When Atticus and Lucie Fox returned to the reassuringly inhabited presence of Shields Tower, they found the constables gone and presumably already on their way to arrest Michael Britton.
Sir Hugh Lowther and Detective Superintendent Robson were waiting indoors, relaxing in a pair of deep armchairs in the drawing room. Each had a generous measure of brandy in one hand and a large cigar in the other.
Sir Hugh stood abruptly as the Foxes followed a footman in. His ruddy face might have been from the brandy.
“Aha, Mr and Mrs Fox, you’re back. You took your time to stow your bicycles and no mistake, but no matter, no matter. May I offer you a glass of something to restore you? Robson and I are working our way through a very agreeable bottle of cognac and I can order tea or coffee for Lucie.”
Atticus stood tall. “Sir Hugh, Detective Superintendent Robson, I regret to inform you of our discovery of yet another murder victim.”
One heartbeat became two. Sir Hugh glanced at Robson who was staring open-mouthed at Atticus, utterly stunned.
“Another murder?” Robson blurted at last.
“Another gift to the Fates and another blow for justice,” Urth corrected him.
Atticus nodded.
“Another murder – in the hayloft over Sir Hugh’s stables, not more than four and probably less than two hours ago. A man was stabbed to death and impaled on a sword. He has the usual wounds across his abdomen and if you would both care to put down your brandies and cigars, we will tell you more about it as we take you there.”
Several minutes and a hastened walk later, Atticus stood back to make way for Sir Hugh and the detective superintendent to enter the stables.
“We took the opportunity to take fingertip print evidence from the sword,” Atticus called as he followed Lucie through the broad doorway after them.
There was silence as Robson and Lowther climbed the ladder-way, followed by a single gasp from Robson. Then Sir Hugh’s face reappeared in the frame, and he was smiling.
“Damned good show, Fox,” he growled. “It’s almost over then; you’ll have your conclusive evidence and you’ll be able to prove who the murderer is now.”
His black stallion in its stall below whinnied as it recognised his voice.
“We don’t know for certain quite yet, Sir Hugh. To the present, we have only got so far as to identify the prints of three persons on the grip and the forte, which is the top part of the blade. We need now to—”
“I’m a soldier, I know what a damned forte is, Fox! But three sets of prints; how can there be three sets?” Sir Hugh’s expression had switched from delight to bewilderment.
“There are definitely three sets of fingertip prints: two sets left by men and one by a woman, likely a gentlewoman or perhaps a grown child. We need next to take fingertip prints from anyone who may have come into contact with the sword. That would include anyone, of course, we actually suspect of committing the murders. Then we simply compare them to the ones we’ve preserved from the scene on our little, glass plates.”
Robson’s disembodied voice called through the hatch. “Does this technique of fingerprint comparison really work, Fox?” It sounded keen with interest. “The constabularies are under some pressure to adopt it.”
Atticus climbed halfway up the ladder.
“Indeed it does work, Detective Superintendent, it works very well indeed. What are called the friction ridges of the fingertips adopt patterns unique to each individual. I believe it to be nothing less than the greatest breakthrough in the history of crime detection.”
“Indeed,” replied Robson. “I can see the fingerprints clearly in this grey powder that seems to be everywhere. You say there are three parties to the murder?”
“I say that my wife has identified three different sets of fingertip prints on the hilt and forte of the blade; I say no more. Three individuals at least have therefore handled the sword. Any one or more of those individuals could be the murderer. Conceivably, none of them may be; the prints may have been left quite innocently, although that is of course, quite unlikely.”
He looked up at Lowther who was staring distastefully at the transfixed corpse.
“Do you recognise the poor fellow, Sir Hugh?”
“Yes, tell him who it is,” Verthandi urged.
Lowther dragged his eyes away from the body and fixed them onto Atticus.
“Very well, yes, I most certainly do recognise him, Fox. He has worked here in these stables for nigh on thirty years. It is my head groom, an oaf by the name of Albert Bradley.”
An image of their bicycles, standing in a horse stall with nosebags full of oats hanging from their handlebars formed instantly in Atticus’s memory. He thought of the impish sense of humour behind the practical joke, and the contrast with the bloody, lifeless corpse sprawled above them was stark.
The shock pushed him to the top of the ladder.
