by Robin Blake
The other end of the string was tied to something that seemed bulky enough almost to fill the hole, and which clinked as it moved. It snagged here and there on some roots, and needed to be more firmly pulled where the hole narrowed, but at last it came out. It was a full sack made of gunny, the neck tightly tied by the extreme end of the string. I hastened to untie the knot and open the sack. What I found inside made me forget for the time being all about murder and the missing shoe.
The bag was filled with metal objects, somewhat tarnished to be sure, but consisting of table plate and silver – or what I guessed to be silver: a cream jug, caddy spoon, candle-snuffer, a nest of assorted small dishes and two salt cellars – at most twenty items in all. The last of these was a bundle of spoons, held together with a leather thong. I picked them out and counted them. There were eleven, and they looked very much like Adam Thorn’s apostle spoon.
* * *
On my way through town I stopped at Oldswick’s shop. The watchmaker was sitting at his work-bench and peering into the mechanism of a fob watch that lay open before him.
‘Mysterious in the extreme, some watches,’ he said, rising to his feet as I strolled in. ‘Take this one. Everything seems in order, nothing is broken or clogged up or bent out of shape, and yet she won’t go. She’s like one of your corpses, Titus. Dead for no reason anyone can determine.’
‘I find persistence usually pays off, Nick. If I keep looking I find the answer.’
He sighed.
‘Aye, that’s the only way. So, what can I do for you?’
I slid the gunny-sack from my shoulder and laid it carefully on the seat of a chair.
‘Would you put this in your strong cupboard? It contains silver that I fancy the Mayor might try to appropriate for the town’s coffer. But I want to investigate it myself first.’
‘I think there’s room, now Robert Hazelbury’s taken back the bits and pieces he lodged with me. It’ll just fit.’
The cupboard was set into the wall and had a thick, ironbound oak door secured by a heavy lock. As it swung open I saw it was fitted with shelves a foot apart, on which were laid parcels wrapped in brown paper, and a range of shallow wood trays containing cases and other watch parts in precious metal.
Oldswick took the gunny-sack and shoved it onto a vacant stretch of shelf.
‘Will you keep this to yourself, Nick?’ I asked.
He merely grunted, but I knew he would do so.
* * *
I reached the office, still carrying the shoe I had found. Furzey was on the point of leaving for the day.
‘There’s a woman in Kirkham, a Mrs Betty Ransom,’ I told him. ‘I shall be going to see her early tomorrow morning for a statement, so you must get out the summonses for the jurors and for other witnesses yourself – here’s a list.’
‘As if I don’t have enough to do,’ he grumbled, looking the list over.
‘But even before you do that, you must go to the post office and ask Crick about a letter posted close to four-thirty yesterday afternoon. If the letter itself happens still to be there, seize it. Otherwise get anything Crick can remember about it.’
Furzey raised his eyes from my list of names, suddenly looking a shade happier. There was nothing Furzey liked more than to be sent on business out of the office.
‘And by the way,’ I added, ‘as for that silver, I have an idea of whom to consult. Do you happen to know if Mr Marmaduke Flitcroft, of Kirkham, is still living?’
‘Oh, aye, Mr Cragg, I do think so, and I follow your drift exactly. Yes, Mr Flitcroft will suit your purposes admirably, I would say. Quite admirably!’
* * *
Over our supper, and unable to keep it to myself, I told Elizabeth of all that I had found at the Bale Stone.
‘It does not sound like my idea of Benjamin Peel’s treasure,’ she said. ‘I was thinking that would be an ironbound chest full of Spanish coins and jewels set in precious metal.’
‘I am wondering if it is a separate part of a larger hoard, put in the rabbit hole by Adam Thorn for some reason I cannot think of. I think he took that spoon of his from it.’
We turned over various possibilities, none of which convinced us.
‘You have had an eventful day, husband,’ Elizabeth said at last. ‘You started with the discovery of a murder and ended with hidden treasure. How does it go with your investigation into poor Mr Jackson’s death?’
‘I have been bustling all day long, and getting nowhere,’ I said. ‘Tybalt Jackson – what do I know about him? He was from Bristol and had little money, though an insurance company employed him. He read the Bible and Montaigne. He had a black girl with him, probably to warm his bed, that he pretended was a boy. And, finally, someone killed him, mutilating his face and driving a stake into his heart.’
‘That is quite natural, Titus.’
‘What? Mutilating his face? Driving a stake?’
‘No, of course not. Turning the girl into a boy, because it attracts less attention.’
‘That does seem to have been his special concern – causing as little stir as possible. Which makes it so remarkable that he spoke out at the inquest on Pimbo. What his profession required was that he gather intelligence privately, not make it public.’
‘He learned much for himself about Pimbo at the inquest. That will have satisfied him.’
‘It may also have killed him, Elizabeth. That’s what I am concerned with. Somewhere around here is a pair of killers who did for a witness because he gave evidence in my court. That concerns me personally. I must find them.’
‘Surely, my love, they will have gone far away by now.’
‘No – I do not believe so. They will not leave until they have the girl. They do not want her blabbing.’
