Circle of Shadows (35 page)

‘Perhaps that was enough.’

Daniel was quiet a long time. ‘Do you think me a fool, Rachel?’

‘No, but I think we have both been foolish, don’t you?’

‘I think I have married a clever woman.’

‘Of course you have, but perhaps not very wise. Daniel … that letter you wrote to me the morning after you had been arrested …’

‘I apologise for it, Rachel. It fell from me – no wonder you thought me deranged, that you were frightened of me.’

‘No, Daniel, that’s just it. It was a little wild, but my dear I should have said this the moment that I came to see you at Castle Grenzhow …’

‘But I behaved as if you were a stranger making a social call. I wanted to let you see I was no longer mad, or at least that I had some control.’

‘I know, darling, and I was a fool not to tell you to stop being an idiot then, but I was so afraid for you. But let me finish: when you spoke in that letter of me being disgusted with you, frightened of you, I swear to you, Daniel, it was never so. The drug made you think such things. I have always loved and trusted you.’ She twisted round so she could look up into his face, hopeful, unafraid. ‘Darling, whatever strangeness has marked the beginning of our marriage, I swear there has never been a single moment where I have been frightened of you, or disgusted by you. I swear it, Daniel, on those five children Jocasta has promised us.’

He got down on his knees beside her and took her in his arms.

T
HE AUDIENCE BEGAN TO
make its way into the supper chamber. Harriet took Crowther’s arm and turned to the Colonel.

‘What happened to the lady?’ she asked. ‘The one whose son was taken away?’

Colonel Padfield shook his head. ‘I haven’t a clue, madam. I am afraid I have told you all I know of the matter. One moment – Doctor von Reymen?’

The Duke’s physician turned towards them and Padfield continued in French. His words were fluent enough, but spoken with an English accent so uncompromising, Harriet felt herself smile. ‘Do you remember the story of that young woman who wanted to run off with the violinist? Mrs Westerman has just asked me how the story ended. I have had to confess, I don’t know.’

Von Reymen came closer to them and looked about him as he approached, as if delighted to be observed in conversation with them. Harriet was sure she and Crowther would do nothing to enhance Reymen’s reputation. The Colonel’s stock, however, was obviously on the rise.

‘Ah yes! I remember it well. You must always come to me for the tittle-tattle,
mon
Colonel, I have been at Ludwig’s side so long. Kastner was the lady’s name. The fiddler Bertolini. Well, I say Lady. Her French was not well, not well at all. She was sent away and her son, Carl, was enrolled at the Ludwigsschule, here in Ulrichsberg.’

‘Was she never allowed to visit him?’ Harriet asked.

‘She might have been in time. But after the first year, there was no one to visit! An outbreak of fever came to the town and the child was one of the eight who died. Very sad, of course, he was a brave little chap. But no doubt she was glad of his death – so much easier to find a new rich protector without a child.’

Harriet clenched her jaw. It was probably a good thing that Crowther intervened to ask, ‘You attended the child? Did he tell you nothing of his mother?’

‘It was a terrible time, milord. I had no time to chat to him, there were so many taken ill. Now there was a man, the drawing master … Durnham – Dreher, that was it! He must have taken a liking to the boy, since one often found him at the bedside. None of the other masters seemed to think the child would amount to much.’

Harriet closed her eyes, thinking of her son Stephen, the terrors she had felt whenever he was ill, and the death of her first child half a world away. The memory of it still lay vivid and black in the core of her.

‘Mrs Westerman?’

She opened her eyes to look at Crowther and he nodded to the far corner of the room. Krall was standing by the double doors, waiting for them to notice him. His brows were drawn tightly together.

Crowther bowed towards her. ‘I think you may have to change your dress again, Mrs Westerman.’

Krall had told them only that Adolphus Glucke had been found dead; he then waited in their private parlour, staring ferociously at the fire as Harriet and Crowther dressed to leave the palace. Harriet did not speak to Dido as she changed her clothes. She tried to remember what had happened since she first dressed that day in the darkness: Countess Dieth found, her mouth full of earth and her ring with the owl symbol missing; Clode’s release and the discovery of Swann staggering and senseless in the garden. A fragment of the aria Manzerotti had sung had stuck, repeating itself in her brain, and again and again she saw the image of a young boy dying of fever and separated from his mother.

