As we walked out into Dean’s Gate, Suez leaped and capered around us. Furzey too was cock-a-hoop and himself almost capering.
‘It’s wonderful, Mr Cragg. When I came here to meet you, I expected I would be doing – as ever – all the hard work on this inquest. What do I find? The drudgery is done for me. No copying, no shorthand notes, no finding of premises or chasing after truant jurors. Nothing. It’s all arranged beforehand. Oh aye. This is a very wonderful place indeed for efficacy.’
I, on the other hand, felt uneasy.
‘I am not so sure, Furzey. All this—’ I touched the bundle of witness statements that I held under my arm – ‘it’s all too neat, too tidy and parcelled up. Do you not sense we are being hurried along? I would prefer to look into this matter for myself, and I wish Doctor Fidelis were here to examine the body.’
‘Did we not manage before the doctor came to Preston? You can do just as well without him, and you have myself to help you.’
‘Ah, yes, on that question – of your help, I mean – I should tell you something …’
I cleared my throat. This was probably going to be awkward.
‘You should know that, when I reached Accrington, I straight away found, to my surprise, that there was coroner’s business waiting for me. In fact, I had to hold an inquest very quickly and, rather than have you summarily abandon the Preston office, I engaged a temporary clerk who is a clever and knowledgeable person. This person I have brought with me here to Manchester – never imagining, of course, that I would find you waiting.’
Without warning, Furzey seized my arm and made me stop and face him.
‘I am supplanted, then, am I?’ he said in a tone at once fierce and wounded.
‘No, of course not. As you are here, I want no one else but you to clerk the inquest.’
‘Ha! But shall you then bring your new helper back to Preston? Shall I be replaced when all’s said and done? Shall I be trussed and sent to market? Put up on the auction block? Plucked and beheaded?’
‘No, Furzey! Enough! Don’t stir up mischief, and mind you are civil to my friend.’
‘Civil? Aye, I’ve to keep my true feelings on a leash, like the dog. As, unfortunately, I depend on you for my livelihood, I’ll be civil to him.’
I did not correct his pronoun’s gender.
‘Yes, Furzey, if you wish to please me, be civil. Do not prejudge. Besides, I am sure you will soon like each other. Now, let us go on to the inn. I must find a messenger able to take a letter at speed to the Doctor in Accrington. I left him there lying unwell in his bed, but if he is recovered I want him here as soon as possible.’
‘The inquest’ll be over before ever he’ll arrive. It’s at ten o’clock in the morning, the Boroughreeve says, and the conclusion is a foregone one.’
‘It’s I that am Coroner, Furzey, and I say the case is not foregone, never mind what the Boroughreeve says.’
‘He only wants to get it over, I expect. The death of this merchant is an embarrassment that may harm business. It cannot be left to fester.’
‘I care nothing for business. My responsibility is to justice, if I can find it.’
Furzey made as if to interrupt me, but I stopped him.
‘I won’t dance to Bower’s tune. You may call that tune time-saving, he may call it methodical. I call it officious and am beginning to suspect it to be interference. Now, let us go on to the inn.’
The light had begun to fade and the servants were busy lighting candles at the Swan Inn. I realized that I had failed to ask Boroughreeve Bower to send John Blow an order to unlock the corpse for my inspection. Well, it would do no good now. The light had gone and there was no possibility that Fidelis could arrive in time to make an examination before our proceedings opened in the morning. I would get my first view of Greenwood’s body in company with the jury, as coroners do in the normal course of things.
The Swan Inn was a house with a single large parlour furnished with many tables, at which patrons sat having their tea or their liquor. As we entered the room, I saw Frances Nightingale at one of these tables in earnest conversation with a clergyman.
‘There is your locum tenens, Furzey,’ I said as we approached them.
‘A parson, Sir?’ He was hissing to avoid being heard by the gentleman in question. ‘You have given my job to a parson! And what would he know about writing in the legal hand, may I ask?’