Robson reached forward and tugged at the thick crosspiece of the sword. It was fixed and unyielding.
“The heart’s been removed again,” he said, “and this blade is in devilish deep. It looks as if this fellow, Bradley you say his name was, has stumbled back onto the hay bale and been run through with this sword? Ye gods, but it must have been some blow; it has quite nailed him to it!”
“We do not necessarily think so, Detective Superintendent.”
Lucie spoke for the first time as she too climbed the ladder. “We believe that the killing or disabling blow was actually the smaller wound to the base of the neck. The larger sword was inserted through the body and into the bale very soon afterwards.”
“But why would anyone want to do that?” Robson peered carefully at the neck wound. “It was a sword that was used to inflict this wound too by the look of it – only a lighter one with a thinner blade.”
He sighed in frustration.
“Another sword killing, Sir Hugh. We shall be having yet more silly rumours of King Arthur’s resurrection from the dead flying around the countryside. Your ancestor would have done better to have chosen a different site for the building of Shields Tower.”
Lowther grunted and then said, slowly and deliberately, “King Arthur be damned, Robson; I recognise that sword.”
“Yes, we noticed the blade has been engraved with runes. It would appear to be Excalibur.” said Atticus.
“Excalibur!” Robson exclaimed.
Sir Hugh looked across at Atticus, his sapphire-blue eyes burning with sudden intensity. “Exactly so, and I am certain, Fox, that I know its present owner.”
“Who is it, man?” Robson snapped.
“Michael Britton. It’s Michael Britton’s sword. I know it is his because I was the one who gave it to him. I recognise it from those marks on the blade. They’re ancient runes – Saxon runes – just as Fox has said.”
He turned to the Superintendent. “When your two constables get back with the madman, Robson, Mr and Mrs Fox can extract a copy of his fingertip prints. We will then be able to prove what I have been saying all along: that he is your murderer, your now five-time murderer!”
“Four-time,” Atticus corrected him.
“Four-time then! Damned insolent pedantry, isn’t four times bad enough? Four, five or whatever the blasted number is, Britton will finally go to the gallows where he belongs, with everyone knowing what he is, and we will all, at long last, be able to put this whole sorry business behind us and get on with the rest of our lives. Good day to you all.”
With that he turned, pushed roughly past Atticus and Lucie with a deadly look on his flushed face, and thundered down the ladder-way.
A few minutes after Sir Hugh had stormed from the stables, they heard the sound of more heavy, hobnailed boots clattering on the blue bricks of the stable floor. The faces of the two police constables peered sheepishly up at them from the shadows below.
“Good evening, sir,” said the one whom Atticus did not recognise, lifting off his helmet, “I was told at the house that the detective superintendent would be here.”
His expression showed that he dearly wished the detective superintendent was nowhere near and it was really quite odd to see a police officer seeming so nervous.
Atticus was about to answer when Robson’s voice boomed irritably from behind him.
“I’m up here in the loft. Well, have you arrested him?”
There was a long, strained silence. The local constable broke first.
“I regret very much that we have not been able to, sir. When we arrived at his cottage, he was already gone. It looks like he’s been away from there for some time. We could find no trace of him anywhere nearby.”
There was a whispered oath and Robson brushed past.
“Well you had both better begin to search farther away then,” he raged as he half-climbed, half-leaped down the ladder-way. “There’s still daylight left and even then it’ll be more than half-moon. Go back, find him and then arrest him. Do not under any circumstances come back anywhere near my sight without him. If you do, then if I don’t have your miserable guts for it, Sir Hugh Lowther most certainly will.”
“Did you find the Lance and the Platter?” Atticus called down.
The constables looked up, shamefacedly. Plainly they hadn’t.
Robson exploded again. “I have another dead man up there, damn you, constables. Albert Bradley, Sir Hugh’s groom of thirty years has been brutally killed with… with a brace of swords. That makes four murders altogether and two – two murders, no less – today! We still have a lunatic murderer abroad somewhere on the moors and to top it all, it appears that he is now armed with a bloody great lance.”
There was a pause.
“Well, Constables, what are you still standing there for?”
There was another beat of silence followed by an almost comically frantic mêlée as the two constables realised they had been dismissed and almost fell over themselves in their haste to escape.
Detective Superintendent Robson watched them as they all but ran out through the stable door. Then he turned, calm now and looked up towards Atticus and Lucie.
