Death on the Romney Marsh (16 page)

‘Very well.'

He went out into the sunlight, then stopped short, his eyes drawn to the equipage which stood waiting to move off. Through the window, John could see that the Scarecrow sat propped on the seat of the coach like an ordinary passenger, his hat concealing his skull, the stumps of his legs sticking forward, shrouded now by a rug. Beside him sat one of the Runners, while the other was up on the coachman's box. It was one of the most bizarre sights that the Apothecary had ever witnessed and one which was to haunt him for some considerable while to come. So, in this extraordinary manner, the French spymaster was off on his final journey to the grave, something that he had probably not even considered possible when he had left his homeland to come to the Romney Marsh.

‘Rest in peace,' whispered John, as he turned the black horse back in the direction of Winchelsea.

As soon as he set foot in Petronilla's Platt, admitted by a terrified Agnes, John knew that disaster had struck. A man's cloak and hat lay on a chair in the small entrance hall and from the bedroom at the top of the stairs came the sounds of a woman in great distress. Without hesitation, the Apothecary threw off his riding coat and hurried up the narrow staircase.

Elizabeth Rose lay on her bed, whiter even than when she wore make-up. A bowl into which she had vomited stood on the floor beside her, and leaning over her anxiously, attempting to spoon some physick down her throat, was young Dr Hayman. He turned as the new arrival came in, quite ready to throw him out, but recognised John instantly.

‘What's happened?' asked the Apothecary.

‘I think she's been poisoned,' the physician answered shortly. ‘According to the girl, your aunt ate some rabbit pie and within about ten minutes was struck down with terrible pain and sickness.'

‘I see,' John said grimly. He did not enquire whether the pie had been brought as an anonymous gift, deciding to keep his own counsel for the time being. Instead he put another question. ‘When you say Aunt Elizabeth has been poisoned, Dr Hayman, surely you don't mean deliberately?'

The burned orange curls shook. ‘I don't know what I mean, to be honest with you. Your aunt has been affected like this twice before.'

‘Could it simply be some chronic condition?'

‘It's possible, yes. But not producing such violent symptoms, I wouldn't have thought.'

‘I'd agree with that.' The Apothecary fingered his chin. ‘I suppose it's possible that she has got food poisoning.'

Dr Hayman stood up, his freckled skin flushing a little. ‘May I speak to you frankly?'

‘Please do.'

‘There is something about this that I do not quite like. Twice I have been called to this house to find Mrs Rose in dire straits. It is my opinion, Mr Rawlings, that someone is making an attempt on your aunt's life.'

John hesitated, not quite sure how far to go in taking the doctor into his confidence. Eventually, he said, ‘I think she believes as much herself.'

Dr Hayman flushed scarlet. ‘So, I wasn't wrong in my suspicions.'

‘It would appear not. Anyway, I am here now to keep a wary eye on her.'

There was a groan from Mrs Rose and both men turned back to look at her.

‘What have you given so far?' John asked.

‘Just an emetic. I want all the poison out.'

‘Dr Hayman, she is your patient and it would be intolerable of me to interfere. But would you have any objection if I made my aunt an infusion of thyme? It can be beneficial to the poisoned stomach.'

‘Please go ahead. You'll probably find some in her kitchen. If not, go to my surgery. I live in Bear Square, near The Salutation.'

Downstairs, a pale-faced servant looked up anxiously as John appeared. ‘What's happening, Sir?'

‘Mrs Rose has food poisoning, Agnes. So I'm going to mix an infusion to help her. Have you any dried thyme left from last year?'

‘Hanging up there, Sir. Was it the rabbit pie, Sir?'

‘Almost certainly. Tell me how my aunt came by it. Was it left on the doorstep?'

‘Yes, Sir. Earlier this morning, after you'd gone out.'

‘More's the pity. Why ever did she eat it?'

‘She said something about not being prey to imagination. Then she read the label and said, “Anyway it's his writing,” and she laughed. I didn't know what she was on about so I just gets her some preserve and she had the pie for her dinner.'

‘I see.'

‘No, you don't,' said Agnes wildly, and burst into tears.

‘Heavens, girl, what is it?' asked John, thoroughly alarmed.

