The Butchered Man

by Harriet Smart

  “That must have helped you a great deal.”

  “Yes, sir, it did.”

  “So she was like a sister to you, then?”

  “It was more than that, sir,” she said, “she’s been everything to me.” The artless earnestness of what she said made Giles decide to change course a little.

  “So I suppose you found it difficult when Mr Rhodes started paying attentions to her,” he said, after a slight pause. “If your mistress married, things would be different for you.”

  “At first I didn’t think much of it,” she said. “Miss Marian said she never wanted to marry, though lots of men asked her. Her mother was very cross with her for turning down some of them.”

  “And you decided not to marry as well?” Giles said. “You must have had offers.”

  “I was asked,” she said. “But I didn’t like the thought of it. Miss Marian and I, we would talk about it, about the young men, and, well... we just didn’t like the idea of it. We didn’t want a master. I didn’t want a man to treat me the way my father treated my mother.”

  “So what did you think when Mr Rhodes persisted with Miss Marian? You must have been angry with him – and perhaps with Miss Marian?”

  “I may have been,” she said. “But it wasn’t her fault, sir. He was... well, like you sir, he had a worming, clever way with him, like some gentlemen do. I knew what he was, but Miss Marian couldn’t see it. He had some sort of spell over her.”

  “So you wanted to stop him?”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “I suppose he was a little like those rats in the cellar?”

  There was another long pause.

  “Yes, sir,” she said in a tiny voice.

  ***

  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long,” he said, strolling in.

  He knew that the length of time would have annoyed her.

  “I hope you have good reason for it,” she said.

  “Yes, I have been talking to Mrs Fulwood,” he said, sitting down. “We had rather a lot of business to get through.”

  “She is here?” There was real surprise in her voice and Giles felt encouraged. “What is she doing here?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Did your men fetch her in? Why?”

  “I have to say,” he went on, ignoring her, “that I have never seen such a perfect example of love and loyalty in a servant. It is remarkable. She might almost be a saint if there was not such a grisly twist at the end of the tale.”

  “What has she said to you?”

  “She told me about your kindness to her. It was very affecting. You know, I think you are a great deal more to each other than mistress and maid.”

  “What a strange suggestion.”

  “Perhaps. But considering she is prepared to hang to preserve your reputation.”

  “I beg your pardon?” she cut in.

  “Hang,” he said. “She will hang.”

  He watched her reaction with care. He thought he saw her flinch a little.

  “What do you mean?” she said after a moment. “What has she said to you?”

  “I think she feels a great deal more than loyalty for you,” he went on. “What she feels for you, looks to me a great deal like love.”

  “Really?” she said.

  “Now from my own experience, I know that love is a most inconvenient emotion. We find ourselves loving when we should not. Our hearts go out, even when the object is utterly unworthy of it. But perhaps with you, Marian, Agnes Fulwood found a worthy object. She came into service in your mother’s house and she was like a young man seeing his future wife for the first time. She saw you and she loved you like that. And I believe you love her too. As much as you have ever loved anyone in your life, you have given that woman your heart. Otherwise how could you have done what you have done?”

  “I have done nothing,” she said.

  “So she did it all herself? Everything? And you will let her hang for it? Then you do not love her. Poor, poor creature. That will be much harder for her to bear than anything, to know that you do not care enough for her to stand beside her. You are far more wicked than I first thought.”

  “How dare you!” she exclaimed, jumping up. “How dare you speak of something you do not understand.”

  “But I do!” he said, catching her wrists, so that she must face him. “I understand it all now. You can’t hide this from me any more. I know what you have done. And I shall go and tell your poor sweet loyal Fulwood how you will not stand by her. That Miss Marian cares not a jot for her after all! I shall not enjoy that, but you have forced me to it.”

  “No!” she said, struggling to get free. He let go of her wrists suddenly and she went sprawling to the floor. She looked up at him mutinously. “No, no, you shall not.”

  “Then tell me the truth!” he shouted at her. “You may save her if you do that – and you may save yourself!”

  She clambered to her feet, and turned away from him, smoothing down her skirts.

  He took a step towards her, and spoke softly over her shoulder.

  “If you confess now you will save yourself great ordeal at your trial. I have all the evidence I need without a confession to send you both to the gallows, but no judge will hang two woman who are humble and repentant. After all, you did not kill some innocent soul, but a monster. That was it, wasn’t it? You did kill Stephen Rhodes, did you not?”

  She stood there, breathing hard. He pressed on: “It will make it go better for you both if you do tell me. You cannot lie for ever. You had good reason to do it. I can see that. Rhodes may have seemed like an angel, but he was a devil, that is the long and the short of it. You had no choice but to do something about it. That is the sort of person you are. I have seen that for myself. You take action. You would not be a victim and you would not let him make any more victims. Tell me exactly what happened or I will charge Agnes Fulwood. She will go to the gallows for this. Without your evidence there will be no mitigating circumstances. Can you bear to have that on your conscience, Marian, when she loves you so dearly?”

