Circle of Shadows caw-4

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘It is the same,’ he said.

  She was standing by the window.

  ‘The killer must have come and gone through the garden,’ she replied after a pause. ‘I wonder why Glucke let him in.’

  ‘Someone he knew, must be,’ Krall said.

  ‘Someone he did not think could be a threat,’ Harriet added. ‘Crowther, could you close the door?’

  He moved away from the body to do so, and the cat on the body’s lap settled again and began to knead the thigh of the corpse, purring. The same symbol was chalked on the white paint of the door. Triangle, circle of seven spokes.

  ‘He has done it,’ Crowther said. ‘Unless Swann survives. Seven wine glasses, seven spokes. Seven victims. His work is done.’

  ‘Or she,’ Harriet said softly. ‘But Swann has not been bled.’

  Krall looked around the room, following the progress of another of the cats over the top of the mantelpiece. ‘I shall have a look along the path. Perhaps the killer dropped a visiting card, though more like I shall just find the key to the garden door thrown into the shrubbery.’

  Crowther heard the hopelessness in the man’s voice. ‘We will find who did this, Krall. He will make a mistake, leave a mark behind he doesn’t mean to.’

  ‘Perhaps. But this … A disgusting, humiliating way to die.’

  Crowther had no comfort to offer. ‘Were you acquainted with Glucke?’

  ‘A little. I believe he recommended me as District Officer in Oberbach when I handed my business on to my son-in-law.’

  His tone suggested he had no more to say on that. Instead he ran his hand through his hair. ‘It all comes too fast. I must speak to Colonel Padfield and Count Frenzel immediately.’

  ‘But first we must go straight to Kupfel and discover why he was so angry this morning,’ Crowther said.

  ‘In time. For the good of Maulberg, and the Duke, this crime must be concealed.’

  ‘The Duke?’ Harriet said. ‘Why should this be concealed just to protect him from embarrassment?’

  Krall turned on her. ‘The Duke is a good man, appointed by God to guide us. He shall be protected.’

  ‘From whence this enthusiasm, Krall? Until this morning you have been rigorous in your honesty, your pursuit of the truth,’ Crowther said. ‘You questioned the Duke in our presence.’

  Krall’s face flushed red. ‘Twice a month the gates of the palace are opened, and anyone — anyone who wishes it — may petition the Duke in person. He greets the people as his children and cares for them. He listens to what they say and he acts. It drives his advisers mad half the time. But he does it.’

  ‘But the palace, the Opera House,’ Harriet objected. ‘All the luxury of the court … the Duke does nothing but indulge himself!’

  ‘How long have you been here, Mrs Westerman? Three days? Four? But you think …’ He turned away for a moment, then spoke again, more slowly. ‘Do not be fooled by the manner in which the Duke presents himself to the world. There is not an inch of ground under his authority he does not know. And the land under his authority flourishes. He will not be made vulnerable, not by the actions of some madman. The extravagance of the court is the gilding on something real. Something of value.’

  There was no sound in the room other than the low rumble of the cats purring.

  Harriet crouched down to stroke one which had decided to rub up against her. As she put her hand out to it, she noticed it had dried blood streaked across its white back, and she recoiled slightly. ‘Forgive me if I spoke hastily, Mr Krall. You are right, we know little of Maulberg. Conceal the murder if you must, but surely, for the good of the Duke, you must find who is responsible. May I have the map of the secret chamber that Wimpf drew? Perhaps there is something useful there. We will be discreet.’

  The District Officer hesitated, then drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘Agreed. But you will continue to act with some discretion or I will have you and your party thrown out of Maulberg. I have my arrangements to make.’ He left the room, and in a moment they could hear his voice upstairs barking out commands.

  Harriet examined the paper in her hands as she spoke. ‘I had no idea he was so devoted to the Duke.’

  Crowther was watching the door through which Krall had disappeared. ‘I think it may have come as a surprise to Krall himself.’

  Harriet placed the paper in her pocket. ‘Go to Kupfel. I shall examine the secret chamber.’

  Crowther looked concerned. ‘I shall go to Kupfel, but Mrs Westerman, you cannot go looking for the chamber alone.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘I hate to state the obvious, but there is a killer at court.’

  ‘I begin to suspect there are several of different sorts. I shall take Graves.’

  ‘And now, Mrs Westerman, you are forcing me to sound like your sister. You cannot wander the palace at night alone with Mr Graves. Though I know your sister has courage, she cannot be a sufficient guard. Clode himself is still weak — and in any case, they must guard Swann.’

  Harriet might control her temper with Krall, but she did not with Crowther. ‘Then what would you have me do?’

  He closed his eyes for a moment and leaned his weight onto his cane.

  ‘Take Manzerotti.’

