by Alis Hawkins
Turned out I’d underestimated Harry. And Gus Gelyot, too, come to that. Letters’d obviously gone to and fro between the two of them where they’d talked about me. Letters Harry must’ve asked Mrs Griffiths to read. Which was just as well because, when it came down to it, I wasn’t sure I would’ve wanted to read whatever Gus Gelyot had to say about me. It’s like my mother always used to say, eavesdroppers never hear good things of themselves.
‘So,’ Mr Gelyot said, after the butler had left us, ‘I gather you’re Glanteifi’s under-steward now?’
‘I am.’
He waved at a brightly-upholstered chair and I sat down, remembering to pull the knees of my trousers up so they didn’t bag. Baggy knees are for working men, not gents, and the maids at Glanteifi wouldn’t thank me for making it more difficult than it already was to keep my clothes looking smart.
‘And set to be a solicitor into the bargain?’
I smiled nervously at his use of the word. A bargain was what it was. I was taking a risk on Harry and Glanteifi and he was trying to make sure that I wouldn’t lose by it.
‘What brings you to the capital? The note I got from Harry this morning was nicely vague – just said you were coming up on coroner’s business and he’d be obliged if I offered whatever assistance seemed necessary.’
It took longer than I would’ve guessed to tell him all about the case. He didn’t say much, just asked the kind of questions you’d expect from a barrister and let me get on with it.
‘Well,’ he said, when I’d finished. ‘That’s quite the tale.’ He was looking at me as if I was a witness in the dock. A witness whose story he only half-believed. ‘And what’s your opinion, Mr Davies? Why do you think this schoolteacher was done to death?’
I shifted in my seat. Not that it was uncomfortable – far from it. It was the way Mr Gelyot was looking at me that was making me feel uneasy. Perhaps I’d got too used to Harry not being able to look at me at all. To tell the truth, what I thought was that the inquest hadn’t been handled properly. But I wasn’t going to tell Gus Gelyot that.
He was still looking at me, waiting. And I knew, from our previous meeting, that he was a man who didn’t try and smooth over what he thought for the sake of politeness.
‘I don’t think we got to the bottom of who might’ve killed Rowland,’ I told him. ‘Not by a long shot. We probably should have postponed the inquest until after the public meeting. It’s difficult to run an inquest and an election at the same time.’
He sighed. ‘Yes. The election. How’s Harry faring? I don’t imagine having to bow to this agent suits him at all?’
I grinned. It was odd talking to somebody who knew Harry even better than I did. ‘Not especially, no.’
He gave a little smile and crossed one leg over the other. Gus Gelyot was one of those tall, slender men who look as if the main point of them is to wear expensive clothes. The poised way he sat showed the perfect cut of his waistcoat, the way his dove-grey jacket lay flat and trim over it. He was wearing one of those fashionable starched collars and a gold-coloured necktie that would have raised eyebrows anywhere west of Merthyr Tydfil. At home, neckwear was white if you were old-fashioned and black if you were up-to-the-minute. Bright colours were for women. Or flowers.
‘Is he going to win, do you think?’
I shifted again. If anybody’d been watching us, I’d have seemed like a fidgety schoolboy compared to Mr Gelyot. Composed, that was the word for him. In both senses.
‘If you were a betting man, I’d advise you not to put your shirt on him,’ I said.
‘Should’ve nobbled this Caldicot when he had the chance, shouldn’t he?’ He laughed. ‘Don’t look so shocked, Mr Davies. I’m only joking. Even in London it’s not done to implicate one’s rival in a murder investigation.’
He stood up and tugged his waistcoat down a whole eighth of an inch. ‘Time for some refreshment, I think, before dinner.’ He pulled at a length of fabric that dangled next to the gilt-framed mirror over the fireplace and a footman appeared. Evidently, they didn’t have hall-boys in London. ‘Could you bring us two cobblers, please, Timothy?’
Right then. A cobbler must be London slang for some kind of drink. I just hoped it wasn’t brandy.
