The Hidden Man (8 page)

With some excitement I slid it fully out. It contained a single sheet letter, folded and covered with writing. Hurriedly I slipped it in with the other papers, which I had decided to take away with me for further study. I had only time to notice that the hand was that of Pimbo himself.

*   *   *

Fidelis seemed to have put Ruth Peel more at her ease than I had yet seen her. They were talking together about trifles. The lady, still wearing her left arm in its leather sling, now sat in the second fireside armchair rather than the removed upright one on which she had perched during our previous day's conference. If this was indeed a sign that awkwardness had left them, I feared that I was about to reintroduce it.

I brought the upright chair from the wall and placed it in between the two of them, opposite the fire, but angled towards Ruth Peel. I sat down.

‘Miss Peel, I still have a few questions in the case of Mr Pimbo which I fear only you can help me with. Would you object if Dr Fidelis remained in the room while we discuss them? He is my trusted friend, but his advice as a medical man is also most valuable to me as Coroner.'

She inclined her head to say she had no objection.

‘Very well. Now, did Mr Pimbo talk to you about his business?'

‘No, never.'

‘Did you form any impression about how his business stood? Was it flourishing?'

‘He was always very bluff about it, very confident. That is all I can say.'

‘But from the contents of his desk it would seem that in the household accounts there were numerous unpaid bills – grocery, meat and the like. And at least one long-standing mason's debt.'

‘I know nothing about the mason. As for the household, I myself manage the weekly accounts, settling with what money I am given. Only when I could not pay some larger bill did I refer the tradesman to Mr Pimbo. They've let me know that he was lately a very bad payer, but I don't know any details. He did not let me into the privacy of his accounts.'

‘You say you were given money.'

‘To run the household weekly, yes.'

‘And it wasn't sufficient?'

‘It was adequate for the matters of day-to-day – when he gave it.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘There have been occasions recently when he has not given me the full amount. It should be ten shillings out of which come all wages, and all provisions. Some weeks lately he has only given me five shillings. One week it was as little as three and sixpence, which barely covers the servants' pay. Myself, I haven't had any surplus for myself for two months.'

‘Is that how he did it – let you keep any surplus from the ten shillings for your own wage?'

‘Yes – he said it encouraged thrift in me. It sufficed, so long as he gave me the full ten shillings.'

‘So would you say his failure to do that recently means that his business affairs have been running into difficulties?'

‘I couldn't say. As I told you, I really know nothing about Mr Pimbo's business.'

‘Did you know Mr Zadok Moon, Mr Pimbo's business associate? Did he visit this house?'

‘Yes. He was here, but only once to my knowledge. It was some time ago.'

‘Why did he come?'

She shrugged.

‘On business, I suppose. He went into Mr Pimbo's library and stayed a hour or two. Then he left.'

‘Can you describe him?'

‘A small dark-haired man, bearded, wearing riding habit and a wide-brimmed hat.'

‘That is all?'

‘I only saw him briefly, when I answered the door. It was after dark. Mr Pimbo came immediately, sent me to my quarters and brought Mr Moon inside himself.'

‘Would you know the man again?'

‘I am not sure that I would. I am sorry.'

‘Would you say Mr Pimbo had been in any way melancholy, low in spirits or unusually irritable in recent weeks?'

She shrugged and her mouth tightened.

‘I don't know. Perhaps.'

‘Peg happened to mention that he had been off his food?'

‘That's true. But he said he was poorly in the stomach.'

‘Were there any other symptoms of this? Was he in pain, for instance?'

‘I don't know. But let me say something. Mr Pimbo was a man whose habit was to talk big and bold – you understand?'

She was talking more urgently now, and patches of colour had spread on her upper neck and cheeks. She went on,

‘So even when I had suspicions about his not paying the full amount of the housekeeping, even when I heard from the tradesmen that he still owed them. Or
even
when he lost his appetite for food and said he was poorly, this big-talk, this – what d'you call it?'

