The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4) Page 15

  “Yes, he has, from time to time – and with Gosforth. I thought it was to see the Squire, but perhaps it was to see these young women. A far more attractive proposition.” She laid down the paper with a sigh. “Poor, poor girl,” she added, stroking her finger across the image of Miss Barker. “And last night you seemed to suggest that it might be Gosforth who killed her?”

  “We are not sure of anything yet,” Major Vernon said.

  “I do not know which is more tragic – murder or self-murder,” she said. “And now we have a lost soul washed up from nowhere. Will you be able to find out who it is?”

  “We know a little,” said Felix. “It is a woman, and of small stature.”

  “You have not heard anything regarding a missing woman in the neighbourhood?” Giles said. “Perhaps four or more months back? Or longer. Any local stories that you can recall?”

  “We have only been here since late August. I cannot think of anything at the moment. A woman, you say?” Major Vernon nodded. “You must talk to Patton. She is the one for information – she is a great taker of tea in all the cottages in the village. They receive me kindly as well, of course, but they do not confide in me, not as they do with Patton. She will have all the rumours and stories, or if not, she will know the best person to supply them for you.” She rose from the table. “Shall I get her to come down from the house and talk to you?”

  “No, I will come up and speak to her myself, if I may,” Major Vernon said. “In an hour or so?”

  “Of course. But, now I shall leave you gentlemen to your business. I must go and check on my son’s head and temper.”

  -o-

  After lunch, Carswell went off to begin his examination of the bones while Giles lingered by the fire, making notes and wondering what he should say to John Earle when he arrived. The man had been so certain of Miss Barker’s acceptance of him but his account now seemed curious to Giles in the light of her secret marriage to Gosforth.

  Earle had been anxious to point them away from the possibility of suicide and towards some other explanation for her death. Had he been showing signs of a guilty conscience in doing so? What if he were the other lover Milburne had told him about? Perhaps he was feeling ashamed that she had destroyed herself because of his actions? Giles decided that he would see if Earle stood by his first account of the affair.

  Earle arrived, and they stood for a minute or two looking down on the covered manège, where Carswell was diligently arranging the bones on a trestle table. From this vantage the partial skeleton made a suitably sobering sight.

  “It’s a small woman,” Giles said. “That is as much as we know. Can you recall any such person reported missing in the last few years?” Earle shook his head and turned towards the fire.

  “You think this is a suspicious death?” Earle said.

  “It is an unexplained death,” said Giles.

  “Will tomorrow be too early to summon an inquest?”

  “Perhaps,” Giles said. “I have yet to establish even the most basic facts. Perhaps early next week we might review matters?”

  “Yes, certainly,” said Earle. “And the other cases? How are they progressing?”

  “Ah, yes,” said Giles, sitting down at the table and gesturing to the empty chair. “I’m glad for a chance to talk to you about that.”

  “Of course,” said Earle.

  “Not in your capacity as Coroner,” said Giles, “but as a witness. I wonder if I could trouble you again for an account of what happened at the ball that night. What exactly passed between you and Miss Barker, for example.” He flicked through the pages of his notebook. “It would be helpful if I could have the sequence of events in more detail.” Earle nodded. “You said that you wished to marry her, although you had not discussed the issue with your family.”

  “Yes, which she perfectly understood, given the circumstances,” Earle said.

  “By which you mean she assented?”

  “With the caveat I had set out, yes,” Earle said.

  “Quite a caveat,” Giles said.

  “She understood that my hands were tied,” he said. “And she was anxious only to do what was right.”

  “Were your hands really tied, Mr Earle?” Giles said, as mildly as he could.

  “What do you mean?” said Earle.

  “I do understand that you did not wish to proceed without your family’s consent. That is only natural and right, but why did you not seek that consent before speaking to Miss Barker? Rather than dangle the possibility of marriage, only to snatch it back?”

  “I don’t think I follow,” said Earle.

  “If you were an intemperate young man I could understand it. But you are, what, thirty, Mr Earle, and well in command of yourself? It makes me curious that you chose that way of going about the business. It lacks feeling, to be frank.”

  “Sir?”

  “‘You may marry me, Miss Barker, but only if my family like it. Otherwise you must take it on the chin and walk away’. A strange proposal.”

  “I don’t think so, and neither did Miss Barker. Really, Major Vernon, I don’t understand your quizzing at all. Miss Barker understood me and was willing to wait. She knew that the situation was not an easy one for me.”

  “And nothing she said or did that night made you uneasy?”

  “Nothing.”

  Giles leant back in his chair and looked at Earle appraisingly, hoping to unsettle him.

  “A great prize then, for you,” Giles said, after a moment. “A great beauty and a great fortune. How did you manage it, when there were so many other rivals? Of course, there is a way a man can secure the love of a vulnerable young woman, but I hesitate to ascribe that to you, Mr Earle. It is not the act of a gentleman, certainly.”

  “What are you implying, sir?” said Earle drawing himself up a little.

  “Annabella Barker was not a virgin. I need to identify her seducer. From my inquiries so far, she may have destroyed herself out of shame and fear of discovery. She would be desperate to regularise her position – and marry the man who had promised her marriage in exchange for her honour.”

