There was a knock on the door and she came out of her reverie with a start. A flicker of hope stirred but it vanished immediately when the door opened and a maidservant conducted a tall, thin, balding man into the chamber. Arthur Calmady wore the black garb of his office and the pious look of a man with a mission in life. As the maidservant withdrew and closed the door behind her, the visitor gave a respectful bow then moved across to the mistress of the house.
‘Good morning,’ he said softly.
‘Good morning,’ she seemed to reply.
‘Have you been studying the text I recommended?’ he said, noting the Bible. ‘I hope it has brought comfort and consolation to you, Mary.’ He waited until she could manage a small nod of affirmation. ‘Bereavement is a time when we come fit our minds to the loss of a loved one but we must do it in no spirit of despair. Matthew’s death was God’s will. It was not a meaningless accident, Mary, but part of a divine plan. Draw succour from that thought.’
‘I will try,’ she murmured.
Arthur Calmady was the vicar of the Parish Church of St Peter. Only an occasional visitor to the house when Matthew Whetcombe was alive, he had called on a daily basis since the merchant’s untimely death, and he liked to think that his brand of unctuous concern was having a beneficial effect on the widow. He was a sharp-featured man with a mole in the hollow of one cheek. His intelligence was admired and his conscientiousness praised, but the more wayward Christians in the parish could have done without his strictures from the pulpit. They wanted a caring shepherd to tend his flock and not to round it up like a holy sheepdog. Unmarried and celibate all his life, he had the other-worldly air of a hermit, but this was offset by the beady eyes and the moist lips. Arthur Calmady discharged all his duties with commendable zeal but he did take especial pleasure from visiting bereaved women in the privacy of a bedchamber.
‘Shall I read to you, Mary?’ he offered.
‘No, thank you.’
‘It may help to soothe your mind.’
‘I am content.’
‘May I sit with you for a while?’
‘If you wish.’
‘May I share your sorrow?’
Calmady lowered himself into the chair beside her and took one of her hands between his. Mary made no protest. As the vicar began to chant a prayer, she was not even aware of his presence in the room. Her thoughts were miles away from Barnstaple. Ten minutes passed before he released her hand and rose to go. Calmady covered his departure with a glib apology for disturbing her and crossed to the door. Holding it open, he turned back to her.
‘Is there any news, Mary?’
‘None.’
‘How long has it been now?’
‘Too long.’
‘We must watch and pray,’ he advised. ‘It is the only way to combat fear and anxiety. Prayers cure all ills.’ He became more businesslike. ‘When there is news, let me know at once. Send a servant to the vicarage. It is important.’
‘I will.’
‘Goodbye, Mary.’
Arthur Calmady withdrew like a wraith and closed the door soundlessly behind him. To a man of such exaggerated religiosity, the whole world was the house of God and he moved about it with the measured tread of a true believer. His stately figure descended the newel stair as if walking down the altar steps. When the maidservant let him out through the front door, the street was the nave of a cathedral. As soon as he had left, the child came out of her hiding place behind the court cupboard and ran upstairs to the fore-chamber. She entered without knocking and went across to stand in front of her mother. Lucy Whetcombe was a slight but wiry girl who could have been anything between ten and fifteen. Her body sided with the earlier age but the tight little face veered towards the later. What she had inherited of her mother’s beauty was sullied by anxiety and dismay. The dark, sobre dress accentuated the fairer tone of her hair and the pale complexion.
She forced a smile and nodded enquiringly.
‘No, Lucy,’ said her mother, shaking her head.
The girl’s eyes repeated the question more earnestly but it got the same sad response. As Mary Whetcombe talked, she opened her mouth expressively so that her daughter could read her lips, and she supplemented her speech with graphic gestures of her hands.
‘We have no news of her,’ she said. ‘We do not know where she went or why. But she did not run away from you. She loves you, Lucy. We all love you. Susan will come back to you. They will find her. She belongs here with us.’
When the girl had deciphered the message, she tried to answer it with words of her own, but all she could produce were dull and senseless sounds. In sheer frustration, she beat her fists on her thighs and began to cry in silence. Mary Whetcombe reached out to enfold her child in her arms and to hug her tightly. Her own tears now flowed.
‘We have each other,’ she said. ‘We have each other.’
But the girl did not even hear her.
Israel Gunby had spent so long living on his wits that he could adapt to each change of circumstance with the speed of light. Instead of wasting time on remorse over the death of an accomplice, he sought to turn it to good account.
‘Ned was not long for this life,’ he said blithely. ‘That stranger saved me the trouble of sending his fat carcass on his way.’
‘He was killed next to me,’ complained Ellen, still shaken by the experience. ‘It was all I could do not to scream out in horror.’
‘That would have been the ruin of us, my love.’
‘I held back for that reason.’
‘The law would have come down on us,’ warned Gunby. ‘All would be lost in the cry of a woman. And for what? Ned Robinson! Our plump pickpocket.’ A short laugh. ‘They may catch us one day, Ellen, and hang the pair of us side by side, but I will not go to the gallows because of a fool like Ned Robinson. He deserved what he got.’
‘It was terrifying, Israel!’
‘You did well, my love.’
‘I was frightened.’
Israel Gunby pulled her to him and stroked his wife’s hair. They were lying in a bed at the Fox and Elm, a small inn some miles to the south-west of Marlborough. Events at the Guildhall on the previous night necessitated a rapid departure from the town. While Ned Robinson and Ellen had been working in harness at the play, Gunby had been sitting a mere hundred yards away in the taproom of the Rising Sun. By talking to the innkeeper, and guiding the conversation with a steady hand, he had learnt how many guests were staying at the establishment, how heavy their capcases had been and in which direction they would be travelling next morning. While one crime was being committed, Israel Gunby liked to set up several more. Careful planning was the basis of his career. When plans went awry — as they did in the Guildhall — he would move swiftly to make his escape and cover his tracks.
There was ample compensation in this instance.
‘How much did Ned take before he was caught?’
‘Seven pounds and more.’
‘Those fat fingers were dexterous.’
‘They were,’ said Ellen. ‘He took the first few purses as we pushed through the crowd going in. One man carried five angels. Ned slipped them to me for safekeeping.’
‘What did he take during the play?’
‘The purses of the two men in front of him and the one who sat on my other side. Ned leant across me as if fast asleep, and the money was his in a flash.’ Ellen clicked her tongue. ‘If he had settled for that, he would still now be alive to share the spoils. But he took one purse too many.’
‘And the killer?’
‘A well-favoured gentleman with a black beard.’
‘But not from these parts, I dare wager,’ said Gunby with a chuckle. ‘These Wiltshire people are too trusting. They would not suspect a foist if you climbed inside their purse and threw their money out coin by coin.’
‘He turned my blood to ice.’