Hanging Matter

by David Donachie

  “I know about your debts,” said Harry suddenly. “Benedict Cantwell wrote to me on the subject.”

  Arthur put his hand to his lips, though it was a studied move, not alarm. “It seems you have been making some of those speculative investments you couldn’t engage in on my behalf.”

  “That is true, though I can’t see it is any of your concern. Nor can I fathom why Cantwell’s have seen fit to inform you of my recent difficulties.”

  Harry heard the sound of horses’ hoofs on the gravel, and cursed under his breath. The last thing he needed now was a visitor. Arthur had heard them too, and turned towards the window. But Harry’s next words made his head snap round in anger.

  “You have an attorney over my funds. They think I should be concerned.”

  That finally made Arthur bridle. “I shan’t stay here another minute, Harry. If you have something to say, some accusation to lay against me, please be so good as to do so. Then I may have the chance to ignore it or refute it. If you wish to change the financial arrangement between us, then do so in writing.”

  The front door slammed shut, as if it had been taken by the wind. “I wish to know the nature of your investments.”

  “If you don’t adopt a more fitting tone, you may wish till hell freezes over. I am not accountable to you for anything other than your estate.”

  Footsteps thudded along the hall floor. “Not Tobias Bertles?”

  “What has he got to do with this?”

  The door was flung open and James stood there. His clothes were coated with dust and his face was suffused with anger, perfectly complementing the icy atmosphere in the room.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Harry.

  “I’ve come to see you.”

  “It’s not convenient, James.”

  “Damn your convenience, brother. Damn your powder, and damn your wig.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Harry.

  “I’m talking about a certain gentleman, a card player in Brook’s club, who wore a wig. He also had a powdered face. This fellow, I believe, called himself Temple, when he played Lord Farrar.”

  “Ah,” said Harry lamely, as he felt himself blush.

  “Could you please forgive us, James,” said Arthur. “Harry is in the process of making some rather odd allegations about me.”

  Harry blessed Arthur, for he used exactly the right tone to rile James, which might get him temporarily out of the firing line. But James, much to his surprise, was all emollience.

  “I ran into Emerson, the barrister, at Lady Jersey’s.”

  It was now Arthur’s turn to say “Ah,” and blush. “I was fortunate. He saved me from having to act by his intervention.”

  “Nevertheless, Arthur, I cannot thank you enough. After all, I’ve done little enough to earn your affection. You took a huge risk.”

  James turned and his manner changed abruptly, as he renewed his assault on his brother. “As for you, Harry, it’s only by the merest good fortune that you have not completely ruined my reputation.”

  Harry pulled himself upright, trying to recover some dignity. “What I did, I did for the best.”

  “What did you mean when you asked about Bertles, Harry?”

  It was odd how dealing with that looked like an escape route. “I wondered, Arthur, whether he was your speculative investment.”

  “Bertles? Are you mad, Harry?”

  “Most certainly,” snapped James.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  “THEN I’M at a loss,” said Harry.

  James had explained his letter to Arthur, who was quick to pick up the drift and go pale with indignation, at the implication that he endangered them all, including his wife and unborn child, rather than admit an error of judgement, intentionally putting Harry on the defensive.

  “But you cannot deny being involved with Naomi Smith. I was there, Arthur, that Halloween night. I saw the decorations and the costumes. You are the only Scotsman for miles around. It had to be for you.”

  “Do you really think I’d consort with an innkeeper?”

  James had to intervene then. Things looked set to get heated again. Harry took that remark very badly.

  “You’re placing too much credence in Temple’s words, Harry.”

  “I’m not, James. They struck a chord. Quested said something similar, the night they tried to bury me in shingle, about there being a warm bed going. They attacked this house, but when that failed they made no attempt to find you, Major Franks, or Wentworth. But Trench went to great lengths to silence me. Why? Somehow, regardless of that manifest, they were convinced that the money to back Bertles came from here. If they were so sure there had to be a reason.”

