Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar

by Kate Saunders

  Mr Arden was waiting for us upon the fallen tree, a black, still figure, doubled over with his face buried in his hands. He heard our approach, twitched nervously, then proudly rose to his feet.

  ‘Mrs Rodd, Mr Flint.’

  I was shocked; never had I seen a man so shattered by sorrow. His spry figure was bent, his face was scored and haggard, and all at once he was old.

  ‘I am ready.’ The words had a biblical ring to them. ‘It is finished.’

  ‘I know that Minna Yates has died,’ I said softly. ‘And I am very sorry.’

  ‘There’s nothing left for me now, except to make my peace with the Almighty. Mr Flint, I’m obliged to you for coming; I knew that Mrs Rodd would be prevented from meeting me alone. And I’d like you to defend me.’

  ‘I can’t prevent you being hanged,’ said Mr Flint. ‘I don’t wish to prevent it!’

  ‘Ah, but that is precisely why I need you.’ There was, for a moment, a spark of the old humour in Mr Arden’s manner. ‘You do not fear the truth, and I am not looking for mercy. At the very last, I must shrink from nothing – I must tell everything, for when I’m hanged, I know that I will find myself before the greatest of judges.’

  ‘You have killed, and killed again,’ snapped Mr Flint. ‘You must have known there could be no possible justification!’

  ‘Mr Arden—’ I sat myself down beside him on the tree trunk. ‘I’m sure you will be glad to hear that Joshua Welland is out of danger.’

  ‘I am glad,’ he said softly. ‘That is one less burden upon my conscience. I did not enjoy terrorizing him; I was still convinced that I was doing the Lord’s work. I knew that if my crimes were exposed, countless other people would suffer for it, and all that I had built would be destroyed.’

  Mr Flint took a step closer to him. ‘Did you honestly believe Heaven would condone cold-blooded murder?’

  ‘Yes, I think I did,’ Mr Arden said mildly, as if speaking of someone else. ‘Though when I took my reckless shot at Welland, I was operating from base instinct instead of cold reason. I could not allow him to wreck the happiness I thought I had been granted by Heaven. It seemed so near – almost in my grasp.’

  ‘But then Miss Yates was snatched from your wicked grasp,’ said Mr Flint, who loomed over Arden, arms folded and face scowling. ‘And you suddenly saw the Almighty’s true opinion of you.’

  I felt this was unnecessarily harsh. Mr Arden, however, appeared to approve of his accuser’s manner. ‘I could no longer avoid looking at my true reflection – the scales fell from my eyes—’

  ‘When you had your great experience in Desolacion,’ I suggested, ‘you took it as a sign that you were forgiven for the murder of Warrender.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it – appallingly presumptuous as it looks now. But the man I killed was a wicked man, and I decided he was no great loss to the world. I felt that Heaven had allowed me to take his place – to be the man he ought to have been.’

  ‘No more theology, if you please,’ said Mr Flint shortly. ‘Just facts; who was your accomplice?’

  ‘All the responsibility was mine.’

  ‘You were practically a child; don’t tell me you bricked him up on your own!’

  ‘Goodly!’ I cried out, as the connection became clear to me. ‘Thomas Goodly!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Arden. ‘That drunken idiot was my chosen accomplice. He did not steal from me. I gave him those coins as his “cut”, for his silence. And he had nothing to do with the murder; in fact, he was terrified out of his remaining wits.’

  ‘And how did you—’

  ‘How did I do it, Mr Flint? I picked up a great rock and smashed his skull open. I had very good reason to hate that man, and before my conversion I felt no shame for killing him.’ He made this statement with a calmness that chilled my blood. ‘I even felt that I had Heaven’s approval, if not its blessing.’

  ‘It was not your place to make such judgements,’ said Mr Flint. ‘Your arrogance is extraordinary.’

  ‘I see that now,’ said Mr Arden. ‘At the time I did not. I killed Warrender and stole his tainted gold. I then left the country – for ever, as far as I was concerned. But I was haunted by the memory of that dead body in the kiln. I worried that it would be found and linked to me. When I returned as a wealthy man, and saw an advertisement for the auction of Binstock, I took it as yet another sign.’

