They found Sir Hugh Lowther standing in the orangery, gazing out over the gardens towards the wild, craggy fells of the Whin Sill beyond. The large glass of brandy in his hand seemed to glow in the midday sun as it blazed down over his shoulder and projected dancing, amber shadows onto the tiles at his feet.
“‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions,’ do they not, Sir Hugh.”
Lowther started slightly as Atticus spoke. He threw back his head and drained his glass before he spun round. The tranquillity of the gardens and moors had clearly not served to calm him.
“Sorrows be damned,” he bellowed. “Well, what have you found? There’ll be no one left here at this rate. I’ll be like a second William-bloody-Brydon!”
Lucie answered. “We’re quite sure Dr Hickson was poisoned to death, Sir Hugh.”
“Are you by God?” retorted Sir Hugh, his eyes bulging. “And are you as sure yet who did the poisoning?”
“We aren’t precisely…”
“It was Michael-bloody-Britton! I’ve told you already. You prove it, and I’ll happily pay double your fees.”
Lucie winced. “That will not be necessary, but thank you for the offer. Now, your butler told us it was you who first found the doctor’s body. We need to know everything you can remember about the discovery, and the circumstances surrounding it.”
“Very well, I’ll play your damned game with you.” Lowther took a very deep breath as he sat and collected his thoughts.
“Right, Mrs Fox – Lucie – here it is: I was becoming concerned as to Hickson’s lateness in arriving to see my daughter. He’s generally so punctual, do you see? Collier will tell you that he once set the grandfather clock by him. Anyway, eventually I decided to ride over towards Hayden Bridge in order to seek him. It is just a few miles down the valley towards Hexham and it’s where Hickson had his practice.
“Very soon, I spied him sitting in his gig on the Stanegate, the old Roman way that runs alongside the road there but I could tell immediately that something was wrong with him.”
“How was that, Sir Hugh?” Atticus asked.
“Well for one thing, his pony had its head down, grazing on the grass and for another; there was something damned queer about the way Hickson was slouched in his seat.
“I galloped over to where it was and sure enough, there was Hickson slumped over, dead as a doornail. So, I tied the reigns of my horse to the back of the gig and drove it post-haste back here to Shields Tower. Once here, I shouted for Collier and between us, we lifted him out of his seat and carried him up to the bedchamber where you both saw him.”
“So if he was already dead, you wouldn’t know if he was very hot to touch or speaking incoherently or having a fit?” Lucie asked.
The rage fell from Lowther’s face. “Why yes, Lucie, now that you mention it his body was still very hot; hot as a Raja’s daughter.”
“Did you see anyone else around the area where you found him, anyone at all?” Atticus asked.
“Not a mortal soul, Fox; it was totally deserted.”
“And where is the doctor’s gig now?”
“It’s been taken to the stables. His pony has been fed and watered.”
“Very good; Mrs Fox and I will need to examine them both presently. How far is it to the place where you made the discovery of the body?”
“It’s perhaps a mile, maybe a little more. I would gladly show you if you wish.”
Atticus grunted. “Thank you, Sir Hugh; that would be extremely helpful. We will go there directly we have finished examining the doctor’s gig.”
The light, two-wheeled pony-gig looked odd, standing where it had been abandoned, askew and empty outside the otherwise meticulously ordered stable block. It was odd too in that it was so very different to what they might have expected of a country parish doctor. It was a delicate, almost feminine vehicle with rubber cushioning tyres, glossy black paint and smart patent leather. On these rural roads more suited to varnish and cord, it would be a stable-boy’s nightmare to clean and maintain.
“Handsome gig, Lucie,” Atticus remarked.
Lucie did not answer him directly and inevitably it was she who saw it first.
“Atticus, look at that!”
He glanced down and saw it too. On the floor of the gig, leaning against the patent leather of the dashboard, and in full view of anyone who cared to look was a small, bronze-coloured, object. Though recently polished, it was plain and without ornamentation; indeed it was distinctly ordinary looking and Atticus recognised it immediately as a Hallow of Arthur.
