Death at Gallows Green

by Robin Paige

  The room became suddenly silent and the wispy man began to recite in a rapid sing-song: “Oyez, oyez, ye good men of this district summoned to appear here this day to inquire for Her Sovereign Majesty the Queen when, how, and by what means Arthur Oliver, Sergeant of the Essex Constabulary, came to his death, answer to your names as you shall be called, every man at the first call, upon the pain and peril that shall fall thereon.”

  That done, the coroner read from his list the names of the jurors, each one answering with “Present, sir,” meekly or assertively, according to his temperament. Then followed the administering of the oath, in which the jurors promised to render a true verdict without fear or favour, affection or illwill, to the best of their skill and knowledge, so help them God. The oath taken, the coroner told the jurors that they were to consider three possibilities: homicide, suicide or misadventure, and if they were not satisfied that the evidence warranted any of these, they must return an open verdict. The coffin lid was then raised, and the jurors filed soberly past it and once again resumed their benches. The coffin was closed, and the inquest began.

  “Lawrence Black,” the coroner called. Charles leaned against the wall as Lawrence, splendid in yellow-checked trousers and visibly impressed by his importance in these court proceedings, took the oath, kissed the Testament, and began, in response to the coroner’s questions, to relate his discovery of Artie Oliver’s body. Everything went as Charles might have expected until the coroner said, “I understand that you were not alone when you discovered the body, Mr. Black.”

  Lawrence’s handsome face, which to this point had been animated, went blank. “Sir?” he said.

  “I understand,” the coroner repeated patiently, “that you were accompanied through the hedge by a certain young woman. Is this true?”

  A titter ran from one side of the room to the other. Lawrence turned to Edward. “D’ I ’ave t’ answer?” he asked in a loud whisper.

  Edward stepped forward and leaned over the table. “If you don’t mind, Harry,” he said quietly, “it’d be best for the girl if she were left out of this. I’ve questioned her, and she can offer nothing new. Her testimony would simply corroborate Mr. Black’s.”

  “Disregard the question,” the coroner said, and a disappointed sigh followed the titter around the room. Lawrence Black was excused and stepped down, to be followed by the police surgeon, who reported that death had resulted from a bullet being fired from a revolver into the heart. “It was at close range,” he added. He had ascertained this fact from powder burns on the uniform jacket, entered now in evidence, along with the fatal bullet.

  Edward was called next. He filled in Lawrence’s rather vague description of the location of the body with a more careful account, and offered the speculation that Sergeant Oliver had been killed elsewhere and the body conveyed to the site by a vehicle along the adjacent lane and then through a gap in the hedge. From Edward, the jurors also learned that the victim was thirty-two years old, married, with one young daughter, Betsy, and a wife, Agnes. Oliver had served with distinction in the Suffolk parish of East Bergholt before being promoted to sergeant and posted to Gallows Green. When Edward had completed his testimony, Charles was called.

  “I understand, Sir Charles,” the coroner said when the oath had been administered and Charles was seated in the witness chair, “that you are a photographer.”

  “I am,” Charles agreed.

  “And that on the day in question you received a summons from Constable Laken to photograph the dead body of Constable Oliver at the place where it was found.”

  “I did,” Charles said. “If it please the Court, I have brought enlargements of the photographs with me,”

  There was a curious stir in the room as he took the prints out of his leather portfolio and offered them to the coroner. For the past twenty or so years in England, photographs had been used in an attempt to identify criminals, with very limited success. Scotland Yard had 115,000 faces in its rogues’ gallery, but the collection was in chaos because of the criminals’ tendency to give false names. No reliable means of matching a photograph to its real-life subject had yet been developed, and no other uses of the camera were officially contemplated. So it was that Charles’s photographs were little more than objects of curiosity to Coroner Harry Hodson and his twelve jurors. Even so, they were passed around and examined and wondered at, as was the triangular piece of red cloth discovered in the hedge, and Mr. McGregor’s coat, which Edward brought forward and laid on the table.

