The Combermere Legacy

by D. W. Bradbridge

  “There was no-one watching on the walls, so I hit Hassall on the back of the head with my spade. I must have caught him with a lucky shot, for he went down like a sack of potatoes. I then tied him up around the pillar, picked up the spades, and escaped across the fields.”

  “That,” I said, “brings us neatly onto the subject of your tenant.”

  Gorste smirked knowingly. “You mean Eldrid Cripps? He is naught but an incompetent fool.”

  “I would not argue with that assessment,” I agreed, “but he also happens to be a fool with money difficulties. He owed you rent, and when you tried to get him to pay you discovered the full extent of his debts to Roger Comberbach. You were helped inadvertently when John Davenport mistakenly identified the perpetrator as being Jacob Fletcher, whose wife you knew had enjoyed a brief illicit relationship with Cripps. You grabbed this piece of good fortune with both hands and persuaded Cripps to arrest Fletcher and actually pursue his indictment for the murder of Hassall. In return you gave Cripps the money to pay off his debts to the tannery.”

  “Correct again, Mr Cheswis,” said Gorste, “and it would have worked if not for your involvement, although I concede that, in many respects, that was unavoidable. I knew that Ralph Brett had been one of the trustees, and that his engraving was in your wife’s possession.”

  I nodded. “But how did you know that, and how did you know the identities of the other trustees?”

  “There is no great secret,” said Gorste. “My family have known most of the names since the Crockett murder. Crewe and Wilbraham we have already discussed, Hassall was obvious, having been the instigator of the plot to attack Crockett, and Maisterson’s identity also did not take much deducing, especially considering his close kinship to Wilbraham and the way he conducted the coroner’s inquest.

  “That leaves Brett and Bressy. The latter’s identity I did not know until he turned up here with Mistress Furnival, but John Brett was one of the town constables in fifteen seventy-two. His testimony at the time of the inquest also led my great-grandfather to suspect he might be a trustee, so he asked him straight – simple as that.”

  I looked at Gorste in the light of the lantern and realised that the deputy steward was enjoying this conversation. If only I could keep him talking long enough for someone in the house to realise how long I had been absent and to come looking for me. I decided to change the subject.

  “Let us talk about my first visit here and the death of Geffery Crewe,” I suggested.

  “Gladly,” came the response. “You are doing very well so far, so why don‘t you tell me what happened?”

  “Very well. After your first attack on Kinshaw, who you originally thought had my wife’s engraving, you were no longer sure exactly where the engraving was, but suspected we might still have it, so you kidnapped Amy to use as a ransom, in the hope that we would exchange the engraving for her safe return. This was actually a mistake, because you intended to kidnap Ralph, my wife’s son, but as you later realised, Amy is also very much part of my family.

  “You were not expecting Roger Wilbraham and myself to turn up at Combermere with two of the engravings in our possession, but when we did, you decided this was too good an opportunity to miss. You also realised that our presence there was a result of your previous attack on Geffery Crewe. I now realise that at this point you already knew Crewe’s word – your great-grandfather would have known it since the time it was taken from Roger Crockett – but you needed to stop Wilbraham and myself from finding it, so you took the decision there and then to kill Crewe.

  “You deliberately lamed Demeter to keep me in Combermere as long as possible and then took the horse for Crewe to look at. You then left Crewe alone but doubled back behind the farrier’s workshop, waited until Crewe had hold of Demeter’s hoof, and then used a stone-bow or some other such contraption to shoot a metal bullet at her hind quarters.

  “It was a very risky plan, because it had a high potential to go wrong. You only had one shot, so you might easily have missed, and Demeter might have missed Crewe, but again you were fortunate. It worked better than you could have imagined, and Crewe lay dead on the floor. You then went directly to Crewe’s room and removed his engraving, before Wilbraham or I could get to it.

  “As far as your plan to purloin the engravings held by Wilbraham and myself was concerned, this went badly awry. Your intention was to incapacitate the whole household by poisoning the bread.”

  “That is even more impressive,” exclaimed Gorste, his eyes lighting up in the dark. “My stone-bow is normally used for shooting birds, squirrels and the like, but it was the ideal weapon in this particular instance, as it makes no sound and is not powerful enough to break a horse’s skin. But tell me,” he continued, “how did you deduce it was the bread that was poisoned?”

  “Three people at the table were not affected by the poison – Mr George Cotton, Alice Furnival, and myself. The bread was served only with the cheese after the main courses, when Mistress Furnival and I had left the table. I don’t know for sure, but I presume George Cotton did not have any bread. I also remembered that you had been in the bakehouse shortly before Geffery Crewe’s death, which, I presume, is when you poisoned the bread. It would have been a simple task to make sure that just one loaf was poisoned and kept separate from the rest. This would explain why no members of the kitchen staff were poisoned.

  “The fact that I failed to be affected by the poison rather scuppered your plans. I imagine that if both Wilbraham and I had been affected, we would both have been shipped off to see a physic, and our engravings would have vanished by the time we returned.”

