Midnight is a Place (15 page)

Lucas could not feel much sorrow about the house. Its grandeur had had no value for him; he had been cold and lonely and unhappy and even hungry there.

But for his book he did grieve.

The superior officer of the constables, a thick-set man called Inspector Wedge, came up to Lucas and introduced himself.

"Now, Master Bell," he said, "were you aware of anybody in the town who might have borne a groodge against your grandfather?"

"Just about everybody in the town, I should think," Lucas said. "He was my guardian, not my grandfather."

"Oh," said Inspector Wedge, making a note. "Why do you say that?"

"He owed money to people and didn't pay them. He had halved the wages of the people at Midnight Mill. He had had two men sent to jail for protesting."

"Yes, that seems to tie oop with what we had heard. Now, we have observed that separate fires were kindled in half a doozen places, so as to burn the house down. It was ondoubtedly a malicious act. Did you observe any strangers at the scene of the fire last night?"

"There were some men," said Lucas. "I saw them in the stableyard. I took them for firemen."

"Did you recognize any of them?"

"No, it was snowing too hard to see clearly. And then we took my tutor off to the infirmary."

"So, for all you know, those men could have started the fire?"

"No, they could not," Anna-Marie put in composedly. Inspector Wedge was somewhat taken aback. He smiled nervously at Anna-Marie, displaying shockingly black and broken teeth.

"Why could they not, missie?" he inquired. "This would be little Miss Bell, I daresay?"

"
Non
, my name is Murgatroyd," she replied coldly. "And the men could not have begun the fire, for I heard Sir Randolph say that he had done it himself."

"Himself, miss?" The inspector was even more startled. "Why should he do that?"

"Why, so as not to let the tax people get hold of it," Anna-Marie said simply. "Or us, of course," she added, "
Luc-asse et moi
Imagine going to such a lot of trouble to keep other people from having his house. He was a very mean man—
quel type!
" And she thoughtfully scrunched a pile of frozen black ashes under her foot.

"But Sir Randolph had died before the stable block started to burn," the inspector persisted. "So the other men could have burned that?"

"Yes, perhaps. If it hadn't already caught." None of this seemed at all important to Lucas. The house was burned, it was destroyed. Anna-Marie and he were cold and hungry, Mr. Oakapple was hurt, they had had very little sleep and no breakfast, and they needed to find a place to live. Why bother to stand here in the freezing wind, arguing about who had set fire to the house, or why? Very likely Sir Randolph had begun it and other people, attracted by the blaze, had looted what they could and finished it off. Such a thing seemed quite possible and not interesting to him.

"I'm afraid I can't help you any more," he said politely.

Anna-Marie plainly felt as he did, but she was less polite about it.

"Why are these stupid men asking these stupid questions?" she said crossly.

At that moment Lucas noticed the bent old figure of Gabriel Towzer come out of the lodge and wave to them. "If you should want us again, Mr. Throgmorton, my guardian's man of business, will tell you where we are to be found," he told the inspector. "Come along, Anna-Marie."

They discovered, when they reached old Gabriel, that he had a suggestion to make.

"If ye've nowhere else to go, ye're kindly welcome to coom along wi' me to my widowed sister as roons a lodging house i' Blastburn. It's noon what ye'll be used to, but th'rooms is clean enough, if my sister is a bit of a mickletongue."

They thanked him, and said they would be glad to come along with him.

On the drive into Blastburn, Anna-Marie demanded of Mr. Towzer what had become of the other servants.

"Well, missie, not to put too fine a point on it, Sir Randolph was owing 'em all umpteen months o' wages, so they've e'en gone off to do as best they can for theirselves; they reckoned there was no bread and butter to be gained from loitering here."

Lucas felt rather disgusted that they had not even bothered to stay and find out what would become of little Anna-Marie, but he could see they might feel they owed scant loyalty to the household where they had received such poor treatment.

When they reached the town, old Gabriel directed them to his sister's house.

"Aye, she lets rooms to seafarers, doos my sister Kezia; she lives not far from t'docks. Her husband used to work i' Murgatroyd's, but he got killed by t'shootle five year agone, poor chap. However she doos noon so bad."

The dock area, which they had not previously visited, was in a low-lying quarter of the town, where the river ran out into the North Sea.

