Foxe and the Path into Darkness

by William Savage

  ‘But you were able to carry on?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘Barely,’ came the reply. ‘If the bad debt was added to our other outstanding debts and the mortgage, the business would be near insolvent. Not quite over the edge but far too close for comfort. Mr Belton would certainly not be able to draw the funds he needed to swank about as mayor.’

  ‘This was in July, you said?’

  ‘About then. You can see that Johnson and I were facing a serious quandary. If we told the world about the losses, Mr Belton would dismiss us. If we remained silent, there was a strong possibility we would lose our positions anyway when the firm went under.’

  ‘But you chose to remain silent.’

  ‘Letting everyone know that the firm was saddled with such a huge bad debt would probably force it into insolvency immediately. Our creditors would demand payment at once and we simply didn’t have the funds to pay them. We talked over the options for what felt like a hundred times but could see only one way out. We would have to give Mr Belton time to make good on his promise. If he failed, we would be forced to let customers and creditors know the true situation.’

  ‘How long did you agree to give him?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘Two months. Johnson was a most upright, religious man and it hurt him badly to continue the deception for a moment longer than he could avoid.’

  ‘So, the time ran out at the start of September,’ Foxe said, guessing what he was going to be told next.

  ‘It did. More or less anyway. You can understand we weren’t too particular about the precise date. Johnson’s patience ended on the very day the mayor disappeared. By then the threat of dismissal didn’t matter to him anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘Johnson’s mother died the week before. Now he was free of any obligation save to himself, he told me he would no longer be a party to deceiving anyone about the true state of Belton’s Worsteds. For a few days, he was busy with the funeral and the like and then he was ready to do what he felt he should have done at the start. Confront Mr Belton.’

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened that day,’ Foxe said. ‘Was it Johnson who told Belton that you couldn’t go along with his deception any longer?’

  ‘I wanted us to go together to tell him the next day, but Johnson wouldn’t delay any further. He said you never knew when Mr Belton would come to the office and it was best done while you knew he was present. That meant doing it at once. We argued it back and forth for most of the day, each of us unwilling to face him. He can be extremely difficult when he gets angry and this would enrage him beyond measure. Late in the afternoon, almost at the time for closing the offices, Johnson said he couldn’t bear it any longer. Mr Belton was in his office. We knew that. He was also alone. Before I could restrain him, Johnson entered the room without even knocking. I heard Mr Belton’s roar of disapproval.’

  ‘You didn’t go with him?’

  ‘I did not. I am a timid man, Mr Foxe, and hate arguments of any kind. I am also a coward. The clock at the end of the room showed one minute to go before the proper time to stop work and go home. All the clerks were on their feet by this time, confused at what was going on and edging towards Mr Belton’s office door in the hope of eavesdropping. Their behaviour infuriated me, so I told them all to get their coats and leave at once. I did the same and we left together. I never knew what took place between Johnson and Mr Belton. All I can say is that I never saw either of them again; at least until poor Johnson’s body was found.’

  ‘Do you think the mayor killed him?’ Foxe asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I would hate to believe that he did. Johnson was a good man. If he was defying Mr Belton’s instructions, it was only because his conscience forced him to do so. In the days after, I wondered many times what had happened to them both. I also feared that whatever fate had befallen Johnson would be mine next. The two of us, you see, were the only people who knew the truth about what had happened, other than Mr Belton himself. When Johnson’s body was discovered, I was mortally afraid. If he had been murdered to stop him revealing the truth, I would surely have to be done to death as well. It pains me to say it, but I clung to the hope that the mayor was dead. The longer his disappearance has lasted, the safer I have felt.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me all this, Comiston,’ Foxe said gently. ‘These past few weeks must have been extraordinarily difficult for you. I take it Mrs Belton is quite ignorant of all that took place?’

