Death of a Radical (29 page)

He thought of the colonel, blustering and red-faced as he waved that dirty piece of paper. It was a good joke, if one was there to see it … His hand stilled, the brush idle in its track. Raistrick? The lawyer had swaggered in late to that meeting at Bedford's. Had there been an extra touch of mischief in his manner that day? Walcheren looked back at his master reproachfully.

“My apologies.” Jarrett resumed his rhythmic task. “But in truth that note is a mystery.”

It might appeal to Raistrick's humor but he couldn't picture the lawyer going to the trouble of forging and placing such a note for so small a return.
I need more information,
he told himself.
I need a weaver …
The snatched exchange between Harry Aitken and Watson he had overheard as they left the Old Manor eddied up from his
memory. Harry Aitken had been inclined to confide in him, he was almost certain of that. If he could just put himself in the way of a private conversation …

An awareness pricked his skin. He looked up. Duffin stood in a halo of winter daylight just within the door.

“Ezekial!” he greeted him. Duffin's outline was still against the pearly light. Jarrett tensed. A shadow loomed just outside. Duffin jerked his head.

“Come on now!” he urged the concealed presence. “Step up!”

The shape coalesced into the spokesman of the Red Angel song club, the young giant, Dickon Watson.

“Dickon here's got summat to tell yous,” the poacher announced. Jarrett knew him well enough by now to discern the tinge of satisfaction in the countryman's voice. “Out with it, lad.”

Dalesmen, as a breed, were stocky and square to the ground. Dickon Watson was constructed to similar proportions but on a massive scale. He loomed, like an idol or dolmen. He seemed ill at ease. He cast a wary eye over the line of stalls. Walcheren bent his sleek neck, observing the newcomer with mild interest. Jarrett kept up his brushstrokes, concentrating on his horse's front legs. So Duffin had been busy, had he? He had wondered where the poacher vanished to after they brought Grub down from the fell.

“Ezekial Duffin says you're to be trusted,” the young giant declared abruptly. He paused and started again, his voice swelling with truculence. “Soldiers are looking to
take up Jonas for Book Boy's murder. I come to tell yous, he never done it.” Walcheren stamped a back foot restlessly. The young giant flinched. “Jonas would never hurt Book Boy,” he continued in a milder tone. “None of us would. He was a good soul.”

Jarrett surveyed his visitor over Walcheren's broad flank.

“What's your trade, Mr. Watson?” he asked.

“Weavin', when I had one,” answered Dickon, startled.

“Had?”

Dickon advanced further into the stable, keeping to the outer wall.

“Me da was a partner in Cullen's shop—did well enough when I was a bairn. But then da took a consumption and died and me ma couldn't keep up wi' debts …” His voice trailed off, his attention focused on Jarrett's hands. The duke's man was detaching the rope that secured the big bay's head collar to an iron ring set in the wall. Jarrett turned Walcheren about.

“Here, take his head will you?” He addressed Dickon, handing him the rope. For a moment it looked as if the man might flee; instead he took the rope. He stood stiffly, eyes front, as Walcheren pulled back his head and looked down on him from his greatest height.

“Stepped on as a bairn, was you?” Duffin asked mockingly. Dickon scowled and hunched his shoulders.

“Where's that tail comb got to … ? Go on,” Jarrett prompted the youth. “What happened then?”

“Ma had to sell out to Cullen so as we could eat,”
answered Dickon, watching Jarrett search the straw around his horse's feet. “Cullen apprenticed me and I served me time. Now I'm a daytal man.” Jarrett shot a questioning look at Duffin.

“Paid by the day,” the poacher explained.

“I save what I can,” Dickon elaborated. “I'll buy me back in one day.”

Walcheren sighed and dropped his head, inspecting the ground for stray oats. Dickon looked down at him and breathed out through his nose. “Sim Cullen and me, we have plans—if his da can hold on t'shop.”

“Times are bad?” asked Jarrett.

“They're bitter, Mr. Jarrett. I haven't had work at t'looms for months.” Dickon changed the rope from hand to hand, flexing his freed fingers.

“But you've been busy, nonetheless. You and your friends have been handing round those songs, have you not?” Jarrett said. Dickon stared at him blankly for a moment.

