She flushed with pleasure. “Mr. Quillby, I have been so earnestly impressed by your steadfastness towards your friend.”
“We have caught them in a lie,” he said. “Mr. Babbage must have known it for a falsehood. We must act on this directly.”
Miss Grimsborough looked down and drew a long breath. “Mr. Quillby, there is one other thing Mr. Thrash recalls.”
“What is it?”
“Within a month of the trial, another visitor called, respecting Mr. Kempe. Mr. Thrash knew him immediately.”
“Who was it?”
“The watchman, Mr. Thrash called him.” Miss Grimsborough hesitated, and her voice faltered altogether. “The Captain, my father.”
“Miss Grimsborough, I am not sure…”
“Be cautious, dear Mr. Quillby. Do not act in haste. If my father knows what we know, and has not made use of that knowledge, then we must respect his reasons.”
William released her hands. “Of course,” he said, though now a cold thread of suspicion and doubt was working within him again. “I shall consider all that we have done this afternoon as a confidence between us. I would do nothing to dishonour or question the Captain, but where the good name, the liberty, the life of my friend is concerned…”
“Your meaning is plain, sir. I must go back to Eldridge’s, for I left my maid there.”
He gave her his arm, and they passed out of the Cathedral close. There was a distance between them, and they spoke no further, until William returned her shoes and packages to her, bowed, and crossed the street. In the shadow of a shop door he paused to scribble a note in his battered pocket-book of all that had passed that afternoon. Miss Grimsborough came out of the shop opposite with her maid. She did not see William on his side of the busy street and passed quickly away up the hill.
MRS. WENRENDER had a house in one of the finest avenues in Haught, a stately old street that seemed to roar all day with the passing of bold horses and fine carriages. To Cassie’s dismay, there was no Mr. Wenrender, and there was open debate among the household as to whether there had ever been a Mr. Wenrender, for the great portrait of a frowning commercial and maritime gentleman that hung over the head of the staircase was, so the groom informed her, part of a house lot got in from an estate sale.
Splendid in the maturity of her beauty, by turns stately, witty, and warm, Mrs. Wenrender went round her business, and society heard her, and bowed before her and took her hand. As her maid, Cassie went with her, curtsied behind her, dressed, and attended her. She held that lady’s shawl indoors, and carried her fan and fetched her chocolate. Cassie was arrayed, as the maid of a notable lady, neatly and prettily, and if her attire was not nearly as costly nor as magnificent as her mistress’s, it did not lack for refinements.
Yet it is remarkable that, among Mrs. Wenrender’s acquaintances, there figured a great many young ladies of independent circumstances. These young ladies were, on the whole, proud and self-possessed, yet they dressed gaily and chattered brilliantly, when Mrs. Wenrender entertained. These entertainments (“my salon,” she called them) were attended by many of these women, many gentlemen, and yet very few wives and daughters. They had a sumptuous yet a brittle air, an aura of cold wit and flirtation.
Foremost among these independent young ladies was Miss Cozzens. Miss Cozzens was a favourite of Mrs. Wenrender’s and came at least once a week to take tea and play piquet (for she was fond of cards). Miss Cozzens was held by all to be a beauty. Certainly, she had a long white neck, a small, fine head, a pointed chin, an even nose, a pair of very bright eyes, blue—or sapphire, as she liked them described—and pale blonde hair. She plucked her long, mousy brows high on her forehead, which gave her a perpetually animated expression, even in moments of sly repose.
“She is a little coarse,” Miss Cozzens said, pettishly, to Mrs. Wenrender, when she first noticed Cassie.
“Miss Redruth is steady and suits my mood,” returned Mrs. Wenrender.
“Her features are rather heavy.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Wenrender, “that girl is, and will be, no rival of yours. And she is honest. She is attached, I am told, to a certain gentleman in the Bellstrom Gaol!”
“What is this gentleman’s name?”
“That she will not reveal! It is a confidence. But I am sure you will find it out.”
“My dear Barbara, what perfectly grotesque taste you have! She shall see us robbed and murdered in our beds.”
“Come here, Cassie,” said Mrs. Wenrender, with an easy smile. “Miss Cozzens fears that you will murder her while she sleeps.”