  ‘Totally,’ Comiston said. ‘Of course, since we had not altered the accounts, as Mr Belton had demanded, she was soon very well aware of the bad debt. That is as it should be, but she thinks it was simply the result of a foolish deal that went bad when the purchaser refused to pay. She still thinks the cloth went to Riga and has several times lamented the impossibility of pursuing the debt through the courts in that part of the world. If she knew that Johnson and I had kept quiet, even under threat of dismissal, I would be on the street now with no employment and little money. She is not a forgiving woman.’

  ‘Rest assured I will not tell her,’ Foxe said. ‘In fact, I will tell only one other person and I trust that person completely to keep what I tell them secret. Let the world go on thinking Mr Belton was the victim of a rash business deal, but not one that was false from first to last. I will have no part in pushing Belton’s Worsteds closer to insolvency and none in costing you your job either.’

  Comiston’s gratitude was almost pathetic. It took Foxe some time to extricate himself from the torrent of thanks and leave Belton’s warehouse. In reality, he told himself, he had not promised so very much. All that really mattered was the loss of three thousand pounds. Even that was more of a paper loss than a real one. Given the chaotic state of the warehouse, it would have been impossible to be sure exactly what stock had been paid for and what had not. The true cause of Belton’s fragile finances lay in the volume of unpaid bills and the declining sales. Let Mrs Belton set that right if she could. It would be a hard enough task without knowing her husband had been the easy victim of a confidence trickster.

  17

  To his great relief, Foxe was able to breakfast next morning without hurrying. He lingered over the plate of bread and cold beef Mrs Whitbread had provided for him, drank several cups of coffee and even sent Molly to bring him a roll and jam to finish off with. For the past two days, breakfast had been a rushed affair. Today he could relax and enjoy it and he did so to the utmost.

  Earlier he had sent Henry to ask when would be a convenient time for him to talk with Halloran and Lucy. Henry would probably have walked, not driven himself in the carriage, so it was likely to be at least forty-five minutes before he returned. When he did, after almost an hour, it was to say that Alderman Halloran and Miss Lucy would be pleased to see his master at around noon. The alderman would have to leave within an hour for a meeting at his place of business to review the month’s takings and outgoings, but Miss Lucy would be available for the rest of the day.

  This suited Foxe admirably. He therefore told Henry to be ready with the carriage at half past eleven. He had made too many journeys from his house to the area known as “Across the Water” already that week. He needed to give himself a rest from such long walks for a day or so.

  As usual, Halloran and his niece received him in the library. The sight of Lucy no longer gave him such a jolt as it had the first few times, but he still had to stand for a moment as he entered the room to accustom himself to being with her. It was especially necessary that day, for she was standing when he came in, revealing the full impact of her robe á la Anglais, tightly fitted from the neckline to just above the hips then flaring out into a full skirt below. It so emphasised her slim, youthful figure that Foxe found himself becoming breathless again.

  To cover his confusion, he greeted both of them before he was halfway into the room.

  ‘Good day, Halloran. I hope you are well. Good day, Miss Lucy. It is always a pleasure to see you again, especially when you are so elegantly attired.�
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  Halloran grunted his usual greeting in response. Lucy looked down for a moment, blushing most becomingly, then faced Foxe again and wished him good day. It seemed that he was now free to offer her polite compliments, but she was not yet ready to reply in kind.

  ‘Sit down, Foxe,’ Halloran said. ‘I’ve ordered coffee and some biscuits and cakes, since it must be some time since you took breakfast. Once they have come, we’ll allow a little space for you to refresh yourself and then I must ask you to tell me your news. All this extra time spent at the guildhall, trying to stop my fellow aldermen from panicking and rushing into foolish decisions, has forced me to neglect my own business more than I would like. At a quarter past one, I have told my clerk, bookkeeper and other senior servants to be ready to take me through this month’s results. Lucy here has more time, so you can tell her whatever else you wish after I have left.’

  Foxe did as he was told, eating sparingly from the food on offer, since it was not in fact that long since he had been filling himself with beef, rolls and jam. Then he explained how he had talked with Comiston the day before and related the main items of interest he had learned.

