Death and the Chevalier

by Robin Blake

  She ran around the little house while I waited for her son to dress and come down. After my experience at Wrightington’s place, the spotlessness of the Furzey home was balm to me, and I sat at my clerk’s dining table perfectly at ease. Furzey then appeared, his nose heavily bunged up, but lucid and not, he told me, feverish. So we held our conference sitting at the table. I explained about my discovery of the identical handwriting, and how we could use this to turn the tables on Barrowclough. I told him of my visit to Joseph Wrightington and of his readiness to testify that there was more between James Barrowclough and Abel Grant than you would expect between master and servant.

  ‘You mean they’re buggers, are they, sir?’ said Furzey, whispering to avoid the ears of his mother.

  ‘No – I don’t know – and I don’t think his evidence needs to go that far. It will be enough to say that they were unusually close, like friends. I don’t want to risk scandalizing Starkey. He will take it amiss if he thinks we are foisting a buggery crime on him, when he’s expecting to try a civil case.’

  ‘How are we going to present the handwriting evidence?’

  ‘We’ll introduce it when Grant is under examination. I mean to use it to show my line of questioning at the inquest was reasonably based. I am not going for the full-scale prosecution of either Grant or Barrowclough – not at this stage. As we know, the question of whether the killing of two possibly hostile rebels, or traitors, would have constituted the crime of murder in this jurisdiction remains open.’

  Mrs Furzey’s currant cakes were more like rock cakes – hard to break into, harder to chew. I ate mine with the help of softening gulps of tea, and as soon as I could, I took my leave.

  ‘Don’t fret,’ said Furzey, seeing me out of the door. ‘It isn’t the first time you’ve been in the dock, and won’t be the last, I would hazard, as you are always getting yourself into pickles. But we’ll get you out of this one, never fear.’

  NINETEEN

  Early next morning something – a cry from outside – awoke me, after which I lay with my eyes closed, listening to traffic passing the house below my window, until I drifted again into sleep and a most memorable dream. In this dream we had no fires in the house, and Elizabeth was angry with me for providing neither coals nor logs to burn. I had gone out to scavenge some firewood on the common – the same one at Broughton where I had walked with Charles George on Sunday – and there I’d come across a gamekeeper’s gibbet, from which dangled vermin of different species. One rodent’s teeth bared in death made a horrible parody of a grin, as if the whole process of being killed were nothing but a sour joke.

  A shout reached my ear from Market Place, which my windows overlooked. A man’s voice, and one full of news, bursting to tell. Something about the rebels, about the Chevalier. What? Had there been a battle?

  I opened my eyes and jumped out of bed. I went to open the window. It was still not fully light, but I could see a small crowd gathered around the market cross, on whose steps stood the owner of the voice I had heard, evidently a peddler since his burdened mule stood patiently to one side. I raised the window.

  ‘This is the news from the road, kind sirs and ladies,’ the peddler was saying. ‘Fresh word that came to my ears during my trip up here from Leyland. Yes, that’s quite right, madam. The rebels have passed through Manchester, they have, and still come on north. And the Duke of Cumberland’s in hot pursuit. The Pretender, or Chevalier, or whatever you will, must turn and fight here at the Ribble, they’re saying. There shall be a battle here.’

  He whipped off his hat and offered it around for tips. A man walked up and tossed a coin in as he asked the peddler a question.

  ‘Another Battle of Preston?’ I heard the peddler reply. ‘Aye, that is what I’m saying, sir. Better prepare yourself.’

  And he put his hand up to the side of his mouth and shouted the words as if for the whole town to hear.

  ‘Prepare, Preston, prepare! Another battle is coming!’

  Matty had also heard the news. While serving my breakfast, she asked if the town was about to be burned and laid waste. I said nothing was certain, least of all news brought by hawkers and peddlers, but I offered her the chance to get out of the way by joining Elizabeth at Broughton, if she wished. She said she wouldn’t think of leaving me and Suez all alone.

