Death on the Rocks

by Deryn Lake

  ‘Commodore, I’ve got work to do. I must take the chaise to Bristol and then back to Hotwell.’

  The black man gave his delicious grin. ‘Not risking the steps, Sir?’

  ‘No,’ answered the Apothecary. ‘I would rather be dead.’

  Gilbert’s shop was packed with customers. There were ladies asking for something for the vapours, young gentlemen whispering for condoms, macaronis calling loudly for something to relieve the headache. It was like the Tower of Babel and John listened, much amused, thinking that nothing changed, be it Shug Lane or the Hotwell. The world was the world, wherever or how far one travelled. With this thought in mind he moved to the back of the shop, looking about him with curiosity, until the crowd cleared. There was finally a lull and Gilbert called out, ‘John – may I address you as such? – what brings you here?’

  ‘I have something important to tell you; in fact two things.’

  ‘Come into my compounding room. It’s all right, the body has gone. The coroner sent his cart this morning.’

  John grinned despite himself. ‘I hope the bottom was reinforced.’

  ‘I must confess it sagged a bit. Now come in, come in. Take a seat on that stool. Davy can look after the shop.’

  Gilbert’s apprentice, a smaller replica of his master, bowed to John and went through the dividing door.

  ‘If you think we are alike, he is my brother. An unusual arrangement but we are obeying our father’s wishes. Now what do you have to tell me?’

  ‘Two things. The first of which I would have mentioned but was so busy dealing with the remains of poor Mr Unknown that it went out of my head completely. I found him the other night, sitting in a paroxysm of fear, heaving and shaking like a jelly. A note fell out of his pocket. On it were written the words “We hear that you are back. We’ll be coming soon”. Or something like that anyway.’

  ‘’Zounds! Do you mean that he had enemies?’

  ‘So it would appear.’

  Gilbert sighed, long and deep. ‘Oh dear. I haven’t really the time for this. Are you saying that you believe he was murdered?’

  ‘I’m almost certain of it.’ And with that the Apothecary produced his handkerchief and handed it to Gilbert.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

  ‘It contains a substance that I rubbed off the top three steps of that terrible stairway carved in the rock.’

  Gilbert sniffed, then tasted it. ‘It’s fat of some kind,’ he said. ‘Goose or duck grease.’

  ‘To which even the meanest kitchen hand would have access.’

  ‘You’re right.’ He scratched his head. ‘I don’t know how I am going to investigate this. I think I’ll have to call in the Constable from Bristol.’

  John nodded. ‘That would probably be wise, but can you leave it for a few days? You see …’ And then he told Gilbert of his plan to investigate the lowlife of the city to try to find anyone who had known the real Augustus Bagot.

  ‘He also had children, you know. They say, if you’ll forgive the pun, that he scattered his seed most liberally.’

  Gilbert looked slightly amused. ‘Did he really? Naughty fellow.’

  ‘So there must be several outraged mothers and fathers – to say nothing of ruined daughters – who would like to see his head on a spike.’

  Gilbert whistled between his teeth. ‘I don’t think you’ll find too many angry parents in Bristol. It’s a divided society, you know. Some very rich, others living on what they can steal. A bastard child is usually thrown out to die unless someone with a kindly heart should find it.’

  ‘Is there nothing in between?’

  ‘Yes, people like me who strive hard to make a living and then are taxed out of all sense.’ He flashed a smile, lighting up his foxy features. ‘And those who grumble about everything.’

  John laughed as well, then said, ‘It strikes me that the real Augustus must have been quite a decent sort of chap, the sort that one could rub along with, but the man who took his place was quite the opposite. I wonder whether he ever met the real one. But then he must have done or he wouldn’t have dared try an impersonation of this magnitude.’

  ‘But what did Mr Unknown stand to gain?’

  ‘His mother’s diamonds.’

  ‘And that is all?’ asked Gilbert, thunderstruck.

  ‘They might be worth a mint.’

  ‘And then again they might not.’

  ‘There is also the fact that Mr Huxtable is not in the first flush of youth and might presumably leave his house and fortune to his erring stepson.’

