by Caro Peacock
‘He’s a nice enough old gentleman, but no fighting cock.’
‘He doesn’t need to be, especially now you’ll be here, too. All he has to do is keep his nerve.’
‘And what if your man doesn’t take the bait?’
‘Then it will be my own fault for not placing it properly.’
But in truth that was what worried me most, especially since the details couldn’t be planned in advance. We came to Gloucester well ahead of Mr Godwit and found the hotel in Southgate where the Cheltenham contingent would be staying. The first problem was persuading them to find me a room. They were full almost to the rafters, but eventually an attic chamber at the back was offered. My maid would have to share a double bed in an even smaller room with two others. I nodded to that, knowing that Tabby would choose to sleep on the floor of my room. It didn’t matter greatly since neither of us was likely to spend much time asleep. Amos had disappeared by then. He’d be finding somebody he knew in the stable yard to ensure accommodation for the horses and himself.
I washed in the grudging pint of lukewarm water that was all the hotel would provide, changed into the dull but respectable blue cotton twill I’d brought along in my saddle bag and went down to meet Mr Godwit. He arrived two hours later and in a flurry, with little time to change before the ceremony of welcome for the judges. I waited and walked with him the short distance to the Shirehall. A small crowd had gathered outside, watching the worthies assembling on the steps in front of the Ionic columns that made the building look like a cramped Greek temple. The high sheriff and his party were at the centre, flanked by the city mayor and a platoon of clergymen, sleek as magpies in their black cassocks and white neckbands. A court usher waited beside the mayor, clutching two incongruous posies of rosebuds, lad’s love and sprigs of rosemary. They were for the judges – a relict of the days when they held bunches of herbs in front of their noses to keep off the plague germs that showed no respect for anybody. A large group of magistrates stood to one side of the clergymen. Mr Crow noticed us, gave a cheery wave quite out of keeping with the dignity of the occasion and signed to Mr Godwit that he should come and stand between himself and Penbrake.
‘I’ll see you later, back at the hotel,’ I said to Mr Godwit.
He walked towards the others steadily enough and took his place with his fellow magistrates. That much achieved, at least. As it turned out, only one judge arrived to be welcomed. The other had been detained by business left over from last week’s assizes in Monmouth. Speeches were made, a posy presented and then they all went inside for the official opening of the session.
I stayed outside, with an errand to do. I’d managed to find out from Mr Godwit that the lawyers, regular as house martins in their roosting habits, usually stayed at the Booth Hall Hotel, conveniently close to the Shirehall. A polite inquiry to the first legal-looking gentleman I saw in the lobby produced the name of the barrister who’d be defending Jack Picton on Monday. I found out later that his nickname on the circuit was St Jude, from his habit of representing hopeless cases. In spite of that, he was a pleasant and humorous man, with the long face and ruminative eyes of a moorland sheep. If he’d been wearing his wig, the resemblance would have been complete. We talked in the hotel’s coffee room. He hadn’t yet met Picton but knew from the papers on the case that he’d be dealing with a more than usually awkward client. I explained my interest as briefly as I could, without bringing Mr Godwit into it by name, and asked when he planned to see Picton.
‘I’m hoping they’ll let me talk to him early tomorrow, before the prisoners go in to chapel. If not, it will be in the court cells on Monday.’
‘There’s something I’d be grateful if you’d put to him,’ I said. ‘It explains why he won’t talk about what happened on the night of the murder, and why he’s sure somebody was trying to trap him.’
The lawyer sighed. ‘I shall try to discourage him from talking about this trap idea. It sounds too much like flailing around in desperation.’
‘There was no trap,’ I said. ‘But there was a good reason why he thought there was. He had probably received a note from Mary Marsh asking him to meet her in the woods that night.’
‘Probably, you say. But I gather there’s no proof of that. He didn’t keep the note.’
