BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery)

by D. M. Mitchell

  Blackdown grabbed the truncheon in an instant, released it from the young man’s hand, dropped it to the ground with a clatter and took hold of his arm. He twisted the man around and had a pistol aimed at his head so fast that he gasped aloud with the shock of it. The mounted rider pulled his own pistol from his belt in alarm.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ warned Blackdown.

  The rider slowly slid the pistol back into his belt, holding up his empty hand. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he said.

  Blackdown pushed the young man away and put his pistol back into his coat pocket. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever do that.’

  The young officer of the Blackdown Horse Patrol turned round and glared, rubbing his arm. ‘I could have you taken into custody,’ he said.

  ‘Try it,’ said Blackdown evenly. He bent down and picked up the truncheon, throwing it at the young man. He caught it awkwardly and nearly dropped it again. ‘Who is this Sir Peter Lansdowne who thinks he can create his own little army of vagabonds?’

  ‘We are not an army. Nor vagabonds. We are paid to keep order.’ He glowered at Blackdown.

  The mounted rider spoke up. ‘Do you not know of Sir Peter?’

  ‘I have been away many years,’ Blackdown returned.

  ‘Indeed you have! He’s had a house in the region for ten years or more. He was dismayed at the incidents of highway robbery and other thievery so he decided to do something about it. The Horse Patrol employs ten men, sometimes more, and all out of his own purse.’

  ‘And we do feel a lot safer,’ said Commodore Pettigrew with a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘So who discovered the dead man?’ asked the young officer, regaining his composure.

  ‘Me,’ said Blackdown.

  ‘Did you find him as he is?’

  ‘If you mean dead, then yes. I was meant to find him alive.’

  ‘What was your business with him?’

  ‘A business that is none of your business,’ said Blackdown.

  ‘How do we know you did not kill him?’

  ‘You don’t.’ He eyed the officer. ‘But I’m telling you it wasn’t by my hand that he died. A cut to his throat by my blade wouldn’t have been so messy.’

  ‘Grey was in debt,’ said Pettigrew quickly, trying to defuse the situation. ‘He died because he couldn’t pay his debts. He has been threatened before and it has caught up with him at last.’

  The young man nodded. He walked around Harvey Grey’s corpse, rubbing his chin in thought. ‘Did anyone see anything?’

  ‘The first we heard of it was when we were alerted by this man.’ Pettigrew nodded at Blackdown.

  ‘We’ll search the area. His killer cannot be far away. Cover up this poor man with something and I’ll arrange for his body to be removed.’ He looked up at Blackdown. ‘You’re a stranger here, though you do look familiar.’

  ‘I’m a Blackdown,’ he said. ‘Thomas Blackdown.’

  The man’s lips spread into a grin. ‘A Blackdown, eh? So you are related to that traitorous Lord Blackdown?’

  ‘His son. And I’ll not have you speaking so about him. His name was cleared.’

  The man didn’t say anything in reply. He mounted his horse and looked upon Blackdown with a modicum of contempt. ‘You’re not welcome around here, Blackdown. None of you are. It would be in your interest if you left the town.’

  ‘People keep telling me that,’ Blackdown replied. ‘I grow bored of hearing it.’

  ‘I’ll arrange for the body to be removed to the morgue,’ said the officer.

  ‘Is that it?’ said Blackdown. ‘That’s all there is to it? Keeping law and order isn’t as onerous as I’d first thought.’

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Blackdown,’ he said, ‘and take your leave of this town.’

  ‘This is still my town,’ he returned. ‘Or my family’s town. Take care what you say.’

  ‘You’re finished, Blackdown. The family is finished. You’ve had your reign and now it’s time to hand over the crown to others better suited. Others that are not lovers of the French.’

  Thomas Blackdown remained outwardly calm. He strode over to the officer’s horse, stroked its muzzle. It blew air down its nostrils at the touch and nuzzled into his calming hand. ‘Have you had a busy night?’ he asked the young man. ‘Only I see there is mud on your boot. And is that a spot of blood?’