  ‘According to Joshua Welland,’ I said, ‘another man died to preserve your secret.’

  He took the prompting easily. ‘Yes, Mrs Rodd – I might have known you would sniff out the action that most troubled me – the man Woods. It was one thing to rid the world of a blackguard, but quite another to kill an innocent young man. I had employed him to help me secure the stones upon the old kiln, and some of them fell away to reveal my guilty secret. My work was at a critical stage – exposure would have brought ruin to so many – the man had to die. As you know, I took good care of his widow and children. Unfortunately, that was not the end of it.’

  ‘You murdered Arthur Somers,’ I said wretchedly. ‘And all because of Goodly’s deathbed confession!’

  Mr Arden’s voice hardened. ‘I was certain Goodly had babbled to him about the murder. Nobody remembered me as Dan Smith; even so, it was a risk I simply did not dare to take, though I had a personal respect for Somers.’

  ‘Good God, man,’ said Flint, ‘your soul is surely damned to hell!’

  ‘That may be so,’ said Mr Arden. ‘All I have left now is honesty. The facts will come out and I will be hanged; so be it. Heaven will judge me; I have an eternity of repentance before me.’

  ‘You did not kill Arthur on an impulse,’ I said, seeing more clearly with every passing moment. ‘You planned the whole thing very carefully.’

  ‘My plan was to question him about Goodly, to test how much he knew; I carried the poison as a last resort. I had already observed the illicit feelings between Mrs Somers and Henry Barton; they were really perfectly placed to take all the suspicion.’

  ‘So you decided to do the Lord’s work by allowing two innocent people to be hanged!’ Mr Flint cut in, with scalding sarcasm.

  ‘Let me give you chapter and verse,’ said Arden steadily. ‘Rightly or wrongly, I felt that they were grievous sinners and could therefore be sacrificed with impunity. Upon the day of his death I followed Somers when he left Hardinsett – that was the true date of the encounter I told you of, Mrs Rodd.’

  ‘You discovered him sleeping at the old kiln,’ I said.

  ‘Yes – I had been looking for such a chance for some time. I did not ask outright if he knew of my crime – but he gave certain signs that he did and it was clear to me that he would have to be removed. I quickly found my opportunity to lace his lemonade, for I had already decided this would be the best way to do it.’

  ‘Arthur would never have betrayed you!’ I took a breath, to keep the anger out of my voice. ‘What excuses did you make to yourself this time?’

  His quick black eyes darted up to meet mine (to this day I shiver to recall how changed was their expression – cold, hard, pitiless). ‘That it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice the few for the sake of the many.’

  ‘Fogle – you killed him, too,’ said Mr Flint. ‘What had he ever done to you?’

  ‘He heard Somers’s confession,’ said Mr Arden. ‘Once again, I could not take the risk. We had a fascinating discussion about the sacrament of confession, during which he hinted that Somers had told him everything he knew. I returned to the house in the small hours to see him off.’

  ‘You inspired Mr Fogle’s last sermon,’ I said, ‘which I now understand more fully.’

  ‘How many more were you planning to “see off”?’ demanded Mr Flint.

  ‘Welland would have been the end of it.’

  The scales had fallen from my eyes at last and I did not believe him. ‘Did you intend to tell Miss Yates?’

  ‘No – she only loved the man she thought I was, and could not have endured it.’
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  ‘That’s four murders, plus one attempted,’ said Mr Flint. ‘I can’t make any sort of case for your defence – Socrates himself couldn’t do it!’

  ‘I don’t wish to be defended, Mr Flint,’ said Arden, his customary mildness restored. ‘I want you to paint me as black as you like. Let us give the other side an easy time.’

  ‘But – you actually want your own counsel to beg the jury to hang you?’

  ‘Once the facts are before them, they will have no choice.’

  ‘Mr Arden, we are baffled,’ I said (seeing that Mr Flint looked as if he was about to explode). ‘Please explain your reasoning.’

