The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4)

by Harriet Smart

  “He has not turned up yet then?”

  “No, unfortunately,” said Major Vernon. “I should very much like to talk to him. Now, how shall we proceed? Shall I fetch Hawkins? You should be on your way as soon as possible.”

  Felix nodded.

  “Did you say Mr Yardley has gone out, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then when I have finished here, I had better go and check on his wife. I hate to leave without at least seeing all is well. I meant to go earlier, but...” he gave a shrug.

  “I will tell Hawkins not to leave Whithorne without you,” said Major Vernon, going to the door.

  Chapter Eight

  In the end, Carswell did not join Mr Hawkins on the box seat of his hearse but decided to go back with Smith in the carriage, along with the contents of Miss Barker’s dressing table, carefully labelled and packed up.

  “And all was well with Mrs Yardley and her son?” Giles enquired, just before he climbed into the carriage.

  “Mercifully, yes,” said Carswell. “And she is being well looked after. Do you have any letters for me?”

  “How did you guess?” said Giles, smiling and taking them from his pocket. “This one, I hesitate to give you, though. It is for –”

  “Mrs Connolly,” said Carswell reading the inscription. “Sir?”

  “I have asked her to come here. I would like her to do something for me, for the investigation, that is. She is particularly well-suited to it, but of course, if you have any objections to my employing her in such a fashion, then nothing more need be said about it.”

  Carswell put the letter with the others.

  “She would never forgive me if I did object,” he said after a moment. “She’s already made it clear enough that I shouldn’t allow myself to presume anything of that nature.” He said it rather bitterly.

  “Have you quarrelled?” Giles asked.

  “Just before we came here,” Carswell said. “It was about those damned Germans! I told her that it was quite unnecessary for her to give them rooms, indeed that I didn’t want them in the house at all. Well, you do not either, sir, I don’t think. But of course, she insisted that it was her business to decide what is what, and certainly not mine! So no, I should not dare attempt a veto!” He climbed into the carriage.

  “Go back and make peace,” said Giles closing the door and speaking to him through the lowered window. “She has probably changed her mind about it; she won’t want to offend you, as you don’t want to offend her.”

  “I hope so!” said Carswell.

  Giles watched the carriage depart, hoping he would not be the cause of more trouble between them. He had written the letter asking for her assistance and then, seeing Carswell, felt it best to ask his permission to approach her on the matter. If she had been Mrs Carswell, and not Mrs Connolly, he would not have hesitated to consult Carswell. It would have been offensive to Carswell not to ask him. However she was not Mrs Carswell, nor a wife, and nor was she subject to her lord – facts which she obviously wished Carswell to remember. Letting those rooms to the Germans against his express wishes was a clear sign.

  Giles, in truth, would have preferred that she had not let the rooms to these people. He had no wish for the house to be invaded by strangers, but she was only doing what she had set out to do and balance her books. He consoled himself with the thought that it was a large house and they would perhaps not be irksome. But for Carswell, who was both a husband and not a husband, it would be not so easy to swallow his pride and agree to it.

  -o-

  Woodville Park, the country seat of the Earl of Milburne, lay a pleasant two-mile ride from Whithorne, as Giles discovered later that day when he hired a hack and went to see if George Gosforth had taken refuge there. The house itself was an impressive structure, built a hundred or so years ago with all the careful regularity of that era, but it had an impoverished, neglected look, as did the grounds in which it was set.

  As Giles dismounted and tethered his horse, a tall woman in middle age, dressed plainly, whom he supposed to be the housekeeper, emerged from a door under the steps and gave him an enquiring glance.

  “Is his Lordship at home?” he asked.

  “He is, indeed, sir. And who may I say is calling?”

  “Major Vernon,” said Giles, “from the County Constabulary.”

  She looked at him rather carefully, and in a fashion that had she been the housekeeper, he would have found a touch insolent, but her manner of address and the fine timbre of her voice had made him realise that she could not possibly be that.

