Death and the Chevalier

by Robin Blake

  ‘But what’s he like in himself?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s quick to anger, and it’s impossible to change his mind. If messengers from the rebels did come to the Hall, and fell into his hands, they might be in some serious difficulty.’

  SIX

  My father, who was Coroner before me, used to reflect that our office is only that of a humble tax collector. The job, after all, is to assess whether dues are owed to the Crown in cases that may or may not be murder, treasure trove, shipwreck and the like. If committed by one who happened to be wealthy, murder can be very lucrative indeed, since all the murderer’s worldly goods are forfeit – lands, properties, securities, beasts and valuables of all kinds – so a murder by one such as James Barrowclough is exactly what the First Lord of the Treasury likes to hear about. Ten thousand pounds poured straight into his coffers would finance a regiment of horse for a year.

  After my meeting with Lord Derby, and much enlightened by Furzey’s report, I was quite seized with the idea of Barrowclough as a guilty man in the two murders. The only questions I still faced were how to prove it and who else was in it with him. It was hard to see how one man could ever have done this alone.

  The inquest was to be held the next day so, if I were to go out to Barrowclough Hall and look into the matter, it would have to be done straight away. There being only four or five hours of daylight left, I immediately sent word to Lawson’s to saddle old Jones.

  At Jones’s tranquil pace it took more than an hour to reach Barrowclough Hall. Built in the time of the first King James, the house had hardly been altered in the years since, and its face of undressed stone with diamond-paned windows and nail-studded doors, the wings extending to the east and west of a low central tower, was somewhat forbidding. In the event, however, I did not get further than the pair of iron gates that faced the public road, through which could be seen a mature beech avenue a quarter of a mile long leading to the house. A pair of lodge cottages stood at each side of these gates, with columns of wispy smoke rising into the still air from their chimneys. They were exactly alike in the way that something is alike to its reflection in the mirror. I approached the door of the right-hand lodge and rapped on it.

  My knock was answered with a flurry of barking. Presently, the door was opened by an ill-shaven, elderly man wearing a greatcoat that hung open, showing a dirty undershirt and breeches.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said, with not a hint of welcome in his tone.

  The yapping mongrel got a cuff around the head, whimpered and fell silent.

  ‘To see your master.’

  Gloom filled the lodge behind him, and a fetid smell gusted out.

  ‘On what business?’

  ‘Coroner’s business. You may be aware that two bodies were found this week in or near the parish of Ribchester. I am Coroner Cragg and I would like a conversation on the subject with Mr Barrowclough.’

  The lodgekeeper raised his finger and pointed across the way to the opposite lodge.

  ‘I serve Sir John. If it’s Mr Barrowclough you’re wanting, apply over there.’

  He shut the door in my face.

  I crossed to the corresponding lodge on the other side of the gates and knocked there. The door was opened promptly by a younger man, a man of striking good looks – I put his age at thirty – dressed in clean livery and a simple house-cap. A black cat performed a figure of eight around his ankles.

  ‘I regret Mr James is not at home,’ he told me when I’d named myself and stated my business. ‘He’s gone to market at Clitheroe with the dairyman. One of the milk cows has died and they’ve gone to get a new one.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Abel Grant, sir. I have the honour of being Mr James’s personal valet.’

  ‘May I perhaps come inside? I find I am thirsty.’

  The valet stood hospitably aside, and I walked into a small lobby that opened on to an orderly parlour, its flags freshly swept and fireplace glowing warmly. Abel Grant went into an inner room and came out with a cup of ale, which he placed in my hands.

  ‘Of course we have heard about the murders at Ribchester, Mr Cragg.’

  Carefully, as servants do, he watched me drink.

  ‘It is not surprising that they are talked about everywhere,’ I said, lowering the cup. ‘I wonder if anyone hereabouts knows who the dead men were, and who may have killed them.’

