by Robin Blake
She crossed herself, and went on.
‘We, that is, Mr George my husband and I, were hoping John would join us in religion, you know. The signs were there, increasingly.’
My friend had been calmly taking a sip of beer, but this startled him and he put down his tankard precipitately, slopping some of its contents onto the table.
‘I wish I had known that,’ he said, mopping up the spill with his napkin. ‘I would have sent for Mr Egerton to give last rites.’
Mr Egerton was the Roman priest who lived, not so secretly, in Back Lane behind Friar Gate.
‘Mother-in-law,’ I said, ‘what did you mean by the signs being there that he would change religion? Did he go to your Roman services?’
‘No, he went to the English services, and he subscribed outwardly to the Protestant heresy, as it is in our view.’
She sniffed, and looked straight at me in a challenging way. I also subscribed to the Protestant heresy, and was proud of it, but I refused her bait.
‘So what signs were in Mr Allcroft of incipient Catholicism?’
‘Well, as I observed, he was very much like a Roman in his politics. He was really tenacious, he had a passion you could say, for our true king, our Catholic king. More than once have I heard him make the toast, you know…’
She looked from Dr Fidelis to me as she mouthed the words.
‘The king over the water.’
Her reference to the Pretender did not anger me – I had heard such talk from Mrs George often enough before – but it did make me a little nervous. There were towns in other parts of the country where even to whisper such words might land a person in gaol. Northern parts such as Preston contained a larger proportion of Jacobites – there were even some in the corporation – and they were not averse on occasion to speaking their minds out loud. But that was in normal times. This was an election, when political sensitivity was much sharpened, and zealous Whigs like Sir Henry Hoghton would cut savagely at anything that looked to them like sedition.
Fortunately we were able to venture no further down the Jacobite path, as at this point Matty came in with a note from Furzey. It read:
The politician is here waiting for you with his man. I have engaged you to see him at eleven o’clock, that is, in ten minutes.
At the same moment Fidelis jumped to his feet, his powers apparently restored by the beer and pie. He picked up his medical bag.
‘I must be on my way, Titus. I am to be consulted at Mrs Parbold’s in Water Street. Don’t forget the rat!’
‘But you haven’t told me what it is for,’ I protested. ‘And what about Allcroft? If he has become coroner’s business I need to know.’
‘He hasn’t – not yet, but we may settle the matter today. Come to my house this afternoon, and bring the rat in that basket I left in your office.’
Then he was gone.
The clock was pointing to a few minutes before eleven when I returned to the office. Destercore and his servant were waiting. I bowed to them and, asking their indulgence for a moment, told Furzey to follow me into my room. Picking some papers from his writing desk, he did so.
‘What’s in the basket?’ he asked, nodding towards it.
‘Nothing. It’s for Dr Fidelis’s rat.’
Furzey opened his mouth to speak, and then checked himself. I laughed.
‘I know no more than you. Now, about this fellow out there.’ I lowered my voice and cocked my head towards the door. ‘I suspect he’s come here from London to make trouble.’
‘You would see trouble in a boiled egg,’ whispered Furzey. ‘He is an agent, that’s all, a helper at election time. I see no harm in him. Now, I have done what you asked. Here.’
He handed me the papers he was carrying and I placed them in one of the desk drawers.
‘While I am closeted with the master,’ I said, ‘you talk to the servant. Anything you can glean … you follow me?’
Furzey gave me a wink, called Destercore in, and left us. The agent sat opposite me at my desk, opened his notebook and helped himself to pen and ink. He moved in sudden jerks as if he were worked by a wound-up spring that released itself in short periods.
‘You are Mr Titus Cragg, attorney. Is that right?’
I agreed that it was and he entered me in his book. It appeared, from the upside-down view that I had of it, that he was using a different page for each street, for I could make out Cheapside at the top of the page and the names of some of my neighbours in the list below.
‘And for whom, may I ask, do you think your vote will be cast in the election?’ he went on.
‘You may ask, but I will reserve my answer.’
