Late that afternoon, when Foxe had almost decided he had done enough for the day and was thinking of going to his dressing room and having Alfred bring him one of his favourite banyans to relax in until bedtime, Molly brought him in another letter. This one proved to be from Mrs Belton and had just been delivered by one of her servants.
Dear Mr Foxe,
Please excuse this lengthy letter, but I think it unreasonable to ask you to come to Belton’s warehouse to hear what may be news of little importance to anyone but myself.
Late this morning, I finished checking through the accounts and other records and found nothing seriously out of order, only still more evidence of laxity and carelessness on my husband’s part. There is much that has not been done in a timely manner, especially sending out invoices and pursuing those which have not been settled within the period of credit allowed. This was Johnson’s responsibility to bring to my husband’s notice but Comiston tells me all was thrown into confusion by Mr Belton’s irregular attendance at the office. Johnson would have letters and invoices ready for my husband’s signature and then be forced to wait days for him to put in an appearance. Even then, he might dismiss them as boring and menial tasks, unworthy of his attention, and depart leaving them still unsigned. I gather he had attended more often in the three months or so before his disappearance but was always much preoccupied with other matters to the detriment of basic administration.
All that is bad enough but easily set right with proper diligence. What worries me more is that the stock records are in a shocking state. I have no idea what stock is on hand to meet current orders, what is surplus to requirements and what gaps need to be filled by our weavers. You will not credit this, but there has been no proper stocktaking for more than two years. My husband seems to have proceeded on the basis of maintaining orders from the weavers at the same level all the time, regardless of the normal ups and downs of sales. More downs than ups in recent times, since he obviously did not try to solicit new orders or find new customers. By over-ordering in that way, he could simply assume enough would be on hand to meet fresh orders.
Naturally, the result is that our warehouse is full of cloth for which there are no orders, nor likely to be any since the patterns are very much out of fashion. I have inspected it, so far as I can, and found a good deal that is now probably unsaleable, save by offering it at a substantial reduction on our normal prices. Still worse, anyone could pilfer large amounts of cloth without fearing detection.
I have gathered the clerks and warehousemen together and told them that I will be holding a detailed audit of existing stock as soon as we have brought our invoicing and collection of overdue bills under suitable control. Thereafter, I will ensure correct and up-to-date stock records are kept with all stock held matched to corresponding orders, save for a very small surplus of the patterns most in demand to cope with unexpected needs. No exceptions will be made.
My father has helped me to obtain a loan from his bankers that will be sufficient to avoid any immediate fear of insolvency, so that is one less worry. It will take much determination and effort to trade our way back to profitability, but I am sure it can be done.
I remain, sir, your most obedient servant,
Mrs Mary Belton.
THIS MISSIVE CAUSED Foxe a good deal of thought that evening. It had seemed plain to him for some time that something of a criminal nature had been taking place at Belton’s. Laxity by management often invited employees to engage in crimes ranging from petty pilfering to large-scale organised theft. He had also reached the conclusion that the concealment of Johnson’s body pointed to his murderer knowing the yard and buildings well. Who but the employees there would know of the coal store, tucked away at the far side of the yard? Who else would know that it was little used at this time of year?
Maybe Johnson, and perhaps Belton too, had finally realised what was going on, tried to confront the thieves and been killed to prevent them denouncing the conspirators to the magistrate? All thefts of goods amounting to five shillings or more in value attracted a capital sentence. Anyone stealing several rolls of fine worsted cloth must know they faced almost certain execution if caught. Adding murder to theft would not affect the sentence.
Had the mayor met the same fate as his chief clerk with his body being concealed even more carefully? Of course, since the warehouse stood on the bank of the River Wensum, taking the body downstream in a boat to a less frequented part of the river and then sinking it, well weighted down, might equally ensure it was not found until many months later. By then, it would be in an unrecognisable state.
Maybe this was the answer to the mystery. Did the excess of stock also explain why Belton took on the obvious risk of selling to an overseas merchant through an unproven agent. It would be one way to dispose of surplus stock in bulk and make enough of a return to prop up the business for a little longer. If the gamble worked, there would be no reason to let anyone else know that what had been sold was unwanted. Belton would have made his point and set himself up to make more profitable overseas sales in the future.
Foxe decided that pursuing that idea was a matter for another day, since it would only be of importance if the notion that Belton and Johnson had been killed by thieves amongst Belton’s employees proved to be wrong. The only way to discover whether theft was taking place wholesale would be to keep watch and capture the thieves in the act. Then they could be questioned closely. Since they would know they would be going to the hangman anyway, they might well be persuaded to confess to the murders as well, if only out of bravado.
