The Duke's Agent

by Rebecca Jenkins

  Jarrett found the innkeeper putting the finishing touches to his post list, the mailbags in a heap on the counter beside him.

  ‘I have a letter for York.’

  The innkeeper looked up from his lists. ‘The mail’s near due and my bags are all done up, sir,’ he objected.

  ‘It is urgent,’ insisted Jarrett. He felt in his pocket and drew out a coin.

  The innkeeper looked him up and down. ‘You look a mite rough, sir.’

  ‘No matter,’ Jarrett brushed his concern aside. ‘A misadventure on the road. This letter?’

  The innkeeper cocked his head to look out the window and down the empty road. ‘Well, I reckon we can squeeze another in. For York, you say?’

  ‘Yes. For the Marquess of Earewith to await collection at the Red Lion.’

  ‘For the Marquess, is it?’ The postmaster perked up at the name. ‘Well, now, why didn’t you say so before – always a pleasure to oblige a lordship.’ The innkeeper’s shrewd countryman’s eyes noted the stiffness with which his customer moved. ‘Trouble on the road, you say?’

  ‘Two ruffians attacked me on the way from Woolbridge. After my purse, I dare say, but I saw them off,’ replied Jarrett briefly. ‘Do you have a pen, ink and sealing wax?’

  ‘You was attacked? Well, sir, that is too bad. We don’t get much of that sort of trouble round here. That’s bad news, that is.’

  ‘There is a postscript I must add before the mail comes,’ prompted Jarrett, urgency giving his words a pronounced edge. He tried to add a conciliatory smile. ‘I would be most grateful.’

  With a slight sigh at the difficulty of serving the gentry the innkeeper went off to fetch the necessary items.

  Jarrett broke open his letter, dashed off a hurried postscript about the attack and his misgivings and resealed it while the innkeeper carefully added the new arrival to the way-bill. The man was just refastening the York mailbag when the sounds of a coach horn were heard in the distance and everyone hurried out to watch the arrival of the mail.

  The fresh horses stood prepared under the charge of ostlers. Directly opposite the inn’s main entrance, the two leaders fretted, ready harnessed and coupled together. Another blast of the horn and the mail appeared bearing down the straight moor road in the grand style at full gallop. With nice judgement the coachman reined back his horses to bring them to a halt, the red body of his coach settling precisely between the two fresh wheelers lined up on the road. The ostlers leapt up to unthread the buckles and unhitch the four foam-flecked horses. The guard, in his fine scarlet jacket, sprang down from his box, the pedlars surged forward to clamour for the passengers’ custom and the innkeeper pressed through the scrum to exchange his bags for the down mail. The George prided itself on performing the Change in less than the five minutes prescribed by the Post Office.

  Above the confusion, the coachman sat in a heap on his box, his shape and aspect reminiscent of a comfortable and competent toad. He wore a squat beaver hat with a rakish curl to its brim, and his overflowing chins were supported by a silk handkerchief printed with bilious spots on a chocolate ground. Despite the heat of the day he wore a light overcoat thrown open sufficiently to hint at the several layers of miscellaneous coats underneath. He tied up the reins and stowed his whip in a stately fashion, while the passenger who had won the privilege of sitting by him eagerly wrestled to unbuckle the lead reins.

  The guard was a well-made young fellow with curly black hair. He consulted the clock he carried in a sealed case slung over his shoulder.

  ‘You’re twelve minutes late,’ said the innkeeper, as he checked the timepiece and filled in the guard’s way-bill.

  ‘Aye,’ replied the guard, ‘an affair held us up at the last stage. There’s been a murder up on the moor.’

  The crowd picked up the sound of the word. ‘Murder? What murder?’ ‘There’s been murder done?’ The guard looked up to the highest authority present. The coachman prepared to come down from his box.

  Despite his formidable bulk the coachman proved surprisingly light on his feet. He descended rapidly from his perch, neatly shifting his feet in turn from footboard to step, to hub, to ground, in one smooth flowing action. He had the timing of the natural-born showman. He paused, gazing mournfully at the crowd, before he spoke.

