3 Inspector Hobbes and the Gold Diggers

by Wilkie Martin

  ‘Daffy says Inspector Hobbes is with her,’ said Pinky, standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Oh … right. He wanted to take a look at something.’

  ‘Yes, Hugh’s notes, so she said. Do you have any idea why?’

  She walked over and took a seat, facing me across the table.

  ‘It’s apparently something to do with rocks,’ I said, after swallowing the last crumbs.

  ‘Rocks?’

  ‘Yes, I think there must be something terribly important about the rocks in the Blacker Mountains.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Pinky, shaking her head. ‘They’re just rocks.’

  ‘Umm … yeah. That seems to be what’s significant about them, though I haven’t a clue why. I think Hobbes was hinting that there’s some sort of connection between them and why Sir Gerald wants Hugh Duckworth’s notes destroyed, but it didn’t make any sense to me.’

  Hearing the front door open and shut, I assumed Mrs Goodfellow had forgotten something, or that Hobbes had returned.

  ‘It might, you know,’ said Pinky, looking thoughtful.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, I heard Sir Gerald has reopened the old gold mine.’

  ‘He has,’ I said. ‘So what?’

  ‘So, perhaps the rocks contain gold ore. Does gold come as an ore?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought it came in nuggets. But Hobbes said there was nothing unusual about the samples he took from the mine. He said they were just ordinary rocks, like all the others in the Blacker Mountains, and ordinary rocks don’t have gold in them.’

  ‘In which case,’ said Pinky, ‘how can the Paynes have a gold mine?’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ I said.

  ‘Inspector Hobbes is the one that was on the telly? The one that chased down the gold thieves, isn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right.’ A thought struck me. ‘You don’t suppose there’s a connection between the rocks and the robbery?’

  Pinky shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it might explain why Sir Gerald was getting so desperate. I mean, what if his gold mine was a sham?’

  ‘You mean,’ I said, ‘that it could be a cover? A way of making stolen gold seem legitimate?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘It sounds a little far-fetched, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Does it? It could explain what’s been going on. Hugh was always keen on his geology so what if he’d discovered the mine was a fake? Might that be why Sir Gerald killed him?’

  ‘But I didn’t kill him,’ said a deep drawl from the kitchen door.

  Shocked, I leapt to my feet, banging my knees on the table. I rubbed them and stared, open-mouthed, at Sir Gerald.

  ‘Good morning, Pinky,’ he said. ‘I see you’ve put on weight. Such a shame. There was a time when you were quite … acceptable.

  ‘And it is regrettable to find you in such low company. Do you know this fool takes his holidays in the Blacker Mountains, and pretends he’s up there on his own? As if he could last five minutes!’

  ‘How did you get in?’ I asked, ignoring the insults, something I was used to.

  He held up a key.

  ‘That’s mine! How did you get it?’

  ‘That should be obvious, even to an idiot like you. Quite clearly, it was in the pocket of your coat, which Denzil fished from the lake. By the way, your antics last night were most entertaining and you were lucky Hobbes’s daughter rescued you.’

  I hung my head, ashamed that until then, I hadn’t spared Kathy a single thought or shown any gratitude for what she’d done.

  Pinky got to her feet. ‘What are you doing here, Gerry?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question, Pinky.’

  ‘She’s a guest,’ I said, ‘and you are not. Give me my key, please, and leave the house.’

  ‘That’s not very welcoming. Wouldn’t you like to know why I’m here?’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I’m so glad you want to know. Please, both of you, sit down.’

  Pinky sat back down, fear and loathing in her big, blue eyes. Still rubbing my bruised knees, I hobbled towards my chair.

  ‘Take your time,’ said Sir Gerald.

  ‘Are you both sitting comfortably?’ he asked, when I’d finally planted myself on the seat. ‘Then I’ll begin. I’m here because I wish to obtain Hugh Duckworth’s notes.’

  ‘We don’t have them,’ I pointed out, confused and afraid that Denny would not be far away.

