The Ghosts of Ardenthwaite (The Northminster Mysteries Book 5) Read online

  “What do you know about that?”

  “I can’t believe you don’t have an old stocking stuffed with tips, hidden away somewhere. You’re not stupid.”

  “And now I don’t, thanks to you!” she exclaimed. “I don’t have anything except the clothes I’m wearing.”

  “You have information, Kate, and you know the value of that. You wouldn’t have waited outside The Unicorn, or even spoken to me if you didn’t realise the value of what you know to someone like me. And, in material terms, you have what you have in your reticule there. I don’t suppose you ever shop in Fairfaxes on account.”

  “As if,” she muttered and turned away back to the window. “Do you think you can do it?” she said. “Bring them all down?”

  “I don’t know,” said Giles. “But it sounds as if someone should try.”

  “I hope you know what you are doing,” she said. “Or else we are all damned, that’s for certain.”

  He left her and went downstairs to Holt.

  “Watch yourself with her, Holt,” he said. “She is a tricksy creature to say the least.”

  “I can see that, sir,” said Holt. “I suppose she tricked you.”

  “Careful now, Holt!” Giles said.

  “Sorry, sir,” said Holt, looking not at all reproved and highly amused. Giles let it pass. Holt’s free manner was, in truth, one of his many virtues.

  “So, sir,” Holt went on. “What am I to say when I’m asked? That she’s a –”

  “That she’s my mistress,” said Giles.

  Holt frowned.

  “Are you sure, sir? That will stick badly, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “That’s a risk I’m prepared to take,” said Giles. “Now remember what I said. She is not to leave alone, nor talk to anyone. You have everything you need at present, I think?”

  “Yes, I think we are pretty settled. Mr Wilkes at The Black Bull is sending over some supplies. It’s going to cost you a pretty penny this caper, though, sir. He was looking very askance.”

  “You need some more money, then?” said Giles reaching into his pocket.

  “Don’t worry, sir, I shall keep a proper note of it all, just as you told me,” Holt said, pocketing the coins.

  The door to the staircase banged open then, to reveal Kate, wrapping her shawl tightly around her.

  “I thought you said something about a fire,” she said.

  “Just getting to it, ma’am,” said Holt. “Coal or wood? What’s your fancy?”

  “What do I care?” she retorted. “Just get the fire going, will you? If I have to stay here, then I might as well be comfortable.”

  “I’m glad you are resigned to it,” said Giles, but was not at all sure she was. While Holt went upstairs with the coal bucket, she walked about the ground floor room, with the air of a trapped animal. Then she turned and rushed towards the door to the street.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Giles said, blocking her way. “I don’t want to find you dead in a ditch.”

  “I’m as good as dead now!” she said, attempting to dodge past him, but he caught her by the forearms and turned her back towards the staircase.

  “Upstairs,” he said. “If you please.”

  He had to force her, and it was a most undignified process. She resisted all the way, and although he had the better of her in strength, her desperation made her fierce. In the end they stumbled into the upstairs room together, with her falling to her knees, with a cry of frustration, and Giles almost falling on top of her.

  “Oh, I do hope you bloody know what you are about,” she said, getting to her feet, attempting to reassume her dignity. “You may think you do, but I’m telling you –” She broke off and stomped across the room, and threw herself down on the bed. “Let me be, will you!”

  “With pleasure,” said Giles, signalling to Holt.

  They locked the door behind them.

  Giles left wondering if Holt would need reinforcements to guard her and if he had better not give Captain Lazenby a full account of what evidence he had gleaned and get the affair onto a more legitimate footing. Kate was certainly a valuable witness and he felt sure that she and Baxter together would lead them to the heart of the organisation. Their reticence suggested that they were involved at the highest level.

  He was not sure if Lazenby would agree with his strategy, let alone with the way he had improvised it without any higher consultation. He was an excellent man, of course, and he liked to keep the pounds and shillings very straight, which was as it should be for a man in his position. However, Lazenby was not particularly imaginative and was very much one for doing everything by the book. He had not yet, Giles suspected, fully embraced the need for intelligence work, nor even specialised detective officers within the constabulary. Giles had not yet pressed him for more money and resources, though he was conscious he ought, for the sake of his own operations, to assert himself. Perhaps these discoveries were the moment to do that. The situation was grave enough to warrant it.

