Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

  Miller helped him hire a couple of trustworthy men to keep watch over what was left until a fire sale could be arranged, then an hour later brought him fresh news of the inquest. The constable looked uncomfortable. ‘The coroner already seems to have decided it was an accident,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  Miller gestured over towards St Paul’s. ‘Bit too much murder in the neighbourhood. Any more and they think trade will be getting nervous. They’ve got a lad for that crime though.’ He bent down, picking up some twisted piece of metal, fallen through from upstairs, then not sure what to do with it, placed it carefully on the counter.

  The cashbox should have been just behind there. When she closed on Saturday evening, Eliza would have removed the takings and locked them in her bureau upstairs, leaving only coppers behind her in the cashbox. Penny would know that. Did she kill Eliza, to steal the money from the bureau? But if she did that, why had the cashbox disappeared? And if her object had been the few coins in the cashbox, why had she not just taken them and walked out of the shop?

  ‘I’ve been tasked with gathering the jury for the coroner,’ Miller went on. ‘Three o’clock this afternoon at the Black Swan. Took a little shuffling, but there it is. I’m thinking of gathering Mr Scudder in as foreman.’

  Francis concentrated. ‘Scudder, the butcher? Why would he listen to me? He always seems to clutch his cleaver a little more closely when I pass by.’

  Miller shrugged. ‘We are in need of some miserable suspicious old bastard on that jury, and he will listen to you. Mrs Smith was one of the few mortals on earth could ever get a smile out of him and more than that, I’ve never seen the bugger back away from a fight for the sake of a quiet life.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Miller.’

  The constable touched his fingers to his forehead then stamped out of the shop again. Churchill’s clerk appeared to be sorting through the stock calmly enough. Francis braced himself and climbed the stairs. If any of Eliza’s personal possessions had escaped the fire, they must be collected and taken to Hinckley’s so her brother George could see them there.

  The private quarters were largely destroyed. The prints and paintings had all been eaten up by smoke and flame, the dainty items of porcelain smashed, her own private library fit for nothing but the waste merchant. He could close his eyes and remake it as it had been the previous afternoon, then he opened them again to devastation. There was nothing but the ruins of a life here now.

  He could see the remains of the couch behind which she’d lain. The mess of wood, tile and board which had fallen on her poor body had been half-cleared in order to remove her and was still sodden with the water pumped up to douse the flames. It reflected the light of the spring sun. He stood in the doorway for a moment, wishing he had died there too. Her bureau, he saw, was still against the wall nearest to him, scorched beyond saving but protected to a degree by a beam which had come down from the roof and into the space where her usual armchair had sat. He edged towards it, testing each step and his shoes cracking the debris as he hung onto the wall. The top drawer was locked. He looked about him. The chisel-like handle which fitted into the screw of the plate press had fallen just behind him on the far side of the beam. He crouched down and reached for it, hissing with pain as he leaned on his left hand and stretched out. His fingers brushed its cold metal tip and he pulled it towards him, then stood and used it to force the lock on the drawer. He could probably have broken it with a sharp tug. It gave easily. He placed the handle on the floor again and pulled open the drawer to reveal Eliza’s account books, damp but whole, and a soft leather wallet. He noticed it was marked with her father’s initials. Inside were four Rose Guineas, and two half-sovereigns along with handfuls of crowns, florins and shillings. So her takings were there quite correctly. He tipped the coins back into the bag, placed it in his pocket and lifted out the account books to take downstairs.

  The other drawers contained her private and business correspondence; the catalogues of her competitors; and the lowest drawer held a number of manuscripts. Each was bound into a parcel and had a note in her own handwriting on the front. Each note was a carefully phrased rejection and they were all dated on Saturday. He sighed. Churchill’s clerk could take them to the parcel post. How like Eliza it was, to leave things in such order, though she could never persuade her hair to stay in its pins, while Francis, always so neat and clean, had a back office filled with towering piles of the hopes of numberless authors. He wiped his eyes. He must return to the shop soon and speak to Eustache Thornleigh. He would take the account books to see what, if anything, Eliza owed, and ask Churchill’s clerk to gather up whatever other small treasures the bureau had saved.

