Skin and Bone--A Mystery

by Robin Blake

  Watching them in concentrated disappointment from the pier was the forlorn figure of Clarkson. He looked what he was: a man who had run out of expectations. I approached and greeted him.

  ‘He’s lost no time, has he?’ he said, tipping his head towards the demolition work. ‘I told you he wouldn’t, didn’t I, Mr Cragg?’

  ‘Are these Abraham Scroop’s workmen, then?’

  ‘Aye. And Lord Grassington’s, I’m sure. I’ve cried about it all over town. I’ve protested. Nothing would stop it. They could rebuild it as it was and we could have stayed on, but no. They must flatten all – all we worked for. Our home.’

  He jerked his head backwards in the direction of the pier, where I saw his entire family, the children huddled around their mother and a heap of baggage, waiting beside a boat at the quayside, the Maid of Man. The tide now being at the top, her crew were readying for departure.

  ‘You are leaving Preston?’

  ‘Aye, on the tide. We’ll sail far as Liverpool and then we’ll see what we’ll do.’

  ‘We are met just in time, then. I wanted to speak with you about how the fire started. Are you still convinced it was arson?’

  ‘There is no question. Set on purpose.’

  ‘By whom, then?’

  ‘I collected a few bits of evidence but the Mayor would not listen to me or look at them. But I’ll tell you what…’

  He rummaged in his coat pocket and pulled out a few roughly folded sheets of paper, which he thrust upon me.

  ‘Here. You have them, Mr Cragg. They’re no use to me now; I’m done with this town. But you might find the truth in these notes, if you’ve a mind to do so.’

  I glanced at the bundle. The papers were covered in not very elegant writing. I saw various names noted down and a rough drawing. But before I could examine them, there came a shout from the boat. Clarkson looked behind him. A sail was being readied for hoisting and men were in position on the quay to cast off.

  ‘That’s our call to go on board, Mr Cragg. I’ll be saying good-bye.’

  He hurried back to his wife and children and, following him to the bottom of the gangplank, I watched the family file across it. A burly sailor helped Clarkson transfer his belongings and, a few minutes later, the Maid of Man was drifting away from the berth, her blocks squeaking as the crew hoisted sail. Silently the family stood in the boat’s waist, the children snivelling and their parents grim-faced. I raised my arm and they, dolefully, returned the wave just as the sail above them filled with wind. The craft heeled a fraction and then slowly turned until she was under way. I watched as she grew smaller along the meandering channel that led to the sea.

  * * *

  I sat in the Turk’s Head with Clarkson’s pieces of paper spread across the table in front of me. There were three. Two contained lists of names, some of them with notes beside them, and the third was a drawing.

  I knew already that these papers were to do with Clarkson’s search for evidence of arson of the inn. Glancing at one of the papers I found my own name, among many others, and soon realized that this was an attempt to list every person that had attended the inquest in the upstairs room. The other paper, I saw, was also filled with names, many of which I did not recognize. Then there was the drawing. Clarkson was no draughtsman, that was clear, though nothing else was.

  The design was a rough rectangle drawn lengthways and divided into three areas – a narrow rectangle at the left which stretched from top to bottom of the diagram and a small one at the right, placed in the centre of the right side. This was striped horizontally and overdrawn with what looked like the outline of a hand. Various names, many only initials, were written in the different boxes, some of which had a line through them.

  Reminding myself that the papers represented Clarkson’s attempt to work out who might have set the fire, I guessed that the drawing was a plan of the ground floor of the inn, with the individuals present at the time written in, and that the ‘hand’ was the flames on the stairway. It looked as if Clarkson had come to the same conclusion as Fidelis and I: that the fire had started in the area of the stairs.

  He had told me he himself had gone into the pantry at the time the alarm was raised, so it followed that this must have been his recollection of the status quo a few moments beforehand.

  A shadow fell across the table and I looked up.

  ‘What is this?’ said Fidelis, removing his hat and sitting down beside me. ‘Papers, lists of names, a diagram! I am intrigued.’

  I showed him the papers and told him how I had obtained them.

  ‘Clarkson was trying to create a picture of the ground floor of his inn at the moment when the fire broke out, in particular who was there. He must have believed that one of these names is that of the supposed arsonist.’

