An Unlamented Death: A Mystery Set in Georgian England (Mysteries of Georgian Norfolk Book 1)

by William Savage

  ‘The constable indeed. We had not suspected him of anything, save idleness and the kind of accommodation with smugglers typical of his kind. Now we discovered he was the key to the operation. He was the man who collected people in his boat, landed them secretly, and took others back to the ship. Just as we had done, he was using the smuggling operation to conceal his true intentions.’

  ‘So the smugglers were just that?’ Adam said. ‘Smugglers?’

  ‘Precisely,’ Mr. Wicken replied. ‘They were well paid to take no notice of any strangers aboard the ship and what became of them.’

  ‘And the constable’s ‘cargo’? The lone Frenchman?’

  ‘Now you please me again, doctor. We could hardly pretend there had been no small boat and no passenger. One of our men was dead and another sorely hurt. The Frenchman we felt we could admit to, given the fears now abroad. But that was all.’

  ‘There were others?’ Adam said.

  ‘One other. An Irishman. A notorious member of that hot-bed of sedition the United Irishmen. It seems our good constable had quite a business, for he would arrange the secret movements of any who might pay him enough. Our net was closed. The prey was taken. But it was not the prey we wanted.’

  ‘That was all?’

  ‘Not quite. When taken, Garnet had about him a bundle of letters to and from various French agents in England. Again, a most useful haul, but not what we sought. Believe me, we have questioned Garnet with some rigour, but he denies knowing anything about the people he carried. He claims he never knew from where or why they came. He never met the person who arranged his involvement. His instructions came by letter only, without signature. When the deed was done, he would be instructed where to find the cash that was his payment.’

  ‘You believe him?’ Adam said.

  ‘I do. This group is far too careful and well-organised to put any trust in a greedy fool like Garnet. He will hang for what he has done and they will, in time, find another such person. For the moment, this route is blocked and our quarry scattered. Who knows where they may be found next time?’

  For a while, they sat in silence, each absorbed in the events of the past. Then Mr. Wicken stood up. ‘You know, that constable was a most enterprising fellow. When we searched his house, we found a package, neatly wrapped and hidden. In it were four books containing stories and illustrations of an extremely lewd nature. He must have had an extra business in the import of pornography. I would have believed such material was easy enough for gentlemen to find in this country. Still, this was pornography of a most particular nature. Perhaps those with tastes of this kind soon tire of what they can find in England, especially in a country district. However, enough of that. Now I must take my leave, as I said, but first I must ask for your help.’

  ‘How can I help you, sir? I have neither skill nor knowledge in these matters’ Adam said.

  ‘What you have is better than that,’ Mr. Wicken replied. ‘You have a sharp mind and abundant curiosity. I can spare no more resources to continue to watch this area. I had to beg for what was made available to me last time. Thank goodness my haul included enough to please my masters. I will get no more to pursue what one called ‘Wicken’s chimaeras’ for a long time. Yet, as I hope I have shown you, all my efforts produced nothing with regard to my primary objective. No, my friend. All I want of you is what I wanted of Dr. Ross: information garnered by careful observation. In your case, I have told you all I can, so that you may watch and listen with knowledge of what I want and why. There will be no intermediary this time either. What you find – assuming you agree to aid me – I wish you to communicate to me alone, either by letter or, if the need warrants, in person. I know where to find you. I will tell you where to find me. Guard the information well, I beg you. There are those who would pay much for it and thus bring about what they most desire: my death.’

  Without saying more, he gave Adam a small piece of folded paper. Then he hurried out, calling back over his shoulder that he knew the way and required no servant to show him to the door. Adam, too stunned even to speak, let him go.

  The front door banged, footsteps could be heard descending the steps to the street, and Mr. Wicken was on his way.

  A moment later, a maid hurried into the room. ‘Has your visitor gone, sir? I thought I heard the front door.’

  ‘He has gone.’

  ‘But the mistress gave me most particular orders to listen for signs of departure and make sure he was escorted from the house in a polite manner.’

