“I am he.”
The cautious response was met with a sudden smile that at once dispelled the harshness. “I thought I could not be mistaken, sir. You were pointed out to me upon the Esplanade.”
“Indeed.” Francis set down his cup, his tone discouraging. He might need to talk to the man, but he was not going to pander to his vanity. “You have the advantage of me, sir.”
The other man did not appear to be in the least disconcerted. He thrust out a hand. “Edgcott, sir. Captain Edgcott, some time of the military. Always a pleasure to encounter one of our own, sir. The general tells me you have seen service.”
Somewhat taken aback by Edgcott’s determined friendliness, Francis rose. Needs must, he shook the hand. “You are acquainted with General Godfrey?”
“Acquainted with everyone, sir. I am a regular at Weymouth, you must know.”
He spoke without a trace of boastfulness and in a welcoming spirit which could not readily be dismissed. The fellow’s mien matched none of the assumptions Francis had made upon catching first sight of him in the Assembly Rooms.
Also on his feet, Hemp picked up his coffee. “Allow me to make room for you, sir.”
Edgcott showed surprise. “Good of you, my man, but I don’t stay.”
That would not do. Francis adopted an easy tone. “Nonsense, sir, take a pew.” He gestured to the opposite bench. “You have only just come.”
“On the contrary, my lord, I have been here an age. I saw you come in and thought I must take opportunity to make myself known to you. But I am in no mind to make a nuisance of myself.”
But Francis was not going to lose the opportunity. Hemp, with a tact Francis could only admire, was already shifting out of the way. A few persuasive words saw the captain settling himself in Hemp’s vacated place, protesting he would stay but a moment or two.
“I will obtain a fresh cup from the landlady, milord.” With which, Hemp went off towards the counter, taking his unfinished drink along with him.
Francis took opportunity to take better stock of the captain as he refreshed himself from his own cup. The rough look of the first instant had entirely dissipated. The eyes held bright interest and the relaxedness of the smile took away from the effect of the prominent nose. His figure, though broad in the shoulder, was not quite as bulky as Francis had first supposed, an impression caused perhaps by an ill-fitting coat he wore, its collar and cuffs too large for present fashion, and the three-cornered hat which belonged to an earlier age. Hardly the kind of man one would expect to attract a lovely young girl.
“May I know where you were in service, my lord Francis?”
“America, sir, in the main, but that was a long time ago.”
Edgcott nodded in a knowledgeable way. “Ah, then you will know Tretower. He told me he was there.”
“Indeed. We were in the same regiment and are still friends. As it happens, I brought my wife here to recuperate upon his recommendation.”
“A wise move.” Captain Edgcott gestured with his finger. “The air is invigorating and the company merry. You could not do better, sir. And to have a friend readily in situ. Could not be better, my lord.”
“I thought so,” agreed Francis, wondering how he might introduce the subject of the murder.
“The South Coast is particularly fine, I would say,” pursued Edgcott, “but I would not recommend Brighton. Our esteemed prince has turned the place into a haunt of the best and worst of society, my dear sir. No, no, one is best to keep to Weymouth and those resorts towards the west. I like to ring the changes a little myself, but Weymouth calls me every time.”
Mrs Horniman arriving with a clean cup and saucer at this moment, he broke off to thank her, with a merry laugh.
“You see I have been waylaid, dear lady. As if one could readily leave your establishment when the coffee and the company is so very welcoming.”
The proprietress simpered a little. “It is good of you to say so, Captain. I am sure I hope we may always make you comfortable.”
“Impossible to be otherwise, dear lady, quite impossible.”
To Francis’s mingled astonishment and interest, he reached an arm about the woman’s hip and delivered a hearty slap to her ample rump. She gave a little shriek of laughter, coloured and protested.
“Ooh, you are a terrible man, sir!”
She waddled off, the captain looking after her with his smile fading as he turned back to Francis, lowering his voice. “Pays to treat such women with a trifle of familiarity, my lord Francis. Such a small thing to yield so much by way of excellent treatment. Why withhold it when it costs me nothing, that’s what I say.”