Adolphus Glucke was not provided with an apartment in court, but in common with several other senior members of the Privy Council, his house was only a short stroll from the grounds. There he had lived with his books and scores, unmarried, a little aloof but devoted to the service of the Duke and Maulberg. His home was one of the first in Neue Strasse, a tall, narrow building that reminded Crowther of those built in Soho Square or Portland Place for families coming to spend the season in Town, and not concerned if they were a little cramped. The height of the frontage gave Crowther the impression he was being looked down upon. He turned; the view was much the same that he had first had of the palace, yet, set to the west of the marketplace as it was, Glucke’s house seemed to be looking at it slightly askance. The street was dark and quiet, and Krall hurried them up the steps and into the hallway, glancing about him as he did so. At the bottom of a steep internal staircase was a small group of people. Krall barked and glowered, and it was established with reasonable quickness that they were Glucke’s housekeeper, who had discovered him, and her daughter and son-in-law to whom she had run; also the member of the Watch, who had just begun his work of singing out the hours and Biblical quotes when she gave him the news. Mr Glucke’s footman was the last of the group.

‘Has the body been touched?’ Krall asked. Crowther began to translate the exchanges from German to English for Mrs Westerman.

The son-in-law stepped forward. ‘We didn’t like to, sir. All looks so strange we weren’t sure what to do beyond call the Watch.’

‘You did well, son. Right, one step at a time. Mistress Schneider, tell me what happened. Start at the start and go slow.’

Mistress Schneider smoothed her apron and wet her lips. For some reason Crowther liked her. She seemed young to have a daughter full-grown and married. He was reminded of his own housekeeper and wondered, briefly, how she did.

‘Shall I start in the morning, sir?’ she said.

‘Whenever you think best,’ Krall replied, lifting his eyebrows.

‘Mr Glucke was at court, as he always is in the mornings with the Privy Council, when there was a great banging at the door. I opened it to find old Mr Kupfel on the doorstep.’

‘The Alchemist?’ Harriet whispered to Crowther. He nodded but kept his eye on the housekeeper.

‘Did he visit here often, mistress?’ Krall asked.

She hesitated. ‘He used to, sir, but these last years it’s been more his son that comes. Not in the morning, though.’

‘Mr Glucke buy a lot of face potions, did he?’

She shook her head, unsmiling. ‘Young Mr Kupfel has done very well, sir. He is even spoken of as a future Mayor of Ulrichsberg. Mr Glucke was often visited by the better people in town, those who have not the rank to attend court.’

Krall scratched the back of his head. ‘I understand you, mistress. But it was Adam Kupfel came this morning? Do you know what his business was?’

‘He wouldn’t share with me, now would he? No, all I know is he seemed to have worked himself into a rage. He said he’d wait for Mr Glucke in the study, and beyond getting me to give him a plate of something hot, that was all his talk with me, and even that cost him so much twitching and sneering you’d think I was a dog not to be trusted without a muzzle.’

‘How long did he wait?’

‘It was an hour till Mr Glucke came back – so early in the afternoon. Then there were voices raised.’

‘Raised loud enough for you to make any sense of what was said?’

‘Two words only from Kupfel. My master always spoke low. They were “thieves”, and “fools”. I thought maybe the children had been rifling through Kupfel’s junk again.’

‘And then?’

‘Kupfel stormed out in the same mood he arrived in. I gave my master his meal.’

‘He did not dine in court?’

‘He only sups there from time to time, sir. The food is too rich for him. The food
was
too rich for him,’ she corrected herself. ‘The master asked me to come in and clear away his plate, then he went down to the cats.’

Crowther stopped translating and looked at Krall with his eyebrows raised. The District Officer sighed and turned to them. ‘Mr Glucke was a scholar, but he had his quirks. He had a fancy for cats – used to have them in the study while he worked. Unsanitary, I always thought it, though they are pretty enough. He’s always had a dozen or so of them at any one time.’

‘Ah yes,’ Harriet said to herself. ‘The mechanical mice.’

‘Then what?’ Krall said to the housekeeper.

