I felt naked when we stepped out onto the grass and scampered to the rear of the building, away from the windows. Dowling followed, crouched over like a great bear.
‘I cannot think he would be at home,’ I said, hopefully.
‘He has to sleep some time,’ Dowling replied.
I edged closer to the glass window and plucked up courage to peer through it. I had an unblocked view from the back of house through to the front. In front of a fireplace, to my right, stood a single, wooden chair with tall back and no discernible legs, like it had been hewn from a single stump of wood. To the left, two long, wooden shelves bearing various pots and plates. Further to the left a narrow, wooden staircase led upstairs. If Elks was here, he would be in bed. A long, wooden chest sat low under the window ahead of me, next to the front door.
‘The kitchen table is clear,’ I said. ‘If he has just gone to bed, I reckon he would have eaten something first and left it to later to clear up.’
‘Not everyone is like you, Harry,’ Dowling replied.
He reminded me of Jane. It was she who cleared up after me, she who kept me fed and watered. I considered again her strange behaviour the night I left. I had never seen her cry before, not even in Cocksmouth. When I went to her room she insisted I lie next to her and let her rest her head on my arm.
Dowling nudged me aside and peered through the window himself. ‘No one has been home for several days,’ he said, confident. ‘I wonder if we have the right house.’
He headed round to the front of the building and I followed close behind. The main street hid from view behind high bushes, taller than a man. Such a peaceful little cottage, I reflected. Not how I would have imagined the house of Hugh Elks, nor his brother after him.
The front door creaked upon its hinges as Dowling pushed it, unlocked.
‘I will go upstairs,’ Dowling volunteered in a low growl.
‘We will go together,’ I insisted, ‘but you may go first if it pleases you.’
The stairs squeaked louder than the door, but no one rushed to apprehend us. In one room stood a single wooden bed with simple tester and next to it a chair.
Dowling placed a hand flat upon the naked straw mattress. ‘If Elks lived here before, he is living elsewhere now. No one has slept here for at least four or five days.’
‘About the time Josselin is supposed to have arrived.’ I wandered into the empty, second room and stared out the window. I could see over the hedge and into the window of the cottage opposite. Elks stood with arms folded staring straight back. I gasped and slapped my palm against my chest.
‘We have to leave,’ I cried, rushing back into the first bedroom, but Dowling was gone.
I crashed down the stairs, oblivious to creaking floorboards, just as Dowling lowered the lid of the chest. He stared at me with pale face and wide eyes.
‘Elks is just across the street.’ I grabbed for the door, but too late. Three men walked down the path, Elks in the middle, each leading a squat black dog. I stepped backwards into the kitchen afore calming myself enough to stop quaking. The door opened slowly and Elks stepped over the threshold. His dog stopped panting and growled, sharp, yellow teeth protruding from betwixt black gums.
Elks eyed Dowling with malevolent stare. ‘What are you doing?’
The two fellows that followed towered over him, one a young man with thick arms and shiny bald head, the other leaner with bright-orange hair. One dog barked, the other simmered like a
boiling pot. I thought of Mary Hancock and her new-found intent to leave Shyam with all six children. God help her.
‘We came to see you,’ I lied.
‘Why?’ he sneered, yanking at the rope that restrained his dog.
‘There is a dead cow in my brother’s house and we cannot open the door,’ I explained. ‘The carcass is covered in flies and the cow has destroyed all the furniture. We hoped you might suggest somewhere else we might stay, at least for a night.’
‘Why so?’ he scowled. ‘You have all day to clean up the house. You come here instead? And how did you find me?’
‘We asked directions,’ I replied, which was not a lie.
He beckoned to his companions with a forefinger, that they might stand betwixt us and the door. ‘Of whom?’
‘We didn’t ask a name,’ I answered, not wanting to divert Elks’ attentions to the restless Hancocks.
Elks shook his head, disgusted. ‘What mysterious fellows you are,’ he declared. ‘A man or a woman?’
‘A woman,’ I replied quickly. ‘We found her close to the church.’
Elks laughed low, a bitter cackle, bereft of humour. His two companions joined in. ‘You met a woman close to the church who told you where I live?’
‘No,’ Dowling intervened. ‘We met the woman at Buxton’s house who told us you live close to the church. She was dark-haired with two children. I think she lives close by.’
I felt stunned, shocked he betrayed the Hancocks.
‘Mary Hancock,’ said the bald man. ‘But she has six children.’
‘She spoke of six children,’ Dowling confirmed, ‘but had only two of them with her, a boy and a girl. They paid their respects at Robert’s grave and we shared with them our predicament.’
‘Why did you say you found her close to the church?’ Elks asked me, allowing his grip upon the dog’s leash to slip a few inches. The dog pulled forwards, straining.
‘It is not so far,’ I replied, attention upon the hound. ‘She spoke of the church, told us it’s closed.’
‘And so you came straight here,’ said Elks.
‘We came from the back of the church,’ Dowling replied quickly. ‘We saw another fellow wandering there and thought to ask him exactly where you lived. We followed him down into the thicket but lost him.’
‘A fine story,’ Elks sneered. ‘Now tell me who you really are.’
‘We have told you already,’ Dowling answered calm. ‘He is Robert’s brother and I am his uncle.’
‘Aye, as you told me already.’ Elks turned to me again, sensing my lack of conviction. I loathed dogs. ‘What is your name, Robert Buxton’s brother?’
‘Harry,’ I replied, for it was easy to remember.
‘And tell me of Buxton.’ Elks let the dog slip another inch. ‘What did he look like? What was his trade?’
I recalled Mary Hancock’s words. ‘Taller than I, with a large nose and green eyes. He became short-tempered in later life, but was a good man beneath it.’
‘He was foul-tempered all his life,’ exclaimed the bald fellow. ‘Ever since I was a child.’
I frowned as if offended. ‘He was a weaver,’ I said to Elks, recalling the broken loom I saw smashed upon the cottage floor. ‘It was not easy for him when his eyes began to fail.’
Elks growled louder than his dog, suspecting he had been outwitted. Good luck more than wit, I reckoned, and prayed for the conversation to end.
‘Why else would they come to Shyam, Thomas?’ asked the ginger fellow.
‘It’s what I ask myself,’ Elks replied, ‘but this fellow doesn’t look like a relative of Robert Buxton.’ He shook his head, slow. ‘Him, yes.’ He cocked his head at Dowling. ‘But this fellow wears fine clothes.’
The ginger man wrinkled his nose, eyeing my ruined breeches, wet and wrinkled from lying on the forest floor for an hour.
‘Where do you live, Buxton?’ Elks demanded.
‘London,’ I replied, for I could spin few tales of any other place. Cocksmouth, perhaps. ‘I journeyed there when I was young. I became a cobbler.’
Elks looked down at my feet. ‘You make shoes?’
‘I do,’ I lied again, though I knew how to make shoes, having spent hours enough watching my father at his trade.
‘Well, we may put you to the test yet.’ Elks stared into my eyes. ‘Though I reckon you would pass it. You’re a sly fellow.’
‘I want to know how you persuaded them to let you pass through Colchester,’ the bald man pondered. ‘Mayor Flanner told us he would admit none. Yet in the last two days we have had four men on donkeys and you two.’