  ‘Belton was right, you know,’ Halloran said at the end. ‘Holding the office of mayor is a great drain on your financial resources. I know, I’ve done it. Was he correct about the other aldermen being wealthier than he was? Given the disgraceful way he had neglected his business for a good number of years, that was probably the case. In his father’s day, Belton’s Worsteds was one of the leading cloth manufacturers in the city but, from the time of Belton senior’s death, it began to decline steadily. Businesses don’t run themselves, as you and I well know.’

  ‘Of course,’ Foxe replied. ‘From the point of view of this investigation, however, the most important element in Comiston’s story is that Belton began to try to find ways to take more income from his firm as early as January. Could he have known back then that he was going to be chosen as mayor?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Halloran replied. ‘It was a simple matter of calculation. All he needed to do was work out how many aldermen were senior to him in terms of the period they had held that office. Given the surprising number of deaths and resignations around that time, many of them due to ill health, he would have been certain that he, as next in line, would be duly elected.’

  ‘That probably explains why he took out a large mortgage, then followed it by taking on that enormous risk with the sale to the Baltic merchant,’ Lucy added quietly. ‘I wonder if he had tried to encourage the local and London merchants to place extra orders first, or had simply grabbed at the chance of a major sale outside what he had expected?’

  ‘That’s an interesting question,’ Foxe said, smiling at her and being rewarded by a warm smile in return. ‘I’ll try to find out.’

  ‘If he did try that first,’ Halloran added, ‘he would have had a hard time convincing them. I know for a fact that his designs are long out-of-date even if the quality of the cloth itself is still first class. The purchase of cloth is heavily affected by the prevailing fashion. The ladies who go to their dressmakers on a regular basis wish to dress themselves in a way which shows they are fully abreast of current trends, both in England and France. Look at the robe Lucy is wearing.’

  Foxe had been doing so, stealthily, since he had arrived although, were he to be honest, his interest was less in the dress itself than in the body beneath it. Now he hastened to do as Halloran requested and admire Lucy openly.

  ‘She had that dress made in Paris, though the cloth is English. The French recognise the superior quality of our woollens and buy them in large amounts. Not only is the style at the leading edge of current fashions here—we tend to lag a little behind the French—the design of the cloth is fully up-to-date.’

  ‘It is certainly most becoming,’ Foxe said, smiling happily. ‘The colour suits her complexion admirably.’

  ‘The two of you are doing it again,’ Lucy said crossly, though she was secretly delighted at the praise from Foxe as she had chosen that dress precisely for the purpose of drawing his eye. ‘Discussing me like some prize animal on show. Can we get back to the topic in hand, please?’

  ‘Most ladies like to be admired,’ her uncle said. He sounded hurt.

  ‘Most ladies have been schooled in the notion that their sole purpose in life is to please men,’ Lucy snapped. ‘That is not my way. I disdain to have my value set by others on some arbitrary ground of superficial appearance.’

  ‘I’m sure your uncle meant no harm by his words,’ Foxe said, trying to calm the atmosphere a little. ‘Nor did I. To admire your appearance does not imply that is all either of us admire about you. I can only speak for myself but much of my admiration is based on the quality of your mind and character. Do not be too quick to assume an insult where none is intended.’

  ‘Thank you, Foxe,’ Halloran said, greatly mollified. ‘Lucy knows I love her dearly and would do so whatever she wore. She can, however, be somewhat touchy at times. I blame some of the books she reads.’

  ‘I am sorry if I spoke too hastily,’ Lucy said, ‘and I apologise. However, time is passing and it is best not to stray from the main purpose of Mr Foxe’s visit.’

  Her uncle directed a startled look at her when she said this, but made no further comment.

  ‘I have already said what I came to say,’ Foxe said. ‘Nothing in what Comiston told me helped clarify the reasons for Johnson’s death or the mayor’s disappearance. What it has done is help me to understand the circumstances in which both took place.’

