The Bowes Hotel was a small but clean hotel-cum-public house set on the main street of Bardon Mill, just above the railway station and adjacent to Messrs Errington and Reay’s busy pottery works. Having paid for their room there, despite their being lodged at the Tower, had proved very fortuitous for Atticus. As Mr MacLellan, the fussy, bearded hotelier, had explained over the tiny reception desk, “I could have let that room thrice over to various gentlemen of the press. Quite a number are expected to arrive tomorrow on the early trains from Newcastle and Carlisle. They suspect all of this might be the start of another spate of murders by ‘Jack the Ripper.’”
Atticus stared at him. The last thing he needed was to have swarms of newspaper reporters plaguing him to death with mindless questions and childish speculation, or worse, whipping the entire countryside up into a lynch mob.
“No, Mr MacLellan, it is most unlikely to be the work of ‘Jack the Ripper,’” he said firmly, “or ‘Leather Apron,’ or ‘The Whitechapel Murderer,’ or whatever else you choose to call him.
“Yes, I realise that his last murder was not so long ago and that he has never been brought to justice, but I have studied the Whitechapel Murder cases in very great detail. I will admit to you that I did briefly consider the possibility that he might be responsible for our own murders. Much of the local opinion in Whitechapel at the time was that the perpetrator was a Gateshead man, and Gateshead of course is not so very far away from here. However, Jack the Ripper’s methods were very different from those used by our murderer and his victims were all women; drunken prostitutes in the main.
“There is one striking similarity, however. The Whitechapel Murderer left his victims’ bodies in full view, almost as if he wanted the police to find them. Our own murderer seems to be playing very much the same game.”
Mr MacLellan drank in the words greedily. They would make him a minor celebrity in the public bar that evening.
“Take as long as you like for me,” he said conspiratorially. “I shouldn’t want to see anyone else killed, of course, but for all that, this affair is very good for business.”
He paused before asking the inevitable question.
“I wondered, Mr Fox; are you close to finding the real murderer? Is it Michael Britton? The whole parish is buzzing for news.”
“My wife and I have our suspicions as to the murderer’s identity based on certain evidence we have found, but we don’t have definite proof of guilt as yet.”
What might have been relief showed on the hotelier’s face.
He hesitated.
“If it isn’t to be Jack the Ripper, then it would be even better for my business if it might be King Arthur himself who had… who had risen from his vault.” He laughed a little nervously. “Many people in the village truly believe that he has, Mr Fox.”
“And on the face of it, much of what we have found points to that as actually being the case. At the site of each murder, we have found relics and items relating to the legends of King Arthur. It is a very curious case, a very curious case indeed!”
Mr MacLellan seemed to take heart from this.
“They say that Shields Tower is built on the site of a fortress, which belonged to one of King Arthur’s mortal enemies. They say that when Arthur rose again, he would doubtless take his revenge on its inhabitants.”
He eyed Atticus’s suddenly amused expression and quickly added, “Utter poppycock, of course. I personally wouldn’t believe it for a second, but there are plenty of those that do.”
Atticus was still smiling when he turned to follow Mr MacLellan as he escorted him to his room.
“I’ll arrange for your trunks and luggage to be collected from Shields Tower,” the hotelier promised. “It’ll be brought up to you directly when it arrives.”
“Excellent,” Atticus replied. “But in the meantime I’ve arranged to meet with Mrs Fox here. Perhaps you could show her up too.”
It is a particular gift of lovers that each is able to somehow sense the presence of the other. So it was with Atticus Fox. He glanced up expectantly even before there was a knock on the door of his room and a smiling Lucie stepped inside.
They embraced and Lucie said, “I almost did not make it here. The door of the bedroom was locked by mistake and it was lucky Mr Collier happened to be passing and heard my cries.”
“How very odd,” Atticus said and frowned. “That must have been a shock, especially as you were alone up there. Do you feel up to inspecting the fingertip prints we took this morning? Goodness knows how we are going to procure more of them from anyone else on the Shields estate, though; Sir Hugh isn’t going to be in the least cooperative.”
Lucie nodded ruefully, her lips pressed together as flat as the little glass plates she laid side-by-side onto the dressing table. Each carried a glued paper stuck to its underside, which in turn carried the precious facsimiles of the fingerprints taken from the sword.
Atticus took out his pocket notebook into which he had pressed their copies of the prints from Artie and Jennifer. He laid them next to the plates and reached over to his bag for his magnifying lens.
“There is no need for your glass, Atty,” Lucie murmured as he did so. “We have both of the other matches right here.”
