Island of Bones (42 page)

‘What is it, Mrs Westerman?’

‘That chest of Mr Leathes that contained the letter warning your
father! With the forced lock. Did you not think it a strange place to leave a letter? And it was covered in soil!’

‘Hardly covered, but certainly dirty . . .’

‘The Luck would have fitted in that, would it not?’

Crowther nodded. ‘You make me recall that phrase of Lottie’s when I asked her about the concealed strongbox. She said it contained nothing of value
by then
.’ He closed his eyes.

‘What is it, Crowther? You have thought of something further.’

‘Mrs Westerman, I made very rare enquiries into my father’s business interests. I knew he had discovered untapped mineral deposits on a parcel of land, so always assumed, when he said . . .’

‘Crowther, please, explain before I tear my own hand off in frustration.’

‘I did ask once on what our prosperity was based. He said it was founded on buried treasure.’

Old Mr Leathes was waiting for them by the garden gate looking very solemn, and with no more than a bow, led them to the rear of the house, where a gentleman in his middle years was examining the aviary. He made the introductions, then returned to the house to leave Mr Hudson, Crowther and Harriet to examine each other to the trillings of his canaries.

‘This is a matter of the greatest delicacy, sir, madam,’ Mr Hudson said. ‘I hope you do not think badly of me for emphasising that. I asked Mr Leathes if I might speak to you alone and without his walls, as even in the household of my old friend I fear that we might be overheard and someone might, in all innocence, learn something that should not be learned.’

He reminded Harriet of her father as she remembered him from her youth. A man, softly spoken and inclined to be agreeable, though his expression now was the same nature of worried concern that she remembered when her father had some hard duty of his office to perform.

‘I think we understand, sir,’ she said.

He nodded and put his hand to his chin. ‘Thank you. First I must apologise for my
junior
partner. I suspect that he was uncivil. He knows nothing of the business of the advertisement and is inclined to resent it. As soon as I heard of the matter, I at once visited the personage concerned to see how far he was happy for us to take you into our confidence. Having done so yesterday evening, I came to you as quickly as I might.’

‘You know, Mr Hudson,’ Crowther said, leaning on his cane, ‘that there has been another death. Mr Askew, the owner of the museum in this town, was found strangled this morning. It may be that whoever killed Hurst, killed Askew also. If you can tell us anything that might bring that man to justice . . .’

Mr Hudson kept his chin buried in his chest. ‘I am aware. Remember I came from Silverside. I knew Mr Askew and admired his energy, though how his death is connected to this matter, I cannot say. I must tell you a story . . .’

‘You have our attention, sir,’ Harriet said.

‘Yes, yes. The natural son of Viscount Moreland was travelling in Europe some years ago. He was a pleasant boy, but the man who had been paid to take care of him and guide him in his steps was taken ill in Vienna.’

‘Vienna?’ Harriet repeated. ‘It is my understanding that Mr Hurst was a native of that city.’

Mr White nodded as if this had confirmed some thought of his own, and continued, ‘The young man’s tutor was confined to his rooms some weeks, and in that time his charge managed to lose a great deal of money at a card game held in a house off Rabensteig near St Rupert’s Church.’

‘How much?’ Crowther asked. He had seen such things occur during his own years on the continent. Young men caught by smooth-talking strangers in foreign cities.

The lawyer looked almost tearful. ‘It was a disaster. The boy’s tutor was trusted by the family, and was charged with buying a wide variety of art and sculpture for their country house. He had therefore the letters
necessary to draw on a small fortune from the bankers. His charge took those letters and drew on those funds to maintain his place at the table.’

Crowther noticed Harriet had become very quiet, and wondered if she were thinking of her own son, if he could be caught in such a way.

Mr Hudson carried on: ‘The boy was distraught and took it upon himself, far too late, to find out something more about the reputation of the men to whom he had lost his father’s money. He became convinced that the game had been crooked, and went to tell them so. He was challenged, and felt himself compelled to face the challenge. Even then he might have been saved if he had spoken to his tutor, but he was stubborn as young men are, and set out to prove his honour with pistols.’

Crowther studied the canaries in Mr Leathes’ aviary, such small lives in their pretty plumage. He remembered bending over one tiny corpse, Mr Leathes guiding his hand as he made his first cut with a borrowed blade. ‘He was killed by his opponent, I presume.’