‘No, not the parson, Furzey,’ I murmured.
We reached the table.
‘May I introduce Mrs Frances Nightingale, who has been kind enough to act as my clerk pro tem in one or two matters? Frances, this is Robert Furzey, my regular clerk in Preston. He has come all this way to deliver a dog to me.’
Furzey looked for a moment like a man presented to the Basilisk, or to a bearded lady. But he collected himself and made a formal bow.
‘To be more accurate, Madam, I come to act as Mr Cragg’s clerk in the inquest into the death of Mr Quentin Greenwood, of which we had notification at the office in Preston.’
Frances Nightingale was not at all put out to meet a rival for her clerkship.
‘How do, Mr Furzey?’ said Frances. ‘I am right pleased to meet you. May I in turn present the Reverend Septimus Postumus?’
The clergyman was in middle life: a cherubic figure, plump, pink and smiling.
‘A very good day to you, Mr Cragg, Mr Furzey. It has been such an unforeseen joy to meet my old friend Mrs Nightingale here. We have been talking with such pleasure of old times.’
‘Mr Postumus’s living is at Clitheroe,’ said Frances Nightingale. ‘He was often our guest when my husband was alive. He has come to Manchester by special invitation to give a sermon in honour of the feast of St John the Baptist. He is a famed preacher.’
‘Come, come, Madam,’ said the cleric, growing still pinker. ‘I cannot lay claim to fame. Some modest esteem, perhaps.’
‘And what text shall you preach on, Mr Postumus?’ I asked.
‘One from the Gospel of Matthew: “Oh ye generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I shall not err too far in the direction of enthusiasm, I hope, but I can scarcely avoid considerable reference to the fires of hell and condign punishment. I hope I will have the pleasure of your attendance. The service begins at eleven.’
He stood.
‘Well, I should go to my room. My sermon is still in the making and I must work on it. Goodnight, Mrs Nightingale, and goodnight all.’
Furzey and I pulled out chairs as he left us. Suez strained to get near Mrs Nightingale, eager as ever to make a new acquaintance.
‘What is your dog’s name, Mr Furzey?’ Frances said, patting its head.
‘It is no dog of mine, Madam. It is Mr Cragg’s dog – and a very naughty dog that has been lodging with me by an arrangement which I now bring to an end at the wish of my mother, who I live with.’
She tilted her face enquiringly towards me.
‘Mr Cragg?’
‘His name is Suez,’ I said. ‘He developed the habit of herding Mrs Furzey and pinning her in corners. But he is otherwise extremely friendly and will accept a kick or a sharp word from all that love him. Now, I shall leave you for a while, as I must write my note to Dr Fidelis and find a messenger to take it. I will rejoin you later for a little supper.’
Having found the reading and writing room, I wrote a few lines to Fidelis in which I told him of Bower’s mysterious desire to hasten the inquest. If my astute friend had recovered his health and spirits, he would be reading my letter over breakfast and on absorbing this suggestion of intrigue would surely be calling for his horse.
I also wrote a short note to Elizabeth.
Dearest wife,
We made a good journey. This is a very busy, prosperous town. The gaffer of the place, who calls himself the Boroughreeve, has presented me with the paperwork of this inquest already copied and bound, and a hall has already been appointed for a hearing first thing tomorrow (Saturday). Until I know why he wants to proceed with such dispatch, I intend going slow in the business and may not return until Tuesday. I will write again before then.
Yr loving T.C.
P.S. A surprise: Furzey was here at the inn to greet me, and Mrs Nightingale will come home sooner than me if I can find someone to ride with her. Furzey brought Suez and says Mrs F. was penned up once too often in her own home.
P.P.S. Have you asked Mr Turvey about the torn page of poetry in the silver box?
P.P.P.S. Give our son a tender kiss for me. I hate to be parted from him, just as much as I do – always – from you.
