The Meaning of Night (54 page)

It was now past three o’clock, and the fire had died quite down. I’d been

recounting the events subsequent to the violent death of Mr Paul Carteret.

‘Cremorne?’ he said at last. ‘Of course. We took the threepenny steamer. When

would it have been?’

‘November last year,’ I said. ‘A few days after I’d returned from Mr Carteret’s

funeral. We played bowls.’

‘We did, and then we watched the Naval Fête. Yes, and I recall a little set-to as

we were leaving. But what has this to do with anything?’

‘Well, I shall tell you,’ I said. ‘while you throw another log on the fire and refill

my glass.’

The night remained clear in my mind. We’d been wandering for an hour or two

amongst the pavilions and kiosks and flower beds. Darkness had long fallen, and the

lamp-lit arbours were full of carmined whores in gaudy silks sipping iced champagne

with their swells. I’d been game to continue our jollities elsewhere, but, unusually, Le

Grice had expressed a strong wish to be in his bed, and so, at a few minutes before

twelve, we’d prepared to leave the Gardens.

By the pay-box, at the King’s-road entrance, we’d come upon an altercation. A

group of four or five women – whores every one, as I quickly judged – and a couple of

fancy roughs were disputing in a rather bellicose fashion with a small man sporting a

prominent pair of mutton-chop whiskers.

As we approached nearer, one of the roughs grabbed the man by the collar and

threw him to the ground. By the light of the large illuminated star above the pay-box, I

immediately recognized the anxious face of Mr Geoffrey Martlemass, fiancé of Dorrie

Grainger.

The arrival of Le Grice and I had heated up the proceedings somewhat, but the

roughs were quickly persuaded, by a brief demonstration of our combined force and

determination, to leg it, while the whores swayed away into the darkness, shouting and

jeering as they went.

‘It’s Mr Glapthorn, isn’t it?’ asked the little man, as I helped him to his feet.

‘What an extraordinary coincidence!’

Much against the advice of his enamorata, the philanthropic Mr Martlemass had

been on a mission that to bring the light of Christ to the whores of Cremorne – a task that

would have taxed St Paul himself. He was rather crestfallen at his failure, but seemed

manfully inclined to dust himself off and attempt the task again. It was only after a good

deal of persuasion that he consented to let the uncaring objects of his crusade abide in

darkness for a little while longer and accepted our advice to return home.

‘We took a hansom,’ said Le Grice, ‘and you dropped me off in Piccadilly. What

happened then?’

(

After Le Grice had been deposited safely at the Piccadilly entrance to Albany, Mr

Martlemass and I continued our way eastwards. ‘The night has been a failure,’ he said,

shaking his head mournfully, as we passed through Temple Bar, ‘but I am glad, at any

rate, that our paths have crossed again. I wished to ask after your poor friend.’

I could not think to whom he was referring, whereupon, seeing my puzzlement, he

enlarged upon his statement.

‘Your friend Mr Pettingale. Of Gray’s-Inn?’

‘Ah, yes. Pettingale. Of course.’

‘Are the injuries extensive?’

‘Extensive? Oh, moderately so, I believe.’

‘All the members of the Society have expressed condemnation and concern– an

attack upon a member in his chambers is an occurrence that is believed to be without

precedent – and naturally my employer, Mr Gillory Piggott, as a near neighbour of Mr

Pettingale’s, feels the outrage particularly keenly.’

‘Quite.’

A little subtle probing on my part soon elicited enough information for me to

grasp the story in outline.

Mr Lewis Pettingale had returned to his chambers one evening at about eight

o’clock. His neighbour, Mr Gillory Piggott, happening to come into Field Court half an

hour later, noticed a large man leaving the staircase leading to Mr Pettingale’s set. The

next morning, as usual, a waiter from the coffee-house near Gray’s-Inn-gate ascended

those same stairs carrying Mr Pettingale’s breakfast, but, on knocking at the lawyer’s

door, received no answer.

