Death of a Radical

by Rebecca Jenkins

  “We’ve brought you curran wigs,” Meg Teward said. “Hester had me bake them special, just for you.”

  “Why, thank you!” He was touched. As he took the parcel he thought of his sketch. He slipped back into the room to fetch it from the window sill, leaving the parcel in its place.

  “I wonder if …” He held it out with one hand, pulling the door to behind him. “You don’t by chance recognize this man, Mrs. Teward?” She examined the sketch carefully, her face as a solemn as a stained-glass angel.

  “Is he sleeping?” she asked. “He doesn’t look well.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I think …” She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “Yes!” Jarrett felt the blood pump a little faster through his veins. “Last Tuesday! The two men that come visiting Mr. George. This is like the smaller one, the one with the bearded man.”

  “Is Mr. George still with you at the Bucket and Broom?”

  “Oh no! He was only booked in for t’fairs.”

  Damn! Too late! He could hardly chase Mr. George to London to ask him about his contract and his visitors.

  “There’s the bells again.” Mrs. Teward was distracted. “We must be going.” She bobbed a curtsey. Hester gave him a little wave as they turned to leave. “We dropped Mr. George off on our way,” Meg Teward said. “He’s booked a place on the York flyer; it passes through at half past ten.”

  He dismounted, exhilarated. If his pocket watch kept its time, it was twelve minutes after ten. He glanced into the coffee room. It was like many others in country coaching inns up and down the north road—stuffy and dim, with robust furnishings and a tired, rubbed look. The landlord hurried out from a back room.

  “Mr. Jarrett; it’s been a time since we’ve had the pleasure,” he greeted him. “You’ve something for t’mail? I’m just doing up bags.”

  “I’ve no need to trouble you, landlord. I was hoping to catch an acquaintance; he has a seat on the flyer, I believe.”

  “Mr. George, would that be?” There was the urgent sound of a chair scraped back and the shadow of movement in the room beyond.

  “Never mind, I think I see him.” Jarrett brushed past the innkeeper into the coffee room.

  Mr. George was standing by a table just to the left of the door. He had been tucked out of sight eating a plate of beef and bread.

  “Mr. Jarrett. I take the stage at any minute.” He took a hurried side-step. His foot knocked against a small leather trunk stowed beside the table and he almost fell.

  “We need to talk, Mr. George.” Jarrett advanced on him.

  “About what?” Mr. George’s eyes darted this way and that about the empty room. They were alone. The landlord had returned to his mailbags and the duke’s agent blocked the path to the door.

  “About corruption, sir, and murder.”

  Mr. George suddenly resumed his seat. He glanced irritably at his half-eaten food and pushed the plate away.

  “What is all this?” he demanded petulantly. “What do you mean coming here in this unmannerly fashion?”

  Jarrett pulled out a chair to sit facing him.

  “Tell me about the men who came to see you at the Bucket and Broom the night you arrived.” When they had first met, Mr. George had seemed such a cheerful man. Now his expression was frankly sulky. After a moment Jarrett realized that he was attempting an air of haughty indifference, but his neck and shoulders were too stiff for nonchalance. “One of them was this man.” Jarrett put his sketch of Nat Broom on the table between them. Mr. George rolled his eyes down to it reluctantly. Tiny drops of sweat beaded on his upper lip. “Who was the other?”

  “By what right do you ask me? You have no authority …” Jarrett leaned across the table. The fat man flinched.

  “The secret’s out, Mr. George.” Jarrett spoke low and deliberate. “Your colleague was murdered.”

  “Pritchard died of natural causes! The magistrate himself said so!” Mr. George took out his handkerchief and wiped his hands. He looked down at them as if they had a life of their own. He tucked his handkerchief up his sleeve in a furtive movement.

  “But you and I know he was killed. Two more murdered men have been found—and one of them was kin to the Duke of Penrith.” Mr. George’s chubby fingers went to his cravat. “And as you know, I am agent to the Duke of Penrith.”

  “What can you want of me?” the buyer asked plaintively. Jarrett tapped the sketch that lay between them.

