The Hidden Man (11 page)

Grimshaw well knew that the Guild draws fine society to Preston, and in return for its own expense of money, fine society expects these entertainments to be extravagant. So it's the duty of every Guild Mayor to make his Guild outshine all previous ones. The outlay in money in that endeavour is prodigious.

However, I had little time, now, for Grimshaw's petulance, and I had divided feelings about his dilemma. A disastrous Guild would be uncomfortable for our town. On the other hand it would draw a line under Ephraim Grimshaw's long baleful influence over us, as surely as Great Benjamin Peel had fallen from grace more than a hundred years before. In a trading town like this, to lose the Burgesses' money on such a scale can only lead to disgrace. Grimshaw may try to deflect the blame to others, but the decision to place the Guild fund into Pimbo's hands for investment had been, if not his alone, then driven through the Corporation by the strength of his persuasion. If he fell now, it would only be because of his own foolishness, ambition and greed, and I would not be sorry.

I took a deep breath, and inwardly steeled myself to withstand the blast that would inevitably come my way after I had said what I meant to say.

‘Mayor Grimshaw,' I began. I knew he preferred ‘Your Worship', but was damned if I would worship him. ‘Have you consulted Recorder Thorneley about such a course of action?'

‘I have.'

Matthew Thorneley acted as the Corporation's chief legal officer. He was a scheming, self-serving ferret who, as Recorder, was mostly required to ride along in his master's coat pocket, and to scurry down rat-holes at Grimshaw's bidding. On the other hand – and this was the reason he was valuable to Grimshaw – he knew the law.

‘Then I am sure he has told you that for you, or any creditor, to blow open the door of a dead man's private vault before his estate has cleared probate would be illegal.'

Grimshaw snorted a mirthless laugh.

‘You do understand, Cragg, that I am not talking in any personal capacity? It is the great Corporation of this borough that is owed money. It is Preston, Sir! And Preston wants answers to three questions. Is Pimbo's business sound? What is in his strong room? And most important what has happened to its money?'

‘That is very well but, as you and the Recorder both know, the Corporation stands in relation to the deceased Mr Pimbo's estate just as any other individual creditor. Until the condition of the estate has been fully determined by the executors, nothing can be paid.'

‘The executors will surely need to inform themselves of what is in the strong room.'

He was of course right. If no key were found, some form of forced entry would be needed. But all in good time.

‘That might be months, even years away,' I said, then watched as a surge of fury empurpled Grimshaw's face.

‘Years? Have you taken leave of your senses, man? We do not have years. The Guild opens in thirteen weeks' time. I shall have these damned slow-footed executors brought before me and give them a kick in their arses. Who are they?'

‘They are two, of whom one is Pimbo's partner Mr Zadok Moon of Liverpool.'

‘Who has not seen fit to appear as yet. And the other? I'll have his guts if he doesn't get that vault open fast.'

I took a certain immodest pleasure in replying:

‘The other executor is myself, Mr Grimshaw.'

*   *   *

Having this power over Grimshaw was something to be relished, and the glow of it had me in silly spirits all evening, humming tunes about the house, joking for half an hour in the kitchen with Matty and being every way disinclined to return to those papers. Even by bedtime, I was still skittish, and tried to bring Elizabeth along with my mood. But she was again immersed in
Pamela
and hardly heard me as I lay beside her, embellishing certain details, which I had already told at supper, of my interview with the Mayor and how I had bested him and left him floundering.

‘You are very proud and triumphant tonight, Titus,' murmured Elizabeth, turning a page.

‘Yes, but the number of times that man has tried to do me down—'

‘And you do know what inevitably follows all attacks of pride? A nasty fall.'

‘A fall will be worth it!'

‘Just don't break your neck, Titus.'

‘Pride is not only or always bad, I think.'

She read on and, I suppose, half-listened to me as I began to describe the proud Ruth Peel, and what I had learned of the relations between herself and her employer.

