by Mike Ripley
Mr Campion’s practised eye picked out what was clearly a companion volume, Starlight at Noon, of which he had never heard, and another substantial novel, The Face of Diligence, which he had never read, although he knew the title came from an earlier century and a commentary on rural life in Norfolk by Daniel Defoe.
‘“The face of diligence spread all over East Anglia,”’ he mused, thinking himself alone.
‘Oi beg yours?’ A female voice, and a local one, surprised him.
‘Forgive me, I didn’t see you there,’ said Mr Campion cheerfully, ‘and if I had I might have asked you to play a request.’
The small, wiry-haired woman sitting behind the mahogany piano-top davenport blinked rapidly four or five times, as though her eyes were camera shutters, as she took in the visitor.
‘This ain’t a piano, sir. It be a desk,’ said the woman.
‘And a fine example of what I think was called the ‘harlequin’ style it is too,’ Mr Campion said with false, but convincing, enthusiasm. ‘Open the piano lid and there’s a writing slope where the old black-and-whites should be; probably got several secret compartments for very private correspondence. Was it the very desk at which the talented Miss Wickham wrote?’
‘’Supposed to be, but Oi don’t know nothing about no secret compartments. I do know half these ’ere drawers don’t work, the handles being just for show; and that it’s a bugger when it comes to dusting, Oi know that too.’
‘I don’t think the Victorians worried too much about dust; they had any number of housemaids to take of things like dusting.’
‘I ain’t no housemaid!’ bristled the woman and Mr Campion imagined he could see static electricity sparking off the nylon housecoat she wore. ‘I am the caretaker here, though Mr Spindler did have some daft idea about calling me a “concheeairge” or something. French I think it was.’
‘I think it must be,’ agreed Mr Campion vaguely. ‘Do you get many visitors here, Mrs Spindler?’
‘Get you on!’ spluttered the housecoat indignantly. ‘I ain’t Mrs Spindler. There ain’t no Mrs Spindler. Chance would be a fine thing. My name’s Mrs Thornton. I look after the books during the day, in case of passing trade, and my husband, Mr Thornton, he keeps an eye on the place at night when Mr Spindler is away; which is more often than not – and him a man of his age gallivanting off all the time.’
‘So this Mr Spindler lives here in Wickham House?’ enquired Mr Campion, running a finger down the spine of a particularly dusty volume.
‘Loike Oi said; he does when he’s not swanning off on legal business. The rest of the house is his, only this parlour is open to customers –’ Mrs Thornton emphasised the economic transaction which propriety demanded, ‘– and anyway, it’s known round here as the Prentice House, named after that there book Miss Wickham wrote. We had to read it at school in my day, though it was heavy going for us young ’uns. Nowadays I loike a good Georgette Heyer or a Jean Plaidy.’
Mr Campion selected what was obviously a modern edition of The Face of Diligence and flicked to the title page to discover it was more modern that he would have guessed.
‘Still in print, I see,’ he murmured. ‘After one hundred and some years, that’s impressive; a truly Dickensian achievement.’
‘It’s Mr Spindler that does the books. Always makes sure we have stock of everything Miss Wickham wrote, though I’ll admit some of her poetry takes a bit of shifting these days. Still, it all helps with the upkeep of the house, so Mr Spindler says.’
Mr Campion set the book down on the piano-lid top of the davenport and drew his wallet to ensure the woman’s full attention.
‘A house like this must take some keeping up for a single man,’ he observed. ‘It not only has some age and a historic pedigree, but if this is the Prentice House, doesn’t it have a secret passage? The upkeep on secret passages must be daunting, though I suppose the actual running costs must, by definition, remain secret.’
The small woman, who Mr Campion realised, was standing, not sitting, behind the davenport, snorted in soft derision.
‘Secret passages my eye! How can they be secret when everybody knows about them?’
‘Then what purpose do they serve?’
‘Sheep,’ said Mrs Thornton emphatically.
‘I thought sheep preferred to gambol through meadows or perhaps jump over a fence as a favour to insomniacs. I had no idea they needed their own Underground network,’ smiled Mr Campion.
