God Is an Englishman (89 page)

He had, she decided, altogether too much authority for a man in his position.

His masculinity reminded her of Matt Hornby and Adam. He had their deliberation too, as she noticed when he stripped off his neckerchief, dipped it, and wrung it out over the wound until he was satisfied it was clean. She was going to tell him there was a tube of salve in the box but he was not the kind of man you directed so she let him find it and squeeze some on to a square of lint, apply ing it gently and finishing off the dressing with a bandage that was neither too tight nor too loose. She found herself watching the deftness of his supple fingers and wondering how many women they had caressed in their time. A hundred or more she wouldn’t wonder, for he certainly had a way with women. She said, for something to say, “That vet taught you a thing or two about bandaging.

How do you come to be a waggoner? It’s a bit of a come-down from riding at Newmarket, isn’t it?”

“Not if you backed a string of losers two seasons running,” he said, gaily, and left it at that.

She contemplated the ruin of his neckcloth, noticing that it was silk. “You’re very kind,” she said, “and I haven’t thanked you yet. I should have needed more than a vet’s services if you hadn’t stopped the rest of those pipes falling on me.”

“It was nothing,” he said, carelessly, “I saw what was likely to happen and was there before you hit the ground. Give Bastin another chance. He won’t forget that in a hurry. It might even win him over.”

“Win him over?”

He smiled. “To taking orders from a woman.”

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“I see. And how do you feel about it, Wickstead?”

“I’ll take instructions from anyone who knows their trade, ma’am,” and she thought, with a subdued chuckle, “I warrant he plays every woman he meets like a fish on a line. I wouldn’t care to be in love with him,” and she rose, stiffly, saying,

“I’ll run the tap on that neckcloth. Later I’ll launder it.” She carried the bowl into the scullery and gave the square a rinse, but when she returned a few minutes later he was still standing with his back to her, seemingly preoccupied with thoughts of his own.

“How long will you stick at this kind of work?” she asked, and he said, with a shrug, “Until something better turns up, ma’am.”

“Are you married?”

“No, I’m not that much of a gambler.”

It was, she thought a friendly rebuke for prying, so she dismissed him, saying, “Well, I’ve work to do notwithstanding a cracked knee. Thank you again, Wickstead, and if you care to stay on in haulage I’ve no doubt my Gaffer could find you a better job than a waggoner.”

“What kind of man
is
Mr. Swann?” he asked, unexpectedly and she replied, without thinking, “Your kind. Capable but bossy!” That rattled him, she thought, and smiled as he absorbed it. Then, with a cheerful salute, he marched out and she was left with the im pression that she had had the better of the exchange, for it was clear that, given the slightest encouragement, he would have lost no time at all in exploiting his advantage.

Once again she became absorbed in work and although her knee was stiff and uncomfortable she was soon able to forget it coping with a shower of orders, and the making up of the manifests for the par cel runs to Grimsby, Yarmouth, Leicester, Cambridge, and, above all, Harwich.

She had evolved a system by now, converting a shed adjoining the stables into a sorting centre like a miniature Post Office, where frames supported rows of gaping canvas bags, each larger than a soldier’s kit-bag and fitted with a chain and padlock. Over every bag was a shingle painted with the terminus of a run, together with a list of dropping-off points en route. Harwich served Whittlesey, Chatteris, Bury St. Edmunds, Stowmarket, and Hadleigh and sometimes consignments for this area required half-a-dozen bags. At most stop ping-places a Swann-on-Wheels waggon met the train and began the local deliveries and as goods travelled in vans under the eye of the guard there was no necessity to send a man on the majority of the runs. Only when traffic was particularly heavy, or when carters were in short supply in a particular area, was a waggoner sent along GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 477

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with the goods, but it occurred to her that here was a case when an escort as far as Harwich was obligatory.