  As he stood there so close to her, almost in an embrace, he could see she was shaking, but whether from fear or anger he did not know. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her to face him. He was surprised that she permitted this. For his own part he felt he should have been repulsed by her, especially now he had learnt the truth from Mrs Fulwood, but in that moment he still experienced a surge of desire for her which disturbed him.

  “She only wants to protect you. She loves you,” he said, still standing there with his hands on her shoulders. Then he added in a whisper, “As you love her.”

  She had understood and she started up at him. He had read their secret right. He felt his heart scudding with relief. He felt sure he had broken her carapace.

  “Very well,” she said, so quietly he almost did not hear it. Then she shoved him violently away and marched over to Barker at his writing desk. “Give me a paper and pen. I will write it down. I absolutely refuse to speak to this man any more!”

  ***

  Half an hour later Barker delivered to him two sheets of densely written foolscap.

  “And she said nothing further?”

  “Nothing, sir. She simply sat and wrote.”

  Giles sat down by the fire, his head now aching, and forced himself to read the letter.

  “The Chief Constable,

  City of Northminster Constabulary

  Sir,

  I write these words in regrettable circumstances. It seems I have no choice but to make a record of recent events. You have driven me to this. You have discovered that which was not meant to be discovered. You have shown more intelligence and understanding than any man I have known.

  You spoke to me of Fulwood. She has indeed been a sweet, loyal companion to me for most of my life. She has loved and served me with kindness and devotion. Her part in these matters is that of a virtuous servant, serving her mistress, or perhaps a wife obeying her
husband. She did not act on her own part but according to my will. I hope that the powers of justice will spare one whose conduct has up to this time been without blemish.

  Stephen Rhodes was a monster. Nothing more, nothing less. At first I did not see him as such. I was deceived. This was my great failing. I was weak. He came to me at a time when I had been ill. I had recovered, but I was in melancholy spirits. He seemed fashioned to fill a void in my life. I had not thought such a void existed. I had been contented with my work and with my life. I had my dear Agnes. I had, as I told you, no need of a husband.

  But Mr Rhodes’ addresses were powerful. He had a power of fascination that I had never come across in a man before. He unsettled all my ideas. You were right, Major, when you said he made me dream. He made me think of being a mother, something which I had never thought much of before, and for the first time he made me see and feel the advantages of such a state. He filled me with longing for a different sort of life and made me restless and discontented with what I had. I was thirty-six years old and I felt I had done nothing, experienced nothing.

  In short, he stole my heart, much to the chagrin of my sweet Fulwood. But she, loyal angel that she is, stood by through it all with forbearance. She took my betrayal with such stoicism! I think she saw my infatuation as a fever which would pass in time. She did not try to check me, though I suspect she suffered torments of jealousy. Such is the nature of her love for me.

  But at length the pressure on her began to tell, especially as she discovered the less admirable aspects of his character. She discovered how he had preyed upon the girls, and especially how Abigail Prior had reverted to her former trade with him. She caught them together and after that she felt she had to tell me what had happened. Of course I refused to believe it! I was very angry with her. I said a hundred cruel things to her. I reduced her to tears, threatened her with dismissal. I could not bear to hear anything against him, of course I could not, when he had so recently tricked me out of my virtue. And I must confess it freely now, that it had given me great pleasure. He was, I think, skilful through practice – unlike you, sir. There was scant pleasure in that for me.”

  Giles laid down the letter for a moment and rubbed his face. He felt as if she had just slapped him.

  “But as time passed the evidence became clear enough that Rhodes was not all he seemed. Abigail was with child and there was only one man who could have been responsible for it. I began to grow nervous as I heard rumours about his courting one of the Dean’s daughters. All of this he denied. I told him we ought to announce our own intentions. He refused. He failed to make appointments. I began to realise he was bored with me. I tried to tempt him back by throwing myself at him, and he took what I offered readily enough, but when he had gone, and I sat looking at the quiet, reproachful face of Fulwood across my tea table, I realised that he had been offering me false coin. I had been dunned. The business of how he stole the living at St Gabriel’s only confirmed that he was a monster.

  Finally I got up my courage and confessed everything to Fulwood. I got down on my knees and begged her to forgive me. Of course she did! We wept and kissed and I decided that something must be done.

  I do not know where this intention came from. I only felt that it was necessary to act. I wanted justice, but I knew that the laws of the land would not condemn him. He was more liable to be congratulated on his score than censured for it. I could not bear that he should be allowed to triumph, especially in the matter of Sophie Pritchard. She of all people needed to be protected from such a fate as Stephen Rhodes as her husband. It was necessary to do something about such a man. So I devised a scheme.

  It was an easy enough matter to lure him into it. I wrote to him and begged him to come and see me. I told him I was desperate to see him before he left for his journey to Lincolnshire to see his godmother.

  He came on the morning of his journey. No-one saw him arrive. I had taken care to make him discreet and of course he was very clever at that himself. It was to his advantage not to be seen arriving for a tryst. When he arrived I humiliated myself in front of him, which of course he enjoyed, and put him at his ease by permitting him further liberties. In fact I acted the complete whore which seemed to amuse him greatly. Afterwards I fed him sherry and pepper-cake laced with thorn apple seeds. He was fond of this cake, which is very spicy (I believe you had tried it yourself, Major) and the spices hid the bitterness of the seeds. He ate a great deal of it and soon fell unconscious on the sofa.