‘Murdered, sir,’ Mr Hudson said. ‘Murdered as certainly as poor Mr Askew. The devil he fought was a grown man. A man who had done military service. The boy was only eighteen and had never fired a gun other than in sport. His opponent could have shot wide but he shot to kill. I am sure he did so in order to escape with the money he had so dishonestly won. I call that murder, sir. As does the boy’s father. The first the tutor knew of the business was when the body was returned to the lodging-house in a hired cab.’

Harriet worked her fingers into the brass wire of the aviary. ‘And what became of the man who murdered him?’

‘He fled with the money he had won, and we have had no trace of him since. Inquiries were made, naturally. We found something of the man’s past, offered rewards for information leading to his discovery, but the moment he rode away from the scene of the duel, he disappeared. We let it be known in every large town in Europe that we were seeking him in the hopes that he would find himself among people who knew him under the name he used in Vienna. Men do not change. I was certain he would find himself among the card tables again. For five years I have had a stream
of correspondence across my desk from Paris, Rome, as far away as Moscow. Every similar scandal, any resemblance, any hint of a name. Each I have pursued to the best of my ability, and each time, whatever iniquity I discovered, there was no trace of the man I searched for.’

Crowther was still watching the birds whistling in their few square feet of comfortable captivity. ‘What became of the tutor, Mr Hudson?’

The lawyer was silent for a moment, as if he needed to compose himself before speaking. ‘The tutor was my own son. He did not forgive himself and would never accept that the fault was not his. He felt he had failed, and dishonoured me. He took a commission with the Sixteenth, and was killed in seventy-nine during the shelling of Fort New Richmond at the Mississippi River.’

‘My condolences,’ Harriet said quietly.

Crowther looked at the lawyer and said, ‘You were advertising for Mr Hurst because he wrote to you offering you information about your fugitive.’

Hudson unfolded a letter from his pocket and passed it to Mrs Westerman, who released her grip on the aviary to take it.

I know where the man who shot the boy is. He is hiding in plain sight. I shall be waiting to hear from you at the Seven Bells in Cockermouth on the evening of Monday, 14th July and am ready to give you his current name and address when I have bills in my hand for £100. Gottfried Hurst
.

Harriet looked up from the paper. It was quite plain, no return address, no date. It seemed Mr Hurst had decided not to use one of the sheets printed with the Royal Oak name that Mr Postlethwaite provided. ‘A considerable sum. You kept the appointment, Mr Hudson?’

‘Naturally. My client sent the letter to me as soon as he received it. I remained in the taproom of the Seven Bells from five o’clock in the afternoon until midnight, with the money ready. No one came.’ His voice sounded hollow. Harriet thought of him during his vigil, the hope that his search might be ending, and his growing disappointment.

‘Why did you think the appointment was not kept, Mr Hudson?’ she asked.

‘I hoped, Mrs Westerman, that he had only been delayed by some accident or inconvenience. I feared that he had been offered more money to stay away. By my advertisement I hoped to encourage him to believe he might ask for more. Even if the man I seek had fled, his trail might still reek enough to follow it. But I had no idea where Mr Hurst was precisely, so no idea where to begin until I heard from my partner where you were staying. Then I realised that Mr Hurst’s information must be good.’

‘How so, Mr Hudson?’ Harriet asked.

‘I had no success in tracing the man’s movements
after
he murdered the young gentleman, but I had some in finding out about his past. The name he used in Vienna was von Lowenstein, but he was born Grenville de Beaufoy, only son of the last Lord Greta.’

Agnes’s fingers touched something. Smooth, worked wood. She tried to pick it up, only to find it resisted. It had been driven into the soil, even after all this distance. It would have gone through her head and dropped her like a stone. She eased it out of the ground. That it had been meant to kill her was no fault of the arrow, and she had better plans for it now. She turned round very carefully and reached out her right hand to the wall. Good. The arrow she slipped into the waist of her skirt at the back to leave her left hand free. She began to sweep it back and forth as before as she crawled back towards the barricade, but this time she paused more often, plucking loose splinters and sticks from among the stones and stuffing them into her pockets.