Duckworth came to help check the manifests and lock the bags with a string of keys, for which waggoners along the line held dupli cates, and it was while they were fastening the Harwich bags that he mentioned the escort, saying, “I’ve detailed Wickstead. We owe him a day, and it so happens he’s making a private trip to New market. I asked him to take an extra half-day and see our parcel aboard the ferry at Harwich. He suggested it, as a matter of fact. Seems he lived at Newmarket, and it’s well over halfway there.” The coincidence alerted her so sharply that she bit back the com ment that rose to her lips and walked the length of the shed, leaving him to fasten the rest of the padlocks. Wickstead—

Newmarket—Harwich—Beckstein. Somehow they made a pattern in her mind, but for a moment it was blurred. Then, as she stood in the doorway look ing across the yard, another factor clarified it, for she suddenly re called the incident of the previous day when he had carried her into the office, set her down in her chair and gone into the scullery to run water for her knee. She said, rounding on Duckworth, “I hope you said nothing about the contents of that bag,” and he said, in an aggrieved tone, “Why, naturally I didn’t. The less anyone knows about that the better. It doesn’t even carry special insurance, does it?”

“No,” she said, “it’s going under a ‘Fragile’ label,” but she answered vaguely because her mind was still occupied marshalling the suspicions aroused by the fact that Wickstead had volunteered for a job, a job he had no reason whatever to anticipate. Then, quite suddenly, she understood that he did know, and that his foreknowledge was related to the fact that, for the space of perhaps three minutes, he had been alone in her office, and within touching distance of Beckstein’s letter on the clip over her desk. Thinking back she could see him there when she came out of the scullery, standing with his back to her, as though looking out into the yard, and her stomach muscles contracted as the pattern became much clearer, almost clear enough to assume a definite and sinister shape. She said, “Where is Wickstead now?” and Duckworth replied, “He signed off mid-morning. He was on a night haul to Thetford and promised to report back at four, in time for the parcel-run to the station.”

She considered then taking Duckworth into her confidence, and might have done so had he been a younger, quicker-witted man. As it was he would almost surely panic and she had no real evidence at all to lay before him, nothing but the impression that haphazard events of the last forty-eight hours came together in a way that was logical and frightening. She said, abruptly, “I’ll leave GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 478

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you to finish,” and returned to her office, shutting the door and moving across to the hook where the clip enclosed letters of the last few days. Beckstein’s was buried now so she extracted it, clipping it back on top, rehanging the file, and standing where he had been standing when she emerged from the scullery. She found that she could read the letter quite easily, and this converted suspicion into certainty.

She stood there for several minutes, testing the evidence for coher ence and conformity. Every circumstance fitted. Wickstead’s superior manner, his eagerness to enter the office, his access to the letter and, above all, his action in volunteering for a trip to Harwich, with Beckstein’s consignment for company. She was on the point of returning to the shed to ask Duckworth precisely how this had come about but, then she had a better idea and turned instead to the card-index containing the names and addresses of all the employees in the Crescents. His card told her that he had lodgings at The Wheatsheaf, just off the market. She went into the scullery, collected his neckcloth and put it inside a buff envelope. Then she crossed the yard and walked the short distance to the market.

2

The Boots told her that Mr. Wickstead lodged in the annexe made from part of the old coaching stable, but added that he had just gone out, so she waited until the man’s back was turned and then slipped through the arch and up a wooden stair to the gallery. She had no way of knowing which of the four rooms up here was his, but trying the first door found it open. A woman’s cape and hood lay on the bed so she moved on and tried the two adjoining rooms, finding them both unoccupied with their beds stripped. The fourth door, far thest from the main building, was fastened but in one of the un occupied rooms a key had been left in the lock and so she got it and tried it on the end room, finding that it fitted the common lock pattern. She went in, not knowing what she was seeking beyond some kind of confirmation that Wickstead was a trained thief and she did not stop to ask herself whether this justified her ransacking the man’s room on suspicion.

All she needed, at this stage, was proof that Wickstead was not what he seemed to be, an ex-stableboy down on his luck and currently marking time as a waggoner on twenty-five shillings a week. With that, perhaps, he could be challenged.

