The Hidden Man (18 page)

‘How d'you do, Mrs Hutton?' I enquired as I entered the dusky, aromatic space of her shop. The woman, a spindly figure of roughly an age with myself, looked up from her brushing.

‘Oh! Mr Cragg, it's you! Will it be your usual ounce of 'bacco?'

‘Yes indeed. And a packet of snuff if you please – the Number 3.'

She reached down a jar and weighed out an ounce of the tobacco mixture, which she twisted inside a doubled sheet of oiled paper. Then she fetched a tray labelled Number 3, and loaded with plain paper cones, each tightly filled with snuff. I flipped open my snuffbox and laid it on the counter.

‘That's a spirited little dog you have there,' I remarked, watching her carefully open the cone and pour the snuff into the snuffbox. ‘What d'you call him?'

‘That's Suez is that. He was Mr Pimbo's you know, from across the road.'

‘Suez! Of course. I thought I recognized him.'

‘Funny name for a dog, but there you are – Mr Pimbo had his peculiarities.'

‘How come he is here?'

‘The poor little tyke turned up on the day it happened, whimpering and shivering he was like he'd caught a chill.'

‘The dog was upset?'

‘Of course he was upset, and from what he'd seen over there, I'm sure. Well, we found an old basket for him and he went fast asleep, unnaturally fast I thought, like a body that's been badly shocked. When he woke up he seemed better and I gave him some warm milk. Hutton said we would have him with us till we heard what to do, but there's been never a word, so we've kept him on, though he's driven me distracted with his behaviour. He does shit everywhere, and he's that badly spoiled, and Hutton says he'll never be trained to obedience or the gun, not now, though he's still a young'un. Up to all sorts of tricks, he is, and terribly fussy about his food. Always wants his treats of bacon fat, just like Mr Pimbo used to give him, though it makes his bowels even looser, that's my opinion.'

‘When did he come to you?'

‘Oh, on Thursday morning. I reckon it was about the time Mr Pimbo was found, because we shut up the shop for a few minutes, not having an apprentice here just now, to go over and have a look at what the fuss was about. It were dreadful, Mr Cragg. Of course, you know that, as you were there yourself. Well we stayed, me and Hutton, long enough to get a look at the corpse, and then we came back and, by heck, there was the little dog actually inside the shop! He's that cunning, you see, and quick as a whip when he wants to be. He must have run across the street and slipped in past us, just as we were going out. We never noticed a thing, and that's how he got in here.'

‘Are you absolutely sure about that? About the timing, I mean.'

I must have altered my tone. I had been customer and suddenly I was inquisitor, and she was too sharp to miss the change. I received a quick look of anxious surprise.

‘Of course I am. But we've done nowt wrong, Mr Cragg! Just an act of charity till the little thing were claimed back. We've not
stolen
the dog, I hope. And anyway, if you really want to know, I've had my fill of cleaning up after him, and I'll be glad to get rid, the sooner the better.'

I hurried to reassure her that she was not about to be arraigned as a dog thief, merely that as well as being Pimbo's executor, I was also Coroner, and so interested in everything that had occurred in Phillip Pimbo's business room on the morning he died.

She seemed reassured as I pocketed my purchases and, after declining the offer of a dozen clay pipes at a specially reduced price, withdrew from the shop. Out in the street I could just hear the two notes of the file as it travelled along its groove back and forth, cutting into the iron of Phillip Pimbo's strong room gate. But before going back inside to see how the work progressed, I walked along the street to Fidelis's lodging and left word with Mrs Lorris that her lodger could do worse than join me as soon as possible at the goldsmith's premises. He would learn, I said, what had happened to Pimbo's puppy. I was fairly confident that such a message would bring him in a hurry.

 

Chapter Thirteen

I
N PIMBO'S BUSINESS
room they worked furiously by turns, doing a minute of filing, then taking a minute of rest. In this way, after little more than a half hour, the two burly workmen had completed three of the four cuts necessary to remove the iron casing that contained the lock's mechanism. When I returned from Fisher Gate they were half way through the fourth, though by now they were growing tired, and accompanying the music of the file with bestial grunts of effort. Yet, nearing the completion of the task, the men's rate of work seemed, if anything, to increase: Grimshaw must have promised them a good fee for their work.