  He turned to Arthur, aware that he’d jumped to a conclusion, and quite deliberately leaving out mention of Wentworth’s posters.

  “At the risk of causing further offence, I must add that Tite saw you at the Griffin’s Head. In fact, he overheard you talking to Naomi on the upstairs landing.”

  “So I’m now the butt of servants’ tittle-tattle. I shall not set foot in this house again until that oaf is removed.”

  “I have told him he is retired,” said Harry. “Tite has gained nothing from his tale.”

  Arthur, despite what was happening, brightened a little. Harry wondered afterwards if the only reason he got an answer to his question was because he’d removed Tite from his duties. Certainly his brother-in-law’s voice seemed less gruff.

  “I was there that day to finalise the arrangements for my investment. I met with two projectors from Edinburgh, to give them a money draft.” He paused, and looked, rather sheepishly, from one brother to the other. If they’d come that far, some five hundred miles, why had he not invited them to the house? “I had no desire to trouble Anne with such a matter.”

  “I must know two things, Arthur, even though it affords me no pleasure to ask. The nature of your investments and your relationship with Naomi Smith.”

  Arthur sat silently for a moment before answering. When he did his face was like a mask.

  “I have put some money into a colony in South America. The venture, and the colonists, are entirely Scottish. If it has succeeded, then I am rich. If not, penniless.”

  Harry felt that this was not the moment to point out that after previous expeditions, some of which had ended in commercial and human disaster, what he’d done was extremely foolish.

  “And Naomi Smith?”

  “Polite, and no more. I am not so stupid as to foul my nest so close to home.”

  “Was she expecting you that Halloween night?” asked Harry.

  “She was. The invitation was the second I’d received. I met her at the Old Playhouse in Deal, and she invited me to dine, the night the Duke of York attended a performance of Wild Oats.”

  That produced a thin smile, for the conjunction of the subject under discussion and the title of the play was singular.

  “I declined the first, so she arranged to put on a special event in my honour. It seemed churlish to refuse, though I did point out I had guests, and that I would be somewhat late. But I could not go, for the same reason I cancelled that dinner. Because you’d come home. But I will say this once and stress it. I was expected as a tenant looks for her landlord.”

  James, typically wicked, pointed at Harry and drove home a nail. “Given this particular landlord, that’s rather opaque.”

  Arthur relaxed then, equally willing to bait his brother-in-law. “I doubt that this will please you either. The day she spoke to me on that landing, she had a visitor.”

  “Who?” asked Harry eagerly.

  “I don’t know, Harry. All I saw was a uniform coat hanging over a chair. That and a wide buff sword belt. Oh yes, there was a fancy feathered hat on the table.” Arthur had turned towards James, so he didn’t see the look in Harry’s eye. “I dare say her interest was financial. I rather fear she worried about the possibility that I might increase her rent while you were absent.”

  But the
look on James’s face made him turn back towards Harry, an expression of perplexity on his pale face. “Does that information have some significance?”

  Arthur refused a meal, or a bed, and set out for the return journey to London. When he had gone, James, over dinner, castigated his brother for his endemic habit of jumping to conclusions. Then he related what had happened in Lewes, how Arthur had been prepared to risk everything to save his life, which only served to make his brother feel worse. But James was tactful, knowing Harry needed time to think. It was the following morning, after breakfast, before they turned back to other matters.

  “I take it, Harry, that you’ve made the connection?”

  Harry answered gloomily. “I have, James, but I cannot accept it, nor see the sense in it.”

  “What will you do?”

  Harry looked out of the window at the bright April sunshine, at the blue sky full of billowing clouds. He felt a deep sadness.

  “I must go and confirm what I suspect, James. Though God knows I’ll take no pleasure in it. After that, I have no idea.”

