by Robin Blake
His conclusions, should he do so, would expose the great
secret to the world and surely end all your interest in
Jamaican sugar. You will be hounded from society, from
the county. You know you have my undivided loyalty
always. Five hundred will do it! Your most affct friend,
Barnabus Woodley.
Quickly I folded the extortionate letter and stuffed it into my coat. ‘Rascally coroner’, indeed! I returned to the others, who stood craning towards me, expecting to hear something of the contents of the paper. Instead I asked Fidelis what he concluded.
‘There’s a head injury, which has been bleeding. It must be the one he got when he slipped last night and his head struck the corner of the table. Also an arm appears to be broken and he has an injury to his cheek and chin – probably done by falling from the horse. But most important there is a bullet wound.’
‘He was shot?’
‘Yes. In the belly. The ball came out through his back. It is almost certainly what killed him.’
He pulled back the coat and I could see a blackened and blood-stained hole in the lining. I pulled the pistol out.
‘Don’t tell me he discharged this in his pocket?’
Luke shook his head.
‘Yes, but he may not have done so deliberately. I think he fell from his horse and the gun went off when he hit the ground.’
‘Or he was thrown.’
‘Fell, I think. He had taken a severe blow to the head. He probably fainted; perhaps the injury caused a bleed within the brain. Such a thing is more likely under the pressure of strong emotions.’
I sighed.
‘So he may have got what he wanted, after all. Accidental death.’
‘But what brought him here, Titus? To this place, of all places?’
‘Maybe he intended to shoot himself here, on the spot where Dolores had died. As a kind of … what shall we call it? A poetic resolution of all his entanglements. He certainly deliberately re-loaded the piece. It had been discharged when he picked it off the floor at the Turk’s Head.’
I instructed Pearson to ride fast to Garlick Hall. He must let them know what had happened and if possible prevent Sarah from leaving for the inquest, then return to meet me at the hollow oak. Meanwhile I direly warned the two ancients of their duty to keep a watch over the corpse until I or Pearson returned, however long that might be.
With these orders I set a course for events to repeat with some precision those of a week earlier. What had been done then for the wife, had to be done now for the husband: a watch put on the body; an urgent message sent up to Garlick Hall; instructions given to prepare the Ice-house for a second tenant. There was no need this time, however, for a tumbril to be trundled up the road. The squire’s horse might not have been bred to pack duties, but to carry the remains home was a last service he could do for his master.
There was another difference between now and then. Hurrying away with Fidelis to Yolland, I set my duties out in a clear arrangement one by one, like ninepins in the alley. The squire had died, as had his wife, within my jurisdiction. I had been summoned to the corpse according to the correct form, and it was plain that an inquest would be needed. Well, as luck would have it, one was already sitting. I only had to splice the two hearings together by swearing the existing jury anew on this second matter, and I could proceed without delay to show them the second corpse at the ideal location for its viewing – the site where it was found. There would be, as far as I knew, nothing irregular in that, though Furzey with his long forensic memory would be quick enough to tell me if there were.
Chapter Twenty-eight
WE ARRIVED AT the Plough Inn, several minutes after nine, to find that Furzey had not only caused the doors of Wigglesworth’s public room to be unlocked, but had let in the public. Their number was vastly greater than on the previous morning, and so was the hubbub: it was clear that the peasant granddaughter, arriving ahead of me, had spread the momentous news of a fourth death connected to Garlick Hall. My first concern, then, was whether Sarah was here, and knew her brother’s fate.
There were still people crowded around the door, trying to force the entrance to the inquest, although the room inside was already at capacity. As I approached I saw Bailiff Grimshaw in the ruck. As the latecomers barged and brayed around him, his gold-braided hat was pitching and bobbing like a cockboat.
‘Cragg!’ he bellowed, catching sight of me and jabbing the air with a stubby finger. ‘I hold you responsible for this disorderly mob.’