  The man glanced down. ‘There is much blood splashed around here,’ he said, yanking hard on the reins and pulling the horse’s head away from Blackdown’s fingers. And with that the two horsemen galloped away into the night.

  ‘Well don’t stand around here gawping!’ said Pettigrew to the onlookers. ‘The show must go on! Back inside with you!’ He threw his hands up in exasperation. ‘What am I to do without a Prince Regent? He gets the biggest laughs.’ He eyed Blackdown. ‘I did not know I’d been addressing one of the Blackdowns, sir.’

  ‘I need a list of Grey’s enemies,’ said Blackdown.

  ‘That would be a very long list. All people were his enemies, except those that were his friends, and he didn’t have any friends.’

  ‘You must know something, Pettigrew.’

  The man grinned. ‘Everyone knows something, Mr Blackdown. But I prefer my neck to remain whole.’ He frowned. ‘You are of noble birth, sir. How would you like to play the Prince Regent for me? I will pay handsomely.’

  Blackdown glowered at him. ‘I will pay you handsomely for any information that will lead me to Grey’s killers.’

  ‘Forget him, he was here and now he is gone. That is the way of things. He walked this land of mere mortals all those years without making his mark on the world, and so it is hardly likely he will make a mark after his death. Are you sure you won’t consider being my Prince Regent? I can make you famous the country over!’

  Thomas Blackdown turned his back on the offer.

  He hung about the barn till the entertainments were finished, made enquiries of some of the crowd, managed to pin down one or two of the players in the wings, but Blackdown was no wiser when the barn finally emptied of people and the music and general hubbub died down. Pettigrew ordered the taking down of the curtains and screens, and in minutes this scene of bright excitement, music and laughter had reverted to its dull, shabby former self. Blackdown noticed how his questioning of the troupe only seemed to draw them closer together, the overly confident and exuberant voices of earlier now strangely stilled, their attitude towards him distinctly chillier. There was no more to be had there that night.

  He made his way down the thinly-populated street and into the inn. He climbed the stairs wearily. At such times a wound he received in his leg from a French musket ball pained him and he cursed. His body bore many such trifling though irksome wounds. His mind considerably more.

  He paused with his key outside the door to his room, but bent down and peered into keyhole. The tiny eiderdown feather had disappeared. Someone had used a key to enter the room or had been picking it.

  So much for paying someone to watch his room, he thought.

  Putting his ear to the door, he listened intently, but heard nothing coming from within.

  Without hesitation he went to the empty room next door – the additional room he’d paid for – and opened the door quietly. He made his way over to the window, opened it and clambered softly onto the wooden ledge outside, hoping the timbers were stout enough to take his weight and not so rotten as to collapse and send him hurtling to the ground. The last thing he wanted now was a broken leg. He withdrew his pistol, cocked it and eased himself the short distance along the ledge to the opened window of his room. Carefully peering through the window into the gloom he made out the shape of a dark, hooded figure sitting in a chair facing the door, lit only by the feeble light from a guttering candle on the far wall.

  He squinted but made out no more detail. The figure waited patiently. Quietly. As still as a shadow.

  He pushed open the window and pointed the gun at the figure’s head. ‘Don’t mo
ve, whoever you are, or I swear I’ll blow the brains from your skull.’

  In a moment Blackdown had slipped through the window, landing deftly in the room and advancing upon the figure, which turned slowly round to face him.

  ‘Can’t you use the door like any normal person?’ said the woman, reaching up and pulling down her hood. ‘And put away your pistol. As you can see, I am unarmed.’ She opened her cloak to reveal a thin, low-cut dress, and held out her slender bare arms. Her hair hung in golden ringlets on her shoulders.

  ‘I recognise you. You are the hanged woman and the knife-thrower’s assistant,’ said Blackdown, un-cocking the hammer. ‘Take off your cloak so that I may see if you carry any of those knives with you.’

  She sighed, rose to her feet and let the cloak slip to the floor. ‘Satisfied? Or shall I remove my dress, too?’ There was a wicked glint in her wide, beautiful brown eyes. Her pale, flawless skin was suffused in candlelight and gave the impression that it glowed.