  Fidelis studied the pages.

  ‘Not necessarily: he might have been identifying witnesses. Some of the names are crossed out. Perhaps they are men Clarkson spoke to. Those uncancelled were yet to be seen.’

  ‘In that case he was being commendably systematic. But surely if anyone in the room had seen a person setting the fire, it is inconceivable that they would not have come forward immediately to tell their tale.’

  ‘Sometimes various witnesses see various things, which mean nothing by themselves. Put them together and they may acquire significance. You know this well, Titus, from your work in the courts.’

  ‘I do. But is there need in this story for an arsonist? Here is how I think the fire started. You remember the day was gloomy and there were candles lit inside. One was placed in a sconce on the wall halfway up the stairs, which were crowded with people both standing there and jostling to come up or go down. Eventually someone knocked the candle out of its sconce and it fell through one of the many holes and gaps in the staircase, and into the panelled cavity beneath. There it continued to burn until, in course of time, it set fire to the wood inside the cavity – the wood from the log store.’

  Fidelis was looking intently at the rough plan of the Skeleton Inn’s downstairs room.

  ‘You are right to seize on the candle: I myself am sure that it instigated the fire. But it is surely only a distant possibility that this was accidental.’

  ‘I should be obliged if you would tell me why.’

  ‘Because it’s much more likely that the candle was dropped into the log store by a human hand. First, if it had happened by accident, the chances are very strong that someone would have noticed. There were many people present.’

  ‘If someone had done it deliberately, that would still have been the case.’

  ‘No, you ignore the difference between accident and agency. The moment of the one is random; that of the other is chosen. Criminals generally choose to act at times when their deeds will not be noticed.’

  ‘Very well. What is your second reason?’

  ‘Simply, how could the candle have got accidentally through the stairs?’

  ‘As I said, the stairs were old and decayed. In some cases the steps and the risers had split and cracked. Several holes had appeared.’

  ‘Yes but those cracks and holes were small, and again, for a lit candle to fall through one and not go out would be an incredible chance, do you not think? On the other hand, what could be easier for someone all unnoticed to kick in one of those risers while standing on the stairs and then, when the chance arose, to pick the candle from the holder and drop it through into the log store below? It would take time before the effect was noticed – a lag sufficient for the fire-starter to make himself scarce.’

  I would have preferred not to acknowledge it, but Fidelis might have been right.

  ‘Then why, Luke? Clarkson thinks it was only done to deprive him of the inn.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. The thing happened in the middle of an inquest. The arsonist must have been trying to halt or delay the proceedings – and, in fact, succeeded.’

  ‘It might have been the skinners, then – one of the Brock family. The evidence against Kathy
was beginning to look formidable at the time.’

  ‘Remember that I was close by, Titus. I don’t think any of them were on the stairs. They were in the body of the room, listening to the evidence.’

  ‘Who did you see, then?’

  ‘People moving up and down. One or two standing on the stairs waiting to get up into the room. But let’s see from the drawing who Clarkson places there. He was recording the names of those he saw there in the moments before the fire was detected.’

  The names transcribed exactly as Clarkson had written them were ‘Brumshaw D.R.S. Scroop serv? Phillips’.

  ‘Phillips might be the carpenter who lives in Ashton. I have treated his family and we talked together briefly.’

  ‘Brumshaw – that’s the baker with his shop on Spaw Brow. Who is D.R.S.?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I am more interested in “Scroop serv”. It must mean one of the servants in Scroop’s house – the sex is not stated. But this might be Jon O’Rorke.’

  ‘He is not the only male servant of Scroop. There are several more outdoors, I am sure. But he may be the only indoors man.’

  ‘The real point is Clarkson did not know who it was. He only recognized the livery – its colour is distinctive enough – but not the face.’

  ‘Did you not see him there yourself?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ He tapped Clarkson’s drawing. ‘But this may have been while I was giving evidence. Did you not notice him yourself, at any point?’

  ‘No. From where I sat there was merely a mass of people at the end of the room and around the stair. If only I had seen this paper when O’Rorke was with me this morning, I would have asked him the question direct.’