  Gilbert shook his head. ‘But you say that the old man distrusted him from the start. Even sent for you to try and find the truth.’

  John raised a dark eyebrow. ‘I don’t quite like the use of the word “even”. You make it sound as if I were some kind of last resort.’

  Gilbert, far from looking abashed, roared with laughter. ‘Hardly that. Why, you’ll have solved the case in a few days. But tell me, you don’t propose to wander Bristol’s underworld on your own?’

  ‘My coachman will be with me. And before you ask, he looks like an Irish chieftan, a massive ox of a man.’

  ‘Then that’s as well.’

  There was a shout from the shop. ‘Mr Farr, Sir. I think you had better come. The place is full of customers.’

  John stood up. ‘It has been a most enlightening conversation. Thank you for your time.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Gilbert replied breezily, and with that he bowed to John and made his way back into the shop.

  Eleven

  The next morning John and Irish Tom took a boat into the city of Bristol. This was a small craft similar to the ferry that rowed passengers to and from the opposite bank. But this particular form of transport called in at the Hotwell when the tide was high and took its passengers past the confluence with the Frome into the Bristol docks. Dressed roughly, with new costumes supplied by the ever-helpful actor, the couple received barely more than a glance from the other occupants who were, John judged, mostly local traders.

  As they rowed along he glanced up at the passing scenery and drew breath. Stupendous walls of rock rose on either side of the river, the highest being known as St Vincent, atop which stood a working pepper mill. Thick, dark foliage hung over the sides of the towering cliffs and in places John could glimpse flowery dells, while sheep grazed contentedly on the lower slopes. In the air was the high, tense smell of salt, and overhead seagulls wheeled and cried, swooping down to catch a fish and majestically rising again on their huge white wings. A thrill of excitement ran through him as he gazed and listened to the sounds of the river: the rhythmic pulling of the oars, creaking in their rowlocks, the shouting of sailors across the green water, the chatter of the other passengers. He turned to Tom.

  ‘I feel as if we are embarking on a great adventure,’ he whispered.

  The Irishman turned on him a rueful grin. ‘Provided we can keep ourselves out of danger, Sorrh.’

  ‘I think for the sake of appearances you had better call me John.’

  ‘I will do that indeed, Sorrh.’

  John merely shook his head at him and grinned.

  They passed the ferry boat, rowed by a roguish fellow with a mop of flying dark curls fastened down by a scarlet bandana. He waved to the other boat and some of the passengers, John included, waved back. The Apothecary had rarely felt in higher spirits.

  On landing, they made their way to The Seven Stars, a small but busy inn that lay at the heart of the commercial part of the city. Here they sat unobtrusively and listened to the chat that was going on all around them. The voices mixed in a mighty melange of accents, for it seemed that every nationality in the world was present. The great trading ships brought in their sailors and it was just as likely that one would hear a conversation in Russian as hear the Bristol dialect be spoken. But above all these guttural and incomprehensible languages, one voice rose high and clear.

  ‘… and as I was saying to the Mayor of Brist
ol t’other day …’

  A bell rang in John’s head. Somewhere in his distant memory something stirred into life. He motioned Tom to remain silent and leant forward to listen.

  ‘… one can’t be too careful where one dines these days. I mean to say anyone can afford an ordinary, so one could be sitting with any thief or rogue. No, I tell you, my dear Sir, that I always dine at a more expensive type of establishment, so I do.’

  Into John’s mind came the mental picture of a watering ginger eye. He strained his memory to find the man who owned such.

  ‘Allow me to be the first to inform you that Mrs Rudhall – she being the lady who lives at number fifteen, Park Street, in Clifton, don’t you know – had her money lifted from her while she sat at dinner in Mrs Trinder’s eating house in the Hotwell.’

  The murder of the Earl of St Austell came thundering hideously into John’s memory. Those two dreadful creatures in poke bonnets and brown shifts who had shot repeatedly into the crowd of merrymakers. And then, finally, came the name. He rose to his feet.

