Well, it was time to pay a visit to the alehouse. As Jackson reached the churchyard gate he stopped abruptly. A garrulous old clergyman…. What had the housekeeper Milson overheard that murderous woman say? ‘The old fool gets loose, and God only knows what he’ll blab about unless we get him permanently under restraint.’
Jackson crossed the road and entered the garden of the Carteret Arms, where he sat down gratefully at one of the tables. At the same moment the landlord came out into the garden. He was a genial man with a shining bald head, and he was wiping his hands on a towel.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘what’s it to be?’
‘I don’t suppose you could give me a glass of Sherman’s mild ale? Perhaps you’d fancy something for yourself?’
‘That’s very kind of you, sir,’ said the landlord, ‘I’ll join you in a glass of mild, if I may.’ In moments he had procured two glasses of beer from the inn, and had joined Jackson at the table.
‘I don’t think we’ve seen you here before, sir,’ he said. ‘From the looks of you I’d venture to say that you’re a seed merchant, or maybe a corn factor. My name’s Joseph Hardacre.’
‘Saul Jackson’s the name, Mr Hardacre, and I’m from Warwick.’ He was content for the moment to be taken for a seed merchant. ‘I was looking at some of the tombs in the churchyard. There seemed to be a lot of Forshaws there – three big sandstone tombs full of them. I suppose the Forshaws are the local squires?’
‘Squires? The Forshaws? Oh, no, Mr Jackson, nothing like that.’ Joseph Hardacre swallowed a generous mouthful of beer, and wiped his lips on his sleeve. ‘The Forshaws lived here, right enough: they’d been here for nigh on two hundred years. But they were never landowners. They made their money in shipbuilding – I don’t mean modern ships, it was in the great days of sail. They had yards south of London, so they say, and they built warships for the navy. This would be in the seventeen hundreds, seventeenten, something like that.’
‘So there are no Forshaws here now?’
‘Oh, no, Mr Jackson, they’re long gone. The last one died in the 1860s, but not here. Gabriel, his name was. They say he went out to Africa, and never came back. The Forshaws used to have a grand house on the road to Monks’ Stretton, a little way beyond the village, but it was burnt down in – when was it? 1868, that’s right. Waterloo House, it was called. Oh, it was a grand fire! If you’re going back to Monks’ Stretton the way you came, you’ll see the ruins, all covered in ivy, set back from the road in a tangle of bramble and bindweed.’
‘And they were never the squires here?’
‘No. They were moneyed folk, and highly thought of, but not gentlefolk. The squire here is Sir Leopold Carteret of Upton Carteret. He lives at Providence Hall, which lies in its own little park a hundred yards or so beyond the church. The Carterets of Upton Carteret have been squires here since the days of Henry the Fifth.’
‘You’re a mine of information about this village, Mr Hardacre,’ said Jackson.
‘Well, sir, I’ve lived here, man and boy, for nigh on fifty years, and an innkeeper has to be interested in people and their doings.’
‘I saw on old clergyman in the churchyard earlier this morning,’ Jackson continued. ‘What did he say his name was? The Reverend Walter Hindle. I expect you know him?’
‘Hindle? No, sir, there’s no clergyman of that name in these parts. Perhaps it was the rector you saw? Mr Bold, his name is. Youngish, and a bit prim and proper.’
Jackson was content to let the matter drop. He had watched the landlord when he had denied any knowledge of a clergyman called Hindle, and was inclined to believe that he was telling the truth. But he would not let the Reverend Mr Hindle slip from his mind. What had he said of the young man who had died at Bonny? ‘It was murder, right enough’.
Jackson got to his feet. He rummaged in his pocket, drew out a few coins, and put them on the table.
‘This Providence Hall, Mr Hardacre,’ he said, ‘I expect the grounds are open to the public? I fancy a stroll before I make my way back to Monks’ Stretton.’
‘Yes, Mr Jackson, the park’s open right enough. Sir Leopold is very good in that way. A quiet man, quietly spoken, but nobody’s fool. Well, I must be doing things. Nice to have met you, sir. I hope you have a safe journey back to Warwick.’
