Airs and Graces

by Roz Southey

  Esther nibbled genteelly on the macaroon. ‘That coin you found in the snow – perhaps that was a sample she took to show him?’

  That sounded very possible. I paced again. ‘The thief might have found the coin in my pocket by chance when he went for the keys to Gregson’s shop. As for Hugh’s ring, he was showing it to anyone who asked. And any servant in the George could have seen the coin on Balfour’s mantelpiece and mentioned it casually to someone else, or in the thief’s hearing.’

  ‘If the thief, or thieves, want to melt them down,’ Esther said, ‘the Watch will know the likeliest places they would be taken.’

  I nodded. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. If they wanted to melt them down, one or two stray coins would be neither here nor there. But a collector would want every coin he could lay his hands on. And it’s unlikely you’d melt down a ring.’

  I pounded my fist against the mantelshelf. ‘Nothing, but nothing, alters the fact that the victims were all asleep when they were killed. They were no threat. Why should they be killed?’

  I straightened the ornaments on the mantelshelf, then unstraightened them again.

  ‘Charles,’ Esther said patiently. ‘There is no point in repeatedly going over the same ground. You are tired. Let us think of something else.’

  I looked at her. At her fair hair shimmering in the candlelight, the curve of neck and shoulder. The amused look in her eyes.

  ‘It’s late,’ I said.

  She giggled. ‘Charles, it’s only eight o’clock.’ As if to emphasize her point, the clock on the mantelshelf struck the hour.

  ‘Very late,’ I said and took her hand.

  I came down to breakfast the following morning feeling much refreshed, if a trifle guilty about not having gone out to attend the disembodiment. Nothing could have happened, however, or McLintoch would have sent a message. There was indeed a note resting on the salver at the bottom of the stairs, but I knew at once who that was from.

  This time, it said: I didn’t kill them.

  I turned the note over in my fingers. Why was Alice sending me these messages? If she meant to be helpful, there were better ways. These notes came over as merely taunting. I remembered the girl who’d tempted me into the other world, her insolent mischievous look. I felt I was being manipulated.

  I was hardly in the breakfast room before George came rushing in. ‘Message for you, Master. From Mr McLintoch. He just says no news yet.’

  ‘Thank you, George. Could you send a message to Mr Heron’s house? To his manservant, Fowler. Ask if I could speak to him sometime today.’

  ‘Yes, Master!’

  The spirit rushed out of the room again; its cooperative mood clearly lingered. I poured myself coffee and took some eggs. Esther was still asleep so I presumed I’d be alone for breakfast. She seemed worse in the mornings, so it was good she was sleeping so well for once. I cast a glance at the window. The clouds were low and grey; the garden was blanketed in thick snow. Nothing had changed; it was plainly impossible to get out into the country. I had a whole day to dedicate to this affair.

  George was back before I’d had a chance to work my way through my first dish of coffee. The spirit looked very bright; it said nervously, ‘Master – do you want me to repeat the exact words Mr Fowler used?’

  ‘The general gist will do.’

  The spirit was plainly relieved. ‘He says he does have a job to do and do you think he can jump to it the minute you ask? He says he’ll see you at noon.’

  ‘Did he say where?’

  ‘In the Old Man Inn, Master.’

  Trust Fowler to pick the most disreputable tavern in town.

  Esther was not awake before I left; I scribbled a note saying I’d try to get home in the early afternoon, and went off to fit as much as I could into the day.

  The part of the town to the west of the Sandhill, close upon the ruins of the town wall, is relatively little frequented, although there were some footprints to be seen in the snow: a tribe of children had run through recently, and a dog, besides the ever present spider-like tracks of small birds. But no one had gone into the alley that led to the derelict court. The spirit let me get well into the alley before sliding down a drainpipe to flicker, evilly green, in front of my nose.

  ‘Get out!’ she said stridently. ‘I won’t have you in here!’

  Shivering, the cold biting at my nose and ears, I lounged against the wall. ‘What are you going to do? Cry rape again? What’s the point? No one came last time.’

