by Robin Blake
The second group of attackers gave even less warning than the first. They burst silently from an alley on the opposite side of the street, just as the rain began perceptibly to increase. As soon as he saw them bearing down on him, the bugler panicked and ran for his life, but the drummer, encumbered with his instrument, was caught. His drum was quickly punctured and sent rolling away, while its owner was forced to the ground where he received a summary kicking.
Meanwhile the ten members of the tally itself were having mixed fortunes. The able-bodied, including the four chair carriers, had taken to their heels, while the sick and doddery were taking whatever came to them. The one-legged fellow had his peg snapped like a twig, and the chair-bound one was pitched out of it onto the cobbles while work was begun on reducing his chair to matchwood.
A few of the public, including myself, started forward to intervene but were repulsed, as much by threats as fists. Satterthwaite, still in the midst of the melee, was now the focus of the assault. He had picked up a bit of the splintered chair and was beating one of his attackers frenziedly around the shoulders. When another of them leapt on his back, he roared like a sightless Samson and spun around and around, hacking blindly back over his shoulders with the chair spar to dislodge the man. At last he did so and flung him off, then looked around in despair for any remnant of his tally. There was none and seconds later his attackers had melted away even more suddenly than they’d appeared, their work complete. Another crack of lightning ripped the sky with a sound that might have been a second peg leg splintering, but much magnified.
Suddenly I saw Satterthwaite stagger and fall. I ran forward and knelt at his side, trying to see what the matter was. It seemed he had struck his head on the cobbles, for he was unconscious. I patted his rain-spattered cheeks and called his name for a moment, but found no response. Then I was aware of another figure kneeling on his other side, taking Satterthwaite’s wrist between his fingers.
‘It’s no use, Titus,’ said Fidelis in a low voice. ‘I think you’ll find he is dead.’
I stared at him.
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘He’s just knocked out by the fall.’
Fidelis shook his head firmly.
‘There’s no pulse. He probably died on his feet.’
‘I still say he might be only—’
‘No, Titus, that’s why you should always have a doctor by your side. You don’t know a sleeping man from a dead one.’
As I surveyed the stretched-out form of Isaac Satterthwaite I was conscious that the fighting had now stopped as suddenly as it had started, and that the attackers’ object had been achieved. Satterthwaite’s tally of voters, even as their leader was falling, had been routed and dispersed.
‘I didn’t see what happened. He must have been taken with a sudden apoplexy … all that excitement. Or – wait a minute – wasn’t there a flash of lightning? Perhaps he was struck. An act of God.’
Although it was raining quite heavily now, a curious crowd several people deep had made a tight hedge around us.
‘Make way there,’ called out Fidelis. ‘And lend a hand. This man is mortally hurt. We must get him out of the wet.’
We took him to lie in the vestry at St John’s, alongside John Allcroft, and I sent for his granddaughter to come urgently. While we waited for Maggie the rain drummed on the roof and Fidelis and I had the corpse to ourselves.
We both looked down at Isaac Satterthwaite, lying on the vestry table and looking peaceful.
I let a few moments pass, then said, ‘What killed him, Luke? A stroke of lightning, or a stroke of apoplexy?’
‘It wasn’t either.’
‘But there was no attacker anywhere near him. And there’s no injury. Not a mark.’
‘Isn’t there?’
Carefully Fidelis took the bushy beard by its end, and lifted it so that it hung like a little white cloud above the dead man’s breast and abdomen. He peered underneath. I also looked from my side of the table.
‘See that?’ Fidelis pointed with his finger. ‘That is no act of God, but an act of man.’
At the end of his finger, immediately over the breastbone, was a neat, blood-rimmed hole. I had seen such a hole once or twice before in the course of my work. It was a bullethole.
‘Good God! He was shot!’
‘Yes. And the sound was masked by the storm.’
‘Why did he not bleed more copiously? There was no blood spilt at all.’
‘The ball stopped his heart instantly, before he even hit the ground. So – no heartbeat, no bleeding. It is not like a knife wound.’
I considered the matter. Luke was right in more than one way. A shooting is wholly different from a knifing. Almost any of us could lay our hands on a knife, should we need one. It can be used without a thought: it is all too handy, easy to conceal, easy to wield. Not so a gun. Few people have one. It is unwieldy, and cannot simply be snatched up and used. First you have to load, charge, ram and prime. There’s no killing so premeditated as a gunshot – unless it be a poisoning.
In time a distraught Maggie arrived. I waited until the storm of her crying had abated, then asked for a private conversation. It took place in the church porch.
‘At first,’ I told her, ‘it appeared that your grandfather had been struck down by illness, or even by the lightning. But now we know someone killed him.’
Maggie’s eyes filled again with tears.
‘Who?’
‘Can you think of anyone?’
‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘We shall have to inquire into it, and I will in time hold a formal inquest. Unfortunately, as of course you know, I have another inquest in hand into John Allcroft. It will be hard and I am sorry, my dear, but you will have to give evidence once again. Will you be able to?’
She sniffed and nodded her head.
