The Harrogate Secret (aka The Secret)

by Catherine Cookson

  Freddie looked at her, took a drink from his glass, and placed it on the table before he replied, ‘For the same reason I keep asking myself questions every time I think of him. Anyway, let’s forget about them for the minute, if we can; and I would suggest you get yourself to bed.’

  ‘Oh no. As long as I’m in me own house, I’ll be all right; I can trot about. And Freddie’—she held out her hand to him—‘come here.’ And when he came to her side he dropped on his hunkers and took hold of her hand and her words seemed to pierce his heart as she said, ‘I’m not going to pop off today or tomorrow. I know all about this trouble: I’ll have me good days and me bad, but I could go on for many months yet. And you know me, if I make up me mind to do something I do it, don’t I?’

  He dropped his head onto the arm of her chair as he muttered, ‘Oh, don’t, don’t, Maggie, please, not today.’

  ‘We’ve got to face it, lad. We both have to face it. And I want you to know that I’ve left everything in order. Everything I have, every penny, every offshoot is yours. Before, I’d left half and half, but now she’s settled, and money-wise she’ll never want for anything. Only yesterday I altered the will, because yesterday was as near today as made no matter.’

  His voice was thick and broken as he muttered, ‘I don’t want the money or the businesses, Maggie. Getting them would mean nothing to me. Oh no! If it would give you one extra day of life, I would give up a year of mine. I could get by without the businesses. I could take up running for a start.’ Maggie remained silent for a moment while she patted his bent head. Although she really knew what he meant when he denied the businesses, nevertheless the stark words saddened her somewhat; but then she gave a little laugh, saying, ‘Eeh! I can see you goin’ up and down that quay. You always wore boots and no stockings. Your breeches were almost up to your backside. Who they belonged to in the first place I don’t know because as small as you were they were too small for you. And you wore a jacket that was too big, you had to roll the sleeves back.’

  He lifted his head and looked at her through misted eyes, saying, ‘You remember that jacket?’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember that jacket. Don’t you recall, I once said to you, your trousers’ll never trip you up but your sleeves will?’

  ‘You said so many things to me. Jack-the-giant-killer you used to call me.’

  ‘Yes, Jack-the-giant-killer. Funny that. I used to wonder why I was interested in you, why you appealed to me, why I envied the woman who had borne you. Yet, I ceased to envy her years ago. But you know something else, Freddie? She still holds it against me, does…our Jinny.’

  ‘No, no, she doesn’t.’

  ‘Oh, yes she does, and you know it. You’ve had to do a lot of placating in that quarter. And it’s natural. My godfathers! If I’d been your mother and anybody had tried to take you from me I would have wiped the floor with them. So I understand Jinny’s feelings, always have. And later on I think you should do something for them. Get them into a better place than they’re in now, and set John up in something of his own. There’ll be plenty to do that.’

  ‘Oh, Maggie, for God’s sake! Will you be quiet?’ He got to his feet now. ‘And d’you know?’ He turned to her, thrusting his arm out. ‘If the one who’s onto me with those letters gets his way, I’ll likely be along the line, never mind distributing largesse to the family. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘Yes, I have, and I’ve thought of this an’ all: they’ve got nothing on you, nothing at all. A lad of ten or twelve, you were. You can tell them everything that happened, but you told Freeman you wouldn’t implicate him; tell them it was a man who gave you the package. And you could even go as far as to say, yes, you found the three stones in your pocket, and yes, I sold them. No, that would give old Taylor away. But then somebody’s got to be given away; you’re not going to sacrifice yourself. Just stick to the fact that you didn’t see Gallagher after his servant said that the excise were coming. That’s all you’ve got to do. Anyway’—she shook her head—‘you were just a bit of a lad, not any bigger than two penn’orth of copper. If you had taken the stones you wouldn’t have had the wits to keep silent about them; they would have shown up before now somewhere or another.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right, Maggie. But, nevertheless, you can understand I’m worried. Strangely enough, not so much about the pollis but about who’s in on this that we don’t know of. And I can tell you that Freeman is worried an’ all. He hasn’t said so, but it’s in his mind. If the writer of this letter knows about these stones he’s bound to know about other transactions that happened around that time and which Freeman himself was in up to the neck. But’—he paused—‘what I can’t understand is if they’ve been getting these letters, and I must have definitely been mentioned in them according to Nancy’s friend, why haven’t they shown their hand before now?’

  ‘There’s still plenty of time. They’d have to feel sure before they accused anybody; and you’re no longer a little nipper of no importance, you are known as Maggie Hewitt’s lad or, in some quarters, man, and somebody to be reckoned with. So don’t let’s look for more worries to put on our plate. I think we’ve got enough at the moment, don’t you?’

  He didn’t answer her but said, ‘I’ll go and have a word with me mother; she’ll want to know all about it.’

  She noticed that for the first time he had called Jinny his mother and not his ma. Odd that. In a way it only went to prove the distance he had moved from the far end of the town.

  The new worry made itself evident on the Saturday morning at eleven o’clock when Jinny opened the door to two men who asked if they could speak to Mr Musgrave. One, she faintly recognised; the other was a complete stranger. She showed them into the sitting room.