‘Everything round here’s to do with sheep,’ the woman said firmly. ‘Always has been. I reckon those tunnels were dug at the time of the Civil War, all the houses that have them are the right age. You put your sheep in there whenever there were hungry soldiers about – out of sight, out of stomach, they used to say. When it was shearing time, you’d always hide a few fleeces down there: fleeces you didn’t tell the revenue men about, fleeces that somehow got across to Flanders where the weavers paid top price. You’ll find it all in Miss Wickham’s books if you read between the lines. Lindsay Carfax was a wool town with a wool church.’
‘I have seen the church,’ said Mr Campion, ‘and marvelled at its size. It really is huge for a parish of this size. It must be difficult to fill.’
‘That’s true enough these days,’ nodded the woman, ‘especially with our latest radical vicar, but in the olden days, people were proud to go. Them that made their fortunes out of wool – and there were more than a few of them – put their money where their God was and built the biggest and best churches they could. Nowadays they spend their money in other ways. Foolish ways, if you ask me, though nobody ever does.’
‘The owner – Mr Spindler – does he make his living out of wool?’
‘There’s no money in wool these days, least not round here. All that trade’s long gone.’ She narrowed her eyes and her voice adopted a tone of disapproval. ‘Ain’t you never read Jonathan Prentice? It’s all in there; the last knockings of the old wool trade and all them Luddites smashing the machines. You should treat yourself to a copy. We’ve got a large-print edition somewhere.’
‘I think I can manage regular print.’
‘I was only thinking on those big glasses you’re wearing and trying to be helpful,’ Mrs Thornton said humbly.
‘Absolutely no offence taken, my dear lady, and I would love to purchase a book, here at the shrine to the author.’ Mr Campion turned his attention to the nearest pile but before he could select a volume, Mrs Thornton answered his unasked question.
‘That one’s five pounds, if you please.’
‘Which one?’
‘They’re all five pounds apiece. Mr Spindler says it keeps things simpler that way, though you get more for your money if you go for one of the novels rather than the poetry. A bit slim, the poetry.’
Mr Campion let out a long slow breath and selected a copy of The Face of Diligence.
‘Mr Spindler sounds to be a something of a sharp businessman.’
‘He ain’t no businessman, he’s got no need to be in trade. He’s a solicitor, ain’t he – and an important one.’
‘You mean a senior partner?’ Mr Campion asked innocently.
‘I meant he’s the only solicitor in Lindsay Carfax. That way he’s got a finger in every pie.’
On the High Street once more, Mr Campion clutched his recent purchase to his chest and surveyed his next port of call. His choice lay between Mrs Clarissa Webster’s combination of art gallery and tourist trap called The Medley and the quaintly signed Humble Museum, which he optimistically took to be eponymous rather than descriptive. He was in no doubt that both emporia were likely to lighten his wallet further. Pseudo-science or fake art? It was a choice of the ages and one, he decided, which should not to be taken too seriously.
He opted for pseudo-science and crossed the road, rounding the Carders Hall, to the residence and workshop of Lindsay Carfax’s second most celebrated inhabitant, Josiah Humble (1725-1794), apothecary, inventor and, more than likely, quack.
‘It�
��s two shillings’ admission – for the upkeep – whether you make a purchase or not,’ said a familiar female voice before the tinkle of the doorbell had faded away.
Mr Campion reformed his opinion of the late Josiah, who was surely also a magician.
‘Why, Mrs Thornton, how nice to see you again – and so soon. My wallet was feeling quite forlorn and forgotten. How the deuce did you get here so quickly? No, don’t tell me, the famously un-secret secret passages of Lindsay Carfax, unless I’m much mistaken, linking – let me see – the vicarage, the Woolpack, Carders Hall, the Prentice House and of course, here; the repository of all things Humble. The underground traffic locally seems more efficient than the Piccadilly line.’
‘Oi saw yeuw heading this way,’ said Mrs Thornton, blushing slightly, ‘and thought I’d get round here straight off. There’s only me on duty, you see, now the summer holidays are finished and there are no coach parties expected, so I cover both places.’
