Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘I believe,’ Krall said wearily, ‘Mrs Westerman might be referring to the death of Count von Warburg. He was indeed killed in a fire at his house just before Christmas.’

‘The circumstances?’ Crowther said shortly.

Krall looked a little angry. ‘There was a fire and he died. Just before Christmas! Von Warburg had supped at court and returned to his own house. The maid woke in the night smelling smoke; by the time she knew what she was about, the whole of the top floor of the house was ablaze. Luckily for her, she slept in the kitchen. They managed to save the neighbouring houses, but there was nothing much left of Warburg’s place. It was assumed he had gone to bed drunk and the candle had caught on the bed-hangings.’

‘And that might be exactly what happened,’ Crowther said.

‘It might well be,’ Harriet replied, ‘or it might be another murder concealed.’

Harriet saw her friend close his eyes briefly. This was exactly what Crowther hated most. When he had a body, or a collection of facts to examine, he was content, focused. This sort of speculation frustrated him, made him feel lost in the fog.

‘Was the body examined?’ he asked.

Krall turned to stare out of the window. ‘The upper storey collapsed. There was not much of a body to bury, let alone examine.’

He then groaned slightly and put his head in his hands.

‘You have remembered something else?’ Crowther said, perhaps unnecessarily.

‘And then there was Bertram Raben,’ Krall said heavily.

Harriet folded her arms. ‘Yes?’

‘A suicide. It seemed. In January. He was a serious sort of fellow, a writer and poet, a young man but well thought of. He wrote for our newspaper here. We thought perhaps this fashion for suicide which has swept the country in recent years had finally caught up with us. But something was a little odd about it to me.’

‘We are all attention, Herr District Officer.’

‘I happened to be in town, and my colleague asked me to look in. Well, there was his room, papers everywhere, of course, and him just sat in the middle of it, opposite the door on a straight-backed chair. Thought it was an odd place to choose to die. Why not the easy chair by the fire? And there didn’t seem to be enough blood.’

‘Interesting.’

Krall stood up and leaned on the desk, his shoulders up. It cost Harriet some effort not to back away. ‘This is madness,’ he growled. ‘Yesterday I had one woman dead, and her murderer under lock and key; now you want to persuade me I am looking at four murders and no suspect.’

‘We cannot waste time with nostalgia, Herr Krall,’ Harriet said in slightly clipped tones. ‘Now to whom can we speak about these gentlemen?’

Having done his duties at the palace, Michaels made his way into the town. The market square was swarming with workmen who were building stands on three sides; they looked as if they aimed to dwarf the cathedral. He paused to watch them work, and thought after a few minutes of observation that he would trust them enough to sit there, were he invited. Not that he would be. These were the stands where the nobility of Maulberg would wait, carefully ranked and placed to watch the arrival of their new Duchess in two days’ time. Michaels rolled his shoulders and set off at an easy pace for the house of Colonel and Mrs Padfield.

On his arrival he was shown into the library. It was a rather grand name for a modest room, about the size of the third-best private parlour at the Bear and Crown. He mostly used it to store furniture that needed mending. Michaels sometimes thought houses were built with libraries in order to provide a place for men such as himself to be received. His thick beard and rough coat were not in keeping with the delicate decoration of a fashionable lady’s salon, but he had become too powerful a man to keep standing in the hall.

He had come to Maulberg to assist his friends, knowing that with his guidance they would cross Europe a great deal more quickly, and he aimed to speed their return in the same way. He was happy to leave his business in the care of his wife and thought it might be a chance for his eldest son, a boy of fifteen or so, to step out from his shadow. His time in Maulberg he had intended to spend in looking around at the land his mother had been born in, see how the locals managed their horses and their brewing, and find out if there were any interesting opportunities in which to invest his growing wealth. Still, the mysterious request for an audience from these friends of Mrs Clode’s was intriguing. And he was at liberty while Mr Crowther and Mrs Westerman harried out the truth from this place.

Mrs Padfield did not keep him waiting long. She was a good-looking young woman with a pointed chin and round eyes that seemed to bulge a little from her head, and though she was slight, her movements were quick and her orders to her maid brisk.

‘Did anyone see you come in?’ she asked at once.

Michaels affected a slightly befuddled surprise. ‘No, ma’am.’ In front of this thin-edged woman, he thickened his accent a trifle. Her bright little eyes danced over him as he shifted from foot to foot and turned his round hat in his hands.

She watched him for a few moments longer, then laughed. ‘All right, Mr Michaels. No need to play the yokel with me.’ He kept his eyes low, though he let a smile lift the corner of his mouth. ‘The palace gossips say you are a wealthy man, and one to be treated with respect. Mrs Clode has told us of your authority in your village.’

He looked up at her. ‘What do you want of me then, madam?’

She took a seat and nodded to the chair opposite. ‘Sit down, please, Mr Michaels. What I am about to tell you is known only to one other person, my husband, and to my shame he only learned of it two nights ago. I have decided to take a great risk in sharing this with you. I hope Mrs Clode is right, and you are a man to be trusted as well as respected.’

Michaels sat, but made no comment, asked no further question. She sighed and turned away from him. ‘When we met I told my husband that before I arrived in Ulrichsberg, I worked as a governess. That I came here in search of work. In truth, between the ages of twelve and twenty I helped my sister and uncle trick the rich into giving us their gold, and that is how we ate.’ Her words came out quickly towards the end, and as she finished she looked him boldly in the eye, her chin in the air.

He pulled on his beard. ‘What manner of stealing? Can’t see you raiding travellers at twelve, and someone’s taken pains over your education, haven’t they? No one bothers to teach a pick-pocket or a house-breaker lady’s manners.’

She nodded. ‘The man who called himself our uncle took me and my sister from the orphanage in Leipzig and trained us to be mediums for the spirit world. We had a talent for it.’

‘You’re some manner of witch then?’

She smiled and shook her head. ‘More an actress. It was all theatrics, a keen eye, a few tricks. Imagine a young girl, all dressed in white in a dark room with my uncle murmuring incantations, telling you all your secrets and giving you messages from your dead friends and enemies. I grew used to the sound of gold coins rattling on the table-top.’

Michaels had met a fair number of tricksters and fools in his time, but his scepticism must have shown on his face. She reached over and touched his hand and he looked up. Her voice became very soft. ‘Your son is quite well, Michaels. He has had a more gentle start than you did, but he has your eye for people. Trust him. He will not grow soft because he did not have to earn his first money with his fists.’ She sat back again and laughed at the expression on his face. ‘Worth a coin or two?’