The door was found to be unlocked. On further investigation by the waiter, the

body of Mr Pettingale was discovered slumped across the corner of the hearth. He had

been beaten, with some violence, about the face and head, but was still alive. A doctor

had been called, and that afternoon the injured lawyer had been taken away in a coach to

his house in Richmond, there to be attended by his own physician.

We had now reached the corner of Chancery-lane and Mr Martlemass, insisting

that he would not allow me to be taken out of my way, got out of the cab and, after

shaking my hand with his customary vigour, marched briskly off towards his lodgings in

Red Lion-square.

During the last leg of the journey to Temple-street, I mused on what the attack on

Pettingale might signify, but, as so often of late, I felt as if I was groping blindfold in the

dark. I could not say for certain that there was a connection with the lawyer’s former

associate, Phoebus Daunt, though instinct urged me to that conclusion. Perhaps

Pettingale’s criminal past had simply caught up with him. A trip to Richmond, I decided,

might be both pleasant and instructive.

The following morning I rose early and with little difficulty arrived in Richmond

a little after ten o’clock. I took a late breakfast at the Star and Garter, by the Park gates,

where I began to enquire of the waiters if they knew of a Mr Lewis Pettingale. At my

third attempt I was given the information I sought.

The house was on the Green, in Maids of Honour Row, a pretty terrace of

three-storey brick houses.? It stood at the end of the row, fronted by a well-tended

garden. I entered through a fine wrought-iron gate and proceeded down the path to the

front door, which was opened to my knock by a whey-faced girl of about twenty.

‘Will you give your master this? I shall wait.’

I handed her a note, but she looked at me blankly and thrust the note back at me.

‘Mr Pettingale is here, is he not, recovering from his injuries?’

‘No, sir,’ she said, looking at me with staring eyes, as if I had come to murder her.

‘Now then, what’s this?’

The question was asked by a grim-looking man with a patch over one eye and a

white spade beard.

‘Is Mr Pettingale at home?’ I asked again, in some irritation.

‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ said the man, assuming a protective position in front of the

girl.

‘Well then, where may I find him?’ was my next question.

At this the girl began to play somewhat nervously with her pinafore, while casting

anxious looks at the man.

‘Phyllis,’ he said, ‘go inside.’

When she’d gone, he turned to me, and threw his shoulders back, as if he might

be preparing to stand his ground against my assault.

‘Mr Pettingale,’ he said at last, ‘has left the country, which, if you were a true

friend to him, you would already know.’

‘I am not a friend of Mr Pettingale’s,’ I replied, ‘but neither do I wish him any

harm. I have only recently made his acquaintance, and so of course do not expect to be

taken into his confidence. He has gone to the Continent, perhaps?’

‘No, sir,’ said the man, relaxing his stance a little. ‘To Australia.’

Pettingale’s flight raised yet more perplexing questions; it also robbed me of the

means of exposing Phoebus Daunt to Lord Tansor, and to the world, for the thief and

fraudster he was.

I returned to London in the deepest gloom. Every way I turned, my progress was

blocked by unanswered questions, untested presumptions, and unsubstantiated

suspicions. The murder of Mr Carteret held the key to the restitution of my birthright, of

that I was certain. But how could that key be discovered? I found I had not the least idea

what to do next. Only one man could bring forth into the full light of understanding the

weighty truth that so evidently lay behind Mr Carteret’s letter to Mr Tredgold: the author

himself; and the dead cannot speak.

On reaching Temple-street, in this depressed and frustrated state of mind, I took

to my bed and immediately fell into a sound slumber, from which I was awoken by a loud

knocking at the door.

When I answered the knock I saw, to my surprise, one of the office boys from

Tredgolds on the landing, holding out a brown-paper parcel.

‘Please sir, this has come for you, to the office. There is a letter as well.’

