“Could we do that – build a house from scratch?” Ashcroft asked him.
“I believe we could,” Fenby said.
“We could use the materials from St Mary’s,” Ashcroft said, leaning in closer and lowering
his voice, “That would be one hell of a saving.”
“I don’t want to get in law trouble – for stealing,” Fenby told him. He had had more than his
share of run-ins with the local constable, Benjamin Tapett, mainly about drunken behaviour.
“Listen, leave the materials to me,” Ashcroft said, “You look around for someone who can
Reluctant as he was to play along with anything proposed by Ashcroft, this seemed to be the
basis of a fair idea.
Ashcroft hired two rogues from the burgeoning village on the other side of the river and, by
cover of night they made three runs down the valley in order to recover wood, stone and
brick. A further dividend was the state of two of the window frames: they were near perfect
and Ashcroft patiently eased them out of the wall with his builder’s tools.
“You must carry these on top of our load so they do not get damaged,” he told the meaty
youths from East Harlington who were moonlighting for him.
For each run down the valley, Ashcroft, in a scouting capacity, rode his pony a hundred yards
ahead in case Tappett should be out and about.
There was a small copse at the bottom of his own garden and that is where he asked the men
to tip each load. Ashcroft made sure he was in position to rescue the window frames on that
particular run. He realised that Makepeace and Quibell, the two hired youths, were full of
cider and unlikely to remember his concern for the windows.
Fenby found an architect called Austin Lincoln. He had been one of the area’s finest until a
nagging wife sent him to the consolation of the bottle. Lincoln was a regular at the Cock and
Feathers, where he had a niche respected by all and sundry from the hour of eight till closing.
“Mr Lincoln, I am in need of an architect,” Fenby said, approaching him slyly from an obtuse
angle.
