The Bath Conspiracy Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Jeanne M. Dams from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Also by Jeanne M. Dams from Severn House

  The Dorothy Martin mysteries

  A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

  THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

  THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES’S

  MURDER AT THE CASTLE

  SHADOWS OF DEATH

  DAY OF VENGEANCE

  THE GENTLE ART OF MURDER

  BLOOD WILL TELL

  SMILE AND BE A VILLAIN

  THE MISSING MASTERPIECE

  CRISIS AT THE CATHEDRAL

  A DAGGER BEFORE ME

  DEATH IN THE GARDEN CITY

  DEATH COMES TO DURHAM

  THE BATH CONSPIRACY

  Jeanne M. Dams

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2021

  by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,

  14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.

  Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2022

  by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.

  This eBook edition first published in 2021 by Severn House,

  an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.

  severnhouse.com

  Copyright © Jeanne M. Dams, 2021

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Jeanne M. Dams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9250-8 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-776-7 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0514-8 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Most of the locations in this book are real places, their descriptions based on my visits to Bath and environs. It’s been many years since I lunched at the Sign of the Angel in Lacock. I don’t remember if that was its name then, but I certainly remember the atmosphere and the excellent food and friendly service. And I remember the delightful banties strutting around! I hope they, or their descendants, are still there, along with the cat.

  The Bath Abbey shop is in the process of transition as this is being written. In a small, rather cramped space when I last visited, it was closed for a time and was then to reopen in a temporary location before moving back near its old location but in a larger, better space. I hope one day to see its new glory. Meanwhile, I have written about it as it was when I saw it last.

  If the Jane Austen Centre has an outbuilding used as storage for the shop’s merchandise, I am unaware of it. In short, I made it up. Certainly no one has ever, to my knowledge, set any fires in the vicinity.

  If you’ve never visited this amazing city or nearby Stonehenge, I hope you can get there soon. Both city and monument are among the wonders of the world.

  ONE

  I was sitting in our parlour, reading a book and absent-mindedly petting Samantha, our Siamese, when my husband wandered in.

  ‘You look comfortable, love.’

  ‘I’m so comfortable I’m almost asleep. It’s such a beautiful, balmy day, most conducive to slumber. I can hardly believe we’re in October already. This is the kind of weather we used to call Indian summer back home.’

  I’m American by birth, from southern Indiana, but I married an Englishman some years ago and now make the small city of Sherebury my home. Alan and I live in a modest seventeenth-century house right next to the incredibly lovely Cathedral, with our two cats (Esmeralda, the other one, is a portly British Blue) and a big loveable mutt named Watson. All of us are getting on in years, and our mostly sedentary life suits us down to the ground.

  I yawned and stretched. Sam, who disapproves of human movement when she’s trying to sleep, uttered a pungent Siamese comment, dug her claws into my knee, and jumped down. ‘I’ve always been glad I was born in October. It’s my favourite time of year. At home, though, we got a lot more fall colour, brilliant reds and oranges. And the sky in Indian summer would sometimes be the most amazing sapphire blue.’

  ‘Why is it called Indian summer? What does it mean?’

  ‘Oh, so there are still some bits of Ameri-speak you don’t know! I have no idea where the name comes from, but it means the time of lovely warm weather that would sometimes come after a few frosts and one or two hard freezes. We didn’t always get it, but when we did it was a great blessing. Winter was coming, but for a week or so we could pretend we didn’t know that and revel in the beauty. Most of the flowers were gone, victims of the cold, but the chrysanthemums were glorious. Their perfume filled the air, along with the lovely smell of burning leaves. We were allowed to burn them back then, and I suppose it was hard on people with breathing problems, but I loved it. Raking them into big piles, and then jumping in them so they had to be raked up all over again, and then at night the big fires. We’d sometimes roast marshmallows …’ I drifted off, captivated by a dream of my lost youth.

  Alan sat down next to me on the big, squashy couch. Our furniture is extremely soft and comfy, and almost impossible for people our age to get out of. Oh, well. You can’t have everything.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘you didn’t actually have to remind me about your birthday. I hadn’t forgotten.’

  I was too relaxed to retort. ‘Never hurts to put in a good word. But as you seem to be in a considerate sort of mood, I don’t suppose you’d like to get me a cup of tea, would you?’

  ‘I just sat down, woman. It’s too warm for tea, anyway.’

  ‘That I would l
ive to see the day when an Englishman didn’t want tea! Do we have any beer, then?’

