Cheating the Hangman (21 page)

I had already promised Mrs Trent that I would return betimes: I did not want my household to be on their own. Jem, approving the notion, invited himself and Cribb along too, to the huge delight of Robert, who thought he would make a wonderful guard dog – ‘Just in case, sir.’

Once again Cribb was quick to resent relegation to the scullery, howling and whining until Jem and I, enjoying a glass of ale before a welcome fire, were ready to curse
him. But the noise stopped abruptly: this brought us both swiftly to our feet. Then I bethought myself: sure enough, the reason lay in Robert, now firmly wrapped round the animal, and asleep with an expression of bliss on his face. ‘I have an idea we shall be adding to our household,’ I whispered. ‘Perhaps if he had a dog to call his own we could persuade him to sleep indoors.’

His schoolmaster’s duties calling him, Jem left early next morning, accompanied by Cribb, whose loyalties were now clearly divided. A hint of frost dusted the grass, although the day promised fair. To Mrs Trent’s embarrassment, I lingered in the warmth of the kitchen, helping myself to one of her newly baked rolls.

‘I do not want to put you in any danger,’ I said. ‘And I am unhappy that you may be breaking the law.’

‘Lord bless you, as if I cared for that.’

‘But I do. And accordingly I am going to speak to Lord Hasbury, as our local Justice, to tell him what I plan. But I will keep your name from him. All he will know is that I am still trying to discover Coates’s whereabouts and believe the rectory will yield evidence. Pray do not argue.’ I added with a smile, ‘I do not wish to give the archdeacon an excuse to have me defrocked.’

‘He will if he sees you eating those rolls in here like any heathen. Get into the breakfast room, Master Toby, do, like a decent Christian.’

Dressed, to my shame, in my gentleman’s finery, I naturally arrived far too early at Orebury House. But I sent word to Walker to announce my presence and to crave a word. He greeted me in the servants’ hall with the news that my father was closeted with Lord Hasbury’s secretary, Mr Beresford. Walker himself would be required shortly, as my father planned to take another airing.

‘Excellent! I could accompany him.’

Walker shook his head delicately. ‘I think not, Master Toby. There is a … a lady … involved. I tell myself a little light flirtation will improve his spirits, which are sadly low. But I am sure that he will wish to see you first.’

‘I would not wish to incommode the young lady by keeping her waiting!’

‘Do you suppose that would weigh with His Lordship? If it is you he wants to speak to, wait she must. And, to be fair, if it was her company preferred, you might, to use the common parlance, go hang.’

‘Quite. Now, my old friend, before my father rings for you, tell me – did you pick up any useful gossip?’

‘I was not wholly successful. As to the matter of the servant, Sally, I have observed her as closely as one might, without appearing particular in one’s attentions, and I suspect that she is in fact two girls. At a given time – it is the same time, but by no means every day – they change clothes and they change roles. So one of the Sallys has to be working not too far away – too far to walk, perhaps, but not too far if she is given a ride on a farm cart, for example.’ Encouraged by my appreciative smile, he continued, ‘The nearest house big enough to require a maid is Coryton Place. The lady living there is said to enjoy but poor health, and does not venture
into society, so you are probably not acquainted. Perhaps the second Sally finds life tedious there.’

‘Have you discovered the name of this lady?’

‘A Miss Witheridge. I heard tell that she is very quiet and ladylike in her ways. She has a young relative to stay from time to time.’

‘I may have met him.’ Mr Will Snowdon!

‘Beg pardon, but when you spoke of her reputation, to what were you alluding?’

‘There is a rumour – I was wrong even to repeat it. Forgive me.’ My smile was penitent but my heart sang in triumph. At last I might face Mr Snowdon with my accusations. ‘And did you discover our lovers’ trysting place?’

‘Not yet, but – ah, that is my master’s bell, Master Toby. Do you care to accompany me?’

I nodded. ‘I will await his pleasure in the dressing room.’

‘Dashed waste of everyone’s time!’ my father greeted me, throwing a pile of letters into the air. It would not be he who had to bend to pick them up. ‘No one’s ever heard of the fellow. Not a single ambassador, not a single consul. Whatever were you thinking of?’