  ‘No one ever comes,’ the spirit said contemptuously. ‘They hear a woman scream and they just laugh.’

  ‘Is that why you’re protecting Alice Gregson?’

  ‘I ain’t protecting her. She ain’t here.’

  ‘Not now,’ I agreed. ‘But she was last Saturday night. And you knew she was here. More than that, you knew she was going to be here.’

  The spirit said nothing, clinging to a broken length of guttering.

  ‘She never stayed an entire night, in a derelict house, with no fire, in the middle of the coldest part of the winter, in heavily falling snow, without some sort of protection,’ I pointed out. ‘She probably didn’t expect the snow, but she’d certainly have known it was going to be an extremely cold night. At the very least, she must have had blankets.’

  Still nothing from the spirit. I huddled in my greatcoat, and wondered why Alice should have stayed here at all when she could simply have stepped through to safety in the other world.

  ‘She would have brought those blankets here earlier,’ I said, ‘perhaps some food too. You must have seen her while she was making her preparations, and she must have been confident you wouldn’t give her away. You only told the Watch about her when someone directly questioned you, when she was long gone and it no longer mattered. Why are you protecting her?’

  ‘Why not!’ the spirit burst out, the guttering creaking. ‘Do you know what Samuel Gregson was like?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘How do you know?’

  But the spirit had recovered its composure. ‘I don’t have to tell you nothing,’ it said, sulkily. ‘Anyhow, it wouldn’t count if I did. Judges don’t take no notice of spirits.’

  That was unfortunately true; spirits can’t give evidence in a court of law, perhaps because there’s no means to penalize them if they lie.

  I leant back against the wall feeling, unexpectedly, pity. Spirits like company as much as living men, and this spirit patently had none in this derelict place. There was talk of tearing these streets down – what would happen to the spirit then? Spirits evicted from their place of death have a hard time of it. Some have been known to make the transition to a new building on the site without any problem; others disappear without trace. Old spirits and new have the most trouble: spirits on the verge of final dissolution, or spirits not well established.

  ‘Four people have died,’ I said, at last. ‘Not only Samuel Gregson but his wife and daughter and an apprentice as well. Innocents who deserved a chance at life. Whatever you thought of Gregson himself, surely you can have pity on them.’

  The spirit shrieked with bitter laughter. ‘Pity! When did they ever have pity on me! Samuel Gregson was the foulest, nastiest, unkindest, most filthy-minded, miserly, miserable man that ever lived. And his wife wasn’t much better. I’m glad they’re dead!’

  It shifted, rapidly. I heard a loud creak, then a snap. I had a moment’s warning, enough to step back smartly out of the way. Then a portion of the rotten gutter came rocketing down, four or five huge slates with it. They smashed against the wall on the way down and shattered; a fragment flew off and stung my cheek.

  I shouted up into the derelict eaves. ‘I know she had a lover! Did he kill them?’

  There was no reply. The spirit had gone.

  It was unwise to linger. I left the alley, hurrying past the debris in case any more slates came crashing down on my head.

  At least I’d learned one thing – or had my suspicions confir
med, at any rate. Samuel Gregson was not an innocent victim; his dealings began to seem murky in the extreme. His misdeeds could not justify his murder but they might explain it.

  I needed to know more.

  Twenty

  There are few things more enjoyable than a disaster – you will find the English react very little differently from us in this regard.

  [Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe

  Froidevaux, 21 January 1737]

  The small room at the back of the tavern stank overwhelmingly of beer. And pickles – two shelves were laden with home preserves. The landlord looked up from his contemplation of an array of barrels, a spare man with thin dark hair receding from his unlined forehead, and straggling over his shoulders. He wore a stained apron over an old shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and looked relieved to be interrupted.

  ‘She’s away for the day,’ he said.

  ‘Wife?’

  ‘Sister.’ He gave me a rueful smile. ‘Runs my life. Mind you, I let her. Easier that way. You’re Mr Patterson, aren’t you? Saw you yesterday looking at the ruins next door.’

  ‘I’m helping with the plans for the Assembly Rooms.’

  ‘Reckon I’ll get more custom if that goes ahead,’ he said.

