Chapter 20
Morning had found its way into the Forge, thin and reluctant.
Smoke still hung beneath the beams, dulled to a grey haze.
The night’s gin sourness lingered in the air, mingling with ink and cold iron.
A clerk at the bar scratched figures into a ledger while two men slept against the wall, their cards still between their fingers.
Roark sat where he always did—back to the brickwork, one hand resting on a folded sheaf of notes. He looked up as Kerr entered.
“You’ve made your rounds,” Roark said. “All paid but two, unless my book lies.”
Kerr set his hat on the table. “One settled last night. The other—” He paused. “The other is promised shortly.”
Roark’s good eye narrowed. “Wickham.”
Kerr inclined his head.
Roark poured a measure of gin, slid it across the table. “He pay you in air, or only in talk?”
Kerr hesitated. “In promise.”
Roark smiled without humour. “A man who owes me seldom trades in anything else.”
Kerr met his gaze. “He has expectations, sir. Better than most who find your door. There’s money behind him—real money. If he lies, he lies high. That may be worth a little patience.”
Roark said nothing for a moment. The light from the high window caught the cloud in his blind eye, the sharp gleam in the other.
“Patience,” he said.
“For a month.”
“And if the month buys nothing?”
Kerr looked at the ledger. Wickham’s name occupied no more space than the others, yet promised more trouble.
“Then I was wrong.”
Roark leant back, studying him. “That is not payment.”
“No.”
Roark took up the ledger and turned it towards him. “Read it.”
Kerr looked down.
“George Wickham,” Roark said. “Three notes unpaid. Two promises broken. One creditor bloodied in Wych Street for pressing too closely. That is what I know. What do you know?”
“Pemberley,” Kerr said. “Ten thousand a year, by his account.”
“A Scotsman staking his sense on an English rogue. That’s a novelty.”
Kerr said quietly, “I am not staking sense.”
“What, then?”
“The chance that he knows where money may be found.”
Roark smiled thinly. “That is how every desperate man describes a wager.”
Kerr said nothing.
Roark took up the ledger and marked a line beside Wickham’s name. “A month, then. But the account does not sleep.”
“No, sir.”
“And if Wickham’s Pemberley proves air?”
Kerr met his gaze.
“Scotsman—never gamble with a man who smiles when he’s losing.”
Kerr paused. “You think him a liar?”
Roark looked past him to the door. “I think him a chain looking for a neck.”
* * *
The knocker fell, sharp as a verdict. Price appeared with a folded packet, his thumb black with soot. “From Armitage nevertheless, I take it upon myself to forward the enclosed, believing it may possess some interest to you.
With every assurance of my regard, I remain, sir,
Your most obedient servant,
Henry Armitage
He set the note aside. The oilcloth parcel gave a faint rasp as he unwrapped it. The object within was not a letter but a book—a magistrate’s journal, bound in plain calf, its spine marked Stamford Assizes, 1781–1782. A faded ribbon held the leaves together.
He turned the cover. Inside, a single note in the hand of Mr Armitage:
Contained herein are the personal memoranda of Mr Matthew Beale, Esq.
, late magistrate of Stamford. The volume was entrusted to the late earl by Mr Beale’s executor in the belief that it bore upon the unhappy death of Lord Julian Ashby and Miss Arabella Pember.
His Lordship directed that it remain sealed.
I deliver it now to you, with apologies for the delay and without comment on its contents.
H. Armitage
Kerr ran his thumb along the edge of the pages. Margins were crowded with small writing—dates, observations, initials. Between the leaves lay folded papers: certified copies of depositions, an unsigned report to the Crown solicitor, and one sheet marked Private—For Counsel Only.
The first entries were methodical, written in a hand that pressed too hard on the nib:
Nov. 14, 1781. Received notice from the night constable of a carriage found overturned on the north road between Stamford and Greatford.
Proceeded to the scene with Mr Shale and Surgeon Linton.
Victims identified as Lord Julian Ashby and Miss Arabella Pember, daughter to the Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Both deceased upon discovery. The gentleman had suffered a mortal blow to the head, likely by blunt instrument; the lady, removed some yards from the vehicle, bore marks of outrage and was strangled thereafter.
Robbery suspected—the strongbox rifled and post-boy fled.
Witness accounts from the Swan and Trumpet and the Greatford toll vary as to the hour.
Circumstances do not suggest foreknowledge on the part of the deceased.
Jan. 15, 1782. Received correspondence from the Assizes at Huntingdon, requesting cooperation with the Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College concerning documents implicating the dishonourable actions of one Thomas Robert Bennet, undergraduate.
The packet contained (1) a fraudulent day-pass bearing counterfeit seal and (2) a route for carriage travel between Cambridge and Stamford, the hand acknowledged by Bennet himself.
Statement taken by the University court under Vice-Chancellor Maunsell: Bennet confessed authorship of the itinerary but denied complicity.
Expelled from the College forthwith, no civil charge preferred.
The names meant nothing to him. He read on.
Feb. 10. Further correspondence from the Vice-Chancellor.
Reports that inquiry has established two companions of Bennet—Mr David Fitzwilliam and Mr Edmund Darcy—though not formally implicated, had probable knowledge of the intended elopement of Lord Julian Ashby and Miss Pember prior to their departure.
No warrants issued. Recommendation that the matter rest with the University and the borough.
He let the page fall back. Ink bled where the pen had lingered. Kerr closed the book, then opened it again at once. He slipped the sheet marked Private—For Counsel Only from between the leaves and held it a moment. Then he folded it smaller and tucked it inside his coat.
Rain pressed against the glass; the chimney whispered soot. When the clock struck nine, he closed the book and drew the clasp shut. The book was not proof—proof belonged to courts and men who still believed in them, and Kerr no longer counted himself among them. But names endured.
Fitzwilliam. Darcy. Bennet.
They had been young men then. Scholars. Gentlemen’s sons. The distinction did not soften the matter.