The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) (14 page)

“I didn’t really expect to find one,” Giles said to Lambert when they had dismissed the last key holder, “to tell you the truth. What I want them all to know is that there is a key missing – and that I know there is a key missing.”

“That is clear enough to them now, certainly. Come, you will need a drink. I certainly do.”

“I have not looked at your keys yet, Lamb,” Giles pointed out, as they went into his private office upstairs.

Lambert turned out his great bunch onto the table.

“In comparison to you, the Dean has very few keys indeed,” Giles remarked, when he had finished examining them.

“That is because I don’t choose to let him have many. He would only lose them – or confuse them. He is not a practical man, and these details bore him. He has the keys he needs.”

“I always suspected you were the real authority here, Lamb,” said Giles with a smile. “But I have never dared articulate that truth.”

“He who controls the purse strings controls everything,” said Lambert, his hand on the decanter.

“So that’s why you don’t want preferment?”

“I like my post here,” said Lambert. “I shouldn’t want to be Dean of Northminster, or Dean of anywhere else for that matter, let alone a Bishop! Too many sermons to preach. Far better to balance the books.”

“You preach very well.”

“When did you last listen to me preach, Giles?” said Lambert.

“Only over the port,” said Giles.

Lambert gave a slight shrug, as if he hardly expected it otherwise.

Lambert’s secretary came in and said, “Dean Pritchard would like to speak with you, sir,”

“Perfect timing as ever,” said Lambert, replacing the stopper in the decanter. “Very well, send him in, James.”

Dean Pritchard came in with great briskness and looked annoyed to see Giles standing there.

“You are still here, Major Vernon?” he said.

“I’m afraid so, sir,”

“However long it takes,” said Lambert, with a wave of his hand. “Now what can I do for you?”

“I wished to talk to you about Fildyke. You said you would find him a post.”

“Oh yes, so I did,” said Lambert.

“And have you?”

“Not yet.”

“He is a loyal servant and he has been badly used. I would like this matter seen to with alacrity.”

“Dean Pritchard, you will forgive me,” Giles said, cutting in. “But there is good cause for Canon Fforde to hesitate to make another appointment. I have reason to believe that Fildyke’s character is less than spotless.”

“In what way?”

“I have visited his shop – his affairs are highly dubious, by my reckoning. He was selling counterfeit engravings.”

“You are sure of this?” said Dean Pritchard.

“I have begun an investigation, yes,” said Giles. “I would suggest that you hesitate before putting such a man back on the Minster roll.”

“That I can scarcely believe,” said Pritchard.

“I will soon have the evidence I need to put him in front of the justices,” Giles said.

“I think you must be mistaken, sir,” said the Dean.

“He isn’t usually,” said Lambert, mildly.

“I find it hard, Major Vernon, very hard to believe that a man I have known these many years, an excellent pious man, who has served this House of God for so long and with such devotion, could be responsible for any wrongdoing.”

“It is for the courts to judge him – not you, nor I. You may wish to offer him your support as a character witness, but the evidence is strong against him, and until the matter is resolved I suggest that you do not find him a post.”

“I believe he is being victimised!” said Dean Pritchard. “A campaign is afoot against him and it pays neither of you gentleman any compliments to be involved in it. You, Canon Fforde, you were eager to support Watkins in his intemperate dismissal of him from the choir.”

“That is not fair, my dear Pritchard,” Lambert Fforde, in his most conciliatory tone, though Giles heard the touch of steel in it. “We discussed the matter at great length, and I think you will recall that we decided that the Master of Music must be allowed to take such actions. The manner in which it was done was to be regretted, but the action itself was permissible.”

“I think you recall the matter wrongly,” said the Dean.

“I believe I minuted it,” said Lambert. “I can have my clerk look out the record if you wish.”

The Dean twitched his face in annoyance, apparently unable to find an answer to this.

Instead he turned to Giles. “And you, sir, seem determined to assert your authority where you have no authority. Within the walls of the Precincts, I would remind you, sir, I am sole authority, by ancient custom. You are only here with your investigations by my leave!”