  At that point, Sir Charles was excused, and Mr. McGregor, wearing a stiff suit of dark-brown corduroy and a red-and-yellow neckerchief knotted under his ear, was summoned and sworn. His testimony was listened to with interest but proved to be of little consequence. That the triangular cloth bit had been ripped from his coat was clear, but it was, after all, his hedge and any fool knew that a man went through his own hedge a dozen times a week. Mr. McGregor’s wife’s brother’s missing pistol was mentioned but not pursued, the police surgeon having determined from the shape of the recovered bullet that it could not have come from a weapon of that type. In answer to the question of whether he had noticed anything suspicious in the neighbourhood, Mr. McGregor offered the same opinion he had offered to Charles and Edward, with a slight but significant variation.

  “Allus somethin’ suspicious gooin’ on,” he rasped. “Sheep gooin’ missin’, poachers, gypsies in th’ vale—”

  “Gypsies?” the coroner asked sharply. “When was this?”

  “Las’ week. Two cabbages and a cauly-flow’r was took from me garden, an’ Mrs. McGregor’s apern an’ a sheet off th’ line.”

  “And you think these gypsies might have been responsible?”

  “ ’Twern’t rabbits,” Mr. McGregor replied smartly, and was rewarded with a laugh. But as to whether gypsies might have murdered the constable, he declined to say, nor could he offer any other helpful information. He was dismissed with thanks. Charles, thinking the inquest at an end, turned to make his way in Edward’s direction, when the coroner raised his voice once more.

  “Superintendent Hacking,” he called, over the murmuring and rustle. There was a silence, and through the crowd came a stocky, distinguished-looking man in the uniform of the constabulary. He went to the witness chair, was sworn, and sat down. The man’s grey hair and mustache were luxuriant, his boots were polished, and several decorations glittered on the pocket of his impeccably pressed serge jacket. Altogether, he was an impressive-looking witness.

  Charles looked at Edward and raised his eyebrows, curious as to why a superintendent had been called. Edward answered with a shrug. Apparently it was a surprise to him, too—which in itself was odd, considering that the murder, which had been committed in Edward’s district, was Edward’s case. Superintendent Hacking, who was stationed at district headquarters in nearby Colchester, began with a brief summary of Sergeant Oliver’s service and reported that the Standing Joint Committee that controlled the County Force had met upon the matter and determined that the sergeant had met his death while in the execution of his duty. Mrs. Oliver had been granted a pension of fifteen pounds a year, plus two-pounds-ten for the child. The questioning then turned to the incident itself.

  “Do you know,” Harry Hodson asked, “why Sergeant OIIVER might have been in the vicinity of Dedham on the night he was murdered?”

  Hacking’s face was impassive. “I do,” he said.

  “Please state it for the jury.”

  “There was a matter that required the urgent attention of the police in this neighbourhood.” Hacking’ voice was clipped. “If you press me I will state it, but in the interests of justice, it would possibly be best not to.”

  Charles frowned. An odd business. Several of the jurors apparently thought so too, for they sat forward on their bench. Edward was even more intent, his face furrowed, lips pressed together.

  “You may state the reason,” Coroner Hodson said. Hacking’s eyes flicked to Edward. “Sheep have been stolen in
the neighbourhood,” he said. “In consequence, close attention was being paid. By my special direction, I might add.”

  Edward sat upright.

  Harry Hodson frowned. “No one has offered any evidence suggesting that the murder involved sheep stealing.”

  “The preceding witness did,” the superintendent replied.

  The clerk was consulted, Mr. McGregor’s testimony was read back, and the superintendent’s recollection was confirmed. But when asked to specify whose sheep had been taken, the superintendent only replied that this was the very information Sergeant Oliver had been attempting to procure so he was no wiser than any of them. However, Chief Constable Pell had taken the case himself, and expected it to be speedily resolved.

  Mr. McGregor was recalled from the bench outside the pub where he was sharing a pint with a friend, and asked for more specifics about sheep-stealing. But he could provide nothing more and was permitted to return to his pint. The jury retired to the back garden and returned a few moments later with the verdict everyone had expected: “Homicide, by person or persons unknown.”

