The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (25 page)

Alice seemed to read my thoughts. “You surely don’t believe the subject of this picture proves Chippendale killed Partridge?”

Forgetting reason, I replied impulsively. “Don’t I?”

S
o I came bowling back to Cambridge, seated this time in the plush comfort of Foley’s coach. Before proceeding to his own residence nearby at Whitely Court, Foley was to deposit me at Horseheath among the Montforts, where, he declared, I’d be well placed to observe them. Of course my spirits plummeted when I heard this plan. Yet I knew Foley was a man who guarded his opinions zealously, and it crossed my mind that he might have cooked up his scheme of leaving me at Horseheath for some hidden reason of his own. Knowing how close I had come to death, he couldn’t fail to be conscious I was still in jeopardy. Yet he was happy to deposit me in the jaws of the very danger that had already threatened my life once. I hadn’t a notion what his motives might be, but I sensed something in his hooded gaze that made me uneasy. I tried to voice the terror I felt when I contemplated the house, yet Foley only laughed, as if fear was of no consequence, and said there was no way we could resolve the matter without entering it. And so, with misgiving in my heart, I fell in with him.

We arrived at the gates of Horseheath with dusk falling. It had rained softly but ceaselessly all day, and now the weather had worsened; black clouds were massed against an unpropitious sky, and large drops of rain lashed our window. We reached the final turn in the drive to see the house emerge before us, an expanse of dark, bleak stone and glass, with every window unlit and no sign of life. It was only after several minutes, when Foley (who refused adamantly to drive round to the rear) had gathered his flapping cloak about him and descended from the carriage to knock several times on the door with his silver-topped cane, that we glimpsed the flicker of a lantern approaching.

“Who’s there?” called Mrs. Cummings. I had followed Foley to the porch and at once recognized the voice as hers.

“Lord Foley,” returned the buffeted crowlike figure.

There was a loud scrape, the crunch of bolts unfastening, and the door swung open.

“Lord Foley! Forgive me for keeping you, my lord, I couldn’t believe my ears. What brings your lordship here? No one’s at home but me and Yarrow the butler, and he’s retired to his chamber. The rest of the staff are away while the family are in London. I’ve had word not to expect them till tomorrow afternoon…”

Despite the rivulets running down his face, Foley flashed a gracious smile. “Fear not, good lady, I’m aware of the family’s intentions,” he said, “but I bring you Mr. Hopson, who’s in need of accommodation for a night or two. I’ve no place for him at Whitely and feel sure your master will raise no objection. He’s here at my bidding to examine the drawings in the library.”

Mrs. Cummings complied readily with his request, though she muttered she’d been told nothing of me coming to look at any drawings. Foley left me with a meaningful glare and curt orders to begin sifting through the drawings as soon as I was able in the morning.

I knew that the drawings that concerned us were already at Whitely, so I deduced his real intention was that I should take advantage of the family’s absence to ferret through any papers that might shed light on recent events. For all my trepidation, I recognized the necessity of this subterfuge. It might provide me with information regarding Partridge, and now that I’d braved my terrors and come here, I was determined to find whatever needed finding, to get to the bottom of Partridge’s death and be gone. Nevertheless, I asked myself why Foley could not have discussed this on our journey, so that at least we might have concocted a proper strategy. Again I wondered if his reticence concealed some hidden purpose. Perhaps leaving me here unprotected and undirected was simply a ploy to disassociate himself from any blunders I made, while reaping the benefits of my advances. Or was he using me as bait, deliberately bringing me within the reach of the unknown person who wished me dead in order to draw him out?

Fortunately, perhaps, I’d no time to dwell on these worrisome thoughts. The moment Foley remounted his carriage and disappeared into the storm Mrs. Cummings took charge of me. She was touchingly hospitable; now she’d overcome the shock of seeing me, she was full of how pleased Connie would be when she knew of my return. She led me to the kitchens for a bit of supper, watching contentedly as I ate my fill of calf’s-head brawn and seed cake, and while I supped I took the opportunity to probe her on the subject of my master.

