by Paul Finch
“With respect, anyone who knows you knows that that’s nonsense. You’re a proper gentleman.”
“That’s not the way the Prince of Orange’s magistrates might see it.” O’Calligan scanned the room for the least clue. “My future hangs by a thread as it is. For all Lady Foxworth’s good will, this incident might turn that thread into a rope.”
Cedric considered this, then said: “Well, in answer to your question, there’s no-one here like to benefit from Lord and Lady Chillerton’s deaths. They have a son at Court – a clerk in the Exchequer, I believe. He stands to inherit everything, but he’s not here. He probably wouldn’t have had too long to wait for his inheritance anyway.”
“And what’s that?” O’Calligan wondered. He indicated a bell suspended from a cord in a high corner. “There’s one of those in my room too.”
“That’s from the old days,” Cedric explained. “The Foxworths were always sea-folk. They were awarded Silvercombe Hall for services against the Spanish Armada. But the original family this house was confiscated from was Catholic. They used to hold Masses here, and shelter priests and nuns and such. A bell like that was put in each room. They could be rung from a secret place, to alert guests should the priest-hunters come by.”
O’Calligan glanced around at him. “Does that mean there are priests’ holes as well?”
“There were, but they’re all gone now. The whole inside of the house was refurbished by Lady Hannah’s father, thirty years ago.”
Despite this, they spent another ten minutes making rounds of the room, tapping on each wall, but there wasn’t so much as a hollow thump to greet their knuckles.
*
Not surprisingly, the Christmas Day hunt was abandoned. Even without the atrocious murders, it would have been impossible to send the hounds out. The gardens and moors were still deep under snow, while flakes continued to fall, no longer tossed by a gale but thickly and heavily in an unrelenting cascade. This also prevented anyone from leaving the hall and heading the sixteen miles to Minehead, where they might summon help.
Shortly before luncheon was served, Lord Lightbourne took it on himself to question the domestic staff, which he did unduly harshly as far as O’Calligan was concerned. Lightbourne, the Irishman decided, was probably the sort of master who would willingly take a horsewhip to his servants. He sat the cook and her two maids in window-seats in the drawing room, then questioned their every move on the previous night in a tone so severe that it would have done Matthew Hopkins proud. Needless to say, he reduced them to tears, but he didn’t stop there, insisting on regaling them with the ghoulish details of the murders, determined, in his own words, to “break their stubborn impudence”.
However, Lightbourne wasn’t the only person O’Calligan formed opinions about that morning. There was a mournful mood: people were understandably subdued, but were all of them shocked rather than grief-stricken. Lady Foxworth’s relationship with the Chillertons had not always been as amicable as old Cedric believed. O’Calligan learned this from himself questioning the maids that morning, albeit in a gentler manner. It seemed there’d been disputes over land in the past, and once apparently Lord Chillerton had invested heavily in a sea voyage to the Foxworth family’s trading post on the coast of Madras; but the ship sank in a storm, and the Foxworths had refused to recompense him, which had caused a very public row. Judge Prendergast had also had issues with the Chillertons: one time he’d refused to make good on a gambling debt to them, using his period of empowerment following Monmouth’s rebellion to bully his elderly neighbours into cancelling it outright. The only person present O’Calligan had no real information about in this respect was Lady Lightbourne, though he discovered a little bit about her in a brief conversation with his hostess.
According to Lady Foxworth, Loretta Lightbourne, formerly Loretta Wilberforce, was a rector’s daughter from Devon, who had only married her beau at the age of twenty-nine, a period in life when she might normally have been regarded as an old maid. Lady Foxworth knew nothing of the Lightbournes’ courtship and romance, except that Loretta had taken confidently to her life as wife of a country squire. She was a stern-looking woman with a stiff posture and pinched features, but she compensated for her lack of physical attractiveness with a strict and assertive attitude. She ran her husband’s household efficiently, and had successfully reined in his one-time gallivanting antics. Not that she seemed to be firmly in control at present. As O’Calligan and Lady Foxworth surreptitiously watched her, Lady Lightbourne sent Cedric for a fourth glass of French brandy.
