The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite (The Northminster Mysteries Book 5) Page 8

  “A good idea. That place was quite disgraceful. I wonder how you both stood it so long, especially after being so well looked after by Mrs Connolly in Silver Street. It’s a pity that she decided to go back to Ireland, but her duty to her parents must come first.”

  Felix managed to smile at this as best he could, and turned the subject swiftly to Tom.

  He found his patient in the garden with his sister and another boy of about the same age as Tom, whom Felix did not recognise.They were playing with Celia’s fancy rats. Tom was lying flat on his back on the lawn, encouraging the rats to crawl up and down him.

  “I think they can smell the blood, Mr Carswell,” said Celia. “This is Edmund Hughes, by the way. Edmund, this is Mr Carswell.”

  Hughes jumped up politely and put out his hand to Felix.

  “How do you do, sir?”

  “Are you related to the new Bishop, Mr Hughes?”

  “Yes, he’s my father.”

  “Welcome to Northminster, then. You have found yourself the best company here, although don’t let Tom talk you into anything involving needles and ink.”

  “Edmund is not so stupid,” said Celia. “Oh quick, Tom, get Dorcas, quick!”

  “I’ll get her,” said Edmund dashing after the rat and scooping it up. He presented Dorcas to Celia with a grin. She looked delighted at this act of gallantry.

  “I need to have a look at your arm, Tom,” said Felix. Tom got up from the grass. “Shall we go inside?”

  “Will you be all right for a minute or two, Hughes?” said Tom. “Celia, don’t bore Hughes, will you?”

  “I shan’t be bored at all,” said Edmund, petting the other rat. “I want to see the trick with the rope again, Miss Fforde; do you think we could get them to do it?”

  “Oh yes, let’s!” said Celia and they went down the garden as Tom and Felix went back into the house.

  “He doesn’t go to school, poor fellow,” said Tom. “His parents think that the public schools are hot-beds of satanic corruption. Honestly!” He stripped off his jacket and shirt. “It hardly hurt at all last night. You did a splendid job on it.”

  “Thank you,” said Felix, taking off the bandage and removing the poultice. “It does look as if it is improving.”

  “Do you think there will be a scar?”

  “Yes, probably.”

  “Oh good,” said Tom.

  “I thought it was a tattoo you wanted.”

  “A scar is just as good. I can pretend I got it fighting a duel one day. Like yours,” Tom said.

  “She nearly had my eye out,” Felix said.

  “I know! What a... and to think she was sitting in my mother’s drawing room pretending to be so good, and all along she was a murderess. But that’s always it with really wicked people – they are extremely good at pretending to be good, don’t you think?”

  “They are clever liars, yes, often enough.”

  “I can’t lie to save my life,” said Tom. “It’s a nuisance.”

  “You won’t have a career as a master criminal, then.”

  “No, it seems not. I shall have to think again!” he said. “Oh hello, Papa,” he said, seeing his father come into the room. “Look how much better it is!”

  “Goodness, that does look better. Thank you, Mr Carswell.”

  “Mr Carswell is a genius,” said Tom. “Perhaps I should go in for medicine. What do you think, sir, would I be suited to it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Felix. “But if you are anything like your sister who has a natural talent for dissection and anatomy, then perhaps.”

  “Where is Edmund?” said Canon Fforde.

  “In the garden with Celia.”

  “I have to send him home.”

  “He only just got here,” said Tom.

  “He was only supposed to be bringing a message.”

  “Can’t he stay for luncheon?”

  “Apparently not. His tutor is here to fetch him. He has lessons.”

  “In the holidays?”

  “Not for Edmund.”

  “How grim,”said Tom. “I was going to take him over the Bishop’s Meadows and up the valley to see the new viaduct being built.”

  “That will have to wait, I’m afraid.”

  “Poor fellow. I don’t think he ever has any fun.”

  “I’ll go and get him,” said Canon Fforde, going out into the garden.

  “Have you been up there, yet, Mr Carswell?” said Tom. “The viaduct – it’s going to be magnificent when it’s done. Thirty-seven arches with spans of thirty foot each! What a feat!”

  “I must go and look at it. Perhaps you should go in for engineering,” said Felix.

  “I had thought of that,” said Tom. “I suppose a gentleman may do that now. And it would be a grand life, wouldn’t it? There are moves to build railways across all the Americas, and the Continent is under way already, of course. Think how many viaducts and tunnels and bridges they will need. I should look into it more, should I not? I am far better at mathematics than Latin, after all.”

  Canon Fforde came in with Edmund and Celia just as Felix had finished redressing the wound, and the unfortunate Edmund was then delivered back to his tutor.

  “Poor fellow,” Tom said, pulling on his coat. “Papa, what do you think of my going in for engineering? I should have to leave school next year, of course, which would be wretched, for the First XI will never win anything without me.”

  “I am quite happy to take you from any place that encourages you to mutilate yourself,” said Canon Fforde.

  Chapter Nine

  “Has Baxter said or done anything of note?” Giles asked the custody sergeant.

