A Journeyman to Grief (10 page)

The housekeeper appeared immediately. “Yes, Mr. Talbert?”

“Bring another cup for the detective, will you, Mrs. Stokely? And if there’s any of your caraway-seed cake left, bring that too.”

She gave a little bob and hurried off. Talbert resumed his seat in the Windsor chair. He picked Murdoch’s calling card off the lap desk where he’d tucked it.

“So, Mr., er, Murdoch, just why have you come to talk to me?”

For some reason Murdoch couldn’t quite fathom, Talbert’s mood had altered and his tone was more friendly. He hadn’t yet expressed a single word of regret at Cooke’s death.

“Because I spoke to Elijah Green, who said you spell him off at the stables a couple of days a week. I understand you usually go in on Wednesdays.”

“I do, but I had a bout with my lumbago yesterday and begged off. Good thing I did, in the circumstances. I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant for Elijah to find the man strung up like that, but better him than me. He’s young.”

“Are you feeling better?” Murdoch asked politely. Talbert had been moving stiffly, but no worse than a man of his age.

“Yes, it’s almost gone. Thank you.”

“As I understand it, you used to own the stables. Or do I have that wrong?”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody told me. I found a bill of sale in Mr. Cooke’s safe. I’m just making sure you’re the same Talbert who was named as the original proprietor.”

“Yes, that’s me. That was a long time ago.” He paused, then sipped some more tea. “Robbed, was he?”

“Why do you say that?”

Talbert chuckled. “Easy to work that out. You said you’d been looking in his safe. Probably Adelaide Cooke made you check, didn’t she?”

Murdoch shrugged. He’d never felt so much on the defensive during an interrogation.

“The first thing on that woman’s mind would be money,” Talbert continued. “She’d say he was robbed even if he weren’t. Dan was a fool about his money. He liked to see it mount up so he could gloat over it, but I doubt he let his missus know everything he had.”

There was a quick tap on the door and Mr. Stokely entered carrying a dainty china cup and saucer. She went to the trolley.

“Shall I pour, sir?”

“Yes, please. I hope you like your tea robust, Mr. Murdoch, because that’s what it is.”

“I do.”

Mr. Stokely smiled. “Sugar?”

“Two lumps and some milk will do fine, thank you, ma’am.”

“There was no more cake, Mr. Talbert.”

“Mr. Murdoch’s loss.”

The housekeeper was addressing her employer formally, but there was an easiness between them that seemed to Murdoch to come from more than long service. Or was he misreading the comfortable sense of warmth between then?

Another quick bob and she left. Talbert waited until Murdoch had sipped his tea.

“Strong enough for you?”

“Indeed.”

Talbert helped himself to more tea. “Daniel kept a revolver in the drawer. Did you find it?”

“No we haven’t as yet.”

Talbert leaned back against his chair, his long, wavy hair showed startlingly white against the red brocade.

“You’re probably expecting me to express some sorrow for the poor deceased, some indignation about what has befallen him.”

“People react differently. Maybe you’re a man who doesn’t show his feelings.”

Talbert guffawed. “But I’m a darkie. Don’t you know all us coloured folks are emotional to the point of excess? We can’t help ourselves, so I’ve heard.”

“I have no comment about that, Mr. Talbert.”

“Good. The truth is that Cooke and I didn’t move in the same circles. I hardly saw the man.”

It wasn’t quite what he’d conveyed earlier, but Murdoch let that ride.

“We know that Mr. Cooke died sometime between eight o’clock and half past nine last night. Do you mind telling me where you were you at that time, Mr. Talbert?”

“I was right here. Same chair, same room. I never go out at night.”

“Is there anybody who can vouch for you?”

“Mrs. Stokely will. She has a room upstairs, but she always keeps me company in the evening. But you can’t ask her now, I heard her go out. It’s market day.”

“I’ll have to come back and talk to her.”

“Suit yourself, but she won’t say anything different.”

“Why? Because you’ll tell her not to?”

“No, because it’s the truth.”

Talbert was probably old enough to be Murdoch’s grandfather, but there was nothing frail about him. From the beginning he had taken charge of the situation and kept Murdoch off balance.

“Did Mr. Cooke have any enemies that you know of, Mr. Talbert?”

