Dark Waters (28 page)

A few minutes later I was on my way back to the office. I found my step quickening involuntarily with excitement about what Oldswick had just told me.

Chapter Nineteen

A
T THE OFFICE
I asked Furzey if there had been any word from Dr Fidelis. There had not.

‘Do we have a working jury for Wednesday morning?'

We had.

‘And an inquest room at the Gamecock?'

No, because Mrs Fitzpatrick was being obstructive. Said she was too busy and had no room to spare.

‘I'll talk to her in the morning,' I said. ‘I may as well give her the witness summons at the same time, and those for the other witnesses from there – Maggie Satterthwaite, the cook Primrose and I think the kitchen boy. His name's Peterkin. I'll also be seeking out Isaac Satterthwaite during the day, so will you prepare his summons too?'

Furzey reached for a printed form and dipped his pen.

‘That would be Joseph Primrose?' he said, with affected weariness.

‘Yes.'

When he had written this he reached for a second form.

‘And Mrs
Kathleen
Fitzpatrick?'

‘Yes. And don't let me hear that tone. You should be grateful that I'm serving these summonses myself, which saves you a lot of effort.'

‘I like serving the summonses. They get me out of here.'

‘Well, we also need one for Dr Fidelis, which you can take to his address on your way home tonight.'

Furzey frowned in surprise.

‘Are you two not drinking together tonight? It is one of your regular nights.'

I did not reply, but went into my office and sat at the desk, wishing I
were
due to meet Fidelis. I wanted to share with him my bright idea. I took the copy of Destercore's lists from the drawer and opened it out. I went through the names for a few minutes, until Furzey brought in the completed witness summonses to be signed. Without a word he placed the pile of them on top of what I was studying.

Impatiently I pulled the foolscap sheet out from under the summonses. I couldn't keep this to myself any longer.

‘Look, Furzey, I've had an idea about these marks against the names of individual men. The ones that we were talking about earlier on the list you copied. I think I know what they mean.'

‘The Tory tally captains?' said Furzey.

I almost dropped the paper.

‘Furzey! Don't tell me you already knew the dots were markers for tally captains! Why didn't you tell me?'

Furzey shrugged and said, ‘Why didn't you ask?'

‘How long have you known?'

‘I knew that some of the names with dots next to them were tally captains, and all on the opposite side of the vote from my own convictions. It is reasonable to infer that they all are.'

‘Which ones definitely are?'

He pointed to half a dozen names, but didn't want to linger to discuss them.

‘I have to go out now,' he said, retreating towards the outer office. ‘There's to be a speech by Mr Reynolds.'

‘Is Reynolds back on the hustings? I suppose Sir Henry's absence is the reason.'

‘I wouldn't know that.'

*   *   *

It was not until after I had heard the street door slam behind him that I noticed Furzey had forgotten to pick up Fidelis's witness summons. Separating it from the others, I wrote a second letter to Fidelis. Having heard nothing from him, I did not want a confrontation, yet he had to be served that summons and I decided to deliver a brief note at the same time:

Am enclosing with this your summons as witness to the inquest into John Allcroft. Particulars of the place are given. On a matter perhaps related, I believe I have got to the bottom of the ‘marked' names on a certain Londoner's list of Preston voters. Would be glad of the opportunity to talk this over.

Adam Lorris was at home when I called, but he told me Fidelis was not, which I was glad about. Before I saw him I needed some indication that he would be reconciled. So I handed the letter and summons to Lorris, and he assured me Fidelis would have it in his hand as soon as he came in.

‘By the way, your book of fables is almost ready,' Lorris went on. ‘I have found the most exquisite kidskin for it.'

But I did not want to stand around in the hall discussing Aesop so I said how much I was looking forward to seeing the book, then excused myself and left.

In our kitchen, I found Matty putting her feet up with her friend, a chatterbox called Dorcas, who was maid to our neighbour Burroughs, the cabinetmaker. Elizabeth had allowed the girls some tea. I had gone in to see if the shoes were ready that I had left for Matty to clean in the morning. While she went to fetch them I helped myself from the teapot and asked if Dorcas had enjoyed all the excitement in town.

