“Jorrocks is that busy, sir, as he don’t rightly think he can get here today.”
“I cannot run a bank with the windows insecure to the world, Philmore. Is Jorrocks prepared to stand guard on my premises throughout the night, and discourage thieves with the menace of his gun?”
“I don’t know as he ’as a gun, sir, ’cept what might be used for rabbit-hunting.”
“All the same — you take my point.”
The joiner gazed through the bare window, as tho’ in expectation of seeing the glazier on the paving beyond; but as he turned back in evident confusion, his eyes fell upon my face. His own was instantly suffused with red.
“Why, it is the man who gave testimony at the inquest,” I said with spurious surprise. “You were a friend of the Deceased, I believe. Are you happy with the coroner’s result?”
“It’s not for me to say, ma’am.”
Henry made for the door. “I must just speak to Gray on a matter of business, Jane. I shall not be a moment.”
He left me in possession of the room. Bertie Philmore looked as tho’ he should like to follow my brother, but I motioned to him vaguely and murmured, “Pray go on with your work. I should not like to delay you further; my brother is a most awful object when thwarted in his expectations. You were a friend of Shafto French’s from childhood, I believe? His poor widow is very sadly left.”
“As are all those what gave him blunt, ma’am, and shall never see it again,” Philmore said bitterly as he took up his tools once more.
“You do not credit his tale of future riches, then?”
Philmore glanced at me sidelong.
“Mrs. French came to me this morning, to gaze upon the place where her man died. It is clear that she believes the poor fellow was likely to come into funds — and went to his death in the deluded hope of finding them.”
I drew off my gloves with a thoughtful air. “It does seem hard that such a young woman should be left without support of any kind. Unfortunate, too, that you have no chance to retrieve your debt, Philmore. If French’s murderer were to be found, however. if one could but put a name to the man he intended to meet. it is possible affairs might be settled more equitably.”
“You mean to say I might get my own back?” Philmore demanded, his plane dropping to his side.
“It is, of course, possible. But so long as the person who killed French remains obscured — so long as justice is not done — there can be no hope of amendment.”
Philmore considered this, his rough hands flexing with his thoughts. “I’m a man of heart, ma’am. I’ve no grudge ’gainst Jemima French, what I’ve known since we was both little ’uns.”
“... Running through the fair at Robin Hood Butts,” I murmured distantly. “It is sad that she should be left in such distress of circumstances.”
“You’re a relation of the Squire’s, aren’t ye?” he observed.
“Be it likely he’ll have heard of this business?”
“We expect Mr. Austen in Chawton every hour. I only hope he arrives in time to prevent Mr. Prowting from moving under his own authority. The magistrate has not so deep an understanding as my brother; he is likely to act in haste, and commit a regrettable error. He seems convinced French was killed in a matter of fisticuffs. A row between two mates, the magistrate said, will likely account for the business. ”
Philmore visibly blenched. “I never did it! I left him at my door, same as my wife Rosie’ll tell you.”
“I am sure you did, Philmore — but I cannot vouch for Mr. Prowting’s good will. He is a magistrate, and magistrates must charge somebody.”
The joiner stepped towards me, wavering as tho’ ill. “You’ll speak for me, ma’am? You’ll speak to your brother the Squire?
You’ll tell him as how I couldn’t have done it, being shut of Shafto before ever he left Alton?”
“But I cannot know that,” I said gently, “having been miles from Alton at the time.”
He swallowed hard, and appeared to come to a decision.
“I don’t rightly know what French’s business were, ma’am. He were too far gone in drink to tell me much that night, and cagey with it. But I guessed it had to do with a job of work old Dyer put us onto up Sherborne St. John way. French knew summat as had to do with Stonings — and he was that puffed up about hisself, like a cock o’ the walk come egg-laying day. Blood money, he called it.”
There it was again — that chilling phrase, so suggestive of both blackmail and murder. Whose blood, after all, had been lost but French’s own?
“Sherborne St. John,” I mused, familiar with the name of the village from my girlhood, tho’ I had not visited it this age.
“Mr. Dyer told the coroner his men were wanted there on the Monday. But French, you say, had been at work about the place already some time?”
“Digging trenches fer walls, Shafto were. Stonings is a grand old pile, but falling to rack and ruin, ma’am. There’s a deal of work to be done — should keep old Dyer in fine feather a year or more.”
“Stonings? That is the name of the estate in Sherborne St. John? I do not know it. Who might the master of Stonings be?”
Philmore shrugged. “A military man just back from Spain, and limping with it. Spence is his name. It’s not for me nor Shafto to deal with the likes of they; we take our orders from Dyer. How the poor fool thought to turn a shilling by his knowledge of Stonings, I know not. Maybe the Squire can tell. He’s a rare man for sense, Mr. Austen is.”
“Thank you, Philmore,” I said as Henry reappeared in the doorway. I drew a few shillings from my reticule and dropped them into the joiner’s hand. “It is not five pounds — but may start you a little on the way to recovering them.”
• • •
“Are you at all familiar with a place called Stonings, Henry?” I enquired as my brother escorted me to the street.
“It is the Earl of Holbrook’s seat in Sherborne St. John,”
Henry replied, “tho’ I do not think his lordship has lived there in years — he prefers his London house, or the shooting box in Leicestershire, I believe. Why do you ask?”
“Is the Earl’s family name Spence? Is he an officer who nurses a limp recently earned in the Peninsula?”
Henry stared. “Not at all! Holbrook never stirs from Carlton House if he can help it. I told you, Jane — he’s the man believed to have sired Julian Thrace. Tho’ there are as many who would insist it was not Holbrook at all, but the Viscount St. Eustace.”
“Henry — Shafto French was put to work at Stonings with Dyer’s men a few weeks ago. And now we find Julian Thrace is descended upon Hampshire. Is it not a strange coincidence?”
“Strange — but no less happenstance,” he retorted impatiently. “You might mention it to Thrace when we dine at the Great House tonight. I intend to learn as much as may be about our interesting friends the Middletons and their even more curious guest this evening; the engagement forms one of the chief objects of my Hampshire interest.”
“You should never have remained in Alton so long, in fact, with only your sister to entertain you.”
“Indeed I should not. The country is a dead bore, Jane, without violent death to lend it spice.” He bowed me satirically on my way.
As I quitted the town once more in the direction of Chawton, I was surprised to notice my informant of the morning, Bertie Philmore, on the point of entering the Swan Inn. He was probably intending to spend the shillings I had just given him on a draught of ale — but his path was blocked by a most surprising interrogator: slight of figure, elegant of appearance and sharp in his grasp of Philmore’s sleeve. The Romantick Poet of yesterday’s inquest was unmistakable. But what could Mr. Jack Hinton have to say to Bertie Philmore, that must animate his countenance with distinct anxiety?
Excerpt from the diary of Lord Harold Trowbridge, dated 17 April 1785, on board the Indiaman Punjab out of Calcutta, bound for Portsmouth.