The Unknown Ajax

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘But Richmond saw the ghost!’ she argued. ‘One or two of the villagers have seen it, too, though not as clearly as he did. Old Buttermere said it was a white thing, that glided over the ground, and vanished into the shrubbery.’

  ‘And a very good place for it to vanish, too,’ said Hugo, wholly unimpressed. ‘Give me a sheet, and a night without too much moonlight, and I’ll engage to do the same!’

  ‘And the form Richmond mistook for a living person?’

  ‘If Richmond came up here expecting to see the ghost of Jane Darracott,’ he suggested, after a moment, ‘and in fact saw that old rascal, draped in a sheet, the likelihood is that his imagination took hold of him, and made him ready to swear he’d seen a deal more than he did see. It’s a queer thing, imagination – and I’d say Richmond’s was a lively one.’

  She thought this over, saying at the end of her cogitations: ‘Well, if you are right, Hugo, I daresay I can guess why Spurstow wishes to keep everyone away from the Dower House. Indeed, I wonder that it shouldn’t have occurred to any of us! Depend upon it, the house is being used by free-traders!’

  Eleven

  The Major received this suggestion without any visible signs of surprise or disapproval; but after turning it over in his mind, he said: ‘I don’t know much about smuggling, but I should have thought the Dower House would have been too far from the coast to be of use.’

  ‘No, why? It’s not much more than ten miles, and you may be sure that those who carry the run goods inland know the Marsh so well that they can find their way on the darkest of nights. They must wish to store the goods as far from the shore as they may, because the land-guard keep their strictest watch on the dwellings nearest to the coast, but they can’t go very far, on account of the darkness. The goods are landed on moonless nights, you see: the darks is what they call them.’

  ‘Ay, they’d have to be. Do the smuggling vessels sail close in to the shore, or do the landsmen row out to them?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know precisely. I think they very often land their cargoes in creeks, and gaps, but sometimes, I believe, they cast the goods overboard at high tide. I remember once, when I was a child, that the tide-waiters captured a cargo of tea which had been thrown overboard. It was packed in oilskin bags, made to look like mackerel pots, my nurse told me. She knew a great deal about the trade: I expect her brothers had to do with it.’

  He could not help grinning at her cheerful unconcern, but he was somewhat startled, and said incredulously: ‘Your nurse’s brothers were smugglers?’

  ‘Not master-smugglers, but hired to help carry the goods up from the shore,’ she explained. ‘They worked on their father’s farm, and were perfectly respectable, I assure you!’

  ‘Nay!’ he protested.

  She smiled. ‘Well, quite as respectable as their fellows at all events. You don’t understand, Hugo! In Kent and Sussex almost everyone has to do with smuggling in some way or another. The farm labourers hire themselves out as porters, and the farmers themselves sometimes lend their horses, and nearly always allow their barns to be used as hiding-places. We, of course, don’t have any dealings with smugglers, but if we found ankers in one of our outhouses we shouldn’t say a word about it. No one would! Why, Grandpapa told us once how a cargo of brandy was stored in Guldeford Church, with the Vicar knowing all about it, and saying from the pulpit that there would be no service on the following Sunday because the roof needed repair! Grandpapa could tell you hundreds of stories about smuggling: he used to do so when we were children, and he was in a good humour: we thought it a high treat!’

  ‘I’ll be bound you did,’ Hugo said.

  She detected a little dryness in his voice, and said, with a touch of impatience: ‘I collect you think it very shocking! I daresay it may be, but it is not so regarded in Kent. When Grandpapa was a young man, he says there was scarcely a magistrate to be found who would commit a man charged with smuggling.’

  ‘So that made all right,’ he nodded.

  ‘No, of course it didn’t! I only meant – well, to show you why we don’t think it such a dreadful crime as you do!’

  ‘Nay, you don’t know what I think,’ he said, smiling down at her.

  ‘You will not be much liked here if you show yourself to be at enmity with the Gentlemen,’ she warned him.

  ‘That’s bad,’ he said, gravely shaking his head.

  She said no more then, but the subject came up again later in the day, when Richmond asked Hugo how he had fared at the Dower House. It was Anthea who answered, exclaiming: ‘Richmond, do you think that odious old man is trying to keep everyone away from the house?’

  ‘Yes, of course he is!’ he replied, laughing. ‘You know he hates visitors! Besides, if we took to paying him visits, he’d be obliged to bestir himself, and scrub the floors. Was he crusty?’

