[William Falconer 06] - Falconer and the Ritual of Death Read Online Free

Thorpe, he gave the nod to start. Two of his workmen brought their hammers to the task with a will, and soon the upper walls were falling.
    The remaining framework disappeared for a while under a cloud of powdery dust. From the midst of it came an unearthly wail. Wilfrid sprang forward into the chaos to find out what had gone wrong. If one of their men had been hurt, or worse still killed, it would hold work up interminably. Thorpe stood back, desirous of avoiding the settling dust. As the cloud dispersed, Wilfrid and the two workmen were revealed standing atop the stone wall that formed the lower level of the house.
    Thorpe breathed a sigh of relief that no one was injured. Then he shivered as he saw the three men crossing themselves hastily, and invoking the salvation of Heaven. Wilfrid called out to him.
    ‘God preserve us. It’s a body.’

Four

    Falconer might be a master of logic, but he was incapable of working out how to deal with Ann Segrim. When he had seen her near the spicer’s shop, his instinct had been to flee. And he had cravenly followed his instinct. He knew there was a spark between them that glowed hot whenever they met. They had often gone further than the propriety of their respective positions - one a celibate regent master, the other a married woman - would dictate. But their relationship had never been truly consummated. More because of Ann’s sense of rightness than Falconer’s, who was often prepared to risk damnation in his disregard for convention. Witness his collusion with Master Bonham over the dissection of the servant girl. Both men were risking excommunication, and possibly worse, if the truth of their activities came out into the open.
    But he also had to admit that his desire for Ann Segrim could not be compared with his passion for scientific curiosity. One only concerned his own risk of perdition, the other that of another soul. And though he fretted over her devotion to a loveless marriage, he respected her feelings. He had resolved to end their fruitless dalliance for good, now that on her side Ann had broken from him.
    So it was that he justified his ignominious flight from her presence on the High Street that day. When Ann entered the shop, he strode quickly past, turning down into the dubious charms of Grope Lane, and hurried thence back to his sanctum in Aristotle’s Hall.

    Master Mason Richard Thorpe scrambled up the pile of plaster and lath, and mounted the broken street wall of the half-demolished building. He looked Wilfrid in the eye, questioning his revelation.
    ‘Where?’
    The foreman pointed down at his feet, his hand trembling.
    His mouth flapped but no words came out. Thorpe looked at where he was indicating. In the rubble infill between the inner and outer stone courses, a skeletal arm clad in a remnant of cloth poked upward. It was as though the body was calling to the Heavens for assistance. Or perhaps more accurately, now the body was stripped down to a skeleton, crying out for Justice. Wilfrid squatted down and slowly sifted the coarse sand and dust away from the bone. He was still hoping that they were mistaken. Maybe it was an animal bone that had been tossed into the infill. As he stroked the sand away, though, he felt a hard surface under his fingers. Slowly, the curves of a ribcage began to emerge. He looked back towards where his lodge sat on the edge of the building site, wondering what to do next. He had a mind to tell his workmen to pull the body out and dispose of it quietly along with all the other rubbish of the demolition. That way his schedule would stay on course, and his payments too. He would have to buy the three men’s silence, of course. But if they truly wanted to be fully-fledged masons themselves, they would have to learn how to keep secrets. It was then he saw the outline of a tall figure standing in the shadow of the buildings opposite. Though the man was a mere few yards away, he could not see his face, but he knew instantly there