Gus Gelyot wandered over to the long window that looked out on the well-swept street below and the trees and grass of a little park opposite. ‘What will Harry do if he doesn’t win the election?’
I’d been giving that some thought, myself.
‘Before the magistrates asked him to stand in for Leighton Bowen, he was thinking of becoming a solicitor,’ I said. ‘We could set up in practice together.’
If we could run Glanteifi while doing the coroner’s job between us, I was damn sure we could run a solicitor’s practice.
‘What, and have him even more at loggerheads with the magistrates? D’you really think that’s a good idea?’
His question made me feel like a girl who’s been hugging some stupid, romantic dream. He was right, Harry’d never be able to stick to wills and land agreements. He’d be interfering in cases brought before the bench and getting in the way of the police before anybody knew what was happening.
‘What would you suggest?’ I asked.
‘Since you ask, I’d suggest he tried a bit harder not to lose the election. And you can tell him that from me.’ He turned and gave me a grin that said, But we both know what Harry’s like, don’t we?
‘Maybe, if I can find something while I’m here – something to re-open the inquest – that’d help. And there’s Mr Rowland’s collegiate school. If people think Harry’s doing what he can to make sure that still gets established, I think they might vote for him.’
‘Yes.’ Gus Gelyot drew the word out until it had three syllables, not one.
‘What?’
He looked away, picked up a glass ornament and stared at it. ‘Has Harry given you any indication of what you might find in Holywell Street?’
Before I could reply, the footman came in carrying a silver tray with two glasses on it. Not ordinary glasses with a stem – tall beakers filled with a brown drink with what looked like ice floating in it. Slices of orange cut across the round were wedged into the tops of the glasses and there were long, slender sticks poking up out of the liquid.
‘Here.’ Gus Gelyot took the glasses off the tray and handed one to me. ‘Try this.’
He took hold of the stick in his glass and, instead of stirring the drink, put it in his mouth. It was a reed made of paper.
I sucked up a sip of the liquid. It was only sherry. Sweetened and with orange in it, but sherry. Why anybody’d take it into their head to name it after a shoe-mender, I couldn’t tell you. But then, that was rich people for you, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t know real life if it hit them over the head with a pin-hammer.
Gus Gelyot was watching me, waiting for my verdict. I nodded. ‘Very pleasant.’
He laughed. ‘You’ll go far, Mr Davies. You’ve got more savoir-faire than Harry’s ever had. He could learn a lot from you.’
Harry
Minnever already having left to confront Caldicot by the time I rose in the morning, I breakfasted with Lydia then made my way, obediently alone, to the middle of town where the stage from which we were to give our speeches stood in front of Cardigan’s grammar school.
The previous day, while chatting to ladies in shops, Lydia had learned that there had been considerable debate as to where our public election meeting should be held. The borough magistrates had favoured the Corn Market at Shire Hall lest it should rain, while the businessmen of the town preferred somewhere in the open where a bigger crowd might gather. The likely weather notwithstanding, the latter view had prevailed.
Though it was an hour and more before the public meeting was due to begin, a decent crowd had already gathered, determined, no doubt, to be in the front row when the entertainment started. The Carmarthen Journal had described Caldicot’s criticism of me on the platform at Tregaron in unremitting deta
il and people had undoubtedly come to Cardigan expecting more of the same.
The day seemed set to remain fine with the sky an almost cloudless blue and the breeze from the estuary light and warm. I walked towards the blue- and red-decked platform (Minnever had clearly learned his lesson where ribbons were concerned) searching my peripheral vision for the agent’s short figure and bald pate. Could he still be with Caldicot? It seemed unlikely: ultimata are apt to cut conversations short.
If Minnever persuaded my rival to withdraw from the contest, this morning’s public meeting would be rendered redundant, but I did not need an agent to tell me that I would be well advised, opposed or not, to make a speech. Giving the people of Cardigan a reason to grumble against me before I was officially confirmed as coroner would be unwise.
I looked about but Minnever’s tall hat was not to be seen. Still, it did not matter whether he was here yet or not, did it? The likelihood was that the contest was over and that I would speak unopposed.
