Foxe and the Path into Darkness

by William Savage

  ‘G’morning, stranger,’ Brock said. ‘Haven’t seen you for a good few days. Of course, I was away for a while visiting my wife’s relatives. Still, I must have been back for more than a week and you haven’t been in here in all that time. I suppose Halloran has you running around trying to find what’s happened to our mayor?’

  ‘You suppose correctly,’ Foxe said. ‘There’s been no time for relaxed walks and meetings with old friends.’

  ‘Any progress?’

  ‘Precious little, I’m afraid. It’s as if the man has suddenly evaporated. I’m also finding it difficult to gain an understanding of what sort of a person he is. There has to be an explanation for what has taken place. I can’t help feeling that a good part of it lies in the character of the fellow.’

  ‘My wife and I thought you must be on the hunt,’ Brock said, ‘so we put our heads together to come up with anything we imagined might be useful. It isn’t much, I hardly knew the man, but Julia knew something of his family from childhood days.’

  ‘Please tell me all you know,’ Foxe said at once. ‘Anything is going to be useful, since I have such a scanty amount of knowledge at the present time. I imagine you and Lady Julia must have encountered Belton at various times at civic and other social occasions.’

  ‘Hardly ever in fact. The fellow either didn’t attend such events at all or hovered somewhere in the background being generally invisible. No one knew much about him until he was made mayor, at which time the leopard changed his spots and you could hardly avoid him, however much you wished to. The man was a complete bore, always talking about his wonderful future plans for this or that but never actually achieving anything, so far as anyone could see. Julia says it’s probably due to his peculiar upbringing.’

  ‘What was peculiar about it? Tabby told me something of his background, but you may know more.’

  ‘His father was a most stern and controlling man, with no time for anything he counted as frivolity. That included most types of enjoyment and any displays of affection,’ Brock explained. ‘Belton’s mother was, by all accounts, completely dominated by her husband, to the extent that she could do nothing without asking his permission. Robert, our mayor, was their only child and his father decided his future course in life before he was hardly out of the womb.’

  ‘To follow his father into the same trade?’

  ‘That’s correct. His father, as you probably know, was a master weaver and cloth merchant. He was adamant that his son must enter the same trade, despite the fact he never seemed to have the slightest interest in the making of fine worsted cloth or the running of the business.’ Brock paused to take a gulp of coffee. All this talking was making his throat dry.

  ‘Did his mother have no say in the raising of her son?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Brock said. ‘Mrs Belton died when the boy was about three or four years old, leaving him to be raised entirely by his father. After that, his father ran his life for him. He was to succeed his father in the business, whether he wanted to or not. Belton senior even chose his son’s wife for him.’

  ‘That’s not so unusual,’ Foxe objected. ‘Many parents in wealthy families do the same. They see marriage as mostly a practical arrangement, aimed at increasing the family’s wealth or influence.’

  ‘That’s a practice which probably accounts for the number of men who take mistresses to escape from unhappy relationships,’ Brock said. ‘Not to mention the wives who repay them in kind. However, Belton senior seems to have made a particularly poor choice, fixing on the only daughter of a fellow cloth merchant in the hope that she would inherit her father’s business in time and merge it with Belton’s own.’

  ‘Did she?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘Her father is very much alive still. He also sold his business a few years back to finance a most comfortable retirement.’

  ‘There’s money to look forward to then,’ Foxe said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Brock replied. ‘Trouble is that, according to Julia, there was never any affection at all between young Belton and his wife. People say they loathed each other almost from the start, nor have they produced any offspring, whether from fate or the rarity of any conjugal intercourse. What caused this estrangement no one knows. Plenty of guesses, of course. Of recent years, man and wife have hardly had anything to do with one another. You heard about the scandal at the time of the mayor-making?’

  ‘Remind me,’ Foxe said. ‘I rarely take much notice of civic pomp and ceremony, so it may have passed me by.’

