by Robin Blake
‘Madam, I have the honour of giving you your paper of release. If you would present this at the vestry, the body of your husband will be given to you. I have asked Peter Wintly to stand by with his cart.’
She took the release warrant with a sniff and handed it to her son, who unfolded it and scrutinized the wording as if it were a cryptogram. I bowed and, before leaving, took Grimshaw aside by the arm.
‘I cannot pluck a murderer from the air,’ I murmured in his ear. ‘If you wanted conjuring you should have had your friend Shackleberry as coroner.’
* * *
At home I found Elizabeth in the parlour, sitting with a long-faced, wet-eyed Maggie Satterthwaite, still wearing her now incongruous brightly coloured dress. My wife, at her needlework, was chatting away on a cheerful note, while the girl sat silently, her posture rigid and her eyes fixed on the flames of the fire. I asked if word had come yet from her aunt, Mrs Sowerby, in Longridge.
‘Not yet,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We expect the messenger to return by the moment.’
She stood and took my arm and steered me out of the room.
‘Is it over, the inquest?’ she whispered after she had closed the door.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank the Lord. When you were attacked yesterday I felt sure some people wanted the proceedings stopped. Now they are too late, and you, I hope, are safe. What was the verdict?’
I told her and she groaned.
‘I wish it had been declared an accident. Maggie has been fretting about it being murder. She has been talking more about that than the killing of her grandfather.’
‘She doesn’t need to fear,’ I said. ‘There was no mention of her name in connection with the death. She is not accused.’
‘Will you go in and reassure her? She has not said it in plain words, but I think she is genuinely afraid of arrest.’
She went off to bring tea, while I re-entered the parlour. Maggie had not stirred. I drew up a chair beside her and informed her in as gentle a tone as I could that the jury had decided Allcroft was murdered.
A tremor ran through Maggie’s slim frame.
‘Murder!’ she said. ‘But I didn’t, Mr Cragg. I didn’t!’
‘No one is saying you did, Maggie.’
‘Then who? Who are they saying?’
‘They don’t know. Nobody knows.’
She sighed, and the edge of her panic seemed less sharp.
‘That’s not true. The one that did it knows.’
‘Yes, of course. But the official verdict is “by person or persons unknown”. In most cases of such findings, there is never any more action. The person or persons are never found.’
‘You mean there’ll be no one arrested? No one tried and hung?’
‘Probably not, I am sorry to say.’
‘Oh!’
That last exclamation was hard to judge. I could not tell if it conveyed her interest, or its lack.
Elizabeth came in with tea, while I offered to explain to Maggie what I planned to do about her grandfather’s death – when and where I would hold the inquest, and so on. But she shook her head slowly.
‘Do what you like, Mr Cragg. You cannot bring him back and any road, he was old and his time had come.’
‘But it hadn’t, Maggie. You know, he did not die naturally. He too was killed by an unknown person or persons. I hope that we shall be able to identify that person but, like in the case of Mr John Allcroft, there is always the possibility that we shall not.’
Maggie did not reply, but returned her gaze to the fire.
At that moment we heard the door knocker pounding and Matty scurrying out of the kitchen and across the hall to answer it.
‘That’ll be the messenger with word from Mrs Sowerby,’ said Elizabeth, who turned towards the parlour door expectantly. She hid it well, but I could see she would be glad to hand to another the responsibility for Maggie Satterthwaite.
There were voices in the hall, and the footsteps of several people. Then the latch sounded, the door swung open and Matty stood there, white of face. Immediately a bloated figure in a scarlet coat loomed up behind her, put his hand on her arm and eased her out of the way. Then the doorway was filled by the town constable, Oswald Mallender, holding his mace, a long silver-tipped bog-oak stick with a silver bulb at the top.
‘Mr Cragg,’ he boomed, looking around and taking in the whole scene. ‘I see you are sheltering the girl Maggie Satterthwaite. I must inform you that I hold in my hand the mayor’s warrant for her arrest. She must come with me.’