  No decorations now, just the place as he remembered it. White walls, dark floorboards, and aged oak beams, with rough-hewn pine tables full of Naomi’s noisy customers. With startling clarity he suddenly remembered where he’d seen Bertles. It was here, in the Griffin’s Head. In his mind he saw him as he had been at that dinner on the Planet. Red-faced and laughing, with those two odd tufts of hair twitching on his face, pouring drinks and speaking in a loud voice. This feat of memory was welcome, but did nothing to raise his spirits.

  “She’s not here, sir,” said the serving girl, Polly. “Mrs Smith has gone off. She said she would look in at the cemetery and go on to Deal.”

  “Deal?”

  “Aye, sir.” The girl bowed her head and blushed. She’d been there long enough to know Harry Ludlow. “It’s what she’s being doing regular these last few months.”

  Harry walked out of the door. The girl forgave his lack of manners, reasoning that no one likes to lose out in love to a rival.

  It was forlorn hope, for he’d not expected to find Naomi at the cemetery. He stopped his horse and dismounted at the wicket gate, then entered to look at the great Portland headstone which stood over the grave of Tolly Smith, her late husband. The angels and carved cherubs, with their fixed smiles, seemed to mock him. He looked at the wild flowers, now withered, haphazardly laid on the sparse grass.

  “She’s not been here today, has she, Tolly?” Harry asked the carved stone. Then he moved round to look at the other grave he’d seen her tending that winter day, when he’d come back from visiting his tenants. The stone was small and the decorated covers, set to keep out the overnight frost, had been moved to one side. He looked at the verdant grass, the carefully tended spring plants, then at the name on the stone. After a long and thoughtful pause, he walked slowly back to his horse, setting its head in the direction of Deal.

  Braine was sitting in his damp room at Sandown Castle as though he hadn’t moved for months. The look he gave Harry was even less friendly than the last they’d exchanged, though it was tinged with respect, Arthur’s connections having singed the exciseman’s tail. Dundas had informed the holder of Braine’s sinecure to scold his deputy or risk a Royal warrant depriving him of his living. Such a warning, from such a source, politely delivered by the Secretary of State for War, had, by the time it reached Braine, assumed the proportions of a thunderbolt.

  “Good day to you,” said Harry, looking behind Braine’s head at the tattered poster on the wall.

  Braine’s purple, craggy face creased up in a look of distaste he found impossible to disguise. “It wasn’t a good day before you walked in here, an’ I can’t say it’s improved.”

  “Anything that happened to you, Mr Braine, you brought on your own head.”

  The older man sniffed and gazed into the middle distance, not wishing to trade hard looks with his visitor. “There’s those that labour an’ those that don’t, sir. And the law of the land looks differently on each. I am of the former, so must take my punishment in silence.”

  “Am I of the latter?” asked Harry, surprised at the philosophical tone, which didn’t suit the speaker.

  “You are of those who are above the law, Mr Ludlow.”

  Harry had half a mind to engage him about the recent past, to prove that he was not what Braine thought, a man so powerful that any charge laid against him could never hope to succeed. But that would achieve nothing. And anyway, he didn’t care what the man opposite thought of him. But he was not about to let Braine off entirely.

  “You could have acted differently.”

  Braine positively spat at him. “How?”

  Harry glanced at the tattered poster again. “Take young Charlie Taverner, for instance. How soon after he died did you know who’d done it?”

  That made him adopt a guarded look. “Who says I knew?”

  “You did,” replied Harry.

  “Never!”

  “You did, Mr Braine. In that cellar, just after you’d dug me out. Perhaps the painful memory loosened your tongue.” He saw the look of alarm in the other man’s eyes, but it was mixed with disbelief. “Not in so many words, I grant you. But you left me in no doubt.”

  Braine thought that Harry was intent to deprive him of his living and there was fear in those eyes now. And even if he had been zealous, he knew he could not stand against him. But he plucked up the courage to bluff.

  “Sayin’ it’s one thing, provin’ it’s another.”

