Death of a Radical

by Rebecca Jenkins

  “Met him the first day he came. He was bad—poorly chest. Jonas made him a brew in me mom’s kitchen.”

  “Jonas?” Jarrett asked. Dickon blinked as if he had something in his eyes.

  “Friend—works for the old bat up at Grateley Manor. You’ve heard him sing.” He stared down at Favian’s lifeless body. “He said it made him better.”

  Jarrett thought of how Grub had fought his frailties. His spirit had never bowed to his ill health. No more fighting for him now; his struggles were over.

  “Was it his chest, do y’think?” Dickon reached out a hand and touched the blood on Grub’s forehead.

  “There’s more to it than that,” Jarrett said. “You said he was supposed to be at the play?”

  Dickon Watson searched his face. His answer was guarded. “Saw him at the fair. Heard he’d be going.”

  For the first time Jarrett paid attention to the others, who stood back at a respectful distance. Harry Aitken he knew by sight. There was a long streak of a lad with a fuzz of fair hair standing up around his head. He’d seen him about town. He was a participant in the hat chase at the fair—was he the tailor’s son? John Blackwell, that’s it. Then there was a compact, dark-haired lad and Dewsnap’s red-headed boy. But no sign of Miss Lippett’s oddly independent servant.

  “Your friend Jonas, he’s not with you?”

  “Had business. His mistress wanted him.”

  The members of the Red Angel song club carried Favian Adley down from the fell on an old gate covered with his cousin’s cloak. Jarrett led the way. The compact, dark-haired youth—they called him Sim—volunteered to run ahead to warn the household. As they descended into the tree line the branches were thick with crystal hoar frost. Everywhere was silent but for the crunch of their footfall in the snow.

  Charles was standing at the gate of the old manor dressed in black, every hair in place. He always had had a sense of occasion. Favian Adley passed through the gate on his wooden bier.

  “There’s been a letter.” Charles’s voice was compressed and strange. He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Adley’s at Ravensworth. She’s come to visit her son.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I knew it, I knew it!” Tiplady was white-faced and wailing. “I had the most dreadful fancies, but this! Dear Lord, I never dreamt … It was his chest, wasn’t it? I told you to have a care, but would you listen? Out on such a night! Why didn’t you hear me? What tragedy has visited us!”

  They brought a trestle table into a room on the ground floor darkened by the yew tree growing outside its windows. They set Favian down upon it. Frost blossomed like icy mold on the inside of the window panes. To preserve the body there could be no fire so Charles, at his lordly best, summoned up hot cider to warm the men who had brought his cousin down from the fell.

  They gave him back his cloak. Jarrett found the button, as Duffin predicted, in a pocket. It lay on his palm. A white metal button with a chased border, too small to serve a coat. There was a yellowish thread attached to it and clinging to that a tiny flake of soft leather. Grub’s purse was still on him, along with his watch. Whatever the motive for the attack, it was not simple robbery. Two murders in a week. That couldn’t be a coincidence; not in a place like this. He thought of the colonel and his hunt for his radicals. He had not believed in them and yet … He looked across at the red-headed William Dewsnap and the tailor’s son, John Blackwell, sipping their cider by the door. What were Dickon Watson and his friends doing while the whole town was at the play? He watched them under his lashes. They stood close to one another in silence, eyes lowered.

  “You weren’t at the play.” His remark was met with blank expressions.

  “Need money to see a play.” Dickon Watson, it seemed, was their spokesman. “We was over at Billy Dewsnap’s. His ma brews a tidy ale.” It seemed far to go for a drink on a winter’s night but then, these were country folk.

  “Where’s your Leeds friend?”

  “Jo? Told you; he were working this night. Mistress wanted him.”

  Jarrett thought of Mrs. Bedford’s entertainment; Miss Lippett had left before the play.

  Charles came in from the hall, his movements controlled and his eyes distracted. He addressed Jarrett as if they were alone.

  “They’re bringing the carriage round. I must set out.”

  “We’ll leave you then, sir.” The members of the song club retreated to the door, offering disjointed phrases of respect and regret. Dickon Watson loomed at the rear.

