Death at Bishop's Keep (37 page)

He frowned. Observance, indeed. So observant that Miss Ardleigh's sharp eye had caught him in the act of taking surreptitious photographs. Oddly, he had not minded being found out, but had been intrigued. Other women of his acquaintance saw little beyond what they expected, or more precisely, were expected to see. But Miss Ardleigh seemed to cultivate the habit of observant inquiry. He recalled the first day they met, when her attention to his photos and fingerprints had been more than that strictly required by social convention. She seemed genuinely fascinated by things that were not normally of interest to women. He had even thought that, with the proper cultivation, her interests might encourage between them a bond of friendship. But that was now quite out of the question, after what had happened yesterday.

He had developed the photographs, as he promised, and had ridden with them to Bishop's Keep. He told himself that he merely planned to drop them off, but in the depths of his being he felt a secret anticipation at the opportunity of seeing this unconventional woman again and perhaps even having private conversation with her. He had even considered the possibility of—

But Charles had forgotten what he might have considered, for his visit to Bishop's Keep had proved the undoing of all possibility. Now, he only recalled how he had been greeted at the door with the news of the death of her two aunts. And how shortly after that he had managed somehow to inspire her anger, and she to awaken his irritation. Her insistence on hearing his theory of fungal poisoning—which he had scarcely formulated to himself and was not at all ready to share with another—had seemed unreasonably abrupt, even rude, exactly what he would have expected from a red-haired American woman of Irish parentage. Well-bred women did not as a rule demand to know the thoughts of casual acquaintances; to do so suggested an equality of intellect and experience to which they would hardly pretend. They were deferential, respectful; they did not contradict. Yes, indeed; her outburst had greatly irritated him. It had even—yes, it had even insulted him.

Still, perhaps he should make allowances. Miss Ardleigh certainly had uncommon reason to display emotion on that day; in fact, now that he thought of it, he was surprised that she had not shown more. Most women, in the tragic circumstance of losing two beloved aunts, would have been totally incapacitated with grief. Indeed, the strain on her must have been extraordinary. At the time of their conversation, she was acting as mistress. She was probably well within her rights to know the actions of visitors with regard to her servants and on her property.

Her property? It suddenly dawned on Charles that he had heard of no other close relatives. Could she be, was she the last Ardleigh? He frowned. If this was indeed so, some might construe the mysteries of the deaths in a distinctly unfavorable way. In fact, Miss Ardleigh was perhaps fortunate that the cook had been so ready a suspect. Without that, Miss Ardleigh might well have found herself in that position. And if it proved that Mrs. Pratt was indeed not the killer—

Charles did not wish to follow this line of inquiry. His horse had just passed the old half-timbered house that still bore the scars of the Civil War siege 250-odd years before. He crossed over the River Colne on East Bridge, and rode up East Hill Street, which rose at a sharp angle up to the crest where the ruins of the castle stood. Begun during the time of William the Conqueror, the castle had been a royal fortress and royal prison (a certain Sir Thomas Malory was said to have been rescued therefrom in 1454), and then a baronial residence. It now was in private hands, although he understood that there was a move afoot to purchase it for the borough and make it into some sort of museum.

He paused for a moment and looked at the massive stone walls. When construction of the keep began in 1076, various Roman ruins must still have been visible, especially that of the Temple of Claudius, where the defenders of the town the Romans called Camulodunum had made their final stand against Queen Boadicea and her Icenian army in the first century. Boadicea. Ah! there was a woman. Her passion and zest for life, her warlike power, shone through the darkness of those early centuries with all the fervor and flame of a fire-brand. There were no women of that sort now, and it was a pity. Or, if there were, they struck one as abrasive, unmannerly—

He abandoned that sentence and returned to the thought he had originally meant to pursue before he had been sidetracked by Boadicea. It was a thought of which Tennyson would have approved, or Arnold, some vague reflection on the inexorable, inescapable round of life and death, and the unfortunate truth that there was little justice to be had in either. A few minutes later he was entering the Colchester police station.