  After breakfast Fidelis arrived and we walked together with Furzey – still snuffling and with pockets stuffed by his mother brimful of handkerchiefs – to the Duchy court. I felt a moment of sentiment at the loyalty of my friends: Matty refusing to leave me; Furzey and Fidelis rallying to support me against Barrowclough. All I needed now was for Elizabeth to come back to me.

  To my relief, Joseph Wrightington was there in the street by the door of the courthouse, having ridden all the way from Ribchester with a load of turnips. Going in, we found Judge Starkey awaiting us impatiently in the courtroom’s antechamber, but no sign yet of the plaintiff and his lawyer. The judge was in a terrible scrow, as the countryfolk say. Already robed and wigged, he was walking up and down and wringing his hands.

  ‘I’ve only just put my house in order and now I hear that bastard is coming back to wreck it all over again!’

  ‘How did he wreck it, Edmund?’ I asked.

  ‘He knocked down my great looking glass with the French gilt frame and put an elbow into my father’s portrait by Devis.’

  I could imagine how Starkey might grieve the loss of the looking glass: he was a notorious dandy whose suits all came from London tailors, trimmed with French lace and lined with Chinese silks.

  ‘Now, look here,’ he said as we listened to the church clock striking ten. ‘We have to get this trial over and done. I must be away from Preston by afternoon. Where is Barrowclough?’

  ‘Here, Mr Starkey!’

  It was Richard Rudgewick, with his client close behind, both men somewhat out of breath.

  ‘You are late,’ said Starkey. ‘Go in and I will be with you immediately.’

  The Duchy courts have always proceeded according to their own traditions. For much of their business they are thinly populated unless the judge feels the need for a jury, which Starkey had not done this morning. He would be making the judgement himself, assisted by his personal clerk and the clerk of the court. The only others present, besides Barrowclough, Rudgewick and me, were the recording clerk behind his writing desk, a pair of tipstaffs and the witnesses who waited under the tipstaffs’ eyes to be called from the anteroom. Preston was far too preoccupied with the anticipated second coming of the Prince to care about a minor slander case, so the public bench was unoccupied.

  Edmund Starkey, now appropriately wigged and gowned, swept into court by way of the door from judge’s chambers and on to the dais reserved for him.

  ‘Mr Rudgewick, pray outline your case, please,’ he said as he settled his rump in the ornate chair.

  Rudgewick took five minutes to say nothing that I had not already heard. He detailed my suggestions, made at the inquest, that Barrowclough had first killed two men and then proceeded to mutilate their bodies. He went on to assert my malice against Barrowclough, which did not (he thought) seem to have any known basis but was an irrational prejudice on my part.

  Finally, he said, ‘We shall therefore argue that Titus Cragg did wilfully abuse the position he holds in this Duchy solely for the purpose of blackening my client’s name.’

  He sat down and Starkey turned his attention to me.

  ‘Mr Cragg, you appear for yourself?’

  ‘I do, my lord.’

  ‘Then please state your defence.’

  ‘As you will know, my lord,’ I said, ‘I am one of the County Coroners. Mr Rudgewick does mention in passing that my alleged slanders against James Barrowclough were spoken in that capacity. However, he omits the point that I spoke them while questioning Mr Barrowclough as a witness at the inquest into the deaths of the two men already referred to. I submit with complete confidence that my remarks were motivated not by malice but by the
desire to find out the truth. I further submit that these remarks are protected by privilege as I was acting in a quasi-judicial capacity.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cragg. So let us get on: witnesses for the plaintiff.’

  Rudgewick took his first witness, Farmer Prior, who repeated the words, more or less, of his affidavit. I did not cross-examine him. Next came Abel Grant, looking confident, as I knew he would. He also stated that I had used words in his opinion intended to damage Mr Barrowclough’s reputation, and I also let that go by. My chance to attack Abel Grant would, according to my plan, come later.

  Starkey then asked me to produce my own witnesses, the first of whom was Luke Fidelis. He merely said that, yes, he had heard me speak the words in question, and that he did not think they were spoken with malice, but were a reasonable choice of words under the circumstances, and quite in line with the questioning at many other inquests he had attended.

