Skin and Bone--A Mystery

by Robin Blake

  ‘If it should come to the attention of the Mayor that I let you in to see the prisoner I may be censured.’

  ‘He won’t know if we don’t tell anyone. Look, Arnold, this is the case that Thwaite’s used to discredit me and destroy my coronership. I know he has got it terribly wrong. Help me to find out what really happened.’

  ‘Is O’Rorke innocent? Do you think so?’

  ‘I am certain of it. But he might go to the gallows yet, if Thwaite has his way.’

  ‘Very well, Cragg. You can have twenty minutes with him, and no more. And if anyone asks how you spoke to him, it was through the barred window of his cell, and entirely without my knowledge.’

  I had to work hard also to bring O’Rorke around, as he was in a foul humour – pacing his cell, wringing his hands and cursing.

  ‘I have two birds going to the pit tomorrow,’ he railed. ‘After months of preparation, they’re primed and ready to fight for their lives. But they’re out there and I’m in here and I’m buggered if I can do anything about it. And on top of that I’m out on my ear from the Scroops’. See?’

  He waved a paper at me which I took and read:

  To Jon O’Rorke,

  With this letter you are to consider yourself summarily dismissed from my employment, and must remove your belongings from my house immediately. If you do not, they will be thrown or given away.

  Abraham Scroop.

  I handed the letter back to him.

  ‘I imagine you are not surprised.’

  ‘Nothing surprises me with the English. This is all a plot to keep me out of the Main of Cocks, of that I am sure. They are afraid they cannot beat my birds in a fair fight, so they put me in prison. I have large bets with Lord Strange, Mr Shuttleworth and other gentlemen. If I don’t turn up with my birds, there will be no contest, and they will be mightily frustrated.’

  ‘How do you, a servant, have the means to strike large bets with such rich men?’

  ‘Borrowing, Mr Cragg. I will not say who from, but I have had support.’

  ‘Then cannot this backer or backers help you get out of here?’

  ‘On the mortgage system, may it be damned, I cannot rely on them.’

  ‘Your birds are mortgaged?’

  ‘Yes. So, if I don’t pay up, they take the birds. The men I’ve mortgaged with may prefer that outcome.’

  So it was not until I showed him Dr Hume of Warrington’s letter that he began to be pliable. He proved to my surprise to be perfectly literate and read it through in disbelief. Then he read it again and realized it was no prank, and no illusion, but his manumission, his ticket of leave.

  ‘This proves that Kathy was not this dead baby’s mam!’

  ‘Yes. She cannot have been.’

  ‘So there’s nothing to connect me to the tan-pit baby.’

  ‘Precisely. It exonerates you, O’Rorke, as well as her.’

  ‘Then for God’s sake make it public. Go out and exonerate me, as you put it.’

  I was not ready to let him off as lightly as that.

  ‘All in good time. First—’

  ‘I don’t have time – the Main is tomorrow.’

  ‘But first, my own time with you is even shorter, and I would like you to tell me about the Scroop family, if you please.’

  He gave me a cunning look.

  ‘But you’re not Coroner now.’

  ‘Let’s say I have unfinished business.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll answer your questions if you promise to take that letter to Mr Thwaite immediately you leave here. Immediately.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  I asked him first how the Scroops were with each other: what was their give-and-take as a family. O’Rorke, a natural talker, soon settled into the narrative mode.

  ‘They’re not a happy lot, Sir. All that money, the big modern house – you’d think they’d be content. I came up out of the bog, where every day I’d the same food, and with nothing in my head but whatever the hedge school had to teach, but I’m happier than what they are. They bicker all the time, and never laugh. Old Scroop hates the house. He’s almost never there, but always at work, or somewhere else – with his fancy woman, if you can believe the gossip in the kitchen. Mrs Scroop doesn’t care. I think she hates Scroop. The way she is kept all the time expecting another little Scroop, only because he wants a son to inherit his money. She’s got him a few, but none of them’s thrived – this one that’s just died is only the latest in the line.’

  ‘What about the daughters – how are they?’

