Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) (25 page)

‘
When?
’ The word shot out.

‘The late 1830s or early 1840s.’

‘I did not marry Charles until 1846, Chief Inspector, and this would have happened well before I came to Tabor Hall – with dear Savage.’ She patted the maid’s hand affectionately. ‘Whatever happened earlier is not my concern. I did not meet Charlie until 1844. If there had been such an unfortunate business, he would not have bothered me with it, for he dealt with all business matters himself. As for being shocked—’ she smiled, suddenly looking fragile, ‘I am not, for I know he loved
me
. Nevertheless, I am not young, and tire easily.’ She held out her hand.

Auguste kissed it. ‘Forgive us, Lady Tabor.’

‘You must do what you must, Mr Didier.’ Her face crumpled and she looked her full age before she recovered. ‘I expect you will find that Priscilla knows all about it. She usually does.’

Egbert looked very solitary surrounded by Tabors, like raw meat encircled by Wombwell’s Menagerie, thought Auguste, protectively at his side. But he was armed now. Cobbold’s men had tracked down the travelling gingerbread man who had given Tom Griffin a lift to Tabor Hall that night. It was all the evidence Rose needed for the moment. Auguste felt no struggle of loyalty now. One of those in this room had murdered Tom Griffin. Egbert would not have called them all together unless he was sure they were on the right track. And plumb in the middle of that track was Priscilla Tabor, whom Egbert was preparing to meet head-on. If Alfred were to be discounted, then for Auguste’s money – and it seemed Egbert’s too – Priscilla was the only Tabor capable of ruthlessly removing anything that stood in the way of the Tabors’ security. The Dowager’s voice rang in his ears: ‘Annie Oakley – or do I mean Calamity Jane?’

The well-bred Tabor faces around them betrayed
nothing but polite interest. Except, that is, for Priscilla’s; a Vesuvius gathering up steam to explode. Even Miriam, whom Rose had excused from attending, wore her charm like a mask. Auguste glanced at the family portraits around the room. Gainsborough, Lely, van Dyck. The Tabors might have lived discreetly over the centuries, but they had not stinted themselves. It was a point worth remembering. He was glad he had persuaded Tatiana not to come. Survival was what mattered to families such as the Tabors, and the ruthlessness it necessitated might shortly be shown in all its stark ugliness.

‘It’s probable the corpse was a man called Tom Griffin,’ Rose told them bluntly.

There was no reaction.

‘And who is or was he?’ enquired Victoria.

‘The son of Rose Moffat of Clapham.’

‘And Mr Griffin presumably,’ added Alexander irrepressibly, but was quelled by a warning frown from Victoria. Rose’s face did not suggest it was a time for badinage.

‘It’s also possible,’ Rose continued evenly, ‘that he was an illegitimate son of the 13th Lord Tabor, conceived before his marriage.’

‘Illegitimate?’ retorted Priscilla robustly. ‘What of it?’

‘It’s immaterial, of course,’ Rose came back immediately, ‘unless he came to blackmail you. It seems likely that the visitor you said was a creditor of Mr Alfred’s was actually Tom Griffin, and that he came here on 18 August.’

Priscilla eyed him with scorn. ‘I really cannot say. Two such persons might have called; I do not keep a record of all unwelcome callers. My impression is that the visit was later than 18 August. You may ask Richey.’

‘Thank you, ma’am. I’ll do that. Send for him, would you?’

Richey averted his eyes from the terrible sight of a policeman sitting in the Tabor drawing room. ‘Richey, were there one or two objectionable callers who insisted so rudely on intruding into the Hall in August?’ Priscilla asked him.

Richey hesitated and Egbert Rose thrust the picture, now doctored somewhat more professionally than Auguste’s efforts had achieved, towards him.

‘That’s the man that came,’ Richey said, baulked of any guidance as to how her Ladyship would wish him to reply. ‘I don’t recall another.’

‘Thank you, Richey, that is all.’

‘I don’t recall saying I’d finished talking to him, ma’am,’ Rose said pointedly.

‘There is no need to detain Richey now I have seen that picture,’ Priscilla told him coldly. ‘It strikes a chord more vividly than the first picture you showed to me. It is immaterial whether there were one or two callers. I realise I did see this man several weeks ago. It is true that impertinently he came to this house to collect a debt from my son, but he was also eager to impart his fantasy that he was also the son of my late father-in-law. One meets such people.’

‘You lied to us then?’

‘Lied, Chief Inspector? I did no such thing. Since the man achieved his purpose in August, he had no reason to come again last week. I could hardly be expected to appreciate that the body of a well-barbered gentleman found in our smokehouse was the same scruffy individual who had left here well satisfied many weeks before.’

