Gamekeeper's Gallows

by John Buxton Hilton

  ‘What traps?’

  ‘On Brindley’s Quarter.’

  ‘I expect somebody hasn’t had time to get round,’ Beresford said, unpersuasively.

  ‘Somebody hasn’t had time to get round for six months or so, judging by the state of the carcases.’

  And at this Beresford seemed to become unaccountably angry, though it showed itself only in the area of white of eye that became visible. Brunt sought for possible explanations. It was hardly likely, in the final count, that these traps were Thos ‘s own. The man could not have time, in the midst of all his other activities, to be the only poacher in the village. But perhaps he delegated strips of likely territory to other men. Divide and rule: it was a well tried principle.

  Beresford lifted himself back over the bench and stood with his palms on the table, both arms straight.

  ‘Have you said anything about this to anybody else, Sergeant?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then don’t – for twenty-four hours. Leave it to me.’

  ‘Done, Thos, for twenty-four hours.’

  Beresford left them and walked slowly back to the counter, where he leaned outwards to face the circle.

  ‘No bugger’s asked me yet what my rappit’s been up to today.’

  ‘Aye, let’s have a rappit story, Thos.’

  Détente. They were back to nearly normal. But Brunt had the feeling that it was probably going to be shortlived. He beckoned curtly to Potter and they left the bar as if to go up to their rooms. But by the foot of the stairs, by the door which led into the kitchen, Brunt stopped, put in his head and called to the landlord’s wife.

  ‘Is Mildred not about today, then?’

  ‘You won’t be seeing any more of Mildred.’

  ‘No? Has she taken against us, then?’

  ‘I’ve taken against her.’

  She was clattering dishes in the sink, making it clear that her work meant more to her than any conversation with the law.

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ Brunt said.

  ‘Yes, well, it’s been coming on for some time.’

  She turned and brought a pile of plates to the dresser.

  Brunt had to step sideways out of her way.

  ‘So you’ve given her her money, have you?’

  ‘She’s away on the Fly in the morning. Till then she’s in her room.’

  ‘There are some questions that I want to ask her.’

  The landlady shrugged her shoulders. ‘Go and try, if you want to. If she’ll open her door for you.’

  She went to another cupboard. Brunt had to move again. She seemed determined to turn him into an obstacle.

  ‘And these questions that you’ve got on your mind. They have nothing to do with this house or the way it is conducted. You might as well understand that for a start.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve given her the bullet?’

  ‘She’s had it coming to her for some time.’

  But would it have happened if Brunt had never turned up here? In the bar, they could hear Beresford reaching tonight’s climax.

  ‘They’ve both been on to me about this bloody mangle, and it’s got so I had to do it before I left the house this morning. Ball bearings all over the bloody yard, and you can be certain I had to lose one. It rolled off somewhere under a pile of tackle. But I saw th’owd rappit lifting its latch, and it’s straight down there under a stack of old plant-pots, brings me this ball-bearing back in its teeth. Its eyesight is better than mine, you see. That was the time, it killed a ferret …’

  But they did not linger to hear that one out. Brunt led the way up the stairs. He had not bothered to ask which was Mildred’s bedroom. He went straight up to the attics, and there were two doors opening off a dingy landing. One stood open to reveal a cluttered boxroom. Brunt tapped on the other.

  There was no reply. Through a soot-streaked lattice window at the other end of the passage they could see the hills about the Hall, the crest of the rise that enfolded Brindley’s Quarter. Brunt rapped again. Still no answer. He nodded to Potter that he had thought of a dodge. He stooped with his lips close to the key-hole and began to sing – not especially musically –

  So it’s away, boys, away,

  To Californ-i-a,

  There’s plenty of gold, so I’ve been told,

  On the banks of Sacramento.

  Melodramatic; shades of Blondin; but it might just catch her

  imagination. At first it looked as if the appeal was going to fail. And then they heard her come across the room, the rattle of a bolt. The door opened and she stood there in her night-clothes, thick, dark hair loose about her shoulders; dark, but with a touch of deep redness somewhere in it, almost as if she had a streak of Irish in her. Perhaps she had.