She flung herself into his arms, weeping noisily and also extremely damply. The Apothecary extricated himself.

‘What have you done?' he demanded, then guessed the answer in a flash. ‘You had some of it, didn't you? You helped yourself to what was left over?'

‘Am I going to die, Sir?'

‘No, of course not. Come with me.'

He led her by the hand, grizzling and howling, to where Dr Hayman held the bowl for Elizabeth.

‘Another patient, I'm afraid.'

‘She ate some of it,' stated the physician flatly.

‘Correct.'

‘Give her this.' And Dr Hayman handed John a bottle.

‘What is it?'

‘A straightforward emetic.'

‘Root of Asarabacca?'

‘Yes. Get a good dose down her.'

‘Come along, Agnes,' said John firmly, and dragged the wailing servant back down the stairs and into the kitchen.

An hour later it was all over. Mrs Rose had been declared out of danger and was now sipping John's soothing infusion of thyme, while a pasty-faced Agnes had been sent home on a cart. Before the fire, their booted feet sticking out towards it, sat the doctor and the Apothecary, rapidly consuming brandy, which both of them declared was for medicinal purposes only. Peace had once more fallen over Petronilla's Platt and with it came the opportunity to converse.

‘My aunt tells me that you have not been in Winchelsea long,' John remarked, by way of opening gambit.

‘Ten months, though it seems like more. I read medicine at Cambridge before then.'

‘And how do you find the place?'

‘Not easy. The old physician had been much loved, for all that he was usually drunk. I was treated with the customary suspicion, though things are improving now.'

The Apothecary poured Dr Hayman another brandy. ‘I suppose like all small towns, the place abounds with rumour and tittle-tattle.'

‘Indeed it does,' answered the physician, clearly relishing having a contemporary and a fellow medical man with whom to relax and gossip. ‘As you can imagine, it caused a sensation when Rosalind Tireman stole the Marquis from under her sister's nose.'

‘Tell me about that.'

Dr Hayman leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs before him. ‘Well, the story goes that Henrietta went to the Hall first, some eighteen months ago I'm told, to teach the Marquis's young sister French. Apparently she, Henrietta that is, speaks it fluently. Anyway, Rye, a strange bird if ever there was one and the greatest rakehell in the county, seducing every virgin in a twenty-mile radius when he wasn't gambling his life away, evidently came to his senses and fell madly in love with her. Then a few months later the governess left and Henrietta, some say very foolishly, suggested her sister for the post. And that was that. Poor Miss Tireman found herself cast aside as the Marquis, after taking one look at Rosalind, decided he would do better with her.'

‘What a cruel story.'

‘Isn't it. Henrietta took it very badly, I can assure you.'

‘I'm hardly surprised. In fact I am astonished the two women are still speaking.'

‘Many people are. I think the rector played a big part in that, begging his elder girl not to make a public show.'

‘I see. So what else goes on?'

Dr Hayman winked an eye and his orange hair glowed in the firelight. ‘They say that Mrs Finch personally tests out any prospective suitors for her daughters' hands.'

John's eyebrows shot to his hairline. ‘Do you mean what I think you mean?'

The physician chuckled. ‘Yes, I do. I warn you, one takes one's life in one's hands when one goes calling there!'

‘Thank you for the caution. I'll take the greatest care. Do you know anything about Lady Ffloote? I said I'd call on her about her headaches. Is she a complete hypochondriac?'

‘No, she genuinely suffers with migraine. But then who wouldn't, married to him.' Dr Hayman downed another mouthful of brandy. ‘He really is a dreadful man. I'm sure he has a mistress somewhere.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘Because he's never at home. If he's not off to London, he's out and about the county, or walking his terrible dog.' He paused and looked contrite. ‘I'm being indiscreet, aren't I? Which is not becoming in a man of my calling.'

‘I would imagine,' said John acutely, ‘that you often feel rather isolated.'

‘Indeed I do. Your coming here is a godsend, quite honestly.'

The Apothecary felt a rush of genuine sympathy. ‘As long as I stay, you are most welcome to this house. I am positive I speak for my aunt when I say that.'

