by Roz Southey
Past time to dispose of that theory. ‘I don’t think the apprentice had anything to do with the killings,’ I said bluntly. ‘He was an innocent victim.’
‘Oh, no, Mr Patterson.’ She bestowed a mocking smile on me. ‘We’re none of us innocent.’
We climbed the stairs to the drawing room, the candles casting dancing shadows before us. The child’s bloody footprints could still be seen on the steps. Mrs Fletcher went to the mantelshelf above the fire, lifted down another branch of candles and lit them from mine. I watched her intent face as she went about the task; I said, ‘The apprentice didn’t let the killer in. He was asleep, and died in his sleep. All the family were asleep – they were no threat. Whoever killed them – Alice, her lover or an unknown third party – it was an unnecessary act. There’s only one conclusion to be drawn: the killer wanted to kill them. Which means that any robbery was purely incidental.’
Mrs Fletcher set the extra branch of candles on a table so she could look about the room more easily. She said, almost indifferently, ‘I disagree. It doesn’t matter what the true state of affairs was, Mr Patterson – the family may have been no threat, but the murderer may have thought them one.’
‘I don’t see how he, or she, could have.’
She worked her way methodically around the room, looking at pictures, fingering ornaments. ‘I hear from the spirits,’ she said, ‘that you’ve found the place Alice was hiding.’
I nodded. ‘A derelict house not far off the Key. She doesn’t seem to have stayed there long, and where she went after that I’ve no idea.’
‘She’s frightened, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I can see nothing missing here. Shall we go up to the bedrooms?’
We did so. Mrs Fletcher hesitated on the landing then went into the girls’ room first. ‘Do you sleep in a room like this, Mr Patterson?’
I was startled.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I thought not. Something rather bigger and more comfortable, I should think. That’s what Alice was used to in London. Is it any surprise she hated coming back here?’
She picked up the scattered clothes from the floor, started to fold them, brushing off the clinging feathers. ‘I’ve always had mixed feelings about Alice,’ she said. ‘She’s a winning little thing that can charm you to her side in moments, but underneath that charm is a selfish, calculating girl.’ She glanced up at me. ‘That’s a warning, Mr Patterson. Nevertheless, I don’t believe I should condemn her for a crime she didn’t commit.’
She laid a shawl on the ruined mattress, opened a chest and looked down at the contents. ‘I’m sure Sarah had a necklace – nothing very valuable – but it was given to her by an aunt. A chain, blue stones in a star shape. I thought she kept it in here.’ She turned over a few clothes.
‘She certainly wasn’t wearing it.’
She closed the chest, walked past me back on to the landing and into her parents’ room. Here she stared at the bloodstained bed; I saw her mouth twist slightly. ‘They didn’t suffer,’ she said.
‘They would have known nothing,’ I agreed.
Her mouth twitched; remembering what she had said about her father previously, I wondered whether she thought that necessarily a good thing. Surely she could not be as unforgiving as that? She went about her search of the room in a businesslike fashion, going through her mother’s clothes, her father’s shirts, shifting the coins and the medicinal powders on the bedside table, and even shaking the Bible that lay beside the coins, as if she thought something might be hidden inside. ‘There’s certainly some jewellery missing. Some pieces left to my mother by my grandmother.’
‘Can you describe them? We could see if anyone in the town has been offered them for sale.’
She nodded. ‘By all means. I’ll write them down for you. Upstairs again, Mr Patterson?’
We turned for the stairs to the attics. ‘Did you know about the money boxes in the cellar?’
She did not answer until we stood in the attic. ‘I knew Father kept his takings down there.’ She paused at the foot of the child’s abandoned bed. ‘Judith was lucky to escape.’
I nodded. ‘There must have been a reason for that.’
‘Surely she was merely forgotten?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But what other reason could there be?’
‘I don’t know.’
She studied me for a moment then walked through into the storage area, bent to finger the fine fabrics of her sister’s London clothes, spilling from the open trunk. ‘I don’t know what Alice brought with her from London so obviously I can’t say if anything has been taken.’ Her gaze met mine. ‘You’re a clever man, Mr Patterson.’
