Dark Waters (31 page)

‘They say,' said Edward Lillycrap, darkly, ‘it's because Jotham's not his son.'

‘Who says that, Edward?' I asked.

Lillycrap shrugged and shook his head.

‘It's just something I heard.'

‘You shouldn't be passing on unsubstantiated gossip. You are a jury, trying to reach a true verdict. Please be good enough to act like one.'

Lillycrap was chastened.

‘Sorry, Mr Cragg,' he said.

‘So do we find anything about this body that we should take note of?'

By now the jurymen were slowly circling the table on which the body lay.

‘It stinks,' said John Mort.

‘Like a drain,' agreed Jack Barlow.

‘It's an horrible colour.'

‘It looks angry.'

This was Julius Treadwell.

‘You'd be angry, Julius, if you died like that.'

‘But what I mean is, if we knew what he was angry at, it might help us.'

‘Well, we don't, so it can't.'

‘I'll tell you what I've heard,' said Mort, ‘which is that he was very quick to take against folk. What I mean is, he was a great hater, and I'll tell you summat else.'

Mort paused, to give his information more dramatic effect.

‘Go on, John,' prompted Pikeroyd.

Mort jabbed his finger towards the body.

‘They say he hated no one more than Sir Harry Hoghton.'

‘What for?'

Mort shrugged.

‘Don't know. Happen it'll come out, though, in time.'

I could see there was little to be gained by prolonging the viewing.

Back in the courtroom I launched the proceedings by calling the dead man's wife to give evidence. She sat in the witness chair in a posture of reluctance, even of resistance.

‘Mrs Allcroft, thank you for attending,' I said. ‘You live in Gregson, do you not?'

She nodded.

‘Can you tell me when your husband came into Preston, and for what purpose?'

‘It's no secret. He came Tuesday of last week. He had brought together a tally of freemen voters for the election and he was in town to make certain arrangements beforehand.'

‘What arrangements?'

‘I couldn't say. As you men know, we women have little appreciation of politics.'

‘Well, do you have enough to know which interest your husband's tally was voting for?'

‘That is no secret. It was in the Tory interest.'

‘For Mr Fazackerley and Mr Shuttleworth?'

‘Yes.'

‘And now, I must ask you to think carefully, because my next is an important question. Was your husband in good health when he left home?'

‘Yes, of course he was.'

‘Are you quite sure of that?'

‘He was laughing and singing and waving his hat as he rode away. Do you not think that is a sign of health?'

The audience tittered. It was made up of no more than thirty inquisitive townspeople, who included, as I noted, the ever-present Miss Colley.

‘Thank you, Mrs Allcroft,' I said. ‘You may get down.'

Next I called Mrs Fitzpatrick, and picked up the story where Mrs Allcroft had left off.

‘Do you recall Mr Allcroft's arrival at the inn?' I asked.

‘Yes, sir. We had the room ready that his son had been in the week before to secure.'

‘We have heard Mrs Allcroft describe his state when leaving home. Would you say he was in as rude health when he arrived here?'

‘He was a pleasant, courteous gentleman.'

‘With respect, that does not answer my question.'

‘Yes, it does. He was agreeable company, which a sick man never is. That's why I don't think Mr Allcroft was sick when he first came.'

I accepted this with a nod.

‘So when
did
he fall sick?'

‘Next day, the afternoon.'

‘After his hotpot dinner, which he had taken in his room?'

‘There was nothing wrong with his hotpot. I've told you that before, Mr Cragg.'

‘So you have, Mrs Fitzpatrick. But is the chronology right?'

‘The time, sir? Yes, afternoon was when he felt poorly. He had been out but he returned to the inn and took to his bed. He was vomiting and worse.'

‘When did you become aware of this?'

‘Our kitchen boy was passing his door. He heard him groaning and made report to me.'

‘You mean Peterkin, who is here to give his evidence this morning?'

‘Yes. It was early in the evening. I went up to investigate and opened the door.'

‘It wasn't locked?'

