Gideon the Cutpurse

by Linda Buckley-Archer

  ‘They did but I don’t think Captain Cook has discovered Australia yet. Can you imagine what the Byngs would say if we told them America was going to become a superpower and send men to the moon and be the richest country on earth? They’d faint.’

  ‘Parson Ledbury wouldn’t believe us,’ said Peter. ‘I heard what he thinks about America.’ Peter imitated the Parson’s deep, booming voice: ‘“That bothersome little colony is more trouble than it’s worth. King George may be monstrous attached to it but I say the day America amounts to anything I’ll eat my hat!”’

  Kate laughed. ‘Is that what he said?’ she asked, a grin spreading over her face.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, I wish we could tell him! It’d be so cool to see the expression on his face.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t talk about the future at all,’ said Peter. ‘If we did say something they’d only think we were mad – but who knows what effect it could have …’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Kate. ‘We’d better keep our mouths shut. It’s tempting, though …’

  Oh no, thought Peter guiltily, maybe I shouldn’t have told Gideon about telephones and police cars and stuff. Oh well, it’s too late now.

  Hannah appeared presently, coming out of the stable door at the rear of the inn, Jack trailing behind her. She was carrying a basin.

  ‘Ah, you’re back, Master Peter,’ she said with a friendly smile, ‘just in time to eat some pork pie with us.’ Hannah looked at the contents of the bowl and then looked back at Kate and Peter.

  ‘I do hope you two children do not have delicate stomachs. Perhaps it’s best you look away for the good doctor has seen fit to bleed Sidney and the driver.’

  Hannah walked over to the gutter at the bottom of the yard. After what she’d said Peter, Kate and Jack trooped after her, of course, as she tipped the basin and poured quantities of dark red blood into the stagnant rainwater still remaining in the blocked gutter. Dozens of wasps and flies seemed to appear out of nowhere and buzzed around it.

  ‘He bled them?’ Kate exclaimed in disgust.

  ‘He did it as a precaution on account of both them having had hard blows to the head. Better to be safe than sorry. Jack held the bowl for the doctor, didn’t you, my little master?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘He pricked their vines until their blood fell plop, plop, plop into the basin,’ commented Jack, his face very proud and serious. ‘I held Sidney’s hand.’

  ‘They are called veins, not vines, master Jack, veins like weather vanes,’ explained Hannah.

  ‘Oh, that is so gross,’ exclaimed Kate, her voice echoing around the courtyard as she watched the blood flowing down the slimy gutter. ‘What an awful thing to do to someone who’s already feeling ill. Is he a proper doctor?’

  Peter tugged on Kate’s sleeve. She turned to look at him and he gave a slight backwards nod with his head.

  Parson Ledbury and Gideon were standing with a plump, youngish gentleman in a heavily powdered wig and snowy white shirt. He was wiping his hands with a cloth and he gave off an air of quiet calm and competence.

  ‘I hope you will excuse my young charge’s impertinence,’ said Parson Ledbury. ‘She does not understand how honoured we are by your attendance on us.’

  ‘I assure you I take no offence, Parson Ledbury,’ replied the gentleman, ‘the sight of blood is always alarming to those unused to it.’

  ‘Master Peter, Mistress Kate,’ announced Parson Ledbury grandly, ‘this gentleman is none other than Dr Erasmus Darwin, whose medical prowess is such that even the King of England would have him as his physician.’

  Gideon, who stood behind the doctor and the Parson, gestured to Peter to bow, which he did. Kate, though, stood there open-mouthed and neither curtsied nor said a word.

  ‘I am happy to make your acquaintance, children, and can assure you that young Sidney and your driver are perfectly comfortable and, after another hour or two’s rest, will be ready to resume their journey.’

  ‘You are Dr Erasmus Darwin?’ asked Kate incredulously.

  Bemused, the doctor nodded his head and smiled. ‘I am none other.’

  ‘Oh, how my parents would love to meet you! We have named a cow after you on our farm, sir,’ she said which made both the Parson and the doctor laugh out loud.

  ‘Now that is indeed an honour, is it not, Parson?’ said Dr Darwin. ‘I trust she is a good milker!’