  ‘People must know of the circumstances that moulded me,’ said Mr Arden. ‘They must be brought to understand that I could only escape from my poverty by committing terrible crimes – that a life of virtue, as preached from the pulpits, would have brought me little more than a virtuous death. And that poverty is the darkest, most hopeless of all prisons.’

  ‘Many people are poor,’ I returned, ‘without regarding their poverty as an excuse for murder!’

  ‘No, Mrs Rodd – not an excuse!’ He turned to me with a shadow of the old eagerness. ‘I want people to see this world we have made, in which the wicked flourish and the good get nothing! I should not have been left to grow up in hedges and ditches, like a wild animal! It is your favourite quotation again – “every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys”, and I say: throw that door wide open!’

  ‘Good heavens, Mr Arden, you are advocating revolution!’

  ‘Again, you misunderstand me; I abhor violence and mistrust politicians. My guide in everything is my Bible.’

  ‘What about Rights of Man?’

  ‘You said yourself, Mrs Rodd, that nothing in that book is incompatible with the Holy Scriptures.’

  I was on the point of retorting that we had never had any such discussion, and then remembered my conversation with Minna Yates on the train – such a short time ago! – and for a moment could not speak. Mr Arden’s flash of energy died away; he sighed and stared through the lace of bare branches at the darkening sky.

  ‘Very well,’ said Mr Flint, after a long spell of silence. ‘If that’s what you want, I’ll do it – though God knows, it’ll be the strangest defence in history.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Arden.

  ‘Truth, Mrs Rodd!’ said Mr Flint, seeing that I was startled by such an abrupt change of mind. ‘This is why I took up the law in the first place – because God is truth, and truth is God!’

  I did not understand – surely there was only one way to be hanged? – but we were interrupted by the sounds of footsteps and voices along the path. Mr Blackbeard was marching towards us, accompanied by two policeman with lanterns.

  Mr Arden stood up, utterly calm, and politely held out his arms to be chained. ‘Mrs Rodd, I should like to see that sermon of Fogle’s, if you are able to send it to me; I am sure you know the address.’

  He bowed to me before being led away down the path and disappearing into the darkness.

  Forty-four

  Rachel and Mr Barton were married by special licence the following morning, in a private ceremony at St Michael’s Church in Highgate. I was a witness, and it was a solemn experience, for I could not help recalling Rachel’s first wedding to poor Arthur. This time the bride was all in black and wept silently throughout. I was glad to observe, however, the couple’s love for one another, that no amount of sorrow could break or hide, and I had a fancy that Arthur blessed them from the next world.

  My brother refused to be solemn, and when the new-made Mr and Mrs Barton returned to his house he welcomed them with more champagne and what he called ‘a good stab’ at a wedding breakfast. Rachel tried to protest that it was ‘unsuitable’, but Fred would have none of it, loudly declaring, ‘This is a celebration, not a funeral!’

  He chivvied us all into smiles, if not uproarious jollity, and afterwards Mr Barton played football in the garden with two of my nephews.

  ‘He’s a lively fellow,’ Fred said privately to me, watching through the window. ‘And he’ll provide Gloomy Miss Garnett with so many babies that she won’t have any more time for gloom.’

  ‘I hope so!’ I murmured.

  I cannot resist adding now that my brother’s rather crudely worded prophecy came true; just over a year later, I agreed to stand godmother to Rachel’s firstborn, Arthur (and oh, how radiant she was with her new baby in her arms!). Three more babies arrived in quick succession. I have visited them many times over the years since the scandal, and rejoiced in the happiness of their home. Mr Barton kept his holy orders, and though they could not return to Hardinsett, Rachel used her fortune to pay for the new church there as a memorial to her first husband. After a few years, when the fuss had died down, Mr Barton was given a living in Somerset, a few miles outside Taunton.

  I am running ahead of myself, however.

  The trial of Daniel Arden was a sensation that swept away all other sensations. There were street-ballads, there were plays, there was even a popular Murderer’s Polka. The enormity of his crimes, coupled with his equally enormous repentance, made some people treat him almost as a hero. When the judge put on the black cap and gave out the sentence, there were groans in the public gallery.