  ‘They’ve one thing in common. They never do rough and tumble, fun and games, not even the youngsters. And they certainly don’t go in for loving fun – you know? – kisses, tickles, cuddles. Those girls’re not natural that way. I’d rather be kissing a carriage wheel than Harriet or Amelia Scroop, the oldest two of ’em.’

  ‘Why did the family come home early from the Assembly last Saturday?’

  ‘Oh, yes! There was a row in the carriage coming home, and it was even angrier than usual, I can tell you. It was about something Harriet said to her mother, and old Scroop wanted to know what it was.’

  ‘I saw it!’ I exclaimed. ‘Just before they left the Assembly, they were arguing and I saw Harriet whispering in her mother’s ear, and I saw Mrs Scroop’s reaction. It was she who insisted that they all go immediately home.’

  ‘Harriet wouldn’t repeat it to her father, anyway, and nor would her ma. Got himself into a right passion about it, Scroop did, first of all talking about a dance Harriet was supposed to have with someone—’

  ‘Do none of the other servants know what this was all about? Mrs Scroop’s own maid perhaps?’

  ‘No one knew anything for sure. That woman doesn’t confide in her maid – or in anyone at all. Self-contained, she is. In the carriage Scroop was shouting that he had a right to know why they’d left the Assembly before the Derbys left, that it was humiliating and they must tell him. But neither of them would say one word. Doc Harrod had ridden with us into town for the Assembly but, when he came out along with them, Mrs S told him sharply he had to make his own way home. Cook – who’s been in the family longest of all – when I told her about this, said the truth’s yet to come out from that direction.’

  ‘Can you tell what she meant?’

  ‘I’ll tell you something, and it’s interesting. Scroop and Harrod have known each other for years, but Scroop doesn’t go into Harrod’s house – not ever. Harrod, now, can’t keep away from the Scroops. He’s always in there, playing cards and games with the girls, reading to Mrs Scroop, running errands, doing any little thing he can – nothing is too much trouble for Dr Harrod in that house. He’s there more often than the master himself and I do not exaggerate.’

  ‘So what does the cook mean?’

  O’Rorke tapped the side of his nose confidentially.

  ‘Harriet’s growing up at last, and seeing the kind of thing kids can’t ordinarily see, Cook says. So now, after all these years, the girl’s added up two and two – the first two being her mother, and the other two being Harrod. Understand me?’

  He showed the two first fingers of each hand and clasped them together.

  ‘Two plus two, yes?’

  ‘Ah! I see.’

  It would not be the first time, I thought, that a man had found himself in love with his best friend’s wife – or that a wife had fallen for the family doctor, come to that. Anyway this was only hearsay of hearsay – it was all in the mind of the cook, apparently, and I had no time to pursue it now. My twenty minutes had nearly expired.

  ‘But all this recent fretting and arguing in the family,’ I continued, ‘couldn’t it be from the strain of having the new baby, the son? Everyone would surely have been anxious about its health and survival. They’d lost so many already, after all, and they have indeed now lost this one. Had he been sickly from the start? How did he look to you?’

  ‘I never saw him.’
/>   ‘What about the other servants?’

  ‘None of us saw the baby. The mother kept him close to her, fed him from her own breast, apparently, stayed with him all the time. No one else except the doctor had seen him yet. His report was just that the baby was very small and sickly.’

  ‘So they were anxious about him.’

  O’Rorke shrugged.

  ‘If they were, they didn’t say so.’

  A knock came at the door and there was Limb telling me I’d outstayed my time and please would I leave? Before I did, the Irishman reminded me of my promise.

  ‘Very well, Mr O’Rorke, I am on my way to Moot Hall directly.’

  ‘There’s one more thing, Mr Cragg, before you go. You no longer think that I might have set fire to your inquest, I hope.’

  I had forgotten that I had ever harboured such a suspicion. Now I was able quite truthfully to reassure him.

  ‘No, no. I don’t. Not any more.’

  ‘That’s something I would also appreciate being known around town, if you can arrange it.’

