The Heiress of Linn Hagh (17 page)

‘My mother lived in Morpeth,’ Goddard said absentmindedly.

‘Ah, all roads lead to Morpeth this week. I shall be there myself on Friday at a prearranged appointment with Magistrate Clennell. I’ll be honest with you, Doctor; I shall now also be discussing with him the possibility of acquiring a warrant for the arrest of Isobel Carnaby on suspicion of murdering her sister.’

The doctor’s mouth gaped open in surprise.

‘I’m not sure that there is sufficient evidence for a warrant, but I shall certainly make enquiries. I trust I can rely on your discretion? No hint of this to the Carnabys—or anyone else for that matter.’

Goddard nodded glumly.

Lavender chose his next words carefully.

‘In the meantime, Doctor Goddard, I’ll share with you my opinion on another matter. If Miss Helen Carnaby is still alive, in good health and in hiding, I sincerely hope that she has the sense to remain where she is until I’ve had the chance to sort this out.’

Lavender took a short stroll around the graveyard of St Cuthbert’s Church before he picked up his horse at the stable. He spotted a large clump of rhododendron and elder that would give good cover and be an excellent vantage point during their long vigil observing Baxter Carnaby’s grave.

Ralph Emmerson and Lawrence Ingram were already half in their cups by the time Lavender reached the Elizabethan mansion, Greycoates Hall. Both men were red-eyed and sprawled languidly across the sofas when Lavender was shown into the drawing room. Dark and oppressively hot, it stank of liquor fumes, stale cooking and unwashed men. Platters of half-eaten food lay on the soot-stained Persian rug at their feet. A whippet moved between them, sniffing and licking at the leftovers.

Emmerson glared at Lavender from beneath his bushy ginger eyebrows. ‘You were supposed to call on us yesterday, God damn it,’ he said.

Lavender tore his eyes away from the stained waistcoat protruding from Emmerson’s open topcoat, and he bowed his head slightly. He had met their type before many times in the drawing rooms of London: the spoilt, indolent sons of wealthy fathers.

‘My apologies, gentlemen. Mr Armstrong had a pressing matter he wished to discuss with me at the same time. He’s paying the bill, of course, so I had to humour the old man. I trust I didn’t cause you great inconvenience?’ His apology sounded false to him—which it was—but the two drunken sots could not tell the difference.

‘George Carnaby were right put out that you failed to show up,’ Emmerson told him.

‘Carnaby’s allus put out about something or another,’ the lanky Ingram pointed out, and the two men laughed at some shared joke.

‘Again my apologies, gentlemen—and I promise not to take up much of your time. I just have a few questions about the night Helen Carnaby disappeared.’

They fell silent and stared coolly in Lavender’s direction. Ingram pushed his long, greasy hair out of his eyes to see the detective better.

Lavender asked his questions, but their responses did nothing to add to his knowledge about events on that fateful night.

‘I don’t know if we’ll be of much help, man—we were all three sheets to the wind, including Carnaby,’ Ingram confessed.

‘Yes,’ Emmerson agreed. ‘I were that out of it, the Devil himself could have arrived and pitchforked everyone into hell, and I would have heard nothin.’ What do you suppose has happened to the damned gal, Lavender?’

‘Oh, the usual,’ the detective replied airily. ‘I’m sure the strumpet’s run away with a lover. She’ll probably turn up spoiled and abandoned on the road to Gretna Green soon enough.’

‘Really?’ Emmerson’s piggy eyes widened in surprised. ‘Well, Carnaby will be put out by that bit of news.’ He turned to his companion. ‘Strewth, it looks like you’ve had a narrow escape there, Ingram.’

The dark man nodded, and bits of dandruff detached themselves from his scalp and landed gently on the velvet collar of his coat.

‘How so?’ Lavender asked.

Emmerson raised himself slightly, then pointed a sausage-like finger at Ingram.

‘Ingram’s the heir to Baron Widesbeck,’ he slurred.

An expectant pause hung in the air. Lavender had the distinct impression that he was supposed to know the peer and the significance of the statement. He didn’t, but a reaction was needed if he was to keep these two idiots talking.

‘My heartfelt congratulations, sir.’

Ingram nodded, then sighed and looked pained.

‘The old guy has told him to get a wife and get her knapped,’ Emmerson continued. ‘The old baron wants more heirs.’

Lavender winced inwardly at his crudeness.

