Skin and Bone--A Mystery

by Robin Blake

  As I walked up the mossy stone stairs towards the daylight, my shoes squishing wetly, I could hear the voices of the burgesses in council. It sounded like a lively discussion. I wondered what on earth a topographical hysteron-proteron might be.

  I had no sooner reached the open air than I heard my name called from across the street. It was Luke Fidelis dressed for riding and on his way to the livery yard.

  ‘I’m off to Cottam to see a patient,’ he told me. ‘It’s one that you might find interesting. Why not ride with me?’

  On the eve of an inquest, with everything ready and nothing more to do, I am often restless and in need of distraction. Fidelis’s invitation would meet the need so I agreed and went with him to the horse-yard.

  ‘I hear Mallender’s made yet another injudicious arrest,’ Fidelis told me once we were mounted and on our way.

  ‘Yes. I’ve just been to see Mr Kay. There isn’t any evidence against him though Mallender’s got a face like the King of the Cats since he made the arrest. But tell me about this patient we are going to see.’

  ‘It is Peter Chimpton at Cottam.’

  ‘Chimpton? But surely he is dead! We both heard Dr Harrod say so.’

  Fidelis laughed.

  ‘For a dead man, he played pretty well on the harpsichord when I saw him on Wednesday. The corpse was in good voice, too.’

  ‘You mean he was not poorly at all?’

  ‘Oh yes, he is poorly. He suffers in his liver and his heart is not strong. But so far he remains alive. Dr Harrod’s prognoses will always be doubtful as long as he relies on astrology to tell him when a death is due.’

  Peter Chimpton’s house was charming but very old. The original builders had made it of stone, and roofed it with slates, which was fortunate as these materials kept wind and rain out of the dwelling. Inside, though the house was more or less dry, it had been allowed to fall into ruin.

  Chimpton had once been prosperous, with many acres of fertile land for crops and grazing. But thirty years ago disease had swept through his herds and, at the same time, his crops were entirely blighted. People believed it was God’s judgement on him for taking the Pretender’s side in the ’15 rebellion, and whether true or not (I keep an open mind about such things), nothing about his farm had thrived since. In the first years following the disaster, Chimpton worked like Hercules to replace the beasts and replant the fields, but every season came the same failures: misshapen calves, stillborn lambs, blackened potatoes. Finally, having exhausted all his reserves of money and will, Chimpton yielded to his fate. He let his fields run to tares and bramble. His sheepfolds were empty; he abandoned his pig pens and milking barns. Now he lived on with only a couple of milk-cows, a senile manservant and a harpsichord for company.

  We could hear him playing even as we dismounted in the yard, a river of notes running on and on in a spate of quick rills and plunging chords. Fidelis hammered on the door and, though the music never stopped, we heard a voice from the inside telling us to wait on. Finally a spindly, wisp-haired ancient heaved the door open. It was the servant, Cargill.

  Without a word spoken we were led into a gloomy stone-flagged parlour, where Chimpton sat playing. He looked up and, recognizing Fidelis, immediately raised his hands from the keyboard.

  ‘Most men of my age can’t do that,’ he declared. ‘I still have capacity in my fingers, Doctor, if nowhere else in my body.’

  ‘You play excellently, Mr Chimpton,’ said Fidelis, who was no mean musician himself. ‘What was that you were performing?’

  ‘Something from Dr Byrd. His music’s a hundred and fifty years old now, but nothing has ever surpassed it.’

  ‘I’ll wager there are few farmers in Lancashire who can surpass your playing.’

  ‘Former farmer, Doctor, that’s how I describe myself. And one that should be dead and buried, if Dr Harrod’s to be believed. Who is this with you? Forgive me, Sir, my eyesight is not what it was.’

  ‘I am Titus Cragg, Mr Chimpton.’

  ‘Welcome, Mr Cragg. I regret we have nothing to offer you, unless there’s a glass of Cargill’s fermented apple juice. Cargill!’

