The Duke's Agent (26 page)

‘I'll wager my horse that's a military man,' he said, turning his head to Duffin who panted at his shoulder. As he spoke the words a treacherous dip caught his foot and he was flung full length. Ezekiel's dense bulk landed on top of him, crushing him to the forest floor. For a moment all he could hear was the sounds of their various curses. He had jarred his bad leg, his face felt scratched to pieces and Bob was dancing about them barking with every appearance of frenzied delight.

By the time Jarrett had extricated himself from under the
poacher the sounds of their prey were fading into the distance. The light burnt steady in the darkness. They advanced cautiously towards it. The lantern stood on the floor of the wood throwing changeling shadows about the undergrowth. The yellow flame illuminated a pick and wooden stave. The line of the stake led his eye to a gruesome shape at the watery edge of the light. Sal's husk: a slumped, twisted bundle with a dead white face that glimmered through a net of coarse black hair. He fell to his knees, the hairs rising on the back of his neck. For a moment it seemed as if her eyes were opened and glittered at him from under the ugly web of hair. She smiled at him; a sly ghost of a smile.

He heard Duffin call his dog and the pair returned into the pool of light.

‘We'll not catch them now.' The big man was out of breath. He bent his large frame over, resting his hands on his knees. ‘How many, would you say? Five or six by my reckoning.'

‘Yes, five or six,' Jarrett agreed absently. He turned shocked eyes to the poacher. ‘Why in God's name should they take the corpse?'

The older man leant down to pick up the wooden stake. It was roughly carved into a wicked point, the stripped wood gleamed out fresh and white. ‘There's a crossroads up ahead a piece. I'd reckon someone fears that Sally Grundy's spirit will walk.' Back-lit in the weird light the man raised the stake and made as if to drive its point into the ground.

Jarrett jerked his face away from the gruesome pantomime. Another light was approaching through the dark from the way they had come. A female form moved through the wood, a lantern held high. Henrietta Lonsdale stepped into the lantern-light, her eyes huge. He scrambled to his feet to shield her from the scene. For some reason she had removed her gloves. He fixed upon the white hand that clutched her shawl to her throat. Ever afterwards he would be able to recall that hand in the most minute detail and the image
would conjure up some essence of her to him. Its slender back, the elegant line of the tapering fingers and the twisted gold ring on the third finger with some sort of blue stones woven among its strands. He found himself wondering whether she wore it as a token.

The woman leant to look past him. She saw the body and the stake in Duffin's hands. She met the poacher's eyes with a look of anguish. ‘You said there are crossroads ahead.' Her voice rose, seeming to grow younger and more vulnerable with the horror of it. ‘What were you at with that dreadful thing?' Jarrett took her lantern from her. He could not find any words to say. Her hands flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.'

‘We had best take her back now, Miss Lonsdale.' Jarrett spoke softly. ‘Those villains are gone, but they could return. If Mr Duffin and I carry the body, are you well enough to light our way?'

Henrietta hung on to the kindly sanity of his civilised face. There was a thin trickle of blood oozing from a scratch below his left eye. She put up her hand to wipe it away.

‘You are hurt, Mr Jarrett.'

He felt the touch of her skin on his cheek. In an involuntary movement he covered her hand with his. She stood so close he could feel the warm life in her. Gently he moved her hand away.

‘It is nothing, Miss Henrietta.'

At the sound of her name Miss Lonsdale started back, shocked at her own behaviour. He must think her mad.

‘Forgive me, Mr Jarrett. Of course,' she said, with only a slight tremor in her voice. She bent down and picked up the other lantern. She held out her free hand towards him. ‘If you will return my lamp to me, I can manage both.'

*

The group of servants huddled in a corner of the high-ceilinged kitchen. The older man looked at the wall, but
Betsy the scullery maid and Harry the groom stared at Mrs Grundy as she sat at the long table, her blank eyes fixed on her hands. The scullery maid's white face was pinched with excitement as she whispered to the groom. Henrietta gave the girl a hard look.

As she entered the kitchen Henrietta Lonsdale was not the same maiden Jarrett felt so protective of in the wood. She took charge with a quiet authority that left him feeling useless and overlooked. She dismissed Betsy to sit in her aunt's room in case she should wake and be concerned.