  “Forgive me, sir, but did you once serve with the Thirty-third?” she said after a moment.

  “Yes, ma’am, I did,” he said, surprised by this. He now studied her features with more care, trying to place her in the faces of that period in his life. She was remarkably familiar, now he thought of it, but was that just because she had strong and interesting features? “Are we acquaintances?”

  “I believe we are,” she said.

  Then he did place her and could not help smiling. He remembered her, heavy with child, sitting with Mrs Herries, the Colonel’s wife, watching the horse-racing. She had gone away shortly after that for the birth of her child, and her husband, a brevet Major, had not been with them much longer. He had scraped together the purchase money for the Lieutenant-Colonelcy in the Sixteenth. He had grumbled about the shocking cost of it and Giles had himself been shocked at the time, knowing his family resources would never allow him to attain such heights. He had envied the Major his resources.

  “Mrs Maitland,” he said, putting out his hand. “What a great pleasure.”

  “It seems age has not touched us at all,” she said, shaking his hand. “Twenty years and we recognise each other as if it were last week. What magic elixir have we been consuming?”

  “In my case, I think it is because I never looked young,” he said.

  “Nonsense,” she said. “You looked extremely youthful. You had that great crop of flaxen hair, so carefully curled at the sides, and swept forward.” She passed her hand over her forehead. “Thus!” Giles started to laugh, remembering now all the brief but pleasant moments he had spent in her company. As the wife of a superior officer, he had not dared to admire her, but he had liked her. She had always been diverting. “Mrs Herries and I were always fascinated by your hair and that of Mr Wilson. We were certain you were competing to be named the regimental dandy.”

  “That’s entirely possible,” said Giles, with a dismissive gesture.

  “Tell me the truth, sir – I beg you,” she said. “It was a deadly rivalry, surely? You and Wilson...” and now she began to laugh. “Oh forgive me,” she said, attempting to stifle it and failing.

  “Wilson always had the edge on me,” Giles said. “I never took it seriously enough. I drew the line at the rose-scented pomade.”

  She shook her head vigorously at that, her hand over her mouth, still attempting not to laugh. She turned away in order to compose herself.

  “Forgive me,” she said a moment later, turning back to him. “I am behaving like a schoolgirl. Well, I was little more than that, then, and you were not much older. That was such a delightful year! I was sorry to leave the Thirty-third.”

  “We were sorry to lose you – and your husband, of course,” Giles said. “I trust he prospered with the Sixteenth. It was the Sixteenth, I think?”

  “Yes,” she said, and then sighed. “And we ought never to have done it. It ruined him – his health and what fortune he had. His health broke down entirely within a year of the birth of our son and he had to sell out. That broke his heart and he died six months later.” She gave a shrug. “A sorry tale. I hope life has treated you more kindly, Major Vernon,” she added with the emphasis on ‘Major’.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. He was a fine man and an admirable officer,” Giles said. “I learnt a great deal from him.”

  “Thank you. He always spoke of you as having great promise. I could not see past your ha
ir of course, and he told me I was a hoyden for laughing at you. I am sure you have fulfilled all his prophecies. Constabulary, did you say? So you are a policeman now?” He nodded. “How extraordinary. The wheel of fortune turns about in the oddest way, does it not?”

  “Yes, but we make our own destinies too. I chose this business.”

  “Ideally we do,” she said. “But sometimes destiny is thrust upon us. That is the case with my son, and all this!” She gestured around her.

  “Your son,” he said. “Of course. That would be Lord Milburne? I had heard he came unexpectedly into the title.”

  “It has been the strangest business,” Mrs Maitland said. “My husband belonged to the most remote, cadet branch, and there had never been any expectations. They certainly did nothing to help my husband when he was in greatest need. I wrote to them – against all my principles, let me tell you – to ask for charity in such a fashion, but matters had got to such a state that I was willing to try anything. So I wrote to the Lord Milburne of the time – I am not sure which one it was, for there have been three in the last twenty years – and he did not even answer me. And now everything is in my boy’s lap! What a great change! And you have come looking for him – why, might I ask?”