  Before the servant could reappear, we hastened to decline the offer of the home-brew and Fidelis reverted to his role as doctor. He asked how the patient was (middling), took his pulse (a trifle rapid), listened to the beat of his heart through an ear trumpet (a touch watery) and sniffed the water in his chamber pot (a definite tang of yeast).

  ‘I would recommend that you eat more red meat,’ he said at last.

  Chimpton shrugged. ‘Alas! I cannot afford to. Cargill gives me a hot pot from time to time, but money’s short. I can say this, and I’m proud of it: I owe nothing. But I have nothing neither, so I scrape by, and that is all. Most of my valuables have already been sold so there’s not much to look forward to from that quarter.’

  ‘Your harpsichord is a fine instrument,’ I said.

  ‘If by that you mean I should sell it, no Sir. I will starve before I do. Music gives life, did you know that, Doctor?’

  Fidelis smiled.

  ‘I have heard it said, and would not deny it. But you mentioned that Dr Harrod told you that you would die. When was this?’

  ‘Oh, it was on Monday. I had felt dizzy and fallen over, so I sent for him. He told me when he came that he had prepared his calculations and it was in the stars that I would die – indeed that I should already be dead – and so I must prepare myself.’

  He shrugged again.

  ‘Well, so I did. I sent for the priest. I said the prayers he told me to say. But look at me: still here and still playing William Byrd’s music.’

  His eyes had the slightest sparks of laughter in them.

  ‘When precisely was Dr Harrod here?’

  ‘Nine o’clock on Monday he was here, or just after, by that clock there.’

  He nodded towards a tall and solemn long-case clock that stood against the opposite wall. Surreptitiously I checked it against my watch: it told the right time.

  ‘And did he stay long?’

  ‘No, the man seemed in a hurry, which I thought a trifle bad-mannered in him, as he’d just told me of my death. He was here, oh, fifteen or twenty minutes, no more.’

  ‘And he has not been back.’

  ‘No, he said I would unhappily not see him again. Ha! I have been thinking of surprising him with a letter to tell him his horoscope was all cock-eyed and he should cast it again. And, mind you, to give me some medicine while he’s about it. But I don’t need to, now that you have adopted my case and told me there’s a teaspoonful of life in me yet.’

  Fidelis took a small bottle from his case.

  ‘Indeed you don’t, Sir. And speaking of teaspoonfuls, see here, I have made up a draught for you to take. Just give yourself a spoonful in the morning and evening.’

  * * *

  ‘It is surprising that Chimpton is still alive,’ Fidelis told me as we rode away ten minutes later.

  ‘Harrod was not wrong, then?’

  ‘Not in principle. The patient is seriously ill. But I believe that accidentally Harrod did him a favour by informing him he should already be dead.’

  ‘It seems an unfeeling thing to do.’

  ‘It is certainly a chancy one. Tell a man that he is shortly going to die, and there can be one of two contrary outcomes. Either he despairs and the thread of life thins and thins until it breaks. Or he says “Be damned! I’ll not die!” Then, somehow, the vital spirits rise up against the death sentence; they flow back again, and he survives. It was the case with Mr Chimpton, I am sure of it.’

  ‘Will the effect last?’

  ‘No, he will meet his maker quite soon, I fear. But he’s lived long enough to give some excellent information about the doctor and the death of Scroop, and that’s a good thing, don’t you agree?’

  ‘I might if I knew what you were talking about.’

  ‘The timing, Titus. What Chimpton just told us exposes Basilius Harrod to a serious accusation.’
/>
  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That he killed his friend Abraham Scroop.’

  I laughed.

  ‘You think Harrod’s the killer now? He is such a mild-mannered fellow. It hardly looks likely.’

  ‘We have heard tales of how he is enmeshed in the Scroop family, have we not?’

  ‘Tales! There may be nothing in them beyond a mild infatuation. It does not tell us why.’

