“Allegations?” said Mrs Pritchard. “What sort of allegations?”
“Nothing that you need concern yourself with, my dear,” said the Dean.
“But if people are insulting you – I cannot bear the thought of it. Who are these people, Major Vernon? Can they not be stopped? Should you not be stopping them? Why are you giving them credit?”
“A man has been murdered, ma’am. I must turn over every stone. It is not pleasant, of course, and that is why I am here, in order that your husband may put his side.”
“But what is it? What are they saying?” she went on.
“Do not disturb yourself, my dear, “ said the Dean. “Tittle tattle. You must not worry.”
“I will try,” she said.
“Mrs Pritchard, may I trouble you a moment?” Major Vernon asked. “Are those your household keys there on your belt?”
“Yes, Major.”
“Might I see them?”
“Really, Major Vernon, I must protest –” the Dean began, but she was already holding out the bunch of keys to him.
As she lifted the bunch of keys that hung from a chain on her belt, Felix saw why Major Vernon had asked to see them. Dangling down was a trail of inch wide white ribbon which stood out strongly against her dark brown skirts. Felix went a step closer to see better for himself.
“What is this key for?” Major Vernon said, pointing to the one suspended on white ribbon.
“To tell you the truth, I do not know,” she said. “I found it the other day. I think it maybe to a cupboard upstairs, but I am not sure. I meant to try it but I forgot.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In the – er –” she pointed at the window. “In the garden – well, in the necessity.”
“The privy, ma’am?” Major Vernon said gently. She nodded. “And that ribbon was on it when you found it?”
“Yes.” She turned to her husband. “I forgot about it. I was going to ask you about it, my dear – I thought it might be one of yours. I just put it on here for safekeeping.”
“Might I have it?” Major Vernon said. “With the ribbon, if you please.”
“I don’t see why not,” she said. “Perhaps you will solve the mystery of it.” She unfastened the key from the metal hoop and handed it to him. He looked at it for a moment.
“Mr Carswell?” he said, glancing round. Felix stepped to his side and examined it, then nodded, answering his unspoken question. The ribbon looked perfectly consistent with the ligature marks on Charles Barnes’ neck. Felix wondered if under his microscope he might detect some traces of skin on it. That would settle the matter.
“Thank you ma’am, you’ve been most helpful. I am afraid I shall have to keep it.”
“What is all this about?” said Dean Pritchard. “First you come here making most unpleasant suggestions, and then you are rifling through my wife’s keys –”
“This key is not one of your wife’s,” said Vernon. “I think we will find this is the missing key to St Anne’s Chapel. How it came to be in your privy is another matter. Do you have any thoughts on that, sir?”
“I do not like your tone!” said the Dean.
“You do not have to,” said Major Vernon. “You only have to answer my question.” The Dean said nothing, so Major Vernon went on, moving one of the chairs and putting it by the fire. “Perhaps the ladies might prefer to sit down. Because I think we will be a while. Ma’am, would you prefer to sit?”
“Thank you,” said Mrs Pritchard, taking a chair. “Miss Pritchard?” asked Vernon, moving her chair for her.
She shook her head.
“But I do have something to say,” she said. For a second or two she seemed to be trying to speak but failing. Major Vernon offered her chair again with an emphatic gesture and she did as she was bidden.
“Miss Pritchard?” he said, crouching down beside her so that their faces were level. “What is it you wish to say?”
There was a long silence and then her words emerged, in a tiny, dry whisper: “I wish to confess to the murder of Charlie Barnes.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes,” she said, looking Major Vernon directly in the face. “Yes. I killed him.”
Major Vernon stood up and shook his head.
“I’m afraid that won’t do. Commendable, but it won’t do.”
“What do you mean?” she said, jumping up. “I killed him! Isn’t that enough for you? I killed him. Arrest me. Do what you have to do! I don’t care. Just do it!” She thrust her hands out at him as if she meant him to clap the irons on her wrists.
“I cannot arrest someone who has done nothing,” said Major Vernon. “Please, Miss Pritchard, do sit down again. You can help me a great deal more by telling the truth. The whole truth. What exactly happened in the tower that day?”
She sat down and Major Vernon again crouched beside her.
“You see,” he said, rather quietly. “I think Charles Barnes was not dead when you found him. Perhaps he died in your arms.” She looked up at him, as if at an oracle.
“How did you know? How did you guess?” she said.
“I think he told you something that you could not forget – something that prompted your own strange behaviour. If you discovered your own father could murder Mr Barnes, in a fit of outrage, then what might he do to your own dear George? Therefore it became imperative to put him off the scent. Let your unpredictable, violent father take out his fury on a man that you did not care about. Let him think Mr Carswell was your lover. Is that not it, Miss Pritchard?”
She nodded and looked away.
“Major Vernon, are you sure about this?” Lord Rothborough said.
“Oh yes, very sure,” said Major Vernon, springing up again. He turned to face the the Dean. “John Pritchard, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Charles Barnes.”
Chapter Forty-three
Arresting the Dean of Northminster for murder was, of course, no small thing. He noted the surprise on Lord Rothborough’s face – Giles wondered if he were shocked by the actual facts of the case or the inevitable political ramifications. The scandal would be considerable. Questions would probably be asked in the House.