It was the Holy Grail.
Lucie reached into the gig and carefully, using only the very tips of her fingers, lifted the heavy goblet by its rim and placed it on the flat palm of her hand.
Atticus murmured, “The proverbial poisoned chalice, Lucie,” and watched as she slowly turned the goblet round on her palm.
“There are no fingertip prints for you that I can see” he continued. “Uther polishes it every day – he has told us as much already and the doctor was wearing driving gloves. It’s rather curious that they should be so entirely absent though.”
Lucie stared at the Grail for a few moments before glancing back to the gig.
“His clothes were covered in vomit but there are virtually no traces of it anywhere in there. He must have been sick before he climbed, or was put, into his gig.”
“So if he was found on this Stanegate,” Atticus pondered aloud, “I wonder where precisely the poison was administered and, indeed, what type of poison it might have been. Look, there’s still a tiny drop of it at the bottom of the chalice. Can you tell what it is?”
He watched as she brought the chalice to her nose.
“I’m no expert on poisons and it could be anything, Atticus – even one of the doctor’s own medicines, but there is a mnemonic we used to use in the hospital: ‘Red as a beetroot, mad as a hatter, hot as a hare, blind as a bat and dry as a bone.’ We used it to identify cases of poisoning – especially plant poisoning.
“We don’t know if Dr Hickson became mad – he was already dead when Sir Hugh found him – but we do know his body was unusually hot. His face was very red as you will recall yourself, and the pupils of his eyes were dilated. His lips were quite dry too – I checked them – and we know he had vomited. I’m quite sure he was poisoned. A lot of our wild, or even garden plants, are quite capable of killing a man if you know how to use them; belladonna, thorn apple, monkshood, even common churchyard yew.”
Atticus suggested it was high time that the pony and gig be driven back to where the discovery of Dr Hickson’s body had been made.
“We should be sorry if some drover has taken a herd of cattle down the Stanegate and trampled over all the evidence,” he cautioned, “And it’s always helpful to reproduce the setting of the murder as closely as is possible.”
Sir Hugh Lowther readily agreed with their suggestion. The pony was therefore led out of its temporary accommodation in the stable house and harnessed back into its shafts by James the footman, who had also been given the task of driving the little gig back to Hayden Bridge.
Sir Hugh was to accompany him on his own large, black stallion and Atticus and Lucie prepared to follow behind them on their bicycles.
Grim-faced, James kept up a brisk pace along the deserted, moorland lane and slowed only when they came to the ancient, pitted line of the Stanegate. Atticus and even Lucie were both quite breathless in the heat of the day when, as they approached a small flock of sheep grazing by the lane-side, Sir Hugh finally raised his arm and shouted for him to stop.
“Here it was that I found him,” he barked as he smoothly dismounted his horse and grasped the head collar of the pony. He pulled it around in a wide circle and onto the broad, grassy verge which bordered the road at that point.
“It was precisely here. The pony was grazing on the grass there and Hickson was sitting in the centre of the seat there, slumped to his left like this.”
He leaned over to illustrate Hickson’s position, adopting a brutally accurate, if slightly comical impression of his death mask of staring eyes and gaping, choking mouth.
“Very good, Sir Hugh; that will do for now and we are most grateful for your assistance.” Atticus wiped a thick film of sweat from his brow and felt another laid cold across his back.
“James, you may return the doctor’s pony and gig to its home stable now. Lucie and I will make our own way back to Shields Tower once we have finished our examinations here.”
Sir Hugh stared at him for a moment before grunting irritably in acknowledgement of the dismissal. He remounted his horse, lifted his top hat politely to Lucie and trotted off towards the moors.
The hollow thud of hooves faded in each direction, the everyday sounds of the high pastures ebbed back and Atticus and Lucie Fox found themselves alone.
“It’s so peaceful here, Atticus. All these murders seem to be almost a blasphemy.” Lucie gazed at the distant figure of Sir Hugh Lowther as he dropped out of sight into the broad ditch of the Vallum.
