The Hidden Man (10 page)

His ancient servant Parsonage came puffing to the door, a sour expression on his face.

‘If it's a watch that's stopped, you've to come back later,' he told us. ‘If you've got news that he's won the lottery, you've to come in.'

‘It is neither,' said Fidelis. ‘It's Coroner's business.'

He stepped past him and into the shop, where I followed.

‘He's asleep in his dining chair, doctor. Or was, until that accursed doorbell rang.'

‘Will you be so kind as to fetch him out?'

As the old man shuffled away into the back, I touched Fidelis's arm.

‘Coroner's business?' I whispered. ‘How is that?'

‘I'll tell you later.'

Nick Oldswick did not keep us long.

‘How do, Titus? Doctor? What can I do for you?'

Fidelis produced the spoon.

‘Would you have a glance at this?' he asked.

Oldswick took the spoon and beamed at us in turn. He showed no ill effects from having been awoken from his nap and was in jocular mood. He turned the spoon over and over like a curiosity, as if he had never seen such a thing before.

‘Well, as a watchmaker, I am at a loss, doctor. Where is its mechanism? How does it tell the time?'

Fidelis reached across and turned the spoon over in Oldswick's fingers to show him the hallmarks.

‘As you mention it, Sir, it does tell the time in one way, though without mechanism. It tells its own age – and that is why we are here. We hope you can interpret the hallmarks for us, since you work much in silver.'

Oldswick shrugged and smiled apologetically.

‘I handle silver from time to time, doctor, but I regret I am not an assayer and know nothing of old hallmarks.'

He turned to me.

‘What of it, Titus? Is the spoon evidence in one of your investigations?'

‘It may be,' I said. ‘If you cannot tell us its age, can you at least estimate its value – the value of the metal, that is, assuming it is indeed silver?'

‘I can, if I weigh it.'

From a shelf he fetched a brass balance set on a wooden base and worked it by placing the silver spoon on one side, then adding small weights incrementally to the other.

‘One ounce and five eighths,' he said. ‘Let me see: assuming the metal is of sterling standard, I reckon it would be worth something like four shillings at today's prices.'

‘It seems I did not overpay,' said Fidelis drily, taking the spoon back.

We thanked Oldswick and leaving him, if he liked, to resume his after-dinner nap, stepped into the street.

‘Why was that Coroner's business, Luke? This is just an old spoon.'

‘Follow me,' he said, ‘and you may find out. It's not far and it's best to deal with this matter now.'

He strode off ahead of me up the sloping street, in the direction of the bar. Though it was undoubtedly true that I had more important matters to attend to, this business of the spoon was beginning to interest me and I followed eagerly.

*   *   *

It was a small house on Marsh Lane and very old, its beams twisted and roof uneven, as if they had been squeezed out of shape by the taller premises on either side. A shiny-faced woman of about fifty answered our knock.

‘Hello, Mrs Farrowby,' said Luke with a slight bow.

A smile swept the care from her face.

‘Doctor. This is a pleasure. Is it to see grandfather you've come?'

‘Yes, though be assured this is not any medical matter. I have brought Mr Cragg along. Is Mr Feather well, by the way?'

‘Never better than middling, but he says that's all anybody can hope for at ninety years old. And as you know he likes a visitor. Come in both of you, please.'

Wilfrid Feather was known universally by a different name: Methuselah. He was the oldest man in town – and, in all likelihood, the oldest inhabitant Preston had ever known, and his visitors came in expectation of being treated to stories and episodes from life three generations back. Upon superannuation, after serving many years as Town Clerk in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, he devoted himself to antiquarianism. No one knew the history of Preston better, or remembered more of it by direct experience, than Methuselah did.

In the old style, the house had no kitchen and Susan Farrowby did her cooking on the range in the main parlour. Coming in, they found the old man sitting beside it now, nodding half asleep into his abundant white beard. His granddaughter pinched and shook his ear.

‘It's Dr Fidelis to see you, Grandad. And he's brought Mr Titus Cragg.'

‘Who?'

‘You know. The young doctor – the good-looking one that saw to that old boil of yours last year – remember?'