  Mr Flint’s performance in court was very much admired (he begged the jury to pray for the guilty man with an eloquence that reduced one of them to tears). On the day before the hanging, he summoned me to Newgate, because Arden had expressed a wish to ‘take his leave’ of me.

  It was very strange to see Daniel Arden in a cell for the condemned, sitting at the small table with his Bible open before him, and all his accustomed elegance intact.

  ‘Mrs Rodd.’ He rose to shake my hand. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘I wish with all my heart that we did not have to meet in this place, Mr Arden,’ I said. ‘Is there any service I can do for you?’

  ‘No – I have everything I need. And it is oddly peaceful to feel that all is finished and resolved. Metaphorically speaking, my bags are packed for my last journey.’

  He presented me with the single chair and sat himself down upon the bunk. The cell was large enough to accommodate a warder, who left the door open and retreated to the corridor outside.

  ‘I brought you Mr Fogle’s last sermon,’ I said, and took the pages from my bag.

  ‘I shall read it with interest, knowing that I was his inspiration.’

  ‘Did you make a full confession to him?’

  ‘I did, though not in any formal sense. On the day of Fogle’s death—’ Mr Arden paused, and then added, ‘I mean, of course, the day that I killed him, for let us call things by their right names – we met in the village and Fogle cordially invited me into his study, to continue the discussion we had started out in the street. He seemed to sense the black state of my conscience, yet he did not judge me. I’m sorry to say that I decided to tell him everything only after I had made the decision to get rid of him.’

  ‘What – truly everything – even Arthur?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Rodd, and it was a very interesting experience,’ Mr Arden said mildly. ‘It was the first time, in fact, that I had ever spoken the truth about my sins to anyone – apart from Jacob Welland. And I had accumulated a few more since then.’

  ‘How did Mr Fogle respond?’

  ‘He said he pitied me for the burden I had been carrying; the great weight of guilt that had crushed my soul. His compassion moved me almost to tears, for my secrets had been a millstone around my neck, and there was a glorious sense of release when I gave them up. I told him of my atonement, my vow to improve the world around me. But he would have none of it, and he gently rebuked me for assuming that I was doing God’s work, when I was playing fast and loose with the laws of the universe.’

  ‘I understand the sermon better now,’ I said. ‘But – when you told him everything, he must surely have known he was in danger himself – you could hardly have made it pla
iner! Wasn’t he afraid of you?’

  ‘If he was, he didn’t show it,’ said Mr Arden, very grave. ‘When I took my leave of him, Fogle seized my hand and said, “It is not too late; you can still save your soul.” And then he said, “I shall pray for you – in this world and the next.” I understood at that moment why some believe the man was a saint. Unfortunately, my respect for Fogle did not stop me killing him. It comforts me a little to know that he had time to prepare his soul. He was a brave man.’

  ‘You are very calm, Mr Arden.’

  ‘I have no reason not to be calm. I can change nothing. Tomorrow morning I go to the gallows.’

  I could not help being moved by the dignity he maintained, with such horror looming before him. ‘I shall pray for you,’ I said shakily.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Rodd.’

  ‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?’

  ‘My affairs are in very good order,’ said Mr Arden. ‘Binstock is well secured for my boys.’

  ‘I wish that you could see your boys,’ I said. ‘How far are they aware of what has happened?’

  ‘They will know that I am dead; perhaps they will know more when they are older.’

  ‘Do you know where they are to live?’

  ‘Joshua Welland has claimed them, quite rightfully, as his sons. He has written to assure me that they will continue to live at Binstock, which is their inheritance. I’m quite satisfied that they will be well loved and well cared for.’ For a moment there was a dreadful sorrow in his face and his voice. ‘It’s a great comfort to know that they will not suffer for my crimes.’

  ‘You may be sure of that,’ I said. ‘His wife is a good, kind young woman.’

  ‘Welland has promised to take good care of my people at Binstock. It was God’s mercy that I did not succeed in killing him; I believe that I am now as ready as I’ll ever be to take my punishment.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Rodd.’ Mr Flint stepped into the open doorway. ‘I must ask you to leave; there’s quite a line of people waiting to see Arden.’