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

by William Savage

  To his enormous relief, his mother seemed satisfied with what he had told her. Aside from one or two questions about Mr. Wicken himself, which he was able either to deflect or to answer in innocuous ways, she seemed content to let the matter rest.

  In Miss Lasalle, he could only trust to that discretion she had praised. For several moments, the young woman was silent and seemed to be struggling with some internal debate. Then, having reached her decision, she smiled at him again and thanked him for letting her stay to hear his tale. His ordeal was over.

  Still, as Adam lay in his bed that night, he could not help but wonder whether Miss Lasalle would let him off so easily. He was certain she guessed something of how much he had omitted. She had also owned to being of a curious disposition on most subjects. Yet even if she pressed him, he would not be able to go further. His last thought as he drifted into sleep he would later recall with amazement. At that moment, it seemed, he felt nothing would be more agreeable than to win her trust in him, in this matter and in many others.

  24

  A Puzzle Shared

  Monday, 2 July 1792, Aylsham

  Adam did not, in the end, return to his own house until Sunday afternoon. His mother’s company acted as balm to his mind after the stress of the past few days. Even Miss Lasalle seemed to grasp his need for relaxation. Whatever questions were still in her mind stayed there.

  Though the weather continued to deny that summer had arrived, the ride back to Aylsham was uneventful. He had no fears that his absence might have proved a problem. Mrs. Brigstone was entirely capable and trustworthy, well used to taking full charge of household matters.

  Amongst the letters waiting for him was a brief letter from his brother Giles. A servant had brought it over on Friday from Trundon Hall. Giles must have received a similar letter from their mother to the one she sent to Adam. Now he expressed some surprise – and not a little apprehension – at her decision to find a companion. Like Adam, he must have imagined some withered and embittered spinster, who might mar the good relations that had always marked their family, even in the worst days of their father's financial woes.

  Adam immediately wrote in return. He related his visit to his mother and commented on her continued health and high spirits. He was also able, he hoped, to set Giles' mind at rest about Miss Lasalle. ‘She is a delightful, modest young woman’ he wrote. ‘Her conversation is good, her mind well-developed and her manner entirely appropriate.’ He did not notice his failure to describe her appearance in any way.

  Of course, his sister-in-law Amelia saw this at once. When the letter was shown to her, she told her husband that Adam must be ‘quite smitten’ with Miss Lasalle to be so quiet on this score. Still, as she and Giles knew well, Adam had been smitten with several young ladies in the past and had shown no inclination to suggest matrimony to any.

  Beyond writing that he had been spurred to go to Norwich by gaining a new patient there, Adam said nothing about the rest. It would be time enough to tell his brother about other matters when the puzzle had been either cleared up or finally set aside.

  This Monday Adam rose late, put on his favourite morning gown and enjoyed a lengthy breakfast. He also caught up with reading the newspapers the carrier had brought from Norwich the previous week. Adam was an avid reader of the news. His mother scorned to buy any journals, labelling them all as purveyors of scurrilous scandal.

  Thus it was that he arrived finally at Peter Lassimer’s shop nearly at the noon hour. He found his friend with several customers waiting for his attention. Adam was not one to miss any opportunity to ingratiate himself with potential patients. He therefore took the chance to exchange greetings and local news with all those who waited. Maybe fifteen minutes passed in that way until the final customer had been served. Then Lassimer pointed to the door to his compounding room.

  ‘I have much work to do, doctor,’ he said with a grin, ‘even if lordly physicians like yourself can afford to work but one day in each week.’

  Adam replied in kind. ‘Naturally, my friend. A physician’s cures work the first time. An apothecary’s patients must return many times until he hits upon a remedy by chance.’

  The antagonism between university-educated physicians and the more lowly apothecaries was well known. It had served many time as a suitable source of banter between them.

  Adam was happy to talk while his friend worked to replenish his stock of medicines. Too close attention to the version of events he believed it was safe to share might reveal the gaps and holes in the tale.

