The Wanderers of the Water-Realm (33 page)

“You’ve done well, lassie.” The policeman remarked, as he carefully sipped the powerful beverage. “The information that you gleaned at such a considerable personal cost, serves to substantiate everything that I have long suspected, aye, and it has also brought many other previously unknown facts to my notice.” He looked at her with fresh admiration. “You’re determination itself lass,” he said, “aye and sharp as a razor!”

The inspector took another sip of the gooseberry wine and his face took on a grim aspect. “Would you risk yourself, even further, in order to clear your son’s name and bring him home safely?” He asked.

“I would do anything!” The witch answered, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Well, lassie.” Smith said. “It is my feeling that we should delve even deeper into the heart of Oldshaw’s organization and that heart unquestionably beats within the walls of ‘Westdyke Grange,’ an old mansion house standing upon the hills overlooking Stalybridge, and that he presently owns and occupies. True enough, the man has a town house in Manchester, but he spends most of his time at the Grange, at least when he’s not travelling between his various businesses.”

“You seem to have learned a great deal about Oldshaw’s affairs!” The wisewoman reflected.

“Aye lass,” the inspector replied. “But I know next to nothing about what goes on inside that damned house of his. Silas is extremely careful, none of the servants that he employs are local folk, and all are well paid and know how to keep their mouths shut when not on duty. Quite a few have prison records. Oldshaw tells his chapel cronies that ‘Heaven requires him to be charitable to such unfortunates,’but the truth is, they must be loyal to the man or starve in the gutter!”

Smith paused. “An informant of mine, an ex-felon called George Piggins, has managed to gain himself a position at the Grange as second gardener, and he believes that it would be possible for him to persuade Oldshaw’s butler, to engage his ‘Sister’ as a scullery maid in the main house.”

The Inspector hesitated for a moment.

“Lass, my suggestion is that you should play the part of Piggins ‘sister,’ in order to worm your way into Oldshaw’s household and discover what you can of them anand his affairs!”

Hetty was initially surprised by the audacity of the man’s suggestion, yet it immediately fired her interest.

“What if I should be recognized as an ex-whore from the Cleopatra?” She asked.

“It would undoubtedly have serious consequences for you lass.” The policeman replied. “But I doubt if Oldshaw would ever consider the possibility, that a lowly cleaning skivvy, working in his mansion-house, could once have been the beautiful woman who delighted the customer’s in that Manchester music hall of his; as for his associates at the Cleopatra, he seems to keep them at arm’s length and won’t have them anywhere near the Grange.”

The inspector stroked his chin.

“Lassie, I can’t deny that it’s a risky venture that I’m suggesting, yet it’s perhaps the best hope we have of bringing these people to book and of clearing your son’s name!”

The wisewoman never hesitated. “Very well Inspector, I will enter Westdyke Grange in the guise of a servant and I have little fear of being recognized for a witch can do much to alter her appearance. Now tell me, when should I present myself at Oldshaw’s mansion?”

Smith thought for a moment. “I expect that it will take Piggins a good two weeks to arrange for your employment, so you’ll need to present yourself at the Grange in about a fortnight’s time, but be sure to see Piggins before you try to enter the house. Remember, the gardener will be our only means of maintaining contact between ourselves, for the inside servants are seldom allowed to leave the house, but Piggins is an outside worker and can come and go as he pleases. He will serve as our postman!”

The policeman picked up his walking stick and prepared to leave the cottage.

“I wish you the best of luck lassie,” he said. “And I freely admit that never in my career with the Constabulary have I ever met another woman with your depth of courage and intelligence. Now I bid you good-day.”

Hetty spent the following ten days resting and making the necessary preparations for her departure to Stalybridge. Indeed, the policeman had hardly quit the cottage, before she had entered her kitchen and brewed a bitter herbal potion that she swallowed at a single draught. The effect of the drug was that she instantly began losing her appetite, and in the following days, the flesh fell from her body and face, giving her an unfamiliar gaunt appearance. In addition, the witch dyed her hair with a vegetable concoction turning her into a rather dark brunette.

The wisewoman also undertook some additional precautions. Into the hem of a heavy woollen skirt, she stitched a number of tiny vials of liquid, each one having the particular ability to either blind, paralyze or stupefy. One vial contained a bright coloured liquid that possessed the appalling capacity to render the recipient permanently insane. Hetty also impregnated a long hat-pin with a poison that would kill its victim with a single scratch, and finally she concealed a potential bribe of twenty golden sovereigns inside the heels of a pair of her walking shoes.

“Not bad!” She said to herself, as she took stock of her preparations, during her last evening at Elfencot, “I’ve done all that I can. Now providence and my own wits must be responsible for the rest!”