  He was about to make his cautious way back to the door when he saw a pale wooden case, its surface scarred but the fastening still apparently secure, lying on the floor by the bureau. He opened it. A set of engraving tools. He remembered them. She had insisted that even with the trouble and responsibility of her own printsellers to run, she would still use her skills as an engraver from time to time, and when she didn’t she would have the tools of her trade on display so she might look at them and take a little pride in the fact that it was her skill with them that had allowed her to buy and stock her own shop.

  It was strange. She had always kept the case open on the bureau. Given the destruction in the room, its survival was a minor miracle. It should have been thrown down when the roof gave way and the contents scattered. The tools were all there, her initials burned neatly into the underside of each mushroom-shaped wooden handle. Perhaps he would buy them from George himself and give them to Walter. It would offer him some ease, knowing her tools were still being used. Beloved tools were living things, and they carried some part of their users with them for ever after. And she had loved these tools. The lozenge or square ends of each well-tempered steel shaft were carefully sharpened on their cutting edges. The shafts themselves were pristine, polished. Apart from one. Only by looking closely could he see the spots and smears on the metal. He lifted the graver out of its velvet cradle and ran the shaft gently through the folds of his white handkerchief. It left a stain of dark red behind it.

  III.7

  HARRIET HAD THE BIT between her teeth, Crowther noted. There was always a peculiar sort of animation about her person when she set her mind on a problem. Her movements became quicker, and there was a brightness in them. He watched her as they drove in the direction of the Jamaica Coffee House. She stared out of the window and chewed her lip. Crowther had not realised how far Rachel had got with her matchmaking plans. The letter he had had from the young woman had amused him, but there was also a lurch of fear as he read the name Babington. Babington was not a bad man. Not uncultured. Not unhandsome. Crowther was not inclined to be introspective, but he did know that he was a man of very few pleasures and most of them would be lost if Mrs Westerman married. Their easy relationship would be stopped and fouled by a husband.

  ‘What are you thinking on, Crowther? You look quite mournful.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘I feel my examination of Mr Trimnell’s body has not left us with any fresh avenue of enquiry. This disappoints me. And the washing and redressing of the body were not helpful.’

  ‘A point you have made forcefully and frequently.’ The carriage drew to a halt while she was speaking and Philip opened the door for them.

  The Jamaica Coffee House was a modest building in a modest side street, yet more men of wealth passed in and out of it each day than through those of some of the more exclusive clubs on The Mall. As Harriet entered, she expected the air to be sweet with sugar and rum.

  The room was not uncomfortably crowded, but already there were enough men in the room for the waiters to be moving quickly and much occupied. Several of the patrons turned to look at them and run their eyes over Harriet with a frown of suspicion. A well-dressed woman was an unusual sight in such a place. She returned the observation calmly enough. There were some obvious sailors among them of various r
anks. Others had the look of professional men. They leaned over the tables towards each other, their eyes bright with business.

  The owner, Mr Sanden, must have felt the tremor in the air, for he emerged from a side room almost the moment they had entered. He greeted them politely enough and led the way into his private sitting room before Harriet’s presence could disturb the customers any further. The talk started up again behind them, and they were swallowed into the place like stones into a pool.

  ‘So the boy is locked away,’ Sanden said with forced cheerfulness as soon as they were seated round his empty fireplace. ‘Poor Mr Trimnell. But I am delighted such a dangerous boy has been removed from the streets.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Harriet said, looking about her. It was a comfortable room, with the wooden panelling painted olive green, polished pewter on the dresser and thick red rugs on the floor. ‘Mr Sanden, we heard you had a disagreement with Mr Trimnell recently that ended with him being thrown out into the street.’

  Sanden’s tree-frog face went red at once. He pursed his lips and blew out his cheeks. He didn’t speak but began to push with his palms on the thighs of his breeches.

