by Robin Blake
He turned his face to me briefy, then looked away again, as if it were painful to meet another human gaze.
‘I interviewed him early yesterday morning in this room, before I rode to Lancaster. I was told upon my return, late at night, that he was dead. That is all I can tell you.’
‘You quarrelled, I have heard.’
‘I gave him a piece of my mind, yes.’
‘What about?’
‘The works. Costs, delays, matters of that kind.’
‘How do you think he died?’
Brockletower gave an exaggerated shrug, as if trying to disburden himself of something.
‘One of his workmen, I suppose. They are ruffians. They came down in a mob, baying to see me, you know. I had the idlers turned away.’
Beyond the window I could hear the sound of a whistling man and the creak of an axle passing the window: a barrow loaded perhaps with stone or brick or sacks of sand.
‘They are not idle now,’ I observed. ‘They’re working again. They still hope to be paid, I suppose.’
‘Ha!’
It was a laugh of pure contempt. I cleared my throat and rose to leave.
‘The inquest will convene early tomorrow morning at the Plough Inn and, if the jury authorizes it, the post-mortem will no doubt follow in the forenoon. I trust I shall see you at the inn, sir, and that you will give your evidence.’
As I spoke I noted that the squire had begun gently to shake, seized by some new inner quaking. His face, already grim, was now set in a mask of desperation. When I rose to leave him, he sprang to his feet and reached out to detain me by gripping my forearm. He was behaving like an actor at Drury Lane.
‘Cragg! Look, I am humbling myself, and I don’t do that lightly. I am begging you, beseeching you. Don’t proceed with this plan. Don’t ask the jury to have this doctor cut open her … her body. I cannot bear the thought of it.’
As gently as I could I prized his fingers from my arm.
‘I am sorry. But I must.’
His face instantly hardened again, then he turned away.
‘Then there is nothing for it. Do not refer again to anything, anything, I have said in this room, Cragg. I shall deny it if you do. You understand?’
I said that I did, but gave him no assurance.
The afternoon wind was gusting and the trees that stood in massed ranks around the house and garden were as restless as the sea. I left the yard by way of the arch and skirted the side of the house until I reached the front, where I found operations had recommenced on the facade and pediment, under the direction of a fellow who, I gathered, had for years been Piltdown’s second-in-command. Of the ganger himself, there was no trace.
The work had evidently reached a critical juncture. Three men were getting ready to raise a large piece of masonry in the shape of a beam up the side of the house, securing it to a stout rope that hung down the facade. It was part of the parapet that would run around the edge of the roof, or so I guessed, for the stone rested on a neat stack of similarly proportioned dressed stones.
I stood and watched the proceedings. The three men who had tied the rope in place now took the strain and began hauling on the rope’s free end. The rope ran up to a pulley mounted on a sturdy wooden bracket that protruded above the roof, passed over the wheel and returned to the ground, where its other end had been securely tied to the stone block. A fourth and a fifth man stood waiting on high to receive the delivery.
It was a heavy pull and I could hear the men grunting, the rope groaning and the pulley squeaking as they hauled it upwards in jerky fashion. When the stone had reached a height of some thirty feet they paused for breath, while the man at the rope’s end laboriously wound it around his body for extra security.
At this precise moment we heard an inarticulate, almost bestial cry behind us. It had come across the lawn, from the direction of the trees that surrounded and obscured the tongue of grass that led to the hidden Temple of Eros. I turned and to my astonishment I saw Solomon, the man-child, trundling towards us across the lawn. He had his arms extended and he was uttering a sound that seemed compounded of the lowing of an unmilked cow, and a pig’s slaughterhouse squeal.
The reason for Solomon’s obvious distress became clear when we heard a second voice issuing from the trees beyond. It was a sonorous parade-ground shout – the voice, as none of us doubted even before we saw him, of Sergeant Sutch.
‘Lay hands on that man! In the name of the King, arrest him I say! Stop him!’
