Foxe and the Path into Darkness

by William Savage

  Charlie was overjoyed with the idea and Foxe promised to set the alterations in motion as soon as he could.

  Later that day, Henry returned and was able to tell him that the parson of St George’s had agreed to do as Foxe asked without any need for threats to be issued. Daisy would be buried the next day with the full burial service and a grave in the main part of the churchyard.

  ‘You should’ve seen ‘is eyes light up at the sight of those guineas, master!’ Henry said, laughing. ‘I reckon for five guineas he’d ‘ave given the little mite a funeral fit for a grand lady. For ten, he’d have arranged a buryin’ suitable for a duchess! Money talks, master, and it talks real loud if there’s enough of it.’

  21

  Next morning, Foxe was summoned again to the stable where he found a wildly excited Betty Furniss, eager to tell him how her team of searchers had already located the person they thought he was looking for. Her name was Mrs Susannah Matthews, and she was a young widow who ran a small glassware shop near the middle of Pottergate. Careful enquiries and eavesdropping had revealed that it had previously been the property of her grandmother but the old lady had died just over two months ago, leaving the business to Mrs Matthews. As instructed, none of the children had gone to the shop itself or sought to lay eyes on the woman in person.

  ‘They say as it looks to be a real nice shop, Mr Foxe,’ Betty added. ‘There’s glasses and bits o’ china an’ the like in the window. The kind o’ stuff wealthy people might buy, like. I’d love to work in a shop like that, ‘honest I would. I’d even learn to speak proper again.’

  ‘Tell your friends amongst the street children they’ve done extremely well,’ Foxe said.

  ‘But I ain’t finished yet,’ Betty protested. ‘There’s more.’

  The children, it seemed, had been told of another woman in the area. One who had worked as a maid to Mrs Matthews’s grandmother and then stayed on when her granddaughter took over the business and the living quarters above it. Stayed on, that was, until quite recently, when she had been abruptly dismissed. Since then, she has been living with her elderly mother in a run-down property off Duck Lane, about two hundred yards away. She’d also been telling everyone that the person to blame for her dismissal was “that evil man” who had supposedly been courting Mrs Matthews and was now living in her rooms over the shop.

  Foxe handed out praise and pennies in lavish measure and told Betty to make sure one or two of the children stayed nearby to keep an eye on events. He would need time to plan what to do next. Should he approach Mrs Matthews directly or start by trying to talk with the former maid?

  ‘I clean forgot to tell you, Mr Foxe,’ Betty said as she was leaving. ‘The maid’s name is Ann Weston. When you’re ready, I’ll tell one of the children to lead you to where she’s livin’. It’s not a nice place. It’s full o’ buildings what’s more’n half ruins with a street covered with foul mud and refuse. A poor area, you see, where folks scratch a livin’ doing whatever they can. Don’t go there on your own or dressed too fancy. If you do, you’ll most likely be knocked down and robbed.’

  ‘I’ve been to parts of this city that are as bad as that before, Betty, and I know how to take care of myself. Still, when I go, make sure I have a goodly number of your boys to escort me. I must go alone or I fear this Ann Weston will never let me speak to her.’

  For the moment, however, Foxe went on his usual walk, visiting the coffeehouse and exchanging small talk with Captain Brock and several of the other regulars. The next step he had to take was too vital for him to rush into it without sufficient consideration and planning. He thought of going to see Lucy again—when did he not think of her? In the end, though, he wrote to her instead and sent Henry round with his letter. Lucy would have little experience of dealing with people at the lowest level of society and he didn’t want her to worry about his safety.

  All that afternoon and evening Foxe mulled over the various options. Finally, he settled on what seemed to him to be the best one. He would go to see Ann Weston first, hoping to be able to persuade her to tell him how and when he might find Mrs Matthews on her own. He’d begin by asking her to suggest somewhere they might go for a private talk without making the woman feel threatened by the suggestion. If that didn’t work, he would need to find a different approach, but he’d worry about that later.

  He thought it best to go early in the morning when Ann Weston would be most likely to be at home and the area’s thieves and footpads would be still sleeping off the drink from the night before. He felt sure he would be quite safe, especially if he wore his most sober outfit, but he wanted above all to avoid the noise and fuss that would arise if anyone tried to attack him.