  ‘Do not worry, child. I will explain all to my mother. He desired no politenesses and would wait for none. It was not your fault.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the maid said. ‘Will you join your mother in her parlour? She said to tell you she has asked cook to send up your favourite pastries.’

  Adam smiled, but declined. Time enough to endure his mother’s questions, for her curiosity was as great as his own. He suspected the same of Miss Lasalle, who would doubtless join them. ‘Please tell your mistress that I am most cognisant of her kindness, but I must sit alone for a while. I will join her later, perhaps. Oh and…what is your name?’

  ‘Ellen, sir.’

  ‘Well, Ellen, please be ready either to take an urgent letter for me yourself or send someone else who can do so. It will not need to be taken far, but I will want the messenger to wait for an answer. Do you understand?’

  The girl nodded and he waved her away. What he needed now above all was silence and solitude. He had much to consider.

  On a sudden, he remembered the paper Mr. Wicken had given him. What it contained was an address in London where he might find Mr. Wicken, together with another name and address. Well, he would go and see this other man before he left Norwich. Whether it would serve any better purpose than curiosity, he did not know.

  20

  Preliminary Diagnosis

  Later on Friday, 29 June 1792, Norwich

  Adam sat in silence, turning over and over what Mr. Wicken had told him. Every turn produced fresh combinations of what he knew. As he did so, he upended each piece and combined one part with another. Then he fitted together accounts from different sources and and sometimes took them apart again. Inferences and deductions were made, considered and rejected. Guesswork filled gaps and was pulled out again. Occasionally facts and ideas fitted together with such precision that he knew they had to form part of the truth. Yet even now the full solution eluded him.

  The archdeacon was not a stupid man. Did he guess that he was being led on? Would vague rumours of dissidents and freethinkers be sufficient to draw him deep into the Norfolk countryside. Would they be enough to take him there late in the afternoon, to a lonely spot like Gressington? He must have been intending to meet someone. Who was it? Did they meet, or was he dead before the other person could arrive?

  Feeling disgusted that he knew so much and yet understood so little, Adam felt disheartened. Even Mr. Wicken, with all the resources at his command, had made little headway. How could he, a country doctor, hope to do better? Why should it matter to him anyway? It was not his problem. His job was to heal the sick.

  As Adam said those words to himself – ‘my job is to heal the sick’ – something happened which he could never explain afterwards. It was as if his mind was filled with a brilliant light, and his body convulsed by an electrical charge. If he had been a superstitious man, it might even have made him think about divine intervention. As it was, he sat up suddenly, slapped his hand on his thigh and shouted, ‘Damn my boots! What a fool I have been!’

  His shouts brought the maid, Ellen, hurrying into the room, but before she could even open her mouth, Adam was issuing his orders.

  ‘Pen, ink and paper!’ Adam said. ‘Hurry, girl! Quick as you can.’

  The maid stared for moment, clearly wondering whether her mistress’s son was in full possession of his reason. Then she hurried off as she was told, and returned in but a few minutes with the writing materials.

  ‘The mistress says…’
she began, but got no further.

  ‘Quiet! Let me think. I am going to write a short note that I want you to take immediately to the house that I will tell you. Wait there for the reply and hurry back as fast as your feet will carry you.’

  The maid bobbed uncertainly and stayed silent. The gentry could be extremely strange at times, and it did no good to antagonise them. While Adam wrote, she did her best to become invisible.

  ‘There,’ Adam said. ‘Take this at once to the archdeacon’s house in the cathedral close. Make sure that those within hand it immediately to their mistress. Then wait, as I told you, and bring the reply back to me.’

  The girl hastened to the door, slipping through just as Adam’s mother entered.

