The Echo at Rooke Court

by Harriet Smart

  He reached for a sample card and held it up in front of him. “Something to suit all tastes.”

  “Another time, perhaps,” said Major Vernon. “Business calls, I’m afraid.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Edwardes and ushered them to the door with great ceremony.

  “Good God!” exclaimed Felix, as they walked away from the shop. “Whatever happened to subtlety?”

  “Not in fashion,” said Major Vernon. “It is a shame about old Loake. He was an excellent fellow.”

  “I am not sure I can bear Mr Edwardes,” said Felix. “But where else would one go?”

  “A good question,” said Major Vernon. “If his work is as good as Loake’s, we will have to learn to bear him. Unless, of course, he adds a premium for the flimflam.”

  “Where are we going, then?”

  “To Water Street to see Tom O’Brien. I have something I need you both to look at.”

  They turned down the steep and winding lane that led down to Water Street. Rain was falling heavily and on the verge of turning to sleet, making the cobbles slick and treacherous. It was a relief to step inside the tiny shop that fronted O’Brien’s now considerable printing works. They were at once shown upstairs to O’Brien’s office, while below them an assortment of large and complex machines, watched over by adept hands like children tended by careful nursemaids, thumped and screeched and spat out sheet after sheet.

  O’Brien came out to meet them, and they stood for a moment in the typesetter’s room, admiring the scene below through a large window.

  “Major! It’s good to see you,” said O’Brien. “And Mr Carswell! Now, what do you think of my new steam press? The one with the eagle, at the front there.”

  “Twice the pages an hour, isn’t that what you said?” Major Vernon said.

  “Well remembered!” O’Brien said. “Yes, we are up to nearly a thousand pages an hour. As a result it’s doubled the circulation of The Bugle.”

  “Remarkable,” said Felix.

  “Largest newspaper operation in the North of England,” said O’Brien. He laughed, and said, “You’ll have to excuse me. I am practising my patter. I have Mr Oliver Truro, no less, coming to see me later in the week.”

  “The novelist?” Felix said. “What’s he doing in Northminster?”

  “He has taken a house here, apparently, and brought his family for the winter. In his letter he said he is researching Northminster in the Middle Ages for a new novel, and looking to study the condition of the North of England for a series of articles in his magazine.”

  “We had better watch what we do and say,” said Major Vernon.

  “Certainly, and he’ll be wanting to talk to you, Major,” said O’Brien. “That was in his letter too. He mentioned that he was an admirer of The Bugle and your exploits. I’m surprised he hasn’t written to you.”

  “Perhaps it is in the post,” said Major Vernon.

  “Northminster in the Middle Ages?” said Felix. “My wife will like that.”

  “It will be a great thing for the town if he does write it,” said O’Brien, showing them into his office. “I heard that people travel to see the spot where the two children died in that one – now, what was it called?”

  “The Lantern Bearers?” said Felix. “Eleanor cried for hours over that.”

  “I’m ashamed to say that Mrs Vernon and I were moved only to laughter when we got to that part,” Major Vernon said.

  “You have a heart of stone, Major,” said O’Brien. “The public adored it. Now, here is his letter. Ah yes, he’s staying out at Hawksby. Isn’t that where you live, Mr Carswell?”

  “Yes,” said Felix.

  “At White Lodge,” said O’Brien, glancing at the letter.

  “He will make for a interesting neighbour,” said Major Vernon.

  Felix nodded, picturing the pleasure with which Eleanor would greet this news.

  “But you haven’t come here to talk about Truro, have you, Major?” said O’Brien.

  “No, I am calling a discreet counsel of war,” said Major Vernon, taking some papers from his coat and spreading them out on the table. “What do you make of these, gentlemen?”

  Felix picked one up and studied it.

  The Return of

  CRIMSON MARY

  by Popular Demand.

  A Much Lamented Lady,

  Friend of the Working Man,

  has Returned to Northminster,

  Urged by her Welch Cousin

  Mistress Rebecca

  and her Beautiful Dusky Daughters.

