The Candlelit Coffin (Lady Fan Mystery Book 4) Read online

  THE CANDLELIT COFFIN

  Lady Fan Mysteries

  Book Four

  Elizabeth Bailey

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  ALSO BY ELIZABETH BAILEY

  Chapter One

  The boy, Perkin, hunkered well down behind his favoured gravestone, squinting through a chink under the angel’s wing. The resurrection men were at it again. He had not heard them approach, but the familiar scrape and thud of their spades woke him.

  Turning, he leaned against the stone, tugged the threadbare coat tighter about his thin chest, and debated the wisdom of flight. The dark, waited for in high summer so Perkin could slip through the railings and sneak in unseen, was by no means absolute. He knew the cemetery paths well and could zigzag a way out, but then so also did they. And that Truggery was a surly brute. Perkin did not relish a cuffing at his hands if he was caught. He was big, was Trug. Easier to outrun. The other, Stowe, was both younger and slighter. Not as mean, but fleeter of foot and he always did as his elder bade him. Best not to risk it. Perkin pulled his hat down over his ears and prepared for a long wait.

  The rhythmic thunk, pause and slither of the dig blending with the familiar swish and pull of the nearby ocean lulled the boy into a doze. He was roused by the soft clop of hooves, the jingle of harness and men’s voices speaking low nearby.

  “That him?”

  “Who else this time o’ night?”

  A pause while the digging continued and the sound of wheels added to the approaching noise. Perkin struggled to a squat and put his eye to the convenient slit provided by the angel figure set on top of the large gravestone.

  A moving shape was just visible on the road behind the iron fencing. Pallid light showed, intermittent between the trees. A coach then, with its lanterns to light the way. Intrigued, if a trifle nervous, Perkin brought his limited vision back to the men near at hand.

  The robbers were down in the grave now, their moving arms and spades mere shadows, heads shifting out of sight and up again as they heaved earth from the deepening hole, the mound growing higher on one side. Their voices were muted but audible to one whose sharp hearing was part of his stock in trade.

  “What’s he want with a lot of ol’ bones then?”

  “Askin’ me? Off his head belike. Who cares anywhen, long as he pays up?”

  More digging and a clunk of spade hitting wood. A satisfied grunt came and a bitter complaint in Stowe’s lighter voice.

  “Deep in, this ’un. Should’ve told him to come later.”

  “Don’t make no difference. He’ll have ter wait. Dig the edge whiles I scrapes off the top.”

  The noises increased as the men set to with a will despite Truggery’s dictum that their customer must wait. Perkin returned his attention to the approaching coach, exercised by Stowe’s question. What would a fellow rich enough to travel in luxury want with a skeleton? The resurrection men went after fresh bodies as a rule. He’d earned a couple of pennies now and then, reporting a new burial to these very men. Though they’d no notion the cemetery was home to him. Trug’d go mad if he knew his midnight raids were observed.

  Perkin shrank his body closer to the gravestone as the bigger man climbed out of the grave. Leaning on his spade, Truggery wiped the back of his hand across his brow, looking towards the approaching coach.

  It was slowing and must be nearing the gate, which was locked, though Stowe would have picked it open. Rumour had it he’d joined Truggery after a life of shop-breaking was brought to a summary end by a narrow escape from the law. However that was, he’d turned instead to breaking graves for bodies to sell over to the hospital up Dorchester way. But this client was no ’prentice surgeon to be wanting bones instead of flesh.

  The coach had come to a standstill. A whiffle of horse breath and soft shifting of hooves whispered across the graves. There came the sound of feet hitting the ground, the click of a door latch and a curt voice speaking low.

  Perkin could not make out the words, but he trained his gaze in that direction as the gate creaked and quick footsteps followed the path. In moments, a tall figure joined Truggery on the edge of the grave. It was swathed in a long cloak, its head mostly concealed by a three-cornered hat.

  “You have one ready?”

  The voice was cultured, with an odd edge to it that caused a shiver to rise up the boy’s spine.

  “Ready as it can be, though it won’t be nothing but dust and bones, this ’un.”

  “It makes no matter. Bring the coffin out.”

  “Bring it out?” Truggery again, both surprised and aggrieved. “We don’t never bring ’em out, mister. We brings out the bodies. Them coffins is half rotten.”

  The gentleman’s tone sharpened, the dangerous edge pronounced. “I require the coffin. Bring it out.”

  Truggery grunted his dissatisfaction and dropped back into the grave. A low-voiced argument ensued with Stowe evidently protesting. Perkin kept his eyes trained on the still figure above, a hawkish silhouette under the faint light of the moon. Shivering a little, Perkin dipped lower, unaccountably chilled.

  An owl called. The man’s head jerked up just as the clouds parted, throwing a stray moonbeam onto a dark patch where the upper part of his face should have been, giving him an even more sinister aspect. Perkin’s pulse fluttered crazily and a fervent wish attacked him to be elsewhere.

