The Ely Testament (26 page)

‘How did he die then, if not from his wounds?'

‘I have one or two ideas – speculations – but I don't know.'

‘You could speculate,' said Francis.

‘Anyone can speculate, Inspector.'

When the policeman still said nothing, Doctor Wallace continued, ‘It is possible, of course, that the shock of such an attack was enough to provoke some kind of seizure. Just as it is possible that Mr Tomlinson had a weak heart, though I could not know that without a much more radical examination . . .'

Wallace meant a dissection of the body, a proper autopsy. That would take at least an additional physician if evidence was to be prepared for any trial.

‘. . . but I feel that too is unlikely. He seemed to me in reasonable physical condition for a man of his age. On a preliminary examination, you understand.'

Inspector Francis shrugged. He said, ‘So we are not any closer to finding the cause of death?'

‘One way or the other it must be murder,' said Wallace. ‘But how exactly it was accomplished, I cannot tell you – yet.'

And, thought the Inspector, I cannot tell you who did it – yet.

Summer, 1645

T
he gentleman called Loyer was under guard in a small room off the main hall of the Manor. Nearby was the jagged, excavated space where the panelling had been broken down to reveal the disused priest-hole. Anne took in a salver bearing some ale and cheese for the prisoner and Trafford and three other guards. They were standing at a distance from the captive and, Anne noticed, they kept their eyes down as though reluctant to meet Loyer's glances.

‘I want to thank you,' said Trafford to Anne. ‘You led us to this gentleman here.'

Trafford spoke slowly, with deliberation, as if he wanted to lay the blame for the capture elsewhere. Loyer was sitting on a bench against the wall. He was still wearing his wide-brimmed hat and he was wrapped in his cloak, although it was not cold. She tried to signal to him with her eyes. No, I did not betray you. I did not mean to lead these men to your hiding-place. But she did not think the message had got through. When she returned to collect the salver, however, he gave her an almost infinitesimal nod. Her heart a little less heavy, she left the room.

It was James who explained things to Anne. The man they had seized by the willow cabin was not the King but a member of Charles' entourage. He was a most brave impostor, deliberately fleeing eastwards and intending to be seen in flight. To make the pursuers think he was the King, so as to allow the real monarch a chance to escape. This was the plan that had been hatched by the two visitors of the previous day with Anne's mother and father, or rather it was the plan that had been put to them. If all had gone well, the man would have made his circuitous getaway towards the coast, perhaps even taking a boat to the continent.

At some point, it would be known that the real King Charles had fled in the opposite direction. Perhaps it was already known. That did not matter. The man, Monsieur Loyer, as he styled himself, had given the necessary breathing space to the King. At considerable risk to himself. Even perhaps the risk of death.

‘Do they know who he is?' said Anne. She was referring to the soldiers in the house. The fear of the morning had returned, doubled and then redoubled. Only now Mr and Mrs Stilwell had gone to Peterborough, perhaps thinking the danger was over, and there was no one left to deal with Trafford and his men.

‘They are not sure,' said James. ‘I believe they are in awe of their captive. They think they may have their hands on our monarch and it frightens them a little. But Mr Martin has ridden to Ely. There are people there who can identify the King for certain.'

‘It is Mr Martin who has betrayed him.'

‘He has betrayed us all. That is why he was talking to Trafford earlier. He has seen which way the wind is blowing. It‘s fortunate he was in the dark about this imposture. He is not certain whether the gentleman is the King either.'

‘When they discover that their prisoner is not . . . what they think . . . what will they do?'

‘They will be angry and vengeful.'

‘If we could help Mr Loyer to escape again . . .'

‘Do not be foolish.'

Anne tried to talk to Mary. But her sister was sitting still and silent and miserable in their room. She was not even reading, her usual recourse when she was unhappy (as well as happy). If Anne was going to do anything it would be done alone.

