The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (8 page)

“That might explain the physical evidence before us, sir,” I said, “and moreover the theory is supported by the leeches and the footprints on the floor.”

“Footprints?” echoed Foley, from which I divined he’d never even remarked them.

“Leeches?” interjected Westleigh.

“We found several on his neck,” Foley explained impatiently. “Hopson has since returned them to their jar. But what footprints are you talking of, Hopson?”

I addressed Westleigh’s query first. “Lord Foley has already posed this question: why would a man about to commit suicide choose to bleed himself? The answer it seems to me is simple. He would do no such thing. The leeches are therefore another significant indicator that Montfort
did not
shoot himself.” I turned to Foley. “Furthermore there are the footprints to consider. They are difficult to see, but they are present nonetheless.”

Here I waved towards the faint smudges I had earlier remarked on the floor. They had dried now and were almost invisible on the polished boards.

“What do you make of them, Hopson?” asked Foley.

“They are certainly made from blood. Yet Montfort could not have formed them himself. There’s no blood on his slippers. We must presume therefore they were made by his assassin, with his victim’s blood.”

Westleigh scratched his chin. “These are grave accusations.” He looked uneasily at the blue morocco slippers on Montfort’s feet, on which no trace of blood was visible.

“I do not make them lightly, and they are only a hypothesis,” I said, worried now that he would chastise me for audacity in disagreeing with the prevailing view. “But suicide cannot explain what we see here. Indeed even the theory I have just posed doesn’t answer everything.”

“What d’you mean?” said Foley.

“I cannot fathom the pool of blood on the windowsill. Or the fact that the prints on the ground outside appear quite different from those in here.”

“What!” exclaimed Westleigh, heaving himself to his feet and marching to the window. “More blood and more footprints?” Having paused to examine the stains on the sill, he opened the sash and leaned out. Foley followed close behind. “How can you be sure?” demanded Westleigh.

“Observe the shape of the footprint and the space between the paces,” said I. “Those inside are made by a narrow square-toed shoe, a fashionable shoe I daresay. One such as a gentleman might wear. They are positioned strangely close, no further apart than a foot, while those outside are heavy-booted and widely spaced. Even from the window I’d put close on a yard between them.”

“What does that signify?” asked Westleigh.

“That they were made by different people, or, less probably, by the same person wearing different shoes. Perhaps whoever killed Lord Montfort had an accomplice, or perhaps the assassin changed his shoes, though I cannot for the life of me fathom why he would do such a thing. And that still would not explain why so much blood came to be spilled under the window when Lord Montfort was shot over here, nor why the footprints disappear as they lead towards the window, where there seems to be most blood.”

At this moment Robert Montfort burst into the room. His complexion was dark, and his eyes bulged in a manner that reminded me uncannily of the previous day when I’d first encountered Lord Montfort in this very room.

“I think it most discreditable,” he fumed, “that a tradesman’s word should be given credence above those of distinction who know something of the matter.”

I began backing towards the door. Westleigh was pressing his fingertips delicately together as he contemplated my argument. He looked up and, seeing me retreat, signaled me to stay.

“Mr. Hopson is here, sir, at Lord Foley’s suggestion, and as one of the first witnesses to the scene. I am giving his evidence no more weight than that of any other person, although it seems to me that his eyes operate remarkably efficiently regardless of his middling rank. Perhaps I should also remind you that I am the justice of this district; as such if I am called in by an interested party—in this instance your aunt, Miss Alleyn, and Lord Foley here—I am duty bound to investigate such a sudden and mysterious demise as your father’s. It is my task to ascertain whether or not a felony has been committed, and if so who will bring the appeal and who will be prosecuted. Mr. Hopson is assisting as he too is obliged to do.”

“Felony be damned! The death may have been sudden,” retorted Robert, “but there was nothing mysterious in it, and no need for any investigation. My father mentioned suicide to Wallace this very evening. His apothecary treated him for melancholia yesterday. What more do you need by way of evidence? And what reasons has Hopson for his outlandish postulation?”

Westleigh repeated that he was duty bound to proceed with the investigation, that I was only doing as I was bidden; then, sensing my embarrassment, he outlined the gist of my argument for me. Robert Montfort remained skeptical.