Even as the last pieces had begun to fall into place in his mind, Giles had wondered how it ought to be done. He had felt certain of the truth of it the moment he had seen the length of white ribbon dangling from Mrs Pritchard’s chatelaine. Fildyke’s letter, so pregnant with mystification, was mysterious no more. He was calling in a favour. “As I have kept my promises, I ask you to help me now.” Fildyke had guessed at the true meaning of the relationship between Barnes and the Dean.
However to arrest him there and then – he knew that was taking a risk. He only had circumstantial evidence and his instincts to go on but he wanted to shock Pritchard into a full confession. When Kate Pritchard stepped up to take the blame, unnecessarily, he knew it was a risk he had to take and the moment had to be seized.
Dean Pritchard at once began a great filibuster of protest.
“This is in an outrage, sir. I cannot conceive what you think you are doing –”
Giles reached into his pocket and brought out a pair of cuffs. He did not think he would have to use them. He wanted to scare Pritchard thoroughly.
“You can either leave this house like a gentleman in your own carriage, or I can have you taken away in the police van,” he said.
“On what grounds do you make this outrageous –”
“We will discuss that by and by,” said Giles. “Now you will send for your carriage, sir? Ring for the servant, would you, Mr Carswell?”
Carswell obediently went to pull the bell rope, and suddenly Dean went after him and pushed him away with so much force that Carswell stumbled. Pritchard stood there, looking as if he meant to take on all comers, all his clerical dignity fallen away from him, looking more like the common bully he undoubtedly was.
“My constables are outside,” Giles said to Carswell. “Will you fetch them in?
” Carswell left the room.
“Do you imagine you will get away with this?” said Pritchard. “Do you know what you are doing?”
“Yes,” said Giles. “Your wrists, please.”
Needless to say Pritchard did not offer them, so Giles was forced to grab hold of him and do it by force. Pritchard put up lively resistance and it was only when Rollins came in and assisted him was the deed accomplished.
Rollins took him from the room. When the door had closed, Kate Pritchard, choking back her tears, said, “You were right. I came in and found him lying on the floor, he was writhing about – it was terrible. It was clear he was in agony, that he was... I knew George would be with me shortly – I was going to send him to get help, if it was not too late for help, because even then it seemed as though there was very little help. So I sat on the floor with him in my arms, and tried to give him what comfort I could – and he would insist on talking – although his voice was so faint. And he told me... he told me that...that Papa had attacked him. Of course I could scarcely believe it, but at the same time, what reason could he have for lying?”
Mrs Pritchard who was still sitting opposite her daughter gave a pained gasp and then covered her mouth with her hands. Miss Pritchard went across to her mother and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in hers.
“We knew, we all knew, he could be violent, unpredictable, that over time he has grown more difficult,” Miss Pritchard said. Mrs Pritchard looked away from them all as her daughter spoke on earnestly, quietly, “And then he died – the poor, poor boy – in my arms, exhausted by the telling of it, leaving me... well, you can imagine how I was by the time George did arrive. I was... oh, it was too dreadful. Too dreadful... I have had nothing but nightmares since then. The thought that my own father could take an innocent life...” She laid her head in her mother’s lap and began to cry. Mrs Pritchard made a few ineffectual gestures to smooth her daughter’s hair and then gave herself up to her own emotion, which was not pleasant to witness.
“I think we should move your mother to a warmer room,” said Carswell, intervening gently. “This is a terrible shock for her.” Miss Pritchard seemed to be rallied by being made to be useful, and together they helped her from the room.
“This is going to cause some difficulties,” Lord Rothborough said when they were alone. “A more politic man would have given him warning, Vernon. His family might be spared a great deal if you had allowed that. It is dreadful how these things punish the womenfolk. He could perhaps have slipped away to the continent.”
“My Lord, I trust you are not being serious?” Giles said. “If he is guilty, he will have to swing for it. There can be no bending the law because of his position or profession.”
“The Dean of Northminster hanged for murder – the ballad sellers will have a field day. The populace already has scant respect for the clergy and this will not help. And of course the Dissenters will use this to have an excellent pop at the Established Church.”
“I think the Church can survive a little mud slinging.”
“At least he did not get his mitre,” said Rothborough with a shudder. “That is a mercy for which we should at least be grateful.”
***
Felix made up a mild sedative for Mrs Pritchard, and, with Miss Pritchard, helped her into bed. She was still shaking with shock, but gradually the opiate and the warm room calmed her.
“You’ll need someone to watch her.”
“I will not leave her,” said Miss Pritchard, who stood by the bed, her mother’s hand in hers.
“And you... you are...?” he searched for what to say.
“I will be all right,” she said. “Thank you – you have been so kind, when you have every right to be furious with me.”
“Would you like me to fetch Mr Watkins?” he said, after a moment.
“He will be busy with the Festival,” she said. “I don’t wish to disturb him.”
“Will that go on now?”
