Crowther 03 island of.., p.31
Crowther 03 - Island of Bones, page 31
‘Do you still have them?’ Crowther asked.
‘Mr Hurst waited outside Mr Leathes’ office – he did not trust me.’
‘And when you emerged, Felix?’ Harriet’s small store of sympathy for the selfish, self-deluding boy had dried up entirely.
‘I told him they were in order. I knew they were, in truth. He seemed in need of funds at once, so I told him I’d pawn my watch. I also said,’ he had the grace to lower his eyes at this point, ‘that I had hopes my long-lost uncle might advance me some money. We then arranged to meet during the garden party.’
Crowther was looking at him with disdain. ‘And what did the Vizegräfin have to say to that?’
Felix remained staring at the ground in front of his feet. ‘She told me she was sure she could persuade you to buy him off. She said you owed her that.’
Harriet heard something behind her. Miriam was hurrying towards them from the house, calling their names.
V.2
DOUGLAS DODDS WAS NOT a man inclined to alter a carefully planned itinerary because someone had been murdered. His business associates called him resolute. It was the word he thought of as he looked in his shaving mirror each morning. He saw his pale pink face, narrowed his pale pink eyes and called himself resolute. But he was also wise. That had been said of him too and more than once; he rejoiced in the description. At first then, when the news reached him that a gentleman had been killed in Keswick, he considered the tender feelings of his wife and daughter and wondered if they might give up viewing the terrible beauty of Borrowdale for an additional day in Ambleside, but a fellow traveller, to whom he had confided his worries, assured him that the murdered man was hardly a gentleman at all apparently, having left bad debts and a reputation for a foul temper at every coaching inn he had passed through. Knowing his own credit and manners were regarded as excellent, Mr Dodds found this reassuring. When his new acquaintance added that the man was also a foreigner, Mr Dodds’s wise fears were done away with entirely and his resolution returned. Many people, otherwise reasonable and hospitable, might find a dozen reasons to kill such a man.
As he drained his glass and called for another, and another for his good friend here, whose name he had yet to learn, Mr Dodds began to think that the killer had done a public service by removing such a sorry Island of Bones character. He found himself therefore on the following morning ordering accommodation for his family at the Royal Oak with a sanguine mind.
As the luggage was being taken down and stowed by Mr Postlethwaite’s neat-looking servants, Douglas Dodds’s feelings were soothed again by his landlord’s description of the murdered foreigner, and he agreed his death was probably due to some unpleasantness that had followed him out of Europe like a bad wind. Mr Postlethwaite then added that he had nothing against the young lady, however, who was generally liked, and carried herself almost like an Englishwoman. Mr Dodds had not heard there was a young lady in the case. On enquiry, he learned that she was now staying at the vicarage until such time as her father could be buried, and that a collection had been started in the village to provide for her travelling expenses back to her native country. Mr Postlethwaite indicated a large jar hanging in a corner of the room from a convenient beam.
‘All sorts are putting their pennies in,’ he said, and tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat. ‘Child of Nox the carpenter, who I know has fed himself on weeds more than one season, dropped a penny in there this morning.’
Mr Dodds was touched, touched and proud that even the most humble of his countrymen proved themselves such fine examples of feeling and charity. While his daughter and wife searched among the luggage for Eliza’s sketchbook, he reached into the coat pocket where he kept his travelling money, and with a significant and friendly smile to the landlord shook a guinea into his soft palm, then, with his good English chest swelling, he stepped over to the jar and dropped the coin in through the narrow neck. It landed fortunately, glittering at the edge of the jar where it would be most visible. He turned and fancied he saw shining in the face of his host a sense of satisfaction much in tune with his own.