“Not at all, ma’am,” replied Cassie, not visibly perturbed by this charge. “If I were to murder Miss Cozzens, I should do it to her face.”
Miss Cozzens never frowned, but she pursed her mouth and blinked, while Mrs. Wenrender laughed.
On certain nights, Mrs. Wenrender would go calling herself, not to the great houses of Haught and Grey’s Garden, but down into the low town, along the river and in the shadow of The Steps. Here, she would stop at small, mean lodging houses, always run by dour old women with narrow, bitter mouths. These women would curtsey and call her ma’am, and while they spoke in the grubby, defiled parlours, by the guttering light of cheap candles, an assortment of gaudy, chattering women and girls would come and go.
“What is this place?” enquired Cassie of one rickety tenement where the stairs creaked and a bent old crone cackled and bowed before Mrs. Wenrender as though she were a countess.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Wenrender, unperturbed, “this is Mrs. Flagg’s, a boarding house for respectable young ladies in trade.”
“What trade is that?” said Cassie, pushing open the front door.
“Lacemakers and seamstresses, my dear,” replied Mrs. Wenrender.
“I was born but a mile from here,” said Cassie, as they passed outside. “I know their trade, and I won’t be made a fool of.”
Mrs. Wenrender did not pause. “Then you know what they sell in here. Their stock is common but exceedingly durable.”
MISS REDRUTH called on Mr. Bensey, and that gentleman, in consideration of his pupil, had lit a small fire in his rooms above the stationer’s store. Throughout the lesson, Mr. Bensey was as attentive and courteous as ever, but when they had concluded with a lively reading of a Gothic Romance that scattered innumerable supernatural mysteries, their talk shifted to other matters. Mr. Bensey, heating the kettle, showed a strange mixture of distraction, hesitation, and eagerness, until Cassie pressed him to reveal the matter.
“You know, Miss Redruth, that I have taken an interest in the affair of your prisoner.”
Cassie smiled. “You have been a strong ally to us.”
“You flatter me, but I hope I am. I have, over the last few months, visited the offices of Fladger, Crouch, and Strang, and have been on friendly terms with one or two of the senior clerks there for more years than I care to tell. These clerks are learned as any great jurist and quite unsurpassed in their acuity, and I have, as it may be, learnt a great deal concerning our case from them.”
“And what have you learnt?” said Cassie.
“In the first place,” Mr. Bensey began, sitting himself, “they quite dismissed any chance of appeal in the Grainger case, on the basis of new facts with which we are both acquainted.”
“But a witness, an important witness, lied as to his whereabouts at the time of the crime!”
Mr. Bensey shook his head and seemed quite lawyerly himself. “The case against the defendant is not altered, and the charge of perjury is not proven, since the witness is a gentleman of excellent character.”
“But,” said Cassie, taking up the case herself, “we can say, also, that the witnesses stood to gain by the death of the murdered man.”
Mr. Bensey shook his head again. “Many gain by a death that are not murderers. But,” he continued, in the same thoughtful vein, “I put the argument to my two learned friends that fraud and misappropriation were involved.”
“
What did they say to that?” demanded Cassie.
“They were intrigued, and the dusty old clerk’s office was quite silent. They asked me which fraud, and I told them, as Mr. Quillby suspected, it was the enclosure of Seddington Common.”
“Aye, and what then?”
“They burst into laughter,” said Mr. Bensey, abashed now. “They were in such high merriment that I thought they would scatter a half dozen briefs. The proceedings in the case of the hamlet of Seddington and the commons thereto are well known to them, for all the law clerks follow each others’ business. It was strange how those dry, dispassionate men so delighted in the intricacies of the deed that the fraud itself became an admirable and clever thing.”
Mr. Bensey paused and rubbed his face, for the kettle had boiled. While Cassie waited, he collected the tea set and set about their refreshments.