  ‘You always want to know why, Titus! Think instead about the fact. Harrod lied about what he was doing at the time Scroop was killed. He said he was with Chimpton at ten-thirty when in reality he left at a quarter past nine. He would not do this unless he wanted to conceal his presence at the scene of the murder. From there it is not a long step to believing that he himself delivered the fatal thrust of the needle into the ear. Does it not strike you as the kind of murder a medical man might commit, and hope to get away with?’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake, Luke, if this is true, then by our own surmises he must have killed the skin-yard baby, too, and I cannot think why on earth he would do that murder. And how does it sort with your suspicion of the skinners when they celebrated Scroop’s death?’

  ‘It may have been just that – the celebration of a welcome deliverance. The finger now pointing to Harrod is much more firmly directed.’

  ‘I wish your finger would point me in the direction of what improvements of the Marsh were being discussed. It would help if only I knew who Thomas Steers was.’

  ‘Thomas Steers? How is he involved in this?’

  I told him of the letter from Steers in answer to one from Scroop, in which he declined the offer of employment and recommended Joss Kay instead.

  ‘But Kay won’t tell me about Steers, or anything about the project he was hired for. He makes a great mystery of the thing.’

  ‘There is no need to be mystified, Titus. You should have asked me. Steers is very well known in Liverpool and is a titan of achievement there. Though he is not a native he is one of the town’s favourite sons.’

  ‘What sort of achievement, Luke?’

  And so he told me – and suddenly the reason for the secrecy that had obscured all Scroop’s dealings with Lord Grassington, Captain Strawboy, and even with Lord Derby, became clear.

  ‘I’m going to bring all this out at the inquest,’ I said grimly. ‘I’ll be damned if I don’t.’

  Chapter 29

  EVEN AT PRESTON, home to much and various legal activity, the public treated an inquest as a form of entertainment. In a small market town like Kirkham, it sucked people in like a raree-show. The upper room of the inn at Kirkham was therefore packed even more solidly than my last inquest at the Skeleton Inn, with arrivals from Preston competing with local people for room on the public benches.

  ‘Let us begin by hearing from the first finder, Dr Basilius Harrod. Please come up to the chair, Dr Harrod.’

  We had already sworn the jury and viewed the body, and now the interesting part of the inquest began. Harrod was all smiles and ease as he made his way to the front of the packed room. The audience looked around to follow his progress and he greeted one or two friends amongst them with a wave of the hand, or a small bow for the ladies.

  Once he was sworn in, I asked him to take me through the events leading up to his finding the body of Scroop.

  ‘I had been seeing a patient at Cottam. I returned to Preston to hear that my friend Scroop’s horse had come back riderless. I learned that he had gone out to Kirkham on some business relating to the headstone of his poor dead child. After another two hours he did not appear, so it was decided to form a party to look for him.’

  ‘What time did you set off?’

  ‘At half past two, or thereabouts, as you very well know, Cragg. You were of the party.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor, I do know. I merely ask for the record. What happened when you reached Kirkham?’

  ‘I had sent ahead for the attendance by the infant’s graveside of the mason that Scroop, as we had been told, had seen first thing in the morning. This man confirmed that he had a conversation with Mr Scroop about the wording on the headstone before eight o’clock, and that they had parted shortly afterwards.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘We divided up into pairs, each undertaking to search along a different path towards Preston. As it happened I was the one to find the body lying on the wayside. He had obviously been knocked from his horse and died from the fall where he lay.’

  ‘Which road was this on?’

  ‘It was not quite a road – a track or ride just north of Newton Mill, at a point where it passed through a small wood known, I believe, as Carter’s Copse.’

  ‘And how did the body lie?’

  ‘On its front, until we turned it over to see whether poor Scroop had been robbed. We searched his pockets.’

  ‘Did he still have his valuables?’

  ‘His watch, chain, pocket book and snuffbox were all there. We concluded he had not been robbed.’

  ‘Was his death caused in your opinion by the injury to his head?’

  ‘Yes. It had broken his skull.’

  ‘Would that have killed him, necessarily?’

  ‘No, not necessarily. Someone hurt like that might lie for a time unconscious but alive. However, in his case, I suggest that the injury resulted in bleeding in the brain and that this would have led to his death very soon after he hit the ground.’

