A Pack of Lies

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  ‘Secret compartment? I don’t know nothing about no secret compartment. Is there one? I’m sure I never saw dear old Mr Costick open no secret compartment. I certainly never …’

  ‘Well, to open the pencil drawer, then,’ said the sergeant, cutting in.

  To open the pencil drawer (which concealed the secret latch) Gribley had to rest one knee on the blotter and lean forward like a mountaineer on a tricky escarpment.

  ‘Now just supposing you were in that position when you heard Mr Costick coming. Supposing you had reason to think Mr Costick would be pretty annoyed to find you rifling his desk …

  ‘Rifling his desk? Never!’

  ‘For what? Some unpleasant piece of information about you? Something which obliged you to work for Costick for no wages, month in, month out?’

  ‘He paid me! I told you he paid me well!’

  ‘Not according to the accounts books. And you haven’t answered my … the Inspector’s question yet. Suppose you were disturbed in this … awkward position. Would it not be easier to go forward than to go back - that’s to say climb inside and shut the lid rather than jump down with all the noise and risk of discovery that would cause?’

  ‘You’re talking rubbish! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You believe me, don’t you, Inspector. It’s just him saying all this!’

  ‘Then Mr Costick came in,’ said Sergeant Troughton, lapsing suddenly into the past tense. ‘He locked the door behind him, not wanting to be disturbed, and found his desk … closed, just as it had been when he left it. You hoped he had no need to go to his desk. If he had simply gone to the lower drawers or the filing cabinet, or made a telephone call, and then gone out again, he would be alive now, wouldn’t he, Mr Gribley? But unfortunately he wanted something out of the top compartment. He raised the lid - couldn’t make out what he was seeing for a moment, I daresay. Then you struck out with the letter-opener lying on the blotter. His chest was only inches away. It was easy, wasn’t it, Mr Gribley?’

  ‘No! No! No! I didn’t! It was Poole … or the woman … or the daughter, not me!’

  ‘Then you heard Mrs Beattie knocking at the door, and knowing you could not escape from the room, you closed the roll-top lid again and waited - inside the desk - while the door was broken down, the body discovered and everybody present rushed out of the room in their haste to contact the police. During that time you destroyed whatever document it was Costick was using to blackmail you. Only when the room was empty did you climb out, close the desk and join the general confusion outside. The housekeeper was never fired, was she, sir? Nor was Costick’s daughter cut out of the will. You just wished us to have a nice choice of suspects. But you gave us too many, Mr Gribley. You should have stuck at one or two. That’s what first made the Inspector suspicious, Mr Gribley … And now he would like to hear what you have to say.’

  ‘Nothing! I’ve got nothing to say!’ cried the dwarf. ‘Not till I’ve seen my lawyer!’ Standing up in the open desk, he was taller than Poole, taller than Neville Costick, taller than the sergeant or the inspector who rose now from his chair like the wrath of Judgement Day.

  ‘Timothy Gribley! I arrest you for the murder of Angus Costick. Call for secure transport, Sergeant.’

  The distant drone of sirens announced the arrival of a police van which Sergeant Troughton had taken the liberty of summoning an hour before. The prisoner was taken into custody - a dark, lonely custody given the great height of prison windows.

  ‘Put the items of evidence into plastic bags and mark the bags carefully, Sergeant,’ said Inspector Farrell, brushing the palms of his hands together in a gesture of satisfaction.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Deduction, Troughton. That’s what it’s all about. Slow, painstaking deduction. You have to be methodical in this game, Sergeant. It’s no good jumping to hasty conclusions. You’ll learn that if you ever go on to the criminal detection side.’

  ‘Yes sir. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right, Sergeant. I don’t mind giving young officers the odd tip from time to time. And if you want any advice, you just come to me and ask.’

  ‘Thank you kindly, sir. I’ll bear it in mind.’

  ***

  ‘That’s typical of CID,’ said one of the police constables, no longer perched on the horsehair sofa.

  ‘Amazing though. Who’d’ve thought it?’ said his colleague. Together they ran fingers tender with awe over the dull, scratched wood and lifted the squeaky, slatted roll-top and dabbed their fingers across the stained blotter. ‘Who’d’ve thought it?’ said the constable a second time, then returned grudgingly to his notebook and his unfinished taking-down of details. ‘Sorry. Your name again, sir?’ he asked MCC, but this time with friendly respect.

