Gallows Thief

by Bernard Cornwell

  She returned his smile. ‘Are you a good judge of men, Captain?’

  ‘Yes, Sally, I am.’

  She laughed, then looked at Billy. ‘Close your bleeding trap before you catch flies,’ she said, ‘and stop listening to private conversation!’

  He blushed and stared at a hedge that crawled past the window. They could not change horses and so Mackeson was pacing the team, which meant they travelled slowly, and the journey was made even slower because the road was in bad condition and they had to pull over whenever a horn announced that a stage or mail coach was behind them. The mail coaches were the most dramatic, their approach heralded by an urgent blast of a horn, then the lightly built and high-sprung vehicles would fly past in a flurry of hooves, rocking like a galloper gun. Sandman envied their speed, and worried about time, then told himself it was only Saturday and, so long as Meg really was hiding at Nether Cross, then they should be back in London by Sunday evening and that left plenty of time to find Lord Sidmouth and secure Corday’s reprieve. The Home Secretary had said he did not want to be disturbed by official business on the Lord’s Day, but Sandman did not give a damn about his lordship’s prayers. Sandman would keep the whole government from its devotions if that meant justice.

  In mid-morning Sandman changed places with Berrigan. Sandman now guarded Mackeson and he lifted his coat to let the driver see the pistol, but Mackeson was cowed and docile. He was taking the carriage down ever narrower roads, beneath trees heavy with summer leaves so that both he and Sandman were constantly ducking beneath boughs. They stopped at a ford to let the horses drink and Sandman watched the blue-green dragonflies flitting between the tall rushes, then Mackeson clicked his tongue and the horses hauled on and the coach splashed through the water and climbed between warm fields where men and women cut the harvest with sickles. Near midday they stopped close to a tavern and Sandman bought ale, bread and cheese which they ate and drank as the carriage creaked the last few miles. They passed a church that had a lych gate wreathed with bridal flowers and then clopped through a village where men played cricket on the green. Sandman watched the game as the coach rattled along the green’s edge. This was rural cricket, a long way from the sophistication of the London game. These players still used only two stumps and a wide bail, and they bowled strictly underarm, yet the batsman had a good stance and a better eye and Sandman heard the shouts of approbation as the man punished a bad ball by striking it into a duck pond. A small boy splashed in to retrieve the ball, and then Mackeson, with a careless skill, wheeled the horses between two brick walls and clicked them on past a pair of oast houses and down into a narrow lane that ran steep between thick woods of oak. ‘Not far now,’ Mackeson said.

  ‘You’ve done well to remember the way,’ Sandman said. His compliment was genuine because the route had been tortuous and he had wondered whether Mackeson was misleading them by trying to get lost in the tangle of small lanes, but at the last turn, beside the oast houses, Sandman had seen a fingerpost pointing to Nether Cross.

  ‘I done this journey a half-dozen times with his lordship,’ Mackeson said, then hesitated before glancing at Sandman. ‘So what happens if you don’t find the woman?’

  ‘We will find her,’ Sandman said ‘You brought her here, didn’t you?’ he added.

  ‘Long time back, master,’ Mackeson said, ‘long time back.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Seven weeks near enough,’ the coachman said, and Sandman realised that Meg must have been brought down to the country just after the murder and a full month before Corday’s trial. ‘All of seven weeks ago,’ Mackeson went on, ‘and anything can happen in seven weeks, can’t it?’ He gave Sandman a sly look. ‘And maybe his lordship’s here? That’ll cool your porridge, won’t it?’

  Sandman had fretted that Skavadale might indeed be at his estate in Nether Cross, but there had been little point in worrying overmuch. He was either there or not, and he would have to be dealt with or not, and Sandman was far more worried that Meg might have vanished. Perhaps she was dead? Or perhaps, if she was blackmailing Skavadale, then she was living in country luxury and would not want to abandon her new life. ‘What sort of house is it?’ he asked the coachman.

  ‘It ain’t like their big ones up north,’ Mackeson said. ‘They got this one through a marriage in the old days, that’s what I heard.’

  ‘Comfortable?’

