The Fabric of Murder (Mysteries of Georgian Norfolk Book 2)

by William Savage

  By this time, a clattering in the next room suggested the skinny maid had returned and was doing her best to get a kettle to boil for tea. Since that might take some time, Foxe decided he should start before it arrived.

  #

  ‘Master Bonneviot,’ Foxe said. ‘Do you remember him?’ There was no point in pretending any other reason for his visit. They were far too sharp for that. To dissemble would be to insult their minds.

  ‘Father or son,’ Miss Hannah said at once. ‘Both were master weavers, you know.’

  ‘Let’s start with the father.’

  The two ladies looked at one another.

  ‘How would you describe him, Hannah?’

  ‘You start, Abigail.’ It was clear neither found the topic easy.

  ‘Well … Jerome Bonneviot was a grown man by the time we knew him, Ashmole. Already a master weaver and quite a successful one. His family had been weavers before him and he’d served his apprenticeship with an uncle somewhere. But he was never an easy man, being a strict Calvinist or something like.’

  ‘Not only that,’ Miss Hannah added. ‘His life hadn’t been easy, I understand. Daniel was the only child of his marriage to survive to adulthood. By then, old Jerome was an embittered man. His wife had died in her last child-bearing and he was alone, but for the boy. They say he became obsessed with religion towards the end. We’re not so sure, are we Abby?’

  ‘Odd kind of religion, if you asks me. Jerome Bonneviot gave his son a fine start in the weaving trade, no doubt about that. Then, for some reason, he refused to do more. Once the boy’s apprenticeship was over, he made the lad fend for himself. Old Jerome’s money was all left to charities, not his family.’

  ‘Daniel, his son, grew up showing most of the worst aspects of his father’s character and few of the better ones,’ Miss Hannah went on. ‘His first wife gave him a daughter, but all the other children she bore soon died. Then she followed them. I call that a merciful release. Daniel was never kind to any woman, as I heard tell. Still, he was quick to marry again and marry well – at least in terms of money. His new wife soon bore him the son he craved. After that, he lost interest in both of them. Young George’s mother suffered poor health for a long time after he was born, so the boy was mostly raised by his older step-sister. Even later, his mother still struggled and needed the step-daughter to help.’

  ‘That was what Daniel said. Whether it was true was another matter.’ It was Abigail again. ‘His daughter was like his wife: his property and don’t anyone forget it. She was maybe ten years old when George was born. The old man forced her to stay at home until the lad could begin his apprenticeship. About twelve he was then, so she would be in her early twenties. She never did have many suitors. Her father drove them away. Nor was she beautiful enough or rich enough for any of them to want to defy him. The minute young Daniel left home, she went too. Married the first man she could find, though he was perhaps twenty years older than her.’

  ‘It wasn’t a bad move though, Abigail. Her husband was a good man and they had two – or was it three? – children who survived childhood. When he died, she kept the business on as well.’

  ‘What business was that?’ Foxe enquired. He knew the answer already, of course, but it was sometimes best to pretend ignorance. If you said you knew the answer, people added nothing. If you pretended ignorance, they might tell you many things to augment your knowledge.

  ‘Samuel Swan was a mercer and haberdasher, with a shop on Pottergate. His widow keeps it now. That’s Eliza Bonneviot, as was, Daniel Bonneviot’s step-daughter. A good shop, but far above our means. Eliza Swan knows her cloth.’ Foxe made a mental note to warn Kitty of this fact. For the moment, he wanted to hear more about Daniel Bonneviot’s household.

  ‘So Daniel went as an apprentice at twelve or so,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘He’d come to us before then. His father could have afforded better, of course, but, as dissenters, his family were barred from the professions and the universities. That is why so many became prominent in business. The father had us teach Daniel his letters, reading and writing enough for business and simple arithmetic for casting accounts. After that, off he went to London.’

  ‘London!’ Foxe was surprised.

  ‘We told you the Bonneviots were Huguenots, didn’t we?’ Abigail said. ‘Lots of them in London, I heard. Anyway, old Mr. Bonneviot had relatives in London …’

  ‘In Smithfield.’ Her sister always liked to be precise.