A subtle look came over his face.
‘Does that mean you have a settled choice, but will not tell me? Or have you not made up your mind?’
‘It means what I say – I reserve my answer.’
‘Everyone will know your choice when you cast the vote, so why not declare it now?’
I shrugged.
‘It is my preference not to do so.’
Destercore sighed in a cool display of irritation at my obstructing him. He dashed down a note against my name and abruptly sprang to his feet.
‘Well, I must be on my way, Mr Cragg. I thank you for your time.’
‘Before you go, Mr Destercore…’
I reached into my desk drawer and took out the list of voters that he had dropped at Porter’s.
‘I am glad to have the opportunity to return this to you. I happened to be sitting in the parlour room of Porter’s Inn when you walked by. You dropped this paper as you passed, but left the inn before I could return it to you.’
For a moment Destercore’s eyes narrowed and then bulged as he made to snatch the paper from my hand. But I jerked it fractionally up to evade his grasp. I wanted him to realize that I had studied the list.
‘I see my own name is written here. I wonder what I may infer from that.’
Destercore’s earlier cool had left him. He was definitely flustered now.
‘It is merely a list, a projection of voting intentions. It is usual to prepare the canvas in this way.’
‘I see. So now that I have reserved my own intentions, perhaps you will revise the list. And you might like to know that another alteration is due. I see you have already scratched out the late Mr Egan; now you can do the same office for a name lying a few places below his.’
I laid the list on the desk and put my finger on the name of Mr John Allcroft (farmer). Destercore stooped to look at it, then straightened his back.
‘I do not follow you, sir. What about Mr Allcroft?’
‘I mean that he will not be voting in the election. He died less than three hours ago, at an inn on Stoney Gate.’
I picked up the paper and held it out, while looking steadily into Destercore’s eyes. He whipped the paper from my fingers and stuffed it into his pocket, but he did not straightforwardly meet my gaze.
‘I am obliged to you for that information, sir,’ he said stiffly. ‘Now, I must go. Good day.’
After he had left I again opened the same desk drawer. A second paper lay inside, written in Furzey’s hand: the full copy that I had asked him to make of those lists. I took it out, dipped my pen and was just scoring a line lightly through the name of John Allcroft when Furzey came in.
‘How did you do with Peters, the servant?’ I asked.
‘He was uncommunicative, on the whole. He is a Londoner, which I could already tell. He was engaged as Mr Destercore’s servant only three days before making the journey here, so he professes to know little of his master. Of course I asked what he had been doing before his engagement.’
Furzey paused. I knew that he was deliberately baiting me.
‘And what was that?’ I asked, indulging him.
‘Italy.’
‘Italy? What do you mean?’
‘I mean he was travelling in Italy, so he says, accompanying a young gentleman on the Grand Tour, but he would tell me no more a
bout it, only that I would not be much interested.’
‘Even though you were.’
‘Yes. But when gathering intelligence it is vital to evince as little interest as possible, isn’t that so? I had to let the matter drop or give the game away.’
‘You did not even get the name of the young gentleman?’
‘Of course I did. It was Lord Carburton.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Son and heir to the Earl of Powys. I would have thought you knew that.’
* * *
My wife’s cousins had recovered sufficiently from the death of their father to become anxious about their own futures. Antony Egan had died with no property except his title to the inn. They wanted to know if the inn was now theirs. I was able to tell them that they were fortunate: their father had made an unsophisticated common-law will many years ago. As there was no son living, it allowed for his daughters jointly to inherit all their father’s property.
‘There is no entail or strict settlement, you see, so no need to search for a proximate male heir – by which I mean the nearest male relation of your father’s blood. If your brother had been alive then, of course, the inn would have passed to him. Since unfortunately he is not, it is yours entire, my dears. You are your father’s direct heirs and you may do as you wish with the inn.’
The sisters sat beside each other just as they had done when I had told them of Antony’s drowning. On hearing what I had to say they grasped each other’s hands in relief.
‘Oh! That is a blessing,’ Grace said.