  “That was indeed most irritating – and most unfortunate too,” said Gorste, “for if I am correct, you were carrying Maisterson’s engraving, the only engraving whose word I still do not know. Had I succeeded, today’s unpleasantness could have been completely avoided. Indeed, once I had prised your wife’s engraving from the possession of that stubborn fat oaf, Kinshaw, I could have returned your housekeeper’s granddaughter to Nantwich without delay.”

  “That is a great consolation,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice, “but you are forgetting one thing. Jem Bressy. He knew the identity of all six trustees. He even knows the word on your engraving, so I presume he has managed to search your belongings at some point.”

  The grin on Gorste’s face momentarily faded.

  “You have been colluding with Bressy?”

  “Of course; merely out of necessity, I hasten to add. Bressy is a hard-nosed royalist spy who is bent on securing Massey’s treasure for the King’s cause. If you were to find it first, do you seriously believe you would get away with it?”

  “He would have to find me first,” said Gorste, scowling now. “Anyway, we have talked enough about this. It is time you told me the word on Maisterson’s engraving, and we can all go our separate ways.”

  I confess, in retrospect, that what I said next was not the wisest of responses, for trussed up like a chicken, I was in no position to negotiate.

  “What makes you think I will do that?” I said.

  Gorste said nothing, but gave me a long, hard stare, and then got to his feet before stalking off in the direction of the washhouse. From where I sat I could not see him, but I heard the sound of a key being turned, the creak of a door, and the clank of machinery. There was then a gurgling sound and a shriek from inside the water tank.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I murmured.

  Gorste had opened the sluice to the water tank. I wriggled again furiously to try to free myself from my bindings, but within seconds Gorste was upon me, grabbing me by the collar and breathing into my face.

  “Now, I think you understand,” he hissed. “The word on Maisterson’s engraving, if you please.”

  It only took a second to decide what to do. The shrieking and crying from inside the tank was horrifying, and any will to resist Gorste vanished in an instant.

  “Evensong,” I screamed, “the word is Evensong.”r />
  Gorste let go of my collar, his face shining with triumph, but then an odd thing happened. The deputy steward suddenly pitched forward, his face landing with force in the middle of my chest. I wriggled to the side and was stunned to see Gorste’s lifeless body flop onto the floor. In the dark, I could see a wet patch start to grow on the earth next to his temple.

  I thought I was dreaming, but then I glanced upwards, for stood before me, dressed entirely in black, and looking every inch like the angel of death, was the figure of Marc Folineux, brandishing one of the oars from Gorste’s rowing boat.

  Chapter 30

  Combermere – Friday, August 16th 1644

  “I heard every word,” said Folineux, as he untied the leather straps that bound my wrists together. “Miss Padgett is in the tank?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Amy’s increasingly panicked cries beat me to it.

  “Master Cheswis. Help! The water,” she shouted.

  “We must get her out of there,” I said, as I struggled with the ties around my ankles.

  Folineux produced a knife from inside his doublet and cut neatly through the bindings. I nodded my thanks and ran straight to the door in the side of the water tank, pushing with all my strength, but it wouldn’t budge. Folineux joined me and charged at it with his shoulder, but to no avail. The water inside the tank must already have been a couple of feet deep, and the pressure on the door was too much for it to be moved.

  “The sluice,” said Folineux. “Inside the washhouse. We must close the sluice.”

  The sequestrator ran off to the nearby building, but a few seconds later I heard a rattling sound and an exasperated shout.

  “He’s locked the door. Is there a key in his pocket?” I turned Gorste’s body over and fumbled with the inside of his doublet, but found nothing.

  “I think he’s hidden it somewhere,” I shouted, “but we don’t have time to search for it. The tank is filling fast.”

  “I will look for it,” came the reply. “It can’t be far.”

  I could not wait, however. I needed to be with Amy. So I clambered up the ladder on the outside of the tank, swung my legs over the top, and started climbing down the ladder on the inside.

  “Hold on, Amy, I’m coming,” I said.

  I slid down the last few rungs and noticed that the water was already above my knees and up to Amy’s neck. I only had a minute or so to free her. I fumbled for the chains around her wrists, but they were fastened tight. The only solution was to try and rip the wooden ladder off the wall of the tank. I pulled hard at the bottom rung, which creaked a little, but did not budge.

  I then wrapped my legs around Amy so I could put my feet against the wall of the tank for leverage. Again, the ladder moved slightly, but it remained fastened to the wall. I looked round in desperation. The water was now lapping around Amy’s chin.

  I glanced over to the sluice on the opposite side of the tank. Perhaps if I took off my doublet and shirt and jammed them into the sluice, they might staunch the flow of water and buy me a few minutes. I waded over to the other side of the tank, ripping off my garments as I did so. I jammed my shirt and doublet into the sluice, which slowed the flow from the pipe, but not completely.

  At that moment, however, I heard a coughing sound from behind me and realised that Amy’s mouth was beginning to fill with water. I turned round in wild panic, waded back across the tank and tried to lift Amy’s body. She moved a few inches and was able to cough out the water, taking a few deep, rasping breaths.

