Death and the Chevalier

by Robin Blake

  ‘All right, Cragg. You heard His Royal Highness. Look sharp.’

  ‘His Royal … What are you talking about? You can’t mean that is—’

  ‘Aye, ya fool, ya gowk,’ he said. ‘That is the royal Prince Charles himself who wants to speak with you.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Judge Starkey had in his home a large chamber solemnly furnished according to the time it was built, with oak panelling, half-blackened boards, a huge oaken wardrobe and a great fireplace. The room was lit and warmed with blazing logs and innumerable candles

  The Prince received me from a high-backed chair beside the fire.

  ‘You are welcome, Mr Cragg. I have fond memories of our acquaintanceship during my visit last year to this part of the world.’1

  I hesitated, not knowing how to greet him. I made a movement halfway between a nod of the head and a courtier’s bow. He gestured me into a chair.

  ‘This is astonishing, sir,’ I said. ‘I cannot think of you as any other than Mr Burnet the silk merchant who fled his creditors in Manchester.’

  ‘Please be at your ease, Mr Cragg. It was a disgraceful impersonation, I confess, but you will understand my reasons. I had no army and could only go incognito among my father’s people.’

  ‘I wonder why you chose to be a Huguenot of London.’

  ‘Why, as a contrivance to get around the touch of the foreigner in my manner of speech. And under this pretence it was easier to meet my supporters in Manchester without drawing attention. By the way, you should know that those meetings bore fruit. Unlike the other towns we passed through, men rallied to my standard there and we now have the Manchester Regiment. So much for Sir Watkin Williams Wynn’s promise of three hundred horse! We never saw one. And the Duke of Beaufort who promised to raise South Wales and occupy Bristol. He did not stir a stump for me. I saw others that pledged me their support last year in Manchester – Lord Barrymore, Sir John Barrowclough. Where are they today? Hiding from me.’

  ‘Is this why you are withdrawing to Scotland?’

  ‘What other reason can I have, except that I have been treated no less shamefully by my own high officers? They would not go with me past Derby. London was three days away and they would not go. They say the English will not support me, which I know to be a lie. I say nothing of the bloody Welsh, but I am certain the English people love me.’

  He smiled, as a man smiles who finds nothing to joke about.

  ‘But I will speak no more of that. Divert me by telling how your investigations proceeded last year in Manchester, after I left you, and if you got up to any more adventures with your dog – strangely named Suez, if I recall.’

  I described the conclusions Fidelis and I reached on that occasion, a farrago of crimes and accidents that I shall not go into here. He listened with interest at first, but his attention wandered as soon as I began speaking of the dog, no doubt reverting to his own farrago of troubles.

  ‘I am glad the dog is well. A characterful little hound. But now, I regret, we must talk about my young friend Sinclair and his comrade MacNab. I have just mentioned Sir John Barrowclough. Those two carried a letter from me to him but were assassinated either before or in the process of delivering it. I understand you have looked into the matter.’

  ‘That is so, sir. I convened and presided over the inquest.’

  ‘Is that a trial?’

  ‘Not exactly. It is an inquiry before a jury into the truth, as can best be established.’

  ‘And what did your inquest conclude?’

  ‘That the killers were unknown. The jury did not possess all the facts.’

  ‘And do you have these facts now?’

  ‘I have some ideas which are not facts, but which I believe to be true.’

  ‘Then tell me. I must know what happened to my faithful men.’

  ‘I made a full report to Lord Derby, a copy of which I have presented to the Duke of Perth. The ideas I mention are written there.’

  ‘Ah, yes! The report. Perth has passed it to me. I have looked through it.’

  He had, of course, not read it. But that he’d had it in his hands, that he’d looked through it, was good enough.

  ‘Then you understand that I myself had nothing to do with those deaths? Some of your men have accused me of this. The last loose page of the inquest report was found by your men while searching Lord Derby’s house and this was misread, leading to the misconstruction that I accused myself of the murders. You can easily see how this happened by reading the loose page together with the preceding page that I wrote.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes, Perth has shown me this.’