‘I was thinking, sir, of getting exactly this response.’ While he spluttered his disapproval, I gathered up half a dozen of the offending letters. Having toyed with the notion of putting them on a convenient table, I decided to keep them in my hands. ‘I came to disbelieve the rumour that Mr Coates was on the Continent. I now believe that the corpse we found – this was when you were unwell, sir, so you may not recollect – is his. May I show these to Hasbury, in his capacity as Justice?’ I gathered a few more. With his stick he guided the
rest towards me. ‘I am very grateful for your help, sir: thank you.’ More to the point I was grateful to Beresford for his undoubted industry – he must have despatched upwards of a score of beautifully written enquiries.

He nodded absently. ‘Properly dressed, I see. All the same, my boy, next time you’re in Town, take yourself to my tailor, will you? And get Walker to see to those boots, for goodness’ sake!’ He turned to the looking glass, touching his cravat with apparent irritation. Any moment now he would rip it off and demand Walker bring another fresh neckcloth.

It was time to make my escape.

‘Search the rectory?’ Hasbury repeated in disbelief.

‘Thanks to the efforts of Mr Beresford, it is clear that Mr Coates never reached any of the destinations to which he might have been heading. My contention is that, in fact, Mr Coates never left Clavercote but was slain there. He might even have been hurt within the rectory itself. That is why I wish to look round. I propose to take with me Dr Hansard, and, as an impartial witness, Dr Toone.’ Should I have mentioned Mrs Trent?

‘What about the churchwardens?’ Hasbury was capable of surprising me. ‘Would they not have an interest?’

‘If we find anything of note, be assured, sir, that they will be informed immediately.’

My plan went awry the moment we approached Clavercote. Mr Lawton, taking the air in an old-fashioned gig pulled by a fat cob, hailed us. I made the introductions with as much aplomb as I could manage.

‘I reckon I know what you’re up to – and I’m minded
to join you. In fact, I might make it easier for you. I could see that archdeacon would fly up into the boughs if I said a word out of place, so I said nothing. I – I happen to have a set of keys to the rectory, sir.’

I coughed. ‘It happens that we do not need them, Mr Lawton.’ I gave the briefest of explanations.

He raised an eyebrow but did not appear to disapprove. ‘I can see why you men might want to look, but why the devil is Mrs Trent here?’

She faced him, arms akimbo. ‘You reckon a man would know anything about a house being left in a hurry, Thomas Lawton? You ask your wife about that.’

Toone said smoothly, ‘Mrs Trent is here, you see, as I am, as an expert witness.’

We all made our way to the rectory, the grounds of which were already showing signs of neglect.

‘He should have kept his gardener on,’ Lawton muttered, as I unlocked the front door. ‘And what about that housekeeper of his? Telling her to leave? She’d not have let the place smell damp and miserable like this.’

No one argued. At first using the candle ready on the hall table, then opening blinds and curtains as we progressed, we found nothing to indicate that the house had been put to bed, as Mrs Trent put it, for its master’s prolonged absence. A book lay here, a pen lay beside an inkwell there. A bundle of dirty laundry in the scullery awaited the laundrywoman. The kitchen was clean and tidy but not, as Mrs Trent said, properly scrubbed down.

The upstairs smelt of stale clothes: someone, Mrs Paten no doubt, had stripped the bed and left the blankets neatly
folded, but no airing was possible with the windows and shutters tightly closed. Mrs Trent flung them open. Then she turned her attention to the clothes presses.

She turned to us. ‘Gentlemen, how many clothes would you take for a long stay abroad? And which ones? Here are all his smalls, his shirts … Here his evening clothes. All his shoes. I wonder where he kept his valises … In a box room or in the attic?’

Toone drifted off, and summoned us within a moment. ‘Here – a whole row of cases, from small grips to trunks, in ascending order. No gaps in the row at all.’

‘In other words, had Coates been intending to take a journey, he meant to buy absolutely all his necessities en route,’ Hansard said.

‘Would a man even buy shaving things? Tooth powder?’ Mrs Trent asked rhetorically. ‘They are still on his dressing stand.’

For a moment, we all stood in silence. It was Lawton who broke it. ‘Looks bad, doesn’t it?’ He asked casually, ‘Did Mrs Paten happen to describe the clergyman who brought her the news.’

‘No,’ came my emphatic reply. ‘It was quite dark, remember. Now, before we report to Lord Hasbury, I would like to see if Mr Coates ever had his likeness done. Did anyone notice one?’