The voice was followed immediately by the man it belonged to, emerging from the trees in zealous pursuit of his quarry like a hunter that has flushed a hare from the covert. He proceeded towards us at a regular, military trot, the various accessories of his uniform, pouches, powderhorns and the like, flapping up and down in time with their owner’s step.
Before I had time to take adequate stock of these events, the enormous form of Solomon was abreast of me. I reached out, and my fingers briefly closed on a fold of his shirt, but he battered my hand away with his clenched fist and blundered on.
He seemed to be making with purpose towards Piltdown’s deputy, a dark and sallow man who spoke with a Welsh accent. Solomon was extending his arms imploringly as he continued to groan and squeal and stumble towards the only man who, as he may have thought, could save him from the sergeant’s wrath. The Welshman seemingly in no mood to assist, or possibly misunderstanding the appeal as a threat, dodged round to the other side of the heap of stone blocks, where he adopted what looked a pathetically inadequate, half-crouching defensive pose.
The three men on the rope, with backs turned and bent to their task, were not in a position to apprehend their colleague, nor even to apprehend the danger he brought. Anchored to the rope like boats at their moorings, they were unable to act in any way at all. But, in the event, none of us could perceive the disaster that was about to befall. Solomon careered on towards the stack of masonry, his bewilderment made more fearful by the barks of the sergeant behind him. As he reached it he hesitated for a fraction of a moment, then lurched to the side in an attempt to run around the stones and reach his object. Unfortunately at that moment an empty bucket was caught by a swirl of wind and blew over to roll in front of his feet. In tripping over it he collided with the three rope-haulers who, taken utterly by surprise, wobbled, staggered and let go of the rope. The forward two successfully got out of the way at once, while the other, with the rope-end wound about him, was spun around by the falling weight like a top before he flailed to the ground and rolled himself as quickly as he could to safety. The rope whipped from his fingers as the heavy stone’s descent continued unchecked.
Stopped by the collision, Solomon was standing between the rope and the descending beam. In a moment his head and neck came into contact with the rope, which was still spinning like a vortex. It seemed to flick around him for a moment, and then became tightly wrapped around his neck. In the next moment, giving out a sort of strangled cough, his enormous bulk was whisked upward into the air as easy as a dandelion seed. A split second later the massive stone beam crashed with awful finality to the ground. For a moment Solomon continued to ascend, but then jerked down again and settled.
We had all jumped away from the crashing beam. Now we collected ourselves and looked up. The massive bulk of Solomon Miller was hanging by the neck and gently revolving in the breeze. A fraction of a second after the stone struck the ground we had all heard the sickening crack of his neck breaking.
Chapter Twenty-two
THE CRIES OF dismay seemed to have no effect on the squire, who resolutely stayed in his library, but it caused the servants to run out, the women clapping their cheeks and the men blaspheming in shock. Taking command, Sutch supervised the lowering of the body.
‘I thought I saw someone in the corner of my eye, in the woods,’ he explained, ‘spying on the work. Dodged behind a tree, he did, when I looked at him directly. So I went in and flushed him out of cover.’
‘An unfortuna
te ending, Sergeant, but you could not have foreseen it,’ I told him.
With his great bulk stretched out in front of us, there was no doubt Solomon was dead and, feeling that the matter was in good hands, I asked one of the grooms to bring round my horse. There was nothing further I could do here, and I still had Mrs Brockletower’s inquest to arrange for the next day.
As I waited, one of the labouring men approached me and plucked at my sleeve. He wanted to know if Solomon could be laid in the ground as soon as they had had his wake, this being customary among them. I considered for a moment. Solomon had lost his life violently and suddenly, and under normal circumstances that would require an inquest. But in this case I was certain one was not needed. The hanging had happened before the eyes of half-a-dozen witnesses, and no one would disagree about its nature: quite evidently accidental. Most importantly one of those witnesses was myself. As coroner, I would be able to assert the cause of death to the Mayor and borough officers and, since those gentlemen would not find it very palatable to lay out cash for an inquiry into an explicable death, they would be satisfied. I told the man to go ahead and bury Solomon as soon as he wished.