‘It wouldn't lock, sir. The key had been lost some weeks since. A guest rode away with it in his pocket.'

‘So you went in, and…?'

‘Oh, it was a horrible sight. He was rolling around on his bed and clutching his stomach and making horrible complaining noises. And the air in the room was, well, it made my own stomach turn over, I can tell you.'

‘What did you do?'

‘Nothing except open the windows and go down to Dr Fidelis who I'd seen come in with yourself. As you know, I asked him to take a look at Mr Allcroft.'

‘Do you have anything to add concerning your guest falling so suddenly sick?'

‘No, sir, I can't account for it except I swear there was nothing wrong with the hotpot.'

I let her go, asked Joe Primrose to take the stand and, after he was sworn in, raised the question of the hotpot.

‘This is a dish of high repute in town, is it not?'

Primrose's ever-cheerful face beamed.

‘Yes, Mr Cragg, it is that.'

‘How do you make it?'

‘Good long stewing, sir, in the cool oven, that's my secret.'

‘I mean, what do you put into it?'

Primrose counted the items off on his fingers – shin of mutton, kidney of same, carrots, potatoes, onion, sage and oatmeal.

I stopped him there.

‘Is oatmeal the only cereal you use in your hotpot?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘No other grain?'

‘I've known other grains to be put in, sir, but oatmeal will thicken just as well as anything, and it's what I prefer.'

I asked him about how Allcroft's dinner had been served, and he described how he had plated and covered it and given it to Maggie on a tray with a jug of beer.

‘Is that the last you saw of it, when Maggie Satterthwaite took it from the kitchen?'

‘Yes, we were that busy, I thought no more about it after.'

‘And you served other portions of the same stew on that day?'

‘I did, many another.'

‘Did you hear of any other diner becoming sick afterwards?'

‘I did not. Not a single complaint.'

I let Primrose down, and called Maggie. She came to the stand looking pretty, in bright clothes, freshly laundered: every inch the May Queen. I asked her to describe what happened when she'd carried Allcroft's meal to his room.

‘The room was empty, and very messy. I put down the tray on his table and did a little to put the room to rights. But it would've taken too long to do it proper, so I gave up and went down to look for him. But I was called to another customer so I asked Peterkin to go and find Mr Allcroft and tell him his dinner was ready for him.'

‘Had you interfered with the dinner in any way, between taking it from Mr Primrose and leaving it behind in the room?'

‘No, I never even looked at it.'

‘So you didn't see anything go into it – some contamination, I mean?'

‘Some what, sir?'

‘Some impurity, that shouldn't be there.'

‘No, there were nowt like that. The stew plate were topped with a cover, to keep the food warm and flies out. Like I said, I never even lifted it.'

Now Peterkin stepped up and like any good kitchen boy proved himself pert and wholly unafraid of adults. He gave his evidence in a clear piping voice: that on Maggie's bidding he had sought out Mr Allcroft in the coffee room; that he had been deep in discussion with a few other gentlemen; that he said he would go up shortly; and that he had then continued his discussion, waving Peterkin away.

‘Did anyone else in the room hear what you and Mr Allcroft said to each other?'

‘They might've sir, easy. I don't know they did, though.'

‘And did you later see Mr Allcroft go upstairs?'

‘No, sir. But I went in the coffee room twenty minutes later, and he was gone then.'

So far the room had listened closely enough to the succession of witnesses, but there had been little to excite their interest. That was about to change.

‘I call Dr Luke Fidelis,' I said.

There was a rustle of clothing as the female members of the audience craned to catch a good sight of the handsome doctor. Fidelis took his place in the chair with composure, and once Furzey had administered the oath, adopted a slightly forward-leaning posture, as one completely attentive to his interlocutor.

I asked him to describe the squalid condition in which he had found Allcroft that night and, having heard him out, asked what he had thought the matter with the patient might be.

‘I considered in the first place it was most likely some contagion, as there was fever present, with vomiting, loose bowels and intense thirst. But these were also consonant with poisoning, so that was the other possibility I considered.'

