Welcome to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine!

A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
by Christine Poulson
Art by Allen Davis

A hare starts up in front of them and crouches there, quivering in the grass. Rufus is afraid that it will be trampled under the hooves of his horse. It is too young and frightened to understand that it can escape by dashing off to one side. At the last moment it shoots off and its white scut vanishes into the undergrowth.

Rufus glances at Simon. He hasn't noticed. No doubt he is preoccupied with the work ahead. They ride on in silence. It was scarcely light when they left Rufus's house. It is now six o'clock on a fine June morning and mist is rising from the fields.

Simon arrived at Rufus's house late the previous evening to request his services and a bed for the night. The two had not met since they were undergraduates together at Jesus College nearly twenty years ago. True, Rufus is a magistrate as well as a priest—and for a search like this it is necessary that a magistrate be present—but Simon could surely have found someone closer to the house in question. Rufus suspects him of engineering an opportunity to bring home the way in which their paths in life have diverged. At Cambridge, Simon was a raw-boned country boy, his father a yeoman in a small way. Rufus was of far superior birth, but somehow Simon always had the upper hand. Since then he has grown rich on confiscated estates and has married above his station, while Rufus has progressed no further than his first living—and it is not a large or a prosperous parish.

Rufus looks sideways at his old friend. The diamond ring, the boots of supple Spanish leather, the fantastical high-crowned hat tilted sideways: such finery sits strangely with the thick nose, broken more than once, and the jutting jaw. Simon has the vanity of an ugly man. That is not a thought that would have occurred to Rufus in the old days. He glances down at his own somber costume, kept decent by Sarah's deft needle. Sarah's family, if truth be told, is scarcely even of the middling sort, but she is a good housekeeper and an excellent mother to their children. Rufus reminds himself that Simon has only one daughter surviving, but of the eight children Sarah has borne Rufus, six remain, four of them sons, and every one of the brood healthy. God has indeed blessed him. Those are his jewels—

Simon breaks into his thoughts. "Women, children, servants, they are the weakest links and today we will find the mistress of the house alone. Her husband is a barrister who has been detained on business in London."

"That is fortunate."

"Indeed," Simon says drily.

Rufus understands that Simon has arranged this. He had been naive to suppose that anything would be left to chance.

To cover his embarrassment, he says, "How will you go about the search?"

"I have my methods, my modus operandi. I begin with those parts of the house where there is a solid mass of masonry: chimney breasts, turrets, in which a hollow space could have been fashioned. Where one part of the house is newer than another, we look for discrepancy in floor levels, any space, however narrow, into which a man might crawl. In one house—that was in Lancashire—we searched for days before I noticed a chimney that had no smoke blackening at the top. It was a shaft to allow air to a hide at the side of the fireplace. It had been concealed by bricks and mortar fastened to planks and then painted and blackened to look like part of the flue."

"It took days?"

"Six days." He laughs at the expression on Rufus's face. "It won't take that long today. I'll wager this diamond ring against—against what, let me see, one of your wife's excellent cream cheeses—that I'll flush the fellow out by sunset. Such men are evil. Purveyors of death and sin, corruptors of the state, they must be hunted down like the vermin they are."

Rufus hesitates. A diamond ring against a cream cheese: He feels insulted.

"Come on, man! Between old friends! It'll lend some zest to the game. If it goes against the grain for a man of the cloth, you can sell the ring and feed the poor in your parish."

Against his better judgment, Rufus finds himself agreeing.

They breast a rise in the rolling Warwickshire countryside and there the house lies before them, nestling in the hollow of a park. They rein in their horses. The sun gleams on the water in the moat and bathes the honey-coloured stone in a golden light. Deer graze in the park, there are fish ponds close to the house, gardens too, bright with flowers. In the hazy morning light, it seems unreal, dreamlike. In a few moments, Rufus thinks, they will shatter this idyll. There will be rich pickings if all this is confiscated. He feels something he can't name. Excitement? Dread?

There is a rustling nearby and two men on horseback emerge from a clump of birches.

"Has anyone left the house?" Simon asks them.

They shake their heads.

"I have two more men waiting at the back," Simon tells Rufus.

"Are you sure he is there?" Rufus half hopes that he will not be, and not just because of the wager. He thinks of the fate that awaits the hunted man—it is necessary, no doubt about that, the security of the state must be preserved—but it is best not to dwell on the details.

"I believe he is. I have intelligence that he was seen heading for the house early yesterday morning."

He nods to his henchmen and they fall into line behind him. He digs his heels into his horse's flanks and it breaks into a canter, and then a gallop. It's a high-spirited bay, a world away from Rufus's stolid cob, which struggles to keep pace. As they thunder down the slope, Rufus's heart thumps in time to the thud of the horses' hooves. He too is used to a more sedentary life. They clatter across the bridge over the moat. Entering the quiet courtyard, they rein in their horses and for a moment or two the only sound is the breathing of their horses. The silence is broken by a dog barking.

Simon nods to his men. They dismount and hammer at the door. It is opened sooner than Rufus expects and the men rush in. Simon dismounts at leisure, tethers all four horses, and follows the men into the house. Rufus goes with him. Looking around the hall, he sees a gleaming oak floor and staircase, a credenza elaborately carved and gilded, paintings on the wall.

He becomes aware of a girl in a white night-smock standing at the top of the staircase. His first thought is that she is a daughter of the house. Then he sees the swell of her belly: She is five or six months gone. This must be the mistress, though it seems to him that she is scarcely older than Jenny, his eldest daughter.

"You are Elinor Hardcastle?" Simon asks.

She nods.

