Gibbous House Read online

  There was no need to provoke the man to elaborate, as Miss Lascelles leaned across the reverend – who may have reddened still more – to place a gloved hand on the man of trade’s knee.

  ‘Oh please! Spare me only such details as are too gross for these delicate ears.’

  The merchant removed the hand with a thumb and forefinger, and I looked forward to a more explicit account than even Sergeant Purewipe’s official report might have provided.

  ‘I have occasion,’ he began, ‘to visit the Inns of Court from time to time. A trifling – if a little drawn out – matter of entail on my late mother’s side. My lawyers squirrel their precious papers in chambers not far from Hawthorne Lane: Shawcross & Co. They are of sufficient note to consign my dealings with them to various drones who comprise the & Co. rather than any Shawcross. Having concluded my business with them this afternoon, I intended to exploit the respite from the rain by taking the air until the odour of mildewed documents had cleared my nostrils. It was as I was passing a mean little cut-passage that I overheard rough and uncultured voices.’

  My interruption bidding him to fix a time for these events was greeted with the glare of Pliny’s Cyrenean serpent. Nonetheless, he answered, ‘It may have been a little after two, or it may not. One of what I supposed to be the ruffians was instructing the other in the positioning of what he termed the “hevidence”. From the grunts and epithets, I presumed it was very heavy indeed.’

  He paused briefly, shrugged at the indifference to his needle wit and continued. ‘I peered down the alley and was a little taken aback to espy two Metropolitans standing over what was clearly a corpse. Its hand was clutching a watch on a chain, a little unnaturally to my eye, as if he had expired in the act of dropping it. Nearby was a shabby topcoat clearly too large in dimension to have belonged to the departed. The larger of the two policemen gave me a gallows look and bade me depart, so I took one last look at the hunched and pathetic figure on the ground and went about my business.’

  Again, Miss Lascelles’ indecorous curiosity saved my arousing any more suspicion: ‘Oh, how terrible! Who was he, do you know, sir?’‘I do not.’ The man paused, to gather his thoughts mayhap. ‘But do you know I cannot forget the poor fellow’s legs, most uncommon malformed they were.’ With that, all fell silent for the remainder of the stage, until the luncheon halt at Buckden. In the silence, I pondered reasons for Cartwright’s demise and wished, in vain, to blame all on chance.

  I was in a brown study throughout our sojourn in Buckden and missed the departure of the reverend’s companion on the southbound mail. On boarding the coach once again, I noted the fellow had reverted to the fractious and fidgeting demeanour I had witnessed prior to the lady’s arrival for the coach from London. Perhaps the mantle of piety itched him somewhat.

  Castor and Pollux had taken seats each next to the other. Perhaps Miss Lascelles’ presence had discomfited them, for they did seem to prefer the company of gentlemen to that of the fairer sex. As we rode in near-companionable silence, my fellow passengers – having lunched in somewhat better style than I – soon succumbed to a post-prandial torpor.

  For want of other entertainment, I reached inside my frock coat for the packet of papers the late Cartwright had bequeathed to me. On the point of extracting Coble’s will from the lining of my hat and rereading that first, I suddenly noticed that the blank vellum sheets were void no longer. By some arcane means, writing had appeared. Despite having the look of old and faded ink of poor quality it was discernible, though not intelligible, at least not to me. It had the look of the Greek of the Ancients, although I knew enough to scry that it was not.

  Frustrated, I put the papers away, staring instead at the moving landscape, watching Huntingdonshire become Lincolnshire and later Nottinghamshire. By the fading light I calculated the hour to be seven or eight in the evening – the coachman was now struggling to persuade the horses that the White Swan was indeed our destination. This inn had stood for some sixty years as the Northgate in Newark-on-Trent, and so we remaining passengers, along with the driver and horses, would be lodged for the night there.

