Quincunx

  “You’ve been told often and often enough,” said Hinxman. “Turned w---- and died mad.”

  I looked at the man’s jeering face and could not tell if he had spoken merely at hazard.

  “She is alive and well, is she not?”

  “Yes,” I stammered. “She is alive and well.”

  My voice only trembled slightly but the tears welled from my eyes and ran down my cheeks.

  The gentle, melancholy face studied mine: “You are lying to me as they all do. I see that she is dead, isn’t she?”

  I could not speak but I nodded.

  “I feared it. I only want to know that she did not die in misery and want, as Mr Hinxman and the other gentlemen tell me.”

  I tried to finds words to reassure him, but he read my mother’s history in my countenance and covered his face with his hands.

  I rose and moved towards him but a heavy hand gripped my shoulder and Hinxman’s voice said coarsely: “I don’t have all day to listen to you two chat about old times, pleasant though it is to hear you.”

  As he raised me from the chair and began to push me towards the door I managed to turn and say: “I will talk with you again.”

  He gave no sign of having heard me, and in a moment I was out in the passage and Rookyard had swung the door shut behind us.

  On the way back along one of the passages Hinxman met a turn-key I had not see before and shouted to him: “Hey, Stillingfleet. Take this young wronghead back to No. 12. I’ve got to get ready for the night-coach to Gainsborough. I’m going north this evening on business for one of the doctor’s customers.”

  He thrust me at the other man and went off. Remembering that this was the turn-key whom Mr Nolloth had mentioned as the only one there possessed of any humanity, I said to him: “Mr Stillingfleet, supposing I were to offer you a sovereign to help me get away? Would you do it?”

  “No,” he answered without hesitation; “for that would be bilking my master.”

  I had expected a refusal and, strangely, his answer cheered me for it was at least honourable. And, after all, he might have cheated me by taking it and doing nothing. But if I could do nothing for myself, I could at least help another and so, remembering the hideous wound I had seen beneath the stock, I said: “You know Peter Clothier?”

  “Aye, poor devil. What of him?”

  “If I offered you the money to help him as you can, what would you say?”

  “I’d say I wanted to see your blunt fust.”

  I decided to trust him and he let me halt while I retrieved the sovereign that Daniel Porteous had given me from its hiding place in the hem of my night-shirt.

  As I handed it to him I said: “Try to stop the chain biting into his neck so tightly.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said as he took it.

  Once I was alone in my cell again I laid myself down on the straw and wept. In the hours that followed I could not efface the memory of that delicate, suffering face nor disguise from myself that I had been made the unwitting means of inflicting further pain.

  Moreover, I now had no reason to doubt that he had indeed committed that terrible crime — not that Mr Nolloth had been lying to me, I assumed, for he had himself been deceived. I believed that at least life had no further horror to threaten me with for my death now seemed inevitable and to be welcomed.

  CHAPTER 80

  Despite this resolve, as the evening wore on I listened anxiously for the faint sounds from elsewhere in the building to die away in the hope that Mr Nolloth would soon come. If I could not share my fears with a sympathetic hearer I believed I would truly forfeit my sanity. During all the long hours of darkness that dragged by, the only people who passed were the turn-keys whose heavy tread I recognised. But at last, at what must have been after midnight, I heard faint footsteps in the passage and went to the grille where I found Mr Nolloth. He apologised for having failed to come before, and then passed through the bars some more food and drink which, eagerly as I received them, were less valuable than the chance to tell him of my encounter that day and to find my own anxieties shared. First I told him how the interview had ended.

  “Do not believe for a moment that I am blaming you,” the old gentleman said kindly when I had finished my account; “but I hardly like to think of the consequences.”

  “If only I could have disguised my feelings,” I cried.

  “Don’t reproach yourself. You did what was expected of you.”

  When I told Mr Nolloth how Peter Clothier had described murdering my grandfather, he sighed: “He believes it now, but I assure you it is not the truth. It is not even plausible. The account he gave me of that night when he first entered this place is self-evidently the truth.”

  I bid him continue with it from the point at which we had been interrupted the other night, and when he did so I forced myself to play devil’s advocate because I wanted to be convinced that the confession I had heard was false.

  “As you know from your mother’s account, the charade of the quarrel took place as planned and your parents left the house and went to the coach-office at Snow-hill. There your father changed his coat to make recognition more unlikely in case he were seen, and he returned to the house.”

  “He now denies that this was by prior arrangement.”

  “I know,” said Mr Nolloth. “But if the back-door was not left unlocked by Mr Escreet, then how did he get in?”

  “He did not explain that,” I happily admitted.

  “He went to the library which he found empty. A minute later Mr Escreet entered from the plate-room and told him that your grandfather was engaged with Mr and Mrs Fortisquince, but that he had given him the package which Mr Fortisquince had brought. Your father took it and then made to leave. How does that square with what he told you?”

  “He said that he met both my grandfather and Mr Escreet in the plate-room and attacked them and left them for dead.”