When his little party arrived at the museum, however, the first wrinkle in the day appeared, like the lone dark cloud on the horizon just when the picnic meats are set out on the lawn. The museum was housed in a neat, two-storey building of rather more modern construction than its neighbours, with a short flight of scrubbed stone steps lifting to its front door, but the door was shut. Mr Dodds knocked. Mr Dodds received no reply. Mr Dodds was confused. The advertisements stated, and Mr Postlethwaite had confirmed, that the museum was open to the viewing gentry from ten o’clock in the morning. Mr Dodds withdrew his pocket-watch and studied it. He looked up to see the time displayed on the town clock. His watch was confirmed. The hour had struck some twenty minutes previously. He raised his fist to the street door and knocked again. Again no answer.
Eliza tripped down the stone steps and approached the window, shading her eyes with her kid-gloved hand.
‘Oh Papa, I think I see . . .’ As Mr Dodds turned towards her, she screamed and stumbled back into her mother’s arms. Her sketchbook slipped. A number of her pencil drawings of the more charming ruined cottages they had encountered on their tour were in danger of getting dirty. Mr Dodds bustled down the stairs in some alarm and resolutely approached the window to see what had frightened the poor girl. On the floor, amongst the remains of a shattered display case, surrounded by glass, split wood and gleaming minerals, lay a man. His eyes were wide open, his head thrown back, his face waxen and his tongue protruding obscenely between his purple lips.
Eliza’s sketches were always to lack a view of Derwent Water. Mr Dodds was back on the road to Kendal with his women white and trembling opposite him within the hour, and he felt the wheels could not rattle along fast enough, shaking off the dust of the low murderous little town in a furious and indignant spin. The last thing he saw as he left the Royal Oak was his guinea, glinting and swinging in the jar. The sight of it caught in his mind. It was like seeing a felon justly hanged and dead suddenly look up at him and laughing, wink.
The temporary servant of Mr Askew had never been trusted with a key to the museum. Harriet and Crowther arrived at the bottom of the steps to find Mr Sturgess instructing the Constable to break his way in with a crowbar. They looked in through the window as the wood of the frame cracked and broke around the lock, and the door swung open. Mr Sturgess started up the steps at once, and pushing his man to one side, entered the room at a dash.
‘I hope,’ Crowther said, turning aside, ‘that Sturgess does not think he will be able to revive the man.’
Harriet shook her head. ‘They were friends, Crowther. It is natural. But he must have seen what we did through the window. He can have no doubts.’ She took his arm and they walked up the steps far more sedately, then turned into the main space of the museum to see Mr Sturgess knelt over the body, one hand on Mr Askew’s chest, the other held over his own eyes.
The remains of one of the high display cabinets that had stood between the two tall street windows lay about the body. The glass doors had smashed, dusting the floor with glass that shined like a confectioner’s dream of winter. The remains of the case itself lay beside their former owner like a companion on a tomb.
‘Mr Sturgess?’ Harriet said gently. He breathed deeply and stood up. He seemed dazed and lifted his hands for a second then let them fall.
‘What horror. Poor Askew! He could be a troublesome neighbour at times, but he loved this place and this country. Do you think he suffered greatly?’
Crowther looked at the body on the ground. The wreckage in the room showed that Askew had struggled, and the distorted face made it clear he had been strangled, which took some minutes as opposed to a knife in the right place or the up-thrust of some sharp object into the brain, but pain, panic and hopelessness left no marks on the body that Crowther could find with his knives and saws. He had no answer for the dead man’s friend. It was Harriet who replied.
‘While my husband lived, I heard many men tell stories of moments they thought they were about to breathe their last in violent times . . .’ She hesitated, and Mr Sturgess looked up at her. ‘They told me they were too busy fighting for themselves and their friends to feel afraid or suffer great pain. Perhaps that was the case here.’
Mr Sturgess turned away for a moment. ‘Thank you, Mrs Westerman. You have given me what comfort you can.’ He stood. ‘Casper Grace must be found at once.’
‘You persist in thinking Casper guilty of these crimes?’ Harriet said. ‘On what basis?’
He spun round to her. ‘Madam, Grace is a charlatan and a madman. I have no doubt we shall find proof of his crimes, but his guilt is beyond doubt!’