  The building itself showed evidence of better upkeep than the coaching inns were wont to endure at that time. The whitewash was recent and the signs freshly painted – there was no doubt that this was entirely due to the inn’s proximity to a prospective station of the recently begun Great Northern Railway. Indeed, there was even discussion with the landlord concerning our accommodations. It seemed there were but two rooms available for the coach, the others being let to those passengers recently arrived by other means . By happy coincidence, the coachman preferred to stay at a house kept by a widow near the Market Square. Castor and Pollux, their détente yet pertaining, were only too pleased to share a room. I made loud noise of my dissatisfaction at having to share, even with a clergyman, but secretly blessed the saving of a shilling.

  Chapter Four

  All four wayfarers dined at common table and on simple fare. The reverend showed an appetite for port that his nose and cheeks betokened. The men of trade drank little, and I contented myself with a penny gin. The conversation was dull: cotton, slaves and – incredibly – the Taiping Rebellion in far-off China, although I suspect the merchants were less interested in its effects on missionary work than on the price of china tea. Making my excuses, I repaired to the room I was to share with the clergyman, hoping to gain some advantage in the matter of sleeping arrangements.

  The bed was large enough to accommodate two men of middling size, a description that might have fit both the reverend and myself, were one not too specific in defining ‘middling’. I moved the bolster to the centre of the bed, and betook myself to the side furthermost from the window’s draughts. Sleep came swift enough – and departed swifter.

  Reverend Parminter fell cacophonously into the room, as if pitched into a gaol cell by an angry turnkey. He was singing in a prodigious–if inexpert–voice, meandering between keys as though determined to visit them all in the course of one hymn. It was not a pastoral exhortation to the contemplation of God; Parminter was bellowing ‘Soldiers of Christ, Arise’ like a militant missionary converting the Chinee at the toe of his boot and the knuckle of his fist. What Charles Wesley would have made of his rendition, I did not know.

  Mercifully, the hymn was one without refrain or chorus, and I hoped the flatness of the note attached to ‘more’ was the end of my trials for the night. It was not to be. As befit a man of the cloth, Parminter prepared himself to say his prayers. He made several abortive attempts at genuflection before sliding to the floor and sitting cross-legged in passable imitation of a Hindu swami.

  He passed an entertaining hour in listing his many failings, a good few of which had arisen due to his efforts to save women of easy virtue, a prominent figure among whom was one who may, or may not, have borne the name Lascelles. He fell asleep where he sat and I profited myself from some hours sleep, thanks to the blessed peace his prayers had brought him.

  I awoke with a start to a litany on the virtues of moderation. The dream had been as vivid as ever and I woke before its denouement, although I well knew how the matter ended: in sweated and befouled bed linen, odour, death and resurrection of a kind. I could not help but note that of late the dream had come more frequently and I felt a little uneasy thereby.

  A man’s good name is a passepartout in the colonies – only if that name comes from quality does it open doors in the home country. To those born without a name of any description, more doors are barred than in the deepest dungeon. There came a knock at the door, and a gruff shout of ‘Moffat! Alasdair Moffat!’

  Drawing the door open sufficient only to view the visitor and hide my déshabillé, I peered out. A coachman met my eye and enquired:

  ‘Moffat?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  The man gave a snort of exasperation. ‘The mail coach south is without and I’ll be on it soon, are ye Moffat or not?’

  ‘Did we say that I were, what of it?’
r />   His face reddened in total measure, save for the very tip of his nose, and he made to leave. I put out a hand and excused myself by intimating that since I had been lately disturbed from slumber, I was still a little stuporous. He muttered and held out a letter, saying, ‘Packet.’ Without asking for any ‘bona fides’ or receipt, he left it with me. I threw the letter onto the bed and went about my toilette.

  I was still turning the letter over and over in my hands after boarding the coach. Parminter eyed me as if I had refuted the resurrection in the middle of his Easter sermon; perhaps he remembered some of his unusual prayers of the previous evening. Nods so curt as to be discourteous were all I received from the mercantile brethren. It bothered me not a whit. As the wheels clattered over the first of many ruts, I opened the letter.

  ‘To the husband of the late Arabella Cadwallader née Coble’, it began.

