“Oh, but I have one,” she informed him smugly.
“You do?”
“I do. When I noticed you writing with your left hand, I thought I needed to purchase a few quills for you. I had thought to wait until we returned to London, but it will serve as a good excuse now—provided, of course, that a village stationer’s shop carries quills made from the feathers on the right side of the goose.”
Pickett frowned. “There’s a difference?”
“There is—as you will soon see.”
With this confident prediction, she took his arm and they set out for the shop of Mr. Hiram Copley, Stationer. The proprietor of this establishment proved to be a tall, wiry man of about forty, with round spectacles perched precariously on the end of a rather beaky nose. Like the other shops along the High Street, Mr. Copley’s establishment offered a selection of items far beyond what one might expect to find in a village the size of Banfell. Besides the right-wing goose quills (which, at Julia’s request, the stationer produced from a shelf behind the counter, there usually not being a demand for quills from this side of the bird), there were the more specialized quills favored by those artists who worked in pen and ink: swan quills for broad lines and crow quills for fine ones, as well as the goose quills from the left wing which were the writing instruments of choice for most penmen.
As Julia conducted her business with Mr. Copley, Pickett wandered farther into the deep, narrow showroom. He found one of his fellow guests from the Hart and Hound, the artistic fellow with the sketchpad, inspecting a selection of colored inks in red, blue, yellow, and green; apparently his artistic efforts were not limited to the charcoal he’d been using in the public room on the day of their arrival. He gave Pickett a nod of recognition but showed no sign of desiring to engage him in conversation, for which Pickett could only be grateful. Beyond the artist, a number of stretched canvases in varying sizes stood propped up against the wall, and beyond them—
Beyond them was what Pickett had come for. Here was a selection of foolscap of varying quality, which might be bought in quantities ranging from the quire (for those customers whom two dozen sheets would suffice) all the way up to the bale (for those patrons wealthy enough to purchase almost five thousand sheets at once). On a shelf above them, and in significantly smaller quantities, was a rather smaller selection of parchment and vellum, for patrons such as solicitors, who required the more durable (and far more expensive) hides of calf, kid, or lamb that were preferred for legal documents.
Ignoring these last, Pickett lifted one of the loose sheets of foolscap and raised it to the light that filtered to the back of the shop from its front window. This, alas, was not much, but even in the dimness he could pick out the faint cap-and-bells watermark that had given this particular size of paper its name. But the watermark on the letter, and the partial mark on the note, had portrayed not only the traditional jester’s cap, but the fool himself depicted in profile. Pickett picked up a sheet from another, slightly more expensive quire, and repeated the process.
On the third try, he found what he was looking for. He’d been reluctant to take the letter he’d found on Ned Hawkins’ body for the purpose of comparison, even though it contained several examples of the full watermark, for fear someone might recognize it and demand to know how it had come to be in his possession. Still, he had the note with its fragment. He removed this from his pocket, and held it up to the light. The partial mark on the narrow strip of paper appeared, at first glance, to match the complete specimen on the pristine paper offered for sale. Just to be sure, he raised it to the light again, and positioned the note on top of it. The marks aligned perfectly.
His mind made up, Pickett took the quire of paper to the front of the store, where Julia was concluding her business.
“Excuse me,” he addressed the stationer, “I wonder if you could tell me a little about this particular paper.”
“Why, certainly,” said Mr. Copley, all eagerness to sell a quire—perhaps even a ream—of one of the more expensive papers he carried. “It’s an excellent quality, made entirely of linen rag—none of the cotton one sees in cheaper papers, you know.”
“Do you sell much of it?”
The man’s face fell. “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘much.’ The cost is prohibitive for many, of course. Still, visitors to the Lakes often like to write letters to their friends and family, and for them, only the best will do. Then, too, I try to keep sufficient quantities on hand for the local gentry, who are pleased not to be obliged to have their writing papers sent all the way from London.”