‘And the young girl who has gone missing? And what of these two men, the Fowlers?’ Harriet asked, her tone still civil.
Sturgess put his hand to his forehead and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Mrs Westerman! When a young man leaves the area with a woman, I see no need to construct criminal conspiracy! The father is no doubt drinking the profits of his latest bit of thievery.’
‘And the beating Mr Grace received?’ Crowther added.
Sturgess turned on him, his arms outstretched. ‘Why do you support this delusional female, Mr Crowther? No doubt Casper cheated the wrong person with his tricks and has paid for it. Perhaps it was that which changed him from a local curiosity into a dangerous lunatic.’ His breathing slowed. ‘Now may I ask what business you have here?’
Crowther spoke clearly. ‘I know of no other qualified surgeon with experience of such cases in the area. I shall make my observations and place them at the disposal of the coroner. And, Mr Sturgess, it is not myself who supports Mrs Westerman’s delusions, as you describe them. It is the evidence.’
‘Do what you will,’ Sturgess said and left the museum.
Crowther walked carefully to the windows and pulled the wooden shutters completely across the glass, shutting out any curious faces beyond. He turned to see that Harriet had retreated to a high stool in the corner of the room.
‘Mrs Westerman? I hope Mr Sturgess’s rudeness has not distressed you. The man is an idiot. We have met other fools.’
She raised her head with a deep sigh, and tried, briefly, to smile. ‘No, Crowther. Not Sturgess. Poor Mr Askew, I do not for a moment believe his death was a pleasant one. I fear we are become creatures to be fled from. All these deaths! That girl not found, two men missing from the village. These disasters cluster about us. I feel like Job, though I’ve no strength to praise God over these bodies. What did Askew ever do that he deserved our visitation?’
Crowther frowned. Her eyes had an unhealthy light in them and she was speaking more quickly than usual, even for her. He said cautiously, ‘Mrs Westerman, unless you came down here in the night and throttled Mr Askew yourself, we bear no responsibility for this death.’
She spoke sharply. ‘Yes, we do! Look the thing in its face, Crowther! Mr Askew is dead because someone wished to hide something from us.’
‘You cannot know that.’
‘Oh, I am certain of it. He called on us, he left word for us. I was too tired to call on him, and you were too busy with your knives. We have shaken something loose with our questions and it has fallen on this man’s shoulders and knocked him down. We are like children throwing stones at a mad dog, only it is never us that get bitten. Only those with the misfortune to know us.’
Crowther watched the shadows on her face. Since her widowhood there had been one thing unspoken between them, one truth unacknowledged, one point of their last enterprise together that had been too tender for them to touch on. It was neither the time nor the place that Crowther would have chosen to speak of it, but it seemed his hand was forced. Crowther had thought on how the spymaster in London had known to send his assassin to James Westerman. He had considered the circumstances and come to a conclusion. But he had never spoken of it, not until now.
‘You did not kill your husband, Mrs Westerman.’
She stood up quickly and turned her back to him. ‘You know that I did, Crowther. You would have realised it the night James died. I believe it took me a little longer.’
‘I saw the man who killed him.’
‘Do not attempt to be so exact with me.’ She turned towards him again. ‘I am not a fool, Crowther. Did you really believe in all these months I had not worked it out too? James was murdered because I was chattering to an earl with a glass of champagne in my hand and said . . . and I know who overheard me. I know what the result was. You cannot protect me from that.’
Crowther crossed the space between them and placed one hand on her shoulder. ‘Harriet . . .’ She pulled away from him, but he took hold of her again and turned her towards him. Her head was bent forward and her shoulders were shaking. ‘Harriet, my dear woman, do listen to me. You are right. It was your words that condemned James, but no one, no one would ever blame you for his death.’