WHILE FOXE WAS PONDERING ALL this, Lucy was also thinking hard. The afternoon visit with her aunt and sister had proved a great success on several counts. The dress she wore attracted the most gratifying attention and praise. It was one she had paid a dressmaker to make for her when she was in Paris. Cut in the latest style, it was sewn from a fabric which contained a good deal of silk and was finished with ruffs on the sleeves and at the neckline made from ivory-coloured Normandy lace. The Norwich ladies had never seen one like it and were suitably impressed. She’d had to spend some time standing before them, while they stroked the fabric and assured one another that this must undoubtedly be the coming fashion. Didn’t all new fashions start in Paris? She was certain by the end that the dressmakers of Norwich would soon be faced with a significant number of orders for similar garments.
The conversation had also yielded several items she was eager to pass on to Mr Foxe. Receipt of his letter, therefore, left her somewhat cast down, since it implied he would not be coming to see her as quickly as she had been hoping. Still, she must make the best of what she had. She therefore settled down to re-read his letter and ponder what the contents might tell her.
After an hour or more on this task, she felt even more dispirited. Dear Ashmole—she must stop calling him that, even in her head—had set out the facts with admirable clarity, yet she could not work out what they might be pointing to. Johnson’s death, of course, scotched the idea that he might have murdered the mayor and run off. She was therefore left with the picture of a pious, moral man who was devoted to an ailing mother.
Such thoughts led her nowhere. It did seem more likely that others had been plundering Belton’s Worsteds, been discovered and turned to violence to prevent the disclosure of their crime. Even so, such an explanation of the murder and the disappearance of the mayor could be no more than supposition. It might turn out to be as superficial as the view of those who had assumed Johnson had murdered the mayor.
After a while, she realised she was going around in circles. Her brain, she knew, was as good as anyone else’s and better than most. What she lacked was the experience of the world—and especially its seamier side—that would allow her to sort her various notions into those which were likely and those which were not. Susan had been right. The only sensible thing to do was to share her thoughts and notions with dear—with Mr Foxe—and rely on his far greater knowledge and experience to do the sorting.
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br /> Still feeling restless, she let her mind wander where it wished over the series of events which had taken place since Mayor Belton disappeared. It came to rest on the ransom demand. Mr Foxe and her uncle had been convinced the whole thing was no more than a clumsy hoax, one dreamed up by local criminals hoping to use the search for the mayor to make themselves some money. Having come to this conclusion, the event had been set aside as being of no consequence. Even she had gone along with this conclusion.
Yet didn’t that leave some important facts unexplained? Principally that the ransom note had been addressed personally to Alderman Harris. That didn’t seem to her to be the work of a local criminal. Wouldn’t such a person have sent the note to a more general address? Maybe to the Clerk to the Council or simply to the guildhall? How would he, or they, have known about Alderman Harris, let alone that he was the most likely person amongst all the aldermen to decide to act on his own?
The more she thought about it, the more this pointed to the business of the ransom being a deliberate act, organised for a specific purpose. What if the money was the least important aspect of the whole affair? What if the person sending the note was well aware that an ambush would be arranged and the person sent to collect the ransom seized? He would know nothing that would be of any use for those wishing to track the person who sent him. That too would be part of the plan.
What was the purpose of the ransom demand then? Whatever it was, it must have been achieved or dismissed as useless, since it was not repeated. Nor was any threat made against Alderman Harris for arranging the ambush or any dire consequences to the mayor threatened.
She went over the entire affair again, step by step. If the ransom demand was not about money, what was it for? If it had achieved its purpose, what might that purpose have been? An individual alderman had been approached with a demand for a derisory amount of money to secure the mayor’s release. Instead of speaking at once to his colleagues, he decided to deal with the demand himself, set out the bag of money—or whatever he used to simulate it—where and when the fake kidnapper had demanded and then had the person coming to collect it seized by the constables.
What could that have achieved?
Of course! The answer was quite obvious, once you assumed that all that mattered was the person to whom the demand was sent and his reaction, it had indeed been successful. Alderman Harris had been humiliated and his actions labelled as a silly attempt to make himself look like a hero. Whoever had planned the sequence of events had a single purpose in mind: to humble Alderman Harris.
That raised another question. Who might want to treat Mr Harris in such a way? Which of the other aldermen—for it surely must have been one of their number—would have had the knowledge of Alderman Harris’s character and the animus against him to plan such an attack on his character? Find those who were known to dislike Mr Harris sufficiently to see him humbled and you must find the perpetrator of the hoax amongst them.
Thoroughly excited by now, Lucy could think of nothing save what Mr Foxe’s response would be when she presented him with her discovery. Surely this was the fresh direction for the investigation for which he had been searching. She imagined his fulsome praise for her cleverness in realising what he had missed and what it pointed to. The thought pleased her greatly.
Late though it was, she was about to take up pen and paper to respond to his letter with one of her own, explaining this revelation in proper detail, but then she paused. Informing him by letter meant she wouldn’t be able to see the expression on his face when he grasped the importance of what she had worked out.
