Smuggler's Moon sjf-8

by Bruce Alexander

  I had not gone far when I spied a vast structure back somewhat from the shore. Low and hulking it stood, with many cannon pointed out to the sea. I concluded immediately it was Deal Castle, where Dick Dickens lorded it over an idle force of twenty customs men. Did those who accepted him in the Customs Service not know his history? Did Mr. Albert Sarton not know it? He had spoken of him (without identifying him by name) quite respectfully. What if I were to return with the news that the local Customs Officer was once indeed actively involved in smuggling? Would he and Sir John suspect, as I did at that moment, that perhaps Dickens had only pretended to leave the owling trade? It could well be, thought I, that Dick-and perhaps his customs men, as well-were not near so idle as they seemed.

  Thus my thoughts as I gazed upon Deal Castle. Had I known more at that moment, I might not have been near so certain. Yet if I had not been so certain, I should not have hastened, as I did, to Number 18 Middle Street in order to inform Sir John of what I had learned about the local customs officer. And had I not hastened, I might have missed him altogether.

  Knowing no better way, I returned to the residence of Mr. Sarton just as I had come from it. No doubt there was a shorter route, but I did not know it, nor did I have time to ask it. I felt a strange urgency to Middle Street. Where before I had ambled, I now jog-trotted. Even there along High Street I moved at a fast pace through the crowd of local gentry, narrowly avoiding collisions, dashing at full speed past the Good King George, the inn where I had learned all from Mr. Perkins. And at last to Middle Street where, to my uneasy surprise, I spied a coach waiting at one of the houses halfway to the next street. I feared the worst when I saw that it waited before Number 18.

  Upon the box, there in the driver’s seat, sat Will Fowler, he of the welcoming speech who had acted as guide to Clarissa’s tour of the manor house and its grounds. Fowler talked soothingly to the two horses, calming them with his voice, as only a good driver can do. But he gave me a wave of recognition ere I knocked upon the door. Because I read the look upon his face as one of concern, I asked if there were trouble back at the house.

  “I fear so,” said he, ”trouble of the worst sort.”

  “And what is that?” I asked.

  “Murder,” said he, ”of one of our own. I’ve come to report it and collect Mr. Sarton. That’s as it should be done, with the magistrate, or so I was told.”

  “May Sir John and I return with you?”

  “Already been asked, already been granted.”

  I nodded and went to the door, banging loudly upon it and waiting just as I had before. And just as before, I heard the steady tap-tap-tap of Mrs. Sarton’s heels down the long hall. She called out to me, demanding to know who knocked. To her request I called out my name. Yet there was a lapse of some several moments before the bolt was pulled and the key turned in the lock. She had evidently forgotten who I was. We had never been properly introduced.

  “Ah yes,” said she, ”I thought ‘twas you, but we can’t be too careful. Come in, come in.”

  I did as she bade, and noted that she did return bolt and lock to place the moment I was inside. I gave her my thanks and followed her pointed direction into that small room to the right of the door where we had sat earlier. Then did she depart. Sir John, and he alone, occupied the space at that moment. He stood, fidgeting with his walking stick, obviously eager to be off.

  “Ah, Jeremy, you’re here,” said he. ”I feared we should have to leave without you.”

  “Yes, Sir John, and I bear with me important news from Constable Perkins.”

  “Well, save it. I’ve important news, too. Let us wait till we are alone and may talk more freely.”

  “But,” said I, ”this is information that will be of great interest to Mr. Sarton, as well. I’m sure he would want to know.”

  “That may well be,” said Sir John, ”but if it came from Mr. Perkins, it must be saved. Remember, we are here as trespassers upon his private preserve. If he knew we had someone gathering information here behind his back, so to speak, he would be most displeased.”

  Reluctantly, I agreed to say nothing.

  “Hush now, I hear him coming. Not a word.”

  “No sir, not a word.”

  FOUR

  In which Clarissa proves herself a reliable witness

  The conveyance in which we were taken to Sir Simon’s manor house was of an unusual, probably local design, the like of which I had never seen in the streets of London. It was a bit like a hackney coach, though so much smaller and lighter that only two could fit comfortably in its interior. As a result, there was naught for me but to take a perch upon the box beside Will Fowler.

  From my brief acquaintance with the man, I deemed him one of good disposition and a ready tongue. Yet the grave nature of his errand had saddened and silenced him so that in spite of my best efforts, I was able to get little from him. Nonetheless, the little I did get surprised me much. As I now recall, we were well out of town when I made what must have been my third or fourth attempt to draw him out. He had up to then left my questions hanging unanswered in the air, or at best responded with a gesture-a shrug or a shake of his shaggy head.

  He had the horses moving along at a good pace so that it seemed we must be near the end of our journey. I expected the unmarked driveway into the great house to appear after the next turn of this winding road-or surely the next one after that. It was then, holding on to the seat grip for dear life, that I asked him (for the second time, I believe) who it was had been found dead.