I waved at him cheerfully, as if I had not caught his meaning, and skirted round the pack until I found Wigglesworth.
‘I hope Miss Brockletower hasn’t come yet,’ I said, raising my voice to be heard.
The landlord leaned close to my ear.
‘In my parlour, sir.’
‘Oh! Then I had better go in to her. Later I would like to wagon my jury a distance of some two and a half miles. Is your passenger-vehicle available for use today?’
‘It is that, sir. I can have horses between the shafts in ten or fifteen minutes.’
‘Will you do that, please?’
Wigglesworth seemed reluctant.
‘At whose expense would that be, sir?’ he asked. ‘At your own?’
‘No, no! The town will pay out of coroner’s expenses. Add it to the account you submit with the hire of the room.’
Sarah was sitting beside the fire with the dog Jonathan and her maid Honor. She had not removed her cape and bonnet, nor lifted the black veil that hid her face. I had come in without announcement, but she knew at once it was me.
‘Titus,’ she said in a clear, high, strained voice. ‘When you come to visit me it is always to give news of another fatality. I am beginning to think of you as an angel of death.’
A number of stools were stacked in a corner behind the parlour door. I lifted one of them down and placed it beside her chair.
‘Angel of death!’ I said, lowering myself onto the stool. ‘That is a new way of describing a coroner. So you already know what has happened?’
‘I’ve heard that my poor brother has been discovered in the woods at the same spot, and in the same condition, as his wife was found last week. Is it true?’
‘I’m afraid so. He is dead.’
I wished I could see her face to read its expression. But the veil was impenetrable.
‘So death still sits on the roof of our house. First Dolores, then Woodley and the idiot labouring man, and now poor Ramilles. If I wept for him, I would have good reason.’
‘You are veiled, Sarah. But I think you do not weep.’
My remark was presumptuous but Sarah seemed pleased.
‘You are right, I don’t weep. As his sister I should, but these poor eyes are good for nothing, it seems, not even shedding tears.’
‘Tears can do Ramilles no good now. You must look to yourself.’
She turned her head sharply towards me.
‘Look, Titus? Must I look?’
‘You know what I mean.’
She sighed with a long out-breath, and followed it with a reflective silence.
‘So much of language is taken up with looking and seeing,’ she said at last. ‘Most people don’t notice, but I mark every instance as soon as it hits my ear. See here! Kind regards! In my view. I’ll look after you.’
She gave another sigh, but more business-like.
‘Who will look after me now, Titus? I have hopeless prospects. ’
She gave a single, bitter laugh.
‘And there’s another instance,’ she said. ‘Prospects!’
‘You have no reason to abandon hope, Sarah.’
‘Then tell me without equivocating, has my brother taken his own life? I need to know, for if he has, I am ruined.’
‘It isn’t for me to rule on whether he did or not,’ I said, with a glance at the maid, who sat demurely looking into the fire. She was listening intently, though pretending not to. ‘T
here will be another inquest and the jury will decide.’
‘Then tell me exactly what you know.’
So I told her, not sparing any of the detail of the previous night’s events at the Turk’s Head, nor of what had been later found in the woods.
When I had finished, she said, ‘I am touched that Ramilles thought of me, and held back at first from the awful act of suicide. But I am very sorry he tried to force you to do the office for him.’
‘Well, I am a public servant, after all.’
‘Is that an attempt at levity, Titus?’
‘I am sorry. It is because I find it difficult to tell you the truth. I’m afraid it is possible that the inquest jury will find for suicide, after all. He died by the shot of his own gun, you see.’
I heard the sound of the long-case clock in the passageway striking the half-hour. Sarah did not comment and at that moment I made a pledge which, looking back, still frightens me.
‘But you must trust me, Sarah,’ I said. ‘You will not go destitute. I will make sure of it. But I need to leave you now. The inquest on Dolores must continue, and that on your brother must begin.’