  ‘He came in answer to your request, then? You have questioned him?’

  ‘Yes, my small subterfuge successfully lured him to the office.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Questioning him was like trying to open that damned snuffbox of yours, Luke. The harder I tried with him the tighter he became.’

  ‘A pretty conceit. A touch of lubrication will ease the lid off, I think.’

  ‘Lubrication? I suppose you mean of the fermented kind.’

  ‘Yes. The kind that comes in pewter pots. I will do it myself, if you agree. I’ll seek him out at the Pride of the Pit Inn and oil him well.’

  ‘I went there myself. I got nothing out of him.’

  ‘But you are a stranger to the place – and a stranger to the fancy. I can do better. I am tolerably well known in cocking circles and there’ll be no surprise at my appearance. The place is particularly busy just before a main of cocks, you know, and it is only nine days now until the Michaelmas Main. One goes to the inn to strike wagers and for intelligence of the more likely birds.’

  ‘I don’t know how you will ever get O’Rorke to speak more about his adventures in love, though. The man is forewarned now, and on his guard. I wish I had not let him know he is suspected. He will never speak honestly again on the question.’

  Fidelis shook his head and smiled in a way he had when knowing better.

  ‘Quite the opposite, Titus. His grievance will by now be fully developed. He will be sore and glad in his drunkenness to find a sympathetic ear. He will soothe himself and at the same time betray himself – if there is anything to betray.’

  ‘Ask him whether he was present at the fire, while you’re about it. I would like to establish that.’

  ‘If that was him on the stairs, which seems more and more likely, I fancy we may have our fire-starter – and a direct link to the mother of our dead baby. The coincidence would be too great for it not to be so. The solution to this puzzle is almost in our grasp, Titus.’

  I shook my head, gloomily. I felt oppressed by Fidelis’s heady optimism.

  ‘If he were both the fire-starter and the baby’s father, he is not likely to admit it. It is as a bragging seducer that you will best pursue him, Luke. In that way maybe we shall find whom he seduced and so be led to the girl that gave birth to the baby in the tan-pit. When will you go to the Pride of the Pit, by the way?’

  ‘Tomorrow night is the night when it will be full of cockers. I’ll go then.’

  * * *

  Gloom and oppression did not leave me, and even my wife’s company at home could not lift them entirely. Of course, the true cause was not my prospects in discovering the truth about the skin-yard body, it was the thought of my impending trial in the morning at Court Leet, about which I now could summon no levity of any kind. Elizabeth and I did not mention it directly, and yet it lay between us with the food on our table, on the fireside rug as we sat together after supper, and in the six inches of feather mattress that separated us in our bed as we lay reading our books before sleep.

  I opened Dr Mandevil’s book, and in time came to a passage arguing that ‘Honour in its figurative sense is a chimera without truth or being, an invention of moralists and politicians. In great families it is like the gout, generally counted hereditary, and all lords’ children are born with it.’

  In spite of myself I laughed, and read the words aloud to Elizabeth, as I often did in bed when struck by a passage of literature. She, who was reading her Don Quixote, gave a distinctly sorrowful sigh.

  ‘Oh dear! Poor Don Quixote is fighting against exactly the same cynicism, you know. His high notion of honour is mocked on almost every page of the book.’

  ‘Mandevil says here that Quixote was the last upholder of ancient honour on record.’

  ‘What does he mean by ancient honour?’

  ‘In his formula, it meant to be truthful, to rate the public interest over one’s own, to do no fraud and to let no affront go unanswered. He says we moderns have discarded all these principles except for the last – which is clearly the case with Lady Rickaby, as we know.’

  ‘Hers is only pretended modern honour, my love. Yours is real and ancient. You must have faith that it will help you to prevail.’

  ‘I cannot understand how she rates my glimpsing her drawers as being of greater significance than my preserving her life. Is it because she married into the nobility, in whom honour is bred like the gout, as Mandevil says?’

  Elizabeth gave a scornful laugh.

  ‘Hardly! She is as common as we are – an iron-master’s daughter from Derbyshire. Did you know, by the way, that being the widow of Lord Rickaby connects her to Captain Strawboy and so to his uncle Lord Grassington?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘She is sister-in-law to Grassington’s sister-in-law, who is Strawboy’s mother.’

