Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) (26 page)

‘It’s not God you’re dealing with,’ Rose informed him sternly. ‘It’s Scotland Yard, and the crime’s murder. Are you going to speak to us here, or come in handcuffs to the police station?’

‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,’ Moffat muttered. His unblinking stare was unnerving, and Auguste shivered.

Rose was never unnerved: ‘Did Tom Griffin come to see you in August?’

‘A person calling himself Thomas Griffin called here, claiming to be the son of a person born Rose Moffat.’ Moffat had obviously chosen his version of cooperation.

‘Did you meet her husband?’

‘I had no contact with that person. I speak only of what I am told took place. The person returned to this village calling herself Rose Griffin. Rose Moffat was dead.’

‘
Dead
?’ repeated Rose, startled.

‘She died the day she left this, my father’s house.’

Rose sighed. ‘What did Tom Griffin want?’

‘He claimed to be Rose Griffin’s child, and wished information about his youth. I could give him none. He was persistent. I told him Rose Moffat was not a member of my family. He grew abusive. I asked him to leave.’

‘And that’s all you can tell us?’

‘Aye.’

‘What about the letter you gave him?’

For the first time Moffat showed some sign of a human reaction.

‘It was found amongst his effects,’ Rose continued. ‘A letter from Rose Moffat. Left with you, wasn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘Your God approve of lying, does He?’

‘You mistake me, Chief Inspector,’ Moffat was flustered. ‘I speak the truth when I say it was not left with me. I had no contact with that woman. She left a letter with the clockmaker. When he died, the letter was passed to me in the mistaken belief I was her relative. A solicitor insisted I should have it, and that it was my duty to pass it on to this Thomas Griffin should he call here.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘It is.’

‘No,’ said Auguste, infuriated by Moffat’s clipped punctiliousness. ‘It is
not
all. What happened when Rose Griffin died? What happened to the cottage and her personal possessions? Your family must have dealt with them, if she had no traceable husband.’

‘The cottage did not belong to her.’

‘Then to whom did it belong?’

‘I do not know. The woman was nothing to me.’

‘The boy was. He’d done nothing wrong. Didn’t you think you should look after him?’

‘He had gone. Run away.’

‘On his
own
?’

‘I have no knowledge of that.’

‘Did you search for him?’

‘He was no relative of mine.’

‘Her effects, then,’ Rose almost spat out.

‘There were none.’

‘Must have been.’

‘It was a long time ago.’ Moffat was weakening, Auguste realised with relief. ‘A parcel was brought
here by the curate of the parish church. I examined it, in case there were matters to do with the Moffat family. There were not. The woman acknowledged her sin and had kept nothing.’

‘What happened to these effects?’

‘I refused to keep them. I understand the parish church distributed anything that might be useful to the villagers, and destroyed the rest.’

A silence. Rose’s face betrayed nothing, but Auguste knew him well enough to see that Egbert was as frustrated and maddened as he. There
must
be something else, some other way of reaching the heart of this mystery. And then he realised there was.

‘Who erected the gravestone in the churchyard?’ he asked. Surely it must have been Tabor – who else?

‘I have no idea.’

‘You did not pay for it?’

‘I did not. I presume the parish did.’

A small country church was hardly likely to have chosen to put
Here lies the rose of the world
as epitaph, Auguste reflected. No, here at last was the link – and a link he was going to think about.

‘The kind of chap who could turn you into a hedonist overnight,’ Rose remarked as they left. ‘Eat, drink and be merry, eh?’

‘Talking of drink . . .’ Auguste reined in the horse outside the New Inn.

By the time they returned to Settle, another glass of ale seemed an excellent idea, especially if accompanied by the Golden Lion’s boiled beef in beer. To find Tatiana already ensconced in a private room completed Auguste’s satisfaction.