  ‘Crofter’s boy come down from moor all covered with blood,’ he announced with relish. ‘On Stainmoor, it happened. He’s but a speck of a lad but he’d run all the way. A murdering blackguard done in his da. A great tall fellow, a sailor.’

  ‘What would a sailor be doing so far inland?’ questioned Jarrett.

  The coachman turned to look at the interrupter of his tale. Seeing it was a gentleman, he deigned to explain. ‘The boy said his hair were braided up with a tail behind. Dick and me, we told ’em it sounded to be such as sailors wear. Dick has a brother in the navy – that right, Dick?’ The guard nodded in studious agreement. ‘Justice in Brough told us to hand these about,’ continued the coachman, drawing some roughly printed handbills out and handing them to the innkeeper. ‘And I took it upon myself to agree. The Post Office may set great store by its timetables, I told him, but His Majesty’s Mail is honoured to be a purveyor of Justice’s fearsome Wrath.’

  Jarrett looked at the handbill being passed around the crowd. It was headed in bold type.

  TWENTY POUNDS REWARD – HORRID MURDER!!

  Whereas the dwelling house of Ruben Gates, Crofter of Stainmoor, was entered the morning of this Sunday last between the hours of four and six by a person unknown who did most foully murder the said Ruben Gates.

  A tall man, thought to be pock-marked about the face, wearing a blue frock coat torn at the left shoulder seam and having yellow hair, braided and worn in a queue behind, such as is the custom of sailors, was seen bending over the body of the murdered man by his lad who was woken from his sleep.

  The Churchwardens, Overseers and Trustees of the Parish of St Clements, Brough, do hereby offer a Reward of TWENTY POUNDS, for the Discovery and Apprehension of the Person, or Persons, who committed such Murder, to be paid on Conviction.

  The bill was signed by the vestry clerk and dated that morning, Monday, 29th July, 1811.

  ‘Murder!’ exclaimed the innkeeper. ‘Why, this gentleman was just set upon on his way here from Woolbridge!’ In his excitement he grabbed Jarrett’s arm, causing him to wince as he stumbled on to his bad leg. ‘See – they hurt him, though he fought them off. Might have been the same crew as fled down from the moor.’

  ‘But there were two who attacked me, and neither fitted the description given here,’ objected Jarrett, none too pleased at the attention he was receiving from the crowd.

  ‘Well,’ said the coachman, his rubicund features managing to convey the impression that he suspected more than he was saying, ‘in your servant’s humble opinion the gentleman ought to report the event to the magistrate – and maybe he could give him a copy of this notice, too.’

  With these words of advice the coachman reascended to his high seat. He ceremoniously drained the cup of ale offered up for his refreshment, returned it with a stately nod of thanks and collected up his whip. The guard leapt on to his box and blew a fine loud sequence on his horn. With a lightning flash, the coachman cracked the thong of his whip above his leaders’ heads. The horses sprang forward in their collars. The pole chains rattled as they took the strain. The black varnished wheels began to roll and the mail was off again.

  The crowd spread out as the mailcoach disappeared, reviewing and exclaiming over the news in knots.

  ‘Will you see the magistrate, sir?’ the innkeeper asked the gentleman who stood gazing off down the road. Jarrett turned to give him a surprisingly charming smile. He regretted being short with the man who had, after all, done his best to oblige him. ‘Yes, I think I will. Can you direct me? I am new to these parts.’

  Flattered, the innkeeper gave the question his serious consideration. ‘We’re blessed with three justices in this district, sir. There’s Colon
el Ison – he’s Chairman of the Bench and Member of Parliament, sir. A much respected gentleman, lives half an hour down the road towards York.’ The innkeeper checked himself as he pointed in the general direction and shook his head. ‘But there’s no use going to him because he’s in London at present. No. Then there’s the Reverend Prattman at Woolbridge. Likely you’ve met him, sir?’ Jarrett murmured something about having shaken hands with the reverend gentleman that Sunday at church. ‘Very likely,’ the innkeeper responded comfortably and resumed his contemplation of the problem. ‘The Reverend Prattman, however, is not best to be relied upon, being too Christian a gentleman and a scholar to be very handy in such matters. No,’ he concluded decisively, ‘to my mind, sir, you should visit Justice Raistrick. A professional man, sir. An attorney at law and best suited to murder – failing the Colonel. You’ll find him at his chambers in the Horsemarket in Woolbridge.’

