Free Cheating the Hangman by Judith Cutler Page A

saw no Paphians in states of undress. No young sprigs sliding drunkenly down banister rails. No one rode his horse up the staircase. All I saw was a patient with a case of gout. A gentleman with more hair than wit suffering an attack of gout. The worst gout in the world. And I was to provide an instant cure. A tale I hear so often, Toone – and you? And what, pray, is your most popular cure?’
    ‘Tinted water. At the same price as the best claret. Popular because my patients believe that exorbitant cost means extreme efficaciousness. And if they drink more of it than they do of claret it does indeed seem to be efficacious.’ Toone eyed the sherry decanter, but declined another glass.
    As if by common consent we kept conversation general during the excellent supper, which included, after soup and a plate of salmagundi, a fricasse of chicken, some tiny buttered potatoes and a raised ham and leek pie. Should the occasion merit it, Maria was more than capable of producing a table overburdened with delights; for more intimate dinners such as tonight’s, she confined her cook to producing a few dishes of total excellence. The wine as always was the best Hansard could afford, it being his express opinion that poor wine was bad for the health. He never did square this with the amount of vintage wine andport consumed by gout sufferers from the Upper Ten Thousand.
    The covers removed, and Burns, having set fruit and nuts on the table, withdrawn, Toone rose, no doubt expecting Maria to adjourn to the drawing room, there to pick at a piece of embroidery until we gentlemen had deemed our conversation at an end. However, this was not the way in the Hansard establishment when there were no female guests. Maria, neither moving from her place nor favouring him with an explanation of her unconventional preference for champagne over port, declared, her voice and mouth prim, but her eyes alive with curiosity, ‘And now, gentlemen, you may report to those of us not privileged to be with you today what you have found out about the poor man Tobias found in the wood. Jem, confined in his school, has probably heard nothing but the wildest gossip, while I was forced to spend the day examining the contents of my linen press so that I could not walk down to the village and make sly enquiries.’
    She and Jem listened intently as Toone gave a succinct and intelligible account of our findings and his conclusions. To illustrate his first point he passed round one of Snowdon’s sketches.
    Jem stared in disbelief. ‘My dear Mrs Hansard—’
    She took it and examined it carefully, as much, I suspect, for the draughtsmanship as for the anatomical detail. ‘This is very fine work, Toone. You have found an admirable illustrator.’ She turned to Jem. ‘I wish I could have done as well.’
    He blushed deeply. ‘But if not you—’
    ‘A chance visitor to the area, Jem,’ Edmund cut in, aware of Toone’s irritation at the prolonged interruption.
    Swiftly Toone resumed his narrative, tactfully refraining from passing round any further illustrations, and veiling his account of the mutilation in Latin terms. ‘To sum up,’ he said at last, ‘we believe that the man was dead when he was nailed to the tree.’
    Maria coughed. ‘He was not a small man. No one man could have inflicted so many injuries, nor, of course, lifted him up and driven in those nails. To drive so many to this collective madness … Does not this suggest that he had done enormous harm, perhaps to more than one person?’
    Jem appeared understandably reluctant to voice his observation. At last, with a sigh, he said, ‘Surely this evil crucifixion, at such a sacred time of year, suggests only one thing! Devil worship! I did warn you of rumours about Lord Wychbold and his evil cronies, did I not?’
    ‘Devil worship? What sort of ignorant superstition is that?’ Toone demanded.
    ‘Come, man, you have heard of Lord Wharton and of Sir Francis Dashwood! The Hellfire Club?’ Whether