‘I wonder about Peg Miller, the woman whose acquaintance I made at the builders’ camp,’ I said to Elizabeth as we sat down to our meal that evening of leek soup thickened with potatoes, followed by boiled mutton. ‘She is Solomon’s mother. He is being waked at this moment, but I wonder how the death has affected her.’
‘As it would any mother, Titus. She must be distracted and inconsolable.’
‘Oh, I’m not so sure. There is something peculiarly philosophical about Peg. I believe she possesses what Mr Spectator calls equality of mind. Do you know the passage?’
She laughed.
‘You and your Mr Spectator! I sometimes think I am married to both of you, and am a bigamist.’
She meant the gibe friendly, so I went on.
‘But it’s a famous essay. He states that Equality of Mind is the capacity not to over-value our earthly existence. You see it enables us to understand instead that life on earth is only ‘the circulation of little mean actions’. I am sure such opinions are by no means more rare amongst the common people than in refined society. Solomon cannot be said to have been much favoured by nature. Perhaps his mother could conceive that, in the life to come, Solomon might be happier and more useful than he had ever been in this, and that his passing could therefore be borne with fortitude.’
‘Oh, Titus! You sound as if you were in court. Think. He was a human being, this poor Solomon. He had the feelings of a man, and a soul of his own too. The woman bore and breeched him, and loved him no doubt as passionately as any mother. She would not consider her son in that light. No woman thinks her son mean or useless.’
‘Old Mrs Brockletower did, of Ramilles. He told me so himself this very day. He said she never did love him as well as she loved his older brother. He also says his wife was equally cold towards him.’
‘Did he say that? It is a remarkable admission from a proud man. And to someone he does not know well.’
‘He wanted something of me. He was trying to elicit my pity. He did everything short of going down on his knees begging me not to have his wife’s body opened and medically examined.’
‘What? Is that what you intend? Examined by Dr Fidelis?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I would say Mr Brockletower’s feeling is natural. I also would object. He does not want her cut open. It is a violation, and horrible, and against religion. The buried body should be all of a piece, so that it may rise again entire at the end of the world.’
I sighed and shook my head.
‘I do not think Ramilles Brockletower is a very religious man,’ I said. ‘I do not think he believes quite the same things as you, my dear.’
‘Shall you examine him at tomorrow’s inquest? If so, you will be able to find out.’
The next morning it rained. Now, it may strike the reader as superfluous to say that this has a dampening effect. But the encroachment of damp is not only a question of sodden hats and wigs, bespattered stockings and flooded shoes. It is also the human spirit and its finer natural capacities that become cold and soused on a wet day. So, when I set out for the Plough Inn, under a continuous and perfectly uniform downpour from a muddy sky, I immediately found myself worrying about my jury and how well they would apply themselves to the task.
But I need not have. At some inquests, where little of interest or importance is for consideration, there may be difficulties in assembling a quorum of jurors, let alone in keeping them awake. A vagabond had died in the Fulwood a year previously, and few of the freeholders I summoned cared strongly enough about the case to heed the call. I was obliged to make do with a panel of only seven somnolent freemen. But just find a box of silver in a ploughed field and folk will fight for the right to decide if it be treasure trove. A murdered squire’s wife is as fascinating as a silver hoard, so there was little danger of apathy. I was not surprised to find that, out of the sixteen I had originally slated, fourteen men reported eagerly for duty, each one burning, in spite of the damp day, with the fire of curiosity in their bellies. I assigned two of these as reserves, and promptly empanelled the remaining dozen.