  ‘Did you know that one of your officers ordered my death because of this misapprehension?’

  ‘My dear sir, be of comfort. I have countermanded that order.’

  ‘I am relieved.’

  ‘Now tell me in your own words what this report has to say.’

  ‘It records my belief that the murder was committed, or else commissioned, by James Barrowclough, Sir John’s son. This happened after the men had come to Barrowclough Hall bearing your letter, which they innocently misdelivered to his son. I should add that the son’s religion and politics are grossly at odds with those of his father, whom he hates. There is also a servant to James named Abel Grant who, as I have reason to think, was also culpable. He and James were not just master and servant, but close friends.’

  ‘Very well, I see you have reason. But do you have proof?’

  ‘The evidence against Grant is strong. The note found in the mouth of Sinclair is certainly in Grant’s hand. I regret I do not have any proof of Barrowclough’s guilt.’

  ‘Then you had better read this.’

  There was a low table beside the Prince’s chair and on it a heap of papers. From this heap he selected one and handed it across to me. It was a letter addressed to him from London.

  Your Royal Highness, It is with infinite regret that I have been confined here by illness & unable to assist Yr Royal Highness’s passage thro’ Lancashire. I have also been grieved to learn that two of your men were murdered in the vicinity of my house in the Parish of Goosnargh, & their bodies disgracefully mutilated. My informant is my faithful servant Jos. Wrightington, who identifies the guilty men in a letter to me which I here enclose. Howsoever they be related to me and my household, I would not have these murderers & traitors escape justice and I therefore commit Wrightington’s letter to you that you may pursue the men he names as you wish. I send it by hand of a trusted messenger. I am, Sir, etc. John Barrowclough, Bart.

  The enclosure, which the Prince now handed to me, was rather less literate.

  Sir John: I greet you. I rite to tell you of a wicked murder dun here of 2 rebels that were dun by yore sun an his frend as I must call him not survant Abel Grant who got sum of the village to help but it were the 2 of them did the deed by inviting them in & when the Scotch were at dinner at the Hall they shot wun and bashed the hed of tother. I did not see it but have hurd witness by Marion the skullery maid hoo surved table & butler Crockett sore it after an all. & then yore sun cut of there heds. As God is my witness this is trew. Jos Wrightington.

  ‘May I ask, sir,’ I said after I had deciphered this. ‘Shall you pursue Barrowclough and Grant?’

  ‘I have done so. We’ve collared the son but not yet the servant.’

  ‘You have arrested James Barrowclough?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cragg, the cur is in the next room. Would you like to see him?’

  James Barrowclough was in a bad way. One of his eyes was blacked and his face was decorated by swellings and bruises. He was also very frightened.

  ‘Cragg, you must tell them that they have got it all wrong. I am innocent of the death of those two Scotchmen.’

  It was a small side room off the large chamber. Barrowclough’s wrists were bound in front of his belly and he shivered even though he was sitting beside the fire.

  ‘If that is true,’ I said, ‘you must disclose what you
know. You must explain, for example, how a note in your servant’s hand was found in the mouth of one of the victims.’

  ‘That is what I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘It’s my man that they should be interrogating, not me. It was Abel Grant’s doing. All of the mischief was his.’

  ‘I thought Abel was your friend, sir. Shall you betray him?’

  He gave me a look between desperation and defiance, but made no reply. I glanced at the Prince, who had been standing apart, watching us.

  ‘Carry on, Mr Cragg,’ he said. ‘Asking questions is your trade. Please ply it. I, however, have much to do and must leave you for a time. We shall speak later.’

  He went out, leaving the door a little ajar. I turned back to Barrowclough.

  ‘I ask again, Mr Barrowclough: if you will not give the truth to the Prince or the Duke of Perth, will you give it to me?’

  Barrowclough stared at nothing in particular, while thinking hard. By comparison with our last encounter in Judge Starkey’s court, it was I that had the whip hand now and he knew it. I pressed my advantage.