I was embarrassed. ‘I hardly think—’
‘I’ve no doubt at all that you will solve this matter.’
‘Thank you.’ I wished I had her confidence.
‘And when you do,’ she said, sweeping past me towards the stairs, ‘you will see I’m right. The apprentice had a hand in it. Look for the killer amongst his friends.’
Eighteen
Never trust servants in inns. They will smile at you but in their hearts they hate you.
[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe
Froidevaux, 20 January 1737]
Ned’s friends. Fowler. No, the idea wasn’t worth considering. I’d seen his reaction to Ned’s death – he couldn’t have killed him. I couldn’t understand why Mrs Fletcher was so adamant Ned had had a part in the robbery. But people do get worked up about apprentices, always believing the worst of them.
I started home with a great deal of relief. It had been a long day and promised to be even longer: I had to turn out again later, to see if the spirits disembodied. I wasn’t looking forward to another wait in a freezing house. I wanted to be at home. With Esther. To make up that coldness between us. To make sure she was well.
I was halfway up the Side when a spirit slid down a windowpane calling my name; the spirit had a sickly yellowish hue and flickered as if it was shivering.
‘Message for you, sir. From a Mr Balfour. Could you go to his rooms urgent. In the George. Nice inn, that,’ the spirit said wistfully. ‘Warm.’
‘My thanks for the message,’ I said. ‘I think you should get back indoors.’
‘Thank you for your concern, sir,’ the spirit said courteously and shot through a tiny gap between window frame and wall.
Sighing, I turned for St Nicholas’s church and the George, fighting the temptation to ignore the message. If Balfour merely wanted to discuss some detail of the new Rooms I’d give him very short shrift. At least it wasn’t far out of my way.
The George’s yard was curiously quiet; a maid in the passageway just inside the inn directed me to a parlour and I walked in to find Balfour sitting morosely over a beer. He leapt up at once, seizing a branch of candles. ‘Patterson! Thank God! Come and see.’
He hustled me up a flight of stairs, and into the warren above. The George was built centuries ago and has had wings added, and taken away again, and something else added instead, and rooms subdivided and amalgamated until it’s a bewildering labyrinth. Balfour clearly knew his way but if he abandoned me, I doubted my ability to find my way out again.
We came at last to a dark corner and Balfour flung open a door. ‘Look!’
Inside was a surprisingly large square room, with long windows looking out over the Clothmarket; the curtains were at the moment drawn back and I saw the glimmer of lanterns in the street. Balfour’s candles cast a bright light over the furniture – the bed, a cane chair, a small table, a wash-stand of an antique variety. And a chaos of belongings. Clothes were scattered about the floor; one boot lay on its side under the window, another stood upright on the washstand. A travelling trunk had been flung open, and letters and books flung about.
‘I’ve been robbed!’ Balfour cried melodramatically.
I advanced cautiously. It bore a close resemblance to the scene in Hugh’s room. As far as I could see, nothing belonging
to the George had been damaged – the bedclothes were straight and the curtains undamaged – but Balfour’s personal possessions had been treated very badly. He grabbed up a coat that had a long rip. ‘Look what they’ve done to my clothes!’
It was an expensive coat of fine cloth, and well made. The buttons were still there but then they weren’t as showy and expensive as Hugh’s – which reminded me I hadn’t yet told Hugh his buttons had been found.
‘What’s been stolen?’
‘Money. Neckerchiefs, stockings . . .’
I pottered around the room. The plans for the Assembly Rooms poked out from under the bed, close to the chamber pot, crumpled, but not torn. Balfour was keeping something from me; I said, ‘What else?’
He said nothing; I looked at him. He reddened. ‘There was a coin.’
What an odd way to put it. ‘Money?’
He looked even more embarrassed. ‘One of the Roman coins.’
‘The ones Heron found?’