Chapter Twenty-one
ADAM THORN NO longer lay all day in a dark room on his pallet bed, for Amity had obtained an old bath chair. The basketry was loose and ragged, and the wheels wobbled alarmingly, but it meant she could now bring him into the sunshine outside the cottage door, as she had done today, which, she said, would cure him if anything could. This is how Fidelis found his patient after he had parted from me at the Bale Stone: wrapped in a blanket and with an old straw hat on his head, facing the western sun. He was just as silent as before, though with small shivers or quakes running from time to time through his body.
‘The chair came from Peel Hall Stables – John Barton,’ Amity Thorn told Fidelis, when he asked about it. ‘He found it in a corner of his place and brought it over.’
‘But how do you get Adam into the chair? Surely not on your own?’
Quietly she drew him into the cottage, where their talk could not reach Adam’s ears.
‘Barton does it,’ she said. ‘He comes over and lifts him in. He’ll be back tonight to put him to bed.’
‘Kind of him. He is a good friend.’
‘It’s not out of kindness, or friendship. The way that man looks at a woman, folk have another word for. But me, I can’t lift Adam so without John Barton we can’t use this chair at all. And it means such a lot. The children can see their dad more naturally. I put Honor up on his knee to kiss him. But if I want him to use the chair, see, I’ve not got the choice. I’ve to put up with John Barton.’
She bustled around the room, picking up things left on the ground by the youngsters.
‘And I’ve had another visitor,’ she said. ‘The constable Oswald Mallender’s been round. Seems he didn’t understand what’s happened to Adam. Got vexed when he wouldn’t answer his questions about that spoon and where he’d got it.’
‘It’ll have been the Mayor sent him. There’s been new talk in town about that old treasure from Cromwell’s time. The Mayor wants to get his hands on it.’
‘Well I gave him a piece of my mind for bullying a sick man, and he left. So. What can I give you? A cup of tea?’
Fidelis knew better than to accept tea from a poor household. The poor bought used tea leaves second-hand from the servants of
the well-to-do, but even these were hard for them to afford – and in any case made a foul-tasting brew.
‘Thank you, no tea. I am here to make an experiment with your husband.’
‘An experiment?’
‘Yes. I have been thinking about what you said to me, that Adam – the real thinking and feeling Adam – was there all the time inside him, but occluded by his physical paralysis. Well, I have thought of a way in which he might be able to speak to us again.’
‘To get Adam to speak is what I dream of. Can you do it, really? Can you waken up his tongue?’
‘He won’t speak with his tongue.’
‘With what, then?’
‘You will see. Let’s try it. Let’s go out again to him.’
Fidelis carried two chairs from around the family table and placed one on each side of the bath chair, facing towards Adam, who remained with rigid head and fixed expression, as if unaware they were there. Amity settled her children inside the cottage and he sat down, and Fidelis began to address the patient directly.
‘Now Adam, the world believes that you can no longer hear or understand anything of what I’m saying. But I consider you can. The trouble is that you are not master of your tongue, or your breath, and so cannot speak. But I think there is one thing – or two things as a matter of fact – that you are master of. So let us try it. Will you blink for me, Adam? Simply shut and open your eyelids. Go on.’
Together they watched Adam’s eyes. At first nothing happened, and then suddenly he blinked.
Amity looked at Fidelis across her husband’s stricken body.
‘Nothing special about that, doctor,’ she whispered. ‘He does that anyway.’
Fidelis put a finger to his lips while keeping his eyes on his patient’s face.
‘Adam,’ he said in a firm voice, ‘have you caught my intention? If so, will you blink for me again, but now I want you to do it three times – three times in a row.’
They waited and at first it seemed nothing would happen. Then Adam blinked, once … and again. But immediately one of those periodic spasms passed through him, and it wasn’t clear if he had completed the sequence of three blinks.
Fidelis persevered. He asked him the question a second time, and this time added a refinement.
‘Give me three blinks if you do understand me, Adam, and just two if you don’t – go ahead.’
This time it was unmistakable. Adam’s eyes shut and opened again three times in succession. Amity gasped.
‘Very good, Adam. So, let us make this into a signalling system. Three blinks are for the answer yes, and two are for no? I am going to put to you a series of childish questions. You must not mind because eventually they will lead to something a good deal more interesting. Are you ready?’
He paused, watching Adam’s eyes. They blinked once, twice and then a third time.
‘Good. You are ready. I will speak in a clear voice. Is your name Adam Smith?’
Two blinks – no.
‘Is it Adam Thorn?’
Three blinks – yes.
‘And is this place Peel Lane Cottage?’
Yes. No.
‘Concentrate, Adam. This is not Peel Lane that runs past your house, is it?’
No.
‘It is Peel Hall Lane, isn’t it?’
Yes.
‘Good. Now, you have two children, I think.’
No.
‘Three?’
Yes.
‘Is one of them called Honor?’
Yes.
‘Is another of them called Theophrastus?’
No.
And so it went on, with Fidelis probing the limits of Adam’s understanding and memory. He established that he was not blind, but could see things placed immediately before his eyes, though if put to one side or the other he became doubtful of them. He also established that Adam could do simple mental arithmetic, and could remember events in his life before the accident.