Alice’s account of the strange legend of Talos and Daedalus had convinced me the picture in Partridge’s tool chest must represent some form of mystical clue as to what had happened to him. I’d already decided that Chippendale’s strange manner at our last meeting might be construed as evidence of his guilty conscience, but I couldn’t fathom how he could possibly have carried out a murder at Horseheath when, as far as anyone knew, he was in London. Thus I prised information from Mrs. Cummings: had she recently seen Chippendale about these parts?

“Mr. Chippendale? I believe he came once or twice several months ago, but I’ve never seen him since,” she said, filling my cup with another ladle of hot ale.

“Could he have called on Lord Montfort unnoticed?”

She shook her head firmly. “I should doubt it. If I didn’t hear of him someone else would, and then I should have heard anyway.”

I was, I confess, a little disappointed in her reply, yet my conviction remained. The picture on the tool-chest lid could only be a sign. There was, I told myself, a fair chance that Chippendale had traveled here incognito. This was not so ludicrous a possibility as it might sound. If Chippendale were intent on murder, he would hardly go announcing himself wherever he went. But if he
had
followed Partridge to Cambridge, if he
was
responsible for his death, it would mean someone else entirely had murdered Montfort; the two deaths were not connected, and it was no more than a strange coincidence that they had occurred on the same night. But although I wanted to believe it, this theory sat uneasily with me. I was mindful of the connection I’d found between Montfort and Partridge, and couldn’t convince myself their deaths had nothing to do with each other.

With a good supper in my belly, my eyes began to droop and my limbs grew heavy, and probing Mrs. Cummings further on the matter seemed suddenly less pressing than a good night’s sleep. It was a relief therefore when she handed me a tallow light and bade me take my pick of the beds in the garret.

I mounted the stairs to the attic chamber, feeling a little strange to be all alone in a space more usually occupied by four or five servants. I paced around the trestle beds, testing each before at length choosing the one nearest the door. Here I thought I’d be best protected from the drafts of the tempest raging on outdoors.

Perhaps it was the richness of the food, or my underlying fears, or the fact I’d never before slept in such a lonely and uninhabited mansion, but I awoke after several hours to find myself gripped by a feeling of dread. The candle stub still flickered, and I strained my eyes in the half darkness, imagining unknown, indiscernible horrors all around me. It seemed to me the empty beds in the garret were spread out like corpses, that the shadows of branches outside reached out to grasp me. I struggled to suppress my terror, to divine what was real from what were figments of my fevered imagination. I squinted at the window, and the watery trails on the panes reminded me of the leeches I’d removed from Montfort’s body; then in my mind I was back at the frozen lake with poor Partridge’s mutilated body. An instant later, from the floor below, I imagined I could make out muffled, indeterminate sounds. I heard doors crashing and boards groaning, as if people paced around down there. Voices seemed to call shrilly to one another, though I couldn’t understand a word of what they said. Yet hadn’t Mrs. Cummings told me there was no one here but the two of us? I became more panicked with every passing minute. It seemed to me that these strange reverberating sounds of footsteps and shrieking voices were filled with menace; that they could only be the noises of the killer awaiting his opportunity to strike. Soon I was lying there bathed in perspiration, straining to separate each unfamiliar sound from the last, taut with horror that at any moment I would be pounced upon.

At length I could bear it no longer. Irritated by my own lack of courage, I resolved, despite my shivering jaw, to allay my terror by proving to myself how foolish I’d become. I would rise and patrol the corridor beneath me. Once I had satisfied myself there was no one there, I would surely sleep soundly.

I descended the back stairs in my nightshirt, holding my light in front of me, like some talisman of hope against the sinister darkness into which I plunged. As I descended the narrow stair, I paused every couple of steps to listen, telling myself I was an idiot to allow myself to fall prey to such feeble imaginings. I heard nothing. As cautiously as if I were about to cross a graveyard at midnight on Halloween, I rounded the corner where the stairs joined the landing. I paused again. Still nothing.