  ‘Mr Sanden?’ she repeated. ‘We understand he was ranting against the slave trade.’

  ‘Thief!’ he exploded at last. ‘Thief and a liar! There. Said it.’ He folded his arms and looked between them defiantly with his strange bulbous eyes.

  Crowther put his head to one side. ‘Mr Trimnell was a thief and a liar?’

  Harriet watched Sanden. He looked like a concerned frog, trying to puff himself up to intimidate an attacker. She had often observed that the best method to make a man talk was Crowther’s attentive silence. Very few could withstand the pressure.

  ‘He borrowed money from me, and a fair amount of it, when he first came back. Sent his poor wife to do it too. Lovely girl. Deserved better. She said there’d been a delay in getting the final payments from his estate. They had expenses.’

  ‘Did she come here?’ Crowther asked.

  Sanden shook his head. ‘Oh, no! She’s too fine a lady for this establishment.’ He touched a finger to his collar. ‘We happened to meet while walking in St James’s Park.’

  ‘Why did he not simply ask his father-in-law for money?’ Harriet said. She had not noticed when they first came into the room, but there were engravings of various botanical samples framed around the wall. Mr Sanden had a taste for the beautiful and exotic then.

  ‘Mr Sawbridge was already paying for the rooms in Cheapside, and much of his capital is sunk into this place. I was happy to oblige. Happy! But then!’ He began rubbing at his knees again and his face changed from red to almost purple.

  ‘Then what?’ Crowther prompted.

  ‘He came here and started preaching in my parlour against the trade, like you said. Against slavery itself. Here in my home and place of business!’

  ‘I can see that would be most irritating,’ Crowther said.

  Sanden jutted his head towards Crowther. ‘It was! I tell him to get out till I have my money back, and he denies ever having it. Liar! Thief! Then he puts a paper in my hand. I think it’s a banknote, but when I open it out …’ He sprang to his feet and attacked the top drawer of the dresser with various mutterings and cursing until he produced triumphantly a crumpled handbill. He thrust it at Crowther, almost tripping over the carpet in his eagerness and indignation. ‘Take a look at that!’

  Crowther glanced at it then passed it to Harriet. It was a sheet informing the citizens of London that their salvation was at hand, and all true Christians would be warmly received at prayer meetings and discussions under the guidance of a Mr Willoughby on Wednesday and Friday evenings at six above the Tavern in Red Lion Court. It was rather well done. An angel with a trumpet headed the page and the text was engraved, the paper thick. Harriet understood, however, it would be disappointing if you were expecting a banknote.

  Sanden flopped back onto his chair. ‘I had the waiter, Bounder, show him the door, and told him not to be too gentle about it. Aye, there was a cheer when he went out the door. People don’t come here to be called sinners. Slavery’s in the Bible!’

  Harriet put the handbill into her reticule. ‘Did you get the money back, Mr Sanden?’

  ‘What? Oh yes – after a manner of speaking. Sawbridge signed over a little of his share in this place to cover it.’ The man had grown calmer now. He spoke into his chest, his shoulders hunched. ‘Owes me money – and offers me a prayer sheet! You have no idea how I suffered to make my capital. Those years in the trade between here, Africa and the islands. God, the stench. I earned every penny – and he takes it and offers me only prayers in return.’

  Francis made a careful parcel of the tool and told Miller. The constable was both delighted by the find and horrified, and offered to keep it for him. Francis was glad he did. He did not know if he would be able to stop himself throwing it in the fire or the river. Free of it, he went first to his lodgings to clean the soot from his hands and brush off his clothes, then returned to the shop and went in search of Eustache. He found the boy in the small office behind the counter hunched over a manuscript and reading hard, his fists pressed to the side of his head. Francis pulled up a stool beside him.

  ‘Master Eustache, we need to speak about the book you stole.’ The boy looked suspiciously up at him through his long dark eyelashes.

  ‘You said if I worked hard, I might keep it.’