  * * *

  I decided that I would fulfil my promise to O’Rorke by submitting the document in evidence at the Recorder’s office, rather than at Moot Hall, where it might go astray in the chaos of Mayor Thwaite’s office. But I was not going to be fool enough to part with the original. Instead I would get Furzey to write it out, and then find a couple of witnesses to attest Furzey’s version as a true copy of the original. This copy could then be furnished to the Recorder along with a note from me explaining how it came into existence and asking that it be taken in evidence in any hearing or trial of Jon O’Rorke in the matter of the tan-pit baby.

  All this done, I found Thorneley at his place of business.

  ‘You will have to stop pursuing Kathy Brock and let O’Rorke go when you read this,’ I told him as I handed him the copy of the letter.

  He quickly did so, pursing his lips in what I hoped was disappointment.

  ‘Hmm. As you say, it does tend to justify the Brock girl, though whether it gets O’Rorke out of hot water we shall have to see.’

  ‘O’Rorke’s only come into the story as Kathy Brock’s old beau. If she is no longer suspected, he cannot be.’

  ‘As I say, we shall have to see.’

  ‘You must let him go today. Tomorrow his gamecocks are fighting in the Michaelmas Main.’

  Thorneley’s head rocked back, his face crumpling in a comic show of disbelief.

  ‘Of all the— You are not serious, Cragg. We must let him go because of a cock-fight? Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘You may be, if you keep the man locked up. Mr Richard Shuttleworth has an interest in this cock-fight – a large pecuniary interest, I am told. So has Lord Strange. Neither of them, I fancy, will thank you very kindly if Mr Jon O’Rorke cannot bring his birds to the pit tomorrow.’

  My mention of these two members of Parliament, one of them none other than the heir of Lord Derby, was decisive. Thorneley could ill-afford to stand in the way of his betters’ betting, which could be on such a scale as to bring water to your eyes. He dropped Kathy’s letter down on to his desk, then ushered me out of the door. As I left, I heard him shouting for his clerk and, looking back, saw the writer slide on to his desk-stool and pick up his pen. The Recorder was about to draft something, and I was confident it was a warrant for the release of O’Rorke. This he would then take across to Moot Hall for Thwaite’s signature. So the Irishman would be free to fight his birds at the Michaelmas Main and the Mayor would have to start all over again in his search for someone to prosecute.

  * * *

  Fidelis, looking pale, harassed and very agitated, was making his way up Fisher Gate. He ran across to me.

  ‘You look as if someone’s been shooting dried peas at your bedroom windows all night,’ I observed.

  ‘It’s true, I got no sleep. I only hope the Sultan did. He gave a mighty crow this morning at dawn, I do know that. Just one more dawn and then this will be over, one way or the other. Then I can breathe freely again.’

  ‘How far are you committed? Will you lose much if the Sultan loses his bout?’

  ‘The Sultan losing is unthinkable, Cragg. Inconceivable. Unconscionable.’

  ‘I see. So you are very much hoping for his success.’

  ‘I will be ruined if he loses. I have struck such bets as you would not believe. I am heading for arrest and a spell in the compter, Titus, if the Sultan doesn’t come through.’

  ‘Anything I can do, Luke, short of actually attending the contest, which I wouldn’t like at all, you know.’

  ‘Well, that’s the very thing I was going to ask you, Titus. I have to have a second.’

  ‘A second? As in a duel?’

  ‘No, no, not as in a duel, as in a cock-fight. It is the rules of the Main. Every cocker with a bird in the pit must have a second man behind him to hold his coat, or the said cock shall be disqualified and the victory awarded to its opponent.’

  I laughed.

  ‘You are quoting? That sounds like rules all right – pompous and pointless, very often. You should read the rules of bowls.’

  ‘You will do it?’

  ‘I am hardly the right man, Luke. I have just once been to the cockpit, I admit a long time ago, but I hated every moment of it. I see no reason why I should like it any better now.’

  ‘You were just a stripling then. Now you are a man and less sensitive. And besides the game has changed. It is more civilized and less savage. Please. Be my second.’

