Sword and Song (34 page)

“The clothes,” I said. “It all came down to the clothes. On the various occasions we saw our attackers, we saw two men. But we were fooled. Your wife wore breeches.” I of
all people should have known better, I reflected. “Once I realised our attackers were a man and a woman – that, naturally, narrowed the field of suspects somewhat.”

“Naturally,” Alyson agreed. “You don’t seem particularly scandalised, Pattinson – and I thought you were a deeply conventional man. But Ridley did tell me you and
he had seen Mrs Jerdoun in breeches – perhaps you like the idea. I wondered then if you’d make the connection.”

Poor William Ridley, I thought. I owed him an apology for suspecting him of involvement in this affair.

“And you made an error in respect of clothes, too,” I pointed out. His face darkened – clearly not a man who liked criticism.

“That night on the bridge over the canal,” I explained, “you wore shoes suitable for the house, not boots – hardly surprising as you had to get back to the dining room
and pretend to be too drunk to know what was going on. Boots would have been out of place. But you should have cleaned your shoes off before traipsing mud in.”

“I thought you’d assume it was a servant.” He was grinning again.

“No, that was out of the question. The attacker wore dark clothes under his greatcoat and the servants have gold and scarlet liveries.” I gestured at his blue coat. “You
yourself usually wear bright clothes, but for the first time you were wearing dark ones that night.”

“Very clever,” he said, but there was an edge in his voice.

“I admit I got sidetracked by the idea of a servant being involved,” I conceded. “Who else could have left the notes? Those were your doing of course. You tried to take
advantage of that misapprehension by putting the book in Crompton’s room.”

Alyson was still grinning broadly but his hand was tight on his sword. “You have it all worked out, I see. And I suppose you must have worked out that while you and I were arguing over
that last matter, Margaret was purloining the Colonial’s sword from his room?”

“Are you that poverty-stricken?”

“Not at all. We simply thought we ought to do the job properly. We’d inadvertently stolen one half of the gentleman’s inheritance – why not all of it?”

“For the fun of it?”

“For the
satisfaction
,” he corrected. “But you haven’t explained it all yet. What about that time here, when you and I were both attacked by the
murderer?”

“You faked it,” I said. “You sent Hugh round to the front of the house out of the way. Then you went up the stairs before me – you had the only light. You took advantage
of the turn in the stairs to blow out the candle without my seeing you do so, then shouted and came back down against me in the darkness. With a knife in your hand. Your aim was just as poor as
your wife’s, of course.” He didn’t like that insult; his smile slipped. “You pretended to chase someone – you had enough time to get into the yard before Hugh and I
came on the scene.”

He shifted an inch or two. “So,” he said, as if it was a matter of no real importance. “Tell me why we did it? Why is that song so important?”

I unfolded the music paper.

“
To my dearest beloved Edward Edmund Alyson on his 18th birthday, 21st August 1730
.” I looked up at him. “Families are so troublesome, aren’t they? They can let
you down so badly. Even before you’re born.”

He said nothing, continued to smile. But there was an extra tension in him. It would not be long before he made his move.

“You yourself showed me the family Bible,” I reminded him. “You were trying to be clever, were you not? Daring me to work it out. You pointed out that your parents married in
January 1713. You told me your month of birth too, didn’t you? August, you said, inviting me to guess the scandal. And, as you’d intended, I assumed you meant the August
after
the marriage. But you were misdirecting me.” I waved the song at him. “If you were eighteen in August 1730, then you were born in August 1712.
Before
your parents’
marriage.”

His smile broadened.

“You’re illegitimate,” I said. “Which means you cannot inherit your uncle’s estates.”

He started to laugh. “You’re too clever by half, Patterson. I keep hearing your praises sung – I’m told you can untangle every mystery known to man! But compliment me a
little at least! Did my antics not tax you even for a moment? And I worked so hard to confuse you! With the help of my wife, of course. And Hopkins. You remember Hopkins? The coachman? Who even
now, by the way, is keeping watch downstairs.”

It was his first slip and I was fiercely exultant at it. They hadn’t discovered the coachman’s body. Alyson had come alone. Of course he had – he would have done so in any
case. He’d challenged me – it was an argument between the two of us. One he was so confident of winning.

