The Combermere Legacy
Page 7
“Ah, for fuck’s sake,” said Sawyer, grabbing his colleague by a shirt sleeve in an attempt to calm him down. “Don’t be such an addle-brained clotpole. Leave the bastard alone, there’s nowt more to be achieved here.”
Unfortunately for my erstwhile colleague, by attending to Cripps, Sawyer had been forced to loosen his grip on the youth, who, scarcely believing his luck, swung out wildly with his spare arm, causing Sawyer to howl with agony as he caught his knuckles against the stone wall of the gaol house. Now completely free, the youth scuttled out into the street and disappeared into the crowds.
There was no time to tarry. Whilst Sawyer was bellowing in pain and anger, Davenport, Fletcher, and I took our leave as quickly as we could. But as we did so, I could have sworn I caught the hint of a smile on Fletcher’s face – relief, perhaps, or was it self-satisfaction that I saw?
I gave the briner the benefit of the doubt, but I could not help but wonder what had made Cripps so intent on seeing Fletcher convicted for Hassall’s murder, and why such hatred and anger? There was more to the relationship between Fletcher and Cripps than met the eye, I was sure, but what? I resolved to find out, but first I had an appointment with someone who, not necessarily through any fault of his own, had proved to be most elusive during the previous three weeks.
When we reached the corner of Hospital Street, I thanked Davenport for his honest, if somewhat belated, testimony, sent Fletcher back to his wife and family, and headed straight for the Booth Hall.
* * *
I found Ezekiel Green hunched over a desk in a dimly lit room towards the rear of the old court house, writing notes in what looked like a large register. In a sconce on the wall, a single candle cast flickering shadows against a large, half-filled bookcase. A small window opening to the west was shuttered, suggesting Green had deliberately tried to hide himself away from the summer sun.
Around him lay books, scrolls, and various other documents in a jumble uncharacteristic of the normally assiduous clerk, who I generally found to be an open, reliable, and good-natured fellow. His fingers, I noticed, were stained black with ink, and he carried the demeanour of a man who was suffering from exhaustion. To my surprise, he scarcely lifted his head as I entered the room.
“You will damage your eyesight, if you persist in working in such gloom,” I said by way of greeting.
Green gave me a wan smile. “Ah, Master Cheswis,” he said. “You are a welcome sight, sir. Anything to provide some relief from this drudgery.”
I eyed the young clerk with concern. Green was a studious, pale-skinned young man, barely into his twenties, but he was generally helpful and enthusiastic, with an air of understated assurance that belied his years. Today, however, he looked as though he hadn’t slept for a week.
“How do you fare, Ezekiel?” I asked. “You don’t look too well. What ails you? You have not been an easy man to track down of late.”
“It is true,” admitted Green, blinking at me in the half-light. “I have not left this room for two days.” The young clerk gestured to the pile of paperwork strewn across the desk. “All work of the Sequestration Committee,” he explained. “The Lord knows, I’m no royalist, but this work is not to my taste. It has the whiff of vindictiveness about it.”
“You are right, Ezekiel,” I said, realising why Green had been so difficult to pin down during the previous days. More than once I had presented myself at the Booth Hall only to find him under the watchful gaze of Thomas Malbon, Marc Folineux, or one of the other sequestrators. “Grinding people into the ground as a punishment for supporting the King will serve no purpose whatsoever, save to nurture further discontent and ill-feeling. They are working you hard, I see.”
“They are indeed. Especially Folineux, who is a man without mercy. He has a touch of the fanatic about him.”
I gave Green a smile of sympathy. I could only agree with him. I glanced at the register in front of him and realised I was looking at a list of sequestration assessments for the Nantwich Hundred. Green saw me looking and graciously flicked through the register for me – there were pages and pages of it. No wonder the clerk looked tired.