  ‘Adam!’ His mother said. ‘What on earth is going on? You have an unknown visitor at breakfast time and spend nigh an hour with him, ignoring even the most basic duties of a host. Next, he leaves without any ceremony and you sit alone in here for another half-hour, leaving everyone wondering what is happening. Then you shout loud enough to wake the dead and send my maid running to get you pen and paper. Now, I perceive…’ They heard the front door bang shut. ‘…you have sent the poor girl on some errand, I know not where. My dear boy, I know that I have urged you in the past to treat my house as your own, but do you not think this is going too far? Would it not have been polite to ask if you could command my staff in this way?’

  ‘I apologise most humbly, mother,’ Adam said, ‘but there is not time. It is of the greatest importance that I speak again with Mrs. Ross before I have to leave Norwich.’

  ‘Mrs. Ross? The archdeacon’s widow? I did not know that you were acquainted with her.’

  ‘I spoke with her yesterday morning, at her invitation,’ Adam said. ‘Something that I have just learned may be of tremendous importance to her. She is sick in mind and body, and will not be cured until she is able to resolve certain matters. I will do what I can, but much depends on me being able to speak to her quickly, then act on what she says. I cannot be sure, you see. It all seems to make sense, but I have been wrong before. Now, before Ellen returns, I must ask you a vital question. Do you know a Mr. Jempson, a prominent merchant in Norwich, I believe, and a Quaker? Where does he live?’

  ‘I am more amazed than I can say,’ his mother replied. ‘Yes, of course I know of Mr. Jempson. I imagine that everyone in this city does. If it were not for our foolish laws, by now he would be an alderman and probably Lord Mayor. He has done much for those who live here and brought great prosperity. Yet I am not acquainted with him personally – as it seems you are.’

  ‘I recently had occasion to save him from footpads, ’ Adam said, ‘but that is of little matter. Things he told me then seem to fit with things I have heard today, and others I was told by Capt. Mimms. Do you know where he lives, mother? I must try to meet with him as soon as I may. Oh, and may I stay here tonight? My return to Aylsham must be delayed.’

  ‘Your last question is probably the only one I have understood,’ his mother said. ‘Yes, of course you may stay. You really had no need to ask. Sophia and I will be glad of your company for another evening – at least, if this wild mood leaves you and you are fit for our company again.’

  ‘Do not be cross with me, mother. I will explain as soon as I am able, for I know that I have inherited much of my curiosity from you.’

  ‘I am not cross, merely bewildered. However, enough of that. I do know where our admirable Quaker lives and you shall send Roger, the stable-lad, there with your message. It is a good way off and poor Ellen will undoubtedly need to recover her breath and her wits when she returns. I had not marked you for such a sly-boots, Adam. You are plainly involved in some urgent enterprise, yet you have made not the smallest mention of it to your own mother. Your brother Giles is so like his father. He is a plain, solid, country squire, with neither the wish nor the imagination for adventures. Well, I cannot say I was not warned. Before you were seven years old, your grandfather said to me that, one day, you would surprise us all. What he had marked in you, he did not say, and I paid little heed. I was wrong. It seems all our family’s adventure, inventiveness, boldness and nerve – so long absent on the family tree – are concentrated in your person. Now they are showing themselves in full. It takes my breath away.’

  Adam grinned at that. ‘Well, mother, you always said there must be a black sheep in every family.’

  She laughed. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you are no black sheep. You have too wise a head and too good a heart for that. Yet I begin to wonder if you do not have something of the wolf in you. I perceive you are engaged in a hunt that I must not impede. Ah, Ellen is back. ’

  Almost at once, the maid came into the room. Her breathing was laboured and her face quite pink from the effort she had made to return with all speed.

  ‘Mrs. Ross says…’ but she had not the breath to continue and must needs gasp in air in a most comical manner. ‘Mrs. Ross says…’

  ‘Stop! Breath a little first. If you fall down in a faint, as you are like to do,’ her mistress said, ‘we will never know what the poor lady said.’