‘Then nothing, District Officer. I knew he was going back to court in the evening, but time was getting close for his usual hour of leaving, and there was no sign or sound of him. I knocked and got no answer, so I went into the garden round at the back and looked in through the window. I could see him sitting there, but he didn’t move when I knocked. The only things that were moving were the cats, and they seemed …’

‘Seemed what, mistress?’

‘Seemed strange, sir. They were all gathered round him. I thought he was ill so I fetched my son-in-law here to help William knock down the door, and then we saw …’

‘So the door to the study was locked from within?’ Crowther asked.

‘With the key left in the lock. The garden door was locked too, though there was no key in that.’

‘Thank you, mistress,’ Krall said slowly. ‘I think it best if we go to the study now.’

Crowther did not move. ‘Madam, this may sound a little unusual, but did your master have anything with an owl on it?’

The housekeeper frowned and was shaking her head, when the footman touched her shoulder and whispered to her.

‘Of course – on his watch, sir. On the case.’

‘Thank you.’

‘The cats?’ Krall said suspiciously.

‘Still there, sir. We left the door to the garden open, thinking they’d be off, but they don’t seem to want to leave him.’

Adolphus Glucke was seated in the centre of the room; he had been a thin man in late middle age. With a slight shock Harriet realised he was the man she had seen during their first evening in Ulrichsberg, the one who had reminded her of Crowther. His body had slid forward slightly in the chair and his head was tilted back. He could have been sleeping off his beer on a tavern bench, except his left hand was covered in blood. On his lap was curled a large snow-white cat. Another wound its way in a regular figure of eight between his feet. The room seemed full of white fur and a low throb of purring. Krall entered first. Harriet and Crowther followed more slowly, looking about them at the unfamiliar chamber. It was smallish and square. The wooden floor was covered with red and black rugs, a little threadbare in places. Three walls were covered in books. The fourth was dominated by a French window; the night air blew softly in through it, carrying the scents of the garden. Tasteful, forgettable landscapes hung either side of it. The desk had its back to the light.

Crowther crossed to the body and looked into Glucke’s upturned face. The cat on his lap turned its head towards him, put back its ears and hissed. Crowther ignored it. Glucke’s mouth was filled with earth. It was as if the head had been held back in its current position and the dry soil poured in until it overflowed round his cheeks, leaving a haze of particles over the skin. Around the eyes it was darker, as if it had turned to mud. Crowther felt a chill run through him; the man had been crying as he died. One of the cats was pushing against Glucke’s hanging hand as if wanting to be stroked. Crowther hoped they had been this close to him as he died, that somewhere under his suffering he had felt their comfort.

‘It is the same,’ he said.

She was standing by the window.

‘The killer must have come and gone through the garden,’ she replied after a pause. ‘I wonder why Glucke let him in.’

‘Someone he knew, must be,’ Krall said.

‘Someone he did not think could be a threat,’ Harriet added. ‘Crowther, could you close the door?’

He moved away from the body to do so, and the cat on the body’s lap settled again and began to knead the thigh of the corpse, purring. The same symbol was chalked on the white paint of the door. Triangle, circle of seven spokes.

‘He has done it,’ Crowther said. ‘Unless Swann survives. Seven wine glasses, seven spokes. Seven victims. His work is done.’

‘Or she,’ Harriet said softly. ‘But Swann has not been bled.’

Krall looked around the room, following the progress of another of the cats over the top of the mantelpiece. ‘I shall have a look along the path. Perhaps the killer dropped a visiting card, though more like I shall just find the key to the garden door thrown into the shrubbery.’

Crowther heard the hopelessness in the man’s voice. ‘We will find who did this, Krall. He will make a mistake, leave a mark behind he doesn’t mean to.’

‘Perhaps. But this … A disgusting, humiliating way to die.’

Crowther had no comfort to offer. ‘Were you acquainted with Glucke?’

‘A little. I believe he recommended me as District Officer in Oberbach when I handed my business on to my son-in-law.’

His tone suggested he had no more to say on that. Instead he ran his hand through his hair. ‘It all comes too fast. I must speak to Colonel Padfield and Count Frenzel immediately.’

‘But first we must go straight to Kupfel and discover why he was so angry this morning,’ Crowther said.