Instruments of Darkness

3

Harriet and Crowther climbed into the woods where Brook had died. They reached the bench and Harriet sat, covering her face. Crowther lowered himself at her side and waited. The crows bleated above them, the breeze turned a few of the leaves over in its palms. Harriet’s shoulders stopped shaking, and after a few minutes she pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose loudly.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Not at all, Mrs. Westerman. Are you recovered?”

“No.” She looked intently in front of her, as if trying to fix her own house and home in her mind, to drive out the other. “What horrors, Crowther. My head is spinning with them. How can a man be in that condition and live?”

Crowther rolled his cane in his hands. Its foot buried itself among the debris of the ground at their feet with a cracking spin.

“He has been well cared for-at least until recently. Alexander sent a good nurse. I doubt many doctors could have kept him alive so long.”

“But his mind. .? Did you really believe it might be possible to communicate with him?”

“The body does not always reflect or obey the mind that dwells within it. I think he is conscious of himself and his condition. At moments, anyway.”

Harriet shuddered and leaned forward, putting her chin in her hand.

“What is the significance of the locket, do you think?” she asked. “From all his sweethearts. .”

“I told you of the squire’s suspicions regarding the death of the young girl.”

“Indeed. It did look like the sort of bauble a girl of that age might carry. A relatively poor girl too. I cannot imagine that many of the women that Lord Thornleigh used to associate with wear anything but gold.”

“Who was magistrate at that time?”

Harriet turned to him. “I have no idea. It would have been more than thirty years ago.”

Crowther lifted his cane from the little pit he had dug with its tip and started on a new excavation.

“More likely forty, I think. But if his family were conscientious about keeping his documents …”

“Is it likely that such ancient history would have a bearing on what is happening today?”

Crowther raised his eyebrows.

“It would be kinder not to refer to something as ‘ancient history,’ Mrs. Westerman, when it took place in my own lifetime.” She gave a swift snort of rather wobbly laughter. Pleased, he continued, “I’ve been thinking of what Hugh said about the guilt of his family, and about the locket and those wounds. I wonder if he is being held to account for something in his past, and if we cannot press forward, let us go back. Perhaps that death is like the slip knot of a rope. If we pull it free, the rest may unravel of its own accord.”

The house of Sir Stephen Young was showing signs of neglect. The former magistrate had died at a healthy age and of natural causes some twenty years before. His son and heir, they were told, was a little eccentric.

The maid who showed them in did not seem used to visitors and reacted to them as a bishop might, confronted with a talking lion: curious, but at best a little uncertain. They were hurried into a salon which was dusty and unaired, the furniture bulky and chipped, the paint on the panels blistered and paled where the sunlight reached them, and sooty and greasy where it did not. They had not waited long before the door was pushed open again with a bustle and fuss, and a man of about Crowther’s age tumbled into the room. He was remarkably short, and made himself shorter still by carrying his head down and his shoulders bunched. His wig, rather yellow, was slightly adrift and his coat oddly stained about the cuffs. His energy was unmistakable though, and his pleasure at having guests seemed to almost overwhelm him. It was a little, Harriet thought to herself, like being greeted by an enthusiastic mole. He squinted up at them through rather smeared glasses, and wrinkled his nose happily, almost as if he sought to identify them by smell rather than sight.

“So happy, so happy! Such great visitors! I hope you will forgive my home. I have no time for it! No eyes for it! It is a mere shell! My work is the heart of it, and I need no salons for that.” He nodded rapidly as he spoke.

“You are very kind to receive us, sir.”

Harriet extended her hand. He snuffled over it.

“I am honored! When I heard that the great Mr. Crowther himself was in my home-such a joy! So good to meet a fellow natural philosopher, an explorer of the universal beauty of God’s creation.” He turned to Crowther. “You know my name from my publications on the beetles of this area, I think, sir? You have found me out for a little further schooling on the subject?”

The violent nodding continued, and Harriet realized why his wig was always likely to be askew. She could not help liking the little man, and hoped only that Crowther would be kind. She could not bear to see her mole crushed underfoot like one of his studies. She need not have feared, however. Crowther seemed in generous mood.

“I have a double purpose in coming here with my friend. I would be honored to hear more of your work,” Sir Stephen wrinkled his nose again with delight, “but I wonder if you could also help us with a matter of ancient history.”

Harriet put her hand to her lips to hide a smile, and Sir Stephen blinked rapidly, clasped and unclasped his hands and flicked his head to one side. The wig did not quite manage to keep pace with the movement, but seemed to stumble after him like a drunken suitor after a lively dancer.