I sealed the letters and gave them to John Blow, who promised to find me a fast rider who would depart at first light and cover the distance to Accrington in less than four hours. I paid the charge, not without a sigh. These were Manchester prices, and I fully intended Manchester to pay them back – though if anything about civic administration is certain, it is that there never was a town that willingly paid a coroner.
Returning to the parlour, I felt some apprehension as to how my two clerks and the dog would be rubbing along. I need not have been troubled. They had ordered what looked like a veal pie and, having eaten their fill, were talking with a young man of striking good looks though dressed in plain black clothing and an unorthodox foreign-looking wig. Suez had taken a liking to him and was sitting with his muzzle resting on the stranger’s knee.
I took my seat and the stranger bowed in my direction.
‘I am Charles Burnet at your disposal, Sir.’
He pronounced his name ‘Burnay’ and in general used a curiously accented, though fluent, English. In truth, his tongue at this moment was superfluent – by which I mean slurred, as he appeared to be in the early stages of becoming the worse for drink.
‘Where are you from Mr Burnet?’ I asked, helping myself to a portion of the pie.
‘I am from the Spital Fields in London. My family is engaged in the silk trade.’
‘Ah!’ I said. ‘You are one of our good Huguenot cousins.’
‘Yes, Sir. I was born in London, in the year of Our Lord 1720, but my father was a Frenchman born. As you say, a Protestant, not a papist – and most zealous for the theology of Monsieur Calvin.’
What, I asked, brought him to the north of England?
‘I have come to learn about the methods of silk manufacturing they use in the nearby town of Macclesfield. In certain ways these differ from our own ways in London. I am presently a guest of Mr Mosley at his great house, Ancoats Hall, but today I have been visiting the centre of town in order to peruse the London newspapers. The best selection I have found is here at the Swan Inn.’
‘As you are attached to the silk trade, you must know of the sad event that occurred this week to one of your merchant fraternity here in Manchester.’
Burnet looked blank.
‘You may have known Mr Quentin Greenwood.’
Burnet’s expression did not change.
‘Greenwood? No, I have not heard that name.’
‘We believe he was a silk merchant. The same business as you are in yourself.’
‘Well, of course, you understand I have been in the north only a short time and have not met everyone.’
My conversation with Burnet went no further, as he began to attend to what Furzey and Frances were saying.
‘I don’t foresee them Jacobites attacking Lancashire county,’ Furzey opined. ‘In ’fifteen they were slaughtered at Preston, and the place is fatal luck to them.’
‘No doubt you are right, Mr Furzey.’
‘It’s my belief they’ll be trying their luck invading Yorkshire first.’
‘Or Ireland. There’s plenty to encourage them over there.’
‘Ireland, Mrs Nightingale? Whoever puts Ireland first? They’re savages in Ireland. No, it’ll be Yorkshire where they’ll land, mark my words.’
‘Why not Scotland?’ Burnet suddenly put in. ‘I have read in the newspaper that the Pretender has strong support among the clans.’
‘The same reason as rules out Lancaster,’ said Furzey, who was becoming increasingly opinionated as wine loosened his tongue. ‘They came to Scotland last time and no good it did them. If they do come, they’ll do something different – that’s a solid fact.’
The discussion moved on, while the young silk merchant continued to drink steadily. In due course, with a scrape of his chair, Burnet stood unsteadily up.
‘I must go. Be on my way. I bid you g’night.’
He turned abruptly, and for a moment teetered sideways then forward. It seemed he would recover his balance since he straightened up, but in reality he was only on his way backwards. He went down with a clatter and lay sprawling, though not hurt, with a contented smile playing across his lips.
I knelt and rolled him over, then hooked my hands into his armpits. He was not a heavy young man and I easily raised him to the vertical, while Frances retrieved his wig and planted it on his head.
‘We must get him to Ancoats Hall.’
‘I’ll see him there,’ I said. ‘Suez needs a run, anyway. Come on, Mr Burnet, put your best foot forward.’
