Medi-Evil 3 (6 page)

 
Inside, the new-made widower, now with sword drawn, was seated on the bed beside the body of his wife, which he’d clearly placed there himself. He’d pulled off his wig, and had gone white in the face.

 
Aware that he was being watched coldly,
O’Calligan
went first to the bell in the corner. It was similar
to his own
in that it hung just below the ceiling. If the poor woman had indeed reached up and rung it, it would have been quite a stretch for her, especially considering that she was at that moment under attack. Next, he contemplated the walls themselves, which, aside from a timber skirting-board, were of bare stone blocks and hung with tapestries. He checked behind the tapestries, but found nothing unusual. After this, it was the window: outside it he saw another unbroken strip of snow on the ledge. Clearly, no-one had entered or departed this way, though the top panel, he now noticed, was open, admitting an icy breeze.

 
O’Calligan
turned to
Lightbourne
. “Forgive me for asking, my lord, but did you or your wife open this casement?”

 
There was a chilling silence, before
Lightbourne
replied: “My wife did. Last night. She always found a stuffy room intolerable.”

 
O’Calligan
noted that the hearth was cold. “Is that why you had no fire?”

 
At first
Lightbourne
couldn’t reply. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips taut and grey and visibly trembling, and for the first time it struck the Irishman that there was more to this arrogant, posturing peacock than he’d first thought. Lord Randolph
Lightbourne
was one of that very rare breed: a rakish squire, a gambling man and a drinker, but all the same a fellow who genuinely cared for his wife. “We … we made our own warmth together,” he finally mumbled, starting to weep again, softly.

 
A second or two passed before
O’Calligan
added: “You shouldn’t remain in here. Why torture yourself?”

 
At which the country gent suddenly seem to wake up to the reality of the situation. He snatched at the hilt of his sword. “I’ll take no advice from you … you bog-dwelling Irish ruffian! Leave me alone!”

 
“This villain seeks to murder us all,”
O’Calligan
said calmly. “We should stay together.”

 
“Did you not hear me,
sirrah
? Get out of here!”

 
O’Calligan
did as he was bidden. There seemed little point in exacerbating an already difficult situation. In the drawing room, he found Lady
Foxworth
assisting Cedric as he removed the remnants of their afternoon repast, and Judge Prendergast standing beside the window, stuffing his pipe with more Brazilian tobacco.

 
“This is a confounded mystery,” the judge said.

 
“I don’t understand it,”
O’Calligan
confessed. “We were all of us together when we heard the alarm.”

 
“All of us except the manservant chap.”

 
O’Calligan
shook his head. “Cedric was only in the passage. You said that, yourself … how could he have attacked Lady
Lightbourne
, dragged her away from the bell, finished her off, locked the room, then come all the way downstairs and gathered a tray of sweetmeats in time to meet us outside that door? It’s not feasible.”

 
“Little about this business is.”

 
“There has to be someone else on these premises,”
O’Calligan
said.

 
Prendergast blew out a stream of fragrant smoke. “We’ve looked. There’s no trace.”

 
“If only we could get to
Minehead
.”

 
“One of us may need to try.”

 
But
O’Calligan
was less sure about that. Outside, night had now fallen on the snow-deep tundra. Flakes swirled on a newly-risen wind, which would cut anyone stranded in it to the very bones. Even in the unlikely event that one of them decided he and his horse were strong enough to risk such a venture, the chances were that he’d be lucky to find his way off the moor, let alone to the coast and the nearest town.

 
Despite this, someone
did
test the elements that night, and managed just before the stroke of twelve to arrive grunting and puffing at the doors of
Silvercombe
Hall.

*

With the exception of Lord
Lightbourne
, who hadn’t yet come down from his bed-chamber, the
remainder of the household were
together in the drawing room, dozing under quilts, when they heard the banging at the front door.

 
There was initial astonishment, then
O’Calligan
, Cedric and Judge Prendergast went to answer it, all three armed. Only after demanding identification through the door, did they admit the callers: two men, both in cloaks and
tricornes
thickly caked with
snow.
Lady
Foxworth
arrived in the hall as the newcomers stripped off their outer garments. Her face broke into a relieved smile when she saw that one of them – a youthful fellow, with long fair curls, wearing the buff uniform of the Dutch Royal Navy – was her younger brother, Rupert. The second also wore Dutch naval garb, though he was larger, burlier, and had a brown, scarred face.

 
“I expected you over a week ago,” she said, clasping arms around her sibling.

 
“We only left Windsor a couple of days back,” he laughed. “We’d have come sooner, but there was a bit of skirmishing with James’s Irish militia before an armistice could be reached. I wasn’t sure we’d even get here today. This blizzard is the worst I’ve seen.
Edouard
here didn’t know we got such snow in England. Oh, by the way, may I introduce First Lieutenant
Edouard
Van
Brooner
, my most capable officer.”