  ‘You must have been worried when the fire broke out.’

  He nodded. ‘Middle of the night. And the maid comes screeching in to say we’re all going to be burned in our beds.’ He grinned. ‘Must have given her a shock, given what she was doing. She thought we didn’t know she had a young man in, silly girl.’

  ‘So the maid was – er – entertaining her young man, and they smelt the fire?’

  ‘Give the lad credit,’ he said, sitting down on top of one of the barrels. ‘He put his clothes back on and stayed to put out the fire. The whole street turned out, of course. Lucky there was a bit of a wind and it was blowing away from us.’

  ‘You couldn’t save the mercer?’

  He sighed. ‘Reckon the smoke got him in his sleep. At least he’d have known nothing about it.’ He gave me a shrewd look. ‘Think there’s something odd about it, do you?’ Perhaps my expression gave me away; he added, ‘There aren’t many who don’t know your name, Mr Patterson, and haven’t heard you’ve found out a few villains this past year.’

  I wasn’t entirely sure I appreciated that kind of notoriety. ‘Do you know how the fire started?’

  ‘William Threlkeld,’ he said, ‘was just about the most annoying neighbour a man could have. Always coming in to tell you your lantern was out, or a roof tile about to fall off, or the gutter was loose, or you weren’t supposed to put barrels out in the street. Lived on his own all his life, and got fussier as the years went by.’

  ‘Not the sort of man to leave a candle burning carelessly?’

  He shook his head. ‘He was particular about everything. Checked the windows and doors were locked three or four times every night.’

  ‘So what do you think happened?’

  ‘Oh no,’ he said, wryly. ‘You’ll not get me guessing. I’m just telling you what I know of the fellow. Make your own mind up from that.’

  I perched on a barrel under the shelf of pickles. ‘Did he have many visitors, other than customers?’

  ‘Not much of a man for friends, poor soul. Went out to the Literary Club every Thursday night but I never saw anyone come here. Spent most of his time beautifying his shop and house. He liked his home comforts.’

  ‘I heard he’d just had the place redecorated before the fire.’

  The landlord nodded. ‘Had some work done on the roof, and other bits and pieces. Then had the place painted and papered to within an inch of its life.’

  ‘People say he bankrupted himself over it.’

  He pursed up his lips. ‘Maybe. I’ve heard say he was planning to run from his creditors and set the fire to cover it up. Doesn’t seem logical to me.’

  Nor to me, I reflected. ‘Who did the work?’

  ‘Gregson,’ he said promptly. ‘I was thinking of having some work done myself and kept an eye on the workmen. They were good, but from what Threlkeld told me, Gregson charged for everything three times over.’

  ‘Did Threlkeld argue with anyone?’

  ‘He tried,’ he said, with a wry grin. ‘But we all knew it wasn’t worth arguing back. We let him say his piece and just said, yes, William, no, William. He had a go at everyone in the street one time or another. We none of us held it against him – now and again, he did us a favour by pointing something out. You can live with a man who grumbles a little.’ He gave me that rueful smile again. ‘I’m used to it.’

  I took it he was referring to his sister. ‘Did he have any servants?’

  He shook his head. ‘He nagged so much none would stay. A woman came in during the day to clean and cook, but she was a soldier’s wife and went off some time back. Probably fighting the Frenchies by now.’

  A pity. I would have liked to talk to her. ‘Can I have a word with your maid?’

  He laughed. ‘You can if you can find her. Took herself off to find somewhere better. Said she didn’t like the stink of beer.’

  ‘What about her young man? Did he go with her?’

  ‘Oh, he’s still about,’ the landlord said. ‘Knew better than to lose a good place. He’s an apprentice at the deal yard. That’s what she liked about him,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘All those muscles from sawing up wood! Lemuel Atkinson, he’s called.’ He got up. ‘And talking of work, I’d better get back to it.’

  I left him counting up his barrels.