  Just at that moment, he noticed Uncle Clive lurking awkwardly in the doorway of the living room, caught between the telephoning inspector and his uniformed officers. ‘Here! I know you! You’re the one we pulled in for breaching the peace and assault and battery down by the railway station! Knocked some poor old geezer down for accidentally jagging you in the head with his umbrella!’

  ‘Uncle Clive!’ exclaimed Ailsa, and Mrs Povey gave another shrill, hysterical laugh.

  ‘I told you then, we can do without your sort down here,’ the constable went on. ‘You want to take your bar-room brawling back up north with you. You’ll find we’ve got no patience with it down here.’

  Short, round and forward-tilting like a howitzer, the detective inspector burst from the living room. ‘It’s Latvian Johnny, all right. No time to lose. We’ll be in touch, sir. We’re much obliged to you, sir. Much obliged. We’ll have to take the gear, of course. Sorry about that. Your loss, I’m afraid. And we’ll need you to give evidence, maybe. Jump to it, lads. It’s that row of books, the stuffed fish and the bookcase. Into the motor. Right load of old junk if you ask me, but the owner’s kicking up one hell of a stink wanting it back. Stolen a month ago from old Birdman Sweeney’s luxury penthouse … Yes, I know he’s a gangster and you know he’s a gangster, we all know he’s a gangster, but sometimes it’s the unhappy lot of a policeman to find a gangster’s stolen fish and return it to him as if he were a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen. And who’s the loser? Nice people like you here. You go along and buy the junk with your hard-earned money, and we come and take it off you and give it back to Birdman Sweeney. I wonder sometimes. I really wonder sometimes.’ And with this philosophical lament, and with a stuffed salmon under his arm, the inspector rushed out to his squad car. The constables followed behind, one with a black plastic sack full of books, the other with a small bookcase. The shop seemed to sag and sigh when they were gone.

  Half an hour later, Uncle Clive clattered down the stairs with his suitcase and barged his way recklessly, wreckingly, to the door. ‘Must you be going?’ Mrs Povey called after him. But he only hunched his shoulders higher towards his alpine hat and shot a look of murderous loathing at the man in cricket flannels and green corduroy jacket.

  ‘There are them as know when to leave,’ he said, ‘and there are them as don’t!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE WOODEN CHEST:

  A STORY OF BETRAYAL

  ‘That’s interesting,’ said MCC, standing away from the tall bookshelves to see higher. ‘How did that one get up there?’

  ‘Oh, Mum rearranged some. I don’t know why. Perhaps she thought they were unsuitable for me to read.’

  Ailsa had taken to reading a lot, lately. No sooner did she get home from school than she got changed, brushed her hair and curled up with a novel on the horsehair sofa in the shop. She and MCC did not talk much, but she liked being near him. She had a great hankering to talk about him at school and yet, at the same time, a strong intuition that she should not. She was extremely excitable - something she put down to the day by day survival of the family business. Like a tightrope walker crossing Niagara Falls on a piece of string, Povey’s Antiquary struggled on, just balancing its debts against its e
arnings and never quite plunging into the abyss of bankruptcy. It was thrilling to watch. This was undoubtedly why Ailsa’s heart seemed always to be in her mouth lately. Undoubtedly.

  ‘Or me,’ said MCC.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Or maybe your mother thought some of the books were unsuitable for me to read.’

  ‘Get one down and see.’

  ‘Dear me. I don’t think I should. I’m sure Mrs Povey had some good reason …’

  Not for the first time, Ailsa looked at him and wondered how old he was. Generally speaking the world could be dealt, like a pack of cards, into two stacks - people like her mother and people like her - with a few miscellaneous babies and old people on the discard pile. Try as she might, she could not put an age to Mr Berkshire. He was much older than her, of course, but far younger than her mother. In fact there did not seem to be enough years between her age and her mother’s age to fit in all the ages MCC Berkshire might be. And was he her ally or her mother’s? Could people really be both?