  ‘Yes, my dear. In Smithfield. A master weaver of great renown. It cost a pretty penny to apprentice the boy to such a master, so we heard, even if he was kin. Still, he taught the lad well. Daniel Bonneviot became a fine craftsman in the weaving way.’

  ‘What was Daniel like as a boy?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘Difficult,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘Stubborn, cruel and willful. Always fighting with the other boys. If you said or did anything Daniel took amiss, his answer was ever to use his fists. No one wronged him and escaped revenge. There was a great stock of anger inside the boy. Yet he was clever enough and learned well.’

  ‘Not a likeable boy,’ her sister added. ‘His father could seem grim and withdrawn, but usually treated others fairly enough. The son was scornful and arrogant. He cared nothing for anyone else, so long as he got what he wanted.’

  ‘So he did his apprenticeship and came back to his father as a journeyman.’ Foxe needed to move the conversation along.

  ‘Oh no, Ashmole,’ Miss Abigail said. ‘I think he was a journeyman in London … or was it Halifax?’

  At this point, the maid came in. It seemed she had at last obtained boiling water enough to bring in dishes – none too clean – and a rather old-fashioned teapot. She placed all on the table and added a dish containing some tea leaves.

  ‘Tea?’ Miss Hannah said. ‘Where on earth did you find that? I thought we had used our last tea – when was it? August? September?’

  ‘To my mind, it was August a twelvemonth ago,’ Miss Abigail said. ‘Where was it, girl? It must be quite old.’

  ‘I sent your maid to buy some,’ Foxe said. ‘Think of it as a small gift.’

  The sisters looked at him in amazement. ‘There must be four shillings’ worth here,’ Miss Hannah said.

  ‘Three shilling an’ thruppence,’ her maid said. ‘Your visitor said as I might keep the rest for going.’

  ‘Indeed I did. Now, which of you ladies will make the tea?’

  ‘I will,’ both said together.

  Foxe laughed. ‘Miss Hannah is the elder, I believe. Perhaps she should do it.’

  When they had made the tea, both sipped at it gingerly – though in truth the water had not been quite at the boil and the dishes cooled it quickly.

  ‘Thank you, dear Ashmole,’ Miss Abigail said. ‘To be honest, I never though to taste good tea again. It’s too expensive for us. Are you so rich you can give it away as you have?’

  Foxe nodded.

  ’Shall we ask how he came so rich?’ she said to her sister. ‘I warrant there was a trick in it somewhere.’

  ‘Drink your tea, dear,’ her sister said. ‘It would not be polite to question someone who has given us such a gift, even if I do share your doubts about Ashmole’s way of life. I hear he consorts with the Catt sisters nowadays. There’s a pair of beauties! Gracie runs that terrible house and Kitty shows herself to all on the stage. There isn’t a single scruple or any moral sense in either of them … Do they make good lovers, Ashmole?’

  It took several minutes of coughing for Foxe to recover from that question, for his tea had near choked him in his surprise. Fortunately, his confusion and discomfort freed him from the need for an immediate reply.

  ‘You were saying Bonneviot … that’s Daniel, I mean … served his period as journeyman in London,’ he managed at last. ‘Did Jerome not want his son to succeed him in his business here?’

  For a moment, he feared one or other would press him on the other matter, but it see
med they had tired of the game.

  ‘That was typical of old Mr. Bonneviot,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘He’d started with naught save his skill, so he determined his son should do the same. Before the boy returned, his father had sold his goods and business and, so the rumour went, devoted himself to study and religion. Maybe the father reckoned he’d discharged his duty to his son by giving him a good apprenticeship. They could never have worked together. Jerome might have been the owner of the business, but Daniel wouldn’t suffer anyone to give him orders. Maybe the old man knew what his son was like and wasn’t going to subject himself to that sort of treatment in his old age.’

  ‘Never left him more’n a pittance when he died,’ Miss Abigail added, ‘and he was quite a rich man. All his other wealth went to setting up his various charities. His son Daniel had to make his own way.’

  ‘But he did,’ Foxe said.