The roads here were neither paved nor cobbled, and they were already a mess of mud and slush. Tiny grim rows of houses were jammed tightly together on land that had probably been salt marsh before the town spread over it, and was still, Gabriel told them, liable to flood if there was an unusually high tide.

"They've built dykes all along t'edge o' t'sea—t'Mayor had soom Dootchman coom over to show 'em how—but reckon they stinted a bit in th'height o' t'dykes. But doan't ee worrit, my sister Kezia'll put ye in oopstairs rooms where ye'll be safe enow."

"What is the river's name?" Anna-Marie asked, looking doubtfully at the tossing dirty coffee-colored water that swept past tidal mud banks covered with industrial rubbish, dead cats, broken dishes, and other oddments.

"'Tis called the Tidey River, missie; on account o' the tides, I dessay."

"I think rather it should be called the ‹‹tidy river," pronounced Anna-Marie, and then, impressed by her own cleverness, she dug Lucas in the ribs and exclaimed, "Luc, Luc-asse, I have made a joke in English!"

Lucas, however, was not in a joking mood. He was dismayed by the look of this neighborhood, which seemed unutterably miserable, dirty, and unwelcoming. Rough-looking men stood idling on wharfsides; rats scuffled in garbage heaps; the houses looked damp and ruinous, although it was plain they had not long been built.

However the house of Mrs. Tetley, Gabriel's sister, seemed in good enough repair and commendably clean, with two scrubbed steps and even a knocker on the door. Lucas tied the pony to a fence while Gabriel knocked.

The door was abruptly pulled open by a hard-faced, gray-haired woman, wearing a sacking apron over a print gown. She held a broom in one hand, a rag in the other.

"Eh, Gabriel, is it thee?" she said shortly "What ill wind brings thee here?—Well, doan't stand loitering there in t'street, man, coom in if ye're cooming. I've all my grates and my stairs to do, yet."

"Nay, hadn't ye heard, Kezia? T'Court's been burned down, and I'm bahn to find another lodging."

"Well, ye needn't think ye can coom here for nowt, I can't afford to house ye free. If ye coom, ye moost pay like any other body," she said sourly. "I
have
got a coople o' rooms, as it falls, for the
Queen of Scots
joost sailed. So ye can coom for a week or two, till ye're suited....So t'Court burned down, did it? Not before it was time, I daresay, if deserts are owt to go by. I've got no kind feelings toward Sir Randolph as ye know."

Lucas wondered if she had them toward anybody. He and Anna-Marie, not knowing what else to do, had followed Gabriel into the house. They found themselves in a small bleak front parlor with oilcloth on the floor and texts on the walls and a general smell of chill and damp.

"Who are
they?
" Mrs. Tetley asked Gabriel in an undertone.

"They're t'bairns from t'Court, Kezia. Sir Randolph was killed in't'fire, and they're needing a place to lodge too, sithee."

"Have ye no kin to look out for ye, then?" she asked, and when they shook their heads, "Well, I say t'same to ye as to Gabriel; ye can bide if ye pay. I take no folk as can't pay."

Lucas said they had every intention of paying and asked how much.

"One-an'-six a week each, ten shillings more if ye want breakfast or dinner. Ye can use the back kitchen to cook in afore seven or after nine. And use t'back door to go in and out. And keep out of t'house between eight and six; I cannot have lodgers sculling around oonderfoot all day long. No tobacco or alcoholic liquors are allowed on the premises." She gave Gabriel a sharp look. "Not even if it's my own kin! And no lodgers in this room, which is private. You pay on Saturdays, in advance."

Rather dispirited, Lucas agreed to these terms, and then said that he would go and call on the lawyer, Mr. Throgmorton, who would probably have arrived at his office by now, for it wanted but an hour to noon.

He asked Mrs. Tetlley if Anna-Marie might break the rules for once and go to bed, for she was pale with fatigue, and heavy-eyed. Permission was grudgingly given. Anna-Marie did not much want to be left, but since old Gabriel would be downstairs in the kitchen she at last consented. Lucas promised that he would return as soon as he had seen Mr. Throgmorton and found a place to stable the pony.

"But don't get anxious if it takes quite a long time," he added.

Mr. Throgmorton's office when he found it, after asking his way a good many times, was not calculated to raise confidence. It consisted of three small dusty rooms up six flights of steep stairs; it was plain that Sir Randolph had not wasted money on having his business handled by an expensive lawyer.