  V.13

  Pegel sat back in his chair. He was uncomfortable. Normally when he looked up from his work he linked his hands behind his head, crossed his ankles and thought about what he wanted to eat next, but tonight he stood slowly and looked down at his notes with great unease. He took a step away then returned and swept the papers into one of the drawers, slammed it shut and turned the lock. Then he headed towards the main door of his room to release himself. His momentum carried him until he had the key in the lock, but then he turned back, gathered up the papers once more and folded them into his coatpocket. There were three places in the room he had prepared for papers to be concealed, but now the messages were translated into plain language, none of these places seemed sufficiently secure. He was almost angry with Florian and his little group for making their codes simple enough for him to unpick. He didn’t want to know all those names, whatever profit it might bring him. The thought of the money stilled him for a little while. Money of his own. It would be enough for him to establish himself somewhere with a decent university. He could stay there, in one place, teach mathematics and pursue his own studies. He might even be able to make a friend he could keep.

  As soon as the idea formed he thought it nonsense. He was not the sort of man who could afford to lead a settled existence. Better to dance through people’s lives, blow smoke in their faces and disappear while their eyes were still smarting. Damn these papers! It was no good. It was simply too dangerous to leave them lying about as they were. He must burn them, take the originals and translate them once more in front of his master. He unfolded the pages and looked at the names. He had watched some of them, and thought them good men. Fools, of course, idealists too protected by their position to see how the world really worked, their eyes so fixed on some distant lofty goal they probably hadn’t even noticed when they stepped off the edge and into the abyss. The papers burned and curled in the grate and he prodded the ashes into nothing. He wondered what would happen to them. Some of the smoke got into his eyes on this occasion. He would ride out as soon as it was light.

  There was a light knock at the door and Harriet opened it to find Manzerotti leaning on the frame, a candle in his hand.

  ‘I received your note, as you see, Mrs Westerman. I do hope you haven’t reconsidered your decision not to shoot me dead.’

  She turned back into the room and he followed. ‘Frequently. But tonight I am asking you to examine this chamber with me.’

  ‘How exciting! Secret passageways, darkness. I should be delighted, of course, but, flattered as I am, why is not Mr Crowther or Mr Graves at your side?’

  She kept her back turned. ‘Crowther has to visit Herr Kupfel, and Graves is on watch at Swann’s bedside. Rachel a
nd Daniel need to rest.’

  ‘I am sure the happy couple would be delighted to continue their vigil?’ he asked innocently.

  ‘Perhaps, but Mr Crowther feels it would be unwise of me to be found alone at night in the company of Mr Graves.’

  ‘Whereas a being such as myself? We eunuchs are a useful breed.’

  ‘It is nonsense to worry about such things in these circumstances.’ She breathed deeply. ‘I thank you for coming.’

  ‘Gabriel loves you very much, I think, Mrs Westerman. I am sure to make the suggestion was as distasteful for him, as it was for you to comply.’

  She hesitated briefly then picked up the map Wimpf had drawn from the table. ‘Why do you call him by his Christian name, Manzerotti?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because it irritates him, but he knows that to order me to call him by any of his titles, real or imagined, would make him ridiculous. He is a vain, proud man. It is a nature I understand, being both vain and proud myself.’ He took the page from her and examined it in the light of his candle. Harriet guessed he must be about her own age, but his face was as smooth as her ten-year-old son’s. ‘I think the most discreet way we can let ourselves into these passageways is through a doorway on this corridor.’

  ‘Why were they built, Manzerotti?’

  He tilted his head to look at her. His expression was almost affectionate. ‘Your naivety is one of your great virtues, my dear. Do try never to lose it. In palaces such as these the great do not want their servants on view unless they are liveried and as superb as the gilding. I am sure they were built so the lower servants could go from room to room without offending their masters by breathing the same air. Shall we?’

  Crowther knocked on the door with the head of his cane. There was a shout deep from within.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘The Englishman.’

  The door was shuffled open. A little. ‘What? Why are you here? I heard the Watch call midnight already.’

  ‘Will you not let me in? Do you not wish to know how Chancellor Swann does?’

  There was a moment of doubt on his face, but the door was dragged open enough to allow Crowther entrance and he once again followed the Alchemist’s stooped back through the junk to the comfort of the back room. Crowther did not wait for an invitation to be seated.

  ‘Why were you arguing with Glucke?’

  Kupfel remained standing, staring at the fire. ‘None of your business. How is Swann?’

  ‘Still more asleep than awake, but much improved, I understand. His hands are less inflamed. Glucke was murdered this evening.’

  Kupfel turned round at that, his mouth open and his face suddenly pale. Crowther realised he had not known the power of the blow he was delivering. ‘What? Glucke?’ Kupfel sat down heavily in his armchair and began to cry, covering his face with his hands. Crowther felt a spasm of pity. Kupfel raised his head. ‘Was it? Was it … like the woman?’ Crowther nodded and Kupfel howled. His face was red now and running with tears; he gulped and wiped his sleeve across his face. ‘Oh God, oh God … I wish I had never met that man. Never asked … What suffering I have brought among us.’

  Crowther stood and poured a brandy from a dusty-looking carafe on the desk then handed it to his host. Kupfel took it and drank. Crowther poured a glass for himself and tipped it down his throat. He had never been a man who drank. It had marked him out in his youth and made his fellows suspicious of him — confirmed him in their eyes as a dry eccentric even at that age — but confronted with Kupfel’s animal grief he reached for it. It burned, but he felt its warmth. Kupfel stopped crying, but he rocked back and forward in his chair, and Crowther discovered that he grieved for him. What strange beings he found himself in sympathy with these days.