  ‘Did you see anything that might have caused him to be thrown from the horse?’

  ‘There was an oak tree branch a few yards back. It overhung the track at about the height of a rider’s head. I believe that Mr Scroop was not paying due attention as he rode, and was struck from the saddle after his head had violently collided with the branch. He may have been trotting fast, going at a canter or even a gallop at the time.’

  ‘But a man who strikes something with his head whilst riding is generally hurled back over the rump of the horse, is he not? He then lands, I would have thought, in the road rather than on the verge.’

  ‘I see what you mean. In this case I think he must have somehow retained his seat in the saddle for a pace or two more, until unconsciousness overtook him, whereupon he fell to the ground.’

  ‘Very well. There is a gap in time of more than two and a half hours – isn’t there? – between his last being seen by the stonemason and the arrival of the horse back in Preston. Could Mr Scroop have lain there dead or dying on the ground for as long as that?’

  ‘I don’t think he did. Consider the horse. It would surely have made its way directly home once the rider was out of the saddle. We all know that horses do not dawdle on their way homewards. They want their oats.’

  Some slight laughter over this commonplace rippled through the room.

  ‘So if what you say is right, and we allow for a half-hour journey by the horse, from the place where the body was found to the point at which it was recaptured, the horse and rider would have parted company at about ten-thirty.’

  ‘That is my belief. And furthermore it was at that time that his watch was broken by his fall.’

  I looked to my right and left. The jury were listening intently and one or two of them were nodding their heads sagely, to show they understood the significance of this.

  ‘So what was Mr Scroop doing in the meantime?’ I asked. ‘You knew him well. Can you enlighten us?’

  ‘No, as I have said I was neither with him nor privy to his plans. But Abraham Scroop was a man with many business concerns in many different places, which much occupied his mind. Nor was he one to waste his time. I would guess he had further business out that way and that this detained him in the area until ten-thirty.’

  ‘Thank you Dr Harrod. May I ask you to stay with us in case the inquest has any further need of your medical knowledge?’

  Next I called Joseph Twiss to the chair. He confirmed the time at which he had seen Scroop, before eight o’clock.

  ‘Did he say where he was going after your meeting?
’

  ‘He did not.’

  ‘What frame of mind was he in?

  ‘A very sober one – as you would think he would be when talking about the burial place of his baby son.’

  ‘Will you tell the court what words Mr Scroop had asked you to carve on the child’s headstone?’

  ‘“Loammi Scroop, born and died 1743. Plead with your mother, plead.”’

  There were whispers in the audience.

  ‘Did he tell you anything about that inscription?’

  ‘No. I told him I’d not seen those words written down before. He ignored me.’

  ‘And the unusual given name, Loammi? Did he mention it at all?’

  ‘He didn’t. We just talked about the kind of lettering and the layout on the stone and that was it. We shook hands and I went back to my work.’

  I excused him, and called Bartholomew Lock, who had been Scroop’s right hand at business, and whom I had last seen as a juror in the case of the skin-yard baby. I asked Lock if he was aware of any other business apart from the headstone that might have occupied Scroop in the Kirkham area. He knew of nothing.

  ‘Mr Scroop were very busy with the plans he had for various improvements. It were likely summat to do with those that kept him over there.’

  The answer naturally led me to call my next witness, who I hoped would tell us more of those very improvements – James Strawboy. The Captain spoke out in a loud, straining voice, as if the duty of giving his evidence was something unnatural to him. Equally unnaturally he seemed intent on keeping his eyes fixed on mine throughout my examination.

  ‘You were a business associate of Mr Scroop, I believe.’

  ‘I was.’

  His eyes bored into mine.

  ‘In what business precisely?’

  ‘In one or two projects around Preston. Improvements.’

  ‘What were you planning to improve?’

  ‘It is no secret that Mr Scroop wished to clean up the tanning yard. The idea was to move it from its present site, and there run it himself in a more salubrious way.’