‘How many men?’ Lavender asked.
‘There were three at that point. They had blackened their faces with sommat. I took out my cudgel, yelled at them and moved closer. I saw the whites of their eyes in those heathen-black faces beneath their hats.’
‘What happened next?’
‘I looked down the alley and saw two more villains leaving Sculthorpe’s front door. Then the bastards set about me. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to run. One of them swiped me with a cudgel of his own and another smashed me in the face.’ His hand went instinctively to the cuts and bruises across his cheek and nose. ‘I thought the sods had broken me nose, I did.’
‘So there were five men in total?’
‘Yes, there were five. Definitely five. I hit out with my own stick and I reckon I hit home – one of those bastards will have had a sore head the next day. But there were too many of them for me and my rammer were killin’ me with the pain of it. I managed to get past them and belted hell for leather down here. I knew I’d get help from the Bunnin’s.’
‘It were courageous to try and tackle them villains on your own,’ Woods said.
Sawyer gave a short laugh. ‘Or bloody foolish,’ he said. He took another swig of his drink. ‘But we law men have to do what we can, don’t we?’
‘Yes, we do,’ Lavender agreed. ‘When did you and the others return to Sculthorpe’s house?’
Sawyer shrugged. ‘A couple of minutes later.’
‘Was there any sign of your attackers?’
‘None. Isaac Bunnin’ and Harry Goode raced down the street after them, while Frank and I went into the house to check on old Sculthorpe and his son. We found them in a bad way. When Isaac and Harry came back, they said they’d seen no one. The bastards had disappeared. Isaac went to get Doctor Wallace.’
‘What was the weather like?’ Lavender asked.
‘Still pourin’ with rain. It were a devil of a night.’
Lavender turned to Clancy. ‘Are there any stables in the village other than at the forge? They might have escaped on horseback.’
Clancy shook his head. ‘I asked at the forge the next day,’ he said, ‘and at the hostelry in Cottingham. Nobody left any unattended horses in either village on the night of the murder.’
‘So, unless they abandoned their animals at some remote spot outside the village, they must have travelled on foot,’ Lavender said thoughtfully.
‘The thunder would have scared the horses to death,’ Woods added. ‘They’d have tried to bolt – especially if they were left out in the open.’
‘So the attackers disappeared into thin air somewhere along the road to Cottingham or Rockingham,’ Lavender said.
‘It seems so,’ Sawyer said. ‘Which makes me suspect it were that Panther Gang. They’re notorious for just disappearin’ after a robbery.’
‘Possibly,’ Lavender said. ‘Do you have any other suspects?’
Sawyer laughed. ‘Half the village has come forward with suggestions,’ he said. ‘There’s a few folks around here who want to pay off old scores by pointin’ the finger at their feudin’ neighbours.’
‘Are any of these leads promising?’ Lavender asked.
‘Old Sculthorpe had been seen arguin’ in the street with a local farmer the week before the attack,’ Clancy said, ‘but I interviewed him and he has an alibi. He claims he were tucked up in bed with his wife.’
‘Who is he?’ Lavender’s eyebrows rose along with his hopes.
‘Caleb Liquorish,’ Clancy replied. ‘He’s the churchwarden at St Mary Magdalene’s in Cottingham.’
Lavender frowned and his hopes sank again. He and Woods paid little attention to alibis provided by wives, but Liquorish’s respectability made him an unlikely suspect. However, it was still worth following up.
Sawyer shook his shaggy head as if he could read Lavender’s thoughts. ‘You’ll waste your time investigatin’ Caleb Liquorish, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s a rich man. Old Sculthorpe’s money wouldn’t interest the likes of him.’ He jabbed his finger on the table to emphasise the next point. ‘It were the Panther Gang who did this,’ he said. ‘You mark my words.’
‘I understand there are rumours in the village that William Sculthorpe was a rich man. Who started these tales?’ Lavender asked. Clancy and Sawyer glanced at each other, shrugged and shook their heads.
Lavender turned to Jed Sawyer. ‘Did you, or anyone else in the village, know the Sculthorpe family were Catholics?’