  ‘Belton’s wife didn’t attend either the grand procession in the morning or the Mayor’s Ball in the evening. As you can imagine, that caused a great deal of gossip and speculation; almost as much as that which arose when you went to the Mayor’s Ball a few years back with one of the Catt sisters on each arm.’

  ‘That was a most enjoyable evening,’ Foxe said, grinning. ‘Why should I be forced to choose between them? Besides, as I recall, few of the other men seemed to object to their presence.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Brock said, laughing. ‘Two ravishingly beautiful women decked out in the finest dresses you could afford! People’s wives were another matter. An actress and the madam of a brothel ...’

  ‘A very select and high-class bordello, Brock. The finest in East Anglia. Kitty is, I believe, now the toast of the London stage and Gracie has become entirely respectable.’

  ‘Let’s get back to the point, rather than dwelling on your dubious past,’ Brock said, still chuckling. ‘According to local gossip, as soon as his father died, Belton started to neglect his business. When he inherited it from his father, it was more or less the size it is today. It’s even still producing pretty much the same kinds of cloth in the same patterns. It’s as if time has stood still. It can’t possibly last, given the competition from the mill-factories in Yorkshire and the growth of the cotton-weaving trade in Cheshire and Lancashire. Yet Belton gives no thought to the changing world in which his business must operate. Instead, he goes off to become a councillor, an alderman and then mayor. One day, it’s all going to come crashing down about his ears.’

  ‘Do you or Lady Julia have any thoughts about who might wish to bring about that crash a little earlier, or bear him a sufficient grudge to do him harm?’

  ‘Do you expect to find his body in the river, then?’ Brock said, ‘or dumped in a shallow grave somewhere?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Foxe replied. ‘It has to be a possibility that he’s been murdered, since the notion of a kidnapping is looking less and less likely with every passing day.’

  ‘I thought a ransom note had been sent and the man coming to collect the money captured?’ Brock replied.

  ‘As usual, nothing remains secret in this city for very long,’ Foxe said wryly. ‘Take no notice of that. It was either a hoax or was done for some reason that isn’t yet clear. Either way, it most certainly wasn’t a genuine ransom demand. We’re no closer to knowing where the mayor has gone, and why, than we were at the start. I’m going to see his wife this afternoon along with a man at his place of work whom she says knew Johnson best. I can only hope one or other of them can tell me something that will throw a little more light on this whole peculiar business.’

  Brock made no further comment and the conversation soon drifted onto other subjects. Later, just as Foxe was about to leave, Brock looked at him narrowly and began to laugh.

  ‘Something has happened to you, Foxe,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it is, but you’re looking decidedly excited deep down. As if you knew some extra-special secret that you’d love to share, but dare not.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Foxe said. ‘Pure imagination!’

  ‘I’ve known you for many years, my friend, and I’m certain of it. You can try to dismiss what I say if you wish but it’s definitely there. You’re up to something! Either you’re cherishing expectations of something very good arising in your life in the near future or you have plans to achieve something you’ve been longing to bring about. Knowing you, ther
e has to be a woman involved in either case. Am I right?’

  ‘Piffle! Balderdash! Utter nonsense!’ Foxe said, with some heat. ‘If you go on like this, I shall start to doubt your sanity, old friend.’

  ‘Very well,’ Brock replied. ‘I’ll say no more for the moment, but I’m still sure I’m right.’

  BELTON’S WAREHOUSE was approached down a narrow lane leading to the right off Magdalen Street, just over the River Wensum. In many ways it was an ideal position, close to the main road northwards out of the city. The river was always busy with commercial traffic from this point downstream towards Great Yarmouth and the sea. Boats of all sizes, from small rowing boats to the one-man wherries mostly used for cargo transport, went back and forth all day. If the wind was favourable, the wherries carried sails to propel them along. If it was not, the wherryman had to resort to pushing his vessel forward, using a long punt-pole the locals called a “quant”.

  The warehouse turned out to be a brick-built building with four floors and an arch in the middle, high enough for wagons to pass through to enter a yard behind leading down to a small wharf on the river. One side of the yard was therefore bounded by the warehouse while the other two contained low buildings put there for various purposes.