‘The Panhard, Auguste,’ his wife informed him excitedly, ‘is a wonderful motorcar. It drives at
thirty
miles an hour! Mr Williams, the owner, whom I met at the Ashfield Hotel, says it is a cheerful motorcar,
because it sings “tum-tum-tum” as it drives. That’s because of the double-cylindered motor. Mr Williams would take us for a drive in it,’ she finished innocently.

‘Very good of you, Tatiana,’ Egbert replied, seeing Auguste’s look of mute appeal. ‘But we’ve a few enquiries to make, and I need Auguste’s help.’

‘Oh.’

Auguste was smitten with guilt at her obvious disappointment. ‘Perhaps another time.’

‘You would not enjoy it as much as when I drive. But if I go alone with Mr Williams, Mrs Williams insists on coming as chaperone again,’ Tatiana explained with some surprise. ‘The sound of her knitting needles means I can’t listen to the engine properly. Apparently she finds knitting has a calming effect on her nerves in the motorcar. But she is a
terrible
knitter. Mr Williams wears a most strangely shaped waistcoat. Perhaps we should buy a motorcar of our own,’ she finished offhandedly.

‘
What
was that you said,
mon amour
?’ Auguste asked slowly.

‘Listen to the engine,’ Tatiana repeated. ‘The double-cylinder means it has two impulses for every two revolutions of the flywheel instead of only one.’

‘No, no,’ Auguste broke in. ‘Something else.’

‘Mrs Williams and her terrible knitting?’

‘That was it!’ Auguste cried triumphantly.

‘Edith’s knitting is terrible too, but what is that to do with anything?’ Egbert asked.

‘When I was with old Nell in Clapham, she told me Rose was a knitter, as she was herself. Old Nell’s mother came from Dent. There is a story my mother used to read to me, “The Terrible Knitters of Dent”. It is by Southey, I believe. And Egbert,’ Auguste’s voice rose, ‘Amos told me Rose threw haverbread
as good as Nell’s
. But I am told haverbread is a speciality of the
Dent area, not of Clapham. Suppose during those missing years Rose Griffin was at Dent? Suppose that’s where she had Tom?’

‘A lot of supposes.’

‘Where did she go after she left Tabor Hall? Back to Wombwell’s? Not all the time, because she bore Tom about 1842. She had to be living
somewhere
before she turned up in Clapham.’

‘Maybe,’ Egbert said dubiously. ‘But if the Super hears I’ve spent time tracking down knitters, he’ll have me off the case. Why not follow up the Tom Griffin registrations first?’

‘Yorkshire is a long way from your Super,
mon ami
, and Dent is very close to Settle by railway train. And it is
much
closer than Bolton, Ripon or Doncaster.’

Dent railway station might indeed be close to Settle. Dent village is not, as they discovered the following morning. Auguste arranged to hire a cart to drive to the village which was several long, slow, winding miles away. Tatiana had pleaded to come with them, in order to gain further experience of how workers lived. Auguste privately doubted how the workers of Dent would receive this Marxist Mayhew in their midst, and then decided Tatiana’s charm would be equal to it.

Dentdale bore little resemblance to the Settle and Malham landscape. The valley was wooded, with cottages that spoke of the softness of the West Country in comparison with their grim sisters on the other side of the moors. The village, when they eventually reached it, was a warren of small cottages, many with women sitting in their doorways knitting. The village had evidently lost none of its skills since Southey’s time.

The enticing prospect of registers danced through
Auguste’s brain, as they found the church by a small green. In fact, he had almost lost sight of what they hoped to find. Just something,
somewhere
, that might further illumine the lives of Rose Griffin and her son.

The verger was young and enthusiastic. The name Griffin sparked an immediate reaction. Since he himself could only be a product of the late ’70s, it must be because he prided himself on his excellent custodianship of his beloved charges, the registers. Auguste’s hopes rose. Much was his disappointment therefore when the register the verger produced was the marriage volume. Whatever Griffins’ happy nuptials were duly recorded in it, it could not be their Griffin. True, in those early days of registration, churches were often lax about their returns, but since Rose Griffin didn’t consider herself married—

‘There!’