  She fetched the step-ladder and climbed it herself to inspect the books on the topmost shelf. There were paperbacks, hardbacks, softbacks and even leather-bound ones with gold tooling: Love Among the Lilacs, Romance on the Rialto, The Baron’s Bride, A Summer Wedding, For the Hand of a Princess …

  ‘They’re all soft romances,’ she said disappointedly.

  ‘You don’t like romances?’ he asked steadying the ladder.

  ‘I prefer horse stories. Do you know any good horse stories?’

  ‘Can’t say I do, honestly.’

  ‘Know any good romances, then?’ she asked brightly.

  He looked up at her with his head on one side, with eyes much bigger and darker than eyes ought to be, and said, ‘Only sad ones, Ailsa.’ Then he turned his back and sat down on the bottom rung of the ladder and rested his head in his hands. ‘There was once a man who travelled further afield than he should, to a place he didn’t know, and there he found himself a job and a home and a beautiful girl, all under the one roof. The girl was young, but alas the traveller was far from the days of his youth and all he carried in his pack was a book of stories …’ At the sight of Mrs Povey standing in the doorway, MCC broke off guiltily.

  ‘And just what are you selling, and to whom?’ said Ailsa’s mother.

  A customer of whom none of them had been aware slumped into view from the tallboy and empty picture frames. He was a picture of dejection, in a long black mac which trailed open to show a black pullover and black trousers. The only colour about him was the university scarf which hung round his neck like the bloodstains of a murdered rainbow - and his eyes which were bloodshot, perhaps from prolonged weeping. ‘Can someone tell me about this wooden chest?’ he enquired in a voice drenched in tragedy, and threw back a lock of hair off his forehead like a man in front of the firing squad casting aside the blindfold.

  ‘Go on, MCC,’ said Ailsa.

  ‘Go on, Mr Berkshire,’ said Mrs Povey.

  MCC breathed deeply and lifted his head out of his hands. He knew the chest well enough. ‘Late sixteenth century,’ he said. ‘Oak. Note the carving depicting a hunting scene on all four sides. It’s the oldest thing in the shop. Not rare exactly. The back hinges are missing and the hasps don’t fasten — that’s to say the lid falls off if you open it. But it’s a nice little historical item. A hundred and twenty if you want it.’

  ‘MCC!’ exclaimed Ailsa and her mother, both outraged by this stark, bald honesty.

  ‘Ah, you mean its story,’ said MCC bitterly. Then he fetched out a smile, much as a condemned and leaky battleship might hang out flags overall on its last rusty voyage to the breaker’s yard.

  ***

  ‘Open up in the name of the Queen! Open, I say!’

  Chickens scattered noisily across the yard. The horses behind him tossed their heads and milled uneasily to and fro, and he beat with his fist on the door. Somewhere in the house a dog began to bark - an upper window opened and a housemaid stared down at them before pulling in her head again. There was a scuffling of feet in the hallway, but Eliott continued to beat remorselessly on the door. ‘You!’ he shouted at a soldier. ‘Break down this door!’

  ‘Oh come now - no need for that, surely!’ Magistrate Pole had been fetched to witness the house search and to give authority to any arrests about to be made, but whether he liked the business was another matter. He took no relish in catching Roman Catholics, especially when they were his neighbours, like the good Widow Tyford. No wonder folk called this zealous young man ‘Priestcatcher’ Eliott: he loved his work.

  ‘No need, Magistrate? No need? You don’t know these Papists. They’re cunning. Give them five minutes and they can hide away a whole army of priests and mask even the smell of them!’ But there was no need to break down the door. The inner bolt slid back and there stood Widow Tyford, her lace cap slightly awry and her face flushed and her eyes round with ill-concealed fright. ‘What’s the matter, sirs? Oh, what’s the matter? What do you want with us?’

  Eliott pushed past her into the house, and his soldiers followed him, flinging open cupboard doors and overturning tables. The magistrate sidled in awkwardly from the yard, removing his hat. ‘Good day to you, Mistress Tyford, 1 repent this sorely, but the Queen … the Act … These informers … be comforted, lady and show patience. Master Eliott here has it in his head…’

  He let the words trail away as Eliott pushed between them and blared into the face of the widow. ‘We have information that a papist mass has been held here today by a priest — a Jesuit — expressly against the law of the land. Where have you hidden your Jesuit, woman?’ He said the word as if it fouled his mouth to speak it.