Egbert Rose looked up from his file. ‘Richey stated he didn’t recall escorting that caller out of the house again.’

‘Possibly not, Chief Inspector. The man was so well satisfied, he produced,’ she shuddered, ‘a most obnoxious pipe and as it was raining I showed him out
myself
through the garden door, pointing the way to the place where he might indulge his filthy habit. I could not be expected to presume he would remain there for four or five weeks.’

Auguste watched as Egbert was dealt this blow, of which Jem Mace himself would have been proud. But he showed no signs of retiring to his corner yet. ‘Glad it all came back to you, ma’am. Now,’ turning to the rest of the family, ‘you were all very helpful with your various suggestions as to who the corpse might be. The police were much obliged to you. Of course, if I were an imaginative sort of chap, I might think you were trying to pervert the course of justice by sending us off on enough wild goose chases to stock my larder for six months.’

‘Why would we do such a thing when we didn’t know who the man was?’ Laura asked, unruffled. ‘Not even Priscilla recognised him, and she tells us she had in fact met him once.’

‘Maybe because you’re Tabors,’ Rose replied. ‘
Loyalty to the End
is your motto, I gather. Between you, you’ve misled the police and buried the truth deeper than someone did Tom Griffin’s clothes.’

There was a reaction at last. But from whom? Auguste could not be sure.

‘Why should we?’ Cyril asked plaintively.

‘At the least, to avoid scandal. And perhaps more.’

‘Now it is you wasting time, Chief Inspector,’ Priscilla replied crisply. ‘Kindly tell us just what you imagine we have done. I am not acquainted with the higher echelons of Scotland Yard if that is what concerns you. Nor have I any intention of appealing to His Majesty. I merely wish to remove the police presence from Tabor
Hall as soon as I can—’ her eye fell deliberately on Auguste, in case he might be in doubt as to whether or not he was counted with the forces of the law.

‘What I
believe
, ma’am, is that Tom Griffin visited you one afternoon in August and went home with the promise of enough money to fulfil all his dreams: a part payment on a roundabout and promise of more to come to pay the rest. A very successful afternoon’s work, you might say.’

‘Yes. Highly successful,’ agreed Priscilla.

A strangled gulp from her husband.

‘Don’t make foolish noises, George,’ his wife continued unperturbed. ‘I see we must take Chief Inspector Rose into our confidence.’

‘Priscilla!’ said Laura sharply.

Her sister-in-law glanced at her. ‘You are English, Laura. I am American. I have no natural propensity towards unnecessary concealment of unpalatable facts. Chief Inspector, that fellow did indeed come here to blackmail us with the fantasy that he might be my husband’s illegitimate brother. Fact or fiction, either would be annoying in the extreme. We were forced to cede to his demands, which fortunately by Tabor standards were insignificant.’

‘Why forced?’ asked Oliver slowly.

‘To have a travelling showman claiming, rightly or wrongly, to be half-brother to Lord Tabor would do little to enhance our reputation at Court.’

‘Suppose he decided to live in easy street for the rest of his life on you?’ enquired Rose.

‘I wish he had, Chief Inspector,’ Priscilla pounced. ‘He might have had a house on the estate for his old age, and a job, if he required it. But no. He was abusive and stubborn. It appeared he did not wish to give up his way of life. His great ambition,’ she said scornfully, ‘was to own a roundabout, and he only
wanted enough money for that. Apparently,’ she added.

‘You mean you realised blackmail doesn’t stop after the first time.’

‘I did indeed realise it,’ Priscilla replied coldly. ‘He was an unpleasant sort of person, but with no idea of the way of the world. A few threats of legal action of my own, and he decided to take some money away with him, and the rest later. We made an arrangement through our bank for him to collect the balance at Kendal where he shortly expected to be. Our bank manager will confirm this.’

‘Nevertheless the risk remained,’ observed Rose.

‘I took precautions, Chief Inspector, and you shall see just why I was confident he would not return.’ She rang the bell and Richey once more slid deferentially to her side.

‘I would be grateful if you would avoid troubling my mother-in-law about this man’s delusion,’ Priscilla said, as Richey vanished again.

‘I have already spoken with her about it,’ Rose said promptly.

Priscilla struggled for control. ‘Have you no sensitivity, Chief Inspector?’

‘You’ll find she took it very well,’ Rose rejoined. ‘She comes of a generation when ladies were not brought up to be so fragile as your sensitive generation, Lady Tabor.’