  He mused on this, and how he might effectively present his case, as he walked back past Fairfaxes, towards the Minster by way of Angel Street, intending to call briefly on his sister. But as he reached the gate to the Precincts, he saw two familiar figures coming down towards him – namely, Lambert’s brother-in-law, Edward Fforde and Lord Milburne.

  “Major Vernon,” said Lord Milburne, enthusiastically shaking his hand. “How very good to see you.”

  “I didn’t know you were expected, my Lord. The pleasure is all mine. And good to see you as well, sir,” Giles said, shaking Edward Fforde’s hand in turn.

  “A rather impromptu visit,” said Dr Fforde. “For various reasons.”

  “We were just going to the bookseller,” said Edward Fforde. “I wanted a copy of Perry’s new book of Essays. He has a very good stock, I find.”

  “It’s for my mother,” Lord Milburne said. “She hasn’t read it yet. Have you, sir?”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Giles said. “I have to confess I have not even heard of it.”

  “It has sold out in Oxford,” Lord Milburne. “I hoped we might lay our hands on a copy here. I lent mine to a friend and Dr Fforde has left his in college.”

  “Oxford is agreeing with you, then?” said Giles.

  “It is,” Milburne broke off, grinning with pleasure.

  “A notable success,” Dr Fforde said. “Charles has been put up for the Wenlock Prize. Quite an honour for a first year undergraduate, and none of my doing. I could not make a nomination in the circumstances. It would not have been ethical given the connection –”

  “Give that you are to be my stepfather,” Lord Milburne said and grinned broadly again. “There, Major Vernon, that is the great news. The reason for our visit. And it is excellent news, is it not?”

  “Not quite the only reason,” said Dr Fforde, “but the principal one, yes. Mrs Maitland has done me the honour of agreeing to be my wife.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I am just going down to see Captain Lazenby,” Major Vernon said. “I want to have my thoughts straight. Do you have anything further for me?”

  “I have some ideas. But I want to go back to Ardenthwaite and talk to the Colonel again. Also, the place would merit a thorough search.”

  “My thoughts entirely. We will go tomorrow first thing, if that is convenient.”

  “Very. The earlier the better. That is the best time for a mushroom hunt.”

  “Mushrooms? You think mushrooms were the cause of this?”

  “It’s a strong possibility. There were mushrooms in that fricassee, were there not?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “Mushrooms are the innocent perpetrators of much misery,” said Felix. “They are quite a fascinating subject, all in all. Fortunately, Handley had this gem in stock. It’s in German so I was struggling a little with my translation, but I think I have the gist of it.”

  “He really is an excellent bookseller,” said Major Vernon. He opened the
fly leaf and saw the price. “Not cheap, though.”

  “I think I’m keeping the place going,” said Carswell. “When I last settled my account it was about half the rent on Ardenthwaite. Half the time he seems to order in advance what he knows I might want. And of course he is very excited about the prospect of the University. That will make his fortune.”

  “He should be asked to be a founder,” said Major Vernon, looking through the book. “These illustrations – how accurate are they?”

  “Very, I trust. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just at first glance, these things look so similar. How is one to tell one from the other, unless you are a great expert?”

  “That is exactly my point. It is ignorance – admittedly of a difficult subject – that causes most of the mushroom-related poisonings. We are lucky, to be frank, that we are not dead. There is a morass of toxicity here. For example, if Mostyn, the Colonel’s man, had chosen to add this one to our fricassee in error, mistaking it for a chanterelle, we should all be in our graves already.”

  “All of us who ate it, that is,” said Major Vernon. “I cannot for the life of me remember if the Colonel took any. And that is the whole question here. Was there malicious intent or was this simply accidental?”

  “Quite,” said Felix. “For here we come to the really interesting thing. There is a class of mushroom that is known in both scientific circles and in popular lore to cause extraordinary effects on the human imagination. There are primitive tribes where they deliberately eat certain mushrooms so that they may feel closer to their gods. They believe that the mushrooms allow them to see the world of the spirits. At least I think this is what it says. It is all in this footnote here, but my German is so poor that I am a little uncertain I have got this entirely correct.”