“Do we?” He frowned and slid open the glass anyway, carefully examined each of the four sets of prints in turn.
Lucie was entirely correct. The fingerprints they had lifted from Artie and Jennifer Lowther matched perfectly with those under the glass plates. Atticus told her so.
“It shouldn’t come as too great a surprise to us, Atticus,” Lucie replied. “I said there was something about those two that didn’t sit quite right with me. Do you remember my first impression on meeting them; that they were more like lovers than brother and sister?”
“Half-brother and sister,” Atticus corrected her.
“Well I’m perfectly convinced that Jennifer is pregnant and that the most likely father to that baby is her own half-brother. What a scandal that would cause and what damage to the Lowther family name and honour if it were to become known. Sir Hugh would be beside himself with rage.”
“An example of which we have just seen at first hand,” agreed Atticus.
“Exactly. So it’s easy to imagine how that situation might become a motivation for murder,” Lucie continued. “I’m speaking of the elusive ‘why,’ Atticus. What if Jennifer and Arthur are the murderers and not Michael Britton at all?
“Consider that the good doctor, Julian Hickson, is called to examine Jennifer Lowther but he is found dead before he is able to attend to her. He would almost certainly have recognised her condition for what it is and been compelled to inform Sir Hugh. Jennifer, of course, could not have allowed that to happen. She already knew that the doctor would be on his way to Shields Tower and presumably which road he would be most likely to take. It would have been quite straightforward for her as his patient, and a very beautiful and charming one at that, to have lured him into drinking from a poisoned cup.”
Atticus considered her theory. “And left the belladonna in Britton’s cottage to point our suspicions towards him?”
Lucy nodded.
“I suppose that would explain Hickson’s death admirably,” Atticus conceded. “But what about Sir Douglas? And what about Elliott and Bradley and Bessie Armstrong, Lucie; how do their murders fit into your hypothesis?”
Lucie frowned. “I suppose it’s quite conceivable that the other victims may have known, or at least suspected what was going on too. I mean, I saw it straight away. If that were the case, then they also would have had to have been silenced before they could tell tales about it.”
Atticus tapped his chin. “Yes I see it’s quite possible, Lucie.”
“Or alternatively, what about this: what if Jennifer had been having a love affair with Elliott or with Bradley, or conceivably with both of them? After all, I know many ladies who might think there was something rather romantic and exciting about both a Gypsy and a stable groom.”
Something resonated deep in Atticus’s mind, and he said, “Yes, it is very possible. But that idea falls apart with the murders of Sir Douglas and Bessie Armstrong.”
Lucie continued, “With her too perhaps, maybe even with her grandfather. Perhaps Jennifer had wished to end the relationships but they were unwilling. Maybe she saw their deaths as the only way of ensuring their complete silence.”
Lucie’s train of thought moved rapidly on.
“Uther did tell us that his sword had been stolen the day that Elliott was killed and Artie and Jennifer have admitted that they were inside his cottage that very same morning. A sword was used to murder both Samson Elliott and Albert Bradley, and in the case of Bradley we know from Sir Hugh that it involved the sword Uther thought was Excalibur. The sabaton prints in the earth, the sound of the bugle horn, the grail, the garter, the Spear of Destiny and Excalibur were all used because they would have the entire world believe that King Arthur had risen from his vault. And don’t forget they have stated they believe that to be the case more than once.”
“But that would be madness!” Atticus protested.
They stared at each other and the room fell into hush as each became absorbed in their own thoughts.
Atticus broke the silence first.
“Lucie, do you recollect that when Artie mentioned that he and Jennifer had discovered the lost vault of King Arthur, he said it wasn’t far from the site of Sewingshields Castle?”
Lucie regarded him thoughtfully.
“Yes I do. He said that it was at the end of a cave, hidden behind a curtain of brambles and undergrowth. Are you suggesting that we search for it?”
Atticus nodded. “Yes, I think we should. Everything seems to be connected to King Arthur, and therefore to this vault in some way. Artie had offered to blindfold us and take us to it. That would, of course, be a ludicrously foolhardy thing to do if he and Jennifer were the murderers. But if we search that area ourselves, even if we don’t actually find the cave entrance itself, it is quite likely that we would meet with one or other of them there; Artie and Jennifer clearly spend much of their time there, and Uther Pendragon too is obsessed with the place. It would be inviting trouble for me to roam the Lowther estates so soon after my altercation with Sir Hugh but Sewingshields is on a neighbour’s land. It would be a first-rate opportunity to question them further.”
Lucie beamed.
“That’s an excellent idea, Atty. Come, there’s no time to be lost. The devil can take your trunks until we return!”