The corridor in which I now found myself was L-shaped, some thirty yards long, forming the backbone of the house, with windows overlooking parkland on the right side, and all the rooms opening to the left. The principal bedchambers lay at the far end of the landing, closest to the main staircase. Where I now stood were doorways leading to smaller bedchambers. At intervals along the walls were hung mounted trophies of the hunt. The heads of foxes, stags, bears, and wolves, their mouths torn back in frozen grimace, loomed over me. I began to edge my way towards the angle of the L, beyond which lay the main staircase. I trod slowly and cautiously, pressing my back to the wall, sheltering my wavering light with a trembling hand. Halfway along I heard a creaking sound. This was no figment of an overwrought imagination, but real enough. I blew out my light and shrank back into the shadow of a doorway.

At that moment a door further down the corridor from where I stood opened and closed again. Then a shuffle of approaching footsteps, a flicker of candlelight. The footsteps grew louder. A moment more and they would reach the corner. I had to escape or I’d certainly be discovered, but it was too far to risk retreating to the servants’ stairs. I took the only route I could. I turned the handle of the door nearest to me, and finding it unlocked I went in.

I was in a bedchamber. The curtains were closed; a small fire, recently lit, burned in the grate; a single night-light flickered on the side table. I could make out the bed, a vast tester in the grandest of styles, festooned with draperies and surmounted with a plume of ostrich feathers emerging like some strange plant from the apex. The counterpane was thrown back and the pillows and bolsters in tumbled disarray as if someone had recently left it. Against one wall stood a dressing chest, its surface strewn with a snuffbox, a pocket watch, hair powder, pomade, eau de cologne, combs and brushes, and a periwig on a stand.

I was still standing in the middle of the room when I heard the unmistakable shuffle again and then the click of the door handle. There was no time to think. Instinctively I moved across the room, searching frantically for some means of concealment. By the time the door began to open, I was rustling at the curtains. Mercifully, behind them was a wide ledge. I leaped in and drew the damask screen back in front of me.

My heart was thumping so wildly I was sure it must be audible. I desperately wanted to see who the mysterious occupant of the room might be, yet I dared not look. I heard the person enter, stand for a moment motionless, then approach the bed and, to judge from the rustling of covers and creaking stays, enter it. After a minute or two curiosity overwhelmed me. I screwed up courage enough to open the curtain an inch and put my eye to the crack. It was as I was doing so that the door opened a second time and another person entered. Like a tormented snail I shrank back into my retreat and switched the crack closed. I listened as the second person padded to the bed, with a heavier step than the first, and got in without a word spoken.

Not long after, noises began to emanate from the bed. At first they were no more than gentle rustlings and stirrings, as if the occupants were restless and tossing and turning in an effort to make themselves comfortable. Then the sounds gathered pace. They were cries that became louder, more insistent, interspersed with grunts and moans, which grew increasingly rhythmic as they moved towards a crescendo. There was no doubt: these were the sounds of a coupling of a most violent nature.

In one way, however, I saw their engagement as a blessing. It offered me an opportunity to escape from the room while they were noisily distracted. I wriggled down low, slid off the window ledge, and silently wormed across the floor on my elbows and belly. At the foot of the tester, curiosity overcame me. I raised my head slightly to identify the mysterious couple. Amid a turbulent sea of bedclothes all I could see was a pair of moon-white buttocks heaving up and down between spread-eagled thighs. Impossible to identify to whom these portions of anatomy belonged. I continued hastily on my way, and by the time I was at the door the writhing bodies had begun to intersperse their grunting and groaning with speech.

“God’s teeth,” growled the man as he heaved into her, “you’re hotter than a posset cup. I don’t doubt that if my father hadn’t dropped dead I would have perished from desire.”

The woman gave a wail of ecstasy. “Dropped dead, what d’you mean?” she shrieked. “Did you not enjoy me often enough while he lived?”

It was an unmistakably shrill voice—the voice of Elizabeth Montfort. She was in the throes of passion with her stepson, Robert.

Without waiting to see what would happen next, I reached up for the handle and turned it. But the handle stayed fast. Alas, now I discovered that the last person to enter had locked the door and removed the key. I turned back to the bed. The key glinted on the nightstand. There was no means by which I could safely retrieve it unnoticed. I would have to return to my hideout on the window ledge and wait for morning to make my escape. With mounting trepidation, for I knew I did not have much time left before their union reached its climax, I turned back.