The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (11 page)

Foley accepted my silence without demur. “That is why I’m happy to assist Westleigh. I’ll act as his officer and steer him in his investigation,” he added quietly.

Against my better judgment I was curious. “And where would you begin?” I asked suspiciously.

“I’d return to Montfort’s death. One peculiarity we have not explored is the box discovered beside the corpse. Do you believe that was the gift of which Partridge spoke to Montfort? Did the handiwork reflect your friend’s capability?”

I recalled the exquisitely carved temple box which had so mysteriously disappeared. “I thought you’d forgotten it. Have you found it yet?”

He shook his head. “I never lost or forgot it. I chose not to leave it where it might fall into the wrong hands.”

I was incredulous. Robert Montfort had accused me of filching the box. Granted, Foley had defended me from his accusation, but he had denied he knew where it was. “You mean you took it?”

“Yes, for I wanted to know what was inside before Robert or Elizabeth or anyone else tampered with it. Certainly it must have a bearing on all this.” He rummaged beneath his greatcoat, pulled out a package wrapped in a calico bag, and handed it to me. “The box is inside,” he said. “I want you to take it with you to London. Open it, find out what you can about its contents, and discover what you can of Partridge’s actions since last you saw him.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded. “I’m honored you trust me with it, but I fail to see how this can help you.”

“Neither can anyone until what is inside has been revealed. As to Partridge, the more I can find out about him and the reason for his visit to Lord Montfort, the more likely I am to discover the truth behind their deaths.”

“But you said earlier that they could be unconnected.”

“And so they might be, though I doubt it. But what I need, Mr. Hopson, is fact, not supposition. You haven’t answered my question. Do you believe this box was made by your friend Partridge?”

I took the box, unwrapped it, and held it in my hand again. The wood gleamed richly in the soft winter light. The skill of its carving and the ingeniousness of its design once again struck me.

“It could be.”

I folded its cover back over it, still holding it in my hand. I made him no promises and felt no obligation, but his conversation puzzled me. Was the outstanding debt at the root of his interest in these deaths? He didn’t strike me as someone to whom money was of paramount importance. His manner was too proud, too detached for that. I remembered his outburst when we’d discovered the body, the guilt he’d voiced, yet even then something had been missing. Montfort had supposedly been a close friend of his. Yet there was nothing in his expression that revealed the terrible emotions of loss and horror that I’d experienced on my discovery of Partridge. Surely there was some deeper motive that he was keeping hidden. Dare I test him a little to discover what it was?

I looked out of the window, as if I were mesmerized by the scenery flying past. “And if I refuse to assist you?”

“I could remind Westleigh that the window was left open on your instruction, which suggests that you aided Partridge in his entry, and are quite possibly an accessory to murder. I don’t wish to threaten you, Mr. Hopson, but you must see it’s in your interest to cooperate.”

“And then you will prove Lord Montfort’s death was not suicide and profit handsomely?”

“That is not my chief concern. It’s the quest for the underlying facts that inspires me—as I fancy it does you. Assist me in this and you shall be rewarded.”

“Rewarded with money?”

I caught a wry smile as it flitted across his face.

“With money certainly. But chiefly with what will bring you far greater satisfaction. The truth.”

C
hippendale was in the garret when I returned. This to him was the treasury of his emporium, the drying store where most days he came to admire his timber. Providence had smiled since I’d been gone. The racks were now piled with the jewels of his trade: mahogany and padauk, rosewood and walnut, ebony, pigeon wood, fustic, and countless others besides.

I watched him yank out planks of mahogany, deciphering the annual rings, signal of changing seasons and thickening sap, as easily as reading a letter. He emerged from one stack to continue his inspection elsewhere and glimpsed me at the head of the stair. Without a word of inquiry as to why I’d returned a day late, and before I could tell him my terrible news, he disappeared in the shadowy depths. His mood was jubilant. “Can anything compare with the beauty of this timber? Is it any wonder every patron in the land demands it?” he exclaimed more to himself than me.

“I am delighted to hear it’s so laudable, sir,” said I weakly, before adding in a firmer, more solemn tone, “unlike my stay at Horseheath, which was tragic.”

Chippendale seemed not to hear; his attention was all on his wood. “I believe it is the superiority of tropic timbers that makes them produce more than one ring a year. See here, Nathaniel, this is not any Spanish wood, but the finest of Cuban timber. Regard the richness of it, consider the span—wide enough to construct a table for a dozen from a single board.” He gave a further snort of delight. “And look here, I believe this is an oversight on Miss Goodchild’s part for she didn’t charge me for it.”

