Til Death Do Us Part (12 page)

For several seconds Tom was paralysed by foreboding. ‘Will I be able to master him if he fights with me again? Wouldn't it be wiser to wait for Hugh to arrive? If this one was to get the better of me, what evil might he do to Amy?'

Then self-disgust coursed through him. ‘What a bloody coward you are, Potts! Why must you always shiver and shake like a frightened old woman? For God's sake get a grip on yourself, and act like a man for once in your miserable life!'

Dominated by the impulsion of self-directed anger he warned the prisoner, ‘Don't try to resist, or it will be the worse for you.' And within a very short space of time he had secured the man's arms and legs with the padlocked, manacled chains.

The bells clanged as Tom completed the task, and he told the prisoner, ‘I'll take these off you when I'm satisfied that you'll behave yourself.'

The man only went on mouthing unintelligibly, his limbs jerking spasmodically. Tom could only hope for the doctor's quick arrival.

The crowd outside was watching intently as Amy opened the door to the woman who had gone to the doctor's house.

When Tom joined the pair, the woman informed him, ‘It don't look as that there's anybody at Doctor Laylor's house, Master Potts. I rung the bell and hammered on the door real loud, but nobody come.'

Because of the condition of his prisoner this was unwelcome news for Tom. ‘Very well, Ma'am, I'm most grateful to you for your help. I thank you for it.'

She craned her neck trying to stare past him into the passageway. ‘Is there aught else I can do for you, Master Potts? I can come in and help if you wants me to.'

‘No, thank you, Ma'am, everything is done. But thank you anyway.'

Tom tried to close the door but she pressed her hand against it.

‘I'm Mrs Maud Harman. I'm a neighbour of Alfie Bennett.'

Tom was puzzled. ‘Ma'am?'

She smiled amusedly at his reaction. ‘Alfie Bennett, Master Potts. He's the bloke you've just took in. He's a neighbour of mine.'

Tom moved to allow her access. ‘Will you be kind enough to step inside, Ma'am?'

There was a concerted groan of frustration from the onlookers as the door closed behind Maud Harman.

‘What can you tell me about Alfie Bennett, Ma'am?' Tom asked.

‘The first thing I can tell you is that he's telling the truth about his cap. I was there in Bromsgrove mart when he give that robbing Jew bugger a full five shillings' worth for it.'

Tom grimaced ruefully. ‘I wish I'd known that fact before I intervened in their argument. It might have saved a deal of trouble.'

‘It would have saved us the cost of losing a brand-new beaver, and your best clothes from being ruined! You great fool!' Amy scolded him.

‘Yes, Amy, I accept that,' Tom told her wearily. ‘But I'm on official duty now, and engaged upon more pressing matters than my own hat and clothing. So would you please go away and allow me to talk with this lady in private.'

‘Humph! I'll be happy to do just that, you great fool!' Amy tossed her head, and flounced off.

Tom reddened with embarrassment. ‘I do apologize most sincerely, Mrs Harman. My wife has been under much stress of late, and this is causing arguments between her and myself.'

Mrs Harman waved his apology away. ‘Don't give it another thought, Master Potts. Now, like I said, me and Alfie Bennett lives nigh to each other on Merry-Come-Sorrow Hill, above Feckenham village . . .'

A loud wailing sound caused her to stop speaking and cock her head to listen.

Tom hastened to tell her, ‘I fear that's Master Bennett. I'd best make sure he's alright.'

Maud Harman shook her head. ‘Oh, don't bother with him, Master Potts. He'll just be having one of his funny turns. He fell out of a tree and landed on his head when he was a nipper, and ever since he has these funny turns regular. Especially when he's been on the drink. Just leave him be and he'll soon go to sleep; and when he wakes up he'll be as right as rain. If you goes moithering him now, it'll only make him play up worse.'

‘Well . . .' Tom was hesitant to accept. ‘Well, perhaps if I just . . .'

‘There's no perhaps about it!' She frowned sternly. ‘I knows him, don't I. You just leave him be, and he'll quieten down and go off to sleep.'

Tom decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and accepted meekly. ‘Very well, Ma'am, as you say, you know best in his case.'