Sawyer’s eyes lit up. ‘I knew his missus were originally from Bog Land,’ Sawyer said, ‘but I didn’t know they were papists.’
‘Is that why they murdered him, do you think?’ Clancy asked. ‘Because he were a Catholic?’
Woods shrugged. ‘We still have trouble sometimes down in London,’ he said. ‘There’s still arson attacks on property and businesses owned by Catholics – but no murders.’
Lavender turned back to Clancy. ‘How far have you travelled with your inquiries?’ he asked. ‘Have you asked the property owners along the road to Rockingham if they saw or heard anything unusual?’
Clancy looked embarrassed. ‘There hasn’t been time to spread out so far,’ he said. ‘I only had one day here – and in Cottingham – after the attack. Captain Rushperry said there were no point once he knew you two were comin’.’
Lavender nodded. ‘This will be a line of inquiry we can pursue,’ he said to Woods. ‘We’ll spread out along the roads into and out of the village and ask those who live by their side if they remember a gang of strangers that night.’
‘And what about the money bag I found the day after the attack?’ Clancy asked. ‘The one with the strange note screwed up in the bottom? I handed it straight to Captain Rushperry.’
‘Yes, what about it?’ Sawyer asked.
Both constables watched Lavender curiously. He shrugged. ‘I suspect it’s nothing,’ he said. ‘An angry note from a customer pursued by a shopkeeper for a debt.’ He rose to his feet. Woods and Clancy followed his lead. ‘You have been very helpful, Constable Sawyer,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave you in peace now to enjoy your ale. Take care of your bad arm.’
‘Any time, Detective,’ Sawyer said. He tapped the sling. ‘This is healin’ nicely and I’m no slacker. I should be able to return to work soon and help you catch these blackguards.’
Chapter Eight
They returned to Sculthorpe’s cottage and collected the silver reliquary for Clancy to take back to Captain Rushperry in Market Harborough.
Lavender breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the young constable canter away down the high street with the precious object carefully wrapped in sackcloth in his saddlebag.
‘Why are you so keen to get rid of him?’ Woods asked. ‘You’ve been frosty with both young Clancy and Sawyer all day.’
‘It’s your imagination, Ned,’ Lavender said. ‘Let’s take a walk. I need to clear my head.’ Woods shrugged and fell into step beside him. They walked in the direction of Cottingham, striding in companionable silence.
The rows of light-stone cottages ended abruptly and the road took them into an area of common land that had been cleared and divided into strips for the villagers to grow vegetables and herbs. To their left the meadow sloped downhill into the Welland valley. In the centre of the meadow a rush-fringed duck pond glimmered in the weak sunshine. Sheep, lambs and geese grazed on the lush grass.
Ahead of them, the road veered up to the right and entered Cottingham, Middleton’s neighbouring village. The two communities were less than half a mile apart. Stone cottages with slate roofs and smoking chimneys lay dotted up the wooded hillside. At the summit of the ridge, the towering medieval steeple of the Church of St Mary Magdalene, with its arched belfry windows, finials and stone tracery, rose majestically above the tree tops. Lavender had made enquiries about the church before they left the tavern. Frank Bunning had informed him that St Mary Magdalene served the parishioners of both Cottingham and Middleton. Magdalene. Magdalena. Lavender smiled
and remembered Billy Sculthorpe’s words earlier. His beloved was haunting this investigation – he felt her presence with him at every turn.
He stopped beside a drystone wall and leant on it, arms folded in front of him. His eyes followed the contours of the gently rolling valley before settling on the duck pond. Pairs of mallards and a solitary swan scavenged for titbits among the reeds. Woods stood beside him at the wall.
‘So what do we think about this murder then?’ Woods asked.
Lavender smiled. ‘One of these days, Ned, I shall ask you the same question and I’ll expect you to have the answers.’
‘Well, that’ll be a short conversation,’ Woods replied, smiling. ‘Solvin’ these mysteries is your job – I’m just here to provide the backup. It would addle my old brain to have to think so much.’