  To offer HOPE and

  SALVATION

  to the Oppressed and Hungry

  to be DELIVERED

  FROM THOSE

  Cruelly used by Unjust and Greedy Masters!

  RISE UP, Men of ENGLAND

  In the Name of LIBERTY AND JUSTICE!

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said O’Brien.

  “It’s somewhat vague,” said Felix. “No specific instruction as to a time or a place.”

  “No, fortunately,” said Major Vernon.

  “Where were these found?” said Felix.

  “Inspector Coxe found them stashed in a hole in a wall down by Williamson and Collworth’s Manufactory. They had been put there in haste, perhaps. How much would it cost to print such a thing?”

  O’Brien rubbed the paper between his fingers, and considered.

  “Not a great deal. Quarter sheets of low grade paper, not well set, all in all. Shoddy, in fact. Probably one of those cheap little shops. There is one on the road to the station – I forget the man’s name – I took his son on for a while, but he was a clumsy so-and-so, and not as well trained as he should have been. I had to let him go. I suppose he went back to his father.”

  “And do we know who Crimson Mary is?” Felix said.

  “Oh, certainly,” said O’Brien. “She was quite the thing twenty years ago – well, more than twenty years ago. When I first came here, which was back in 1820, she was the talk of the place. I’m not sure they ever caught her.”

  “No, they did not,” said Major Vernon.

  “Though there were quite a few arrests and they hanged at least two men,” said O’Brien, “and it struck me then, that it was not entirely just that they did. The evidence against them seemed –”

  “Contrived,” said Major Vernon. “Yes.”

  “What were they hanged for?” said Felix.

  “Machine breaking,” said O’Brien. “There was a gang that went about for a few months, on and off, always at night, and in heavy disguise. Women’s red petticoats and cloaks. Hence Crimson Mary, their leader. They did a great deal of damage – there was a new manufactory, one of the most advanced of its kind, and they nearly brought the place to its knees. They were clever about it, too – it was impossible for the authorities to pin anything on anyone in particular. There was even a ballad printed, with a woodcut of Crimson Mary on it, and you could not move for seeing it. In fact,” O’Brien said, getting up, “I have a copy still. I kept it. It had me thinking about the power of a scrap of paper with a picture on it, for getting people stirred up.” He began searching in a drawer. “The whole town was in a fever because of it! And it was my trade at the heart of it all. Here we are: The Ballad of Crimson Mary. Look at that, will you!”

  He was smiling and shaking his head at the same time.

  The image of Crimson Mary was certainly a striking one. Tall, muscular, with bare legs, but swathed in ragged petticoats and shawls, Crimson Mary’s face was partially obscured by a huge bonnet, but she was clearly a man, with a prominent nose, suggestive almost of the Duke of Wellington. The figure carried a smoking pistol in one hand and flaming torch in the other. Below was printed the ballad and the instructions that it was to be sung to the tune of Lillibullero.

  Come gather round, O one and all, and mark the tale

  Of bold Crimson Mary and her gallant band,

  Who broke the back of Satan’s rank machines,

  And brought
the strains of freedom to this land.

  “It’s printed on the same size paper,” said Felix.

  “Could be the same press, now I look at it,” said O’Brien. “Nothing sophisticated. But the idea of it. The cheek of that ballad! I loved it, I’m ashamed to say it, even though they were a gang of troublemakers out to ruin people’s livelihoods.”

  “The fear of progress,” said Major Vernon.

  “I’m ashamed to say I went to the hangings,” said O’Brien. “My curiosity got the better of me. The militia were there. I think it was touch-and-go that we did not have a Peterloo. The crowd knew that those men were not behind it. You could feel that they knew those were just some poor idiots that had been rounded up and strung up for the sake of it!”

  Major Vernon studied the ballad again.

  “You didn’t write a journal in those days, did you?” he said. “A fair-minded record of those events would be of great use.”

  “No, I didn’t, and if I had, I’m not sure you would have liked what I would have said, Major,” said O’Brien. “We were different fellows back then, that’s for certain.”