“Well, sir,” said Giles, “that is not strictly the case. Although ancient custom is something I try always to respect, I must also abide by statute. The Act of Parliament setting up the City Constabulary was clear to the letter. My force has equal jurisdiction within the Precincts as without. When we have such a grave matter on our hands as the wilful murder of a man, every step must be taken to find out who is responsible. I do regret the disruption to the Minster business, as I said to you earlier, but I must proceed as I think fit. After all, Charles Barnes was one of your own and deserves every effort we can make on his behalf.”

“Quite so,” said Lambert.

“Then I trust for your sake, sir, that your efforts will not be in vain!” said Dean Pritchard. “This matter of Mr Fildyke is not closed, Canon Fforde, you may be sure of that! Good day to you, gentlemen!” With which he left.

“Is it my imagination,” said Lambert, “but is his temper getting worse? He is very quick to climb upon his high horse these days, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps,” said Giles.

“I think it is because he is never happy in his boots. His people – well, I believe his father was a grocer in Lincoln or some such and he thinks we don’t believe him to be a gentleman.”

“Perhaps we don’t?”

“You may be right,” said Lambert, with a sigh. “Sally would certainly accuse me of that. Whatever, he is always trying to be something he is not. It is rather tiring for the rest of us.” He poured a glass of sherry. “And Fildyke is crooked! Ha! Well done, Giles, well done! You’ll join me?”

Giles shook his head. He could not feel any satisfaction at it. The search for a duplicate key had proved completely futile. He had no sense of progress. He had only succeeded in closing down a somewhat tenuous avenue of enquiry. Perhaps there was only one key to the chapel, a key marked with a conspicuous ribbon which might or might not be significant.

“I have to go,” he said.

Chapter Nineteen

Having finished his morning surgery, Felix was attempting to write up his notes, but found himself utterly distracted by thoughts of Mrs Morgan. It was more than distraction; it had all the qualities of a waking dream. He saw her smiling at him across the expanse of her satinwood piano, and then again recalled how she had been last night at dinner, in the austere majesty of her midnight blue silk. He could see every detail in his mind’s eye – the bright parrot tapestry on her lap, her elegant hands plying her needle, the soft pale skin of her shoulders, even the pearls about the neck which he had longed and kiss. And then her voice which seemed to ring in his head, that clarity of tone, the sweetness, the passion that conspired to be so ravishing, like the touch of her hand on his own skin.

He had tried with some effort to think about Kate Pritchard instead. He wished she had not forced him into a falsehood. He did not like keeping such a matter from Major Vernon.

The discomfort she had produced in him by doing this offset any enthusiasm he attempted to whip up for her. Yes, she was a good-looking and amusing young woman, but that was all. She could not hold the stage of his mind with Mrs Morgan.

How perverse of him it was to discard that which was potentially available in favour of the unattainable!

He was just getting up from his writing table, having almost decided that he would go and see Mrs Morgan – as if that might do him any good – when there was a knock at his door.

It was Barker, Major Vernon’s clerk.

“I have a Mr Fildyke here asking for you, Mr Carswell.”

Felix went out into the passageway and found Fildyke standing there, hat in hand, revealing his greasy, over-pomaded hair.

“I’m sorry to bother you sir – but it’s my mother. She’s so very bad today. I thought – well, if you would not mind stepping by, if you had a moment of your valuable time.”

He had no wish at all to go back to that tawdry little shop, but he could hardly refuse. Perhaps there was a sort of providence in making him go there rather than to see Mrs Morgan.

“I’ll come as soon as I can,” Felix said, not wishing to walk through Northminster in the company of Fildyke.

“Thank you, sir, I’m much obliged.”

Felix closed his door and managed ten minutes of writing before packing his bag and setting off for All Souls.

Fildyke greeted him at the door of his shop, dressed now in his shopman’s apron. He took Felix straight into the stuffy little parlour with the birdcages, where Mrs Fildyke was on her couch as before. She was wearing a greasy yellow silk wrapper which made her look even more grey-faced and miserable. She was obviously in great pain and had recently vomited, for the chamber pot stood full nearby. It was no time to be squeamish, and Felix got on with his examination.