The landlord had prepared his public room for the occasion. My place was a chair with a high ladder-back at one end of the room, behind a good-sized oak refectory table. This was provided with a pen, penknife, ink, sand-shaker, quantity of paper, jug of water, drinking-glass and the brass hand-bell with which I mark the various stages of a hearing. I did not have the table to myself. On my right sat Furzey, who had his own writing materials and would act as clerk. On my left, ranged in two rows of seats along the side-wall of the room, were the jury seats, which were directly faced, on the opposite wall, by a single carver chair for the use of the witnesses. Finally in the main body of the room the public seats were arranged facing me in rows, as for an audience at the theatre. The first two rows would be reserved for witnesses and behind these, separated by the space of two vacant rows, the public’s own seating was arranged.
I took my place without ceremony and surveyed the already packed hall. Under the drumming of rain on the roof, it was buzzing like a beehive. I saw Bailiff Grimshaw, his waistcoat flashing red silk and silver braid. Near him was the great bulk of Sergeant Mallender, the man’s enormous buttocks distributed across two seats, and with small rivers of water flowing off him to the floor beneath. I saw Bethany Marsden sitting companionably with her grandson, Jonah, who’d originally run to me with the news of Dolores Brockletower’s death. I saw many of the other servants from Garlick Hall, numbers of respectable town and village people and, at the very back, behind the last row of chairs, the standing room, reserved for the lower orders. In the midst of the smocked and straw-hatted flock stood Widow Patten, the crone from Gamull who had informed me on that first day that Dolores Brockletower’s death was the Devil’s work. I felt glad to see she had taken up my invitation to attend, and (so I hoped) witness the confounding of her superstition with rational explanation.
Giving a vigorous shake to my hand-bell, I called silence and turned towards the jury. I gave my usual homily about the weightiness of their task, and then proceeded straight to the swearing. One by one they stood and read the oath from Furzey’s printed card, which they passed reverently from hand to hand. Then I told them to elect a foreman and, as they whispered about this amongst themselves, I sat back in my chair.
After a brief interval of attentive quiet, the audience had resumed its low-pitched drone. I immediately noticed Sarah Brockletower arriving on her brother’s arm. He was talking to her urgently. They made their way by degrees up the hall, ignoring all attempts to speak with them, and settled in the front row of the witness seats. Sarah looked calm, though pale. The squire was agitated.
The jury finished its deliberation quickly enough, and George Pennyfold came over to tell me he had been elected their spokesman. I was glad of the choice. I tho
ught him dependable.
Once that was settled, our next duty was to view the body. I announced to the room that the fifteen of us – myself, the jurors and the reserves – would have to walk over to Garlick Hall, making the best of the rain. I would then reconvene and begin to take witness evidence. I asked those giving testimony not, in the meantime, to go far away as I expected we would return for the resumption within the hour.
And as the jurors filed out of the hall, bundling themselves into coats and cloaks, I noticed our landlord standing importantly just outside the door. I took him by the elbow and drew him away from the crowd.
‘Mr Wigglesworth, you have heard the news of your former guest, Mr Woodley?’
Wigglesworth nodded.
‘I have that, Coroner. He was up at dawn the day before yesterday and took a crust for his breakfast away with him in his riding coat pocket. I never saw him again. Owed me almost six pound, he did.’
‘I suppose you may ask the squire for the money,’ I said. ‘If you dare.’
I now saw Luke Fidelis striding towards the inquest room, having clearly just arrived from town.
‘Luke!’ I called.
He came over to me.
‘When we leave, follow ten minutes behind,’ I said quietly. ‘You shall operate straight after the viewing.’
At some point during our walk, along the long straight lane known – oddly, since it is quite level – as Cow Hill, the jurors threw off the chilling effect of the rain and began nervously to make light of the business, and to laugh jauntily amongst themselves. It was in this spirit of quite inappropriate jolliness, bred no doubt from nervousness as to what they would soon be faced with, that the jury arrived outside the Ice-house, where two rain-bedraggled militiamen were still on guard. We huddled together to light the lanterns we had brought with us. It was George Pennyfold that led the jury in, with lantern held high, while I acted as sheepdog, herding and chivvying them past the soldiers and through the narrow passageway that led within.