Lavender smiled again. He always welcomed the opportunity to talk through a case with Woods. ‘To be honest, Ned, my own brain is addled at the moment. I can’t work out why these witness accounts are so different. Five men attacked Jed Sawyer – ’
‘It were brave of him to confront them,’ Woods said. ‘The man’s a hero.’
‘Yes, quite. And we have three other witnesses,’ Lavender continued, ‘who tell us there were three people in the Sculthorpes’ house on the night of the attack.’
‘Yes, but they’re two scared old ladies and a simpleton.’
Lavender paused for a moment. ‘I think Billy Sculthorpe is a strange creature but I didn’t find him simple-minded. He might not be able to dress himself but I think he knows what he saw.’
‘Perhaps three of them were in the house while the others stood guard outside?’ Woods suggested.
Lavender nodded. ‘Yes, that would make sense. And perhaps the three men Miss Bennett saw leaving the house after ten o’clock were Sawyer and the other men he had recruited to help Sculthorpe. Maybe she didn’t see the robbers, maybe she saw the rescuers. But what is the motive for this crime, Ned?’
‘Theft, surely?’
‘If so, why lash out at the old man and cause fatal injuries after he had already told the thieves where he hoarded his money? Why hurt him when they had already got what they wanted? In my experience this is more akin to an act of vengeance or hatred. It’s also at odds with the modus operandi of those devils, the Panthers.’
‘The what, sir?’
‘Their modus operandi, or their method of working. Rushperry told us the Panthers are armed. I assume they jam a pistol barrel into the temple of their victims and make them hand over their money and jewels. As far as we have heard, the Panthers have never beaten anyone senseless during a robbery.’
Woods eyes widened beneath his shaggy grey eyebrows. ‘So you don’t think it were them?’
‘Not at the moment,’ Lavender said. ‘And then there is the location and the weather to consider. Look around you, Ned.’ He swept his arm around over the wall and pointed at the rolling fields, the secluded woods and the quiet villages on either side. A flock of crows rose cawing from the treetops in the copse below. The men stood in silence and watched the noisy birds as they wheeled and circled in the sky.
‘What am I lookin’ at, sir?’ Woods asked eventually.
‘The isolation, Ned. Sculthorpe was reputed to be a rich man – although we have found no evidence of this yet. But who knew about his alleged wealth? Rumours started in Middleton would barely have spread beyond Rockingham. So how did a gang who operate in the south of the county hear about the thousands of pounds William Sculthorpe allegedly kept in his house?’
‘I see what you’re gettin’ at,’ Woods said. ‘But how does the weather figure in all this?’
‘On the night of the robbery it rained heavily and a terrible storm raged. Bad weather is the best thing to keep the villains and coves off the streets of London. This robbery was planned out in advance but not by villains with a long way to travel. Such a gang would have turned back once the storm broke and left the robbery until a night when the weather was better. After all, there was no rush. William Sculthorpe wasn’t going anywhere.’
‘Unless they deliberately used the noise and disruption of the storm as cover for the attack,’ Woods said.
‘Yes.’ Lavender sighed. ‘But my instinct is this is a local job. I think the thieves are members of this community who scurried back to their dry homes afterwards. However, we need to prove this. Tomorrow I want you to travel up and down the roads in and out of Middleton. Knock at the door of every dwelling place you find and ask questions about the night of the storm. Let’s establish beyond a doubt that no one saw or heard the gang entering or leaving the area.’
Woods nodded but Lavender felt him hesitate. A slight frown spread across his constable’s broad forehead. ‘It seems too much for a small county such as this,’ Woods said slowly, ‘to be plagued with two gangs – both with five members – hell-bent on robbery and mayhem.’
Lavender smiled at Woods’ reluctance to let go of the idea that the Panther Gang were involved. ‘According to Captain Rushperry, the Northampton Mercury has whipped the whole county into a frenzy over this Panther Gang. So when five men are seen running away from the scene of a crime, everyone makes an assumption and imaginations become fevered.’
‘So who were it who robbed Sculthorpe?’