‘And you must both come and dine with me. As you have gathered, I have no wife, but the serving girl is an excellent cook.'

‘I should be delighted. Talking of men who live alone, I was much taken with Captain Pegram. What's your opinion of him?'

‘He's something of an oddity. Apparently he left the army because he could not stand the life and does not approve of war. Now he spends most of his time studying and is very learned, I believe.'

‘How old is he?'

‘About fifty, I imagine. He told me once that he was twenty-five when his wife died and that was some considerable while ago.'

‘And he never remarried?'

‘No, nor has he taken a mistress, at least that I've heard of. He lives very much as a confirmed old bachelor.'

‘How interesting – and how sad. And what about Mr Gironde the apothecary? I take it he is of Huguenot extraction.'

‘Yes.'

‘My aunt thinks his wife a regular busybody.'

Dr Hayman gave a shout of laughter. ‘To hear the gist of our conversation, I could easily imagine that description being applied to us.'

John grinned wryly. ‘It might very well. But, Dr Hayman …'

‘Richard, please.'

‘… if someone is making an attempt to kill Aunt Elizabeth it is essential that I find out about the local characters.'

The physician nodded, suddenly serious. ‘You're quite right, of course. Well, Nan Gironde is a troublemaker, there's no doubt about that. She simulates great friendship for one and all, then proceeds to put the knife in. I don't trust her at all. But Marcel I like. He is a good apothecary and works hard. Inexplicably, he is besotted with her. In his eyes the little shrew can do no wrong.'

‘It is often the way. Tell me, is there anyone else my aunt knows who might wish her ill?'

Dr Hayman shook his head. ‘She does not have droves of friends. In fact I can't think of anyone else other than the rector and his wife.'

‘And what are they like? I saw them at the assembly but wasn't introduced.'

‘She is an amazing woman, a
femme formidable
. Quite loud and vulgar for the wife of a cleric, and built like a carthorse. But I suppose she must have been pretty once. How else could she have given birth to two such beautiful girls?'

John shrugged and spread his hands. ‘A freak of nature, maybe. There often seems no accounting for such things.'

‘Do you really believe that amongst these people we've been discussing there lurks a cruel killer?' Dr Hayman asked seriously.

The Apothecary refilled their glasses, shaking his head slowly as he did so. ‘I don't know what to think. But one thing I do know, and please don't ask me how, is that Winchelsea, this pretty little town, contains hidden secrets.'

‘In what respect?'

‘I am not at liberty to say.'

The physician narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you an excise man, Sir?'

John laughed. ‘No, I am not. Yet I am well aware that the smugglers have returned to the Romney Marsh.'

‘Not only the Marsh!' Richard Hayman said pointedly, and there they let the matter drop.

It was late when the doctor left the house and John set about the task of locking up for the night. Yet even as he prepared to throw the bolts on the doors he was aware that there was movement in the darkness outside. Horses with muffled hooves were making their way up the cobbled streets and, peering through a crack, he saw that solitary candles stood in the windows of several houses. There could be no doubt about the cause; the freebooters were making a delivery. Brandy, tobacco, tea, silks and satins were at this very moment finding their way into the cellars of the good people of Winchelsea. Presumably Dick Jarvis, Kit's rascally bastard, was hard at work even while the Apothecary peered out.

To go outside was dangerous, John knew that well, but the temptation to get a closer look was so strong that without stopping even to get a pistol, the Apothecary had slipped through the door almost before he knew what he was doing. Moving silently, he stood in the shadows and watched.

It was as he had suspected. Horses with leather shoes on their feet were pulling laden carts towards various houses. John saw one head off towards The Salutation, another towards Paradise House, and a third in what could easily have been the direction of Grey Friars. So it would appear that the entire town were customers, with one or two exceptions. He was just about to go back indoors, when a different sound attracted the Apothecary's attention.

A voice was ringing out in the darkness, a voice speaking too loudly for its own good, yet one, John thought, that would have some difficulty in moderating its tone. Interestingly, the voice was speaking fluent French then translating what it had just heard and said into English for the benefit of another, someone who spoke softly and therefore was more difficult to identify. Hardly able to believe his ears, the Apothecary quietly observed.