‘Ingram was considerin’ Carnaby’s offer to take his younger sister . . .’

Offer?

‘. . . but it’s a bloody good job you didn’t, Ingram. If Lavender is to be believed, it turns out the damned girl is a courtesan and a wanton jilt.’

‘Damn good-lookin’ gal, though.’ Ingram’s voice was full of regret and self-pity. ‘I’d have enjoyed dockin’ with her.’

‘That little ruse of Carnaby’s failed as well,’ Emmerson said. ‘Thanks to that ruddy door bar.’

Ingram nodded sadly.

Lavender’s eyes flashed between them both.

‘What “little ruse” was that?’ he asked. But the two men would not be drawn out and fell silent. Even their fuddled brains knew they had said too much; they had all but admitted that George Carnaby had been prepared to turn a blind eye to the rape of his sister. Lavender was filled with revulsion, but the professional within him forced him to keep his face impassive and his tone light. He decided to change tack.

‘It’s hard to find an honest woman these days,’ Lavender said, careful to add a sympathetic note. ‘How much was Carnaby prepared to pay you to marry his sister?’

Emmerson threw back his head and roared. His great belly shook with laughter. Even the doleful Ingram managed a wry smile.

‘Pay Ingram? You’ve got it wrong there, Detective—Carnaby doesn’t have two shillings to rub together most of the time. No. He said that for five hundred guineas he would make sure that there was no fuss in the church—that the girl would walk down the aisle
docile
-like.’

I’m sure he did.

‘She were worth ten thousand, as well,’ Ingram said sadly. ‘You don’t find many gals around here with that kind of chinks.’

‘It’s a good job Mr Carnaby still has another sister to sell off.’ Lavender’s tone was heavy with irony.

‘What, Izzie? That hatchet-faced old trot?’ Emmerson laughed. ‘Now Carnaby would have to
pay us
to marry that stale maid!’

Lavender bowed and left the men to their crude jokes about Isobel Carnaby. Their ribald laughter still rang in his ears when he crossed the gloomy hallway and walked out of the building towards his waiting horse. For one brief moment, he felt a twinge of sympathy for the eldest Carnaby daughter. Then he remembered the digitalis; the woman had probably murdered her stepmother. He sighed and felt the cold air bite into his lungs.

He had had enough. Carnaby’s cronies disgusted him. They had nothing new to add to the evidence he had already accumulated and his understanding of the characters involved in this case. It had been a wasted trip.

That George Carnaby was prepared to force his pretty sister into marriage with Ingram, and let the cad rape and impregnate her, didn’t surprise him. He had already decided that Carnaby was the lowest form of lowlife, who would sell his soul to the Devil for five hundred guineas—never mind his sister. Yet still, the thought disturbed him.

He paused for a moment before he mounted his horse, enjoying the animal’s warmth next to him and stroking its neck.

He wondered at what point the idea of murdering his sister had entered George Carnaby’s mind. Or had it been Isobel Carnaby who had first suggested the evil deed? After all, why settle for five hundred guineas from Ingram for an arranged marriage when they would inherit the full ten thousand pounds if she were dead?

He shook off the low spirits that threatened to overwhelm him, climbed onto his horse and whipped her into a gallop. The icy wind blasted his face. He hunched low over the neck of the beast, and his thoughts turned back to Magdalena.

Had hers been an arranged marriage, perhaps? He knew that this was common practice amongst the Spanish nobility. If Magdalena’s marriage had been arranged, then she must have agreed to it. Somehow he couldn’t imagine anyone forcing Magdalena to do anything she didn’t want to do, even her father, whom she clearly idolised. She didn’t have the browbeaten demeanour of a depressed woman trapped in a miserable marriage, so it must have been an amicable arrangement, if nothing else. A wave of jealousy surged through him.

He blocked out all thoughts of her husband and allowed his mind to dwell on the better parts of the evening he and Magdalena had spent together. His thoughts warmed him while he raced back through the desolate winter landscape towards Bellingham.

Chapter Seventeen

W
oods managed to get down the creaking wooden staircase of the tavern at about ten in the morning. He still felt faint and queasy, and his stomach complained of hunger. Mistress McMullen fussed around him like a mother hen but seemed relieved when he ordered a mug of tea and a hearty meal of ham and eggs to make up for the supper that he had failed to finish the night before.