  ‘Yes, and worse! He made my blood run cold, with his talk of footsteps, and moaning, and paying no heed to the things he hears! I began to have that horrid feeling that there was something behind me. If Hugo hadn’t been there, I should have picked up my skirts and fled!’

  ‘Humdudgeon!’ scoffed Richmond. ‘In broad daylight?’

  ‘Well, it ain’t humdudgeon,’ intervened Claud. ‘I know just what she means, and a dashed nasty feeling it is! It happened to me once, walking up the lane here. Couldn’t get it out of my head there was something following me. Made my flesh creep, because it was getting dark, and not a soul about.’

  ‘Did you run?’ asked Anthea, quizzing him.

  ‘I should dashed well think I did run!’ he replied. ‘It was a devilish great black boar that had got loose. Never had such a fright in my life! Yes, it’s all very well for you to laugh, but they’re dangerous things, boars.’

  ‘I’d prefer to have a boar behind me than a ghost,’ said Anthea. ‘At least it would be a live thing!’

  ‘Well, if you think a live boar behind you would be better than a dead one, it’s easy to see you’ve never been chased by one!’ said Claud, with some feeling. ‘And as for ghosts, you ought to know better than to believe in ’em. They don’t exist.’

  ‘Oh, don’t they?’ struck in Richmond. ‘Would you be willing to spend the night in the grounds of the Dower House?’

  ‘You know, Richmond, you’ve got the most uncomfortable notions of anyone I ever met,’ said Claud. ‘Dashed if I don’t think you’re a trifle queer in your attic! A nice cake I’d make of myself, prowling round the Dower House all night!’

  ‘But wouldn’t you be afraid to, Claud?’ Anthea asked. ‘Truly, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I’d be afraid to! I’d be bound to catch a chill, for it stands to reason I couldn’t keep on walking for ever, and I’d be lucky if it didn’t turn to an inflammation of the lung. I’m not afraid of seeing a ghost, if that’s what you mean. I know dashed well I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that!’

  Claud bent a sapient eye upon his young cousin. ‘Well, I am sure of it. And don’t you take a notion into your head that I ain’t up to slum, my boy, because I am! What I should see, if I was such a nodcock as to spend the night at the Dower House, would be you, capering about in your nightshirt, with a pillowcase over your head. I don’t doubt I’d see that!’

  Richmond laughed, but said emphatically: ‘Not I! Anywhere else I’d be happy to try if I couldn’t hoax you, but not at the Dower House! Once is enough, thank you!’

  Hugo, who had been glancing through the latest edition of the Morning Post to reach Darracott Place, lowered the journal at this, and looked at Richmond with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Seemingly you’re the only person who ever saw the poor lady plainly,’ he remarked. ‘What did she look like, lad?’

  ‘I didn’t see her plainly enough to be able to answer that,’ Richmond returned. ‘Besides, she was gone in a flash.’

  ‘But you did see a female form, didn’t yo
u?’ Anthea asked.

  ‘Yes, I thought it was someone from the village, when I first caught sight of it, but there wasn’t much light, of course, and –’

  ‘A misty form?’ interrupted Claud.

  ‘Yes. That is –’

  ‘Did it shimmer?’

  ‘Lord, I don’t know! There was no time to see whether it did or not: one moment it was there, and the next it had melted into the shrubbery.’

  ‘Thought as much!’ said Claud, with a satisfied air. ‘I get it myself. In fact, it runs in the family. There’s only one thing for it, and that’s mercury. You take my advice, young Richmond, and the next time you see things slipping away when you look at them ask my Aunt Elvira for a Blue Pill! Surprised she doesn’t give ’em to you, because it’s as plain as a pikestaff you’re as liverish as Vincent!’

  Vincent, entering the room in time to hear this comparison, interrupted Richmond’s indignant refutal, saying, as he shut the door: ‘Am I liverish? I wonder if you could be right? I thought it was boredom. What have you been doing to earn this stigma, bantam?’

  The matter was explained to him by Richmond and Anthea in chorus. Hugo had returned to the Morning Post, and Claud had lost interest, his mind being occupied suddenly by a more important matter. As Vincent strolled forward, Claud’s gaze was dragged irresistibly to his gleaming Hessians, and he fell into a brown study, wondering if their magical gloss could have been produced by a mixture of brandy and beeswax, and if it had ever occurred to Polyphant to experiment with this entirely original recipe. He tore his eyes away from the Hessians, and found that Vincent was looking mockingly down at him.

