by Alis Hawkins
I was caught off guard. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My dear fellow, do excuse me. May I take this seat, here?’ He had obviously indicated the chair by the fire, forgetting that I could not be relied upon to notice such casual gestures.
‘Of course. Please.’ I fetched the other chair and sat opposite him.
‘I must confess, I am glad of a few moments to speak to you, Harry. My wife and I were most troubled by the news you gave us when you visited the evening before last. About Jenkyn Hughes.’
So this was why he had come. ‘Yes. A bad business.’
‘Our disquiet was added to when our son, James, came to tell us of your assistant’s visit to the office,’ Philips said, carefully. ‘Not simply because he brought news of your father’s stroke but also because…’ He paused, and I could feel him looking at me. ‘As I believe I mentioned when you were kind enough to visit,’ he began again, ‘James is taking over more and more responsibility for the company, as is only right. One day, he will be in charge, in partnership with his cousin, Lloyd.’
Again, I waited.
‘I intimated to you the other evening that we were in business with Mr Hughes – part of the Cardigan-Ohio Emigration Company.’ He hesitated. ‘In fact, it was not Philips and Lloyd that entered into the partnership but James himself. This was something he embarked upon as an independent investor. With my blessing, naturally. But Philips and Lloyd has no liability in the Cardigan-Ohio Company.’
‘I see,’ I said, though, in fact, I did not. Though Arthur clearly felt that Hughes’s murder had come too close to his business for comfort, I could not yet see what this had to do with me.
‘James brought to my attention something that I had not previously been aware of,’ he continued. ‘Apparently, rumours had begun to circulate that Hughes was a gambler. And not a successful one. Mrs Parry and my son began to have reservations about the security of their investments in the emigration company and Mrs Parry suggested that they would be wise to take out an insurance policy on Mr Hughes’s life.’
‘They were afraid that his gambling threatened his life?’ I did not mention the gambling den that John had told me about. I was intrigued to see whether Arthur knew anything about it.
‘The places Hughes had apparently chosen for his gaming activities were quite unsavoury,’ Arthur said, confirming that he did. ‘So, yes, I believe my son feared for his safety.’
‘But isn’t it quite usual, anyway, for the partners in a risky endeavour like this to take out insurance on each other’s lives?’ I asked, hoping John’s information was correct. I did not want to seem an ignoramus in the ways of business; not when the subject of my inquest was a businessman.
‘It is, yes,’ Arthur Philips said, slowly. I imagined his eyes on my face, watching my reactions. ‘But, in this case, both my son and Mrs Parry seem to have decided to take out insurance for what might be called a precautionary sum. To cover not only the losses which would be inevitable in the event of a partner’s death but also any additional sums which might have been incurred as debts.’
John had, of course, passed on to me Mrs Parry’s ruthless comment on the company’s terms of business and each party’s liability for the other’s debts. But perhaps James had not been as explicit with his father, leaving Arthur to assume that all parties in the Cardigan-Ohio Emigration Company would be equally liable for the embezzlement of bondholders’ money.
‘I’m aware,’ he went on, his tone still careful, ‘that insuring a life for large sums like that might raise suspicions. Particularly in the light of Mr Hughes’s death.’
There was no point denying it. My cousin cannot have been ignorant of the regular newspaper reports of murders motivated by the sums available from life-insurance policies.
‘Harry, I am going to presume on your discretion and tell you something which I trust you will not disclose to anybody else.’
I shook my head. ‘I beg your pardon, Arthur. I can’t promise such a thing without knowing what you’re going to tell me.’
‘On my honour – and that of my son – it has nothing to do with Jenkyn Hughes’s death.’
I believed him. That is, I believed he was speaking the truth as he knew it.
‘I can only promise that, if it truly proves to have nothing to do with Hughes’s murder, you have my word that it will not be revealed to a soul.’
The subsequent silence told me that Arthur was not entirely happy with this formulation but knew I could offer nothing more.
‘Very well. The fact is that James owed money to Jenkyn Hughes.’
‘Gambling debts?’ I asked, my eyes lowered so as to keep what I could see of my cousin above the whirlpool. He did not stir.
‘Yes.’
‘Large enough to cause the firm embarrassment?’
‘Large enough to cause James personal embarrassment. He could not take money out of the firm without my being aware of it and I would never have sanctioned such a thing.’ He stopped, abruptly, as if he feared that he had been too much the businessman and too little the loving father. When he spoke again, his voice was hard. ‘James complained that Hughes was no gentleman, that he would not give him the chance to win his money back. But only a fool blames bad luck for his losses and banks on his skills at the table to make them good.’
My mouth was suddenly dry. ‘May I ask how you are able to say so definitively that this has no bearing on the death of Jenkyn Hughes?’
‘Because my son has given me his word.’ Then, clearly realising that the word of a man prepared to gamble in an illegal dockside drinking-house might be worth less than he would like, Arthur added, ‘If you knew exactly when Mr Hughes was killed it would be easier to prove that James had nothing to do with his death.’
