The Killer on the Bell Tower

by Issy Brooke

  They became like naughty boys again.

  And so it was with Frankhaus.

  As he started up again, saying, “Madam, my lady, I must say...”, his own wife Lily came up alongside him. She glanced at Adelia and gave her the barest nod before taking her husband’s arm. He didn’t shake her off. He didn’t look at her, either, but he did allow her to lead him away as she murmured reminders to him that they were on sacred ground.

  Adelia hoped that Lily would not be on the end of his pent-up anger later.

  She looked around. Theodore was watching closely, ready to spring into some kind of action if Frankhaus seemed about to threaten her. She smiled at him and he smiled back in relief. He was about to come over to her, but he was suddenly waylaid from an unexpected quarter by Grayson Smith who popped up from around a gravestone. He was carrying a small leather-bound book, and his eyes were bulging with anticipation. Their son, the six year old Tom, was absent. Adelia thought it was a shame that he’d miss the bells but probably for the best if his own mother were about to be arrested – if it all went to plan.

  Mrs Selina Smith was dressed in the most impeccable outfit of deep maroon, her narrow skirts cut in the latest Parisian style, flaring out behind in a mountain of satin ruffles and bows that cascaded down the back of her bustle. Other villagers, rather less grandly dressed, gathered at the base of the tower, and Adelia spotted a few folk even from Pever Magna. There was also a local policeman, standing on the periphery, rocking on his toes as he gazed up at the top of the tower.

  Adelia walked over to him. “Good morning. I am Lady Calaway.”

  He nodded. “Good morning to you, my lady. A fine day for it.”

  “It is, indeed. And you are...”

  “Oh, I do beg your pardon. Constable Buckden. Is there a problem that I can assist you with?” He was in middle age and spoke in a calm, confident manner. She felt reassured just by looking at him. She got the feeling he’d been doing the job for a long time and had seen pretty much everything over the years.

  “Yes,” she said. “I rather think that events might get out of hand today. Sir Phileas didn’t fall from the tower in a tragic accident, you know. He was pushed.”

  He smiled at her with an indulgent glimmer in his eyes. “Was he, now? And do you have evidence?”

  “Actually, yes. He was having an affair with Mrs Smith, and her handkerchief was left at the top. She lied about her whereabouts that morning and has no real alibi. The fact that she lied tells you something, does it not? They argued about something and he was shoved, and he fell. Whether she planned it or it happened in the heat of the moment, I do not know. Lately she has attempted to seduce the reverend himself in an effort to throw people off the scent. She is growing increasingly desperate as she knows we are discovering the truth, bit by bit. I suggest she is watched very closely, constable, as today she might finally expose herself.”

  “And how might she do that, my lady?” he asked, still humouring her. It was clear he didn’t believe a word of it.

  “I shall ensure that she does,” Adelia replied with a small smile. “You shall see.” She walked away then, leaving him to his thoughts. She hoped that she had planted enough of a seed in his mind to ensure that he watched them all very carefully indeed.

  THERE WAS A MAN THAT Adelia didn’t recognise and he was standing by the door to the church. He was in urgent conversation with Reverend Shale, and neither of them looked very happy. The stranger was dressed in a dark suit with dusty cuffs, and he had a workman’s bent to his manner, with broad shoulders and gnarled brown hands. He was pointing up to the bell tower, and the reverend was shaking his head almost continually. As Adelia approached, the man threw his hands in the air in a gesture of defeat, and stormed away from the reverend. He pushed past Adelia without really seeing her, his face drawn in a fierce scowl.

  “Goodness me, Reverend,” she said in surprise. “That fellow looked alarming. Is everything all right?”

  “Perfectly all right,” he snapped back, his expression of tense anxiety at complete odds with his words. “He was the foreman of the team of men who worked last night to complete the final works up there.” He gestured vaguely but Adelia noticed that he didn’t look up. He had his hand on the large iron ring of the closed door to the church, but made no move to open it.

