The Banchory Conspiracy

THE

BANCHORY

CONSPIRACY

John Israel Bender

AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

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© 2013 by John Israel Bencder. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/12/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7860-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7857-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-7861-3 (e)

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Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Prologue

TOWARDS THE END OF MARCH in the Year of Our Lord 1838, a Captain John Skipton came to my office in Tavistock. He was a well-set, burly individual with an abundant beard and the steely gaze of one who has matched himself against life and won. He was brief and to the point. He had just returned from Boston in his sailing ship the May Skipton, of which he hastened to inform me that he was both master and owner. On the outward voyage he had carried a Mr and Mrs Green and their infant son as passengers. It was a great sorrow to him and a personal reflection on his safety record as a ship’s master to report that Mrs Green and the child were swept overboard and lost on the second night out from Plymouth.

Now I am a lawyer and never a day passes when I do not hear some distressing tale of human failure and greed, deceit, calumny and more, I hear it all. So far, what Captain Skipton had told me was sad to listen to, but no more than that. The husband was naturally distressed to a degree but could not be held to blame as indeed could anyone. The woman was a poor sailor and distressingly seasick from the start of the voyage. She spent most of the time on deck even though she was an obstruction on occasion to the efficient performance of their duties by the crew. However they were sorry for her and turned a blind eye to her unlawful presence in certain parts of the ship, even in bad weather. That night she had managed to escape the eye of the watch and must have been on deck when they ran into a sudden and violent storm. Hatches were battened down and they hove to, weathering it and setting sail again in the dawn. On the morning of that third day Mr Green reported his loss. The ship was searched thoroughly, but she and the child were not aboard. The family had gone to their tiny cabin for the night and the husband awoke next morning to find his wife and child missing.

They seemed a happy and devoted little family and the husband’s reaction to his loss was sad, but to be excused. He lay in his cabin barely eating, imbibing large quantities of brandy so that he was rarely seen sober for the rest of the voyage. He was secretive and spent a lot of the time when he was not drinking, filling up many pages of foolscap with his writings. The good captain had now reached the point of his visit as he leaned over the desk to hand me a sealed letter. He also had a small deed-box with him which he placed on a chair.

Mr Green gave me this for you when we arrived in Boston. I promised I would deliver this to you personally, and the box too, and I have done so. As I’ve said, it’s a voyage I do not want to remember. And with that, we parted.

The letter was indeed for me, addressed to Mr Douglas Carleton-Jones, Lawyer of 17 Secretary Row, Tavistock and heavily sealed. I opened it and read as follows:

Dear Mr Carleton-Jones

My name is Thomas Grayson. I trust you can ignore the small deception I played on you when I came to your office.

Now it came back to me as I lay the letter on my desk. Yes, I remembered Grayson, a tall heavily built man, handsome in a swarthy aquiline way. He had a worried haunted look and the dark somber dress he affected gave him a funereal appearance. According to the letter Grayson was the captain’s passenger Green, of that I was sure and the next few lines confirmed this.

The captain of the May Skipton will have told you of the loss of my wife and child on the voyage out to Boston in the Americas. We travelled as Mr and Mrs Green and, and now I write to confess to you that their deaths were not an accident as all on board believed. I murdered them and, it was God’s work, which I carried out that night

Once more I laid down the letter, shocked. A confession of a double murder from a stranger many thousands of miles away did I confess, upset my usual calm response to the tangled problems I met with every day. Again, I took up the letter.

‘At this point Mr Carleton-Jones, you can read ALL the papers which Captain Skipton left with you and decide after you have read them whether or not my action was justified. After my wife’s death I spent the rest of the voyage onto Boston correcting my journals and making it clear to a reader how I was privy to EVERY event leading onto the disastrous ending, murder! You can of course destroy my journals, and comfort yourself that all you have heard and read indicates the workings of a diseased mind.

I sent my clerk for Green’s box and as it was drawing in dark and the weather outside was inclement, I allowed him to go home. With a large blazing fire at my back and the lamp turned up, I arranged myself in comfort to read the mysterious documents.