  ‘And,’ continued Kate, ‘you will become a great scientist and inventor and your grandson, who will be called Charles, will discover something that will change the world for ever.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Peter under his breath. ‘Now she’s done it.’

  Dr Darwin stopped laughing and, rather taken aback, looked searchingly into Kate’s face. The Parson, unusually, was at a loss to know what to say but Gideon stepped forward.

  ‘Some of the members of Kate’s family have the gift of second sight. They can predict the future. Although I am sure Mistress Kate would be the first to admit their predictions do not always come to fruition.’

  Kate looked at Gideon and shook her head as if she had just woken up, and suddenly looked confused and embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said to Dr Darwin. ‘Please take no notice of me. I didn’t realise what I was saying. It’s all nonsense.’

  Dr Darwin smiled at her and to save her embarrassment knelt down next to Jack and started up a conversation with him.

  ‘So, Master Jack, you hope to see the King and have him lay his hands on you to cure you of the scrofula?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I have the King’s Evil.’

  Dr Darwin gently felt Jack’s neck while he spoke to him.

  ‘You do, Jack, but I am happy to say it is not a serious case. I fancy you are resisting the infection. I attended the mother of Dr Samuel Johnson who lived in Lichfield until her death,’ said Dr Darwin, ‘and she told me that her famous son also suffered from the King’s Evil as a child. But unlike you, Dr Johnson suffered grievously from the infection. You cannot help but notice the scars he has carried from it for the rest of his life. When he was even younger than you, two years old or thereabout, his mother took him to London in order that Queen Anne could lay her hands on him. Her Majesty gave him a gold touchpiece which he hangs around his neck to this very day. And look at Dr Johnson now: a respected man of letters, the author of the first dictionary of the English language and, according to some, although I remain to be convinced, London’s greatest wit.’

  ‘So that’s who Dr Johnson was, is, I mean,’ whispered Peter to Kate. ‘He wrote the first dictionary. Margrit said if I found out what Dr Johnson was famous for she’d buy me a present.’

  ‘Everyone knows that,’ whispered Kate back.

  ‘Oh yeah? Well, I might not know who Dr Johnson is but at least I know when to keep my mouth shut …’ Peter replied.

  Kate looked shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry, it just came out. It won’t happen again … Anyway, I bet I know what present Margrit would give you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A dictionary!’

  Peter pulled a face.

  Dr Darwin was still talking with Jack, crouching down on the cobbles next to him. ‘Sidney says that the sweat of a hanged man would cure me too. He wants to go to Tyburn to get some,’ said Jack.

  ‘It is not something I would recommend, Master Jack, neither for you nor for him. But by all means go to the Court of St James. You will like King George and I am quite certain that he will like you. You must tell him that Mistress Kate has named a cow after Dr Darwin in Lichfield – it will amuse him. He is so fond of farming that some of his courtiers call him Farmer George.’

  ‘There, Master Jack,’ said Hannah, ‘you might tell King George about your cabbage patch and how you and your mama frightened away the rabbits.’ Then in a lower voice so Jack might not hear she asked: ‘How ill is he, Dr Darwin?’

  ‘The swellings in his neck are small and there is no sign of ulceration. He has good colour, nor is he too thin. Let him eat
well, retire early, take moderate exercise and, if he can be persuaded, cold baths. If he suffers too much from night sweats you should have him bled. Nothing is certain in this life but the King’s Evil does not seem to have the better of young Jack.’

  ‘Did Queen Anne’s touch cure good Dr Johnson like it did Mrs Byng’s own father?’

  ‘I cannot say for certain, my dear,’ replied the doctor. ‘Although I do know it gave Mrs Johnson great comfort. In any case, as the whole world knows, even with a scarred face and blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, Samuel Johnson has achieved more in one lifetime than most men would in six – with or without the scrofula!’

  Dr Darwin took leave of the party and wished them God speed. The Parson shook his hand warmly. He clearly had enormous respect for Lichfield’s celebrated doctor. As Dr Darwin passed Peter and Kate to walk through the narrow alleyway into Bird Street, he stopped for a moment to speak to Kate.

  ‘And what, pray, do you foretell my distinguished grandson will discover?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘I do.’