  The activity within the grave had grown noisy and fierce. Grunts and cursing from both men, accompanied by scrapes, bumps and heavy breathing. A long shape emerged, Truggery behind it. Had they upended the coffin? The big man shoved himself up from the hole and perched on the edge, grabbing hold of his end. The still figure shifted at last, moving out of the way as Truggery, with Stowe presumably shoving from beneath, manoeuvred the coffin out of the grave until the box lay along the path, the resurrection men panting beside it.

  “Open it.”

  Truggery did not trouble to argue the matter this time. Perkin could tell he was angry by the way he got up, marched to the headstone and retrieved from behind it the cloth bag usually slung about his shoulder. Shoving a hand inside, he produced a short crowbar Perkin had seen before and handed it to Stowe who fell to the task of prising off the coffin lid. Since this was usually done down in the hole, Perkin watched the procedure, intrigued.

  Stowe’s expertise made the job look easy as he slid the blade in, knocked it hard and moved along to do the same all around. Or, as this was an old one, perhaps the wood was rotting as Truggery said and easier to part. However it was, the lid came off without difficulty and the two men lifted it away, peering at the remains of the unfortunate within.

  “Bones and rags, mister, like I said,” Truggery told his client on a note of dour satisfaction.

  “Empty it. Tip them into the grave.”

  Perkin almost gasped aloud. He clapped a hand to his mouth, unsurprised to see how both Truggery and Stowe turned to stare at the man.

  “You don’t want this here skeleton?”

  “I want the coffin. I told you.”

  “The coffin?” A squeak from Stowe. “But yer could’ve got a coffin off the undertaker without no need of us goi
ng a-digging of it up out of the ground.”

  The gentleman did not trouble to respond to this, merely repeating his command in a sharper tone. “Empty it. I want it empty and set back there at the side of the grave.”

  Stowe’s head turned back to his partner. Truggery shrugged and went to one end of the coffin.

  “Take t’other end.”

  The two picked up the long box, carried it, with some effort, to the side unencumbered by the mound of freshly dug earth, and tipped it up sideways. The slither and clatter of the falling corpse made the boy feel quite sick. He dared not move a muscle, however, fearful of discovery while this man with his peculiar desire for an aged empty coffin was still present. Perkin’s hope he would take his prize and go was disappointed.

  “Thank you, that is all.” The figure produced a fat purse and held it up. “Go now and tell none of this.”

  Truggery grabbed the purse and stowed it away in his coat pocket. “No fear o’ that, mister. We won’t say nothing to no one.”

  “See you don’t, or it will be the worse for you. I know your trade of old. It’s illegal and I am well acquainted with the colonel of militia here. And the justices in Dorchester, if it comes to that.”

  Knowing Truggery, Perkin was unsurprised when he turned belligerent, squaring up while Stowe slunk back.

  “It won’t come to nothing. Nor I don’t hold with threats. We done what you asked and there’s an end. And if it come to that, we knows summat of you and all.”

  “You can’t speak of what you know of me without incriminating yourself,” returned the other, in a tone that made Perkin feel as if ice was running down his back. One hand came out of the cloak and metal glinted in the moonlight. “Now go. Never let me see your faces again.”

  Stowe was already edging away. He twitched Truggery’s sleeve.

  “We’ll be off then, eh, Trug?”

  The other grunted, clearly unwilling to leave the field, despite the weapon in the gentleman’s hand.

  “We’ll be off, and we’ll keep mum. But we won’t forget.”

  The figure said nothing, merely keeping the pistol trained upon Truggery’s chest. A click said he’d cocked the gun. Stowe turned and made hastily for the gate. Truggery, somewhat to Perkin’s admiration, held his ground, his head going up to confront the fellow face to face.

  “You gone to a deal of trouble for a coffin, see. That give me to think, that does.”

  He nodded once, gave his habitual grunt, and walked off, presenting his back to the gun in a fashion Perkin considered foolhardy. Yet it seemed the client had no mind to use it. He slipped it back under his cloak, watching until the two men went through the gate and vanished into the shadows.

  Chapter Two

  Colonel George Tretower was at breakfast when his second-in-command brought the unwelcome tidings.

  “Murder? You’re certain?”

  “Couldn’t be more so, sir,” said Lieutenant Sullivan on a note of distaste that caught George’s attention.

  “How so?”

  “Whoever did it made no attempt to conceal as much. The reverse in fact.” The lieutenant grimaced. “Pretty weird the whole thing, sir, I don’t mind telling you.”

  “You’d best tell me all then.” George waved him to a chair. “Sit down, man. Coffee? Ale?”

  “I’ll take a cup of coffee, sir, I thank you. Can do with it, to be frank.”

  “I wish you would be frank,” said the colonel, signalling his batman to bring a fresh cup from the dresser.

  The neat dining parlour, with the sideboard, leafed table and wide windows overlooking the shoreline was one of the better features of the officer’s accommodation at the barracks and George took full advantage of it. He eyed his junior as Sullivan dropped his slim and wiry form into a chair. A reliable lad, conscientious and efficient. He would not have brought the matter to his colonel without good cause.

  “I trust you’ve secured the scene?”

  “Of course, sir. Left Sergeant Puckeridge with a couple of our men to guard the coffin and the cemetery. But I’ve sent to Doctor Roffey and I’d best get back sharpish.”