  Maggie had decided to stay in bed this morning. Freddie was down in the greenhouse in the garden, so she picked up her skirts and ran out of the back door and across the yard, through the shrubbery, over the lawn and down to the walled vegetable garden.

  The door of the greenhouse was open and she could see him, and so she began to call: ‘Freddie! Freddie! There’s two fellas here.’

  ‘What?’ He’d come to the open doorway.

  ‘One I seem to know, the other I don’t. The one I know is from the quay, he’s something down there.’

  ‘Maggie still upstairs?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, don’t let on who’s called yet a while.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be ringing down ’cos she heard the bell, you know that.’

  He dusted his hands, took down his coat from a peg, put it on, buttoned up the neck of his shirt, then followed her back to the house. But before entering the sitting room he pressed his shoulders further back, took a deep breath, then opened the door slowly and walked in. He immediately recognised one of the officers from the Custom House, but the other he hadn’t seen before.

  The two men were standing in front of the window and they turned but didn’t move towards him, while he made for the fireplace, to stand on the hearthrug before greeting them: ‘Well, gentlemen. You wish to see me?’

  It was his tone that brought an exchange of glances between them; then they came forward and both of them stopped near the head of the couch, and the customs officer said, ‘We would like a word with you, Mr Musgrave.’

  ‘May I ask what about?’

  ‘Well’—there was hesitation now in the man’s voice—‘it will become clear during the course of our conversation. This is Mr Mitchum.’

  Freddie refrained from replying, ‘Mr Mitchum of what, the excise or the police?’ Instead, he extended a hand towards the couch, saying, ‘Well, if we have to have a talk we might as well sit down.’

  It was evident that both Freddie’s manner and his way of addressing them had taken them somewhat by surprise. One at least of the pair felt he had been misinformed about this man, and more so when Freddie had seated himself and then continued briskly, saying, ‘Well now, gentlemen, let’s get on with this interrogation, for it
appears that is what you’re here for; but the reason escapes me.’

  ‘Well…sir’—the title was hesitant but nevertheless firm—‘we will have to go back a number of years to when you were a boy.’

  ‘Yes, and what about that?’

  ‘Now look here, Mr Musgrave.’ It was the customs man speaking, his tone showing some impatience. ‘It’s well known that when you were a boy you were used as a runner for a number of men who were breaking the law in bringing contraband stuff into this country at that time.’

  ‘A runner?’ Freddie’s eyebrows moved upwards. ‘That’s simply another name for a messenger, and, yes, I ran messages for anybody who would pay me in those days. You may recollect, times were hard then for quite a large section of the people in this town, and a penny was a penny. I would have run from here to Newcastle for sixpence, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to pick my clients in those days.’

  The customs man was now looking down and to the side as if he was studying the carpet, and Mitchum, with a more diplomatic approach, put in, ‘It is understood, sir, that on a certain night in eighteen-forty-five a certain gentleman gave you a parcel to take across the water. Is that right?’

  ‘Look, sir, we are going back all of sixteen years. I carried parcels and notes all over this town.’

  ‘This was a particular night, Mr Musgrave, when you were given a package that held some valuable jewellery and you went across in your little sculler.’ The man smiled now. ‘I saw it on the river this morning; it looks still in good fettle.’

  Freddie did not take up the pleasant tone nor reference to the sculler, but said, ‘I can recall a night when I was given a parcel, a small parcel, and I took it across the water and delivered it.’

  ‘To whom did you deliver it, Mr Musgrave?’

  ‘To a man called Gallagher who lived out at The Towers.’

  Freddie knew that they were well aware of all this and that it was best to play them at their own game.

  ‘You had taken packages to him before?’

  ‘I don’t recall. Perhaps I did; I took him messages.’

  ‘What kind of messages?’

  Freddie now put his head to one side as if he was trying to remember; then shaking his head, he said, ‘Oh, they were bits of rhyme or some such. I couldn’t remember back the very words I carried.’

  ‘You know who gave you the messages to carry?’ It was the customs man again.

  ‘Now you’ve set me a problem.’ Freddie had turned towards the man. ‘You deal with the customs, did you ever know who you were looking for?’

  ‘Yes, we had a very good idea.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s your business; it wasn’t mine as a child to remember the faces.’

  ‘But you remember who it was that passed you the parcel to be taken across to Mr Gallagher on that particular night?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ He spat the words back at the man. ‘The only thing I recall was that it was black dark,’ which was true, ‘and this fellow gave me a little parcel, not as big as the palm of your hand, and told me who it had to go to. But I didn’t see his face.’

  ‘Perhaps you remember his voice?’

  ‘Oh, man’—Freddie now made himself turn his head away as if in disdain—‘asking me, a man of twenty-eight, did I remember a voice of someone who spoke to me in the dark when I was…what? eleven or twelve years old. Have sense.’

  When he turned back again to him the customs officer’s face was grim, his lips tight together, but the other man was smiling gently, and because of this it came to Freddie that this man was probably the more dangerous of the two: he was the kind that wouldn’t lose his temper, he would probe gently until he caused you to trip yourself up. So, addressing him bluntly, he said, ‘Would you like to get to the point? Am I being accused of something?’

