Authors: Paul Finch
Then there came a low, sibilant
hiss
.
O’Calligan
froze, before staring back at the high aperture in the wall.
Two burning eyes regarded him from its darkness. They were like buttons, only larger, gleaming with candlelight. The Irishman didn’t wait to see more. He drew his sword, swept it up and struck the bell, which rang three sonorous tones in response. Still, the eyes regarded him. But, a moment later, as he’d fervently hoped, they withdrew into the blackness.
O’Calligan
dropped to one knee and leaned on his
sabre
. His breath came in heaving gasps. His torso was so slick with sweat that his torn and
filthied
shirt clung to it like a second skin. Not that he could afford to take too long to recover. The time had come to tell the others what he knew.
*
“This had better be worthwhile,
O’Calligan
,” Judge Prendergast grumbled. He crouched before the drawing room hearth in his housecoat and bed-cap, and jammed a poker into the dying coals. “As if things aren’t difficult enough, now you’re getting us up at three o’clock in the blasted morning.”
The other man present, Rupert, was stripped down to his shirtsleeves, wore his sword and pistol at his waist, and regarded the Irishman with deep suspicion.
“
Gad!
” the judge suddenly said, wrinkling his porcine nostrils. “
O’Calligan
, you smell like … well, I don’t know what you smell like!”
The Irishman nodded. “It was almost the death of me.”
“Did someone attack you?” Rupert asked.
“I’ll explain everything shortly.”
A second later Cedric came in. He looked bleary-eyed with fatigue, but he closed the door behind him. “Sorry, my lords,” he began, “but I was … oh, did you wish me to bring her ladyship? Only, I’ve just been up there. She mentioned something earlier about taking a sleeping-draught. I wanted to ensure she hadn’t done, with the murderer still loose.”
“It’s alright, Cedric, “
O’Calligan
said. “She’ll be quite safe.”
“Well,
O’Calligan
?” the judge demanded. “Hurry it up, man. We need
some
sleep at least.”
O’Calligan
turned to face them. “I’m afraid there’ll be no more sleep tonight.
Not for any of us, and once we’ve finished here, not for Lady
Foxworth
.”
He paused. “Because, much as it pains me to report this …
she
is the instigator of these events.”
Rupert’s eyes widened. “You Irish rogue! That’s a devil of an accusation!”
“I’d shout less and think more if I were
you,
Captain
Foxworth
… I very much doubt that
you’d
have been leaving this building alive if your sister had had her way.”
“It could be you misspeak yourself,
O’Calligan
!” the judge put in, equally astonished. “I think you’d better explain.”
“I will, but first a question of the young captain here.”
O’Calligan
turned again to Rupert. “How long, my lord, has your sister been King James’s mistress?”
There was a stunned silence, before Rupert spluttered in outrage. “What do you … how dare you …
”
“I overheard you and she discussing it not two hours ago,”
O’Calligan
added.
“You spied on us, you
blaggard
!”
“Until officially removed from my post, it’s my duty to spy. Another duty I had, as her ladyship’s official
gaoler
, was to accompany her on her many trips to Whitehall. Usually she was summoned there to answer some minor charge of libel. I now
realise
what the real purpose was, however.” He shook his head, as though the truth had been under his nose for ages and he hadn’t noticed it. “She would spend many lengthy sessions being …
interviewed
by His Majesty.”
Rupert had turned red in the face, but he was no longer refuting the charge, which Judge Prendergast noticed. “Is this true, Rupert?” the judge asked.
“I can’t deny it,” the young man finally admitted, though it clearly
agnonised
him. “But I didn’t know myself until this evening, when she told me.”
“Good Lord,” the judge said. “I knew she was profligate with her
favours
, but King James?”
“The fact that he was king is irrelevant,”
O’Calligan
put in. “He wasn’t the first king in Lady
Foxworth’s
bed. His brother Charles had been there before him.”
“His brother Charles had been in every gentlewoman’s bed.”
“That’s the point,”
O’Calligan
continued. “In Charles’s case there was no scandal. It happened with mundane repetitiveness. With King James, however, the matter is more delicate. James’s daughter Mary is now married to the Prince of Orange, and she is a woman notoriously protective of her mother, Queen Anne. It seems highly likely – and no doubt
you
share this opinion too, Captain
Foxworth
–
that
once Mary has herself become queen, which must now be imminent, her father’s mistresses, of which your sister is only one, will be reckoned with.”
There was another silence as the reality of the situation sank in.
“Contrary to popular belief,”
O’Calligan
added, “and I freely admit that I shared in this belief, Lady
Foxworth
does
not
await the arrival of the new administration with any enthusiasm. If anything, it’s likely to be the ruin of her. The very least she can expect is a loss of influence at Court, but probably a dismissal from all royal
favour
and patronage as well, and maybe a thorough investigation of her affairs …”
“All this is true!” Rupert interrupted with sudden desperation. “It was a terrible miscalculation by my sister, and as such she now intends to hide her shame by living abroad. But does that make her a murderess?”
