The Hidden Man

by Robin Blake

  ‘You don’t by any chance know where it is, do you, Amity? You haven’t taken charge of what your husband found, and hidden it again?’

  Her eyes widened in surprise at my suspicion.

  ‘No Sir! I’d have told you. I’ve not seen owt like that.’

  I watched her face, looking for signs of concealment. There were none.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ I said. ‘It would be good to know if this so-called treasure even exists.’

  * * *

  Riding back to town, along the edge of the Moor and coming in by Tithebarn Street, I was thinking my expedition had achieved little. I did not believe Amity was hiding anything from me and, though I had no doubt that John Barton was capable of doing so, I had no evidence of that either. My inspection of the Bale Stone had yielded nothing and now I noticed that the mare was increasingly favouring her nearside forefoot. I cursed. It seemed the outcome of my afternoon would be nothing but a lame horse.

  After dismounting and leading the animal the last half mile, I handed the mare over at Lawson’s Livery, where the animal was stabled, and where a stone lodged in the hoof was the resident farrier’s diagnosis. I left the man to deal with it and walked home to Cheapside, where I found Elizabeth counting linen for the laundry. Immediately our talk made me see that I had made more progress with investigating Benjamin Peel’s hidden treasure than I realized. I had been telling her how much I had disliked John Barton – the way he laughed, and the way that his slithery tongue had betrayed a lascivious thought of Amity Thorn.

  ‘You must beware of John Barton, Titus,’ she said. ‘He has a bad character and may not be so innocent in this matter as he claims.’

  ‘I agree. And now I am wondering if he could have the silver himself; if he knocked Adam down and took it.’

  ‘Whether or not, he likes his chances with pretty Amity Thorn, now that her husband looks out of the game. He’ll be haunting the Thorns’ cottage, Titus, possibly not now, but soon. He’ll be after her, you can depend on it.’

  I went into the office to catch Furzey before he went home. My clerk was working at his writing desk.

  ‘Has there been word from Dr Fidelis?’ I asked.

  By way of reply he sighed, picked up a piece of paper and held it high for me to take, then returned silently to his writing.

  ‘Titus’, I read in Fidelis’s handwriting, ‘I believe I have set eyes on Zadok Moon & there is much to tell. Will await you at the T.H. at 7 this evng?’

  Chapter Twelve

  LUKE FIDELIS WAS hungry, having eaten no dinner but only bread and cheese by the wayside during his journey from Liverpool. So when the serving man came to our table that evening he ordered a steak and kidney pudding, while I confined myself to the cold pinions of a duck and a plate of pickles.

  While we waited for the food, Luke told me the full story of his visit to Liverpool. In order to explain his sighting of Zadok Moon, he had to tell how he’d heard the name Moreton Canavan; and to do that he could not avoid making mention of his visit to the house of Mrs Belinda Butler. He made out, as he had done to Jacob Parkin, that it was merely a question of musical recreation: I was vastly entertained by the transparency of this pretence, but did not let my friend know it.

  By the time he had finished his tale, and I had put in questions of my own to clarify the detail, I knew enough of his twenty-four hours in Liverpool to write the account of it that I have already set out, even if I have fleshed it out here and there. But a narrative of events is one thing; their analysis is another, and I picked out one of the points that seemed most salient to the Pimbo case.

  ‘Jacob Parkin was sent after you by the Mayor, because he hoped you would lead him straight to Moon. Grimshaw trusts no one in his desperation for the return of the money that he entrusted to Pimbo and Moon.’

  ‘If Parkin hadn’t been such a blockhead and allowed me to catch him out, I would indeed have led him to Moon.’

  Our meal was brought and Fidelis immediately dug a fork into his pudding, splitting it open and lowering his head to peer at it. Then he began to investigate, stirring the reservoir of meat-clogged gravy with the fork, separating the kidneys from the cubes of beef, shreds of onion and lumps of turnip. He pronged a piece of offal and held it up, the better to inspect it.

  ‘The question is…’

  He kept his eye on the offal.

  ‘Would it have made Grimshaw any the wiser?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I formed a suspicion of Zadok Moon.’