“Could this particular paper be purchased in London?”
“Of course!” the stationer boasted. “I take pride in offering my patrons the same little luxuries they might find in London or Bath. Mind you, I have to charge a bit more, as there are the added costs of having the goods brought up from London, but for the more affluent of my customers, the convenience is worth the extra expense.”
“And what customers are those?”
“Locals, or visitors?” Mr. Copley asked, his brow puckering.
Pickett shrugged. “Either. Both.”
“Well, I couldn’t say who the visitors are, for I don’t know their names. As for the locals—” He broke off, his eyes growing as round as the lenses in front of them. “I say! Are you the Londoners whose window was broken last night?”
“How do you know about that?” asked Pickett, taken aback.
The stationer merely shrugged. “News travels fast in the country. Besides, Jem Hawkins came in as soon as I opened up this morning, wanting paper to cover the window—not that kind,” he added quickly, glancing down at the linen rag foolscap in Pickett’s hand. “The coarse brown stuff. Something to cover the hole until new glass can be put in. Not but what there’ll be bigger holes to be filled before long, I’m thinking.”
“Oh?” Pickett asked, the stationer’s words having conjured up gruesome images of empty graves.
“Young Jem’s been mad for his da to knock out most of the back wall and put in big windows looking out over the fells,” was Mr. Copley’s rather more mundane explanation. “Well, and I’m not saying he isn’t right, what with the Hart and Hound losing patrons every day to Jedidiah Tyson and his assemblies.”
“I should think so,” Pickett agreed. “What were Ned Hawkins’s objections?”
“Only that his father—or mayhap it was his grandfather—had built the place, and what was good enough for Grandda Hawkins ought to be good enough for young Jem. Besides that, the wall Jem is wanting to knock out was the very spot where King Charles—not the one what lost his head, but his son, the Merry Monarch himself—once sat at a table with a tankard of the inn’s best cider on one knee and Grandda Hawkins’s sister on the other. Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he offered as a quick aside to Julia, “but, well, you know how folks do like to talk.”
“I do indeed,” she assured him. “It is a very curious thing, but behavior which would be quite shocking if it were to take place today seems merely quaint when viewed from a distance of a century and a half.”
“Very true, ma’am,” the shopkeeper said, much struck by the truth of this observation. “If you’ll pardon me for seeming to make light of what must have given you quite a fright, ma’am, mayhap in a few years this business with your window will be no more than a thrilling tale to tell your children someday.”
Pickett rather doubted this, but paid a shilling for the quire of paper (he could do no less, after having expressed such an interest in it), and this, in addition to the purchases Julia had already made, rendered the stationer genuinely sorry to see them go. Not until after they had been bowed from the premises with his sincerest regrets that someone should play so shabby a trick on them—one of these tourist sorts with too much time on his hands, no doubt—along with his fervently expressed hope that they would honor his humble establishment with another visit before they returned to London, did Julia turn to her husband with a puzzled look.
“Yo
u never did press him for names.”
“No,” Pickett confessed. “I didn’t want to appear too interested, not with one of our fellow guests in the rear of the shop.”
“One of—was there? Who was it?”
“The artist with the sketchpad.”
“You don’t suppose he threw the rock, do you?”
Pickett shook his head. “I have no reason to think so, but I don’t want him going back to the inn and telling anyone we’re making inquiries, either. Then, too, I’m not sure I would have got any more information, even if I’d asked. You heard Mr. Copley dismiss the incident as no more than a shabby trick played by a tourist. Depend upon it, even if he suspected one of the locals, he would have felt honor-bound to protect him.”
Julia conceded the point with a sigh. “The tourist trade does seem to be regarded as rather a mixed blessing, doesn’t it? The locals resent them—or should I say ‘us’?—even as they welcome the added custom.” He made no response, and she looked up to find him staring thoughtfully into space. “John? What are you thinking?”
“I was just thinking that poets must have to buy a great deal of paper.”