“Hopkins is dead,” I said. “In that derelict cottage.”

His head lifted; he clearly didn’t know whether to believe me or not. “And don’t look to your wife to help you either,” I added. “Mrs Jerdoun and the new constable
have gone to find her.”

He was shaken. “You won’t find her,” he snapped. “You’ll never find her.”

The spirit startled us both by shooting up the wall to the little shelf. “Golden Fleece,” it said. “Parlour on the first floor. Drinking wine and waiting for you. Just like she
was waiting for a morning call. Well, she was. She’s off to the prison now with the lady and the constable.”

“You should have brought her with you,” I said, taunting him.

“This is between you and me,” he snarled, drawing the sword. Fischer’s sword.

“No,” a voice said behind him. “This is between you and
me
.”

Alyson swung round. Bedwalters stood calmly in the doorway. He was thinner than he had been but he still carried with him that new air of ease. “You have apparently forgotten,” he
said courteously, “that Nell is a spirit now, too. She received a message telling her what was going on here. Did you think, Mr Alyson, sir, that I would sit back and let you wreak yet more
havoc?”

The sudden vehemence in his voice took Alyson by surprise. He flinched. And in that moment the spirit shifted, shooting across the intervening space of ceiling, and latching on to a cobweb. The
cobweb swung into Alyson’s face – I heard the spirit slap on skin.

Alyson broke. He dived for the doorway. Bedwalters put out a hand, caught him by the right arm. Alyson tried to swing the sword but Bedwalters tightened his grip. Alyson gasped; the sword
dropped from his nerveless fingers and went clattering down the stairs.

As I started across the room, Alyson swung his left fist – but the constable was used to dealing with refractory drunks and swayed backwards out of reach. I seized Alyson from behind. He
kicked out a foot. Bedwalters shifted but the foot caught his ankle, swept his feet from under him. He gasped, let go of Alyson, wavered at the top of the stairs, fell.

He landed on the top step; the old wood snapped like a gunshot. I had an arm round Alyson’s chest, struggled to pull him down. He jerked his head back, hit my nose with a thump. I felt
blood flow at once. I clung on, spluttering with pain. Bedwalters scrambled up and lunged at Alyson.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Alyson disconcerted me. I was braced to stop him jerking forward but he fell back against me instead. I fumbled my grip, lost my balance, grabbed at the door
jamb to stop falling. Blood was running down my chin, dripping on to my waistcoat.

Alyson flung himself at the stairs, Bedwalters grabbed at him.

With a rumble and a screech, the stairs gave way.

A snowstorm of plaster and mortar descended on me. Fragments of brick stung my cheeks. Alyson screamed – I saw him tumble, bounce down the top steps then crash into a great gap where the
treads broke apart.

Bedwalters went with him.

He’d had a grip on Alyson’s arm but let go almost at once. It was not enough to save him. His forward momentum took him down.

I grabbed for Bedwalters, caught only a handful of his coat skirts. It slowed his fall but I heard cloth rip. The door jamb was breaking away from the wall. I wrapped my arm around it.

“Grab my hand!” I yelled.

The snowstorm of plaster was still falling. More solid objects now too – whole bricks. I could hardly see for the dust. Blood from my nose dripped into the fallen plaster like roses among
snow. But I felt Bedwalters’s fingers curl round my wrist.

His full weight jerked at my arm. I slid down the wall, felt myself being dragged over. I managed to get on the floor, lying at full length, let go the door jamb, struggled to get my other hand
around his wrist. His weight was well-nigh pulling my arm out of its socket.

The spirit shot over my head. “Hold on, hold on! They’re coming! I’ve sent for help. Hold on!”

They came, five burly keelmen in yellow waistcoats, who clambered over the rubble below, taking no notice at all of the bricks and plaster falling from the disintegrating walls. They took
Bedwalters’s weight, handed him down to safety then found a ladder and encouraged me down it. We’d hardly got out of danger before the entire outside wall of the stair went down in a
huge flurry of dust and a roar that must have been heard all over town. It pulled part of the eaves away and we ran from the lethal rain of slates.

And all of it came down and buried Edward Edmund Alyson, and the spirit slid down the wall and rushed across the surface of the rubble, crying out in triumph.