And yet, I felt an unease building inexplicably at the back of my mind.
Seeking distraction, I turned away from the crowd. Behind the stage, the grammar school’s windows glinted in the early sun and I imagined the scholars, bent industriously over their lessons. Would they be allowed out to watch the meeting? Their master might find it difficult to keep them at their studies if the crowd was as voluble as the one in Tregaron had been.
Minutes ticked by, still Minnever did not appear, and I devoutly wished that John were with me. Without him, I could not tell whether I was the object of avid scrutiny or collective indifference. Feeling the gathering crowd’s eyes on me, I tried to reassure myself that nobody was, in fact, staring. Given that Minnever had not paraded me around the streets of Cardigan in the way that he had insisted on at Tregaron, I must surely have been a stranger to these people.
‘It’s a different crowd, here,’ Minnever had told me the previous day, when I made a joke about his failure to drag me to every inn and alehouse in the town. ‘The people we really need to talk to will be at the dinner this evening.’
He had organised the dinner in question ‘to build some bridges’ as he had put it, and the invitees had included a number of the town’s businessmen as well as every single one of Cardigan’s borough magistrates. Quite how he had persuaded them all to a Liberal-sponsored dinner on the night before the hustings, when the Tories must also have been angling for a meeting with their candidate, I had no idea; but, after my experience with the ladies of the Olive Leaf Circle, the pressure I had felt to overcome the feelings of isolation my blindness provoked and present myself in a way Minnever would approve of had resulted in a manner so resolutely hail-fellow-well-met that I had heartily detested myself. The sooner the election was over and I could distance myself from the dishonesty of politics, the better.
However, participating in an evening of vacuous insincerity was scarcely the only cause I had for self-reproach, nor even the most pressing one. For days, I had allowed Minnever to whore me through the streets of Tregaron mouthing platitudes and insincerities to everybody I met; and, as a consequence, I had conducted Rowland’s inquest so badly that a man I believed to be innocent was awaiting trial for murder. Not only that but, at that very moment, my election agent was seeking out Montague Caldicot to present him with unsubstantiated gossip, for the express purpose of forcing him to withdraw his candidacy for the coronership.
How had I allowed myself to behave so entirely unlike the man I believed myself to be?
Needing to escape as much from my own thoughts as from the crowd’s unseen eyes, I turned and would have made for the safety of the Black Lion once more had I not heard my name being called.
I turned. Minnever. His bald head was hatless and he was unmistakeable.
‘Have you seen Caldicot anywhere?’ He sounded agitated.
‘What? No!’ My voice felt tight in my throat. I swallowed and tried again. ‘Why? What’s going on? Did he say something about me when you met?’
‘We didn’t meet. I’ve just seen one of the Tory committee. According to him, Caldicot hasn’t been seen since yesterday. He was supposed to have dinner with the Tory committee last night but he didn’t turn up. Nobody knows where he is.’
John
After breakfast, I’d expected Mr Gelyot to tell me where I could get a hansom cab to take me to Holywell Street but he surprised me. Said he’d walk me there.
‘I’ll show you a bit of London on the way. There’s no better way to see this city than on foot.’ He looked sideways at me. ‘Don’t tell Harry I said that. He likes to dismiss me as a lazy Londoner who thinks the only use for his legs is to get into a carriage.’ I laughed. I could hear Harry saying that. ‘But it’s a lovely morning – it’d be a shame to spend it in a smelly hansom.’
We set off in hazy sunshine. I wasn’t really sure whether the haze was cloud, or smoke from the city’s chimneys, but at least it wasn’t raining.
We’d not had time to talk much more the evening before. Mr Gelyot senior had arrived with Mrs Gelyot while we were drinking our cobblers, and dinner had been taken up with talk of all sorts of things other than our inquest.
Now, as we strode along, dodging on and off the pavement, in and out of the muck of the road, Gus Gelyot said, ‘You provided an excellent summary of the inquest, yesterday, but I didn’t get much of an impression of the victim. What kind of a man was your Mr Rowland?’