‘Bombast?' I supplied.

She thumped her fist on the chair's arm.

‘Exactly! This
bombast
of his hardly diminished. He was going to be the great banker, the great merchant, the great man! So it was difficult, you see, to tell what more quiet feelings, if any, lay beneath.'

‘Thank you, Miss Peel. I understand what you are saying perfectly, but I do have a slight difficulty with it. When we met yesterday, as soon as I gave you the news that Mr Pimbo was dead, your first reaction was to ask if he had done away with himself. Why, if you couldn't tell his state of mind, did that of all questions drop first into your head? It suggests to me that you had been half expecting such news.'

For a long moment Miss Peel said nothing, but I noticed that the high colour of her complexion was still deepening.

‘I asked that for— I mean, I was prompted to ask it for another reason. A private reason. I must ask you to respect that privacy.'

‘I'm afraid it may be rather material to the inquest, Miss Peel. But let's put it aside for now. May I ask you instead about Mr Pimbo's will? I wonder if you know what's in it?'

‘His will? No, of course not! I know nothing about it.'

‘I can inform you of this because, as well as Coroner, I happen to be one of Mr Pimbo's executors. He has left you a legacy, Miss Peel.'

She started.

‘He has? What legacy?'

‘It is his four-acre orchard and his beehives. Do you have any idea why he picked that particular property for you?'

‘The orchard lies across the lane from here,' she said. ‘He knew that in my leisure time I like to walk in it and, if the weather's fine, sit there; and it was I who supervise the annual fruit and honey harvests. Those must be his reasons.'

‘That seems very likely. But I must add something more. Mr Pimbo attached a condition to the bequest and I'd like, if possible, to know his reason. He said you must forfeit the bequest should you ever marry.'

‘Oh!'

Her eyes widened in outright shock and her mouth dropped momentarily open before she covered it with her hand. She was looking directly into my eyes, a woman transfixed by surprise.

‘I don't know, Mr Cragg. I can't think. I'm … at a loss.'

‘Miss Peel, this is difficult but I am charged with finding the cause of Mr Pimbo's death. So I must ask. Was there any matter between you and Mr Pimbo that I should know about? Was there any understanding, perhaps?'

By now she had flushed a deep crimson, and was breathing deeply, but she continued to stare at me.

I prompted her.

‘Such testamentary conditions are not unknown. Sometimes a husband does not wish his wife to remarry out of jealousy or even – I am sorry to say – spite.'

‘Mr Pimbo and I were not secretly married, if that is what you suggest.'

‘No, I am wondering, were you engaged to be married?'

During the marked pause following my question I could see she was thinking, and suspected her of calculating how much to tell me of what she was thinking. I waited and slowly she composed herself. Her furious blush had largely faded, and her breath become more measured, when at last she decided to speak.

‘No, we were not engaged to be married. There was no understanding between us and nor was I … I mean, I was not dishonoured. But, but…'

‘Yes, Miss Peel?'

She turned her large black eyes full on mine once again.

‘He wanted to, Mr Cragg. He pressed me, pressed me
so
hard, that there came a time when I was afraid I would submit. Yet I did not. I did not!'

Her free hand was clenched now and she held her whole body in tension.

‘What did he say to you, when he was pressing you in that way? I mean, what was his tone? Wheedling? Threatening?'

She shook her head. The colour in her face and neck had completely drained away, and the complexion was again white as paper.

‘I don't know … I mean, I would deliberately distract myself, try not to listen. It is a jumble. I really cannot tell you any one thing in particular that he said to me.'

‘And when was all this? Recently?'

‘Last year.'

‘So he had more recently stopped pestering you?'

‘Some months ago, when he knew at last that he could not persuade me. After that he always treated me abruptly.'

‘And the condition in his will that you never marry: what do you make of that? Do you think it came from resentment that you would not, as you put it, submit?'

As our conversation proceeded I saw that she had begun to relax her posture, as she regained control over her feelings.

