The Darke Chronicles (4 page)

‘I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but Laurence Wilberforce was a humourless, cold-hearted bully who could turn nasty even towards someone of whom he once thought kindly. His treatment of Richard Armstrong bears witness of that. As does the bruising on your arm. You have been badly used, my dear.’

The woman said nothing, but stared determinedly ahead of her, avoiding Darke’s gaze.

‘The bruising gave some foundation to my surmise. Similarly, Boldwood’s angry reticence when I questioned him concerning the state of the Wilberforce marriage added more grist to my mill. Boldwood revealed himself as a great protector of his mistress. What did you say, Sergeant? Something like: “I would have knocked you down for being so impertinent but it would have upset
Mrs Wilberforce.” Words to that effect. A real Sir Galahad. How difficult it must have been for you, Boldwood, to live and serve in a house where the husband treated his wife miserably and on occasion, struck her with some violence. Hard for a man who loved his mistress and wanted to protect her. Here you were, an old military man used to action, used to fighting for what you believed in, but unable to do anything about the injustice going on under your nose. But, oh, there are straws – there are straws, apparently insignificant, puny little straws, which yet have, as the proverb has it, the power to break a camel’s back.

‘On the day of the murder, Wilberforce was in a foul mood. Probably he had seen the guest list and noticed Armstrong’s name. He lost his temper and behaved abominably. The bruises that are now fading from his wife’s arm were, I am sure, administered on that day. For you Boldwood, late of the 101st Bengal Fusiliers, this was your last straw. You conceived a plan to rid your mistress of this troublesome husband. It was a well-wrought plan indeed.’

Boldwood made to rise, but Thornton, who had manoeuvred his way around the back of the butler’s chair, placed both hands on his shoulders and gently pressed him back into his seat.

‘I cannot be sure how accurate I am as to the minutiae but I am sure that my broad strokes paint the true picture. Boldwood bought a bolt from the local ironmongers. We found the bag in which it was wrapped and the receipt stuffed in the drawer in his room. I am sorry, Boldwood, but with Mr Stavely’s connivance we searched your room just now, while he busied you with other chores. Like many murderers before you, you were confident that you would never be suspected or that your room would be searched. We also discovered the screwdriver you used to fix the bolt on the inside of Wilberforce’s study. Then you waited. Waited until your master had dressed for dinner, before you entered his dressing room armed with a knife. You told him, no doubt, what a despicable creature he was. How he was a monster ruining the life of one of the finest women you had known. And he, no doubt, laughed at first…’

‘He
did laugh. Until he saw the knife.’ Boldwood uttered these words in monotone, without a trace of emotion showing on his face. ‘And then the coward stopped laughing.’

‘You stabbed him once. That was all that was necessary. And then with the knife still lodged in his stomach, you pushed him into the study. You stood outside the room, uttering curses and threats about how you intended to finish him off. In desperation, he attempted to shut the door on you, and you let him. One can but imagine his surprise and delight to find that the door now possessed a bolt. His disordered brain would not question how it got there. For Wilberforce it was a Godsend. His desperate hands slammed it home, thus trapping himself within his own tomb.’

Boldwood said nothing, but a fevered light illuminated his eyes as, through Darke’s narrative, he relived the moment.

Darke continued: ‘Although badly wounded, Laurence Wilberforce now thought that he was safe. What he didn’t know – what no one knew or suspected – was that the tip of the knife had been tainted with a strong poison which brought about death within five minutes or so. The stain on the carpet suggested to me that Wilberforce’s blood loss was not that great as to bring about his death with such alacrity. He had to be helped on his way. A blade tipped with poison was the most obvious device. No doubt the deadly concoction was one of the prizes that you brought back with you from India, along with the knife. I know of few soldiers who served out there who did not bring back one of those long-handled knives as a rather gruesome reminder of their Indian sojourn. The bazaars were full of them. “A souvenir, sahib?”’

‘Is this all true, Boldwood?’ asked Beatrice Wilberforce, her voice no louder than a harsh whisper.

‘It is all true,’ came the solemn reply.

The woman rose to her feet, her face suddenly flushed with anger. ‘You fool, you damned fool!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t you know that whatever Laurence did to me, I loved him? I loved him with all my heart. He was my husband! And now you have taken him away.’
She made a mad dash for the servant, but Jack Stavely stepped forward and held her back. She sank into his arms, sobbing.

Boldwood looked in horror at his mistress. His features blanched at the sudden realisation that he had been both blind and foolish. He turned sharply, as if to make for the door.

‘Don’t bother with that, Boldwood. You will find there are two constables and my assistant Sergeant Grey waiting outside, ready to take you to the Yard,’ said Edward Thornton, stepping forward and clasping a pair of handcuffs on the man. He had visibly shrunk, and his eyes moistened with tears. ‘I did it for the best, sir. I did it for m’lady.’

At this reference to her Beatrice Wilberforce pulled away from Jack Stavely. ‘Get out of my sight, you devil. I never want to see you again.’

Luther Darke poured himself another large whisky. Thornton clapped his hands over his glass. One large nip was enough for him, but not for his triumphant friend.

‘I need this as an antidote to that tea with which I sullied my throat in Curzon Street,’ he said with solemnity.

The two men were seated around the fire in Darke’s sitting room later that day. Persephone still lay like a wax image, curled in a foetal position, before the grate.