‘No. Trust him not to do anything so useful. But let’s take this as a hypothesis. He goes to meet her. He probably gets there early. While he’s hidden and waiting, he sees somebody else near the house, behaving furtively. That man is so well connected in the local community that Picton concludes that he’s part of a plot to trap him in some illegality. He runs away and hides.’
The lawyer looked at me like a sheep at a patch of moss where it had half hoped to find grass.
‘Leaving Miss Marsh to be murdered?’
‘He had no idea she was in danger. By then he’d probably convinced himself that she was part of the plot.’
‘Giving him a motive to kill her?’
‘Somebody else had a much better motive. Mary Marsh knew something that the other person wanted to conceal at all costs.’
‘Hypothesis,’ he said wearily. ‘No proof. The jury won’t like it.’
I’d decided in advance not to tell him the whole story yet. Lawyers were discreet, but, in a city surging with them, gossip would circulate.
‘There’s a way of testing it,’ I said. ‘If you see Picton tomorrow, I’d like you to tell him what I’ve just told you and then mention a name to him. See how he reacts.’
‘The name?’
I told him. It meant nothing to him, but then he wasn’t from this part of the world. He agreed to mention it, but I could tell he was only doing it to avoid an argument, not from conviction.
‘May I meet you here this time tomorrow?’ I said. ‘I hope to have more to tell you.’
He said, gallantly, that it would be a pleasure, but I could see he expected nothing from it. Another assizes, another hopeless case.
Back at our hotel, the party from Cheltenham was sitting down to a late supper in the dining room. Voices grew louder as the gentlemen relaxed from formality and moved rapidly through roast beef and claret to dessert and then port. I didn’t join them. I’d have been the only woman in the room and didn’t want to be conspicuous. It was a different matter when they moved to the room next door to take coffee. A distant female relative of one of their number might properly join them there. Mr Crow noticed me first and roared out a welcome in a voice that would have carried over a battle at sea. His invitation, ‘Come and sit beside me, my dear,’ must have been heard by everybody in the room. He gestured with his ear trumpet at the space next to him on the sofa, stood up to welcome me and then sat down beside me.
‘So, what is a lovely young lady like you doing with tedious old gentlemen like us?’
That brought glares from several gentlemen around him, but he couldn’t be quelled or ignored.
‘Business at court,’ I said, smiling at him.
He laughed as if it were an excellent joke and repeated it at the top of his voice, just in case anybody in the room had missed it.
‘Business at court. Are you going to dress yourself up as a barrister, like whatsername in that play?’
‘Do you think I’d make a good one?’ I said.
‘Sure of it. With you pleading for him, there’s not a juryman in the land wouldn’t find Cain himself not guilty.’ He repeated ‘Cain himself’ several times, chuckling.
A couple of the clergymen were looking shocked, but the other men seemed to have decided that since there was no competing with Crow, they might as well get what entertainment they could out of him.
‘Jack Picton, too?’ I said.
A sudden silence in the room. Only Mr Crow seemed unaware of it.
‘You’re not worrying your head about that rogue, are you? He’ll be dancing a jig over the gatehouse before the month’s out.’
It wasn’t only the clergymen who looked shocked at that. Hanging people was all very well,
but you shouldn’t be indelicate about it.
‘Ten to one he’s found not guilty,’ I said.
Jaws dropped all round us, at a lady talking like a leg. Anybody not listening to us before was listening now. Even Mr Crow looked surprised, but he recovered quickly.
‘Ten to one. In pennies.’ He wasn’t being miserly. This was all still a joke to him and he didn’t want to take my money.
‘Guineas,’ I said.
He took the trumpet out of his ear, shook it and put it back in again.
‘Guineas?’
I moved closer to him and dropped my voice, but not too much. ‘On second thoughts, I can’t take your money,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t be sporting. You see, I know he didn’t kill Mary Marsh and there’s evidence to prove who did.’
‘Evidence? What evidence?’ Even Mr Crow had to take that seriously.
A small crowd was forming round our sofa. I pretended to be aware for the first time of the attention we were attracting and belatedly struck by discretion.