  “Everyone is here and waiting,” she said. “Yet you seem reluctant to continue. Is there anything I can do to help?” She meant it as a genuine offer.

  But he spluttered out a hollow laugh. “You? After all that you have done? Heavens, no, I think the most useful thing that you can do would be to leave.”

  “I am sorry to hear that you feel this way. And rest assured we will leave within the hour. But first ... the unveiling of the bells.”

  He blinked at her. “Bells?”

  She felt fear and uncertainty creep up her spine, making her fingers tingle. “Yes. Isn’t that why we are all here? You’ve taken the donations and had some bells cast to replace the cracked one.”

  Reverend Shale looked thoroughly miserable. The crowd was beginning to gather around them now, looking expectantly at the door to the church. He sighed, and said in a very low voice to Adelia, “I have told everyone who donated that the bell will be dedicated to them. That’s what I said to the Smiths, and I also told the same to Frankhaus. So both of them thought they were the benefactor. But then I thought that there ought to be more than one bell. Two bells, as you yourself have guessed. It was a solution yet I could not decide whose bell should be the largest. Would someone take umbrage if their bell was a lower pitch, or a higher one? Hmm? Is a higher tone indicative of a higher status though the bell itself might be smaller? Will they listen for the peal and make assumptions according to whose bell rings first? I simply could not decide! I did not do it, in the end.”

  “Then what have you decided to do?” Adelia asked. Something had been installed in the bell tower overnight.

  Something that had upset the foreman of the works very much.

  “I put all of the money together and asked the foundry to cast the biggest bell they could for the price,” he said.

  “You did what?” Vice Admiral Frankhaus heard what had been said, and began to come forward. Theodore was standing next to Mr Smith and they, too, turned their heads.

  “So whose name is on this bell? How large is it?” Adelia asked.

  Reverend Shale wrung his hands. “Mmm. Well. It is very large; the very best, and I do hope no one is going to be offended. I thought it would be a symbol of the community coming together, you see?”

  Adelia could tell he was grasping at straws.

  “So I have had everyone’s names engraved on it, in a circle, right around the bell, so that no one name takes precedence over anyone else’s. That pleases everyone, hmm?”

  “I gave you a great deal of money!” Frankhaus bellowed, surging forwards, right up to Shale and Adelia. “That bell is mine!”

  Grayson Smith did not want to be left out, and he stormed up too, followed by his wife who grabbed at his arm. He shook her off, angrily

  “What do you mean, the bell is yours?” he shouted at Frankhaus. “We paid for it!” He turned to jab his finger towards Reverend Shale. “Show me this damned bell!”

  “Mind your language! This is a house of God!” Shale replied.

  Frankhaus let out a curse even more hair-raising and Shale went pale as he realised he had completely lost control of the situation.

  Adelia was feeling somewhat out of her depth too. She had not predicted this to happen. Frankhaus and Mr Smith encircled Reverend Shale, shouting over one another as they demanded answers. He inched his way down the path away from the church, but he was unable to evade them. They kept pace, yelling at him.

  Adelia found herself left by the church door and Mrs Smith did not follow her husband either. The policeman started to approach them all. Something about the sight of him must have set off a rush of guilt or fear in Mrs Smith, because she pointed at her husband a
s he followed the reverend, and addressed Adelia loudly, certainly loud enough for the constable to overhear.

  “You see?” she said to Adelia. “You can see quite plainly how violent, how unpredictable, how immoral my husband is! Can’t you see now that he is the only possible suspect for the murder of Sir Phileas!”

  “Murder?” the constable said, shooting Adelia a hard look.

  “Yes, yes!” Mrs Smith said, now realising that she had to justify her words. “My husband killed Sir Phileas so that he could be the main benefactor of this bell. See how he argues with the Vice Admiral? He is utterly ruthless in his pursuit of ... his pursuit of ... of ...” She tailed off.