Maggie gave a short scream and bit her knuckles.
‘Arrest?’ I said. ‘On what possible charge?’
‘It is the regrettable one of murder, Mr Cragg. Deliberate murder.’
There was then a very strange moment. We all stood or sat motionless and silent as a sculpture gallery, with only the sound of Mallender’s breathing breaking through.
‘And who is this girl supposed to have killed?’ asked Elizabeth at last, softly breaking the silence.
Mallender held up a rolled paper that was clenched in his fist.
‘According to this document, ma’am, it is Mr John Allcroft that she is accused for the murdering of. And so, if you please, she must come with me.’
Mallender’s relish was patent as he stepped into the room. For the first time we saw that he was accompanied by the Parkin brothers, his henchmen. I tried to bar their path to the girl.
‘Who has accused her? This cannot have come from the inquest. There was no imputation made against her.’
‘It is not for me to say, is it? But accusation has been levelled and it must be answered. Now, if you would make way, sir, I shall do my duty.’
Maggie’s face was like a mask, as white as limewash. She stood and turned towards the corporation officer, and I had the unaccountable sense of someone offering herself.
‘Then I must go, mustn’t I?’ she said.
‘No! Stay, Maggie,’ I cried. ‘Mallender, give me the warrant.’
I unrolled the paper and quickly read through it. Maggie Satterthwaite’s name was there; the words ‘accused’, ‘murder’, ‘warrant’, ‘require’ and ‘take into custody’ were all there too; and finally the signature and seal of Preston’s leading magistrate, Mayor Biggs, was at the foot. With a sigh I handed it back. There was nothing legally wrong with the warrant.
‘Maggie, I am sorry. I cannot prevent this. I am afraid you must go after all.’
And so the arresting party trooped from the room and through the front door, with Esau Parkin guarding one flank of Maggie, Jacob the other, and Oswald Mallender leading the way with his mace held in front of him.
‘I’ll come to you with food and drink, Maggie,’ called Elizabeth as we watched them go from our front door. ‘Don’t despair.’
Maggie did not look back as Elizabeth held my arm.
‘She is not much more than a child,’ she said. ‘Who could have laid such an accusation against her?’
‘I have to meet Fidelis at the vestry. But first I will try to find out.’
I went back inside, seized my hat and went straight out again.
* * *
The mayor’s clerk was determined to obstruct me.
‘His Worship is engaged. He cannot see you.’
‘Three hours ago he could think of nothing else but seeing me. Now he cannot see me. Let me write him a note.’
I leaned forward, plucked the pen out of the surprised clerk’s hand and took a piece of paper from the pile by his elbow.
‘You can’t do that!’ he screeched. ‘That paper’s property of the corporation.’
But I had done it, and was already writing. I didn’t need to finish my note, however, because at that moment Biggs himself appeared at the door.
‘Mr Biggs,’ I cried, ‘I am here in the interest of Maggie Satterthwaite. Who is responsible for this charge against her?’
‘There is nothing untoward about it, Cragg. Mrs Allcroft will prosecute her. I told y
ou of the importance we place on finding John Allcroft’s killer. The peace must be preserved.’
‘Is this the way to do it – with a sacrifice?’
‘I cannot imagine what you mean, Cragg.’
* * *
I felt tired, overwhelmed, as I walked across to the vestry. I was in time to see Peter Wintly cracking a whip over his horse’s bony rump, as he rattled away down Church Gate with the body of John Allcroft loaded behind. I let myself inside, and found the churchwarden shaking his head as he circled the table on which Isaac Satterthwaite lay.
‘I was hoping that we had done with corpses in here, Cragg. Is this a proper use of the vestry?’
‘I fear it is not, Mr Fleetwood. But there is nowhere else. One day, perhaps, the town will give us an ice house dedicated to the purpose.’
Fleetwood scratched his head.
‘A nice house, you say?’
Before I could put him right we heard a door slam and Fidelis came in, carrying his medical bag. I guided Fleetwood in the opposite direction, towards the door.