“Good morning,” he said to Sergeant Battle, who was crouching over the desk in the outer office, a pen in his heavy hand, an inkpot at his elbow, and a pile of papers before him.

The sergeant gave him a dark look. “Mornin',” he returned shortly. Charles remembered that his last visit had begun on just such a sour note. Obviously, Inspector Wainwright's pessimism was infectious. Sergeant Battle had caught it.

With a determined cheerfulness, Charles related his reason for coming and asked the sergeant to inform the inspector. While he waited, he sat in a chair by the window and surveyed the room, which held little of interest other than a blurred photograph of the castle, a fanciful etching of Balkerne Gate in the time of the Romans, and a framed citation from the Borough Council for exemplary and heroic police effort. His gaze finally came to rest on a somewhat shabby valise sitting on the floor beside the sergeant's desk. It was a well-traveled leather bag, of the sort that might be owned by a man of the middle class. It appeared to have a monogram engraved on the clasp. Having nothing else to look at, Charles went to the valise and knelt. The initials on the clasp were A.M.

The sergeant reentered the room and immediately stumbled over Charles. He scowled. “ 'F I may inquire, sir, is there somethin' about that valise wot int'rests you?”

Charles rose. “How did you come by it?”

“Mrs. Grogan.”

“Mrs. Grogan?”

The sergeant sat down and resentfully picked up his pen. “She owns a boardin' house on King Street.”

“Why did she bring it here?”

The sergeant dipped his pen in the inkpot. “Owner left it.”

“Have you examined the contents?”

“I've more important things t' do than fiddle th' lock on somebody's valise.” The sergeant began to write with great industry. “Inspector says fer you t' show yerself in.”

Charles stood looking down at the sergeant, wondering how he would react if the inkpot at his elbow were to leap suddenly to the floor. He pushed that unworthy thought out of his mind. “Right, then. I'll just speak with the inspector.”

“Good, sir,” the sergeant said, signing his name with a flourish and beginning on another paper. “You just do that.”

The inspector was not writing; he was reading. Apparently, the stack of reports that began on Sergeant Battle's desk ended on Wainwright's table. It was a moment before he put down the paper and looked up.

“Battle says you know something about the ring.”

“I do.” Charles took out the telegram, unfolded it, and handed it to the inspector, who scanned the yellow sheet with his lower lip stuck out. After a moment he laid it down.

“Cryptographer?” He scowled. “What the bloody hell was a cryptographer doing in Colchester? Some kind of spy, was he?”

“I doubt that,” Charles replied. It was an interesting idea, though; if true, it would add an extra fillip of intrigue to the case. “I have been developing a theory that the man's death was in some way related to a secret society known as the Order of the Golden Dawn. Its insignia is a peacock feather.”

“Is it, now?” The inspector's voice held an edge of sarcasm.

“Yes,” Charles replied evenly. “But there is another lead which may prove more productive at the moment. If I am not altogether mistaken, you have just come into possession of the dead man's valise.”

The inspector's eyes narrowed.

“The proprietor of a boardinghouse on King Street has delivered to you the unclaimed luggage of a boarder. The initials on the clasp are A.M.”

Wainwright's look was that of a man betrayed. “Battle!” he thundered.

The sergeant materialized in the doorway. “Sir!”

“Did someone bring in a valise?”

The sergeant stiffened. “Yessir.”

“Why wasn't I told?”

“It just got 'ere. I thought 'twas a reg'lar unclaimed bag.”

Wainwright glared.
“Don't think.
Fetch it here, at the double.”

Sergeant Battle returned forthwith, valise in hand, and set it on the inspector's table. The inspector examined the monogram and tried the clasp. It was locked. He spoke between his teeth. “Don't stand there like a stork, Battle. Bring something to force this.”

A moment later the sergeant was back with a large screwdriver. The inspector inserted it under the clasp, which obligingly popped open. Neatly arranged within the valise were several shirts and sets of undergarments, two fresh collars, a pair of silver-backed brushes, and a thick leather-bound volume with gilt lettering on the spine.