  “In the pursuit of donating money to a church?” Adelia finished for her, almost inclined to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. “No. No one kills solely for the chance of their name engraved on a bell. They kill for power, for revenge, for money – and for love.” She stared hard at Mrs Smith. “You have enough money and your family has power in this area. So what about revenge? And what about love, Mrs Smith?”

  “How dare you! I don’t even know what you are insinuating,” she added hastily, “but you are wrong. Grayson would kill for his name on that bell, I can assure you of that! See how much time he spends pouring over his family’s genealogy? Names are everything to him – absolutely everything. A name lives on far beyond the span of a man’s life.”

  The men were still shouting. Mrs Smith was screaming. And from up above them, something creaked, a deep and unsettling sound that reminded Adelia of being near a harbour full of ships as a storm began to whip up.

  Mrs Smith cried, “Arrest him! Arrest my husband, won’t you?”

  Adelia could not keep quiet. She pointed at Mrs Smith and said, “No! Here is the murderer, constable – here is the woman you need to arrest!”

  “How dare you!” Mrs Smith screeched.

  And as the constable stood stock still, frowning, unsure of what to do, and Frankhaus paused for breath, and Mr Smith turned to see what his wife was screaming about, another creaking sound came from above them all.

  It came from the bell tower.

  People began to move backwards, away from it, so that they could get a better view.

  “What’s going on up there?” Adelia said, stepping back.

  But Mrs Smith darted forward. She grabbed the iron door handle and wrenched at around, running into the dark interior of the church. The door to the bottom of the bell tower was also open and she darted inside. Adelia began to go after her, but Theodore grabbed her arm. “Stop! I fear...”

  A great clang sounded. Mrs Smith called out from inside the bell tower, her voice echoing and amplified, ringing around the stone walls. “I swear, if I am guilty of that crime, Lady Calaway, may the Lord strike me down!” She was breathless with exertion. The bell tolled again, a rich deep note that had something strange – something fuzzy – at the edges of the reverberation.

  Theodore hauled on Adelia’s arm roughly, making her squeal. “Get back!” he urged.

  The creaking sound came again, much louder now.

  The bell pealed.

  Something cracked.

  “Get back! Everyone get back right now!” Theodore bellowed at the top of his voice and he pushed Adelia ahead of him as he ran through the churchyard away from the church. His panic infected the others and they followed, streaming away from the bell tower, twisting and turning between the gravestones as the cracking, groaning, splintering sound grew louder and now continuous.

  Adelia spun around. “Is the tower going to collapse?” she asked but her words were drowned out by the most incredible crashing sound. She heard screaming – from within the church and from all around her, too, as they watched in horror.

  The tower itself did not collapse. But something boomed from deep within, and a great cloud of stone dust rolled out from the open door.

  Noticeably, Grayson Smith did not rush forward to his wife’s aid.

  And even more noticeably, his wife did not emerge from the church.

  A silence fell.

  Someone sobbed quietly behind Adelia. Her own mouth was dry and she was gripping Theodore’s hand tightly.

  Reverend Shale squared his shoulders and walked towards the door. He peered in and stifled a cry of true distress. He turned to face everyone. He shook his head and they all knew what that meant.

  “It was too heavy,” Reverend Shale whispered. “It was just as the foreman said. One single large bell like that was too heavy for those timbers. Oh – dear God! What have I done? No! No, not I. You all heard her challenge spoken aloud, did you not? Hmm? It was an act of God,” he said. He repeated it strongly. “Yes. It was an act of God!”

  “Absolutely not!” Adelia said, anger rising in her throat. She kept hold of Theodore’s hand as she said, “It is the result of her own folly and yours, too – yes, and every single one of you who was part of this is guilty. You are all guilty of arrogance, of pride, of greed, and of covetness. You all bickered over this bell and now she is dead instead of facing justice as she ought to have done!”

  “Justice?” said Mr Smith, confusion and grief already making his eyes water. “What do you mean?”

  “She killed Sir Phileas!” Adelia cried, and everyone gasped. “They were on the bell tower together and they argued. It is my suspicion that she wanted more from him than he wished to give her, and in their passionate disagreement, he was pushed – and he fell. We have evidence, actual proof, which we will pass to the authorities if requested.”