She found evidence of a kind at once, a suit of good broadcloth in the closet, and a riding cloak of excellent quality, as were the calf skin boots treed on the rack below. Then, as she was closing the closet door, her eye caught a gleam of metal on the shelf reserved for hats and she reached up to find a heavy, six-chambered GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 479

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revolver, fully loaded. Attached to it was a looped strap, too short to be used as a belt, and she had to study the weapon for a moment before understanding its purpose. It was made to buckle round the fore arm, so that user and gun could not be separated in a struggle. She was quite sure now, certainty making her perspire under the armpits as she turned to the small cabin trunk at the foot of the bed. In here, among some neatly packed small clothes, was more positive proof. A young man of his temperament might conceivably own a pistol but what would he be doing with a crêpe mask, of the kind highwaymen used robbing coaches two generations ago? She ex amined the trunk very closely then, noting a fresh label consigning it to Liverpool. She thought about this, deciding that his plan was probably to send his luggage carriage forward to the port, and claim it there after he had extracted everything of value from the Harwich package on the short journey between terminus and quay. In the bottom of the trunk was a pair of shoes, stuffed with newspaper and they seemed to her, as she turned them over, unusually heavy. She extracted the paper from one and three gold watches and a dozen pairs of ornamental studs and cuff-links winked up at her.

She replaced the shoes, closed the trunk and glanced out into the passage finding it empty. In twenty seconds she had relocked the door, replaced the key, and descended into the yard, passing through the service door and finding the Boots eating his dinner at a staff table. “Mr. Wickstead doesn’t seem to be in any of the public rooms,” she said, giving him sixpence. “Tell him I called with this on my way out of town,” and she handed him the envelope contain ing the laundered neckcloth and went through the buttery into the street.

Her first thought was to consult the police. That way, she sup posed, the safety of Beckstein’s goods would be assured, for even if Wickstead could talk his way out of possessing a loaded firearm, a mask, and a shoeful of watches, he would be unlikely to report to the yard after questioning. But two following thoughts occurred to her and both were prompted by her pride. One was that Wickstead, what ever his profession and ulterior motives, had been instrumental in saving her from death or injury under that shower of drain pipes. The other was less easily defined. It had to do with her position in the Crescents, a woman in authority over so many men, and it seemed to her that here was an unlooked for chance of setting the seal upon that authority. Suppose she devised a counterplot? Suppose she was able to catch a thief in the commission of a crime and attach to her self the kind of publicity Ratcliffe had won when he recaptured a tame lion, or Bryn Lovell had gained when he saved the lives of half a hundred miners?

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It wasn’t an easy decision to make. She had the nerve but did she have the skill to challenge a man as calculating as Wickstead? And suppose she bungled it, and he got clear away with Beckstein’s casket, and then it later emerged, as surely it must, that she had known him for what he was long before the Harwich bag had left the depot? She was still undecided when she found her steps had led her past the station and here she suddenly remembered Brockworth, the goods manager, to whom, in a sense, she owed her promotion to the position of manager.

Brockworth was an intelligent man, and because he fancied himself in love with her, would be likely to take a good deal on trust. She smoothed her hair, retied her shawl under her chin, and marched into his office, finding him sorting his forms at a counter set against the wall.

He rose with a smile that augured well for the granting of favours. She said, without preamble, “I’m here on business, Edward. We’ve got a high value package going to Harwich on the evening train. It’l be in one of our usual sacks in the luggage van and I’d take it kindly if you allowed me to travel with it. In the mail van, that is.” He said, with a puzzled look, “But that’s flat against regulations, Edith. No one but the guard is allowed to sit in there.”

“That’s why I’m here asking you to arrange it. The fact is, I don’t want that sack out of my sight, for far too much depends on its safe arrival. I could go into details but I don’t care to at this stage. All I can promise is this; if you and your guard shut your eyes to my presence in the van I’ll explain later, when I get back.”