  This was no solution, though. I could not hold her there forever. Tears began to stream down my face, and I began to wonder how I was going to break this news to Mrs Padgett, what she would say to me and whether she would blame me.

  As I fought to keep Amy’s chin above the water, I was vaguely aware of some shouting from outside the tank, and suddenly a face appeared above the top of the wall.

  “Watch out, Cheswis,” said an oddly calm voice, and suddenly the flying form of Jem Bressy landed beside me with a splash. A second later Alice’s face also appeared over the edge of the tank.

  “Here, you grab one leg and I’ll grab the other,” shouted Bressy, and he placed both his feet against the wall of the tank. For a split second, in my panic, I thought Bressy was asking me to grab hold of Amy’s legs, but then I realised he was referring to the ladder.

  I kissed Amy on the forehead. “Take a deep breath,” I said. When she had done so, I let her gently into the water and watched her head submerge. I then grabbed the other leg of the ladder and placed both my feet against the wall like Bressy.

  “One, two, three,” yelled Bressy, and we both heaved with all our might. Nothing.

  “It still won’t move,” I cried in desperation.

  “Try again,” said Bressy. “Harder this time.” On the second pull I thought I heard a slight cracking sound, but the ladder still stayed stubbornly fixed to the wall.

  “One more time,” Bressy insisted.

  “We need to lift Amy again,” I said. “She needs another breath.”

  “There’s no time, and the water’s too deep. Come on, one more pull will do it.”

  So we pulled on the ladder once again, and this time there was an ear-splitting crack and a splintering sound as the ladder came away from the side of the tank. Bressy and I flew backwards into the water, and Amy, coughing and spluttering, came floating to the surface.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Amy, Bressy, and I sat on the grass, recovering. All three of us were soaking wet. I wrung out my shirt and doublet, and put them back on, for a chill breeze was still whipping across the lake. Alice removed her cloak and wrapped it round Amy’s shoulder. I curled my right arm around her too, for she was shivering with the shock, and her teeth were chattering.

  Folineux eventually returned from the washhouse, having kicked down a side door to enter the building and open the tank’s outlet sluice, so that it would empty. He then carried out a thorough search of Gorste’s body and found a key to Amy’s chains secreted inside the dead man’s hose. The sequestrator unlocked the chains and threw the remains of the wooden ladder onto the grass.

  Amazingly, given the noise we had made, nobody had come from the house to see what the commotion was about. I could only assume that the wind whistling along the length of the lake had carried all noise away from the main building.

  Bressy and Alice acknowledged the sudden arrival of Folineux with looks of reserved suspicion, but the sequestrator did not stand on ceremony.

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere, mistress?” he asked, fixing Alice with a penetrating stare. “You seem strangely familiar. Were you not in Nantwich quite recently?”

  Alice’s eyes flicked instantly to Bressy, who gave her an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  “I think not, sir,” replied Alice.

  “My wife and I have never had the pleasure of visiting Nantwich,” interjected Bressy, smiling broadly at Folineux. “We are from Shrewsbury. My name is Cotton,” he added, extending his hand for the sequestrator to shake, “James Cotton. Thomas Cotton is my cousin.”

  “Marc Folineux. I am a senior collector and assessor for the Nantwich Hundred.”

  Bressy gave me a quick glance of surprise but quickly regained his composure.

  “You wish to sequester my cousin?” he asked.

  “He knows I am coming, sir,” said Folineux. “I was to assess his estate on behalf of the Sequestration Committee, in order that he may atone for his delinquency, although seeing as I have just killed his deputy steward, I do not think that such an action will be considered appropriate on this particular occasion.”

  “Under the circumstances,” said Alice, “perhaps it would be better if you were to accompany me to the house. I will introduce you to Mr Cotton, and you can explain what has happened here. My husband will stay here with Mr Cheswis and the young girl until help and some dry blankets arrive.”

  Folineux acquiesced with a nod and started to follow Al
ice towards the house. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “That was skilfully done,” I said, gratefully. “It would not have done for Folineux to find out who you were.”

  “From your point of view, I imagine that must be something of an understatement. However, we now have a problem. We still don’t know the word on your wife’s engraving, and the only person who does is dead.”

  “You mean you didn’t locate the engraving? I thought that was your plan.”

  “It was. I searched Gorste’s room, but he was no fool. He had removed the engravings to a safe place, but I have no idea where to look, unless, of course, you are able to shed some light on the matter?”

  It was hard not to laugh at the irony of it. Four people, including Gorste himself, had lost their lives as a result of Massey’s treasure, and there would have been a fifth, had it not been for Bressy. But now, unless someone managed to dig in the right place quite by chance, the treasure had been lost forever.

  But then Amy said something that changed everything once again.

  “You are talking about the ugly little medallion we found in the trunk upstairs in your house in Beam Street?”

  I nodded. Of course, Amy had been there when we found it. How could I have been so stupid as to forget.

  “There is a single word that was cut into the metal on the engraving,” I said. “It is that word which we seek.”

  “Well, that is easy,” said Amy, as Bressy looked on in astonishment. “I remember because I thought it so odd at the time. The word on the engraving is ‘Thrice’.”