‘The doctor must now examine the body,’ I explained. ‘He will have to perform various medical procedures so you may prefer to…’
Fleetwood was not inclined to argue, and left us.
Fidelis took from his bag a bolt of felt and unrolled it to reveal a set of steel implements, among which I saw tongs, knives and scissors, a saw and a heavy pair of shears.
‘We shall see what damage the bullet did,’ he said as he set to work. ‘And we must have the bullet itself. Will you help strip off the upper clothing?’
Ten minutes later I was flinching as I watched Fidelis’s actions: to see the human body butchered in this way, with saw, shears and knife, its organs exposed and some of them removed, its dignity and integrity destroyed, was awful. After a while he brought out Satterthwaite’s heart and dropped it into a pewter dish that he’d taken from his bag.
‘You see?’ he asked, picking up the dish to show me the slippery organ. ‘My supposition, just after the shooting, was right. This was a direct hit on the heart and it has been torn right through by the shot. It stopped beating instantly.’
He put the dish down and returned to the cavity he had opened in Satterthwaite’s torso. For a while he seemed to be feeling around, and then brought his hand out, the fingers pincered onto a ball of lead dripping with blood and slime.
‘Here it is.’
He held it up and turned it to catch the light. It was no longer perfectly round, but flattened, or rather dented on one side.
‘It was embedded in the sixteenth vertebrum of the spine. That is interesting.’
‘How?’
‘It tells us something useful, if we are to identify the shooter.’
‘What?’
‘Not now. I must finish this and tidy the body up while the light lasts.’
* * *
It was almost dark, and I had had to go for candles by the time Fidelis finally returned Satterthwaite’s heart to his chest, then closed and roughly sewed up the cavity. He had also completed a survey of the rest of the body, washed his instruments under the tap in the vestry, and rolled them up in their felt wrappings.
‘Let us walk out to Fisher Gate,’ he said. ‘I will show you what I think happened.’
The street was largely deserted as we ventured out on cobbles that gleamed wetly underfoot. We reached the place where Satterthwaite had fallen, but images of that heated, chaotic scene were a little difficult to summon up now, in the cool of night. Fidelis paused for a moment and revolved slowly through a full circle, his eyes darting about.
‘Good,’ he said, ‘this is the spot. Now, Satterthwaite was exceptionally tall and well built. We need someone similar.’
He looked up and down the street. Two men were unsteadily approaching, leaning against each other and singing a melancholy air. One was small and slight, but the other was a big bull of a man. In a few moments, Fidelis had befriended them. He learned their names – Bob and Bill – and persuaded them to join us in the centre of the street. The pair stood there side by side in drunken docility, until Fidelis detached the smaller one, Bill, from the side of his large friend, upon which the latter, deprived of his prop, fell to the ground.
We picked him up and returned his associate to his side, lifting Bob’s meaty arm behind Bill’s head and draping it across his far shoulder so that now his near shoulder nestled supportively in Bob’s immense armpit.
‘You saw Satterthwaite just before he went down?’ Fidelis asked.
I nodded.
‘What was his posture?’
‘He stood upright. He had turned to look back down Fisher Gate to see where his followers had gone. But then just before he fell he turned again to look up the street.’
‘We must get Bob in the same position. Stand on his other side.’
I stationed myself there and lifted Bob’s free arm across my shoulders. So we shuffled the two men around until, swaying, they faced up the street, and towards the Moot Hall.
‘A little more to the left,’ I said. ‘No, too much … that’s about right. Rest there.’
Going behind us Fidelis touched the centre of Bob’s lower back and told me to put my finger on the place. Then he returned to face Bob, this time indicating with his own finger a place above the drunkard’s heart.
‘This is where the bullet entered Satterthwaite. But it lodged lower in his body, where your finger is. So that is the line it took. Agreed? What does this tell us?’
‘I don’t know. What?’
‘If we extend the line upwards from your finger through mine, we will see that he was shot from above, and probably from the north side of the street.’
‘From an upper window?’