  ‘Say that again, please, more slowly.’

  ‘The sister of Lady Rickaby’s late husband, Lord Rickaby, married Lord Grassington’s younger brother, who was Captain Strawboy’s father.’

  I shut my eyes and repeated this mentally.

  ‘So Captain Strawboy is nephew to both Lord Grassington and Lady Rickaby?’

  ‘Yes, on different sides of his family. And furthermore he’s been heir to Grassington, and due to inherit his fortune, ever since his lordship’s own son died. He was a wastrel, they say, with terrible debts. The Captain seems a better fellow and I hope a more honourable one – in the ancient sense.’

  I hoped so too, but was beginning to doubt it. I suspected some underhand dealing in Lady Rickaby’s complaint against me, and that the young projector might be playing some part in it.

  Chapter 15

  ‘YOU’VE DONE NO wrong, Mr Cragg,’ whispered the toothless woman who sat beside me on the long bench. Her name was Betty and we were in the passage outside the courtroom, waiting our turns with three or four others. Betty had with her a goat on a string; from time to time, it punctuated the conversation with a rasping bleat. ‘You’ve only saved the rotten woman’s life, unless that’s a wrong, though it may be as her rotten ladyship’s not from round here.’

  She gave a cackle of laughter. From time to time Court Leet heard complaints involving people, like Lady Rickaby, from out of town, but these were not the court’s main business. Th
at was threefold: to regulate the market, keep the town’s bailiffs and searchers up to the mark, and settle arguments between neighbours. The latter was the case with Betty. Her goat had been accused of eating the nuts off a neighbour’s walnut tree, and Betty had brought the animal to court, so she told me, to enable Mr Thwaite to see what an honourable and law-abiding goat she was, who would never descend to the theft of a few nuts.

  I consider that all goats have a shifty and pragmatic look, but I suppressed the thought and thanked her for her belief in my innocence, adding, ‘That fine animal of yours looks remarkably free of guilt itself.’

  Heavy footsteps on the flag floor approached and I saw it was Jonathan Kite, his large bulk suddenly making the passage feel narrower. He had come to answer the charge which I had seen made against him by Abraham Scroop during the previous week – that of selling inferior goods, and without a market licence.

  ‘Eh, Mr Cragg, I’m right sorry about this complaint against you,’ he said, sitting down on the bench against the opposite wall. Everyone by now, it seemed, knew of my indictment. ‘They’ve only brought it because that woman’s a nob, and Burgess Grimshaw’s wife’s sister.’

  ‘You are very kind, Kite,’ I said. ‘And I am just as sorry that you have been brought here. The charges are equally unwarranted, I am sure.’

  ‘It is the third time in three months! They do persecute us, which is a fact. And it’s because they are set on killing off the skin-yard, which is another fact.’

  We three defendants, all equally convinced of our innocence, sat like children awaiting the schoolmaster’s pleasure. Betty and her goat were called in first and came out only a few minutes later having been pronounced guilty and ordered to pay a shilling in recompense to the walnut grower. The goat, looking so entirely free of shame, cannot have helped the case for its own defence. I was in the midst of sympathizing with Betty when the old usher, Danks, hobbled into the room and spoke my name. Obediently I followed him to the courtroom.

  The room, which was used also for the magistrate’s court and the quarter sessions, was panelled in oak and furnished with brass rails, making it far more imposing than the makeshift courtrooms in which I was accustomed to hold my inquests. It was furnished with a high platform for the Mayor’s great throne and alongside it other not quite such great chairs for the Recorder, Thwaite’s fellow magistrates, and the judges at quarter sessions. Below these in the court’s well were the usual clearly defined spaces: jury box, witness box and an assortment of chairs, pews and benches for the use of councillors, clerks and lawyers. At the back of the room was an area best described as a pen for the public. It was a space fenced by barriers and occupied by friends of interested parties and one or two others, such as Miss Colley and Mrs Bryce, who derived amusement gratis from attending trials and hearings. I knew also that Elizabeth was there, though I did not look for her. I had tried to dissuade her from it altogether.