‘Indeed I do.' Mollified by her victory she smiled pleasantly. ‘And now if you'll allow me, Master Potts, I'll tell you all about poor Alfie . . .'

She spoke at length, and Tom mentally docketed the salient facts.

Alfie Bennett lived with and was the sole support of his aged parents, and without that support they would be forced to go into the Poorhouse. Totally illiterate, he made a meagre living by catching rabbits and vermin, and whatever casual labour he could obtain.

Maud Harman emphasized that she was convinced that when he struck Tom, he was already suffering a funny turn. She ended by pleading with Tom not to bring charges against Bennett, for the sake of the man's aged parents, describing in heart-rending detail how hideously that innocent, harmless, fragile couple would suffer if their beloved son was taken from them and cast into prison.

When she fell silent, Tom mulled over what he had heard. Remembrance of something she had said much earlier caused him to ask curiously, ‘When you spoke about Alfie paying for the fur cap, you said he paid a “full five shillings' worth for it”. Why did you use that particular term?'

For a moment she seemed puzzled by his question, but then smiled and nodded. ‘Oh, I see what you're asking. What I meant was that Alfie paid the Jew in skins. Moles and rats and suchlike. You see when Alfie goes rabbit and vermin catching for the farmers and others, they gives him a few pence and lets him take the dead vermin and some of the rabbits. So then Alfie sells all the skins and him and his Dad and Mam eats the rabbit meat. And if truth be told when times is hard and they're getting desperate hungry, they eats the vermin meat as well.'

‘Ah, yes I understand now.' Tom nodded, then the vivid memory of Alfie Bennett's angry shouting came back to him.

‘I paid a whole crown piece worth for this piece o' shit, because he told me that it was made o' Russian bear fur and not wind nor water could pass through it.'

And the unbidden voice that dwelt in the depths of Tom's mind suggested, ‘Could that be why the dogs were stolen? Would their fur be weatherproof enough for it to be worth going to the trouble of stealing them to make fur caps?'

‘No, surely that can't be,' Tom muttered aloud, and then became aware that Maud Harman was staring curiously at him, and hastily apologized.

‘Pray excuse me, Ma'am, I was thinking aloud.' Even as he spoke the unbidden voice was urging him, ‘Go and ask the pedlar if he ever deals in fur caps made from dog skins. Go now and ask him.'

‘What about Alfie, Master Potts?' Maud Harman pressed.

Tom made an instant decision. ‘I shan't bring him before the magistrates, Ma'am. You may tell his parents that he'll be released as soon as he's recovered from his funny turn. You may see him now and reassure yourself that he isn't severely hurt, and then I have to go out again.'

After Maud Harman had inspected Bennett, she and Tom left the lock-up together. As they walked across the Green he remarked casually, ‘That's a large basket you have, Ma'am. When it's filled it must be heavy for you to carry back to Feckenham. That's a longish walk when bearing a load.'

‘And don't I know it,' she agreed, smiling happily. ‘But I'll not be bearing the load today. Parson Winward brought me here in his gig and is taking me back in it.'

‘Parson Winward?' Tom shook his head. ‘He's not known to me, I'm afraid. I understood Reverend Mackay was the curate at St John's church.'

‘He is. But Parson Winward is come to the village on some church business or other, and he's lodging at the Old Black Boy. I works there, you see, that's how I've come to know him. He's ever such a kind and charitable gentleman, so he is.

‘Like you am yourself, Master Potts. I shan't be forgetting how kind you've been about poor Alfie. If I can ever do you a good turn, then you only need to ask it of me, because I'll be more than glad to do it for you.'

At the Market Place they parted company with mutual good wishes and Tom went to speak with Yakob Weiss, but the space the pedlar had occupied was empty.

‘Do you know where the fur cap man has gone?' he asked the nearest stall holder.

‘No idea, mate; he packed up his stuff and went off while you was taking that bloke to the lock-up, and the next time I saw him he was beating his donkey and going like the clappers over the crossroads there.' The man laughed. ‘I reckon he thought that one unhappy customer was enough for the day and scarpered afore another 'un got hold of him.'

‘Are you sure the donkey was his?' Tom queried.