“Say,” began Mr. Bensey, wreathed in steam, “that Mr. Palliser had an interest by his uncle, or great-uncle, or some other distaff relation, in Seddington Commons, which was circumscribed by an entail. Say that this interest, as a matter of equity, was yet unresolved and subject to a moribund suit, buried in the court these untold years. Until, that is, documents came to light, documents hitherto unseen, that secured Mr. Palliser’s right to the land. Mr. Babbage’s office of Trounce and Babbage had the pleasure, then, of establishing before the court Mr. Palliser’s claim in law. Yet say that before his right is exposed, Mr. Palliser has already signed over his expectations, for a substantial fee, to a consortium.”
“What consortium?” asked Cassie, quite intrigued.
“Well, let us say that the House of Withnail (whoever they represent) engages with Mr. Massingham, and Mr. Harton, and Mr. Kempe—”
“Mr. Kempe?”
“Indeed—to purchase Mr. Palliser’s interest in the estate, and that once that interest is confirmed, the right naturally devolves to them. Thus, Seddington Commons is bought up. Parcels of land around the commons are bought up by the same consortium. The tenants are evicted. The village is no more. Many investors fall upon the shares in the property. A bubble is blown, and the bubble bursts. Seddington is left a wasteland, but it is held as a speculation, and what a mighty speculation it makes. For within a year the same land (now languishing) will be bought up again, at a great price, by the city corporation.”
“But who profits?” said Cassie, insistent now.
Mr. Bensey poured the tea. “The lawyers, the consortium, and his honour the mayor, who takes his bribes and his incentives and his gifts on every side, and liberally dispenses the rights of the city. Everyone else is left empty-handed.”
“And when Mr. Massingham died?” pressed Cassie.
Mr. Bensey set the teapot down and wiped his hands. “Mr. Massingham had no heirs; at any rate, all his interest in the speculation returned to the other partners in the consortium.”
The girl shook her head and drew her cup near. Mr. Bensey went to the fireplace and stoked up the few coals. “They are all guilty,” he murmured. “They all profit by it. The Withnail brothers control all the details of the partnership. If Mr. Massingham, through greed or ambition or folly, was an impediment to the deal, then they all profit by his murder, and all benefit in keeping the real cause silent. Pray, Miss Redruth, be careful.”
A draft threw sparks down the flue, and Mr. Bensey started back. He looked over to Cassie. The girl was silent, speculative and owlish in the faint light of the fire and the candles. Whatever sin or sinner she brooded on, she gave no sign, and Mr. Bensey did but read her thoughts hesitantly, and did not speak them even to his own heart.
MR. WILLIAM QUILLBY, determined to end his estrangement from good society, dined at Mr. Banebridge’s, and once the ladies had withdrawn, the gentlemen were left to regard each other across a wasteland of plate silver, from various sides of Banebridge’s massive black table. The Port wine was passed, and Quillby turned his attention to Mr. Fladger, the lawyer, who was sitting nearby.
“I have something in the way of a legal enquiry,” said William to Fladger, once the wine was poured.
Fladger smiled indulgently, as if to say that all men had their hobby-horses, and that sometimes these horses must be exercised. “By all means.”
“What is the position, legally speaking,” William opened, “if a fellow comes to understand that a gentleman, in court and under oath, has spoken an untruth?”
“How an untruth?” asked Fladger pleasantly.
“Let us specify that the gentleman is mistaken, and said that at one time he was in a certain place, when in fact, he was in another, and has confused the occasions.”
Mr. Kempe, who was nearby, seemed to find the wine too strong, for he put his glass down quickly.
Fladger surrendered his own glass, and steepled his fingers together. “Before the law, it is perjury. But whether the mistake is relevant, the bearing of the error on the evidence, whether the evidence was therefore tainted, and the bearing this had in the summation of the judge or the minds of the jury: all this must be weighed carefully before an appeal.”
“I see,” said William. “And in the moral and not the legal case, as bearing on the honour and truthfulness of a gentleman?” And here, for a reply, he looked not at the lawyer but at Kempe, who seemed to regard the exchange with some fascination.
“I should say,” Fladger continued serenely, “that where the honour of a gentleman is concerned, nothing but the complete truth will satisfy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fladger,” said William.
Kempe drained his glass then and ended with a gulp.