Jackson retraced his steps through the old churchyard, glancing at the stone bench where the Reverend Walter Hindle had sat earlier that morning. Had he really hoped to see the old clergyman again? Of course, he was no longer there.
A narrow lane confined by blackthorn hedges ran behind the church, and at the end of this lane an iron wicket gate gave entrance to the pleasant park surrounding Providence Hall. It was evidently a deer park, because a miniature grove of saplings growing there had been protected by little rings of paling fixed carefully around each tree. The whole estate spoke of quiet opulence. For a moment Jackson recalled the dreary, half-ruined house and grounds of Mayfield Court, blighted, as far as he could ascertain, by a lack of money. That was clearly not a problem faced by the owners of Providence Hall.
The great house lay basking in the hot August sun. Half-hidden by trees to the west, it was a long, low-roofed Elizabethan mansion, all black and white timbers, mullion windows and lichen-covered roof slates, merging dramatically towards the east with a three-storeyed Georgian extension in Cotswold stone. The whole venerable pile was surrounded by formal gardens well planted and maintained; an elaborate hedge of box flanked an ornamental iron gateway through which visitors gained access to the front entrance.
What was it, thought Jackson, that was compelling him to seek admittance to this great country house? He knew nothing of Sir Leopold Carteret, or of his family, always assuming that he had one. What was he to say if he was ushered into the presence of this gentleman, who would, no doubt, stand politely, waiting for him to state his business? He would ask some vague questions about the aged clergyman whom he had met in the churchyard, and be content with that.
‘Sir Leopold, there’s a stranger coming up the drive from Church Lane. I’ve not seen the likes of him in these parts before.’
‘What kind of a man is he, Lucas?’ asked Sir Leopold Carteret. A slightly built, sandy-haired man in his fifties, he was sitting on a brocade sofa in the oak-panelled parlour of Providence Hall. On the wall behind him hung a dim painting of a man who, at first sight, could have been taken for Sir Leopold himself, but the man was wearing the court dress of the late fifteenth century. Lucas was a strong, beetle-browed man of thirty, with a jutting jaw and a voice that placed his origin somewhere in the south of London.
‘He’s middle-aged, sir,’ said Lucas, ‘falling into flesh. He’s wearing a thick brown serge suit – not very suitable for weather like this. He’s got one of those brown blockers on his head, and I can see his gold watch-chain and seals glinting in the sun. He’s limping a bit. Tight shoes, I expect.’
Sir Leopold turned a page of The Times.
‘Probably a seed merchant or a provender factor. I expect he’s come to see Owens in the estate office.’
‘He’s coming to the front door, sir,’ said Lucas. ‘So he can’t be a seed merchant. There, he’s pulled the front door bell—’
‘You’d better make yourself scarce, Lucas,’ said Sir Leopold, throwing his paper down with a sigh. ‘Even when her ladyship is away I can’t get five minutes’ peace in the morning. First you, hovering about, and now this visitor— Yes, Hopkins, who is it?’
A middle-aged, silver-haired butler had entered the parlour.
‘Sir,’ said the butler, ‘a Detective Inspector Jackson from Warwick has called to see you. He regrets that he was not able to send in his calling-card.’
‘Very well. Lucas, go through the other door into the library. Hopkins, bring the inspector in here.’
The butler waited until the man called Lucas had quietly closed the library door, and then ushered Saul Jackson into the parlour of the ancient house.
‘Inspector Jackson?’ sa
id Sir Leopold, once more abandoning his attempts to read the newspaper. ‘Well, how very interesting. How can I help you? Sit down, won’t you? Whatever can have brought you here, to Providence Hall?’
Jackson began to feel more than a little foolish. Here was a landed gentleman, regarding him with pale-blue eyes, and waiting for him to answer his question. What was he to say? A little white lie was called for if he was not to lose all credibility.
‘Sir Leopold,’ he said, ‘I’m making some preliminary enquiries concerning an aged clergyman, who may be staying in this parish at the moment. I thought perhaps you could help me. His name is the Reverend Walter Hindle, and he’s a man over eighty. He dresses in rather careless fashion, and is known to wear on occasions a wide-brimmed straw hat.’
That, at least, was better than admitting that the clergyman in question could possibly be nothing more than a figment of his own imagination, conjured up during his morning doze in the churchyard.