  The other neighbours were less reticent in their speculations about the fire. The woman who ran the lodging house on one corner of the street insisted six men had leapt out of the mercer’s windows in bursts of flame, carrying unimaginable treasure. The cheesemonger on the opposite corner enjoyed himself expiating at length on the faults of the mercer before piously saying, ‘Well, mustn’t talk ill of the dead.’ A hairdresser above the cheese-mongers said he was away the night of the fire but had heard exactly what had happened, but his story didn’t match the landlord’s, whom I rather trusted. And the wig maker who shared the hairdresser’s premises said she’d slept through it all but knew for a fact the mercer had kept a branch of six candles which he’d knocked over, setting his bed on fire.

  I went in search of the apprentice.

  Mr Usher’s deal yard is a large place, employing a considerable number of men. In the middle is a large warehouse which is sometimes used as a makeshift theatre; I performed in it myself this past June, in Race Week. In hot weather, the smell of freshly-sawn wood is almost overpowering; in winter, only the faintest whiff of it came to me on the icy air. The yard had been swept clear of snow, which lay in grimy piles around the walls of the buildings; men were stacking and turning wood, manning the saw pits, loading seasoned timber on to carts. Many of them wore only thin shirts and breeches, and were still sweating with effort.

  I accosted a man and asked him if Lemuel Atkinson was at work. He directed me to a small hut in one corner of the yard; inside, I found a young man totting up figures in an account book. The landlord was right – Atkinson was a fine figure of a young man, not particularly tall but strongly built, and with bright chestnut hair falling about his shoulders.

  I introduced myself. ‘I’m told you were one of those who tried to put the fire out at the mercer’s last year.’

  He sat up, a little defiant. ‘I don’t hide the fact.’

  ‘I was wondering if you would tell me about it.’

  ‘Is there any problem?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No one’s ever said I did anything wrong.’

  I wondered if he was always so defensive. ‘I’m involved with the plans for the new Assembly Rooms on the site and I’m merely making sure nothing’s been overlooked. Some of the neighbours are convinced there was something untoward about the fire.’

  He seemed to relax, laughed. ‘Their kind always look for excitement!’

  I s
miled back. ‘Six men leaping out of the windows, brandishing swords . . .’

  ‘I was there,’ he said scornfully. ‘The first one there. There was no one inside but the mercer.’

  ‘I suppose you were warned when you saw the flames?’

  He shook his head. ‘Heard the glass break.’ He reddened, said awkwardly, ‘I was – visiting someone at the tavern next door. When I heard glass, I thought someone was trying to get in. So I looked out of the window and that’s when I saw the flames.’

  ‘The glass shattered with the heat of the fire, I suppose.’

  ‘It was well alight.’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing anyone could do, except keep it from spreading.’

  ‘That must have been hard work. Did you know the mercer?’

  ‘If anyone says I set fire to the place, he’s lying!’

  I considered him for a moment; he dropped his gaze and fidgeted with his quill. ‘I presume the mercer had said something sharp to you about visiting the maid.’

  He went a fiery red. ‘Stupid old man. I don’t suppose a woman ever looked at him once in his life!’

  ‘Then all the more credit to you for fighting the fire,’ I said, ‘when you didn’t have very charitable feelings towards him.’

  His face was still flaming; he said, ‘He was a interfering old idiot.’ At that moment, he looked absurdly young; he added, almost resentfully, ‘Not a nice way to die.’

  He was right.

  I walked back out into the yard, musing on what Atkinson had told me, and almost walked into Mr Usher himself; he was dressed in his best and had his psalm book in his hand. ‘Just off to my sister’s wedding,’ he said, with a sly grin. ‘Never thought we’d get her off our hands.’ Mr Usher’s in his early sixties and his sister’s not much younger. ‘Were you looking for me? I’m willing to talk if you’ll walk with me.’

  I fell into step beside him; we turned out of the yard, on to the snowy cobbles of the street. ‘I wanted to ask about Threlkeld, the mercer. He had work done on his house last year and I was wondering if you did it.’

  Usher chuckled. ‘I did. That was a very profitable job. A houseproud man, William Threlkeld. Had a passion about draughts, I recall – had us running all over the house filling up mouseholes. As if you can ever get rid of draughts!’