The author writes As stated earlier I found Green aka Lemoinesot’s deed-box and papers in a junk shop near Tavistock. After reading the journals several times I was certain that Green was Lemoinesot and so it turned out to be, On reflection one could separate the diaries from the journals, one gave his inner thoughts about events, and the other about what he had witnessed as he was drawn relentlessly into The Conspiracy. However after a while the diaries and journals melded into one. Some pages were missing and some water-stained, nevertheless I have done my best to arrange what they tell with little embellishment on my part. Lemoinesot’s behaviour throughout leaves a lot to be desired, but then who am I to make a judgement?. The detail in his journals were so precise and knowledgeable that ti was obvious he was privy to all that transpired through intimate contact with the protagonists in this frightening and sorry tale. However I was intrigued especially when I found within the deed-box some notes of Carleton-Jones which confirmed his meeting with the captain of the May Skipton, and that he, Carleton-Jones had probably read the diaries He made no comment on their contents. Also in the deed-box were two or three pipes, a cross, a rosary, a well-used bible. The journals do make frightening reading, One can see from their contents that there are malevolent forces attacking the Christian Church which forces it can barely repulse. I still have the papers and deed-box which I know I should get rid of, burn them, whatever. They have an unpleasant smell which is probably due to their age. Even lying ignored in a spare room they exude a slightly aggressive and challenging presence which is ridiculous but a little frightening. They seem to wield a baleful influence over me and certainly my health has deteriorated since I found them.

Signed JB

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT FOLLOWS IS FROM THOMAS Green’s aka Father Pierre Lemoinesot’s journals.

As I walked down the path from the Great House dusk was falling. Already a sickle moon gave out it’s faint light and I could see the first star of evening. The slight wind played softly through the branches of the tall trees which flanked the path. Autumn was upon them and many turned leaves lay on the ground, the branches almost stripped bare by last night’s storm. These rustlings were the only sound that broke the oppressive silence and gloom.

Although much of what I had heard at the Great House was not new to me, nevertheheless the conversation with the young Sir Peter Pettarson stunned me. This visit, like others to that unhappy place bespoke only of grief. The end of our meeting was most unpleasant with veiled threats alternating with disgusting accusations about the sexual probity of myself and my colleague Father Bingham. I have written down what I know of that young man and the most intimate affairs of the Pettarson family. It is certain that I have just left the presence of one possessed by Satan, whose soul is near to eternal damnation.

So let me begin. I am Father Pierre Lemoinesot, priest to several villages, whose Catholic adherents are thinly scattered. My forbears were Huguenots but converted to Catholicism a long time ago, a brave and correct decision. I have been here for many years.

The Pettarsons are a long established aristocratic Catholic family who trace their lineage back to the Lionheart’s day. They came over from the Mediterranean basin, dark-visaged soldiers from the Crusades, many left, a few settled and a faithful follower within the King’s entourage was given land in this area. The family extended their holdings and the baronetcy was created by Charles I. By the 19th century the Pettarsons had many thousands of acres and vast interests in commerce, and industry, probably slavery and many other unsavoury activities thus establishing their kingdom on earth, if not in heaven.

Sir Peter’s father told me much about their wealth when I called to see him occasionally in his last few years. Nevertheless, today’s unbroken tale of evil, lust, deceit and adultery must not blunt the certainty that I, Pierre Lemoinesot am the instrument of God’s absolution. I would confront and defeat Satan.

The original settler was called Petrus and the surname eventually evolved as Pettarson. They are of course the owners of the Great House… Its true name is Rock House, an unsympathetic misnomer which does not suit the gracious Elizabethan mansion which is a delight to the eye.

The approach from the road out of the village is through a long curving drive flanked by a profusion of well-established and varied deciduous trees which obscure the house. The parkway is wide and well-tended with a red gravel surface, and beyond the trees one sees the rolling pastures of the home farm. The house presents a wondrous symmetry of architectural beauty of mellowed bricks, moss-edged tiled roofs with gables and tall chimneys breaking the skyline. The formal parterre gardens, hedges, borders and shrubs serve as a frame for man-made beauty. Their inspired visual harmony is a backcloth to the events which transpired.

I do not care to be abroad at night and had stayed later than I should have done. Towards the end of the visit a servant informed us that my horse had inexplicably gone lame. Sir Peter was obviously loath to lend me a substitute animal, so after borrowing a storm lantern and a stout stick I set out on the short cut home. Because of last night’s tragedy and other unpleasant events which had occurred in that area in the past I felt a faint frisson of unease.