Nodding benignly, Feather held out a palsied hand for his visitors to shake. He looked up and squinted but I knew that he didn't see much any more, just blurred shapes with voices.

Tea was offered and accepted and, while we waited for the kettle, Mrs Farrowby said, ‘I'm sure the gentlemen would be interested to know the secret of your longevity, Grandad.' And then, in a whisper to us, ‘He does love to tell, that's all.'

The old man roused himself. He lifted his inefficient eyes.

‘Oh, aye. It's simple, is that. The secret of my surpassing longevity is the avoidance of cheese, Sir. All my life – no cheese!'

His voice was thin and sibilant, but clear.

‘But we have such tasty cheese here in Lancashire, Mr Feather,' said Fidelis. ‘Do you not like it?'

‘Oh yes, I like it.'

‘Then why have you forsworn it?'

‘Are you not listening to me, young man? I say, if I'd eaten it, I wouldn't be here talking to you now, would I? I'd be long dead.'

‘Ah! Yes, I do see that.'

Fidelis and I exchanged a glance and he moved on to the business that had brought us there.

‘We have something to ask you, Sir. It's about a point that's cropped up in Mr Cragg's legal work. Ancient history, but I thought you with your knowledge might be able to help me.'

‘If it's history, I'm your man. Spit out your question.'

‘A little before your time, of course. But during Cromwell's war against the King, Preston was in some danger from Cromwell's men, isn't that so?'

‘From Cromwell himself. My daddy was there. They were coming from the east and there was an attempt to stop them at Ribbleton Moor, Red Scar, that way. But the King's forces were out-fought, and a few of them were slaughtered, and not only that they were out-manoeuvred, outwitted if you like, and before you knew it Cromwell's men had got through to Gamull, and they were in Deepdale and they'd killed a few and taken the bridge at Walton. They were swarming all over the eastern end of town. Then he sent word into Preston, did Cromwell, in the midst of all this chaos, that he'd take the town's surrender in Market Place at such-and-such a time.'

‘Was there fear?'

Old Feather gave a high-pitched laugh.

‘Not fear, Sir: panic. This town's indefensible. There's no walls, no ditch around it. It is as open as the Queen of Egypt's legs. If Cromwell came in fighting there would be fire and rape and God knows what – the town in ruins, Corporation members hanging from gibbets and not a virgin left between the Moor and the Ribble.'

He paused, looking down at his beard and smoothing it with the palms of his hands as you do a bedspread.

‘So what was to be done?'

‘Why, treat with him. Pay him off. But then they remembered, did the Mayor and Corporation, that three or four days earlier they had divided the town's treasury between three of their number, three of the Burgesses that had been sometime Mayors. This had been on the understanding that each of these worthy men would remove his portion secretly at night to a place of safety, telling no one where, to keep it out of Cromwell's greedy hands. And that they did.'

‘What had been in the treasury?' asked Fidelis.

‘Coin, bits of plate, or that sort of thing. The town's entire portable wealth, more or less, at that time. Well
now
, of course, they wanted that coin and plate back, or else how could they pay Cromwell? And you know what?'

We waited, and so did Feather. The man was enjoying himself. Finally I broke out.

‘What? Tell us.'

‘They got it back from the first man, and they got it back from the second man, but as for the last chap, they couldn't find him, nor the money he'd taken charge of. Not a shilling of it turned up. It had disappeared, and so had he.'

‘How did they pay Cromwell?'

‘Had to make up the money with their own personal coins and plate. They had no choice. Every one of them went home and came back with a sack of his own money. But angry? You can hardly imagine it! They would have willingly strung up that old colleague of theirs, only for one thing. It turned out he were dead already. Killed in the battle, along with three of his estate workers. It was reckoned that he had buried the chest with the help of those men and then gone off to fight, without telling anyone where it was.'

With the help of his granddaughter holding the cup to his trembling lips he took a sip of tea.

‘What was his name, this unfortunate man?'

‘It was Benjamin Peel, of Peel Hall.'

I expect my mouth fell open at the coincidence.

