A Killing Too Far

by Andrew Wareham

  Sam spoke to Josh Banford that afternoon, idly in passing, or so it seemed, inviting him to come with him in the morning when he was to inspect the coal workings. The older man refused – he did not like the dust and the smuts of the pit, they made him cough, and there was little point to going if he was not to come close to the mine itself.

  “No question that it is a messy sort of place, Josh. My chest has small liking for it, I know.”

  “Nor mine, Sam. Mind you, I find myself catching my breath if I walk so much as a furlong now. Add the dust and grime as well and I find myself doing poorly indeed.”

  “A doctor, Josh?”

  The suggestion was, as Sam had expected, rejected out of hand – Josh knew his own constitution, he believed, could dose himself perfectly well.

  “Rose-hip syrup with a spoonful of honey and a nip of brandy besides, Sam – that will set me up to perfection. Always has, you know. Tastes a damned sight better than a doctor’s jalap and works just as well, and costs less! That will see me through the winter when it comes.”

  Sam could say no more – he was far the younger, could have no authority over his wife’s father in any case.

  “What of a riding horse, Josh? Where should I go best to buy in a handsome nag? Will I do better with a gelding or a stallion, do you think?”

  “Gelding is less trouble, that’s for sure. You could go down to the livery in Stoke and ask the fellow there to keep an eye out for you, but that might take months. I would be inclined to visit Rowlands. He breeds his own and might well have something in his stables waiting to go to the horse fair. Get a better price from him, as well, being as he is a friend.”

  Two days later, Sam took Josh’s advice and rode the few miles across the shoulder of the moorland to visit the Squire, as he termed himself.

  He saw Rowlands every few weeks in town but rarely visited him at his own house; he had not been there for a year and noticed that nothing had changed – no new paintwork, for example. He wondered if Squire had not been overstretching himself, spending too much on gentility, too little on farming. He was greeted warmly, possibly too much so; there was certainly something wrong.

  He explained his business, his desire to purchase a more handsome riding horse.

  “Ah, and so you should, Mr Heythorne! A strong cob, you bestride, but no more than a farm beast when all is said and done. I have three in the stables that might suit you, sir. Do come and look at them.”

  Sam was pleased to do so, made much of not being a sporting man, of not knowing his horseflesh as well as many another. Squire made light of his comments, was sure he could be easy in his mind, he was not one to lead a man astray.

  “No bone-setters in my stable, Mr Heythorne – good, plain, sound stock, all of mine.”

  Sam was sure that was so, said so loudly.

  “Do you mind your stables, Mr Rowlands, or are they the domain of your eldest boy?”

  “No, Mr Heythorne, George takes but little interest in the stables, I fear. He is, in fact, only rarely here just of late. He spends much of his time visiting with friends in the county, and farther afield.”

  Sam nodded to himself; the estate was short of funds for the heir having become spendthrift. It was not an uncommon event. It explained why Rowlands was so very willing to sell him a horse.

  “Cards and racing and high-living, I doubt not, Mr Rowlands.”

  “Just so, sir! The boy is a damned fool! Will not listen to a word I say – merely enjoying himself while he is young, don’t you know!”

  Sam nodded again; he wondered whether he should volunteer his services to assist. Perhaps not. His people might be a tad vigorous in their persuasion, in their explanation of what was right and what was not in an eldest son.

  “In the leftmost stall, Mr Heythorne. The five years old bay gelding. I had him cut for not being the exact configuration I like in a hunter, but he is a powerful animal, will last all day in the saddle, walking sensibly, that is. Sixty guineas, sir, and he is yours. I do not doubt he would fetch a little more at the Fair in Derby later in the year, but I would have all of the bother of taking him there.”

  Sam fetched his heavy purse from his pocket, brought in the hope of making a purchase then and there. He counted out his sixty little coins.

  “You are very good, Mr Heythorne.”

  Rowlands had evidently expected to be bargained down.

  “Between gentlemen, sir, there is no place for chaffering.”

  “Very true, sir. My groom will walk him down to Banfords for you, Mr Heythorne.”