‘The real fun starts tonight, sir. This far, we've only seen the half of it, they do say. There's big feasts all over town.'

She was a rosy-cheeked girl with a mop of curly hair, and a pronounced gap between her two front teeth.

‘My uncle Charley's come in from Lytham. He's not voting. He's got work for the week at Wilkinson's pie shop. They're selling three times the usual pies and he says they're supplying three feasts tonight. There's a lot of talk at them feasts, which Uncle Charley says I wouldn't understand – speeches about ships, and speeches about cider, and speeches about the King of France. Uncle Charley says best put the King of France in a ship with a thousand gallon of cider and let him sail away, so long as folk can still get good food and drink and singing and jokes – specially about Sir Henry Hoghton. You heard the jokes going round about him?'

‘No. What jokes are those, Dorcas?'

She cast her eyes down in a show of modesty.

‘I wouldn't like to say, sir. Not to you.'

In the evening I sat in my library reading the new Chaucer and hoping Fidelis would call. By eleven I knew he would not, so I closed
The Man of Law's Tale
and went to bed, anticipating a busy Tuesday with an early start. But sleep was almost impossible as Elizabeth and I lay listening to the sounds of election fever disturbing the peace. From time to time a band of revellers swung past below us, yelling their slogans, the light from their flaming torches flickering at the window and around the darkened room. Further away there was an almost continual hubbub. More than once I heard singers make a drunken attempt at Mr Arne's patriotic song, not very accurately, and not getting far with it.

I must have dozed because the next thing I knew was Elizabeth sitting upright and giving me a shake.

‘Titus! Some fellow is making a speech – from our doorstep!'

I slipped out of bed and crept to the window, furtively getting between curtain and glass. I could see a rabble of about twenty young men in front of the house, swaying and leaning on each other, some of them holding big flaming brands. They were loosely paying attention to someone who I couldn't see but who was, evidently, addressing them with his back to our front door.

‘I'll shout down,' I said. ‘This is intolerable.'

‘No, no, Titus, you will do no such thing,' said Elizabeth, who was now at the other window. ‘They could have those torches through our windows and burn this house in a minute.'

Immediately she was back under the covers.

‘Come into bed, my love,' she whispered. ‘Don't even let them see you. Anything might provoke them.'

‘It's all right. They haven't seen me.'

But I did as she asked. Back in bed I lay still, trying to make out what their spokesman was saying, and which party the ruffians were supposedly standing behind. For a time this was impossible, so thick was the orator's tongue with drink. Then a remark came through more clearly, and I caught the meaning: he was lampooning Sir Henry Hoghton.

‘What's Sir Harry need a Walpole for, eh?' we heard him proclaim. ‘He doesn't, does he? 'Cause now, we hear,
he's got a great pole of his own
!'

This was greeted by howls of mirth and audible thigh slapping. After a few moments I could feel Elizabeth, too, shaking with laughter beside me.

*   *   *

I knew that, once we heard Luke Fidelis's evidence of the rat, the Allcroft inquest would be all about a possible poisoning. So I reckoned the jury should hear something about poisons in general, and a little in addition about poisons in Preston. Since Wilson was the obvious man for this, I had decided during the night I would definitely call him to give evidence. It would be of added interest to me to have the apothecary answering questions. How would he answer my suggestion that he might be the source of the poison in Allcroft's case? What would he say to the suggestion that he had already been the supplier of
atropinum
to unscrupulous men? Would he sweat, develop a tic in the face, stammer his replies? Or try to swagger his way out of it? From such telltale minutiae momentous matters turn.

On my way to interview Mrs Fitzpatrick at the Gamecock Inn, I therefore called at Wilson's shop to give him his summons. As he looked at it his mouth dropped open in surprise.

‘What's this, Mr Cragg? Legal summons?'