He noticed a slight burn to the corner of her mouth, as if it had come into contact with something extremely caustic.

“Have you taken any medicines or powders, Mrs Fildyke?” There was no knowing what she might have taken. People were quick to dose themselves with things that did more harm than good, encouraged by the quacks who passed for medical men amongst the common people. She may have taken a purge too violent for her to withstand.

Felix had some personal experience of this. As boy, in the wake of some childish indisposition, he had been given one by a Pitfeldry apothecary. It had almost killed him. He could remember lying in his bed, his mother washing him down between those debilitating bursts of vomiting, while outside in the hall the Rev. James Carswell, who did not lose his temper easily, could be heard berating the apothecary. Then later Lord Rothborough had been there, coming into his bedchamber, a circumstance which until then he had entirely forgotten, and now which struck him forcibly and disturbed him. He had woken from sleeping to find his Lordship on his knees by the bed, apparently praying.

“No, no, just a little gruel.” Mrs Fildyke’s pained and raspy voice pulled him back to the present. “The gruel my son makes for me.”

“You are sure of that, Mrs Fildyke?” Felix said. The sweetmeat dishes and the port bottle were still to hand. The sugar plums looked particularly unpleasant: was that discoloured powdered sugar or dust?

“Yes... oh my God...” was all she managed to say, for she was starting to retch again. There was no suitable vessel to hand other than the already full chamber pot which Felix was obliged to hold up to her to assist her in her distress.

Finally it was over and she fell back panting, tears running down her face. She gripped at Felix’s hand and said, in a pathetic hoarse whisper, “I shall not die, shall I, sir?”

“No, I do not think it will come to that.”

“Sometimes...” she began, and glanced around her, with the same abstracted mania as the feathery creatures in the cages above her.

“Do not trouble yourself with words now,” Felix said. “You must rest.”

She nodded and closed her eyes.

There was not even a bowl or cloth to clean her face to hand, so carrying the wretched pot he went back into the shop where he found Fildyke anxiously waiting.

“Where is the kitchen?”

“Down there, sir, if you don’t mind.” Fildyke indicated the entrance to a dark, sloping passageway which led to an unsurprisingly depressingly apartment. A maid-of-all-work, a rough-looking creature, was on her knees in front of a smouldering fire, trying to coax it into life. There would be no hot water to wash in, then, he thought with resignation.

“Is the closet out there?” he asked, indicating the door.

“Aye,” said the girl staggering to her feet.

“Deal with this, will you,” he said holding out the pot.

She did not look best pleased with him and took her time in taking it from him.

“Water?” he asked.

“There’s a pump out in the yard,” she said as she stomped towards the back door.

“I’ll do it myself,” he said.

“What has your mistress been eating?” he asked, noticing the pile of dirty crocks on the draining board as he followed her out into the yard. “Anything unusual? Some spoilt meat?”

“What would I know?” said the maid, banging the privy door.

“Don’t you do the cooking?” he said, beginning to crank the pump.

“No, mister Fildyke does it,” she said, coming and thrusting the pot under the pump.

“Scrub it out well,” he said, “with vinegar if you have some.” She gave him an evil look at that. “And I want you to bring out clean basins, clean cloths and a jug of water.”

The actual cleanliness of these items could not of course be guaranteed, but it would be better than nothing.

He returned to Mrs Fildyke and found her dozing, so he he gently cleaned her face as best he could.

“So what do you think, sir?” said Fildyke who was waiting in the shop.

“What have you been feeding her?” said Felix. “What is this gruel of yours?”

“Nothing that would harm a soul,” said Fildyke. “Just a little barley in broth.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to be doing your mother much good. You haven’t given her any powders or anything to induce a purge?”

“No, no, of course not.”

“That other fellow she spoke of the other day – Joyce, was it? – he has not give her anything?”

“No, no, I haven’t called anyone except you.”

“I think something has poisoned her – she’s eaten something spoilt, most probably. She will need looking after a good deal better than this. Surely you can get someone else in to help, other than that girl?”

“Well, I suppose I might – but my mother doesn’t like strangers.”