The path down to the village is almost totally hidden from the uninitiated. It leaves the formal gardens behind the box hedges on the western aspect of the house. There is a saving of more than two miles using this short cut rather than the drive and main road back to my house amd church The faint light from the moon was lost as clouds passed in front of it, the way became increasingly obscured.

My foot caught in an exposed root of a tree and I tripped, falling heavily… I am a large individual, overweight and could have expected to hurt myself as the momentum compounded by my weight and the steep slope sent me sprawling face downwards into a bed of wet fallen leaves… Later when recalling events in this journal I recalled that there was an unpleasant stench, suffocating in its intensity; breathlessness became overpowering. I tried unsuccessfully to lift my head out of the pillow of leaves but could not move. There was a great weight on my back preventing me doing so, forcing me further and further into that soft bed of leaves. I tried to shout for help. What was happening? I was certain that I heard Sir Peter’s humourless laugh and felt that he was close by. The pressure on my body increased and I was near to panic. My recollection of those moments were confused. My lungs were beginning to burst and I remembered calling upon Christ to save me, this desperate plea flooded my mind blotting out all else. Then there was a great confusion of events, which I have difficulty in recalling clearly.

The pressure on my body eased, I could breathe again. An unearthly animal-like scream shattered the silence, setting my pulse racing madly. The path was suffused with light as if the sun had risen in the sky. I was able to push myself to my feet and turned just in time to see a bent scurrying figure bathed in a ghostly opalescent light disappear over the brow of the path. An intense smell of rotting vegetation intermingled with sickening odours of excreta and vomit pervaded the air. I felt faint with shock and nausea and knew that this creature had come to kill me.

I crossed himself and giving thanks to God staggered down the path holding my crucifix before me, occasionally looking back and thrusting it in the direction whence that menacing figure had disappeared. My thoughts were confused, was I not a man of God whose faith could defeat all manifestations of evil? I knew as I stumbled on home that there were deficiencies in my belief.

I reached the ugly red-bricked house attached to my church, the Church of the Holy Saviour. It was not a pretty building and was situated on the edge of the village, isolated to some extent by its situation and aesthetics. In spite of the Pettarsons’ dominance in the area, they felt they must keep a low Catholic presence. However I do not dwell on worldly considerations, for the church brought together a sufficiency of those who gathered to praise the name of the Lord. Falling against the front door and being too exhausted and distressed to reach for the key, I pulled on the bell and stumbled in as the housekeeper Mrs Byrne opened the door.

She moved out of my way as I staggered by.

Did the horse throw you? You’re so late and I was worried after what happened last night. You’re covered with mud, have you had an accident?

An unnecessary comment I thought, in view of my appearance. She rushed into the kitchen and came back with a chair which she sat me on. There I rested, immobile and indecisive with a return to that terrible lassitude which I had felt whilst up at the Great House.

Soon she returned and said she had filled a bath of hot water in front of the kitchen fire and would I please wash and leave my offending odoriferous suit on the floor. I sat in the bath, my mind and body soothed by the heat, but my thoughts returned relentlessly to the events of the past few hours. However, the hot water was relaxing and I reflected that regular cleansing in a bath, naked, was no bad thing and could not in truth, be deemed sinful. But like so many new fashions it was to be treated with caution and some reservations. I had come to accept this method of total immersion for cleanliness’s sake twice monthly on a regular basis.

I cast my mind back to the time I had spent with Sir Peter and knew that I was being threatened by the evil spirits that possessed that young man. My thoughts dwelt upon last night’s violent storm and the death of my companion. There would be pastoral visits to be undertaken, and parishioners in damaged cottages to be comforted, many of whom would have lost their few meagre possessions.

But inevitably my thinking returned to the unlikely talk today with the new baronet, and the frightening end to it.

When Sir Peter confessed to me that he had attacked Phipps the major domo and myself the previous evening with fatal results for that poor man, it was certain that Pettarson’s alter ego had done the same this night.

As I lazily watched the surface of the bath water, steam began to rise from it in quantity, and within moments it was bubbling furiously. To my astonishment, the metal bath began to take on a dull red glow and the water temperature became intolerably hot. I yelled with pain and grasped the sides throwing myself out, striking my ankles on the edge as I did so, landing heavily and awkwardly against the angle formed by the floor and wall striking my head against the roughened surface of a skirting board, lacerating my forehead and there lay stunned, blood flowing freely from the wound to my head.

What is it, what is it? Father Lemoinesot are you alright?

