O’Calligan returned to his own quarters and allowed an hour to pass. Then, taking his pistol and sabre, he made his way stealthily back into the west wing. The house was now in darkness, of course, so he took a candle as well, which he fixed on a shelf opposite the place where he’d eavesdropped. It was still difficult to locate the exact point, however. The entirety of that wall felt flimsy to his touch. And then . . . he stiffened.
He’d sensed a presence come up behind him.
He turned slowly, and found the hulking form of the Dutchman, Van Brooner, blocking the passageway. Van Brooner was fully dressed, though he’d loosened his long brown hair, which hung in unruly hanks to either side of his truculent face. “Your constant mischief,” he said, “is making the household, what remains of it, nervous.”
“You too, I assume,” O’Calligan replied, “judging by the way your knees are knocking.”
The Dutchman smiled grimly, then, without warning, launched a big fist at the Irishman. O’Calligan had been expecting it. He stepped nimbly aside and launched a fist of his own, catching Van Brooner squarely in the gut. The breath wheezed out of the Dutchman, then an uppercut took him beneath the chin. He staggered backwards, but remained conscious. With a snarl, he went for the hilt of his sword, but no sooner had he grasped it than O’Calligan had kicked him in the shin, then slashed down flat-handed, chopping him on the bridge of his nose. Three more swift but telling punches followed, which fractured at least one of Van Brooner’s ribs, causing him to squawk in agony. The duo clamped together and began to wrestle, but O’Calligan was still getting the better of it. Another brutal gut-thump doubled his opponent over, and, as a coup de grâce, he looped an arm around the Dutchman’s head, then barrelled him across the corridor, slamming the crown of his skull into the wall opposite . . . the hollow, rotten portion as it happened.
Instantly, the wainscoting was broken through.
O’Calligan dropped the insensible Dutchman, grabbed his candle and poked it into the hole. On the other side, there wasn’t a room, as he’d been expecting, but a junction between two low passages. They were at floor level and no more than three feet high. O’Calligan crouched and gazed into them. Though he could see little more than horizontal brick shafts leading off into darkness, he had no doubt that these were the priests’ holes with which Silvercombe Hall was reputedly riddled. While their exterior entrances might have been obliterated by the refurbishments of thirty years ago, the inner structure of the house was likely still networked with them. Such cavities doubtless conducted sound well, and this meant the conversation he’d overheard might have come from some distant region of the house. Even so, he had no option but to investigate. He tore away the remnants of the wainscoting, and then crawled forwards, opting to take the left passage first.
The going was tough, and unsavoury. The tunnel system might once have been intended for concealing frightened clerics, but now it smelled as if it had been used by animals. It was matted with rancid straw, and, here and there, great dollops of droppings. In addition, the roof was low, necessitating that he keep his head bowed, which was not easy considering that he also had to hold the candle in front of him. Maintaining a light, however, paid dividends. After he’d been crawling for several minutes, he reached a point on his left where a wooden panel was fixed to a hinge. When he pushed it, it swung open into a darkened room. He thrust his candle through, and looked, and was not surprised to see familiar blood-patterns on a rug, and arterial spray on the oaken walls. To his immediate right, Lord and Lady Lightbourne lay in quiet repose on their silent, gore-stained bed.
This, then, was how the assailant had twice entered their locked room: a secret hatch concealed in the skirting-boards. Not that O’Calligan, for one, would have been able to get through it. His shoulders alone were too wide.
Feeling vindicated, but increasingly nervous, he proceeded along the tunnel, now passing other junctions. A moment later, it began to tilt steeply downwards, until he was certain he’d reached the ground-floor level, at which point it opened into a cubby-hole of a room that he hadn’t seen before despite his now frequent searches of the house. Several things struck him about this room. Firstly, it was tight, compact . . . so much so that it surely couldn’t serve any real purpose other than for storage. Secondly, it was slope-roofed, a curious design-feature by any standards. Thirdly, a series of pull-ropes hung into it through holes bored in its slanted ceiling. O’Calligan, who was at last able to stand and stretch his joints, gazed up at them. Slowly, a frightful picture of what might be happening here was forming in his mind. He turned: there were two doors, facing each other from opposite corners of the room, but both were locked when he tried them. The low passage, however, by which he’d entered, continued on the other side. He took a minute to work the cramp from his limbs, then crouched and proceeded.