  “A sorry day, my lord.”

  “Thank you.” Charles’s closed hand advanced at waist height. He was offering money. Jarrett noted the shift in posture as the youth bristled. “To drink to my cousin’s memory,” the marquess said gently. Dickon took the money and held it in his hand. Jarrett watched them as they crossed to the front door. Harry Aitken, the solid married man, fell in alongside Watson. Without turning his head he spoke low. Jarrett caught a few snatched phrases.

  “Dinna think—”

  “Hush!” Watson responded.

  “Duke’s man’s all right,” insisted Harry. They were almost out of the door.

  “Less his kind knows of us the better.”

  Jarrett and Charles stood side by side looking down at Grub. It was his image and yet not him.

  “This was murder, you know.”

  “That cannot be!” Charles swung his head briefly toward Jarrett without looking directly at him. “Perhaps his horse stumbled and threw him …”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  “How can you—?”

  “Tracks. Grub was carried—left for dead away from the road.” Charles looked dazed.

  “Left for dead,” he repeated blankly. “He was alive?”

  “Barely.”

  “But you were with him?” Charles’s voice was insistent, almost pleading.

  “He died in my arms.” Charles put his hand out, an involuntary gesture. The warmth of it was an intrusion. The contact seemed to join and amplify their grief. Jarrett took a step away, averting his eyes with a conciliatory grimace. The marquess cleared his throat.

  “He said nothing to you?” he asked.

  “Almost nothing.”

  “Raif!” Jarrett could feel the appeal of Charles’s eyes. He knew he wanted comfort. He could think of none. “But he knew you were there?” Jarrett nodded.

  “He wasn’t robbed,” he said absently. His own voice sounded distant to him. “Perhaps he saw something he shouldn’t—”

  “I can’t believe it!” Charles’s energetic exclamation cut him off. “Murder a kinsman of the duke’s? Who would risk such a thing? No!” the marquess protested. “His horse must have thrown him,” he reasoned stubbornly. “A countryman passing by found him. He could not carry him—the horse had run off …”

  “So he left him and said nothing?”

  “Perhaps he went for help and you came upon the boy first.”

  Jarrett leaned down and loosened the crushed cravat around Grub’s neck. Beneath there was a mottled bar of a bruise perhaps an inch wide crossing his throat.

  “Raif!” Charles exclaimed helplessly. There was movement in the hall. Tiplady appeared in the doorway. His face was wet with tears. Charles stared at him blankly. “It’s four hours or more to Ravensworth this weather. His mother must be told. If I leave now I should make it by noon.” His face spasmed. He clamped his lips together and composed himself. “You’ll stay with him?” he asked. Jarrett nodded. He did not want to face Mrs. Adley.

  “You’ll fetch her here?”

  “I’ll send word if not.” Charles took a last backward glance at the body. He enveloped Jarrett in a fierce hug. “I cannot believe this,” he said.

  He shaved to make himself more human while Tiplady prepared a hot bath by the fire in his room. He was chilled to the bone.

  Dickon and his friends had been over at Dewsnap’s farm and Grub was stopped just before the lane that led to that farm. What were those lads doing over there
? Could their circle conceal the colonel’s radicals? He tried to think of what he knew of Dickon Watson and his friends. He did not even know Watson’s trade. He had weaver’s hands—strong but clean. Harry Aitken was a weaver; he knew that much. He knew something of Aitken from the affair last summer. He had thought him an honest man.

  What was he to make of the colonel’s evidence? He had seen nothing material save that poxy note left in Ison’s carriage. If he knew who put it there, that might lead to something. But murder! A conspiracy fermenting in the Dale? Something dangerous enough to risk the extermination of two lives? He was all but certain that the same hand that had laid out Mr. Pritchard at the Bucket and Broom had dispatched young Favian. What could link Grub to an army cloth buyer? Wool. Weavers —was he back to the colonel’s damned radicals again? He thought of Charles, so completely the nobleman in attire and bearing, and his wayward face betraying his emotion. In Charles’s eyes, any local man who risked murdering a kinsman of the Duke of Penrith must be mad or desperate. He had not been home for long, but from what he had seen of the locality respect of rank was strong. Did that make the villain an outsider? The murderer was determined and practiced—he was almost certain of that. He closed his eyes. The image of the mottled mark on Grub’s throat sprang up.