  ‘Mr Pendleton?’ he enquired in a polite tone. ‘Mr Benedict Pendleton?’

  The man with the highfalutin voice stopped short.

  ‘Do I know you, Sir?’ he asked, raising a dilapidated quizzer and peering through it until his ginger eyes appeared like two huge orbs.

  John bowed. ‘I believe we met once in the park. And then again, just possibly, in Devon.’

  The other flapped a large white hand. ‘Oh, la Sir, but ’tis almost impossible to recognise you. You’re all pricked up like a villain, so you are. You quite frightened the life out of me.’

  John bowed again. ‘I do apologise. I am on my way to a costume ball. May I join your table, Sir?’

  Pendleton nodded his head in ascent and a smell of sweet pomade reached John’s nostrils. It was coming from the man’s wig and once again triggered something in John’s memory which he could not unfortunately place.

  ‘I was just saying to my friend here …’

  John bowed to the other person present who was made up like a poor man’s macaroni.

  ‘… that Bristol is hardly fit to walk abroad in. So full of villainous foreigners and the poorer class of person. One could be set upon at any moment.’

  John could not help it. His infamous sideways grin appeared.

  ‘It’s nothing to smile about, Sir. I vow and declare one takes one’s life in one’s hands when one walks by the docks.’

  ‘What are you doing out of London, if I may enquire?’

  ‘I came to the Hotwell for the sake of my health, but met one or two old friends in Bristol and have been here ever since.’

  ‘Do you go to Devon much these days?’ asked John, carefully watching the man’s face.

  It was difficult to read because of the enamel make-up smothered thereon, but there could be no doubt that a fine sheen of sweat had appeared beneath the maquillage.

  There was a small silence before Pendleton answered brightly, ‘La, no. All my old contacts have gone. I am now quite the Bristolian.’

  ‘But I could have sworn I saw you at the Earl of St Austell’s wedding.’ John was taking a leap in the dark and knew it, but the result was worse – far worse – than he could possibly have imagined. Pendleton suddenly clutched his chest and let out a groan of pain while a trickle of black kohl ran from one of his spicy eyes. As John watched in stupefied horror, the man fell forward onto the table in front of him. His companion, the elderly macaroni, leapt to his feet, pursed his carmined lips and uttered a little shriek. But he was not quite so quick as the Apothecary, who realising that something was terribly wrong rushed to Pendleton’s side.

  ‘Do you have pain in your arms?’ he said, close to the man’s ear.

  ‘Yes, oh yes,’ came an agonised whisper.

  John wheeled round and shouted to Irish Tom. ‘Tom, can you sprint to the nearest apothecary’s and get some distilled water of lavender. And please be quick about it.’

  He turned back to Benedict, loosening his grubby cravat and at the same time looking round frantically for the landlord. A very small man in a greasy apron eventually came over and said, ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is. Have you got a private room where we could carry him? I believe he’s having a heart attack.’

  ‘My, my,’ said the little landlord, unperturbed. ‘Follow me.’

  John and the macaroni, who puffed and blew enormously, managed to drag poor Benedict Pendleton into a tiny snug, where John laid him out flat upon the floor, putting some rather worn cushions under his head. Pendleton opened his eyes, now totally ringed with black where he had wept with pain.

  ‘Am I dying?’ he gasped.

  ‘I don’t know,’ John answered truthfully. ‘But I have sent for some medicine which should be here very soon. That will help you.’

  The Apothecary meanwhile ushered out the macaroni who was uttering constant small shrieks, and tried to tidy up the ravaged face of the sick man. Without his enamel, kohl and carmine, the beau looked even worse. His skin was ravaged with pits and there were bags beneath his tired old eyes. He was infinitely pathetic and John felt a moment of intense pity for the poor man, even if what he suspected was true.

  Irish Tom came in, panting and out of breath, and thrust a bottle into John’s hand together with some pads of lint. The Apothecary saturated several and laid them on Benedict’s temples and under his nostrils, hoping that this might revive him. But it was to no avail. He grew weaker if anything.