  The old lady straightened her cap. ‘The Queen’s law forbids the preaching and practice of the Old Faith, sir. Only God may read in my heart what I think to that, but it seems to me that any gentleman who calls himself a Christian might be ashamed to act so unmannerly in a poor woman’s house. Search if you must, then leave my home, sir.’

  Eliott was not rebuked. He harried his soldiers through the house, pointing them towards the chimney, the beds, the bread oven, the loft. They went to it with pikes, rattling the sharp blades round the inside of the chimney breast until soot cascaded out across the floor. They jabbed the blades through an alcove curtain and left it gashed to tatters. They drove their pikes under the bed; they threw open the linen press and, after pulling out a sheet or two, drove a pike through the remainder of the linen. They drummed with their pike handles against the walls, listening for hollowness, and the Widow Tyford could only follow them about the house, wringing her hands, while her servants and yard-hands flocked round her and shouted angry protests at the soldiers. ‘For shame!’ ‘For God’s charity!’ ‘Leave off, for pity’s sake!’ ‘Haven’t you persecuted us enough already?’ It was not the first time Priestcatcher Eliott had raided the farmhouse.

  As Widow Tyford reached the head of the stairs, she saw the linen press gaping open, the bed upended, and the three armed soldiers beating the wall and, giving a short, choked cry, she staggered in a swoon and it was all her maidservant could do to shut the chest lid and lay her mistress unconscious across it. A malevolent glint of assurance lit the eyes of Priestcatcher Eliott: ‘Fetch the sledge-hammer. I believe we are searching close to the mark!’

  A terrible silence fell over the house, split at last by the blows of the hammer. The house itself seemed to groan at the blows, as the bricks stove inwards on a mean little cavity. But it was not the loam or bricks that cried out, only the man concealed inside the priesthole as flying bricks struck him in the face and body.

  They pulled out the Jesuit covered in brickdust and blood, and had manhandled him down the staircase before the Widow Tyford regained consciousness. She woke to find Eliott’s face thrust close to hers: ‘For the receiving and concealing of a Roman Catholic priest, a fine of one hundred pounds. For the hearing of a Roman Catholic mass,’ and he shook a poor crust of bread and an empty goblet in her face
, ‘a fine of twenty pounds. I trust, Magistrate, that I am correct in my knowledge of the law? I have had much practice in this house, have I not, mistress? Though I have never taken their ferret of a priest before. This is a good day’s work.’

  ‘You may be right in your knowledge of the law, Eliott,’ muttered Magistrate Pole, ‘but as to your Christian charity …’

  The widow sat up and perched unsteadily on the edge of the carved wooden chest. ‘You know full well, Richard Eliott, that your persecution has beggared me and my family. We have no money to call our own. All our savings are gone in fines. We have nothing to pay you with unless you take the sweat from our faces and the blood from our veins. If your soldiers have found above ten farthings as they searched, it will be a thing of amazement to me. You have bled this stone dry, Master Eliott, may God forgive you your tyranny!’

  Richard Eliott showed no surprise. ‘I have a cart outside, mistress. Let the magistrate be my witness that everything I confiscate is confiscated according to the law. I hereby seize on your goods and chattels in payment of the fine, and if the sale of your furniture does not raise the sum, I shall return to seize on your land and buildings! Your male servants I arrest for aiding the papist spy. You may thank my bounty that you keep your freedom. There are plenty of women of your kind in the Bridewell Prison. Indeed, I shall see you there yet, I dare guess.’

  To and fro the soldiers went, emptying the house of its furnishings. The magistrate fretted and twittered about the emptying rooms, protesting at the roughness of the men, but the Widow Tyford sat impassive on the press, her eyes on her lap, her lips moving in a silent prayer. (If Eliott could have proved she was praying in Latin, he would certainly have carried her away in chains.) Only when the soldiers pushed her roughly off the chest and carried it away to the cart in the yard did she break out in loud sobbing and fall on her face along the splintery floor.