The Fatal Engine

by Harriet Smart

  Carswell read a few pages of the book and then put it down.

  “I would rather not read this,” he said.

  “It is curious that it is set hereabouts,” Giles managed to say.

  The scented steam seemed to have had the effect of clearing his mind. He had begun to form an interesting idea and he felt he must risk speaking about it. He had begun to gather up broken shards of evidence and piece them together.

  “That is because he wrote it for a fellow from this district,” Carswell said. “A man who died, someone he was an articled clerk with in London. Or at least he said so on Friday night. Miss Martha asked him about how it came to be written, and he said this man had asked him to write down his stories when he was dying, and the stories had become the novel.”

  “Miss Martha?” Giles said. “You are sure about that?”

  “Yes, she said to him it was her favourite book.”

  “Mrs Carswell did say how enthusiastic she and her sister were about the reading,” said Giles. “That they sat right at the front. Lady Maria also.”

  Carswell sat in silence for a moment and then got up and paced about a little.

  “Now I think of it, Miss Martha left the room before Lady Blanchfort,” he said. “To get a good place, I suppose. I think I remember Littleboy holding the door open for her when he came back in. Can I be imagining that? It is all so muddled – that wretched punch – and then I had a most disagreeable conversation with Lady Blanchfort in the library.”

  “You believe you saw her come from the drawing room – according to your notes.”

  “Yes,” said Carswell, taking them out again. “But I cannot be sure. I do not know where she came from. Only that she went to the library door and I followed her. Then Miss Martha may already have been in the drawing room – and then – no, surely not?”

  “There are some interesting things about that family,” Giles said. “Firstly, the Rector and his daughters changed their name from Lousey to Lacey. I wonder what name the son went by – Lousey or Lacey. There was a son, was there not?”

  “Who died, yes, of course!” said Carswell. “I saw his picture. The Rector said he succumbed to opiates, did he not? So are you suggesting that the son may have been Truro’s friend?”

  “I think he might be, given Miss Martha’s interest in that story about how the Henshawes of Moorcrag came into being.”

  “But why? And, are we not making a grave error in supposing this is a case of poison?” Carswell said. “This is all supposition. I have already made that mistake this morning, and greatly to my cost! I have no intention of –”

  “But it is likely,” said Giles. “For he did not have a weak heart. That was only an idea put out by Truro to avoid his marital duty.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Miss Fleming. On that ground I think we can order a post-mortem.”

  “He did not see Chicheley?” Carswell said. Giles shook his head.

  There was silence.

  “I think I need to go to the Rectory,” said Carswell after a moment.

  “Ask her why she defied her father’s orders and came to your party,” Giles said.

  Chapter Forty-four

  By the time Felix reached the Rectory, the snow was at least a foot thick on the ground and drifting, as a sharp wind scoured the landscape and cut through even the heavy layers of clothing that he had put on. Dusk would soon be coming on – yesterday had been the shortest day of the year, he remembered, and there was not a soul in sight.

  The door opened to him at last, to reveal the old servant, Tabby, wrapped up in a ridiculous number of shawls. She stared at him as though he were the Devil come to call, but stood back and let him enter, without enquiring what his business was. He went into the hall, and was surprised to see that the fire was particularly large and cheerful, but this was soon explained. Miss Lacey was on her knees burning papers, while the Rector loomed over her, poking the fire as if to hasten the destruction. Having now observed enough of the habits of criminals, Felix knew this fiery purge must have some significance, and so darted forward and took up a sheet of paper from the floor. It was covered with the densest script, in a tiny hand. Despite the dim light, he managed to decipher a few lines. It was something about a knight riding down to battle, his armour glinting in the sunlight, his courage resolute.

  “She disobeyed me,” said the Rector. “I told her not to write any more of this wicked nonsense.”

  Miss Lacey gave a howl and suddenly pulled away from the fire, clutching a pile of papers against herself.

  “It is not wicked, Papa. If only you would read it, you would know...”

  “And you aided her,” he said, and snatched the papers away from her and tossed them into the fire. He put out his hand for the sheet that Felix held. “If you please, sir. The fire is the best place for it.”

  Felix folded the paper and put it into his pocket.

  “I wish to speak to Miss Martha,” he said.

  “You cannot,” said the Rector. “She is not here.”

  “Where has she gone?”

  “I do not know.”

  “He put her out!” screamed Miss Lacey. “With his own hands.”

  “She is no longer welcome under my roof.”

  “Dear God, she is sick, sir!” said Felix. “She is dying!”

  “She is no longer welcome here,” the Rector said.

  “When was this?”

  “An hour ago,” said Miss Lacey.

  “She will not have gone far,” said Felix. “I’ll go and see if I can find her. And I’ll get a search going, and you, sir, if you have any conscience, you will come out and join us!”

  “I have done with her! She is your business now, sir,” said the Rector. “I will not harbour a murderess in my house.”

  Miss Lacey began to sob again and ran from the room.

  “Cruelty breeds cruelty, then!” said Felix, and went to the door.

