Page 38 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Twenty-Two

S everal hours later, once the news had spread, messages sent and nursing arranged, Jacob, Dora and Moss retreated up the hill behind Wright’s house to a quiet spot in the garden of the empty Dove Cottage for their conversation.

They choose the shade of an apple tree and sat down to share a late dinner that had been brought over by Captain Cooper when he learned what had detained them.

The officer was now holding vigil outside Wright’s cottage, but Jacob had made sure none of the friends were allowed in the bedroom to disturb the patient’s rest and, possibly, finish the job.

‘Tell us what’s happening, Moss,’ said Jacob once they were sure they had the garden to themselves. ‘You as good as admitted that you’ve been sent here because you already suspected someone in this group was involved in the killing of Sir Richard Leyburn. Do you know who?’

Moss held up a hand. ‘Wait a moment. I can’t go spilling sensitive information to you just because you ask for it, not without some reciprocity. What are you doing mixed up in this business?’

‘It wasn’t our purpose but being here has unfortunately dragged us into this.’

‘It seems strangely convenient that you were in place.’

‘Bloody inconvenient, you mean,’ Jacob corrected him.

‘I have a house near Loughrigg Tarn, so Miss Fitz-Pennington and I originally came on holiday. Then my father died, which threw our plans into confusion.’ He touched the black band he wore on his arm as a sign of mourning.

He hadn’t yet had time to convert his wardrobe for the customary period of sombre colours.

Moss grimaced. ‘Ah yes, I had heard. My condolences.’

‘Leyburn’s family asked our London office to investigate who might’ve wanted to kill the magistrate and so our people wrote to us because we were the nearest to Cockermouth. We were following up the local angle to see if he had any scandalous secrets– the answer was that he did not.’

‘Separately to that, though it now appears connected,’ added Dora. ‘Mr Barton and Miss Wordsworth asked us to find a stolen manuscript– a verse autobiography by Wordsworth. It has become clear that it is mixed up in this business and not a separate crime.’

Jacob cleared his throat. ‘About that, Dora.’

‘What’s William Wordsworth got to do with anything?’ grumbled Moss. ‘His radical days are long behind him.’

‘Then you are looking into the activity of radicals?’ said Dora quickly, seizing on the hint. ‘And you think you’ve found them in this group of young men?’

‘I’m not admitting to anything. Explain why this manuscript is important.’

Jacob pulled closer a canvas bag he had carried up the hill and opened the flap. ‘I feel a drum roll would be appropriate.’

‘The notebooks!’ exclaimed Dora. She was shocked to see the bundle of booklets that had so concerned them lying there as if they’d never been missing. ‘You clever, clever man! Wherever did you find them?’

‘Exactly where they were supposed to be– in Barton’s valise.’

‘What? I don’t understand. Did I somehow miss them?’

‘You weren’t mistaken– they weren’t there when you looked, or when Barton first noticed them gone. Someone put them back, possibly once Barton himself went missing.’

‘Good,’ said Moss glumly, ‘you’ve got your stolen property back. Can we talk about murder– and attempted murder please?’

‘But we are,’ said Jacob.

‘The poem is much more than a bundle of notebooks,’ said Dora indignantly.

‘Please!’ snorted Moss.

‘You should listen to her. These killings are all reflections of episodes in the poem.’ Jacob went on to show the lines in the notebooks that implicated the crook and the staged suicide on Esthwaite Water.

‘You found the quotation!’ said Dora, pleased that the loose end had been tied off.

‘I didn’t; Wordsworth did. He knew it the moment I gave the hint.

He is able to quote from his own poetry at the merest nudge.

Naturally I made no mention of why I asked.

I think no one has been telling the family any news that would add to their grief, therefore he doesn’t know about Leyburn or Barton. ’

‘You think the crook used to kill Sir Richard Leyburn was inspired by this?’ asked Moss doubtfully.

‘Do you have a better explanation?’

‘And the ice skate?’

‘One of his most beautiful images of winter in the Lakes. Here.’ Jacob passed him the first of the notebooks. ‘Be careful with that. He describes retiring from the throng of boy-skaters on the lake, going to a bay alone and skating across the reflection of a star in the ice.’

That gave the bloody star a horrible new significance.

‘That’s not an instruction to commit a murder,’ said Moss, scowling at the passage. ‘I suppose it is rather good– for Wordsworth.’

‘None of the references are violent. The poet is a man of ideas not action.’