There was still uproar in the inquest room. Forcing my way in, I quickly briefed Furzey, then returned to my chair and hammered them all down to silence.
‘As everyone already appears to know,’ I said, ‘Squire Brockletower has been found dead. I have already been called to the body, and have determined that an inquest is required. Since we are already in the midst of such a process on Mr Brockletower’s wife, I propose to swear this same jury on the new matter and allow the two hearings to continue in parallel. Let’s proceed.’
I then turned to the jury and swore them one by one, as before. The excitable Pimlott’s mouth was working, as if chewing on something very hot. Of the others, Gumble, who I knew had hated Brockletower, looked anxious. He might not have liked the terms of his tenancy, but the uncertainty of change appealed even less. The reserve juror Tom Avery, on the other hand, appeared exultant. I was glad he was not a voting member, for his fanaticism would surely have distorted any verdict out of recognition.
I now addressed the court again, formally adjourning the hearing until such time as the jury had viewed this latest body. The bailiff, who had bullied his way into a seat near the front, immediately rose to his feet. He was bristling and (when he spoke) booming. He had come all this way expressly from Preston to hear the evidence, and he demanded to know if he was to be kept waiting all day, and if so why? I carefully controlled and articulated my reply for all to hear.
‘Mr Grimshaw, may I explain? All excepting the jurors and the notified witnesses are at liberty to return to their homes and businesses. Their waiting in this room is neither legally required nor (in these numbers) particularly desired, though they are welcome as ever to stay for the outcome, if they so wish and have the leisure. But let it be always remembered, please, that the pace of this inquiry is not set for their convenience, but in the interests of finding the truth. Now, let us get on.’
Grimshaw’s mouth worked open and shut, but there was nothing he could say. Deflated, he sat down while I beckoned the jurors to follow me out to the waiting wagon.
Wigglesworth’s wagon was furnished with a wide bench seat running lengthwise down its centre, so that the passengers, ranged in two rows back to back, could sit looking outwards at the passing scene. I hoped the arrangement would discourage them from disputing with each other. Once Pennyfold had disposed them in their places, I mounted my horse and signalled to the driver to follow behind me along the road. For several hundred yards a small crew of village children trailed us, dancing along and shouting. Some tried to clamber onto the wagon’s tailgate, only to be cuffed off by the backs of the passengers’ hands.
As we passed the vicarage I suddenly had the idea that I would go in to the Reverend Brockletower, to advise him of his nephew’s fate, and perhaps see if he could throw any light on it. I sent the wagon on ahead, saying I would catch them up.
A servant in a mob-cap and holding a feather duster opened the front door.
‘He’s in his study, sir,’ she told me when I’d enquired after her master. ‘Though whether you’ll get any sense out of him, I doubt. Been there all night, he has.’
She showed me to the study door and I went in. The room was curtained and the fire had died. The priest lay on the hearthrug flat out and unwigged with his round stomach upwards, his legs splayed and his mouth open, snoring gently. A spilled stem-glass lay on the carpet near his hand. An empty decanter stood on the little table beside his fireside chair. Two equally empty port wine bottles had been placed together on the mantel-shelf and below them, in the hearth, lay a mess of broken tobacco pipes.
The Brockletowers, I thought, contemplating this sight, had been a blighted family indeed: their young head given to anger and unnatural attachments, and regarded as a tyrant by his tenants; his sister stone blind; his clergyman uncle an incapable sot.
‘Ahem.’
I coughed into my fist, as loudly as possible. The recumbent parson did not stir. I called more loudly.
‘Mr Brockletower, sir?’
With a snort he came awake and the eye nearest to me rolled open, followed by its companion. Both eyeballs were bulbous and mottled with all the yellows and pinks that might conceivably be available on the largest of Mr Winstanley’s palettes. After a moment’s dazed reflection the Reverend Brockletower groaned and began levering himself up until he was hoisted on one elbow. He blinked at me without recognition.