‘Yes. It’s over the fireplace in the dining room,’ Mrs Trent said, leading the way downstairs. ‘And a very fine thing it is. It makes him look very grand.’

‘So it does,’ Toone agreed, striding across the room and reaching it down. ‘I think Lord Hasbury might be interested in this – do you not, Hansard?’ He added, very quietly,
with a meaningful smile, ‘But not perhaps as interested as my distinguished colleague.’

That, as two of us knew, was Maria, who had caught Coates in a very similar pose. Her portrait, of course, lacked a face.

‘Did you mean what you said, Dr Campion, about being alongside the killers – provided they confessed their crime and were penitent – all the way to the scaffold?’ Lawton asked, drawing me on one side as the others made their way out of the building. As if he expected me to need time to reflect, he turned the key in the rusting lock, pushing against the door to make sure it was secure.

‘I did. God loves us all, remember, whatever sins we have committed.’ I hoped I sounded calmer than I felt. I had never seen a man die except naturally, in his bed. To accompany one to the moment of death, no doubt a young man in his prime, probably with a wife and children – did I really have the moral strength to do that?

‘Thank you, Parson. Like Boddice said, you’re a good man and you’ll be safe here whenever you come. You have my word.’ He extended his hand. For the first time in the whole of our acquaintance I was happy to shake it.

By common but not enthusiastic consent, we returned to Orebury House to report to Hasbury. Mrs Trent found an urgent reason to confer with Mrs Heath – there was no persuading her otherwise – and would have scuttled round to the servants’ entrance on her own. However, before I could insist on accompanying her, Toone stepped forward, proffering his arm in the most courtly of gestures.

‘You’ll be like to lose her, if you’re not careful,’ observed Lawton as we watched them walk away together, deep in apparently very agreeable conversation. ‘And good housekeepers are like hens’ teeth.’

I was careful not to look at Hansard, but, since a reply was clearly called for, I said, ‘So they are. Especially when they are good, brave human beings too. Do not forget I owe my life to her.’

Hansard had barely rung the front doorbell when Toone returned, wiping a smile from his face: the four of us were a deadly serious quartet as we waited for our pleasure-loving magistrate to quit whatever pastime currently engaged him.
Seated in the library, we were happy to accept refreshment: it would provide each man with an excuse not to have to share his private emotions. I looked up to find Edmund regarding me with concern. I hoped he was reassured by my smile.

It was Lawton who was the most incommoded by the delay, which grew quite unconscionably long.

‘Grand folk are always like this, are they?’ The question seemed to burst from him. Then he stared at me. ‘Dr Campion, they say you’re grand too, but I always disbelieved it. But the way you sit there, it’s as if you belong. So I reckon they’re right, after all.’

‘My father is a duke,’ I said quietly, deciding against telling him he was staying under this very roof. ‘But I am plain Dr Campion. And I have to tell you, between ourselves, that I do not think that keeping people waiting is the sign of a gentleman.’

‘Do we ring that bell again to remind His Lordship?’

‘If we did, I suspect that we would find that the butler had lately discovered that His Lordship was not in fact at home today,’ Edmund said sourly. He after all had often enough been referred by top-lofty butlers to the tradesman’s entrance, though these days his reputation was generally sufficient for the front door to be opened for him before he even knocked.

‘These men who want to confess,’ Lawton said. ‘Would they come here or what?’

‘To be charged, yes, and asked how they pleaded – guilty or not guilty – and then they’d be taken to gaol in Warwick to await a trial and their punishment,’ I said.

‘And would they be questioned and all?’

‘They might be asked why they should commit such a heinous crime. After all, Squire, they did more than kill a man. They treated his dead body with, let us say, the greatest disrespect.’

He opened his mouth to say something, but the butler flung open the doors to announce Lord Hasbury. To a man we stood. Bows were exchanged.

Hasbury sat, but did not invite us to. He crossed his legs, idly regarding a highly polished boot. ‘You are becoming a dead bore in all this, Campion. Inquests, enquiries – good God, man, haven’t you got a church somewhere to go and preach in?’