  There was a long silence and Earle said, “I did not touch her.”

  “How careful you were to point away from the idea of her killing herself, Mr Earle, and how quick,” Giles went on, getting up and leaning across the table. “Could it be that you knew how vulnerable she was, how you had broken her?” Now Earle looked away from him and into the fire.

  “I have never touched her,” he muttered. “Never.”

  “I advise you to tell me the truth, Mr Earle,” Giles went on.

  “How dare you even suggest that I...!” Earle said, leaping up and facing Giles across the table.

  “Because it is the truth?” Giles said, mildly. “You will not be the first man to do it, nor the last. She was a charming-looking creature, after all.” He pushed the drawing Milburne had done across the table. “Young and innocent, but tempting. You said she was high-spirited. Not to mention exotic.”

  “I absolutely resent your suggestion, sir,” said Earle, grabbing his hat. “And I do not have time to sit and be insulted.” With which he left, banging the door behind him, all in all giving Giles the strong impression that he had touched a raw nerve. It was a matter to which he would have to return.

  -o-

  “Come and see what you think of this, Major,” Felix said, seeing him standing at the doorway. “This is interesting, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps?” said the Major coming over to his side.

  “I need a second opinion,” Felix said, handing him his hand lens and the woman’s right ulna bone. “What do you see?”

  “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “A test,” said Major Vernon, with a smile. “Very well. A rough surface – it looks as if it has been sawn off here, yes?”

  “Yes, quite. See this one now,” he said, handing Major Vernon another piece of bone, this time the radius. />
  “The same marking and feel,” said Major Vernon running his finger over the end of the bone. He glanced at the trestle table. “What part of the body are we looking at here?”

  “You are holding the radius, and the other is the ulna. The two bones of the lower arm, terminating in the wrist.”

  “Are you saying that one of the hands has been removed?”

  “Quite. One complete hand missing. The right hand.”

  “It couldn’t have just become detached?”

  “No. The bones indicate a straight cut. Across here, approximately,” he said, pushing up his right sleeve and making a sawing gesture across his forearm.

  “An amputation, then,” Major Vernon. “Should we be looking for a one-handed woman who has gone missing?”

  Felix shook his head.

  “This is where it gets interesting,” he said. “If you were to amputate the hand of a living subject – and even of a dead subject, for that matter – if you knew what you were doing, you would not do it there. It’s an inch too high, at least. You are making horrible work for yourself and a poor job for your patient. You would make the cut here,” he said, indicating the wrist joint. Even the most rustic barber surgeon would know not to cut there.”

  “Was the hand removed after death?”

  “I hope to God it was,” Felix said. “Otherwise...” The Major winced, understanding his implication.

  “But there is no way to tell from the bones themselves?”

  “Not that anyone has observed yet,” said Felix, considering the matter. “It is an extremely intriguing question, though. Bone is a tissue, after all, and it does alter its nature post-mortem. But those marks, or rather their placement, suggests that they were inflicted after death. It would be extremely difficult to do such a neat job on a living person, if they were conscious, that is. That is another possibility.”

  “A most unpleasant one. But it needs to be said,” Major Vernon said, and went over to study the whole skeleton. “Is the hand the only thing that seems to have been removed in this manner?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “Have you ever ridden to hounds?” Major Vernon said after a moment.

  “No,” said Felix, a little astonished by the change of subject.

  “When I was ten, I was present at my first kill and the huntsman sliced off the fore-paw of the fox and smeared the blood on my forehead. A great honour and a rite of passage, of course. It did not stop me vomiting in a ditch five minutes later – fortunately my father did not see me,” he said. “Is this akin to that? A hunter taking a trophy at the kill?”

  “From a dead woman?” Felix tried to imagine the scene by the culvert: some person unknown hacking off the hand of a dead woman before consigning her body into the darkness beneath the bridge.

  “If you had hounded her to her death, perhaps,” Major Vernon said. “If you had enjoyed the chase and wanted to commemorate it.” Felix wondered at the dark turns the Major was able to take in his mind. “That is the thing about riding to hounds,” he went on. “I do enjoy the chase, I freely admit that, but the kill always disgusts me. I have to remind myself of the ravished hen houses and the savagery of the fox. I tell myself it is a sort of execution, and justified, but I am well aware that there is blood lust among some of my fellow huntsmen, that the kill for them is the point of the whole exercise. One cannot help thinking that in some cases that must apply to murderers, as an explanation for their behaviour. There is pleasure in it. A fox kills because he is hungry. A man will kill a fox for the pleasure of it. A man could kill a woman for the pleasure of it, yes?”

  “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “Then perhaps that’s what this is. Why else would you remove the hand, except to remind yourself of the pleasure?”

  “But to take the hand away?” Felix said. “That would not be for the faint-hearted.”

  “Exactly,” said Major Vernon. “Someone who does this – they would be inured to the sight of blood and dead bodies.”

  “But not a medical man,” Felix put in. “Too clumsy.”

  “A slaughterhouse man? A huntsman. An undertaker.”

  “A taxidermist,” threw in Felix. “A veteran of battle.”

