The very instant Atticus and Lucie Fox slipped back through the doors of Shields Tower they were hailed by a ruddy-faced Sir Hugh Lowther thundering down the grand stairs towards the accusing finger of Urth.
“Aha, Fox, Lucie, you’re back from your expeditions at last. That’s about bloody time! Collier has orders to bring tea directly you get back. You can join me in the orangery and bring me up to the present on your progress.”
He briefly, unthinkingly, brushed the hand of Skuld, the nearest of the Norns, as he rounded the statue and then strode briskly through the stained-glass door of the orangery. Atticus and Lucie followed him gladly. The prospect of afternoon tea really had never seemed so welcome.
Once they had collapsed gratefully into the comfortable wicker chairs, Atticus related the highlights of their long day, beginning with his discovery of the sabaton prints in the field and ending with the altercation between John Lawson and the two brothers Elliott.
“I’m rather afraid they hold Michael Britton responsible for their brother’s death,” he explained, “and I have few doubts they will try to take revenge. They’re Gypsies, so it will be a matter of honour to them. I think we may have put them off venturing anywhere near to his cottage for the present, but I still believe it would be prudent to send a constable to speak with them, just to make certain of it.”
Sir Hugh looked at him shrewdly for several seconds before he replied.
“Very well, Fox, I’ll make the request directly. Madman or not, I certainly wouldn’t want Britton to die at the hands of Gypsies.”
The shadow of what might have been pain passed over his face before he suddenly leaped out of his chair.
“If you would both excuse me, I’ll go and make the call on my telephone.”
A few minutes later, the door-glass rattled to a knock, the brass handle twisted and a parlour-maid backed into the orangery carrying a tea service. Sir Hugh appeared close behind her.
“I’ve done as you recommended, Fox,” he boomed. “The constable from Millhouse is on his way to Elliott’s cottage now to warn ’em off Britton. That is if he can get past the Fox and bloody Hounds.”
“Very good, Sir Hugh, thank you.”
Atticus stood and passed him the plaster cast of the sabaton. “By and by, you might be interested in this; it’s the cast we spoke about.”
“By Jove, but this is good work, Fox,” Lowther exclaimed in delight. He turned it over and over in his hands. “It couldn’t be better. Why couldn’t the police have done this, eh? That’s what I should like to know. Now we have a cast of the boot. What did you call it?”
“It’s called a sabaton, Sir Hugh. It’s part of a knight’s armour.”
“But have you been able to match it to the rest of the armour yet, Fox? You said that you had already been to call on Britton.” He looked up enquiringly from the cast, his eyes dancing with excitement.
“We did call on him, Sir Hugh,” Atticus confirmed. “And we did speak to him at length, but that was whilst the cast was hardening and he was much too distressed for us to think of returning straight away.”
“Too distressed, my arse. What is he, a man or a bloody little girl?”
He grunted irritably.
“You’re very fortunate you spoke to him at all, mind you. He’ll usually see no one – at least no one he doesn’t already know very well. He hides from ’em. Can you believe that? His doctor claims it’s his illness that makes him do it, but how can that be? Personally, I think he’s either an impudent scoundrel or a damned coward, or more probably, both!”
He glared as if daring them to challenge him. When they chose not to, he continued. “Nonetheless, in the second room of that hovel he calls home, Britton keeps a suit of armour. My first wife gave it to him in appreciation of that damned fresco he painted for her on the wall of your guest room.”
“We saw it, Sir Hugh.”
“Good! I’m pleased you’ve seen it, Fox, because then you will also have seen the collection of oddments he keeps in there too. He believes them to be relics from King Arthur’s time and he calls them Hallows or some such nonsense.”
He looked cannily between Atticus and Lucie.
“Well I’ll wager a guinea to a button that your cast here will match perfectly the… the sabatons of that armour.”
“We quite intend to compare the two at the earliest opportunity,” Lucie assured him.
“Excellent! Then we are close to being able to arrest Britton for murder?” Sir Hugh’s eyes suddenly danced again.