  *

  Justice Raistrick’s chambers were easily found. They were located in a narrow house standing in the broadest part of the main street of Woolbridge where the horse markets were held on fair days. The outside was unremarkable. A small plate to the right of the door read: Q. A. Raistrick, Attorney at Law and Justice of the Peace. Beyond the doorway shadows graduated down a narrow passage that splayed out into an open space at the bottom of a staircase. Justice Raistrick was clearly a busy man. There were several working men waiting about the stairhead and Jarrett had the impression there were more in the gloom beyond. He was not sure whether it was his mood, aggravated by the pain in his leg, but he sensed antagonism. The eyes glinting in the shadowed features seemed to watch him with more than casual interest. As he limped up the staircase, two men jostled him. They had the grimy pallor and dress of miners. They took no notice of Jarrett or of their own incivility. He paused to watch them stride out down the passage.

  The stairs issued into an antechamber dominated by the imposing oak door that guarded the Justice’s chamber. A desk was set at the mouth of the room. The chair behind the desk was at present unoccupied, but before it stood a slight man dressed in black in the fashion of legal clerks. The apparel did not particularly suit him. The black stockings and breeches emphasised the stick-like appearance of his legs and the silver buckles on his shoes drew attention to the considerable size of his feet. The most striking aspect of the clerk’s face was the unusually smooth texture of his skin and its waxy, uniform colour. It gave him an oddly fairy cast, an impression reinforced by the impersonality of his eyes. The clerk was in conversation with a woman whose whole appearance spoke of weariness. She had fine bones but her natural advantages were dulled by fatigue. She stood before the clerk submissively, allowing his monologue to flow over her. Other supplicants waited. A farmer stood by his wife. She was speaking to him in a low voice full of suppressed indignation. Jarrett caught a few hissed words.

  ‘You just tell him this time,’ she said. ‘If you don’t, I will.’

  The farmer looked about him in a hang-dog sort of way, trying to evade his wife’s intensity, twisting his hat in his big hands. Beside them perched a thin, white-faced lad with huge dark eyes. The boy held himself bolt upright, watching everything in the room. The boy’s posture alerted Jarrett to some underlying tension. The walls were too thick to allow words to penetrate but there was a voice raised in an adjacent room, querulous, bold and slurred by drink.

  The clerk cut short his speech and dismissed the woman to a chair by the wall. Jarrett stepped forward to claim his attention, but the man looked straight past him and slipped through a door set in an alcove to the left. He closed it sharply behind him but not before a barbarian roar demanded: ‘Where is he?’ There was a muttered response, then another presence entered the room by an internal door. The newcomer spoke evenly, a sense of authority pervading the sound. A harsh noise of some heavy object knocking against another and all of a sudden the drunken bluster subsided. A door closed, then all was quiet. There must be a back staircase, Jarrett thought.

  The clerk reappeared, his face a mask. Picking up a paper that had dropped to the floor, he darted to a high writing desk by the far wall where a menial was copying documents. Lifting his eyebrows a little at this behaviour, Jarrett folded his arms and waited. It was quite possible the man might have ignored him longer but that he was forced to return to his desk and there Jarrett firmly waylaid him.

  ‘My name is Jarrett,’ he announced. ‘I represent His Grace the Duke of Penrith.’ For a brief instant he thought his name startled the man, but the impression in the veiled eyes was fleeting. ‘I wish to discuss two matters with the Justice – one of which is an attack on my person. If Mr Raistrick is in, perhaps you will be so good as to announce me?’

  The clerk’s attitude was odd. Jarrett was not normally a man who stood on ceremony, but in most circumstances connection with His Grace the Duke commanded respect. Yet instead of hurrying to announce him the clerk responded with an abrupt question. ‘You wish to swear information against robbers?’ he asked.