  ‘Daniel Bonneviot had a ferocious need to win at whatever he did,’ Miss Hannah said. ‘Same when he was a boy. And if he couldn’t win by fair means, he’d still win.’

  ‘Daniel had a son too,’ Foxe said.

  ‘Him!’ Miss Abigail’s scorn was obvious. ‘His mother spoiled him, though it cost her a fair few bruises. George must do his apprenticeship in London, same as his father. George must be journeyman elsewhere too. As Daniel decreed, so George must obey. Then only a few weeks ago, his father drove him out of the house without mercy. We heard he gave the boy a hundred pounds and told him he never wanted to see or hear of him again. That money was all he should ever have. I wonder where all his wealth will go now?’

  ‘Do we know he cut the boy off from his inheritance?’ Miss Hannah asked her sister. ‘All this happened quite soon before Mr. Bonneviot died. Would he have had time to change his will? After all, even when it was clear the lad wouldn’t agree to follow his father’s bidding in everything, he still seemed to stick by him … for a while.’

  ‘I don’t think the boy was ever going to have an inheritance. If you ask me, it was to be as it had been with his father. He must make his own way,’ her sister replied. ‘Daniel never accepted young George wasn’t interested in weaving. Nothing else counted for him. He didn’t change his mind for anyone. As I see it, the boy had been given some time to come to his senses and do as he was told. It seems he hadn’t. Time was up.’

  ‘And the other thing …?’

  ‘Well, yes. We all had our doubts about George in that way. Still that’s only imagination and gossip, dear. He may yet ask some young lady to marry him.’

  Miss Hannah snorted in a very unladylike manner at that. ‘Young lad, more likely …!’

  ‘Where did George go when his father threw him out?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve no idea, Ashmole. He may have gone to London or somewhere.’

  ‘Were there any other children?’

  ‘Only the step-sister. She may know something, but I doubt it.’

  They knew no more. Daniel Bonneviot’s wife had, it seemed, made little impression on them or anyone else in Norwich. George, the only son, had been away in London for years, completing his apprenticeship. Miss Abigail eventually added the gossip that he had nurtured hopes of becoming an actor at one time, but the local theatres had all rejected him.

  That had been the main difference between father and son, it seemed. The father set his mind on something and drove himself – and everyone else – until he achieved it, whether by fair means or otherwise. His son wished and hoped and dreamed of great things, but showed neither the talent nor the energy to do more.

  Had an enraged father thrown that failure in the son’s face? Might that have been enough to stir the younger man to take his revenge? He would never have confronted his father openly. Foxe felt sure of that. But an attack from behind in a dark street …? That might be another matter altogether. Even so, Foxe couldn’t see this young man they had suggested was limp and effeminate as the murderer. To cut someone’s throat, even in the dark, demanded resolution and suddenness. Besides, Bonneviot had been a powerful man and of a good height. He had been taken by surprise, to be sure, but few people have the strength to slit another’s throat so quickly there is no chance for them to call out or fight back.

  No, from all Foxe had heard, George Bonneviot did not have the makings of a killer, unless it should be by some secret poison. From the description of him given both by the Misses Calderwood and Gracie Catt, Foxe had come to regard him as much too feeble. He could, of course, have paid some ruffian to do it – that was a point worth investigating – but he would not himself be capable of such a deed.

  7

  The Fruits of Deception

  When Foxe entered the coffee house at ten the next morning, Brock was waiting. Since he had already finished his coffee and discarded the newspaper, it looked as if he had been there for some time.

  ‘Thought you might be in earlier than this.’ He sounded irritated. Brock didn’t like to be kept waiting.

  ‘Why?’ Foxe said. ‘This is quite a respectable hour to come here. I also have an appointment at eleven, so that leaves me a reasonable time to drink a dish of coffee and peruse the papers.’

  Foxe had not dressed in quite such an elegant manner this morning. He needed to look the kind of customer Mrs. Swan would want to serve in person, but not the kind she would remember for too long afterwards.

  ‘Do you have news?’ he asked Brock.