I stooped my head, threading my way through the rafters after him. I was uncomfortably hot. The wood store was situated beneath the roof, above a well-stoked German stove, and the moisture leeching from the drying wood made the air as stifling as Calcutta. Yet it wasn’t only heat that reddened my cheeks and quickened my pulse but rage kindling within my breast. How could I muster my enthusiasm for a plank of wood after all that had transpired? Was Chippendale blind not to see I had a matter of urgency to communicate? I was muddled and fatigued and frustrated, in need of a little tranquillity, a place to mull over the events of the past days, to disentangle the fearful images of blood and gore in my mind’s eye and then lay them to rest. Yet since I’d left Cambridge I’d had not a moment to reflect. No sooner was my interrogation by Foley over than I’d been pressed into a coach between strangers whose meaningless chatter had distracted me for the duration of my journey back to London. I’d passed a fitful night, disturbed by the raillery of drunkards, and then been obliged to rush to Chippendale’s workshop to avoid incurring his wrath. Was this not enough to throw any man into despondency and confusion?

Beads of sweat seeped from my forehead. I wiped my face with my sleeve. The more I dwelled on my frustrations, the more insistently a small voice in my head sounded. Was there some other reason for my muddled despair? Was I really so anxious to think quietly, or was I actually glad of these distractions for staving off the moment when I had to face myself and decide what my course of action should be?

Even now I couldn’t bring myself to confront this question. Pushing it from my mind, I leaned forward to squint at the board Chippendale was showing me, before straightening myself and stepping back. “What of it?” I said brazenly.

“What of it?”
he repeated incredulously. “Why, what d’you think of the grain, Nathaniel? Have I taught you nothing in all these years? D’you not see that this has been taken from the fork of a branch? Cut and polished, the figuring of it will be as meandering as a serpent. I shall guard it for my cabinet.”

Suddenly he glanced at me and perceived that I was standing as rigid as the boards all around me. “Well,” he said, replacing the wood in the stacks and turning towards me, “you return late, Nathaniel, and evidently in ill-humor. I trust you acquitted yourself well at Lord Montfort’s, and that your tardiness has some explanation?”

“It was a tragedy not negligence delayed me,” I declared, brushing a damp forelock from my brow.

“So,” said Chippendale, waving his hand loftily, as if signaling a carriage to drive on, “explain yourself.”

And so I outlined, in a rather garbled fashion, the awful events I’d witnessed. I told him how I’d installed the library bookcase in time for the dinner, but that Montfort had been out of sorts. I told him that during the dinner I’d found Lord Montfort’s dead body in the library surrounded by drawings taken from his book. I told him that there was a question over the nature of Montfort’s death: some believed he’d killed himself; others, myself included, held that he was murdered. And finally, my voice shaking, I told him how the next day I’d been on my way back to London when I’d discovered poor Partridge, mutilated and frozen to death in the pond.

For several minutes after hearing this sorry tale, Chippendale said nothing. When at length he spoke, it was to express his chagrin, not for Montfort or Partridge but for his drawings. It was their fate that concerned him most deeply. He seemed visibly to tremble when I mentioned I had retrieved them from the floor around Montfort’s corpse.

“What became of my designs, Nathaniel? Were they damaged? Why did you not return with them?”

“I did not know under what circumstances the drawings were at Horseheath. How should I think to seize them? For all I knew you had sold them to Lord Montfort.”

“Would I sell something so precious? Something that is the keystone of my success?”

I shrugged noncommittally, although I seethed at his callousness. Was there to be not a word of regret for Partridge?

“Where are they now?” he barked.

“I am not entirely certain. I presume them to be either at Horseheath, where I left them, or seized by Lord Foley as part of his debt.”

He shook his head slowly. “This is indeed a tragedy beyond compare.”

I knew he meant the drawings, not poor Partridge. He’d yet to make a mention of his name.

“Let us discuss it further, for there is much I would tell you,” said Chippendale. “Come with me.”

As he issued this command he sighed deeply and regarded his hands. Wood dirt had lodged itself beneath his fingernails in several places, sullying his flawless manicure. Observing this simple gesture, I was reminded vividly of poor Partridge’s mutilated hand and felt sickened to the core. Chippendale might be able to pass over such a death without comment, but I was haunted by it. I would never forget the icy pond, the frozen body, the blood. I saw it even now as I watched Chippendale. What manner of monster could perpetrate such an atrocity on a fellow man? What manner of monster was Chippendale to show no glimmer of pity for Partridge’s suffering?

But was I any better than he? I ruefully recalled my own reluctance to cooperate with Foley, my taciturn response to his questions and request for assistance. It seemed to me now there was little logic to my hesitancy. I was honor bound to seek justice for my dead friend, yet like a coward I had resisted Foley. There was but one reason for my reluctance. Fear. My instinct for self-preservation. I had expected that once I left Horseheath I would feel safe, that the evil I had witnessed would remain within its boundaries, leaving me to go back to my carefree ways. And yet returning to London hadn’t lightened my spirits or lessened my sense of peril one jot. The oppressive atmosphere of Horseheath Hall and the danger I had sensed there remained with me. Uneasiness shadowed me; any attempt on my part to probe into the events of the past days might draw down on me the attention of the killer. The two corpses I’d witnessed were harrowing enough. I couldn’t bear to contemplate another death, let alone my own.