My bow was as chilly as ever one of my father’s could be. ‘Sir, we believe that Mr Coates was the man who was found crucified. And we have a man ready to confess to his murder—’

‘Three men, begging Your Honour’s pardon,’ Lawton chipped in. ‘Do I bring them here, or do I take them straight to gaol to await the Assizes, seeing as Your Honour is so busy?’ There was nothing about his tone or his expression to indicate irony.

There was everything about Hasbury’s to indicate insolence. ‘I’m sure one or more of these good gentlemen will write down their statements, assuming as I do that the men are not literate.’

‘They can sign their names, Your Honour, even if it is with just a cross.’

‘I am impressed. Very well, let me have their statements, with names or with a cross, and I will ensure that they are despatched betimes – I rely on you, gentlemen, to convey them to Warwick. Excellent.’

I had to clench my fists behind my back lest I hit him for his insolence to us all. ‘Indeed, My Lord, this is not our work. It is not suitable that gentlemen caring for the bodies and the souls of men should be involved in their incarceration,’ I said. ‘In the absence of a regular constable, may I suggest that you make a temporary appointment? Certainly I for one will have no part in this scheme.’

‘Dr Campion speaks for us all,’ Toone said promptly. ‘Mr Lawton must know a reliable villager who will act.’

‘I do, sir,’ Lawton said bravely, ‘and will send him to you to be sworn in. Then he can take their statements, if it please you, and will arrange for a closed carriage to transport them.’

‘Dear God, how tedious this whole business is!’ Without taking his leave, Hasbury swept from the room.

‘Sometimes,’ Edmund said, as a footman closed the grand front doors behind us, ‘I can understand the French predilection for tumbrils and guillotines.’

Mrs Longstaff was almost unrecognisable: from a pale and wispy shadow of a woman, she was as radiant a young mother as one would wish to see, in no small part, I suspect, as a result of Edmund’s insistence on fresh air and gentle exercise. Her daughter, brought down by her nurse for a few minutes to acknowledge our appreciative coos, slept soundly. To my great pleasure, I was invited to church the mother and baptise the child. Edmund and Maria were to be Emma’s godparents, alongside Mrs Trent, who had been such a tower of strength during the birth.

A bustle in the hallway proclaimed the arrival of more guests, the butler almost immediately announcing
Lady Blaenavon. This! Lady Blaenavon! This elegant and genteel-looking lady! I could feel my mother’s hand on my shoulder, her breath in my ear:
I told you not to be a prig
.

She was, of course, accompanied by Miss Witheridge, who was a short buxom lady in her thirties, with pretty nut-brown hair; her features were good, her eyes especially being wide and expressive. In no way did she fit the verbal caricature my friends and I had drawn of her as a thuggish, strident cross between a man and a woman, for all she dressed very simply, with none of the laces and flounces that made our hostess’s attire so attractive. Her hair was drawn into a chignon from which stray locks were encouraged artfully to escape.

Lady Blaenavon too was dressed with quiet elegance. Slighter and taller than her friend, she too wore her hair tied back, taking a seat beside our hostess and asking quiet questions about the infant.

Their ladylike ways put me in a quandary. At what point – if any – in the evening would it be acceptable to raise the question of the two Sallys? At what point the name of their visitor, Mr Will Snowdon? I fear the anxiety affected my manners: I could hardly hold a coherent conversation.

In the end, as the footman padded around the table, ladling soup, it was Mrs Longstaff who raised the issue of Clavercote. It seemed that we were not expected to talk to our immediate neighbours only. The Longstaffs favoured informal etiquette.

‘Only think! The villagers tried to hang poor Dr Campion! And it was only the quick-wittedness of Mrs Hansard’s fellow godmother that saved his life.’ She gave a short and rather lurid account of my near fate.

Lady Blaenavon turned a pair of remarkably fine eyes in my direction – eyes that were somehow familiar? Was she in fact related to Mr Snowdon? ‘I understood that a Mr Coates was the rector at Clavercote.’

‘I was there because he had quitted the village,’ I said cautiously, ‘and as you may understand, there was work there that only a priest could do.’

‘Do? What sort of thing do you do? Wouldn’t it be better to feed the poor starving bodies than stuff their minds with doctrine telling them that it does them good to suffer?’

Toone nodded enthusiastic agreement.

The comment would have been well beyond the line of pleasing in most gatherings, and it would have fallen to our host or hostess to turn the conversation. As it was, I said as mildly as I could, ‘Feeding bodies is not incompatible with feeding souls, My Lady. I like to feel that my visits there involved practical as well as spiritual help, largely thanks to my good friend Mrs Trent – the other of Baby Emma’s god mamas.’