‘She's a proud one all right,' I was saying. ‘You know you said last night that she was probably Pimbo's mistress? You had good reason to think so, as I agreed, but I now know that we were wrong.'

The grip of Mr Richardson's fiction began to loosen as the events of actual life exerted their spell on her.

‘Why were we wrong?' she asked.

‘Oh, he did try, you know – he pressed and he pressed, she told me, but she would not yield. I think it was actually her pride that saved her.'

‘Good heavens!' Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘It is like
Pamela
in reality. The master consumed by lust for the beautiful innocent servant girl, who clings ever more precariously to her virtue.'

‘Although Miss Peel is not a girl. She is the housekeeper.'

‘That is an important difference, Titus, I grant you. Tell me more. I want details.'

I looked into my wife's eyes. I loved them most when they were like this, bright with concentration and feeling.

‘What troubles me in this, dearest, is that in order to believe Pimbo did indeed want Miss Peel for himself, and also to believe in this virtuous pride of hers, we have to accommodate one difficulty.'

‘What is it?'

‘In every other way she is rather handsome, you see. But when I saw her yesterday she carried her left arm in a sling. On my asking why, she said she had suffered a burn, so I took Fidelis to her today, in case the arm required treatment. Of course I left the room for their consultation, but Fidelis's later description of the arm was extraordinary. Your mother described the arm as stunted: it is far worse than that. It is hideously deformed, even repulsive. It dangles useless from her shoulder. It's the reason for the sling, which she always wears in company.'

Elizabeth gave a little gasp.

‘Oh! The poor unfortunate! And otherwise good-looking, you say?'

‘In every other way, Ruth Peel is a positive beauty.'

Elizabeth was openly curious now. She closed
Pamela
and put it aside for the night.

‘So you are asking, could Pimbo really feel lust for her to that degree, knowing of her gross deformity?'

She turned to me and I took her in my arms.

‘He left her the orchard in his will,' I murmured into the hair covering her ear. ‘He bound her to celibacy. These are not the actions of indifference. But still, I wonder.'

Then I kissed her tenderly and for the time being we ceased to exchange any more words.

*   *   *

The next day was Sunday, which the town ideally gave up to religious observance in the morning, roast meat at midday – or a little after – and the continuance of sober, tract-reading domesticity until nightfall. In practice church attendance by all could not be enforced, meat for all could not be afforded and, as for sobriety at home, attempts to have Preston's more than thirty taverns and alehouses closed up on the Sabbath had always failed.

Not every Prestonian planning an evening of indulgence had to spend it in Preston, however: Luke Fidelis, for one, would take himself off quietly to Liverpool from time to time and this was one of those times. It was about half past ten in the morning that he called at Cheapside in full riding habit, with the bundle of Moon's letters to Pimbo in his hand.

‘I look forward to discussing them on my return,' he said, passing them over. ‘They are remarkably full of interest.'

I had a letter to give him that I had written myself. It was addressed to Zadok Moon at Pinchbeck's Coffee House, Liverpool.

‘It informs him of his appointment as co-executor with me of the estate of Phillip Pimbo,' I explained, ‘and asks him to communicate with me at his earliest convenience. I took the opportunity to enclose a summons requiring his presence at Pimbo's inquest. Will you be my post-rider, Luke?'

He took the letter and tucked it into a saddlebag. I said:

‘Give it to the keeper of Pinchbeck's Coffee House of Paradise Street. But keep an eye open for Zadok Moon yourself. He may actually be there when you call. You have read Moon's letters to Pimbo?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then you know about the scheme for a Guinea voyage, in which he and Moon were investors. Pimbo was the principal investor, it seems. I would like to know how the voyage has prospered. Moon writes of it as if it cannot fail. Will you find out more?'

Fidelis, having promised that he would try to do so, rode away.

*   *   *

I would have been glad to spend the afternoon in my library but after a week of relative cold the weather had begun to warm, and as Midsummer approached, it promised warmer still. So, anticipating complaints from neighbours in Fisher Gate, I decided to remove Pimbo's body, from where it was still lodged in his former business room, to a cooler and more remote place.