Bloodied and dust-covered, I sat watching the sailors and labourers sifting through the rubble of the staircase. Bedwalters stood a little way off, speaking to the new
constable, Phillips; the two men looked to be on the best of terms. I’d already overheard Bedwalters spinning a tale about Alyson and myself coming back to look for clues to the
murderer’s identity. The sword was under all that rubble too, and I’d dropped the song in my hurry to apprehend Alyson. I wondered if Fischer would still be so eager to have his
inheritance, given its recent history.

A scent of summer flowers drifted to me and I heard the swish of skirts. I looked up. Esther was walking towards me, dressed once more in a gown of palest green, halting in sudden shock as she
took in the blood and the grime and the bruises which were rapidly forming.

“Do you have her?” I asked.

She took a deep breath, nodded. “She’s hysterical. I left her to the attentions of the law – I couldn’t tolerate her any longer.” She cast a critical look over the
stairs and the men rigging up a pulley to remove the heavier blocks of masonry. “He is dead, of course.”

“I can’t see how he could survive.”

“
Sweet Damon
...” she murmured. “They had an odd idea of love.”

“Love conquers all,” I said flippantly.

“I wish it did.” She turned to regard me in a measured way. “Do you know what Claudius Heron said, that night in the drawing room at Long End?”

“I assumed he was planning the wedding.”

“Oh, he has done that,” she agreed. “He has already taken steps to procure the marriage licence. But he was more concerned to make sure I knew what kind of a marriage I was
making. He told me I would never stop you getting yourself into trouble.” She gave me a wry smile. “He was right.”

I gestured helplessly. “Until last year, I led a blameless life. Dull, but blameless.”

“Until, in fact, you met me.”

“A coincidence, no doubt.”

She stood looking at me for a moment. I enjoyed looking back – at her slender figure, flattered by the pale gown, at the golden hair that drifted about her neck in the faint morning
breeze. And I loved her calm air, her matter of fact acceptance of life, her exasperation with my obstinacy, her ability to find a solution to any problem.

There was no help for it, I knew. I’d probably be a married man before the month was out.

There was nothing, I thought, that I wanted more.

“Charles,” she said.

“Yes?”

She sighed. “We will, I know, set the town gossiping when they hear of our marriage. I am resigned to that. But,” she smiled, a trifle maliciously, “I do draw the line when it
comes to walking through the town with you in that state! Dinner, Charles. Don’t be late.”

I watched her go, with a grin. Then I heard one of the labourers shout. They had found Alyson’s body.
Plainly dead
, someone called.

I glanced over at Bedwalters. His face was flushed. He nodded to Phillips and, calmly, unhurried, walked off.

Every effort has been made to be geographically accurate in a depiction of Charles Patterson’s Newcastle. In the 1730s, Newcastle was a town of around 16,000 in
population, hemmed in by old walls, and centred on the Quay where ships moored to carry away the coal and glass on which the town depended. The single bridge across the Tyne, linking Newcastle with
its southern neighbour Gateshead, was lined with houses and shops, a chapel and even a small prison; from the Quay, the streets climbed the hills to the more genteel (and cleaner) areas around
Westgate and Northumberland Street. Daniel Defoe liked the place when he visited in 1720, but remarked unfavourably on the fogs that came drifting up the river. Places such as Westgate, High
Bridge, the Sandhill and the Side did (and still do) all exist, although I have added a few alleys here and there to enable Patterson and his friends to take short cuts where necessary, and
invented a stylish location for Esther’s house, Caroline Square.

Musically, Charles Patterson lives in an atmosphere that the residents of Newcastle in the 1730s would have recognised instantly. The town had one of the most active musical scenes in England,
after London, Bath and Oxford. From 1735, inhabitants could hear music in a weekly series of winter concerts (and occasionally during the summer too), listen to music in church (plain simple music
if you went to St Nicholas, much more elaborate and ‘popular’ music at All Hallows), attend the dancing assemblies in winter, and listen to the fiddlers, pipers and ballad singers in
the street. Nationally and internationally famous soloists often visited, but sadly there is no evidence to support the story that the most celebrated musician of the period, Mr George Frideric
Handel, ever visited Newcastle.