I looked closely at Green’s entries and realised the assessments covered many of the area’s main royalist families – the Walthalls, the Wicksteads, and the Wilbrahams of Woodhey (although curiously the Townsend House branch of the family seemed so far to have avoided assessment).
I also noticed that the estate of Lady Norton, barely three months in her grave, had been sequestered for a significant proportion of the annual rents on her land and property. Easy prey, plundering the inheritance of a dead woman, I thought. I added up the list of properties and realised that almost £70 per annum was being taken from her estate. The rent taken relating to her substantial mansion on Beam Street alone was over £10.
Thomas Maisterson, I noticed, had not escaped Folineux’s attention either, sequestered for over £30 per year on his various properties in Welsh Row and Beam Street, whilst Lord Cholmondeley had been similarly hit.
“You see what I mean,” said Green. “Folineux and his ilk have kept me occupied for days with these assessments. I scarcely have time to eat.” He leafed backwards through the register for several pages and smoothed down the paper. “And it’s not just the rich either,” he continued. “Take a look at this.”
I examined the page closely and realised Green was showing me an assessment of John Saring, the previous minister of St Mary’s Church and a noted delinquent, now imprisoned for his royalist tendencies, but still a man who had served Nantwich well for many years and was highly respected in the town. I read the assessment with a growing sense of dismay.
“But Saring has been sequestered of almost everything he owns,” I said, reading through a long inventory of furniture, pottery, and other personal possessions, which had been sold.
“Aye, they’ve even taken his chamber pot, so if he ever gets released, he won’t even be able to take a piss at night.” Green fingered his tufty brown beard and sat thoughtfully for a moment. “But I’m glad you came to see me today,” he continued, suddenly becoming more animated. “You bring a welcome respite from this unpleasant work – and I think I know why you’re here.”
I glanced sharply at Green, who responded with an enigmatic smile. “Indeed?” I said, somewhat taken aback. “Pray elaborate.”
“Of course. You wish to find out more about the affray which took place here in fifteen seventy-two, which resulted in the death of one Roger Crockett. Am I getting warm?”
I stared at Green in open-mouthed astonishment. “Well, yes,” I flustered. “You are right, of course, but how could you possibly know that?”
The young clerk replaced his pen carefully in the inkwell on his desk and wiped his hands on his breeches.
“Come, sir,” he said. “It is not so difficult to deduce. The town is awash with rumours about the death of Henry Hassall, and several of the town’s older residents who remember such things have remarked on the coincidence that Hassall had just lost the lease to Ridley Field, just like his ancestor.
“I am fully aware that Colonel Croxton has tasked you with uncovering the truth behind this matter, and, as far-fetched as a real link between these two murders may seem, I realised your thoroughness would not permit you to leave any stones unturned. I guessed you would eventually wish to view the original documents relating to Roger Crockett’s inquest.”
I regarded Green with renewed respect and admiration. “We are not so very different, I think, you and I,” I said. “I take it you have already unearthed these documents?”
Green beamed with pleasure at the compliment. “Indeed I have,” he said. “Won’t you follow me?”
Green lit another candle from a taper and led me out of his room and down a corridor towards a solid-looking door set underneath the stairwell that led to the Booth Hall’s upper floors.
“Here, hold this,” he said, handing me the candle and extracting a key from a pocket sewn into his breeches.
“The people who built the Booth Hall learned from experience,” explained Green. “Many of the town’s records were destroyed in the Great Fire of fifteen eighty-three, but fortunately the custodians of the records at that time had the presence of mind to save some of the more recent documents, and they made sure that a cellar was built in the new building to minimise the risk of damage should such a disastrous event recur in the future. It is God’s providence that the Court Rolls from the early fifteen seventies were among those documents preserved.” Green indicated two heavily bound volumes lying on the table.
“You have extracted these documents already?” I asked.
“I have. One of the volumes contains the record of the inquest held in St Mary’s Church on the Saturday following Crockett’s death, the other records the proceedings of the subsequent Nantwich Sessions Trial. I think you will find them interesting.”