Unfortunately, once the greasy food arrived, he experienced the unusual sensation of losing his appetite. Determined that his mind was playing tricks on him, he picked up his cutlery and ate the food anyway. Ten minutes later, he rushed back into the privy and regurgitated his first meal of the day. Unabashed, he returned to bed for a while and then came back downstairs and tried again. This time he was more successful. Although plagued with the burps, he managed to keep down breakfast number two and felt far more like his old self. He sighed happily, closed his eyes and tried to rest his aching limbs on the hard wooden settle in front of the fire.

A few of the local farmers had begun to drift into the tavern for a midday meal. Most of them laughed and jeered when they saw Woods by the fire.

‘Why if it ain’t Constable Guzzle Guts!’ Jethro Hamilton jeered.

‘Still bowsey with the brandy, are you, Mr Bow Street Runner?’ Isaac Daly enquired with mock solicitude.

Woods ignored them and kept his eyes closed.

The farmers huddled in a corner over their drinks. Their mood changed, and they soon began complaining bitterly about the faws.

He had just nodded off when Mistress McMullen shook him awake.

‘Ye’ve got a lady visitor,’ she informed him. ‘So ye’d better stop yer snorin’ and wake up sharpish.’

Bleary-eyed, he glanced up to see Katherine Armstrong watching him quizzically. He struggled to his feet, knocking his leg on the table in the process.

‘Miss Armstrong—ouch!—what can I do fer you? Detective Lavender is visiting Greycoates at the moment.’

She nodded and opened her mouth to speak.

‘Miss Armstrong! Here again in the tavern?’ yelled Jethro Hamilton from across the smoky room. ‘Second time this week—and to see
another
gadgie? Folk’ll start talking, ma’am, mark my words!’

‘Oh, I do hope so, Mr Hamilton. I do hope so,’ she retorted, smiling.

The farmers laughed, but it was not unkind. Woods sensed that this community held Katherine Armstrong in high esteem. The farmers had returned to their conversation, but Mistress McMullen offered Miss Armstrong the use of a private room to talk to the constable.

‘There’s no need—I’ve only come to relay a quick message.’

‘Oh yes?’ Woods’ eyebrows rose.

‘Please inform Detective Lavender that my father has decided to add another twenty guineas to the reward money offered by George Carnaby for information about Helen’s whereabouts. I don’t know if it will help, but he is determined to do everything he can for Helen.’

‘That is most generous, I’m sure,’ Woods said. ‘I’ll pass the message on to Detective Lavender when he returns.’

She thanked him and moved away a few steps, but then she turned back, her forehead creased.

‘About your Detective Lavender . . .’ she began.

‘Yes, ma’am?’ For a moment, he thought she was about to question him about their progress on the case. He hesitated. Lavender didn’t like revealing information to a client until he was ready.

‘Is he the usual sort of detective who operates out of Bow Street?’

Woods smiled, relieved. Dealing with questions about his enigmatic superior had become part of his job. Everyone was curious about Lavender.

‘No, ma’am. He’s part of a new breed of detectives—all educated and very clever.’

‘Yes, I can see that. My father and I were pleasantly surprised when we met him. We’d assumed he would be more—what shall I say—more bullish, perhaps?’

‘He’s the quiet type, ma’am—a great thinker and very clever. He’s also successful; he usually gets his man.’

She paused to rearrange her bonnet and pat her grey curls.

‘Well, let’s just hope that on this occasion he gets the girl—in this case, our Helen.’

‘He’ll do his utmost, ma’am.’

‘Yes, I’m sure he will.’ She looked like she was about to leave, but still she paused. ‘Is he married?’ she asked.

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Now that surprises me. He’s an attractive man.’ She stared at him calmly, clearly expecting more information.

‘He were once betrothed to a lovely young gal back in London—a school mistress.’ Woods spoke quickly, unsure about where this line of questioning was heading.

‘What happened to the engagement?’

He wondered how much time Katherine Armstrong had spent watching her father question his clients or grilling witnesses in the dock. She definitely had the knack. Her steady brown eyes never left his face, and she timed the silences that lay between them with a precision that forced him to answer.

‘The poor gal died two weeks before the weddin’ .’

‘How?’

‘Cholera morbus. She’d visited a sick pupil and picked up the disease there.’

‘Poor girl,’ Katherine Armstrong echoed. ‘That is a tragic story. Detective Lavender must have been devastated. It can take years to get over a loss like that.’