I agreed with him. The whole investigation would be easier if we knew when Hughes had met his end. Or even where. As it was, we knew nothing of Hughes’s movements between his taking his leave of Mrs Parry and the discovery of his body. And that lack of certainty was, presumably, why Inspector Bellis felt able to keep Teff Harris in custody.
But here was a clear motive. Gambling debt.
I felt a surge of excitement. Did this explain the removal of Hughes’s papers from Captain Coleman’s? Had James – or another of Hughes’s gambling cronies – charged Shoni Jones with finding the IOUs which confirmed sums owed? After all, debts did not die with the creditor but would now be payable to Hughes’s heir.
‘Who inherits Hughes’s portion of the business?’ I asked. ‘Do you know?’
‘Interesting that you should ask. James had assumed that we would have to wait until after the inquest had formally identified Hughes and probate could be applied for. But then an heir presented himself. Some sort of cousin.’
‘Shoni Jones of Moylegrove.’
‘Yes.’ Arthur was audibly surprised. ‘How did you know?’
Why had neither Mrs Parry nor James Philips told John about the cousin’s claim? Were they hoping that he could be paid off? Or had he tried to threaten them in some way?
‘We think Mr Jones may have evidence to bring before the inquest,’ I said.
‘Do you think he might have been involved in Hughes’s death?’
I prevaricated. ‘We simply need to speak to him.’
Genial as Arthur Philips was, he had obviously come to Glanteifi as much to ask me to keep James’s gambling debts out of the inquest as he had to see my father. And, family or not, I could not ignore the possibility that he had also hoped to find out how much I knew.
In fact, he had learned very little from me. I, on the other hand, had learned a great deal. As soon as he was gone, I would write to John. It was imperative that Shoni Jones be found as soon as possible.
John
As it turned out, I didn’t have to speak to James Philips. He was busy playing the respectable businessman at church.
When I went to the office, it was Mrs Parry I found sitting at Philips’s desk, and she didn’t need any persuading that
a meeting of Cardigan-Ohio bondholders was a good idea.
‘It’s something we’d have had to do ourselves, anyway,’ she said. ‘As soon as word gets out that Jenkyn Hughes is dead, people will be bound to be worried.’
She asked me whether I had a particular day in mind for the meeting and we agreed on Friday.
I nearly asked her whether she knew where I could find Shoni Jones but I caught myself in time. I still wasn’t altogether sure we could trust Mrs Parry, so the less she knew about our interest in the Moylegrove cousin the better.
I was about to leave when she surprised me by asking after Teff Harris. ‘Billy Go-About still got him in the lock-up, has he?’
‘Yes. His wife came down to see him this morning.’
Mrs Parry nodded, eyes on me as if she was waiting for the next piece of information. I kept my lips shut.
‘Ruth Harris is fortunate in her husband,’ she said, as if she was just making conversation.
I tried to resist. And failed. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘He knows it’s not her fault men fall for her. A lesser man might think she was leading them on.’
I looked her in the eye. It was the only way with Mrs Parry. ‘You’re telling me Teff Harris didn’t kill Jenkyn Hughes because Hughes was after his wife, are you?’
‘Ha!’ She laughed and slapped her palm down on the table. ‘You’re a sharp one, aren’t you, John Davies?’
So I’d been told. Sharp enough to cut myself, I was.
By the time I left Mrs Parry, it was well after noon. The sun was hidden somewhere behind a sky of dirty white and it was already beginning to weaken. I decided that enough was enough and set off back to the Black Lion to fetch Seren. If I left Cardigan now, I could get to Harry, give him an account of what I’d been up to and still be back before it was properly dark.
I walked up the hill into town past shuttered shop-windows and locked doors and tried to imagine this meeting of the American Scheme. All the would-be emigrants in one place, desperate to know whether the bonds they held were still good, whether any money they’d already paid in installments would be honoured. People who’d been saving for years, convinced that life would be better in America.
A better future. Could that be the answer for me? Emigration?
Jenkyn Hughes had left the Cardigan-Ohio Emigration Company in what Mr Schofield would call a state of disorder, so there were probably still bonds to be had. I could use my savings and sail to a new life. In this iron town Jenkyn Hughes’d been recruiting people for, they’d be in need of articled clerks and lawyers. Why shouldn’t I be one of them? American law couldn’t be so different from ours and it certainly wasn’t beyond me to learn the ways it differed.
A new life in Ohio. No more Mr Schofield. No more grumbling landlady. No more worrying about the future – it would all be decided. I’d be a lawyer in the new town.
I could almost hear my father’s voice. Arglwydd annwyl, boy, go! There’s nothing here for you now. America’s a new country. Anything’s possible. You could be rich!
But I’d be leaving behind everything and everybody I knew. My future would be completely separated from my past. There’d be nobody I’d shared anything with for the first twenty years of my life. It’d be like being born again on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Was that what I wanted?
I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to have to keep deciding between Mr Schofield and Harry.
Before going to the stables for Seren, I made a detour inside the Black Lion to check that there was nobody there waiting to see me.
