Death of a Radical (23 page)

He didn't want to go near the shape on the ground. What was this womanly foolishness? It was a husk, that's all. He'd seen enough of them before. It would rot and stink and melt away and the remains dry up into dust.

That fork of the road curved round to William Dewsnap's place. There was the Anderses' farm opposite it and higher up, Mr. Hilton's High Top. He had seen Hilton at the play with his wife and the Anders men too. They must be home by now. Why hadn't they passed this way? They would have taken the low way home. It was a better road for a cart in the dark. Duffin was watching him closely, waiting.

“He was jumped, here,” Jarrett said, just to fill the silence. “Dragged off his horse.” He could see it played out in his head. “Whoever did it didn't want him to be seen from the road so he carried him over there, but not too far.”

“Short on time, y'think?”

“Or not so strong—tho the boy's hardly heavy.” The words caught in his throat. This was no good. He started again. “You heard nothing?” Duffin glanced at his dog.

“Reckon I heard horses one time.” He passed a grimy hand over his lower face. “It was just as the boy called out his jill was laid up.”

“You heard no one cry out? No sounds of a struggle?” The older man shook his head.

“But there was someone. After. Before we come upon t'horse.”

“Where?”

“On t'pack trail by Grateley Manor. We was up high, he was down below. Had the hat and coat of a gentleman. On foot with a lantern.”

“But you'd know every gentleman these parts.”

Duffin shrugged. “Coming from the east, over by Anderses' farm—or High Top maybe, heading out by Grateley Manor.” Beyond Grateley there was nothing but the open moor deep into Yorkshire.

Torches were moving fast up the left-hand fork. A group of young men came into sight with the boy leading them. One youth towered over the rest. Jarrett recognized the young giant he had first seen at the Red Angel. As the group came closer he picked out at least two more members of the song club.

“What's this the boy's been sayin'?” the young giant demanded. He saw the shape laid on the cloak by the thorn tree. “What this?” He stumbled across the ground to Favian's still form. He reached out a hand to touch his chest. “He was supposed to be at the play,” he said in a stunned voice. “What's he doin' here?”

“Who are you?” The newcomer stared up at the duke's agent. He was a big lad with a thick neck and shoulders fit to lift a young ox but, Jarrett thought in some detached corner of his brain, he's not unintelligent.

“Dickon Watson. And you're Mr. Jarrett. You meant something to him.”

A hand reached in and squeezed Jarrett's heart.

“Family,” he said. “A cousin. He used to follow me
around when he was nothing but a scrap of a boy.” He caught himself and started again. “I saw you with him at the Red Angel Wednesday night.” Dickon sat back on his heels, his rough working hands resting on his broad thighs. He stared down at the body that lay between them.

“Met him the first day he came. He was bad—poorly chest. Jonas made him a brew in me mom's kitchen.”

“Jonas?” Jarrett asked. Dickon blinked as if he had something in his eyes.

“Friend—works for the old bat up at Grateley Manor. You've heard him sing.” He stared down at Favian's lifeless body. “He said it made him better.”

Jarrett thought of how Grub had fought his frailties. His spirit had never bowed to his ill health. No more fighting for him now; his struggles were over.

“Was it his chest, do y'think?” Dickon reached out a hand and touched the blood on Grub's forehead.

“There's more to it than that,” Jarrett said. “You said he was supposed to be at the play?”

Dickon Watson searched his face. His answer was guarded. “Saw him at the fair. Heard he'd be going.”

For the first time Jarrett paid attention to the others, who stood back at a respectful distance. Harry Aitken he knew by sight. There was a long streak of a lad with a fuzz of fair hair standing up around his head. He'd seen him about town. He was a participant in the hat chase at the fair—was he the tailor's son? John Blackwell, that's it. Then there was a compact, dark-haired lad and
Dewsnap's red-headed boy. But no sign of Miss Lippett's oddly independent servant.

“Your friend Jonas, he's not with you?”

“Had business. His mistress wanted him.”