“I wonder how he’ll take the next piece of news.”
“What do you mean?” Atticus asked. “What next piece of news?”
“The news about Miss Jennifer,” Lucie replied with a significant glance.
When Atticus’s quizzical expression did not change, she rolled her eyes in mock exasperation.
“Atticus, it’s as plain as the nose on your face; her tearfulness, her sickness, her reluctance to allow the doctor to look at her, her taking of ginger. You surely don’t need to be a nurse to know that Jennifer Lowther is pregnant.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Atticus, “Jenny Lowther is expecting? Then the identity of the child’s father—”
“Doesn’t even bear contemplation!” Lucie finished the sentence for him. “I don’t suppose for one second that Sir Hugh would easily countenance the prospect of his daughter bearing his own son’s child.”
“Good Lord!” repeated Atticus softly.
For several minutes, the only sounds on that part of the Stanegate were the soft cries of the sheep and the harsher calls of waterfowl on the loughs as each absorbed the ramifications of Lucie’s bombshell.
Then Atticus remarked that it was a rather peculiar spot for a premeditated murder.
“And yet a premeditated it must have been because the killer came well equipped with both a chalice – the Holy Grail – and poison to fill it with.”
Lucie stared pensively at him. “You’re right. It is a very odd place for a murder, and especially for a poisoning. Poisonings aren’t carried out by ambush; they’re carried out by stealth. And why would the doctor be on this road anyway? It’s hardly the most comfortable to travel when there’s a proper lane so close.”
“It isn’t the most direct road to Shields Tower either,” Atticus added. “Perhaps he had another reason for being on the Stanegate?”
“Such as an arrangement to make a call on someone else too – someone who might live around here?” Lucie suggested. “If there was, it might have been where he was given the poison.”
They both peered around once again. The stone-grey line of the Stanegate stretched forward beyond the silver blue of a small lake ahead of them and away to the horizon. It was completely empty of humanity.
“That lake,” Atticus said suddenly, “I think from James’ss map that it’s called the Grindon Lough and I think it’s the one you can catch sight of from Uther’s cottage.”
Without another word, they broke off the lane onto the close-cropped turf. And as that dropped away in front of them, they found themselves staring down at the bare thatch of a shabby cottage huddled in the lee of a low crag. It was the cottage they knew as Uther Pendragon’s.
“I am rather surprised that Michael Britton’s cottage is so close.” Lucie’s remark was casual but the implication of her words was clear.
She turned to Atticus.
“I suppose it would not have been surprising if Dr Hickson had paid a visit on Britton before talking to Sir Hugh and us. And remember that Sir Hugh visited Britton yesterday to seek his permission for Dr Hickson to do just that? Britton would have known about the doctor’s appointment at Shields Tower today and he might have guessed that he might call on him too. The doctor was always punctual. It would have been quite easy for him to have prepared a poison and to have administered it hidden in a drink.”
Atticus nodded and his mood was grim. His insistence on ‘proper method’ was beginning to feel like a child’s silly parlour game. The game had gone horribly, horribly wrong. This was police work.
He became aware that his wife was still speaking.
“I said that Hickson would have had an appointments diary.” Lucie repeated, “Where he would have recorded his arrangements for today.”
Atticus nodded again, but this time towards the cottage. “We must check that… but only once we’ve spoken with Britton and only once we have searched that cottage.”
Lucie’s eyes drifted past Atticus to the lane beyond.
“The sheep are out of their field,” she said.
Atticus turned. “That is because the gate has been left wide open. Do you suppose Hickson put his gig in the field whilst he called on Britton?
Lucie nodded. “It is possible. And if he knew he’d been poisoned, he’d have left in a hurry.”
“And if he had left in a hurry he wouldn’t have closed the gate.”
They started back towards the lane so abruptly that the newly shorn sheep lining its sides galloped away in unison, bleating their protests. But once they reached the open gateway, it was obvious that their conjectures were correct; a distinct pair of tyre tracks showed clearly in the wet, springy turf of the field where a vehicle, too light to be anything other a gig, had recently been.
