Ghosts of Mayfield Court (8 page)

The old cleric was regarding him with an amused smile. The figure was so like a wraith that Jackson almost jumped in alarm when he began to speak.

‘I heard you make a rather droll remark about Bonny just now, sir,’ said the old clergyman. ‘It was a terrible place for fevers, you know – still is, I expect. And a very convenient place to choose if you wanted to explain away the sudden disappearance of a healthy young man like Gabriel Forshaw. You know, as you get older – and I’m well over eighty – you begin to get impatient with the conventions.’

‘The conventions, sir?’

‘Yes. Agreeing with people so as not to make a fuss. Did I know you at Exeter? Sometimes, I….They said it was fever, you know, and we all acquiesced. It was thirty years ago, you see, and we were younger then. Convention was all-important. But it was murder, right enough…. I don’t suppose it matters much, now. All the Forshaws are dead and gone, lying peacefully in those
three great tombs till the Last Trump. But you won’t find Gabriel there; and you won’t find him in Bonny, either…. Are you a
resident
here? My name is Walter Hindle, and I suppose you could say that I’m a visitor to Upton Carteret.’

‘I, too, am a visitor here, sir,’ said Jackson. ‘My name’s Saul Jackson, and I’m a detective inspector in the county constabulary.’

‘A detective? So, I’m not the only one to be undeceived by a contrived legend. But it was a very long time ago. I shouldn’t bother yourself about it. How hot it is today, Mr Jackson! Very hot indeed.’

The old gentleman’s head nodded, and he fell asleep. Jackson, his eyes half closed, listened to the droning of bees, and felt the heat of the morning sun on his back. What a strange old man…. He seemed to have emerged from the background of ancient beeches like a ghost. What did he say his name was? He’d sit there for a little while longer. It was a day for sleeping….

So this was Bonny, dark, dank, beneath the scorching African sun! Whose funeral was this? They were burying Gabriel Forshaw in a jungle graveyard. But hadn’t someone said that it was not true? They were singing hymns and beating drums. ‘He is not there’, said a stern voice, ‘you must look elsewhere.’

Jackson woke with a start, and looked around him. The old man had gone. He moved uneasily on the stone bench. The sun was passing now over the church, and the graveyard was being invaded by shadow. Had he dreamt the whole thing? Had there really been an old clergyman sitting over there on the other stone bench? Was he a ghost – a revenant, they called them – coming soundlessly to visit his last resting-place? Or had he been a dream-figure, suggested by the names of all those Forshaws carved on the three tombs?

Whether man of flesh and blood or a dream-figure, the old cleric had certainly been talkative – and his talk was of that dangerous variety that could lead to trouble. He had blandly
accused someone – or some people – of murder, and then had advised Jackson, a police officer, to do nothing about it.

Well, it was time to pay a visit to the alehouse. As Jackson reached the churchyard gate he stopped abruptly. A garrulous old clergyman…. What had the housekeeper Milson overheard that murderous woman say? ‘The old fool gets loose, and God only knows what he’ll blab about unless we get him permanently under restraint.’

Jackson crossed the road and entered the garden of the Carteret Arms, where he sat down gratefully at one of the tables. At the same moment the landlord came out into the garden. He was a genial man with a shining bald head, and he was wiping his hands on a towel.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘what’s it to be?’

‘I don’t suppose you could give me a glass of Sherman’s mild ale? Perhaps you’d fancy something for yourself?’

‘That’s very kind of you, sir,’ said the landlord, ‘I’ll join you in a glass of mild, if I may.’ In moments he had procured two glasses of beer from the inn, and had joined Jackson at the table.

‘I don’t think we’ve seen you here before, sir,’ he said. ‘From the looks of you I’d venture to say that you’re a seed merchant, or maybe a corn factor. My name’s Joseph Hardacre.’

‘Saul Jackson’s the name, Mr Hardacre, and I’m from Warwick.’ He was content for the moment to be taken for a seed merchant. ‘I was looking at some of the tombs in the
churchyard
. There seemed to be a lot of Forshaws there – three big sandstone tombs full of them. I suppose the Forshaws are the local squires?’

‘Squires? The Forshaws? Oh, no, Mr Jackson, nothing like that.’ Joseph Hardacre swallowed a generous mouthful of beer, and wiped his lips on his sleeve. ‘The Forshaws lived here, right enough: they’d been here for nigh on two hundred years. But they were never landowners. They made their money in shipbuilding – I don’t mean modern ships, it was in the great days of sail. They
had yards south of London, so they say, and they built warships for the navy. This would be in the seventeen hundreds, seventeenten, something like that.’