‘I shouldn’t be talking about it, should I? Mr Godwit has it. He’s taking it to Picton’s barrister tomorrow, after church. I expect he’ll tell you.’
I stood up, wished Mr Crow goodnight and left with all eyes in the room on me. Only one pair mattered. I waited in the hotel lobby. After a few minutes Mr Godwit joined me, looking worried. I suggested we should talk outside, so we went into the warm darkness and stood on the pavement. Tabby was loitering not far away.
‘Well, that’s the bait,’ I said. ‘From now until it’s over, you mustn’t be on your own. If you’ll give me your room key, I’ll wait for you up there.’
‘In my room?’ He sounded more alarmed at that than anything that had gone so far.
‘Don’t worry; you’ll hardly know I’m there. I’ll be on a chair by the door. You can even put a screen across if you like.’
‘But what will people think?’
‘If this goes as we hope, they’ll have a lot more to think about tomorrow than where I spent the night. If you think we need a chaperone, Tabby will be there.’
That did not comfort him. He’d ventured a long way – further than in his worst nightmares – but on this point he was immoveable. At some point in the discussion, Tabby disappeared. She came back with a tall figure beside her.
‘I’m as good a watchdog as you’ll need,’ Amos said out of the darkness.
Mr Godwit spun round and gasped, not recognizing his voice at first, aware only of his size.
‘It’s all right. I don’t snore,’ said Amos reassuringly.
‘But . . . but where will you sleep?’
‘On a rug across the inside of your door. Don’t worry; I’ve spent many a night in the straw waiting for a mare to foal. This won’t be any worse.’
So it was settled. Amos was to take off his boots and go up the servants’ stairs and wait by Mr Godwit’s room. Mr Godwit and I would go up the main stairs together; I’d wish him goodnight and go up a floor to the room that Tabby and I would be sharing. That arrangement meant he wasn’t a moment alone. With that achieved, Tabby and I made a nest for her on the floor of our room with the counterpane and bolster from the bed and she curled up in it, fully clothed except for her shoes. I took off my dress and petticoats but kept them ready on a chair by the bed and left a candle burning on the washstand. I slept fitfully, and although Tabby didn’t stir, having a cat’s ability to doze anywhere as long as she was left alone, I guessed she was more awake than asleep, waiting for the outcry from downstairs that would surely come if anybody tried to get past Amos. But by the time the sky through our small window had turned from dark to grey, nothing had happened.
‘He didn’t come, then,’ Tabby said, turning towards me.
‘No. So he’ll have to take his chance this morning.’
The servants were already stirring. Soon everybody would be assembling again for the morning service at the cathedral, which was the other part of the assizes opening ritual. After that we’d all be going home.
Just before eight o’clock I went down and knocked on Mr Godwit’s door. It was opened by Amos, looking as spruce as if he’d slept on goose feathers and been dressed by a valet.
‘Slept well, did you?’ he said.
‘No. I don’t suppose you did, either.’
‘Well enough,’ Amos said.
‘Not a wink,’ Mr Godwit said from behind him.
I believed him. He was fully dressed for church, neat enough, but his face was pale and he’d cut his chin shaving. He and I went down to the dining room together, leaving Amos on guard in the room and Tabby foraging for breakfast for them both. Quite a few of the party from the night before were in the dining room and Mr Godwit and I received some curious looks, though nobody said anything beyond normal morning politenesses. With breakfast over, people began collecting hats, coats and gloves and strolling towards the cathedral. Bells were already pealing from its tower, over the sunlit streets and the river and the prison in between. Mr Godwit and I waited in the lobby until almost everybody had gone and then went in the same direction. Mr Godwit wanted to hurry, but I kept us to a steady walk. The peals of bells had changed to one summoning note when we reached the cathedral close and the assizes judge and his procession had just gone in as we reached the doors. The cathedral was crowded, but an usher managed to find us places on the end of a pew near the back, as I’d hoped.