  “Possibly,” said Major Vernon. He had laid his hand on the forehead of the skull, almost as if he were giving her absolution. “Someone will have missed her, someone will know something. This will be a great festering secret with someone, I’m sure of it.”

  “Speaking of festering, how do you hide a human hand, for the Lord’s sake?” said Felix. “What do you with it? You cannot have it mounted like a fox’s head and put on display.”

  “Could it be preserved?” Major Vernon asked. “Do you not have such things in glass jars in pickle?”

  “In brandy. But that requires a certain knowledge, and of course the right equipment. A suitable vessel.”

  “And a cool head,” Major Vernon said, consulting his watch. “I have to go and talk to Mrs Maitland’s maid. And you need to get back to your patient.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “She’s doing well,” Felix said, “given the circumstances.”

  He had taken Mrs Rivers out of Louisa’s room onto the landing in order to speak to her. As he did, he noticed the door to the room opposite was slightly open, and despite the gloom, he thought he glimpsed some familiar-looking bottles on the table inside.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said.

  “Mrs Rivers?” A man’s voice called up the stairs.

  “Excuse me,” Mrs Rivers said, and went downstairs.

  His curiosity piqued, Felix took his chance and went into the room. His instincts were rewarded. As well as the bottles on the table there was a large open cupboard full of jars and books. Most significant, however, was a basket of labels, all beautifully painted, with fanciful names just like those on the bottles from Miss Barker’s dressing table, and more significantly still, like the label from the little bottle with which George Gosforth had killed himself.

  He heard footsteps on the stairs and so, having slipped a handful of them into his pocket, he quickly came back out onto the landing. At the same time Sukey appeared at door opposite and beckoned him towards her.

  “Is she all right?” he murmured, following her into the room.

  “No change,” she said. “I just had a thought...”

  But there was no chance to speak. Mrs Rivers had returned to the landing. Felix noted how she carefully closed the door to her own room before coming back to her daughter’s bedside.

  “Might a friend see her?” she said to Felix. “Just for a moment? A good friend of our family.”

  “Of course,” said Felix.

  She left and went downstairs again.

  “Yes?” he said to Sukey.

  “I think we should take her back to Northminster,” she said.

  “You may have a point,” said Felix, thinking of the bottles and labels.

  “Could we? Will it be safe to move her?”

  “Tomorrow, perhaps, with luck.”

  “But how will we get Mrs Rivers to agree to it?”

  “That might be easier than you think,” he said. “I shall have to speak to Major Vernon first. Something has just...”

  But he had no opportunity. Mrs Rivers had returned with her visitor: a dark-browed, broad-shouldered gentleman with a definite manner of command about him.

  “This is Mr Latimer, Mr Carswell,” said Mrs Rivers. He shook Felix’s hand fiercely and then looked down at the still-sleeping Louisa with scant tenderness.

  “An accident of some sort, then,” Latimer said, again. “I am sure I can rely on your discretion, sir. A young woman’s reputation is...”

  “Yes?” said Felix.

  “This is a delicate matter.”

  “And one about which we have not established the full circumstances,” Felix said.

  “But you will be discreet, I am sure.”

  “Within the limits of what must be done, yes, of course,” s
aid Felix. “You seem concerned, sir, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “She is an innocent child,” said Latimer. “And as a friend to this family, her reputation must be my business. In the light of recent occurrences in the town –”

  “You mean that her friends have taken their lives?” Felix said.

  “I do not wish her branded with the same... Have a little pity, man, for God’s sake!” He walked away a few steps.

  “Mr Carswell will be as discreet as he is able, sir,” Sukey said. “I am sure of it. It’s just that in such cases the truth is always better exposed than buried, no matter how painful that may seem.”

  Felix thought that she said it sweetly and humbly, seeking to calm Latimer, but it made him frown.

  “Who is this?” he said with a flick of his hand towards Sukey.

  “Mrs Connolly. Major Vernon set her to watch Louisa,” said Mrs Rivers. “It is just as well he did!”

  “Watch her?” said Latimer, his voice rising. “What does that mean?”

  “Perhaps we should continue this downstairs?” Felix said, going to the door and attempting to usher Latimer out. He seemed reluctant for a moment, then pushed past Felix and stomped down the stairs with such force that the wooden frame of the ancient house seemed to tremble. Mrs Rivers went after him.

  “He acts as if it’s his house,” said Sukey in a whisper.

  “That’s what the Major implied,” Felix said, also sotto voce. “That he and Mrs Rivers –”

  “Perhaps he’s feeling guilty,” Sukey said. “About her. About what she did and why. Perhaps he, well, you know...”

  Felix looked back at Louisa, sweetly asleep in an opium embrace that rendered her beautiful features less those of a woman than of a child.

  “Mother and daughter?” he said. “Oh, Lord, I hope you’re wrong!”

  “It would explain a great deal,” Sukey said. “Wouldn’t it?”

  Felix went downstairs, a little astonished at Sukey’s reading of the situation, but he had to admit it was plausible, if unpleasant.

  Latimer went straight on the attack, as Felix came down into the chilly parlour.

  “What precisely is your relationship to this Major Vernon?” he said.