I stepped forward and gently opened one of the books, disturbing a thin layer of dust on the spine. I could see that Green was itching to talk me through the documents, and so, loath to disappoint him, I invited him to continue his explanation.
“You have been most thorough in your work,” I said. “You are to be complimented. But, tell me – what is there to learn from these accounts that may have some relevance today?”
Green frowned. “That, Master Cheswis, is not so easy to say, for the testimony recorded is both contradictory and confused. However, what can be stated with some degree of certainty is that the murder of Roger Crockett was a most curious affair indeed.”
The crime, Green went on to explain, had centred on a disagreement between Roger Crockett, the landlord of The Crown, and Richard Hassall, a member of one of Nantwich’s leading families, over the lease to Ridley Field. On the face of it, the dispute appeared straightforward enough. Hassall’s lease had been up for renewal, and Crockett had negotiated a new lease with the owner of the field without paying Hassall the courtesy of allowing him to negotiate a renewal himself.
This, in itself, I decided, was not particularly noteworthy. Such disagreements happened all the time. However, this specific dispute had turned out to be unduly bitter in nature, continuing for months and splitting the town in half. This, in turn, had resulted in a series of threats and counter-threats of physical violence, which had resulted in many of the protagonists having to ‘swear the peace’ against one another. Crockett, interestingly, had refused to have anything to do with such undertakings, preferring simply to keep his distance from Hassall and his followers.
“It is difficult to tell from these documents what is the truth, what is bluster, and what is downright lies,” said Green. “There are two documents here. One, we must assume, is an accurate record of what happened at the inquest, which was carried out behind closed doors on the Saturday after the murder. The coroner at those proceedings was a member of the Maisterson family – one John Maisterson, who was a supporter of Hassall and closely related to Richard Wilbraham, the most prominent of the accused.
“The second document is a collection of witness statements gathered during the aftermath of the inquest. There are statements from well over a hundred people, a fair cross-section of the population of Nantwich at the time. You may be interested to note the names of the town’s constables recorded in the documents.”
Green opened up one of the volumes to a page which listed the names of all the witnesses interviewed at the time of Crockett’s murder. I scanned the page, and my heart lurched as I saw the names of the two constables – John Wickstead and John Brett. Was the latter an ancestor of Ralph Brett perhaps, and, if so, what was the significance of that? I inspected the list further, and my eyes focused on another name I recognised. Almost hidden away among all the briners, tanners, and corvisers was the name of Thomas Bressy.
I had to force myself not to jump to conclusions, but was Bressy’s name present on the list merely by chance, or was there a more sinister explanation? It was all very confusing, but I tried to remain circumspect.
“Brett was the name of my wife’s first husband,” I said, “and Bressy is the name of one of his murderers, but surely this is just a coincidence. What can you tell me about Crockett’s murder?”
“Well, firstly, the attack on Crockett appears to have been co-ordinated, probably sometime in advance. Indeed, it looks as though Crockett was lured to the west bank of the Weaver by Hassall’s cohorts, who had carried out an unprovoked assault on one of Crockett’s friends, a man by the name of Thomas Wettenhall.
“When Crockett arrived on the scene, he too was set upon, by a large crowd of bystanders. Hassall’s supporters do not actually admit to collusion, but there appears to be plenty of evidence that this was the case, not least the fact that there was a significant gathering at Hassall’s home after the attack.
“Where there are discrepancies, however, is in the various accounts of who was responsible for striking the blow which killed Crockett, and how implicit various people were in the events surrounding this act. Crockett’s wife and friends insist that a large melee of people was responsible for the killing, whereas Hassall’s followers lay the blame squarely at the feet of a single person, Edmund Crewe, who was subsequently spirited away, never to be seen again. Of particular importance is the attempt by Bridgett Crockett to implicate Richard Wilbraham in the murder, when most of the witnesses say Wilbraham arrived on the scene still dressed in his night clothes.”