  ‘I did. And I shall not go back on my word, but I think we should speak about what is written in it of your own history.’

  Eustache turned back to the page in front of him. ‘I knew some of it anyway. Both my parents were evil and they died. Mama meant me to die in the fire. I am not surprised that no one likes me. I will probably be bad too. I wish she had just killed me.’

  ‘I like you,’ Francis said. The boy became still, attentive. ‘I think Joshua likes you too. Why should we not?’

  ‘I look like her,’ he said very quietly.

  ‘But you decide who you are going to be like, Eustache. No one else.’

  ‘The things she did … the things in the book. It’s all written down.’

  Francis put his head in his hands. ‘Eustache, I love books as you do, but they tell different truths. Do not think what you read is the whole truth about your father and mother, or about you.’ The boy looked so small, surrounded by those great towers of words, their weight. ‘When I was a little older than you I read Robinson Crusoe. It meant more to me than anything. Then, some years later, Mr James Smith, the father of the lady who was killed yesterday, gave me another book, called Oronooko. There was a black man in that book too, but he was not a slave like Friday. Oronooko was noble, and no slave. That book, and the kindness of the man who gave it to me, gave me hope. I decided the world was too complicated for one book to describe, and from that day on, I read everything I could find. I decided to be an educated man. I even taught myself some Latin in order to read more. It has been written in books that men born in Africa like me are savages, liars, half-men who cannot learn. My mother and father never saw a book, yet here I am making and selling them, a free man in London. Do you understand me, Eustache? I decided to be the man I am. I decided to believe that what people said or wrote about my heritage was not what made me!’

  ‘Yes, Mr Glass.’ Eustache was still staring at the page in front of him. Francis stood, weary to his bones and not knowing if he had helped or not. ‘Thank you.’ The boy said it so quietly he could hardly hear him. A need for Eliza ran through his body so intense and complete that he was surprised he did not fall to the ground. She would have known what to say to the boy, what kindness could cure.

  III.8

  THE RED LION TAVERN showed signs that it had been a prosperous place in times gone by: the taproom was wide and high, but the city workshops had crowded in around it and the filth on the windows was so thick one would have thought it close to dusk. The landlord himself was also filmed in grime. He had the features of a drinker, and
eyes set so far back in his head, he looked like a skull tightly wrapped and meanly padded. He gave the impression they were taking him from important business, though his only customers seemed to be half-a-dozen souls sunk into the places where the shadows were deepest. He admitted that he rented the upper parlour to a Mr Willoughby for his prayer meetings twice a week, but he could not, or would not, give them any indication of where that gentleman might be found at any other time.

  Harriet was preparing to ask the shadow patrons when a young woman bustled in with a basket over her arm. The atmosphere of the room lightened immediately, as if she had brought the spring in with her.

  Harriet asked the girl as she passed them if she knew where Willoughby lived. She nodded at once. ‘Little Sheep Lane, madam. I remember it because I thought it funny. Shepherd and his flock, if you understand me.’ Harriet smiled. ‘You won’t find him at home when it’s light’, the maid went on. ‘Best look for him along The Strand.’

  ‘Is there any place in particular he frequents?’ Crowther asked. ‘And can you describe him? I do not know the gentleman by sight.’

  The girl laughed and with such lightness and good humour Harriet thought she could not have been in London long. ‘Oh, you’ll have no trouble finding him, sir. He’ll be out there in the street preaching. Poor lamb! Most people only stop if they’ve something to throw at him for his trouble. State his coat is in sometimes when he comes in for his meetings would make you weep. As for his looks, well, he’s as thin as you, sir, and dressed in black, so I’d look for an image of your younger self with a religious turn and there he’ll be. Now if you’ll forgive me, I put a soup on before I went out, and if I don’t go and stir it quick, it’ll stick.’

  She turned to go, but Harriet put her hand on the girl’s sleeve. ‘Miss, did you ever see a gentleman called Trimnell at Mr Willoughby’s meetings?’