  “No, sir, not a peep out of him all night. Didn’t eat any of his breakfast, though.”

  This was unusual. Even if the breakfast provided for those detained overnight in the cells was not luxurious, it was adequate – a quarter pound of bread and a mug of tea – and it was usually devoured. The unfortunates who found themselves in custody were always hungry. In fact there was always the danger of making custody too attractive – there were those who courted arrest for the chance of a night inside, with food on offer. As a result Captain Lazenby had recently reduced the bread allowance to three ounces; Giles had fought him on the point, although it was not really his place to do so. However, he got the quarter pound restored. He had done this by arguing it was quicker, easier and ultimately less wasteful to split a pound loaf into four. He had been surprised that Lazenby had let him have his day over it. Perhaps the reduction had already been making his conscience queasy and he had been grateful to have Giles object.

  “To understand crime, surely we have to understand the people who commit it?” Giles had said to him, aware he was speechifying. “And hunger is the commonest cause of petty crime. If we send them out again with their bellies full, they will perhaps desist from it at least for a little while.”

  He had gone away himself thinking that he did not really know how it might feel to be so hungry that he was tempted to steal just to satiate himself.

  Horatio Baxter was not hungry – he had lost his appetite. He was not a starving thief desperate for a crumb, even in the direst circumstances. He was a man who had admitted to murder, had been desperate to admit to it, but who refused to offer an explanation. Keeping to such a line would be like carrying a most exhausting burden, with no relief in sight except the hangman’s noose.

  Giles decided he would make him comfortable with coffee and a confiding tone. He would disconcert him with kindness.

  He went to speak to the Inspector in the duty office.

  “Get Baxter some hot water and some clean clothes. Shave him if that’s what he wants, but don’t leave him alone with a blade. I want the clothes he’s wearing labelled and put in the evidence room. Then take him upstairs to the interview room, by the Chief Constable’s office.”

  “Yes, of course, sir. I’ll arrange for one of the clerks as well, shall I, sir?”

  Giles nodded a
nd went upstairs.

  About twenty minutes later, Baxter was brought into the interview room, wearing a clean shirt and a pair of regulation trousers. He looked as if he had accepted the offer of a shave and although he was handcuffed, he held himself well. If he had been a recruit presenting himself, Giles would have been pleased at the sight of him. It was unfortunate that he had decided to join another sort of organisation entirely.

  Giles decided to risk removing the cuffs. He had shown no signs of resistance or flight. He unlocked and removed them himself, and he detected a flicker of surprise on Baxter’s face. The man then flexed his wrists and stretched his fingers, obviously glad to be free of the restraint.

  “I think things will go easier without those,” he said. “Sit down, won’t you? Coffee?”

  He poured out two cups and pushed one across the table to him, while taking up the other and sipping it.

  “What is this?” said Baxter.

  “You said you wanted to make your confession,” said Giles. “This is your chance.”

  Baxter nodded and took up the coffee. He drained the cup in one go and then grimaced.

  “Now, we have to begin with a few formalities,” said Giles. “Full name.”

  “Horatio Baxter.”

  “No other names?”

  “No.”

  “Place of birth?”

  “Kirkwhelland, Lancashire.”

  “Where is that near? I’m afraid I don’t know it.”

  “It’s by Carnforth. About five miles north.”

  “I see. Father’s occupation?”

  “What?”

  “His trade?”

  “Oh, farrier.”

  “Church or chapel?”

  He glanced over to Giles, puzzled again by the question. Giles repeated it. “Church, I suppose.”

  “Where you were magnificently baptised Horatio? After Nelson?”

  “Yes, sir. After the great Admiral. My dad –” he broke off.

  “Was an admirer. Yes, I understand. You didn’t take your grandfather’s name as well? That’s the usual thing, isn’t it?”

  Baxter hesitated and said, “Not in our family.” It was not said confidently. It had an air of invention about it.

  “Date of birth?” Giles said.

  “June seventeenth, eighteen twelve.”

  “And when did you come to Northminster, Mr Baxter?”

  “Last summer.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Mill hand.”

  “Mill hand? Where?”

  “Taylor and Webbs.”

  “Spinner or weaver?”

  “Spinner.”

  “There are no spinners at Taylor and Webb, Baxter. It’s a finishing house. And you don’t look like a mill hand.”

  “What does a mill hand look like?” countered Baxter.

  “Not so well built. You are used to having meat for your dinner, Baxter, not bread and broth. I don’t think it’s your line.”

  “It was just temporary,” he said, with a shrug. “Between things. A man takes what he can find.”

  “Very temporary since they don’t employ spinners. So do you have another trade? Farrier’s son that you are, you must have a bit of knowledge in that area.”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t take to his trade.”

  “What did you take to, then?” Giles said mildly.

  “Day labouring. Whatever I could get. Wherever. I’ve been about a bit. Here and there. Why does it matter?” he said. “I told you what I did –”

  “You have told me nothing of substance!” said Giles, getting up. “Nothing of the truth of it. Now, listen, you will answer my questions honestly, Baxter, all of them, or I will continue to ask them until Kingdom come! And why are you afraid of a few questions anyway, a great brute of a fellow like you?”