With no parents present to send her to bed, and the servants including James huddled away waiting for the inevitable return of Mr Martin and the others from Ely, she went outside and looked towards the town. It was starting to grow dark. The cathedral alone was visible. Anne detected a flurry of movement on the track leading to Upper Fen. On this still midsummer's evening she could hear the thud of hooves. As soon as they reached Stilwell, the prisoner would be revealed as an impostor and not the King. They might kill him there and then in their frustration and fury.

Anne was desperate. It was her fault. She was guilty for having led the treacherous Martin to the willow hide. She paced up and down the gallery until she heard the horses arrive in the yard and the clumping steps of men entering the hall. Among them was Mr Martin, together with the rest of the leather-jerkined retinue from the morning. And two strangers, from Ely no doubt, capable of identifying the King. She watched, heart in mouth, as they tramped towards the little chamber beyond the priest-hole. A few moments more and the truth would be out.

Anne snatched up a candle and darted downstairs. Moving through the shadows, she found a tinderbox in the kitchen quarters of the house. With candle and tinderbox, she crept towards the priest-hole. Once inside the musty nook, it took her a few moments to start a flame and light the candle and heap it around with rubbish and fragments off wood. Soon the flames were licking at the dry timber and the lathe and plaster.

She rushed out.

‘Fire!' she shouted. ‘Fire!'

Meetings in Cambridge

O
n the afternoon of the same day as Inspector Francis was busy investigating – that is, on the Monday following the Ely murder – Tom and Helen Ansell had two encounters in Cambridge. One of them was pleasant enough, the other disturbing. The Ansells had already been called on by John Jubb with his story about George Eames, the stuffed monkey and Charles Tomlinson. All this would have been so much dead wood, were it not that Eames' church in Upper Fen was close to Phoenix House and so there was the possibility that the cleric and his one-time friend might have met again, with unknown consequences.

Tom and Helen were wondering whether they should take Jubb's account to Inspector Francis. It didn't exactly exonerate Ernest Lye but it showed that there were other individuals who had a grudge against Tomlinson. Mr Jubb did not suggest he should carry the information himself. It was Tom who had the connection with the Lyes.

Tom and Helen were walking down King's Parade. They had just decided to catch the train to Ely and visit the Ely police-house later that day when they were hailed by a man emerging from a college on the other side.

‘Mrs Ansell! Mrs Ansell!'

It took Helen a moment to recognize the boyish features of Arthur Arnett, the editor of
The New Moon
. He came to a halt opposite them and tipped his hat. He was plainly pleased to see them, or at least to see Helen. She made the introductions.

‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr Ansell. You are a toiler in the snares of the law, I believe?'

‘That's right.'

‘And Mrs Ansell, you are surely pursuing your commission for my magazine, promenading around Cambridge, absorbing its sights and sounds for the delectation of our future readers?'

‘I confess I have not done much recently, Mr Arnett, having other things on my mind.'

‘Nothing too weighty, I hope?'

Helen might have replied that murder was weighty enough but, rather than get into a subject which was nothing to do with the editor, she answered with a question of her own.

‘What are you doing in Cambridge, Mr Arnett?'

‘Doing?' said Arnett, as though the concept of activity were foreign to him. ‘I am wandering through the groves of academe in quest of writers and readers both. I wish
The New Moon
to have tone, you see, and nothing confers tone like subscribers in our older universities.'

‘You're drumming up business,' said Tom.

For an instant Arthur Arnett looked as though he was going to object to Tom's description. Then he smiled and said, ‘Of course I am, Mr Ansell. Pithily put. I wonder . . . since the delightful Mrs Ansell is already writing for
The New Moon
. . . I wonder whether I might interest you too in penning a piece on . . . the byways of the law, on its curious corners and the like.'

Tom's instinct was to laugh and reject the offer straightaway. There was something absurd in Arnett's flowery style. But the editor was eager and Tom was just the tiniest bit flattered by the suggestion.

‘Yes, why don't you, Tom?' said Helen.

‘I can't write. I leave that kind of thing to you.'

‘Oh, folderol and flapdoodle, Mr Ansell. One does not give credence to a lawyer who claims he cannot write. At least think about my suggestion.'

