The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4)

by Harriet Smart

  Felix turned up the gas to supplement the raw early morning light, and tried to be objective. It was not easy.

  Less than ten hours ago, he had dragged young Holzknecht out of the Professor’s room, and into the street. Here, they had proceeded to scrap, in a most unheroic fashion, at least on Felix’s part. His opponent proved handy with his fists, and recovered himself quickly while Felix’s initial burst of strength deserted him utterly. He found himself on the receiving end of a rather merciless attack and had struggled to stay on his feet, whilst getting a thorough pounding. But then, as if Providence had changed her fickle mind, a cobble mired in horse excrement sent Holzknecht sprawling onto the ground, and allowed Felix to avenge himself in the form of several hearty kicks.

  Joyous though this moment had been, good sense whispered in his ear and he had decided to leave while he could. He therefore beat a swift retreat to the Black Bull before Holzknecht could do any more damage. He did not know, as he sat in a private sitting room at the Inn, examining his bruises and drinking brandy, if his honour was satisfied or even if justice had been done. All he knew was that he had a suspected broken rib, a torn coat and little chance of any sympathy from the woman he wanted it from most of all. The landlady and the maidservant, seeing his bloody nose, were all kindness and fuss, but he sent them away. He had sat and cried like a child, longing for her to come to him in his distress, and knowing at the same time that she would not.

  At length, he had made his way back to Silver Street and found the place in uproar, and the alarm raised. He had seen Major Vernon drag the Professor from the hen house and the prone form of Holzknecht being buried by the collapsing roof. Sukey, he had only glimpsed – she had limped to the door of her sitting room and Major Vernon had at once sent her back to rest, and she had gone, obediently, closing the door behind her. He might have gone to her then, but he was needed with Holt and the Major to extinguish the fire.

  When this had been done, what remained was the puzzle that now confronted him at five in the morning, as he stood in his laboratory with the cadavers on the table before him.

  There were footsteps on the stair outside and Frewen came in with a tray of coffee and some freshly baked baps. Major Vernon arrived a moment later.

  “I thought we might need some sustenance,” the Major said, pouring out the coffee.

  “Thank you,” said Felix, tearing into the bread, which was indeed welcome.

  “We have a lot of work ahead of us,” said Major Vernon, circling the two benches, surveying the corpses, coffee cup in hand. He paused in front of the younger Holzknecht. “So?”

  Felix finished his mouthful, considering what to say.

  “The first thing,” he said, “will be to determine the cause of death in the case of Holzknecht the younger. The knife in his chest may be post or pre-mortem. It is so neatly placed that I am inclined to think he must have been unconscious when it went in, but there is a lot of bloodstaining, which suggested his heart was still beating, but not as much as one might expect, which suggests he was dying as it was done. Smoke inhalation from a blaze of that intensity could reduce him to unconsciousness in a matter of minutes, and then...”

  Major Vernon nodded.

  “But why it was done?” Felix said.

  “More importantly, by whom?” Major Vernon said. “It may help you to know that the entire stock of lamp oil for the house had been poured onto the hen house, and it looks as if the straw had been brushed to the sides to intensify the blaze.”

  “Someone turned the place into a pyre,” Felix said. “One of the Holzknechts?”

  “The Professor?” Major Vernon said. “Anne did see him going out into the garden. She assumed he had gone down to the privy. This was at seven-thirty, about an hour after your brawl, which was at half six, I understand.”

  “I suppose so,” said Felix. “I came back from the Infirmary at a little before six. And it was not a brawl.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “I had good reason!”

  “Perhaps,” said Major Vernon.

  “And what would you have done if –”

  “Your anger was justifiable, but not your actions,” said Major Vernon. “It would have been better to cool your heels and think of a more sensible way to deal with the situation, don’t you think? Rather than distressing Mrs Connolly further. She ought to have been your first concern. Not your own slighted sense of honour.”

  His tone was mild, but there was a chill in it.