Atticus could not altogether decide whether Sir Hugh’s remark was a question or a statement, so he said, “We are getting closer to being able to identify our murderer, yes. Whether that will turn out to be Michael Britton or some other person, it is still too early to say.”
Lucie saw Lowther’s colour rising up and flushing his cheeks and just as he opened his mouth to bellow his protests, she deflected the conversation.
“Sir Hugh, tell me a little more about this Sewingshields Castle. Mr Britton seems quite obsessed by it.”
He stared, open-mouthed at her for several seconds before he answered. And when he did, his tone dripped with bitterness.
“Sewingshields Castle: that old pile of rubble? It wasn’t much of a castle when it stood. I only ever remember it as a ruin surrounded by clarts and mire. It is supposed to have been built on the site of an earlier castle, which belonged to King Arthur – perhaps even Camelot.
“Britton, when he fell back into lunacy and started to believe he was Uther Pendragon again became, as you so rightly say, obsessed with it. He spent day and night there, clambering about the ruins and wandering the moors and the marshes around it, whatever the weather.
“I eventually prevailed on my neighbour who owned the site to allow me to have it demolished and the stones taken away. Fortunately he was a distant relative of mine. My ancestor, Sir Robert de Lowther once owned a castle that was abandoned by his nephew in favour of Sewingshields Castle. If I hadn’t had it removed, Britton would surely have perished from exposure there, or fallen to his death from the high cliffs.”
He closed his eyes.
“Perhaps it might have been better for him if he had.”
Lucie asked, “On the morning of Samson Elliott’s murder, did you by any chance hear the sound of a bugle across the moors from the direction of Sewingshields?”
“Bugle, Lucie? No, I bloody well did not.” His eyes popped open, his face creased into a grin and he chuckled. “I can guess who’s prompted you to ask me that question though; our madman has been hearing bugles calling for months.”
Atticus set his teacup down with a clatter.
“Britton said that. And he told us that the bugle calls had been getting louder and more frequent of late. Colonel, do you know for how long he has been hearing them and precisely how frequently?”
Sir Hugh seemed momentarily taken aback by the ferocity of Atticus’s question.
“Oh, for a good year now, Fox, certainly since I returned from the Black Mountains expedition with the Fifth. He says he hears the bugle every week these days. As you say, it has been getting more frequent with time.
“It seems to me that his condition is deteriorating almost by the day and I’ve insisted that his physician, Dr Hickson of Hayden Bridge – another rank fool – call on him regularly, as he used to do before Artie was born.”
He smiled fiercely at Lucie.
“I see myself as Britton’s guardian, do you see, Lucie. I watch over him, and I take it upon myself to be fully acquainted with the progress of his condition.”
“You do seem admirably concerned about him, Sir Hugh,” Atticus remarked.
“I am, Fox, I am very concerned, as I am for all those attached in some way to me or mine. I’m a guardian to the whole damned lot of ’em. In fact, I’m a little like a Norn myself – a fourth Norn – in that to a large degree, I help to decide their fate. It’s the reason I commissioned your services in the first place, and the reason I sit here now asking how close you are to solving this puzzle and proving that Britton is the murderer.”
Atticus sipped his tea as he considered Sir Hugh’s words.
“As I say, we are beginning to formulate some interesting suspicions on that score. These things, depending on the complexity of the case, are wont to take many days of investigation.
“The evidence against Britton is damning at first sight, but entirely circumstantial. Murder investigations in particular have more twists and turns in them than the road to Paradise and it’s still possible that the murderer may be someone else entirely.”
“Well I’m convinced it is all perfectly straightforward and the bloody madman needs to hang,” Sir Hugh blustered. “He’s obsessed by the legends of Arthur; both murders took place close by his cottage and he’s had a sword in there since the day he moved into it.”
He held up the cast.
“Now you even have this and you will find it exactly matches the armour he keeps in his own bedroom. By Jove, man, it seems to me that the evidence as you call it, circum-bloody-stantial or not, is quite overwhelming.”