Richey reappeared with a small
escritoire
which Priscilla unlocked; she removed a document which she handed to Egbert Rose. ‘There, Chief Inspector. A handwritten but legally signed and witnessed statement that Tom Griffin has no further claim on the Tabor estate or assets in any way, once he has received the balance of the money agreed to.’

‘That wouldn’t stop him coming back and threatening
you again,’ Auguste pointed out as Egbert read it through.

‘I am quite aware of that, Mr Didier.’ Ice dripped from her voice. ‘Chief Inspector Rose may now have reached the proviso in the document that the money that the fellow was given through the bank was only a loan, permanent except that it would be redeemable if he ever bothered the Tabors again. He would have lost his roundabout if he had dared to threaten us again.’

‘So he had no reason to return here?’ Auguste asked.

‘On the contrary. Had he done so, we would have immediately started proceedings to reclaim the money.’ Priscilla looked coldly round. ‘The Tabors endeavour to avoid the public eye, Chief Inspector. We are hardly likely to have attracted it by murdering the fellow under His Majesty’s very nose. Are we?’

As Egbert Rose and Auguste left, it was Rose who spoke first.

‘I never thought I’d admit this, Auguste, but Priscilla Tabor’s right.’

Refreshed by a light breakfast of kidneys, muffins and oatcake, Auguste strolled out into the yard of the Golden Lion. He was accompanied on this early visit to Settle by Tatiana – rather to his surprise until he realised her stride was increasing as they approached the groups of millgirls hurrying across the Settle market square, past the arched colonnade of The Shambles. Did Mr Marx have anything specific to say about millgirls?

Auguste was beginning to feel a fondness for this small town, snug in the protective shadow of the high Castleberg cliff. A town where over sixty years ago Rose Moffat had fallen in love with Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie and freedom, and subsequently the Honourable Thomas Charles Tabor. Just one girl of the thousands who had passed through the town since, each with her own individual story of love, tragedy, happiness, sorrow. One just like the millgirls flocking towards the river bank, in shawls and clogs.

‘Are you near to making an arrest, Auguste?’ Tatiana asked quietly – and then he understood the main reason for her coming.

‘
Mon amour
, the
bavarois
is almost set,’ he told her gently.

‘And will it set in Tabor Hall?’

‘It is probable.’

A silence.

‘Not Alexander?’

‘No,’ he assured her.

‘Or—’

‘I cannot tell you,
chérie
.’

‘I
like
them, Auguste,’ she cried after a moment. ‘I even like—’

‘Priscilla?’ finished Auguste for her.

‘Yes. When she is not playing the
grande dame
of Tabor Hall, she talks about her childhood in Kansas on a cattle ranch. She is so straightforward when she forgets she is trying to be English, and remembers she is American.’

A millgirl ran past them to join her comrades; a carpenter hurried down from the small cottages built over the shops and colonnade of The Shambles; a butcher’s boy bicycled past whistling.

‘You see that hoop?’ Auguste asked gravely, as one spun by them out of control, chased by its young owner. ‘That is what this case has become.’

The hoop clattered to the ground at the end of its run before its owner could grasp hold of it, and Tatiana sighed. ‘Egbert must continue,’ she said at last, ‘because he must follow the path of law. But you, surely you have a choice?’

‘No,
ma mie
, I cannot stop, any more than I could take a half-cooked soufflé from the oven. Do you mind very much?’

Tatiana leaned over the bridge and looked at the river racing beneath. ‘Once in Cannes long ago, when I was eighteen and you were our chef, you told me we would always be divided by a door, a door so strong that we could never break it down. But we
have
broken it down, and we must never build another. Only,’ she added, ‘when it is about to happen, please tell me.’

‘Cobbold’s just telephoned.’ Egbert looked up as
Auguste came into the police station. He had left Tatiana disappearing in the wake of the last of the millgirls. ‘Twitch has sent up a list of all Tom Griffins
and
Moffats in England born between 1838 and 1844.’

‘That is excellent.’

‘Glad you think so.’

Auguste’s face fell. ‘Ah, but if there is need to send a list, that means—’

‘Thought you’d get there eventually,’ said Rose sourly. ‘You must have had breakfast too early. It means there is no one on the list with the father specifically named as Tabor. He’s probably going to be one of those “unknown fathers”. Twitch was told at that time the certificates for illegitimate nippers left a blank under the father’s name unless he actually turned up in person at the registration. Very helpful.’

‘Perhaps Rose Moffat and Tabor did marry,’ Auguste said wistfully.