  * * *

  When I told Elizabeth that I was to be Fidelis’s second at the cockpit tomorrow she seized me by the collar of my coat.

  ‘You have not been gambling, Titus! I should be very much distressed if I knew that you had, or intended to, risk our money.’

  ‘I have my faults and vices, my love, as you know better than anyone. But I have never engaged in gambling.’

  ‘That’s not true. I have seen you buy tickets for the horses at the August races.’

  ‘Oh well! That signifies nothing. Everyone in Preston does it, even the vicar.’

  ‘And we play piquet for money.’

  ‘For pennies, Elizabeth. These people go in for stakes that are on rather a different scale – hundreds of pounds at a time.’

  ‘Titus!’ said Elizabeth, tugging for emphasis on the flaps of my collar. ‘That is what I am afraid of. You may go there with the best of intentions, that you will not lay a bet, or take a bet, or however you say it – that you will not put our money at risk. But then after a few glasses of wine, who knows? I shall not be there to restrain you. You may throw caution away.’

  ‘I shall not need you. I am there on official duty as Fidelis’s second, as he must have one or his bird will be voided from its fight and he will lose his own bets.’

  ‘He has gambled?’

  ‘I fear so. And without me he will surely lose, or so he says. Out of friendship I must go in to support him.’

  She softened and kissed me.

  ‘Of course you must, my Titus, or what is friendship for?’

  Chapter 23

  WHENEVER A MAIN of Cocks is held at Preston, the streets around the cockpit attract a throng of idlers and gawpers jostling to watch for the gamesters arriving with their birds, exchanging late intelligence on the fights and then, from reports relayed through the open windows, trying to form a picture of the action inside. There is also the usual contingent of jugglers and fiddlers, trinket hawkers and piemen, storytellers, ballad mongers, orange sellers and ribbon peddlers, and always one or two religious fanatics preaching hell-fire and damnation to anyone who bought such tawdry.

  Pushing our way through and into the building, we ticket holders found a six-foot circle contained within a parapet that reached no higher than a man’s chest. This was surrounded by a space for standing room and then by seven circular rows of spectators’ benches rising and receding like a small Colosseum. Behind the top row of seats was a landing where men could take
relief from the action, strike bets and obtain wine and food at several times the market rate. In the wall were the windows through which commentary and results were conveyed to the outside world.

  It was only when Fidelis and I got in there, and the fighting began, that I began to suspect I had been tricked. When I’d earlier asked him about the duties of a gamester’s second, Fidelis had been vague and assured me I would pick it up as we went along. So, during the first bout, and again during the second, I looked down from the high surrounding benches to see what these other gamesters’ seconds were doing, that I might copy them and creditably carry out my role, whatever it may be. But I could not even see one. Most of the gamesters had a few fellows in attendance, but none of these performed any useful service, only shouted and guffawed from time to time, and passed around bottles.

  ‘What exactly am I to do, as your second?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, hold the towel, mop my brow when things get hot, that kind of thing.’

  ‘The towel? Just show me anyone holding a towel around this arena.’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘Luke, there are no seconds, are there? There is no earthly reason to have them. It was all just a ruse.’

  He nodded his head contritely, then gave me his most mischievous smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, Titus. I just couldn’t think of another way of getting you in here. If you were not here I should lack your steadying hand, you know, at my moment of triumph – or catastrophe, whichever it’s to be. The Sultan and I need you, d’you see?’

  He clapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘And we’re right glad you’ve not let us down.’

  Those two initial bouts showed me that the order of cock-fighting had not changed much since I’d seen it as a young man during my time studying at the Inns of Court. The first contestant is called and loosed in the ring to strut around and be assessed by the crowd on points of beauty, strength and haughtiness. He is then picked out so that his opponent may similarly show off his best points. The birds are then simultaneously lifted into the ring on opposite sides and held or bated by their owners for one timed minute, out of reach but in full sight of each other. This bating ‘sets’ them, in the jargon, that is, it gets their hackles up so that, by the time the timekeeper’s bell sounds and they’re released, the fighters are ready to go at it with all the murderous hostility at their command.