‘Yes, to attend the inquest on Mr John Allcroft who lately died at the Gamecock Inn.'

‘What do I know about that?'

‘I think you may know something, even if you don't know that you know it.'

A ray of understanding lit his face.

‘Ah ha! There was that preparation Dr Fidelis sent down to me for that night. It was you yourself that came with the receipt, wasn't it, Mr Cragg?'

‘Yes, it was me.'

‘So that is what you want me to speak to the inquest about, no doubt. There was nothing amiss with it, I hope?'

‘Not as far as I know, Mr Wilson,' I said cheerfully, content to leave him thinking he would be giving evidence purely on his skills as a mixer of medicines, and not his wider business activities as a purveyor of rat poison and other materials. ‘Be there at ten in the morning, if you please.'

And so I left him.

*   *   *

The Gamecock Inn was recovering from a disorderly night. In the dining room some men took breakfast; others sprawled asleep, or sat and stared through bleary eyes, with cold pipes dangling from their fingers. On the other side of the hall, in the coffee room, groups of voters were beginning to come together in their tallies, ready for their appointments at the polling hall later in the day. Between outbursts of laughter and partisan singing, rolls were being called, and missing men enquired after.

In the office the innkeeper told me she could not spare a room for my inquest.

‘It is not for today,' I explained, placing my coroner's requisition order on the table in front of her. ‘The hearing is tomorrow. You do realize, don't you, that I have the power to insist, Mrs Fitzpatrick? This paper means you have to make a room available. I don't mind if it is your dining room, coffee room or dancing room, but you must let me have one of them.'

‘I'll apply to the mayor—'

‘The mayor has no authority in this matter. The coroner is a representative of the Crown, you know. I am not accountable to the corporation.'

She read through my order, written out in Furzey's prime legal hand. Then she planted her elbows on top of it and clapped her hands to her face.

‘All right,' she said, when she'd rubbed her eyes. ‘The assembly room upstairs. People have been sleeping there: I'll have to move them out.'

‘Thank you. And here is something else for you.'

I now put the witness summons down on top of the room order. She glanced at it, and looked up at me in sudden fright.

‘You want me to give evidence?'

‘Of course. Mr Allcroft died under your roof, after eating one of your meals.'

‘What'll I say?'

‘Anything you know about Mr Allcroft and his end.'

‘That's very little. He came last week, Tuesday. He said he'd have a gang of fellows out of Gregson coming at the weekend, and they'd need accommodation. They were all going to vote together, then go home, so he said. You were here with the doctor when he was taken sick, so you know as much as I do about that. And the next day when he was dead the family came and took him away, which I was very relieved about.'

‘What happened to the gang of people he said were coming to join him?'

‘They never came at all. I don't know why. We had three rooms set aside for them – not that I've had trouble filling them.'

‘There, you see? It won't be too hard, giving evidence.'

Kathleen Fitzpatrick still looked suspiciously at me. She was a substantial figure in two senses: she was amply proportioned, but she was also a woman of authority, who knew well how to run a large inn like this. At least ten people worked for her every day, and she dealt astutely with her many suppliers. But appearing at a coroner's court was a very different matter – it was outside her own experience and its findings might put the business in danger. I was not surprised to find her wary of the process.

I mentioned that I needed to see Maggie Satterthwaite, Joe Primrose, and the boy Peterkin. Did I also have her warrant to go about the inn, look at the inquest room, and refresh my memory about Allcroft's bedroom?

‘You'll find Joe and probably the boy in the kitchen. Go and look in the bedroom and the assembly room if you want, but then you'll wish you hadn't. Don't worry, I'll have it empty and clean by tomorrow morning.'

‘And Maggie?'

‘She doesn't work here now.'

‘Oh? What happened?'

‘She upped and left. I don't know why.'

So I went upstairs, to the bedrooms. These were on two floors, and ranged along a passage with a stair at each end – one an open oak staircase descending to the hall, the other a narrow, boxed-in servants' stair that led down to the kitchen and the courtyard.