  We regret the circumlocutory salutation to the esteemed recipient of this missive. You, having received it from the hand of a mail-coach driver, will have the advantage of ourselves on concluding your reading. We supposed, quite correctly, if you are indeed perusing this communiqué, that you would waste no time in travelling north to fulfil the requirements of the late Mr Coble’s will. We ask you to board a further coach, to Alnwick, on arrival in Newcastle upon Tyne. Should your means be insufficient to cover the journey, please contact the agent at the field office, where arrangements have been made. Sadly, we are unable to advance funds commensurate with onward travel by railway, or for incidental expenses.

  We have arranged for a phaeton to attend the arrival in Alnwick of the Newcastle coach every evening until the 31st. You will be met by our representative, a Jedediah Maccabi, who will accompany you to the Harbour Inn, Seahouses. If you would be so gracious as to attend the day following, at 10 ante meridian, the offices of:

  John Brown & Son

  Notaries Public

  11, King Street

  Seahouses.

  It was signed in a masculine hand with little fuss or flourish. I sighed and folded the letter into my packet of papers and wished the journey away as a prisoner does the days of his sentence. Resolving to feign sleep, I was soon blessed by dreamless oblivion.

  Oblivion, but only until Newcastle, where the dusk was falling. All passengers disembarked with none of the insincere invitations, and certainly no exchanging of cards, which might have been expected in more congenial company. I stood by the coach step and watched as the merchants took leave of each other – a little reluctantly, it seemed. The reverend stalked away straight-backed and with nary a backward glance. When I stood quite alone before the coaching house, I withdrew my purse with some trepidation and counted the sum of six shillings threepence ha’penny, of which an alarming amount consisted in worn copper. Still, it was sufficient unto my needs and, forswearing any likelihood of indebtedness to John Brown & Son of Seahouses, I went in search of the landlord to enquire of an outside seat to Alnwick.

  Chapter Five

  Thirty-two miles on the Great North Road took me from Newcastle to Alnwick, through Gosforth, Morpeth and Felton, where the Coquet is crossed. Signposts pointed to Hexham, Otterburn and Rothbury and, despite this evidence of civilisation, the landscape reminded me that this land was once too fierce for the Romans, who built a wall to keep its inhabitants at bay.

  It seemed to me that the further from London coaches travelled, the more poorly were the turnpikes maintained. This final stage of my journey commenced at dawn, after my arrival in Newcastle, and we made slower progress than I would have liked, considering how my night had been passed. After having booked my outside seat the previous night, I took my remaining shillings to Grainger Street and Eldon Square in the hope of finding a suitable establishment to fill my hours, and perhaps my pockets. The streets were all but deserted, and I remembered that a recent bout of cholera had claimed numerous lives in the city. For most of the remainder of the evening, I held my ’kerchief over my nose whilst in the open air. There was nothing for it but to seek a less salubrious area of the city and accost the first likely fellow I met.

  A walk of some twenty minutes found me at the other end of Grainger Street in the Bigg Market, whose inns seemed lively enough, although the street lamps stood too close together for my taste. Some tasks were best performed in the shadows, in my experience. No great distance off the Bigg Market itself a figure stumbled out of the George Yard, likely having left the Old George Inn. He turned left along the street. The most promising aspect the figure displayed by the light of the gas lamp was indeed its wavering gait. A drunken dupe is easier deceived, after all.

  As I drew nearer and he passed from the pooled light, the lineaments of his shape from the rear began to seem familiar. Nearer still and it became apparent that the fellow was deep in conversation with someone quite invisible to me. By chance he darted into the meanest close, perhaps to relieve himself of some of the quantity of liquid he had evidently consumed. I resolved to relieve the fellow of his purse by more direct means and duly followed.

  It was somewhat surprising that the Reverend Parminter did not recognise me as he struggled and twisted to remove the yellow scarf I tightened around his neck. It was only meet that I lean over his shoulder – if only to ensure he knew the identity of the benefactor who had sent him on his way to meet his beloved god. I left the yellow scarf, as I had done on past occasions, reasoning the police would hunt only for a Hindoo Thuggee, one of those goddess-worshipping assassins so lately subdued in India and still the subject of tall tales. Parminter had a surprising quantity of coin in his purse. I took his watch as I had none, and he would have no need of it to measure eternity.