  Kate hesitated for a moment and gave a sidelong look at Peter. ‘Then you must swear not to tell anyone,’ she said.

  ‘Very well. I swear.’

  ‘Charles Darwin discovered something called evolution. He discovered that human beings weren’t created, they evolved from apes. Once they found that out, it changed everything.’

  Dr Darwin looked as if he had been given a strong electric shock. He gulped and said: ‘Why did you say it changed everything? Why not it will change everything?’

  Peter clapped his hand to his forehead in exasperation.

  ‘Slip of the tongue,’ said Kate hurriedly. ‘I told you I was tired.’

  Over a light luncheon the Parson announced that in view of Gideon’s discovery of the footpads and Ned Porter’s escape, there was to be a change of plan. He had intended to drive Mrs Byng’s carriage all the way to her brother’s house in Chiswick but, in the circumstances, he felt it would be safer to drive to Birmingham and catch one of the non-stop stagecoaches to London. It would be faster, for they changed the horses regularly at staging posts, and safer, as the stagecoach men were armed with blunderbusses. As he spoke Gideon nodded strongly in agreement. The journey from Lichfield to Birmingham should not, he told them, take much above two hours. They were to set off at six, by which time Sidney and the driver should be fit for travel.

  The sun came out after lunch and, with the exception of Gideon and the two invalids, the party decided to take a stroll around Lichfield. A warm, blustery wind had blown up and as they strolled through the pleasant streets thronged with the good folk of Lichfield it gave the children much amusement to see what a strong gust of wind could do to a three-cornered hat, a wig or a skirt the width of a small car. They half-expected to see some of the more fashionable ladies being carried up towards the clouds like brightly coloured balloons.

  Parson Ledbury gave them a tour of Lichfield Cathedral, scarcely lowering his booming voice which seemed almost indecent in this hushed, vaulted, glorious space. Kate stood in the Lady Chapel, bathed in the tinted sunlight that streamed through the richly coloured stained-glass windows, and offered up a silent prayer for their safe return to their own time.

  Afterwards they walked through the Cathedral Close, past Dr Darwin’s house and on to the Minster Pond. It was the most normal thing the children had done since arriving in the eighteenth century, for both Kate and Peter were used to being dragged around historic towns on holiday. It was hard, though, not being able to go off and buy an ice-cream or a can of fizzy drink.

  Peter was lagging behind, convinced that he had seen a green woodpecker in a great elm tree overhanging the pond. He stood, staring up into the lofty branches, shading his eyes, when he heard peals of laughter. Looking over at his companions he saw that the wind had blown Parson Ledbury’s hat onto the pond where it was floating further from the edge every second. After the longest stick the Parson could find proved too short, he waded without hesitation into the murky water in his white stockings and buckled shoes and retrieved his hat. Water trickled down his face and his stockings were streaked with green weed but he seemed very pleased with himself.

  ‘Upon my word that cools the blood!’ he laughed and, taking off his hat once more, scooped up some more pond water and doused himself with it. Hannah shrieked and cried with laughter, turning quite pink, and Jack begged the Parson to do the same to him – which he would have done had Hannah not cried: ‘No, no, sir, think of his condition. He could catch a chill in this wind!’

  Peter joined in the laughter from some fifty yards behind until he caught sight of something which made him stop at once. He stepped behind the trunk of the great elm tree and took another look to confirm his first impression. Further around the edge of the pond, positioned between two bushes in such a way as to be invisible to his companions but clearly visible to Peter, stood the Tar Man. Peter shrank back behind the tree trunk, his heart thudding in his chest. He rolled around his neck until he could spot him again and peered shakily across the water at the man he had hoped never to set eyes on again. He took in the crescent moon scar, visible even from here, the dirty black coat and, above all, that air of detached cruelty and total focus on his prey. Peter was put in mind of a wary old lion stalking unsuspecting game at a waterhole on the savannah.

  Before he knew what he was doing, Peter was running towards his friends waving his arms and whooping madly. ‘Come and see this woodpecker!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. When he looked over at the space where the Tar Man had been, it was empty.