‘Mr Spindler sounds to be a demanding employer,’ Mr Campion observed.
‘Oh, this ain’t Spindler’s business, well, not directly. It’s the Fullers who run this place.’
‘The Fullers?’
‘Oh, they don’t live here – nobody does – but the Fuller family has owned this place long as anyone can remember. Mr Marcus Fuller was the one who opened it as a museum but he’s more or less retired since his divorce and his little brother Simon now runs the business. They’re big property agents and are always picking up old stuff to put on display.’
The ubiquitous Mrs Thornton stood in a doorway across a room which strained at the seams with the amount of things packed into virtually every square inch of space so that Mr Campion took a moment to plot a path through the clutter.
His first impression was that he had stepped into a rag-and-bone man’s junkyard in the Balls Pond Road but as his eyes took in the scene, he revised his opinion to one of a disorganised antique shop immediately after a burglary. As a museum, there seemed to have been little effort put into explanatory notices or descriptions of exhibits, but at least the exhibits did – Mr Campion thought charitably – attempt to reflect 18th century life, even if not the life of an apothecary in a small Suffolk wool town. Among the clutter, he noticed two long case clocks both silent and in need of restoration; wood-wormed malt shovels nailed to one wall; a brace of Brown Bess muskets hanging on another; there was an oak and pine trestle table and a folding coach table, both of which might have been genuine, and on them among other flotsam were piled painted silk fans, brushes, a wing compass, ceramic storage jars, metal skillets, a set of wick trimmers, a bronze pestle and mortar and a flintlock Dragoon pistol. Smaller items – nails, handles, pin cushions and thimbles – lay in undisturbed piles on the seats of four unmatched dining chairs and a Queen Anne-style wing-back settee whose upholstery was badly damp stained and somewhat mouldy.
Down both sides of the doorway which framed Mrs Thornton, hung small reproductions of paintings by Reynolds and Gainsborough and prints by Hogarth and all had small white price tags dangling from pieces of thread. As if reading his mind, Mrs Thornton slowly extended a hand, palm upwards.
‘It’s two shillings for the entrance,’ she repeated. ‘Postcards and guide books are available in the workshop through here.’
Mr Campion sorted out the appropriate coinage.
‘Your two jobs must keep you busy,’ he smiled, though he doubted that his charm would win him any discounts.
‘Two? Hah! Three more likely,’ the woman snorted, slipping the coins into the pocket of her housecoat with the speed and skill of a Western gunslinger holstering his revolver. ‘I’m off at half-eleven to do the dinners at the junior school, then back here or the Prentice House depending on visitors and then I have to get home to cook the tea for my husband and the lodger; so you could say I have four jobs.’
Mr Campion looked suitably impressed.
‘The devil has no need to make work for idle hands in Lindsay Carfax it seems. Caretaker, curator and now dinner lady at the school, you say? Would you happen to know one of the teachers there, Mr Walker?’
‘Lemuel? Of course I know him. I not only serve him his lunch at the Juniors, but I cook his breakfast and his tea every day. He’s my lodger.’
‘What a small world! I heard his lecture on the Woolcarders on Saturday night. Some of the questions from the floor seemed to upset him.’
Mrs Thornton frowned in suspicion.
‘Well, he’s a very highly-strung individual. I knew he was upset afterwards, ’cos he woke me up banging about in kitchen making himself some cocoa when he got back, even though it was well after midnight. He should never have agreed to do public speaking, not after what happened to him recently.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr Campion, ‘he was what they call a Nine Days’ Wonder round here, wasn’t he? A disappearance without explanation is rather strange behaviour, don’t you think?’
‘Last time I looked it was still a free country,’ Mrs Thornton stiffened, ‘and Lemmy’s a man of voting age and he was back before the school term started. Don’t see why the poor man should be hounded in public. There might not be idle hands in Lindsay but there are quite a few idle tongues.’
‘And what do those idle tongues whisper?’ Mr Campion asked more in mischief than in anticipation of any insight.