“It must be the stress of circumstances,” Lady Foxworth said, still pale in the cheek herself. “I’d always thought her given to temperance.”
“Her abrasiveness is clearly a front,” O’Calligan observed.
“She has a temper, though. Her husband lives in fear of it, for one.”
O’Calligan glanced towards the hearth, where Lord Lightbourne stood over the flames, one hand resting on the mantel. Following his normal instinct to be cock of the walk, Lightbourne was wearing a bright blue coat that morning, trimmed down its buttonholes with gold thread, and with a lengthy, red velvet doublet underneath. His cravat was a froth of intricate lace, his shoulder-length, chestnut wig of the finest quality.
“You’ll now be wondering if Randolph and I have ever consorted together?” Lady Foxworth added.
O’Calligan pondered this. Hannah Foxworth’s scandalous behaviour and frequent affairs were a difficult matter to discount when it came to potential motives for crime. “The question had crossed my mind,” he admitted.
She sat back in her chair, and fanned herself. Despite the snow, the house was closed up and with every fire roaring becoming uncomfortably hot. “I’m not sure I should answer so impertinent an enquiry from the man once charged with imprisoning me. But the situation has sufficient seriousness to perhaps put privacy aside. The answer is ‘no’, we haven’t. But even if we had, why should that spell death for Lord and Lady Chillerton?”
O’Calligan mused. “Maybe they knew about it? They were blackmailing you? Or him. More likely him.”
“Why more likely him?” she wondered.
“Well, with all respect, my lady, he’d have more to lose, his spouse still being alive.”
Lady Foxworth smiled tiredly. “The point is taken. Not that it resolves the main problem. Namely that the murders were committed inside a locked room. You’ve checked for secret entrances?”
“I have. As has Cedric.”
“Well, if Cedric found nothing there is nothing. He’s been at Silvercombe since I was knee-high. He’s almost part of the furniture here.” She smiled wistfully. “My mother died when I was still a child and my brother, Rupert, a baby. As a result Rupert was sent to live with relatives in East Anglia, and, with my father away at sea all the time, it fell to Cedric to raise me. Which of course you already know, having been my keeper for so long.”
O’Calligan nodded.
“He’s looked after me ever since,” she added. “A more loyal servant, one could not find.”
Again the Irishman considered what he knew about the Foxworth family. Much of it was a tragic tale, especially for Lady Hannah herself. As well as losing her mother at a very early age, her father died when she was sixteen, and her husband expired from influenza when she was seventeen, during only the second year of their marriage. Four years later, in fact on the eve of her twenty-first birthday, she received news that her elder brother had drowned in Hudson Bay when his ship struck an ice-floe. More recently, during Monmouth’s abortive uprising, two of her close cousins were killed at Sedgemoor and another two hanged afterwards. Of course, as was often the way with these old baronial families, guile and fortitude had turned disaster into triumph; catastrophe had only made them stronger. On her husband’s death, Lady Foxworth had returned to her family home and re-adopted her maiden name. On her elder brother’s death, she’d taken over the running of all family businesses, and had made them even more profitable than b
efore. Though a staunch Protestant and parliamentarian, she’d continued the family tradition of currying favour with the anti-Cromwellian court of Charles II by bestowing on it an endless succession of exotic gifts brought back from the East Indies: silks, spices, fabulous beasts as pets or as specimens for the royal zoological gardens. Even during her three years of house-arrest, Lady Foxworth had run her affairs admirably. The family’s mercantile empire had blossomed. They now owned considerable shares in the East India Company, a business that was booming on a world-wide scale. Now that King James himself had gone, nothing, it seemed, could prevent their rising to unprecedented prominence.
Except, perhaps, for this hideous and inexplicable double-murder.
O’Calligan wondered briefly if the outrage might actually have been directed at the Foxworth family rather than their ill-fated guests; an attempt to indelibly besmirch their name maybe. If this had been the case, Lady Foxworth wasn’t considering the possibility. In fact, she now seemed determined to put the terrible event aside until it could be dealt with by the authorities.