 
The Dutchman bowed.
“Madame.”

 
“You’re most welcome,
Edouard
.”

 
“It’s my pleasure to attend you.” His English, though accented, was fluent.

 
“Well, this is a quiet house for Christmas Day,” the younger
Foxworth
said. “Late though the hour is, for which I heartily
apologise
.” He turned to his compatriot. “I told you I’d come home again, didn’t I,
Edouard
? By damn, no
bunch of Papists were
keeping me from the family nest.”

 
“Rupert,” Lady
Foxworth
said, now more solemnly. “Come into the drawing room. There’s something I should tell you.”

 
Five minutes later, the entire tragedy had been explained to the new-arrivals, who greeted the news at first with slow bewilderment, finally with outrage and anger.

 
“We must search the premises!” Rupert shouted at the top of his voice.

 
“We’ve already searched,” his sister replied, seated by the fire.
“Several times.
There’s no-one here but ourselves.”

 
“What about
him
?” Lieutenant Van
Brooner
asked, with a glowering nod towards
O’Calligan
. “Isn’t it likely that
he’s
responsible?”

 
“How so?”
Lady
Foxworth
enquired.

 
“Well for one thing, he’s James’s man,” Rupert said. “In fact, we came here specifically to free you from
his
clutches. His world has ended. He’s nothing but a powerless, penniless immigrant. He has plenty reason to strike out.”

 
“That’s scarcely proof, gentlemen,” Judge Prendergast put in.

 
“Can he prove he
didn’t
do it?” Lieutenant Van
Brooner
wondered.

 
“Can you prove
you
didn’t?”
O’Calligan
replied. “You say you’ve ridden all the way from Windsor.
A hundred miles or more, in this weather.
Personally I find that doubtful.”

 
“What exactly are you suggesting?” Rupert demanded.

 
O’Calligan
remained calm. “Surmising rather than suggesting, but it’s not beyond the realms of credibility that two felons might secrete themselves somewhere nearby to carry out hit-and-run raids on the house. And perhaps tonight the cold simply became too much for them.”

 
Before either Rupert or Van
Brooner
could reply, there came a series of shrieks from the outer passage. A moment later, the maid Martha had stumbled in and collapsed. For a second there was complete confusion, then the girl jabbered out that she’d been upstairs, making up a new pair of rooms, as ordered by her mistress, when she’d heard the sounds “of chokes” from Lord
Lightbourne’s
room.

 
“Fearful chokes, ma-am. The sound o’
murder,
and no mistake!”

*

The scene was now a familiar one, though in this case there were several differences.

 
To begin with,
Lightbourne
had put up a fight. Slash marks on the drapery around his bed revealed that he’d struck out with his sword. In addition, his throat, though again rent from ear to ear, was not the only wound on him. His shirt had been torn open, and there were gashes on his chest and shoulder, and, higher up, on one of his cheeks.

 
“This is demonic!” Rupert bellowed.

 
“This, gentlemen, is the horror that has afflicted us all through the Yuletide feast,” Judge Prendergast remarked soberly.

 
“Does anyone know who’s responsible?” Lieutenant Van
Brooner
asked.

 
O’Calligan
glanced around. “Do you think we’d be standing here like cherries waiting to be plucked, if we did?”

 
The big Dutchman scowled at him. “You may have been downstairs with us at the time, but I still haven’t discounted
you
from this business.”

 
“Nor I you,”
O’Calligan
replied.

 
Van
Brooner’s
scowl became a cruel sneer. “I killed some of your countrymen at Reading. What do you think about that?”

 
“If I was you,
Dutchie
, I’d watch my bloody lip,”
came
the Irishman’s taut reply.

 
“Enough of this!”
Rupert interrupted. “We must search the upper floor. All of us!” And he raced from the room, pushing his lieutenant in front of him.

 
Judge Prendergast followed, and Cedric was about to leave too when
O’Calligan
stopped him: “Is there something different in here?” the Irishman wondered.

 
Cedric glanced around, blank-faced. “I don’t see it.”

 
“The fire is lit. It wasn’t earlier.”

 
The servant shrugged. “Lord
Lightbourne
must’ve got cold. There’s coal, a tinder-box. He could easily have lit it himself.”

 
“Yes, but the window is still open. If he’d got cold, wouldn’t he have closed the window as well?”

 
“I don’t follow.”

 
O’Calligan
shook his head. “There must be a reason why he lit that fire.”

 
Cedric crossed the room, took a poker and thrust it around amid the glowing coals. Aside from a few scraps of kindling, the only other thing in there was an edging of paper, gold-trimmed. Cedric scraped it out onto the floor. It was all that remained of a burnt sheet of notepaper; the gold trim revealed that it was household notepaper, of the sought used by Lady
Foxworth
in her regular correspondence.

 
“This doesn’t really tell us anything,” Cedric observed.