  ‘Not that Mr Barrowclough’s heard, sir. Mr Barrowclough’s on the magistrates’ bench, so he’s forced to take an interest.’

  ‘You mean he’s investigated the matter?’

  ‘Mr Barrowclough is a gentleman. He does not investigate. He requires others to do so and to report their findings to him.’

  There was a commotion at the front door, and then it crashed open. A voice called out at a pitch a little louder than strictly necessary.

  ‘Abel! Are you there? Come out and see what a fine milker we’ve fetched from Clitheroe.’

  A man, who might have been close to forty, burst in, stopping short when he saw me.

  ‘By heaven, Abel! You have company.’

  ‘This is Mr Titus Cragg, sir,’ said Grant. ‘He is the County Coroner, looking into the murders at Ribchester. Mr Cragg, this is Mr James Barrowclough.’

  Barrowclough extended his hand and we shook.

  ‘How do, Cragg? You are a Prestonian, I believe. A disgraceful town given to riot and debauchery, it seems. I never go there. I suppose Grant has told you that we can tell you nothing about the matter of these murders. They came, and then they were gone, and it was the last we saw of them. I did not—’

  Abel Grant stepped forward and shot out an arm in warning between Barrowclough and me.

  ‘Mr Barrowclough, sir! I never mentioned that.’

  Putting my hand on Abel Grant’s arm, I gently pressed it down.

  ‘The two men,’ I said, ‘the murdered men – are you saying they were here, Mr Barrowclough? At your house? Mr Grant has told me you didn’t know who they were, yet you imply you saw them.’

  Barrowclough frowned. The momentary uncertain glance he flicked in the direction of his valet told me that they might be more than a master and his servant. It hinted at some sort of confederacy between them.

  ‘Well, what I meant to say was they may have been here.’

  ‘Abel here says you have taken an interest.’

  ‘I must, as a magistrate.’

  ‘Have you found out who they were?’

  ‘Who they were is of less interest to me than what their business was. They were not local men.’

  ‘Perhaps they were passing through, as wayfarers, you know, and were assaulted. Have you heard of any highwaymen active hereabouts?’

  ‘I doubt it was highwaymen.’

  That was a reasonable doubt. Highwaymen did not behead their victims.

  ‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘the inquest is at ten tomorrow morning. You are welcome to attend.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said.

  Hearing this, Abel Grant seemed agitated.

  ‘I wonder if that would be altogether wise of us, sir.’

  ‘I do not see why not,’ said Barrowclough.

  ‘Mr Grant,’ I said. ‘I would be obliged if you would attend also.’

  Grant seemed uncertain how to reply.

  ‘I do have the power to compel, you know,’ I added.

  He exchanged a glance with his master.

  ‘Well, er, yes, since you put it like that, I reckon so.’

  ‘Then I will have both your summonses sent here.’

  Grant walked me to the door of the cottage and held it open for me.

  As I mounted Jones, I could hear from inside the men’s voices raised in argument, but nothing of the subject at issue. I urged the old horse into a reluctant trot, and as we got going, I saw, a little way ahead of us, the dairyman proceeding along the muddy lane astride a bony mule. He was huddled in a greatcoat against the cold and wore a misshapen felt hat, its brim drooping wearily. Behind him,
on the end of a rope halter, ambled a brindled cow, her milk-bag blown up with milk. The dairyman clicked his tongue to encourage her along. It took even old Jones only a short time to catch them up.

  ‘How do?’ I said as we drew alongside. ‘That’s a half-decent milk cow you have there.’

  ‘This ’un’ll do. There was a better, but Master wouldn’t pay the price.’

  ‘Oh? Tight with his money, is he?’

  The fellow raised his head.

  ‘He’s careful with his money, Mister. But I say there’s such a thing as being too careful. I say a man must spend high for the honour of the herd. He’s got the money, has Mr Barrowclough, but his religion stops him. His religion is a hard religion. I don’t hold with it.’