“He was a boss and he was well off. That’ll get you enemies every time. There’s always men who like to grub around in their own jealousy and malice.” Talbert dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “He was also a man who enjoyed a little flutter now and again so he knew a few touts. He wasn’t always quick to pay his debts, perhaps one of them lost patience.”

Murdoch put his cup and saucer on the trolley and took out his notebook. “Do you know the names of these men?”

“No, not a one. I’m not a gambler myself. I don’t like to squander my hard-earned money.”

“Would anybody else know who these men were?”

“That’s for you to find out, isn’t it? I only go to the livery twice a week. I didn’t hob and nob with the others, nor they with me.”

“Did Elijah Green and Cooke get along?”

“’Course they did. Why shouldn’t they? Elijah took damn good care of those horses, and Dan got away with paying him a pittance because he’s a coloured man.”

“What about the other cabbies? What’s your opinion of them?”

“I don’t have any one way or the other. We don’t mix.”

“Mr. Wallace implied there might be something a little untoward going on between Mrs. Cooke and Mr. Musgrave.”

Talbert laughed. “That’s hard to believe. She’s not the most attractive specimen of the fair sex I’ve ever known. But there’s no accounting for taste, is there? And now I suppose she will inherit a nice sum of money. That can surely turn a pig’s ear into a silk
purse, can’t it? You should investigate those two, Mr. Murdoch. Dan’s death sounds suspiciously convenient to me and Musgrave’s a man I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him, which isn’t far these days. He has a keen nose for which side his bread is buttered.”

Murdoch put away his notebook.

“That’s it, then? You’re done?”

“For the moment. But there is one thing I could ask you…you sold your livery to Mr. Cooke for a paltry two hundred dollars. Why was that?”

This clearly wasn’t a question Talbert was expecting and he paused for a moment.

“I’d had a run of bad luck, horses getting ill, a fire in the tack room. He bailed me out. At the time I was grateful for whatever I could get.”

“It must have been difficult to go from being the boss to being an employee.”

The old man’s face revealed nothing. “I didn’t work for him right away. I did other things. I’ve only been going into the stable the last couple of years. Elijah asked me and I accepted to help him out.” He raised his head and glanced over at the clock on the mantelpiece. “That’s all the time I can spare you, detective. I have more letters to write. Your hour is up.” He picked up his lap desk and began to shuffle through sheets of paper.

Murdoch stood up. “Thank you for your co-operation, sir.”

Talbert waved his hand at the door. “Let yourself out, will you?”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

JUNE
1859

S
he didn’t know how long she’d been strung up, the rope hoisted tight over the beam hook until her toes barely brushed the ground. The muscles in her arms were screaming with the pain, and her wrists burned as if they were dipped in lye where the rope bit into her skin. She moaned. She had vowed she wouldn’t cry out or beg for mercy, but that was at the beginning. Now she would have blubbered and wept without control even to the woman she hated with a bitterness that paradoxically kept her alive. Her father had always said, “My daughter’s a good hater. Don’t seem that way, she’s so sweet and buttery to strangers, but I know her. She takes after me, she don’t ever forgive when she thinks there’s a wrong.” Her mother, ever the soother, had protested, but Lena had experienced an odd sort of pride. To hate made her strong, made her not give in, made her endure the cruelty that was more and more frequently visited upon her now that Mrs. Dickie was so ill and not at home any more.

The row this time had been because Caddie’s tartan gown wasn’t ready for her to wear to church. The night had been too
wet for any washing to dry properly, and there was nothing Lena could do about it.

“You’re a lazy slut. I don’t know why I keep you. You are one ugly nigger.” This was accompanied by hard slaps to the head. It was only because Leigh had come into the room at that moment that Caddie had stopped, but he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, protect her completely. All three of them knew the never-acknowledged cause of his wife’s jealousy. Just before they left for church, Caddie had ordered Sam, their lone field hand, to string Lena up to teach her a lesson and to think about what a wicked, sly girl she was. She may or may not have her whipped when she returned.

The door to the shed opened, but she couldn’t see who came in and her body tensed with fear.

“It’s me. I’ve brought you some milk.”

“Fidelia, bless you, bless you.”

“First off, I’m gonna get you on this stool.”

The girl caught hold of Lena’s legs and heaved her up, holding her with one arm while she thrust a milking stool underneath her feet. Some of the weight was taken off Lena’s arms and she cried out with the relief of it.