“What's a man, Mr. Jarrett?” he burst out, suddenly rhetorical. “A man must be worth more than to work himself out for the profit of rich men and never himself. Working men need their eyes opened.”

“And once men's eyes are opened, what then?” Jarrett spied the missing comb half under Walcheren's hoof and gave him a shove. Dickon started as Walcheren moved his foot and settled again. The large weaver widened his stance.

“I'll tell you what, Mr. Jarrett. Material things,” he said,
leaning forward a little, as if impelled by his urgency to make his point. “A few weeks back we heard word of these army buyers coming to Woolbridge fairs with a big order to fill—work for the whole town, maybe. It's been a bad winter. Price has come down tuppence a piece on last year. Bedford can't fill an order like that alone. We heard these buyers were stopping in Penrith, Sim Cullen and me. We goes over. We found one of them buyers, going from shop to shop looking at cloth, talking prices. We had words. He made himself out an honest man. We would have our chance to make our bid, he said, at the fairs—all straight and above board.” He paused significantly.

“And,” prompted Jarrett obligingly.

“Them buyers stops at an inn outside town. Next we hear, our man's dead.” Dickon swept his widened eyes between Jarrett and Duffin and back again.

“Pritchard. The man you spoke to in Penrith was Pritchard?” demanded Jarrett. Dickon nodded.

“And the deal's been struck—with Bedford and no other.” The weaver stood closer now, the sheer breadth and height of his frame adding force to his words. “And here's a thing, Mr. Jarrett. All through winter there's been talk of Bedford's mill failing but what diz ta think? He's bringing in machines—and them's not got for naught. When Bedford has machines, he'll have no more need of piecework. Then a man'll slave for him or starve.”

Jarrett finished combing Walcheren's mane. He gave the bay's neck a pat.

“So, no more independents,” he remarked.

“There won't be if we can't find redress. I'm telling you, Mr. Jarrett: not Jonas, not I, nor any of us, had a reason to harm your boy.” Nor Pritchard, neither, thought Jarrett to himself, if what you say is true.

Walcheren was staring off through the open yard door with an abstracted air. Dickon was more at ease than when he first made his entrance. He met Jarrett's gaze with unwavering eyes. Jarrett took the rope from him and led his horse down the narrow walkway to his stall.

“I believe you,” he said over his shoulder. “But what of Farr? He's not accounted for the night of the play—for he wasn't with you, was he?” Dickon followed in their wake, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. He shrugged.

“I'm not his keeper,” he said.

Jarrett regarded him thoughtfully, pondering what kind of man this Jonas Farr must be to elicit such loyalty on so short an acquaintance.

“Why are you so sure of him?” he asked. “A month or so ago you must have been strangers.” Dickon shrugged again.

“With some men, you know,” he said simply. He looked away, his skin reddening. “You've heard him sing,” he said. “No liar ever sung that true.”

“My dear fellow,” Jarrett began, but Dickon looked back at him with such a steady assurance in the simplicity of basic truths, he stopped. He remembered the transparency and meaning in that voice he had heard at the Red Angel. He found to his surprise that he wished he
could share Dickon's simple faith, so he left it at that.

“You don't know where Farr was that night?” he pressed, instead.

“Not know,” Dickon said grudgingly. For all his formidable height and bulk, he took on the look of a truculent schoolboy.

“But you have an idea?”

“Reckon it's a woman.”

“You've seen him with her?” The young giant shook his head in slow motion, keeping his eyes boldly fixed on Jarrett's as if daring him to challenge him.

“But there will be a witness as to his whereabouts that night while my cousin was murdered on the fell?” Dickon shrugged.

Jarrett thought of the tale the Hiltons had told him that morning about Miss Anders and her mysterious caller. The night of the play seemed so distant. It took him a moment to recall, but he was certain he had seen the Anders men down in the pit. He could not picture a woman sitting with them. Mrs. Hilton had left him with the impression that she thought Miss Anders's mysterious visitor was not the gentleman he purported to be. Might Farr have taken the opportunity to go a-wooing while his lover's family was at the play?

“Tell him the rest,” prompted Duffin. The poacher had been standing so silent and still, as was his habit, Jarrett had almost forgotten his presence. “Tell 'im about t'stranger.”