‘But she's sleeping, Miss Henrietta,' the girl assured her, reluctant to leave the centre of excitement. ‘I brought the mistress her draught and she drank it as usual. I looked in on her when the screaming started but she was sleeping straight on her back, like a log.'

‘I am glad, Betsy; but you go up to Mrs Lonsdale's room for a while. You may sit in the big chair by the fire. Go on. There's a good girl.'

Betsy pulled a sullen face but she went. Henrietta drew up a chair beside Mrs Grundy and began to talk to her in a low, gentle voice. The distraction enabled the men to return Sal's corpse to the large pantry that lay off the kitchen.

The pantry's normal use was as a store for precious tableware and wine. A bier made of a covered trestle surrounded by candles stood before the shelves of gleaming silver and low racks of dusty bottles. They arranged the body as tidily as they could. It had suffered from its recent indignity. One foot twisted oddly and the lower left arm had snapped. A sharp end of bone protruded, straining up sickeningly against the thin cover of skin. Duffin manoeuvred the ends of bone into line and tucked the limb back against the body. Jarrett ran his fingers through the tangle of black hair attempting to ease it into some sort of shape. It felt reassuringly soft, not the coarse black fibre it had seemed in the ghastly light of the lantern in the wood.

‘It needs a comb,' he said. The others stared at him and Duffin shrugged.

They spread the shroud over her once more, righting those candles the raiders had overturned in their flight. Mr Saul, the erstwhile coachman, loaded up an old blunderbuss and set the groom to sit on guard before the door. There was a tacit understanding between the men that this measure was purely to reassure the ladies. The raiders were long gone.

Jarrett rejoined Henrietta at the table to listen to Mrs Grundy's story. After her appearance at the investigation he had no high hopes of getting a coherent account from the cook, but Mrs Grundy surprised him. The series of shocks she had suffered appeared to have lit a smouldering resentment in the depths of her stout frame. She gave a lucid account of her ordeal. Earlier that evening she had fallen asleep by the kitchen fire while reading her bible, seeking some words of comfort. She woke to find the kitchen full of men with blackened faces.

‘One threw a bit of blanket over my head and growled in my ear that I'd be quiet or it'd be worse for me. I could hear them moving about. Drunken beasts. They stank of it. One of them said they'd come to do for my Sal. Then, quicker than anything, I was knocked to the floor and they all run out. My heart was beating fit to break. I thought I'd never draw breath again.' Her voice, controlled until now, quavered. Henrietta looked into middle distance as the cook rubbed one plump hand over the back of the other laid flat on the table top. ‘I pulled the cloth from my head and it were all dark. They'd put the candles out. There were nothing but the light of the fire in the range. I heard the carriage coming and I cried out. I beg pardon, Miss Henrietta, for all the fuss I made. I didn't know what I was at.'

‘Did you know any of the men, Mrs Grundy?' Jarrett asked.

‘I made out Nat Broom,' interrupted Duffin, ‘and one or
two others from the Swan crowd.'

Jarrett gave the poacher a sharp look. He himself had never been close enough to make out any feature of the men they chased.

‘I know it was them.' A bitter, corroding resentment infected Mrs Grundy's voice. ‘I saw him. He tried to hide his face from me but I saw Will Roberts just before they caught me in that cloth.' She was speaking faster now and two red spots burnt on her cheek bones. ‘Had his face all black and covered with soot but I still knew him. The devil – he has no shame. He killed my Sal and now he'll not let her rest. You go to the Swan and ask those heathen devils if they did not do this terrible thing.'

Henrietta laid her hand over the cook's clenched fists. ‘There now, Mrs Grundy. Mr Jarrett will see to it. You must be still.' She looked up at the gentleman standing over her. Mr Jarrett had a competent air of authority about him she found reassuring.

‘It seems I should speak to Will's father-in-law, Sergeant Tolley,' agreed Jarrett.

‘Wait for morning and I'll come along with you,' the poacher said. ‘We'll collect some other lads if we're wise. Tolley's not a timid man; you'll not find him alone.'

‘Mrs Grundy, I believe you had a visit from a Mrs Munday that you wished to tell me about?' asked Jarrett.

The cook looked puzzled a moment, as if it were hard to recollect a life beyond the trauma of that night.