“Not the actions of a man who was expecting trouble,” I ventured.
“Precisely. Indeed, Wilbraham is said to have helped Crockett to a nearby house for treatment. Hassall’s wife, Anne, also comes in for conflicting treatment. Some have her shouting at Crockett like a crazed harridan, whilst others have her tending the injured man as though she were a caring nurse.”
“It all seems very strange,” I agreed.
“And it becomes even stranger,” said Green, warming to his task. “After Crockett’s death, his widow, Bridgett, appears to have mounted a vigorous campaign to prove that her husband died by more than one hand, attempting, in the process, to frame Richard Wilbraham, among others, for the murder. She even employed a local artist, a man by the name of Hunter, to paint a portrait of the body to show that her husband had sustained many injuries. The painting and the reported state of Crockett’s body apparently bore her argument out. Then, during the inquest, she tried to persuade the coroner to subject those accused to the ordeal of the bier.”
“The ordeal of the bier?” I said with surprise. “That is nothing more than an old wives’ tale. A bizarre request to say the least.”
“But still common even seventy years ago,” pointed out Green. “Bridgett Crockett tried to persuade the coroner to have the Hassalls and Wilbraham brought before Crockett’s corpse in the belief that it would bleed afresh in the presence of his murderers. The coroner unsurprisingly refused the request and found that Crockett died exclusively at the hands of Edmund Crewe.”
“And the coroner was a Maisterson, you say?”
“Yes. John Maisterson, brother-in-law to Richard Wilbraham. The whole case opened Maisterson to charges of corruption.”
I sat down on one of the chairs for a moment whilst Green waited in anticipation for my comments. The candle, I noticed, was burning low on its wick, and so, after a few moments reflection, I closed the book and signalled for Green to follow me back upstairs.
“I have to say, I tend to agree with you,” I said, eventually. “The behaviour of all parties in this case is most unconventional, as though something else were at stake beyond a simple disagreement over a lease. Why on earth did Crockett risk alienating all the town’s elite just to lease a field? On the other hand, why were Hassall and his followers prepared to
go as far as to commit murder in order to prevent Crockett gaining control of the field, why did Bridgett Crockett go to such extraordinary lengths to try and frame Richard Wilbraham for the murder, and did John Maisterson deliberately manipulate the findings of the inquest to protect his brother-in-law? And if so, was loyalty his only motivation? It is a complicated puzzle, but we are still missing one element.”
“You are right,” agreed Green. “We still have no proof of a connection to the present day, but I would like to help you find it, if you will allow me.”
I considered the young clerk’s suggestion for a moment and offered a grateful smile. “You enjoy this kind of investigative work, don’t you, Ezekiel?” I said.
“It is certainly more rewarding than transcribing countless court documents,” came the reply.
“But considerably more dangerous, I think you’ll agree.”
Green nodded in acknowledgement. “Perhaps so,” he said. “I confess, I would not be much use in a tavern brawl, but I do know one end of a court document from another. I can be of help to you in this matter.”
I looked at Green and tried to suppress a growing sense of foreboding. The last time I had involved someone as young as him in my affairs, they had ended up losing their leg. Nonetheless, I gritted my teeth and made the decision I knew I had to make.
“Very well, then,” I said, reluctantly. “Why don’t you go through the list of witnesses and see what connections can be made, if any, between their descendants and Henry Hassall. In the meantime, I will try to continue my investigations, although I confess I am at a loss as to where to look next.”
Green smiled broadly and thanked me profusely for my confidence in him. Then, almost as an afterthought, his face turned serious once more.
“If you are looking for a new direction in this investigation, you might try Thomas Maisterson and Roger Wilbraham,” he said, stroking his beard. “It may be nothing, but both of them were seen in the vicinity of Ridley Field just before Henry Hassall’s death. A discussion with them may prove to be more fruitful than you might expect.”