  “I’m not afraid, sir,” he said. “I know what I’ve done and I’m prepared to take what is due. If you want to hang me now, sir, you can!”

  “But I can’t, Baxter, that’s the point. I can’t even send you in front of the magistrate to utter your plea of guilty until you tell me the truth. If you want to hang, then you have to talk. And it seems to me you want to hang, though God knows why.”

  Baxter looked away, massaging his wrist and at the same time, folding and then straightening his fingers. In any other situation Giles would have thought he was about to attempt to strike him.

  “Just answer my questions,” he went on. “That will be the easiest way. Just question after question and then it will all be over, and you can find your peace. For that is what you want, I think. Peace.”

  There was a long silence and the man looked up at Giles.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “You can and you will,” said Giles. “But I am going to let you think on it for a while. You will see soon enough it is the right thing to do. And in the mean-time, you can think what you can tell me about this.” With which Giles took the drawing of the swallow tattoo and laid it on the table in front of Baxter. “We found this mark on the dead man’s shoulder. Just like the one on your shoulder which so disturbed you when I saw it.”

  Baxter pushed the paper away.

  “That’s got nothing to do with anything,” he said after a moment.

  “We will see about that,” said Giles.

  -o-

  Fairfaxes, on reflection, was perhaps not the best place for a discreet rendezvous. It was a large, fashionable shop, with a wide street in front of it, where a few carriages were usually drawn up.

  Giles chose to wait across the street a little before three. He saw Kate come up the street and go in. She had changed the dull shawl of the previous day for a less work-a-day item, but there was nothing about her appearance to attract any attention.

  The old codes of dress, which had clearly put all men and women in their particular place, were no longer to be relied upon. A respectable woman might dress like a woman of the streets, and vice versa.

  So he waited until she came out again and then made himself obvious to her, without actually hailing her. She passed him and then set off down one of the streets to the side of the shop. He followed her, and she slowed her pace to allow him to catch up.

  “This way,” he said, steering her to the entrance of a lane which issued into the street.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “No, I have to get back.”

  “You’re not going back. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s dangerous if I don’t go back. I was chancing it coming out today as it is. If I am not back within the hour –”

  “We need to talk, Kate, talk properly. If you want to help your man you have to talk to me, and that means you need to be away from that house. Yes?”

  “I have to go back.”

  “Well, you can’t, because I am going to arrest you for soliciting. I am taking you down to the Police House.” He reached for his cuffs. “I can walk you down there in these, like a common whore.”

  “No!” she said, looking horrified at the sight of them. “Don’t do that, for the Lord’s sake! If they find out that I was –” She broke off and Giles was pleased that his threat had hit the mark.

  “Then come with me quietly now. It will be for the best.”

  “They will come and find me.”

  “They won’t find you. I have taken precautions. You will be quite safe.”

  “I doubt it.”

  He led her up the lane and thence into Parkers Lane, behind West St. Here was a slip of a house, of four rooms only, for which Giles had only just got the keys from Mr Pye. He had been surprised that Giles wanted to rent such a humble property, but was obliging. “And not a word about it to anyone, Mr Pye, if you would,” Giles had said.

  “Naturally, sir.”

  Holt was waiting for them in the ground floor parlour that was furnished with two chairs and nothing else.

  “Not very cheerful, I’m afraid,” said Holt, as Kate looked around h
er.

  “Who is he?”

  “This is Holt. He is going to be keeping watch on you.”

  “A policeman?”

  “No, he’s my manservant.”

  “My gaoler,” she said.

  “You are used to those. Let’s go upstairs. It’s a little more comfortable there.”

  The stairs lay behind a door, and led up to a fair-sized room, with an old four poster bed in it. In one corner a door led to a tiny closet.

  “There are locks on all these doors. You will feel quite secure. There will be someone here at all times to keep watch. And no peep-holes.”

  “Anyone would think you were setting me up as your mistress,” she remarked, sitting down on the bed and stroking the faded print of the counterpane. “Except no girl I know would stand for this. It smells damp.”

  “It will be better once Holt gets the fires going. I don’t think anyone has lived here for a while.”

  “I can see why,” she said, wandering across to the window and lifting the dirty muslin curtain. “What sort of a view is that?”

  “I’ve seen worse. It’s better than the view from a cell. Think of your poor Baxter.”

  She spun round.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “I was talking to him this morning.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It’s what he did not say. He is, like you, reluctant to tell the truth.”

  “You don’t understand!” she exclaimed. “You can’t!”

  “I understand that you are tangled up in a net of untruths, the pair of you, and part of something very dark, something that threatens to destroy you both. Now, I am offering you a chance, Kate, think of that. A chance to get free.”

  She seemed to consider the point, walking up and down the room a couple of times, as if getting the measure of what he was saying.

  “I wish you had told me. I could have gone back for my things.”

  “Then you would never have come back,” he said. “And how would you have got away with your bonnet boxes and your stash?”