There were more twists, more turns, more ups and downs.
And then there was light. Just ahead.
He scrabbled forwards, and found access to another previously unseen chamber, though the purpose of this one was more evident. He was now gazing down through a wire grille into an ornate bath-room. A huge, cast-iron tub sat on a Romanesque-tiled floorway. Beside it, a pump and faucet were fashioned from glinting brass. Velvet drapes clad every wall, while flaming candelabra created a scented, rose-red luminescence.
My lady’s bath-house, O’Calligan thought to himself. This, no doubt, was where the conversation he’d overheard had taken place. He could easily imagine someone as brazen as Lady Fox-worth sitting naked in her tub while engaged in a heated debate with her brother. It was perhaps understandable that no guest had been allowed into this particular section of the hall: the hostess’s private apartments would ordinarily be her personal domain, but while searching for the murderer, they’d requested they be allowed to inspect every portion of the building. Lady Foxworth had not been honest with them.
He pressed on, turning a corner and crawling downhill again, before finding, on his right, another hinged panel. He paused, asking himself which room this secret entrance gave access to, and wondering if it was locked. Before he had the chance to check, however, the panel was opened. Bright light fell into O’Calligan’s eyes. He had to shield them, but that didn’t prevent his being squirted with a fine spray of some pungent, almost noxious perfume. He gasped, coughed, wafted in vain at the substance. The next thing, though, the panel was slammed closed again and he heard a bolt being thrown.
For a second he was confused, disoriented. He’d dropped his candle, and it had gone out. As he struggled in the blackness, he cracked his head against the low brick ceiling, which momentarily stunned him. He wasn’t sure how long had passed, probably less than a minute, before he then heard something else: a grinding of what sounded like iron wheels, and the groaning of a pulley-system. Another noise followed, like a grating of stone. For some reason, Captain O’Calligan imagined a heavy piece of cage-work being slowly lifted. A chill went through him. What exactly was at the heart of this house? What did this twisting labyrinth of passages finally connect with?
A second later – when he heard the fast-approaching skitter of claws, and the soft brushing of lank, wet fur against brickwork – he realized that he didn’t want to find out. Not in this situation, enclosed in a space where he could wield neither gun nor blade, and drenched with some foul ichor, the sole purpose of which was surely to mark him as prey. He scrambled around and began to lumber frantically back in the opposite direction. Whatever he’d heard, however, was coming swiftly. Claws that were surely the size of eagle’s talons, if not bigger, were fairly clattering along the straw-covered brickwork.
The Irishman then rounded a bend, and again saw the grille to Lady Foxworth’s bathroom. He lunged wildly forwards tearing the knees from his breeches, scraping the flesh beneath. The thing, whatever it was, was maybe fifteen yards behind when he actually reached the grille. Without hesitation he folded his knees to his chest and kicked at it with the soles of his boots. Two such blows
, and the grille went through. O’Calligan hurled himself after it, falling full length into the bathroom, landing on the tiled floor beside the tub. He leapt up and staggered away. There would be a door behind one of the curtains, but maybe there was no time for that. He grabbed automatically at the hilt of his sabre, but there was still something else he was looking for . . . and then he spied it! As in all the rooms here, a bell was present, hanging from the bathroom’s ceiling, perhaps nine feet up.
Then there came a low, sibilant hiss.
O’Calligan froze, before staring back at the high aperture in the wall.
Two burning eyes regarded him from its darkness. They were like buttons, only larger, gleaming with candle-light. The Irishman didn’t wait to see more. He drew his sword and, without looking, swept it up and struck the bell, which rang three sonorous tones in response. Still, the eyes regarded him. But, a moment later, as he’d fervently hoped, they withdrew slowly into the blackness.