  ‘They’re saying there were two Scotchmen seen hereabouts and they met with accidents leading to their deaths. Have you heard this?’

  ‘Aye, I’ve heard. But it were no accident.’

  ‘What happened, then?’

  ‘They knocked at the wrong door.’

  The dairyman’s laugh was somewhere between a wheeze and a run of hiccups.

  ‘Should’ve gone to t’other lodge, old Jos Wrightington’s door. Jos’d’ve told them Squire’s not at home and sent them safe on their way. He’s Sir John’s man, is Jos, see? But damn my onions, they tried their luck at Abel Grant’s door instead, and look where it fetched them? Abel Grant being Mr James’s man, if you follow.’

  His last three words came out of the side of his mouth, insinuatingly – if you follow.

  ‘So Sir John Barrowclough is away from home?’

  ‘He is that. In London, so they tell me, since last month. Parliament business. Them two Scotchmen might’ve had a welcome from him, but not his son. Not Mr James.’

  ‘Did you see anything of the two Scotchmen? Do you know anything of what happened to them?’

  The dairyman shook his head.

  ‘No. And those that do, why should they tell?’

  ‘You must have heard something. Tell me.’

  I had overplayed my hand. The dairyman gave me a shrewd look from under his hat brim.

  ‘Damned if I know anything, Mister Whoever-You-Are.’

  We had come abreast a muddy yard surrounded by low, untidily thatched buildings, from which I could hear the moaning and shuffling of cattle.

  ‘I’ll bid you good day,’ said the cowman. ‘I must get this one milked or she’ll burst.’

  Without another word he directed his mule through the gate with the cow in tow. I rode on.

  As Jones took me sedately home, I asked myself what I expected from the next day’s inquest. A solid verdict was my usual answer to this question – the cause of death and the naming of the responsible party, if there was one. When someone kills someone, it is normally murder, manslaughter or self-defence. Neither of the last two had ever in my experience concluded in a beheading, so I reckoned the appropriate finding must be murder, and strong hints received from the servant Abel Grant and the cowman were telling me James Barrowclough might know more about it than he’d told me. Yet he had agreed to attend the inquest. If he was complicit in the deaths, why would he poke his head above the parapet like that?

  In the evening before supper I put my head into the Turk’s Head. Luke Fidelis was there, in close discussion with Adam Clark and a couple of men dressed in the sober clothing of nonconformists. As I took a chair at a vacant table, one of these puritans wagged his finger at Clark and my friend, and I could hear fragments of the threatening biblical quotation one of them was deploying in the argument.

  ‘“So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spue thee out of my mouth.” So says Scripture, my brothers. So says the Good Lord.’

  Catching sight of me, Fidelis made no reply but detached himself and came over. We sat down together. I noticed the two men moving on to join a group of shopkeepers gathered at another table. They had a paper and were showing it to them.

  ‘They try to browbeat us with the Bible,’ Fidelis told me. ‘We must take sides, they say. We must all join this covenant against the rebels that is in circulation. I refuse, however. I am not sure this is my quarrel at all. Whether the King is from Italy or Germany is all the same to me. Did you learn anything from your visit to Barrowclough Hall?’

  ‘I never entered the hall proper. I reached no further than the lodge cottages.’

  ‘You saw Sir John?’

  ‘No. Sir John is in London. I met Mr James Barrowclough – I do not like him, by the way. He is supercilious.’

  ‘Apart from that, what did you learn?’

  ‘I heard rumour from one mouth, and hints from another, that the two Highlanders were indeed at Barrowclough Hall around the start of the week. It is possible that they did fall into the hands of James Barrowclough or his men. Barrowclough is a passionate opponent of the Pretender, so he may have had to do with their deaths.’

  ‘If the dead men were emissaries from the rebels, I can believe it. But we should ask, does that fit the facts as we know them, Titus? Pilling moved the body and the head that turned up at Simmy Nook. But why was it put there in the first place?’