  ‘Better than anything you or I will ever live in,’ Mackeson said, then he clicked his tongue and the horses’ ears twitched back as he flicked the leaders’ reins and they turned smartly towards a tall pair of gates hung between high flint pillars.

  Sandman opened the gates that were latched but not locked, then closed them after the carriage had passed. He climbed back onto the box and Mackeson walked the horses down the long drive that twisted through a deer park and between fine copper beeches until it crossed a small bridge and there, amidst the overgrown box hedges of an untended garden, lay a small and exquisitely beautiful Elizabethan house with black timbers, white plasterwork and red brick chimneys. ‘Cross Hall, it’s called,’ Mackeson said.

  ‘Some marriage portion,’ Sandman said jealously, for the house looked so perfect under the afternoon sun.

  ‘All mortgaged now,’ Mackeson said, ‘or that’s what they say. Needs a fortune, this place, and I need to look after these horses. They want water, proper feed, a rubdown and a good rest.’

  ‘All in good time,’ Sandman said. He was watching the windows, but could see no movement in any of them. None was open either, and that was a bad sign for it was a warm summer’s day, but then he saw there was a smear of smoke coming from one of the tall chimneys at the rear of the house and that restored his optimism. The carriage stopped and he dropped down from the box, wincing as his weight went onto his damaged ankle. Berrigan opened the carriage door and kicked down the steps, but Sandman told him to wait and make sure that Mackeson did not simply whip the horses back down the drive.

  Sandman limped to the front door and hammered on its old dark panels. He had no right to be here, he thought. He was probably trespassing, and he felt in his tail pocket for the letter of authorisation from the Home Office. He had not used it once yet, but perhaps it would help him now. He knocked on the door again and stepped back to see if anyone was peering from a window. Ivy grew round the porch and under the leaves above the door he could just see a shield carved into the plasterwork. Five scallop shells were set into the shield. No one showed at any of the windows, so he stepped back into the porch and raised his fist to knock again and just then the door was pulled open and a gaunt old man stared at him, then looked at the carriage with its badge of the Seraphim Club. ‘We weren’t expecting any visitors today,’ the man said in evident puzzlement.

  ‘We have come to fetch Meg,’ Sandman replied on an impulse. The man, a servant judging by his clothes, had plainly recognised the carriage and did not think its presence strange. Untimely, perhaps, but not strange, and Sandman hoped the servant would assume it had been sent by the Marquess.

  ‘No one said she was to go anywhere.’ The man was suspicious.

  ‘London,’ Sandman said.

  ‘So who be you?’ The man was tall and had a deeply lined face surrounded by unkempt white hair.

  ‘I told you. We came to fetch Meg. Sergeant Berrigan and I.’

  ‘Sergeant?’ The man did not recognise the name, but sounded alarmed. ‘You brought a lawyer?’

  ‘He’s from the club,’ Sandman said, feeling the conversation slide into mutual incomprehensibility.

  ‘His lordship said nothing about her going,’ the man said cautiously.

  ‘He wants her in London,’ Sandman repeated.

  ‘Then I’ll fetch the lass,’ the man said and then, before Sandman could react, he slammed the door and shot the bolts and did it so quickly that Sandman was left gaping. He was still staring at the door when he heard a bell ring inside the house and he knew that urgent sound had to be a signal to Meg. He swore.
r />   ‘That’s a good bloody start,’ Berrigan said sarcastically.

  ‘But the woman is here,’ Sandman answered as he walked back to the carriage, ‘and he says he’s fetching her.’

  ‘Is he?’

  Sandman shook his head. ‘Hiding her, more like. Which means we’ve got to look for her, but what do we do with these two?’ He gestured at Mackeson.

  ‘Shoot the buggers, then bury them,’ Berrigan growled, and was rewarded by two of Mackeson’s fingers. In the end they took the carriage round to the stables, where they found the stalls and feed racks empty except for a score of broody hens, but they also discovered a brick-built tack room that had a solid door and no windows and Mackeson and the stable boy were imprisoned inside while the horses were left in the yard harnessed to the carriage. ‘We’ll deal with them later,’ Sandman declared.