  The Major nodded, and then tapped the ballad with his finger.

  “This is artful stuff, in its crude way. To put their argument in such a fashion – might we guess that it is the same hand at work on each? I wonder if they will put this one out again.”

  “It would be canny if they did,” said O’Brien, “given how many folk will remember it well from last time.”

  “What is interesting is that Coxe found them by Williamson’s. That’s probably the most up-to-date manufactory in the city,” Major Vernon said.

  “It certainly is. And the size of the machines in there are something phenomenal,” said O’Brien. “Have you been round?”

  “No, but I shall have to pay them a visit. Can you remember who was attacked last time, by the way?”

  “It was a stocking loom place. I can’t recall the name. We’d think it shabby now, especially when a place like Williamson’s is throwing out yards and yards of worsted in minutes, but at the time it was a miracle of progress.”

  “Williamson’s must be provoking to Crimson Mary, then,” said Felix. “Or tempting, depending on how you look at it.”

  “The reference to the Welsh cousin is interesting and worrying,” Major Vernon said. “There is certainly a lot of unrest fomenting down there, and the same sort of protests – female disguises, criminal damage and so forth. And we have had a complaint about windows being broken in Brown’s Lane for no discernible reason, and there is a witness who is convinced that he saw a woman throwing stones: a tall, well-built woman, wearing a red cloak. Yes, you are right to talk of temptation, Mr Carswell; this is the sort of thing that certain individuals get a taste for. Causing chaos for the sake of it. Hidden behind a high cause.”

  “And a poke bonnet,” said Felix. “Do you think that this can be a likeness in any sense? That nose –”

  “The Duke’s nose,” said O’Brien. “Yes. That was much talked about back then.”

  “So is this perhaps simply a motif designed to make one associate Crimson Mary with the great hero? Very sly,” said Major Vernon.

  “Or perhaps the man himself does have such a nose and uses it to his advantage?” Felix said. “To make a leader of himself.”

  “Given we have so little to go on, it would not hurt to imagine the latter,” Major Vernon said. “Coxe has already identified a few loose associations of radical men in the city and we shall look a little more closely at them. This is a statement of intent, and unless we can find Crimson Mary, we may have a grave situation on our hands. May I borrow this?” he added, tapping the ballad with his finger.

  ~

  To read more, please visit Amazon to buy a copy of The Fatal Engine.

  Also by Harriet Smart

  I hope you enjoyed this book. If so, please consider writing a review. You may also enjoy my other books, including:

  The Butchered Man: Northminster Mystery 1

  Northminster, 1840: a once-picturesque cathedral city, where dirty smoke stacks now rival ancient spires. When workmen make the shocking discovery of a mutilated corpse in a ditch outside the ancient walls, Giles Vernon and Felix Carswell are charged with solving the case.

  Intelligent and practical, Chief Constable Major Vernon has transformed the old city watch into a modern police force, and he throws himself into the investigation with the same energy. But as he probes a murky world of professional gamblers and jilted lovers, he is drawn into a dangerous emotional game that threatens to undermine his authority.

  Newly-qualified police surgeon Felix Carswell is determined to make his way in the world on his own terms despite being the bastard son of prominent local grandee Lord Rothborough. Called to treat a girl in an asylum for reformed prostitutes, what he uncovers there brings him into conflict with his new employer, Vernon, and throws the case into disarray.

  Together they must overcome their differences and find the brutal truth behind the mystery of The Butchered Man.

  The Butchered Man is the first Northminster Mystery featuring intrepid early Victorian detectives Vernon and Carswell.

  The Dead Songbird: Northminster Mystery 2

  Celebrated singer Anna Morgan has come to Northminster to escape a troubled past and sing at the city’s Handel Festival. But when she continues to receive the poisonous letters that have been plaguing her, she turns to Chief Constable Major Giles Vernon and Police Surgeon Felix Carswell to find her persecutor, drawing the two men into her charismatic orbit. At the same time, a talented young tenor is found dead in curious circumstances in a locked chapel, and the hunt for a murderer is on.