“The position of the gun means nothing. It was dark, Hopson is only guessing that he stumbled on it some distance from the corpse. The footprints are easily explained. We have only his word that he saw them when he discovered the body—and he could be mistaken. All those present saw me in my grief take a handkerchief and wipe my father’s brow. Then I’m sure I must have walked to the window. Does it not seem plausible that in so doing I inadvertently caused the footprints?”

“And what of the blood on the other arm?” demanded Westleigh, “and the blood on the sill and the footprints outside? Were you inadvertently responsible for those too?”

Robert snorted. “There will be a plausible explanation for all these details if you bother to look for it. I find it quite peculiar that you give such an excess of credence to the suggestions of this creature Hopson. For instance, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility for my father to have used two hands to fire the fatal shot.”

This was more than I could bear. I nervously opened my mouth to point out that I was forcing no one to listen to me, but Westleigh interrupted. “Before we proceed any further may I see the soles of your shoes, sir? If you stepped in wet blood there will be stains on them. If the blood was already dry there will be none.”

As if searching for an objection that he was unable to find, Robert hesitated for a fraction of a minute. Then, scowling, he slumped heavily in a chair facing the justice, lifted his feet on the desk between them, and stretched a pair of narrow black calfskin shoes garnished with diamanté buckles towards his inquisitor’s nose. The buckles sparkled in the candlelight.

“What do you see?” he demanded insolently.

“Nothing,” replied Westleigh.

“And nothing is proven by nothing.” Triumphantly he replaced his feet on the floor. “For there could have been blood on my shoes two hours ago that has since been wiped clean on the carpets.”

Westleigh raised his hands as if conceding defeat.

I could scarcely believe my eyes. “Sir James,” I stuttered, “this still does not explain the blood on the window, or how Lord Montfort could have held the box in his hand.”

“What box?” asked Westleigh.

“I saw no box,” said Robert.

“Why, the one in the shape of a temple that was clutched in his fist,” I said, mustering my wavering courage. “I tried to open it but did not succeed. Lord Foley took it from me and put it on the desk.”

The three men now turned to look for the box and, finding nothing in the place I indicated, turned back to me accusingly.

“Perhaps Lord Foley removed the box after I left the room? Ask him, for I’m sure he can explain it.”

Westleigh looked expectantly towards Foley, who wrinkled his brow as if wrestling with his memory. “I was confused,” he replied, shaking his head vaguely. “I believe I do recall taking the box from Hopson. And I believe I did put it down but I really do not recall where, nor have I the faintest idea where it is now.”

He took a large gold snuffbox from his waistcoat and proceeded to enjoy a leisurely pinch while the eyes of the room rested upon him. At length he replaced it in the same pocket and turned to us again, as if he’d only just noticed our presence.

“Perhaps Mrs. Cummings or Miss Alleyn removed it? They have both retired, I believe. We shall ask them in the morning,” he suggested.

“Perhaps Hopson stole it,” said Robert.

I began haltingly to protest my innocence, but Foley interrupted. “I can vouch he did no such thing,” he said. “I definitely recall seeing it after he left the room. In any case he would hardly draw attention to the box if he was trying to run away with it.”

Robert looked fiercely unconvinced. Westleigh sighed. I sympathized. I was grateful of course for Foley’s defense, yet vexed at his vagueness regarding the box. How could he possibly have forgotten such a significant detail? And Robert Montfort’s crass dishonesty shocked me profoundly. His suggestion that he had made the footprints after the body was discovered was ludicrous, as was the theory that his father had used two hands to shoot himself.

It was only much later that I thought to ask myself why, when self-murder is well known to be a crime against God, and might lead to the confiscation of his father’s entire estate by the king, Robert Montfort should be so insistent his father
had
killed himself. But for now I was heavy-eyed and yearned for my bed and solitude. Westleigh clearly shared my fatigue. “I must talk with the rest of the family,” he said with a yawn. “But it will wait till morning. Hopson, you may call my carriage.”