The textile town of Stalybridge was basking in the weak autumn sunshine, when Hetty alighted from the narrowboat that had delivered her to a coal-wharf lying in the shadow of a huge cotton mill, a vast industrial structure whose tall chimney belched forth clouds of black smoke into the soot-flecked atmosphere.

Hetty picked up a large carpet bag containing the few possessions she had brought with her from Elfencot and made her way across the centre of the town, until she came to an old pack-road that wound its way up into the heather-clad hills overlooking Stalybridge and its outlying villages.

The wisewoman had travelled only a little way along the roughly surfaced road, when she was offered a lift upon a vegetable cart that was returning to one of the small farms lying close to the edge of the moorlands. The driver was a stout red-faced fellow, who stated that he was passing within a quarter of a mile of Westdyke Grange, and would willingly carry her as far as the long drive leading up to Silas Oldshaw’s residence.

Two stone pillars, topped with carved lions, marked the beginning of the mill-owner’s property, and Hetty thanked the driver for his kindness before starting the final trudge towards the mansion house. The drive was well maintained and free from pot-holes, yet the carpet bag was heavy, and the wisewoman was extremely relieved when she finally arrived at the door of a gate-house, which, together with a large iron gate, was set into the high wall surrounding Westdyke Grange and its extensive gardens.

Hetty knocked upon the gate-house door and a short sallow-faced man appeared and abruptly asked the wisewoman her business.

“I’ve come to seek employment with Mr Oldshaw.” she answered. “I am ‘sister’ to George Piggins, the Second gardener, and ….”

“Oh aye,” broke in the sallow-faced man. “I’ve been told to expect thee!” He opened the gate and pointed to a path following the inside of the boundary wall.

“Keep to yon path, and you’ll come to the row of conservatories lying to the rear of the great house. There you will find your brother at his work.”

Hetty followed the path as she was instructed; as she walked she was able to take a good look at the boundary wall protecting the Grange. It was newly constructed from local brick and stood a good twelve feet in height, whilst the parapet, that overhung the wall by a good six inches, was covered with a double row of razor sharp iron hooks.

“Yon bugger Oldshaw certainly wishes to keep himself secure,” the witch muttered to herself. “For a wall of that size would cost a pretty penny to build.”

Hetty breasted a small rise and caught her first glimpse of Westdyke Grange and she gasped as she noted its forbidding appearance.

The building was a good four stories in height, with two oval towers flanking its front elevation and the exterior masonry was dark in colour, blackened by time and the chimney smoke drifting upwards from the factories in the valley below.

Hetty shuddered slightly. Even the bright autumn sunshine failed to relieve the gloomy appearance of the place. She knew the Grange had a bad history, for Inspector Smith had told her that the main house had originally been constructed, two centuries earlier, by a local landowner who dwelt in constant fear of his ill-used tenants. However, a separate wing jutted out from the eastern elevation of the house, and its archaic appearance suggested that it was older than the rest of the structure and was perhaps of monastic origin.

The wisewoman’s inner-eye counselled her to turn upon her heel and flee without further delay, but she gritted her teeth and advanced towards the cluster of glass conservatories nestling in the rear of the main house.

Hetty found George Piggins working in a glasshouse filled with potted palms, and Piggins, a short rat-faced individual, quickly drew her inside and closed the door so as to avoid any chance of them being overheard.

“So you be the woman who Inspector Smith wants me to slip inside the Grange!” He began. “I don’t like it, I can tell yer,’for Oldshaw’s bad to them who cross him. I likes me job and I’m only doin’ this because I owe Smith a favour, for not droppin’ me inside when he could have done so.”

The ex-criminal casually wiped away the discharge from his nostrils, with the cuff of his shirt and continued speaking.

“Now wench, remember that you’re my ‘sister’ and that your name is Hilda Jenkins. You were born and bred in a village in Cumberland, and you are now a widow, for your husband was a sailor who was drowned in a shipwreck of the China Coast. Do not volunteer any information about yourself, nor will you be asked very much, for every bugger in that house has something to hide.” He paused.

“I’m to be your contact with Smith and nobody will think it odd that you should occasionally come to the conservatories to visit your ‘brother.’As an outside worker, I can come and go as I please and I can easily post a letter for you in Stalybridge.”

Hetty slowly inclined her head. However, it was quite obvious that Piggins was a very frightened man, but her intuition told her that he would probably remain silent and play his part, provided that no member of the household subjected him to hard questioning.

She smiled. “Now, brother, perhaps it is time for you to introduce me to my new employers”.

The gardener conducted her to a door in the rear of the main house and hauled upon a bell-pull. A diminutive young housemaid answered and Piggins asked her to inform Mr Crowther, the butler and head of the household, that his latest employee had arrived.