  Detective Inspector Wheeler gave Dr and Mrs Dyer and Mr and Mrs Schock each an enlarged colour photograph to look at and sat back in a scuffed kitchen chair waiting for a reaction. The photograph depicted a boy and a girl in eighteenth-century dress, floating at shoulder height in a supermarket car park.

  ‘Oh my Lord!’ gasped Mrs Dyer. ‘It’s Kate!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ demanded Dr Dyer. ‘Where and when was this taken?’

  ‘Are you implying that this could be Peter?’ exclaimed Mrs Schock.

  Everyone was speaking at once.

  ‘I think perhaps you’d better tell us what this is all about, Detective Inspector,’ said Mr Schock.

  ‘I only wish I could tell you what this is all about,’ said the Inspector. ‘But you’ve answered one of my questions already, Mrs Dyer. The girl in the picture appears to be your daughter. Now, this is clearly a somewhat unusual image and we would have dismissed it as a hoax except that there are apparently several witnesses to the incident.’

  The policeman observed the four heads as they bowed over the kitchen table. This was a strange case and no mistake. He had now ruled out kidnapping. The Schocks were well off but not seriously wealthy and there would have been a ransom note by now if the children had been kidnapped. As for the other possibility, that Peter had run away, he could not rule it out entirely as the boy was obviously angry at some level with both parents. But he had never run away before and why should he take Kate with him – a girl he had only just met? No. It did not add up. As for a madman of some description suddenly taking it into his head to harm these children, conceal them and then escape from the lab without any witnesses at all within a time gap of what – three or four minutes at most? That idea beggared belief. He kept coming back to the same conclusion: these children had simply disappeared into thin air.

  The photograph was the first lead in the case – and what a lead! What possible conclusions could he draw from this bizarre picture? And yet he still had this hunch – which he could neither explain nor share – that the children were safe. He was also increasingly convinced that the girl’s father was holding back some information and it was Dr Dyer’s reaction above all that he observed.

  ‘But where was the photograph taken? How did you get hold of it? Where is she now?’ Mrs Dyer was becoming extremely agitated. Dr Dyer put an arm round her shoulder. The Inspector
looked at him. He seems shocked, thought the Inspector, but excited too. Really excited. Just what exactly are you hiding, Dr Dyer?

  ‘The subeditor of a local newspaper in rural Staffordshire faxed it to me this morning. They were planning to publish a piece on a supposed sighting of ghosts …’

  At this Mrs Schock burst into tears.

  ‘I’m sorry if this is upsetting, Mrs Schock,’ said the Inspector. ‘May I continue?’

  ‘Of course, I’m sorry, please do,’ she replied.

  ‘There is actually not much more to say at this stage. The man who took this photograph swears that he saw two ghosts in Sainsbury’s car-park. The subeditor at the newspaper thought she recognised Kate and checked with me before publishing it. I’ve confiscated the photograph and the negative and have implied that there is a logical explanation for this. I’m sure my sergeant will think of one to satisfy them presently … Three officers are on their way to Staffordshire as we speak. Rest assured that you will be informed of any developments.’

  ‘But could the boy be Peter?’ asked his father. ‘And how are they floating? And what on earth are they doing in eighteenth-century costume?’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said Inspector Wheeler. ‘If any of you know how to explain this, I will be delighted to hear it because for the present, unless I accept that these figures are ghosts – which I certainly don’t – I have no idea what to make of this picture.’

  ‘Can I keep hold of this photograph?’ asked Dr Dyer.

  ‘Be my guest,’ replied the Inspector. ‘Here, have an envelope to put it in. Please keep it confidential, though. I don’t want the press to get hold of it before we’ve had a chance to investigate.’

  Driving away from the Dyers’ farm the Inspector made a call to the officer in charge of surveillance at the NCRDM Centre. ‘Let me know if Dr Dyer turns up this afternoon – I’d be interested to know if he’s got a large brown envelope with him.’

  The driver declined the Parson’s offer of a seat inside the carriage, saying that he would feel more at ease riding on top. Squeezed between the driver and Gideon, Peter watched the driver’s head droop as he grew drowsy, and soon the motion of horses had lulled him to sleep. Only when he started up a slow, rhythmic snoring, did Peter dare tell Gideon what was on his mind.