‘If they were married, the chap wouldn’t be registered under Tom Griffin, would he? And before you go sending Twitch off to check all the Thomas Tabors in the world, let me tell you there’s no marriage certificate for Moffat and Tabor in that period,
or
Moffat and Griffin. So that’s that. Tom Griffin was a bastard, father unknown. And we’re not much further forward on his killer.’

‘Surely the crime
must
be connected with Griffin’s parentage? It’s too big a coincidence for there to be another reason for killing him.’

Rose glared at him. ‘We’ll have one more shot, and get a permit to search old Tom’s caravan. Though I don’t see what it could tell us, since Queen Priscilla is prepared to admit he might be George’s illegitimate brother.’

‘The more we know about Tom Griffin, the better we understand the ingredients of this dish before us.’
And the less, Auguste suspected, he was going to like it.

Having established themselves in the comfort of the Londesborough Arms at Selby, where Cobbold had run Blackboots to earth, Auguste and Egbert Rose set out to find their quarry. They found the wagons parked in a field on the edge of the flat plain round the town, and Blackboots himself in the nearest pub to them.

He was ostentatiously contemplating an empty jug. Auguste, now practised in such arts, promptly removed the jug for refilling.

‘Well, then?’ Blackboots grunted.

Egbert eased himself on to the hard oak settle. ‘I’m satisfied the body’s his.’

Blackboots was silent a moment; then, picking up the now brimming jug, he held it aloft. ‘Here’s to old Tom,’ he said gruffly.

‘Mr Blackboots, did Tom talk to you about his childhood?’ Auguste began, when he judged the beer level sufficiently sunken to justify interruption.

‘I told yer, Clapham.’

He and Rose had combed Twitch’s list of births in conjunction with Ordnance Survey maps of Yorkshire and its surrounding counties. There remained a shortlist of three possibilities: one born to a Rose Perkins, father Joseph Griffin; one born to Mary Griffin, wife of Thomas Griffin; and the third to Rose Griffin, unnamed father; the locations being respectively Ripon, Doncaster and Bolton.

‘He moved to Clapham when he was very young. Did he ever suggest to you that he might be the bastard son of one of the Tabor family?’

‘No.’ Blackboots wiped his mouth deliberately on the back of his sleeve, having drained the last drop of beer. He delicately slid the jug forward.

‘Old Tom, there was nothing more he wanted than a family – and a galloper. If ’e thought ’e were the son of one of those Tabors, even a bastard, he’d have told me. I was his only real pal. Nah.’ Blackboots began the next pint without even glancing at its bearer. ‘Old Nayler were the only father Tom ever knew and he weren’t much of one.’

‘Scarface Nayler?’ asked Rose in sudden interest.

‘Yus. In between stir, he ’ad a flea circus and a coupla’ performing dogs he showed. When Tom were with ’im, so Tom did tell me, he looked after the dogs while Scarface were inside.’

‘Just like Scarface,’ said Rose with relish, remembering his own encounter with him. ‘He’d put his own hundred-year-old granny on the hoop-la.’

‘’E weren’t all bad,’ Blackboots observed. ‘’E took Tom on as a nipper because he knew his ma at Wombwell’s. Sweet on ’er, I reckon.’ Scorn for all such irrelevant fancies filled his voice. ‘That’s what he told Tom afore ’e died. Sent for ’im special, ’e did.’

‘When was this?’ Rose asked sharply.

‘Matter of four months ago mebbe. Tom were a bit preoccupied-like after he came back. I even thought perhaps ’e was getting tired of the old galloper because ’e said ’e wanted to do the Leather and Nails gaff at Settle. I wasn’t keen. They’re too busy talking about boots to want to ride a galloper there. And there’s a lot of competition. If you don’t get a pitch, there’s not much else around Settle then and that’s August gone. “If you don’t, Blackboots, I’ll up and leave you,” Tom said. ’Course, I roared with laughter. Reckoned Tom would never do that. Still, we went – and look what’s ’appened.’

‘Hadn’t Scarface kept in touch with him over the years?’

‘Not ’im. ’E was a mean old cuss, begging pardon of
the dead. Minute Tom was twelve – “you’re on your own now,” ’e says. ’E could see Tom were never going to do much, so he pushed ’im out, ’cos otherwise ’e’d have to start paying ’im. ’E’d bump into ’im from time to time, but ’e never sent for ’im afore; and that’s only ’cos he knew he were done for. Died in August, so I ’eard.’

‘He didn’t tell Tom who his father was?’

‘Nah. I told you.’ Exasperation came into Blackboots’ voice. ‘Tom couldn’t keep a thing like that quiet. I doubt if Scarface knew.’