  ‘May I suggest you compose yourself and make the fullest possible disclosure?’

  I could see from the way his mouth unset that he had made up his mind.

  ‘If I must, then,’ he said.

  He sighed and rested his spine against the chairback. I sat down in an identical chair placed opposite him.

  ‘I am pleased,’ I said. ‘Now, you have already told me that the two Scotchmen came to Barrowclough Hall.’

  ‘Yes,’

  ‘Did you meet them?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘They went under the names MacNab and Sinclair. Sinclair was a young gentleman and MacNab, as your friend Doctor Fidelis ingeniously guessed, was his servant, or more accurately his protector. MacNab wore the Highland dress including that blanket or cloak you showed at the inquest.’

  ‘Did they state their business?’

  ‘At first they were evasive. Made out they were wayfarers. Asked for my father who, as I told them, was away in London. I then invited the youth to sup with me, which he did. MacNab went down to the servant’s hall for some porridge. Sinclair had pheasant stew with me.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘He would speak only of general matters. Horses. Guns. That sort of thing.’

  ‘You did not speak of the rebellion?’

  ‘I raised the subject. Sinclair coloured like a girl – bright as a radish, he was – but he wouldn’t admit any knowledge of it. And it was then I saw he was lying and must have been sent by the Pretender to my father. He came, I discerned, as a spy to gather intelligence.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I accused him outright and he denied it hotly. I challenged him, and it was then we agreed to settle the matter with guns.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I loaded a pair of pistols and handed one to him. We took up our positions and he shot wildly over my head. My shot hit home. It went in at the heart and within less than a minute he was dead.’

  ‘So you admit you killed this Sinclair.’

  ‘Of course I do, but it was in a duel.’

  ‘And what about MacNab?’

  ‘He must have heard the shots, for he came up to the dining hall almost at once. But he was quite unprepared for what he found. As he knelt to try to assist his master, Abel Grant came into the room behind him, also carrying a pistol. He brought its butt down with force on the back of the Scotchman’s head and the man went down. He was seized with shakes and twitches, his eyes turned up and froth came from his mouth. A few moments later he was dead.’

  ‘And who was it that separated the two men’s heads from their bodies?’

  ‘I did. I fetched my medical kit and cut the heads off with a bonesaw.’

  ‘Why did you do this?’

  ‘Grant insisted. He said they were rebels against their anointed king and that is what happens to traitors: they are beheaded as an example to others not to traduce the state. He said we must do it to insure ourselves against being held common murderers.’

  ‘Did anyone help you in these beheadings?’

  ‘I needed no help with that. But when I had done the amputations, Grant wanted the bodies to be found, and their treachery exposed. The servants took them as far as it was possible in half an hour, both in different directions. It was intended to leave one in an exposed place – outside an inn, for example – and put the other in the river to be recovered at some point downstream.’

  ‘Why were they stripped and what did you do with the clothing?’

  ‘They were stripped for the same reason they were beheaded: as an awful example to others. Grant told the men to dispose of the clothing, and I believe some of it was burned and some thrown into the river. Grant himself retained the Scotch servant’s weapon, a knife. He also kept the two men’s horses.’

  ‘And why were the severed heads exchanged so that they did not correspond to the bodies they were found with?’

  Barrowclough shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. A jumblement occurred. Does it matter?’

  ‘Whose idea was it to post a message inside the mouth of one of the victims?’

  ‘Again, Grant’s. He said it would further exonerate us in the eyes of the law.’

  ‘Yet by your own admission you’re a guilty murderer. Why should you not face the gravest penalty?’

  Barrowclough shook his head.

  ‘No, no! This is my point, Cragg. I killed the man Sinclair, yes, but I feel no guilt. Indeed, I expect to be handsomely rewarded once the Duke of Cumberland arrives.’

  ‘How so?’

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice.

  ‘Because this was a duel entered into as an act of war, sir. It was done in defence of the realm and therefore cannot in any way be called murder. I signed the covenant that had gone around the county. I bound myself to defend the King and his crown.’