I bowed and hurried away, grateful that I would not be present for the next day’s interviews. I was due to leave Horseheath the following morning at six and could scarcely contain the desperation I felt for that hour to arrive. What fueled my sense of urgency wasn’t just that I’d witnessed the first (extraordinarily gruesome) murder of my life—for there was no flicker of doubt in my mind that Montfort
had
been murdered. It wasn’t just that Robert Montfort doubted my testimony, or that Westleigh and Foley failed to comprehend the evidence before them. How rigorously Westleigh performed his duty and what note Foley took of my assistance or of Robert Montfort’s ridiculous notions were no concerns of mine. What bothered me was a gnawing disquietude that I was incapable of dispelling. I had become unwittingly caught up in this matter. I had been forced to express opinions that I would have preferred to keep to myself. If Montfort had been unlawfully killed, then his assassin was most likely to be someone
in this house.
Everyone here already knew or would quickly hear of my lone insistence that Montfort’s death was murder. Including the murderer. Which led me to the inevitable question: might my outspokenness have cast my own life into jeopardy?

T
he sky was dark as mussel shells when I rose from my attic bed. According to Mrs. Cummings, a carter from the village was leaving for Cambridge market at five-thirty. I had only to present myself at his cottage and he would allow me to ride with him. From Cambridge I would take the coach and arrive (God and the turnpikes willing) in London the same evening.

My eyes ached and my limbs were leaden. I had slept fitfully all night, fretting that some mysterious maniac might assault me in my sleep. No such assault had come, but far from consoling me this had only fueled my conviction that my attacker was watching and waiting for the moment my eyes drooped. Eventually, when I dozed, it was a restless sleep disturbed by dreams of drowning in an icy sea, watched by Chippendale, whose only assistance was to tell me to swim harder. Thus it was with relief that I counted the fifth chime of the landing clock and roused myself. I dressed hastily, turned back the press bed to the wainscot, and gathering my few belongings, descended the back stairs to the servants’ corridor. Ignoring the doors leading to the kitchen, china room, pantry, and servants’ hall, I reached the milk house doorway. I threaded my way past wooden pails and tubs and marble-topped tables. I was tempted to sample a tumbler of milk but resisted, telling myself I’d do better to wait for hot ale in Cambridge and not risk missing my ride. At the far end I unbolted the door to the kitchen garden. Buttoning the cape of my surtout about my neck, I walked out.

Frost crusted every blade of grass and tree in sugary white. The air felt more penetrating than the previous night, and each intake of breath seemed to freeze my nostrils until, like some mythical beast, I exhaled to cloud the blackness with steamy breath. I planned to shorten my walk by circumnavigating the northern side of the house and crossing the Italian Garden. I walked briskly, enjoying the crunch of my boots on the frozen path, relishing the distance growing with every step between myself and that ill-fated house. Soon I would be far from the unhappy Horseheath Hall. Soon my grisly discovery and the mysterious killer responsible for Lord Montfort’s death would be no more than a distant memory.

With this thought my spirits began to lift. I admired the marble nymphs splashed in pearly moonlight. I imagined Constance in similar dishabille warm in her bed, then remembered that next day I might call again on Alice. I felt no qualms to be banishing Connie thus from my conscience. She and I had whiled away dull moments together, though neither of us had deceived the other into thinking that our friendship was anything but a pleasant interlude. But the nature of my sentiments for Alice was as confused as ever in my mind.

I quickened my pace, all the time drawing closer to the central pond. I could see it now, glazed with luminescent ice. And then, as I came nearer still, my eye was drawn by a dark, indeterminate form emerging from the frozen water. I stopped and peered hard. The object was lumpish and silvered with granular crystals; its furrowed surface jutted unevenly from beneath the ice. I racked my brains as to what it could be. A branch from a tree? A fallen statue? My curiosity was aroused, but with it returned my earlier jitteriness. I was aware of a pounding sensation starting up in my breast, a pulse surging in my veins. Part of me knew this was something unwelcome, that I should ignore it and turn and run. Yet my damned inquisitiveness was determined to be satisfied. Time was short, I was filled with trepidation, but I couldn’t leave the object without examining it.

The pond spanned some twenty feet, and a low stone wall rimmed with flagstones bounded the water’s edge. I leaned out over it and found I could now reach the object without difficulty. The instant I grasped the object, I realized it was covered by cloth of some kind, and either I’d grabbed more roughly than I intended or the cloth had been weakened by the frost. In any event the fabric had ripped, and beneath it a small white patch now lay exposed to my scrutiny.