  “I wanted to talk to him about George Gosforth. I understand they are friends.”

  “Regrettably, yes,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “Regrettably?”

  “He is a vacuous ninny and not at all a suitable companion for my son,” she said. “And I do not apologise for such a damning assessment of his character. Neither am I terribly surprised to find a policeman enquiring about him. I have half-expected something of the sort.” And before Giles had a chance to ask her why she felt this so strongly, she went on. “You will wish to know why, of course. Perhaps we should go inside and find a fire and some refreshment? I will just go and get someone to deal with your horse. You cannot leave her standing out here. It is going to rain again, I can feel it.”

  “I hope to God not,” he said, looking up at the glowering sky. “Thank you, but I am not sure if I have time to spare at present, ma’am, though I should like nothing better, I assure you. What I need to know at this moment is whether Mr Gosforth is likely to be with your son, and if so, where I might find them.”

  “I very much hope he is not,” she said. “I have told my son that he must end his association with Gosforth and that I will not admit him to the house. He may have defied me and sought him out – it is possible – but he will not be under this roof, I trust.”

  “When did you last see Gosforth?”

  “He was here a week ago, and that was the reason I have laid down the law. It became intolerable.”

  The glowering sky now began to hurl rain down upon them.

  “You really should come inside,” she said, gesturing towards the door. “I have not seen Charles since breakfast, but I do not think he has gone anywhere this morning. We shall find him somewhere. Please?”

  “Of course,” said Giles. It would not delay him much, he decided, and he certainly needed to know what Gosforth had done to provoke such a dire sanction from Mrs Maitland.

  She took him inside, throwing out directions to the various servants who met them, and then led him upstairs.

  The house might have been large but it was bleak. It had none of the comfortable refinements of a great house – just vast, sparsely furnished rooms, formal in style, but now badly distressed and neglected, the treasures all dispersed.

  “I considered quartering myself in the housekeeper’s room downstairs,” she said, opening the door to a room which had signs of having been made habitable, with a bright fire burning. “For that is a far more comfortable affair than this. But although we do not have a housekeeper at present, and I do all the work of one, and a great deal more, I thought I had better keep my distance, for the sake of my authority – such that it is, over so few servants. This was the boudoir of the countess before last, so it is appropriate enough for me, given our present conditions. I am definitely given to sulking.”

  “The house seems...” he began, searching for a circumlocution.

  “You don’t need to be polite about it, Major. This house is a horror in need of a substantial fortune to make it bearable. And then another fortune on top of that. My boy will have to marry two heiresses. Or else I shall insure the place and burn it to the ground. I have thought of that quite seriously on several occasions, particularly in this rain. The roof – dear Lord, the state of it is beyond imagining! But then you would have to arrest me, would you not?” she added.

  “I should do it kindly,” Giles said. “And I think, given this awful damp season, you would not be successful. So there would be no charge to answer.”

  “The hand of Providence at work!” she said with a laugh. “Making my roof leak so that I am tempted into crime and then prevented from it!” A middle-aged maid came in with a tea tray. “Thank you Patton,” she said.

  “Raining again, ma’am,” said Patton. “Would you credit it?”

  “Patton, is his Lordship at home?” Mrs Maitland asked.

  “I believe so, ma’am. Shall I send Mr Imbury for him? I think I saw him going out to the riding school after breakfast.”

  “Yes, Patton, if you would,” said Mrs Maitland. “Tell Imbury to tell him that there is a gentleman here to see him. Do not let him mention me, or his Lordship will never come!”

  Patton sighed at that and said, “He will if he knows what is good for him, ma’am. Silly lad. I’d box his ears, ma’am, that’s what I would do!” She departed and Mrs Maitland seated herself at the tea table.