  The coach was trundling through Denwick, little more than a church and three cottages. There remained but a few miles to the Hotspur Tower and Bondgate Within. I planned to alight at The Olde Cross Inn in the Narrowgate and spend a few shillings on a room and board, any plans of John Brown or his catspaw Maccabi notwithstanding. The driver had readily agreed to triangulate the Market Cross and approach it from the Narrowgate; he had not discussed this diversion with the inside passengers and I considered that particular exemplar of Parminter’s coin extremely well spent.

  As I came gingerly down from the coach, the driver directed me towards the left-hand window of The Olde Cross and he struggled vainly against his Northumbrian consonants to render himself intelligible to me: ‘Divvent caal ut the Cross, mind. Caal ut the Dorty Bottles, lookah.’ Harry Hotspur’s short-tongued ‘r ’ fought its way through his narrow lips and I had no doubt the man could have passed in the French capital as a native, if all he said were its name.

  ‘Why, man? Why are dirty bottles kept in the window? I take it not as good advertisement in a hostelry.’

  ‘Ivverone caals it that. The laanlaw’ll tell yiz, jus’ gan ask um. They caal um Robson.’

  I took my bag and resolved to ask mine host at the earliest opportunity. It was a curious thing and it piqued my interest.

  A room was negotiated at half the London rate, which I could have paid in Newcastle too, had I been able to sleep. Slumber comes hard to me after such events; reverie and revision of the glory keep one enervated, I find. The landlord of The Olde Cross – I still could not bring myself to call it by its sobriquet – was narrow-eyed, gap-toothed and possessed of a forehead so low as to admit the minimum of grey matter for locomotion. Appearances proved deceptive, as I then found.

  ‘Robson.’ I waved a hand at him across the counter top. ‘Porter; a bottle from the window, if you please.’

  In an accent as rustic as the coachman’s, if a little less Gallic, he replied, ‘Please yoursel’, sir. But yiz’ll oblige us and gan geddit yoursel’, too.’

  I had no intention of touching the filthy phials in the window and asked him, ‘Will you not serve me, Robson?’

  ‘Not frum those bottles.’

  ‘And why would that be?’

  ‘Why, thiz corsed, man! Hev bin since Adam Collingwood breathed uz last putting those very
bottles in the winda.’

  A voice came from over my shoulder: mellifluent, educated and not a little seductive, though it were a man’s.

  ‘Yes, some fifty years ago, none have touched them since. Utter nonsense, of course.’

  I turned to see a tall man just leaving the very prime of youth; approaching thirty years as if intent on remaining there. He proffered his hand and gave the name I least expected: ‘Jedediah Maccabi at your service, Mr Moffat.’

  Raising an eyebrow, I took his hand. Despite his Semitic name, he was blond-haired, and his looks bespoke Viking blood from an earlier England. His grip was firm and the hand calloused, though his clothing had clearly never been worn whilst performing manual labour. It was immaculate, of the very best of quality – and some fifty years out of date to my eye.

  ‘The coach driver,’ he said. ‘He drinks in The Bell, by the Hotspur Tower. He’s a renowned conversationalist and a shilling buys a lot of gin, does it not?’

  It was said with a smile worthy of beatification, although the name he had given me made that somewhat unlikely.

  ‘Indeed it does, Maccabi. Though I believe that you have wasted it even so, I would have met you at the staging post on the thirty-first, I assure you of that.’

  ‘Why tarry, Moffat? Why put off your inheritance, and a change of clothes?’

  Why, indeed? An opportunity to lie low for three days and scour the Northumberland Gazette for news of Parminter, to savour accounts of Thuggee gangs terrorising the Tyne and to ensure that I was quite clear of any taint of suspicion.

  I considered my answer before replying, ‘It has ever been my custom to check the mouth of any horse, gift or no.’

  Maccabi threw back his head and laughed, a harsh and dissonant sound – it was quite possibly the only unattractive thing about him. It pleased me that there was something I might despise him for.