard. Company, the girl had said, and it was apparently a particular sort of company for a a particular sort of purpose.

  Cursing his naivety, he was about to turn down the stairs again and slip away when the door opened and Fildyke appeared, fastening the belt of a snuff-coloured dressing gown, his hair disordered, his cheeks red. From the way the folds of his dressing gown were hanging Felix could see that that Fildyke’s prick was still up and Felix, to avoid looking, found himself looking through the open door instead, into a room that was darkened despite it being the middle of the afternoon. However there were a few candles lit, by which he could see that the other occupant of the room was none other than Jos Harrison, also in a state of undress.

  Fildyke quickly shut the door behind him.

  “Was that man –?” Felix said,

  “Is my mother all right?” Fildyke said, ignoring him.

  “She is much improved,” Felix managed to say. “If that is Harrison –”

  “Thank you so much for calling on her,” said Fildyke.

  “If you were doing what I think you were doing in there, then it is a serious –”

  “That little book, Dr Carswell, did you enjoy it?” Fildyke cut in.

  “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

  “If it were to come out that you were interested in that kind of literature, well, this is a God-fearing town, Doctor. A word or two in the right ear and your fine reputation – well, well – it would be such a pity, wouldn’t?”

  “Are you threatening me?” Felix said, after a moment.

  “I am just suggesting you think a little before you speak. About how things might appear. That book is a disgusting thing for a fine young man to have in his possession. Shocking. If I were a father I would never ask you treat my daughter, if I knew that you had a taste for such things.”

  “You are a fine one to talk about tastes,” said Felix pushing past him and opening the door.

  His eyes met those of Harrison who was pulling on his trousers.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Harrison said to Fildyke.

  Felix did not wait to hear Fildyke’s answer. He spun round and grabbed Fildyke by the shoulder, propelled him into the room with Harrison, and slammed the door. He was in luck that the door had the key left in the lock to fasten it, so he pocketed it and dashed downstairs in search of a constable.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Mrs Sledmere, I would like to speak to Rose again, if I may.”

  “You are welcome to try, sir, but what good it will do...”

  Giles had been in two minds himself about disturbing the girl again, but he felt there was still something he might find about Charlie’s death from her.

  If Charlie had been blackmailing Miss Pritchard or Watkins, he might have confided this to her. Neither was it entirely clear that Rose herself was actively involved – she may have been out of the house at the time of his death and she may actually have murdered him in a fit of lunatic passion. Her tendency to violence had not been denied and it was a line of enquiry he must pursue, however unpleasant it might be.

  “The morning your nephew died, when you went to the market, you are still not sure whether or not she left the house?”

  “No, sir, I am not.”

  “Then I must try to talk to her.”

  She nodded. She perfectly understood the implication of his visit.

  “But I do not know how you will get her to speak,” she said, with a shrug.

  “I have a little experience of such a case.” He hesitated and then said, “In my own family.”

  They were standing in the darkened hall and were alone. He felt her hand suddenly press his forearm.

  “I try to tell myself it is God’s will,” she said, “that it is His Plan... but...” He nodded. “Who in your family, sir?”

  “My wife,” he managed to say.

  “Is it God’s will?” she said, her hand still on his arm. “I pray each night for the Lord to send the Devil out of her, to bring back my child, but He never seems to answer. I must be very wicked – sometimes that is the only way I can bear it – to think I am being punished. But then, if God is good, how can he make my child suffer so? That is tormenting me, sir – is this my faith being tested – I do not know.” She was in tears now, her words choking her. “As if I do not have enough to bear, I cannot even have His comfort. I am lost, so lost...” She turned away, overcome by her misery. “Forgive me, sir... I ought not... what will you think?”

  He had to struggle a little to reply.

  “I see a loving mother who will never desert her child, no matter what.”

  She turned away and let out a low, miserable moan, as if she had had read a great tragedy in his words. Then she turned back, steadying herself with a deep breath.

  “No matter what,” she said. “Aye, if it must come to that, it must, but I will never believe it was my child. It is the devil in her, not my Rose, it is the thing that has her imprisoned in there that will be at the heart of it. She is an innocent prisoner. That is what I must believe – always.”

  “Has Rose said something to you since my last visit?” he asked. “Or done something to make you think that –”

  “It’s that ribbon,” said Mrs Sledmere. “She will not stop with it. She had it wound about her neck as if... You see, Charlie had a piece of it. He used to keep a key on it about his neck – at least for the last twelve month or so. I used to worry that he would throttle himself with it, a great heavy key.”

  “Did he always wear it?”