  “This man and another, a bearded man, came to see you at the Bucket and Broom last Tuesday night; what did they want with you?” Mr. George opened his mouth. His denial withered before the intensity of Jarrett’s blue-gray stare. “Tell me about the contract.” It was as if an inflated bladder had been pricked by a pin. Jarrett watched the defiance seep out of Mr. George.

  “He …”

  “The bearded man?” The buyer nodded, jerkily, like a mechanical doll with a faulty spring.

  “He suggested that Mr. Bedford’s mill should be awarded the contract, that’s all.” The first words having slipped out, more followed at a gathering pace. “Bedford was on the preferred list, in any event. I was assured that there were machines ready to be installed. With them Bedford may fill the entire order without difficulty. It is simpler to deal with one contractor—”

  “Not if he fails to deliver,” interrupted Jarrett. “If he meets with some difficulty or accident, how then is the army to clothe its soldiers?”

  “I received assurances,” Mr. George insisted.

  “You received more than that. I hope they were generous.” Mr. George’s neck seemed to retract between his shoulders, as if he were a tortoise that would hide its head. “Who was his principal?” Jarrett demanded.

  “His principal?” Mr. George faltered.

  “The bearded man spoke for someone. Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. I do not know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “I did not ask! They offered cash—and threats of violence if I did not comply.”

  “And Pritchard?”

  “He would have none of it.” Mr. George turned petulant. “Silly, moralizing fool! He had been sent as my watchman, he said. There is a new man come in, you see. Taken over the department; wants to make a name for himself. For all my years in the service, my patron is gone and I am left unprotected. Twisting in the wind.” His voice was moist with self-pity. He dabbed his handkerchief over his face.

  “So you connived at your colleague Pritchard’s murder so that you might collect a retirement bonus?”

  “I take offense at your tone, sir!” Mr. George rallied. “I did no such thing. I knew nothing …” Jarrett thought of the fading footprint in the frost below Mr. George’s window and the two pairs of open shutters, and the hole where the post of a ladder might have slipped into loose dirt.

  “But you opened the window. You let the murderer in.”

  “I was never in Pritchard’s room!” Mr. George’s lips spoke his denial stiffly from a frozen face.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Mr. George turned his head away. “Pritchard wasn’t well.” His voice slid about the scale. “He was ill. Who’s to say how long he should have lived …? He was forever anxious. He did not believe he was well—with his sleeping drafts and his complaints.”

  “But someone hurried his death.”

  “I did not do that!”

  “You opened the window.” Mr. George’s full red mouth hung open and fear shifted in his eyes.

  “You cannot prove a thing. This is a monstrous lie!”

  “Monstrous!” Jarrett repeated. “So tell me about the murderer, this bearded man.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know,” Mr. George repeated desperately. “He had a beard. He was muffled up. He wouldn’t take off his hat. He did not want to be seen. And I did not see his face. He hardly stayed a moment—”

  “And yet he arranged to come back later …”

  “He threatened me! I was fearful for
my life—”

  “So you let him take Pritchard’s instead.”

  “That is not how it was! He … he was just supposed to talk to Pritchard. To persuade him.”

  Jarrett watched with distaste as the man squirmed this way and that. He was weary of it all. He imagined Mr. George wakeful in his own room as the deed was done; listening to the noises through the wall; clutching his bribe in the dark.

  “It was never supposed to be like this.” Mr. George kneaded his handkerchief fretfully. The square of linen was by now quite damp. “I only wanted a little comfort. I am alone in the world, you know, since my mother died. I never did find a wife.” His fleshy face was a ludicrous mask of melancholy. “Bedford will supply the order just as well as another. His price is good enough. I am not a bad man, Mr. Jarrett. I am not. This business went far beyond anything I anticipated.”

  “So help me catch the murderer.”

  “I cannot.” He pushed the thought away with plump, white hands. “I know nothing and you see how dangerous he is … I am insignificant. I cannot help you.”

  A distant post horn sounded. The landlord poked his head round the door. Mr. George swung toward him eagerly as if to his salvation.