“Forgive me the outburst and the oaths, Mr and Mrs Fox, but it is imperative that we capture the madman before he can kill again. I will send for you both once we have him safely in our custody in order for you to lift his fingerprints as Sir Hugh ordered. If we can persuade a judge of the efficacy of the technique, then he can be hung or incarcerated as His Lordship feels inclined. Either way, the chief constable, Sir Hugh Lowther and the gentlemen of the press will all be appeased and we can all sleep a little more soundly in our beds.”
“Detective Superintendent,” said Atticus softly, “you forget that we discovered three sets of fingertip prints on that sword hilt. I’m afraid we shall require more than just the fingertip print evidence to prove Britton’s guilt, if guilty he is.”
Robson coloured. “I am well aware of that, Mister Fox” He laid heavy emphasis on the word ‘Mister,’ but the uncomfortable, perhaps guilty look in his eyes drew the force of his bluster.
“But please be aware that this is serious business. It is not some novel where you can sit with your wife politely discussing the evidence whilst your no-doubt handsome fees mount up. People are dying! You both know Britton is guilty; I know Britton is guilty, and the sooner he’s locked safely away in Hexham gaol, the sooner he will be prevented from killing anyone else.”
Atticus shrugged. “Then you will be very pleased to hear that we don’t require Britton in person in order to be able to lift his fingertip prints. We can do that from any smooth, hard object he has recently handled. If I have your permission to enter his cottage we might even be able to do so tonight. Our intention was always to return
there today.”
Robson’s expression lightened. “Well that’s one scrap of good news at least. I’ve no more constables to spare but if you think you’ll be safe up there on your own, then yes, I would be very much obliged if you were to do just that.”
The last red glow of the sun seems to turn the western horizon to fire – the fire of Hell. It bathes Sir Hugh Lowther in its light and turns the steel of his breastplate and the tip of the great spear he holds aloft as red as the smouldering hatred in his heart. There is an abomination on this moor and his hatred can at last burst into the raging conflagration that will send it to the Inferno. It will be the sixth part of the wergild to be paid to the Norns.
“SHE COMES,” Verthandi cries in triumph and the soldier in him cringes.
“Hush, my Lady,” he whispers, “lest she hears you.”
“She will not hear me,” Verthandi retorts and he knows it is so. He has long since learned that few have the honour to hear the words of the Sisters. But then he too hears the footsteps of the abomination. He sees her broad, black silhouette rising in the moonlight.
‘Engage the enemy. Steady now.’
He lowers the spear, the Spear of Destiny, until its fiery tip points to his quarry.
“Use it well,” Verthandi commands him, “and we will guide your arm.”
“I will, my Lady,” he whispers.
He stands, silent and perfectly still, his body almost a part of the shadowy moorland that surrounds him and he waits and watches as she draws near.
Unfortunately there were no lamps of any kind in Michael Britton’s deserted cottage and the combination of dirt-encrusted windows and fast-fading sun meant that Atticus and Lucie elected to return very early the following day.
It was as they were returning through the narrow style in the dry stone wall to the very place where Samson Elliott had met his death that they heard it. The pure, strident note shattered the brittle tranquillity of the gloaming.
It was the note of a bugle.
The call was exactly as Artie Lowther had described it to them and Atticus could picture him, could almost hear him, as he had told them: ‘There were seven notes: two low, two high, two low, one high; repeated thrice.’
At first the sound seemed to come from everywhere; from the moors, from the rocks, from the very air itself. But then as they listened, they realised that it had a source and a direction. It was coming from directly behind them, from beyond Britton’s cottage, towards the great, black crags of the Whin Sill and the fells of Sewingshields beyond. And it was exultant.
And as they looked, they were both convinced that they glimpsed the silhouette of a tall, solitary figure striding among those rocks; sure that the moonlight had glinted off what might have been steel plate on his breast as he turned and disappeared back towards the shadows of the crags.
Lucie shivered suddenly as she stood cased by the big stones on either side of her.
“I don’t like it, Atty,” she said. “Whatever it is, leave it be. Let’s get back to the Tower.”
Atticus looked at his wife and saw his own fear there. He thought for a moment of giving chase. But night had closed in and he, or it, clearly knew the country well. So it was with only the very tiniest of regrets that he agreed.