‘Perhaps it was him,’ said Auguste.

‘Nah.’ Blackboots shook his head, after considering this. ‘If ’e were, ’e wouldn’t push Tom out. Not because of ’is loving ’eart – doubt if Scarface knew ’e ’ad one – but because ’e could have got Tom to go on working for ’im free by pulling the poor old father line.’ He paused hopefully, edging the jug forward again. It was ignored.

‘Ah well, gentlemen, I can see there’s no more beer a-flowing.’ Blackboots heaved himself from his seat with the air of one to whom great wrong has been done.

It was a strange feeling to walk into the dead man’s van, which smelt musty from disuse. It was smaller and shabbier than Blackboots’ own, and apart from the essential items of furniture, there were few personal effects. An aspidistra was dying from lack of water, a few dead Michaelmas daises adorned a Golden Jubilee mug, six toy soldiers battered from overuse stood on a shelf by the stove. There were only two photographs, one a studio picture of what must surely be Tom himself aged about forty; the other a duplicate of the photograph Auguste had already seen.

‘Could Tom read and write?’ Rose asked idly, busy
looking through a pile of papers bundled up in a rough wooden box.

‘After a fashion. The fairground folk taught ’im. Not much of a writer, though. His name. Not much more. He could read a bit.’

‘Yet he sold pens, ink and paper during the winter, you said. Here’s his pedlar’s licence.’

‘Ah well, ’e ’ad a way with ’im when it come to pens and paper, did Tom. “Don’t be like me, better yourself,” ’e’d say to ’is customers. “Learn to write and read like I never ’ad the chance to.” They fell for it every time. I tell you, Tom did better at it than many a folk who could read the whole of the Bible cover to cover.’

‘He could read enough to understand this though, or did you read it to him?’ Rose held out a letter written on thick yellowing paper.

Blackboots peered at it curiously. ‘’E never showed that to me.’

‘It’s written in copperplate handwriting, carefully too, though it’s badly spelled. Here, read it out, Auguste.’

‘“My dear son,”’ Auguste began. ‘“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. My God is with me. He knows I have done you no wrong, and He will protect you as He will shelter me. Your father is a good and loving man and loves you too my dear son. No wrong was done to me by him though they can call you bastard. You are named for him my dear son Thomas.”’

‘’E never showed me this,’ interrupted Blackboots indignantly.

‘Go on, Auguste,’ Rose said quietly.

‘“Thomas Charles Tabor is his name. He is a good man. Your loving mother, Rose Griffin, written this day 18th June 1847.”’ Auguste finished, torn between satisfaction and disappointment that his prized theory
of a marriage between Rose Moffat and Tabor had been exploded.

Egbert had no such mixed feelings. ‘So there you are – Tabor. Do you think Scarface gave him this, Blackboots?’

‘Tom couldn’t keep a secret like that to save his life,’ Blackboots snorted. Then he realised what he’d said. ‘If I find ’im,’ he went on violently, ‘the bloke what done this, I’ll cut the bugger’s throat from ear to ear.’ A pause. ‘What’s going to ’appen to the galloper, eh?’ No one answered.

‘If that old villain is right,’ Egbert reasoned, as they walked back to the Londesborough Arms, ‘then Tom only recently came by that letter.’

‘In that case, Egbert, there’s probably only one place he could have obtained it.’

Clapham was grey in the drizzle and even the beck failed to look lively this morning. The horse’s hooves pulling their trap was the only sound in the quiet village, as they went straight to the old farmhouse. Geese as unwelcoming as their master honked at their arrival.

‘Master’s na home.’

‘Yes, he is, ma’am,’ said Rose firmly to the daunting Cerberus. ‘I saw him.’

There had indeed been a pale face at the window. As the trap clattered to a halt, it had immediately withdrawn behind the sheltering curtain.

Sullenly Cerberus flopped her way to the living room, where Herbert Moffat sat in his armchair. He did not turn his head as they entered.

‘Why did you not tell me that Tom Griffin had paid you a visit?’ Auguste began without preliminaries.

‘You asked if I had a nephew called Tom Griffin,’ the cold voice replied. ‘I told you I had not. I do not recall
your asking if this man had come here.’

‘He’s your nephew by your sister Rose and the last Lord Tabor was his father, wasn’t he?’

‘I had no sister Rose. The female person to whom you refer was cast out by the Lord. He giveth and He taketh away. In due time the female produced a bastard child, and suffered the just reward for her sin. Death.’ He raised his head and stared at them.