I perused the letter first, with some curiosity. It was a short note of apology from

Dr Daunt’s friend, Professor Lucian Slake, of Barnack:

Dear Sir,

I am sorry to say that I have only just been informed by the people at the George

Hotel that the package I sent for your attention was mislaid, and has only now come to

light. I have written a very strong letter of complaint to the manager, for the

inconvenience this has caused to all concerned. But as Dr Daunt took the precaution of

giving me the address of your employer, I now send you the proofs of his partial

translation of Iamblichus, as he requested. It is, in my opinion, a fine piece of work, a

most necessary corrective to Taylor’s rendering; but you will know better than I.

I am, sir, yours very sincerely,

Lucian M. Slake

This was puzzling; so I immediately tore open the package, which did indeed

contain the proofs of Dr Daunt’s translation. What, then, was in the other package, the

one that had been thrust into my hand by the serving-man from the George Hotel as I was

preparing to take the train to Peterborough?

It still lay on my work-table, hidden under several old copies of The Times, and

was addressed to ‘E. Glapthorn, Esq. George Hotel’. I then noticed, for the first time, that

it was marked ‘Confidential’.

Inside were some thirty or forty sheets of unlined paper, folded like the leaves of a

small quarto book, the first leaf being in the form of a title-page laid out in neatly formed

capitals. Each of the remaining leaves was covered to the edges with small, close-packed

writing – but in a different hand from the one that had inscribed the wrapper.

Intrigued, I put a match to the fire, pulled my chair a little closer to the hearth, and

turned up the lamp. Holding the pages close to the lamp with shaking hands, I began to

read.

Deposition of P. Carteret, Esq.

Concerning the Late Laura, Lady Tansor?

To whom it may concern.

Friday, 21st October, 1853.

I.

I, Paul Stephen Carteret, of the Dower House, Evenwood, in the county of

Northamptonshire, being of sound mind and in full possession of my faculties, do hereby

solemnly swear that the following deposition is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth. So help me God.

I begin in this fashion because I wish to establish, from the outset, that I intend

hereafter to assume the character and responsibilities of a witness to certain events,

though I do not stand in any dock to deliver my evidence. Nevertheless, I beg most

earnestly to be regarded as such a person by whomsoever may read this, taking my place

– though in imagination only – before the bar of Blind Justice, with due solemnity, and

delivering myself, as fully and as accurately as I can, of my testimony.

Crimes, like the divisions of sin itself, are various both in form and in the severity

of their effects; consequently, various are the punishments meted out to those who

perpetrate them. But the crime I must herein expose – where does it stand in the

taxonomy of wrong-doing, and what penalty does it deserve? That it was a crime, I have

no doubt; but what to call it? There lies my first difficulty.

I must leave it to sager minds than mine to deliver judgment on this point. But of

this I am confident: the matter of which I shall speak was an active and considered act of

moral harm against another person. And what does that signify, if not a crime? No

material possessions were taken, and no blood spilt. And yet I say that it was theft – of a

kind; and that it was murder – of a kind. In short, that it was a crime – of a kind.

There is a further difficulty: the perpetrator is dead, whilst the victim is ignorant

of the outrage that has been visited upon him. Yet I persist in calling this a crime, and my

conscience will not let me rest until I have set down the facts of the case, as far as they

are known to me. I cannot yet see how it will all end; for though I know something, I do

not know all. I write this, therefore, as a necessary preliminary to some future process

whose outcome I cannot as yet foresee, and in which I myself may, or may not, play a

part. For I believe that dangerous consequences have been set in motion by what I have

uncovered which cannot now be averted.

In three days’ time, I am engaged to meet a representative of the firm of Tredgold,

Tredgold & Orr, my employer’s legal advisers. I am not acquainted with this gentleman,

though I am assured he has the full trust of Mr Christopher Tredgold, whom I have

known and respected, as a business correspondent and friend, these twenty-five years and

more. I have undertaken to reveal in person to Mr Tredgold’s agent a matter that has