  ‘I’m aware of that. Mrs Duckworth has them and that uncouth fellow Hobbes is with her.’

  ‘So, what do want from us?’

  ‘I would like you to pass a message to him.’

  ‘If I were you,’ I said, ‘I would leave here before you anger him. He can be dangerous and you underestimate him at your peril.’

  Sir Gerald smiled. ‘I don’t underestimate him, or overestimate him. I know his sort. Denzil has, after all, been in my family for years and I expect Hobbes is much like him – strong in the arm, but weak in the head.’

  ‘What do you mean his sort?’

  ‘The Evil Ones. The Mountain Folk,’ said Sir Gerald. ‘Call them what you will, they’re the last of a dying breed that few will miss when they finally die out for good. But, I have to say, Denzil has proved most useful.’

  ‘Evil Ones? Mountain Folk? What are you talking about?’

  ‘The vagrants that used to infest our mountains. Now, kindly stop your blathering. I want you to pass this message to Hobbes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell him his daughter will come to no harm if he does precisely what I say.’

  ‘What have you done to her?’ I said, bouncing back to my feet and taking a step towards him. At least I had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen in alarm. He was obviously aware of my violent tendency.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ he said, recovering his composure in an instant. ‘She’s fine. Nothing has happened to her, and I hope nothing will. Tell Hobbes to bring Duckworth’s notes to the Squire’s Arms at Northsorn at three o’clock this afternoon. Tell him to come alone and that any funny business might have a serious effect on the lady’s well-being. Finally, he’s not to tell anyone. I have eyes and ears all around the town and, should he try anything stupid, I’ll know, and, let’s say, there will be consequences.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘what’s the point? Hobbes will have read the notes. He’ll have worked out what’s going on. What’s more,’ I pointed to Pinky, ‘we know.’

  ‘What Hobbes might think he knows is of no consequence without the evidence, and you know nothing, except for wild speculation. Besides, I happen to be friends with the right sort of people, who can ensure nobody will ever believe your malicious attacks on an honourable family. Not that anyone would be likely to believe you anyway. Let’s see, we have Pinky, a woman seething with resentment, and you, a failed reporter for a pathetic local rag, a complete incompetent. Oh, no, you’ll not be any problem.’

  ‘You may be right,’ I said, ‘but can you tell me something?’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘If you didn’t kill Hugh Duckworth, who did?’

  ‘Let’s just say it was his curiosity. Those mountains are dangerous and anyone who fails to take sufficient care can quickly come to grief.’

  ‘But how did he die?’

  ‘Painfully, but quite quickly. Now, that’s enough banter. You’re boring me. Tell Hobbes what I said.

  ‘Goodbye, Pinky, darling. It’s such a shame to see what time and spite have done to you. I’ll let myself out. Nice to have made your acquaintance again, Mr Caplet.’

  Tossing me the key, he turned and walked away. The front door opened and shut.

  ‘Are you alright?’ I asked.

  Pinky was trembling and deathly white. She nodded. ‘It’s just that I hate him so much.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘There are many reasons. Too many. You’d better get that message to the inspector quickly and I hope his daught
er’s alright. I don’t trust Gerry and, if he’s here, Denny Barker won’t be far away and he really is dangerous.’

  ‘He was hanging around yesterday,’ I said, and couldn’t stop myself adding: ‘We had a couple of encounters and I knocked him down.’

  ‘You did? How?’ asked Pinky, sounding a little sceptical.

  ‘Umm … I jumped out of a window onto his head when he was trying to kidnap Daphne and then I knocked him down again.’ I showed her my knuckles, which were still raw, though the swelling and soreness had subsided.

  Although she nodded and looked impressed, it seemed she didn’t quite believe me. I suspected her doubts were nothing compared to mine about my well-being should I ever encounter Denny again and yet, at that moment, my fears for my safety were nothing like my worries for Kathy.

