The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) (15 page)

“She will not mind in her condition,” said Felix. “And you would do well to get rid of these wretched birds. In fact, you ought to clean out that entire room. And what sort of life is it for them, in those cages? It is a barbaric custom.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that, sir. Those birds are part of our livelihood.”

“You sell them?”

“Of course,” said Fildyke.

“Did you sell one recently – a linnet?” he asked. “To a foreign woman, perhaps?” He was thinking of Mrs Morgan’s coldly beautiful maid, whom he did not trust, although against whom he had not the slightest evidence. But if Major Vernon was correct in his guess that the threats came from within the household, then she was surely a prime suspect for putting the bird on the bed.

“Not to a foreign woman. I did sell one to a lady, though,” Fildyke said. “From London I’d say she was. And definitely a lady. I was a trifle surprised when she came in.”

“When was this?”

“Day before last.”

“Could you describe her to me? Her clothes, perhaps? Was there anything distinctive about them?”

Fildyke shook his head. “Not that I remember – other than she was nicely spoken and of the quality.”

Felix frowned. It was less than helpful.

“If you remember anything else about her, you must tell me.”

“Of course, sir,” said Fildyke. He scratched his temple. “My mother – you will call again and see her?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And how much do you charge, sir?” Fildyke said.

Felix had not really considered this.

“You will not be much out of pocket,” he said, knowing only that he ought not charge too much. “I will send a bill when your mother is well again.”

“I only ask because, well...” Fildyke came a little closer. “I am a little short of the ready money at present, and I wondered if I might pay you in kind.”

“In kind?” said Felix looking around at the shop at the cheap prints and artificial flowers. “I don’t know about that.”

“I have items that might be of interest to a young gentleman such as yourself. Specialised items that I have found extremely popular.” He gave a sly little smile. “You might wish to accept one instead of the usual fee.”

“What are you talking about?” Felix said.

“Books,” said Fildyke. “Rare books. Books of a particular sort. Special books. Do you get my drift, sir? I think you do,” he added, taking a key from his waistcoat pocket. “Books that are not for everyone’s eyes. I have a very choice volume indeed which it would be my great pleasure to give to you in return for you kindness.”

He brought a pine box up onto the counter and unlocked it.

“Quite a treat, this one,” he went on, handing Felix a slim, green Morocco volume. “You may have heard of it.”

Felix flicked it open to the title page. ‘
The true and uncensored memoirs of the Comtesse de Mortvilliers. Translated from the French by a gentleman.
’

“I have,” Felix said, colouring slightly. He had been nineteen years old, in his cups in a howff in Edinburgh, with a gaggle of fellow students, all talking of lewd books and which were the most engagingly obscene. One of them had actually read a copy of the ‘Comtesse’ and it had made him, he claimed, priapic for a week.

Felix hesitated a moment and then attempted to hand it back, but Fildyke would not allow him to.

“Keep it, sir. I believe gentlemen value it greatly for its philosophical content.”

Seeing that Fildyke was determined to make him have it, he tucked it quickly inside his coat. It would, at the least, save him the trouble of drawing up a bill.

Chapter Twenty

“Mr Sledmere is away today?”

“Yes, he’s gone over to Righouses. He’s preaching there tonight. He won’t be back until tomorrow.” Was that relief in her voice, Giles wondered?

“May I speak with you, Mrs Sledmere?”

“Yes, sir, if you like,” she said. “

Giles followed her into the kitchen, which at first glance seemed more cheerful than the rest of the house. There was a bright fire burning, a well-scrubbed floor of pale stone flags, and rows of bright crocks on the blue painted dresser – in short, all the signs of well-ordered domesticity were there and it would usually have been a calming sight. But Giles could take no pleasure in it, since for him the room was dominated by the sight of Rose Sledmere, sitting hunched in the corner on an old high-backed settle.

She was dressed now in black and she was turning a piece of white ribbon in her fingers. Her face was as pale as the ribbon, and she met his glance with that same blank, insolent stare that he recognised too well. Laura had once sat in the same sort of sullen silence, fiddling with a length of wool for hours on end. He had tried to take it from her, and had been attacked in return. That same sense of latent anger and violence he had suffered from Laura, he felt now; or did he merely imagine it? He was not sure how much his experience was colouring his impressions of Rose.