‘Good. Have you anyone to look after you? Who is your closest relative?’
‘I have an aunt married in Longridge.’
‘If I send for her, do you think she’d be willing to come and take you home with her?’
‘I think she would, sir.’
‘Then I’ll do it. In the meantime come into my house. You are welcome to sit with my wife and she will comfort you.’
* * *
Arriving back at the inquest a little late, I found that word of the latest death had already spread like a bad smell around town. People were treating my temporary court as a news exchange, for the numbers had swollen and the place was in an uproar of speculation and debate. The most popular opinion was that Satterthwaite had been struck by either a seizure or a bolt of lightning; only a minority promoted the idea that he had been murdered.
As I reached my place, Furzey pushed a piece of paper, folded and sealed, towards me. It bore the mayoral seal, which I broke. I read:
Mr Cragg,
I should be obliged if you would wait on me at the Moot Hall this afternoon at four, after we have finished polling for the day. Urgent matters to discuss.
Wm. Biggs, Mayor
‘When did this come?’ I asked my clerk.
‘Fifteen minutes since. What’s happened? They’re saying Satterthwaite’s in no condition to appear.’
‘That is one way of describing it,’ I said. ‘He’s lying in the vestry alongside our Mr Allcroft, covered by a sheet. We’ll have to manage without him.’
With a few raps on the table I brought the room to order, asked the jury foreman if all his men were present, and rose to speak.
‘As the court knows, my first witness this afternoon was to be Mr Isaac Satterthwaite. But, as many of you evidently also know, Mr Satterthwaite has suddenly and unfortunately died. So I have no choice now but to call the next and final witness on my list, who is Mr Thomas Wilson.’
‘Mr Thomas Wilson!’ echoed Furzey, setting his tone at halfway between that of a drill sergeant and a light basso in the opera, and looking imperiously up and down the room.
At first in silence, and then a
midst an outbreak of whispering, we waited for Wilson to stand and walk up to the chair. He never did and, when a full minute had passed, I asked Furzey to find young Barty, who I knew would not be far away.
‘Tell him to run up to the apothecary’s shop and enquire after Wilson. If the man’s there, he is to remind him that this inquest requires him as a witness, and that he should come here without delay – that is, now.’
We had only ten minutes to wait before Barty returned, panting for breath and on his own. He came to the back of my chair and spoke in my ear.
‘Mrs Wilson is by herself in the shop, Mr Cragg. She’s not seen her man since last night when he went out to tavern. She’s saying likely he’s got himself drunk and he’s laying up somewhere. She’s in a right scrow about it, though, shouting and that. It’s not my fault, I told her.’
‘Well, thank you, Barty. I regret that you were shouted at.’
I handed him his tip and rose to address the court once more.
‘It seems we must forfeit another witness,’ I told them. ‘I have just heard that Mr Wilson cannot be found, for reasons I do not yet know. So, I shall proceed to sum up what we have heard, so that you, members of the jury, can retire to decide the issue as best you can. So, let me begin with what Mrs Allcroft told us. Her husband came to Preston in good health on the twenty-eighth of last month…’
I took my listeners back over how John Allcroft had put up at the Gamecock Inn. Then, recalling the words of Mrs Fitzpatrick and the others working at the inn on the twenty-ninth of April, I detailed what had happened to John Allcroft before he died. After mentioning his hotpot dinner I brought in Joe Primrose’s testimony.
‘The stew has taken on some importance in this inquiry, as it was the last thing the dead man ate. Mr Primrose told us that he did not use barley but only oats to thicken the dish. Yet Dr Fidelis testified to the presence of cooked or otherwise softened barleycorns in the sample of the dinner that he collected from Mr Allcroft’s room. We tried to establish how this unexpected ingredient could have got there, and it emerged that there had been a clear opportunity for some mischief to be done to it, since the food was left alone in the bedroom for a period of up to twenty minutes, awaiting Mr Allcroft’s attentions. That mischief was done to it, somehow or another, was later demonstrated by Dr Fidelis. He told us how he fed a portion of the leftover hotpot to a rat, who died within a few minutes. I should add that the doctor invited me to observe this trial, and I can confirm that this is precisely what happened. I should also advise you that some vermin catchers have been known to mix poison with softened grains such as barley before laying it.
‘You have the following options. You may decide that some poison was introduced into the food accidentally, or that you do not know how it was put there. On the evidence we have heard there is no suggestion that Mr Allcroft took his own life, but the possibility of murder remains. Weigh that possibility carefully.’
* * *
‘We are very disturbed by the unfortunate killing this afternoon of Isaac Satterthwaite, Cragg. What do you have to say about it?’
Although it was still not four, I had taken the opportunity during the jury’s deliberations to go up to the Moot Hall. The death of Satterthwaite had caused polling to be suspended for the day, and we now sat in the mayoral parlour.
‘What can I say, Mayor? It has only just happened.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what, we want answers to certain questions. For instance, was he killed or did he die naturally? Was it an act of man, or of God? We cannot have this uncertainty. He was on his way to vote. If he was murdered it would look like an attempt to subvert the election, as a mine dug under the very foundation of our constitution and government.’