The members of the Red Angel song club carried Favian Adley down from the fell on an old gate covered with his cousin's cloak. Jarrett led the way. The compact, dark-haired youth—they called him Sim—volunteered to run ahead to warn the household. As they descended into the tree line the branches were thick with crystal hoar frost. Everywhere was silent but for the crunch of their footfall in the snow.

Charles was standing at the gate of the old manor dressed in black, every hair in place. He always had had a sense of occasion. Favian Adley passed through the gate on his wooden bier.

“There's been a letter.” Charles's voice was compressed and strange. He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Adley's at Ravensworth. She's come to visit her son.”

“I knew it, I knew it!” Tiplady was white-faced and wailing. “I had the most dreadful fancies, but this! Dear Lord, I never dreamt … It was his chest, wasn't it? I told you to have a care, but would you listen? Out on such a night! Why didn't you hear me? What tragedy has visited us!”

They brought a trestle table into a room on the ground floor darkened by the yew tree growing outside its windows. They set Favian down upon it. Frost blossomed like icy mold on the inside of the window panes. To preserve the body there could be no fire so Charles, at his lordly best, summoned up hot cider to warm the men who had brought his cousin down from the fell.

They gave him back his cloak. Jarrett found the button, as Duffin predicted, in a pocket. It lay on his palm. A white metal button with a chased border, too small to serve a coat. There was a yellowish thread attached to it and clinging to that a tiny flake of soft leather. Grub's purse was still on him, along with his watch. Whatever the motive for the attack, it was not simple robbery. Two
murders in a week. That couldn't be a coincidence; not in a place like this. He thought of the colonel and his hunt for his radicals. He had not believed in them and yet … He looked across at the red-headed William Dewsnap and the tailor's son, John Blackwell, sipping their cider by the door. What were Dickon Watson and his friends doing while the whole town was at the play? He watched them under his lashes. They stood close to one another in silence, eyes lowered.

“You weren't at the play.” His remark was met with blank expressions.

“Need money to see a play.” Dickon Watson, it seemed, was their spokesman. “We was over at Billy Dewsnap's. His ma brews a tidy ale.” It seemed far to go for a drink on a winter's night but then, these were country folk.

“Where's your Leeds friend?”

“Jo? Told you; he were working this night. Mistress wanted him.”

Jarrett thought of Mrs. Bedford's entertainment; Miss Lippett had left before the play.

Charles came in from the hall, his movements controlled and his eyes distracted. He addressed Jarrett as if they were alone.

“They're bringing the carriage round. I must set out.”

“We'll leave you then, sir.” The members of the song club retreated to the door, offering disjointed phrases of respect and regret. Dickon Watson loomed at the rear.

“A sorry day, my lord.”

“Thank you.” Charles's closed hand advanced at waist
height. He was offering money. Jarrett noted the shift in posture as the youth bristled. “To drink to my cousin's memory,” the marquess said gently. Dickon took the money and held it in his hand. Jarrett watched them as they crossed to the front door. Harry Aitken, the solid married man, fell in alongside Watson. Without turning his head he spoke low. Jarrett caught a few snatched phrases.

“Dinna think—”

“Hush!” Watson responded.

“Duke's man's all right,” insisted Harry. They were almost out of the door.

“Less his kind knows of us the better.”

Jarrett and Charles stood side by side looking down at Grub. It was his image and yet not him.

“This was murder, you know.”

“That cannot be!” Charles swung his head briefly toward Jarrett without looking directly at him. “Perhaps his horse stumbled and threw him …”

“There's more to it than that.”

“How can you—?”

“Tracks. Grub was carried—left for dead away from the road.” Charles looked dazed.

“Left for dead,” he repeated blankly. “He was alive?”

“Barely.”

“But you were with him?” Charles's voice was insistent, almost pleading.

“He died in my arms.” Charles put his hand out, an involuntary gesture. The warmth of it was an intrusion.
The contact seemed to join and amplify their grief. Jarrett took a step away, averting his eyes with a conciliatory grimace. The marquess cleared his throat.

“He said nothing to you?” he asked.

“Almost nothing.”

“Raif!” Jarrett could feel the appeal of Charles's eyes. He knew he wanted comfort. He could think of none. “But he knew you were there?” Jarrett nodded.