The Mayor stood like a hungry dog with his bulging eyes fixed upon the reciprocating motion of the file, ready to spring forward as soon as it broke through. The moment came with a clatter five minutes later, as the lock fell inwards from its position and onto the stone floor of the strong room. In a moment Grimshaw had pushed the gate open and disappeared inside. We all waited and within fifteen seconds he had reappeared.

‘Well, don't be idle, you men. Bring us a light. It's pitch dark in here.'

Hazelbury fetched two candles from Pimbo's mantelpiece and fumbled with a flint box to light them. Grimshaw snapped his fingers impatiently, and growled.

‘Get on with it, man! I'm waiting.'

At last the lights were ready. Grimshaw seized them, one in each hand, and went back inside. I could see the interior of the room clearly now, as he placed the lights in vacant spaces at either end of a broad shelf, one of the half dozen with which the strong room was furnished from its ceiling almost to the floor. The whole space was ten feet wide, no more, and only perhaps eight feet deep. The shelves were ranged along the length of the opposite wall, and two of these were reserved for trays of items held under pawn. Grimshaw picked through these, greedily examining each in turn – watches, pewter tableware, snuffboxes, ivory combs, a pair of crystal decanters, some scent bottles, a lute and a few items of jewellery. These were not, I thought, the chattels of true poverty, but the pledges of reduced gentility – of solitary ladies struggling to live off a shrinking portion, and of young gentlemen gambling above their means. Each pledge had a paper label attached, inscribed with a number that would correspond to an entry in the loans ledger.

The shelves above were devoted to records, held in case-bound volumes and bundles of paper tied with ribbon. Grimshaw spent a further few moments sampling these before he glanced to his right and noticed something else: a stack of leather-covered deed boxes standing by the wall. After trying the top one and finding it locked he came out of the strong room and ordered the two labourers to bring out the deed boxes, and get them open without delay.

Over the next ten minutes the boxes were wrenched or cut open, and their contents tipped onto the floor. It was all paper, most of it stamped and sealed. The Mayor was disconcerted.

‘Those things inside, on the trays, are mostly trash,' he complained, ‘and this is nothing but old paper. Hazelbury! Is there nothing in all this rubbish of monetary value?'

The Chief Cashier looked dutifully through a few of the documents, though he knew quite well what they were.

‘I fear none of it will be directly pecuniary, Your Worship,' he said.

‘This is intolerable!' Grimshaw moaned, picking up an armful of paper. He began thumbing pages off the top and letting them fall back to the floor, like a dealer at cards, but half way through gave up and hurled the bundle to the ground.

‘Christ! Is there no money here at all? Get back inside the strong room, Hazelbury, and look again.'

‘There's nothing left to look at now, Sir, but the ledgers.'

‘Do as I say!'

The pawnbroker's cashier returned to his late master's strong room with an impassive face, though from the set of his shoulders I could read his resentment at the Mayor and his hectoring.

As we waited Grimshaw glowered at me.

‘This inquest is tomorrow?'

‘It is.'

‘Do you expect to find out what's happened to my money?'

‘Your money, Mayor? I did not know that you had made personal deposits with Pimbo.'

Grimshaw drew in breath slowly through his nose, controlling himself.

‘Obviously, I speak for the town, Cragg, and I mean the
town's
money. The cash we saved over two decades to pay for the next Guild which, as if I need to remind you, is twelve weeks away. If we don't discover the money, the Guild will be a farce – with the joke against me.'

For a moment his bull-face softened to that of one making a pathetic appeal.

‘I shall be a laughing-stock. I did not promise a golden Guild only to be remembered for a leaden one.'

‘Look here, gentlemen!'

The raised voice was that of Robert Hazelbury, emerging from the strong room carrying a polished wooden case, slim enough for a man to carry tucked under his arm.

‘This was on the floor, pushed back under the lowest shelf,' he said. ‘That's why we missed it.'