  “Stage is here, Mr. George!” The thunder of carriage wheels and horses approached at a canter. Mr. George snatched up his trunk. Outside the window, the coach rattled to a halt in a crescendo of movement and sound. At the door, Mr. George hesitated. He looked back.

  “What will you do, Mr. Jarrett?” Jarrett contemplated him coldly for a moment, then he shrugged.

  “I hope your bounty was worth Pritchard’s life.” He picked up his sketch of Nat Broom and stowed it away. “This bearded man doesn’t like loose ends. He did for this one just last night. I’d advise you to watch your back, Mr. George.” The terror on the man’s face was some satisfaction. Not much, but some.

  He was back in Powcher’s Lane. He turned in through the gates of Bedford’s stable yard. The kitchen door was closed. He crossed the open space conscious of the wall of windows rising up to his right. No one called out. No one challenged him. At the entrance to the stable, a cat sat on a feed sack licking its paws. It glanced up briefly. Finding him insignificant, it returned to its task. Two stalls were occupied by a showy bay hunter and a plump pony. The others were empty. The carriage was out. The household was still at church.

  A wide flight of open-tread stairs rose up to the loft. His eyes breached floor level. He saw space, clean lines and tawny wood. A single attic room ran the length of the stable. Four windows, two along each long side, let in plenty of light. The wooden ribs of the roof soared overhead.

  As he rose step by step, a simple iron bed came into view down the vista of boards. The fourth tread from the top of the stair was loose. It protested under his weight. The bed seemed to rest in a pool of light until he realized that the wood around it had been recently replaced. The bed was covered by a horse blanket. A canvas satchel rested on top.

  He circled the room like a cat, keeping to the walls where the boards were firm and did not creak. The floor was simple planks laid over joists. Through the chinks he glimpsed the backs of the horses below. The wall behind the stairs was covered with leather reins and carriage harnesses suspended from large hooks. Apart from a stool and a broom leaning against the bricks between the windows there was nothing else. The neatness was familiar. It spoke of a man who might pack up and remove all trace of himself in a minute. He paused by the bed to make a cursory examination of the contents of the satchel: some spare linen and shaving gear; nothing of interest. He left it as he found it. He ran his eyes about the space, examining it section by section. A beam crossed the room over the stairwell. At the far end a large cobweb stretched up into the roof. Its bottom edge flapped loose. He fetched the stool. Standing on it, he reached along the beam to where it joined the bricks of the wall. He touched crumbs of mortar, the sharp edge of brick and a void. He stretched a little further. His fingertips encountered a crumpled, foreign surface. His nail snagged on a piece of curved metal. Crumbs of mortar pattered to the floor as he pulled out wadded leather the size of a man’s fist. A pair of men’s gloves. Yellow gloves. Citrine, mustard, ochre … he murmured to himself. They were stiff with dried blood. When they were new-made, each glove had been secured at the wrist by three pewter buttons with tooled cable borders. Now there was a button missing on each. On the left-hand glove, two pinpricks indicated where the missing fastening had once been secured; on the right-hand glove it had been torn away along with a scrap of leather.

  So now he knew. These had clothed the hands that strangled Grub’s life. Grub’s fingers had torn the button from that wrist and held on to it unto death so that it might lead him here. He crumpled the gloves up in his fist.

  He returned them to their hiding place. He brushed his clothes and swept up the crumbs of masonry that dusted the boards. As he replaced the stool, he noticed smoke drifting outside. There was an orchard behind the stable bordered by a high wall that hid it from prying eyes. A bonfire smoldered by the wall, its smoke drifting picturesquely in the crisp air. He heard the fourth tread before the top of the stairs creak.

  There was a man watching him. It was hard to determine his features. He wore a hat and long coat with the collar turned up. The lower part of his face was covered with a curly black beard. With one hand he swept off his hat revealing a shaved head; the other he lifted to his ear. With one steady movement he peeled off his beard.

  “Itches like the clap,” he said. “Glad to be rid of it. It’s the gum.” Taking a round tin from his pocket he laid the false beard inside and stowed it away. “So you’ve found me, Captain Jarrett. The chief said you might come by.”