He raised a finger, liking the phrase enough to repeat it.
‘A very mine, Cragg! And meanwhile we have another charge waiting to explode beneath us – this matter of Mr John Allcroft’s inquest. It is being said everywhere that you have proved he was poisoned. There is the likelihood of public disorder. Accusations will fly around. More blood will be spilt.’
I could see Biggs’s point, and I could see, too, what he wanted: early notice of the likely inquest verdict. He wanted, if possible, someone he could quickly have arrested, to show that he was in command of the situation. Not that I was going to help him out.
‘I do not quite follow you, Mayor,’ I lied.
‘Well, I would have thought it was as plain as pudding, Cragg. Can you not see? Satterthwaite may not have been to our liking politically, but if he really was killed for political reasons it reflects badly on our conduct of the election. In the case of Allcroft, he was of our party. We must know if either man was murdered and, if that is the case, there will have to be measures to prevent any further deaths.’
At the root of the Mayor’s nervousness was the fear of Parliament. Adverse reports might persuade honourable members in London to enquire into the result of Preston’s vote, and perhaps to overturn it. Not only would a second ballot be an embarrassment, the expense would be crippling.
I said, ‘I regret, it is not yet possible for me to tell you. The jury will inform me when they have made up their minds. On Allcroft they are meeting now. Only when a verdict is reached can I inform you.’
‘And Satterthwaite?’
I admit that I was enjoying Biggs’s discomfort. In place of its customary arrogance, his voice had taken on a supplicatory tone.
‘I shall hold that inquest as soon as I can,’ I told him. ‘But of course I cannot know in advance what conclusion it may reach.’
Biggs spluttered but there was not much more he could say. I rose, telling him, if our business was finished, I must return to the court and await the jury.
Chapter Twenty-two
THEY CAME BACK having deliberated for a little over an hour. I did not think there was much doubt they would see the death as a poisoning. What I did not know was whether they would choose ‘by means unknown’ or the more dramatic ‘murder by a person or persons unknown’. The former was the more rational choice, and it seemed to me that Gerald Pikeroyd was a rational enough fellow, who would not allow the fancies of Charley Booth or the tittle-tattle of Edward Lillycrap and John Mort to dominate proceedings. On the other hand, juries in my experience will always find murder if they possibly can.
‘Mr Foreman,’ I asked when they had settled themselves, ‘have you agreed on a verdict?’
Pikeroyd cleared his throat.
‘Aye, Mr Cragg, we have.’
‘Will you tell the court what it is, please?’
‘It’s murder. Murder by poisoning.’
I glanced at Furzey, who was writing the verdict on yet another of his printed forms.
‘Thank you. But I need a little more information. You must tell me if you believe you know who carried out the murder. I should add that you do not have to name anyone, and you really should not do so unless you are certain you are naming the guilty party, and not just someone who might have done it.’
‘Well, we are very sorry, but we have no name for you. We don’t know who was the killer.’
‘Very well. So the verdict you are entering is “murder by person or persons unknown”. Are you all agreed on it?’
‘Aye, we are all agreed.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pikeroyd, and thanks to you all. The jury is dismissed and may go. But first—’
Though the public were now beginning to stand up, talk, gather together their hats and umbrellas, I had not finished. I raised my voice to be heard.
‘But first it is my duty to add one or two remarks, ladies and gentlemen. I congratulate Mr Pikeroyd and his colleagues on the verdict, and on the way they have acted in this matter. We do not know what this poison was that killed Mr Allcroft. Nor do we know who administered it, or why. I therefore have no arrests to recommend to the mayor and magistrates, and I will confine myself to saying that deliberate poisoning is a shocking crime. It is of necessity a case of malice aforethought, it is very devi
ous and it is very difficult to detect. Human nature being what it is, a successful murder by poisoning can attract the attention of would-be imitators. In my return to the mayor I shall therefore suggest that the corporation investigate the supply of poisons in this town, and find ways of making it more difficult to get hold of. That is all. The court is dismissed.’
I struck the table with my gavel. As the audience began to bustle about – leaving, getting ready to leave, crossing the room to exchange views with others, or simply milling about in the way a herd does, hoping for something more to happen – I noticed Ephraim Grimshaw in conversation with Susan Allcroft and a podgy young man, dressed in black, who stood by her side. Grimshaw was holding the widow’s hand and patting it consolingly. He was, of course, of her party, but Grimshaw was speaking as if he were also her friend – persuasively, emphatically, with wide eyes and head jabbing forward.
I moved towards them. As soon as he saw me coming, Grimshaw let go of the lady’s hand and turned his crafty eyes in my direction.
‘I call that a severe waste of time and money, Cragg,’ he said. ‘You have a murder, yes, but no murderer. What is the point of an inquest, if no finger is pointed? Mrs Allcroft and young Jotham here are sadly disappointed.’
Ignoring this I turned to Mrs Allcroft, and presented her with a paper.