‘Yes, but to come down at such a steep angle the bullet cannot have been fired from very far in front of him. It must have been from a house nearby. That one, I would say.’
But Bob’s hand was draped across my head, tipping my wig and blocking my view. I lifted the hand and let it drop while ducking out from under Bob’s armpit. As I straightened the wig I saw the house Fidelis was indicating, on Fisher Gate’s northern side. It was Wilkinson’s bread and pie shop.
‘By God!’ I exclaimed.
‘Exactly.’
Behind us we heard a grunt and turned to see that, unable to sustain his companion’s weight, Bill had collapsed to a kneeling position. Left without support, Bob was trying to keep his balance, his eyes bulging with effort. But the pull of gravity supervened and he too went down, tipping sideways like a foundering ship and sprawling on the cobblestones.
Fidelis and I got both men up and manoeuvred them to the side of the street where they could lean against a wall. I gave each man sixpence.
As we left the pair to make their own befuddled way to wherever they were going, Fidelis’s face wore an almost imperceptible smile. This was an expression that I had last seen after the death of Athene the rat. It might have been read now as amusement at the expense of the two drunks but, in fact, it had a quite different quality: the satisfaction the mind feels after reaching a clever interpretation of obdurate facts.
‘It is looking as if you may be able to build a case against Jotham Allcroft,’ he said.
‘We are a long way from that, surely. We only know he worked there.’
‘He lived there, too, and most important of all he had the skill for the job. Have you forgotten that he was in the fusiliers?’
Chapter Twenty-three
IN THE MORNING voting resumed, its intensity only a little diminished by the fatal events of the day before. Meanwhile I held conference with Furzey at the office. We had two awkward questions to resolve: the timing of the Satterthwaite inquest and what to do about Wilson’s failure to appear at the inquest on Allcroft. Wilfully not to answer a coroner’s summons was an offence, which ought to attract a considerable fine. This money was due to the Crown, and I could have Lord Derby after me, in his role as Lord Lieutenant and Chancellor of the Duch
y of Lancaster, if it came out that I had failed to pursue the miscreant and exact the fine from him. On the other hand, no purpose would be served by starting proceedings in the Duchy court if Wilson had a defence.
‘We’d best go and see him, then,’ said Furzey. ‘He’ll likely be nursing his sore head at home. We’ll take his statement, and we’ll see what it says. If it’s pure drunkenness that kept him away, we can fine him.’
‘Yes, we’ll go this morning. But first, I want to think about this new inquest into Isaac Satterthwaite, and when we should have it. I have my strong suspicions about it and in the ordinary way, the sooner I test those suspicions at inquest the better. But the circumstances surrounding this case are not ordinary.’
‘How’s that? As I see it a man’s dead, the doctor says he was shot, so let’s get it inquested and put our finger on the killer.’
‘But the town is on a very short fuse, Furzey. It is full of factions, and this could set them at each other’s throats. The killing of Allcroft is already causing more stir than is healthy, with talk of it being a political affair. The Tories are seething. I am not at all sure how the arrest of the unfortunate Maggie Satterthwaite is going to play with the people, either.’
‘She’s granddaughter of a self-proclaimed Whig. That’s bad for her. He was an exterminator of vermin and handled poisons. That’s doubly bad. And she put the poisoned dish in Allcroft’s room. That’s—’
‘I know, trebly bad. Yet with the chamber door unlocked, anyone could have gone in there after her and mixed the poison into the stew. There’s no proof it was Maggie, though in certain people’s eyes you don’t need proof, you just have to hate the girl enough and she becomes guilty. It would have been much better had she never bested Grimshaw’s own niece in the May Queen contest, but she did. So there’s more than enough of circumstance and prejudice to convict her, I fear.’
‘The election will be well over by the time of the assize.’
‘Yes, but in the meantime she’ll be the focus for all sorts of discontent. Some will be for her and some against. The killing of her grandfather, on his way to vote, cannot fail to be seen by your Whigs as the same. Once the facts are out they will say it is some kind of retaliation for Allcroft.’