  When Foxe came through the great archway and entered the yard that afternoon, he found a general bustle of people and goods. A skein of packhorses was being loaded and rolls of cloth were being carried down to two wherries drawn up against the quay. Several people passed him but all were too intent on their business to spare him more than a cursory glance.

  After a while, unsure where to go to find Mrs Belton and tired of being ignored, Foxe accosted the next man to come near and enquired where he might find the entrance to the director’s office. Sadly, the man thus addressed turned out to be a wherryman, unacquainted with anything other than the route between the wharf and the room where he was allowed to rest and eat his meal, before setting out again for Great Yarmouth and the ships which waited there.

  A second man was more helpful.

  ‘Go back into the passage under the entrance arch, sir. Then look to your right for a door. Go through there and up the stairs to the first floor. When you arrive, turn back sharp right along the landing and you’ll see the door to the boardroom and director’s office ahead of you on your left. If you look up from here, you can see a fine bowed window above the exit from the passageway. That’s the main window to the boardroom. The director’s office is just to the right of it.’

  Foxe thanked the man, slipped him a thrupenny piece and did as he had been told. The directions proved accurate and he soon arrived outside a magnificent panelled door; one that was obviously designed to impress visitors such as himself. He knocked and the door was opened by a small, somewhat wizened fellow of uncertain years. The employee, for such he had to be, looked him up and down before coming to the conclusion that this was the visitor Mrs Belton had told him to look out for. He then led Foxe through what was obviously the boardroom, complete with a large walnut table and ten well-upholstered chairs. They skirted one end of the table and thus passed close to the window looking out onto the yard. At that point, Foxe’s guide came to a stop and held up his hand to indicate that the visitor should wait. That done, he knocked lightly on the door ahead of them and slipped inside. A few moments later, he returned, held the door open for Foxe to enter, closed it behind him and was gone. Throughout the whole process, he had not spoken a single word.

  The woman who came forward to greet Foxe proved to be in her late forties, Foxe guessed, though she could have been a few years older. She was well-dressed and handsome enough, though with such a business-like air that Foxe thought some people would find her decidedly off-putting.

  ‘Good day, Mr Foxe,’ she said. ‘I am Mary Belton, as you will have guessed. You said you wished to speak to someone who works closely with Johnson, the chief clerk. That means Comiston, our bookkeeper. They’ve worked together since before my husband’s father died. Do please take a seat. Forgive me if I omit the usual social niceties and do not offer you refreshments but I find myself exceedingly busy at present. My husband’s disappearance has caused trouble to many, I’m sure. It has left this business without the least direction, especially since the chief clerk is also unaccountably absent.’

  Foxe seated himself in the chair Mrs Belton had indicated. It was on the opposite side of a large desk to the chair in which she had now seated herself.

  ‘I am most grateful for your time, Mrs Belton,’ Foxe said, ‘and will be happy to listen to anything you can tell me about your husband. So far, I am finding it difficult to get an accurate picture of the man.’

  ‘That applies to all who encounter him,’ the lady replied. ‘Even to myself. There is something essentially secretive in my husband’s character. It’s as if he takes pleasure in concealing anything of importance to him from the world.’

  ‘Do you know why that is?’

  ‘My husband is a lazy man, Mr Foxe, and has little or no interest in weaving or the cloth trade. It was his father, a cloth merchant himself and founder of the firm, who determined his occupation in life and left him this business when he died. I guessed my husband did as little here as he thought he could get away with. Yet I now find the situation far worse than I had imagined. There are bills unpaid and overdue, invoices waiting to be sent out, which should have been on their way weeks ago, to say nothing of the orders left unacknowledged and unfulfilled for many days at a time. I expected to need to offer general guidance and reassurance to the employees while waiting for my husband to deign to reappear. Instead, I find that I must take over the management of the firm completely. Fortunately, my father too was a cloth merchant and a much respected one, so I grew up with a proper knowledge of the woollen trade and its administration. Several times in the past two days I have thanked the Lord my father is still alive and in possession of all his faculties. As soon as he hears what I have discovered, I’m sure he will lend me his support and advice.’