Crowther cleared his throat. “I believe your father was a magistrate in this area, some forty years ago, and I wondered if you had kept about you any of his papers relating to that time. There is a matter we would be glad to know more of.”

“Oh yes!” More nodding. “My father was a careful taker of notes. They are all in his library. I mean to send them somewhere sometime. But anything not related to my work … I never find the time to attend to it.”

Crowther bowed. “I understand, of course.”

Sir Stephen glowed in the glory of the fellow feeling. Crowther seemed to consider a second, and then suggested, “Perhaps, if you would allow it, Mrs. Westerman might have a glance through the papers while we talk a little more about your work.”

The nodding increased to such an intensity, Harriet feared the wig would fly off entirely.

“Of course, of course. I shall have Hester bring you a cup of something, my dear.” He grinned up at her, the smears on his glasses catching the light, then told Crowther in a confidential whisper, “The fairer sex, I fear, do not always understand the fascinations of the natural sciences.”

Harriet murmured something appropriate and lowered her gaze.

It was some two hours later that Crowther opened the door to the former Sir Stephen’s office and found Harriet, her hat and gloves laid aside, coughing through a cloud of dust she had caused to be thrown into the air on placing a volume on the table in front of her a little too emphatically.

“Good hunting, Mrs. Westerman?” he inquired after a polite pause.

“Very, Mr. Crowther,” she replied with a choke.

Crowther approached the desk and took in the piles of papers balanced on the various chairs surrounding it. He looked at Harriet questioningly.

“Yes, you can move those. I have what I need here.”

He lifted one pile onto the floor and examined the seat. Frowning, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and attempted to disperse some of the dirt before he sat down.

“I don’t think you will be able to avoid dust here, Crowther. How are the beetles?”

“Numerous. I wonder at the arrogance of humanity that it is assumed we are made in God’s image. Judging by the variety and adaptations of Sir Stephen’s specimens-their ability to find a hold in any environment-I would not be surprised to discover that our Creator is, in fact, a very large insect.” He grinned. “Perhaps we should all learn to tread a little more carefully.”

Harriet smiled, though without looking up from her reading.

“I shall be revenged, however,” Crowther went on. “Sir Stephen is to visit me in a week to have a tour of my preparations.”

Harriet looked up at that. “I don’t envy your staff keeping those horrors clean,” she remarked. “And is Sir Stephen worthy to be shown the discoveries of the great Mr. Crowther?”

Crowther placed his hands on top of his cane and rested his chin on them. If he noticed her satirical tone, he refused to rise to it.

“He is not unintelligent, if a little keen to see God in everything-particularly in beetles-though I don’t think he would subscribe to my new theology. And my staff are not allowed to go anywhere near my preparations, which are, in their own way, very beautiful.”

“We shall have to differ. I prefer the human body whole, and not injected with resins…. Damn, I have lost my place with all your chattering! No, here! You are come at a happy moment.”

Crowther stood and stepped carefully around the piles of papers till he could peer over her shoulder. She held a fat, handwritten volume in her hand, and pointed to a passage in it.

“Sir Stephen was right,” she said. “His father was also a great recorder of his observations, it seems, though he was more interested in men than insects, and I suspect less happy as a result, from what I have read. His notes are plentiful. The volumes for the thirties were behind those for the twenties, rather than alongside, and I now know a lot more about my older neighbor’s business than I should, but enough of that. I have found Sir Stephen’s journal for the year of Sarah Randle’s murder. It was in thirty-nine. He wrote about the death and search, and I have read it.” She looked up at Crowther. “It was not the squire who found her. It was our friend here.”

Crowther lifted an eyebrow, and commented, “The current Sir Stephen cannot have been much more than a boy himself at that time.”

Harriet nodded. “Only twelve, poor thing. The same age as Sarah. His father spills a lot of ink regretting that it was so, and fearing the shock would affect him badly. Bridges was of the party following, that much is true. Why would he lie to you, do you think?”

“He wished to be at the center of the story, I imagine. I am flattered he sought to impress me. Is there any description of the body?”

“Yes, but that is not the part I wish to show you.”

“Indulge me, Mrs. Westerman.”

She sighed and flicked back through the yellowing pages.

“Here. ‘Her body was quite cold, and her dress damp with dew. . One stab wound. . ’ ”

“One? The squire spoke of many, of a frenzied attack.”

“More dramatization on his part, perhaps. One wound through the chest between her fourth and fifth ribs to her left.”

“The heart. She would have died at once if the blade were long and sharp.”