‘A wide-brimmed straw hat?’ said Sir Leopold. ‘How very interesting, Mr Jackson. And over eighty, you say?’ The baronet seemed to be totally absorbed by the topic of the elusive clergyman. ‘But how can I help you? What do you want me to do?’
The landlord of the Carteret Arms had been right. Sir Leopold was very soft-spoken, with a kind of caressing tone that was oddly flattering. He spoke as though everything Jackson said to him was of paramount interest, demanding an immediate answer. Jackson studied at him. He saw a willowy sort of man, slightly built, with a clean-shaven face animated by a kind of permanent smile. His sandy hair was beginning to turn grey at the temples.
‘I wondered, sir, whether you’d seen such a man as I’ve described, or whether you are, in fact, acquainted with him. The Reverend Walter Hindle.’
Sir Leopold’s brow became furrowed, as though he was making a monumental effort to recall some memory of the old clergyman. Then he shook his head in something like vexation, and smiled rather shamefacedly at Jackson.
‘No, Inspector, I must confess that I’ve never heard of this Walter Hindle. He’s certainly not here, in Providence Hall, and I don’t recall ever having seen such a man in the parish. What I would suggest, is that you call upon Mr Bold, the rector. Perhaps he knows something about this Walter Hindle…. And he wears a wide-brimmed straw hat? How very interesting. Call at the rectory, in Upper Ward. Mr Bold may be able to help you.’
‘I’ll do that, sir,’ said Jackson. ‘Thank you for receiving me without an appointment. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
‘It’s no trouble, I assure you, Inspector,’ said Sir Leopold, rising from his chair and accompanying Jackson to the door. ‘I’m so disappointed that I was not able to help you.’ The squire’s voice held a quality of contrition that was positively moving. ‘What makes you thing that this old gentleman has any connection with Upton Carteret?’
‘He was seen here, sir, only this morning. I’m not allowed to reveal my sources, but he was positively identified by someone who saw him in the churchyard.’
‘In the churchyard? How very interesting. Let me accompany you to the front door. There’s no need to summon the butler. You should certainly ask the rector, but, you know, I don’t think he will have heard of the Reverend Walter Hindle either. Do call again if you’re ever in the district. I have so much enjoyed meeting you.’
Mr Bold, a serious, carefully spoken man in his late thirties, with black hair thinning at the crown, had never heard of the Reverend Walter Hindle.
‘I have never heard of the Reverend Walter Hindle,’ he said. ‘I can tell you confidently, Inspector, that there is no clergyman of that name living in these parts, and certainly not in this deanery. There’s me, and there’s Mr Lodge at St Peter’s, Abbot’s Sutton – he’s an elderly man, but not like the person that you have described. There are no Dissenters in this part of the shire, though there’s a Roman priest who keeps a chapel near Mill Ford. He’s a young man in his twenties.’ Mr Bold smiled, half to himself, and added, ‘None of us wears a straw hat with clerical dress.’
He reached up to a crowded shelf and took down a weighty volume with a fat gilded spine.
‘Crockford’s Clerical Directory, Jackson,’ he said, ‘a work which lists the names and details of all the clergy in the Church of England. Let us see….’
It took the rector only a few minutes to ascertain that no clergyman called Walter Hindle held office in the Church. He closed the book, and regarded Jackson critically for a moment. Then the ghost of a smile once more played around his lips.
‘You told me that you dozed off more than once, Mr Jackson,’ he said. ‘Is it possible that you could have dreamt this clergyman? A man in Holy Orders wearing a straw hat, of all things! Most unclerical, I should have thought. Going to sleep in a churchyard on a hot day could give rise to what I’d call ecclesiastical dreams! Have you thought of that?’
It was, thought Jackson, time to go. He was making himself look a complete fool over this silly business. The more he listened to other people’s explanations of his experience, the more he was beginning to think that they were right. There were mysteries here at Upton Carteret waiting to be solved, but a straw-hatted clergyman was not one of them.