  “I don’t care about smuggling,” said Harry. “I have my own concerns to think about. But you? Do you expect me to exact retribution for what you did? You’ve lost your soul, Braine, and that’s punishment enough.”

  Harry’s voice rose, echoing off the stone walls. “You lost it the day you dug out Charlie Taverner, the day you discovered that one of your younger men had been murdered, and did nothing. I stand corrected, Braine. You did more than nothing. For the sake of your own skin you embraced the man who had the boy killed.”

  The sound of pounding footsteps grew louder and since the chamber lacked a door, Braine’s assistant, as scruffy and as unkempt as ever, burst straight in. He was breathless from his running, but he got the message out very clearly. “Come quick, your honour. Jahleel Temple has been skewered. He’s naked in his bed, stone dead murdered.”

  Braine’s eyes went wide with shock. But they were fixed on Harry, not the messenger. His mouth moved but no words came, as he tried to make the connection between Harry Ludlow being here and the news that had just arrived. Then he stood up and rushed out of the room. Harry listened to his boots as they echoed off the castle walls. They died away as he cleared the keep, leaving only silence.

  Harry hadn’t got what he’d come for. But then he wondered if he really needed to. He stood up slowly, his eyes glancing over the date, April 10th, 1790, barely visible on the faded poster. Then, with a grim smile, he walked over and ripped it off the wall.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  NAOMI was kneeling at the grave in the fading evening light. Harry left his horse on top of the ridge to graze, not wanting the sound of its hoofs to disturb her. Then he walked down the hill. The wicket gate opened soundlessly, being well used. He was within ten feet of the huge carved headstone before she glanced up. It was odd the way she looked at him. The expression was the same as that Halloween night. A mixture of happiness, surprise, and sadness, though this time all her teeth showed in the enigmatic smile.

  “Hello, Harry,” she said, rather flatly, without getting up. Then she went back to tending her plants.

  Harry glanced at Tolly Smith’s grave, which had the same wild flowers that had lain there earlier in the day.

  “They said at the Griffin that I’d find you here.”

  “My daily chore,” she said softly.

  “Is it a chore, Naomi?”

  There was a slight catch in her throat as she replied. “I’d rather tend a live man than see to his grave.”


  He walked round Tolly Smith’s headstone and knelt down beside her, his hand gently touching her shoulder. “I think perhaps I’m close to understanding. But I would like to be sure I have the right of it.”

  She looked at him, that direct fearless gaze he so admired.

  “Perhaps you won’t like what you hear, Harry Ludlow.”

  “There’s always been a distance, a detachment. I suppose I thought you were just like me. I cannot say that we shared anything other than mutual regard, yet it seems incomprehensible to me that you would knowingly endanger my life.”

  Harry stopped, firstly so that she could respond, but also because of his own vanity. He wanted to know what had happened and why, without getting into the kind of deep discussion that would reveal his emotions, or acknowledge that if his suppositions were correct, her actions had hurt him. But Naomi had returned to her flowers and said nothing, forcing him to continue.

  “When I first met Bertles on board the Planet, I thought I’d seen him somewhere before. I had. It was in the Griffin’s Head. He was there the last time I came home.”

  Still she did not respond. Harry decided to be a trifle less guarded.

  “He was no saint, Naomi. But he didn’t deserve to die that way. Trench skinned him alive, inch by bloody inch. We could hear his screams across a mile of open water. And that with the rigging full of hanged, innocent sailors. That, of course, was before they tried to bury me alive.”

  She looked at him again without flinching. Indeed, there was a fire in her eyes that was quite singular. It certainly had no hint of regret.

  “The crew bothers me. But not Tobias Bertles. Whatever he suffered was well deserved.”

  “You deliberately set out to have him killed, didn’t you?” Naomi responded with a sharp nod. “You bought the Planet?” Another nod. “What I don’t know, Naomi, is why they were convinced it was me.”

  “Ask yourself why it is that men are so vain and foolish. There’s not one that reckons a woman has a brain.”