‘Well, I don’t know yet, do I?’ Lavender said peevishly. ‘Give me some time, Ned. I’ve only been here a day. We need to learn more about William Sculthorpe, his life – and his enemies. From what we have seen and heard so far Sculthorpe was a secretive man. He’s an enigma. I want to know more about him. We shall return to see Billy Sculthorpe tomorrow and ask him about his father, and perhaps my interview with Lady Anne at Rockingham Castle will shed some more light on the past history of this man.’
Woods nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I were a bit surprised to find out she supplied him with bottles of the best brandy.’
Lavender nodded. ‘Captain Rushperry told us Sculthorpe had been in service with Lady Anne but this generosity towards a former employee goes beyond the kindness usually shown to servants.’ A cold breeze had blown up. Lavender pulled down his hat and stepped back from the wall.
Instinctively, Woods followed him. ‘So what do you want us to do now?’
Lavender glanced up at the sky. The sun was already sinking in the west. He fished inside his coat pocket, pulled out the ragged money bag Rushperry had given him, and gave it to Woods. ‘We’ve still got a couple of hours of daylight left,’ he said. ‘You can investigate the origins of this bag and I will make discreet inquiries about the owner of the initials J.W. I’ll go up to the church and ask the vicar for the registers. The names and the history of most people in both Cottingham and Middleton will be recorded in them.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Take this bag around every shop and business establishment you can find in the two villages and ask the proprietors if they recognise it. And while you’re there, find out who ran up the largest debts this winter. If money was the reason for Sculthorpe’s murder, I want to know the names of those with the greatest poverty and, hence, the greatest motive.’
Woods’ eyes narrowed and he glanced at Lavender suspiciously. ‘You told Sawyer and Clancy this bag and the note weren’t important.’
‘I may have lied,’ Lavender replied. ‘We’ll meet back at The Woolpack. I need to write a letter to London before I call on Doctor Wallace tonight.’ He turned on his heel in the direction of Cottingham.
Suddenly, he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. ‘And while you’re at the grocer’s, Ned – ask them if they have ever sold ink cap mushrooms to William Sculthorpe.’
Chapter Nine
Lavender trudged up the steep cobbled lane towards St Mary Magdalene’s Church and craned back his neck to admire the towering gothic spire which rose up into the cloudy sky above him. Northamptonshire: the county of spires and squires, he reminded himself.
Three weathered gargoyles glared down at him with stony eyes as
he pushed open the creaking gate and wound his way along the path through the unkempt graveyard. The heavy arched door groaned as he pushed it open and entered the church. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of the lofty interior. Several octagonal limestone pillars held up the dark, vaulted wooden ceiling. Dusty beams of daylight slanted down from the tall, stained-glass windows. The cloying smell of old masonry, musty tapestries and centuries of damp mingled with the beeswax polish used on the wooden pews.
Two men stood talking by the ornate, carved pulpit at the end of the aisle – a carpenter, instantly recognisable by the tools he carried, and a middle-aged man with a full set of bushy whiskers and a well-cut topcoat and hat.
Lavender introduced himself to the two men and enquired about the whereabouts of the vicar.
‘I’m afraid the Reverend Allingham is visiting a parishioner at the moment,’ said the man with the beard. ‘May I be of assistance, Detective? I’m Caleb Liquorish, the churchwarden.’ He had barely a hint of the regional accent. Lavender remembered what Sawyer had said about Liquorish being a wealthy local landowner and farmer.
‘Thank you,’ Lavender said. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to go see the grave of the late William Sculthorpe and afterwards I want to peruse the church registers.’
Liquorish’s dull brown eyes widened in surprise beneath their bushy brows but he nodded agreement. ‘The registers are locked in the vestry at the moment but I have the key.’ He gave a last couple of instructions to the carpenter, then led Lavender outside into the overgrown graveyard that encircled the church. ‘Our sexton is ill at the moment,’ he said, in apology for the weeds.
Sculthorpe’s grave was a simple affair. A single mound of earth in a quiet corner with a plain gravestone propped up against the wall, waiting for the earth to settle so it could be put into position.
William Sculthorpe
Died aged 86
22nd February 1810
‘Lady Anne from Rockingham paid for the headstone,’ Liquorish said.
The Sculthorpe Murder Page 7