“Let’s not dwell on unpleasantness,” she said, suddenly standing and clapping her hands for attention. “It is Christmas Day. We owe it to Our Lord to celebrate his birthday. All gather round, if you please. I have an assortment of presents for you.”
The guests assembled uncertainly, not quite sure whether this was seemly under the circumstances. But Lady Foxworth would not be deterred. On her instruction, Cedric and Charlotte brought in several gaily-wrapped packages, and one by one they were distributed. To his astonishment, Captain O’Calligan received one as well.
“You may open them now,” Lady Foxworth decreed. “I understand that it’s against tradition so early in the season, but by sad circumstance we now may have to part sooner than normal this year, and I can’t neglect my duty to my guests.”
For Judge Prendergast there was a tub of excellent Brazilian tobacco, of which he approved heartily; for Lord Lightbourne, a fine silken chemise. Ordinarily, Lady Lightbourne would have scowled at so personal a gift to her husband from another woman, especially when that other woman brazenly commented: “I hope it fits, Randolph, I had to guess your proportions.” But the mistress of Lightbourne Manor was by this stage too drunk to notice. She was too drunk to even offer thanks for her own present, a scented pomander, which their hostess took care to tie to her wrist with a ribbon. O’Calligan was the last one to unwrap his gift, and was amazed to receive a handsome fighting-knife, with a stout, curved blade and a hilt fashioned from ebony and inlaid with gems.
“It was taken from a Moorish pirate,” Lady Foxworth explained. “What better item, I thought, for a man whose life is … how did Lord Randolph put it, clandestine warfare?”
O’Calligan shook his head. “I’m honoured, ma-am. But I’m also shamed. I have nothing to give you in return.”
“I’m your hostess, captain. It is not required that you give me anything. I’d also provided for Lord and Lady Chillerton.” She sighed. “Sadly, those goods must now be passed on to their estate … along with their bodies.”
At which point, with astonishing suddenness, Lady Lightbourne began to weep hysterically. Everyone was transfixed with shock. The next thing, the normally staid countrywoman was down on her knees, beating her breast, tearing at her carefully-coiffed locks.
“Those poor people!” she wailed. “Slain in their beds! Who could do such a thing? What vile monster roams these passages?”
Clearly, the false good cheer of that morning had put Lady Lightbourne under intolerable strain. She was a rector’s daughter, O’Calligan remembered; she’d known wealth and breeding, had been raised exclusively in a world where domestic chores and prim conversation were the highlights of the day, and suddenly this – two close neighbours butchered, their blood left drenching the bedroom walls. Little wonder she’d taken so readily to drink that morning.
There was a bustle of activity in response. Lady Foxworth and her maid, Charlotte, hurried to assist the casualty to an armchair. But no amount of consoling, no number of whiffs from a jar of restorative would bring the distraught woman round. Eventually she was taken up to her bedroom, where, after more histrionics, she finally consented to lie down. Lady Foxworth took charge of the procedure, with Charlotte and Cedric’s assistance.
After the little group had left the room there was a deafening silence. Lord Lightbourne himself seemed too startled by his wife’s unexpected breakdown to pass comment. Judge Prendergast, who, of them all was perhaps most used to hearing screams of despair – as condemned folk were led raving from his court – sat by the fire, re-stuffed his pipe and smoked. A moment or two passed, and then O’Calligan went out into the hall. On the grand stairway, he met Cedric coming down. Lady Foxworth and her maid were close behind.
“She’s resting now, sir,” the servant said. “She’s taken a sleeping-draught. I’m sure it’ll do her good.”
“Poor thing,” Lady Foxworth added. “Such a sensitive soul beneath all those corsets and starched petticoats.”
O’Calligan nodded, though once their hostess had swept back into the drawing room, and the maid, Charlotte, had scurried off to the kitchens, he drew Cedric aside. “Lady Lightbourne’s room is now locked?” he asked quietly.
Cedric nodded. “She herself has the only key.”
“And you checked it was empty before leaving her in there? Under the bed, in the closet?”
Again Cedric nodded. “She is absolutely alone.”