A triumphant verger’s finger pointed amazingly quickly at an entry.

‘Eighteen July 1841. Rose Griffin to—’ Egbert Rose broke off in startled silence. Auguste craned eagerly over his shoulder.

‘Who?’ he cried.

‘It’s the permutation we didn’t check. It’s not a case of Rose Moffat marrying anyone, it’s—’

‘Rose Griffin to Thomas Charles Tabor,’ Auguste read out triumphantly. ‘So they
were
married. Did I not say so?’ he crowed.

‘Twitch checked Moffats marrying Tabors – but she married under the name of
Griffin
. So either she was married twice, or she adopted that name when she joined Wombwell’s – perhaps in case her family came after her. Odd that it was she who gave the false name, while Tabor risked giving his own. He must have told his family about her.’

‘Not necessarily,
mon ami
. In those days a village as far from Malham as Dent must have been a different world. Charles Tabor and Rose Griffin’s secret would be safe here.’

‘Popular this young lady, whoever she was,’ the verger remarked chattily, pleased he’d been of help. ‘It’s the second time in two days someone’s been looking for her.’

‘Who else was looking for her?’ asked Egbert sharply.

‘Quality,’ was the somewhat smug reply. ‘Old lady, she was, for all she came in Higgins’ trap.’

‘The Dowager?’ said Auguste to Egbert.

‘Yes. I wouldn’t mind betting it was our visit to her that put it in her mind.’

Tatiana was waiting for them outside the church. She had not wasted her time, though Mr Marx might not have approved. Over one arm was, so far as Auguste could judge, her endorsement of capitalist enterprise: a new white shawl, a bright red knitted dress, several tea-cosies with matching egg cosies, and an object which looked suspiciously like a knitted tie for him. She made up for this with her very first remark. ‘Granny Higgins is still alive. The trap-driver’s mother.’

‘I’m glad for him,’ said Auguste, unable to see any immediate relevance to their mission.

‘She lived next door to Rose,’ Tatiana told him reproachfully.

‘’Course I remember her.’ Granny Higgins delved into her youth, as eagerly as a child into a bull’s-eye jar. Her cottage was on the outskirts of the village. Beside it was another, in ruins, showing signs of occupation by only the odd tramp. It was derelict and as devoid of atmosphere as a disused barn. If there was information to gather on Rose Griffin, it would be from Granny
Higgins, not the home Rose had once made for her family.

‘Rose’s husband was one of the quality, wasn’t he?’ Auguste asked her.

She frowned. ‘I don’t recall that. ’E spoke different, but he were a sheep salver and clipper and that. Travelled around, ’e did. Away more than ’e were here. But talk about love. And yon babby. Fair doted on him. Often wondered what became of young Tommy.’

They did not enlighten her.

‘How long did they live here?’

‘Matter of three years, maybe. Yes, it were just before my Harry were born, 1844. “We’re going away,” says Rose. So sad she looked. “Where be tha going?” I asked, but she wouldn’t tell me. “A long way,” she said. Very sudden it was. Couldn’t afford the rent, most like. Never heard from her again, but I’d not forget her. Not Rose.’

‘She must have had other friends in Dent. Would anyone else still know of her?’

‘Nay,’ Granny Higgins told them complacently. ‘Weren’t one for mixing, were Rose. Anyway, no one would want to know her, would they?’

‘Why not?’

‘She were an outcomer, that’s why.’

‘An outcomer from all of ten miles away,’ commented Egbert disgustedly, as they climbed into the trap to drive back to the Ribblesdale valley railway line. ‘Makes Highbury look like the family parlour.’

‘She had her husband and her baby,’ Auguste pointed out. ‘Perhaps she was happy. I hope so.’

‘The shepherd and his true love in their country cottage,’ Egbert said. ‘Charles Tabor playing at Arcadia, but sometimes having to go back home to the
real world. Question is: which did he like being in best?’

‘A Tabor would not stay with a girl from Wombwell’s if he did not wish to.’

‘Three years seems to have been enough.’