“Writing bad poetry isn’t a crime,” Julia objected. “Although it is a curious circumstance that Percival Hartsong’s given name is actually Edward, for there was an Edward mentioned in the letter, was there not? Ned’s letter, I mean—the long one from someone who signed himself E.G.B.”
At this reminder, Pickett shook his head as if to banish the notion. “Yes, and that is the biggest point in his defense.” Seeing her puzzled look, he explained, “I saw his handwriting in the inn register, remember? I didn’t realize at the time that Edward Gape and Percival Hartsong were one and the same, but I do remember seeing the name and rejecting the signature as a possible match.”
“Then what, if anything, did we learn from visiting Mr. Copley’s shop?”
“Not much,” he confessed. “It appears that the paper was very probably purchased there, but there is still the chance that it was already in the possession of some guest when he arrived in Banfell. You made sure to have a ready supply of paper in that portable desk of yours before we ever left London, didn’t you?”
“My dear John!” she exclaimed, torn between exasperation and amusement, “Surely you are not accusing me of throwing a rock through my own window!”
“Not at all—merely proving my point that the paper need not have been purchased here at all.”
“So where does that leave us now?” she asked, rather crestfallen.
Pickett lifted one shoulder, indicating the package of paper and quills, now wrapped with coarse brown paper and tied with string, which he carried under his arm. “At least I can replace the writing paper I wasted in a futile effort to decipher that blasted letter. Then, too, I’ll have something to use in writing to Mr. Colquhoun. He needs to know what’s happened here, and that I’ll need more time to get to the bottom of it. As for the letter,” he continued, setting his jaw, “We’re back to the handwriting. I must find a match for it.”
“But you’ve already looked, and found nothing.”
“I’ve looked in the Hart and Hound’s register, but no further,” Pickett said. “I have to cast a wider net, that’s all.”
“And how, pray, do you intend to do that?”
They had reached the inn by this time, and Pickett flexed his arm, tightening it about Julia’s fingers resting in the crook of his elbow. The message was clear: He would say no more until they reached the privacy of their own room. She bided her time in patience as they climbed the stair, but returned to the subject as soon as the door was closed behind them.
“Well?” she asked impatiently. “What do you intend to do now?”
“I have to find a way to look at the handwriting of people who aren’t guests at the Hart and Hound. The local gentry, for instance, who would be able to afford paper of this quality, and any visitors who might be staying at the Golden Feather.”
“John!” Julia exclaimed, her eyes widening as enlightenment dawned. “The subscription book!”
“That, and the church registry. The guest register at the Feather might be worth a look, too, as some of the guests staying there might have no interest in attending the assemblies, or might be unwilling to pay the necessary half-guinea per person for admission.” He sighed. “Although how I’m to do that, I have no idea. It’s doubtful that Tyson would hand it over to me without requiring some explanation.”
“The same holds true for his subscription book, I suppose,” she concurred, albeit not without sympathy.
“Oh, as for the subscription book, I had hoped my clever wife might be willing to take on the task.”
“Are you certain?” she asked, torn between eagerness at being given so active a role in the investigation and fear of wounding his pride by encroaching upon what had, after all, been his area of expertise long before she had met him. She’d made that mistake once before, with disastrous results.
“Absolutely,” he assured her. “As I told you before, I’m afraid pretending to be disappointed at the cancellation of Tyson’s assembly would tax my acting ability far beyond what is credible.”
“Very well, but be warned that when the assemblies resume next week, I shall not allow you to wriggle out of escorting me.”
“All the more reason to settle this case without delay,” said Pickett, mopping his brow.
10
In Which Mr. and Mrs. Pickett
Search for a Fine Italian Hand
A SHORT TIME LATER, Julia left the inn with the letter—the long one that Pickett had found in the dead man’s pocket, which would, as he had pointed out, give her a larger sample from which to determine a match—tucked away in her reticule. She waited as the stagecoach from Penrith rattled into the yard trailing a cloud of dust, then crossed the High Street and entered the elegantly appointed vestibule of the Golden Feather.