‘How very singular! That name was mentioned at my dinner table, not three hours since!'

Old Methuselah was shaking his head in the bemused fashion common to the very old.

‘Not many remember him now. They blackened his name, see? Stead of telling the truth that he died bravely in battle, it was put about that he ran from the enemy. The family never recovered. Never served on the Corporation again, lost their money, lost their estate. Very sad that, and unjust too.'

‘And has the money not been found since?'

Feather looked at me, his eyes twisted in a rheumy squint.

‘You know what me dad said when he told me the story: that Peel had sent the silver away across the sea to the Isle of Man for its safety, and the boat foundered with all hands drowned before they got there. So it's lost forever, is that silver.'

And giving a sigh he closed his eyes, dropped his chin and reverted to the state we had found him in.

*   *   *

‘Of course I now see why you think this is Coroner's business Luke. You have treasure trove on your mind.'

We were strolling back towards Friar Gate. Fidelis smiled.

‘It isn't me alone. Adam Thorn has it on his mind – or rather he did. Remember what his wife told me when I first spoke to her about the spoon? It's evident he was much occupied with Peel's lost hoard, and wanted to find it. Of course, one spoon does not a treasure make. But if any more of the same should turn up, it would become your sworn duty to hold an inquest, would it not?'

Before we parted outside my house, I fetched the letters to Pimbo from Moon that I had been reading, and planted them in his hand.

‘Cast your eye over them, Luke. I would be interested in your opinion. Oh, and will you lend me that spoon, just for a few days? I promise to look after it.'

 

Chapter Seven

I
ENTERED MY HOUSE
, and found Matty waiting. She was jigging up and down in a state of some anxiety.

‘The Mayor's been here this past half hour, and calling for you most impatiently,' she told me.

The tall, thick-necked figure of Grimshaw, as splendidly accoutred as ever, was planted on the hearth rug with his back to the fire. Elizabeth was sitting and sewing to his left while her parents sat quietly to his right, cowed by the air of pent-up anger that so often surrounded Grimshaw.

‘Cragg, what time d'you call this?' he cried. ‘I have been looking all over for you. Where the devil have you been?'

‘Making various calls, Mr Mayor. Of course, if I had known you required me…'

Leaving a sentence unfinished is a useful rhetorical device in which lawyers and government servants are adept. I ushered him towards the parlour door.

‘Would you like to come through to the office, where we can be more private?'

Even in my office he would not sit, but paced from wall to wall.

‘Have you been to Cadley Place, Cragg?'

‘This morning.'

‘I trust you found the key to Pimbo's strong room there.'

‘No. I searched his bureau and around his study. There was no key.'

‘Where else did you look?'

‘There was nowhere else, short of tearing the whole house apart.'

‘Did anyone know about the key? The mother?'

‘She has no memory.'

‘Oh yes? We have heard stories of that sort before, usually on the Bench.'

‘You misunderstand. She suffers from loss of memory. She is not mentally competent.'

‘Was there no one else you could speak to?'

‘A housekeeper. She knew nothing of Mr Pimbo's business affairs.'

‘This is intolerable, Cragg! Pimbo had creditors. It must now be agreed that the key is irretrievable and steps taken accordingly. The strong room gate must be blown apart with a charge of gunpowder.'

If Grimshaw's remedy seemed extreme – and it did to me at the time – his urgency was understandable. In the autumn of the previous year he had assumed the mayoralty, much as Nero ascended the Quirinal Hill, as if by his own divine right. His grandiosity allowed for no doubts, and certainly for no future thwarts and reverses. He had vowed publicly and loudly that his hegemony would present the most golden Guild Year ever known.

The Preston Guild, as the world knows, is a two-week-long festival that occurs every twenty years. Its original ancient ceremonies – the renewal of by-laws, civic freedoms and title to parcels of town land known as burgages – were still performed, but had become almost incidental to what accompanied them – the rout of parades, balls, assemblies, plays, concerts, horse races and other sports, staged more lavishly with every renewal. The eating and drinking would commonly go on throughout the night, laying waste to almost the entire male population and a good part of the female.