“I think we had better pay that urgent visit on Mr Britton, now.” Atticus’s knuckles whitened around the end of his walking cane.
Lucie glanced at the movement and hesitated. “Will we be safe, Atticus?”
Atticus stared at her for a moment. “No, I’m rather afraid we might not be. But this isn’t a child’s parlour game. There have been three murders so far that we know of, and we need to make sure that this thing doesn’t run its course – that there are no more.”
Lucie looked aghast. “More? How many more do you think there could be?”
Atticus frowned. “Well, the number seven keeps coming into my mind.”
“Seven?”
“I am not completely sure why, Lucie; it’s just that the number seven seems significant somehow. ‘Sewingshields’ means ‘Seven Shields;’ from the shields of the seven dead kings who once came to woo the seven daughters of a local druid. The seven daughters were slain.
“I told you about the supposed treasure in Broomlee Lough, which can only be recovered by seven souls using a chain wrought by a seventh-generation blacksmith. We have seven relics from Arthurian legend: the sword, the garter, the bugle horn and the four Hallows. And there’s something else too, something else to do with the number seven, but the devil take me if I can think what it is.”
Lucie pursed her lips. “Then, you’re right, it is far from being a game and the lives of four more people depend on us finding this murderer.”
There is something in the gamut of human senses which serves to alert us to the presence of a fellow being. And it was that very sense, primordial and deep, with nothing to do with sight or sound or smell that told Atticus and Lucie, even as they approached it, that the cottage was deserted and empty and that no one would respond to Atticus’s brisk tap on the door.
And so it was.
After several long minutes of waiting, after the flies had buzzed their indignation at being disturbed again from their vigil on the red dragon and had settled and quieted once more, Atticus carefully lifted the latch and pushed on the door.
It creaked wide on its hinges, gradually revealing the spartan chaos that was the everyday life of Uther Pendragon.
Feeling apprehensive and guilty, Atticus and Lucie stepped across the threshold. The heavy, musty smell, the pictures and drawings scattered everywhere, the battered, broken furniture, even the used tumbler sitting on the table with a renewed film of orange dust were just as they remembered them. Indeed, the only thing that was different was the presence of a number of small and dark-coloured berries which had been smeared onto the table-top.
“Are those bilberries, Atticus?” Lucie asked nodding towards them. “Or are they something else?”
Atticus stooped and peered at them closely.
“No, Lucie, it is too early for bilberries. I… I rather fancy that these are devil’s cherries – botanical name Atropa belladonna, otherwise known as deadly nightshade.”
“I thought they might be. Back when I was nursing, we had several cases of belladonna poisoning. Once we even had a farmer who died after he ate meat from a rabbit that had been grazing on it. He looked very much as Dr Hickson did.”
Atticus said. “It seems that we have the poison then, Lucie. We might do well to search the rest of this cottage while the Fates are smiling on us.”
He scanned the detritus of a life broken by insanity. Uther’s existence was pitiful – a body and mind remaining alive from tortured day to tortured day. Yet his sketches and drawings were truly breathtaking and the man clearly had prodigious talent. He imagined these same sketches mounted and framed and hung in the grand houses of Harrogate. Perhaps an agent could be procured for him… if indeed it somehow transpired that he was not the murderer, of course. He even wondered for a moment if perhaps Sir Hugh could be persuaded to help him, although the thought died stillborn in his mind.
A diligent search of the main room of the cottage revealed nothing further and they moved on to the bedroom. Before they did Atticus rapped on the door. “Uther,” he called through the planks. “Mr Pendragon, are you there?”
There was silence.
He pressed the latch and pulled at the door. Inside, everything again was as before. It was the same that is, except in two vital respects. The armour, dismantled and scattered across the bed, was conspicuously missing its breastplate and, just as Atticus had feared, the two remaining Hallows of Arthur – the Holy Platter and the Spear of Destiny – were gone.