  He popped the morsel of food into his mouth.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said as he chewed. ‘Tangy!’

  ‘What are you saying, Luke? That Moon is not what he seems?’

  ‘Well, for a seasoned Guinea trader, he knows even less of the sea than I do.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘“Sailing back to Liverpool on the bosom of the trade winds”. Remember that?’

  ‘I do – from one of Moon’s letters. Colourful language indeed.’

  ‘Colourful, yes, and complete nonsense. I have it on the authority of an old salt in Liverpool that the trade winds will do many things, including speed you to the Azores and beyond. But blowing as they do from north to south, they cannot assist a ship on its passage from Barbados to Liverpool. Of course, such a mistake would hardly signify to Pimbo, as he himself knew little or nothing about the sea, or sea trade.’

  ‘He knew about money, though, and he manifestly thought highly of Moon as a money scrivener.’

  ‘He did. I wonder if Pimbo knows Canavan well. He had a letter from him warning about a possible shipwreck, but there was not a trace of correspondence between them in Pimbo’s desk at Cadley Place. So whether they were personally acquainted does not appear.’

  ‘What about this other fellow, Jackson, that you stopped in the street? Who is he, and what is his interest in all this? Another investor grown concerned of the enterprise?’

  ‘He assured me he was no associate of Canavan.’

  ‘Perhaps Jackson is not himself an investor, but represents someone who is. We shall have to wait upon Moon, on Wednesday, I suppose. We shall know more then.’

  ‘Wednesday?’

  ‘You forget the letter you carried to Zadok Moon, Luke, summoning him to the inquest. It is clear that he received the letter and so we must hope he travels to Preston and gives evidence.’

  Throughout this conversation Fidelis had been eating the pudding in his usual, peculiarly analytical way. First he found the kidneys and forked them one by one into his mouth. Then he proceeded systematically through the ingredients of the dish – the beef, turnip, carrot, celery and finally onion, turning each piece on his fork and examining it before eating it and starting on the next. Finally he painstakingly cut the suet case into neat mouthfuls and used these to mop up the remaining gravy. At last, his plate was clean.

  I was used to seeing him do this, and made no comment. Instead I offered him my tobacco pouch and we stuffed pipes while I turned to the subject of Benjamin Peel’s treasure. I told him of my activities during the day: the encounter with the horse-coper at Peel Hall stables, the visit to the Bale Stone and my later talk with Amity Thorn. Fidelis attended to my words carefully.

  ‘Elizabeth thinks John Barton is merely a lecher,’ I said, ‘who sees this as an opportunity for an easy seduction. But I have been wondering if he knows something about the Peel silver, and even if he may have it in his possession. Suppose he and Thorn found it together, and then Barton attacked Thorn so that he could keep it for himself. It would not be the first time such a thing had happened. There is a tale in Chaucer…’

  I lit my pipe from the now guttering candle between us and settled back again.

  ‘It’s “The Pardoner’s Tale”,’ I continued, ‘and in it—’

  But Fidelis interrupted me, suddenly animated.

  ‘This interests me, Titus! The idea is worth pursuing.’

  I allowed Fidelis’s interruption without comment. He often
cut me short when I began to speak of literature.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘It would be no surprise to me if John Barton had indeed attacked Adam Thorn. I have met the man, and he’s shifty. He cannot look you straight in the eye.’

  ‘I came away from him with the same opinion,’ I said. ‘“Shifty” is the correct word, at least in his dealings with people. Not with horses: he is remarkably straightforward with a horse.’

  Fidelis laughed.

  ‘My father used to say only a fool will try to fool a horse; a wise man knows he can’t.’

  ‘Which argues that Barton is a very wise man. If so he is not a temperate one. He passionately refuted any suggestion of a feud between himself and Adam Thorn, and angrily maintained that they were friends.’

  Fidelis was lighting his pipe.

  ‘I think his anger betrays him,’ he said between puffs. ‘I would wager a good sum that the two men really were at war. I wonder what it was about.’