  ‘Two of you! I should be proud of myself.’

  No sign of fear; resigned defiance. The resemblance to some wench from a dock-side tavern was stronger than ever – and not just a readiness to join in the lewd singing. She was hardened. She thought she knew every wile that could be used against her. But she was not very far from the end of her tether, either. She could be provoked perhaps a little further.

  Well-rounded breasts unsupported under the loose fabric of her night-gown. High colour in her cheeks; a tiny black mole at the side of her neck. Her eyes flashed bitterness at Brunt; she was affecting to ignore Potter. Brunt thought he knew the drill for the likes of her. Her defiance was not yet at its peak. She had to be pushed over that top. Then something would burst. She had to collapse first, then you could start building.

  ‘So you think you’ll do a better business in the big city?’

  ‘I’m not here to do business with you, if that’s what you’re playing for.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  ‘Clever devil, aren’t you? I’m leaving here because I want to leave here.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  Brunt stepped right into the room, ushered Potter in as well and closed the door behind them. Mildred’s hold-all, a box of woven cane, exactly like the one of Amy Harrington’s that they had talked about – almost the badge of office for a female servant on the move – was standing on a chair ready packed, the lid not yet in place. Brunt picked it up and emptied its contents on to the bed, picking up odd articles of clothing and shaking out their folds. It was a pretty miserable collection, threadbare as much from washing as from wearing: two pairs of long-cloth drawers, a plain chemise, yellowing with age.

  ‘When you’ve done!’ she said.

  ‘Just looking for the ancestral plate.’

  ‘Listen, policeman, the day you find me lifting someone else’s property …’

  ‘Like at Gloucester? Or did they run you out for soliciting?’

  ‘Soliciting? Sergeant Brunt, there are some things I’ve never done.’

  ‘Not even for Captain Kingsey?’

  ‘I never did,’ she said, and the tears were starting out of her eyes at last, but not convulsive flowing ones. This was the dry, burning rage, passionate resentment of injustice.

  ‘Why do you think I came away from there? At the Hall I didn’t, and here I haven’t, and at Gloucester and Bristol I didn’t. Why do you think I left home in the first place? I’ve seen too much of it, I tell you. I’ll go with a man one day, but he’ll be mine, and I’ll do the picking.’

  Brunt let the immediate wave spend itself and began to refold some of her garments, not deftly, but showing a will.

  ‘You can leave those alone. They’ll all have to be washed again now you’ve had your dirty maulers on them.’

  ‘So who’s going to see them tomorrow night, when you’ve got to town? All right, save it, Mildred. You’ve held out till now – maybe. So how much longer? How far do you think you’re going to get tomorrow?’

  She looked at him with absolute hatred, her lips tight: she had undoubtedly asked herself the same question.

  ‘So why are they getting rid of you, Mildred? Because of something that Kingsey might do to you as he did to Amy Har
rington? Or are you afraid of what might happen to you here in The Crooked Rake?’

  ‘Because I’m trouble, that’s why. Because you’re here. Because you can’t leave well alone.’

  ‘Oh, aye? Well, I ask you again: how far do you think you’re going to get tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ve got my fare to Derby,’ she said sulkily. ‘Nadin’s given me that.’

  ‘Derby? Oh, aye? Well, you’ll find some nice big furnace-man to fancy you in Derby, perhaps – chap with China clay all dried out down the front of his vest.’

  She picked up a pair of woollen combinations from the bed and began beating him about the head and shoulders with them. And then, when Potter started chuckling, she turned on him and began to belabour him too. He pulled the garment out of his straggling black beard and took a step towards her as if he were going to pinion her arms to her sides. There were limits to Potter’s patience.

  ‘Leave her to me, Albert.’

  The girl cowered away from them, unable to believe that Brunt would not now set about her. He went on talking quietly.

