had headaches. He was, he told Johnny, like some old engine that has been run for too long and is just about to collapse. Looking at him, Johnny thought Number Sixteen was probably right.
There was one topic Johnny always came round to in these conversations. He never approached it head on, he came in from the side or from the back, he never knocked on the front door. On the question of the Silkworkers’ vote — Devereux had passed on the news about the dates — Johnny found opinion undecided. He noticed a reserve in the old men, as if some further injunction had been added to the earlier demands for silence.
That evening Johnny was at his usual position at the table in the Rose and Crown nearest the bar. This was where the old men liked to sit, closest to where the pretty barmaid would be as she pulled pints for the silkmen. The talk was of minor ailments at first. When he judged that all were present who were going to come, Johnny took the initiative.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I would like to ask you about something that has been troubling me. You see, I have a relative in the Silkworkers Company up in London and he has been telling me about the vote that’s coming up. Now, it’s for you to decide how to cast your vote, obviously, but I think there is a risk that you could make a terrible mistake. But I can only say that when I know how you are going to vote. I think most of you were against it when Number Twenty was with us. Is that still how it is today?’
Silence fell over the saloon bar. The old men looked at each other but did not speak. The barmaid even looked in from the public to see if one of the old gentlemen had actually died halfway down a pint of Wethered’s Best Bitter. Eventually Jack Miller, Number Three, the former bank clerk, broke with the discretion of a lifetime and spoke up.
‘We’re not meant to speak to anybody about this,’ he began.
‘Who says so?’ said Johnny, draining his glass.
‘Well, it’s Warden Monk, Mr Fitzgerald, sir, but seeing as it’s you, I think we can make an exception.’
‘Has he been saying this all along, or only recently, the Warden?’
‘Well, he did say it at the start, but he repeated it very definitely only the other day.’
Curiouser and curiouser, Johnny said to himself. Sir Peregrine comes to the hotel at night. Monk puts the frighteners on about speaking to anybody the next morning. What else had Monk and Sir Peregrine been cooking up in the ornate splendour of the Elysian Fields?
‘That’s very interesting,’ he said, ‘but tell me, are you still of the same mind? To oppose the changes, I mean?’
One or two of the old men glowered at each other. Johnny wondered if they might come to blows. Even the barmaid pulling another round failed to distract them in the usual way.
‘It’s like this, see.’ John Watkins, Number Fifteen, who had lost two fingers of his left hand in some battle long ago, rarely spoke and was therefore regarded as a fount of very deep wisdom by his fellow silkmen. ‘Some people have changed their minds, and that’s a fact. I shall mention no names and no numbers. I leave that to others. But I do believe that there are special circumstances regarding those who have changed their minds and betrayed all our futures for thirty pieces of silver. I shall say no more.’ Number Fifteen returned to his tankard.
Johnny waited for somebody else to speak.
‘We don’t know what to do for the best, Mr Fitzgerald,’ said Edward Cooper, Number Seven, ‘and that’s a fact. We don’t understand about codicils and things from hundreds of years ago. We’re simple folk here, so we are. What would you advise us to do?’
Not for the first time, Johnny felt a great wave of sympathy for the silkmen. Here they were, abandoned by their families, if they had any family left, thrown together with a group of people they had never known before, complicated arguments about money and codicils they did not properly understand swirling around over their heads, still frightened there might be a murderer in their midst, poised to strike again. They’re parked, he said to himself, in death’s waiting room, hanging on for the last train.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, I am perfectly happy to give you advice though I would warn you that I have no more experience in financial matters than most of you. But first I would like to know what’s going on. What did John Watkins, Number Fifteen, mean when he talked about thirty pieces of silver? You can tell me, gentlemen. I’m not going to let you down.’
There was a pause. Considerable amounts of beer were poured down the silkmen’s throats as they wondered what they should do. Sometimes one draught was not enough. A second was needed, and in two cases a third was required to set the thought processes into full working order.
