Hawke's Tor by E. V. Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

have just delivered a letter from the Honourable East India Company addressed to Morgan, at Trelyn Hall. It means Morgan was not telling the truth when he said nobody was aware of his whereabouts.’
    â€˜It could be he didn’t feel the East India Company counted as “a person”,’ Amos commented.
    â€˜Perhaps … but I’m not convinced. I felt all the time we were
talking that there’s something in Morgan’s background he’d rather we knew nothing about.’
    Amos had known the sergeant for too long to dismiss his hunches out of hand. ‘Well, we need to follow up every possible lead, Tom. Write a letter to the East India Company and see if they can tell you anything about Morgan. If there’s anything worth looking into further I’ll ask the chief constable to authorize you to go up to London and dig a little deeper. We’ll go to North Hill now and have a chat with a certain Bessie Harris. Jemima tells me she’s the one who is sent for when a baby is being born. It also seems she knows of a gypsy who takes babies from unmarried mothers – for a sum of money, of course – and sells them on to women who are desperate for a baby but unable to have one themselves.’
    â€˜Now that could explain baby Albert’s mysterious disappearance, ’ Tom declared. ‘Although I would never have thought of such a thing as a possible explanation!’
    â€˜Don’t get too excited about it, Tom, Jemima’s information is a few years old, but it’s worth checking out. When we’ve done that we’ll see if the landlord of the Ring o’ Bells at North Hill has a private room where we can get something to eat. It might also be a useful opportunity to learn something more about Kerensa Morgan. She worked there before she was married and – again according to Jemima – it seems she did a lot more there than satisfy the customers’ thirst. We might learn something of significance.’

Chapter 6
    B ESSIE HARRIS’S HOME was a tiny thatched cottage at the edge of North Hill village. The front garden was occupied by a grey-muzzled dog of uncertain breeding, which looked through clouded eyes in the general direction of the two policemen and, as they opened the gate, barked ferociously, at the same time wagging its tail in greeting.
    The sound brought two cats to the window-sill inside the house and Amos and Tom would learn they were only one-fifth of the number kept by the woman who during a long lifetime had brought most of the residents of the surrounding villages into the world.
    Bessie was a short, grossly overweight, grey-haired woman who waddled rather than walked when she led the two men across the single downstairs room, shooing cats off the two chairs on which she invited her visitors to sit after she had somewhat reluctantly allowed them inside her home.
    The room was cluttered with knick-knacks gathered from a lifetime and smelled uncomfortably strongly of the animals which shared the cottage with her. Tom wrinkled his nose in distaste and it did not pass unnoticed by Bessie.
    Addressing Amos, she said sharply, ‘I don’t suppose you came here just to clutter up my cottage, so what is it you’re wanting?’
    â€˜Information, Bessie. We’ve been told you might be able to give us the name of a gypsy who’s been known to find homes for unwanted babies.’
    â€˜Me? How am I supposed to know something like that? I just help mothers best I can to bring their babies into this world. What they do with them afterwards is their business, not mine – nor anybody else’s as far as I’m concerned.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t argue with that, Bessie,’ Amos replied, adding soothingly, ‘From all I’ve heard you’re probably the best midwife in the whole of Cornwall and I am not here to make any accusations against you. The women around here are very lucky to have you, but