  “You should give it to Mrs Maitland, then,” said Major Vernon. “She’s at my sister’s house at the moment.”

  “She is?” Felix said, a little surprised.

  “Yes, and Lord Milburne. They came back from Oxford with Dr Fforde. Mrs Maitland and Fforde are going to be married.”

  “Good Lord,” said Felix. “And what do you feel about that, sir?” he ventured, thinking how he had felt on hearing Mr O’Brien’s news of Sukey.

  “It is not my business to feel anything about it. Of course, it’s a good match for them both. Milburne is clearly delighted with him as a stepfather and Fforde is a wealthy man, eminently respectable and almost her equal in intelligence. She will be the making of him. You’ll have heard he is tipped to be the principal of the new University, I’m sure?”

  “I had not.”

  “Lord Rothborough is backing it.”

  “Then it will –” Felix broke off. “Good match or not, it can’t be pleasant for you to hear of it.”

  “She will be happy and well settled,” he said. “That is all that can be said. And she will translate your German for you, I am sure. You can take it over to her tonight. We are asked there after dinner, remember?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Felix, sensing that the subject was closed. Major Vernon tapped the book with his finger and said, “So which of these are mushrooms that make us see spirits? Is that what we are dealing with? Do such things grow here?”

  “It is quite possible. And the whole trick of such substances is the manner in which they are taken. The element of suggestion is apparently very important in these primitive religions. You are told what you are expected to see and then you see it.”

  “Is it perhaps like when one goes to the theatre?” Major Vernon said. “An absurd story can be accepted as real, and there are lights and music, and so forth.”

  “Exactly, exactly! We were told stories, were we not? We were told there were ghosts, and I saw them, because of whatever it was in that fricassee.”

  “Which suggests that the mushrooms were introduced deliberately,” said Major Vernon. “Especially as the dish was placed between you and me, and not near the Colonel. He would have had to ask for it had he wanted to take any, which he did not.”

  “No, he definitely did not. And I ate most of the dish, and I was the one most strongly affected, at least in the first instance. I saw one creature who was plainly not there, and then mistook a living creature for the Queen of the Fairies. Although in my defence, what she was doing roaming about the woods on her pony at that time in the morning, without a groom to attend her, I don’t know, given she turns out to be a respectable young woman.”

  “Then that must be some sort of comfort to you.”

  “I think it is, but I should rather it had been the Queen of the Fairies that saw me raving in only my shirt, rather than the daughter of some friend of Lord Rothborough’s.”

  “You saw her again at the Guildhall, then?”

  “Yes. And mercifully, she doesn’t want me to say a word about having seen her there, but it makes me wonder again what she was doing there in the first place. And it was on my land, I am sure of that much.”

  “Your land?” said Major Vernon with a slight smile.

  “I have quite fallen into the way of that, haven’t I?” said Felix. “I am a reed in the wind. Yes, indeed, on my land, which may have these clever mushrooms growing on it. We’ll go tomorrow and see.”

  -o-

  “I’m sorry for the way this has happened, Giles,” said Mrs Fforde, on the landing outside her drawing room, which was already busy with her guests. “I meant to come and tell you – and then – it was all such a surprise to us. I think she is a little embarrassed, to tell you the truth, for it is not like Ned to be so impetuous. He never usually arrives without a proclamation in advance of him.”

  “It does not matter, Sal,” said Major Vernon.

  “If you are sure?”

  “Quite,” he said, but Mrs Fforde did not look very convinced, and in truth neither was Felix. Major Vernon went on. “Now, who else is here? Is the Bishop here yet? You have quite a crush. You must be pleased.”

  “I’m not sure he will actually come. Though he did say they would come this morning. Lord Rothborough and Lady Maria are here, as you can see. We are unexpectedly dazzling, are we not?”

  “Then probably the Bishop won’t like it,” said Major Vernon, “from what I have heard of him.”

  “You may have something there. But I’m determined they will be persuaded to enjoy themselves. If they cannot, I will consider myself a great failure as a hostess.”

  “They will be, I am sure; no one could resist you, Sal. Nor the curd tarts.”

  “There is no sin in a curd tart,” said Mrs Fforde. “That would be tortuous theology.”