She looked up at him. ‘But they do, Gabriel! They do! They all whisper I have no business involving myself in such matters, that I bring shame on my family and friends. That horrid little lawyer yesterday will be saying the same thing, I could read it in his face. And I blame myself. How can I not? If I had only managed to keep my tongue still . . . I spoke carelessly, even knowing that there might be people in the room whom we could not trust. Let me take the blame when it falls on me. I am stupid. James, you would not have spoken as I did. God, my own husband! I loved him so, Gabriel. No woman has ever been as lucky . . .’
Her words trailed off into tears. Crowther kept his fingers tight around her thin shoulders as if he could keep her from falling into herself with the pressure of his hands. He did not speak until he felt her breathing slow, then said gently, ‘Mrs Westerman, you are a remarkable woman, but you cannot take on responsibility for crimes not your own. Say this happened, and so this. Very well, that seems to be our task, but you have killed no one. Your husband would not blame you for his death. He would thank you for the service you have done for the men with whom he served.’ Her breathing was becoming more even.
‘Please, permit me to take some of the fault for your current distress,’ he continued. ‘I allowed a veil to be drawn over this. We never discussed why your husband was made a target at that time. I guessed, but I did not ask. And I should have realised by my advanced age that turning from what troubles us is no escape.’ She looked up briefly at that with a crooked smile, and he returned it. ‘I do not ask you to draw up a balance-sheet, but you have saved lives, you have served a greater good. How many deaths go unremarked, killers unpunished? Would you let the being who killed Herr Hurst, or Mr Askew, go free to murder again? Would you let Casper be taken off and hanged for the convenience of the authorities because you have decided that you should stop asking questions? Because of that little lawyer and his kind? Your husband married a braver woman than that. I wish to God I had had the pleasure of your friendship in fifty-one. I might have saved my brother from the gallows, had I known you then. Now dry your eyes, do! I need you to see this clearly.’ He slowly released his grip.
Harriet pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and began to wipe her eyes. She blew her nose and inhaled deeply.
‘Very well, Crowther. Though I think I should retire to some nunnery when we are done with this business.’
‘I doubt they would have you,’ he replied dryly. ‘I have never seen you stay still for more than half an hour at a time. Hours of silent prayer would be beyond you.’
He went back to the body again, then heard her follow him to the centre of the room. He heard her voice, and the tone was more like the woman he knew.
‘As it happens, I was three years old in fifty-one,’ she said quietly, and knelt down beside him.
Agnes jerked awake in the gloom, scrambled to her feet and called out, thinking some movement beyond the barrier must have woken her. Silence. She had spent most of the night too afraid to close her eyes. Then she could not be wakeful and frightened any longer. Sleep had taken pity on her. Since her waking at first light though, she had sung to herself whenever she was able, hoping that someone might pass by and hear her, but she could not help shutting her eyes from time to time, and whenever she woke, it was with this cold panic that someone might have passed the mouth of the tunnel while she slept, and left her here. She knew she would be looked for, but if Swithun was right and her people were looking on the wrong side of the lake, thinking she had lost her way in the storm, and if Casper hadn’t seen her arrive in the rainstorm . . . She was sure neither of the Fowlers would be back now. She had a little bread left and a few mouthfuls of water.
It was a truth she knew of magic that each spell cast had a cost. She had been so angry at Stella that she thought she was willing to pay it, but now, curled and hungry in the darkness, she thought perhaps it was Thomas she should have been angry with, not the girl – and rather than get bitter and crooked, that she should have only held her head high and laughed at them. Casper had tried to take the hurt of the spell away from her by sending her up the hill with the poppet, but she had wandered away from it to see the fireworks. If she had stayed by them as she had been told, she would not have seen Casper being beaten, would not have been taken herself.
Drying her eyes, she then put her hands together and began to whisper church prayers. The hills would hear them, and know she had learned what she needed to know. She accepted her punishment then, and prayed for forgiveness. When the idea came to her it dropped like a stone into the cool centre of her mind and she opened her eyes with a gasp.