Mrs Sledmere picked up a stocking and sat down to start darning.

“You won’t mind, sir, I must get on with this. The light in this room, it’s shocking after noon, and my eyes are not what they were.”

“I wanted to ask you about your nephew and Mr Harrison,” he said. “Did you know him?”

“I knew about him, that they were friends.”

“He never brought him here?”

“No, Mr Sledmere would not have stood for it.”

“Did you meet him, Miss Sledmere?” Giles ventured to the girl in the corner.

“She won’t answer you, sir,” said Mrs Sledmere. “She hasn’t said a word since... well, the news.”

“She is very affected, then?” he said.

“She is more strange than ever,” said Mrs Sledmere. “She’s been sitting there for hours. I don’t know what to do with her, sir, and that’s the truth of it.”

“Was Rose aware of your nephew’s friendship with Mr Harrison, do you think?” Giles asked.

“I suppose so, since I was. But who is to know what she knows? She is so – so away, if you take my meaning.”

Giles nodded.

“Does she ever leave the house alone?”

“Not if I can help it, because there is no knowing where she might end up. But sometimes she slips out, and then –” She broke off and sighed. “Charlie always knew where to find her. I don’t know how I shall manage now.”

“I gather from Mr Harrison that was there was some talk of going to London together and that your nephew was considering it,” Giles said, sitting down opposite her.

“He may have thought of it, but I don’t believe he would have gone. He knew his duty, no matter what my husband says – Charlie was a good boy. Charlie was going to look after her. I always took comfort in that, no matter what talk there was, what horrible things we heard. That he would stay and do as he should, that in his heart he was there for us – for Rose. Charlie was everything to her, everything. And that wretch Harrison – well, he corrupted our Charlie, turned him to sin, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t – well, you know what I mean, sir. Hell will be too good for the likes of Jos Harrison!”

He glanced back at Rose who was shredding the frayed end of the ribbon with her fingernails.

“And as far as you recall, on the Wednesday morning, Rose was at home with you all that morning? She did not slip out?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“What were you doing that morning? Can you remember? It was market day, I think.” Mrs Sledmere nodded. “Perhaps you went to the market?” She nodded. “And Rose went with you?”

“No, I left her here. Mr Sledmere was in his workshop, of course, so she was not alone. I was not long gone. An hour or so.”

“Do you think Rose might have slipped out?”

“Yes, I suppose, but... but... what are you suggesting, sir?”

“Let us go back a little earlier in the day, Mrs Sledmere. Charlie in the workshop that morning. Did he have breakfast with you?”

“Yes, but he went out. Mr Sledmere and he had words about something and he went storming out. That was the last I saw of him. I told your sergeant all this, sir, I am sure of it, when he came and first told us what had happened.”

“And you don’t know what the quarrel was about?”

“It might have been anything. It was like a tinderbox between them – it has been the past few weeks. The slightest spark...” she sighed again and laid down the sock. “I wish I had gone in and put a stop to it. I could have seen him then, for one last minute. All I heard was the banging of the door and then my husband was in here, raging away, as he does, and it took all I could do to calm him. I worry he will rage himself to death sometimes!”

“And Rose, where was she?”

“Here, I suppose. I can’t say for sure.”

“And can you remember seeing Rose between your husband coming in here and your going out to the market, Mrs Sledmere?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I must have done. I don’t know.”

“So she might have slipped out? Gone after Charlie?” Mrs Sledmere stared over at him and then gave a fearful sort of glance to the girl in the corner. “She is not always so tranquil, I imagine,” Giles went on quietly. “It is my experience that there is often –”

“What do you know of it?” said Mrs Sledmere rather sharply.

“A great deal, ma’am, unfortunately.” There was silence then between them for a long moment, and then Giles went on. “I recognised something in your daughter that I have seen before. A passion and an anger...”

Mrs Sledmere bit her lip and said, “I am sure she did not leave. I am sure of it. We are always so careful.”