  ‘It might have been about Amity Thorn, or this supposed treasure. When two men fall out it is generally over money, or a woman.’

  A girl came to snuff our dying candle and collect the crockery. It was time to go home. I pointed with my pipe stem to Fidelis’s empty plate as she took it away.

  ‘You enjoyed the pudding?’

  ‘Oh yes, very much, though there was a piece of turnip more than there should have been, and it was short by two cubes of beef.’

  * * *

  In my office the next morning, Tuesday, Furzey and I ran through the lists of jurors and witnesses for Wednesday’s inquest.

  ‘That’s the names, and they’ve all been served,’ said Furzey, his finger tapping the two lists as they lay before us on my desk. ‘You had better be content, for I will not go rooting out any new ones.’

  I assured him that I was perfectly content and, changing the subject, put to him a different question.

  ‘Furzey, remind me of the definition of treasure trove, would you? It has been a few years since we last dealt with a case.’

  Furzey half closed his eyes and recited as follows.

  ‘Treasure trove is what comes to light of coin, precious metal or gems that has been deliberately concealed by a person unknown, with the intention of returning to collect at a later date, the which was prevented by reason of the said person’s presumed intervening death.’

  ‘A person unknown – you are sure of that? Even if it be a matter of many generations, or centuries ago?’

  But my question remained unresolved because now we were interrupted by Robert Hazelbury, who came running in with some urgent news.

  ‘Mr Cragg, Sir! You’d better come down to the shop. Mr Mayor’s there and he’s fetched the locksmith back to open up the strong room. I can’t do owt to stop him.’

  I hurried out with him and arrived at the goldsmith’s shop to find Arthur Benn at work once again, this time sitting astride a stool in front of the locked gate of the strong room, his roll of tools laid out on the floor in between. With back bent and face set close to his hands in a rictus of concentration, he was working with a much larger picklock than I had seen before, for this was a much greater and more formidable lock than on the outer door of the business room. Standing at Benn’s side was the Mayor, urging him on and making snatching motions with his hands as if itching to seize the picklock himself and try his luck with it.

  ‘Well, Mr Grimshaw!’ I exclaimed. ‘I hope you are prepared to accept any consequences of these actions. As I have already mentioned to you the legality of this is highly questionable.’

  He turned to me four square, hands on hips and legs straddled to ensure that, whatever I might say, I understood he was immovable. His words were fired through angrily flared lips.

  ‘Here is what I say to you, Sir: fiddlesticks! I am in pursuit of Corporation property. I am looking for our rightful money, and shall not be gainsaid on the matter, or denied entry to wheresoever it may be found, on any piddling pretext you may come up with.’

  He snapped his fingers. ‘So fiddlesticks to your questionable and fiddlesticks to your legality.’

  He had set out this morning to intimidate the world with all the force and depth of his mayoral authority. He was dressed to that end with full formality: long-bottomed wig, heavy golden chain of office, lace shirt and silken coat and breeches. The brocaded waistcoat shone with silver embroidery and embossed buttons across his bulging belly. But I, for one, had known Ephraim Grimshaw for too long to be intimidated by his cock-feathered display.

  ‘I will make one more point, Mr Mayor, if I may. This procedure is very likely a waste of time. I spoke about this strong room with Pimbo quite recently, and he stressed that moneys deposited with him were never kept in it for any length of time. They were, he said, taken on by his partner Moon to be invested, lent out at interest or in some other way put out to work – that was Pimbo’s own curious expression. He insisted that any money entrusted to him would never lie idle in a strong room chest.’

  Grimshaw reached into his pocket and drew out a folded foolscap sheet, which he opened and shook before my nose.

  ‘This is Pimbo’s promissory note, Sir. This is his assurance that our money would be repaid, with profit. And what does a man have a strong room for, if not for the keeping of money and valuables with which to pay his debts to another man?’

  He coughed.

  ‘Or in this case, I mean of course, to a Corporation.’