  Get behind, and once the forearm slips in place under the chin, you have him. Pull it back, levering it tight in the crook of the opposing arm. Given the element of surprise, it was an efficient way to subdue an opponent—especially a weaker one. He saw Grub’s fingers scrabbling against a gloved wrist.

  The water was cold. It was as if it had congealed with his weariness. He forced himself into movement. Tiplady’s woeful face as he dressed irritated him. With an awkward pat on his manservant’s shoulder, he made his escape. Aiming for the stables, he cut down the side of the house. There was a solid little figure standing by the gate in the cold morning light. The girl in peach. His first impulse was to pretend that he had not seen her, but her searching eyes found his.

  “Mr. Jarrett!”

  “Miss Bedford.” The doleful mask of sadness sat oddly on her girlish features. He thought of how the young like to dramatize and felt a stab of annoyance. She stopped a couple of feet from him, gathering her cloak more tightly about her.

  “I have come from town,” she began hesitantly. “They said Mr. Adley …”

  “Is dead,” he said. Tears welled up in her wide-opened eyes. He was ashamed of his brutality. “Forgive me …” She reached out her gloved hand and touched his arm.

  “Please don’t think me strange coming here like this, but I had to know.” She looked as if she were about to give way to emotion. He ushered her over to a sheltered bench.

  “Come, let’s sit here a moment.” Miss Bedford produced a handkerchief and blew her nose efficiently.

  “Was it his chest? Did he suffer an attack?”

  “You knew of his condition?”

  “We traveled up north together on the Leeds flyer. He had an attack in the coach.”

  “You became acquainted at the coaching inn?” She shook her head vigorously.

  “Oh no! I was in Miss Price’s care—my old governess. She was on her way to take up a very good place outside Wakefield. She hired us a private parlor,” she explained. “I saw Mr. Adley sitting in a bay window down below.” Fond reminiscence flushed her face and her pupils widened. “He pretended to be busy, taking out a bit of paper and his pencil—all so that I should not think he had noticed me watching.” Her voice caught and she stopped.

  “I saw you on his arm at the fair.” She nodded politely, her lips compressed. “You went into the yard of the Queen’s Head.” That must have been around the time the note found its way into the colonel’s carriage. He thought of the lads playing their game with the hat in the marketplace. “Did you see anyone else in the yard?” His tone succeeded in distracting her. She gave him a sharp look. She considered the matter.

  “There were ostlers and serving men gathered under the arch watching the disturbance. Mr. Adley said we should go into Mrs. Bedlington’s parlor until the soldiers made order. I did see my uncle’s coachman by the stables …” She checked herself as if the recollection embarrassed her.

  “He’d been drinking,” he supplied sympathetically, thinking her an innocent. Lally looked at him, surprised.

  “Had he?”

  “The man was arrested blind drunk minutes later.” She drew her brows together and wrinkled her neat nose.

  “I did not particularly look at him. I did not wish him to see me.” She blushed again. Her skin was a barometer of her emotions.

  “While you were with him, did Mr. Adley speak to any other friends?”

  She pursed up her lips. “Friends?” she queried doubtfully. “There were some young men—weavers. Not my uncle’s men. Independents, I think.”

  “Can you describe them?”

  “There were four or five maybe.”

  “And Mr. Adley spoke to them?”

  “To the great tall one—he stood head and shoulders above the rest.”

  “Fairish hair and a red complexion?” Miss Bedford nodded. “And what did they speak of?”

  “I didn’t hear. Well, not really.” Either Miss Bedford had not been interested—which, to Jarrett, seemed unlikely—or her efforts at eavesdropping had been frustrated. “I thought there was someone they were looking for—Lem or some such name.” Her eyes were fixed on her fingers twisting the handkerchief in her lap.