  The next morning, just before nine, Foxe arrived in Duck Lane with his escort of sturdy lads and was directed to one of the slightly less dilapidated houses. That, he was told, was where Ann Weston was currently living with her elderly mother.

  Foxe’s knock on the door was answered by a scrawny little woman, probably nearer in age to seventy than sixty, dressed in an incredible mixture of dirty and worn fabrics covered by a moth-eaten woollen shawl. This apparition squinted up at Foxe—she was barely five foot in height—and clearly decided she didn’t like the look of him.

  ‘What’s a swanky man like you doin’ knockin’ on my door?’ she demanded.

  ‘I would like to spend some time with your daughter, Ann,’ Foxe replied. The minute the words were out of his mouth he realised what she would think he meant.

  ‘Then you can take yourself off and find some other floozy,’ the old woman snapped. ‘We’re respectable folk, whatever you’ve heard others say. Ann may be strugglin’ after that bastard cost her her employment, but she ain’t yet reduced to sellin’ herself to the likes of you. Nor ever will be, if I can avoid it. Now bugger off and leave us be!’

  Sensing she was about to slam the door in his face Foxe quickly wedged it open with his foot, while trying desperately to think of what he could say to convince her she’d misunderstood him totally. Fortunately, he was saved from the risk of making matters worse rather than better by the appearance behind the now furious householder of a much younger woman. This one had an open homely face and, though she was rather poorly dressed, all of her clothes seemed to match, if only approximately. Foxe knew they must have been bought from one of the second-hand clothes stalls for, as the saying goes, “they fitted where they touched”.

  The fresh arrival stared at Foxe for a moment before letting out a startled kind of screech.

  ‘My Gawd!’ she cried. ‘It’s Mr Foxe!’ She elbowed her mother out of the way and pushed herself forward to get a better look. ‘Is it really you, Mr Foxe? The Mr Foxe, the bookseller what catches criminals in ‘is spare time? I can’t credit it. Mr Foxe come to our ‘ouse. I reckons I must be dreamin’.’

  ‘Whoever he be,’ her mother chimed in, ‘there ain’t no criminals ‘ere, so ‘e can be on ‘is way double quick.’

  ‘Shut yer mouth, ma!’ Ann Weston said. ‘You’ll be showin’ us up by your ignorance and bad temper. An’ stop keepin’ this great man on the doorstep. This ‘ouse may be poor an’ shabby, but there’s no need for us to forget our manners.’

  Since, at this point, she paused sufficiently to leave a gap in the torrent of words, Foxe was at last able to speak himself.

  ‘Yes, Miss Weston. I am indeed Ashmole Foxe. I’ve come to speak with you about your former employer, Mrs Matthews, and to ask for your help, if you are willing to give it.’

  ‘Miss Weston! ‘E called me Miss Weston,’ Ann cried out. ‘I ain’t never been called that before in the whole of my life! And ‘im a grand gentleman what ‘ob-nobs with all the important people in this city! Come in! Come in, Mr Foxe, afore I embarrasses you by faintin’ on me own doorstep. Get out o’ the way, ma! Make yourself useful by goin’ and brewin’ a cup o’ good tea. Not the leaves what ‘as been used before, mind. The best stuff. Will you take a dish of tea with us, sir?’

  ‘I will,’ Fo
xe said, ‘and be grateful for it. But I wish to speak with you in private, if I may.’

  ‘You ‘ear that, ma? Bring the tea in, then make yourself scarce. I’ll get the best tea dishes.’

  For the next eight or ten minutes, Ann Weston fussed around finding suitable dishes and rubbing them furiously on her apron to ‘clean’ them. The next minor crisis came when Foxe, tired of standing watching her work herself into a frenzy, bade her be seated and listen to what he wanted of her.

  ‘Sit down?’ she gasped in amazement. ‘You really want me to sit down? If I’d sat down in the presence of a gentleman when I was in service, I’d have been dismissed on the spot.’

  ‘Yes,’ Foxe said, ‘I really want you to sit down. I’m rather tired of standing and I can’t sit down until you do.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘No gentleman seats himself in the presence of a lady while she is still standing,’ Foxe said. ‘It is extremely impolite.’

  ‘But I’m no lady, Mr Foxe. Honest I’m not,’ Ann protested. ‘I’m just a poor woman of the type you must employ in your own household.’