  Foxe could well imagine Mrs Belton’s irritation. She was clearly angered by her husband’s inattention to the business on which her own livelihood as well as his depended. Now she wanted to express that anger to someone. He just happened to be the first person to come along. He was about to speak when he realised Mrs Belton had already launched on another topic.

  ‘By the way, Mr Foxe, don’t be put off by Comiston’s manner. He’s the man who ushered you in here, by the way. He’s a little mouse of a fellow and rarely speaks to anyone.’

  Foxe thought it was high time he interrupted what was threatening to become a monologue.

  ‘The aldermen of the city have charged me with investigating your husband’s disappearance,’ he said. ‘So far I have found little information to guide me. That’s why I thought it would be beneficial to talk with those who worked closely with him and the chief clerk, Johnson. It’s possible that understanding why he disappeared as well might throw some light on the whole matter. I’ll leave talking about Johnson until I speak with Comiston, if I may. In the meantime, might you be able to offer me some thoughts on why your husband went missing in such an unexpected way?’

  ‘None, I fear,’ Mrs Belton replied. ‘My husband has always been a strange man, Mr Foxe. A man given to sudden interests and enthusiasms, which he lays aside after a fairly short time. It’s as if he loses interest when he fails to produce the results he wants quickly. I suppose you might say that he lacks staying-power.’

  ‘Had he lost interest in this firm?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘He never had any. He has kept it running but done nothing to bring its products or its ways of operating into line with modern ideas or changes in fashion. That would, I expect, take more energy and more work than he was prepared to undertake. In most ways, this firm is as it was on the day his father died. I would have said it was still profitable, but I am beginning to have my doubts about that as well. The best I can be sure of is that it is not in immediate danger of failing quite yet. Un
der his father’s guidance, Belton’s Worsteds had a reputation as the producer of the finest of Norwich stuffs, as the woollen fabrics produced here are called. Perhaps a little of that lustre remains. However, continuing to produce the same patterns for more than a decade in a marketplace which is more subject to changes in fashion than most, is no recipe for retaining any prominence.’

  Realising Mrs Belton was once again about to launch into a long explanation of what her husband had failed to do, Foxe quickly intervened.

  ‘Does he have any enemies to your knowledge?’

  ‘If he has, I know nothing of them,’ she said. ‘To be honest, I doubt anyone would have disliked him enough to wish to do him injury, whether personal or by undermining this business. You will think me disloyal, perhaps, but I believe in facing up to the truth, however unpleasant. Nearly everyone my husband came into contact with despised him as ineffectual and lacking in common sense, Mr Foxe. I’m sure he knew it too but could not manage to raise sufficient energy to try to change peoples’ opinions. Instead, he concentrated on doing nothing to make himself actually disliked. I suppose you might say his ambition was little more than to render himself tolerable while pursuing a life situated mostly inside his own mind. Most of the time, he lurked on the edges of things and avoided actions which might draw any criticism. Only when he became mayor—to my complete amazement, I should add—did he suddenly change his entire manner. It was as if he had become another person, one intent on pushing himself forward and taking charge of everyone and everything. I’m told he even proclaimed he was about to change the whole city for the better.’

  ‘Was he believed and taken seriously?’

  ‘Of course not! My husband has always been a man of wild and dramatic ideas. In the past, he had the sense to keep them to himself. The few he tried to turn into action failed. I suspect it was because his eyes were fixed firmly on the glittering prize at the end, while he paid almost no attention to the hard work and careful planning needed to turn them into reality. He longed to achieve something that would startle the world with its brilliance but only if it required no trouble or effort for him personally. His father told him he would come to nothing. Sadly, he was right, if unkind and overly critical. Even so, I think Robert cherished the hope that, one day, he would be able to stand by his father’s grave and proclaim his words wrong.’