  Again he shrugged, but this time he added: ”One of the new men Sir Simon took on. Don’t know his name.”

  “It’s certain he was murdered? Couldn’t have been an accident?”

  “What kind of an accident leaves you with your throat cut?”

  “Well … yes,” said I, in something less than a shout. ”I suppose it was murder then.”

  “Course it was!” said he peevishly, punctuating his declaration with a rather fierce glance.

  “Who found the body?” I was certain I hadn’t asked that before.

  He said something then, but it was quite lost in the rattle of the wheels and the pounding of the horses’ hooves.

  “What was that?”

  He put his face to my ear and shouted: ”It was me-but the girl-I an’t sure of her name-she was also there.”

  “You mean Clarissa?”

  “Aye, that’s her. We was out-” He broke off and nodded ahead, reaching out at the same time to ease back on the brake. Then, taking the reins in both hands, he hauled them in. As we slowed sharply, I recognized the turn into the driveway just ahead. He made the turn with room to spare.

  Clarissa! I reflected. Now, that was an astonishment. Had I but accepted Will Fowler’s invitation to tour the house and grounds, I would almost certainly have been present at the discovery of the body. Indeed, I might even have been the one to find it, rather than she.

  “You’ll hear all about it, I’m sure,” said he to me.

  “I’m sure I will.”

  Then, of a sudden, we came round a bend, with a meadow on our right, a fenced wood upon our left, and a male figure did leap from the wood into the road and begin waving his arms at us rather frantically. Fowler pulled back hard upon the reins, slowing the horses, and almost simultaneously gave another hard tug to the brake. Though it looked for a moment as if we might run the poor fellow down, we did manage to come to a halt just in time to save him (though I, reader, was nearly catapulted forward onto the neck of one of the lead horses).

  “You all right?” asked Fowler.

  I assured him I was. ”But … but what is the meaning of this? Who is this man?”

  “I know not,” said he with a shake of his head.

  Then did two more men emerge from the brushy wood; one of them I recognized as Sir Simon Grenville; the other was quite as unknown to me as the man in the driveway.

  “Those two men with Sir Simon,” Fowler muttered to me, ”they’re part of that new cre
w, like the man who was killed.”

  “Will,” Sir Simon called out, ”Will Fowler. Had you forgotten completely where you found the body? You, of all people!” Then did he let go a low, chuckling laugh, as if to assure his man that he meant what he had said merely as a mild reproof.

  Yet Fowler was clearly confused: ”I … well, I suppose I did, sir. Do forgive me.”

  “Nothing to forgive,” said his master magnanimously. Then did he call out: ”Sir John, Mr. Sarton, if that wild stop did not kill or cripple you, come along and I’ll show you what you were summoned to see.” He seemed oddly jovial.

  At that, I scrambled down to the ground to assist them. I opened the door to the coach and presented my hand first to Mr. Sarton, who hopped down with no difficulty, and Sir John, who exited a bit laboriously.

  “Are you all right, sir?” I asked him.

  “I believe so. No broken bones, in any case. Here, give me your hand and a stiff arm to lean on. I won’t risk jumping.”

  Thus he made it down, step by step, panting slightly from the effort. Holding my arm, he limped along in a rather tentative manner. I wondered if he were perhaps in pain.

  “This way, gentlemen,” said Sir Simon, beckoning us into the wood.

  “Is there no path?” asked Mr. Sarton.

  “I fear not. And the undergrowth is rather thick just here.”

  “Perhaps it would be better, Jeremy,” said Sir John, ”if you preceded me.”

  And so we arranged ourselves in single file-Sir Simon leading the way, followed by the magistrate of Deal, then myself, and Sir John last of all. As I passed them, I gave a good, thorough examination to the two that Fowler had described as belonging to ”the new crew.” They were a hard sort. I had seen their kind in London, in and around Covent Garden-on Bedford Street specifically. And when I saw them there, I usually had the good sense to give them a wide berth. But having thought of Bedford Street, my mind went swiftly to Mr. Perkins, who had mentioned it earlier that afternoon. With such as those two around, staring after us, I found myself wishing that he were here. I always felt safer with Mr. Perkins close by.

  Sir Simon seemed to know just where he was going. We followed as he tramped on through the dense brush for a good twenty yards or more.

  The trees hereabouts were grown so close that the leaves above masked the greater part of the afternoon sunlight. The light did thus come through only in patches. We moved from sunlit patches to patches of darkness, and then back into sunlight. It seemed oddly fitting that the corpus, when at last we came upon him, lay completely in the dark.

  The body was that of a young man, one in his middle twenties at most. And though still young, he was thick through the chest and legs in a way which suggested he had done a good deal of physical labor in his short life-a farm lad perhaps, a plowboy. He had a beard of a few days’ growth which was nevertheless thin and patchy. Dressed quite ordinarily he was, except that he wore no hat; perhaps it had fallen from his head and was beneath him. He was on his back, arms thrown out to each side. The ugly wound that had killed him was exposed to view. It followed the line of his chin some inches, perhaps just two, below it. Though bloody still, the red had dried black upon his throat, indicating, to me at least, that he had been dead a good many hours. I saw no sign of a weapon of any sort.