Yet I had to acknowledge that this cowardly apprehension didn’t tally with my steadfast loyalty to Partridge. I had told Westleigh and Foley that Partridge couldn’t be Montfort’s killer, but how could I be sure when I hadn’t the first notion who his killer was? Both deaths were complex, and it was obvious that Westleigh with his Montfort family allegiances and Foley with his financial interests were hopelessly ill-suited to the task of unraveling them. Thus, despite my reservations, fears, and doubts, my mind was driven helplessly towards the inevitable conclusion. Whatever the dangers to my own person, I had no choice but to remain involved with the investigations. Not to do so would be a final betrayal of Partridge.

C
hippendale led the way down the dingy staircase, which opened into the bustle of the upholsterers’ shop. Here, amid sacks of horsehair and bales of webbing and canvas, a dozen women were busily engaged in stuffing and combing and gossiping and stitching. Chippendale strode in saying nothing to any of them. His broad-shouldered physique and coal black hair seemed to cast a cloud over the entire room, and the chatter within subsided. The master was present: all could see his knotted brow and chiseled expression, and no one wanted his foul temper to fall on them.

Only Molly Bullock, who was tacking sky blue moreen to a chairback, failed to notice Chippendale’s arrival. I was stepping neatly over a mound of hair when she raised her eyes and smiled straight at me. Like sunshine in a leaden sky, for an instant her smile lifted the gloom in that room. I winked back. Her companion spied this boldness and couldn’t stop herself from nudging Molly sharply in the ribs. “Your cheeks are redder than holly berries, Molly Bullock. Is it fever or the oven that warms you? Or perhaps you have some other malady,” she whispered loudly.

The sound of nervous giggles drifted out of the upholstery shop and followed us to the muddy yard outside. We skirted the cabinetmakers’ workshop, feather rooms, storerooms, and chair rooms, making our way towards the front of the premises. The yard was shaped like a decanter, broad at the rear, narrowing to a long covered passage at the entrance to St. Martin’s Lane, where stood three adjacent premises leased by Chippendale. Two made up the showroom. The third was his private residence. It was towards this building that he now directed his steps.

We came in through the side entrance, where a cramped corridor led to a small dark hall. Chippendale opened a door to an oak-paneled room. “Wait for me in the parlor,” he said. “I must go to my closet before speaking with you.”

I suppose Chippendale’s extraordinary reaction to the news of Montfort’s and Partridge’s deaths shouldn’t have startled me. I knew his work was all to him. I was aware he viewed all softer passions as mere distractions. Partridge and I had often heard him across the street in Slaughter’s coffeehouse, where he’d expound his views on his profession to any man who would listen. He was at the pinnacle of his career, yet the middling state of his craft irked him. “What unjust arbiter decreed that artists and architects, silversmiths and clockmakers and makers of porcelain pots should be the pride of monarchs, while cabinetmakers are accorded only cursory consideration? Why is wood inferior to metal or stone or canvas or clay? Furniture making is an art as noble as any, and equally worthy of the attention of men of discernment. For what use are noble architecture and inspiring paintings without the furnishings that allow man to enjoy them?” he would demand, thumping his fist upon the table, rattling the coffee cups in their saucers. “Without its chairs and sofas and tables and beds a mansion or a palace is no more welcoming or inspiring than a tomb.”

If anyone dared dispute this argument, he was vigorously tested. Eyes blazing beneath crow black brows, Chippendale would insist that his disputant “name then a single art so closely bound to the complexion of man.” The silence allowed him to drive home his point. “A chair, you can only agree, embodies this fact. A stool underlines the humility of a servant, a throne the status of a king. And in between there is every permutation imaginable, all tailored to the size, shape, bearing of man. What other art can claim such significance?”

But his professional disgruntlement did not explain his heartless reaction to the news of Partridge’s death, nor his inordinate concern for the drawings. Was a life so little to him? Particularly a life of such exceptional talent? Why did he value a handful of sketches so highly?

When he returned, he gave no sign of what was coming. His hair was tidied and tied smooth as a jet-black shell, his face the usual stony mask; the only indication of emotion was in the keenness with which his flinty eyes glinted in the firelight. He drew up his favorite chair—mahogany, with a back carved like a cathedral window. “Of course, like most troubles in life, this one centers on money,” he volunteered somewhat unexpectedly. “I’m speaking of how it was that Montfort came to be in possession of the drawings from my
Director,
the book that established my reputation and has made my name known from Edinburgh to Truro.”

Here I should explain that two years ago Chippendale took the greatest risk of his career. In the manner of a gentleman architect or a man of letters, he published a series of his own designs,
The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director—Being a Large Collection of the Most Elegant and Useful Designs of Household Furniture in the Gothic, Chinese, and Modern Taste.
The pages of this mighty volume featured engravings of chairs, sofas, beds, commodes, desks, girandoles, screens, glasses, candlestands and bookcases, and much more besides. This was a volume intended to impress. No other London cabinetmaker had promoted themselves in such a manner. Several of his Slaughter’s coffee-sipping acquaintances had snorted at the audacity of it. “Why, Chippendale the carpenter will have us bow to him as a man of taste. Pray tell us, Mr. Chippendale, what is your view on the gothic, and of the fashion for chinoiseries? Are they extravagant enough? Do you approve?”