  In an hour or so he was dead. Fulwood moved him downstairs to the meat larder – she is a strong woman. She locked the door and left him there until the evening. I was concerned that his body should not be easily recognised when we disposed of it so she stripped him of his clothes, disguised his features with a knife and wrapped him in old sacking. She put him in the covered laundry van that she often drives into Northminster. I believe she put the body in a ditch somewhere, when she went into the city early next morning to deliver clean laundry.

  I hope that this will satisfy you for the present, sir. I would like to instruct a solicitor for myself and Mrs Fulwood. I would be obliged if you could arrange this.”

  Giles laid down the paper, hardly knowing how to react.

  It revealed so much and at the same time said so little. He felt as if he were confronted with a more profound mystery than before. There was a notable absence of anything about her treatment of Abigail Prior. She could calmly admit to planning the murder of Rhodes but say not a word about that. He felt as if something very cold had touched at his heart.

  And then, he noticed she had not signed it.

  ***

  “Mr Carswell! Will you come at once, sir?” called Inspector Gough.

  Felix grabbed his bag and went careering along the passageway after Inspector Gough, past Major Vernon’s office and into a room he had never entered before. There he was met with the sight of Major Vernon thrashing about on the floor with Miss Hilliard in his arms.

  There was broken glass on the floor and one of the ancient lattice windows was screaming and swinging on its hinges in the wind. The Major had ripped off his cravat and was attempting to make a tourniquet about her wrist, but she was resisting him, fighting him off with a strength which completely belied the amount of blood she had apparently lost. And as she fought him, there was a sudden blood spray from severed artery, a ribbon of red caught in the grey gold storm sunlight that was filling the room.

  Felix scrabbled in his bag for a proper tourniquet and dressings. It was going to be like wrestling a lioness. Gough ran out to get more reinforcements

  Somehow she managed to break free of the Major, pushing him onto his back, sending him sprawling on the floor. Felix dashed towards her, hoping to get her under his control, but as he approached her, she suddenly went on the attack, when he had expected her to retreat. Her right hand, dripping with blood, flew out at him and he felt something ripping down his left cheek, a sudden livid white line of pain throwing him back in shock.

  The Major had got up and managed to restrain her again. He got her down onto a chair, with his arms clamped about her chest. She was immobilised, but only just. She was still waving her hand with the broken glass in it.

  Gough came back in and there was a prolonged scuffle as Vernon and he tied her to the chair. She was fighting all the time.

  With some struggle Felix applied one tourniquet, and prised the diamond of glass out of her shredded hand. Then he started on the other wrist, keenly aware that the pulse was fading.

  “Come on, come on!” he said, looking up at her, and slapping her cheek. But at that moment her head lolled forward and she passed out.

  “Is she gone?” said the Major.

  Felix made his checks and gave him a curt nod.

  “You need to look to yourself,” said Vernon. “Your cheek –”

  Felix reached up and touched his cheek tentatively. His face was wet with blood.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “For the Lord
’s sake, sir, will you hold yourself still!” said Mr Peel. “How am I expected to get the needle in, eh?”

  Like most medical men, Carswell was proving a poor patient, fidgeting in the chair, while old Mr Peel, a barber surgeon, stitched up the four-inch slash that now decorated his cheek.

  At first he had attempted to dress the wound himself, with the aid of a shaving glass, but the futility of this was soon apparent to Giles. The wound was a bad one, missing his eye by only a fraction of an inch and Carswell, for all his young man’s bravado, was shaking and pale with shock. So he forced him into a chair, covered him with a blanket and sent for outside help.

  Giles was glad to distract himself with this. What they had left in the room down the passageway he could not yet bring himself to think of with any sort of clarity. The meaning of it eluded him. He gave orders, or rather some part of himself found the words to give the necessary orders, so that the body was attended to, the room locked, the messages to the coroner and Peel sent for. He removed his blood-stained coat and stripped off his ruined linen. He washed his face and hands and tried not to make any connection between the blood-tinted water in the white basin and his feelings. He could not yet allow himself to feel anything.

  Returning to Carswell, he managed to extract a little grim humour from the sight of the young man’s graceless submission and Peel’s ruthless attention to his task. The old surgeon did very little to spare Carswell’s feelings, either professional or physical.

  “There, sir, all done!”

  Carswell gave a great gasp of relief and at once put up his hand to feel the work, but Peel caught him by the wrist. “Now don’t you go pulling at those stitches,” he said, “or you’ll be marked for life. Now, I may not have all your Edinburgh learning, doctor, but I do know this side of our business well enough. I think we’ll put a bandage over it, to keep all safe for a day or two.” And when he had finished strapping on the dressing, he added, “There, sir, with luck it’ll be nowt worth mentioning, and you’ll have your fine looks back in time for the May Assemblies.”