  That was as Sam had expected.

  “A drink before you go, Mr Heythorne? To wet your whistle of a dry afternoon?”

  A glass was almost mandatory in the circumstances; Sam accompanied Rowlands indoors.

  “Young Richard is hopeful of a prospect he has discovered to the south of Stone, on the way to Stafford, Mr Heythorne. A farmer who is working a tiny drift on his back acres and believes he has a substantial seam to be uncovered. The man himself has four daughters and not a boy to his name, would otherwise exploit the wealth himself, he tells Richard. A hundred or two, cash in hand, and a penny in his pocket for each hundredweight taken for the first seven years, his initial offer. Richard thinks he might bring him down from that, and I suspect he is much taken by one of the girls, which might bring the negotiations into the family, perhaps!”

  Sam laughed and said that boys would be boys. Even so, he would not like to pay in excess of a farthing on the hundredweight, and better calculated off the chaldron, for not needing to fiddle around with scales. He was, however, glad to hear of Richard’s success, belated though it might be.

  “Bringing cash into his pocket, it would seem, Mr Rowlands. Successful at last, perhaps.”

  “To my pleasure. His damned brother is like to break me, the way he is going. He rode out this morning with fifty of my guineas in his pocket – a bad day at the York races, it would seem, but he has a certain prospect that is at ten to one and will bring him in two hundred unfailingly. Thirty to pay off his debts and twenty to lay on the nag, and all will be well, the young idiot. I was honour bound to allow him to go off to pay his obligations, but he will come back empty-handed, that I do not doubt. He will not be told that he is being taken for a fool.”

  “Bad company, sir?”

  “Richer than him and able to lose fifty without blinking. They cannot understand that George is not as flush as them.”

  “I could, perhaps, have one of my people speak to them, Mr Rowlands?”

  “Not openly, Mr Heythorne. It would do us little good if we were to be named as party to a felony. Too much influence there for people such as us.”

  “I shall send the most discreet of my folk to explain the time of day to the young gentlemen. Are they perhaps themselves in the hands of a villainous gambling man?”

  “Possibly, Mr Heythorne – there is an older man of their company, one who knows the ‘best’ places to play a hand of cards or the ‘safer’ bookmakers to place a bet with. I do not doubt he can also guide them to other expensive pleasures, all in the friendliest fashion.”

  Sam smiled his understanding and finished his glass.

  “Do you have a name for this gentleman, Mr Rowlands?”

  “Captain Haveringham, I believe, Mr Heythorne. A very genteel name.”

  “So it is. Of what regiment, do you know?”

  “My son has not mentioned, Mr Rowlands.”

  “In Derby, I believe?”

  “Just so.”

  “How foolish that sort of a man must be, to think that he may pursue such a course for many years.”

  Sam said no more and Rowlands did not ask – what was unsaid did not happen.

  Sam rode back to Banfords and sent the groom to beg the pleasure of speech with Nick, at his convenience. Nick arrived from his cottage within the hour.

  “Mr Sam, sir, I do trust I see you well? I have been recruiting my vital spirits in my little garden, sir, turning the vegetab
le patches and nurturing my rose bushes – such a morally desirable pleasure! My lady has expressed her delight in so unexceptionable a pastime. I spoke yesterday to the reprobate you pointed out to me, Mr Sam, and he has reformed his wicked ways, no doubt to the satisfaction of all.”

  Sam had received a complaint of a foolish young boy, barely grown to manhood, who had taken to the white lay, stealing sheets laid out to dry on the hedges in back gardens and pawning them, had been seen by a housewife and bashed her as he ran. The woman was related by marriage to a storekeeper who paid his dues to Sam; Nick had received his fee and the request to ensure that the youth never repeated his offence.

  “Left town, has he, Nick?”

  “He has indeed, Mr Sam. He will never be seen in Stoke again.”

  “Very good! I can always rely upon you, Nick!”

  Nick simpered in his joy – Sam was so good to him.