"Have you an appointment?" asked an elderly clerk in the outer office, who was endeavoring to disguise the extremely frayed condition of his sleeves with ink, presumably for want of any other occupation.

"No, but I hope Mr. Throgmorton will see me," Lucas said.

"Name?" inquired the clerk as if he personally considered this an unlikely outcome.

"Lucas Bell. Sir Randolph, who died last night, was my guardian."

The clerk nodded skeptically at that, and shrugged his shoulders; however, he put his head through the door to the inner office, which was screened off by a glass partition, held a low-voiced conversation, and came back presently to say, "He'll see you. You can go in," as if he were conferring a great and undeserved treat.

Lucas walked through the door. The small gray Mr. Throgmorton sat behind his desk, buffing his fingernails with a bit of chamois leather and peering at Lucas over his pince-nez.

"Now then, what's this, what's this, what's this?" he rattled out very quickly, giving a glance as he did so at his fob watch. "Sir Randolph, the late Sir Randolph Grimsby—you are asserting that he was your guardian?"

"Yes, sir. He was." Mr. Throgmorton had not invited Lucas to sit, so he stood.

"You have proof of this?"

"Why—why, no, sir," said Lucas, somewhat startled. "I—I suppose—that is—when my father died, he appointed Sir Randolph as my guardian in his will—so I was sent to live with him at Midnight Court—"

"You say your name is?"

"Bell, sir. Lucas Bell. My father was Edwin Bell, Sir Randolph's partner."

"Humph. Have you a copy of the will?"

"No, sir. Have you not one?"

Throgmorton's eye flashed briefly with a curious light; it recalled to Lucas the lawyer's muttered aside on the day when Sir Randolph had attacked Mr. Gobthorpe the tax officer. What had he said then? Something about taking his ease in Monte Carlo? But he made no reply now; merely shook his head and set the tips of his fingers together. Lucas wondered rather hopelessly where the will might have got to? Would it be in India? How did one look for a will?

"Have you any proof that you are Lucas Bell?"

"No, sir," said Lucas, beginning to feel as if he were walking about in a fog. What proof could he produce? The purse his mother had made him? "But I have been living at Midnight Court for a year—you have seen me there yourself, sir."

"Tush," said the lawyer, peering at Lucas through his glasses and then away again. "One boy is much the same as another. Why did you come to see me?"

"Why—" said Lucas, somewhat startled. "We have no money—nowhere to live—"

"
We?
"

"I and the little girl—Anna-Marie Murgatroyd—we hoped that Sir Randolph might have made some provision in his will—as my father was Sir Randolph's partner—he had told me that when I came of age I should have a half-share in Murgatroyd's Mill—"

"Now look here, boy," said Mr. Throgmorton, setting his thin lips together so tightly that they almost disappeared in his sallow face, "if this is an impudent imposture, you have come to the wrong shop! I daresay a dozen boys may turn up, claiming to be Sir Randolph's heir. We have already had six this morning—is it six, Swainby?" he called through the open door.

"Seven, sir."

"But you will not find it easy to pull the wool over
my
eyes. I can smell out an imposter, I assure you!"

"But, sir, I am no imposter. Anyone will tell you that I have been living at Midnight Court."

"In any case," said Mr. Throgmorton, suddenly switching to another tack, "it is quite useless expecting any money under Sir Randolph's will—perfectly useless—I can tell you here and now. Firstly, he never gave the least intimation of wishing to leave money to any Bells, Murgatroyds, or whatever else the pack of you choose to call yourselves. Never made any such suggestion to me. Secondly, Sir Randolph made no will of any kind, so there is in any case no question of your inheriting. Thirdly, if he had made a will, there was no money to leave—by the time he died he had not a penny in the world, in fact he owed some tens of thousands. Even if the house had not been burned, the sale of it still would not have covered his debts."

"But the Mill[[[mdash.gif]]]"

"The Mill has already been sold, in order to pay the arrears of tax."

"Who to?" asked Lucas, with a vague notion that he might go and plead for his rights with the new owner.

"To a company—" Mr. Throgmorton slid the pince-nez down his nose and rummaged among the papers on his desk—"a company called the British Rug, Mat, and Carpet Manufacturing Corporation in Threadneedle Street, London."