  People stirred, voices were raised, Sanders the publican opened the tap, and life at the Live and Let Live began to flow again.

  11

  Never the time and the place

  And the loved one all together!

  —ROBERT BROWNING

  “Never the Time and the Place”

  Edward Laken swallowed convulsively. “I don’t understand it,” he said.

  The black coach bearing the coffin had returned to Gallows Green, the curious had gone back to their shops and farms, and Superintendent Hacking had been driven back to Colchester by the uniformed constable who had brought him. The twelve jurors were bellied up to the bar, drinking the convivial pints purchased for them by Harry Hodson and explaining to anyone who would listen the complex logic behind their verdict. Edward and Charles were seated at a scratched deal table in the rear, a pitcher of local beer before them, a dark brew faintly suggestive of licorice and tobacco and with a definitive body. Edward, having had two glasses, was feeling deeply morose.

  “I don’t understand it,” he said again, staring into his glass.

  “The sheep-stealing, you mean?” Charles asked.

  “Not that, nor the superintendent’s giving the case over to Pell, nor—” He leaned back in his chair and bitterly mimicked the super’s clipped tone. “ ‘The urgent attention of police in this neighbourhood.’ If Hacking had bloody wanted the urgent attention of the police, he could’ve had my attention. I’m the police in this neighbourhood.”

  Of all the hurtful things about this case, that had been the worst. To hear his superintendent, in the presence of every male member of the Dedham community, say that Artie had been working his patch, trying to solve a crime that he had never heard of, and had died in the process. And then to learn that the case was being taken by C.C. Pell! Jesus Mary and the angels. It was bad enough that Artie was dead. It was even worse to think he’d been murdered because he was doing Endward’s job, and worse yet to have to wait for somebody else to find the murderer. Christ above!

  “You mean,” Charles said, “you’d rather have gotten yourself killed than Artie?” He picked up the pitcher as if to pour himself a second glass, but apparently decided against it and set it down again.

  “At least I don’t have a wife,” Edward said, “and a child. What’s more,” he added forcefully, “I don’t for a minute believe that Artie was murdered in this neighbourhood. I think he was killed on his own patch, and dumped here. And whether he was on police business—” He clamped down on the anger roiling inside him. “I’m telling you, Charlie. If there’s any sheep-stealing going on here, I don’t know anything about it. And neither does anybody else. You could see that on the faces of those jurors. If an animal goes missing here, everybody for three miles around knows it. Within the half hour, they’re out counting their own flocks.” He said each word emphatically. “There’s been no sheep-stealing hereabouts.”

  “You think the superintendent is mistaken?”

  Edward made circles with his wet glass on the tabletop. “How the bloody hell should I know?” he asked wearily.

  “I’m just a country copper.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs, examining the muddy toes of his boots. “Anyway, Hacking’s given the case to Pell. I don’t have to worry about it anymore, do I? Let Pell knock his head against it.”

  “I wonder about that,” Charles said thoughtfully. “The body was found in your district. Why would Hacking assign the investigation to somebody else? And especially to a chief constable?”

  “And especially to Chief Constable Pell,” Edward said. He took another swallow to wash down the bitter taste in his mouth. “Pell’s as woolly as a sheep himself.” He gave a short, sarcastic laugh. “Got himself disabled in the line of duty. Bloody hero, but damn stupid. Since he wasn’t of any use on the beat, they made him a chief constable. Twenty years behind the desk hasn’t sharpened him up. The only thing he knows how to do is deny promotions.” Pell had been quick enough to deny his. He was still at the level of constable long after Artie had been promoted to sergeant.

  Charles lifted his eyebrows. “And that’s the man Hacking has preferred to you?”

  “That’s him, damn it,” Edward said wrathfully, and slammed his glass on the table. “Well, let ’em have old Woolly Pell if they want him. But he’ll never get to the bottom of this, I promise you. I wouldn’t care, either, if it weren’t Artie Oliver we’re talking about.” He shook his head, despairing. “That’s the bloody hell of it, Charlie. Artie deserves justice done. And Agnes and that little girl deserve to see the murderer hanged. And I’ve been removed from the case. Confound and curse it!”