  “Cemetery? A murder in a cemetery? Do you tell me the body was buried?”

  “Not buried sir, but it is in the cemetery.”

  Marsh having produced a cup for the lieutenant, George poured coffee into it and then refreshed his own cup. Sullivan gulped the beverage with an eagerness that did not escape his colonel’s watchful eye. He set down his cup with a sigh.

  “That’s better. Not easily unnerved, sir, as you know, but this —!”

  “Yet I’m still in the dark.”

  “Beg pardon, sir. Thing is, the body’s in an open coffin, an old one obviously taken from the grave because you can see the remains of a corpse thrown into the hole, and —”

  “Hold a minute! Which corpse? I thought you said the body was in the coffin?”

  “The murdered one is, sir, yes. I’m supposing the other is the original one and must belong to the grave.”

  “It’s been thrown out?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Good grief!”

  “Yes, sir,” returned Sullivan feelingly, “and that’s not the worst of it.”

  George fortified himself with another sip of the hot, black coffee. “Go on.”

  Sullivan grimaced again. “Well, sir, it’s bad enough the girl was stabbed —”

  “Girl? The victim is a girl?”

  “And a deucedly pretty one too. Even now she looks peacefully asleep, if you discount the blood all over, though the villagers who found her in the early hours say she looked quite lovely with the candlelight all around, and I can readily believe it.”

  Troubled by a niggling thought at the back of his mind, George struggled to make sense of this. “They took candles? Why not a lantern?”

  “Not the villagers, sir. That’s the weirdest part. The murderer set a raft of big candles around the coffin and left them alight.”

  “Weird indeed, Sullivan,” said George, trying to picture the scene. “You’d suppose he wanted the body to be found.”

  “Yes, sir, but it wasn’t. Not until near dawn and the candles were near burned down by then. There’s not many dwellings in the vicinity of the cemetery and few pass that way in the night, I imagine.”

  “Except the murderer.”

  “Though I can’t think he did the digging and got that coffin out all by himself.”

  “No, nor transported the body thither without some sort of conveyance.” The notion triggered a question. “Here’s a thought, Sullivan. Was the girl already dead when she was put into this coffin?”

  “Or killed in situ, sir?” The lad looked even more disturbed. “Rather a vile thought if she was.”

  “Vile either way, my boy.”

  “True, sir. But setting the scene like that and then doing the deed? Strikes me as a tad macabre.”

  “Or theatrical.” His lieutenant shot him a startled glance. The boy was jumpy, and no wonder. George downed the rest of his coffee and stood up. “We’d best get moving. I’ll need to check over the scene before the body is taken. And Roffey will no doubt call in the coroner. I foresee a pleasing morning.”

  Sullivan was on his feet. He finished off his own cup and set it down. “Then we’ve to find out this murderer, sir.”

  “Yes, I had anticipated as much,” George said on a gloomy note. “Wonderful. Do we have any notion who the victim is?”

  “No, sir. Though Puckeridge thinks he’s seen her before.” An eager note sounded in Sullivan’s voice as he cast a glance at George. “Odd you should have hit on the notion, sir. Puckeridge is convinced he’s seen the girl on the stage, he says, here at the Theatre Royal.”

  The niggle at the back of George’s mind flared into acute dismay. Not the little French girl he’d met the other week?

  “Is she dark?”

  “No, sir, she’s fair. Golden hair and plenty of it. Like an angel. That’s what makes it particula
rly distressing.”

  Not nearly as distressing as it might have been. But George kept that thought to himself, though the memory revived full force as he made ready and took to horse to visit the scene of the murder.

  He had been called in to the only pawnbroker in Weymouth, who’d grown suspicious when a slip of a girl tried to dispose of a valuable necklace.

  “She don’t look as if she can rub two pence together, sir,” Throcking confided in a low murmur, his gaze darting to the girl who was seated on a cane chair in a corner, looking both scared and indignant. “What’s more, she’s a Frenchie, and what with the threats of us going to war with the Frogs, I thought as I’d best bring you in, sir, for as there’s no saying but there might be spies about, if she ain’t stolen the thing in the first place.”

  Colonel Tretower gave the first of these notions no credence at all. A sometime soldier, he had offered the services of his own band of militia when the rumblings across the channel began to look serious, and had accepted this secondment to the coastal resort with alacrity. In the few months he had been in Weymouth, however, there had been no sign of any invading French and definitely no spies.

  Throcking’s second fear, that the necklace was stolen, might have carried more weight if the girl was English. George’s immediate suspicion was borne out almost as soon as he began to question the girl, and in her own language which he spoke with reasonable fluency.

  “I understand you wish to sell a necklace, mademoiselle?”

  The girl looked up at him with resentful eyes. They were lustrous and dark, set in a delicate countenance just now pale and set, and surrounded under a straw bonnet with curling locks, black as midnight and flowing down her back. George was conscious of a tug of attraction.

  “You will arrest me, no?”

  Her voice was mellow and a trifle husky. Was she close to tears?

  “Certainly not.”

  His smile had an instant effect. Her lips quivered and lashes fluttered over her eyes. She nodded towards the proprietor. “That man believes I am a thief.”

  “Or a French spy.”