  ‘So long as I am under your roof as a guest,’ Foxe said, ‘I will treat you as a lady, whatever your station in life. Now, please be seated and listen while I tell you why I’m here. Then I would like to ask you some questions about Mrs Matthews. Finally, I wish to seek your help in finding a way to speak with her too, in private, without frightening her or giving her the wrong impression.’

  By this point, Ann Weston was completely under Foxe’s spell and she would have done whatever he asked. She sat nervously, and clearly ill at ease, and promised to stay quiet and listen, still marvelling not only at his presence in her house but at his exquisite manners. For many years afterwards, that hour with him would remain bright and vivid in her mind as one of the high spots of her life.

  Foxe explained carefully that he was afraid Mrs Matthews had fallen under the influence of a callous and selfish man, who had used her for his own purposes and would abandon her as soon as those were achieved.

  ‘I knew ‘e was no good!’ Ann Weston cried. ‘I tried to tell ‘er so but she wouldn’t ‘ave it. It was that man—Robert Smith ‘e called ‘itself—who lost me my position. Told Susannah I was a thief. Took her to my room and found a bracelet he’d given her hidden in one of the drawers.’

  ‘Which he’d taken and put there for that purpose,’ Foxe said.

  ‘That’s right, that is. I ain’t no thief, Mr Foxe. You believes me, don’t you?’

  ‘I believe you,’ Foxe said. ‘That man is the thief. He has all of one lady’s jewels which he took from her and I’d like to get them back.’

  ‘E’s still there now, Mr Foxe. Sittin’ on his fat backside while she does all the work. A thief is ‘e? I knew ‘e was a wrong’un. Is that why you’re after him?’

  ‘It is,’ Foxe said sternly. ‘It’s high time he faced justice for what he’s done.’

  Little by little, Foxe teased out the whole story of Belton and Susannah Matthews from her. “Robert Smith” had come into the shop one day in early August and claimed to be overwhelmed by Susannah Matthews’s charm and beauty. Day after day he returned, bringing her small gifts and acting as if he was wooing her. After five days of this, she began to respond and he increased his efforts.

  ‘That’s another thing what’s odd about ‘im,’ Ann explained. ‘Most men want to get into a young woman’s bed as fast as they can but ‘e never even laid a hand on ‘er, let alone asked to sleep with ‘er. Accordin’ to what she told me, ‘e claimed all he wanted was to spend time with ‘er, talkin’ and that. ‘Twern’t natural, if you asks me. Even so, she wouldn’t see it. She lost ‘er sailor ‘husband in a terrible storm in February o’ this year, after they’d only bin married six months. Then ‘er old granny died, leavin’ ‘er all alone in the world. That Mr Smith’s gentle words was like soothin’ balm to ‘er wounded ‘eart, I reckon. I’m sure she would’ve let ‘im ‘ave ‘er, if ‘e ‘ad asked, but ‘e never did, at least while I was employed there.’

  The rest was easy to tell. “Smith” had visited often at first, then less so as August passed into September. Mrs Matthews had wept a little, thinking he had tired of her, then, in the middle of September, he had arrived late in the evening with a story that a gang of wicked criminals and thieves were after him for telling the magistrate what they were doing. He needed to hide for a week or so, he said, and pleaded with her to let him stay.

  ‘She’s always bin a soft touch,’ Ann said with irritation. ‘He spun ‘er some yarn and she let ‘im stay. For some reason, ‘e didn’t want me about, so ‘e cooked up that nonsense about me bein’ a thief.’

  He was afraid you might recognise him, Foxe thought to himself. After all, you recognised me, so I guess you know rather more about this city and its most prominent citizens than she does.

  ‘What does this man look like?’ Foxe asked. ‘I want to be certain it is the fellow I’m after.’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ Ann replied. ‘The bastard acted like ‘e didn’t want anyone to see ‘is face. Arrived with some kind of scarf wrapped around it and claimed ‘e ‘ad a sore throat. Kept it on all the time, ‘e did. I said to Susannah that was right suspicious, but she seemed to believe ‘im. Now look where that’s got ‘er.’

  ‘It sounds like the man,’ Foxe said. ‘He’s desperate to be able to hide until all the fuss dies down. It’s not just the theft of the jewellery, you see. We think he’s stolen a great deal of money as well. Several hundred pounds.’

