The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

Malinferno wondered how a servant who despised both scientists and Frenchmen should have come to be working for the embodiment of both in one carcass. He reassured the man of his own antecedents, drawing on his maternal side and choosing not to mention his Paduan father.

‘God bless you, my man. I am an Englishman through and through. But what we seek does have a bearing on the escape of Bonaparte from St Helena. The safety of the realm is in question.’

Malinferno felt a nudge from behind and heard the noise of a stifled giggle from Doll Pocket. He even heard her whispered comment on his stout rendering of a blue-blooded Englishman.

‘Some ham of an actor, you are, Joe.’

The keeper of the door eyed Malinferno with concern.

‘Who’s that behind you?’

‘That, sir, is my dear wife, whom I will not let out of my sight while Boney is on the loose.’

At this the servant finally relented and let Joe and Doll into the silent mausoleum of a house. Noticing a large spray of white arum lilies in a vase on the hall table, Malinferno hoped it was not a presage of the state of the master of the house. He needed Casteix alive. But it would seem he was, for the sourpuss of a servant led them upstairs past the large reception room on the first floor, where Malinferno had first been ushered into Casteix’s presence, and on up to the level of the bedrooms. He stopped outside a grand set of double doors and asked them both to wait. First tapping on the doors gently, he opened the left-hand one and slithered in through the gap like a serpent. A muffled conversation followed, which must have had a positive outcome, because the servant returned the same way and said they could enter.

Once through the grand doors, they found themselves in an ornate bedroom at the centre of which stood an enormous bed with Egyptian motifs picked out in marquetry all over its scroll-shaped head and foot. Almost lost in a snowy expanse of white sheets and pillows lay Casteix, his wan face topped by a tasselled nightcap. He waved a hand at his visitors.

‘Come forward. I cannot see you clearly without my eyeglasses.’

Malinferno and Doll Pocket complied. And Joe noticed the gleam in the Frenchman’s otherwise strained face when he saw Doll’s attributes.

‘Ah, you have brought a companion, Signor Malinferno. And a very pretty one too.’

Doll simpered in a way Malinferno imagined she had perfected at Madam De Trou’s. Old, leering men required an expression of admiration that had to be well simulated in order to feel they got their money’s worth. Casteix was no exception. The Frenchman stirred in his bed, and Malinferno hoped he was not about to get frisky. Hurriedly he explained his mission.

‘I wondered if you had yet come to any conclusions about the thigh-bone I left with you, monsieur. You see I need it returned, and am anxious to confirm its provenance.’

Casteix sighed. ‘Ah, the thigh-bone. That item is the reason why you find me confined to my bed tonight. But let me answer your question first. There is no way of telling the age of the bone. It could be two years old or two thousand. My feeling on handling it was that it was very old, but that is not a very scientific assessment. Yes, very old.’ He shifted under his covers again and slid a hand underneath the crisp sheets. Malinferno was getting alarmed at his behaviour. The Frenchman, however, continued to talk. ‘As for returning it to you, I fear I am rendered unable to do so.’

‘Why is that, sir?’ It was Doll’s turn to question his cryptic replies.

‘Because it has been stolen.’

Malinferno groaned and was about to ask how, when Casteix provided the answer.

‘After you left, another person came to the door. A man well muffled against the inclement English weather but with swarthy features. He reminded me of a short-arsed Breton peasant. My manservant let him into my presence, and this peasant practically demanded to know everything about you, sir. And what our conversation might have been about. I told him it was none of his business, but he overpowered me and… and sawed my leg off, sir.’

Malinferno heard Doll gasp, and he suddenly felt sick at the thought of the horrible attack on Casteix. Was this why the old man was now bedridden? Yet he should have bled to death, or expired with the shock. How had he survived such a gruesome attack? By way of explanation, the man brought his hand back out from under the bedclothes. In it he held two pieces of a well-turned mahogany table leg that had been sawed up. No, not actually a table leg, Malinferno realized, for it was not symmetrical all round. He saw suddenly why yesterday he thought Casteix had an unusually well-shaped calf. The leg was wooden, and his attacker had rendered Casteix incapable of pursuit by sawing it up.

‘I lost my leg to a crocodile in Egypt, you see, many years ago. Mr Chippendale was kind enough to turn me a substitute. Now it is ruined.’

Malinferno, stifling a laugh at the absurdity of it all, managed to ask about Arthur’s thigh-bone.

‘And the bone?’

‘Alas, stolen, Signor Malinferno. Though God knows why. Mummies are ten a penny these days.’

Malinferno and Doll did manage to get out on to the street before once again collapsing with laughter. Though they had no good reason to. The old man had lost his wooden leg, but they had lost the last part of Arthur’s bones.

‘Where to now, Joe?’

Malinferno, stymied, was ready to give up. But Doll was still eager to pursue matters and had a suggestion. ‘We are forgetting one thing. Someone attacked the Frenchy for the bone, and killed Kitten for certain. If we figure out who it was, not only will we bring justice to Kitten, but we will probably find the bones. What other reason had he to kill Kitten other than to get his hands on the bones for himself?’

‘You’re right, Doll. But how are we going to find out who the murderer is? Augustus was no doubt murdered for Arthur’s bones, before the man realized the box was empty and the bones were elsewhere. The man must then have waited to see who came to see Augustus, assuming any visitor might have possession of the bones. I was duly followed to Creechurch Lane, where Kitten was killed for the same reason. The man had traced the bones to my rooms, and Kitten was found to be in the way. But it still doesn’t tell us who did in Augustus in the first place.’

Doll pulled a face. ‘No, no, no. Don’t you see the story as you tell it is full of holes. First, we don’t even know if your friend Bromhead is dead. But leave that to one side. I am sure some bloke did keep tabs on the house, and saw you and Dale arriving and leaving. He had to choose one of you to follow, and perhaps it was you, as you said you were aware of someone. And we know he fell off the railing while trying to get an eyeful of me and my friends in our déshabillé. But does that make him the murderer?’

Malinferno made a mental note to verse Doll in the French language. Her accent was execrable.

‘You mean, was he in any fit state after that to get to my rooms and murder Kitten? But who else knew of the existence of the bones?’

Doll stated the obvious. ‘Only Augustus and the other members of the Avalon Club. But they already had the bones, so they wouldn’t have murdered to get them. Once you had the bones, only Kitten knew about their location. With Augustus dead, the link must be Kitten, even though she didn’t know they was King Arthur’s. So why did she come back, when you had scared her off with talk of the bodysnatchers? She obviously came at a time when you were not going to be there, or her story of being your sister would not have stood up.’

A thought lit up Malinferno’s brain like one of those gaslamps. ‘Tell me, who would be interested in old bones, whosever they were? And who would Kitten have blabbed to about a nice set of bones just ripe for the picking?’