A second passed, then O’Calligan dropped to one knee and leaned on his sabre. His breath came in heaving gasps. His torso was so slick with sweat that his torn and filthied shirt clung to it like a second skin. Not that he could afford to take too long to recover. The time had come to tell the others what he knew.
“This had better be worthwhile, O’Calligan,” Judge Prendergast grumbled. He crouched before the drawing-room hearth in his house-coat and bed-cap, and jammed a poker into the dying coals. “As if things aren’t difficult enough, now you’re getting us up at three o’clock in the blasted morning.”
The other man present, Rupert, was stripped down to his shirtsleeves, wore his sword and pistol at his waist, and regarded the Irishman with deep suspicion.
“Gad!” the judge suddenly added. His wrinkled his porcine nostrils. “O’Calligan, you smell like . . . well, I don’t know what you smell like!”
The Irishman nodded. “It was almost the death of me.”
“Why, did someone attack you?” Rupert asked.
“I’ll explain everything in a moment.”
A second later, Cedric came in. He looked bleary-eyed with sleep, but he closed the door behind him. “Sorry, my lords,” he began, “but I was . . . oh, did you wish me to bring her ladyship? Only, I’ve just been up there. She mentioned something earlier about taking a sleeping-draught. I wanted to ensure she hadn’t done, with the murderer still loose.”
“It’s all right, Cedric,” O’Calligan said. “She’ll be quite safe.”
“Well, O’Calligan?” the judge said. “Hurry it up, man. We need some sleep at least.”
O’Calligan turned to face them. “I’m afraid there’ll be no more sleep tonight. Not for any of us, and, once we’ve finished here, not for Lady Foxworth.” He paused, then added: “Because, much as it pains me to report this . . . she is the instigator of these events.”
Rupert’s eyes widened. “You Irish rogue! That’s a devil of an accusation!”
“I’d shout less and think more if I were you, Captain Foxworth . . . I very much doubt that you’d have been leaving this building alive if your sister had had her way.”
“It could be you misspeak yourself, O’Calligan!” the judge put in, equally astonished. “I think you’d better explain.”
“I will, but first a question of the young captain here.” He turned again to Rupert. “How long, my lord, has your sister been King James’s mistress?”
There was a moment of stunned silence, before Rupert began to splutter in outrage: “What do you . . . how dare you . . .”
“I overheard you and she discussing it not two hours ago,” O’Calligan added.
“You spied on us, you blaggard!”
“Until officially removed from my post, it’s my duty to spy. Another duty I had, as her ladyship’s official gaoler, was to accompany her on her many trips to Whitehall. Usually she was summoned there to answer some minor charge of libel. I now realize what the real purpose was, however.” He shook his head, as though the truth had been under his nose for ages and he hadn’t noticed it. “She would spend many lengthy sessions being . . . interviewed by His Majesty.”
Rupert had turned red in the face, but he was no longer refuting the charge, which Judge Prendergast noticed. “Is this true, Rupert?” the justicier asked.
“I can’t deny it,” the young man finally admitted, though it clearly agonized him. “But I didn’t know myself until this evening, when she told me.”
“Good Lord,” Prendergast said. “I knew she was profligate with her favours, but King James?”
“The fact that he was king is irrelevant,” O’Calligan put in. “He wasn’t the first king in Lady Foxworth’s bed. His brother Charles had been there before.”
“His brother Charles had been in every gentlewoman’s bed.”
“That’s the point,” the Irishman continued. “In Charles’s case there was no scandal. It happened with mundane repetitiveness. With King James, however, the matter is more delicate. James’s daughter Mary is now married to the Prince of Orange, and is a woman notoriously protective of her mother, Queen Anne. It seems highly likely – and no doubt you share this opinion too, Captain Foxworth – that once Mary has herself become queen, which must now be imminent, her father’s mistresses, of which your sister is only one, will be reckoned with.”