  ‘So it’s to be Derby next? And I’ve no doubt that you’ve got a few odd shillings saved up. I know your type: careful. But how much longer do you think you can go on just managing to win? You might be able to keep yourself for a week, perhaps two, then what? If you don’t get a job – and there’s taverns and dining-rooms in Derby where they might not ask too many questions – but I reckon that those are the very ones you’ll want to keep away from. You’ve held out till now, you say. Suppose I believe you? How much longer do you think you’re going to make it? Mildred – you’d better let me give you an address in Derby that you can go to.’

  ‘Oh, yes? I think I know where that might be.’

  The Bristol brogue was very strong now; but she was a tough specimen.

  ‘It’s what you might call plain cooking, isn’t it – bread, water and gruel?’

  ‘Put it another way, then. I’ll give you a few addresses that you’d do as well to stay away from. Mildred, you’ll have me thinking that there really was something in Gloucester for which they’ve still got a warrant out. I don’t know anything about that and I’d lean over backwards not to find out, if I thought it might help me with my bigger fish. And you know who my big fish is, don’t you?’

  She was more placid now, in control of herself, but still not prepared to commit herself to the narrow chance that he might be talking in good faith.

  ‘All right, Mildred. I don’t blame you. A girl wants to keep herself to herself, doesn’t she? Some girls, anyway. For as long as they can. But think about it, lass, if you happen to sleep badly tonight. Think about it some more. I’ll still be about in the morning when you get up. Go on thinking about it on the train; it isn’t exactly a hurried journey. Think about it when you get to Derby. And any time until that last moment when the system’s beaten you, drop in at any police station and say that the man you want to talk to is called Brunt.’

  He opened the door with one hand behind his back and signalled to Potter. Potter thought at first that he wanted to be left alone with the girl; but Brunt was out on the landing on his heels.

  ‘Give her time, Albert. That’s something that we haven’t quite run out of yet. There are odd moments when I can’t help feeling in a general way that there might be a touch of honesty about that lass.’

  Brunt went to his room whistling The Banks of Sacramento.

  Chapter Ten

  Brunt was up and about early the next morning: a morning of crisp, chilly sunshine, autumn flexing its fingers, but not yet having taken its grip. It was going to be one of those exhilarating days, summer clearly over, but yellow weeds still flowering, the straggling dead grasses still rustling in dried out gullies. From a vantage point high on the flank of Piper’s Clough he watched Thos Beresford ride old Nought-Four-Nought down to the railway track: a burly, forceful figure of a man, occasionally kicking the horse’s flanks with impatient heels. Brunt had wondered how a man on horse-back negotiated the difficult valley bottom. Beresford was not relying on the dried out stream bed at all. He followed a ridge-track up on the western slope. Only when he came in sight of the C. and H.P. Halt did he actually ease his horse down from the hill. And no magic or great skill of field-craft was needed for Brunt to keep the man under observation from his ambush: all he had to do was arrive there first; the natural features did the rest. Brunt was sure that Beresford had not seen him.

  After he had watched the engine driver off to work, Brunt climbed back into the village. Here he called on Mrs Hallum, the deaf old woman who had handed him her five-piastre piece. She too, it seemed, was an early riser and was busy at odd jobs in and out of her house. She seemed genuinely glad to see him, immediately ready to co-operate in the plan that he suggested.

  Brunt returned to The Crooked Rake, enjoying an almost schoolboy satisfaction at having his breakfast served to him while Potter was still abed. And yet Potter was not the man ever to be five minutes behind on a trick. Perhaps it was the strong air of the hill-country that was making him unusually tired. Brunt did not wait his meal for him; and halfway through it, Potter came briskly in – from outside. He must have been abroad even earlier than Brunt – and Brunt had not set eyes on him in the village.

  ‘Ah, Albert, you’ll be going back on this morning’s Fly. The train’s due at the Halt at about ten. The only thing we can be certain of is that it won’t leave before time.’