‘Just so that we are all clear, what do you mean by contagion and by poisoning?'

‘By contagion I mean a disease passed by touch from one person to another.'

‘Only by touch?'

‘That is the strict meaning of the word. It has been used by some learned doctors for diseases that are transmitted through the air by means of steams or effluvia arising from a person already sick.'

‘Thank you, doctor. Will you tell us, then, what poisoning is?'

‘Poisoning is the ingestion of something noxious, to the point of sickness and perhaps death.'

‘Must it be given deliberately to harm?'

‘No, not necessarily. There is a general misapprehension that poisoning is the same as murder, or attempted murder. It is not. It can be by accident, and may even occur without the agency of a deliberate human hand – as, for instance, when a bucket of white lime falls into a well.'

‘I see. Now, in the case of Mr Allcroft, did you resolve the issue?'

‘Eventually I did.'

‘On what side: that of contagion, or poison?'

‘Poison, either from the hotpot he had eaten for his dinner, or the beer he had drunk.'

On hearing this word pronounced the audience buzzed with comment. Suddenly what had seemed a rather humdrum inquiry was turning into a possibly sensational one.

‘And how exactly did you resolve it?'

‘With the help of a healthy rat called Athene.'

For a moment the audience and jury were struck silent, not knowing what to make of this. Then a sniggering and whispering was heard around the room. Was the doctor jesting?

‘That sounds most unusual,' I said. ‘Please tell us more.'

Fidelis recounted in detail how he had reserved samples of the food and beer Allcroft had taken for his dinner; how he had then conducted the experiment on Athene, first by giving her the beer and then the stew; and how the rat had expired on the spot after eating the stew.

‘And what did you conclude from this trial?'

‘That the beer was good, but the stew was poisoned.'

This bald statement brought a collective gasp from the public section of the audience. I raised my hand to subdue the murmuring that followed.

‘Poisoned with what?'

‘There's a number of vegetable and mineral poisons that it could be. What I can say is that anyone who ate it, even a few mouthfuls, would have fallen violently ill and, depending on the quantity swallowed, might have died.'

‘Which you suggest was the case with Mr Allcroft?'

‘Yes, if he ate his dinner.'

‘You quite rule out contagion?'

‘What happened to the rat does that for me.'

‘And did you examine the stew itself?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you find anything unusual?'

‘I found it contained barleycorns.'

‘Barleycorns?'

‘Yes.'

For the benefit of the court, which was now hanging on Fidelis's every word, I pretended to be puzzled.

‘Barleycorns are not poisonous. Did you not find any poison?'

‘I did not. To separate the poisonous ingredient from the rest of the ingredients, not least the gravy with which it must have combined, is beyond my powers, or those of any man so far as I know. However I do recognize a barleycorn when I see one.'

‘But why did you find these barleycorns a surprising ingredient?'

‘At the time I did not. But now that I have heard Mr Primrose's testimony, denying that his hotpot stew contained any grains other than oatmeal, I am surprised that I found some.'

No one, except myself and Fidelis, understood where this was leading, though by this stage everyone in the room wanted to know.

I released Fidelis and immediately recalled Primrose.

‘Mr Primrose, consider yourself still under oath. Can you account for the presence of this barley that Dr Fidelis found in your hotpot?'

Primrose was looking confused. His usual laughing demeanour was replaced by a guarded expression, a suspicion that he was about to be accused of some dark misdeed, though he couldn't be sure what it might be.

‘No, Mr Cragg, I can't. As I said before, I don't use it in stew. But there wouldn't be any harm, would there? I mean, if there
was
barley in it? It's a healthy food, is barley.'

‘Yes, Mr Primrose, as far as I know it is. But do you use it for anything else in your kitchen? I mean, do you keep a stock of it?'

‘I do from time to time, yes, but it is a dear enough grain and we would never use it much.'

‘So might some barleycorns, let's say from your excellent storeroom – which as you know I have seen – have got into the stewpot accidentally?'