  ‘Is he slipping away?’ asked Tom in a whisper.

  ‘He’s having a massive heart attack,’ John whispered back. ‘If I’d been called to him in London I would have taken a goodly dose of the tincture of hawthorn berries. In fact it may not be too late to administer it. Tom, show your kindness and go to that apothecary’s shop again.’

  Without a word of protest the coachman hurried out once more and John realised that he was feeling truly sorry for the afflicted man. A silence followed Tom’s departure, broken only by the rasping breathing of the invalid. Then a hand reached out and clasped John Rawlings’s shirt.

  ‘Hear my confession, I beg of you.’

  ‘But I am not a priest.’

  ‘No matter. I must speak before I leave the world. I can’t go unshriven.’

  John looked round desperately. There was nobody remotely resembling a man of the cloth in sight and no time to send for one either. He leant over to hear the dying man’s words. Most of it he had guessed correctly. Benedict had been a run-down, seedy, small-time crook, involved in petty theft and confidence tricks. His life’s ambition had been to steal the Crown Jewels, but it had been a pipe dream only and he had never ventured further than the Tower’s gates. His favourite ploy was to approach people in the parks of London and relieve them of their watches. But things had gone from bad to worse and he had eventually stooped to being a paid assassin.

  ‘I know,’ John said quietly. ‘I was there when you shot the Earl of St Austell.’

  Benedict’s face became even more ravaged.

  ‘I was starving and had fallen in with bad company.’

  ‘Do you mean the ill-named Herman Cushen?’

  Benedict’s voice was very feeble now. ‘Yes, he was behind it all.’

  ‘I know he did not pay for the shooting,’ John said quietly, but there was no answer. In fact so quiet was the wretched old beau that John actually put his ear to his chest to hear if there was a heartbeat. There was. Faint but nonetheless there.

  ‘Where is Herman now?’ John asked quietly.

  Shockingly, Benedict’s eyes opened fully. ‘Here. In Bristol.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  The dying beau laughed, a ghastly sound because the death rattle was already in it. He said two words with his final breath – ‘Queer bitch’ – and then his miserable life came to an end, quickly and without further ado. John closed the staring ginger eyes and said, ‘God, please forgive him his sins,’ rather swiftly, because he was not at all
sure of anything, then turned as the large and somehow terribly comforting frame of Irish Tom reappeared.

  Several brandies later, Tom said, ‘I know you’ve told me the story before, but could you tell me again, just to refresh my memory?’

  John smiled at him, a little of his tiredness beginning to show. ‘It was while I was staying in Devon, just after my sons were born. I was invited to the wedding of Miranda Tremayne and the elderly Earl of St Austell. Well, two assassins broke into the wedding feast and shot him dead – and several other people as well. They were dressed as women but it was fairly obvious that they were men in petticoats. To cut the story short, one of them was a young chap, later identified as Herman Cushen, who then went on the run and hasn’t been seen since. The other was the man who has just died, Benedict Pendleton.’

  ‘But how did you guess, Sorrh – I mean, John? What gave it away that he was one of the killers?’

  ‘Little things. The smell of pomade, a suspicion that I had seen the fellow before somewhere, his mannerisms. Pure luck really.’

  ‘I think it is a wondrous trick you have.’

  ‘I’ve a good memory, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I think it is time we explored the night life of Bristol, if it’s all the same with you, John.’

  The Apothecary stood up and stretched. He had left The Seven Stars once the physician had arrived, rather shaken by the day’s events, and now wanted nothing more than a nice clean bed somewhere. But this was obviously something that was not going to happen. Irish Tom had the bit between his teeth and was ready to venture amongst the riff and the raff of Bristol, keen as a hound with a scent on the trail of the real Augustus Bagot.

  They left the ale house in which they had been sitting and made their way towards the docks. They followed two macaronis who minced along in front of them, their three-foot wigs topped by tiny chapeau bras.

  ‘Glory be to God and all the archangels,’ said Tom, quite loudly. ‘Have you ever seen such caricatures?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ answered John, sotto voce.