  “Will you take some tea?” she said. “I have brandy to put in it, if you despise it female fashion.”

  “Female fashion is entirely to my taste,” he said, sitting down on the sofa opposite. “Patton has been with you a while, I take it?”

  “She nursed my son. Well, we nursed him between us, so to speak. He was a hungry boy. Now speaking of milk,” she added with a smile, “how do you like your tea?”

  “Black, no sugar, if you please,” said Giles, unable to prevent himself smiling back.

  “Most austere,” she said, handing him his cup and studying him as she did so. “Are you very austere these days? You have that look of the monastery about you – no, there is something of the Jesuit about you – a soldier priest from the cinquecento. Or have a I muddled my dates – when did the Jesuits begin?”

  Giles sipped his tea. There was certainly no need of sugar, brandy or cream in her company. She was capable of supplying all three in her conversation.

  “A Jesuit?” he said. “No-one has ever compared me to that before. Do I look so hard and zealous?”

  “You might, if you rid yourself of the bad habit of smiling,” she said. “That spoils it. But you are so thin, Major Vernon. I do not remember you so thin. Can I persuade you to a piece of Patton’s seed cake? No, I insist.”

  “I was ill this last summer, and lost some weight,” he said. “So I will happily accept that.”

  “Good.”

  “Now, if I might be Jesuitical for a moment, and quiz you a little,” he said, “about Mr Gosforth. Why did you ban him from the house? How did he offend you?”

  “It was not one particular thing. It was an accumulation of offences. I tried to tolerate them both for as long as I could – after all, Charles has little to divert him here, and a man must have leisure as well as work – I am not so unkind as that; but when Gosforth was here, it was as if any sensible thought he might have had in his head was entirely dismissed, and replaced by spun sugar.”

  “Is this to do with the medieval revelry?”

  “Had you heard about that?”

  “I was speaking to Mrs Rivers.”

  “How interesting. Now, what did you make of her? I should love to know. Is she not the most beautiful thing you ever saw? If I were a man I am sure I should be utterly enslaved.”

  “She called you the most amusing woman she had ever me
t.”

  “Whithorne is such a dull place! A fool like me can sustain a reputation for wit simply by speaking in complete sentences. So she told you about my son’s ridiculous ambitions?”

  “She did.”

  “We are in no position to be throwing fancy balls. In fact we would be hard pressed to host a dinner,” she said, getting up. “This is my difficulty.” She went to her writing desk and picked up a pile of papers. “These.”

  She dropped them down on the tea table.

  “Bills,” said Giles. “I see.”

  “I thank God for the rain for keeping the bailiffs from our door!” she said. “Gosforth has encouraged him in his folly. They have been playing at knights together. I could forgive it if they were ten but they are nearly twenty!” She sat down beside him on the sofa and began to sort through the bills, handing them to him in considerable agitation. “Look at this one, sir, look at it! Fifty guineas for a velvet damask sur-coat trimmed with gold braid! And this – rose pink silk hose! Or this one – a jewelled garter. But this one – this is the worst of all – antiquities: three suits of armour – five hundred guineas. Five hundred guineas! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, truly I do not! The absolute folly of it! Oh yes, and here we have the bill for the engraved cards to go out and invite the entire county and his wife and his mother-in-law!”

  Giles looked through the bills, aware of her anxious eyes upon him. They painted a picture of reckless expenditure that was breathtaking and deeply troubling.

  “Perhaps you could scare some sense into him,” she said. “It is beyond me. I have failed utterly. I am a disgrace to have let it come to this. Too little too late in banishing that idiot Gosforth, you will all say. The weak son of a weak mother, no doubt! Witty but weak!” She got up from her place and walked away to the fireside, staring down into the flames. “Forgive me, sir. I have not been able to speak freely about this to anyone. I am taking advantage of an old acquaintanceship. Forgive me.”

  “You mustn’t blame yourself,” he said. “A man of twenty is responsible for his own actions. His mother is not.”