Hazelbury met me there with the key of the goldsmith's shop. He was disappointed that I had not yet flushed out the missing strong room key, and was concerned about the safety of the shop's stock.

‘There's a quantity of gold and silver items from the shop that I would prefer to put in the strong room. They are in a cupboard in his office for now, and have been protected by the body being in the same room. But after Mr Pimbo's body's gone to some other place, and with Midsummer so near, there's those that might take a drink, lose the fear that they had of the corpse and come for it. Where can I put it for safety?'

‘There is Oldswick's shop, he's got a strong press with an iron door. Go and ask him if he's got the space and will take the things that most concern you. They'll be safe enough with him.'

But Hazelbury had not finished.

‘There's another thing, Sir. Me and the lads had no wages Friday, and what about this coming week? What'll we do? We'd like to open up Monday and keep trading. We've met together – me, Michael and the lad – and we're all ready and willing.'

I shook my head.

‘No, Hazelbury. The business was Mr Pimbo's. You are his employees not his partners. You cannot continue business however much it is second nature to you. Trading must remain suspended until such time as there is a new owner.'

‘There's this Mr Moon, Sir. If he were a confidential partner in the shop—'

‘That would be different, but don't raise your hopes too high. I know Pimbo spoke of him as his partner, but he seems to have had little to do with Preston and I am confident the supposed partnership was about a different business altogether. I am actively looking for Moon, you may be sure of it, and soon as I find him we'll know the truth.'

Poor Hazelbury looked utterly crestfallen, and I imagined what his wife would have to say at the prospect of a second week's wages lost.

‘Cheer up, man,' I said. ‘You must have something put away. Don't tell me you have nothing under the floorboards!'

We were waiting for John Oatseed the coffin-maker with his cart, bringing a rough box from his stock to shift the corpse in. When he came at last we all three carried the box into the inner office, where Pimbo had died, and placed it beside his prone body. Oatseed removed the coffin lid.

The corpse lay on the floor, covered by a blanket which I removed. It was still clothed as before but the flesh, where I could see it, was grey and seemed damp as if – impossibly – it had been sweating.

‘I'll take the head end, Mr Oatseed, if you will take the feet,' I said, leaning forward to grasp beneath the late Pimbo's armpits.

*   *   *

Hazelbury left us but I walked all the way alongside the cart. With little traffic on a Sunday we covered the distance quickly – down Lune Lane, wheeling left into Friar Gate, and from there into Marsh Lane. As we passed Methuselah's house I saw the pale face of his granddaughter glancing out, and the movement of her hand as she crossed herself at the sight of the coffin.

A few hundred feet further along we turned into the House of Correction, a squarely built stone building formerly part of the living quarters of the Old Friary, amidst whose ruins it stood at the end of a rutted track. The building had served over the years as a Lazar House and hospital before being adapted to meet the present time's growing need for incarceration.

I had arranged with the Keeper, Arnold Limb, for the use of one of his cells, the coolest he could provide, in return for a fee I hoped would be allowed from civic funds. Limb had allotted me what he described as his ‘isolation cell', as it was in a small building separate from the other prisoner accommodation. He showed it to me and I told him this would suit my purposes very well.

‘Well this'll be one guest I shan't have to feed or water,' he said jovially.

‘Or find employment in the workshop,' I added. ‘But do ensure he will be locked up tight when we have finished, if you please, Mr Limb.'

‘I will indeed, Mr Cragg. I don't want him walking abroad, do I?'

Oatseed had, at my request, summoned the corpse-washers Mary Maitland and Dolly Chapman to attend us there. Mary and Dolly received eight pence for every corpse that passed through their hands. They were familiar figures to every house in town on this most dreaded business, and had seen every family at its most distressed. It made them women worth listening to and, after a few minutes' conversation with Limb outside, I went in to join them. They had already stripped off his clothes and packed them away in a linen sack.