Instruments of Darkness

5

The vicar looked deeply uncomfortable. “Surely the squire …” he began.

Michaels’s voice in reply was almost a growl. “Squire’s got work enough. Your word is as good as anyone’s in the parish, is it not?”

The vicar decided not to answer directly.

They made an odd little group in the back yard of Crowther’s house. Hannah, rather pale, but steady on her feet, Michaels like an oak walking, with his unsuspecting dog at his feet, the vicar, red in the face already, and Crowther with the bundle under his arm.

“Right then,” Michaels announced. “First off, Hannah, I want you to have a look at the bottle there and say if it is the one Joshua drank out of last afternoon, and if it looks as it did when we sealed it after he was taken ill.”

She stepped forward smartly enough as Crowther unwrapped his bundle and showed her the bottle. She bent forward and ran her finger over the seal.

“Just as it was, sir.” She looked up at the vicar. “See, the wax we put around the stopper is just as it was last night. That’s the color of our kitchen candles. Look! There’s a bit where I let the wax fall crooked, because my hands were shaking a little.”

The vicar caught Michaels’s eye and hurriedly leaned forward to peer more closely where she indicated. He looked about him and shuffled his feet.

“Yes, I see, I see.”

The door to the house opened with a clatter and they saw Mrs. Westerman step into the yard. She paused for a second to look at them, before saying, “Good morning, Crowther. Gentlemen, Hannah. Your maid tells me you are about to kill a dog.”

The gentlemen bowed, and Hannah gave a friendly bob. Crowther replied rather wearily, “Indeed we are, Mrs. Westerman. At least, I fear so. Do you wish to observe?”

“If I may.”

Michaels turned to Hannah. “No need for you to stay now, if you don’t wish it, girl.”

Hannah glanced quickly at Crowther. “I am not afraid to see it,” she said, “but the kitchen at home is still in an awful mess.”

Crowther blinked at her. “I don’t doubt your stomach. Best go to your work though.”

She smiled in return, and at Harriet as she passed.

“I shan’t delay you by asking about Joshua’s kitchen,” Harriet said, “but if you are going to get that poor dog to drink liquor, had you not better pour it onto some meat of some sort?”

The men looked at each other in surprise and nodded. Harriet sighed and turned back into the kitchen, emerging a few moments later with a piece of beef shank on a cracked plate, that Crowther rather suspected had been designed for his own dinner. The dog caught the scent and whined. Harriet passed him the dish, and she saw the face of his own servant appear, then disappear rapidly at the back window.

“Mrs. Westerman, you are the handmaiden of science.”

She did not deign to reply, but took a seat on the edge of the raised herb beds. Crowther broke the seal and poured a glassful or so of the liquid over the meat and into the bowl. The dog whined again, and Michaels reached down automatically to stroke her head and pull her soft black ears. Crowther hesitated. Michaels caught his movement and looked up at him with a sad smile.

“Needs must, Mr. Crowther. Perhaps I shall put a sign over her grave saying ‘handmaiden of science’ too.”

The dog looked up at her master and licked his hand. Crowther set down the dish, and Michaels pulled free the string around the little bitch’s neck. She ran to the plate and paused briefly to sniff it, and then got down to eating with an appetite. They stood around and watched her. The dog dragged the last scraps from the bowl, sitting down to enjoy them in a splayed crouch on the flagstones, looking up every now and then as if afraid the strange figures standing around her might try to snatch it away. More minutes passed, and the dog wagged her tail and looked as if she planned to sleep.

Harriet wondered vaguely if she should ask Betsy to bring out tea. She plucked a sage leaf from the bush beside her and crushed it between her fingertips, holding it to her nose for the scent. There was a sharp whine and she looked at the dog. Her ears were back tightly on her head and she slunk to her master’s boot. Crowther picked up the dish by its extreme edge and took it to the pump, washing and filling it with water before putting it in front of the dog again. She sank her muzzle into it, lapping greedily, then whined and shivered again, then with a retch began to vomit. Crowther touched the vicar’s sleeve. He started a little.

“Note the yellow bile. Typical of arsenic, and just as Joshua.”

The vicar nodded, his eyes wide. Michaels got down onto his knees and rubbed the dog’s flanks, as she looked up at him. Harriet felt the back of her eyelids twitch. Crowther cleared his throat.

“It will not take long.”

The dog howled and scrabbled her legs, the nails scraping along the stone. Michaels kept his hand on her.

“Easy there, my dear. Easy there.”

The dog tried to lick his hand again, then gave a sudden yelp. Harriet set her jaw. The animal continued to whine and whimper and wriggle under Michaels’s heavy paw. Crowther folded his long limbs to crouch alongside him, looking into the dog’s pupils.

“Careful it does not bite you, Michaels.”

He looked at his watch again. Michaels kept his eyes on the dog.

“No, she’ll not do that. No matter what.”

The dog jerked and yelped again, looking out past them all at the sky visible over the wall of the courtyard, retched again, then with almost a sigh, the cage of her ribs shuddered and was still. Crowther snapped his watch shut, making the vicar jump.

“Half an hour from when she began to eat.”

The vicar, who was very white, simply nodded.

“And you’ll testify to what you have seen this afternoon at the inquest?”

“This afternoon, why … yes, of course.”

Michaels still knelt by his dead dog, stroking her ears. Harriet watched them.

“Poor little bitch,” she said, and let the last of the crumbled sage fall from between her fingertips.