  ‘Gor blimey!’ Ann screeched. ‘An’ to think ‘e ‘ad the brass neck to accuse me of thievin’ some poxy bracelet he probably bought for a few shillings at the market! Do you think ‘e’s likely to ‘urt Susannah?’

  ‘I hope not. But he did injure a man who tried to denounce him to the magistrate.’

  Foxe had already decided he didn’t want to use the word “murder” to avoid terrifying Ann and Mrs Matthews. Nor would he even hint at the true identity of the man currently hiding himself above that shop. It was enough that they thought he was a common thief. Knowing more would either tempt them to give their knowledge away or behave so oddly around Belton that he’d realise what was happening and make a run for it.

  Now came the most critical point. Would Ann Weston agree to take his message to Mrs Matthews and persuade her to do as Foxe wanted? Would Mrs Matthews even agree to talk with Ann if she was convinced the woman was a thief?

  He therefore began very cautiously, saying that he wanted to avoid any threats to Mrs Matthews when he arrested “Smith”. It was possible her strange lodger would try to use her as a hostage to secure his escape. What he had in mind, therefore, was to try to catch Smith unawares, using the fewest possible men to avoid alarming him. For that, he needed Mrs Matthews’s cooperation to let him enter the house silently and not raise the alarm if she heard him creeping about.

  ‘I really need to talk to her and explain the situation,’ he told Ann, ‘but I can’t see how to do it. Unless, like you, she recognised me, a strange man accosting her in the street would have her screaming for help in an instant. I can’t go to the shop either, for obvious reasons. The only way that seems possible is that you speak to her and explain that you’ve talked to me, that she’s unknowingly harbouring a known criminal and that raiding her house with a large group of constables would most likely put her in personal danger. Do you think you can do it?’

  ‘I can do it right enough,’ Ann replied, ‘but only if she’ll let me speak to ‘er. She thinks I stole from ‘er, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘What if you began by telling her I had come here to your house and told you exactly what’s going on and you want to warn her before it’s too late? I’m not going to let Smith escape. If I can’t do as I wish, I’ll surround the house with men and force him out.’

  ‘We used to be real close friends,’ Ann mused. ‘Not so much like employer an’ servant an’ more like companions together. I ‘elped ‘er
nurse ‘er old granny while she lay dyin’. Even served in the shop a good few times, though I didn’t like doin’ it. Too many stuck-up customers treatin’ me like dirt and showin’ off their knowledge of glassware an’ china on purpose to make me feel ignorant. Too many men who thought I’d fall over with me legs apart if they fed me a couple of kind words. Susannah Matthews owes me a lot, she does.’

  ‘So, you’ll do it?’

  ‘I’ll make ‘er listen to me if I ‘as to box ‘er ears until she does, Mr Foxe,’ Ann said hotly. ‘Now, what do you want ‘er to do? She’s bound to ask and I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Two things,’ Foxe said. ‘Most important of all, I want her to try to behave as normally as possible around Smith. It’s vital he doesn’t suspect anything’s wrong. The second thing is to give me a key to her front door. I’ll only use it to arrest Smith, tell her, and return it to her at once afterwards. If she agrees to do all this, you let me know as quickly as you can, and I’ll tell you exactly when I’m going to make the arrest.’

  ‘How will I let you know?’ Ann asked. ‘I can’t go wandering all over the city trying to find you.’

  ‘Do you know Mistress Tabby?’

  ‘The Wise Woman? Course I knows ‘er. Everyone round ‘ere does. She’s ‘elped more’n a few folk with ailments an’ problems ‘as Mistress Tabby. I knows ‘er and I knows where she lives an’ all.’

  ‘Speak with her and she’ll get a message to me,’ Foxe said. ‘I won’t come here again. I don’t want to risk people noticing and getting too curious.’

  ‘Most o’ them wouldn’t know who you are,’ Ann replied, smiling. ‘You’re one o’ those grand folks they got no cause to ‘ave any dealin’s with. Most of ‘em probably ain’t ever been further away from ‘ere than three or four streets. They’ll be like me old ma. Think you’ve come ‘ere to buy a bit o’ slap an’ tickle.’

  She almost added, ‘not that I’d turn you away if you ‘ad,’ then thought better of it. Fortunately, she was saved from further considerations of that nature by the arrival of the tea.