Harriet let her finger slip down the page. “Here. . ‘belly swollen with child …’ there at least the squire was accurate. A white scratch on her neck, but it had not bled.” She looked up at him again. “What is the significance of that?”

“There could be none. But it suggests the injury took place after death.”

“Something taken from round her neck?”

“Something like a locket on a chain, indeed. What color was her hair?”

“She was dark. He mentions her dark hair against the green of the long grasses. The hair I saw in the locket was blond.”

“And do we know the natural color of Lord Thornleigh’s hair?”

“He is powdered in all the portraits I know of, but Hugh’s natural color is fair, as was Alexander’s. Perhaps she was carrying a lock from her lover.”

“The hair of a rich man in a locket she had bought herself. .” Crowther mused. “Perhaps that is why the peddler was caught up in the hue and cry. Some good burgher saw her buying it from him, perhaps. Poor child. Now, Mrs. Westerman, what were you so eager to show me?”

She grinned and turned the pages till she found her place again.

“Here. Shortly after the funeral, Lord Thornleigh came to see Sir Stephen. He said he had heard his name mentioned in connection with the murder, and wished Sir Stephen to make it clear there was no truth in the rumor.”

“And Sir Stephen?” Crowther queried.

“Said Lord Thornleigh could make use of the slander laws if he wished. He adds this. ‘My lord is growing from a wild youth into an unpleasant young man. I pity his tenants, I pity all of us over whom he has power.’ Then there is this. ‘I shall warn Bridges not to be so free with his romanticizing. I like Thornleigh no better than any of his neighbors do, but one cannot speak evils without proof and escape being damned onself, and Bridges will find, as do we all, that the influence of Thornleigh is deep and dangerous.’”

“I grow to like Sir Stephen as I do his son. Will you pass me the diary, Mrs. Westerman. My eyes do not perform well in this gloom.”

She handed the book to him, holding the place open rather awkwardly as she did so. There was a rustle as Crowther took the book, and a folded sheet fell from between the pages.

Harriet pounced on it like a spaniel, but in a moment her face fell again.

“A letter, but some inquiry and dated years later. An accident.”

“I think Sir Stephen must have got his instinct to catalogue from somewhere. Are you sure it is not relevant?”

She opened the paper again, and began to read. Her eyes widened, she turned the page in search of a signature and sighed again at finding none.

“You are right, Crowther. Which is a rather annoying habit of yours.” Crowther had returned to his chair with the old justice’s journal, and bowed to her gently before he took his seat. She straightened out the sheet with care.

“I shall read it to you: twentieth March 1748. ‘Dear Sir, I write with a question, though I fear I must ask for your answer to be delivered indirectly, secretly. I know you will take no pleasure in this. Yet I feel-I fear, sir-that the question must be asked and the answer given. I hope you shall agree. I have heard of the death some years ago of a young girl, Sarah. My question is this: did she have a locket, a thing of silvered tin, on an old pewter chain? And if so, was it taken from her at the time of her murder? It may seem a strange, meaningless pair of questions to you, sir. But they chill me and have pressed me down through many sleepless nights. If you answer yes to both these questions, then I must tell you that I believe I have seen this locket, and seen it among the possessions of a man of power, position and cruel temper. I may be going mad, and imagining demons at the end of my bed, where there is nothing not built by my own nerves. So I must await your answer. If the locket of which I speak did belong to the dead girl, will you wear the fob I enclose on your watch chain for a few days? I shall certainly see you in that time, and if you give me an answer in this manner I shall write again, and give you the name I dare not form on this paper now, and let you know where the locket may be found.’”

Harriet looked up. Crowther was a gray shadow in the gloom, his fingers tented in front of him.

“Yes, I would say that is relevant. Is there nothing further? No note from Sir Stephen?”

“Not here. Where would your observers write their thoughts and actions?”

Crowther turned to the last pages of the journal he held on his lap.

“The system holds. Here, on the last pages of the book. My turn to read to you now, madam: ‘I place this letter alongside my journal for the year of Sarah Randle’s murder. I believed, still believe, that it was written by Lady Thornleigh, whose tragic marriage I observed, and whom I could not help. I wore the fob as requested from the moment I received the note, but no further communication arrived. I had been wearing it for two days when Lady Thornleigh suffered her tragic, fatal fall. I have drawn my own conclusions, and leave it to any future reader of these words to do the same. May God have mercy on their souls.’”

He closed the pages and shut Sir Stephen’s words away from the light once more, then looked across to see Harriet staring blindly out toward the windows, the faint flicker of greenery and sun at the edges of the shutters. The summer afternoon light softened the outline of her face, but he could still see one tear sliding down her pale cheek.