  “In Derby, Nick, there is a Captain Haveringham who makes a living by befriending young men who are plump in the pocket and introducing them to gaming houses and bookmakers and probably to houses of assignation…”

  “Ah! One is to assume that they soon become less plump in the pocket, Mr Sam?”

  “Indeed, Nick. Mr Rowlands from over the hill is upset that his son George is to bankrupt him if he continues in his current ways.”

  “Oh dear! One must come to his assistance, Mr Sam. It is your neighbourly duty, I doubt not.”

  “I believe so, Nick.”

  Nick left with an advance of ten guineas and the intention of taking an unobtrusive stage to Derby and there to discover Captain Haveringham and his accomplices and bring them to better conduct, and if possible to recover some of the monies lost by Mr George Rowlands.

  “A week, perhaps, Mr Sam.”

  “Longer if needs be, Nick. You must not hurry your good work.”

  “Considerate as ever, Mr Sam! Too much haste may spoil an otherwise workmanlike job. Be sure that I shall serve you as ever, sir”

  Nick stayed away for some weeks and the newssheets reported on a crime wave of formidable proportions in Derby. There was a maniac loose, it seemed, a mad knifeman, no less. Sam read, with some dismay, of the discovery of a dozen or more of bodies – of the well-known sportsman, Captain Haveringham, found with his throat gashed open and his pockets rifled, and of others taken at random, including a son of the mayor and the proprietor of a leading hotel. Lesser figures, wholly unrelated to each other, had also suffered a condign fate.

  It seemed that Nick had chosen to make an end to all those who had profited from the wild spending of the foolish young men of the County.

  The newssheets made much of the fact that the Bow Street Runners, from London, had been hired to investigate and to bring an end to the antics of their local lunatic.

  Sam knew nothing of the Runners, except that they had a name for taking highwaymen and for protecting public figures in London. He doubted that they would be able to mount an investigation in a town unknown to them. That said, he did not want to hear of Nick being taken up and bribed or battered into talking. There was nothing he could do – he did not know where to find Nick and was not to be seen skulking round the streets of Derby in search of him. He must hope that Nick would complete his task soon and come away unknown, or that he would fail and be killed in process of removing one of those he had identified as a victim.

  Dead, Nick was of no concern – the Runners might identify him and come to ask questions around his home, but they would receive no answers, would garner no evidence from the local folk. They might go away convinced that Nick had been in the employ of a local villain; they would probably identify that wicked man as Mr Sam Heythorne; but they would have nothing they could place before a High Court judge

  Sam rather hoped that Nick’s might be the next body found – he seemed to have tipped over the edge, to have turned from an eccentric into a raving madman. There was a lesson to be learned, Sam feared – too much indulgence in the cutting of throats was bad for the character, could turn an otherwise innocuous gentleman into a menace to Society. He was glad that he had put his own pistols away, had found no occasion to use them for three or four years now.

  A note came from Mr Rowlands, simply expressing his thanks and his intention to pay a morning call on Sam on the following day.

  “Josie, Mr Rowlands is to visit us tomorrow.”

  “He is always welcome, of course, Sam. Has he information for us? Is he perhaps to tell us that he is to take a second wife? He has been widowed these many years and one might expect him to establish himself again.”

  Sam realised that he had never met a Mrs Rowlands; he had taken so little cognisance of the fact that he had not noticed that Rowlands was a widower.

  “No. I believe that he is to discuss his elder son’s behaviour and recent doings. The young gentleman has been spending his father’s money rather freely.”

  Josie had nothing to say to such behaviour – it was disgraceful, but unfortunately common.

  Rowlands rode in and made his greetings, smiled his kindest and best. He seemed far less worried than when Sam had previously seen him.

  “My son has reformed, Mr Heythorne! He has mended his ways and has hardly ventured off the estate in the past three weeks and declares that he has no wish to do so. He came back from Derby unexpected, riding in of an evening and begging a private meeting with me. I feared the worst, expected him to demand payment of yet more debts, but he produced a saddlebag that he could barely lift and informed me that he had been sadly misled, cheated, choused out of his, or rather my, cash. He said as well that Captain Haveringham had come to him in tears, actually weeping, and had begged him to accept his apologies and some part of the funds he had obtained from him. We counted the contents of the bag together.”