  ‘Sit,’ he said, putting away his pistol. She did so, and he stood before her, his arms folded. ‘How did you get a key?’

  ‘I picked the lock.’ She opened her hand. ‘I believe this is yours,’ she said, holding out the tiny eiderdown feather.

  Thomas Blackdown went to his pocket and pulled out the red feather he found near Harvey Grey’s body. ‘And I believe this is yours.’

  ‘The exchanging of feathers,’ she said. ‘How curious! A sign, perhaps?’

  ‘You live dangerously. I could have killed you.’

  ‘I live dangerously every day.’ She pointed to tiny scars on her arms and neck. ‘I have often been unfortunate, whenever he has been at the drink and misses the potato, or cabbage, or whatever is in season – I much prefer the vegetables to be large, as you can understand, but the audience would have him throw at a grape if they could. They hope and pray that one of these days a knife will go through my forehead, or cuts a vein and I die. I suspect they are slightly disappointed when the knives cleave potatoes.’

  ‘Why do it?’

  ‘I have to make a living. But it is not all danger. By day I am The Mermaid of the Grand Banks.’

  Blackdown smiled thinly. ‘You don’t look like a mermaid.’

  ‘You don’t look or act like the son of a Lord, but looks can be deceptive.’

  ‘Did you kill Harvey Grey?’

  ‘He was already dead when I found him,’ she said. ‘As I stared at the body I heard someone coming so I hid behind the barn. It was you I heard and saw.’

  ‘Did you see who killed him?’

  She shook her head. ‘No sign of anyone. It must have happened in an instant.’

  ‘His body was still warm,’ said Blackdown. ‘And the blood still flowed. Do you know who might have wanted to silence him?’

  ‘Silence him?’

  ‘He was murdered to prevent him talking to me.’

  ‘He was not liked. It could have been for any number of reasons. But I’m not here to talk about Harvey Grey. I need your help.’

  Thomas Blackdown lit a taper from the candle and lit two more candles. He saw her face more clearly, and it was even more beautiful than he first realised. Especially so without the thick paint that had caked her face as a knife-thrower’s assistant. He was taken aback by the effect it had upon him, and he found he had to avert his gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I have business of my own to attend to. I don’t see how I can be of any help to you.’

  ‘I have heard all about you, from my Robert.’

  ‘Robert?’

  ‘Robert Caldwell,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know of any Robert Caldwell,’ he said, though the name struck familiar. He could not place where he’d heard it.

  ‘He knew of you, which is all that matters. He was a private in the 2nd Guards. You were his captain. Captain Thomas Blackdown. He fought alongside you in Spain, and then at Waterloo. He told me how brave you were, how you would throw yourself upon the enemy without the slightest regard for your own safety. He spoke highly of you, as did many of your men.’

  He sifted through his memories. Many faces sprang to mind, but could not place the man. There had been so many of them over the years. And so many had died under his command. ‘What do you seek?’ he asked. ‘I can’t promise anything, mind. But for a fellow Guardsman I will see what I can do.’

  ‘He is missing and I need to find him. He came home from the wars and could not find employment, so he took up with Pettigrew’s company as an odd-job man, being skilled with a hammer and saw, and good with animals, and that is where I first met him. He loved me for who I am, the first man to truly do so. We became betrothed, and were soon to be married. This time last year we were in Blackdown – then as now, for Pettigrew plays in the town every year – and my Robert went missing. Not one word did he leave. He took neither clothes nor money nor food. One night he simply disappeared.’

  ‘You searched?’ asked Blackdown.

  ‘Everywhere. I asked at this inn, I asked at the other inns, I walked about town talking to all I met. But none had seen him. Commodore Pettigrew had some sympathy and sent out a search party, but they came back with the news that it looked like he’d absconded. He told me he had many people do that, and it is a fact, I know. People join and leave us regularly when they grow bored of the travelling or find better employment…’

  ‘Or find another woman,’ said Blackdown.

  Her face hardened. ‘Not my Robert. He was faithful to me. We were to be married.’

  ‘Many men promise faithfulness. Few seem to deliver.’