Leaving the rectory he made his way back to the quiet churchyard. It was shadier now, and he could hear the fussy chirping of sparrows among the tombs. The three sandstone monuments of the Forshaws seemed to draw him like a magnet. John Forshaw, aged 58, deeply regretted; Also Simon, son of the above…. Elizabeth Forshaw, died 4th April, 1798. And Gabriel, the young man who had perished at Bonny, in Africa, but who, in his waking dream, had been murdered. ‘It was murder, right enough.’
Jackson strode along an overgrown path that would bring him out further along the road to Monks’ Stretton. It was then that he saw, lying to one side of the path, a wide straw hat, that someone had attempted to conceal among the flanking weeds.
6
Helen Paget
Herbert Bottomley stood at the garden gate of a detached 1850s’ villa in Aston Road, Erdington, a genteel suburb to the north of Birmingham. This was the address printed on the calling-card that Rose Potter had given them, the home of Helen Paget. In a few moments, if he was lucky, he would come face to face with the woman who, as a forlorn little girl, had arrived at Mayfield Court on a rainy night in the October of 1864.
It was evident from the state of the house and its gardens that Helen’s husband, who, the rate books had told Bottomley, was a certain Adrian Robinson, Esquire, Chartered Accountant, was very comfortably off. Bottomley’s knock on the door was answered by a trim maid in cap and apron, who asked him his business, and then conducted him into a sitting-room at the back of the house.
A dark-haired lady in her early forties, handsome, and elegantly dressed, rose from a sofa to greet him. She seemed nervous, but then, Bottomley mused, most people were, when brought into close proximity with a police officer.
‘Detective Sergeant Bottomley,’ she said, after he had presented his warrant card, ‘what can I do for you? My husband is in town at his offices. Perhaps it is Mr Robinson whom you wish to see?’
Helen Robinson, also known as Helen Paget, spoke with the cultured tones of an educated woman.
‘No, ma’am,’ said Bottomley, ‘it’s you I’ve come to see. I was able to obtain your address from a lady called Rose Potter. You remember her, perhaps?’
It was impossible for Helen to mask her start of surprise. At the same time, her nervousness was superseded by an air of alert wariness. What did this rough man in the yellow overcoat, clutching his battered brown bowler with both hands, want of her?
‘Rose Potter? Yes, I remember her well. Do sit down, Mr Bottomley. Rose was the housekeeper at a place called Mayfield Court, here in Warwickshire. She was a kind person, as I recall from my stay there. I met her again about ten years ago, and we talked about old times. But I fail to see—’
‘Well, ma’am,’ said Bottomley, ‘I’m involved in a criminal investigation that’s conne
cted with the house you’ve just mentioned, and I’m checking up on some historical facts to do with Mayfield Court and its tenants. What I’d like you to do, if you’ll be so kind, ma’am, is to tell me something about your stay there in 1864. I know is a very long time ago—’
‘I remember it only too well, Sergeant. I was only eleven years old, and both my parents had died within days of each other in the August of 1864. My name then was Helen Walsh, but a lawyer, or guardian, or somebody of that kind – children have often no idea who these people are who take control of their lives when they’re orphaned – where was I? I’ve lost the thread of what I was saying.’
‘You were telling me that your name then was Helen Walsh, ma’am.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Well, this lawyer told me that I was to take the name of my only surviving relatives, which was Paget. And so I became Helen Paget from that day until I married Mr Robinson.’
Helen glanced at a framed photograph standing on the mantelpiece. It showed her with a sternly bewhiskered gentleman and two attractive young children, a boy and a girl.
‘We married in 1876, when I was twenty-three. We have two children, Albert and Alexandra, who are both at boarding-school.’
Bottomley could see that Helen seemed more at ease as she talked about her family, but the wariness, he noticed, had not left her.
‘And is it true, ma’am, that you were only at Mayfield Court for a day, and that you were taken away in the night in a coach to go to school?’
‘It is quite true. And let me tell you at once, Mr Bottomley, that it was the best thing that ever happened to me! Rose Potter was a kindly soul, but my aunt, if she was my aunt – I never knew for certain – was a domineering, frightening woman. There was a husband, too, an ineffectual sort of man. Mayfield was a dilapidated place, cold and forbidding. My new life began when I was taken in the darkness across the county to Meadowfield School.’
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