He did not pursue the discussion after that. He had no stomach for it. Instead he asked Mrs Sledmere if he might look over Charlie’s room again. He had no idea what he was looking for, precisely, only he hoped he would find some unregarded trifle that might hint at the truth of the matter.

People were diligent in the art of concealing things they valued. In a city where so many people flocked anew each year, and were forced to lived in lodgings, forced to share with strangers and be spied on by over-circumspect landlords, a safe place for their scanty possessions was a necessity. If people did not even have the luxury of a box with a lock on it, they would stash their valuables in all manner of places – some more obvious than others. There were thieves in Northminster, knowing rogues, who could find the weak spots in any room in a matter of minutes and yield up the treasure. One such, a woman called Mary Nuttall, had just been transported after a spate of burglaries in lodging houses. He felt it would have been useful to have her there, for she had had a great talent for uncovering well-hidden silver spoons and purses heavy with shillings.

He imagined how Mother Nuttall might have set about her nefarious work, looking about him with the eye of a hunter. He paced the room carefully, feeling for lose boards, and found one at the end of the bed. He pulled it up without much difficulty and found that it contained a small but heavy box, wrapped in a piece of old sheeting. Uncovering it, he saw it was a handsome piece, with a keyhole of ivory and brass scrolls inlaid in the figured wood. An expensive box that was, of course, locked, and he wondered if the key was concealed elsewhere in the room. Keys – was his life to be bedevilled by them? He continued his search and but found nothing else.

When he went downstairs again, Rose Sledmere was sitting at the foot of stairs, still holding her mess of white ribbon. She did not move as he came past but simply stared up at him, with a cool, hard eye. It was not the eye of a grief-stricken victim or a person with something weighing on her mind. It was the look of an animal, cautiously appraising a stranger. Was he her enemy or her ally? It was not a question he could answer.

Chapter Twenty-one

Thomas O’Brien, master printer and the owner of the Bugle newspaper, welcomed Giles into his tiny office. There was a brisk fire with a kettle sitting by it, and O’Brien set it on the hob. “I will make some tea,” he said. “I don’t see why the womenfolk should be the only ones to put the world to rights with tea. Although by the look of you, perhaps you’d like something stronger?”

“No, tea if you please,” said Giles sitting down.

“This may be the last time we sit here,” said O’Brien taking a canister of tea and a teapot printed with a chartist slogan from the mantelshelf. “I’m taking Royd’s old warehouse in Wharf Street and setting up there. The Bugle is getting too big for this place. Bridey is complaining about it taking over her kitchen.”

“If you move the Bugle out of the yard, Mrs O’Brien will never see you at all.”

“I’m not sure she’d mind that. I am a trial when I’m working. And I need a proper office. Especially if I am to set up another venture.”

“Oh?” said Giles. “That’s interesting.”

“Another paper. The Bugle is doing well enough, but I feel there is a limit to what I can do with it. I feel a need to stretch my wings – and probably empty my pocket at the same time.”

“But you have the capital?”

“Not enough, but some. I’ve a few investors interested. Some of the dissenters, in fact.”

“It would still be radical?”

“Of course, but not so as to alarm anyone. It’s a delicate balance of course, but I think it can and ought to be done.” said O’Brien. “Radical and reformist, but designed to appeal to the middling sorts and above. A city this size ought to have a serious paper – and the County Gazette is hardly that.”

“It’s an interesting idea,” said Giles and added with a smile, “you should talk to Lord Rothborough. It’s exactly the sort of thing he likes, from what I can judge.”

O’Brien laughed and said, “If I talk to him my dissenters won’t put up a penny. They may like his politics but they can’t stand his morals.” He was measuring out the tea into the pot.

“That is to do with our visiting diva, I suppose?” said Giles with a sigh.

“Well, she is staying in his house.”

“She seems beyond reproach to me,” said Giles.

“You’ve met her?”

“Yes, I am undertaking a little investigation for her. Someone has been sending her unpleasant letters.”

“That would be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said O’Brien.

“Is she spoken of so badly?”

“It isn’t pleasant.”

“Poor creature,” said Giles. “But she is not one to accept pity. She’s as brave as her voice. I heard her sing last night, and one might forgive anyone anything with such a voice. Not that there is anything to forgive, I think.”