  ‘Collect some eggs later, too,’ Berrigan said with a smile, for the stable yard had been given over to chickens, seemingly hundreds of them, some looking down from the roof ridge, others on the window ledges and most hunting for grain that had been scattered among the weed-strewn, dropping-white cobbles. A cockerel stared sideways at them from the mounting block, then twitched his comb and crowed lustily as Sandman led Berrigan and Sally to the back door of Cross Hall. The door was locked. Every door was locked, but the house was no fortress and Sandman found a window that was inadequately latched and shook it hard until it came open and he could climb into a small parlour with panelled walls, an empty stone fireplace and furniture shrouded in dust sheets. Berrigan followed. ‘Stay outside,’ Sandman said to Sally and she nodded agreement, but a moment later clambered through the window. ‘There could be a fight,’ Sandman warned her.

  ‘I’m coming in,’ she insisted. ‘I hate bloody chickens.’

  ‘The girl could have left the house by now,’ Berrigan said.

  ‘She could,’ Sandman agreed, yet his first instinct had been that she would hide somewhere inside and he still thought the same, ‘but we’ll search for her anyway,’ he said, and opened the door that led into a long panelled passage. The house was silent. No pictures hung on the walls and no rugs lay on the darkened floorboards that creaked underfoot. Sandman threw open doors to see dust sheets draped over what little furniture remained. A fine staircase with an elaborately carved newel post stood in the hall and Sandman glanced into the upstairs gloom as he passed, then went on towards the back of the house.

  ‘No one lives here,’ Sally said as they discovered yet more empty rooms, ‘except the chickens!’

  Sandman opened a door to see a long dining table draped with sheets. ‘Lord Alexander tells me that his father once completely forgot about a house he owned,’ he told Sally. ‘It was a big house, too. It just mouldered away until they remembered they owned it.’

  ‘A dozy lot,’ Sally said scornfully.

  ‘Are you talking about your admirer?’ Berrigan asked, amused.

  ‘You watch it, Sam Berrigan,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve only got to lift my little finger and I’ll be Lady Whatsername and you’ll be bowing and scraping to me.’

  ‘I’ll scrape you, girl,’ Berrigan said, ‘be a pleasure.’

  ‘Children, children,’ Sandman chided his companions, then turned sharply as a door opened suddenly at the end of the passage.

  The tall, gaunt man with the wild white hair stood in the doorway, a cudgel in his right hand. ‘The girl you’re looking for,’ he said, ‘is not here.’ He raised the cudgel half-heartedly as Sandman approached him, then let it drop and shuffled aside. Sandman pushed past him into a kitchen that had a big black range, a dresser and a long table. A woman, perhaps the gaunt man’s wife, sat mixing pastry in a large china bowl at the table’s head. ‘Who are you?’ Sandman asked the man.

  ‘The steward here,’ the man said, then nodded at the woman, ‘and my wife is the housekeeper.’

  ‘When did the girl leave?’ Sandman asked.

  ‘None of your business!’ the woman snapped. ‘And you’ve no business here, either. You’re trespassing! So make yourselves scarce before they arrest you.’

  Sandman noticed a fowling piece above the mantel. ‘Who’ll arrest me?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve sent for aid,’ the woman answered defiantly. She had white hair pulled hard back into a bun and a harsh face with a hooked nose curving towards a sharp chin. A nutcracker face, Sandman thought, and one utterly bereft of any signs of human kindness.

  ‘You’ve sent for help,’ Sandman said, ‘but I come from the Home Secretary. From the government. I have authority,’ he spoke forcefully, ‘and if you want to stay out of trouble I suggest you tell me where the girl is.’

  The man looked worriedly at his wife, but she was unmoved by Sandman’s words. ‘You ain’t got no right to be in here, mister,’ she said, ‘so I suggests you leave before I has you locked up for the night!’

  Sandman ignored her. He opened a scullery door and looked in a larder, but Meg was not hidden here. Yet still he was sure she was in the house. ‘You finish searching down here, Sergeant,’ he told Berrigan, ‘and I’ll look upstairs.’

  ‘You really think she’s here?’ Berrigan sounded dubious.