  The story he told Lassimer was essentially the same as the one he had given to his mother. Lassimer was a good friend, but prone to gossip. Adam could, he knew, have sealed Peter’s mouth by the simple expedient of asking him to treat all as confidential. Yet he had his own reasons for wanting the apothecary to spread abroad much of what he heard in this case. Gossip given leads to gossip received. Adam hoped Peter’s friends, acquaintances and customers might be useful in bringing further information.

  When he had finished, he relaxed in the chair Lassimer had set for him by the compounding table and waited for his friend’s reaction.

  ‘Well,’ Lassimer said at last, ‘it was most odd that Mr. Wicken was willing to come so far just to apologise for what happened at the inquest. I wonder if he had any other reason for seeking you out? I never met the man, but he sounds a most unreliable type of gentleman.’

  This was far too close to dangerous territory and Adam acted at once to direct Peter’s attention elsewhere. ‘He did not say he had come to Norwich just for that purpose,’ he said, as casually as he could. ‘I expect he had other business in the city. Maybe he was intending to be present at the assizes when the smugglers are tried. I believe Constable Garnet, being of greater villainy, is to be brought before a judge at the Old Bailey.’

  ‘There’s another fellow of whom I have many doubts,’ Lassimer said. To himself, Adam breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I wonder why he and Archdeacon Ross planned to meet.’

  Adam, sat up in an instant. ‘Why do you say that? Could there have been links between such an important churchman and a gang of smugglers?’

  ‘I never imagined there was,’ Lassimer replied. ‘But they must have had some contact with one another. You proved it by your own words. Did you not tell me, at the start of this business, that the constable showed no surprise when told the corpse in the churchyard was the archdeacon’s?’

  At this, Adam started violently, then struck the heel of his hand against his own forehead.

  ‘Bascom, you addle-pated nincompoop!’ he shouted. ‘You veritable prince of asses! Lassimer, I thank you. You are a paragon of reason. I should be ashamed to be here, wasting your time. Of course! He showed no surprise at all. Yet anyone, especially a parish constable in a tiny village, should be amazed. Imagine a body, lying in their churchyard, being a person of such rank. He must have expected the archdeacon to be in Gressington.’

  ‘So they met?’

  ‘No. They cannot have met,’ Adam said, ‘whatever they planned between them. Now you have set me on the right tack, that is plain. Garnet appeared surprised at the news that a dead man had been found, not that it was a gentleman in fine clothes. Unless he is an actor of the calibre of Garrick or Kemble, which I much doubt, his surprise was plain. It was not feigned, I would stake my life on that. He simply overlooked, in his surprise, to pretend to be staggered at the identity of the dead person.’

  ‘I thought I had solved it,’ Lassimer said in a plaintive tone. ‘So, let me have this right. They arranged to meet and Garnet either killed Dr. Ross or they had a struggle and Ross fell. Then Garnet ran off to avoid being linked to the dead man.’

  ‘No. That is not right,’ Adam said. ‘It cannot be so. Garnet may have been expecting the archdeacon, but for some reason no meeting took place. It is not just the evidence of my own eyes that points me to such a conclusion. All we know of Constable Garnet proves he is greedy for money, and not at all concerned how he may come
by it. Not only was he paid by the smugglers, I am sure, to stay quiet about their actions. He was also captured in the act of ferrying someone in secret to their ship. Even under close questioning, as Mr. Wicken calls it – I cannot imagine Garnet's treatment to have been gentle – he maintained he had been seeking his own profit.

  ‘Had he been there when Archdeacon Ross fell and rendered himself unconscious, he would have robbed him before running away. If he had killed the man, the same would be true. Thus he would have garnered a significant amount of money and saleable goods. He would also have made it almost certain the man’s death would be attributed to some cutpurse, robber or vagabond. It was the fact that the corpse had not been robbed that first produced suspicion.

  ‘Oh, he was quick to give the answer of an accidental death, I warrant you that. He would be terrified that someone investigating a homicide would enquire in too much depth. Why was a high dignitary of the church lurking in that churchyard? Whom might he be meeting and why? Even Mr. Harmsworthy claimed to be puzzled by the archdeacon’s determination to reach Gressington that afternoon. When his chaise was badly damaged, he went to great pains to find another to take him.’