  ‘Wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t. Nothing significant from those of Bonneviots’ men I’ve spoken to. They’re angry about being owed money and want their due – be sure of that. But that’s a simple matter of justice, in their eyes. I can’t see them doing more than breaking a few windows to let off steam. Trade seems brisk enough and a good weaver is always in demand. Of course, the ones that remain are the ones ’e treated better. Those ‘e already threw out have either left Norwich and gone elsewhere or found a new master. To be honest with you, I don’t see any of ‘em being angry enough with the man to kill ‘im.’

  ‘That bothers me, Brock. If trade is so good, why was Bonneviot laying men off at all? Forget the useless ones. Any master would get rid of them as soon as he could. It’s the others I’m thinking of: the ones who soon found a new master.’

  ‘See your drift. If another master was glad to have them at short notice, they must be good – or good enough.’

  ‘Anyone else you talked to?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to his foreman at the warehouse, but he said he was too busy. Now there’s another odd thing.’ Brock’s frown was so ferocious the waiter coming with Foxe’s usual coffee stepped back in alarm.

  ‘Ignore my friend,’ Foxe said to the lad. ‘He suffers from stomach cramps brought on by too much drink.’

  ‘I don’t drink much more than you do,’ Brock said. ‘Besides, this coffee would soon give any man the bellyache.’

  ‘Go on, Brock,’ Foxe said. ‘You said something about Bonneviot’s foreman was odd.’

  ‘Not him so much as his situation. His employer has just been murdered, yet ‘e’s rushed off ‘is feet. Doin’ what? I’d also say the man is happy as they come. Now, he may not have liked Bonneviot – ‘ated his guts even – but he’d worked for him for more than ten years, as I heard. Now ‘is master’s dead and the son doesn’t show any interest in the business. You’d expect an old hand like this cove – Jack Astle, he’s called – to be worried about ‘is job. But ‘e isn’t, it seems. Already staying on in the same position.’

  ‘Now that is odd, I grant you. Is the widow keeping the business on?’

  ‘That’s what I rushed here to tell you, only you were frolicking in bed with one of them Catt sisters, I guess, and not most keen to get up.’

  ‘For your information, Brock – not that it is any business of yours – I slept alone last night and this is always the time I come in here. Go on, my friend, and keep your thoughts to yourself.’

  ‘Keep your wig on. Here’s the real news. I’ve heard from several of the weavers who
used to work for Bonneviot that his business, stock and premises have already ended up in the hands of someone else. They’re to work on as if nothing had happened, it seems.’

  ‘There wouldn’t be time to obtain probate, surely.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. All I could find out is that some person is already running the business just as before. I imagine the executors agreed. A going concern is worth a hell of a lot more than one that’s already closed down. Or one so beset with uncertainty no one will place orders.’

  ‘True enough, I suppose. I don’t imagine you found out who this new owner is going to be?’

  ‘Not for certain. But I did ‘ear a certain Mr. Callum Burford mentioned. He’s a master weaver, but in a much smaller scale of doing business than Bonneviot was. If ‘e’s going to be the owner, I’d like to know where he’s getting the money from.’ Brock paused. ‘There’s something else strange. I got good contacts amongst the bargees and wherrymen, as you well know, seein’ as ‘ow I owns a good few of their boats. Most of the cloth from around here goes to London, a good deal of it along the roads. The rest goes by boat to Yarmouth, then by ship into London.’

  Foxe interrupted. ’Is there no local trade?’

  ‘Nothing enough to keep all Norwich’s folk busy. Now, our trade has been in the hands of the London merchants for a good time. Not that some ‘aven’t tried to break free, but only a few seem to have managed it and then not for long.’

  ‘So lots of wagons, packhorse trains and the like along the London road and the rest to Yarmouth.’

  ‘Right. But Bonneviot, it seems, was one of those who ‘ated the London merchants most. He had to deal with them, but it stuck in ‘is throat. Well, for the past few months, ‘e’s sent almost nothing for London or anywhere else by boat. Can’t say about the roads, mind. But it seems peculiar. If it was all going by road, ‘e sold so much ‘e’d take a good many of the wagons and pack-horses just for ‘is own goods, with few left over for the other master weavers. It looks as if ’e was lettin’ finished goods pile up in ‘is warehouse. Now, what merchant does that unless ‘e ‘as no other choice?’