It was, if you managed to concentrate on it, a splendid service. The choir and organist were as good as I’d heard anywhere. I was just aware of that, but most of my attention was elsewhere. It was hard to pick out one person from another because, apart from those in robes of office, all the men, both clergy and laity, were in various forms of black and merged together. I thought I’d identified our man near the end of a pew but couldn’t be sure from the back. I kept my eyes on him, waiting for any movement. An anthem, a reading, a hymn all passed. We knelt to pray, a long list of prayers, including several for the judges, justice in general, repentance on the part of sinners. We finished praying and sat for the sermon, to be given by the high sheriff’s chaplain. He mounted the pulpit and read out his chosen text slowly and sonorously. It echoed round the cathedral like a voice from a sea cave.
Proverbs chapter four, verses fourteen and fifteen. Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away.
A shuffle of approval at the appropriate choice of text went through the congregation, but I didn’t share it. It was hard to be certain in the ranks of black backs, but I thought our man wasn’t there any more. While we were praying, he’d disappeared. I got up and signed to Mr Godwit to come with me. He looked horrified but followed. As I went out of the door, I heard him explaining to the usher that his niece had been taken ill. Evidently, I’d been promoted up the family tree. He caught up with me in the close and I hurried him back down towards the hotel.
‘Him?’
‘Yes.’
My doubts had left me now we were out and moving. When we got to the hotel, I practically ran upstairs to Mr Godwit’s room, with him not far behind. We found the door shut and nothing looking out of the way. I thought I’d been wrong after all, until Amos’s voice came from inside.
‘That you, Miss Lane?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hold on a minute.’
Scuffling came from inside and a man’s voice, slurred but protesting. Mr Godwit recognized the voice and so did I. He looked at me, his expression saying that I was right, but he still didn’t want to believe it. Tabby opened the door just enough to let us in. A man in black was slumped in a chair, his nose bleeding, Amos standing beside him. The man raised his head, another gout of red jerking from his nose on to his shirt front.
‘Penbrake?’ Mr Godwit said to his fellow magistrate.
What he intended by making it a question, I don’t know. Perhaps, what are we going to do about it? If so, Penbrake gave him an answer by jumping up suddenly and making f
or the door. Amos and Tabby moved in front of him. Penbrake turned, swerved past me and Mr Godwit and went straight out of the window, through frame, glass and all. A woman’s scream sounded from the pavement. When Amos and I reached the window, Penbrake was already on his feet. He lurched away, across the road into a narrow street leading downhill. For a moment it looked as if Amos intended to vault across the sill through jagged glass and follow him the most direct way.
‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘He can’t get far like that.’
Far enough, as it happened. We lost the trail because when Amos ran down the stairs to the hotel lobby, the hotel manager and two porters tried to stop him, assuming that the fracas upstairs had been his fault. Even when I arrived and explained as best I could, they were slow in understanding. Looking back, maybe I can’t blame them. But it meant that by the time Amos, Tabby and I were across the road, all we had to follow was a trail of bloodspots and eventually we lost even those in a maze of small streets leading down to the docks. If it hadn’t been a Sunday morning, there would have been more people on the streets to see him or even stop him.
As it was, they didn’t find him until well into the afternoon, floating in the arm of the docks where the barges tie up, close to the canal entrance and almost within sight of the prison where Joanna Picton had spent her last few weeks in her native country. I wished there was some way of letting her know that, but by then the ship that carried her would be near the other side of the world.
TWENTY-TWO
Later that afternoon, Mr Godwit and I took our story and the book with Mary’s letter to St Jude. He’d managed to have a meeting with his client, and Jack Picton’s reaction to Penbrake’s name had been much as I expected. Yes, he had seen Penbrake when he waited in the woods at the back of the Kembles’ house. That was the name he’d intended to spring on the court in the morning. By then rumours were flying around the town and some of them weren’t far from the truth. Now Penbrake was dead in such strange circumstances, his old associates were remembering stories about his ways with women that they’d chosen to disregard when he was their colleague and dining companion.