Out in the street, Mr Burnet required a degree of support, as his legs were unruly, continually bending and staggering under him. So we lurched a few hundred yards through the dark streets while Burnet sang something in French. When I asked, he told me it was a Huguenot hymn. To me it sounded jollier than any hymn I had ever heard, but I made no remark.
Finally we arrived at the house in question, a fine old-fashioned wooden-framed mansion with mullioned windows and three gables, the whole surmounted overall by a square tower. A many-ribboned maid came to the door and, seeing Mr Burnet’s inebriation, solicitously helped him into the house.
Furzey and Frances were still engaged in earnest talk when Suez and I returned.
‘The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve,’ I told them. ‘Lovers to bed! I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn.’
While Frances said good night and went upstairs, Furzey stubbornly sat on to finish his glass. He flashed me a sly look.
‘Lovers, did you call us? Lovers? Your wits are a-wandering, Mr Cragg. That is a good decent woman, but she’s at least ten years older than me.’
‘It isn’t my wits we need to worry about, but yours,’ I said severely. ‘You will need them about you tomorrow or you’ll outsleep the inquest as well as the morn.’
The Exchange at Manchester, still less than twenty years old, was a temple-like edifice designed to hold the cloth market below and the court above. Aside from St Paul’s Cathedral, the columns supporting the great triangular pediment over its entrance were the hugest in width that I had ever seen.
At a few minutes before ten in the morning, I passed between these columns and on to the trading floor. The whole area was covered with rank upon rank of trestle tables creaking under the weight of bolts of finished cloth. Merchants in their tricorn hats and gold-embroidered waistcoats walked up and down inspecting the cloth, rubbing it between fingers and thumb. Business was now at its height, but you would hardly have known it, so quiet was the air. There is an absolute ban on shouting while one trades in the Exchange, with the result that business is done wholly in murmurs and whispers. It is a sound I can only compare to that of the tide on a shingle beach – a rustling and whispering as bargains were snapped up and deals were done all over the hall.
I was directed by a uniformed beadle up the stone staircase that ascended to the upper room. This chamber above the market was where the Court Leet normally conducted itself and, as I took my seat on a raised throne-like seat from which to look down on lesser mortals, I thought it was the most imposing room in which I’d ever held an inquest.
From my exalted position, I swore the jury in and then explained to them why we were all there.
‘We have gathered to determine why and how a man, Quentin Greenwood, died. We go first to view the body, and then we will hear evidence. Yours is the final say, but I ask you to listen carefully and impartially to the witnesses and come to no premature conclusions. And, however you disagree with me or each other, please keep the peace at all times.’
That last request seemed hardly necessary in this case. My jury at Accrington had been incurably at war with itself, whereas this group of men seemed eager to do exactly as I requested. I took them down the Exchange stairs and along to the Swan Inn to get our first sight of the late Greenwood. Once assembled in John Blow’s shed, they stood around the shrouded body as placidly as a herd of cows looking into a lily pond.
In case any of the jurors were afraid of death or the dead, I said a few more stiffening words before giving Furzey the word to remove the sheet from the body. When the time came, Furzey did it with as much ceremony as he could, drawing the sheet upwards from the feet. The shoes, we saw, were expensive. The stockings were silken and the breeches and shirt were of the best stuff imaginable, though the latter was soiled with dust and partly blood-soaked. When the neck came into view, there was a gasp – for the arrow was still buried in it, the feather-end protruding on one side and the tip on the other. Then, with a final flourish, Furzey removed the sheet completely and revealed the face, frozen in a rictus of absolute surprise.
My own face must have mirrored it, as a sudden gasp issued from my mouth. For only I knew – and therefore only I could be astonished – that the face we were looking at was not that of Quentin Greenwood. I had never met Quentin Greenwood, but this face I knew immediately. It was the face of Grevel Horntree of Old Accrington.