  Sam did his best to appear amazed; Nick must have offered Haveringham his life in exchange for the money. It would seem that he had not bargained in good faith, for Haveringham was indisputably dead.

  “Was it a great sum, Mr Rowlands? A bag of gold pieces?”

  “Not so, Mr Heythorne. There was some gold but more of silver coachwheels and half-crowns and shillings. It seemed to me that the good Captain had thrown all of his illicit gains into the bag as he had made them, not attempting to sort the coins or to change them into gold. There was the better part of six hundred pounds in that bag, sir! That is no small sum, and may well be more than my foolish son had lost to him. My son did not know the total of his losses, because, he said, he had also won occasionally, and had then lost his winnings. He was fairly sure that he had run through four hundred pounds during the period of his acquaintance with Haveringham – because that was the sum of his allowance and borrowings from me over the eighteen months he was in the man’s company.”

  “So he came out of the business some two hundred pounds up, Mr Rowlands?”

  “He gave that sum to me, Mr Heythorne, in apology for his doings!”

  “He is a fortunate young gentleman, sir, to have been able to make amends in such a fashion.”

  Rowlands hesitated before agreeing, then gave an obviously false smile.

  “That, Mr Heythorne, I am inclined to wonder about. I might speculate, sir, whether a benefactor might not have whispered to Captain Haveringham that he should mend his ways…”

  Sam returned an equally false face of amaze.

  “How could that be, sir? I am sure I could not imagine.”

  Josie joined them and called for refreshments. She turned the conversation into a discussion of local affairs, as arranged with Sam earlier, and permitted no further business for the remainder of the visit.

  Rowlands left, still a happy man, and Sam thanked Josie for playing her part so well.

  “I do not know what has happened in Derby, my dear. I dare not go there to discover in person what may be going on. I much fear that Nick has sown the seeds of disaster.”

  She too had read the local newssheet.

  “Did I not see the name of one Cap
tain Haveringham mentioned as a victim of the Mad Knifeman, Sam? I could not help but overhear Mr Rowlands to mention the captain’s name.”

  “Exactly so, Josie! I do not know what may have eventuated, or what may have motivated Nick to behave as he has. I hope and pray that he has no more than taken advantage of the fortuitous actions of a lunatic, but I much fear that he has committed the mayhem, all of it, himself.”

  Josie could not help but feel that might have been very ill done on Nick’s part.

  “Might it have placed you at some disadvantage, Sam?”

  “All things are possible, my dear. I think I must remain in easy reach of home these next days. I had intended to pay a visit to my father, as you had so wisely suggested. I doubt I should do so the while.”

  Nick walked into Banfords three days after that, dropped off by the carrier’s cart.

  “The common stage from Derby to Nottingham, Mr Sam, the day before yesterday. From Nottingham, another stage to Leicester, then across to Birmingham, arriving there yesterday afternoon. Then I took the new night coach service, Mr Sam – a slow old rattler that reached Stoke this morning. The carrier then for the sum of sixpence, and here I am. A long journey, much of it out of my way, but I believe that few will have noticed my passage. I believe that I have achieved much of lasting benefit in the town of Derby, Mr Sam, am not displeased with my little efforts.”

  Sam was glad to hear that, he said. He had wondered, he admitted, if all was well there. There had been some mention in the newssheets of no less a figure than a ‘Mad Knifeman’.

  “There was indeed, Mr Sam. A gratuitous insult, in my humble opinion. So much so that I made the effort to discover the name and location of the chief scribbler for this so-called Gazette. I spoke to him at some length on the subject of sanity, and of the no less important distinction between a razor and a knife. He pledged himself to print a correction in his vile rag. I did no more than trim one of his son’s ears in process of persuasion – wholly insignificant, the boy needs no more than to grow his hair a little longer. I do not doubt this self-styled ‘editor’ will be more cautious in his future writings.”