O’Calligan patted the servant on the shoulder. “Then she at least should be safe.”
But she wasn’t.
It was shortly after luncheon, and what remained of the party were playing cards and smoking their pipes, while outside another of those early, ominously dark December evenings was creeping over the snow-laden moor, when the clanging of a bell suddenly sounded from the upper apartments.
The guests exchanged glances, puzzled. O’Calligan leapt to his feet. “That’s an alarm call!” he shouted.
*
O’Calligan dashed from the room, followed closely by Lightbourne and then, more ponderously, Judge Prendergast. Cedric was in the passage outside, carrying a tray of sweetmeats. They almost bowled him aside in their efforts to get upstairs, at the top of which stood the door to the Lightbournes’ guest-chamber. As before, that door was locked. They hammered it to no avail – it was solid oak – and, once again, Cedric was summoned with tools. When at last they’d opened the room, a similar gruesome sight confronted them. Lady Lightbourne lay beside her bed amid disordered sheets, eyes closed but a ghoulish grimace on her face. Her throat had been torn from ear to ear, and a wide puddle of blood was congealing on the carpet.
Lord Lightbourne howled and roared when he saw this, and had to be forcibly restrained by O’Calligan and the judge. This time, he switched his accusations from the Irishman to Cedric. “It was him … him, the dog!” he bellowed. “He was the only one not present when we heard her ringing for help!”
“It couldn’t have been him,” the judge insisted. “He was outside the drawing room, just about to serve us!”
But logic had fled the bereaved man. He wrenched himself free and threw himself down onto his wife’s corpse, sobbing bitterly. As he did, there was a gasp of shock from the doorway. O’Calligan turned and found Lady Foxworth there. Quickly, he led her out into the passage.
“How … is this possible?” she stammered, her face pale as ice. “That room was definitely locked. I heard Lady Lightbourne do it, herself.”
“You’re sure none of your domestics have a key?”
“I’m sure, but come and speak to them anyway.”
O’Calligan did, going straight down to the kitchens in company with his hostess. There, as he’d expected, he found the two maids, Charlotte and Martha, huddled together, teary-eyed with fear. Likewise, there was no possibility that the cook, Agnes, was responsible: she was aged and obese, and shuffled about slowly on elephantine feet. After briefly interviewing the w
oman, O’Calligan – frustrated and dissatisfied – went back up to the room where the crime had occurred. Cedric was standing outside with a lighted candle. He warned the Irishman about going in, saying that Lightbourne had lost his mind. O’Calligan replied that he had no choice.
Inside, the new-made widower, now with sword drawn, was seated on the bed beside the body of his wife, which he’d clearly placed there himself. He’d pulled off his wig, and had gone white in the face.
Aware that he was being watched coldly, O’Calligan went first to the bell in the corner. It was similar to his own in that it hung just below the ceiling. If the poor woman had indeed reached up and rung it, it would have been quite a stretch for her, especially considering that she was at that moment under attack. Next, he contemplated the walls themselves, which, aside from a timber skirting-board, were of bare stone blocks and hung with tapestries. He checked behind the tapestries, but found nothing unusual. After this, it was the window: outside it he saw another unbroken strip of snow on the ledge. Clearly, no-one had entered or departed this way, though the top panel, he now noticed, was open, admitting an icy breeze.
O’Calligan turned to Lightbourne. “Forgive me for asking, my lord, but did you or your wife open this casement?”
There was a chilling silence, before Lightbourne replied: “My wife did. Last night. She always found a stuffy room intolerable.”
O’Calligan noted that the hearth was cold. “Is that why you had no fire?”
At first Lightbourne couldn’t reply. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips taut and grey and visibly trembling, and for the first time it struck the Irishman that there was more to this arrogant, posturing peacock than he’d first thought. Lord Randolph Lightbourne was one of that very rare breed: a rakish squire, a gambling man and a drinker, but all the same a fellow who genuinely cared for his wife. “We … we made our own warmth together,” he finally mumbled, starting to weep again, softly.
A second or two passed before O’Calligan added: “You shouldn’t remain in here. Why torture yourself?”