There was. Sitting in what the Black Lion’s maids and bootboys were already calling ‘the Coroner’s Room’ was a little rat-faced man with tobacco-stained teeth and a shirt whose colour made you suspect he didn’t have a wife. I introduced myself and explained that Harry wasn’t here.
‘I’m Benjamin Matthias,’ he said, standing and taking his hat off to me. ‘Ben the tailor. I’m the registrar of births and deaths.’
‘Registrar’ was what he said, because nobody calls themselves a sub-anything. But I knew that the Cardigan registration district covered dozens of parishes. Ben Matthias would actually be sub-registrar of a smaller district.
I looked him over quickly as we sat down by the almost-dead fire. I hoped he was a better registrar than he was a tailor, because he was no great advertisement for his trade. His coat was old and his trousers were baggy at the knees. But, like they say, the shoemaker’s children always go barefoot.
‘If you’ve come about Jenkyn Hughes,’ I said ‘you’ll have to wait till the inquest for cause of death. You can register him then.’
‘No, no. I know that.’ Matthias spoke quickly, as if he was used to not being allowed to finish anything he said. ‘It’s another death I’m here about.’
I left space for him to go on but he obviously needed permission. ‘Whose death is that, Mr Mathias?’
‘Well. Now, then. Illegal burial it is, see, really. Burial without the death being registered.’
‘Registered or certified?’ Strictly speaking, the system wanted a doctor to see every dead person and say not just that they were dead but also how they’d died, but allowances were made for circumstances where no doctor was available or affordable. The registrar was allowed to record the death as ‘uncertified’ if he was satisfied that a doctor’s opinion wasn’t needed.
‘No. Unregistered, it was. No doctor came but I’m not worried about that. What happened was, the burial was done and then the minister came to me to register the death.’
‘The minister who’d performed the burial?’
‘Yes. Reverend Williams from Blaenywaun, St Dogmaels.’
The Reverend John Philipps Williams. Everybody within a dozen miles in any given direction had heard of him. Taken a moderately successful chapel, JP Williams had, and made it into what the papers called a phenomenon. Sometimes he preached to congregations so big they couldn’t all fit into the building.
‘He said he had no doubt whatsoever that the death was natural,’ Matthias went on when I didn’t reply.
He was waiting for me to tell him how to make this all right, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know whether this was any of my business. Was it my job to take these details? This death was nothing to do with the inquest Harry’d been asked to conduct.
But then, if he was acting coroner, I supposed every unexplained death was his business.
Matthias started scratching at a splash of mud on his trousers, trying to get it out of the weave with his nail. He looked nervous.
‘So why did Reverend Williams perform the burial before coming to you to register the death?’ I asked. ‘Did something happen to keep him away?’
Matthias shook his head. ‘No, no, nothing like that. Just – as soon as the grave was dug, see, the body was in it and buried.’ He made his point by doing a half clap, half brush of one hand with another. That’s how it was done – quick-smart.
I took out my notebook. Time to stop asking random questions and bring some order to proceedings. ‘Right, Mr Matthias, who is it that’s died?’
Matthias shifted in his chair. ‘A little girl. Elizabeth Abel. Been ill for some time, she had.’
‘Yes?’ I said, waiting for the rest. Nothing came. ‘A child dies after an illness. A very respectable minister buries her – according to the parents’ wishes, I suppose – and then comes to you to register the death.’ I kept my eyes on Matthias’s face. He wasn’t looking at me. ‘All right,’ I allowed ‘it’s technically an illegal burial but–’
‘That’s not why I’ve come. I wouldn’t’ve bothered for that. I know I said illegal burial at the start…’
He stopped speaking so I helped him out. ‘Why have you come then, Mr Matthias?’
‘Because of the father. Elizabeth Abel’s father. People are talking, you see.’
I waited. I wasn’t going to do all his work for him.
‘They’re saying that it’s lucky for him the little girl died.’
/> The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. ‘Lucky? Why’s that?’
Matthias put one hand in the other and cracked his knuckles. I don’t think he knew he was doing it. His eyes were on me the whole time.
‘I don’t know the parents, myself, but I heard there was a disagreement between them. About going to America. The father’d bought one of those emigration bonds – for the ship that’s going over in April. But the mother didn’t want to go. Because the little girl was poorly. Said the journey’d kill her.’
‘And you’re worried that the father hurried her on her way so they could go.’
‘Well,’ Matthias looked shocked at my directness but I didn’t have time for tip-toeing. I needed to find out whether there was anything suspicious here to pass on to Harry. ‘The reverend says it’s nothing to be concerned about. Says it’d been obvious that the child was dying for weeks. The doctor was giving her laudanum. But the mother couldn’t accept it, see. Kept going to the reverend after services and asking him to pray with her. Looking for a miracle, she was.’
Which was just the kind of thing I’d’ve expected a man with Reverend Williams’s reputation to encourage. ‘Has the mother made any accusations against her husband?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know. Haven’t spoken to her.’
‘But the Reverend Williams is happy that it was a natural death?’