‘I thought he wouldn’t miss one,’ he said defensively. ‘It was such a beautiful thing. Can you imagine something surviving that long? For century upon century?’ He trailed off, looking self-conscious. I remembered how disappointed he’d been at not persuading Hugh to part with the ring; it seemed he had obtained an antiquity of his own by other, more dubious, means. ‘There was a whole pot of them – I thought it wouldn’t hurt if I took one. I put it on the mantelshelf.’ He nodded at the fireplace where a couple of china shepherds stood. ‘Do you think the thief was one of the servants?’
‘Not at the George,’ I said instantly. ‘Believe me, they’re very careful with the people they hire. They’re all very respectable.’
I turned on my heels, surveying the room. Both Hugh and Balfour had been burgled and lost the usual portable trifles that thieves take. But the buttons taken from Hugh had been thrown away almost immediately – something no common thief would do. Was this simply a coincidence or something more?
I was suddenly weary; all these puzzles were beyond me. I needed sleep. ‘Tell the Watch. They’ll keep an eye out for the coin.’
That was a long shot and we both knew it. Balfour said mournfully, ‘I was hoping you might look for it . . .’
Which was even more of a long shot. The Watch knew the places where stolen property was sold or pawned; I did not. ‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ I said.
And I made my escape and hurried home as fast as I could.
I was exhausted by the time I arrived. I stripped off my greatcoat and hat in the hall and gave them into Tom’s capable hands; I was just sitting down to let him pull off my boots when the drawing room door opened. I glanced round, and saw Esther, dressed in one of her loveliest gowns, cut low, white petticoats dotted with little green leaves, the sleeves frothing with lace. The candlelight gleamed on her pale hair, on the long curve of her neck. She was smiling at me, rather ruefully. My heart turned over.
‘Brandy, Tom,’ I said as soon as the boots were off, and went stocking-footed to Esther. I shut the drawing room door behind us and she fell into my arms, laughing.
‘Oh Charles, I have been such an ill-tempered shrew, have I not?’
‘I was worried,’ I admitted. Esther is tall for a woman, and her hair tickled my cheek. Her lavender scent, as always, tempted me wickedly.
‘I was so annoyed at Mrs Fletcher,’ she said, sighing.
We heard footsteps in the hall and hurriedly separated; when Tom came in with the brandy and glasses, Esther was straightening ornaments on a table and I was strolling across to poke the fire into further life, as dignified as one can be without shoes. We didn’t fool Tom; he was clearly trying to repress a smirk as he withdrew. He’d brought some macaroons too, and Esther bit into them immediately.
‘How could Mrs Fletcher accuse that boy?’ she resumed, through an inelegant mouthful. ‘There is no suggestion at all that he was involved. He was killed while he slept! And then of course all the ladies start telling old tales of rowdy apprentices. As if that was anything to the purpose!’ She stopped for breath. I said nothing, suspecting there was more to come but she merely sighed again. ‘I have been feeling so low – this constant feeling of lethargy . . .’
I resisted, just, the temptation to mention Gale.
‘However,’ she said brightly, ‘the fresh air and the walk did me a great deal of good and I have been sitting here all afternoon, feeling dreadfully guilty over snapping at you!’ She bent to pour brandy and held a glass out to me. ‘Tell me everything. No, no, Charles, do not protest – I know when something has happened. You always have an air of repressed excitement.’
‘Frankly,’ I said, ‘my only air is exhaustion.’
She pulled me down on to the sofa. ‘Then you will simply want to go to sleep, I suppose?’
I looked at her, and she raised a mischievous eyebrow. Perhaps I wasn’t so tired after all. In fact, I definitely wasn’t.
‘Tell me everything first,’ she said, reaching for her own brandy.
I gathered my thoughts and related my visit to the derelict house with McLintoch, the encounter with the unpleasant Kane, and the search of the house with Mrs Fletcher. When I described Balfour’s burglary, she looked thoughtful.
