Harry
Chapter 9
What the Cellar Told
Thursday, 6 July 1809
“And so,” my brother concluded, “a verdict was returned of death at the hands of a person or persons unknown?”
“It was — with Mr. Munro adjourning the proceeding, and placing matters in abeyance until Mr. Prowting should inform him otherwise.”
“It is a curious business.” Henry drained his dish of tea and pushed back from the breakfast table. He had appeared at the cottage early this morning agog with the news of yesterday’s inquest, which had spread rapidly throughout the town and was subject to every kind of exaggeration. Henry had been unable to attend the proceeding himself, detained by that bank business which had occasioned his descent on Hampshire; but knowing Jane far better than Mr. Prowting, he was confident I should acquaint him with the particulars.
“Drowning and murder might arise in a country village from any number of causes,” he mused, “jealousy, petty hatreds, a dispute of long-standing between two parties. A woman might come into it — or several women, if you like. But why not leave the body with a great stone tied to its neck, sunken in the pond, to be discovered a twelvemonth hence? Why stow the poor fellow in our cellar, deserted as it may have seemed, to be found the very moment the new tenants turned the key in their door?”
“In order to give as much trouble as possible,” my mother replied with indignation. “I am quite sure there was some deliberate design in the business. The mortification is all ours; I do not regard even the unfortunate wife as having any claim to greater misery. It was we who had the trouble of finding the corpse, and suffering the agonies of carters and magistrates and public notice; the widow is merely called upon to bury it.”
“Mamma!” Henry cried in mock terror. “You cannot be so heartless!”
“But design, Henry, there certainly was,” I insisted.
“Whether to bring shame and suspicion upon the name of Austen — as we may believe some in Chawton village should like to do — or merely to employ the most convenient method of hiding an unwanted corpse, there was a good deal of thought in the business. Recollect the matter of the keys.”
The final witnesses Mr. Munro called the previous afternoon, to conclude his panel’s education, were illuminating — and must give rise to further comment and rumour in the neighbourhood. Kit Duff, publican of the Crown, stated simply that Shafto French had drunk deep of his house’s best ale Saturday night on the strength of a week’s pay, had kept entirely to himself, and appeared disinclined for sociable conversation. Some small dispute had arisen between French and his fellow labourer Bertie Philmore — “what is Shafto French’s cousin on his mother’s side” — and the two men’s argument had stilled most of the public room, with Philmore accusing French of an unpaid debt, and French asserting that he should be a warm man before very long, and would settle all his debts with enough left over to rule them all, besides. The two had quitted the inn just before midnight, when the Crown closed in deference to the advent of the Sabbath. Bertie Philmore was next called — and admitted in a surly fashion that Shafto did owe him near to five pound, unpaid this year or more. He insisted that the two had parted at his door, with Bertie bound for his wife and bed, and Shafto saying as he had a man to meet—“tho’ who should be abroad at such an hour but thieves and footpads, I dare not think.” Mr. Munro attempted to divide Bertie Philmore from his assertions — to intimate, indeed, that the two men had carried their dispute so far as Chawton Pond a mile distant, and that death by drowning had occurred as a natural result of a drunken mill — but Philmore was not to be led. He offered his virtuous helpmate as sworn witness to his boots having crossed the threshold at the stroke of twelve, and could not be swerved from his purpose. Mr. Dyer the builder proved most edifying in his communications. He was a square-bodied, powerful individual with a lean and weathered face. He commanded instant respect before Mr. Munro’s panel, as a tradesman with the livelihood of half Alton’s labourers in his pocket. He was little inclined to talk, and answered the questions put to him with a brevity that bordered on the pugnacious. He had indeed used Shafto French in various odd jobs of work that required brute strength but little sense; he could not rely upon the man’s appearance from one day to the next; he had thought nothing of a failure to report for work on the Monday, as no doubt French had been drunk of a Sunday. In these opinions, Mr. Dyer seemed to speak for the entire town.
At Mr. Munro’s further questioning, however, matter of a more serious import was gleaned. Shafto French had been set to work at Chawton Cottage the week immediately preceding our arrival, in digging the new cesspit. Three other labourers, including Bertie Philmore, were engaged, under the direction of Mr. Dyer’s son, William, in blocking up the unfortunate front parlour window and throwing out the new bow overlooking the garden. The keys to Chawton Cottage had thus been in Mr. Dyer’s possession — which the builder purported to have returned to Mr. Barlow at the George, according to previous arrangement with my brother, at the conclusion of his firm’s work.
“And the work was complete on what day?” Mr. Munro then demanded.
Mr. Dyer looked all his discomfort. He had intended the repairs to Chawton Cottage to be finished on Saturday, as his men were expected in Sherborne St. John on Monday; but work on the cesspit, or French himself, had given some trouble. Rains and indolence delayed the business’s conclusion. When Shafto French did not appear as expected Monday morning, Mr. Dyer’s son painted the privy himself and set all in order before handing over the keys to the publican Mr. Barlow’s safekeeping — much relieved to learn that we had arrived at the inn from Kent only that day.
“Your son noticed nothing untoward as he was locking up the house? — A suggestion, as it were, that someone had entered the premises prior to himself?”
“Bill had no cause to go down cellar, nor any of my men neither, being that no repairs were to be done in that part of the cottage,” Mr. Dyer said sharply. “Don’t you be accusing my boy of murder, Mr. Crowner, when all he’s done is another man’s honest day of work.”
Mr. Munro had soothed the builder’s injured feelings, and reverted instead to the matter of the keys. Had Mr. Dyer been assured of their possession throughout the interval between Shafto French’s disappearance on Saturday, and the conclusion of work on Monday?
Mr. Dyer thought that he had. An impression of reserve was given; and at Mr. Munro’s persistence, the builder confessed that it was his son, Bill, who’d been the keeper of the keys — and that Bill was at work today in the aforementioned parish of Sherborne St. John, and must answer later for himself.
“Bertie Philmore or young William Dyer killed the man and hid his body in the cellar,” Henry told me thoughtfully, “or someone unknown to us obtained the builder’s keys through stealth with the intention of committing, and hiding, murder. We can be certain, however, that the deed was done between midnight on Saturday and Monday morning, when the keys were apparently once more in the publican’s possession.”
“If,” I rejoined to Henry’s chagrin, “there is only one set of keys.”
When he had breakfasted, I prevailed upon my brother to descend the cellar stairs and study the floor there, with a lanthorn held high against whatever spectres might haunt a place of violent death.
“Not a happy part of the house,” Henry observed feelingly as the dank coldness of the air hit our faces, despite the warmth of the summer morning above. “It wants a number of casks and wooden crates of smuggled claret — sawdust on the floors to take off the damp — and a spot of whitewash on the stone walls.”