  Potter’s face fell – there was no doubting the aptness of the cliché. His eyes no longer wanted to meet Brunt’s, the corners of his mouth lost their spirit. But Potter was too deeply schooled in the discipline of the force – or, at least, a large part of him was – to offer any argument against a sergeant, even against a new one whom he had had a hand in training.

  Nothing official had been said to Brunt about his retaining Potter as his assistant. If there were a dire emergency here in Piper’s Fold, this could doubtless be arranged – given time, patience and propitious communications – or convenient lack of them. But Potter had only come here with a message. Brunt had no prescriptive right to hold on to him.

  ‘There are things I want you to do for me, Albert. In this order, please – and let me have the answers and confirmation as quickly as you can.’

  Potter brought out a slip of paper from his pocket-book and got ready to take notes beside his breakfast plate.

  ‘First, put the Superintendent abreast about how things stand up here. I don’t think I’ve been up to anything I shouldn’t – so far – so it’ll do if you put it down in your own words.’

  ‘In writing?’ Potter asked, with a touch of stoicism.

  ‘Try and get away with a verbal report if you can. Then I want you to go digging round the foundations of the Isaac Mosley case. I don’t mean just the fencing that he’s gone to prison for. If there’d been anything other than the Turkish relics that touched on Piper’s Fold, I expect it would have been in my brief. But have a look at anything that still looks a shade doubtful – cases uncleared, works of art that might have vanished into the unknown, and might have got there with a helping hand from Isaac Mosley. I’ve often wondered what sort of mentality it is that gets a kick out of possessing treasures that he daren’t show to another living soul. I dare say Kingsey might prove quite informative on that score. And take a description of his man Fletcher – the one with the sleek hair and side-boards. Kingsey describes him as his steward. He’s probably given a good deal of latitude in buying pictures, and maybe takes his own rake-off on the side.’

  Potter made notes unemotionally. The inn was extraordinarily quiet this morning. The landlord’s wife had brought their food and dutifully returned their goodmornings, but said no more. Nadin himself was not to be seen; there was no sign of life from Mildred.

  ‘Then, if you can find the time – well, make the time, it won’t be wasted – I want to know if there’s anything on paper anywhere about Thos Beresford’s marital status. I’ve got the feeling at the back
of my mind that it might be useful to know.’

  That was all. With pencil poised, Potter was waiting for more. Brunt had not asked him what he himself had been up to this morning. It occurred to him now that a matter of only a few weeks ago, if he had chanced to meet Potter in an office corridor, they would have stopped and gossiped about the cases that they both had on hand. And Brunt would not have hesitated to tap Potter for ideas. There was no consistent streak of brilliance, but he did have his bright moments. Brunt did his best to smile honestly across the breakfast table.

  ‘Albert, it’s no time at all since I’d have been asking you what you’d do next. I’m still in the market.’

  Potter brought out his pocket-book again and sorted out a piece of paper covered with hieroglyphics.

  ‘Plan of the rake,’ he said briefly.

  ‘What do you want a plan of the Rake for? Frightened you’ll go walking into the wrong bedroom?’

  ‘I don’t mean this place. I mean the old main seam – the crooked rake itself. I was up at Brindley’s Quarter at first light. On my way back I got talking to an old-timer at his cottage. He gave me an idea of how the seam ran, and I’ve had a shot at mapping it out.’

  Brunt looked at the sketch. It suggested nothing to him.

  ‘I’ve come to the conclusion,’ Potter said, ‘that Brindley was a little naughty.’

  ‘And well he may have been. But Brindley lived in the seventeenth century. He’s safe from the likes of us, Albert. How was he naughty?’

  ‘I don’t think he got any ore at all out of that working of his. Not even enough to fill his dish. That mine was salted, Sergeant; he showed the Barmote Court his gleanings, but he gathered them elsewhere.’

  ‘That’s been done before and since. There’s not much point in it unless you can find some mug to buy a share in your holding. I’m sorry, Albert, but I don’t see how it helps us. We’ve enough to worry about, without going back two hundred years.’

  ‘But suppose that Brindley was up to something else, as well. Like, for instance, driving a heading into someone else’s grove.’