  Sandman nodded. ‘She’s here,’ he said with a confidence he could not justify, yet he sensed that the steward and his wife were being untruthful. The steward, at least, was fearful. His wife was not, but the tall man was much too nervous. He should have shared his wife’s defiance, insisting that Sandman was trespassing, but instead he behaved like a man with something to hide and Sandman hurried up the stairs to find it.

  The rooms on the upper floor seemed as deserted and empty as those below, but then, right at the end of the corridor, next to a narrow stairway that climbed to the attics, Sandman found himself in a large bedroom that was clearly inhabited. There were faded oriental rugs on the dark floorboards while the bed, a fine four-poster with threadbare tapestry hangings, had a sheet and rumpled blankets. A woman’s clothes were draped over a chair and more were carelessly heaped on the two seats below the open windows that looked across a lawn to a brick wall beyond which, surprisingly close, was a church. A ginger cat slept on one of the window seats, its bed a pile of petticoats. Meg’s room, Sandman thought, and he sensed she had only just left. He went back to the door and looked down the passage, but he saw nothing except dust motes drifting in the shafts of late afternoon sunlight where he had left doors ajar.

  Then, where the sun struck the uneven floorboards, he saw his own footprints in the dust and he walked slowly back down the passage, looking into each room again, and in the biggest bedroom, the one that lay at the head of the fine staircase and had a wide stone fireplace carved with an escutcheon showing six martlets, he saw more scuff marks in the dust. Someone had been in the room recently and their footprints led to the stone hearth, then to the window nearest the fireplace, but did not return to the door and the room was empty and the two windows were shut. Sandman frowned at the marks, wondering if he was seeing nothing more than the errant effects of light and shadows but he could have sworn they really were footprints that ended at the window, yet when he went over he could not open it because the iron frame had rusted itself shut. So Meg had not escaped through the window, even though her footsteps, now obliterated by Sandman’s own, ended there. Damn it, he thought, but she was here! He lifted the dust sheet from the bed and opened a cupboard but no one was hiding in the room.

  He sat on the end of the bed, another four-poster, and stared into the fireplace where a pair of blackened dogs stood on the stone hearth. On a whim he crossed to the fireplace, stooped and stared up the chimney, but the blackened shaft narrowed swiftly and hid no one. Yet Meg had been in here, he was certain of it.

  The sounds of footsteps on the stairs made him stand and put a hand on the pistol’s hilt, but it was Berrigan and Sally who appeared in the doorway. ‘She ain’t here,’ Berrigan said in disgust.

  ‘Must be a hundred places to hide in the house,’ Sandman said.

  ‘
She’s run off,’ Sally suggested.

  Sandman sat on the bed again and stared at the fireplace. Six martlets on a shield, three in the top row, two in the second and one underneath, and why would the house display that badge inside and five scallop shells on a shield outside? Five shells. He stared at the martlets and then a tune came to him, a tune and some half-remembered words that he had last heard sung by a camp fire in Spain. ‘I’ll give you one O,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll what?’ Berrigan asked, while Sally stared at Sandman as though he had gone quite mad.

  ‘Seven for the seven stars in the sky,’ Sandman said, ‘six for the six proud walkers.’

  ‘Five for the symbols at your door,’ Berrigan supplied the next line.

  ‘And there are five scallop shells carved over the front door here,’ Sandman said softly, suddenly aware he could be overheard. The song’s words were mostly a mystery. Four for the gospel makers was obvious enough, but what the significance of the seven stars was, Sandman did not know, any more than he knew who the six proud walkers were, but he did know what five symbols at the door meant. He had learnt that years before, when he and Lord Alexander had been at school together, and Lord Alexander had excitedly discovered that when five sea-shells were set above a door or were displayed on the gable of a house it was a sign that Catholics lived within. The shells had been placed during the persecutions in Elizabeth’s reign, when to be a Catholic priest in England meant risking imprisonment, torture and death, yet some folk could not live without the consolations of their faith and they had marked their houses so that their co-religionists might know a refuge was to be found within. Yet Elizabeth’s men knew the meaning of the five shells as well as any Catholic did, so if a priest was in the house there had to be a place where he could be hidden, and so the householder would make a priest’s hole, a hiding place so cunningly disguised that it could cheat the Protestant searchers for days.