The Butchered Man Read online

  “I’m not afraid of that.”

  “Good,” she said. “My brother is terribly conscientious. He must see to every little detail himself. He works too hard, in fact,” she said. “It worries me. So I charge you to look after him, Mr Carswell. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly, ma’am.”

  ***

  Giles had not meant to hear the conversation at all. He felt ashamed that he should, but he had moved to the far end of the room so as not to hear the music. Miss Pritchard was at the piano again and she was playing one of Laura’s favourite pieces, and he did not think he could bear to give any but the most superficial attention. So he had gone to the end of the room, and pretended to look at a very bad watercolour of a ruined abbey, and instead of hearing the music overheard a private conversation between Mrs Lepaige and one of her daughters.

  “But don’t you think it’s very odd that he hasn’t written to her for over a week?” the girl said. “Sophie’s breaking her heart with worry.”

  “I would have thought Sophie had more sense than that, since the engagement isn’t official.”

  “It is, Mamma, I told you. He has spoken to Dean Pritchard.”

  “When I hear it from the Dean’s own lips I shall believe it. His family may not be in favour. Many a slip, you know my dear, betwixt –”

  “How could anyone object to Sophie?”

  “He is a proud young fellow – and ambitious. Men get such ideas from their families, you know. Sophie is a darling but in worldly terms she is not a great catch.”

  “She has two hundred a year!”

  “Of course that seems like a fortune to you, dearest, but to someone like Mr Rhodes is it not a great deal of money. His parents may expect better of him.”

  “I pray not, Mamma, or Sophie will die of a broken heart if it doesn’t come off – she dotes on him so. So do you think that is why he hasn’t written, then? Because they are making objections? If that’s true, what shall I say to her?”

  “Tell her he is being very correct and that he will write when he has the consent of his family. Tell her any decent person would do the same. By the bye, you would not let yourself run to such expectations, I trust, my dear.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone like that would ever be interested in me,” said the girl and went off to rejoin her friend.

  “You seem to like that painting, Major Vernon.”

  He found that Miss Hilliard was standing next to him.

  “This is one of my sister’s efforts,” he said. “I remember the day it was painted. The ruins are near our house in Northumberland. It’s not very accomplished, but I love the place it shows. We used to drive there in the summer and picnic.”

  “It does look delightful,” she said, studying it. “I always like a ruin with foliage over it like that. These people who take off all the ivy for the sake of antiquarianism always spoil them, I think. I am trying to grow ivy over my walls but with little success. The building is too new and it won’t take.”

  “But it is very striking. I’ve often admired it riding past. It must have been expensive.”

  “Our patroness, the Countess of Railby, is very generous.”

  “And do you believe your experiment is working?” Giles asked. “Do your girls find a new way of life after they have been with you?”

  “Yes, we have a notable success rate. I am very glad to have met you at last, Major; I was hoping I should. You see, there are girls in Northminster who would benefit from coming to me. You might remind the Magistrates when you have some young female offender that it is an option available to them. I have invited some of them to visit, but they will not come. Perhaps if you were to inspect the place, you might persuade them?”

  “I should be very interested to come and see it, yes,” he said.

  “I shall expect you very soon, then. I am sure you will be impressed,” she added with a smile.

  ***

  “So you did not suffer too badly?” said Sally, handing him his hat.

  “No. You were right to make me come. In fact, I was almost amused at times.”

  “Good. Your Mr Carswell has done well too. He has made a conquest of Celia – or perhaps Celia has made a conquest of him. She wants to give him one of the kittens, subject to your approval and that of Snow.”

  “Heavens!” said Giles.

  “I will try and make her forget about it,” said Sally.

  “Tell me something, Sal, just before we go. About this Mr Rhodes...”

  “Oh, Rhodes,” she said with a grimace. “Yes?”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Blandly handsome.”

  “More precisely than that?”

  “Why does it interest you?”

  “I just want to put a name to a face.”

  “You’d know him if you’d met him. You would have found him insufferable.”

  “But I haven’t, so what does he look like?”

  “Fair hair, all swept back. Side whiskers. Very handsome, as I said, and very aware of how handsome he is,” she said.

  “And build?”

  “Moderate height.”

  “As tall as you?” he asked.

  “Yes, I suppose so. Oh, I do hope it isn’t true about his offering for Sophie Pritchard.”

  “Fat or thin?”

  “Neither. Well-formed, as they say in novels.”

  “Could you draw him for me?”

  “Why on earth do you ask me that?” she said. “What is this all about, Giles?”

  “I can’t say just now. But could you draw him for me?”

  “There’d be no point – Sophie Pritchard has been drawing his portrait. Her mother ought not to have allowed that, but the man is a terrible insinuator.”

  “So I hear. Lambert told me about St Gabriel’s.”

  “I, for one, would be very happy never to lay eyes on the man again,” Sally said. “But I fear he will force himself upon us willy-nilly.”

  Chapter Six

  18th January, 1840

  First thing the next morning, Giles found Carswell in attendance on their dead man. He stood with a drawing board, making a large, extremely detailed pencil sketch, apparently little troubled by the now very apparent stench of the corpse which was so intense it had forced Giles to hesitate at the door.