  “That is all very well for you to say,” Felix managed to say. “And it was not my slighted sense of honour! He mauled her and he deserved to be horsewhipped for it! Her distress was what made me...” He stopped, silenced by the inert form of Georg Holzknecht on the table in front of him, the dagger in his chest. Be careful what you wish for, he thought. “It was about half six, yes, I suppose that I left,” he said.

  “Young Holzknecht rang for Anne at half six,” Major Vernon said. “He wanted hot water and for her to brush his coat. Then she took them their dinner at a quarter to seven and at seven thirty she saw the Professor go out to the privy.”

  “And by eight thirty the place is on fire, he’s lying dead with a dagger in his chest and the old man is on the verge of death,” Felix said.

  “I got back at a quarter past eight. I remember looking at my watch as I came into the hall,” Major Vernon said. “And I was sitting with Mrs Connolly in her sitting room until Agnes raised the alarm. During that time we did not hear any footsteps in the hall or the garden door banging shut.”

  “Holzknecht always banged doors,” said Felix.

  “Unless he was careful, and did not wish to be heard going out,” said Major Vernon. “Perhaps if he thought he was going into the garden to meet someone.”

  “Well, he was – his father, it seems,” Felix said.

  “Perhaps his father told him otherwise,” Major Vernon went on. “Perhaps his father told him to go and speak to Mrs Connolly, who might have gone out to see to her guinea fowl. Perhaps he told him he ought to go and apologise to her. No doubt your anger with him did not go unmarked. The whole house heard you shouting at him.”

  “And then he sets the hen house on fire with his own son inside? And stabs him, so that the smoke kills him? Why?”

  “That’s the mystery,” said Major Vernon.

  “And stays there with him,” said Felix, “until he destroys himself? No, no-one would do that. That cannot be the case, surely?”

  “It is only a theory.”

  “It makes no sense to me,” said Felix.

  “Perhaps you will discover something to contradict it. Or else confirm it. That dagger certainly belonged to the Professor – it was his letter opener. I noticed it on his desk when I spoke to him about the stolen cheque.”

  “Holzknecht stole a cheque?”

  “Possibly – from his employer. Loose-handed and light-fingered.”

  Felix frowned, and poured himself some coffee.

  “How is Mrs Connolly?” he asked, after a moment.

  “Asleep, I hope.”

  “What exactly did she say to you, when you talked?”

  “That is for you to discuss with her.”

  “If she ever consents to speak to me again!” Felix said.

  “She will,” Major Vernon said. “Women are naturally merciful creatures.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “She would not like me to repeat it,” he said.

  This discretion hinted at something so serious that Felix felt wretched.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “I wish I was free of her – no, free of having to feel so much for her! If I felt nothing, if it was merely for my own comfort and convenience, as some other men arrange these things, then...” He broke off and turned away, ashamed he had said so much. “I had better get on with this,” he said.

  “You had,” Major Vernon said, and left.

  -o-

  Giles went up to his office and spent a couple of hours writing r
eports, organising orders and trying to make some sense of the business he had just witnessed at Silver Street. The sequence of events was as baffling as the results had been shocking. He had seen no signs in the old man of such extreme behaviour, but that he was the chief architect and enactor of it all seemed an inescapable fact. Perhaps once they had combed their rooms for evidence some answers would emerge.

  He finished his notes and set off to the Unicorn to brief Captain Lazenby. But as he turned out of the little court and into the street, he had a sudden memory which made him decide to head instead to the Minster Precincts.

  He found Lambert, his brother and Mrs Maitland at the breakfast table.

  “Forgive my intruding,” he said.

  “It could never be an intrusion,” said Lambert. “Sit ye down. Coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you,” he said, sitting down opposite Mrs Maitland. He was rewarded with a smile and an offer of a plate of bread and butter. “It was Sally I was after particularly. I have a question for her.”