SOME WEEKS LATER, Quillby was at the Fenchurches’. Mrs. Devlin (Miss Pears no longer, these several years) was singing and playing in the drawing-room, and though the night was cool, the many candles in array had made the room quite hot, and William lingered near an open window to savour the draft. He was standing so, when he became aware of a presence at his elbow.
It was Kempe. His shoulders were hunched, his lips compressed, his hands held rigid by his sides; and yet, beneath this heavy and habitual restraint, there was some impulse to communication that startled Quillby into exclaiming under his breath: “What do you want!”
“I want to know, sir, what you mean.” The words were forced out between stiff lips.
“What do I mean?”
“By hounding me, sir. By pursuing me through all the drawing-rooms and dinning-rooms of Airenchester with these sly doubts and insinuations. It is intolerable. It is intolerable to the character of a gentleman.”
“I mean to know,” said William, turning slightly only so that he could look on Kempe, “what it is and who it is you concealed when you lied about your whereabouts on the day of the trial, and on occasions after that.”
“You dare put that charge to a gentleman!” hissed Kempe.
“I dare ask,” returned William, neither softening or recoiling, “what the truth is.”
Kempe stepped closer to the window and seemed half-inclined to claw his way out by it, but that William shadowed his steps. Mrs. Devlin was still singing brightly, and neither man had yet spoken above the softest tone.
“Very well,” said Kempe. “If it will satisfy you: it is a matter of honour.”
“Whose honour?”
“Still not satisfied,” whispered Kempe. He closed his eyes once and opened them. “It is true that I did not tell the truth about my whereabouts on that fatal evening. I did so because I was with a lady, and it was my duty, as a gentleman, to protect her honour and my own. I was with that lady that night. The next evening, I was at Thrash’s. I wished to preserve her name and keep it free of the taint of the courts. I was constrained, therefore, in consideration of our positions, to alter the details yet not the substance of my evidence.”
Kempe fell silent and did not look up. Mrs. Devlin had finished, and the murmur of conversation, of chairs being shifted, of cards being dealt, was all that was heard.
“What lady?” said William.
“I do not follow yo
u.”
“What was the lady’s name?”
“You would interrogate her, as you presume to interrogate me?”
“If need be. I will treat this with all discretion, but I have grown averse to evasions and half-truths.”
Kempe stretched his collar and drew a breath of cooler air. “Her name is Cozzens, Miss Arabella Cozzens.”
Someone had called Miss Grimsborough to the pianoforte, and William stood aside. When he looked back to Kempe again, he was leaning against the window sill. All his attention was on the night outside, and he took steady, rapid gulps of air, opening his mouth with each inhalation, like a hooked fish smothering among the nets at the bottom of the fisherman’s boat.
MIST AND RAIN held sovereignty over the Bellstrom Gaol. At this hour all struggle, all debauchery, all tumult was muted, and only the stealthy and the bold went abroad. The prison dozed and moaned and shivered in the dark, and the low mist penetrated the maze of corridors and cells and made them blind and secretive.
Mr. Tyre and Mr. Grainger had spoken long in Mr. Tyre’s cell, at the far, quiet end of the wing. The raven sat between the bars of the cell, sometimes sleeping, sometimes stirring, and muttering in cryptic fragments. Mr. Tyre’s little fire had all but smothered; the cheap tallow candles had all but drowned; the brandy bottle was all but dry, when Grainger turned to his purpose.
“I have,” said Grainger, “carried this particular thing with me for a long time, looking for one who may recognise it and know either its maker or its master.” He leaned towards Mr. Tyre and showed him, in his cupped palm, the broken seal.
Mr. Tyre tilted his head. “How came you by that ill-made thing?”
“The particulars do not matter. Do you know it?”
“I mean no offence,” said Mr. Tyre, “but it is merely a lump of wax with three claws marks in it.”
“You attribute no particular significance to it?”
“None at all. Why, sir, do you ask me this?”
“It is something Mr. Ravenscraigh suggested.”
Mr. Tyre looked down at his leatherwork. “Mr. Ravenscraigh is a fine gentleman. A proper and correct gentleman. He has been here longer than even I have. He has his reasons, I suppose. Mr. Ravenscraigh is very deep and a thorough observer of all that passes within these walls.”
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