‘Mr Brockletower,’ I said, ‘it is Coroner Cragg. How do you do?’
He rubbed his free hand across his face, rasping the stubble of his beard.
‘How do I do? How do I do? I’m sorry, but at this moment I don’t, sir. And shall not for some hours. Too much port after dinner, you know. That’s all it is.’
‘Well, I have called to enquire if you’ve heard anything of Ramilles.’
He looked at me as if through fogged eyes.
‘Ram, is it? My nephew? Take a seat, take a seat! Have I heard from him? Let me think. Yes, yes. He was here. Of course he was. That was last night. He rode here like a fury. He would not drink, all he wanted to do was talk. It’s all coming back to me. He talked like a maniac. He accused me of breach of confidence and telling mischievous tales about him and then he said I had killed him. Killed him? I said how could I have killed him when he stood before me as full of life as a March hare. But he kept saying it – I’d killed him, I’d killed him.’
Suddenly the Reverend Brockletower’s mouth dropped down at the sides and, turning his head away, he squinted into the farthest corner of the room.
‘Or did he? Did he really? Perhaps I dreamed the whole thing, lying here on the floor. These details certainly resemble those of a nightmare, but I do not remember. Too much port after dinner, eh? I can’t be absolutely sure that it isn’t making me lose my mind.’
I hastened to reassure him.
‘I saw him at a coffee house in town last night, sir. He told me he had been with you, so I think you may comfort yourself, at least, that your mind is not playing tricks. And, after he visited you, he was in a peculiarly deranged state in the evening, by which time I saw him.’
‘But what did he say to you? Did he accuse me of killing him?’
‘Comfort yourself, sir, he did not. However, I am very much afraid you must prepare yourself, for your nephew is indeed dead. They found him at daybreak in the Fulwood. It was the same spot where his unfortunate wife was discovered. But it was an accident, I hope.’
The vicar put his hands to his cheeks.
‘Oh! Oh! Dead, is he? Not dead! Oh! Poor boy! Poor boy!’
Sitting there on the floor, he moved the hands towards each other until they covered his whole face and slowly lowered his head onto his knees. I said a few words of condolence, to which he did not respond. So I turned to the door and quietly turned the knob. I could still hear the muffled lamentation as, retreating across th
e hall, I let myself out.
When I caught up with the jury, the village children had given up the chase, and the wagon was jolting along without its ushers. Its passengers were arguing loudly about the relative merits of two prizefighters, the Long Ridge Lammer and a Garstang man known only as the Churchwarden, who were due to meet in combat the following week in a tent on Town Moor. So much for my hope that the seating arrangement would pacify the jurymen, but I left them to talk, for I had heard a horse galloping to catch up with us. It was Luke Fidelis.
‘Luke!’ I cried. ‘We are going to view the body in situ mortis. Come with us.’
So Fidelis and I trotted side by side along the Preston road, as the argument about whether the Lammer’s granite jaw would prove susceptible to the Churchwarden’s cast-iron fist, lurched and swayed along behind us.
I find that puzzles are either canine or feline. Some are like a dog that barks and wants to play. The dog runs and leaps around, just out of reach, but you can be confident that, sooner rather than later, it will tire and be mastered. Much worse are the problems that retreat from you, like a cat that creeps under your garden shed. No amount of cajoling will bring it to hand. No words or foodstuffs are sweet enough to persuade it out. The only thing is to go about some other business and only then will it emerge into the light and lap the milk you left for it.
The problem I was presented with at the start of this narrative – the bloody death of Dolores Brockletower – had been of the feline kind. The more strenuously I had pursued the solution, the more elusive it became. Only as the means of her husband’s death preoccupied me would I stumble upon exactly how his wife had died.
As we came in sight of the tongue of the Fulwood that licks across the Yolland road I was worrying over this question of Brockletower’s death. I told Fidelis of the decision I had made while speaking with Sarah: to do all I could for her sake to deflect the jury from such a verdict.