I stared bemused for a moment, then shuddered with realization. A human body lay facedown, its limbs sprawling below the pond’s frozen surface. From the size and the nature of its clothing, I perceived it to be a male. In my attempt to seize him, I’d unwittingly torn his jacket and exposed the base of his spine, where a crescent of flesh now gleamed pallidly in the moonlight.

Feeling unaccountably discomfited by this sliver of nakedness, as if I had assaulted him, I replaced the fabric as best I could and withdrew. I was panting audibly as I tried to determine what further action I should take. With the shock of discovery my heart and lungs raced. The awful images of my previous discovery returned to haunt me. What was it about this place that seemed to doom me to chance upon corpses? Why, even now, hadn’t I the wit to leave the body alone, pretend I’d never seen it, and go on my way? But it was as if my mind had become a battlefield between fear, which told me to leave, and my wretched curiosity, which bade me stay. Some minutes later and dread was temporarily vanquished. I fashioned a plan of sorts: I’d examine his face and thus gain some impression of his age and demeanor, then I would return to the house, report my discovery—and be on my way.

Three-quarters of his skull lay below the surface, embedded in ice. I tried to raise the head by clutching the hair, then by clamping my hands either side of the crown and lifting with all my strength. Numerous attempts at this gruesome task numbed my fingers and had me once again gasping for breath. But the ice did not yield. Refusing to allow my emotion to get the better of me, I leaned forward, took two wide grips on the torso, and pulled firmly. Nothing.

For several minutes I stood there helpless, numbed hands shaking uncontrollably. I became conscious that I was all alone in a dark landscape with a dead body. Was the murderer of Lord Montfort responsible for this death too? Perhaps I was still in jeopardy; perhaps even now he was watching me, waiting for his moment to strike. With this thought I felt the last of my faltering courage drain away. Telling myself the task of releasing the dead man was impossible, I scurried away in search of assistance.

The first glimmer of dawn was visible when I returned with a party of three laborers who, at my instruction, had brought with them picks and chisels and half a dozen scaffolding planks. I cannot pretend that terror was not still reverberating in my breast, yet I did my best to disguise it, and the presence of other living bodies and the sound of their voices comforted me a little. I would not allow myself to dwell upon the horror incarcerated in the pond, or the danger lurking in the shadows. I would concentrate on directing the men.

The ice cracked audibly as the first man placed his foot gingerly onto the surface. Uncertain how deeply the water was frozen, and with no desire to witness another tragedy, I halted him and demonstrated a means of positioning the planks across the rim of the pond and thus creating a support for his weight. A second man assembled a similar structure while the third stood on the wall between them, holding a flaming torch aloft to illuminate their task. The men raised their picks and slowly let them fall. Whirls of ice splinters glowed yellow like showers of fireworks at some pyrotechnic display.

I stood and watched them, unable to tear my eyes away from the body they were releasing, unable to banish the sensation of the icy flesh I had touched. It was only the voice of the torchbearer that shattered my delirium.

“The tragedy is that if it were not for our work yesterday he might never have stuck fast,” he observed, adjusting the angle of his flame so it shone more directly upon the corpse.

“What do you mean?” I asked, still transfixed by the activity before me.

“This is the first good freeze of the year. Yesterday we removed a wagonload of ice from the pond to fill the icehouse. Had we not, the ice might have been thick enough to support him.”

“But instead it broke up with his weight and he drowned in freezing water. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Aye, sir.”

I shuddered as the blade of one man’s pick fell within inches of an arm. “You may be right,” I replied, thrusting my hands deeper into my pockets in a hopeless attempt to warm them, “but we don’t know how he came to be here, or whether his death
was
by drowning. Until he’s been extracted from the ice it’s too early for such reflection.”

“It’s not the only curious matter though.”

“What else then?”

“I walked past here last evening. I fancied I caught sight of someone here. Slumped over, they were.”

“Did you come and look?”

“I’d no lantern, but I came a little nearer. And as far as I could tell they’d gone.”

“What time was this?”

“Seven, eight maybe. I don’t rightly recall.”