  Edward was not a sentimental man, but his heart softened when he thought of Agnes Oliver. Ah, Agnes, Agnes. He’d loved her a dozen years ago, but somehow the time and the opportunity to let her know how he felt had never come together. And then suddenly the banns were being said for her and Artie, and all his hopes had died.

  A dozen years, but she was still beautiful. It was the first thing in his mind when he and Charlie took her the dreadful news: how beautiful she was, with that sad, silent dignity that tore at his heart. It couldn’t matter now, of course, although he’d lain awake many nights in the intervening years, lonely and longing, wishing for Agnes beside him, and envying Artie with such a woman in his bed. But that had been then, and this was now, and seventeen and ten a year would pay the rent on the cottage but leave nothing for food.

  At the bar, the jurors had drunk up Hodson’s pint and were into their own. If they kept on drinking for long, they’d do it on the tick, since most wouldn’t have another shilling in their pockets until the end of the week. They were discussing the case loudly, over the rusty wheeze of the concertina someone was playing outside the front door. Sanders the publican—a tall, lanky man in slippers and trousers too short for his legs—was saying to a tenant farmer who had just lost his farm, “ ’Tis no gud gooin’ agin th’ gentry, Jack. They got th’ land an’ they got th’ money, an’ what’ve you got?” He spoke with the authority of one who owned his own business, while the dispossessed farmer sadly hung his head and wiped his eyes on a grimy sleeve.

  “I wonder,” Charles said slowly, “if I could be of some help in this matter.”

  Edward gulped the dregs of his beer and poured a third, the last in the pitcher. “God-awful beer,” he muttered, slopping it on the table. “Any more murders ‘round here, ol’ Harry ought to move th’ inquest t’ th’ Marlborough, where a man c’n get somethin’ decent to drink afterward.”

  “I had it in mind, Nerd,” Charles remarked, his gaze steadily on Edward, “to look into Artie’s murder myself.”

  Edward leaned his head on his hand. His vision was blurry and his tongue felt thick. Sanders probably brewed his beer in the privy. “Y‘did right well th’ last time y’ took it in mind t’ look into a murther, Charlie,” he said, lapsing
into a slurred country idiom. “Not even th’ doctor guessed what ’twas that did for th’ Ardleigh sisters.”

  Charles was thoughtful. “I don’t suppose you have seen Miss Ardleigh since she received her inheritance.”

  “ ’N th’ contrary,” Edward said, rubbing the back of his neck. “See her quite oft’n.”

  Charles looked up, startled. “The devil you say.”

  Edward pursed his lips. If it had been anybody but Charlie, he would not have confided the truth. “Been teachin’ her t’ ride a bicycle,” he said. Miss. Ardleigh’s request for the lessons had come as a surprise, but he had been glad to help. He understood and honoured the wish for independence that lay behind her desire to ride a bicycle. So it was with pleasure that he had helped her obtain a suitable machine and had devoted several delightful Sunday evenings to assisting her wobbly efforts. The friendly, casual intimacy of their excursions had proved a welcome break in the humdrum routine of the police work that was the centre of his life. He grinned fondly.

  “Lovely sight, that, I’ll tell ye, Charlie m’ friend. Kate Ardleigh on her cycle, weavin’ merrily down th’ lane from ditch t’ ditch, singin’ at th’ top o’ her lungs. Even rode into Mrs. Perry’s black cow one afternoon. But she’s stayed with it, bless her. Goes flyin’ down the High Street, proud as ye please, basket piled wi’ parcels. She’s a wonder, she is.”

  His grin faded slightly and he fell into silence. He was thinking of Agnes, beautiful Agnes, and how she might look on a cycle, her hair blowing in the wind, her face alight, flying beside him down the steep hill toward the River Stour. But she was a widow now, with a child, and Artie’s murder had broken her heart. What might have been was past and would not come again, dream as he might.

  Edward’s reverie was broken by the advent of the publican’s fat wife with a tray of fragrant pies. “All ‘ot!” she cried over the enthusiastic babble that greeted her. “Beef, mutton, an’ eel! All ’ot!”