  I thanked him, then called Joseph Wrightington. Somewhere in the pigsty of his cottage there must have been a chest containing a suit of clean clothes, as he looked surprisingly presentable. He was also shaved, and his hair combed and gathered in a tail at the back. The man was positively well turned-out. He took his oath in a strong clear voice. I felt sure he would make an effective witness.

  My first questions established who Wrightington was and that he lived in a neighbouring cottage to that of Abel Grant. So far so good.

  Then the trouble started.

  ‘How well do you know Mr James Barrowclough?’ I asked.

  Rudgewick stood up.

  ‘Objection, my lord. Is this relevant?’

  Starkey decided very quickly that it was not. I tried to change his mind.

  ‘My lord,’ I said. ‘If I may be allowed to continue, I can demonstrate the relevance.’

  Starkey gave me the look a disbelieving parent gives to a child’s elaborate lie.

  ‘Just ask your next question, Mr Cragg.’

  ‘Very well. How well do you know Abel Grant, Mr Wrightington?’

  Rudgewick was on his feet again.

  ‘Again, relevance, my lord?’

  Starkey arched his eyebrows and beamed benignly at the lawyer.

  ‘Quite right, Mr Rudgewick. I congratulate you. If the previous question was not relevant, how can this very similar one be? Next question, please, Mr Cragg.’

  I breathed deeply, and concentrated.

  ‘I now want to ask you about the relationship between Mr Barrowclough and Abel Grant. From what you have observed, would you say they are close?’

  Before I had even finished the question, Rudgewick had bounced back up again.

  ‘I object, my lord.’

  ‘And yet again I agree with you, Mr Rudgewick. No need to go into the arguments: the question is ruled out. Mr Cragg, what else?’

  What else, indeed? I was being harried in the direction of nowhere. The judge had completely withdrawn all sympathy for my case. He was not even bothering to justify his position.

  Nevertheless, I stumbled on.

  ‘Please would you tell the court what happened on the night the two Scotchmen were found dead in the district where you live?’

  Inevitably, Rudgewick rose once more to object and Starkey agreed with him. After that, all my subsequent questions were similarly ruled out one after another until I had nothing left to put to Wrightington and was forced to let him go. Poor Wrightington. He had come all this way and stood on the witness stand and yet had given no actual evidence at all. The look on the old man’s face showed disappointment, and underlying disgust.

  ‘Do you have any more witnesses, Mr Cragg?’ asked Starkey. ‘I do hope not.’

  ‘I’m afraid I do, my lord. I would like to call Abel Grant.’

  ‘Abel Grant? Have we not heard from him already?’

  ‘Yes, we have, but—’

  ‘I can see no profit whatsoever in hearing from him again.’

  ‘I believe, my lord, that Abel Grant was complicit in committing a serious crime and I would like the chance to confront him with the evidence of that.’

  ‘Oh no! No, no! Have a care, Mr Cragg. You are in danger of compounding the slander that you are here accused of by promulgating another slander. Are you bent on pursuing a career of slander?’

  ‘No, my lord. But one of the severed heads had a note inserted in its mouth and I have proof that it was written in Abel Grant’s handwriting. I would—’

  ‘Mr Cragg! I shall hold you in contempt if you pursue this any further. Is Mr Grant in court? I should like to know if he has any complaint to make of this.’

  ‘Mr Grant has left the premises, my lord,’ the tipstaff told Starkey. ‘He did not expect to be needed more.’

  ‘In view of the present emergency,’ said Starkey, ‘that is very understandable. He must have urgent business, as have we all. So let us have closing arguments, please, gentlemen. Time presses.’

  It did indeed. The proceedings were rushing headlong towards a conclusion, and I had no means to slow them or turn them towards my object. It was quite clear the judge wanted the hearing over as soon as possible. Rudgewick, who was as aware of this as I was, got up and more or less restated his opening remarks in very short order. I had no other option but to do the much the same.