‘So there are no Forshaws here now?’

‘Oh, no, Mr Jackson, they’re long gone. The last one died in the 1860s, but not here. Gabriel, his name was. They say he went out to Africa, and never came back. The Forshaws used to have a grand house on the road to Monks’ Stretton, a little way beyond the village, but it was burnt down in – when was it? 1868, that’s right. Waterloo House, it was called. Oh, it was a grand fire! If you’re going back to Monks’ Stretton the way you came, you’ll see the ruins, all covered in ivy, set back from the road in a tangle of bramble and bindweed.’

‘And they were never the squires here?’

‘No. They were moneyed folk, and highly thought of, but not gentlefolk. The squire here is Sir Leopold Carteret of Upton Carteret. He lives at Providence Hall, which lies in its own little park a hundred yards or so beyond the church. The Carterets of Upton Carteret have been squires here since the days of Henry the Fifth.’

‘You’re a mine of information about this village, Mr Hardacre,’ said Jackson.

‘Well, sir, I’ve lived here, man and boy, for nigh on fifty years, and an innkeeper has to be interested in people and their doings.’

‘I saw on old clergyman in the churchyard earlier this morning,’ Jackson continued. ‘What did he say his name was? The Reverend Walter Hindle. I expect you know him?’

‘Hindle? No, sir, there’s no clergyman of that name in these parts. Perhaps it was the rector you saw? Mr Bold, his name is. Youngish, and a bit prim and proper.’

Jackson was content to let the matter drop. He had watched the landlord when he had denied any knowledge of a clergyman called Hindle, and was inclined to believe that he was telling the
truth. But he would not let the Reverend Mr Hindle slip from his mind. What had he said of the young man who had died at Bonny? ‘It was murder, right enough’.

Jackson got to his feet. He rummaged in his pocket, drew out a few coins, and put them on the table.

‘This Providence Hall, Mr Hardacre,’ he said, ‘I expect the grounds are open to the public? I fancy a stroll before I make my way back to Monks’ Stretton.’

‘Yes, Mr Jackson, the park’s open right enough. Sir Leopold is very good in that way. A quiet man, quietly spoken, but nobody’s fool. Well, I must be doing things. Nice to have met you, sir. I hope you have a safe journey back to Warwick.’

Jackson retraced his steps through the old churchyard, glancing at the stone bench where the Reverend Walter Hindle had sat earlier that morning. Had he really hoped to see the old
clergyman
again? Of course, he was no longer there.

A narrow lane confined by blackthorn hedges ran behind the church, and at the end of this lane an iron wicket gate gave entrance to the pleasant park surrounding Providence Hall. It was evidently a deer park, because a miniature grove of saplings growing there had been protected by little rings of paling fixed carefully around each tree. The whole estate spoke of quiet opulence. For a moment Jackson recalled the dreary, half-ruined house and grounds of Mayfield Court, blighted, as far as he could ascertain, by a lack of money. That was clearly not a problem faced by the owners of Providence Hall.

The great house lay basking in the hot August sun.
Half-hidden
by trees to the west, it was a long, low-roofed Elizabethan mansion, all black and white timbers, mullion windows and lichen-covered roof slates, merging dramatically towards the east with a three-storeyed Georgian extension in Cotswold stone. The whole venerable pile was surrounded by formal gardens well planted and maintained; an elaborate hedge of box flanked an
ornamental iron gateway through which visitors gained access to the front entrance.

What was it, thought Jackson, that was compelling him to seek admittance to this great country house? He knew nothing of Sir Leopold Carteret, or of his family, always assuming that he had one. What was he to say if he was ushered into the presence of this gentleman, who would, no doubt, stand politely, waiting for him to state his business? He would ask some vague questions about the aged clergyman whom he had met in the churchyard, and be content with that.

‘Sir Leopold, there’s a stranger coming up the drive from Church Lane. I’ve not seen the likes of
him
in these parts before.’

‘What kind of a man is he, Lucas?’ asked Sir Leopold Carteret. A slightly built, sandy-haired man in his fifties, he was sitting on a brocade sofa in the oak-panelled parlour of Providence Hall. On the wall behind him hung a dim painting of a man who, at first sight, could have been taken for Sir Leopold himself, but the man was wearing the court dress of the late fifteenth century. Lucas was a strong, beetle-browed man of thirty, with a jutting jaw and a voice that placed his origin somewhere in the south of London.

