The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite (The Northminster Mysteries Book 5)

by Harriet Smart

  She nodded slowly, kissed her father’s hand again, laid it on his chest and together they drew the sheet over him.

  Then she rushed from the room.

  Felix followed her, watching as she made her way down the passageway, unsteady on her legs, as if on board a ship. He caught up with her just as she almost collapsed and steered her into his own sitting room, which was warm and full of morning sunlight. She sat in an armchair, gasping for breath.

  “The windows –” she managed to say.

  He opened the casements and in a moment she was standing beside him, breathing in the air in desperate lungfuls, her hands pressed to the window sill, her face turned up towards the sun.

  “Godspeed,” she said, softly, “Godspeed, my dear Papa.”

  “Amen,” Felix found himself saying.

  She leant against him, her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm out to steady her as she dissolved into tears.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Having delivered his message to Lambert, Giles left the Treasurer’s House and was surprised to meet Mrs Maitland and Tom crossing the Minster Precincts together. Tom looked as if he were struggling to speak, and was waving his arms about as if in frustration, closing his eyes and throwing his head back. As he came closer it became clear he was attempting to speak German, and Mrs Maitland was gently prompting him as he faltered.

  He looked very pleased to see Giles, and gave him a long, enthusiastic greeting in the same language, which got an approving smile from his tutor.

  “So I am earning my keep by helping Tom with his German conversation,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “Uncle Edward and Charles have gone back to Oxford,” said Tom, “so we have her to ourselves now, Uncle Giles.”

  The Minster clock chimed the half hour.

  “Now, is that the time already?” said Mrs Maitland, whose expression showed a mixture of amusement and embarrassment at Tom’s artlessness. “You had better go if you are to rescue Master Hughes.”

  “From what?” Giles asked.

  “His tutor,” said Tom. “He is allowed out for three quarters of an hour. I have a scheme that he should come and learn German with me. I’m going to put it to the Bishop himself, Mrs Maitland.”

  “Perhaps you should talk to your father first, Tom,” said Giles.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “Do you think so?” said Tom. “Better from the horse’s mouth, I should say.”

  “Or aus erster Hand, as they say in German,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “Oh, that is good. I will write that one down,” said Tom, reaching into his pocket and taking out a little memorandum book of the kind Giles always used. “You see, Uncle Giles, I am turning into you,” he said as he scribbled. “In fact I need your advice. I have been considering what I should do next. I have been looking into the Royal Engineering College at Woolwich.”

  “Hence the interest in German,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “Modern languages are a requirement for entry,” said Tom. “And why should I waste any more of my time with a language no one speaks?”

  “Given I was a very poor classicist, you should probably not ask me that,” said Giles.

  “You are exactly the person I should ask,” said Tom. “Do you think I might cut it in the Engineers? I know it is not what one would consider a crack regiment, but then I remember you saying that half the battle is won by the Engineers, especially these days. I should far rather be useful than flash – as you are.”

  Mrs Maitland burst out laughing at that, as did Giles.

  “Said by one who attempted to deface himself with a rusty needle!” Giles said, and moved as if to punch Tom in the upper arm. “If that was not flash, then –”

  “I have reconsidered that!” said Tom, dodging his mock blow and covering his forearm. “I have learnt my lesson. I intend to be sensible and useful.”

  “Useful and not flash?” said Giles. “You make me feel miserable and old. Can I not be flash and useful? Perhaps I should buy a new waistcoat or two. I saw a magnificent specimen last night in crimson figured silk. It was decidedly gaudy.”

  “You would not have hesitated previously,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “I think I should not hesitate now,” said Giles.

  “No!” exclaimed Tom. “That would look all wrong. Mama says you are the arbiter of discreet good taste in such things.”

  “It gets worse!” Giles said. “I really cannot have her holding me up as a paragon. I wish to be a bad example to you, Tom. I must work harder at it.” Mrs Maitland was still laughing and he could not help be pleased by it. “Now go and find your friend, Tom. I may see you later, as I must call on the Bishop this morning.”

  “I wonder what the Bishop will say to that,” said Giles, when he had gone. “An onslaught from Tom is hard to resist and I suppose German is godly enough.”

  “As a tutor I may not be,” said Mrs Maitland. “And there are certain theological texts in German that I am sure the Bishop will not care for. A rationalist school of thought that has been attempting to put our Saviour into an historical context. Some might say that such an endeavour rather chips away at His divinity.”

  “You have been busy at Oxford,” said Giles.

  “I had nothing else to do. My son was snatched from me and the bookshops are very good. And I heard a great many interesting sermons.”

  “They should give you a degree.”

  “The day is coming, I think, when that must happen. When it will happen!”

  “Perhaps when Northminster gets its own university, you will agitate for women undergraduates?”

  “It’s already in hand,” she said. “Edward is very aware of my views. He shares them. He did not –”

  “Until he knew you, I suppose?” Giles said.

  “No, I was not the cause of his change of mind. Perhaps I consolidated matters, though,” she added. “Although I certainly did not need to agitate.”