‘You can feed the five thousand, can you?’

I intercepted a silent message passing between Lady Blaenavon and Miss Witheridge, who was clearly trying to silence her friend. But I had been to too many insipid gatherings – and had perhaps drunk a little too much wine – to wish the exchange to end with a platitude about doing one’s best.

‘If I could, do you not think I would? Aye, and ten thousand too. But all I could do was start with one family.’

Here Edmund leant across the table to explain about Sarey and her adoptive baby. ‘Poor Sarey’s own babe had died and it was almost certain that Eliza’s would too. The
poor husband stayed for the burial and then walked away to volunteer and meet his death abroad.’

Lady Blaenavon pressed her napkin to her lips. ‘Dear God, I did not know that the poor woman had died.’

‘You had made Eliza’s acquaintance?’

‘Yes.’ The monosyllable suggested she might be taking her friend’s unspoken advice.

I inspected and discarded my more tendentious questions, merely remarking, ‘To lose your daughter and grandchild in such circumstances …’ Suddenly a conventional shake of the head was not good enough. ‘If only they had turned to me! Something could have been done. As it was, I did not even get the chance to bury them. I would have laid them in St Jude’s churchyard.’

‘You conducted Eliza’s burial service, I gather?’ She cast an agonised glance at her friend, as if she had given something away. And she had. There was something in the turn of the head, the earnestness, that told me I had met Lady Blaenavon before – on the occasion of a bright and willing young man offering to help at Toone’s post-mortem examination. Suddenly I felt huge relief that such a person could have had no part in an innocent girl’s seduction.

I dared say nothing about her role as Snowdon. First it would draw everyone’s attention to her; second, it would reveal to her that I had only just recognised her. But I must and would have a private conversation with her later. Meanwhile, I replied truthfully that I had laid the woman to rest. Then I turned the subject, receiving a swift smile of what looked like gratitude.

Under cover of disconcertingly passionate piano playing from Mrs Longstaff, who had chosen a work by that most emphatic of composers, Herr Beethoven, I managed to murmur to Lady Blaenavon that so long as she wished it, her secret was safe with me.

‘A woman – especially if she is a Lady! – is so trammelled and tied by society. To be chaperoned, even at my age – Dr Campion, it is like walking with your legs tied. Consider Mrs Longstaff – a most admirable musician, with three times the talent of her husband – but reduced on most occasions to playing pretty pieces so that others may talk. I suspect that had you not been grateful for the proliferation of notes and chords so that we can converse, you might have considered this sonata less than suitable for a woman.’

‘You do me wrong. I think it less than suitable for a social gathering, but am hugely impressed by her skill, her musicianship. As I was, My Lady, by your draughtsmanship, not to mention your amazing sangfroid. I believe your skills have helped us to identify the victim and find his killers.’

‘They have arrested Eliza’s husband, no doubt. And who could blame him for taking the law into his own hands? What have I said, Dr Campion? Your face is a study! But I believe we must be silent – this movement is very quiet.’

‘May I call on you tomorrow?’ I mouthed.

She nodded, pressing her finger to her lips.

My route home coincided with the Hansards’ for a few hundred yards, as did Lady Blaenavon’s and her friend’s. We exchanged polite good evenings, and promises to maintain the acquaintance. No mention, however, was made of my call the following morning.

Once we had parted and were well out of earshot, Maria said, ‘A charming addition to our circle, will they not make?’ There was no trace of irony.

‘Charming indeed,’ Edmund agreed. ‘Tobias, did I notice you in close conversation with Lady Blaenavon – dear me, for all her charm this evening, I cannot think she is better suited to be a woman than a very capable young man.’

‘Nor I, to be sure. I think we may have passed one test tonight,’ I said cautiously. ‘I suspect the ultimate one, however, will be whether she ever lets us see her in her mannish garb.’

‘And will you flinch, and denounce her from the pulpit?’

Through the dusk, I could see Maria’s smile. ‘Can you imagine Toby denouncing anyone except those who are cruel to others?’

The answer, had I had to give it, was that had I not met Her Ladyship, I probably would have done. Thank God it was too dark for them to see my deep blush.