  ‘You cannot paint all men black, Mr Blackdown, or compare them to yourself. He was a good man. He was a fine soldier and was going to be a fine husband. Are you to condemn him so readily? He spoke of you with respect, and you speak of him like a dog.’

  Blackdown sighed and shook his head. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Sarah Jones.’

  ‘Well, Sarah Jones, I still do not know what help I can be to you.’

  ‘Others have gone missing, too.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What others?’

  ‘Other men who have been recruited on our travels. Especially those who have been soldiers. And they mostly disappear when we reach Blackdown. I notice two more of our company have already absconded. One of them had also been in the army, an ex-fusilier, and recruited by Pettigrew for the troupe in Bristol.’

  ‘Perhaps they found better arrangements.’

  ‘In Blackdown? It is hardly a place brimming with opportunities, unlike the bigger towns and cities. I once spoke to Callisto of this and he told me to mind my own business or he couldn’t promise my safety.’

  ‘Callisto? Who is Callisto?’

  ‘He is Commodore Pettigrew’s prize-fighter and wrestler – the Mighty Callisto, as he is called. An Italian by birth, ran away to sea as a boy and was captured and pressed into His Majesty’s navy. He has been with Pettigrew’s many years. So you see, something is not right for even Callisto to be afraid, Mr Blackdown, and I think my Robert was somehow involved. When I heard you were the very same Thomas Blackdown my Robert served with, I could not believe my good fortune. And to see the way you upbraided that young Horse Patrol officer upstart lifted my heart. I said to myself, here is a man who knows his own mind and will not be afraid to stand up to anyone. Here is a man who can find out what happened to my Robert and bring him back to me.’

  ‘You picked my lock,’ he said in reply.

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘So what other acts of thievery and duplicity are you capable of? What is your game here?’

  ‘There is no game! A woman learns whatever skills she has to learn in order to get by in a cruel world, Mr Blackdown. Some of us are not born into privilege. Some of us have to scrape a living. I did not wish anyone to know I came here, so I asked around to see where you lodged, then sneaked up and let myself into your room to wait for you. The young servant you obviously paid to watch your room was too loose with his
tongue and his eyes were more on the women than your door. I’d ask for my money back. Harvey Grey paid with his life for agreeing to meet with you. I do not wish to have my own throat cut. Not before I find my Robert.’ She rose to her feet and retrieved her cloak, fastening it about her. ‘But it appears I made a mistake coming to see you. You are obviously not the man my Robert made you out to be. You are a cold-hearted man devoid of compassion. I’ll leave you to your miserable life full of suspicion and hate.’ She drew the hood over her head and went out of the door, closing it softly behind her.

  Thomas Blackdown paused for a moment or two, struggling with his thoughts. Then he bound to the door and opened it, but she was already scuttling down the stairs and working her way through the press of bodies towards the main door.

  He was mystified at the impression she’d left on him.

  Mystified also at her tale of disappearing soldiers.

  Shaking his head he went inside his room and to the window. He looked out onto the street and saw the cloaked figure of Sarah Jones hurrying down the street, swallowed up almost immediately by the deep shadows.

  10

  A Dark Mantle

  It was the sound of an army on the move. Thunderous, deafening. Thousands of boots striking the earth, the hooves of many horses, the calling of men, the clinking of harnesses and the deep rumble of a multitude of carriage wheels. It was the sound of war and of death. An army arrayed before him, muskets at the ready, a hedge of sharp-tipped steel bayonets pointing towards him. As one the men stopped and raised their muskets, an order barked out, and the air was rent by the sound of thunder…

  Thomas Blackdown awoke from his lurid nightmare. Sat up in his bed.

  The dream faded, but disconcertingly the sound of the army remained.

  He slipped from the bed and went to the window. The street below was filled with cattle being driven to the market, men slapping the beasts with sticks to keep them on track, shouting at them. The hooves kicked up a cloud of dust. A seeming river of flesh sweeping swiftly beneath his window. Next came sheep, and pigs and geese, children as well as men and women driving them on, heading for the pens that had been specially constructed to house the annual market.