  “If you are both of the same mind, then things can only go well with you,” said Giles.

  “I hope so,” she said. “And thank you again for being so understanding.”

  He wished to say he did not understand at all, and that it was all an illusion created by good manners. In that moment, standing with her there in the pleasant embrace of the spring sunlight, hearing her laugh, he could only feel acutely the loss of that which he had so carelessly tossed away.

  “I’d better go,” he said. “I have a hundred things in hand, and if Celia catches me, I shall never finish any of them.”

  “She will have us dancing again,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “Yes, that was all much too pleasant for someone who is supposed to be useful,” he managed to say, and quickly took his leave.

  -o-

  The Bishop was in a meeting, but his secretary informed him he would be done with it shortly, and showed him into the Bishop’s library to wait. Here he found Mrs Hughes at work on a pile of correspondence.

  “Forgive the interruption,” he said after he had presented himself.

  “No, no, I am very glad to know you, Major Vernon. I have heard quite a lot about you.”

  She was an elegant, rather beautiful woman, and her sober-grey, quakerish dress emphasised it.

  “All good, of course,” she added, showing him to a chair, and sitting down opposite. “Is there anything I can help you with, in my husband’s absence?”

  She said this as if he was about to request spiritual advice.

  “I came about Mr Bickley. At the party at the Treasurer’s house the other night – what the Bishop said was very interesting.”

  “I am glad to hear it. It was a remarkable thing, his coming here like that.”

  “That is my difficulty,” said Giles. “You see, Mr Bickley is a person whom I have been watching for some time in my professional capacity, and recent events have only confirmed my fears about him.”

  “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, laying her hand on her breast. “Yo
ur fears? It is a matter for rejoicing, surely, that he was moved to come here and speak to my husband as he did.”

  “And you are convinced he is sincere?”

  “Oh yes, absolutely. There was no doubt about it.”

  “I have been looking into Mr Bickley’s affairs for some time, Mrs Hughes. He is an artful man, that much is clear. I suspect that he is associated with many criminal activities in the city, but I have never had enough clear evidence to make an arrest. Now, I believe you transcribed what he said to your husband the other night?”

  “Yes, yes, I did make some notes. We were thinking of making it the basis of a popular tract. Such an eloquent testimony of God’s purpose working in the heart of a sinner.”

  “A very great sinner, I am afraid.”

  “We are all sinners, Major Vernon. Even a newborn child –”

  “That I can never believe,” he said. “You will forgive me, ma’am –”

  At this point the Bishop came in, saving him from a knotty theological conversation.

  “Major Vernon is here about Mr Bickley,” said Mrs Hughes. “He says he is a wicked criminal.”

  “Certainly his life did not seem to be regular or respectable,” said the Bishop, “but I should not have imagined anything like that. There was wrongdoing, of various sorts but it was all some time ago.”

  “I should very much like to see your notes, Mrs Hughes,” said Major Vernon. “It may help me in pursuing him.”

  “You are pursuing him?” said the Bishop. “Why?”

  “A man was beaten to death with an iron bar last week.”

  “And you think Bickley did it?” said the Bishop.

  “No, I think he ordered it to be done. I would like to see exactly what he said to you. It may be that he let something slip that will be of use to me.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Mary, do you have your notes to hand?”

  “I will go and get them,” said Mrs Hughes and left the room.

  “So,” Bishop Hughes said, “this moment of repentance may then have been prompted by the heavy knowledge of great wickedness. And perhaps he was not yet telling me the entire truth of the matter?”

  “No, certainly he was not.”

  “I must talk to him again.”

  “I do not advise it. He is a dangerous man.”

  “I am not afraid of him. Not at all. No, I see now the work is half done. The Lord bless you, Major Vernon for coming here and telling us this. God be thanked for bringing you here today, to help me guide this poor wretch to where he ought to go.”

  “To my door, then?” Giles said. “He deserves a noose.”

  “What a strange business!” the Bishop said, “and wonderful. That earthly and divine justice should move hand in hand. I see now his conscience was reaching for the light, and he could only begin to speak. Yes, he must be judged and punished for his earthly sins, that goes without saying, but that the Lord is showing him that he must repent so clearly, that he has been moved so deeply by his redeeming love – well, it is a miracle of sorts, and it will be a great example to others!”

  At this moment Mrs Hughes returned with her notes.

  “These are all I have,” she said. “I am afraid my hand was most unsteady. I was so moved by the occasion. You must make of them what you can, sir.”

  “I shall do, thank you very much,” Giles said, taking them from her.

  “Perhaps,” said the Bishop, reaching for his wife’s hand. “We ought now take a moment to offer our thanks –”

  “Please excuse me,” said Giles and made a hasty exit.

  -o-

  Mrs Hughes’ notes were indeed sketchy. There were Bible references in them, and exclamation marks, but the text was heavily skewed towards the fact he was repenting, rather than listing any details of his sins. As evidence it was of little use.

  The puzzle remained as to why he had done it. The Bishop and Mrs Hughes seemed in no doubt of his sincerity, but he suspected they were hearing what they wished to hear. He could not credit that Bickley, from all he knew of him, might have undergone such a transformation of character.