  “Always – even when he took his shirt off to wash himself in the yard. He was cross with me if I made to mention it, so I stopped. You can never get all a man’s secrets from him.” She gave a great sigh. “You see, sir, that ribbon, it’s from the same spool. He bought it back for her and must have kept a length for himself for that key. She was so happy that day when he gave it to her, almost like her old self, and I thought, well, perhaps Charlie will bring her back to us, for he did love her, in his funny way. He was always bringing her back trifles and singing
her songs. I so hoped... but...”

  “And you think that this ribbon is significant, Mrs Sledmere?”

  “I don’t know what I think, sir! I don’t want to think it, but you did say my poor lad was strangled and she will not leave off with that ribbon. Perhaps it is just her grief speaking, but...”

  “Yes?”

  “Once, in one of her rages, she did fly at him and the key and the ribbon were about his neck and she was pulling at them as if she meant to...” She stopped and there was a silence before she spoke again. “They do not hang the mad, do they, sir? Tell me they do not.”

  Giles, in the most reassuring tone he could managed said, “I shall try and talk to her. Most likely we shall lay all these fears to rest.”

  She nodded quickly.

  “Aye, most likely. Thank you, sir.” She laid her hand on his arm again. “For listening to my troubles. Sometimes it seems there is not a soul in the world who understands what it is to have that.”

  “I know.”

  “You will be in my prayers, you and your lady,” she said. “Now I will take you to her. I have her door locked now for she was dancing about the whole house last night. She is a little calmer now, I think.”

  Rose was sitting on her bed, her knees tucked up under her chin, her fingers busy again with that shock of white ribbon, which was now grey and grubby.

  Seeing her, in the light of that conversation with her mother, it was hard not give into despair. He had observed through his own bitter experience the tendency of the patient to turn on those closest to them, as if intending to cause the greatest pain and misery. But that turning, that violence, was it not a means of communication for someone to whom all other methods of communication had failed? This girl, like Laura, had become a prisoner of her own body, for whatever reason. The normal means of expression were denied her. Instead she was forced into a primitive, animal-like communication, to use a language of signs, unintelligible to outsiders but eloquent and meaningful to the poor soul forced to such ends. It was then a question of interpreting this imperfect language, of finding meaning in the apparently meaningless. And had not Mrs Sledmere already begun to see a pattern of significance in that ribbon? She had begun to learn her daughter’s language. And I must learn Laura’s, he thought; I will do my best. I will find some way of understanding her.

  He came in quietly and sat down on a bench against the wall and did as little as he could to disturb her. She gave him a glance and returned to her tangle of ribbon, turning it over in her fingers as he turned her mother’s words over in his mind. A key on a length of ribbon about the lad’s neck, a key he would not remove because it surely meant a great deal to him. The fact that Rose had attempted to strangle him with it suggested she might also know what it meant, that she felt its importance and it roused her jealousy.

  There had been no key on a ribbon on the body of Charles Barnes but he had been strangled, there was not a shred of doubt about that. Giles thought back to Carswell’s detailed drawing of Charles in death and how he had carefully recorded the ligature marks. Would this ribbon, an inch or so in breadth, match those marks on the dead man’s neck? If there was some correlation between them it would be reasonable to conclude that the ribbon about Charles’ neck had been the thing that killed him. Whoever had strangled him had therefore removed the ribbon and with it the key. How else would the door have been locked when Kate Pritchard got there?

  In which case Harrison’s flight became even more significant. He had been seen leaving the tower by Celia. She might even have seen him lock the door.

  He took Miss Pritchard’s key to the tower room from his pocket and began to turn it in his hands. He became aware the girl was watching him. He held it out to her, as if offering her a play thing. Wary and slow, she climbed off the bed and came towards him, pressing her mess of ribbon to her heart.

  Giles put the key down on the floor, in the space between them.

  After a moment of hesitation she sank down on the floor and picked it up, but with caution as if it might burn her.

  “Do you know this key?” he said.

  Suddenly she had lifted it to her lips and kissed it before she laid it down on the floor again.

  “Mary’s mother,” she said. He was startled as he had hardly expected her to speak. But she went on, “Mary’s mother’s house.” She began to rock back and forth. “Mary’s mother.”

  “Did you ever go to this place?”

  She shook her head and then said, “Secret.”

  “A secret?”

  “Charlie’s,” she said and picked up the key again. This time she threw it across the room. He did not get up to retrieve it. Instead he thought: Mary’s mother – does she mean St Anne?

  “Is this house by the Minster?” he asked.

  “His sweetheart’s house,” she said and began to play with the ribbon again. “Mary’s mother.”