  Jarrett had been raised by a woman who taught that a true gentleman had no need to respond to boorishness with anger, so he continued, ‘I have also just come from the George. The Carlisle mail brought this handbill from the Justice at Brough. He begged that his fellow Justices should be apprised of it.’

  The clerk took the handbill and scanned it without expression.

  ‘Murder, I believe, is a crime a Keeper of His Majesty’s Peace would wish to be informed of,’ Jarrett prompted dryly.

  The waiting supplicants heard him. The farmer looked across and the weary woman’s lips mouthed the word, ‘Murder?’

  ‘A crofter was murdered on Stainmoor Sunday morning,’ Jarrett explained. ‘His boy was witness to it.’

  A rustle of sympathy ran through the waiting clients. The farmer’s wife exclaimed over ‘the poor bairn’. The clerk, however, simply looked a trifle annoyed at the fuss. ‘I shall apprise the Justice,’ he said coldly, keeping hold of the handbill. ‘If you will wait a moment – sir,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.

  As he entered Justice Raistrick’s chamber a few minutes later Jarrett was struck by the notion that his host had set a scene for him. The Justice stood by the fire filling a long, slender white clay pipe. A powerful bear of a man, not many years older than Jarrett. The animal impression was reinforced by the noticeable odour of the room. The Justice, apparently, was not much given to soap and water. He bent deliberately to the flames, lighting a taper which he then put to his pipe.

  The pause gave Jarrett time to appreciate the full force of his host’s presence. He was not an unusually tall man, though broad-shouldered in a way that suggested great physical strength. His face suited his body. It was made up of bold planes, the lower portion shadowed by stubble. He had stringy hair of an indeterminate brown, worn long and swept back over his ears. Perhaps the most surprising feature of his face was a large nose of classical cut which struck a note of civilisation at odds with his square bruiser’s chin and sensual mouth.

  Mr Raistrick saw his tobacco well lit before he offered to shake hands with his visitor. His powerful energy communicated itself through his grip. To Jarrett it seemed that the ritual gesture served as much as a trial of strength as a greeting.

  ‘You arrived in town this Saturday last, Mr Jarrett, did you not?’ The resonant voice matched the man. ‘Preparing an audit for the Duke, I understand. A busy man. And now my clerk tells me you’ve brought us notice of a murder.’ He indicated the handbill resting on his desk as he waved Jarrett to a chair. ‘How should that be?’

  The Justice lolled almost insolently in his great chair, smoking his pipe, his eyes fixed on his visitor’s face.

  ‘I happened to be at the George as the Carlisle mail arrived with these handbills. I had occasion to seek out a Justice of the Peace and so agreed to carry the news. My connection is pure chance, that is all.’

  ‘Pure chance.’ Raistrick picked up the handbill. ‘They arrived at the George, eh? But you’ve put up at the
old manor, I hear?’ The Justice sensed his visitor’s reaction. ‘This is a small district, Mr Jarrett.’ The impression of a cynical smile curved about his mouth. ‘Any stranger is talked of, and how much more so the Duke’s man. You’re an important visitor in these parts.’

  In their physical components there was nothing remarkable about Mr Raistrick’s eyes, but they focused his personality in such a way that his gaze had almost mesmeric force when he chose to apply it. Jarrett had to restrain himself from leaning back to widen the space between them. A strange and unusual fellow to find as a country Justice. Jarrett could not shake the feeling that there was some strategy underlying his host’s manner. What his game might be he had no notion but every instinct told him to keep his guard up.

  ‘Pye tells me you were assaulted yourself, sir.’ The big man leant over to pick up a little carved ivory stick with which he proceeded to tamp down the tobacco in his pipe-bowl, puffing vigorously to make it burn more smoothly.

  ‘I was jumped by two fellows on my way to the George, on the road from the old abbey. Lead miners, I should have said, by their dress.’

  ‘And you were robbed?’

  ‘No. I fought them off. I always travel armed.’

  Again the sense of strategy. Jarrett could have sworn that Mr Raistrick wanted more information from him, but instead the lawyer went off on a different tack.