‘They say –’ said the small woman sternly, glaring up into Campion’s face ‘– that he wasn’t minding his own business and I believe your business is to look round this here museum. You’ve paid your money, so you might as well get the good of it. There’s this room and the workshop through here.’ She indicated the doorway behind her. ‘You get both in the price of admission.’
‘Then I must take full advantage,’ said Mr Campion blithely. ‘Lay on, good lady, lay on.’
It was clear that Mrs Thornton’s many job descriptions did not include museum guide. Not that there was much of a museum to be guided around, for the Humble house was a one-up, one-down building; the staircase to the upstairs cordoned off by a stout rope from which hung a printed sign saying: Stockroom – No Public Admittance.
The ‘workshop’ was a ground floor extension which might at one time have been a stable or a pig pen and had later been moulded on to the house. It was approached by stepping through the doorway previously guarded by Mrs Thornton and over a trap door with a large, inset ring for a handle. Next to it was a large battery torch.
‘Is this the secret passage which allows you to pop up and surprise the tourists?’ asked Mr Campion as the trap door creaked under his weight.
‘It comes in handy when it’s raining,’ conceded Mrs Thornton. ‘Now I’ll leave you to enjoy the exhibits. I’ll be in the front room so I can keep an eye on the Prentice House, just in case there are more customers about. If you wish to make any purchases, I won’t be far away.’
‘Is it permissible to take photographs of this Holy of Holies?’
Campion hefted the camera case hanging from his shoulder.
‘Don’t see why not; doesn’t say anywhere you can’t.’
‘Then I’ll take that as permission,’ said Campion with a reverential bow.
The workshop of Josiah Humble was monastically furnished compared to the clutter which now filled his domestic quarters, the exhibits laid out on two long, thin wooden tables, giving the first impression that this was the workshop of a carpenter. Wooden-handled screwdrivers sat side-by-side frame saws, an elaborate brace-and-bit, sets of drawing instruments, set squares and smoothing planes in a variety of sizes. Along the tables the wood-working tools gave way to racks of glass tubes, ceramic storage jars and distillation equipment and primitive thermometers, presumably signifying Josiah’s transition from artisan to scientist and to emphasise the point there was a rack of prints (reasonably priced) of portraits of Priestley, Lavoisier, Jenner and Watt though not of Humble himself. It appeared that his claim to scientific fame was promoted by association rather than achievement.
Finally, th
e pièce de resistance at the end of the room: the famous Humble’s Box in all its mystic glory, along with a display of thin pamphlets declaring: ‘The Famous Humble Box Explained. Price One Shilling.’
Mr Campion sighed and reached, automatically now, for his wallet.
‘Eliza Jane tells me I should call you Albert. Perhaps she thinks we should have an affair.’
‘I am certain, Mrs Webster, she meant you could call me your kindly Uncle Albert just as she does.’
‘Oh well, you can’t blame a gal for trying, can you?’
Campion had been caught in her carefully weighted net as he left the Humble Museum and now felt himself being hauled down the High Street towards The Medley just as a trawled cod – or should that be flounder? – is pulled in towards the fishing boat and dumped unceremoniously on deck. With Clarissa Webster’s sturdy right arm hooked through his left, Mr Campion decided further resistance was futile and allowed himself to be reeled in.
‘I saw you meandering between Prentice and Humble and thought you needed guiding to the true centre of the Lindsay hive, which is of course the Medley,’ announced Mrs Webster as they marched in step.
‘And what might I find there: honey or a queen bee?’ asked Mr Campion.
‘Both, if you are lucky,’ the woman flirted. She was dressed for flirting in a tight (a little too tight?) dress of red satin which ended an inch above very acceptable knees and was scooped low at the neck to frame an equally admirable bosom. She wore matching red shoes with impressive heels and had a short, brown jacket of soft leather hanging from two crooked fingers over her left shoulder.
‘I simply assumed that after a double dose of Mrs Thornton – I’m guessing she did the tunnel trick which so impresses the Americans – you would be in need of rescuing. Was I wrong?’
‘Did I need rescuing or was it perhaps my wallet?’