Darke took a gulp from his glass and rolled the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing it slowly, allowing its warmth to burn his throat. He grinned. “‘Gie me ae spark ‘o Nature’s fire, That’s a’ learning I desire,” as Maester Burns has it. Well, Edward, a successful day: the solving of a murder and the release of an innocent man.’

‘Indeed, but it gave me no pleasure to lock up Boldwood. He is a sad creature whose intentions were for the best.’

‘Misplaced affection, passion as it was in Boldwood’s case, can drive a man to behave like the Devil. And it was a devilishly ingenious plan. He knew with the evidence of a stab wound, the pool
of blood and the knife, that no one would think of poison as the real cause of death. The locked room was also an added subterfuge to fog the truth. A real November crime, eh? Remember, he was virtually making the rules of his murder plan up as he went along. He was determined to muddy the waters as much as possible. If Boldwood had not tried to be too clever by smearing Armstrong’s coat with blood, he might even have got away with it.’

‘Because then there would have been no definite suspect and nothing to prompt my unease which sent me running to you.’

‘I cannot believe that you came running. With a dignified policeman-like gait, surely.’

Thornton laughed. The whisky was already going to his head. ‘I had better be on my way. There is work still to be done back at the Yard.’

Luther Darke saw Edward Thornton to the door. Thick winter night, with its grey coils of fog, awaited the inspector beyond the threshold.

‘Thank you for your help, Luther. You are an amazing man.’

For a moment, Darke’s face grew serious. ‘We are all amazing men in our own way, my friend. Come again soon.’

With that, the two men shook hands and Thornton walked out into the darkness, which soon swallowed him up. Darke returned to his fireside, his cat and his whisky.

Who would have thought of it? he mused. Out of science came ethereal mysticism that paved the way to fortune. He smiled a self-satisfied smile.
No one
would have thought of it – except himself.

Cornelius Horden sat up in bed, clasping a silver-framed photograph of his wife. His eyes misted as he gazed at the faded image, one which had been captured over twenty years before. To Cornelius, who loved his wife with an unstinting passion, she had never changed from the fresh, graceful young woman she had been in that long-lost summer in the late 1870s. He had never perceived her golden hair turning to grey or the smoothness of her skin slacken and give way to wrinkles. For him, her beauty remained intact – remained so until death. While Gwendolyn’s ageing never impinged upon his consciousness, her passing now consumed him. He knew that to commit suicide would be against his own strict personal moral code, and so he found himself enduring a desolate and achingly sad existence. Gently he brought his lips to touch the cold glass of the photograph frame. ‘Oh, Gwen,’ he murmured softly, as the tears began to flow with unabandoned grief. Only his noble sensibilities prevented him from taking his own life.

Moments
later, he recovered sufficiently to place the photograph on the bedside table and wipe his eyes with one of his wife’s handkerchiefs. He gave a deep melancholic sigh that seemed to suck the energy from his tired frame.

There came a gentle knock at the bedroom door and a young woman entered. In some ways she was like a younger, harsher image from the photograph, but her hair was dark and worn in a severe style, pulled back from the face. By comparison, her features were pinched and shrewish. She lacked the grace or charm of her mother.

‘I wondered if you’d like a hot drink, Father.’

He shook his head.

She noticed his red eyes and tear stained cheeks. Her glance fell upon the photograph. The old man read his daughter’s mind. ‘I’ve been saying goodnight to your mother. I’m ready to sleep now, Sarah.’

‘Very well, Father.’ She came forward and planted a chaste kiss on his forehead. ‘Shall I pull the curtains? There’s a full moon tonight. I’m sure the light will bother you.’

‘No, no,’ said the old man with an irrational urgency. ‘If I wake, I like to see the world outside … the sky. With the curtains drawn, my world is so … so claustrophobic.’

Sarah said nothing. Since her mother’s death, six months before, her father’s grief had led him into strange ways and he had developed odd little behaviours. It had isolated him from the rest of the family so that now he was almost a stranger to them. It was as though he had deliberately cut himself off from all those who cared for him in order to live in a world of sadness and memories.

‘If there is nothing else, I’ll leave you.’

‘There’s nothing else.’

‘Goodnight, Father.’

‘Goodnight.’

Sarah swished from the room, closing the door noisily.

Cornelius gave a sigh of relief. He was alone again with Gwendolyn. He closed his eyes and soon shallow sleep overtook him.
He woke again some twenty minutes later. He was immediately conscious of a soft sound invading the room. He lay in the darkness, listening intently. He thought he heard someone calling his name, softly, persuasively. He sat upright, straining to determine exactly the nature of this sound. Surely it was not a voice. It must be just his imagination? The air was still and quiet … and yet…

He glanced at the photograph on the bedside table, the moonlight highlighting the ghostly faded features of his dead wife. Was the smile more vibrant and were the eyes sunnier? Did the lips appear to move? Cornelius Horden closed his eyes apprehensively.

And then he heard the voice once more – clearly this time. There could be no doubt. It was calling his name, softly but distinctly. The tone was high, but he was not sure whether it was a man or a woman’s voice. He struggled into an upright position and only then allowed himself to open his eyes. What he saw made him catch his breath in such a violent fashion that he thought for a moment that he would faint.