  Yet, what did he really know of him? He had met him only once, and the lasting impression had been of concealment, of a carefully cultivated façade, of disciplined deceit.

  Perhaps Hopkins, alias Baxter, might yet come up with something useful. The time for another conversation was long overdue.

  He therefore took a shortcut back to The Unicorn, through a tangle of back alleys, and then emerged into the rag market in the lee of St Luke’s Church. He was pleased to see a pair of uniformed constables on duty. This was a notorious area, and he scanned the crowds, wondering if he might spot any characters who might give him some useful scraps of information. As he did this he noticed a selection of bright silk dresses hanging from a makeshift rail behind one of the stalls. They looked smarter and more expensive than the usual fare of the market, and, as he approached, one of them looked uncomfortably familiar: a crisp figured lilac silk.

  “How much for that one?” he said, to the woman on the stall, who was eyeing him with suspicion as he looked it over. He was certain it was Kate’s. He had, after all, helped her remove it.

  “Guinea,” she said, after considering it for a moment.

  “Too much,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

  “Bought it. What do you think?”

  “Nice piece,” he said, looking at the other dresses. They were of the same quality, and in similar taste and size, as if they had been picked out by the same woman. Could he be looking at the rest of Kate’s wardrobe, he wondered, that had made its way to a market stall after the gambling house had been closed down in such haste? “And these others. Where did you get them? Did you buy them from the same person?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “What does it matter to you?”

  “I’ll take the lilac one,” he said, “and I’ll give you ten shillings for it, if you will tell me who sold them to you.”

  “I don’t know her name,” said the market woman, getting down the dress, and bundling it up unceremoniously. “But she lives up yonder, in Croft’s Building. She’s a dressmaker.”

  “Does she often sell you stock like this?”

  “No,” she said, sticking out her hand, waiting for the money. Given she had accepted such a low price without a quibble, it suggested that she had not paid much for them.

  “So you got it all very cheap?” he said, putting the coins into her hand.

  “What business of that is yours?”

  “You didn’t think they might be stolen?”

  “I just buys and sells,” she said, counting the coins. “Questions aren’t good for business. So mind yours.”

  He set off back into the maze of buildings, the crushed bundle of lilac silk under his arm.

  Croft’s Building was one of the famous buildings of old Northminster, a top-heavy, half-timbered merchant’s palace of the Elizabethan era, now dirty and decaying and divided into a rat’s nest of individual dwellings. It would probably have been demolished some time ago, for it lay in a convenient and prominent spot, but there was a long-standing dispute as to who actually owned the freehold, and until then, nothing could be done.

  Exactly how many dressmakers might be eking out a precarious living in this ancient wreck, he was not certain, but as he made his way up the groaning stairs, he wondered if it was not an excellent place for Kate to be hiding. After all, her clothes had been made for her, and with considerable skill. A trusted dressmaker might well be a friend and ally in time of trouble.

  A few enquiries led him to the door of a Miss Waites, who according to the neat-lettered paper pinned up outside, undertook “High class dressmaking of all descriptions.” Giles could not imagine that many of her clients would visit her in such lodgings.

  The woman opened the door to him cautiously. She was as neat in her dress as the handwriting on her sign: she was a curiously orderly figure for such a place. She looked him up and down carefully, taking i
n the bundle of silk under his arm.

  “Might I have a word?” he said, and tapped the silk. “About this?”

  She let him come in. The room was small, but meticulously clean and tidy.

  “Who are you?” she said as he laid the dress down on the table. She said it with a boldness that could not quite disguise the fact that she was rattled by the appearance of the dress.

  “Did you make this?” he asked.

  “Who are you?” she said again.

  “No one you need be afraid of,” he said. “You sound afraid, I think.”

  She reached out and touched the silk.

  “Yes, I made it.”

  “For Kate?”

  “If that’s what you want to call her, yes.”

  “And she was here?”

  “Yes, but she’s long gone. You’re the policeman, aren’t you? The one who –”

  “Yes. So where is she now?”

  “I can’t tell you! I don’t know!”

  “But she was here recently?”

  “Yes, but, but –” She broke off, her voice reduced to a nervous squeak, and stood twisting her hands together. “Please, sir, I can’t tell you anything,” she said at length.

  “Don’t you want to help her?” he said.

  “I’ve got work to do,” she said, crossing the room and picking up a piece of sewing.

  “You can still talk to me,” he said.

  “I can’t!” she said. “I don’t know anything.”

  “You know Kate, Miss Waites,” he said. “And you made clothes for her, and she came here and you have helped her in some way. Did she ask you to sell her clothes?”

  “Yes, but what does that matter? I don’t where she’s gone now. She didn’t tell me. Why would she tell me? I don’t know!”

  “Has anyone else been here asking about her, Miss Waites?” She hesitated and then shook her head, forcefully. “Does that mean no, or that you don’t wish to tell me?”

  She gazed at him, stricken.

  “I have to think about my livelihood,” she said, at length.