  He stood for a moment, hearing the door bang behind him, and felt again the lash of the storm. He began to plod through the snow, trying to devise some effective strategy to find her. Where would she have gone? She would look for shelter, he supposed. Perhaps she had gone to the church.

  There was a well-worn path from the Rectory to the churchyard, the path along which Tolley and he had carried her that Sunday after she collapsed at the service. She had been alarmingly light then. She had few physical resources to withstand her illness, let alone the onslaught of such a storm. He reached the gate that opened into the churchyard; it was sheltered by a pair of ancient yews, which today were groaning under the weight of the snow. He struggled to open the gate, for there was a drift of snow built up in the lee, and in the end he was forced to enter through a crack.

  He scanned the churchyard, hoping to see some tracks in the snow or some other sign of her presence. The side door to the church was firmly locked. He wondered if the main door was open, or indeed the other side door to the Blanchfort Chapel by which they usually went in. But on trying them both, he found them locked.

  He stood for a moment, leaning against the door, thinking what a poor sanctuary it was, and how his own father always left a door open in the church in Pitfeldry for any stranger who needed shelter. The path ahead of him led back to his own house, and he wondered if he should go straight back and raise the alarm, but then he noticed some depressions in the snow that might be footsteps, in the direction of the far corner of the churchyard. He followed them, and sure enough they did look like marks made by a small foot. They led to a little stile which gave onto the large and ancient orchard that was part of the gardens at Hawksby, and beneath the nearest bare-leafed and bent old apple tree, he could see the slumped form of a woman.

  He ran the last few feet and threw himself down on his knees, pulling her into his arms. She was breathing, but her pulse was alarmingly weak and the snow on the ground about her was soaked with blood. She had obviously had a haemorrhagic spasm, and then fainted as a result. He had his me
dical bag with him, and was able to get out some salts and revive her. She blinked and coughed into life, only to start bringing up blood again. But she seemed determined to speak.

  “He stole my tale,” she said. “I gave it to Johnny to read and he stole it when Johnny died.”

  “Enough,” said Felix. “That doesn’t matter now. I am going to try and get you inside, and then –”

  But she stretched her finger up to his lips, and pressed it there.

  “Let me go,” she said. “The Lord will judge me!”

  The effort of speaking was too much for her. She coughed again violently, and then began to choke. There was nothing he could do. In a moment she was gone, her eyes wide open and fixed on some unknown horizon.

  Felix closed her eyes and sat there with her still in his arms, unable to know what to feel, let alone think. The snow continued, quiet and heavy.

  As he sat listening to his own breathing, heavy from the chase, he suddenly became aware of a fox standing at the edge of the wood, observing. It took a few tentative steps forward, limping.

  Felix was about to call out to it, but the animal turned, paused a moment to throw a last inscrutable glance at him, then ran unsteadily off into the snow-laden trees.

  Chapter Forty-five

  “You will find it is the same, almost to the last word,” said Miss Lacey, laying a parcel on the bed. “I have kept it hidden from my father, for all these years. You had better keep it now. He will want it burnt.”

  Giles pulled the strings and opened the carefully wrapped parcel. It contained a ream of paper. On the first page, written in careful letters, was ‘The Henshawes of Moorcrag, by ANON’.

  “Even the same title,” said Carswell.

  “Yes. That man stole it from her. Martha gave it to Johnny to take to a publisher in London but when he was ill, Truro stole it. Johnny thought he had lost it – he was very confused at the end. It was not until the book came out that we realised what had happened.”

  “Why did you not write to the publisher and tell them that it was not Truro’s work?” Giles said. “Especially as you had the copy to prove it.”

  “She was not supposed to have written it,” said Miss Lacey. “My father would have –” She shook her head. “It was hard enough after Johnny died. He does not have a gentle temper, and Martha always seemed to rile him, even over trifles. If he had found out –”

  “So you kept her secret?”

  “What else could I do?” she said. “And she would not stop. She was always scribbling.” She looked away and choked down her tears. “And then when that man came here, and did not realise who we were...”

  “Because your father had changed your name?”

  “Yes, but Johnny would not give it up. When he was in London he went by our old name and so Mr Truro did not know us. And Martha saw that as a sign. It was her great chance, she said, to get her revenge. I tried to dissuade her – you must believe me, sir, when I say that I did everything I could – but she would not be stopped. And when you told her she was consumptive, Mr Carswell, it only made it worse. She told me she intended to do it and cheat the gallows!” She broke down completely. “She was not afraid of God’s judgement. That I will never understand. And now she is lost. Entirely lost.” She dried her tears a little. “May I see her?”

  “I will take you to her,” said Carswell and escorted her out of the room, leaving Giles to sink back on his pillows and wonder what was to be done with her. She had certainly been complicit, no matter how much she protested. She would have to be questioned again, and more thoroughly.

  He closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. Carswell’s account of the wretched woman’s death had been painful, and the causes of the whole business piteous. He wished he were at home where at least he could sit with Emma and make sense of things. Indeed, he longed for the moment when he would be told by her in no uncertain terms what a fool he had been to leave his own hearth that morning. He would not dispute her judgement for a moment.