  ‘No-one is accusing you of anything, Mr Musgrave. We would just like some information. You see, we are not only dealing with the theft of some precious stones but we are also dealing with the murder of Mr Gallagher on that particular night.’

  ‘Well’—there was a touch of laughter in Freddie’s voice now as he cast his glance from one to the other—‘huh! You’re not thinkin’ that I did him in, are you? Remember, I was a kid at the time.’

  ‘No, we are not actually thinking that you…did him in, but we feel you may have knowledge of what happened to him.’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Mr Musgrave’—the pleasant man was nodding his head slowly now—‘you know quite a bit about what happened that particular night. Now, I think it would be advisable if you would come down to the town with us where we can have further discussions because, as I understand it, there was more to the event that night than the theft of jewellery, now wasn’t there?’

  He stared back at the man and was about to say, ‘I’m comin’ nowhere unless you have a warrant that states exactly why you’re takin’ me there,’ when he heard a movement up above, which meant that Maggie was getting out of bed. She must have got it out of Jinny that there were two male visitors. Getting abruptly to his feet, which caused the two men also to rise, he said, ‘Very well, I’ll come with you; but only because Mag…Miss Hewitt isn’t well and I don’t want her disturbed further in any way; and I fear she’s already about to join us. Would you kindly wait outside? I’ll be with you in a moment or so.’

  At this, he hurried from the room, bounded the stairs and rushed into his own room. He put on a narrow tie that had been hanging over the back of the chair, and pulled a fresh coat from the wardrobe; then, hurrying out, he tapped on Maggie’s door and called, ‘I won’t be long; just popping down the town.’

  ‘Freddie! Freddie, wait!’

  He didn’t wait but ran down the stairs, took up his hat from the hallstand, and joined the two men on the path.

  ‘We do appreciate your co-operation, Mr Musgrave.’

  Freddie cast a sidelong glance at the suave Mitchum and again he thought, He’s a clever one…do appreciate your co-operation.

  He didn’t know where they were bound for, nor did he ask, but, by the road they took, it wouldn’t be the Custom House in Low Street; it was when they entered Norfolk Street he knew they were making for the Magistrates’ Court, and he could not help a slight tremor passing through him. He had known so many people who had passed through that court, especially after a customs raid, when the penalties were so harsh that the men wouldn’t have been much worse off if they had attempted to murder someone: for what other crime were they manacled by the neck in the cellar of the Court House?

  As he entered the building between the customs officer and the suave gentleman, as he was now thinking of him, he told himself: Do what Maggie said in such circumstances, play dumb.

  He was guided into a small room that had a bench attached to one wall and six chairs in a row along another, and between them an oblong wooden table. The customs officer placed four chairs round the table; then he left the room, and the suave gentleman indicated that Freddie should sit; then he himself sat down, but he made no attempt to open a conversation. He didn’t speak until the customs officer returned with another man whom Freddie recognised immediately as the Chief Constable. For a moment he thought the man was going to give him a friendly smile, but his face retained its formal expression, and he too sat down. And it was he who first spoke. Looking at Freddie, he said, ‘Ah well, now for this little chat that might straighten things up, Mr…er…Musgrave.’ Then he added in a quite kindly tone, ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of; we’re just making some enquiries.’

  Before he could stop himself Freddie was slapping back: ‘I am not afraid because I have nothing to be afraid of. And I would thank you to let me know what all this is about. Moreover, I would ask if you have a warrant to bring me here.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’ The Chief Constable wagged his head. ‘Don’t let’s talk of warrants. We just want a little conversation with you to get to the bottom of something.’

  ‘Well, would you kindly get on with the conversa
tion and as quickly as possible because Miss Hewitt is far from well and I wish to be at home with her.’

  It was the customs officer who was now stabbing his finger at him, only to be checked by the suave gentleman, saying to him, ‘Leave it. Leave it.’ And he himself turning to Freddie now, said, ‘It’s like this, Mr Musgrave: we will put it plainly to you; we have had information to the effect that on a night, many years ago now, you carried a message from, as you said, a man you didn’t know, you didn’t recognise, to a Mr Gallagher of The Towers, beyond Westoe village, and which you later realised was stolen jewellery; and there is also a witness who claims to have seen you and Miss Hewitt landing on this side of the river in the dead of night with a strange bundle. But the most important point is, when did you really last see Mr Gallagher? Was it not on the South Shields dockside when he tried to prevent you taking his child?’

  The man stopped talking, and Freddie stared at him, actually open-mouthed. How did he know all this? If it was old man Wheatley, he could have pieced together what had happened on yon side of the water; but he couldn’t have known anything about their landing at this side, that would have come from Harper. But neither of them knew the full story, Harper very little of it except what he surmised. There was no-one else…When a thought entered his mind he flung it aside, then to the man he said, ‘I knew nothing about what happened to Mr Gallagher. You’ve probed so much, why don’t you work out the rest and find out who did him in?’