  The constable was shaking his head in disbelief. “We have already closed the case and I suspect it will remain closed – the only suspect is certain now to be dead, so nothing is to be gained from pursuing the matter. That said, I must alert my colleagues and organise some assistance.”

  “Nothing can be done,” Reverend Shale said sadly.

  Mr Smith left the crowd and went towards the reverend, his pace slowing as he reached the church door. “Is that really the case?”

  Shale put out his arm. “Do not go in, I beg you. Let the constable call for the necessary help. There is nothing here a mortal man can do.”

  Mr Smith turned around, and his gaze fell on Adelia. She felt awful for him. He said, brokenly, “Are you saying that my wife and Sir Phileas ... together ... no, no, she could not have.”

  “Really? Do you honestly believe that she was a paragon of virtue?” Adelia nodded at Reverend Shale. “Sir, what do you say to that?”

  Shale gulped.

  Mr Smith hung his head. “Oh.”

  Adelia knew that Mr Smith knew, and perhaps had always know, that his own wife was a wanton woman who had not taken her marriage vows seriously at all. But he had never had to face that fact until this moment. And now it was laid out to him so publicly. His shoulders heaved and he started forwards, half-running through the crowd, heading for the gate and out into the road.

  To everyone’s surprise, Frankhaus followed him. He put out a hand and rested it on Mr Smith’s shoulder. Mr Smith shook it off angrily but Frankhaus was not deterred. He followed Mr Smith out onto the lane and together they disappeared out of sight.

  Reverend Shale was engulfed by the remaining crowd of villagers surging up around him. Adelia and Theodore stepped back, creeping away by slow degrees until they were back at the vicarage. The constable would be fetching help to deal with the collapse of the interior of the belfry.

  “There is nothing more that we can do here,” Theodore said sadly.

  “Well, if they do decide to see it as an act of God, then let that man of God sort it all out,” she said.

  “I quite agree, my dear,” he replied. “Ours is not to reason why, and all that.”

  “My darling, you are nothing but reason!”

  He laughed but quickly fell silent and she nodded to herself. After all, two people were dead. It was not a laughing matter.

  He took her hand.

  “Has justice been done here, do you think?” he said.

&
nbsp; “Perhaps. But there are some things we cannot control. Those things we must let pass.”

  “What can we control, then?” he said, and she thought she heard a little weariness in his voice as they headed towards the front door of the vicarage.

  “Well, we are already packed to leave, so let us beg some food from the cook – I know she will not refuse us – and begin our journey home. We can choose a scenic route on the railways, and we can perhaps take our time, and stay in a comfortable inn on the way. We can dine well tonight, and spread a little cheer amongst those we travel with. That’s something, is it not?”

  “Sometimes, food and wine and company and good cheer ... well, sometimes it is everything,” he replied, and spun her around to kiss her forehead before they entered the house in one another’s arms.

  The End

  Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this short introduction to Lord and Lady Calaway, you might be interested in the full-length novels which are available online and in print editions. The novels follow a chronological order and feature far more romantic sub-plots, devious intrigue, and a wider cast of characters.

  Book one is Murder at Mondial Castle, available here:

  Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YMZH6Q8

  Amazon.co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YMZH6Q8

  Amazon.ca https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07YMZH6Q8

  Amazon.com.au https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07YMZH6Q8

  Author’s note

  This is actually based on a true story. A quick scan of history shows that the collapse of church towers due to overly heavy bells is not at all unusual. And the particular instance of this case was based on something I read in Mike Parker’s witty account of the history of footpaths in the UK – A Wild Rover – where he tells the story of Flixton Church near Urmston which was asking for funds for a new bell in 1804. A local man, Ralph Wright, was trying to show his status in the area and he paid £101 for an enormous bell to be cast. And the tower’s walls indeed collapsed although it was seven years later and not as immediately dramatically as I have written in this story.