  There was a soft tap at the door. It was Lady Blanchfort.

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  “You must be very tired,” she said. “There has been a great deal of coming and going.”

  “For which I apologise. I bring chaos down on houses. It is the way of things, it seems.”

  “It must be done,” she said, with a sigh. She sat down and sighed again. “Excuse me. These times – it is all so strange. That a woman like her would think to do such a thing...”

  “He stole her most precious possession,” said Giles, pointing to the manuscript.

  She reached out and turned it a little towards her.

  “I read this when it came out,” she said. “It was impressive. And to have such a vulgar man take the credit for it! Yes, I suppose it must have been hard for her to bear. But to poison him? That I cannot understand. She was a devout woman, and she will be damned for this now.”

  “I think there is something in those who murder that the rest of us ordinary sinners do not have. The consequences do not have the same weight as the necessity of the act to them. I think they see the world differently from the rest of us. I sometimes wonder if the gallows have any deterrent effect on the true murderer at all. Perhaps we should not hang them but study them instead. I should like to have talked properly with Miss Martha, certainly.”

  “What a strange profession you have,” said Lady Blanchfort.

  “An imperfect one, I’m afraid,” he said.

  “As I know to my cost,” she said. “This morning, Mr Carswell made clear to me some opinions that he had formed about this business. He was bound to discuss that with you, I imagine.”

  “It was touched on, but you may be assured that none of it will go any further.”

  “Thank you,” she said, getting up. “That is some comfort.”

  She did not sound much comforted. Carswell had, it seemed, been brutally plain with her, when he ought to have kept his opinions to himself, at least until he had been sure of the facts. He had let his feelings override his prudence and he would pay heavily for it, that was clear enough.

  ~

  On being shown her sister’s corpse, Miss Lacey seemed disinclined to leave her, and Felix left her praying, no doubt for herself as well as her sister. He had various other pieces of business to attend to. Messages had already been sent back to Northminster for Captain Lazenby and Mrs Vernon, as well as the coroner. The servants had to be given directions and soothed back into their normal courses, a task which would usually have fallen to Lady Blanchfort’s capable hands, but which she had, unsurprisingly, neglected. She had, Littleboy told him, gone to her room with a headache. Having done what he could, Felix glanced over his notes, but he was distracted by the thought that he could not defer speaking to Lady Blanchfort any longer.

  He went upstairs, rehearsing his words, and feeling that anything he said was going to be woefully inadequate. He tapped on her bedroom door, knowing it would be well within her rights to deny him entry. But she allowed him to come in.

  She was sitting at her writing desk and did not turn as he entered. He closed the door behind him and leant against it.

  “I am sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But I thought it better I should say something sooner rather than later.”

  Now she laid down her pen, and got up. She turned to him and said, “Then say what you must. It will be a balm for your conscience, I dare say, if nothing else.”

  He nodded, his throat drying. The speech he planned now seemed glib and self-serving.

  “So?” she prompted him, pulling her white shawl about her, as if it were her robe of office. She seemed to him magisterial in that moment. However, this was not blind justice. This judgement was anything but impartial. He felt her pain as if it were his own.

  “I know that I have hurt you,” he began. “I know that I have said and done intolerable, offensive things that cannot be put aside lightly. I cannot begin to explain how much I regret doing so.
I only want you to know that I sincerely wish I had not spoken, that I would have done anything rather than hurt you so profoundly. It will be on my conscience for the rest of my life. I will never forget that I destroyed your good opinion of me.”

  She gazed at him, considering his words.

  “You speak of contrition, but how am I to feel that?” She said. “All I feel is the offence, like a brand on my skin. I hope you are not expecting me to forgive you.”

  “No, I am not such a fool.”

  “That I don’t believe. I think a man in your position always expects that a woman will melt and show mercy, however little it is deserved. Perhaps not now, but later.”

  “No, I do not expect that you could ever forgive me. All I can say is that I sincerely regret my actions and I apologise for them, as best I can. I am sorry. Please understand that, if you can. I know it cannot be easy.”

  She shook her head and looked away, staring at the painting over the fireplace.

  “I trusted you,” she said. “What a fool I was – to let down my guard, and this – this is the sorry result.”

  “I would not have hurt you for the world,” he said, taking a step towards her. “I did not want to believe what I came to believe. It was impossible to know what I should do, but it seemed... so very plausible –”

  “That I was a murderer!” she exclaimed. “You concluded that I was the sort of person who would take a human life! And not only did you tell me so, you then discussed it with Major Vernon! Who, thank God, is a man of honour and discretion!”

  “I did not want to discuss it with him, believe me. He pulled it out of me, as he always does,” said Felix. “He is the very Devil in that respect. That was my greatest fear: that he should find you out, as he always does. I did not want you to go to the gallows. That is why I told you. It was meant as a warning.”

  She shook her head.

  “You had the whip in your hand and you used it against me,” she said. “There was an air of triumph in you when you spoke. You enjoyed it!”

  “That is not true! You are allowing your anger to colour your recollections, ma’am! That is understandable, but in the interests of fairness –”