Mary-Ann had another question.
‘About the debts – we know we owe money to the brewers, and to a few suppliers else, but as long as we go on in business we can manage those creditors. We are only concerned in case our father owed other money, without telling us. Did he?’
I knew of none.
‘The inn is not mortgaged, I can assure you of that,’ I told them. ‘It is possible some new creditor might still come forward but, as the matter stands, you are unencumbered. So, what will you do – sell or stay?’
Mary-Ann and Grace exchanged a glance and, as one, turned their eyes back to me.
‘We stay,’ said Grace firmly. ‘This place is all we have, and all we know.’
* * *
Satterthwaite’s cottage, from what I could see of it, was not opulent, but it was neat and orderly, with level flagged floors and a few solid bits and pieces of oak furniture. The tall, upright rat catcher led me through, from front door to back, and out into the yard. Going past the kennels, in which sharp-teethed terriers yapped and growled incessantly, he showed me an array of small wooden hutches behind whose wire I could see rodents of various sizes, as if they were exhibits in a menagerie. Some sat grooming, while others crept aimlessly back and forth, like debtors in gaol befuddled by gin.
‘I have black rats, and brown rats, and white rats, Mr Cragg. The whites are not normal, they’re freaks. But if you breed from them you get more white ones. I’ve been getting up a line of them – pretty, ain’t they?’
I agreed, though only from politeness.
‘I have followed the doctor’s orders and picked one out for him – one of the whites. Here she is, a young female and ready for breeding if that’s his fancy. I call her Athene.’
She was about 8 inches from nose to bottom, with a tapering, wormlike tail almost as long.
‘Do you give names to them all?’
‘Oh, aye. Helps me keep track. Heroes and gods, mostly.’
He rammed his hand into a thick leather gauntlet and opened a lid in the roof of the hutch, winking at me.
‘Wouldn’t do to get bit. Open your basket, if you please, sir.’
In a trice he had plunged his gloved hand into the hutch and brought out the rat, which flailed in his grasp and made frantic attempts to bite through the leather. Moments later she was lodged in my carrier, with the lid safely pegged. Through the basket weave I could see her cold rose-pink eyes glinting in the darkness.
He wanted sevenpence ha’penny for it. It seemed more than enough to pay for a common pest but I handed over the coins without comment and took my leave. Satterthwaite followed me as far as the garden gate, and watched me walk down the lane towards the ferry, gingerly holding the basket away from contact with my side.
* * *
The serving woman who opened the bookbinder’s door took a look at the wicker basket I carried. I made no attempt to explain it, but merely asked for the doctor.
‘Dr Fidelis says you are to go through to the back garden, sir, and to bring along –’ she nodded at my burden – ‘whatever you have with you.’
The creature was restless, scrabbling and giving out small squeaks from time to time. I smiled but gave no explanation, walking past the girl and into the hall, through the passage beside the stair and so by another passage to the back door, which gave access to the yard and washhouse. Beyond that stretched Lorris’s burgage plot, a strip of land just as wide as his house, but stretching for thirty yards. The first part was laid out as a garden, with shrubs and beds and little bowers with seats on which members of the household could enjoy the air; the second consisted of kitchen garden and orchard and the third of a dovecot, chicken house, pigsty and rabbit run.
I found Fidelis at the far end, standing in the rabbit run. It was enclosed by tightly wattled hazel-twig hurdles and furnished with four rabbit houses or ‘clappers’, each similar to Satterthwaite’s rat houses, but proportionately larger. These clappers had sliding doors to admit or exclude their inhabitants from the run, while the run itself had a wattle gate on twine hinges. With carrots and cabbage leaves Fidelis was patiently enticing the rabbits into their hutches before shutting them inside, then clearing the run of all food and emptying the drinking bowl.
‘You have the rat?’
‘Yes. She’s called Athene. Satterthwaite says she’s a fine specimen. I’ll take his word for that. What do you want her for?’
‘You’ll see.’ He rose from his crouching position and straightened his back. ‘Give here the sample of beer from Allcroft’s room.’