  He was almost whispering now.

  ‘By the same token, I am a prisoner of war. I should be treated as one. Instead, they make a common criminal of me.’

  ‘And yet you have been behaving like a common criminal. You have just betrayed your accomplice and friend, Abel Grant, assuming that in return, as is usually the case, you will receive a lesser penalty, or no penalty at all. You are a regular Peachum out of the Beggar’s Opera. You are a Jonathan Wild who, under the guise of being a friend of the law, spent his time breaking it.’

  ‘How dare you, sir, compare me to those blackguards? As for Abel Grant, he is no friend of mine, not now.’

  ‘Yet you were on the friendliest of terms. Why are you estranged?’

  ‘He has left me, Cragg. The dog … the bloody dog … the bloody beautiful dog! He is gone. Says he has no need of me now. Was that his plan all along? To use me until he had no more use for me?’

  As Barrowclough bowed and cupped his face in his hands, the door of the oaken wardrobe swung open and the Duke of Perth’s little clerk stepped neatly out, carrying a candle and writing equipment. The Duke came in with an armed guard and held a whispered conference with him. He ordered Barrowclough to be taken down to the same lock-up in which I had been detained, below the White Bull.

  ‘Cragg,’ said Barrowclough as he was bustled away. ‘Speak up on my behalf, I beg you. You alone can help me now. Save me or these …’ He mouthed the word he meant: ‘savages’.

  ‘Unless you intervene, they will do for me, Cragg! Please!’

  The soldiers, one on each arm, took him bodily away. I listened to his protests until he was too far away to be heard. Perth sank with a sigh into the chair Barrowclough had occupied.

  ‘An incorrigible villain,’ he said. ‘My clerk has transcribed your conversation, except for some parts which he could not hear. No matter. He heard enough. We know from Barrowclough’s own mouth that he himself killed young Sinclair, and that he saw Abel Grant bludgeon MacNab without mercy. It is a confession. I do
n’t believe his story of a duel, however.’

  Nor did I, but I didn’t think it was on this that Barrowclough had pinned his hopes of survival.

  ‘James Barrowclough expects the reward of his life for turning evidence. He means to be what is called an approver.’

  ‘Approver? What is that?’

  ‘A man who confesses to a felony but, by naming his accomplices, gets off lightly.’

  Perth shook his head

  ‘Oh, no. He cannot get off lightly. We shall shoot him.’

  ‘If you cannot consider him an approver, then I expect he will try to argue the case as a duel, or he may plead that he is a prisoner of war. I have heard, my lord, that your Scotch army is notably humane in how it treats its prisoners.’

  Perth shook his head.

  ‘Not this one. We shall shoot him for this barbarity. William Sinclair’s and MacNab’s mothers demand no less. He shall get no mercy and nor will his associate Grant, when we catch him.’

  He stood up and extended his hand.

  ‘Mr Cragg, I wish you well, particularly as His Highness says you were of service to him once. I now have the honour of letting you go about your business. Good day, sir. I have much to do; we march at first light.’

  On my way out through Starkey’s stately room, I looked for the Chevalier. Everywhere there were signs of packing up and preparations to leave. The Duke of Perth was overseeing the closing and roping-up of his leather chests. Soldiers were lowering the Stuarts’ coat of arms that had been hung on a wall, maps were rolled up and bagged, and musical instruments that had been played to soothe the courtiers were put away in their cases. But there was no sign of Charles Edward.

  The church clock struck six as I came out of Starkey’s house under a black, starless sky, crossed the Shambles and entered Market Place. Deeply inhaling the freezing air, I became almost intoxicated by my freedom. Today was Thursday, a day with no official market, but the scene was still lively. A few soldiers had lit a bonfire, fuelled by sticks of furniture they must have helped themselves to from nearby houses. A bagpiper played a jig to which a few danced and a chestnut roaster nearby was doing brisk business.

  I spotted a fellow, in dirty worn-out clothes and a tattered hat, strolling about with a satchel bulging full of paper.