  The morning light was strong and pitiless on the body, and seeing it again, Giles was not surprised he had passed a troubled night. The desecration of it shocked him anew, perhaps more forcibly than before. He stood and made himself look at it dispassionately, trying to construct a rational explanation. But the longer he looked, the less rational it appeared. Yes, certainly, it did an effective job of concealing the man’s identity, but there was such anger in it. To take a blade down and then across the eyes like that: what sort of person could manage to do that? Skill was one thing, nerve another. It made him think of an angry child scribbling out a drawing in which they had suddenly lost confidence.

  “Does it require great skill to do this?” he said, breaking the silence, “to make these cuts on the face? Are we looking at someone with a surgical training?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Carswell said. “But looking at it now I’m not sure. Didn’t you call it butchering yesterday? That’s about the level of it. Someone who is used to cutting up meat, I would say. No more skilled than that.”

  “That makes for a long list of people. What about the knife?”

  Carswell put down his drawing board and went over to the head where Giles stood.

  “A common sort of kitchen knife could have done it. Straight blade. Well honed, but not as sharp as I keep my knives. A surgeon wants to do as little damage as possible with a knife – even when he’s dissecting. Whereas these incisions on the face are very deep. It’s not considered. It’s –” He mimed a cutting motion in the direction of the cuts. “Rough – at least by my standards. There’ll be knife marks on the skull, I should say. The knife was dragged down and through with real force.”r />
  “What about a razor?”

  “No, I think not. There’s a point to this blade – at least, that’s what it looks like. But I can’t be more certain than that yet until I’ve gone a little deeper into it.”

  “I’ve sent a couple of men to scour the streets round about there for abandoned knives and razors, but it’s very a long chance,” Giles said. “After all, why throw away a perfectly good implement? If it were me, I would simply wipe it and put it away in a drawer. Best place to hide it – where it came from in the first place. This person isn’t stupid. Definitely not. This is not wild impulsive anger. This isn’t drunken fury. I’ve seen that enough times. It doesn’t look like this. This is calm and deliberate. This is a demonstration of something, but what?” He walked away, stretched up and clasped his hands on his head, thinking hard. “But we cannot begin to answer that until we know who he is, and what he did to invite this.”

  “Invite?” Carswell said. “How do you mean?”

  “Action,” Giles said. “Re-action. For example, you and I are in our cups. I make a vulgar remark about your sister. You assault me to defend her honour. That’s the common pattern. This is the same. This person has done something to invite it. Who is he, and whom has he offended?”

  He turned back to the corpse trying to make some sense of the features again, to reconstruct them in his mind into a face someone might recognize. The hair, although dirty and matted, was, as far as he could observe, fashionably long, as worn by young bloods, pale in colour, slightly wavy and it looked as if it might have been worn pushed back.

  “How tall is he, would you say?” Giles said.

  “Six foot, one and three quarter,” said Carswell, consulting his notes.

  Giles went back to the hands, and compared them with his own. They had a great deal fewer signs of wear and the nails were exceptionally well looked after. “Let’s look at your hands, Carswell,” he said. “You’re closer in age to this fellow, wouldn’t you say? Fifteen years can do a lot of damage to a man’s hands.”

  “Yes.” Carswell studied his own hands for a moment and then thrust them at Giles. “Pretty shoddy,” he said. “Especially next to Harlequin here. Those cuts made me think of a Harlequin’s face paint. I saw a pantomime in Edinburgh just before I came away, you see,” he added with a sheepish smile.

  “I shan’t tell your parents, don’t worry,” said Giles, amused. “And Harlequin, that’s good. We’ll call him that.”

  “He must never have gone out without his gloves,” said Carswell, shaking his head. “Or done any real work.”

  “It’s just as well he didn’t, because I think that’s the most helpful thing we have so far about him,” said Giles. “I’m going to go and pay a few calls in the Precincts. I want to make a few more inquiries about the Rev Stephen Rhodes.”

  “Do you think it might be him?”

  “There are a few points in common that we’d be fools to overlook. But I’m just guessing. I shall probably be able to rule him out fairly swiftly. I’ll let you get on.”

  Carswell was putting on a blue apron as he spoke. He picked out a knife from his box and then with very little hesitation, and great coolness of manner, he made a long straight cut from the collar bone to the navel.

  ***

  “I’m afraid Mr Rhodes is away from Northminster at present, Major Vernon,” said the Rev Weekes, the Bishop’s chaplain. There were standing in the chaplain’s office, a large anteroom to the library, with almost as many books. Weekes was a man in his sixties, who had served the Bishop for many years and had the air of a butler rather than a clergyman. “I am acting librarian in his absence, however. Did you wish to use the library?”

  “No, I wanted to see Mr Rhodes. Do you know when he will be back?”

  Weekes went to his desk and consulted an appointment book.

  “Next week. Thursday.”

  “Do you know where he’s gone?”

  “Somewhere in Lincolnshire, if I recall rightly. To visit his godmother.”

  “Have you heard from him at all?” Giles ventured.

  “We don’t correspond,” he said, rather curtly.

