Page 56 of The Magpie Lord
“Hugh Baines,” Stephen said. “He’s a warlock.”
“Dear God. How do you know?”
“Esther, my partner, had a run-in with him. It was a couple of years ago, and I didn’t work on that job, but I should have recognised him—would have if I hadn’t been too busy playing the fool, damn it!”
“All right. You aren’t perfect. Let it go. So your colleague didn’t catch him?”
“He got away. Vanished, or at least we lost track of him. He must have come up here, I suppose. Miss Bell said there was a newchurchwarden when Ruth was buried, didn’t she? So Baines must have taken...the...position...” His voice trailed off. Very quietly, he said, “Oh God.”
“What now?” The look on Stephen’s face gave Crane a sense of sickening dread. “What is it?”
“Mrs. Millway was boring on about the Thwaites’ guests from London who didn’t come,” Stephen said. “I didn’t catch their names. Did you?”
“Ugh, I don’t know. She said it in an annoying way—Lady B, that was it. Sir Peter and Lady B.”
“Bruton. Sir Peter and Lady Bruton,” said Stephen dully, staring ahead despair in his voice. “Baines was Underhill’s man. The Brutons are here. Of course. Ofcourse. Underhill planned this whole thing. It’s exactly his style.”
“Who the hell’s Underhill? Whoarethese people?”
Stephen didn’t answer at once. He resumed his search, movements more urgent now, emptying out an ancient leather bag which seemed to be full of loose stones and twisted bits of metal. “Right,” he went on more calmly. “Here is what I think. A very dangerous man called Underhill set this up a long time ago, via, I imagine, Haining and Lady Thwaite, who knew about Piper, about Hector, about poor stupid Ruth. Underhill sent Baines up here as well, to get him away from Esther and help control things. I expect he was the one who got Gammer to make the jack, in fact. Haining refuses Ruth decent burial, Baines is full of sympathy... Easy enough to steer her, half mad with rage and grief. And Gammer died just as it was all coming together. Did she suspect something, I wonder? So that’s Baines, Haining, Thwaite—the Brutons because they were thick as thieves with Underhill, and that makes five. And Underhill would have been the sixth himself, of course, but he’s dead, so they’ve got a sixth warlock up here. I don’t know who that is. Hardly matters, really. They could just be a makeweight with the Brutons and Baines in the group.”
“Why must there be six?”
“You need six for a charnel posture,” Stephen said heavily. “That’s what the bodies are for. They’re raping this house, and they’re using your family’s blood and bone to do it. A charnel posture. But that’s a capital offence, so they have to kill me before I get to them. Hence the horses and the binding to keep you here, because that keepsmehere, in a sinkhole. And since they’ll have to kill me anyway, they might as well use you, alive or dead, because they can’t risk me giving you any message for Esther. And I can’t do a damn thing about it because there’s no power here!”
He flung away a bag with too much force, betraying his nerves and reached into the nearly empty crate for an ancient wooden box.
“If they’re going to kill me anyway,” said Crane, “and you can’t stop them...why don’t you go?”
“No.”
“Stephen—”
“You know what happened to Mr. Merrick in China? Or the horses? They’d do worse to you if I left you alone. Not out of hate for you, nothing so clean, but purely so I’d always know that I saved myself at the price of leaving you to them. I’ve seen it before, Lucien. I’m not going.”
“Yes.” Crane felt his stomach churn at the thought. “I see.”
“And if—Oh.”
“What?”
“Here.” Stephen’s hand delved into the jumble of ancient metal and picked out a ring, thick, dull old gold, carved. He held it between thumb and forefinger, face intent, and said again, “Oh.”
“It looks like the one in the portrait. Is it?”
“I think it is. I think it’shis.”
“Is it—useful?”Please, Crane thought.Please.
“Don’t know,” Stephen said. “I’d have to put it on.”
“Well, go on.”
Stephen glanced at him. “It’s his.”
“He’s been dead for two hundred years!”
“I know.”