‘She came to see me. Nora Munday's a hard woman but she's honest. She told me – you speak to young Maggie. Maggie knows more than she's telling.'

‘Maggie Walton, is that? Miss Grundy's fellow lodger?'

The cook nodded, her face determined. ‘Aye; you speak to Maggie.'

‘Did Mrs Munday explain why she thought Maggie had something to say?'

The cook just shook her head. ‘You talk to Maggie,' she repeated. Mrs Grundy's pale eyes filled up with tears and she crumpled, violent sobs overwhelming her heavy frame.

In face of such emotion, Jarrett retreated. This was women's work. He felt his usefulness at Longacres had expired. With a jolt of irritation he recalled his informant. He pictured the man waiting in the churchyard in vain and cursed the lost opportunity. He consoled himself that the night's work had not been without interest. That someone was desperate enough to initiate an attempt to steal Sally Grundy's corpse increased his confidence that he would ultimately uncover the truth about her death. He reclaimed Miss Lonsdale's attention briefly from her preoccupation with the cook.

‘Miss Lonsdale, do you think you might persuade Mrs Grundy and this landlady, Mrs Munday, to come to speak with me tomorrow at the Queen's Head? At noon, say?' he asked in a low voice.

His proximity as he leant towards her recalled the open-hearted way with which he had seemed to confide in her earlier that evening. The contrast between that impression and the impassive face he now wore made Henrietta wonder if she had imagined it. She kept her voice even as she replied. ‘I shall do my best, Mr Jarrett.'

Duffin was standing at the door looking stoic as Mrs Grundy's distressing sobs throbbed through the room. Miss Lonsdale bid Mr Jarrett a distracted good night and he left.

*

Dawn was breaking as he led his horse wearily down the lane beside Ezekiel Duffin. The first light was creeping over the land, giving shape and substance back to the world.

‘Tell me, Duffin, how did you happen to appear so sweetly at the hour of need?'

‘I've been listening about town since you've been away. If a man keeps his peace, and sits quiet like, and listens to folk, he'll soon grow wise.'

‘And you grew wise to what would happen tonight?'

Duffin gave him a reproachful look. He would tell his tale in his own way. His delivery took on a sort of sing-song, with well marked pauses, reminiscent of a fireside tale.

‘I heard how salt had made an appearance about the remains. And I heard as how Will Roberts's new wife has been going to the herb woman for draughts to make her man sleep o' nights. Will don't rest easy no more. Whisper is that Sal's spirit has taken to visiting him.'

Jarrett sighed. ‘Miss Lonsdale will be sorry. She is convinced Roberts is a good man. But he is also a tall fellow, and I'll wager Roberts wears straight-lasted shoes. By the by, Duffin. How were you ever close enough to say who those men were tonight? It was so devilish dark it could have been Bonaparte himself for all I could make out.'

Duffin snorted. ‘Wasn't I drinking at the Swan this night? The lads had just left and the whole tap was talking about how there was going to be trouble up to the Lonsdale house.'

Jarrett laughed. ‘So you followed them.'

‘There's more,' Ezekiel said. ‘Not that it's part of this night's work, but Sergeant Tolley's been getting a crew together. Seems he fancies himself a hard man. Word is there's trouble brewing between him and the landlord of the Three Pots.'

‘The Three Pots – that den of thieves?'

‘There's always more thieves, though Woolbridge's not like to be big enough for two gangs.'

As Jarrett pondered this new piece of intelligence he realised that Duffin was biding his time. The eyes under the craggy brows were pregnant with anticipation.

‘Ezekiel Duffin, you look like a snake that's just swallowed a rabbit. Not more news?'

Duffin grinned as boyishly as Jarrett had ever seen him look. ‘When I goes to town I likes to visit this woman. She
works out of Fish Lane down by the river, does my biddy. As it happens, she knew you,' he diverted, conversationally. ‘Saw you at the lawyer's chambers. Thought you was one of his. Took me time to set her right, it did.'

‘And?' Jarrett prompted. He tried to be good-humoured about it, but Duffin's tales were almost as long as that night had been.

‘Wouldn't you like to know who's turned up back at the Three Pots wearing a new brown coat?'

All weariness vanished and Jarrett's drawn face came alive. ‘The Tallyman!' he exclaimed. ‘Now we have the scent, Duffin!'