  “He hasn’t written to the Bishop?” Weekes shook his head. “And you would not have expected him to?”

  “Well, my Lord did give him leave of absence, so a letter might have been considered civil, but he has not written to him, not as far as I know. I should certainly have sent a line in such circumstances, but I am old-fashioned.” Weekes gave a little shrug and a smirk.

  “Mr Rhodes is modern in his manners, then?” said Giles.

  “Of course, one always hesitates to criticize such an able colleague,” Weekes said, with the air of a man honing a knife blade, “but I do feel that Mr Rhodes will be better suited to the life of a parish than the palace.”

  “You mean when he becomes Rector of St Gabriel’s?”

  “You had heard about that, Major?”

  “Canon Fforde mentioned it to me.”

  “A busy parish, full of the middling sort,” Weekes said. “It is rare that a man can be matched so well to the charge, I think.”

  “It’s a very valuable living, I understand.”

  “Yes, yes, I suppose it is,” said Weekes. “Personally I have no interest in such matters. But some men do, of course.”

  “Would you say Mr Rhodes was an ambitious man?”

  “I do find your questions very interesting,” Weekes said. “I find I must speculate as to why a policeman should be so curious about Mr Rhodes. I take it you are asking about him in your professional character, Major, yes? Has he come to your attention in some way?”

  “It is just as interesting to me that you should say that. Do you think it likely he would come to my attention? Have you something specific to tell me, Mr Weekes? A suspicion of some sort?”

  “No, no, of course not,” said Weekes. “It is just that... oh, but this is just common prejudice on my part. I am being unjust and you are encouraging me, sir, and you should not! All I can say is that I do not care much for the man and that I do not trust him, and that will have to be enough for you.” And he put up his hands to prevent Giles asking any more questions.

  Giles, quite undaunted, and highly amused by the man’s advances and retreats, said, “One question more and I am done with you. Where does he lodge, perhaps you might tell me that?”

  “College Street,” Weekes said. “Number 10. A Mrs Parker keeps the house, I believe.”

  ***

  A quarter of an hour later found Giles in Dean Pritchard’s study.

  “You would like to borrow my daughter’s sketchbooks?” said the Dean. “What a quite extraordinary request. Why, if I might be so bold?”

  “It does seem strange, yes, but I assure you it is in connection with a police inquiry.”

  “How can my daughter’s sketchbook be connected with a police inquiry?”

  “I wish I could be direct with you, sir, but at this stage I cannot. I simply need to borrow them for an hour or two at most. It is very important, I assure you. I don’t ask this lightly and I know it is insolent of me to ask when I can give so little reason why, but I must have them. And most importantly, I do not want Miss Pritchard to know I have them.”

  “Well, you have chosen a good moment for your mission, and you sound and look grave enough about it, so I can’t refuse you, no matter how strange it seems,” said the Dean, getting up. “The girls are out visiting with their mother. You can take the books now. They are in the morning room, I think.”

  Giles followed the Dean into a cosy sitting room full of the comfortable clutter of feminine life – the work baskets, the sheet music, the half-read novels. Miss Sophie’s sketchbooks had their own particular place and there were many of them.

  “How many do you want to see?” the Dean asked.

  “Just the most recent.”

  The Dean laid one on the round table in the centre of the room and flipped it open, smiling at the sight.

  “She does
draw very charmingly, you know,” he said, turning the pages. “I hope she keeps it up when she is married. It is difficult sometimes for a woman to find time for these pleasant things when they are busy with their families, but I think a husband should always make sure there is time.”

  “Yes,” said Giles, watching as a succession of rustic cottages and family portraits were revealed. “Miss Pritchard is to be married, then?” he ventured.

  “It isn’t entirely settled,” said the Dean, “but it seems likely.”

  Giles wondered whether to probe a little more, but they were interrupted by the door opening and Miss Pritchard walking in, still in bonnet and cloak, her cheeks glowing from her morning walk.

  “Major Vernon,” said Miss Pritchard. “This is an unexpected pleasure.” She saw the sketchbooks and looked inquiringly at her father.

  “Major Vernon wanted to see your sketchbook,” he said.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Giles said. “I am looking for a drawing master, you see, and I had heard that Signor Valeri is very good, and my sister told me that he was your teacher. I had a fancy to see the results of his teaching, and so your father very kindly showed them to me.”

  “Aren’t you a little old for a drawing master, Major?” said Miss Pritchard, untying her bonnet ribbons.

  “It’s for my work,” said Giles. “I have often wished I could draw better. Close observation is a useful thing, and I can see that Valeri has taught you to observe extremely well. That’s the old mill at Tugton, isn’t it?” he said, tapping the open page with his forefinger. “I recognized it at once. It’s very accurate – and most charming.”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling.

  “The Major would like to borrow the book for an hour or two,” the Dean said.

  “Could you oblige me, Miss Pritchard?” She hesitated, and Giles felt sure that one of the portraits he had glimpsed was that of Rhodes and that she did not wish to part with it. “It is a great imposition, I know, but no harm will come to it. I shall have it back to you before midday.”

  She glanced at her father, clearly puzzled.

  “Papa...?”

  “I think you should say yes, my dear.”