  ‘I will deal with this case briefly,’ said Starkey when I had finished, and after he’d held twenty seconds of conversation with the clerk of the court, he declared, ‘An inquest is not a court of law. I don’t see any particular privilege attaching to the words of a mere coroner spoken in the course of such an inquest. On the other hand, I note that two witnesses who heard the words spoken by Mr Cragg found them not only detrimental to Mr Barrowclough’s character but entirely unsupported by evidence. I myself find the words highly detrimental as to character. To call someone a murderer is a very dangerous – indeed, reckless – game, unless you can prove it. I therefore proceed to judgement. I find the case of slander against Titus Cragg proven.’

  I was astounded, indeed speechless. In his desperate haste to get out of the way of the rebels, Starkey had bundled the entire trial into less than half an hour. He had brutally castrated my defence and treated the entire thing as a farce.

  After this travesty, only one piece of business remained to be done. How was I to be punished? Starkey, however, was too much rushed to face the question now.

  ‘As to damages,’ he went on, ‘I will rule on that matter when I have given it my careful consideration. Under the political and military circumstances of the time, it is hard to predict when we will be able to reconvene. I therefore adjourn this hearing sine die. Clerk?’

  ‘All rise,’ called the clerk of the court.

  And that was the end of that.

  The only possible place of resort after that was the Turk’s Head. Even Furzey, who preferred different coffee houses and taverns to mine, joined us.

  ‘The man must have been corrupted by Barrowclough,’ said Fidelis. ‘Do they know each other? Are they of the same persuasion?’

  ‘You mean religion?’ I said. ‘No, Barrowclough is a fanatical Methodist. Starkey is middle-of-the road Anglican.’

  ‘Some other persuasion, then?’ said Fidelis.

  ‘I doubt it, Doctor,’ said Furzey, picking up his meaning. ‘Edmund Starkey is, as far as anyone knows, happily married. I can tell you for a fact that he and his wife have seven children.’

  ‘I wonder if we’re looking at this in the right way,’ I said, pouring wine for myself and Fidelis while Furzey helped himself to the coffee pot. He rarely took fermented drink.

  ‘How do you mean?’ said Furzey. ‘When I say the man’s happy with a woman, that doesn’t make him an honest man towards the world. No man who will speak of you as a “mere coroner” is likely to be an entirely honest man. Not in my estimation.’

  ‘Thank you, Furzey. I am touched. But my point is that Starkey is obviously frightened. The rebels in their retreat are likely to be here tomorrow. They may still be interested in what happ
ened to their comrades in Ribchester – the very matter on which today’s case rested – and, if so, they will want to interrogate him.’

  ‘If he is frightened about that, then so should you be, even more so.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. But Starkey has something else to fear, which I do not. Starkey must expect his house to be requisitioned again for the Prince’s use. But this time the Duke of Cumberland is coming along behind. What will he think of Edmund Starkey, the eminent lawyer and judge of Preston, who was selected to play host to the Pretender?’

  ‘Starkey can say he played no part in it,’ said Fidelis. ‘He can say he was not there.’

  ‘Quite. He must indeed not be there. It was one of the reasons for his rushing through the trial this morning.’

  ‘Why did he not simply call it off. Postpone it?’

  ‘In case he is caught and questioned by the rebels. He needs to be able to point to his finding: that the deaths of the two Highlanders are still unexplained and my assertions about it were slanderous and false. That doesn’t help me much.’

  ‘So Starkey is tied in a knot,’ mused Fidelis. ‘If he pulls one string, the Jacobites may have him, and if he pulls the other, Cumberland may have him.’

  ‘I don’t know about Cumberland,’ said Furzey, ‘but the rebels may have you an’ all, when they come back. Shall you not make yourself scarce, like Starkey?’

  ‘No, I won’t hide,’ I said. ‘Everything has changed now. First, they are in retreat. Second, I now know a great deal more about what happened in Ribchester and believe I can easily convince them I am innocent of the crime, in spite of Starkey’s manoeuvrings. I have the evidence of the handwriting pointing them away from me and towards Barrowclough, and I can produce a complete copy of the inquest report, of which they only have the last page’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Fidelis. ‘He’s brought this case against you, which he should never have done. You may have your revenge.’