‘Very well,’ said Peter Baker, Number Ten, ‘I’ll tell you, if nobody else will. Just the other day it was, Monk calls a meeting straight after breakfast. Funny how they all make their announcements first thing in the morning. Maybe they think our wits leave us during the course of the day. I suppose they might be right. Anyway, Monk says he has a special statement to make. It concerns the ballot, he says. He has been given to understand — pompous fellow, that man Monk, always was — that all those who vote in favour of the changes will receive what he called a discretionary emolument. He had to explain that, of course. Basically, if you vote yes, in Monk’s presence and he sees you do it, then you get ten pounds. That’s a lot of money, Mr Fitzgerald. It’s more than I have to live on for a year and I’m sure that holds true for many of my colleagues here.’
‘Discretionary? Emolument?’ James Osborne, the locksmith, Number Nineteen, had risen, rather unsteadily, to his feet. ‘It’s just another word for bribe. That’s all. They’re trying to buy us off!’
‘I don’t suppose anybody asked Mr Monk how much he would be getting if he delivered the votes?’ Johnny was ordering another round with a wave of his hand as he spoke.
‘Nobody did, sir, though I think we should have done.’ This was Henry Wood, Number Twelve, the man Johnny had lunched with at the hotel, lubricated by a couple of bottles of Beaune. ‘I’m going to say what I think. This is all very difficult for the people in the Jesus Hospital, Mr Fitzgerald. Time has a lot to do with it. None of us are going to last very long. If the livery company is broken up, we all receive a payment for that, because we’re all members of the Silkworkers Company. We’re like shareholders, getting our cut when the company is sold on. Mr Monk says nobody can be precise as it depends on the state of the stock market and the property market when the assets are sold. He claimed it could be between thirty and fifty pounds. Now there’s this extra money on top of that. Some of the men here would have more money in their hands than they have ever had in their lives. And if things start to go wrong in the hospital after a couple of years — even though they have always said it will be protected, whatever that means — it won’t matter very much. Half of us will be dead. It’s all very well to talk of doing the right thing for posterity and voting no, but I don’t think you feel virtuous when you’re in your coffin, six feet underground, with the lid screwed down.’
‘It’s all a question of timescales,’ said Christy Butler, Number Thirteen, staring hard at the low level of his beer in the glass. ‘If you think you’re going soon, within a year or a year and a half, say, vote yes and enjoy the money while you can. If you think you might still be drinking this excellent bitter in ten years’ time, you’d better vote no or you might not be able to afford it. Short time left means yes, long time left means no.’
‘That’s all very well,’ said Johnny Johnston, Number Nine, the former postman, whose glass was completely empty, ‘but how on earth are we meant to know how long we’re going to last? Even the bloody doctors aren’t going to tell us that.’
There was another silence. Johnny Fitzgerald remembered being told that Number Nine had been conducting a vendetta against Dr Ragg for years over the treatment, or, as Number Nine maintained, the lack of treatment for his gout. He called for refills. He wondered what the assets of the Silkworkers were worth on the open market. He wondered if Inspector Devereux had found out. Johnny rather liked Miles Devereux. He decided that the best thing to do would be to keep this particular ball in play. Maybe Sir Peregrine Fishborne would have to make another trip to the Elysian Fields late at night.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you were kind enough to ask me for my advice. I do not think we have sufficient information to form a balanced judgement. I think you need clarification on one particular point. While I agree with my friend Number Twelve that it must be difficult to feel virtuous in the grave, I do feel that we owe certain obligations to our successors. You are all good men and true.’ Are you sure? he said to himself. One of them might be a murderer. Better press on. ‘I do not think that you would want the Jesus Hospital to close its doors for ever just so that you could receive what one of your colleagues referred to as thirty pieces of silver. When I say clarification, I mean this. You should ask to see the full accounts of the hospital for the last five years. Then you take an average of the figures. Then you ask for a legally binding document, signed in the presence of solicitors, which guarantees that an amount of capital capable of producing that amount of annual income with a fifteen per cent safety margin will be placed in a reputable bank and is only to be used for the maintenance of the Jesus