The inspector leafed through the book and handed it to Charles. “Codes,” he grunted. “Ciphers. Definitely a spy.”

“Actually,” Charles said, looking at the title page, “the book is a treatise on cuneiform writing, in French. Monet must have been interested not only in codes and ciphers, but in the pre-Hellenic languages of the Middle East.” He paused, his eye caught by a passage in the text. “Fascinating, this. Here is a translation of the tablet of King Nabu-Apalidinna, from Sippar. Seventh century B.C. Neo-Babylonian. I examined it recently in the British Museum, but I didn't have a clue as to what it said.”

The inspector was thumbing through a slim black book he had taken from a pocket inside the valise. He tossed it on the desk, vexed. “More codes and gibble-gabber.”

With some regret, Charles put down the cuneiform text and picked up the black book. “This is in French also.”

Sergeant Battle brightened. “A
French
spy.”

“It appears to be the business diary of a Monsieur Armand Monet, 17 Rue du Pont, Paris.” Charles leafed quickly through the pages, scanning the tidy, dated notes. The man wrote a clean hand and kept detailed records of his activities.

The inspector glared. “Well?”

“Monsieur Monet was an exceedingly busy man.” Charles turned several pages. “He seems to have become involved with the Ahathoor Temple of the Order of the Golden Dawn in the spring of last year. That is the temple in Paris,” he added in explanation, and then murmured “ah,” as he found a name he recognized. “It appears that Monet was also a friend of Mathers.”

“Mathers? Who the devil is that?” The inspector was obviously not pleased to receive such a lot of new information, so thoroughly out of order and disconnected, and not in the form of a written report.

“Chief of the Paris temple. Give me a moment, if you please.” Charles leafed through the book until the pages became blank, then leafed backward for several pages and began to ready Monet's notes. “It appears that Monet was in Colchester at Mathers's request,” he mused, half to himself.

The inspector looked on with his arms folded. Sergeant Battle stood stiffly at attention.

After a few minutes Charles closed the book and laid it on the inspector's desk. He spoke crisply. “We have work to do.”

“What work?” the inspector asked.

“Monsieur Monet's diary tells us a great deal,” Charles replied. “Why he came to Colchester, with whom he spoke here, and what he planned to do.”

“Does it tell us who killed him?”

“Not in so many words,” Charles said. “But it does suggest a possible motive. And it tells us the name of the person of whom we must inquire. That person may be able to direct us to the killer.” He started for the door.

The inspector turned to the sergeant. “Well, man?” he bellowed. “Are you going to stand there the whole bloody day? Come along. And fetch your notebook!”

Charles was halfway out the door when he thought of something. He turned back, bumping into Wainwright. “Excuse me, Inspector. I doubt that the cuneiform treatise has any relevance to the case at hand. I'll just borrow it, if you have no objection.”

The inspector's mouth pursed. “You're not a spy too, are you?”

“I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.”

“0 wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!”

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE As You Like It, III, ii

 

 

 

K
ate got out of the pony cart at the corner and, after lingering an appropriate time, walked down the street to Number Seven, carrying Aunt Jaggers's tapestry knitting bag. She marched with spine erect, chin up, and shoulders straight. Outwardly she was a woman of calm and deliberate demeanor, a woman who knew her purpose.

But within, all was chaos. Within, Kate found herself nearly overwhelmed by the sheer folly of her mad scheme. The ride from Bishop's Keep had given her time to consider what she was about and to think better of it. She had played a few juvenile tricks in her day: lurking, for instance, outside the steward's cabin on the ship, on the lookout for Mrs. Snodgrass's diamonds. But she had never done anything as absurd as this. She had never accused anyone of murder. And to make matters worse, not even a few glances at the photograph she was carrying with her could restore her confidence, for she found herself uncertain about the identity of the gypsy boy. Guilty or not guilty, she was no longer sure.