I thought for a moment. This was around the time Lord Montfort left the dining room and entered the library. “Did you hear a gunshot just before you saw the figure?”

He shook his head. “Don’t recall that neither.”

“More likely the ale deceived you, not your eyes,” jeered one of his companions. The first man grinned, shook his head again, and gave his friend a rueful wink. How could they bait each other at such a time? I dismissed the story as nonsense and crossly gestured that they should waste no more time in completing the task at hand.

They made rapid advances. With the dexterity of sculptors, they were now taking chisels and mallets to chip away the last fragments. Soon after the two men set down their tools and positioned themselves to retrieve the body. Each of them bent down and, bracing himself, grasped an armpit and a thigh and heaved. There was a small crunch as the ice ceded and the body came away, leaving a pool of water beneath as black as death itself.

Naturally since my discovery of the dead man I’d given more than a passing thought to his identity. It crossed my mind that he might well be involved in some way with Montfort’s demise, a second victim or the killer himself. Failing that, I presumed he might be a village trespasser met with some misadventure, or perhaps an ill-fated member of Lord Montfort’s household. Certainly I felt sorrow for the victim, but the shock of finding him had by now subsided a little. Thus it was with detached curiosity—and certainly no inkling that he might be known to me—that I waited to see his face.

The men edged their way along the planks, hauling the body still facedown between them. At the wall they stepped slowly to the ground and lowered him along the path. It was only when the body touched the ground that they turned it over and the torchbearer drew his light close.

How can I describe that awful moment of recognition? A shudder convulsed me—horror, dread, sorrow, fear all mingled into one. I gasped and blinked, hoping I was mistaken. Yet another look confirmed the dreadful truth. I was not. How could this be? It wasn’t possible, and yet evidently it was true. I was dimly aware of the voices of the men, floating on air as though I were overhearing a conversation in another room.

“Never seen him before. A stranger.”

“I heard there was someone came calling in the last days.”

“He’s in a poor way, that’s certain.”

Still I said nothing. I dropped to the dead man’s side and gazed more closely at his face. Tears pricked my eyes as I acknowledged there was no mistake, no misjudgment on my part. Before I knew it, I was blinded by grief, unable to speak or move as tears coursed down my cheeks. The man holding the flambeau looked down. He was waiting for further instruction, and caught the misery on my face.

“Did you know him, Mr. Hopson?”

I stayed there, staring down at the corpse. “Indeed I knew him well. He was a good friend of mine.”

“Who was he then?”

“His name was John Partridge,” I replied in a whisper so brittle I barely knew it as my own.

I did not, could not, add that the man lying before me, staring upwards as if contemplating infinity, was almost unrecognizable as my friend. His lips were blue, his face blanched of color, his flesh spongy and plastered with a shell of ice-coated hair. On one side of his temple was a small purple bruise. Despite his manhandling from the pond, his right arm had stayed bent and stiffened, with his hand still thrust deep in his pocket. Looking down at him, I suddenly yearned to ease whatever agony he had felt at the moment of death. Ignoring reason—which told me that he was beyond any help I could give him—I tugged at the arm to take out his hand from his pocket and hold it.

But what was this? I lurched back with an involuntary cry. Horror and revulsion overwhelmed me. Even as I relive that moment, my hand begins to shake, my pen wavers, and I am swamped with doubt at my own capacity to describe the desecration I witnessed. And yet I acknowledge that no record of these events can be complete without these awful details. I must write what I saw.

Where his fingers should have been, there remained only four mutilated stumps. The fingers had been hacked or ripped off, leaving only sinews and bone and pale, waterlogged flesh, from which all the life’s blood had drained.

What could I do in the face of this terrible violation? How would anyone react to finding his dearest friend in such an appalling condition? The truth is that in such moments, when we are overburdened with horror, reality ceases to have meaning. We are insensible, we no longer know what we are or what we do. We do not behave as we ought. I began to shudder more violently than before. A taste of bile rose in my gullet. My throat burned, tears pricked. And yet I was unable to retch, unable to cry, mute, immobile. It was as if this last discovery had been too much for my natural responses to bear, and I was frozen, like my surroundings, into inertia. I wanted to weep and rage. Yet I did not, could not, for within my breast there was nothing but numbness.