‘What makes you say that?’ asked Dora.

‘Hindsight. What has he done with his life so far? He didn’t fight with the French when he had the chance in 1793, he didn’t publish anything that would see him charged with treason in the late 1790s; no, his battle has been one fought with poetry.

He thinks if he finds the right formulation of words, he can reform society and save us from ourselves. ’

Moss and Dora looked at Jacob, then quickly at each other, before both burst into laughter.

‘What?’ said Jacob, clearly a little irritated.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Dora, knowing Jacob was a sincere admirer of the man, ‘but that is too much for any writer to expect. He must have an enormous sense of self-importance.’

‘Or he is completely out of touch with reality,’ added Moss.

Jacob grimaced. ‘Probably both. I suppose it is an overly ambitious goal but better than many an aim in life. He might do some good even when he falls short. And he still writes very fine verse, flaws and all.’

‘Not everyone agrees with you.’ Moss couldn’t miss the chance to snipe.

‘Let’s agree to differ,’ said Dora quickly. ‘It’s fine, humane stuff, and it makes me extremely angry that someone is perverting it for their own murderous ends.’

Moss handed back the notebook. ‘He’s not published these poems?’

‘I think a few lines here and there,’ said Jacob, ‘but the vast majority remains unknown to but a few.’

‘Then the person who is making these references to the work is one of a small number, like yourself?’

‘I hope you’re not looking at me?’

Moss held his eye just a little longer than was polite, before saying. ‘No, I think not, though you also have local connections and are known to have radical views on society. You were in London or had only just left– we weren’t sure of the timings– when Leyburn was murdered.’

‘Seriously? The government has been investigating me?’

‘I couldn’t possibly say.’

Jacob sighed. ‘And I can’t say I’m surprised. When Dora and I had state secrets in our hands during the Hellfire investigation, it did occur to me that there would be those in government who might not believe we destroyed them.’

‘What! Do you think they looked into me too?’ asked Dora, appalled at the idea that her life had been raked over.

Both men were silent.

‘Well, that’s just lovely. Try to do the right thing by the nation and this is all the thanks we get?’

‘We’re not here to hand out bouquets and applause, we are here to keep the people safe,’ said Moss. ‘If it is any comfort, you have no red flags by your names. In fact, you are regarded as, on balance, sound, particularly after that affair with the French agents at the Egyptian House.’

Dora wished she could tell Lord Liverpool’s government to stick their regard, but Moss was only the messenger, not the one who made the decisions. ‘Well, I can promise Jacob wasn’t wandering around Billingsgate. When was it?’

‘Ten days ago.’

‘Ten days ago, waiting to whack someone over the head with a crook. We had already departed for what we laughably thought was a holiday, though we took it in easy stages. I can probably remember which inn we were staying in that night if that is necessary to clear us.’

Moss shook his head. ‘No need. I wasn’t seriously looking in your direction.’

‘But you are looking at the circle around… which one do you consider the centre?’ asked Jacob. Dora thought it an excellent question. They’d been dividing them into two groups on the lines of their literary taste but not thought to ask what brought them together.

‘We’ve been monitoring them since Cambridge when some of their student writings raised concerns with those who watch for such things. Langhorne, Barton and Knotte were friends from that time, did you know that?’

Jacob nodded. ‘Langhorne said their shared passion was the Lyrical Ballads .’

‘Did he?’ Moss snorted in disgust. ‘I would’ve said that their private reading club, where they read Tom Paine, William Godwin and God knows what else, was a more fundamental bond.’

‘But the men all have roots in this area, do they not?’ asked Dora.

‘True, and all complain they were mocked for their northern accents. Barton lost his by the second year, he once told me, whereas Knotte has held to his. Get him drunk and he reverts to the dialect of his youth.’

‘Nothing wrong with that.’

‘I didn’t say there was. After Cambridge, they spent a summer walking in Scotland. Barton funded their excursion as he does everything else. They met up with Cooper in Edinburgh where he was visiting relatives and found they had much in common.’

‘Because Cooper must also be a local man as the regiment is from these parts,’ supplied Jacob.

‘Exactly, he hies from Penrith. Everything kept coming back to Cumberland. Cooper was impressed by their familiarity with radical writings. By then he’d experienced the stupidity of his commanders and that made him ripe for recruitment into their brotherhood.

Crawford followed, because Crawford follows Cooper everywhere. ’

‘How does that work? I would find it annoying,’ asked Dora.