  “You don’t have a key like that one?” he said. “On a piece of white ribbon?”

  “When is he coming back?” she said. “Have you seen him? He’s coming back for me, he promised.”

  “He told you he was leaving?”

  “With his sweetheart,” she said. “But he is coming back for me. He wouldn’t go without me. Oh no.”

  “When did you last see Charlie?”

  “Market day morning. It’s a long time.”

  “What did you do on market day, Rose? You didn’t follow him did you? You didn’t go to his sweetheart’s house?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “He told me to wait here. So I am waiting. When will he be back?”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  “Where is Major Vernon?” Felix asked Superintendent Rollins, when they had got Fildyke and Harrison into custody.

  “Major Vernon is out, sir, and we are not sure where,” said Superintendent Rollins. “However, Lord Rothborough’s carriage is in the courtyard. He wants to speak to you, I believe.”

  “Can no-one send him away?”

  “The only man who could do that would be the Major, Mr Carswell,” said Superintendent Rollins.

  That was true enough, Felix thought, as he crossed the yard and opened the the carriage door. Lord Rothborough was sitting with his travelling desk on his knees, writing. He glanced up and smiled.

  “Good, good, I hoped I would find you eventually.”

  “Will this take long?” said Felix. “I have duties –”

  “Let’s go and dine, shall we?” said Lord Rothborough.

  “I am not dressed to dine with you,” Felix said.

  “For once, I will overlook that,” said Rothborough. “Get in, will you?”

  They drove to the Minster Precincts and the carriage drew up in front of the east door of the Minster.

  “That will be all today, Mr Hopkins,” Lord Rothborough said to the coachman.

  “Eight o’clock tomorrow, then, my Lord?”

  “Make it half seven, Hopkins,” said Rothborough, and the carriage rumbled off.

  “Where are we going?” asked Felix, as Rothborough started walking down a lane he had never noticed before. He stopped in front of a tall, narrow red-brick house that seemed wedged in like the key stone in an arch, between two much older buildings.

  “What is this place?” Felix said.

  “This is where I lay my bones when I am in Northminster. I am deliberately obscure.”

  “Why?”

  “Because sometimes I do not wish to be found.”

  “Oh, I see,” Felix said, with a slight bitter laugh. “I see.”

  “No,” said Lord Rothborough, opening the door, “I do not think you do. And less of that tone, if you please. You are in no position lay judgements on my head, sir.”

  “What?”

  “I spoke to the Dean.”

  “Oh.”

  “Indeed.”

  “What she says –”

  “This is not a conversation for the street,” said Lord Rothborough and gently propelled him into the hall.
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br />   Their entrance was marked by the enthusiastic scuffle of Lord Rothborough’s little troop of spaniels, followed moments later by James Bodley, his valet and factotum.

  “Good evening my Lord, Master Felix,” he said.

  Bodley had known Felix since he was a child, and Felix felt he still regarded him as one.

  “We will dine at once, Bodley,” said Rothborough, as he was helped out of his overcoat.

  “Of course, my Lord,” said James Bodley and opened the door to the dining room.

  The dining room was the first room off the hall, a respectably sized square room. If this had been an ordinary house it would have been plainly furnished, but because this was a Rothborough house it was fitted up with dazzling style, better suited to a country mansion or a great house in town. The walls were covered in red damask, and hung with choice pictures, most notably a vast and colourful depiction of a group of nymphs bathing that was both indecent and utterly fascinating.

  There was a generous fire burning and a couple of powerful Argand lamps blazing away. Felix found himself blinking at the light. It made the white linen cloth shine, and the silver gilt cutlery and glasses flashed their worth at him. It was also too hot, and he wanted to throw off his coat and sit in his shirt sleeves. But even when he was being obscure, Lord Rothborough would have taken great offence at that. This dinner was going to be an uncomfortable sweat of an affair.

  “Sit you down, sir,” said Lord Rothborough, indicating his place. It was a round table, with no head, but such was Lord Rothborough’s inherent consequence that when he sat down it was at the head of the table, as if this were a great long table at a banquet. Behind him the voluptuous nymphs, dawdling by their pool, gazed enticingly out at Felix. One of them looked alarmingly like Mrs Morgan, or rather how Mrs Morgan might have looked with her hair down and her shift fallen to her waist.

  Felix ran a finger down his collar and downed in one gulp of the glass of sherry that Bodley had just poured for him. Lord Rothborough frowned.

  When Bodley had gone Lord Rothborough said, “I should really send you to the servant’s hall to drink small beer, but then you will never learn.”