  Ellen did as she was bid and stood there for several moments until her breathing and her colour were more normal. Then, straightening her back, she presented her information in a rush. ‘Mrs. Ross says you may call on her at any time, sir. She will be most pleased to see you and she is quite taken aback by the urgency of your message. But she had already determined to tell you all just not so soon…sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Ellen,’ Adam’s mother said. ‘I am sure my son is most grateful for your diligence in returning in peril, so it seems, of your own well-being and decorum. He is, as usual, too preoccupied in thinking about what you have said to tell you so himself. Go to the kitchen, sit down, and tell cook I say to give you a pot of small ale and some food to revive you. Oh…before you sit, please step into the yard and tell Roger I have an urgent errand for him. He is to come here immediately.’

  As the maid left, Adam was already on his feet and moving towards the door. ‘I cannot wait for Roger. Please, mother, tell him to go this instant to Mr. Jempson’s house. Let him present my compliments and ask if I may have opportunity to speak with Mr. Jempson in person and in haste. Then bring back the response at once. Something like that. I am sure you can word the message more politely. What matters is that Mr. Jempson receives my message as quickly as may be and is apprised of its importance.’ With that, Adam was out of the door and away, leaving his poor mother standing once more in a state of the greatest shock.

  21

  An Unhappy Union

  Still later on the same day

  When Adam was shown into her parlour, Mrs. Ross stood to welcome her visitor. She must feel less frail, Adam thought.

  ‘I had not expected you to call again quite so soon, Dr. Bascom,’ she said, ‘though I am glad to see you. Thanks to the draught you gave me, I slept well last night and woke much refreshed.’

  ‘I am delighted, madam,’ Adam said. ‘As I said to you yesterday, more than anything you need to allow your mind and body to recover. You have endured a period of great unhappiness. I hope that I may be able to ease your mind still more, as a result of some information that came to me unexpectedly only this morning. I will soon return to my home in Aylsham, so I wished to take the opportunity of being in Norwich to call upon you and deliver my news in person.’

  ‘You are most kind, sir. As I told your mother’s maid, I was myself determined to ask you to call upon me again when you were next in this city. It seems the opportunity for both of us has come immediately.’

  Adam cast around for some way to introduce the reason for his visit as gently as he could. Mrs. Ross’s state remained fragile. He had no wish to startle her or cause her further distress.

  ‘Mrs. Ross,’ he began. ‘Forgive me for making what can only be an assumption based on certain comments you made when we talked last. I do not usually listen to gossip, but in this case – where it seemed to bear on the welfare of a pat
ient – I felt I had no choice. I have heard that there was a falling out between your husband and your only son, not long before the tragic events at Gressington.’

  ‘You have heard correctly, Doctor. That is an event that weighs heavy on my conscience. When we spoke yesterday, I was quite unable to tell you of it. That was, I now believe, an error. I excused myself by noting that you were a stranger to me, and that I had no need to add to my distress by recalling things I would much rather forget. Yet your diagnosis of my condition appeared all too accurate. If you recall, you suggested that the ills of my body might well be produced by malignant workings of my mind. At that point, I almost blurted it out. I am ashamed to say that my courage failed me, as it has done so often in the course of my life. Maybe this time I will not be so punished for my cowardice, for you seem to be my guardian angel in this matter.’

  ‘No angel, madam, I assure you. But I may be able to bring a message of comfort nonetheless. Were your recent fears centred on the thought that your late husband may have gone to Gressington churchyard either in pursuit of, or for a meeting with, your son? Did you imagine that his death was linked to something that passed between them?’

  To Adam’s horror, Mrs. Ross’s face became as white as any ghost’s and she fell back into the chair behind her, gasping for breath.

  ‘Mrs. Ross…madam…are you unwell?’ Adam said. ‘A thousand apologies. I am such a clumsy fool. I have startled you and, as a doctor, I should have known to avoid that. Sit still, please. Compose yourself. Shall I call for a servant? I ran from my mother’s house with such speed that I did not bring my medical bag with me. How I curse myself for what I have done! I came to bring you relief, as I imagined, and I have brought hurt instead. I do not deserve forgiveness…’

  In his distress, Adam must have continued to condemn himself for several more minutes, had not Mrs. Ross held up her hand for silence.