His better opinion of the man rapidly disintegrating, Francis took refuge in pouring out the coffee. “I will leave you to doctor it to your taste, sir.”
“Ah, you will find me a cream and sugar man every time, my lord. I like it sweet and I like it rich. Just as I like my women.” A leering look came Francis’s way and he could not forbear a flicker of distaste. Edgcott’s manner changed in an instant. “But I should not say so to you, Lord Francis, a happily married man. I hope you will excuse my unruly tongue. Monstrous of me to lapse into vulgarity. You will forgive it, I know.”
How he should know any such thing Francis could not fathom. He began to think the fellow was as accomplished an actor as any in The Grand Ferdinando’s company. What impression was he trying to create? Or was he merely testing the ground? Francis put out a feeler.
“I am very happily married, as it chances, sir. But I have not forgot the joys of bachelorhood. Nor am I unable to appreciate the charms of other women without wishing to take advantage of such.”
Edgcott was sucking up his coffee in a manner both uncouth and as indicative of an older style as his costume. Was he in fact older in years than he looked?
“And why should you not, sir? It is unnatural after all for man to be tied to just one of the delicate creatures, do you not think?”
“Whether it is natural or not, sir, does not interest me. I have no desire to tamper with any other than my own wife.”
Regretting the tart note at once, Francis hoped he had not made his disapproval of the man too plain. But Edgcott was evidently more thick-skinned than he had supposed.
“Well, well, you are a lucky fellow, my lord Francis. I lost my wife a good few years ago, but I cannot aspire to a like abstention. Appetites may be stirred by an object of attraction, you know.”
“Such as Dulcibella Ash?”
He brought it out with a ring, hoping to confound the man into giving himself away. To no purpose. Edgcott gave a heavy sigh.
“Ah, the little actress. She was a beauty indeed. A lovely girl. A sad loss to the world.”
“So I have been led to understand.”
Edgcott shook his head, his lips pursing, his eyes registering a distress Francis found it hard to believe in. “Such a pity, my lord, such a great pity. You may count yourself unlucky to have missed her. Or should I say lucky to be spared the unhappiness of knowing her only to lose her?”
Francis seized on this. “When you say knowing her, sir, what exactly do you mean?”
Edgcott looked across the rim of his cup as he slurped at the brew. There was no guile in his eyes, nor in his voice as he replied. “Alas, not in the fashion I should have chosen, I confess. I tried my damnedest, you may believe it, sir, but dismally I failed.” He shook his head again, almost with the exact same level of disturbance in his countenance as when he spoke of her death. “She would not yield. To my mind, she had higher game in view and therefore chose to spurn me.” Then his friendly smile brightened his face again. “Or, if honesty is to be served, let us suppose she found my person disagreeable to her. Never ready to dismiss ourselves as too ugly and ill-favoured to be desired by the lovelies of the fair sex, eh, my lord? Coxcombs all, we men, would you not say?”
A hearty laugh accompanied this assertion and Francis knew not how to answer. Was the man’s bluff manner real or assumed? He passed
so easily from self-deprecation to confidence, it was hard to judge. Francis chose to turn the question back.
“You had rivals then, I take it?”
“Past counting, sir, past counting. That lovely could have had any man she wanted.”
Recalling what General Godfrey had said of this fellow’s complaints of Paglesham, Francis pressed for more. “Galling for you, sir. Especially if you were acquainted with them yourself.”
This elicited a snort. “Couldn’t but be otherwise, sir, in a place such as this. But no use now to be cursing pretty boys and men of better means.” He downed more coffee and then gave a rueful smile. “I tell myself I am well out of the business, sir. She would have cost me a pretty penny first to last and I am not a warm man. Such trinkets and toys as I bestowed upon her were received without return of any kind. Wasted, sir, quite wasted.”
Francis’s dislike was growing. The military attracted all sorts and conditions of men with whom he had been obliged to hobnob in his younger days. Yet he had rarely met with a man as openly vulgar in his speech, as ready to talk to a stranger of matters he would have done better to keep to himself. Convenient for his present purpose it might be, but it was scarcely endearing. Suppressing his distaste, he tried for more pertinent information.