  The Dead Songbird is the second Northminster Mystery featuring early Victorian detectives Vernon and Carswell.

  The Shadowcutter: Northminster Mystery 3

  Police surgeon Felix Carswell has joined Major Giles Vernon and his convalescent wife, Laura, for a few days in the elegant spa town of Stanegate – it’s a welcome holiday from the summer stench of Northminster. But no sooner has he arrived than a Spanish colonial gentleman, dying of consumption, requires his urgent care, while Major Vernon is called away to Lord Rothborough’s country house, where a lady’s maid has been found drowned in a secluded pool.

  Major Vernon investigates above and below stairs in the great house, assisted by Lord Rothborough’s eldest daughter, Lady Charlotte. When a quantity of valuable jewellery is found missing, the cause of the dead maid’s death only becomes more mysterious.

  Meanwhile, when his patient dies in his arms after confiding a secret, Carswell is drawn into baffling intrigues involving the government-in-exile of the dead man’s homeland, the Caribbean island of Santa Magdalena. And strangest of all, Dona Blanca, the widow of the president, seems to know exactly who Felix is.

  Over the course of the summer, Vernon and Carswell together doggedly search for the truth behind these troubling events, but their determination leads to a shocking personal tragedy for both of them, one which that will force them to reassess their lives and their careers, and leave them changed forever.

  From the grand hotels of a fashionable spa town to a sordid illegal dog fight; from back-stair intrigues in a great country house to political conspiracies and fencing matches, The Shadowcutter sees the welcome return of early Victorian detectives, Major Giles Vernon and Felix Carswell.

  The Hanging Cage: Northminster Mystery 4

  Summoned to the bleak market town of Whithorne in the midst of a winter storm, Major Giles Vernon and police surgeon Felix Carswell are embroiled in another challenging investigation.

  A beautiful young heiress has been found dead in her bed, and although suicide seems the most likely cause, the circumstances soon point to a tangle of illicit relationships and painful secrets. As Major Vernon pursues the truth behind Annabella Barker’s death, further shocking events soon unfold, including another suicide. At the same time, called in to deliver a son and heir, Carswell is drawn into
the affairs of the eccentric Yardley family at Whithorne Castle, but it is no distraction from his anxieties about his troubled relationship with Sukey Connolly. Major Vernon, for his part, unexpectedly encounters an old acquaintance and is forced to question both his past and his future.

  When a partial skeleton is found in a culvert, events begin to take a still darker turn, and Vernon and Carswell must pursue an unimaginable evil. As November floods threaten the bridges of Northminster itself, dangerous enemies emerge close to home and the struggle for justice becomes a matter of life and death.

  The Hanging Cage is the fourth Northminster Mystery, featuring early Victorian detectives Vernon and Carswell.

  The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite: Northminster Mystery 5

  Something is amiss at Ardenthwaite. Ghostly apparitions have been seen, so terrifying that the mistress of the house and the servants have deserted the place. Colonel Parham, the tenant, asks his landlord Felix Carswell and Major Giles Vernon to determine what is going on. But their investigations soon takes an unexpected turn, leaving them in confusion and doubting their own sanity.

  Shortly afterwards, a man dies in Northminster Infirmary, the victim of a brutal and systematic attack which seems to point to dangerous criminal forces hitherto unknown in the city. Vernon has his suspicions as to who is behind it, and with Carswell’s assistance he begins to unpick a complex network of alliances and enemies. Yet, as their best witnesses meet brutal fates, they are forced to face the grim possibility of failure.

  Having been forced into unpleasant compromises to gain access to the truth, Giles is further unsettled by the return of Emma Maitland to Northminster, now engaged to another man. As she assists him with the case, he begins to realise all that he has lost. For Felix Carswell, a bizarre and other-worldly encounter with a beautiful, spirited young woman throws up the possibility of an extremely advantageous marriage. Eleanor Blanchfort is an heiress and Lord Rothborough’s ward. Has destiny brought them together as she suggests, and can Felix find the will to resist such a dazzling temptation?