I looked sideways at him, wondering why he wanted to know, but his face gave nothing away. ‘A radical – certainly as far as education was concerned. Somebody who’d moved up in the world a bit – when he was in London, at any rate. Why d’you ask?’
‘Just wondering what kind of literature we’re likely to find waiting for us.’
There was something behind his words but I was prevented from asking because we’d reached a wide crossroads and I had to pay attention to make sure I wasn’t run over by a large carriage pulled by three horses. Through the window, I could see eight or ten ordinary people – not gentry – sitting on benches inside.
Mr Gelyot must’ve seen my face. ‘That’s a horse-bus. Or omnibus, I should say. More expensive than walking but a lot cheaper than a hackney.’
And the ‘bus’ wasn’t the only sight to be seen – there was something new and different on every side. I did my best to stop my head going this way and that as if it was on a swivel; I might not be dressed in London fashion but I didn’t have to behave as if I was just up from the country.
Most of the time, Mr Gelyot left me alone to take it all in. The huge, impressive buildings of three, four, five storeys. The carriages jammed up against each other, here and there, like branches in floodwater after a storm. The street sellers shouting their wares – everything from coffee and muffins to pies and eels. The different fashions of rich and poor. Those in the middle trying to pretend they were nearer rich than poor. But, now and then, he’d name the street we were on or tell me something. ‘That’s Regent Street, which tells you when all those classical-looking buildings went up,’ or, ‘This is Oxford Street. It’s supposed to be a Roman road – straight enough, don’t you think?’
I looked behind me. Mr Gelyot was right – you could see half a mile in either direction which was a real rarity in London. Odd to think of the Romans building this and Miss Gwatkyn’s Roman road in a time when London and Cardiganshire weren’t in England and Wales, just Brittania. Britain. The land of the Mabinogi.
‘This way!’
I dodged around a huge pile of horseshit and scurried after Mr Gelyot down a road at right angles to Oxford Street.
‘This’ll take us to Drury Lane and then we can cut through to where you need to be.’
Drury Lane was a lot less respectable-looking than Oxford Street so I wasn’t surprised when Mr Gelyot pointed out a boxy modern building on the other side of the road with an ugly kind of porch supported on square columns. ‘That’s the theatre where all the real actors perform. None of your suspect musical entertainmen
t there. Drury Lane theatricals are almost members of respectable society.’
I glanced at his face. I didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell whether he was joking or serious so I just gave him a half-smile that’d do for either and carried on walking.
Whatever else you might say about London, you couldn’t say it was all the same. Adjoining streets were as different from each other as a field of barley and a stand of gorse. But everybody seemed to know where they should be. You didn’t see well-dressed people in the dark, narrow, little streets and any poor people on the bigger, wider roads kept out of the way of their betters. Apart from the urchins – they darted about like ragged magpies, swooping on things that’d been dropped, and shoving their hands out with a ‘spare a ha’penny, gov’nor?’ to any well-dressed person who looked in their direction.
So it was a surprise when Mr Gelyot stopped at the junction with a street which seemed to be mostly full of the middling class of folk, and announced, ‘This is Wych Street. I’d advise you to keep a hand on your watch and your wallet. The place is full of pickpockets who’ll relieve you of either without you knowing they’ve gone.’
My watch was actually Harry’s, and if I lost my wallet I’d be stuck for a way of getting home, so I took both out and put them in my bag. Safe.
Wych Street was narrow but, even if it’d been wide enough, it wasn’t the sort of street where carriages’d go. The shops on either side were small and mean and their wares were spilling out on to the street from almost every door. Half of them seemed to be selling second-hand clothes and, from the smell, some of them hadn’t been brushed or washed before going on sale. Coats with frayed cuffs and collars, trousers with shiny seats, shirts worn thin and boiled till they were almost white again, shoes and boots polished up to hide the wear and the cracks – all under the eye of shopkeepers with folded arms and hard eyes who watched people picking over what was there. Looking into one shop, I caught the eye of a rough-looking man standing outside.