‘I don't know what his thoughts were. I could never comprehend him. So how, I ask you, could I love such a man? How could I debase myself with such a man?'

‘Would it have been debasement to marry him?'

‘Marriage, Sir, was not his prime object.'

‘I see. Yet he must have loved you, for all that.'

At this she rose from the chair and stepped past me towards the door. I went on, quickly, with my last remaining question.

‘Wasn't that the personal reason why you asked me yesterday if Mr Pimbo had done away with himself? That he loved you, and you couldn't love him back?'

She turned around and I could see that the young woman, who had so tremblingly heard the news of the conditional bequest, had now become again the imperious housekeeper of Cadley Place.

‘Loved me? I think not, Sir. A man like him does not
love
a woman such as me … as me – the way I am.'

Before I could say more she held up her good hand, its palm towards us.

‘Mr Cragg, doctor, if you please! I have tasks to complete.'

She gestured towards the rose stems lying on the table. Out of water the petals had already begun to lose their tone and crispness.

‘I am sure these must appear very trivial to professional men, but they are my duties, and I have to attend to them. Allow me to show you out.'

*   *   *

‘What do you make of her, Luke?' I said, when the door had closed and we were mounting our horses.

‘She is not easy to decipher,' he replied.

‘Certainly there's more to know about her and Pimbo – more than what she's told us.'

‘Yes, if she did not lie, she did speak selectively, I think. Would the mother help to fill in the gaps?'

‘She is half-crazy.'

‘Sometimes half-craziness has much to tell.'

‘I have met the old woman: nothing she says would be admissible in law.'

We rode through the gate marked ‘out' and started along the lane. I looked over the wall opposite the house into a well-planted apple grove, in full leaf, and with the unripe fruit hanging in clusters.

‘The orchard in question,' I said. ‘See the beehives?'

But Fidelis had already kicked his horse into a trot and was soon hacking on ahead of me. I did not catch up with him until we reached the brow of Town Moor, where he was resting his horse. The spot had a wide view of the roofs and smoking chimneys of Preston, though Fidelis was looking in a different direction, towards a lone ruined house visible away to our left, on the far side of the Moor and standing bleakly on raised ground: Peel Hall. It had been built in the time of Henry the Eighth, of brick and stone, with a tower and tall chimneys. Only the remains of these could still be seen, for the main house was now broken down and uninhabitable, though there was a cluster of usable out-buildings not far from it.

‘I wonder if she is from the family,' he said.

‘I doubt it. She is a stranger here. And how is her arm, by the way? You and she were getting along well while I was in Pimbo's study.'

‘She'd burnt herself on a hot lamp glass. The burn was not very well dressed and had suppurated slightly but in my judgement it is already recovering so I covered it with a soothing honey-balm and redressed it. But to tell the truth, the burn is not what is really wrong with the arm; it is not the reason why she carries it in a sling – which she only does in the company of strangers.'

‘What
is
the matter with it then?'

‘The limb is deformed, Titus. It is, I confess, somewhat disconcerting to look at.'

‘In what way?'

‘In its distortion, stiffness and uselessness. The skin is mottled, with the overall colours associated with a thorough bruising. The elbow and wrist don't flex, and the fingers are curled into a rigid fist. The whole limb, while it is sensitive to touch and to pain, cannot move of itself, but only swing uselessly from the shoulder.'

I was filled with a mixture of horror and compassion.

‘What an unfortunate young woman! How did this happen to her?'

‘She was born with it. But let us not dwell upon the matter.'

My friend swung around and gestured towards a mean hovel with an untidy straw roof which stood at another point on the edge of the Moor.

‘I shall leave you here and call on Adam Thorn, as I am passing. I shall see if there's any progress in him, but also I want to make sure his wife has been to the church warden for poor relief.'

So we parted, and I made my way back to town, my thoughts filled with the melancholy fate of Ruth Peel, a woman with such beauty marred from birth.