‘He’s middle-aged, sir,’ said Lucas, ‘falling into flesh. He’s wearing a thick brown serge suit – not very suitable for weather like this. He’s got one of those brown blockers on his head, and I can see his gold watch-chain and seals glinting in the sun. He’s limping a bit. Tight shoes, I expect.’

Sir Leopold turned a page of
The Times
.

‘Probably a seed merchant or a provender factor. I expect he’s come to see Owens in the estate office.’

‘He’s coming to the front door, sir,’ said Lucas. ‘So he can’t be a seed merchant. There, he’s pulled the front door bell—’

‘You’d better make yourself scarce, Lucas,’ said Sir Leopold, throwing his paper down with a sigh. ‘Even when her ladyship is
away I can’t get five minutes’ peace in the morning. First you, hovering about, and now this visitor— Yes, Hopkins, who is it?’

A middle-aged, silver-haired butler had entered the parlour.

‘Sir,’ said the butler, ‘a Detective Inspector Jackson from Warwick has called to see you. He regrets that he was not able to send in his calling-card.’

‘Very well. Lucas, go through the other door into the library. Hopkins, bring the inspector in here.’

The butler waited until the man called Lucas had quietly closed the library door, and then ushered Saul Jackson into the parlour of the ancient house.

‘Inspector Jackson?’ said Sir Leopold, once more abandoning his attempts to read the newspaper. ‘Well, how very interesting. How can I help you? Sit down, won’t you? Whatever can have brought you here, to Providence Hall?’

Jackson began to feel more than a little foolish. Here was a landed gentleman, regarding him with pale-blue eyes, and waiting for him to answer his question. What was he to say? A little white lie was called for if he was not to lose all credibility.

‘Sir Leopold,’ he said, ‘I’m making some preliminary enquiries concerning an aged clergyman, who may be staying in this parish at the moment. I thought perhaps you could help me. His name is the Reverend Walter Hindle, and he’s a man over eighty. He dresses in rather careless fashion, and is known to wear on
occasions
a wide-brimmed straw hat.’

That, at least, was better than admitting that the clergyman in question could possibly be nothing more than a figment of his own imagination, conjured up during his morning doze in the churchyard.

‘A wide-brimmed straw hat?’ said Sir Leopold. ‘How very interesting, Mr Jackson. And over eighty, you say?’ The baronet seemed to be totally absorbed by the topic of the elusive
clergyman
. ‘But how can I help you? What do you want me to do?’

The landlord of the Carteret Arms had been right. Sir Leopold
was very soft-spoken, with a kind of caressing tone that was oddly flattering. He spoke as though everything Jackson said to him was of paramount interest, demanding an immediate answer. Jackson studied at him. He saw a willowy sort of man, slightly built, with a clean-shaven face animated by a kind of permanent smile. His sandy hair was beginning to turn grey at the temples.

‘I wondered, sir, whether you’d seen such a man as I’ve described, or whether you are, in fact, acquainted with him. The Reverend Walter Hindle.’

Sir Leopold’s brow became furrowed, as though he was making a monumental effort to recall some memory of the old clergyman. Then he shook his head in something like vexation, and smiled rather shamefacedly at Jackson.

‘No, Inspector, I must confess that I’ve never heard of this Walter Hindle. He’s certainly not here, in Providence Hall, and I don’t recall ever having seen such a man in the parish. What I would suggest, is that you call upon Mr Bold, the rector. Perhaps he knows something about this Walter Hindle…. And he wears a wide-brimmed straw hat? How very interesting. Call at the rectory, in Upper Ward. Mr Bold may be able to help you.’

‘I’ll do that, sir,’ said Jackson. ‘Thank you for receiving me without an appointment. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

‘It’s no trouble, I assure you, Inspector,’ said Sir Leopold, rising from his chair and accompanying Jackson to the door. ‘I’m so disappointed that I was not able to help you.’ The squire’s voice held a quality of contrition that was positively moving. ‘What makes you thing that this old gentleman has any connection with Upton Carteret?’

‘He was seen here, sir, only this morning. I’m not allowed to reveal my sources, but he was positively identified by someone who saw him in the churchyard.’

‘In the churchyard? How very interesting. Let me accompany you to the front door. There’s no need to summon the butler. You should certainly ask the rector, but, you know, I don’t think he
will have heard of the Reverend Walter Hindle either. Do call again if you’re ever in the district. I have so much enjoyed meeting you.’