  ‘We do. I’ll pour us some in a bit. But first I want to “set a spell” as you would say.’ He stretched out an arm and pulled me closer.

  I sat up straight, or as straight as possible in the clutches of both Alan and the couch. ‘Alan Nesbitt! Never in my life did I use such an expression!’

  ‘You’ve sometimes quoted your elderly relatives saying it, though. Dinna fash yoursel’. I have a proposition for you.’

  ‘Oh, well, then.’ I settled back against him and grinned.

  ‘Not that sort of proposition. Not this minute, at any rate. Though later …’ He looked at me with what he fondly supposes is a leer. His handsome, rather distinguished-looking face is not made to leer, but I’ve never undeceived him. ‘No, I’ve thought of something you might like to do for your birthday. It’s been quite a long time since we had a holiday, a real holiday. Our last few outings have been at the behest of other people, and they’ve become a trifle fraught.’

  I grinned again. A trifle fraught, indeed! Our recent travels, to Canada and the far north of England, had involved us in considerable danger and trouble, including murder and, in my case, physical assault. Trust Alan to understate the case.

  ‘So my idea was: how would you like to spend a week or so in Bath? Have you ever been there?’

  My first husband and I had travelled a good deal in England before deciding to retire to Sherebury, a plan he died too soon to complete. I moved here anyway, too numb with grief to make any decisions – and then met Alan, also widowed, and the rest is (delightful) history. ‘No, in fact Frank and I had intended to get there, but somehow we never did. All I know about it is from Jane Austen.’

  ‘Then you know quite a lot. Of course, it’s changed some since Jane’s characters walked the streets and took the waters, but less than you might think. The Regency architecture is all still there, and of course the Roman Baths are hardly likely to change in a paltry few hundred years. There’s a great deal to see and do; I think you’ll enjoy it. There’s quite a nice hotel within shouting distance of the Pump Room. Shall I book us in?’

  So it was that a few days later we set out on the rather circuitous route that would take us to the city of Bath. (I should say here that the English pronounce it ‘Bahth’. I’ve learned quite a lot of Britspeak while I’ve lived here, but I cannot manage that one. To my American ears it sounds affected. So sue me.) The weather was not propitious. Our Indian summer had given way to grey skies that couldn’t quite make up their mind whether to produce rain or not. But my spirits were not dampened. I was traveling with the man I adored through the country I adored. Grey skies couldn’t spoil that.

  We went through a number of enticing cities on our way. Alan overruled me on my desire to stop in Winchester, but I flat-out insisted on paying our respects to Salisbury Cathedral, one of my all-time favourites. We had a leisurely lunch at one of the lovely little cafés that cathedral towns seem to specialize in, and then made it to our hotel in Bath just as the heavens opened.

  A valet appeared, with a huge umbrella. He helped Alan with our bags, gave him a chit in exchange for the car keys, and took off through the downpour. Alan smiled at the expression on my face. ‘Yes, love, I know we don’t usually indulge in the luxury of valet parking. In Bath, however, parking is at a premium, and in this part of the city, it’s virtually impossible. It’s part of your birthday present – enjoy it!’

  Alan and I live modestly. We have sufficient means to satisfy, as Hercule Poirot once said, both our needs and our caprices, but we’re both rather frugal by nature. This hotel was certainly a cut or two above our usual choices. The efficient desk clerk had no problem with our different surnames (I remained Dorothy Martin when Alan and I married) when we registered. Our room, to which we were escorted with old-fashioned courtesy, was large and attractive, with – I turned around to Alan with a gasp – a large bouquet of autumn flowers on the desk.

  ‘Happy birthday, darling,’ he said with a kiss.

  We went down to dinner rather late.

  Next morning, the fickle English weather had forgotten it knew how to rain. The streets, though, were still wet with a puddle here and there when we set out to explore the city, so Alan hooked my arm firmly in his lest I slip.

  There were plenty of tours available, either on foot or by bus, but we decided against joining one the first day. ‘If you have questions about what we see, I can answer some of them,’ Alan said, ‘but just now let’s soak up the atmosphere without bothering about dates and people.’

  The Pump Room was first on the agenda, as it was the closest ‘site’. I don’t know what I had expected – a grand room peopled with young ladies in high-waisted muslin dresses and bonnets, eagerly attended by young men in tight breeches, perhaps. Of course, the people I could see were definitely of the twenty-first century. They were dressed nicely, but there was not a floor-length, high-waisted gown in sight. The room was grand, certainly, but set up as a restaurant, with tables dotting the floor and a concert platform at one end. Alan pointed out a small but impressive fountain in one corner, with water pouring from four spouts into the mouths of four bronze fishes in the basin below. ‘That’s the famous Bath water,’ he said, ‘an all-purpose curative, or so they say. Would you like a sip?’

  ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘To my taste, rather like the nether regions from which it comes. Sulphur and brimstone, or sulphur, at least.’

  ‘Then no, thank you!’

  He laughed. ‘Wise woman. If you change your mind, you can have some later. We’re coming back for tea this afternoon.’

  I had glanced at the tea menu. ‘Alan, after that breakfast we had, you’re going to have to roll me home. No lunch!’

  ‘Of course not,’ he agreed blandly, knowing perfectly well that I’d feel quite differently after an hour or two. ‘Do you want to tour the Roman Baths now? They’re right here.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I’d rather see the abbey. It’s near here, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, and you’ll love it. The ceiling is, I think, even finer than ours.’

  ‘Our’ ceiling, that is the ceiling of Sherebury Cathedral, is sometimes said to be modelled on that of Bath Abbey, though in fact ours is much older, so it may be the other way round. Both are perfect examples of fan-vaulting, that elaborate interlacing of supporting stonework that always reminds me of fountains in stone. ‘Hmph! I’ll have to see it to believe it,’ I grumped. I’m a fierce admirer and defender of our Cathedral.

  ‘And you shall see it in a minute or two. No, this way, love.’

  I possess virtually no sense of direction; without a map I’m lost in any strange place. Thank heaven for Alan, who seems to have a built-in compass.

  I had thought I ought to be able to see the abbey from a distance. Surely such a large, imposing building ought to rise above all others. And so it does, I saw when we reached the open square. But the abbey has no spire, and on all sides but one it is hugged closely by other buildings which block out the view. I thought rather smugly of our own Cathedral, situated in a large grassy close, so that its grandeur dominates the city.

  However, when at last I stood before the abbey, my smugness died away before its beauty. I was struck especially with the patterns on either side of the west front, like nothing I’d ever seen before.

  ‘Jacob’s ladder,’ Alan explained, ‘with the angels ascending and descending. Look closely at that one in particular.’

  I put a hand up to shade my eyes and peered where he pointed. I frowned. ‘But surely … why is it upside down?’

  ‘It’s one of Bath’s greatest jokes. Apparently the sculptor had never seen someone climbing down a ladder. Of course, they look exactly the same as those climbing up, but he chose to send this one down head first. Droll, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, I have to have a picture of that!’ I pulled out my phone, but Alan restrained me. ‘It’s too far away; it won�
��t show well. I’m sure the gift shop will have postcards of it. Shall we go in?’

  As we always do in a church, we stopped for a moment of prayer; the abbey, like most of the great churches in the UK, has a small chapel set aside for this purpose. My prayers centred on thanks for the magnificent church, and for my wonderful husband who had brought me there.

  Then we wandered. I got a serious crick in the neck from looking at the ceiling. ‘It’s lovely,’ I agreed. ‘But I like ours better.’

  Alan smiled and wisely said nothing.

  The abbey was in the throes of a re-construction project. The ancient churches always are. This one wasn’t especially old, as churches in England go. It was begun in the late-fifteenth century, but then fell into disuse after Henry VIII closed all the monasteries. Restored under Elizabeth I, it underwent restoration again (several times) in the eighteenth century – and then came World War II and bombing, requiring yet more repairs.

  So what with one thing and another, the abbey is something of a patchwork of periods and styles, and of course something always needs repair. In this case it was the floor, with bits of it taken up here and there, which made for interesting traffic patterns. I finally got tired of dodging barriers and dragged Alan to the gift shop, where I bought postcards of the upside-down angel and a couple of books. I was hesitating over a large candy bar when Alan murmured, ‘Do I remember you saying you didn’t intend to have lunch?’

  I put the candy bar back, trying to ignore the eager little rumblings in my stomach. Alan took pity. ‘As a matter of fact, I have a plan. Why don’t we pop into a pub for a pint and a bit of pub food? That will satisfy the inner woman for a bit, and you’ll still have ample appetite for your splendid tea.’

  So we had a pint and a Scotch egg apiece, and then did some more wandering and shopping. I found a lovely and inexpensive blouse and Alan indulged in a new pipe. ‘You don’t smoke anymore,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I know, but this is beautiful. I’ll enjoy looking at it.’

  And men accuse women of illogic!