“Do you not wonder who despatched her in so brutal a fashion?”
Edgcott threw back his head. “But without cease, sir. A crime too barbaric to be contemplated.” He leaned a little across the table in the confidential way he had. “Although, sir, there was homage of a sort in the act, I thought.”
This was a new turn. “How so?”
Edgcott opened wide his eyes. “But the candles, my lord Francis, the candles. I thought at once when I heard of it that the fellow had at least the decency to set the poor girl in a bower to illuminate her loveliness. And he coffined her, which must be set to his credit.”
Startled, Francis could not forbear a sharp retort. “To his credit? No, by God! What, so macabre a scene?”
A protesting finger gestured. “No, indeed, my lord Francis, on the contrary. Think how it might have been otherwise, how it too often is. So indecent and untidy to be throwing her carelessly in some alley or left to marauding creatures in a wood. No, sir, to my mind, villain though he is, whoever did the deed had a shred of mercy left to him to be serving the dignity of the corpse.”
This novel view of the matter could not but astonish. “Next you will be ready to shake this murderer by the hand.”
Edgcott laughed as if Francis had made a jest. “Not I, sir. I’ll see him damned first. Especially as I must suppose he succeeded where I did not.”
“Why must you suppose it?”
“Why dispose of her otherwise? No doubt the girl grew importunate, pressing for more than he was willing to give. I knew her for a grasping filly since she did not see fit to return my gifts with any token of affection. No, no, I am persuaded, sad as it is, the girl must have brought it on herself. Women, sir, are all too ready to seek advantage. You must have remarked it.”
“You take a severe view of the sex, Captain Edgcott.”
“Not I, sir.” A leering look and a wink was bestowed upon him. “Love the dear creatures too much, that is the long and the short of it. But there is no denying they are all the same when all is said and done. Out for what they can get, and never satisfied when they get it.”
Francis cocked an eyebrow. “You might say the same of men, sir.”
A loud guffaw made several heads turn in the adjoining booths. “Ah, you’ve hit it, my lord Francis. Terrible set we are, and that’s the truth. Take me, sir. A rough old fellow am I and no mistake. But do I think myself unfit to be rolling a girl like Dulcibella Ash in my bed? No, sir, I do not. I’d take her and ten like her, if I could.” Picking up his cup, he drained it and stood up, shoving his large person out of the booth. “My compliments to your wife, sir. I’ve seen your esteemed mother, of course, but she won’t deign to notice me, and who shall blame her? My dear lord Francis, it has been an honour.”
Rising to take the hand held out to him for all the world as if he was the wretched man’s friend, Francis summoned a look he hoped was sufficiently complacent.
“It has been interesting, sir.”
“Always delighted to make the acquaintance of a fellow soldier, sir, even if the life is long behind me.”
“How long behind you, Captain Edgcott? I have not asked where and when you saw service.”
“Here and there, sir, here and there. You know how it is. They post you off up country and send you back down again without compunction. I’d be sorry to have sold out now the French are threatening our gates, but I’m getting too old for these tricks these days. Can’t be riding up hill and down dale at my time of life. I’ll say goodbye, Lord Francis. Or perhaps au revoir. My compliments to Tretower when you see him.”
With which, he raised his hat in a jaunty fashion, gave a final wink and smile, and headed for the door to the establishment. Francis heard him begin to whistle as he went and slowly sat down again, his hackles up and unable to decide whether he was more suspicious or bemused.
Chapter Ten
As he hesitated outside The Old Fiddler, the boy fingered the cloth of his new coat. He was unused to the thickness of an article with so much wear still in it, and it felt as alien to his body as the decent shirt beneath. The breeches were a different matter, though they chafed a trifle in the groin, for the old pair he’d stuffed with the rest of his rags between some rocks in the cove where he’d changed had not been as worn as the threadbare coat. They would have done him another year at least, if he weren’t to grow too fast. But he were well set up now. What should stop him figging himself out from top to toe? Not that he were nodcock enough to buy it all in one go. Folk were apt to question. An’ old Throcking were a downy one.