  ‘When you see Hobbes,’ said Pinky, ‘you’d better warn him that Sir Gerald is a devious man and it sounds to me as if he’s setting a trap.’

  ‘Does it? You might be right, but he’ll know what to do. I hope. I’ll get my coat … oh, no, it’s still in the lake … I’ll go and find him. He’s probably still at the museum.’

  ‘Or you could use the phone,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes. I never think of that.’

  We hurried through to the sitting room. I called the museum and, within five minutes, Hobbes, accompanied by a very excited Dregs, burst through the front door. I introduced them both to Pinky, whose evident nervousness at the sight of them was not helped by the ravages of Dregs’s tongue, despite my best efforts to keep her dry, or by the heavy, blood-stained, brown paper bag in Hobbes’s hand. His feral scent was far stronger than usual and he was twitching, with a wild expression in his dark eyes.

  ‘Welcome to Sorenchester, Miss Pinkerton,’ he said and turned to me. ‘Spread some papers in the corner and get her out of here … and quickly. I have a bone to pick.’

  Knowing what was coming, I threw a few copies of the Bugle onto the carpet, went to grab my coat, remembered where it was, and bundled a bewildered Pinky into the street.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Umm … it’s quite warm today, isn’t it? I mean compared to yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t try to change the subject. What’s wrong with him?’

  I was unsure how to respond, for I knew that Hobbes, having bought himself a large, raw marrowbone, had undoubtedly already pounced on it, like a leopard onto a tender young antelope, and was crunching it up in his great jaws. Having witnessed the whole process, I found it disgusting and terrifying and made sure to keep out of the way whenever the fit came over him.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said at last. ‘The thing is, he has his own way of working off stress and it’s best to avoid him until it’s all over. We should give him half an hour.’

  She frowned. ‘He’s going to crunch up a bone, isn’t he?’

  ‘Eh?’ I said, confused. ‘How would you know?’

  ‘He’s one of the Mountain Folk, like Denny Barker, isn’t he? I’ve been there when Gerry threw Denny a bone to entertain his guests.’

  ‘I think I know where you’re coming from,’ I said, ‘because that’s what he’ll be doing, but Hobbes is one of the good guys. I thought he was unique, until recently.’

  ‘But he looks like Denny and no one else I know eats raw bones. There’s something about them, something weird, something dangerous.’

  I nodded. ‘Hobbes is certainly weird and he might be dangerous sometimes, but he’s the best I know. Do you really think he’s like Denny?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Wow.’ I paused, letting the thought sink in. ‘Look, do you want to get a coffee or something while we wait?’

  ‘No, I’ve just had a cup of tea,’ said Pinky. ‘We could go and see Daphne.’

  ‘She’s at work,’ I said. ‘It’s a new job and she hasn’t really had a very good start. I think we should give her some peace.’

  Instead, we strolled around town for the next half hour or so and I told her everything that had happened to Daphne recently. To my regret, Pinky was far more interested in my accident with the baked bean tin and my near disaster in the lake than with my heroic battles with Denny. She told me a little about herself, claiming she was thirty, though I’d have guessed she was a good few years older than that, that she’d lived in Blackcastle all her life and that she was divorced.

  We glimpsed Featherlight riding a bicycle that was far too small for him at the far end of Vermin Street.

  ‘There’s another of them!’ she said, pointing. ‘Until I came here, I really thought Denny was the last of them and now I find two others within a matter of minutes!’

  ‘But, what are they?’ I asked.

  ‘The Mountain Folk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We carried on walking and had turned down the Shambles when, stopping to look at a hat shop’s window display, she took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know really. For a long time, I thought they were just a legend … a story to frighten the kids and I really don’t know much.’

  ‘You know more than I do.’

  ‘OK, this is what I remember, though I’m not sure how much is true anymore, because most of what I know came from my granddad, who used to work for Sir Digby, Gerry’s grandfather. Sometimes, when he’d knocked back a few beers, he’d tell me tales of the Mountain Folk.

