Read Online The Hidden Man by Robin Blake - Free Book Online Page B

duns from the grocer and the butcher, and one stonemason’s account in the sum of four guineas that had remained unpaid for seven months.
    Putting these on one side, I was left with items from the right hand side, which were all papers connected with Pimbo’s business. One compartment was devoted to letters signed ‘Zadok Moon’, with an address at Pinchbeck’s Coffee House, Liverpool. In one, Moon provided Pimbo with costings for a range of purchases which had nothing to do with goldsmithing: hogsheads of Wigan nails and china beads, numerous bales of cotton cloth, firearms, gunpowder, spirituous liquors and a range of ironwork. In another paper, headed The Fortunate Isle , there was a schedule of chandlery such as chain, cordage, sailcloth, caulking, brass fittings and hammocks, as well as such provisions as raisins, dried meat and biscuit. A third had a list of men’s names, who seemed to be prospective crew members. The Fortunate Isle was evidently a vessel being fitted out for a voyage.
    There were considerably more letters to inspect but I had hardly looked at these before Peg knocked at the door and said that Dr Fidelis and Miss Peel had finished, and would I like to return to the parlour? I quit the chair and took one last hasty look inside the escritoire, thrusting my hands deeper into the compartments or slots to find anything lodged at the back I might have missed. I found nothing significant but, as I withdrew my hand from one of them, my knuckle caught the leading edge at the top of the cavity, and something moved. I put my fingers under it and pulled. A shallow drawer slid out. Looking more carefully I saw it had been made outwardly to appear part of the desk’s construction. So completely was it concealed that merely looking would not tell you it was there.
    With some excitement I slid it fully out. It contained a single sheet letter, folded and covered with writing. Hurriedly I slipped it in with the other papers, which I had decided to take away with me for further study. I had only time to notice that the hand was that of Pimbo himself.
    *   *   *
    Fidelis seemed to have put Ruth Peel more at her ease than I had yet seen her. They were talking together about trifles. The lady, still wearing her left arm in its leather sling, now sat in the second fireside armchair rather than the removed upright one on which she had perched during our previous day’s conference. If this was indeed a sign that awkwardness had left them, I feared that I was about to reintroduce it.
    I brought the upright chair from the wall and placed it in between the two of them, opposite the fire, but angled towards Ruth Peel. I sat down.
    â€˜Miss Peel, I still have a few questions in the case of Mr Pimbo which I fear only you can help me with. Would you object if Dr Fidelis remained in the room while we discuss them? He is my trusted friend, but his advice as a medical man is also most valuable to me as Coroner.’
    She inclined her head to say she had no objection.
    â€˜Very well. Now, did Mr Pimbo talk to you about his business?’
    â€˜No, never.’
    â€˜Did you form any impression about how his business stood? Was it flourishing?’
    â€˜He was always very bluff about it, very confident. That is all I can say.’
    â€˜But from the contents of his desk it would seem that in the household accounts there were numerous unpaid bills – grocery, meat and the like. And at least one long-standing mason’s debt.’
    â€˜I know nothing about the mason. As for the household, I myself manage the weekly accounts, settling with what money I am given. Only when I could not pay some larger bill did I refer the tradesman to Mr Pimbo. They’ve let me know that he was lately a very bad payer, but I don’t know any details. He did not let me into the privacy of his accounts.’
    â€˜You say you were given money.’
    â€˜To run the household weekly,