Fidelia dipped a ladle into her pail of milk and lifted it to Lena’s lips. She drank thirstily.

“More?”

“No, I’m afraid I’ll be sick.”

“D’you want me cut you down?”

“You’ll get into worse trouble.”

“I don’t care. T’aint right what she’s doing to you.”

Lena was weeping now, she couldn’t help it. “My arms are in agony, Fiddie. I think I’d prefer a whipping to this.”

“Tell you what, I’m gonna climb on the stool and you can sit on my shoulders. That’ll take you up higher even.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m far too heavy.”

“No you ain’t. ’Sides I worked in the fields since I was seven, before Mrs. Dickie bought me. I’m strong as a mule.”

“Fiddie…”

“We can do it for bits at a time till they come back. You’ll see.”

Fidelia suited her action to the words and was able to stand on the stool, crouch down, and get her shoulders under Lena’s legs. With much initial wobbling, she straightened up, and Lena was lifted almost as high as the rafter so that she could bend her arms. Lena breathed her thanks, trying hard not to cry out with the sweetness of the relief.

“You know my father used to lift me on his shoulders when I was a child. I thought I was queen of the world then, up so high, I could touch the tree branches and pick off some of the best of the apples.”

Fidelia grunted. “I don’t have a rememory of my pappy. Nor my mammy, if you was to ask. There’s always been just me.”

“But now you have me. That’s better, isn’t it, Fiddie?”

“’Course it is. Like it’s better to have roast chicken off the spit than acorn soup. Like it’s better to have fresh blackberries off the bush than dried raisins with weevils in them. Like it’s better to have –”

Lena managed to dredge up a chuckle. “Don’t go on, please.”

They stayed silently in that strange position, the young, skinny girl holding the bigger, heavier one on her shoulders, her hands around Lena’s legs.

“I heard Missus Caddie say that Missus Dickie won’t be coming home no more. She’s got the white sickness and she ain’t never gonna get better.”

“I know.”

“Does that mean we’ll belong to Mr. Leigh and Missus Caddie?”

Lena whispered, “God help us, Fiddie, but it will mean that.”

“We should run away.”

“You know I can’t now. But you should. Fiddie, you should get out of here as fast and as far as you can.”

Fidelia eased her burden as best she could. “I ain’t going nowhere without you. You know that.”

Leigh Dickie and his wife didn’t return from church for another hour and a half. The two in the barn heard them coming and Fidelia had to get Lena off her aching shoulders. Then, after waiting as long as she dared, she removed the stool and Lena was once again hanging by her wrists. She felt the child in her belly shift in protest.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

S
omebody had put two large clay pots of early daffodils beside the station door. Murdoch leaned his wheel against the wall and went inside.

“You’re looking a bit knackered, Will,” said Charlie Seymour, who was sitting at the duty desk. To Murdoch’s ears, the sergeant’s voice was tinged with reproach. Murdoch suspected he disapproved of the relationship between he and Amy Slade. It’s not me who won’t make it legal, he thought.

“I am. I didn’t get home until the early hours of the morning,” answered Murdoch, trying not to sound defensive. “You know about the case, don’t you?”

“I do. Crabtree and Fyfer filled me in. It’s a strange one. Any suspects?”

Murdoch shrugged. “You know how it is at this stage. Could be anybody. There are several unpaid tradesmen who might have lost their patience. Talbert, one of the stable hands, said Cooke ran with a fast crowd and liked to gamble. Talbert’s an old man, but he could be carrying a grudge from years ago when, I believe,
Cooke cheated him over the purchase of his livery. Mrs. Cooke says her husband was robbed. One of the cabbies says another cabbie, Musgrave, was interested in Mrs. Cooke and implied he might have disposed of Mrs. Cooke for that reason. Another man claims to have witnessed a right barney between Mrs. Cooke and her husband a few days ago. Then Crabtree found a piece of blood-stained sacking in the closet of the other stable hand, Elijah Green, plus two Indian clubs and a strange-sounding note, so he’s putting his money on the darkie as the assailant.”

Seymour grinned. “You’re right, you’ve got more possibilities than the prince at a garden party. And speaking of George, he just got in. He’s in the duty room having his tea. He looks knackered too. You’d better watch it, might be something going around.”