Luke Fidelis began by taking us back to the previous Friday evening, when Elizabeth had visited him during a lull in his fever and told him the news of Flora Horntree. All that night he could not rid his mind of Flora, with thoughts wildly speculative. Her stealing a horse and riding furiously away … A secret lover coming to her rescue, or a vengeful father, or even a previous husband … Who, after all, was this woman? A sorceress? A runaway? Where had she come from? And how had she ever fallen under the sway of the domestic tyrant Grevel Horntree?
At last Luke returned by stages to his right mind and, as Elizabeth’s latest information sank in, cold reason began to assert itself.
‘I applied the rational physician’s method to the puzzle,’ he explained, ‘just as I would to a disease. Once you have heard the sufferer’s complaint, there is no other way but to look with care at the patient’s body – any unusual physical signs such as twitches, swellings, tenderness, sweats, an irregular heartbeat … Things that are not the disease itself but the effects of it.’
By the effects in the puzzle of Flora Horntree’s disappearance, he meant the things she had been found in possession of – that is her baggage. So Fidelis ran over – as I had done on my dining table at the Dower House – the inventory of what had been found in the valise at New Manor, mentally searching for anything unusual or indicative. Much of it was not rightly Flora’s but had been deliberately taken by her for its money value from the Turveys, but what else had the bag contained that was precious to Flora in a different way? What was there that might act as a key to unlock her true nature? Fidelis still found it hard to believe that she was nothing but a common thief and that all she cared about was money.
He reviewed each object and dismissed it until at last, as he told us, ‘I came to the little silver box. You remember it, Titus? It was in the form of a pillbox, though a very thin one.’
I told him I did, and he went on. ‘The pillbox had been adapted by means of soldering a tiny ring on to it, so that it could hang from a silver chain. But hang where? Why, from a lady’s neck, of course. To be used, in other words, as a locket.’
‘Yes, I drew the same inference. There were even a few wisps of hair inside, as well as a paper with a fragment of verse.’
‘Then consider this. There is nothing in the whole armoury of personal adornment that hints at secrets so well as a locket. I was wondering what secret this one contained when quite suddenly the image of another pendant – one I had also seen very recently – hit my mind’s eye. It was very like the one found in Mrs Horntree’s valise – very like indeed.’
Sitting over the remains of our dinner, we were listening intently now.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘You will think I am veering away from the subject,’ he continued. ‘But I must tell you a little more about the Lady May’s Hole game, because if I had not taken part in it I would not have received that hit. The day went as follows. After much to-and-fro around the bridge at Accrington, some lads got the ball and took it away in a run up the fields of the Hatchfly estate. From there they entered the woods, hoping to throw off the pursuit. I was with a chasing group who climbed up above the woods with the idea of cutting the ball-runners off should they break cover on the side of the high moor. The shouts of the hunters could be heard deep in the woods, so that we easily kept pace with them until we came within sight of Gunwright’s Heath a little above us. It is the only dwelling on that slope of the moor. We were thirsty now, so we raced up to the farmyard where the young farm wife – who, as you know, is Mrs Hawk – came out with pewter cups so that we could refresh ourselves from the well. Before leaving, I went over to her and giving her thanks I noticed a chain around her neck. As you know, she is a very pretty woman with a long and shapely neck, so my eyes were naturally drawn to it as we spoke.’
‘Oh, quite naturally!’ I repeated.
That teasing smile flickered again across his lips and he took another leisurely mouthful of wine. In his impatience Furzey rapped the table.
‘Go on, Doctor,’ he said. ‘Never mind Mr Cragg. Tell us.’
Fidelis put down his glass and took a taper to relight his pipe. He puffed the smoke towards the ceiling.
‘Whatever hung from that chain was hidden under her clothing until Rosemary Hawk saw a feather that adhered to the bottom of her dress, and bent to remove it. As she did so, a pendant slipped out from her bodice and swung clear of her for a moment, so that I had a good sight of it. The thing had no significance for me at the time so, of course, I said goodbye and we went on with the pursuit. I forgot it. But, when on Saturday I was well enough to go to your house and inspect the contents of Mrs Horntree’s valise, including the pillbox or makeshift locket that she had in her baggage, the one that I had seen adorning Mrs Hawk’s graceful neck struck me as being virtually identical.’
We fell silent, each of us pondering the possible significance of this, without being quite able to say how the two lockets connected.
‘What is your conclusion, Luke?’
‘That the peculiar coincidence of a pair of almost identical yet unusual pieces of neckwear, in possession of two women who had both lived at Hatchfly Hall, cannot be accidental.’
I considered this point.
‘But Flora had stolen hers from Mrs Turvey’s jewellery box. She didn’t have it while at Hatchfly.’
‘I would not be too sure about that, Titus. The monogram—’
‘Was H.F. The initials of Turvey’s wife, and she got it from her mother. We know that.’
‘Ah, yes, I had forgot. Yet the coincidence remains.’
‘But can you explain it?’
He shrugged.
‘I can’t. One thing I am sure of, however, is that Flora had nothing much by way of cash or valuables of her own. I visited Peggy Stirk at Hatchfly Lodge. She told me she had known full well that Flora wanted to flee her marriage, even though she was not privy to her departure last Monday night. She also said that Flora had no money and always meant to beg some from you, Titus, or from me. Mrs Stirk said she was that desperate to get away.’
‘Did Mrs Stirk know anything about a locket?’
‘Nothing.’
Towards four in the afternoon, taking Furzey (and Suez) with me, I set off to keep my appointment at Mrs Quinto’s to interview her servant. I had already instructed John Blow to provide Dr Fidelis with the key to the outhouse in which Grevel Horntree lay, to enable him to examine the body in my absence.