After about twenty minutes, though, Adam’s eyes suddenly drooped and then, without warning, he fell asleep.
Fidelis rose and beckoned Amity into the cottage where the eldest daughter, Honor, came and wrapped her arms in a tight clinch around his legs. The boy was banging a stick on an old pot and the baby in the cot-bed was beginning to cry. But Amity’s eyes were shining.
‘It’s a kind of miracle what you’ve done, doctor,’ she said, picking up the baby and jiggling it up and down. ‘I always believed it, me, but a lot of people didn’t. He’s himself inside there. He’s been buried, like, and you’ve found him, and given him a way of talking – of getting his messages out.’
‘Yes. We know now that his cognitive power is more or less intact. You can speak with him – you must ask the right questions, of course, and the yes-and-no method will be tedious and frustrating sometimes, I’m afraid.’
‘But it’s much, much better than nothing, and nothing’s all we’ve had until now.’
Fidelis gently detached the clinging child’s arms from around his knees.
‘I must go back to Preston now. I fancy you will receive another visit from the Coroner, my friend Mr Cragg, in due course. He’s interested in how Adam’s seizure came about. He will use the method to obtain a statement about it. Oh! And one more thing. May I suggest that just for the time being you don’t speak of our discovery to others – to John Barton, for instance? And please, if that man gives you any cause for grave concern, if he becomes any sort of danger to you, apply directly to me.’
* * *
Fidelis had told Amity Thorn that he was going back to Preston, but he did not do so directly. Instead he turned right along Peel Hall Lane and purposefully covered the mile or so to Barton’s stables in less than a quarter of an hour, getting there shortly after six o’clock.
He found John Barton in the middle of his stable yard, unsaddling a horse. The fellow looked shiftily at Fidelis who decided to deal with the horse-coper in the first instance by using a very formal tone, as if carrying out a diplomatic démarche.
‘Mr Barton, I am Adam Thorn’s medical attendant. His doctor.’
Barton’s relations with people were generally conducted as grudge fights, and he had his own way of dealing with a relative stranger whom he chose to see in the light of a rival.
‘Doctor or medical attendant,’ he said in a low, graceless voice, ‘why should I mind what you call yourself?’
‘Either will do, Sir.’
‘What I mean is,’ said Barton, ‘I’ll have the same low opinion of you either way.’
Fidelis chose to ignore the remark, and continued in a pleasant vein.
‘I wanted to express how gratified I am by your therapeutic gift of a bath chair to my patient. I expect him to make faster progress towards recovery because of it.’
John Barton’s eyes flashed a look at Fidelis.
‘Oh aye?’ he said. ‘You reckon he will recover?’
‘He might. He can take the sunshine now, and will benefit greatly.’
Barton heaved off the saddle, dropped it to the ground and led the horse towards its stable. When he came out, his faintly twisted face displayed a gleam of pleasure, and Fidelis realized the fellow was in his bitter way enjoying himself.
‘Me, I just did for the Thorns what a neighbour should do.’
He pointed his finger at Fidelis.
‘But I know why you’re forever going in and out of that house. She tells me you don’t charge a fee. Of course you don’t! You expect your fee to be paid another way, am I not right?’
‘Mr Barton, I—’
‘You’ll deny it of course. My dad told me about doctors. Keep them out of your life, he said, and you’ll keep them out of your wife. Hah!’
Fidelis was determined to maintain the civilized façade for as long as he could.
‘Your attack on me is not new, Sir. I have heard it many times. So have all doctors. It does not provoke me as, it is clear, you would like to.’
‘Not new because it’s true, nin
e times out of ten. Like I said, I am only a neighbour. I brought Thorn home when he had his seizure. That’s my interest. What’s yours? I’ll tell you – that of a lecher with a medical bag, a wig, and a silver tongue.’
‘You quite fail to grasp what we do, Barton. A doctor promises on oath—’
‘Worthless cock! Lying hypocrisy! I know the game you’re after – and money is only the half of it.’
No red-blooded man, however much he wants to play diplomat, can finally stand and receive this kind of assault. Fidelis began to smart and grow heated.
‘I’ll tell you something, and you know very well it is true, Barton. Your slanderous accusation against me is exactly what, in fact, is in your own mind. You turn lustful eyes on Mrs Thorn, not me. You’ve observed the laying low of her husband and you’ve seen your opportunity.’
Barton had put a bucket of water in with the horse and slammed shut the door of its box. He now took four or five rapid strides forward and brandished his fist in front of Fidelis’s face.
‘Listen. Shall you take yourself off, or shall I shut that mouth of yours first?’
Fidelis took a step back.
‘Tell me, Barton, just how long is it you’ve lusted after Amity Thorn? How long is it that—’
The flimsy catch on Barton’s anger snapped. With a snarl he made another leap forward and this time delivered a box on Fidelis’s ear. The doctor, taller by several inches, immediately caught the man’s wrist and used the grip to force him down towards the ground. Barton was almost on his knees but he managed to kick upwards and deliver the doctor a sharp blow in the shins with his ironshod shoe. Less well equipped for a kicking match, Fidelis stepped backwards and bunched his fists.