Tom agreed that he would, and they parted from Mr Arnett, all smiles and nice words.

‘I told you he was a little precious,' said Helen.

‘Oh, folderol and flapdoodle, to coin a phrase,' said Tom.

‘Admit you are tempted by the notion of writing something for publication.'

‘Perhaps I am.'

As they were talking, the couple had wandered away from the main thoroughfares and into a rather dingy side street. For no reason they paused outside a pawnbroker's with the name ‘Bartle & Co.' in grimy gold lettering on the door. Helen indicated a set of carpenter's tools in the window.

‘I wonder what misfortune caused the owner to bring those here.'

A man emerged from the pawnbroker's. He peered at the Ansells from under his hat brim. He was short and Tom could not see him full face but he recognized this individual by his large and uneven teeth. Also, it was evident that the man recognized Tom and Helen for he gasped, allowing a glimpse of those teeth.

‘It's Mr Fort,' said Tom.

‘Why, it is . . . Mr and Mrs Ansell.'

The undertaker's man did his best to act as if this were no more than an unexpected social encounter but he looked pale and shaken. He met Tom's gaze only for a moment. He would not look at Helen at all.

Tom remembered that it was Eric Fort who was (probably) inside the hansom that almost ran them down outside Liverpool Street Station. He was working out some way of referring to this, without a direct accusation of attempted murder, when Helen said, ‘Mr Fort, it was you I saw the other afternoon, here in Cambridge. I thought you worked in London.'

Fort's small frame shrank even further.

‘I work where I can get work. To tell the truth, things are not going very well for me at present. I have been in that place to – my wedding ring – never mind . . .'

His voice faltered and he nodded towards the pawnbroker's window. He made to move away but suddenly halted. For the first time, he looked straight at Tom and Helen and seemed to come to a decision.

‘Mr and Mrs Ansell,' he began, in a stronger tone. ‘There is something I would very much like to say to both of you. I have a . . . a confession to make . . . if you can spare the time to listen to it. I can even purchase some refreshment for you, now that I have a little change.'

Once again, he glanced towards the pawnbroker's. There was an abject quality to him but at the same time a sort of determination.

‘Of course, Mr Fort,' said Helen.

‘Thank you,' said the undertaker's man. ‘Oh, thank you.'

The three went to Morris's, the coffee house which Helen had visited with Mr Jubb. When they were established in a quiet corner, and had been served, Eric Fort started to speak. It was as if a dam had been breached.

Fort explained that he had no full-time employment but picked up work when and where he could get it. His interest in the funeral trade meant that he felt most at home when running errands for Willow & Son in London. But his impecunious state also meant that he sometimes had to stoop to other, less honourable types of work. That was what he had been doing lately in Cambridge and in Ely.

‘Ely?' said Tom.

‘Outside Ely, to be precise, Mr Ansell.'

‘Have you been involved with a man called Charles Tomlinson?'

‘Yes,' said Fort, half relieved, half disappointed. ‘How did you know?'

‘Mr Tomlinson is dead,' said Helen.

‘He was murdered in Ely,' said Tom.

‘When?'

‘Yesterday. We are on our way there with information for the police.'

If this was an attempt on Tom's part to intimidate Fort, it did not work. Nor did he show any visible surprise or much concern at the news of Tomlinson's murder.

‘It may be uncharitable in me to say it, but it is no more than he deserved. The gentleman was a bad lot. He drew me into enterprises that were wrong. I have seen the error of my ways now. I want to make a clean breast of things.'

‘Did Tomlinson instruct you to try to run us down in London, outside Liverpool Street.'

‘That was an accident,' said Helen, more to her husband than the undertaker's man.

‘I will swear on my wife's grave that it was an accident,' said Fort. ‘The driver lost control of his horse. I believe he had been drinking. As soon as I realized what happened, I ordered him to stop and I got down and ran back to the station. Thank God, I saw that you were not harmed, Mrs Ansell.'

‘Was it you, Mr Fort, who sent that message to us at the Devereux Hotel, the lines from
Macbeth
?' said Helen.