Harriet felt unsure if she could speak. ‘The son of Lord Greta is
here
?’

Mr Hudson raised his hands. ‘We must assume so, or at the very least we must think that he has been here very recently.’

Crowther raised his eyebrows. ‘Given the unfortunate demise of Mr
Askew, I think we may assume he was also here last night. Do we know what age he is, Mr Hudson?’

‘He was born shortly before the rebellion of forty-five.’

‘In his late thirties, then. Any description of his person?’

‘A gentleman speaking English, German and French like a native. Medium height.’

Harriet cast up her hands in frustration. ‘I saw a dozen men of that age and height at the garden party at Silverside, all with a quiver of arrows at their side, and as many such at the fireworks, though I cannot answer for their linguistic abilities. No limp, sir? No disfiguring mark? Has he a wife, children?’

Mr Hudson shook his head. ‘No duelling scars or obvious injuries I know of, madam. Though he may have acquired them, and a wife and children in five years of travel.’

‘Do not despair, Mrs Westerman,’ Crowther said quietly. ‘There are only two good inns in town. We shall ask there if any of the gentry have been in residence since – when did you receive that letter, Mr Hudson?’

‘In the morning of the twelfth of July.’

‘Since before the eleventh then, who remain in residence or have left this morning and are of a suitable age. There can be relatively few.’

‘Why did he not leave at once, having killed Mr Hurst? Why wait longer?’

Crowther did not waste his breath with a reply. ‘Mrs Westerman, as you have already an acquaintance with Mr Postlethwaite, perhaps you might enquire at the Royal Oak. Mr Hudson, if you might make a similar call on the proprietor of the Queen’s Head. I should like to spend a little more time with the body of Mr Askew.’

‘And you will think on that portrait, Crowther?’

‘Naturally, Mrs Westerman.’

W
HEN
H
ARRIET RETURNED
to the museum, frustrated and disappointed, she found the main part of the museum being swept. The body had been removed – Harriet guessed that Mr Askew’s office had become his mortuary. The girl who had offered to keep watch over the body was completing her labours and her friend was arranging the fallen rock samples on Mr Askew’s counter. The girl looked up as she came in and nodded to her.

‘Lord Keswick is in the back room, Mrs Westerman.’

Harriet began to unbutton her gloves. ‘Stella, have you ever heard the stories of the ghost of Lord Greta walking the hills in times of trouble?’

She smiled. ‘That was just old Farmer Willocks used to say that, madam, when he came into town for the market. He always had a story for the fire, and that was just one of them. He used to say the Northern Lights celebrated on the day Lord Greta escaped from custody, and that there was a witch in Thornthwaite Forest could turn herself into a hare, and he had a story of some bogle or other for every month in the year.’ She chuckled and started the broom moving again, the glass cracking like ice in the pail on winter mornings.

‘Did you hear the story? Is he living?’

‘No, bless you, madam. There aren’t that many like Lottie Tyers, who are too stubborn to die. We shared out the arvel bread for Willocks when I was right small. Twelve years ago, maybe. But I heard the story. It was the time of . . .’ she dropped her voice a little, ‘when the First Baron was murdered. Willocks said he was out in the evening seeing to his pigs, and he saw the ghost of Lord Greta on a black horse crossing Pow Beck. Then next day he heard there had been horrible murder done at Silverside Hall, so he reckoned he’d seen a bogle sent as a sign.’

‘Where is Pow Beck? And how did he know it was Lord Greta?’

Stella snorted. ‘Said he knew him by his bearing. And Pow Beck
lies along the way to Braithwaite. I thought his other bogle stories were better, but he told the story of the ghost of Lord Greta enough times for it to drift around after we buried him.’

‘You don’t sound as if you believed him?’

It was the young man who replied. ‘If Lord Greta’s ghost came in times of trouble, he’d have been seen when the small-pox came. And if he came in times of murder, then he’d be outside the window now, wouldn’t he?’ His voice lowered a little as he finished, and Harriet found herself looking towards the shutter.

‘Mrs Westerman?’ She jumped a little and turned to see Crowther in the doorway to the office. Stella set to work again with the broom and the young man busied himself with the rocks. ‘Perhaps you might join me?’