There was another moment of silence as the reality of the situation sank in.
“Contrary to popular belief,” O’Calligan added, “and I freely admit that I shared in this belief, Lady Foxworth does not await the arrival of the new administration with any enthusiasm. If anything, it’s likely to be the ruin of her. The very least she can expect is a loss of influence at Court, but probably a dismissal from all royal favour and patronage as well, and maybe a thorough investigation of her affairs . . .”
“All this is true!” Rupert interrupted with sudden desperation. “It was a terrible miscalculation by my sister, and as such she now intends to hide her shame by living abroad. But does that make her a murderess?”
“On its own, no,” O’Calligan said. “Is it beyond the realms of possibility, though, that she thought she’d rid herself of a few enemies first. Enemies who, once she was overseas would be beyond her reach.”
Rupert shook his head. “This is madness.”
“Is it?” O’Calligan wondered. “Lord Chillerton caused an uproar by publicly demanding monies from your family because of an unfortunate shipping disaster. Lord Lightbourne sought your sister as his lover and, though he never enjoyed that pleasure, his vicious-tongued wife spread scathing gossip about her. Judge Prendergast, here, sat on the panel that sent relatives of hers to the gallows, I was her prison-keeper, for Heaven’s sake. We all of us had wronged her. Even you were likely to die . . . because, if you lived, she couldn’t lay claim to the entire Fox-worth fortune, which she needed to finance her new life abroad.”
Again, Rupert shook his head. “Pure supposition.”
“I agree. But there’s more . . . if you’ll come with me.”
And now O’Calligan led them upstairs to the chill bedroom where the Lightbournes lay. He took a candle, and approached the section of skirting-board where the trapdoor was concealed. With one kick, he’d broken it open. Beyond it, he showed them the black passages that wound worm-like through the innards of the house.
“There are hidden access-ways, just like this,” he added, “in virtually every room in Silvercombe Hall. Either concealed in the wainscoting, the kick-boards or, possibly in the case of the Chillertons, inside the chimney-breast. They are all exceptionally small and skilfully constructed, which makes them very difficult to detect from the outside.”
“But who made them, and how?” Rupert asked, suddenly looking more puzzled than distressed.
“It wouldn’t be difficult,” O’Calligan said. “The tunnels were already there, and your father’s refurbishment, which allegedly covered them, was only paper-thin.”
“What’s their purpose?” Judge Prendergast wondered.
“I’ll show you,” the Irishman said. “Come.”
He took them back downstairs into the main hall, then along a passage that veered beneath the grand staircase. A low door was set there. It was locked, but O’Calligan bade Cedric bring tools again, and a moment later the door was down. Beyond it they found the cubby-hole room that the Irishman had entered via the priest’s hole.
“So?” Judge Prendergast grunted. “It’s an under-stair wardrobe. Most homes have one.”
“But this one’s been adapted for a different use,” O’Calligan replied. He indicated the row of hanging ropes. “These are bell-pulls, my lord. Each one is connected to a different room. Once they were used to alert Catholic fugitives hiding out at Silvercombe. Now they’re used to alert a very different sort of person. In fact, to call him off.”
His expression had become grave: “The bell we heard when Lady Lightbourne was attacked, was not rung by her as an alarm. Whoever rung it – and they probably did it from in here – did it to recall her assassin.”
Judge Prendergast still seemed bewildered. “Then why didn’t we hear the same when the Chillertons were slain?”
O’Calligan had already considered this. “The Chillertons’ room was the only one on the east wing, whereas the Lightbournes were housed at the very top of the stairs, in a central location.”
“And when Lord Lightbourne, himself, was attacked?”
“There was considerable noise in the drawing-room at that moment,” the Irishman said. “The maid was frantic, there was wild shouting. It may also be that, once an assault’s complete, the beast returns to its lair by instinct. The bell might only be used in the event of an emergency.”
The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits Page 56