‘Well, get on, open it! It may contain cash, or something valuable. Open it!' cried Grimshaw.

The case had a lock in which reposed a small brass key. We gathered round as Hazelbury placed the case on Pimbo's desk, turned the key, released the catches and opened the lid. The case was lined with velvet and divided into cavities, each sculpted to enclose a particular object. Most of these were small tools; one was for a powder flask, which was missing; the largest cavity was in the shape of a pistol and this, too, was missing.

Grimshaw cursed. Hazelbury placed a couple of fingers into the pistol-cavity and looked up at me.

‘This would be where the weapon that killed him came from, Mr Cragg.'

‘Did you know that it was there, in the strong room?'

He shook his head vehemently.

‘No, Sir. As I told you, Mr Pimbo controlled the strong room – what was in there, what went in and out. But I can tell you one thing about this: it is a pledge against a loan. See this?'

Attached to the brass handle of the pistol case was a label, and on that label a number written in an ornate hand.

‘I should be able to check this number against the Pledges Book,' added Hazelbury, ‘and find out the particulars.'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘That would be helpful.'

‘Helpful be damned!' said Grimshaw. ‘This is not helpful. This is a waste of my time. I'm leaving.'

Upon which the Mayor turned and jerked his head at his two men. As he led them out he gave a savage kick to a pile of documents in his path on the floor, sending an eruption of paper into the air.

With a sigh of helplessness Hazelbury followed him out. I went down on one knee to look more closely at the heaps of paper, and saw what a farrago it was: redeemed exchequer bills, receipts, old cheques, counterfoils, certificates, deeds, schedules, pedigrees and land surveys – all the records of the Pimbo family's personal and business dealings over the past hundred years. I groaned inwardly. This was a jungle of detail for the conscientious legal executor to hack his way through.

‘Titus! So it's true: the strong room is opened!'

This was Fidelis bursting into the room.

‘What was found inside it? The body of the dog, I hope.'

‘No, it contained no dog,' I said.

‘Good! I was worried you would find that dog dead inside.'

‘As I said in my note, I do have news of the dog, but it is not what you supposed. As for the strong room, it contained assorted items pledged against loans, and all these papers, which it will be a job to go through.'

In a broad gesture I indicated what lay all around on the floor.

‘So you found nothing immediately enlightening?'

‘Just one thing – but a good one: we know where Pimbo obtained the weapon that killed him. Hazelbury found this inside.'

I showed him the pistol case lying open on Pimbo's desk. While we talked, the Chief Cashier had returned from showing the Mayor out. Now he knelt and began trying to bring some order to the chaos of paper and deed boxes that had been scattered across the floor by Grimshaw – re-filling the deed boxes, sorting the papers into bundles as best he could, and re-tying the ribbons that had held them together.

‘So tell me, Titus,' said Fidelis, as we watched Hazelbury's endeavours. ‘What
have
you found about Pimbo's dog? Is the mutt dead or alive?'

‘Oh, it is living, Luke, and all the time just across the road.'

Hazelbury looked up from his ribbon tying.

‘Mercy, Mr Cragg,' he exclaimed. ‘Did I hear right? You've found Mr Pimbo's Suez?'

So I told them everything Goody Hutton had told me: how she and her husband had crossed the street to see what the fuss was about at Pimbo's; and how, when they returned not half an hour later, they found the animal waiting for them inside their premises.

‘There it was,' I said, ‘shitting and pissing all over the floor. They've been looking after him ever since. The animal was much shocked, apparently.'

‘So do you now believe what I have been saying from the beginning?' challenged Fidelis. ‘That the dog was inside the room all along, with the corpse of its master?'

‘Yes, that does seem to have been the case.'

‘It was certainly the case.'

Suddenly Fidelis was in the best of humours.

‘Mr Hazelbury,' he said briskly, ‘would you be so kind as to come with me into the strong room?'

Hazelbury looked up, then got up wearily from his knees and followed the doctor, with me at his heels, into the now almost stripped-out strong room.

‘Please explain,' said Fidelis, ‘exactly how you discovered this box, for I believe it was you?'