“On its own, no,”
O’Calligan
said. “Is it beyond the realms of possibility, though, that she thought she’d rid herself of a few enemies first.
Enemies
who, once she was overseas, would be beyond her reach.”
Rupert shook his head. “This is madness.”
“Is it?”
O’Calligan
wondered. “Lord
Chillerton
caused
an uproar
by publicly demanding monies from your family because of an unfortunate shipping disaster. Lord
Lightbourne
sought your sister as his lover, and though he never enjoyed that pleasure, his vicious-tongued wife spread scathing gossip about her. Judge Prendergast, here, sat on the panel that sent relatives of hers to the gallows.
I
was her prison-keeper, for Heaven’s sake. We all of us had wronged her. Even
you
were likely to die … because if you lived she couldn’t lay claim to the entire
Foxworth
fortune, which she needed to finance her new life abroad.”
Again Rupert shook his head.
“Pure supposition.”
“I agree. But there’s more … if you’ll come with me.”
O’Calligan
led them upstairs to the chill bedroom where the
Lightbournes
lay. He took a candle, and approached the section of skirting-board where the trapdoor was concealed. With one kick, he’d broken it open. Beyond it, he showed them the black passages that wound worm-like through the innards of the house.
“There are hidden access-ways, just like this, in virtually every room in
Silvercombe
Hall.
Either concealed in the wainscoting, the kick-boards or, possibly in the case of the
Chillertons
, inside the chimney breast.
They are all exceptionally small and skillfully constructed, which makes them very difficult to detect from the outside.”
“But who made them, and how?” Rupert asked, now looking more puzzled than distressed.
“It wouldn’t be difficult,”
O’Calligan
said. “The tunnels were already there, and your father’s refurbishment, which allegedly covered them, was only paper-thin.”
“What’s their purpose?” Judge Prendergast wondered.
“I’ll show you. Come.”
O’Calligan
took them back downstairs into the main hall, then along a passage that veered beneath the grand staircase. A low door was set there. It was locked, but
O’Calligan
bade Cedric bring tools again, and a moment later the door was down. Beyond it they found the cubby-hole room that the Irishman had entered via the priest’s hole.
“So?” Prendergast grunted. “It’s an under-stair wardrobe. Most homes have one.”
“But this one’s been adapted for a different use,”
O’Calligan
said. He indicated the row of hanging ropes. “These are bell-pulls, my lord. Each one is connected to a different room. Once they were used to alert Catholic fugitives hiding out at
Silvercombe
. Now they’re used to alert a very different sort of person.
In fact, to call him off.”
His expression had become grave. “The bell we heard when Lady
Lightbourne
was attacked was not rung by her as an alarm. Whoever rung it – and they probably did it from in
here
– did it to recall her assassin.”
Judge Prendergast still seemed bewildered. “So why didn’t we hear the same when the
Chillertons
were slain?”
O’Calligan
had already considered this. “The
Chillertons
’ room was the only one on the east wing, whereas the
Lightbournes
were housed at the very top of the stairs, in a central location.”
“And when Lord
Lightbourne
, himself, was attacked?”
“There was considerable noise in the drawing room at that moment,”
O’Calligan
said. “The maid was frantic, there was wild shouting. It may also be that, once an assault is complete, the beast returns to its lair by instinct. The bell might only be used in the event of an emergency.”
“
Beast?
”
Judge Prendergast stuttered.
“
Lair?
What the devil are you talking about?”
The Irishman now crossed the wardrobe to the second locked door. “With luck, this little-used portal will answer all your questions.” He used the same tools as before to remove the door from its hinges. Beyond it, steep steps descended into a dank and dripping shaft.
“What’s this place?” Rupert murmured as they went down, in a voice so dazed that clearly, even though he’d visited
Silvercombe
many times in his life, he’d never been to this part of the house before.
“The proverbial hidden room, I’m afraid,”
O’Calligan
replied. “It might once have been connected to the cellars or undercroft, but it isn’t any more.”
Ten feet down, they entered a dirty, dungeon-like area, its low roof supported by heavy brick pillars. A single torch in a wall-bracket cast only a weak, glimmering light, but it was sufficient to show a long work table, and on top of it a variety of curious objects.
“In here, I suspect, the vile work was both planned and executed,”
O’Calligan
added. “The killer is in many ways a mindless brute. It needed a lure to bring it to its victims.
This
is that lure.” He picked up a small mixing-bowl filled with brownish, oily fluid.
“What is it?” Rupert asked.
O’Calligan
shook his head. “Who knows? Some concoction used as part of the creature’s training.” Next, he showed them a green bottle with a rubber valve attached. “It was sprayed onto me from this perfume-dispenser, or a similar one.” He squeezed the rubber, and moisture puffed into the air. Its
odour
was quite distinctive.