  ‘Then I will take my leave of you both,’ Halloran said. ‘I’m sure Lucy will look after you.’

  Once her uncle had gone, Lucy turned to Foxe with a puzzled look on her face.

  ‘Do you truly admire my mind and character, Ash?’ she asked. ‘I am constantly being told that my forthright views and refusal to conform to what society expects of women will drive men away and I will end up an old maid. Were your words merely flattery?’

  ‘They were meant most sincerely, Lucy,’ Foxe said, delighted at the opportunity to address her in such an intimate manner. ‘I can assure you of that. I enjoy the sight of a beautiful woman as much as the next man, if not more, but I could never abide one who has neither depth of character nor intelligence, however appealing her looks might be. But you laid down a condition for our talks that I should not stray from the subject of our investigation, and I fear I am in danger of doing so. I would not break my promise.’

  ‘What then do you have to tell me that you did not tell my uncle?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Something that I will ask you to keep confidential. I promised you another thing: that I would tell you everything I have discovered. I know I can trust you totally to breath no word of this to anyone else.’

  ‘You intrigue me greatly, Ash,’ Lucy replied. ‘What on earth can be so secret?’

  ‘It is not secret in itself. The reason I will ask you to tell no one is that doing so would probably cause harm to someone who is totally innocent of any real wrongdoing.’

  With that introduction, Foxe explained all that Comiston had told him about the confidence trickster, Cartwright, the way Belton had been taken in and his subsequent attempt to cover up the bad debt that resulted.

  ‘It is a tale that is both sad and amusing at the same time,’ Lucy said when he had finished. ‘I thought Mr Belton was a fool before and this view of him is amply confirmed. Yet why should Mr Comiston be so fearful? He had no power to prevent his master taking such a rash decision. He cannot therefore be blamed for the outcome.’

  ‘I fear Mrs Belton does not have a merciful nature,’ Foxe said sadly. ‘It’s quite likely she would take out her anger on the poor fellow, probably on the grounds that he should not have gone along with the deception, even under threat of instant dismissal. I gather she has already dismissed several of Belton’s employees on somewhat flimsy grounds.’

  ‘Neither member of that couple appear to be at all pleasant,’ Lucy observe
d sadly. ‘Maybe living in a loveless marriage has warped their characters, but it is hard to feel much pity for either of them.’

  ‘Don’t waste your pity on Mrs Belton,’ Foxe said. ‘I’m almost certain that she will turn Belton’s Worsteds into a paying proposition again, however disagreeable her employees may find her.’

  ‘You are a truly unusual man, Ashmole Foxe,’ Lucy said slowly. ‘At times you seek out the truth with ruthless determination. Then, when you have it, your thoughts seem to turn easily to who might be hurt by revealing what you know. Most men would wish to proclaim their cleverness and revel in the praise it brought them. You’re prepared to conceal your triumphs in the cause of compassion.’

  ‘Do not praise me too much, Lucy,’ Foxe said. ‘I am just a man like other men, full of faults as well as possessing a few virtues. If I sometimes believe it best to conceal what I have discovered in the cause of mercy, it is simply because I can see no profit to anyone in adding to the damage that crimes always bring with them. I assure you I am no saint.’

  ‘So I would hope,’ Lucy said grinning. ‘I’ve always felt secretly that the saints must have been extraordinarily irritating to have around. Yet, what I said stands. I cannot imagine there are one in a million men who are like you.’

  ‘There is not one in many millions of women who could please me as much as you do,’ Foxe blurted out before he could stop himself. ‘But there I go again. I did not mean to break my promise and I will not do so again. Let us turn instead to what we can learn from all that Comiston told me, which may point a way to the next steps in our investigation.’

  ‘You should have asked my uncle to find out whether Belton had been approaching local mercers to try to persuade them to place additional orders,’ Lucy said. In truth, she didn’t know whether to be delighted or afraid at Foxe’s words. If he truly felt for her that deeply, would she be able to prove she was worth it? Could she return such passionate affection?