  ‘They used to turn up from time to time, though there were never that many of them and they mostly kept themselves to themselves, except at the end of summer when they’d find work with the farmers, taking in the harvest, or in the spring, when they’d help with the shearing. They were hard workers, good with animals and skilled with their hands. Granddad reckoned they built all the drystone walls in the area.’

  ‘They must have been very useful,’ I said.

  ‘I suppose they were, but people were suspicious of them. They used to camp under Blacker Knob, which had an evil reputation.’

  ‘People are often suspicious of anything different.’ I said. ‘I was suspicious of Hobbes once and, even now I’d call him a friend, he can sometimes terrify me, although he’s got me out of sticky situations so many times.’

  Pinky nodded, a lock of blonde hair falling over her eye. Brushing it aside, she fixed her gaze on a livid pink pixie hat. ‘People began to say that they stole things, that they spoiled food, soured milk and swapped their offspring for human babies. What was more, they never attended church and it was rumoured that they were fiends, in league with the Devil. That’s why some called them the Evil Ones.’

  ‘Hobbes sometimes goes to church,’ I said, feeling weirdly that I should be protecting him and his kind. ‘He always goes on Remembrance Sunday. He was in the Great War and won a Victoria Cross.’

  I feared I’d said too much, but she didn’t appear surprised.

  ‘That just convinces me he’s one of them, because Granddad said they lived much longer than other men. When he was young, he sometimes used to work with Denny Barker and he reckoned Denny was the last of them.’

  ‘What happened to the others?’

  She shook her head. ‘I really don’t know. Granddad would always change the subject when I asked. All he’d say was that they’d gone away. It was my impression that something bad had happened and I tried to get some answers from the other old boys. They would never say much, but one suggested I might find something in the Parish records.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I tried, but it turned out that they’d been burned when the old town hall caught fire.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘During the Second World War.’

  ‘Was it bombed?’

  She laughed. ‘No, I don’t think Blackcastle was ever of any strategic importance … or of any sort of importance at all. According to the Blacker Times archive from 1941, the cause of the fire was a mystery. It was put down to faulty wiring, though there was some suspicion of arson. That’s
really all I know about the Mountain Folk. It’s not much.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it’s interesting. I’ve often tried to work out what Hobbes is exactly. I can’t tell you how much of a shock it was when I first realised he wasn’t strictly human. I wonder if he knows anything about them?’

  ‘Ask him.’

  ‘That wouldn’t work,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘He doesn’t normally like to talk about the past … his past anyway … and I wouldn’t even have found out that he’d won the Victoria Cross if I hadn’t been a bit nosy. On the other hand, Mrs Goodfellow likes to talk about him. He adopted her you know?’

  Pinky turned from the window to face me. ‘Although that seems so wrong, because she looks so much older than him, I can believe it.

  ‘Do you think he’s finished his bone yet?’

  A glance up Vermin Street to the church clock tower showed the time was approaching midday. ‘Probably. Let’s go.’

  When we got back, Mrs Goodfellow was tidying up the newspapers while Hobbes was upstairs, roaring and singing in the shower. Dregs was barking in the back garden.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ said Mrs Goodfellow as we walked in. ‘Would your friend like to stay for dinner?’

  ‘Umm … I don’t know. I hadn’t thought. Umm …Would you?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pinky, ‘but I can’t. I have an appointment with my bank at one.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit inconvenient?’ I said. ‘Why here?’

  ‘I’m thinking of moving here and opening a new café. The thing is, there’s not much trade in Blackcastle and Gerry has put the rent up again. I have no intention of filling that bastard’s coffers any more.’

  ‘But why here?’

  ‘Because I have a friend here.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’d best be on my way. I’m not quite sure where to go.’

  ‘Which bank?’

  ‘Grossman’s. I figured that, since they’d had two robberies, they’d probably tightened up security.’

  ‘We passed it earlier. It’s halfway down The Shambles, not far from the hat shop.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and took her leave.