  ‘So Archdeacon Ross had an arrangement to meet Constable Garnet,’ Lassimer said. ‘Or Garnet and someone else.’

  ‘Indeed he must have,’ Adam replied. ‘Yet, for some reason that meeting did not happen. Instead, either the archdeacon stumbled on others, who attacked him, or he wandered about and fell by chance. No. No,’ he went on at once. ‘Had he met others and been attacked, we would have seen signs of that. Nor would they, if they were smugglers or other felons, have failed to rob him. Perhaps he did stumble and fall by chance. Perhaps it is as simple as that.’

  ‘Perhaps it is,’ Lassimer said, ‘but we are, it seems, no further forward in discovering why Constable Garnet and Archdeacon Ross had arranged to meet. All we know is that must be the reason which took Dr. Ross to Gressington in the first place.’

  ‘If I write to Mr. Wicken right away, perhaps Garnet may be challenged with our knowledge of the arrangement and led to explain,’ Adam said.

  ‘That will not serve, I fear,’ his friend said. ‘You said Mr. Wicken left London when the constable was about to stand trial. Unless things have changed, I expect we will read in the newspaper, either tomorrow or the day after, that the court sat last week. Garnet would have been found guilty and may be hanging at the rope’s end even as we speak. No letter from here would reach London in time for your friend Mr. Wicken to stay the course of the law. Not even if you carried it yourself.’

  ‘Then the matter is at an end and we will never know,’ Adam said.

  His despondency must have sounded in his voice, for Lassimer stopped what he was doing and came over to clap a hand to his shoulder. ‘Not at all. Cheer up and start reasoning it out with me. We both doubt that Archdeacon Ross had any interest in seeking out smugglers. What was he eager to discover then? What else might he have thought the constable could tell him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Adam said, becoming animated again. ‘More than that, what information would he have been willing to pay for? I doubt Garnet would consent to disclose anything without receiving a fat fee first.’

  ‘I have it,’ Lassimer said in triumph. ‘The archdeacon was always obsessed with rooting out immorality and heresy. He must have suspected some group were meeting in secret near Gressington to conduct Black Masses and violate innocent virgins. People like those fellows associated with Dashwood and Wilkes some years back.’

  ‘A Hellfire Club? Surely not. Not in rural Norfolk! Besides, even that lecherous group did not violate any woman who was not paid well to allow them to do it. I heard that they brought whores from London to serve their needs. They may have carried out some parodies of sacred rites, but it was never proven.’

  ‘Would that have mattered to the archdeacon?’

  ‘No, probably not. His kind of over-zealous nature rarely waits for proof before reaching conclusions. But…’

  ‘No ‘buts’,’ Lassimer said. ‘You will see that I am right. Some whisper of lechery and blasphemy had reached the archdeacon’s ears and he was hot on their trail. Maybe Constable Garnet had genuine information. Maybe he was pretending, so that he might cheat the archdeacon out of money. Either way, Archdeacon Ross believed he could find out when and where the meetings took place. Knowing that, he could act to seize them. I will make it my business to listen and ask careful questions on the matter. If such rumours reached Norwich, they must reach me.’

  ‘You will ignore me, I know,’ Adam said, ‘but I urge you to have a care. If such a desperate group exists, they will not stoop from calling down the most terrible curses on any humble apothecary who stands in their way.’

  ‘Now you make fun of me,’ Lassimer replied. ‘Have it your own way, When I am proved correct in my reasoning, I will remember your derision and make you beg humbly for pardon.’

  Adam should have left matters there, but he could not resist making a final observation. ‘It is just…can you imagine any of the gentlemen of these parts as members of a Hellfire Club? Most are dullness personified. They are the epitome of English country squires, addicted only to the pleasures of table and bottle. Indeed, a good many are well past their sixtieth year of age. Even if their minds still run hot with lust for maidens, I doubt their bodies could come near to matching those urges. The only fine flanks their hands run over now are those of their hunting horses and hounds.’