  Mr. Strickland’s man was unremarkable: a smallish man with a sharpish nose and pale eyes under sandy eyebrows. He carried his head a little forward in a manner that seemed to supplicate the world’s indulgence. He held out his hand. Jarrett shook it, feeling the long bones and the strength in the wrist.

  “You have me at a disadvantage. What should I call you?”

  “Go by the name of Judkin these parts; Matthew Judkin. Coachman. I’d offer you refreshment but as you’ll have seen, I’ve nothing to hand,” he said with a ghost of a wink. “Mr. Bedford doesn’t like it, having had difficulty with drinkers in the past.” His voice was soft and flat and his expression tended toward the bland as if he had disciplined his muscles to anonymity. He was very clean for a coachman.

  He turned his back, taking off his coat. Jarrett automatically adjusted his position to make himself a smaller target, paying close attention to the movement of the man’s back and shoulders. The coachman hung his coat up on a hook by the bed, his hands in plain sight. “Well, this is pleasant. I’ve heard talk of your work—Spain, wasn’t it?” He turned back. His face wore a mild expression but his pale eyes were acute.

  “Farr’s slipped away from you,” Jarrett said. “Your information against him was false. He was never party to any conspiracy in Dewsbury. He left that place when he was a boy.”

  “Never!” Judkin mouthed incredulously.

  “You knew.”

  The spy snorted. “You know the game, captain! All they require is plots averted and culprits tied up all pretty and neat. They don’t concern themselves with details. They want reports, they get reports.” The man seemed to think they belonged to the same corps. Curiosity blossomed in counterpoint to the cold anger seething through Jarrett’s veins.

  “So you’ve no need of proof?” he asked lightly.

  “Proof? Proof’s what they are willing to believe!”

  There was something Lally Bedford had said. Something about the time Grub took her into the Queen’s Head that day, at the opening of the fairs, as the fight erupted in the marketplace. It tugged at his brain. She had mentioned her uncle’s coachman …

  “The note in the colonel’s carriage; you planted it,” Jarrett stated. Judkin preened himself, like a country wag whose audience had finally got the joke.<
br />
  “The hogs first rose up in Lincolnshire,” he smirked. “The colonel was losing heart.”

  “And the note kept him keen.” Jarrett noted that Judkin liked to boast. A man didn’t get much opportunity in the spy trade.

  “Did your service abroad but you’ve retired now?” Judkin inquired, looking his guest up and down. “I had a fancy for foreign service; never had the connections.” The last had a lilt Jarrett had heard before: it was the sound of a disappointed man. “But I’m the best at my trade on home ground.”

  “Indeed?” Jarrett was skeptically polite. “Yesterday’s outing was on the messy side.”

  “Unfortunate circumstances,” Judkin said huffily.

  “Really? Bloodshed like that tends to get a man noticed.”

  “Do you see any on me?” Judkin gestured to himself. “Took along an old coat left by the drunken Paddy, didn’t I?” Which he no longer needed, since you murdered him, Jarrett observed to himself. A bloodstained coat wasn’t so easy to dispose of. He thought of the bonfire burning in the orchard. That might destroy cloth, although it wouldn’t dispose of pewter buttons.

  “First you make an accomplice of a local villain who could hang you, then you panic and bludgeon him, leaving the man alive. Your chief can’t have been happy. I assume Mr. Strickland knows?” Judkin’s expression confirmed that he did.

  “Only just alive,” Judkin muttered. “And now you’ve got him safe.” He slid a sly look under his sandy lashes. “He’s not going to talk, is he?”

  He had him there. Even if by some miracle Nat Broom did eventually wake up, Jarrett had seen enough severe head wounds to know that the victims almost invariably suffered memory loss.

  “We know better than to leave traces in our profession,” Judkin was saying.

  “I traced you.”

  “So you did, but then you and I are in the same trade.”

  “Hardly!” Jarrett snapped. “I fought as a soldier against foreign enemies in time of war.” The spy’s assumption of collegiality caught him off balance. He considered himself a realist but he had always believed, at heart, that the purpose of his soldiering was to defend a peace where justice and order prevailed. “You are a murderer!”