The Hidden Man

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Authors: Robin Blake
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book of her own. It was Mr Richardson’s Pamela , the craze that had arrived in Preston like an epidemic and was now at its peak, raging among the ladies with such intensity that it seemed they spoke of little else. I had bought my wife the novel at Sweeting’s only a few days before, but she was already more than half way to the end.
    â€˜I am thinking I am on the wrong path with the Pimbo business,’ I mentioned to her, as I slipped off my shoes and began to unroll my stockings.
    I could not see Elizabeth’s face behind the book. She lay slightly curled, as if wrapped around it, her eyes held on a tight rein by the lines of print.
    â€˜Fidelis is fixed like a fish on a hook by the idea that Pimbo was somehow murdered. Can you believe it?’
    There was still no response as Elizabeth read on. I unbuttoned my breeches, stepped out of them and, turning to the glass, addressed my stock. As I did so, she spoke.
    â€˜I doubt that Pamela’s master would untie his stock with his legs bare.’
    I saw that she was peeping at me over the top of Pamela but, before I could reply, she gave a giggle and immersed herself again in the story. I tried twice more to interest her in my difficulties over Pimbo, to be ignored the first time and then be told:
    â€˜Titus, dearest, I am reading !’
    Nightshirted by now, I rolled into bed and lay still. The only sounds were those of passers-by outside our window on Cheapside, of Elizabeth’s fingers turning Mr Richardson’s pages, and of her mouth giving out an occasional ‘Oh! Ha!’ of surprise or pleasure at some twist in the tale. After five minutes of this, I blew out the candle on my side of the bed and composed myself to sleep.

 
    Chapter Five
    S HORTLY AFTER NINE on the next morning, Luke Fidelis and I stood at the door of Cadley Place.
    â€˜The patient you come to see this morning will interest you, Luke,’ I had told him as we rode across the Moor. ‘Miss Peel has brains and striking beauty, yet she hasn’t married. I wonder why.’
    â€˜Many men would rather eat thistles than marry an intelligent wife.’
    â€˜Would you?’
    â€˜Oh no, Titus. I run the other way. I would favour rank ugliness over gross stupidity.’
    â€˜While hoping to avoid either.’
    â€˜Naturally. Anyway I am in no position to marry. I must establish myself first. There are still four medical men in Preston with bigger practices than me. I shall marry when I have the largest.’
    â€˜But do you not feel the want of being with a woman?’
    He looked at me with a faint smile.
    â€˜As much as any man. But I know how to supply the want, Titus – though naturally not in this town of gossips.’
    Don’t imagine from this exchange that Luke Fidelis had an adamantine heart, indifferent to sentiment. There had been a time not long ago when his heart had been much battered, if not quite broken, by a girl who’d come to Preston but had proved beyond his reach.
    â€˜Did I mention I shall be in Liverpool tomorrow night?’ he said carelessly, after our horses had taken a few more paces. ‘It occurs to me that you must wish to communicate with the Liverpool scrivener that Pimbo talked about, Zadok Moon. May I be of service in that respect?’
    I did not ask for details of what he would be doing in Mayor Grimshaw’s cesspit of vice. I said instead that, yes, I would be obliged it he would carry a letter to Moon.
    *   *   *
    Our ring on the door was answered by the same little maid as I had met before. This time she took us straight to the housekeeper’s parlour, where Miss Peel stood at her table shortening the stems of some crimson roses. Having just the one working arm she could not use scissors, and so had laid the stems on a board and was hacking off the ends with a knife.
    I introduced the doctor who asked if she permitted him to examine her arm. With that half smile of

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