“I think it should. More than ever. Music is a great defence in time of trouble, and we have plenty of that, don’t you think?” She sighed and turned back to her mother, who was now sleeping peacefully, and passed her hand over her forehead. “Oh, how is she going to bear all this? How do people bear it?” She adjusted the cover and went over to the window. “I think it made me mad when I knew what he had done. For which I apologise, Mr Carswell, for what it made me do to you. I did not mean –”
“That really doesn’t matter.”
“You made me an offer, and it was so kind, and I was most ungracious. I do hope you do not think I am really so false. I am not like that. It was just that things were so complicated. In other circumstances, then...”
She looked across at him, her eyes red and wet with tears, her face blotchy, her hair half falling down, and he saw the beauty in it. He thought of all those odd moments of intimacy he had shared with her, and how she seemed to understand him. If she were married to Watkins, it would no longer be possible to continue with any sort of friendship with her, and the thought pained him.
She put out her hand to him.
“I am so sorry,” she said again.
He took her hand briefly and squeezed it.
“Will you be all right? I have to go and check on one of my patients. She lost a baby this morning and I am not sure she will pull through. But I can come back later.”
“Then you must go at once. We will manage here.”
So he left and walked briskly down from the Precincts to the Jackson’s house. The heavy rain of the previous night had cleared but the wind remained, ferocious, pursuing people down the steep, damp cobbled streets of the city like a wild animal. On entering the Jacksons’ house, the door slammed violently behind him, and the rather crone-like old neighbour, who had come in to help, muttered to him about the darkness of the day and God’s wrath. He wondered, as he made his way upstairs, what she would think of the Dean being arrested for murder. It would probably sound like the End of Days to her.
He was glad to discover that Mrs Jackson was much improved, and although weak and miserable from her loss, Felix felt that she would recover her full strength with some careful nursing, though it might be inadvisable for her to attempt another pregnancy. This was a delicate matter to discuss with a man and his wife at the best of times. Now, as Jackson pumped his hand and thanked him heartily for all he had done, was not the moment to tell him that he ought to embark upon a course of chastity for the sake of his wife’s health. One of the chief prizes of marriage could not be easily relinquished, Felix thought, imagining himself in Jackson’s boots. How would he feel being asked to forswear that?
As he walked back to the Unicorn, he debated the question. Did all men, he wondered, live in this same torment with which he was afflicted – this constant, distracting longing for sexual congress? Perhaps other men felt it less in the first place. Perhaps it was schooled by marriage, and domestic affection, but that brought miseries of its own. Was it better to watch a wife almost die of childbirth or suffer a miserable existence as a bachelor, being reduced to getting dirty comfort from whores?
He stopped to remove a stray piece of paper that had attached itself to his boot and found he was looking at the flyer for the Handel Festival that evening.
“Mrs Morgan: Airs from Handel’s Oratorios: Esther, Messiah and Theodora.” How extraordinary was the effect that her name had on him, even when it was on a rain-sodden scrap of paper.
He threw it to the ground. He felt he had put his foot into a man-trap.
Chapter Forty-four
Predictably, Dean Pritchard went silent. He refused to speak a word until he had seen his solicitor. He asked for old Mr Eames, but since he was the coroner he could not be asked to act, and young Mr Eames, who might have been acceptable, had gone away for a few days. In the end, Giles had asked Mr Johnson to see him. Mr Johnson was not as lofty a personage as Mr Eames, having his practice among the middling sorts of Northminster. However, he did have a good grasp of the c
riminal law, being an energetic Methodist with an active conscience which often prompted him to work for no fee. He had often caused problems for Giles in front of the Justices, having a strong sense of vocation to defend the indefensible, and he accepted the challenge of acting for Dean Pritchard with a mixture of properly Christian regret and intellectual excitement.
Giles was waiting impatiently to hear the outcome of their first interview, when he was brought a message from the one of the constables he had set watching Mrs Ridolfi. She had indeed left the house in the Minster Precincts, and had gone to the Greyhound Tavern from which she had not yet emerged.
He left at once, taking a sergeant and two constables.
The Greyhound in Bridle Street was a dusty establishment, much in need of a lick of paint. A quick enquiry with the landlord revealed that no-one was staying there under the name of Morgan, but there was a tall burly Welshman, calling himself Jones, who had come back very late last night. “Almost didn’t let him in, but he was a loud-mouthed bugger, I didn’t want to cross him,” he said.
“And he’s had a visitor this afternoon?”
“Aye, a woman came in just after noon. A classy piece.”
“Take me to his room, would you?”
He led Giles and his men up a dark, twisting stair smelling of boiled cabbage, stale beer and tobacco smoke.
“That’s the one,” said the landlord, banging on the door. “Open up now, Mr Jones, I’ve more visitors for you.”
There was a few moments’ delay and then the sound of the door bolt being drawn. The door opened, revealing Mrs Ridolfi. She looked Giles squarely in the eyes as she stood back to let them in.
“Where is he?” he said, looking about the shabbily furnished room. There was no sign of another occupant. “Where is Morgan?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I told you that this morning.”
“Is there another way out?” Giles said to the landlord.
“Down the backstairs,” said the landlord. “Takes you into the kitchen and out through the yard.”
The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) Page 27