  “She will be back in a moment. You look, if you don’t mind me saying, as if you have been up all night,” said Lambert.

  “I have,” said Giles, rubbing his chin, which was now thick with stubble. “Forgive my appearance.”

  “Has something happened?” asked Mrs Maitland.

  “Yes, something rather...” He broke off, not wanting to bring such bad news. “Remember the old German Professor I was telling you about? The collector of stories?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “What was his name? You never said – or you did and I have forgotten.”

  “Holzknecht,” he said. “No, I did not tell you his name.”

  “Goodness,” she said. “I did wonder if it might be him when you told me! But I could not imagine how such a famous scholar came to be in Northminster.”

  “Was he not exiled by the Elector of Augsburg?” said Edward Fforde. “There was something of a purge, I understand. The Elector is an absolutist. I did not know Holzknecht was here. Goodness indeed, Mrs Maitland! I must pay my respects.”

  “I’m afraid it is too late for that,” said Giles. “He died last night.”

  “God grant him rest,” said Edward Fforde. “And what a great loss. His work was quite unparalleled in his field. Tell me ma’am,” he said, turning to Mrs Maitland, “how did you come to know his work? I didn’t think it was translated into English yet.”

  “I don’t think it is. I read it in German, dictionary to hand. I have a great love for these old tales, and a copy of his collection came into my hands by chance. Oh, but it is so sad,” she said, looking across at Giles. “Such a sweet character, I’m sure. One could tell by the writing. Well, as far as I can judge, for my German is not as accomplished as it might be.”

  “I am sure it must be very accomplished,” said Edward Fforde.

  “I hope he did not suffer much,” Mrs Maitland said.

  “I wish I could say that he did not,” Giles said. “I am always the bearer of bad news, Lamb, am I not?”

  “Yes, Giles, you are,” said Sally, coming into the room behind him.

  “He has a question for you, my dear,” said Lambert.

  Giles rose and turned to her.

  “This is going to sound strange,” he said, “but bear with me. Do you remember Meggie Houseland, the woman who came in sometimes to mend when we were children?”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “How she would come and sit by the nursery fire with Nance and she would tell those strange stories while they did their sewing? And they would send us away if we tried to listen, but we stayed behind the settle back to hear them?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you remember the story of the man who found his son was the devil? I can only remember part of it. How he went to talk to the wise woman in the woods to ask him what to do.”

  “The devil and his father,” said Mrs Maitland. “That’s in Holzknecht’s book of tales. Der Teufel und zein Vater.”

  “It is?” said Giles. “How does it end? Do you remember?”

  “Yes, because it is striking and sad,” Mrs Maitland said. “He goes to the wise woman and confides in her his fear that his son is a devil and that everything he has done to make him take to virtue has failed. He is afraid of the harm his son will do to the world and asks what he can to do to stop him. She tells him she must trick him first. ‘How can I do that?’ the man asks. ‘How can any man trick the devil?’ ‘Offer him an innocent heart,’ the old woman says.”

  “Oh yes,” said Sally. “That’s it! That is what the devil wants. I remember that, yes, and it was Meggie Houseland.”

  “It must be the same story. And to think you heard it in Northumberland!” said Mrs Maitland.

  “But how does it end?” Giles said.

  “He offers his son an innocent heart,” Mrs Maitland went on, “the pretty maid he admires above all others and who has, of course, resisted him, seeing him for what he is. The father tells the son that she has changed her mind and will be waiting for him in a little house in the forest. Of course it is a trap, but for once the devil-son does not see it. He is blinded by his desire for her. So he goes to the forest, and when he is in the little house, the father sets it all on fire, and then when the son is overcome with smoke, he puts a dagger in his heart, killing him twice. For that was the old woman’s other piece of advice: to kill the devil you must strike twice. And thus the devil is killed by his father, but it is too late and the fire kills the man too.”

  Giles reached for his coffee cup and found his hands were shaking. The cup rattled in the saucer.