Turning into Cold Harbour Lane, we found number seventeen unchanged in appearance. I nevertheless thought it worth trying the door, so I mounted the steps and rapped the knocker. There was still no response. Number nineteen, which had shown every sign of habitation twenty-four hours earlier, now had every one of its windows shuttered and there was no answer to my knock. I repeated it twice at half-minute intervals before giving up and retreating to the pavement, where Furzey was in conversation with a passer-by, a ragged man who carried a knobbly sack that clinked. Even on a Sunday, it seemed, the itinerant bottle-picker’s work carried on.
‘Aye, there’s always a big lot of empties from here,’ he was saying. ‘Specially Sunday morning. But there’s been nowt this morning. Closed for business it is.’
‘Business?’ said Furzey. ‘There’s a lot of empty bottles put out, you say. Why is that? Does the lady of the house have company on Saturday nights?’
The bottle-picker began to wink and tap his nose in an exaggerated way.
‘Company. Oh, aye. You could say company. Gentlemen company and lots of it, do you follow me? Not just Saturdays. Every night it is – but Saturdays, oh, that’s their big night, which is why I am surprised there are no bottles this day.’
Furzey and I exchanged a glance. His insinuation was not difficult to read. We thanked the fellow and moved off. Furzey was full of disgust.
‘Your friend is not only a palm-reader. She’s nothing but a stinking brothel-keeper. We must call her Mother Quinto.’
I thought back to my talk with the woman on the previous day, and in particular her initial manner towards me. She had seemed to treat me as a nervous new customer who needed to be put at ease but, seeing I was no such thing, smoothly turned herself into a mere fortune-teller. It was a cool, intelligent performance. ‘Gentleman company’, the bottle-picker had talked about. I thought, with a degree of admiration, that Mrs Quinto would be equal to the company of any gentleman.
‘You have not met her,’ I said mildly. ‘Yet, if number nineteen is a whorehouse, it is a superior one. As for Mrs Q, she is certainly an unusual person. She comes from Portugal, I believe, but I can assure you she does not stink.’
‘I am surprised,’ said Furzey, ‘at you defending the commerce in fornication, as it is one of the most abominable of trades.’
‘Well, you are at one with Mr Postumus in that, Furzey. However, it helps us no nearer to discovering Horntree’s business in Manchester, apart from the fact that a man he was in correspondence with, Quentin Greenwood, happened to live next door to a brothel.’
Back at the Swan Inn, we found the shed locked and Fidelis in his bedroom, cleaning his instruments.
‘Well? You have examined the corpse?’
‘I have. Nothing very unusual about it. The man was in pretty good health – in his prime, even.’
‘The cause of death?’
‘Exactly as we have heard. The arrow entered his neck at a downwards angle. It cut into a large blood vessel in his neck, the carotid artery. When that happens, there is a fountain of blood. It would have taken him only a minute or so to die.’
At supper Mrs Nightingale told me that, if her services were not needed for the resumed inquest, she would prefer to go home to Accrington in the morning. I spoke to John Blow, who said he could arrange for her to go in company with the Preston post-rider, leaving town at six. His stops at inns along the way delivering and picking up the mail would make the journey slightly longer than our ride into Manchester had been on Friday, but his presence (and his pistols) would make Frances safer on the road. She could hope, at all events, to be sitting once again in her own parlour by midday.
I went into the writing and reading room and wrote a note for her to convey to Elizabeth. The London papers had just come in and, finishing my letter, I looked over them. They were full of news of Anson’s return in his flagship Centurion from a voyage round the world, having lost the rest of his fleet along the way. I was oppressed by the thought of those sailors: so miserably drowned, starved after shipwreck, succumbed to scurvy, dead in battle or from squabbling amongst themselves, or the victims of any other such dangers one meets with far from home. I broke the seal of my letter and added a postscript:
I read in today’s papers that Commodore Anson is back after four years, with less than 10 per cent of the men he started out with. He has been all the way round the world and is feted and rich beyond dreams. They call the exploit glorious, but think of it: five ships lost and a thousand and a half questionable deaths – enough to keep a coroner busy for years. There’s nothing glorious in it as far as I can see.
With Furzey and Frances Nightingale gone to bed, Fidelis attended me and Suez on our nightly late stroll.
‘Is the outcome of tomorrow in any doubt?’ he asked as we began a circular walk around Parsonage Croft.
‘No. Unless the jury goes mad, there can be no verdict other than manslaughter by chance medley. Young Lever never intended to kill anyone except the sparrowhawk, but he is not without responsibility in the death of Horntree.’
Fidelis picked a stick from the ground, showed it to the dog, and hurled it into the darkness of the middle of the field. Suez hurled himself after it.
‘Then the remaining question is,’ he said, ‘who is Greenwood?’
‘We want to find that out. We want to know if there is any connection to what has happened to Mrs Horntree.’
‘Ah! Mrs Horntree!’
I could not have stated for sure that Fidelis found himself in love with Flora Horntree, but that ‘Ah!’ was expressive enough to be love, though perhaps mixed proportionately with disappointment. According to Elizabeth, disappointment was a necessary element in all Luke Fidelis’s affairs of the heart.
‘He is one of those unfortunate young men,’ she told me once, ‘who can only fully enjoy a girl when his heart is not engaged.’
Whatever the truth of that, I made no comment now. I had learned my lesson three years before, after one of Luke’s impossible amours had caused a painful rift between us, and I now never interfered in his entanglements. So, after ordering Suez to drop the stick at my feet and throwing it once more, I spoke to Fidelis not of love but of duty.
‘As far as we know, Mrs Horntree is still missing. She was discovered to be so while under our protection, and it remains our task to find her.’
‘If we can.’
‘If we uncover Grevel Horntree’s secrets, I think we might.’