  “That is impossible. For one, the sword that was used to kill your grandfather hung upon the wall of the passage between the plate-room and the street-door — in other words, on the opposite side of the house. No, the truth is that he simply took the package from Mr Escreet and made for the back-door without even meeting your grandfather.”

  “Mr Fortisquince saw him as he passed the dining-room,” I said. “But because he was wearing a different coat he did not recognise him.”

  “And that was as well since it meant that he continued to believe in his innocence for longer than he might have done otherwise. But when Peter reached the back-door he found that it was locked and the key gone.”

  “That is strange,” I said.

  “Very strange. (You see, his original account is much more puzzling and therefore more credible than the simple version he now believes.) He assumed that one of the servants had come upstairs in the interval and, needing to go into the back-yard, had locked the door on entering the house again. Realizing that he would have to leave by the street-door, he went to the front hall.”

  “And Mr Fortisquince saw him again as he passed the door and now began to wonder who he was.”

  “Indeed? So you see how this version tallies with the evidence given by others! Now here is the strangest part of the story. Your father found that the glazed door between the hall and the vestibule was also locked and the key gone. Now that, he assured me, was quite contrary to the usual custom of the house, for the key remained always in the lock and the door was only secured at night as an additional precaution. He was about to break the panes of the door into the vestibule when he saw through the glass that the key to the street-door itself was similarly missing.”

  “How strange!”

  “Wait. There is something even odder to come. For he then noticed that the great key of the street-door was lying at his feet by the vestibule-door.”

  “That is wonderful indeed! What explanation did he offer for this?”

  “None that satisfied him. But at least he now saw his way out. He broke a pane of glass in th
e vestibule door as quietly as he could and in doing so cut himself slightly and tore his coat.”

  “Thus accounting for the blood on his hand and the tear in his jacket that so alarmed my mother!” I exclaimed in delight.

  “Yes, exactly. But your father could not account for the blood inside the package that he found when he and your mother opened it early the next morning at the inn in Hertford. Nor for the fact that the will was not there. That remains a mystery.”

  “Yes, my mother described how there was nothing in it except the bank-notes covered in blood, although he apparently expected to find something.” After a silence I went on: “And what about the question of who did, then, murder my grandfather?”

  “Your father and I believed we had resolved that question.”

  He paused and I realized that he was listening to some faint and distant noises. We almost dared not breathe until, after a few moments, absolute silence returned.

  “There appears to be a disturbance in the house. Perhaps one of the poor wretches has become violent. I must not stay.” Mr Nolloth paused and then said gravely: “As far as the murder of Mr John Huffam is concerned, I fear that your father was, in a sense, responsible.”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “After what you have told me?”

  “Oh, not in the way that you fear. When he left the house he was unable to secure the street-door behind him since it had no spring-lock. Someone must have seen him leave, entered the house immediately, taken down the sword as he passed through the side-lobby and gone into the plate-room. He must have found the two gentlemen standing over the strong-box, struck Mr Escreet from behind, killed your grandfather, ransacked the box, and then left by the way he had come. This must have happened so soon after Mr Escreet had spoken to your father that it is not to be wondered at that in his confused state, after recovering his wits, he should have incriminated him.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That is entirely possible. Yet it still leaves some of those other questions unanswered. And I believe that regaining the will was the motive for the murder, and therefore that the explanation cannot lie simply in a chance intruder.”

  “But my dear young man, I did not mean to imply that your father believed for a minute that the murderer was a mere speculative housebreaker. On the contrary, he suspected …”

  He suddenly broke off as we realized that there were people approaching along the passage from the left, for we had been too engrossed in our conversation to hear them until they were almost upon us.

  Mr Nolloth moved swiftly away along the passage in the other direction out of my sight. But to my horror, just as lights appeared from the left, I heard Rookyard’s voice from my right say:

  “So that’s your game, is it? I guessed there was something of this kind afoot. You’ve been a-bringing him wittles, ain’t you?”

  He had crept up upon us while we had been distracted by those arriving from the other direction. As they rounded the corner their lanthorns illuminated him as he pressed himself and Mr Nolloth up against the grille of my door to let them pass. The newcomers — who were the turn-key, Stillingfleet, and a man I had not seen before — were carrying a heavy burden between them which was hidden from my view by the door.

  As they passed us Rookyard, with a nod of the head towards me, said to the stranger: “This is his boy.”

  The man looked at me curiously. “Looks like he’s aimin’ the same way,” he commented.

  Rookyard laughed shortly and began to push Mr Nolloth in the other direction. As they went the old gentleman turned back to me an agonised face on which there seemed to be written a feeling much stronger even than regret at his having been discovered. A moment later the passage was deserted and veiled in impenetrable darkness again, and I was left to speculate on how I would survive now, to worry about how my friend would be punished, and to brood on the words that had passed between Rookyard and the stranger.

  What had the old gentleman been about to say? That Peter Clothier had suspected that the murderer was someone who had been watching the house on his father’s orders? That made sense for Silas Clothier wanted both to capture his son and regain the codicil — and the will, too, if he knew of its presence in the house. I thought again of Barney! He had hinted that he had killed a gentleman at exactly this date. Perhaps his connexion with the Clothiers went back as far as that. Could he be the murderer of my grandfather?