‘O' course it's his. He's too fuckin' idle to backpack his wares about wi' him. I've seen him with the bloody thing at Worcester and Bromsgrove markets. You must have known he keeps it tethered behind the Red Cow when he's here.' The man nodded.

‘Oh yes, so he does,' Tom concurred. ‘Well I'll leave you to keep on selling.'

He continued his patrolling of the market and the nearby inns and taverns, calling in at the Red Cow tavern to verify that the pedlar did indeed customarily tether a donkey in its back yard. An hour later as he was checking that the shops and taverns along the High Street were not having trouble with any obstreperous drunken customers, he noted in passing the exceptionally fine quality of a horse and gig parked outside Bromley's Emporium. Some short time later he was coming out of a tavern when the same gig came past at speed, and he saw its passenger, Maud Harman, talking animatedly to the fat, florid-featured driver who was dressed in clerical clothing.

‘That'll be the Reverend Winward,' Tom told himself, and without any conscious reason thought casually, ‘He'll certainly be easy enough to recognize again, should I ever have need to speak with him.'

I
t was raining hard when Elias Bradshaw tugged on the lock-up bell-rod in the darkness before dawn to interrupt Tom Potts' breakfast.

Tom took the lamp and went to the door calling, ‘Who's there?'

‘It's Elias Bradshaw, Master Potts. I've got a job for you.'

Tom unbarred the door and invited, ‘Step in out of the rain, Master Bradshaw. What can I do for you?'

‘You can find the thieving bastards who stole my dogs during the night, Master Potts,' Bradshaw growled angrily.

‘All of them?' Tom queried.

‘No, not the terriers. But they've took all six of my Otterhounds.'

‘Is there a ready market for the hounds?'

Bradshaw shook his head. ‘Not a ready market, no. They're no good for general hunting, or as guard dogs, and caring for them don't come cheap. There are only a few packs of them in this part o' the country and we all knows each other, so there's questions asked when it comes to the buying and selling of them.'

As Tom listened he felt impelled to seek a confirmation. ‘Their coats are proof against wind and water, are they not, Master Bradshaw?'

‘O' course they are. They'd be no use for hunting in water else.'

‘Can you furnish me with a description of each dog's colouring and markings, Master Bradshaw?'

‘I've already written them down.' Bradshaw took a sheaf of paper from his inside pocket and gave it to Tom. ‘And I've already sent one o' my lads to go round the nearest packs with descriptions, so I'll hear pretty quick if anybody tries to sell my hounds to them.'

‘Very well, Master Bradshaw, I shall begin making my enquiries as soon as it's daylight.'

‘And me and my people will be doing the same, Master Potts. So with any luck I could have my hounds back safe and sound before nightfall.'

‘Indeed you might,' Tom encouraged, but in his mind there was now a hardening conviction that the hounds had been stolen for their hides and fur, and they might well be dead already.

Somewhat tentatively, Tom told the other man what was in his mind, then added, ‘I give you my word, Master Bradshaw, that if this is the case, I will nevertheless still continue to hunt for the perpetrators. How can I get in contact with you to let you know my progress in this matter?'

‘My brother, Clem Bradshaw, keeps the Union Jack tavern in Dudley. You need only send word or letter to him and he'll be able to pass it on to me in short order, because he keeps note of my travels.'

After some further discussion they shook hands and parted.

Tom went up to the bedroom, where Amy was still asleep. He woke her gently, and as she blinked drowsily at him, he thought tenderly how beautiful she was in the soft glow of the lamplight.

‘What hour is it, Tom?'

‘Not yet six o'clock, sweetheart.'

‘Then why did you wake me so early? The only chance I get of a lie-in is Sabbath morn,' she complained pettishly. ‘And if you're wanting kisses and canoodles you've come to the wrong shop. I'm not in the mood for them.'

‘You rarely are,' he thought ruefully, but only told her, ‘Elias Bradshaw's Otterhounds were stolen in the night, and I have to make investigation. I may be gone for some time.'

‘Well, if you intend to leave me by myself for God knows how long, then I'll go to the Fox and spend the day with Maisie and the others. Your bone-idle Mam can cook her own meals for a change.' Amy huffed and, pulling the sheet over her head, ordered curtly, ‘Now take that lamp away and leave me go back to sleep.'