Jane and the Canterbury Tale

still carried a tendre for her, after seven years.

But my nephew Edward was recounting the discovery of the body by the party of gentlemen and their beaters; he looked very young as he stood before the coroner, conscious of his father’s eyes upon him. Dr. Bredloe thanked the boy, and allowed him to stand down; then addressed the state of the corpse, the nature of the wound, and the probable manner in which it had been received. The constable next displayed the pistol, and James Beckford Wildman was called upon to identify it as his own, in a voice that trembled only slightly.

Naturally, a murmur went up at this from the assembled audience; there were some in the crowd, curious onlookers, who knew nothing of facts that all at Chilham must have mastered. Edward gazed steadily at young James, and asked him in a clear voice when he had last seen his pistol.

“I cannot say with any certainty, Your Honour. I know it to have been in my possession on Tuesday last, when I engaged in some target shooting; I later cleaned the gun, and replaced it with its companion, in its case; but as the case is left in my father’s gun room, where any might find it, I cannot tell when it disappeared.”

“But you did not, yourself, take the gun out for the purpose of firing it at Curzon Fiske the following night, or early Thursday morning?”

Young Wildman paled, but his chin lifted a little and his gaze did not falter. “I did not, Your Honour.”

“You have heard Constable Blewett say that it was found on a tombstone in St. Lawrence churchyard?”

“I have. I do not know how it came there.”

“Mr. Wildman, were you at all acquainted with Curzon Fiske?”

“He was the husband of my second cousin, and as such, was often entertained at our home. He left the Kingdom some three years ago, however, for India, and we believed that he had died out there.”

“When did you receive word of Mr. Fiske’s death?”

“Some eighteen months since—in April of last year.”

“And you received no subsequent word of his survival? You did not expect to find him on the Pilgrim’s Way Thursday morning?”

“I did not—and indeed, Fiske was so altered, I should never have recognised him.”

Dr. Bredloe intervened at this point, with a polite smile for Edward. “Tell me, Mr. Wildman—how would ye describe your relations with Mr. Fiske when he was alive, and living in England?”

For the first time, James Wildman’s eyes dropped; he seemed, for an instant, uncertain what he should say. Then he shrugged slightly, and a wistful smile flickered across his lips. “I had barely achieved my majority when Curzon quitted Kent for the last time. As a boy, I thought him quite the most engaging fellow I had ever met—Top o’the Trees, a Go Amongst the Goes. He cut such a dash, you understand, that he was a great favourite with all of us when we were young.”

“So you parted on terms of cordiality?”

Wildman hesitated; and almost imperceptibly, his gaze slid towards myself.

Impossible. He could have no reason for staring at me.

And then I understood: it was George Moore’s counsel he sought.

Moore was rigid, again, beside me, and his gloved hands were clenched in his lap. Did I imagine it? Or did he shake his head ever so slightly as James Wildman studied his countenance?

“We parted on terms of complete indifference,” Wildman answered woodenly.

“No quarrel?” Dr. Bredloe persisted. “No reason to hate the man, when you discovered he was back in Kent?”

“I did not discover him back in Kent. I discovered his corpse,” the young man said evenly.

Dr. Bredloe studied Wildman for an uncomfortable and inscrutable instant; then released him to his father.

There was a pause in the proceedings at this point, so that the jury might partake of refreshment; the panel were led into a separate parlour for this interval, while the rest of us rose and stretched our limbs.

“Pray make my apologies to Mr. Knight,” George Moore said abruptly as he quitted our bench. “I have an errand that cannot wait, in the Cathedral Close. I believe I have seen enough of the deplorable business here; I shall return in an hour’s time, in the hope that it shall be concluded, and that we might all return to Godmersham together.”

I curtseyed to the clergyman without a word; he lifted his hat; and I was left to wonder what had so discomposed him—or what trial he believed himself to have survived.

The final wager, a voice whispered in my brain; the fatal game of whist, on the night before Fiske fled to India three years ago. What had been the stakes? And what the outcome? Why the charge of cheating, left unanswered? George Moore was determined, certainly, that James Wildman should give no hint of the discord that had divided Fiske from his oldest acquaintance.

Dr. Bredloe opened the parlour door, and the panel filed once more to their seats, presumably refreshed.

As the proceedings recommenced, two more strangers made their way into the Little Inn’s publick room: a tall, bearded man respectably dressed, with the look of a solicitor or steward about him; and a bowlegged, shabbily-dressed fellow I recognised at once for a seaman, from long acquaintance with the type during my years of residence in Southampton. His skin was much weathered and tanned, his grey hair was long and tied in a queue, his whiskers grizzled, and his canvas trousers stained with salt. I had occasion to remark upon these details, because the sailor chose to seat himself next to me, the place having been vacated by George Moore; he nodded and grinned as he sat, displaying numerous gaps in a wretched mouthful of teeth.

The bearded gentleman took no seat at all, but stood near the far wall, his earnest gaze fixed on my brother. For of course, Edward had begun to speak.

Now, I thought, must come the inquest’s most dangerous passage: the revelation of Captain MacCallister’s summons by the dead man, and his nocturnal walk. Julian Thane, I noticed, was so unaffected by the prospect as to be paring his nails with a pocketknife. His sister’s hand, however, was clenched tightly on MacCallister’s arm; a woman of less courage should have quitted the room entirely.

But my brother surprized me.

He spoke briefly in Dr. Bredloe’s ear. The coroner immediately nodded and turned to the panel, with a precise account of the possessions discovered in Curzon Fiske’s coat. The roll of banknotes was displayed, in the amount of nearly five hundred pounds; the scrap of paper with the blurred script was shewn to each man, with the proper interval required for each to attempt to read it; and finally, the tamarind seed—which Dr. Bredloe affirmed was from a plant native to India—was held aloft. The coroner explained, at Edward’s prompting, that the scrap of paper had been wrapped around the seed—as tho’ the tamarind were a token of good faith. The paper, he suggested, had established a meeting, for the only legible words upon it were St. Lawrence Church.

At which instant, my brother thanked the coroner and begged permission to call one Barnabus Twitch before the panel.

Of a sudden, there he was: the Wildmans’ imperturbable butler. He was dressed as he had been the previous day, in his livery and wig; he bowed to Dr. Bredloe, and took his oath at Edward’s behest.

“Your master, Mr. Wildman of Chilham Castle, gave a ball on Wednesday last,” Edward observed.

“He did, sir.”

“And during the festivities, a stranger appeared at the Castle door, I think?”

“That is so.” Twitch inclined his head. “A manservant—Joseph by name—attended the door, as I was otherwise engaged; but being uncertain what reception the man was due, Joseph sought my advice.”

“And why did he do so?” Edward asked.

Twitch blinked with the placidity of a cow. “Joseph was confused by the person’s aspect and appearance. He spoke with the accent of the Quality, Your Honour, but his clothing did not suggest an elevated station.”

“And this fellow was unknown to you?”

“I had never seen him before in my life.”

“What was his errand at Chilham Castle?”

“He wished to present a gift to the bri—the widow of Deceased.”

“Do you know what that gift was?”

“A purse of silk, as it were a kind of reticule, embroidered all about with gold threads.”

“It sounds like an exotic object. Did you accept it from him?”