Simon bows. "I bear papers that give me the authority to search your house and I am accompanied by a justice of the peace."

She says nothing. A woman appears behind her, a servant, a nurse, Rufus guesses, carrying a well-grown child in her arms. The women don't so much as glance at one another, yet it seems to Rufus that some communication passes between them.

One of Simon's men appears in the hall and shakes his head.

This seems to give Elinor courage and at last the words come, though it's little more than a whisper.

"You will find no priest here."

Sunlight reflected from the moat throws watery green shadows on the walls and ceiling of the parlour. The scent of roses drifts in through an open window and for Rufus will ever afterwards be associated with that time and that place. He takes in every detail of the charming apartment: the table bearing an embroidery frame and a half-finished sampler, the ample hearth piled with logs, a harp, a child's cart full of toy bricks. Sarah will be curious when he gets home.

Elinor Hardcastle stands by the door watching as Simon opens a linen chest and riffles through the contents. Rufus feels rather than sees her suppress a wince. She is fully dressed now and her farthingale conceals her pregnancy. She is perhaps nineteen or twenty. With her brown hair smoothed back and her pale complexion she has the kind of beauty that Rufus admires. He thinks again of his own daughter, who by this hour will already be helping Sarah in the dairy. He feels like an intruder here. Elinor's face is impassive, but Rufus knows as well as if she had spoken that she hates to see Simon's thick fingers handling her fine sheets.

At the far side of the room there is a large cabinet veneered in walnut and mounted on barley-sugar legs. Simon opens the two doors that front it and Rufus can tell that he is surprised. He shifts so that he sees what Simon sees.

There are numerous small drawers, inlaid with delicate marquetry, and in the centre a mirrored recess. Rufus moves closer. The recess has been decorated to resemble an elegant little room with gilded colonnades on either side and a black and white diaper floor. It holds a silver-gilt inkpot, too large in the little room and strangely out of keeping. There is something fascinating about this world in miniature and Rufus sees that Simon is attracted by it, too. Elinor has come closer and Rufus is conscious of her standing by his side.

Simon opens a drawer, puts in a hand, and takes out a handful of coins.

"Roman," he says, and tips the coins back into the drawer, leaving one in the palm of his hand. He seems about to pocket it. Then he shrugs, replaces the coin, and shuts the drawer. Why bother? When the estate is confiscated, he'll take this as part of his share. He opens drawer after drawer, revealing wonder after wonder: shells, coral, ivory, semiprecious stones, cameos and intaglios, more coins and medallions, birds' eggs, flint arrows.

"A cabinet of curiosities. I have heard of them," Simon says, "but I have never seen one before. It must be worth a great deal," he adds in an undertone.

"It's very precious," Elinor says. There is something in her voice that makes Rufus glance at her. She looks back at him, but he cannot read her expression.

Simon is frowning and Rufus knows he is disappointed not to have found evidence of Catholic sympathies. Certain books, a rosary—a makeshift shrine, even—these are illegal and would have allowed him to threaten and intimidate her. But he has looked everywhere in the house and there is nothing. Her child—a lusty fellow of around two years—is too young to be interrogated and there's no joy to be had of the servants either. They are a brazen, tight-lipped lot. No doubt they have been carefully chosen and are themselves adherents of what they dub "the Old Faith."

"Well," Simon says. He brushes one hand against the other to indicate that it is time to get down to business. "I'll get the men—and the measuring chains."

The men measure the thickness of the walls, the window embrasures, and the chimney breasts. Simon is occupied with more skilled employment.

"The greatest difficulty is in disguising the entrance," he explains to Rufus. "We look for places where ornamental moulding might conceal an opening, we look for gaps between floorboards, we look for false paneling, particularly in wardrobes or cupboards."

The sun climbs the sky. The heat and the humidity rise. The men wipe the sweat from their brows. Simon seems unaffected and works on methodically, tapping panels, running his hands over floorboards, feeling inside cupboards. If there is indeed a man hidden in some cramped compartment, how he must be suffering, Rufus thinks.

Elinor too is feeling the heat, or maybe it is simply apprehension. She remains in the parlour, coming from time to time to watch their progress. And it is on one of these occasions that it happens. Simon is on his knees in a small first-floor room, running his hands over the floorboards. Rufus sees Elinor come in and stop by the door. There is something in her posture that alerts him, a kind of stillness. She recovers instantly, but Simon has seen it too. He gets to his feet and fixes his eyes on her. She tries to leave the room, but he shakes his head and she remains where she is. Her face is as pale as whey.

Simon starts to move about the room, his eyes fixed on Elinor, judging her response, following the movement of her eyes. Rufus understands with a thrill of—what? anticipation? no, apprehension—that Simon is guided by what she is not looking at. From what is she so anxious to avert her eyes? It is a sinister parody of the searching game that Rufus's children play: "Am I getting warm?" "Yes, yes, no, no, you're getting cold, yes, warm again."

Simon moves towards the window, where a seat is set into the embrasure. Elinor has schooled herself not to react, but it is hard, so hard when a man's life is at stake. Her eyelids flicker. That's it. Simon's face relaxes. He has seen it now. He squats before the window seat. And now Rufus sees it, too: a scrap of rough material, sacking perhaps, hardly more than half a dozen threads, caught in the joint where the seat is attached to the base. Very gently Simon feels around, pressing, gently manipulating, and he finds the trick of it. The seat slides forward. Simon climbs into the space. He slides forward, feet first, only his hands remain clasping the edge of the seat, and then they vanish too. . . .

###

To keep these great mystery stories coming all year long ... Subscribe now