“He wasn't robbed,” he said absently. His own voice sounded distant to him. “Perhaps he saw something he shouldn't—”

“I can't believe it!” Charles's energetic exclamation cut him off. “Murder a kinsman of the duke's? Who would risk such a thing? No!” the marquess protested. “His horse must have thrown him,” he reasoned stubbornly. “A countryman passing by found him. He could not carry him—the horse had run off …”

“So he left him and said nothing?”

“Perhaps he went for help and you came upon the boy first.”

Jarrett leaned down and loosened the crushed cravat around Grub's neck. Beneath there was a mottled bar of a bruise perhaps an inch wide crossing his throat.

“Raif!” Charles exclaimed helplessly. There was movement in the hall. Tiplady appeared in the doorway. His face was wet with tears. Charles stared at him blankly. “It's four hours or more to Ravensworth this weather. His mother must be told. If I leave now I should make it by noon.” His face spasmed. He clamped his lips together
and composed himself. “You'll stay with him?” he asked. Jarrett nodded. He did not want to face Mrs. Adley.

“You'll fetch her here?”

“I'll send word if not.” Charles took a last backward glance at the body. He enveloped Jarrett in a fierce hug. “I cannot believe this,” he said.

He shaved to make himself more human while Tiplady prepared a hot bath by the fire in his room. He was chilled to the bone.

Dickon and his friends had been over at Dewsnap's farm and Grub was stopped just before the lane that led to that farm. What were those lads doing over there? Could their circle conceal the colonel's radicals? He tried to think of what he knew of Dickon Watson and his friends. He did not even know Watson's trade. He had weaver's hands—strong but clean. Harry Aitken was a weaver; he knew that much. He knew something of Aitken from the affair last summer. He had thought him an honest man.

What was he to make of the colonel's evidence? He had seen nothing material save that poxy note left in Ison's carriage. If he knew who put it there, that might lead to something. But murder! A conspiracy fermenting in the Dale? Something dangerous enough to risk the extermination of two lives? He was all but certain that the same hand that had laid out Mr. Pritchard at the Bucket and Broom had dispatched young Favian. What could link Grub to an army cloth buyer? Wool. Weavers
—was he back to the colonel's damned radicals again? He thought of Charles, so completely the nobleman in attire and bearing, and his wayward face betraying his emotion. In Charles's eyes, any local man who risked murdering a kinsman of the Duke of Penrith must be mad or desperate. He had not been home for long, but from what he had seen of the locality respect of rank was strong. Did that make the villain an outsider? The murderer was determined and practiced—he was almost certain of that. He closed his eyes. The image of the mottled mark on Grub's throat sprang up.

Get behind, and once the forearm slips in place under the chin, you have him. Pull it back, levering it tight in the crook of the opposing arm. Given the element of surprise, it was an efficient way to subdue an opponent—especially a weaker one. He saw Grub's fingers scrabbling against a gloved wrist.

The water was cold. It was as if it had congealed with his weariness. He forced himself into movement. Tiplady's woeful face as he dressed irritated him. With an awkward pat on his manservant's shoulder, he made his escape. Aiming for the stables, he cut down the side of the house. There was a solid little figure standing by the gate in the cold morning light. The girl in peach. His first impulse was to pretend that he had not seen her, but her searching eyes found his.

“Mr. Jarrett!”

“Miss Bedford.” The doleful mask of sadness sat oddly on her girlish features. He thought of how the young like
to dramatize and felt a stab of annoyance. She stopped a couple of feet from him, gathering her cloak more tightly about her.

“I have come from town,” she began hesitantly. “They said Mr. Adley …”

“Is dead,” he said. Tears welled up in her wide-opened eyes. He was ashamed of his brutality. “Forgive me …” She reached out her gloved hand and touched his arm.

“Please don't think me strange coming here like this, but I had to know.” She looked as if she were about to give way to emotion. He ushered her over to a sheltered bench.

“Come, let's sit here a moment.” Miss Bedford produced a handkerchief and blew her nose efficiently.