  ‘You went to see him, Kupfel. You thought he had stolen the book, did you not?’

  ‘I thought he had got someone to steal it for him.’ Kupfel’s voice was small and cracked, the wheeze underlying it more pronounced.

  ‘Did whatever harmed Swann come from the same volume?’

  Kupfel’s face was crumpled and lined as if it had been scythed and folded. He held his empty glass in his old hands, and Crowther could read in the scars on the fingers, years of toil and work with heat and substances corrosive and violent. ‘No. It was not in that book.’

  ‘Did you believe Glucke had killed Lady Martesen?’

  ‘No, no. Never. He was a good man. No, I believe he got his hands on the book then gave it to a man of no scruples, a man ready to harm, to corrupt anyone who stood between him and power.’

  Crowther was profoundly tired; he knew there was something in the words of the old Alchemist that would make him understand, something important, but it slipped from him. Kupfel thought the book had been stolen by Glucke; they knew the book had been stolen by Beatrice so Kupfel was wrong, and therefore his anger with Glucke meant nothing. He must sleep.

  ‘The book was stolen by your serving girl, Beatrice,’ he said. ‘We are trying to follow her path.’

  ‘The maid? Impossible!’ Kupfel looked into the fire. ‘A girl? You think her capable of understanding it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Crowther put his hand on the little Alchemist’s shoulder, and to his surprise the man reached up, seized it, and held it with his own, speaking with sudden enthusiasm, even through his tears. ‘I am so close, English. So close to the Great Work. Once that is complete, the Elixir, I can treat any ill, I can cure anyone who is harmed by what I have learned.’ His voice was intent, a little desperate.

  ‘You cannot raise the dead, Mr Kupfel.’

  He slumped again. ‘It has been done. Perhaps I might, but I would not. I cannot save Glucke now. No one comes back from death … whole.’

  They moved slowly along the corridor, the candles dancing shadows up the walls. Harriet noticed that Manzerotti smelled of bergamot. He seemed to have no animal scent of his own. He had handed the map back to her as soon as they closed the door to the passageway behind them, and allowed her to lead the way. She wondered what her husband would think of her now. He wouldn’t understand it, of that she was sure, but would he forgive her? Would he have continued to love her, had he lived? He had been gracious in his letters when news of the events of 1780 had reached them. He knew that she had saved Lord Sussex and his sister, or helped to at any rate, but she sensed that he had reservations, that he was not convinced that she had needed to step so far outside of the role nature and society had given her. She occasionally argued with him in the privacy of her own mind, claiming it was his own fault. Taking her with him on his tours abroad in the early years of their marriage had meant she developed this core of wilfulness, of unconventional thinking, a love of adventure. But that would have been unjust. One of the reasons she had married him was the smell of salt and foreign climates on his skin, the stories of his adventures, and she had campaigned to join him. Whatever strange quirk in her nature that meant she was here now, feeling her way through the darkness with Manzerotti beside her, had been born into her.

  ‘Here, I think,’ she murmured.

  Manzerotti handed her his own candle and felt for the handle. ‘Locked.’

  Harriet felt her eyes sting. ‘Of course it is. I am a fool. Wimpf said Auwerk had the key and I never even thought-’

  ‘Do not worry, dear lady, I have another advantage over Mr Graves as a companion on this venture.’ Manzerotti reached into his jacket and produced a soft leather roll. It was the same sort of thing that Crowther used to carry the tools of dissection with him, but much smaller. He untied it and showed her within a number of slim metal tools, each a subtly different shape and size.

  ‘Lock picks? How did you know?’

  ‘A lucky guess, my dear. But I try to be prepared. I am also carrying a knife and a large quantity of money.’

  ‘You know how to use these, of course.’

  ‘Of course. How do you think I always manage to know a little more than I should? But I had the best teacher when I was young — hunger.
The boys who had been castrated were a little better fed than the rest at the school where I was trained, but only a little. There. The pantry at Padua was a great deal better guarded than this.’

  He pushed the door open. At first Harriet could make out nothing but the chequerboard design on the floor, but as Manzerotti moved around the room, lighting the candles that hung against the walls, each with a brass panel behind it to throw forward what light it could, the room began to take shape before her.

  It was a square chamber, with a number of chairs placed against the wall and one larger chair at the north end. The case with the glasses in it was located on the sideboard by the door. Harriet opened it. Seven, all identical and arranged in a circle. She took out one. It was engraved as Wimpf had said with a pattern of vines and flowers. He had not mentioned that there was also an owl cut into the glass of each.

  ‘What do you think they spoke of here, Manzerotti?’

  ‘Power, I suspect. Imagine, Mrs Westerman, this little group with their owls: if they had simply been courtiers wandering in the gardens making their little plots, then they are ordinary. But here they are a secret little group of seven, meeting in their own secret little room. It gives them a sense of their own importance. Some people have children to stave off their mortality, some religion, and some create these rituals of their own.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘I am a breed apart, Mrs Westerman, you know that.’

  ‘Music?’