‘Hugh loses the ring, Mr Balfour the coin,’ she mused. ‘And don’t forget, Charles, that there was a third theft of an ancient artefact. You have assumed that the aim of the attack on yourself was to get the keys for the Gregsons’ shop, but you lost an ancient coin too. Can the antiquities be the real object of these thefts?’
‘But then presumably he was looking for antiquities at the Gregsons’ too.’ I stopped, struck by a thought. ‘The box from which the money was taken on the night of the murder – could that have had ancient coins in it? The coin I found in the street, the one Alice dropped, looked very like those Heron found. She might have had it from the box. Although there was a receipt there . . .’
‘Who was it made out to?’ Esther asked practically.
‘A man called Threlkeld – William Threlkeld.’
She sighed. ‘Charles, when will you learn to tell me everything? You must know who William Threlkeld was!’
‘Was?’ I said, blankly.
‘The man who lived in the house where those coins were found,’ she said. ‘The mercer.’
Nineteen
You must be prepared to rely on your own resources because you will get little assistance should anything go wrong. As it will.
[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe
Froidevaux, 20 January 1737]
I set my head back against the sofa. ‘Then it’s much more complicated than I thought.’ I tried to adjust my thoughts. ‘I talked to a spirit in the tavern next door to the mercer’s shop. He said Threlkeld had had his shop and house redecorated just before the fire. Perhaps Gregson did the work and the receipt refers to the payment?’
‘Check in Gregson’s ledgers,’ Esther recommended. ‘There should be a record of the work there.’
‘But the existence of the receipt suggests that there was modern coinage in the box – the money Threlkeld paid Gregson.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Esther said. ‘Gregson’s habit was to invest income as soon as possible. Any money Threlkeld paid him would have left the premises long ago. Suppose Gregson’s workmen came across the coins in the course of their work.’
I leapt up and started pacing about the room. ‘They can’t have. The coins could only have been found during work on the cellar and Gregson’s men wouldn’t go down there – no one decorates their cellars! That sounds much more like building work. I wonder if Threlkeld had any repairs done first.’
‘But if that box did contain ancient coins found in the course of building work,’ Esther mused, ‘how did Gregson get his hands on them? Did Threlkeld offer them in lieu of payment? He surely would not have simply given them away.’
I stared at her, beginning to feel very uneasy. ‘A spirit in the tavern next door told me there was something unnatural ab
out the fire. Everyone assumed the mercer was bankrupt and trying to do a midnight flit. But suppose—’ I took a deep breath. ‘Mrs Fletcher told me her father was a violent man.’
Esther’s eyes widened. ‘You are suggesting that Samuel Gregson attacked the mercer, stole the coins, then set the fire to hide the fact? And then he took the coins home and simply left them in open view in the cellar?’
‘In a money box which he knew, or believed, his family wouldn’t touch.’ I threw back my brandy. ‘It looks like he could have been a murderer too.’
Esther contemplated her glass. ‘That’s a wild theory, Charles.’
It was, but now I’d thought of it, I couldn’t let it go. ‘I wish I could talk to the apprentice’s spirit. He might know more about the box and what was in it. I can’t understand why the spirits are taking so long to disembody.’
‘That doesn’t usually bode well,’ Esther agreed. The brandy was bringing colour back to her cheeks; she looked at the macaroons consideringly as if wondering whether to take another. I went off on another tack.
‘If the antiquities are the object of the thefts,’ I said, ‘What does the thief plan to do with them? Such things can’t be spent.’
‘The thief could be a collector.’
I thought fleetingly of Heron – no, I couldn’t see him sneaking into Balfour’s room at the George and ransacking the place. Actually, that theft had been particularly foolish; if the thief had taken only the ancient coin, Balfour might not have missed it for some time. Ransacking the room simply drew attention to the theft. But then our murderer didn’t seem a careful thinker.
I went back to the main point. ‘The thief might know a collector. Or might simply plan to melt the coins down.’
Esther reached for another macaroon.
‘Alice must have found the coins when she came back to the town,’ I mused. ‘She told her accomplice – her lover – when he followed her.’