The Hidden Man by Robin Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

forgotten to search for it.

 
    Chapter Four
    B EFORE GOING HOME I called again at Pimbo’s shop, not only to ask if the body was securely locked up but also to see if any word had come from Zadok Moon. None had. I told Hazelbury that, should Mr Moon appear, he was to be directed without delay towards me.
    Back in chambers I asked my clerk Robert Furzey if he knew the name of Pimbo’s attorney. His answer surprised me.
    â€˜That would be you , Sir.’
    â€˜Me? No, I don’t recall ever—’
    â€˜Oh yes, Sir. A fortnight ago Mr Pimbo came, you might say, back into the sheepfold. Old Phillip Pimbo, the father, was a client of your father’s, you see. But not the son, until – as I say – just recently.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜Well, his family papers just turned up in this office sent from Rudgewick’s and packed up with a note reappointing you his family’s attorney. I reckoned Mr Pimbo had fallen out there, so I simply accepted them and filed the documents downstairs together with the Pimbo papers of old.’
    â€˜Why did you not tell me, Furzey?’
    He shrugged.
    â€˜It slipped out of my mind. Would have slipped back in one day soon, no doubt.’
    I sighed to overcome my exasperation.
    â€˜Oh, well, it’s convenient as it happens. Would you look and see if there’s a will among the papers?’
    Furzey, already half way back to his desk in the outer room, stopped with exaggerated reluctance.
    â€˜I have a power of writing to do, and yet you want me to go down there immediately and scour out a piece of paper?’
    This time I laughed.
    â€˜That is your job, Furzey. You put the papers there, and you must be able to find them quickly enough.’
    He frowned at me.
    â€˜A slave I am, and this no better than a sugar plantation.’
    Whenever I was out of the office, or so I suspected, my clerk worked at the pace of a slow worm taking the morning sun. At the sound of my footfall or voice, however, he would appear always in a froth, and dart about as quick as a lizard. Now he disappeared into the basement at a run and, less than five minutes later, returned to slap a folded paper onto my desk. I saw inscribed on it the words The Last Will and Testament of Phillip Pimbo Esq .
    â€˜Tell me, what sort of client was old Pimbo, the father?’ I asked, picking it up.
    â€˜He was a very solid merchant. His count-books balanced. And he knew enough to think twice on a good bargain.’
    â€˜The son was not so cautious I expect.’
    Furzey gave a sardonic smile.
    â€˜He was not. His head was inflated by windy dreams, that strain the skull and split the seams – as the poet says. Now, may I get back to my desk?’
    The fact that Pimbo had reappointed me his family attorney would explain the letter summoning a meeting between us at the Goldsmith’s shop. But I still did not know what business ‘of wrong-doing’ he had summoned me about.
    I unfolded Pimbo’s testament. It was dated Lady Day of the present year and was a document of four pages. I went straight to the meat of it, to see how Pimbo had disposed his estate. With neither wife nor offspring to provide for, all his worldly effects went to his aged mother for the length of her life, and then to a distant cousin in Shropshire.
    Of specific bequests there were just two. One was a small sum to Robert Hazelbury, while the other was very curious: ‘To my housekeeper Ruth Peel I leave my four-acre orchard at Cadley, including all its beehives, that she shall maintain it and them ever in the production of fruit and honey, and so provide for herself, on the sole condition that she never give herself in marriage, and that if she should do so the said orchard and beehives shall be forfeit and revert to the property of my aforementioned cousin and his heirs.’
    The last two pages took the form of an inventory of the contents of Pimbo’s home, which