She therefore contented herself with a response which thanked him for keeping her informed, promised she would pass on all the relevant parts to her uncle and requested an early meeting. All she gave in the way of explanation for her request was the simple statement that she had important information she wished to share with him.
That done, she folded and sealed the letter, addressed it to Ashmole Foxe Esq and made a mental note to send it by a servant first thing the next morning. Then she retired for the night and slept contentedly until the morning.
By the morning, she had other ideas.
12
Foxe had just returned from his usual walk and visit to the coffeehouse and was standing in the hallway of his house, when his day was turned upside down. Alfred had already taken his hat and outer coat when he came in. Now he had returned to take his master’s jacket and replace it with his favourite dark blue banyan and a neat turban in matching cloth. Foxe loved the particular worsted from which both had been made. The cloth had been woven with an addition of silk threads, making it especially soft and giving it a tendency to gleam slightly when they caught the light. He was turning to go into his library when Mrs Crombie came hurrying through the connecting door from the shop, in something of a tizzy. Miss Lucy Halloran was in the shop, she said, asking to see Mr Foxe urgently on a matter of great importance.
Foxe didn’t hesitate, despite being dressed in such an informal way. He hurried after Mrs Crombie, back through the door, only to be brought to a complete halt by the sight of the fashionable, elegant young woman who was waiting for him. She was wearing a dress of fine, tawny cloth, made in the style called “sackback” or “robe á la française”. She may even had had it made for her in Paris for it was undoubtedly in the very latest style, with a rich train of cloth falling from the back of the neckline to the bottom of the skirt. In the front, the skirt was split in two to reveal a petticoat of the finest cream Norfolk calamanco, richly embroidered in tawny and gold thread. The bodice was also split and the space filled by a stomacher matching the petticoat, while the neckline, not too low as befitted an unmarried lady, was thickly edged with lace. She wore a kerchief of similar lace about her long, slim neck; a neck Foxe was seized with an almost overwhelming desire to cover with the gentlest of kisses. On her head she had a broad brimmed hat, adorned with a feather set at a jaunty angle.
For a long moment, the two of them stood staring at each other in silence. Finally, Lucy stepped forward, no doubt pleased at the effect she had had on Foxe, and greeted him solemnly.
‘Mr Foxe,’ she said. ‘I wish you good day.’
‘Miss … Miss … Miss Lucy,’ was all he could stammer in reply, before she stepped past him towards the door from which she had seen him emerge. Her maid, Susan, followed demurely behind. By the time Foxe managed to move to catch up with her she was already standing in the middle of his hallway, looking about her on all sides.
‘You live in surprising luxury for a bookseller, sir,’ she said. ‘I had not expected your home to be so large and elegantly appointed. It must be nearly as large as my uncle’s house. You also dress in a manner more suited to a nobleman than a merchant. I know enough of cloth to understand that the banyan you are wearing would be beyond the means of all but the wealthiest of people.’
Before he could reply, she turned to face towards the doorway to the left of the front door and began to question him.
‘Where does that go?’ she asked.
‘Into the dining room,’ Foxe replied. ‘The opposite door leads into my library. It is not as large and well-filled as your uncle’s but it is still my favourite room in the house.’
‘And the door on the other side of that most useful passageway from your shop?’
‘The drawing room.’
‘Then we will go in there, if we may.’ Once inside, she stood and turned around as she had in the hall, appraising the room, its decoration and its contents.
‘Yet another room expressive of luxury and good taste, Mr Foxe,’ she remarked. ‘You are truly a most surprising person. This is the first time I have been in your house and it is quite unlike my expectations.’
‘Better, I hope,’ Foxe said gently.
‘Considerably so. One day you must show me around the whole property and explain how a bookseller comes to be able to afford to live like this. Not today though. I have very little time to spend with you, I’m afra
id. I have persuaded my aunt and sister to spend far more time than they would usually in choosing new books from your library, thus allowing me to speak with you briefly. Their patience will not hold out for too long though. We are to go from here to the Bishop’s Palace to meet with the bishop’s wife and several of their daughters and take tea. That is why I am so formally attired today.’
‘And beautifully so, if I may say so,’ Foxe said.
That earned him a considering look. ‘Mr Foxe,’ she said, her voice firm and her expression unreadable. ‘I have strictly forbidden my maid from responding to any attempts you may make to flirt with her. She is only here because it would be most unbecoming for a young, unmarried woman to go alone into a bachelor’s house. I would therefore have you behave yourself properly as well.’
She looked away and then quickly back again in time to catch Foxe winking at Susan, whose cheeks flamed red as a result.
‘Mr Foxe! What did I just say? I declare you only behave thus to provoke me.’
‘Not at all, Miss Lucy,’ Foxe said, trying to look and sound as innocent as he could. ‘I am merely a most friendly person by nature.’
‘Especially towards comely young women, it seems. Do not try your tricks on me, sir, for I have been thoroughly forewarned.’
Foxe and the Path into Darkness Page 12