  Grimshaw did not seem to have a very strong grasp of the principles of investment. I did not belabour my point but turned to see how Benn’s endeavours were coming along. He must have been at work for some time already, since he was now beginning to mutter strings of frustrated curses, and to change implements with increasing frequency. Then, after another five minutes, just as in the case of the outer door of Pimbo’s business room a few days earlier, the locksmith suddenly abandoned the attempt. He leaped to his feet and cursed one final time, upsetting the stool beneath him with a clatter.

  ‘Be damned to it! I can’t get the fucker open, Mr Grimshaw! Some fiend devised that lock and only another fiend will ever pick it.’

  Galled, and worse, at having been bested by two locks on the same premises, and in a single week, Arthur Benn withdrew. But Grimshaw’s campaign against the obdurate lock had reserves waiting to enter the fray – reserves of force. A pair of labourers, both heavily muscled, stood by with rolled sleeves to apply a vast file to the iron bars that held the lock in place. As the filing operation was set to take some time, I wandered back into the shop with the air behind me resounding to the regular sing-song of the file. No business had been done here in the shop for five days now. The cashier’s position was shuttered and the glass-topped counters were covered with lengths of baize.

  I crossed to the door that opened onto Fisher Gate and looked out through the glass towards the premises directly opposite – those of Aloysius Hutton, the tobacconist. I could see through his open door Goody Hutton, the wife, stooping to place a bowl in the middle of the floor and then, as she took up her broom, giving a high-pitched shriek to alert her pet that it was time to eat. The animal, a big-eared puppy parti-coloured in brown and white, immediately darted forward and began to devour the food with considerable voracity. There was something about that puppy … I moved nearer to the glass, just to make sure. Then I pulled open the door and strode across the street.

  ‘How d’you do, Mrs Hutton?’ I enquired as I entered the dusky, aromatic space of her shop. The woman, a spindly figure of roughly an age with myself, looked up from her brushing.

  ‘Oh! Mr Cragg, it’s you! Will it be your usual ounce of ’bacco?’

  ‘Yes indeed. And a packet of snuff if you please – the Number 3.’

  She reached down a jar and weighed out an ounce of the tobacco mixture, which she twisted inside a doubled sheet of oiled paper. Then she fetched a tray labelled Number 3, and loaded with plain paper cones, each tightly filled with snuff. I flipped open my snuffbox
and laid it on the counter.

  ‘That’s a spirited little dog you have there,’ I remarked, watching her carefully open the cone and pour the snuff into the snuffbox. ‘What d’you call him?’

  ‘That’s Suez is that. He was Mr Pimbo’s you know, from across the road.’

  ‘Suez! Of course. I thought I recognized him.’

  ‘Funny name for a dog, but there you are – Mr Pimbo had his peculiarities.’

  ‘How come he is here?’

  ‘The poor little tyke turned up on the day it happened, whimpering and shivering he was like he’d caught a chill.’

  ‘The dog was upset?’

  ‘Of course he was upset, and from what he’d seen over there, I’m sure. Well, we found an old basket for him and he went fast asleep, unnaturally fast I thought, like a body that’s been badly shocked. When he woke up he seemed better and I gave him some warm milk. Hutton said we would have him with us till we heard what to do, but there’s been never a word, so we’ve kept him on, though he’s driven me distracted with his behaviour. He does shit everywhere, and he’s that badly spoiled, and Hutton says he’ll never be trained to obedience or the gun, not now, though he’s still a young’un. Up to all sorts of tricks, he is, and terribly fussy about his food. Always wants his treats of bacon fat, just like Mr Pimbo used to give him, though it makes his bowels even looser, that’s my opinion.’

  ‘When did he come to you?’

  ‘Oh, on Thursday morning. I reckon it was about the time Mr Pimbo was found, because we shut up the shop for a few minutes, not having an apprentice here just now, to go over and have a look at what the fuss was about. It were dreadful, Mr Cragg. Of course, you know that, as you were there yourself. Well we stayed, me and Hutton, long enough to get a look at the corpse, and then we came back and, by heck, there was the little dog actually inside the shop! He’s that cunning, you see, and quick as a whip when he wants to be. He must have run across the street and slipped in past us, just as we were going out. We never noticed a thing, and that’s how he got in here.’