  “I’m sure Edward could set the Bishop straight on that if necessary.”

  “That would be excellent if he could. For he will need to be firm if he is to conquer him, and that will be required if he is to get the job. Bishop Hughes is of course in favour of a low church candidate. A Cambridge man, I have heard.” Sally sighed. “The old Bishop would not like that. He wanted a Salvator’s man.That is the whole point.” She turned to Felix and took his hand. “Enough of that. Now, I hope you are prepared to dance every dance, Mr Carswell. I have a great many handsome young women tonight looking for competent partners. I can promise you reels as well as quadrilles, for I know you have a taste for those. And you too, Giles – there will be no excuse for you not standing up frequently. You’re not too old.”

  “Only if you will promise to dance a quadrille with me, Sally,” said Major Vernon.

  “I should be delighted. It has been too long since we danced together. Now you must excuse me; I must go and see to the musicians.”

  “If I didn’t know any better,” said Major Vernon, “I would think my sister was making a point insisting on having dancing tonight. And if anyone can make a bishop dance, it is she, don’t you think?”

  “He would not dare refuse her,” said Felix, leaving his copy of ‘European Fungi’ on a side table in the hall, and surveying the crowd while the Major plunged in. He was not sure he was in the
mood for dancing, but he knew could not disappoint Mrs Fforde, and the truth was that enjoyment, in some form or other, would steal up on him, as it often did at the Treasurer’s House. He only hoped he could remember all the figures of whatever quadrilles were chosen – it was a tricky business at the best of times. He decided he would ask Lady Maria to dance, if she was not already completely engaged, for she would be kind enough to discreetly remind him of the figures.

  He saw her standing with Lord Rothborough, who beckoned him over at once. She was, as he had guessed, already engaged for the first dance with Lord Milburne, but he secured her for a reel.

  “You should ask Miss Blanchfort,” said Lady Maria. “I do not think she has a partner for the first dance. I will present you, if you like? If I present you, no one can object, after all.”

  “Is she likely to object?” said Felix, noticing that Lord Rothborough had frowned. “I have no wish to be objected to!”

  “Lady Blanchfort can be a little inflexible,” said Lord Rothborough.

  “So inflexible, it seems, that poor Miss Blanchfort will have no partners at all,” Lady Maria said. “She is objecting to everyone. It is very uncivil to accept Mrs Ffordes’ invitation, Papa, and then not allow her daughter to speak to anyone, let alone dance. Why is she here, then?”

  “You are right, Maria, she is uncivil. Yes, you should try your arm, Felix,” said Lord Rothborough. “After all, Nell Blanchfort is a pretty girl, going to waste sitting in there with the old maids. I tell you what we shall do. I will engage the mother and you shall take on the young lady. Lady Blanchfort will not dare to refuse to dance with me. No, certainly she will not,” he added, with a smile.

  “Goodness, Papa, you sound as if you have something to threaten her with,” said Lady Maria.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “Come, let us go and arrange this. Mrs Fforde is already assembling her sets.”

  Felix was dubious about this entire scheme given that it seemed to promise nothing but a nasty dose of drawing room humiliation for him. But Lord Rothborough was confident and determined, and so Felix submitted.

  They turned into the adjoining sitting room, the haunt of the elderly ladies who always adorned these occasions, reminding Felix of the arrangements of autumn leaves that his mother loved to put about the house. Tonight, however, this gentle harmony was disrupted by the glittering splendour of Lady Blanchfort and her daughter, who were, as far as Felix could judge, overdressed for Northminster society. Lady Blanchfort was wearing diamonds, and her daughter pearls, and their pale, low-cut dresses dripped with lace. This was striking enough, but it was the resemblance between mother and daughter which he now saw with full force. At the Guildhall their bonnets had disguised it. Both had the same brilliant copper-red hair, Lady Blanchfort’s only slightly dulled with age, and the same delicate physique and that remarkable porcelain-like skin. They looked like a pair of human-sized dolls, sitting on a window seat, the mother’s arm protectively tucked into that of her daughter. Felix wondered whether this was an attempt at human disguise again. Was Lady Blanchfort the real Queen of the Fae and Miss Blanchfort a rebellious princess riding in the woods at dawn? Their appearance seemed so strange to him.