“What stranger is this?” asked Jarrett.

“There's been a stranger slippin' about trying to catch up young fools in secret oaths and the like,” Duffin supplied before the weaver could answer.

“Someone's out to make trouble,” Dickon chimed in. He seemed eager enough to confide now.

“Twisting in, don't they call it?” Jarrett responded. “You don't favor it then?”

“I'm not a fool nor a traitor neither!” exclaimed Dickon. “That's sedition, that is. I'm a loyal subject of King George,” he declared indignantly, “and I don't know any that aren't.”

“You've no notion who this stranger might be, then?” asked Jarrett. The weaver turned down his mouth.

“He's a dark 'un,” he said dubiously. “Moved over from Lake country, by all accounts. First heard tell of him over the tops. Secret meetings. Came and went at night. Some say he wore a mask as he made his speeches. Don't rightly know but one who's seen him.”

An orator in a mask harangues the people
—wasn't that what the colonel's report said?

“And what does that one have to say?” asked Jarrett.

Dickon folded his massive arms across his chest. He looked up under low brows.

“He's a halfwit.”

“He's not named Lem, by any chance?”

Watson's mouth dropped open. “How does yous know that?” he demanded incredulously. That was a piece of luck, Jarrett congratulated himself.

“You were looking for him at the opening of the fairs,”
he pressed on, feeling his way from what Miss Bedford had told him. He had a flash of inspiration. He saw the boy with the blue neckerchief, fleeing the action just as the soldiers closed in. “Was that the purpose of your hat game?” he asked. “Did you catch him?” Dickon was utterly still.

“No,” he said but there was a fracture in his denial. Jarrett sensed Duffin shift his position just at the edge of his eye-line. He risked another leap.

“But Billy Dewsnap had him in that byre the other night,” he said. The silence stretched out between them. “Do you deny it?” The weaver looked away for a fraction of a second. “So tell me about it,” Jarrett said quietly. Dickon sighed. He unfolded his arms.

“Lem's a fool,” he began, “but he's never been one to know it. Clever-daft, that's Lem. Always out to prove himself. This one got a hold of him—I don't know how they met—had him take some fancy oath an' all.” Dickon's voice was scornful. “Tried to get Lem to read it at first but little Lem don't have his letters, so fellow had to repeat it for him. Lem was cock o' t'midden.”

“He told you this?”

“Not him. Lem's none too fond o' me. Told Jinnie—boasted about it. Lem's sweet on Jinnie,” he explained. “Follows her about like a little dog. She's found him looking in at her window before now. She weren't best pleased. Billy neither,” he added as an afterthought.

“Billy Dewsnap? Is Jinnie his sister?” Jarrett ventured. Dickon shook his head.

“Walkin' out,” he said.

Jarrett thought of the stone shed on Dewsnap's farm and the rope and the blood drops Billy had tried to conceal with straw.

“So Lem's been pestering Billy's girl and Billy got a hold of him later that day, after the fight in the marketplace?”

“Stepped in, like, once we got there,” Dickon said, a touch shamefaced. “Bill was in a bait—gave Lem a pastin'—nothing broken but Lem was in no mood to confide. Took us all night to get Bill to see sense. Then we was called out by t'lad with news of …” he tapered off, casting Jarrett an uncomfortable look. “Anyhow, while we was gone Jinnie came in and let Lem out. He scarpered. But we'll find him,” he wound up confidently. “Lives with his gran; has no place else to be.”

They were both watching him, Duffin and that overgrown lad. Duffin believed him; but did he? Jarrett examined Dickon's stoic Dalesman's face. There was no tension in the line of his shoulders. His hands were relaxed. Walcheren was at ease around him.

“Do you know the whereabouts of Jonas Farr?” Dickon's eyes went opaque.

“I won't betray him.”

“Understand me,” Jarrett said. “You say Jonas Farr is a decent man. If the colonel lays hands on him, that will mean nothing; he will see him condemned.” He paused a beat. “Is Farr still in Woolbridge?”

The weaver folded his massive arms once more. He looked to Duffin.

“You can trust him,” the poacher urged. Dickon
scowled. “What did you come here for, but to ask his help!” Duffin dealt him an exasperated swipe with the back of one hand. “Go on with ya!”