“Yet it is still not entirely conclusive, Sir Hugh. Please do not misunderstand us; Britton may well have committed the murders and indeed, it is very likely that he has, but we can’t hang a man without absolute proof.”
Sir Hugh stared into his half-empty tea cup for several long seconds. Then he asked, “So what would you consider to be absolute proof, Fox?”
“Well, it’s a great pity that we haven’t yet found the sword,” Atticus replied. “Mrs Fox is an expert in comparing fingertip prints. We could have compared any prints she found on the sword with those of our suspects, including Britton of course.”
Lowther looked up and fixed an enquiring stare onto Atticus.
“Fingertip prints? I don’t understand you, Fox.”
“Then allow me to explain.” Atticus purred like a cat as he warmed to the subject. “Mrs Fox uses a technique, which she first read about almost ten years ago in a scientific journal called Nature. It was by the learned Dr Henry Faulds, who suggested that the close examination of fingertip prints, which incidentally are entirely unique to each person, may be used to prove beyond doubt who precisely has recently touched or handled an object.”
Sir Hugh smiled in what must surely have been wonderment.
“What an age we live in these days, eh, Fox, where everything is governed by science. And how very ingenious of Lucie and Dr Faulds; it will soon be impossible to commit a crime at all.”
He chuckled, briefly and stared at the cast.
“Tell me; would it be useful for you if I were to summon Britton’s doctor to speak with you about his condition? You could satisfy yourselves at first-hand about his propensity for murder.”
Atticus glanced at Lucie who said, “It would be very useful indeed, Sir Hugh, but only on the strict condition that you first obtain Mr Britton’s full and free permission for the doctor to do so.”
Sir Hugh frowned. “But Britton is mad. What would be the point of obtaining his permission?” He shrugged and before she could reply said, “But very well, very well, I’ll ride over to speak with Britton directly we finish this tea. I need to warn him about Elliott’s brothers anyway and advise him to be on his guard for a while. Now, Dr Hickson is already due to attend on my daughter tomorrow morning as she’s still sickly. I’ll prevail on him to stay for luncheon and after that, we can all discuss Britton’s state of mind.”
It was Lucie’s turn to frown.
“I’m sorry to hear that your daughter is still ill, Sir Hugh. It seems strange; she looked very well, radiant even, when we first met her yesterday afternoon, but then by dinner she had sickened. She must have declined very quickly during the course of the day.”
“Thank you, Lucie. Your concern for her is very welcome. It does seem that her illness comes and goes. She won’t have the doctor examine her; why, I cannot imagine. Probably the Lowther streak of stubbornness running true in her, but it’s gone on for far too long now and I’ve insisted that he does.”
“What are her symptoms? You know I have been a nurse.”
Sir Hugh shrugged. “Let me see; what did Bessie tell me? Oh yes, she’s been having frequent bouts of sickness – quite spewing her guts actually, and she’s been very tired too, and rather tearful. Not at all what one would expect from a Lowther. We’re usually made of much sterner stuff than that. It’s probably from spending too much time with Artie.”
“We had intended to put questions to both Master Artie and Miss Jennifer tomorrow,” Atticus remarked. “I do hope she’s well enough for that.”
Sir Hugh flushed.
“Put questions to them; what the devil for, Fox?” he growled. “You can’t think them responsible for the murders, surely? My father was their own grandfather, don’t forget. They doted on him.”
“My husband and I think it almost unimaginable that they had anything to do with the murders, Sir Hugh.” Lucie’s smile was reassurance itself. “But as always, we need to follow a strict methodology in our investigation. As well as the identification of the guilty, that involves the vindication of the innocent. It is also quite possible that they might be able to add something, even the tiniest particle of information that could lead us more surely and swiftly to the real culprit.”
“To Michael-bloody-Britton,” Sir Hugh roared but then he nodded curtly.
“Very well, you have my permission to ask them.”