  ‘Yes, and what about the other one that was found in the river? It would have been better simply to bury them somewhere and have nothing more said. And why were the heads matched with the wrong bodies?’

  ‘If the killers were in a hurry, the exchange of the heads was probably an accident – a muddle – and needn’t trouble the jury at your inquest. The key question remains: why were the bodies left where they would be found?’

  ‘I can only pursue the question at the inquest tomorrow. If James Barrowclough gives evidence, it will be interesting, that’s certain, though I wonder if he will show his face after all.’

  Now we heard a degree of commotion by the main door of the coffee house. A fellow had come in, his face red from running. Soon he was surrounded by other patrons and it was evident he had something important to say. But instead of telling it to all and sundry, he went to the proprietor Noah Plumtree and spoke into his ear. Plumtree nodded his head sagely, moved into the centre of the room and climbed ponderously on to a table.

  ‘Can I have a bit of hush, gentlemen!’ he intoned, and the hubbub drained away. ‘Jerome Plint here has come from the post office. There is news just come in and, I must tell you, it is grave news.’

  He paused, savouring the moment of suspense, until someone shouted out, ‘Tell us, then, Plumtree.’

  ‘Carlisle has surrendered,’ said our host. ‘The castle is taken by the rebels. Within days they will march south and all will be just as it was last time, in ’fifteen. Therefore it would seem we must all prepare for the worst.’

  I spent the evening in my library reading about war and power in Shakespeare, and when I shut the book, I decided to have a turn in my garden as the rain had now stopped. Reaching the far end, I heard the sound of a spade turning earth on the other side of the wall that divided my house from that of Lionel Burroughs. As midnight digging is one of the most suspicious activities a person can be doing, I determined to see what I could see. We had a stone seat beside the wall and on this I stood so that I could peer over.

  The digging was being done by lamplight, and the digger was Lionel Burroughs himself. He was in his shirt and had completed a hole three or four feet deep. I could hear him panting and muttering curses to himself as he worked. This was unaccustomed toil for a man of his standing. Burroughs was a cabinet maker but he was well-to-do enough by this date to have delegated all work of the hands, let alone of the muscles, to his men at the Burroughs workshops.

  ‘Lionel,’ I called out. ‘What are you doing digging your garden at this strange hour?’

  We were never close to the family but had usually kept cordial relations. On this night Lionel, who was always inclined to bluster, answered me with no cordiality at all.

  ‘The devil, sir! You gave me a start. What do you mean by prying? I am going about my own business in my own propert
y and you are spying me. Get down from there and mind your business!’

  ‘I mean no harm, Lionel,’ I said. ‘I am relieved to see it is you with the spade, and not a villain intent on making away with your box hedge.’

  Burroughs did not find this funny. He shook his finger at me.

  ‘These are dangerous days. I have already sent Emmy and the girls into the country. I would advise you to mind your business, Cragg, instead of mine. Those who don’t take precautions will pay a price, I warn you.’

  Later, when I told Elizabeth of all this, she laughed.

  ‘So he has sent his women to safety, Titus, and is burying his treasure. Should you not do the same?’

  ‘Where would you like to go, my love?’

  ‘In the country? Last time we went there, well …’

  In the summer of the previous year we had spent an eventful few weeks in a primitive village in east Lancashire.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Sometimes it is better not to act too impulsively. Fear is the devil for driving rashly. We shall stay put for the moment.’

  ‘Yes. It would be a pity to miss all the fun.’

  ‘If there’s a battle, it won’t be fun.’

  ‘There may never be a battle. We must wait and see.’

  SEVEN

  The inquest at Ribchester convened at ten o’clock, with a panel of jurors half made up of gruff countrymen from the farms thereabouts, and half from among the little town’s population of qualified men, owning a dwelling or patch of yard valued at five pounds or more. No such qualification was required of the audience, who were men and women in every condition of life, from well-to-do to ragged, and not a few of their children.