  “Giles, are you all right?” said Sally.

  He was for a long moment quite lost for words. Then, carefully he said, “And this tale is in Holzknecht’s book?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs Maitland.

  “And that is certainly the story that Meggie told,” said Sally.

  “Yes, I remember it all now,” he said. “But why on earth should...”

  “What has happened, Giles?” said Lambert.

  “Last night,” said Giles, “the Professor lured his son into Mrs Connolly’s hen house, set it on fire and stabbed him in the chest. And then he died in the flames himself. Well, not quite – I dragged him out of there, and then he died.”

  “Good Lord,” murmured Lambert, but Mrs Maitland rose from her place.

  “You dragged him from the fire?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh dear Lord!” she exclaimed and ran from the room, almost overturning her chair in her haste to leave.

  Giles could not resist following her, and found her in the hall, her hands pressed to her face, shaking with sobs. But as she became aware of his presence she put out her hand, her fingers outstretched, to prevent him advancing any further on him. Then she balled her fist and brought it back to her chest.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  “No, excuse me,” he said. “What did I say?”

  “Nothing. I’m being foolish. Please excuse me.”

  “Emma, please, what is it?”

  Her Christian name fell from his lips, her distress prompting him to this intimacy.

  She turned slowly and gazed at him. She sighed and shook her head. “I saw you in a dream, in a fire and then I woke in terror, so sure it was true! And now you say –”

  “I only dragged him from the fire. I was only in there for a moment. There was no real danger.”

  She nodded, drew herself up a little and said, with a careful smile, “I’m glad then my powers of prediction are so poor.” She wiped the tears from her cheek. “And you must laugh at it, Major Vernon, if you will? If you wish to spare me distress.”

  “Certainly,” he said. “How foolish you are, ma’am – yes?”

  “Yes, very, thank you,” she said.

  “I need your help,” he said. “I have several trunk-loads of German manuscripts that need to be examined if we are to get to the bottom of this mystery. Could you make yourself useful ther
e, do you think? Would it be an imposition?”

  “No, not at all.”

  At this moment Lord Milburne came downstairs. He looked pleased to see Giles.

  “I have remembered something,” he said, “about the Squire. He did mention the name of a man he bought some things from in Northminster – some scraps of illumination, cut from old books. Lovely things, but an utter desecration to take them from the books, so one must wonder about the fellow’s probity. You probably know him – his name is Moss. I do not know if he has a shop, but Yardley said that he lived in Whitefriars Street.”

  “I do not, my Lord, and that is useful.”

  “It just struck me as I was shaving. And thinking about our lure. Dr Fforde and I have done a great deal more on that, since we saw you yesterday, sir. I think you will be pleased with it, and I wondered if Mr Moss might be someone to talk to about it. Yes?”

  “You have good instincts, my Lord,” said Giles. “Yes, we will pay him a visit. You and I.”

  “Really, may I?”

  “Yes. I must make what use of you I can, until Salvator’s and Dr Fforde claim your loyalties forever.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Establishing where in Whitefriars Street Mr Moss lived took rather longer than Lord Milburne anticipated, and Giles felt he had an excited young puppy out on the leash for the first time. Milburne was impatient to be on with the adventure, and certainly not ready for the often dull realities of criminal investigation.

  Whitefriars Street was not especially notable for criminal activity, but it was a busy thoroughfare: a mixture of shops, workshops and crowded dwelling houses. It was a good place to go unnoticed.

  Mr Moss had rooms on the fourth floor, and the stairs grew darker the higher they climbed. Rather surprisingly, a small girl of about five years old, dressed in a cherry-red silk dress and a frilled apron, opened the door to them, and a flood of light filled the landing.

  A moment later, a grey-faced, haggard man appeared.

  “Mr Moss?” Giles asked.

  “Go and play, sweetheart, Papa has to talk to these gentlemen,” he said, and gently pushed the little girl back into the room.