The sample bottle lay ready on the path, beside the jar from the inn’s kitchen. I passed it over. Fidelis pulled the cork and crouched to pour the beer carefully into the drinking bowl. He stood again and now held his hands up to receive the carrying basket, which I also passed over the fence. Fidelis put it down and removed the pegs that secured the lid. Then, in almost a single movement, he flipped open the lid, skipped out of the rabbit run and clapped the wattle gate shut behind him. Together we leaned on the fence and awaited developments.
‘What’s this about?’ I asked.
‘You will see.’
Cautiously a whiskered nose poked above the rim of the basket, twitching busily. Then the sound of scrabbling was heard and the head of the rat appeared, followed by her body. In an instant she had clambered nimbly up the inside of the basket, slid down the outside and out into the open space of the run itself.
For a moment Athene sat up, like a lady in a theatre box, jerking her head around to take in the scene and holding her pink forefeet like two hands gripping a folded fan. And then she was off. She had picked up the direction of the rabbit smell.
She scuttled towards one of the hutches, stopping only to take a drink of beer from the bowl as she passed. Then she was running this way and that around the hutch in search of a way in. Finding none at the first hutch she quickly moved on to the second, and so on until she had unsuccessfully tested all four hutches.
‘She hasn’t had a drink or eaten today,’ Fidelis whispered through the side of his mouth. ‘I made sure of that when I wrote to Satterthwaite. Now, she’d like a baby rabbit if she could get one, but she can’t. Lorris would have my tripes else.’
The rat had now returned to the beer bowl and was taking a longer drink, while checking from time to time and looking round for danger. When she had had enough beer, she went back to her investigation of the hutches, running round them fir
st clockwise, and then anticlockwise.
‘Just look,’ I said, marvelling. ‘The beer is affecting her.’
‘Yes, she is a little drunk. It’s nothing serious.’
‘What next?’ I asked.
Fidelis took out his watch and opened it.
‘We wait five minutes.’
During our wait nothing new happened. The rodent was as quick as ever, darting from hutch to hutch in sudden movements, interrupted by short periods of immobility, during which only her whiskers, nose and ears moved. Fidelis walked off, and came back with an old broom handle he had found. He propped it against the rabbit run’s fence.
Dropping his watch back into his waistcoat pocket at last, he now took up the jar of old stew, and removed the lid. He opened the hurdle gate just wide enough and, placing the jar on the ground inside the run, used the broom handle to prod it towards the centre of the space. As soon as the stick was withdrawn the rat scurried across to investigate the jar.
Fidelis tied up the gate.
‘Have I got this right?’ I asked. ‘You are giving poor Allcroft’s leftover food to this pet rat of yours. You are testing it, I suppose. Do you know what for?’
Watching intently, Fidelis replied in a low voice.
‘It may be I’ll know in a few moments. And she’s not my pet rat.’
‘Yes, she is,’ I protested. ‘Only pets have names.’
‘I didn’t give her one. But with luck I shall soon give a name to how Allcroft died. Watch closely.’
The slate-grey clouds that had covered the sky since early morning now began to disperse and the sun came out just as the rat stuck her head inside the jar and began to gorge herself on the meat and other ingredients, all sodden or infused with the thick brown gravy. Fidelis took out his watch once more and flipped open the lid.
‘Five minutes?’ I asked.
He nodded solemnly.
It did not take as long as that. Less than a minute had elapsed before Athene, with the food by no means finished, made a few backward steps away from the meat to rest on her haunches, as if struck by a momentary unpleasant thought. She held the position for a few seconds, then abruptly fell down backwards, reeling or toppling in a spiralling motion away from the jar. Though she regained her footing, her body was convulsing now, and she was squealing urgently. She tried to run, but her buckling legs could no longer carry her, and she bumped to the ground on her stomach. Finally with one more shrill scream she rolled back onto her feet, leaped at least 2 inches into the air, twisted around and returned to earth belly upward. She did not move again.