  ‘Say no more,’ Lassimer said. ‘You have expressed your disdain. Of course, you forget that dull squires have hot-headed sons. Still, that will be your loss. I will wager you a dozen bottles of finest port wine that I am proved correct. Will you accept my challenge?’

  ‘I will,’ Adam said, ‘Though buying such wine will harm your purse, while seeing me drink it will injure your pride still more. Now, sir, enough. You have patent cures to concoct and I have serious medical business to pursue. Let us each to our own tasks. I will await your reports with eager anticipation.’

  25

  Mere Thoughts and Speculations

  Wednesday, 4 July 1792, Aylsham

  Wednesday dawned bright and clear. For a moment or two, Adam’s waking mind could not grasp the reason for his bedroom being so light. For weeks before, each morning had brought cloud, rain or even, on one or two occasions, fog. Yet that day the sun shone, the sky was a pure blue, unspotted by cloud, and the air promised a first taste of summer’s warmth.

  It was a day not to be wasted lying long in bed. Adam rose and rang the bell for the maid to bring water and shaving materials. Then, his face clean and free from beard, he dressed in a clean shirt, his favourite breeches and an old, but much-loved waistcoat. Over it all, he drew on a coat of equal antiquity. He was going walking, he told himself, not visiting the quality. Even so, he knew Mrs. Brigstone, if she happened to see him, would shake her head and tell him he looked like a poor farmer on his way to market. But today he would dress as he wished, whatever she thought.

  Going downstairs, he avoided the kitchen with care. That was where Mrs. Brigstone would be. He may have resolved to do as he wished, but that did not include provoking her criticism. Though the thought of breakfast aroused his hunger, he would not stay to eat. Time enough later for that, when he had sharpened his appetite by a brisk walk in the morning air.

  Stopping by the back door, he drew on an pair of strong boots and let himself out into the garden and thence into the street behind.

  It seemed all Aylsham was of the same mind. The street was already busy. There were people walking and on horseback. There were farmer’s carts and the handcarts and wagons used by tradesmen to deliver their wares from door to door. No one, as it appeared, wished to be abed on such a morning. The inn chaise stood ready outside The Black Boys to take customers to Norwich. Even the horses looked alert and ready for the off. Few of the gentry of the town shared his liking for early walks, but many had sent their servants to the bakers to purchase fresh morning rolls.
He could smell them, hot from the oven that Mr. Stipping and his apprentice would have lit not long after midnight. His stomach rumbled but he continued with resolution. If he stopped now, he might never get started again.

  Sunshine is a sovereign way to raise the spirits and each person he passed greeted him merrily. The better sort raised their hats and bade him, ‘Good morning, doctor. A fine day at last.’ Artisans and tradesmen touched their hands to hat-brims or foreheads and called him ‘sir’ or ‘master’. Servants bobbed curtseys or clumsy bows, careful to keep their eyes cast down. Only Peter’s maid Anne, looking as pretty as the morning itself as she swept the path outside her master’s shop, looked him full in the face. She smiled and wished him, ‘A pleasant walk, Dr. Bascom, and a fine morning for it.’

  Without thinking, he smiled at her in return and raised his hat. Then blushed and hurried on, uncomfortable that her beauty had drawn from him a response more suited to the mistress of a house than a servant-girl.

  Leaving the busier part of the little town, Adam headed for the river. The Bure is no great stream, but its waters run clear and fast. Good fish, he knew, waited in the deeper pools for any angler skilled enough to tempt them. Strangers seemed always to expect the whole of the county to be flat meadows or marshlands. In this northern part of Norfolk, the landscape was more of a pattern of low hills and wide valleys. Here rivers flowed strongly enough to power a good many mills along their length.

  The constant rain of recent days had swollen the streams still further. Now the Bure, although it retained its clear water, bustled along swiftly. Hidden rapids and obstacles dappled its surface, while fierce-looking dragonflies patrolled the banks. In the water meadows, sleek cattle watched Adam pass. The morning milking time was nearly upon them and the milkmaids would soon come to call them into the barns and yards. A herd of bullocks ran up to inspect him, unused to seeing anyone abroad at such an early hour. Then all scattered in consternation as he clapped his hands and shouted at them.