  There continued to be unusual sounds from somewhere far away in the house for an hour or two — gates clanging, feet running, shouts — then the night returned to its earlier silence and I managed to fall into an uneasy sleep.

  BOOK II

  The Release

  CHAPTER 81

  Let me return you to that mournful place by the riverside, that area of tumble-down wharves and abandoned warehouses and delapidated landing-stairs — in short, that district which my colleague’s eloquent and fashionable pen could describe so much more vividly than mine.

  What a comfortable, not to say absolutely charming scene! The boy is sitting with his feet on the fender and roasting chestnuts on a toasting-fork held at the fire while Mr Vulliamy is slumbering at his desk with his head resting upon his papers.

  Then the street-door slowly opens and their employer enters softly and steals on tip-toe across the room. When he is upon the boy he cuffs him suddenly about the side of the head.

  At his cries of alarm Mr Vulliamy wakes up and looks around in confusion.

  “Damn you, Vulliamy, you were asleep again!” the old gentleman cries. “I don’t pay you to sleep in my time!”

  The clerk mumbles blearily and rubs his eyes: “Bless me, sir. I was dreaming about toads and then I wake up and see your face. It’s most upsetting.”

  “What in the name of the devil has got into you, Vulliamy?” the old gentleman asks. “You’re constantly falling asleep these days.” Lowering his face to within a few inches of his clerk’s he sniffs: “Yet you seem not to be fuddling as much as before.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find that I’m as wide-awake as you could wish me, Mr Clothier,” the clerk answers. Then he mutters under his breath: “Maybe a deal more so.”

  “Eh, what?” the old man asks sharply. “What are you whispering to yourself about?”

  But the clerk merely smiles and begins to mend his pen.

  “Wide awake!” the old gentleman sneers. “You weren’t wide awake when you stopped Ashburner raising those rents in Hatton-garden.”

  “It’s too much, sir.”

  “Too much? What gammon is this? It’s my property, isn’t it, to let as I choose? If they don’t want to pay they can go elsewhere. That’s fair, ain’t it? All I want is justice.”

  He breaks off and, lowering his voice with a glance at the boy, asks: “Has it come yet? Has he sent a message?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  The old gentleman scowls and whispers: “Him. My son.”

  “Why, you know he don’t write to you,” the clerk exclaims.

  His employer flinches and seems about to retort, but at that moment a ticket-porter enters the outer office bearing a letter.

  Seeing this, the old gentleman grins at his clerk, seizes it and, while Mr Vulliamy settles with the porter, looks at the direction: “It’s from him!” he cries. He glances slyly at his clerk: “You see? He hasn’t forgotten me.”

  He beckons him into the inner office where he tears the letter open. As he scans it his face lights up: “The boy is safe! He is safe!”

  And yet strangely enough, Mr Vulliamy does not look very pleased at the spectacle of his employer’s exultation.

  CHAPTER 82

  I awoke early and lay for hours hardly aware of the faint traces of the dawn that crept sluggishly in through the grating. Late in the morning another turn-key, a thick-set man with a pugnacious expression whose name was Skilliter, brought me food. Though I decided that I would hold out a few hours longer, I knew that before the end of the day I would have to eat, let the consequences be what they mig
ht.

  Just as I was reflecting that it seemed to be my fate to bring misfortune upon any who tried to help me — first Sukey, then Miss Quilliam, and now old Mr Nolloth — I became aware of distant noises. Or were they inside my head? I could not determine this, and then they seemed to recede. The passage in which my cell was located remained silent and deserted until, a little after midday, I heard footsteps approaching and hurried to the grille. Rookyard and Skilliter passed towards my door and I strained to hear their words:

  “So the doctor didn’t git the roastin’ what he was a-feared on?” Rookyard asked.

  “No, the crowner wasn’t too hard on us. I suppose he reckons he’d miss his Christmas box.”

  “Even so, an inkwich don’t do the house no good,” Rookyard commented as they moved out of my hearing.

  I could make little of these words. However, my hunger-pangs had by now become so fierce as to drive all other considerations from my mind. I reasoned with myself over and over again: I had no certain proof that an attempt was being made to poison me, while what was certain was that I was facing death by starvation. I was doing my enemies’ work for them!

  By late afternoon I had resolved to eat some of the porage and was just on the point of doing so when I heard steps approaching, and in a moment Skilliter had unlocked my door and swung it open for Dr Alabaster to enter.

  He looked at the untouched platter and said: “You still persist in your obstinacy? Then so be it.”

  He smiled unpleasantly and nodded to the turn-key who seized me and pushed me before him. Followed by Dr Alabaster, we went along the passage in the direction of the main block of the house, climbed some stairs, and then passed quickly through a day-ward. A number of inmates were assembled there, some writing letters, playing cards, or reading, but others sitting alone and staring blankly before them. One old man was rubbing his hand up and down his face so savagely that the skin was quite red and raw with the friction. Several were wearing strait-waistcoats and one gentleman was chained to the wall and peaceably reading a newspaper as if at his own club.