  “This Lem, do you think he was a friend?”

  “If so they weren’t very happy with him. The big one said, ‘Just wait till I get my hands on him,’ or something like that,” she tailed off. “But perhaps they were just funning.”

  “So Mr. Adley took you into the Queen’s Head …”

  “We had tea in Mrs. Bedlington’s parlor.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “I do not recall,” she replied evasively. “An hour perhaps.”

  “And Mr. Adley never left you all that time?”

  “We left the door open and Mrs. Bedlington came in and out. It was quite proper!”

  “I am sure it was,” he responded mechanically. “Then Mr. Adley escorted you home.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you saw him next …”

  “At my aunt’s.” Her eyes grew misty. “He was early.”

  “And at the play I saw you in the box at the end across the way,” he said in a cheerful tone, hoping to move her past a fresh wave of emotion. He had to know the sequence of events that led Grub to ride up the fell that night. “Mr. Adley was standing at the back, behind you. Did you observe him leave?” Miss Bedford’s color ebbed then returned a hot pink. “Perhaps you left the theater together?”

  “I did not!” she protested. She turned in her seat to address him directly, her manner half guilty, half defiant. “I was feeling faint. I just went into the yard to breathe some air. My aunt was enjoying the opera; besides she was sitting seats away. I couldn’t catch her eye and,” she ended lamely, “I did not wish to disturb her.”

  “Mr. Adley followed you out?”

  “He was concerned about me,” she insisted with a touch of pride.

  It seemed there had been romance in the air that night. Gradually he coaxed an account of the scene from her. It was a little blurred in parts—a rosy tale of two young people enjoying each other’s company away from the eyes of the world.

  “So you left the theater toward the end of the first act. Mr. Adley joined you there and you took a turn about the yard together. You remember nothing else? Mr. Adley mentioned he was going somewhere after the play, perhaps?” Miss Bedford shook her head. They each stared out at their portion of the frosty landscape in silence. She hugged her cloak closely about herself. It was cold. He should offer her shelter, but that might be considered improper. He was on the verge of proposing that he should call a groom to drive her back into town.

  “There was the man in the marketplace,” she s
aid suddenly.

  “What man?”

  “There were two of them, I suppose, if you think about it,” she went on, debating with herself. “One after the other, but it was the other one.” Jarrett reined back the blasphemy that strained to break from his mouth. She was distressed and young and her species were not known for their reasoning.

  “I am afraid I don’t follow you,” he said mildly.

  “We were standing under the arch that leads to the marketplace.” She hesitated. “Talking. And Mr. Adley saw someone, out by that round stone building.”

  “The tollbooth? Who?”

  “I don’t know. I saw nothing clearly. But Mr. Adley knew him, I think.”

  “Why?”

  Miss Bedford stared at him, startled by his passionate tone. “Why do you think he recognized someone?” he elaborated impatiently. Her expression changed to one of sympathy beyond her years.

  “He made an exclamation,” she said patiently. She’s humoring me, he thought fleetingly. “You know—the kind that one makes when one is surprised to see someone; but my uncle called me.” Miss Bedford looked over toward the gate as if she half expected her relative to appear again. “I had to go. Uncle John would have been very cross had he seen us together.” Her face fell suddenly. “That is the last time I saw Mr. Adley.” A tear ran down her cheek.

  “And you saw nothing else?” he pressed. She looked at him piteously through watery eyes. “The man by the tollbooth,” he insisted. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief.

  “Just an outline—he stood in shadow. It was just a man, that’s all!”

  “Was he wearing a hat?”

  “Of course he was!” Miss Bedford responded acerbically.

  “What kind?”

  “It was just a hat; that’s all.”

  “And there was nothing else you remember about him? What was he doing?”

  “Pulling on his gloves,” she replied and burst into noisy tears. He leaned back against the bench. It was at moments like these a man could do with a wife. After a moment she blew her nose. He risked a side glance. She was sitting very straight. She had a neat way of disposing her limbs. She reminded him of a little brindle cat. The impression was reinforced when she turned her head and gazed at him steadily with her dark golden eyes.