  I described the corpus in words quite like these to Sir John. He listened closely, nodding his understanding as I talked on in a mere whisper. While we were thus engaged, Albert Sarton was bending close to examine the body, though not closely enough to suit him: Before he was done, he was down upon his hands and knees, spectacles upon his nose, looking at the wound, at the hands and fingers of the deceased, and even at his shoes. Finally, and most peculiarly, he looked carefully at the ground all round the victim.

  Looking on, Sir Simon seemed at first amused and somewhat puzzled by the magistrate’s strange behavior, then finally, openly annoyed. Why he should be annoyed, however, I could not fathom.

  At last, Mr. Sarton rose from his hands and knees to his full height (which was not great) and announced: ”He was not killed here.” This was said with great certainty. ”No doubt he was moved to hide him.”

  ”How can you be so sure?” Sir Simon demanded.

  “Easily enough,” said the magistrate of Deal. ”There is no sign of a path in the surrounding area, and so he would have to have come to this spot in the same way we did-that is, from the roadway. But look at the soles of your shoes, and you will see that they are clotted with humus-moist, dark dirt with bits of decomposing organic matter therein.” He held up some to show Sir Simon. ”This bit here is specially moist, almost like mud.”

  “That proves nothing!”

  “Not alone-no, of course not. Yet if we look at the soles of the shoes worn by this poor individual, we see no sign of humus. What we find instead is something very interesting: chalk.”

  “Chalk?” echoed Sir John.

  “Yes sir,” responded Mr. Sarton, ”chalk. It’s quite common in these parts-whole cliffs of the stuff, as I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “So I have.”

  “Come all of you who wish, and take a look at these soles-almost completely whitened with chalk dust. And see, too, his clothes are dusted all over with chalk dust. He could not have picked it up here. Sir Simon, do you know of a place in your vast holdings where a man might whiten the soles of his shoes from an abundance of chalk on the ground?”

  “No, I know of no such place.” His response came so quickly that it seemed he had anticipated the question. Yet perhaps thinking better of it, he added, ”Though there may be such. After all, I know not every nook and cranny of what you call my ‘vast’ holdings.”

  “I meant no offense.”

  “None was taken.”

  “Good, for I have a few questions regarding him. First of all, who is he-or, lamentably, who was he?”

  “I know not his name, but he has been in my employ for the past four or five months. No doubt one of the other men knows who he is.”

  “His next-of-kin should be notified, after all.”

  “I’ll find out.”

  “Good.” Mr. Sarton rubbed his chin, as if in thought. ”Now, this poor fellow’s body is already quite stiff, which means he has been dead a good long time. My guess is that he was killed sometime during the night. What was he doing out, say, well after midnight? Just out on a nocturnal ramble? Or had he some duty to perform?”

  “No doubt,” said Sir Simon, ”he was out as a guard. I had left orders that guards be posted.”

  “For what purpose? What were they to guard against?”

  “Against poachers.”

  “Oh? Are they such a problem?”

  “I’ve lost a good many deer. I fear I shall have to lay traps.”

  “Man traps?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ve seen what they can do,” said Mr. Sarton. ”They are truly terrible things.”

  “Is not the murder of a man a worse thing?”

  “Oh yes. Yes, of course. I did not mean to say …” He allowed the sentence to go unfinished. Yet though that quietened the young magistrate for a moment, it did not end his questions. ”Who found the victim? Was it you, Sir Simon?”

  “By no means. I, in fact, was off some distance attending to a business matter near Sandwich. Mr. Fowler found the body just here and sent for me. Then he drove off to Deal to fetch you. I had arrived only a little before you myself.”

  “Then it was he who brought us here who found him?”

  “That’s as I said.”

  “Strange that he did not tell us that.”

  “Well, you must take that up with him,” said Sir Simon. ”Now, however, if you have no more need of me, I must return to Sandwich to conclude my business there.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he did then gesture that we were to follow and started back through trees and into the underbrush along the way we had come. Having little choice in the matter, we trailed him as befor
e, though this time Mr. Sarton took up the rear, reluctant (it seemed) to leave the body.

  When we arrived at the driveway, we found to our general dismay that Will Fowler was nowhere about. His place in the driver’s seat had been taken by one of the two new men, him whose frantic waves had persuaded Fowler to stop. Sir Simon, I noted, was conducting an earnest conversation with the second of them. He concluded with him and came over to us.

  “Mr. Sarton, I regret to say that Will Fowler has gone off to attend to his regular duties. I did not tell him to remain because I, like you, supposed he had told you all that he knew before bringing you here.”

  “Ah well,” said Mr. Sarton, ”it seems then that we are both deceived.”

  “So it seems. I’ll see that he talks to you tomorrow.”