Perkin picked his moments with care, when the pawnbroker was haggling over a purchase and his bored son was serving, sliding into the shop and buying one piece of clothing at a time. He did not make the mistake of proffering his guineas in payment. He had exchanged two of them for lesser coin with Grain, who knew him of old. The fence asked no awkward questions, though he’d given the boy a narrow look when he saw the gold.
Once he had his outfit complete, carefully hidden away in his secret cache tucked in a convenient recess at the back of St Mary’s Church, Perkin took his bag containing the motley suit of new clothes down to the cove, plunged naked into the waves to freshen his malodorous person, allowed the sun to dry him and then dressed himself in togs the like of which he had never worn before. He had wished for a mirror and spent some time admiring his reflection in any window he passed when he got back into town, dwelling particularly on the boots which made him look like a swell, he thought, even if they were a little large for his feet. He’d get a second pair of socks to make ’em snug, that was it. And one of them neck-cloths the nobs wore. That would really give him polish.
Only trouble was, these new togs of his would spoil if he slept nights in St Mary’s graveyard. It weren’t nowise as safe as his old haunt. He shivered involuntarily. Not as he’d go back there, not if he were to be hanged for it.
St Mary’s graveyard was small and too central for his liking. Dodging the verger was a nuisance he could do without, for it weren’t restful. But would Missus Tetsy give him a room?
She’d not balked at feeding him leftovers, telling the denizen of the kitchens at the Old Fiddler to let him have the end of a loaf, a heel of old cheese, or, on a good day, a half of yesterday’s pigeon pie. But what would she say if he walked in, bold as brass, demanding a room where he could board until he found a proper lodging?
Perkin had his story ready, but she had one of them eyes as saw things as they shouldn’t, did Missus Tetsy, and he was dubious of being believed. What was more, he’d never dared venture in by way of the front before. He’d have been chased out in his old rags. It were different now. He looked respectable, didn’t he? He thrust out his thin chest. S
tanding here was getting him nowhere. He stepped up to the door and pushed it open.
The fug of smoke and stale liquor from the taproom permeated the narrow hall, together with a murmur of desultory talk, the clink of utensils and the aroma of burned meat. The latter caused Perkin’s mouth to water and his empty stomach clenched. Perhaps he’d fill his belly first. Missus couldn’t object to that. Drawing a breath for courage, the boy swaggered in, trying to look as if he belonged.
The taproom was busy, every bench and stool seemingly occupied and a wall of backs stood between the boy and his glimpse of the counter. No one paid him the least heed as he slid between a couple of chairmen he vaguely knew and edged around the big-bellied form of Moses the ship’s-chandler, for whom he’d run errands in the past. To his relief, he went unrecognised and was able to reach the counter without being accosted.
While he waited for the tapster to notice him, he searched surreptitiously for the two faces he hoped never to see again. But there was, to his heartfelt relief, no sign of either Truggery or Stowe. It was his considered belief both must have scarpered soon as they heard of the horror at which they’d assisted. If they’d been still in Weymouth, The Old Fiddler was where they’d be this time of day, dining on beef and onions no doubt.
“Hoy! Do’ye want owt, boy?”
Perkin started, turning to face the tapster. “Ale, if it p-please you, sir,” he stammered, the beat of his heart quickening.
The tapster grabbed a quart jug and drew off a foaming tankard, slamming it down before him and grunting the price. Then he held out his palm for the money, eyeing the boy the while as if he suspected he was unable to pay.
Perkin dug a hand into his pocket and brought out a fistful of coins. The tapster’s eyes widened.
“Mighty well off fer a sprig your age, ain’t yer?”
He didn’t know the half of it. Though this was only silver and copper. The boy shrugged with a nonchalance he was far from feeling and handed over four pence.
The Candlelit Coffin (Lady Fan Mystery Book 4) Page 22
