The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

She opened the notebook and looked inside. ‘And who but a spy would write in code.’

Malinferno laid the bonnet on the ground and grabbed the book off her. ‘You could not have known he was writing in code until you just looked at the book.’

Doll pouted. ‘Well, no. But it was a good guess, wasn’t it?’ She hopped down and stood beside him, reading over his shoulder. ‘Can you make out what it says?’

Malinferno read from the opening entry in the book: ‘“August, 1818. The whole affair is much canvassed by number eight and number six, though the proper authority is not forthcoming.”’

Doll was perplexed, and a little disappointed.

‘Who is number eight and number six? The Prince Regent? The Prime Minister? How do we decipher it?’

Malinferno was flicking through the pages, scanning for clues. He pointed a trembling finger at a later entry.

‘“1819. Number eight has no proof of an intimate connection between number one and number ten.” Number one is surely Caroline – Hattie, I mean – as she is the purpose of Powell’s investigation. That would then imply the King – the Prince Regent then – should be number two. So number eight or number six would be the instigator of all this dirty work – the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, or the House of Commons generally.’

‘And number ten has to be Baron Pergami, who Hattie left behind on her return to England. Are there any more references to number ten after she came back?’

Malinferno turned page after page until he came close to the end.

‘No, there isn’t. But look here. The entry for the 29th of January this year reads merely, “Number one is now Queen.” The later entries get quite rambling after that, with references to numbers from sixteen to twenty-three. We will never know who they are.’

But Doll was undaunted. ‘And the last entry? What was he writing about when I saw him in the dark?’

Malinferno looked closely at the cramped hand in the notebook. It was increasingly difficult to decipher, as though Powell was getting more and more disturbed about his task and its ramifications. Was number twenty-three Sacchi? Or Houghton? He read the last entry, and gasped.

Doll looked at him. ‘What is it, Joe? What have you seen?’

Just as Malinferno was about to tell Doll what he had read, the gig gave a lurch. Someone was climbing in from the other side, and it had to be Powell. Malinferno grabbed Doll’s arm, and they edged round the back of the Tilbury. Once out of sight of the man climbing back into his conveyance, they made for the rocky outcrop nearby. After they had sat down behind the biggest rock, Malinferno realised two things. He was still clutching the pocket book, and he had left Doll’s bonnet with the stolen plates on the ground beside the gig. He opened the book where he had placed his finger.

‘Listen to this. The last entry reads “I need to deal with number twenty-three.”’

Doll looked questioningly at Malinferno. ‘Twenty-three? Could that be Sacchi?’

‘Only Powell knows that, and we can hardly ask him directly if he is the one who did for Sacchi.’

‘We could ask Sir Ralph.’

‘Doll, you are a genius. He was the one put us on to Powell. He may know more. But where can we find him?’

The site was still a mass of tents, and St Germans could be in any of them. They rose cautiously from behind the rock, and sauntered nonchalantly past the Tilbury gig. Powell glared suspiciously out of the interior, his empty writing slope in his hands. But Malinferno knew that all he saw was a man and a woman who looked as though they had been occupied in some indiscreet activity behind the rocks. Doll smiled sweetly at him and hugged Malinferno’s arm, as if in confirmation of the spy’s guess. Malinferno did notice that Doll’s bonnet was no longer on the ground. As it could not have blown away with its purloined contents inside, he presumed Powell must have it. It was evidence of who had taken his notebook. They hurried on, hoping to find the duchess, who might know where Ralph St Germans was to be found. Powell got down from his gig and stared after them.

It did not take them long to find their employer. She was standing at the entrance to the marquee, talking to a tall, angular man in practical clothes and muddy shoes. She spotted Doll and Malinferno, and beckoned them over.

‘I am glad to have found you, Professor. This is my managing agent, Orford. He wants to know whether you have any further need of the crate in my tent.’

Malinferno cast a wary look at the manager of the duchess’s estates. Had he tried to move the crate containing Sacchi’s body already? It was much heavier than would have been the case if it still contained the mummy, and may have given the game away. Orford looked a little careworn, but otherwise normal. Malinferno assumed his look was because of having to manage the whole entourage surrounding them. He shuffled as if anxious to be on the move, and thrust out his hand.

‘Daniel Orford, sir. I was only desirous of arranging the movement of the crate in order to begin the dismantling of the tent. Everything must come down today, and so I have a lot to do.’

Malinferno took his hand, which was cold and dry, and felt the calluses of a working man on it. Evidently Orford did not limit his activities to the estate office. The duchess, ever full of irrelevant babble, intervened before Malinferno could say anything about the crate.

‘You should talk to Orford, Professor Mal…’ She waved her hand in a vague way to fill in her inability to remember his name. ‘Daniel is a student of antiquities, and is terrifically keen on King Arthur. Is that not the case, Daniel?’

Orford blushed at the revelation, looking at the ground. ‘In a very amateur way, madam.’

The duchess turned to Doll, assuming that, as a fellow female, she would be as ignorant and uncaring about such matters as she was.

‘Of course, it is all beyond us, dear, this delving in the past. Digging holes in the ground to find worm-eaten skeletons and… other such stuff. Though I am sure the professor loves his ancient pharaohs quite as much as Bonaparte did.’

Doll remembered the abandoned trench behind the duchess’s tent that Joe had dug. The discovery of the body in the crate had quite put it out of both their minds. She wondered if anyone had noticed it yet.

She smiled at the duchess. ‘Oh, I am sure these men know what they are doing, standing up to their knees in mud with a spade in their hands. Myself, I would much prefer to walk down the streets of London or Bath and find a new bonnet shop.’

He saw Malinferno’s face fall, as he took her hint about the trench he had dug. They would have to fill it in as quickly as they could before Daniel Orford began clearing the tents. It also made her wonder for the first time where the mummy had gone that had occupied the box before it had been used to conceal Sacchi. She nudged Malinferno as the duchess prattled on about dresses and bonnets. Roused to action, he took Orford’s arm and they walked away from the women. He took savage pleasure in seeing the pleading look in Doll’s eyes as the duchess compared the merits of a poke bonnet to a stove-pipe straw bonnet in full sunshine.

He and Orford walked towards the tent where the crate stood.

‘I will gladly remove the crate and its contents, if I can have use of a carriage to return it to Bath, Mr Orford.’

The managing agent hesitated, breaking stride for a moment. He took Malinferno’s arm.

‘I had not intended to bother you with the shipping of the crate. The Egyptian mummy is the property of the duchess, is it not? I can easily arrange for it to be removed to the duchess’s country house. She will not want it in Bath. No, I only wanted to ensure that there was nothing of yours in the crate first.’