“Ah, Mrs. Pickett!” cried Jedidiah Tyson. He seemed not at all surprised to see her, and Julia made a mental note to inform her husband of this curious circumstance. “Am I to deduce by your charming presence that you have decided to spend the rest of your holiday beneath my humble roof? An honor for my establishment, ma’am, and one I’m sure you will not regret.”
“I’m afraid not,” Julia said, allowing the merest trace of annoyance to color her voice. “Mr. Pickett is quite determined to remain at the Hart and Hound. Truth to tell, he seems to feel some sense of obligation toward Mrs. Hawkins, perhaps because he was one of the three men who found her husband’s body.”
“His scruples no doubt do him credit, but surely his first obligation is to see to the safety of his wife,” protested the innkeeper.
Not even for the sake of an investigation could Julia allow this slight against her husband. “Oh, he tried,” she said. “He put me on the Royal Mail coach the very next day and would have dispatched me back to London as if I were a sack of mail, but I”—she broke off, blushing becomingly—“well, I’m afraid I jumped off.”
There was no reason not to recount this event, as it—and the very public display of affection that had followed—had no doubt become common knowledge by now. The rather knowing look with which he regarded her seemed to confirm this assumption.
“Yes, well, I’m sure London’s loss is Banfell’s gain. But if you won’t be requiring a room, then how may I be of service to you?”
“It’s about the assemblies,” Julia confessed, her mouth drooping. “I was so looking forward to attending. It’s such a pity the one scheduled for tonight must be cancelled.”
“Oh, but it hasn’t been!”
“It hasn’t?”
Mr. Tyson had the grace to look ashamed. “You’ll be thinking I should have called it off, what with Ned right across the street not yet cold in his grave. But, well, his grace is in residence—the Duke of Ramsdale, you know, who usually spends the summer months in Brighton—and I wouldn’t want to be behindhand in offering him the hospitality of my esta
blishment. Besides, my noble patrons—and those of the Hart and Hound, like you and your husband—wouldn’t have known Ned Hawkins from Adam, at least not in the usual scheme of things. Why should you be denied your pleasures on account of the death of a stranger? Then, too, there’s the practical matter of refunding the admission fees of everyone who’s bought a ticket, and paying the musicians a fee for cancelling, and I don’t know what-all else. It just seemed simpler to go ahead and have the thing. Of course,” he added somewhat belatedly, “if the scruples of some folks make them balk at an evening of merrymaking, well, that’s their choice, and I’ll not think the worse of them for it.”
Drawing a bow at a venture, Julia smiled mischievously at him. “And while one might think Ned would take some satisfaction in knowing that he had forced you to cancel your assemblies, I daresay he would secretly find it galling to think he might owe you any gratitude for rendering him this courtesy.”
Tyson chuckled richly at this suggestion. “Aye, you’ve the right of it there, ma’am. Truth to tell,” he confessed, his smile fading, “I’m going to miss old Ned.”
He seemed surprised by this discovery, and Julia, observing his reaction, was convinced he was telling the truth. She filed this revelation away for her husband’s consideration, then turned her attention to the task that had brought her to the Golden Feather.
“I suspect he would feel the same, were your situations reversed,” Julia assured him warmly. “But if the assembly is to be held tonight, it appears my errand is wasted. I had thought to have a look at the subscription book in order to see if there are any of my London acquaintances presently staying in Banfell upon whom I should leave my card. But if I am to see them tonight in any case—” She broke off, shrugging her shoulders. “Still, since I have come all this way, might I perhaps steal a peek at the book and see what friends I may expect to meet tonight? Half the pleasure, you know, is in the anticipation.”
“Oh, of course!” Tyson exclaimed, as if she had come all the way from London for this purpose, instead of merely walking across the street. “If you will follow me?”
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