Of course I’m not alright I thought getting gingerly to my feet supporting myself against the wall. I unlocked the kitchen door opening it unthinkingly, and there I was, standing naked as the Creator made me before my housekeeper. Recollection of what followed was hazy. Mrs Byrne told me how she had supported me up to the bedroom and bundled my collapsing bulk onto the bed.

Later she told me that she washed and dried me after staunching the blood from my wounds. When I was fully aware of the situation, I became conscious of the pain in my head and limbs. There were bandages around my forehead, ankles and hands. The housekeeper no doubt in response to my stirring, entered the room.

Hello there Mrs Byrne, what’s happened, what am I doing in bed, and how did I get here? My voice was weak and distant.

She told me how she had supported me in a fainting condition into the bedroom and tended my wounds. She looked as anxious and bewildered as I was.

You managed to do all this for me by yourself Mrs Byrne ? I asked, reddening a little.

After all, I realised that the lady virginal as she certainly was, her title being one of courtesy only, not unusual amongst domestics, would have been willy-nilly forced to look on my nakedness. She looked away as she answered.

Yes, what else could I do? There was no-one to help and there you were, almost fainting with blood pouring from your poor head. What I can’t understand are the burns on your hands and ankles, they’re quite nasty. It must be very painful.

It is, it is. I replied gritting my teeth. What have you put on them?

Just fat, and bandaged them with strips of clean linen. It’s all I could think of. Can you tell me what happened in the kitchen? She was a picture of anxiety.

I can’t really say Mrs Byrne, if I told you I don’t think you would believe me.

I don’t believe it myself I thought closing my eyes, the pain from the dreadful wounds making speech difficult. Pain was a new experience for me having been a very healthy person all my life for which I thank God.

Shall I go for the surgeon? Perhaps he would give you a little laudanum for the pain. The housekeeper said anxiously.

No, thank you. I murmured.

The housekeeper had moved over to the window where she was outlined against the pale moonlight filtering through the clouds. She was younger than me, about thirty eight years of age, of medium build and height with tow-coloured hair, normally coiled into a heavy bun at the back of her head, which was now falling loosely about her shoulders. She had a high intelligent forehead above fine arched eyebrows, with moulded lips which revealed wholesome teeth. She was wearing her robe, as she had obviously been resting in her room until she heard me wake. My pocket watch on its stand was on the dresser, where she had placed the contents of my suit. It showed that it was early morning when the life-force is at its lowest. The housekeeper moved back towards the bed, raising her arms as she pushed the hair away from her face to cascade once more behind her shoulders.

These movements excited me and I felt a sense of heightened tension in the room. There was a new awareness between us. I had too often been conscious of female sexuality in many years of ministering to the spiritual needs of my women parishioners, often they deliberately choose to ignore my calling, trying to evoke a response by provocative action or fevered words in the confessional box.

The long association with Mrs Byrne had been one of neutrality and blandness. I acted as her father confessor and her sins of commission and omission were not significant. It seemed that in my fevered and weakened state, I was ascribing to her feelings normally dormant within myself. Since maturity I had severely suppressed rambling male sexual fantasies. I had rejected onanism and the nocturnal emissions of youth had long since departed. My vocation, for I believed that I have one, was not taken up lightly and if the truth be known it was a heavy burden, not only because of the demands of the Church makes on a priest’s chastity, but also because of the small doubts and questionings which one had to suppress too often. I have a long saturnine visage, with heavy lines accentuating an aquiline nose and rather cold grey eyes. It was a sombre, confident face that belies the uncertainties within me in nearly all situations whether spiritual, intellectual or social, so that my entry into the Catholic priesthood took a heavy burden from me, but substituted others not lightly borne.

The woman’s small movements woke me from my reverie. She emanated an aura of sexuality which had never been there before… She came close to the bed and sat on it, a surprising action for one so correct about social niceties.

Father Lemoinesot you are more ill than you know, you have a high fever. I will tell any callers you are not well and put a notice on the church doors.

I was drifting off to sleep as she talked, the faint smell of her scent in my nostrils.

The sensation of falling was so real that I woke sweating with a pounding heart. Then dreaming again, and like most dreams, it was tenuous and unclear, but I knew that I was back on the shortcut from the Great House and was stumbling and tripping as I raced down the path, pursued by a creature not of this world. I seemed to hear it shrieking obscene abuse from its ghastly satyr-like face, and as I put up my hands to save myself from crashing into a tree suddenly in front of my downward flight, the creature’s screams rose to a crescendo and I awoke to find myself listening to my own voice raised in terror.

There, there, there, there. You’re safe, you’re quite safe.

I was caught up in the housekeeper’s arms, head cradled against her breast. She turned towards me and the faint light from the windows showed a look of expectancy on her face. It seemed natural for our lips to come together in a long chaste kiss, which became more urgent as her lips opened a little under mine. Her breath was sweet in my mouth and moving my hands hands over her body, I knew that she was naked under her robe. The pain in my head was gone and so were my bandages. So a virginal Catholic priest of forty eight years came together in adultery with another Catholic believer. Our union was violent, as though it was something that we both had waited for through aeons of time. I started kissing her breasts, caressing every part of her beautiful body, then entering her again almost savagely.

Lord Jesus save me, Lord Jesus save me! She cried repeatedly, her body reaching to mine as if we should never part again. As ecstasy and desire subsided we drifted slightly apart.

She whispered I love you, I love you Pierre. Don’t leave me yet.

I drew close to her again, burying my face in her luxuriant hair. My thoughts were confused, the delight and abandonment of our intercourse which had been so full of mystery and eventual fulfilment, was followed by an avalanche of conflicting feelings. Holy Mother of God, what had I done? What vile crime had I committed against you my dear soul I thought, as I lay there still tightly clasped in her arms. The silence was almost tangible, boards creaked softly and trees moved in the slight breeze, giving rise to occasional rustlings as some leaves fell to join their fellows on autumn’s russet tapestry below.

We lay side by side unspeaking, I felt for her hand and she returned my grip with a strong pressure.

Mary, we have committed a grave mortal sin.

The triteness of what I said made me smile thinly in the darkness.

Mary, do you hear what I say? Are you not going to talk to me?

I moved onto an elbow and looked at her face, it was beautiful and mysterious in the moonlight, a small smile on those slightly parted lips.

Don’t speak Pierre. She breathed.

My thoughts again returned to the events of the day and the sequence of events following my visit to Rock House. Before bathing I had removed my street clothes. Then I placed my cloak on the kitchen floor face downwards. It showed unmistakeably the shape of an animal delineated by a yellowish slurry which gave off a sickly smell as a faint miasmic vapour rose from the black broad cloth. The cloak was beyond cleaning as if that strange filth had corroded the very fibre of the material. Gingerly bundling it up I threw it on the large kitchen fire and immediately there was an overpowering smell of sulphur as the coat seemed to take on a life of its own, threshing about in the fire before succumbing to the flames.

Pierre, the housekeeper’s voice interrupted my thoughts, this is the happiest day of my life. I feel so close to you and for the first time in years, really wanted and fulfilled. I’m so happy.

I knew that the housekeeper had been taught by the nuns and that her situation with me was only the second one in many years of service. She was certainly not of the common mould of servants. I had always thought of her as a woman of superior intellect to match her personable appearance.

You know very little about me Pierre, she continued I want you to listen to me, really listen. I’m Irish and I come of good stock. I am an only child, my father was an apothecary in Dublin. He died when I was seventeen and from him I learned about treating the sick and afflicted. My mother was an invalid for most of the years that I can remember her, so I was left at home and tutored. There was some talk at one time, of me following my father in his profession, but that would have been thought unseemly, so I was given the education of a lady without the money to sustain such a position in society. I should have trained, I’m sure that I could have succeeded. My mother died soon after my father, and I was sent to England by relations to a Catholic school. When the money from my parents’ small estate was used up, I was transferred to a home. I soon learned my place in the hierarchy of that miserable establishment. My questioning nature made me unsuitable to be a governess, I was put into service and instructions were given to my employer that since I was not much better than a heretic, I should be watched carefully.

I could see that she was becoming distressed as her breathing quickened and the words poured out of her mouth.

I see the Church as a vast parasite feeding on the fears of its members. A penance as payment for any doubts. A regular dose of the Sacrements or damnation. Sex for procreation, all else to do with it sinful. To question as I have questioned, and read what I have read and to come to believe as I now believe, is heretical.

I was astonished by her outburst, she had come well recommended and her references had indicated that she was a true believer.

"How is it Mary that you have never confessed to this way of thinking? You