  ‘Even I do not know, brother,’ Vincent said gently. ‘I hope you haven’t wasted any blunt on champagne? It isn’t that.’

  Claud was pardonably annoyed. ‘If you want to know what I was thinking –’

  ‘I do know,’ interpolated Vincent. ‘I beg your pardon, Anthea! You were saying?’

  ‘I was saying – no, Claud, don’t answer him! it’s precisely what he wants you to do! – I was saying that whatever Richmond may, or may not, have seen, I think the Dower House is haunted,’ stated Anthea. ‘I had the horridest feeling, all the time I was there!’

  Hugo, who was seated sideways on the window seat, with the Morning Post spread before him, raised his head, and said, with a grin: ‘No wonder, if you let that old humbug bamboozle you into believing him!’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me that Spurstow said the place was haunted?’ demanded Richmond. ‘Because I’ll swear he never did so! He doesn’t give a rush for any ghost! I happen to know, too, that when they ask him questions about it, down at the Blue Lion, he turns surly, and won’t answer. Why should he take it into his head to start talking about it to you?’

  ‘Hugo thought he was trying to frighten him. And I must say, Hugo, it does seem as though you might be right!’

  ‘Fiddle!’ said Richmond. ‘Why should he want to frighten Hugo?’

  ‘Happen he thought I’d too much interest in the place,’ suggested Hugo, turning a sheet of his journal.

  ‘Hugo said that he would like to strip all the ivy off, and clear away those thick shrubs,’ explained Anthea. ‘I wonder? You know, it’s perfectly true that he tries to keep everyone away. It hadn’t previously occurred to me that he might be hiding something, because Aunt Matty never would see visitors either, but when Hugo put it into my head– Richmond, could he be using the Dower House as a hiding-place for run cargoes?’

  ‘He could be,’ Richmond replied, ‘but I don’t advise you to accuse him of it. He’ll take it very unkind, and start prosing about having been thirty years in service and never a stain on his reputation. Ash told me he went right up in the bows when that clunch, Ottershaw, set a watch on the Dower House.’

  ‘Good God, did he do so?’ exclaimed Anthea. ‘I never knew that! When was it?’

  ‘Oh, soon after Ottershaw was sent here! Just after Christmas, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Dear me, what stirring events seem to take place when I am not here to be beguiled by them!’ remarked Vincent. ‘What made Ottershaw suspect Spurstow?’

  ‘His face, I should think,’ said Claud. ‘Anyone would!’

  ‘The Preventives always suspect haunted houses,’ said Richmond, ignoring the interruption. ‘Ottershaw’s a bigger sapskull than the man we had before! He came up to see my grandfather about it!’ He grinned at Vincent, his eyes alight with mischief. ‘You ask Chollacombe how Grandpapa liked it!’

  ‘I am sure he disliked it very much,’ said Vincent, flicking open his snuff-box. ‘I have every sympathy with him. A gross impertinence: Spurstow has been in Grandpapa’s service all his life.’

  ‘But was that all the reason Ottershaw had?’ demanded Anthea. ‘Merely that the Dower House is haunted?’

  Richmond shrugged. ‘No use asking me: I’m not in the fellow’s confidence. All I know is that he had the place watched. Spurstow discovered it, of course, and nabbed the rust. He went off to Rye, ran Ottershaw to earth in the Ship, and asked him what the devil he meant by it. I wasn’t there myself, but I’m told there was a rare kick-up. Ottershaw lost his temper, because Spurstow challenged him to go back with him and search the Dower House, and of course he dared not do it without a warrant, unless he had Grandpapa’s permission, which he most certainly had not!’

  ‘And did Spurstow’s display of righteous indignation allay suspicion?’ enquired Vincent, restoring his snuff-box to his pocket, and dusting his sleeve with his handkerchief.

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t allay my suspicion!’ said Claud. ‘If any such gallows-faced cove came and talked to me about his spotless reputation, I’d give him in charge! Too smoky by half! Depend upon it, he’s got run goods hidden all over the house!’

  ‘If that’s so, how did he get them there?’ retorted Richmond. ‘Each time the Preventives have got wind of a big run Ottershaw has posted dragoons in the lane, and they’ve never seen or heard a thing! There’s no other way of getting to the house, except by the gate that leads out of the shrubbery into our grounds, and that couldn’t possibly be used. For one thing, it squeaks loud enough to be heard half-a-mile away, and, for another, a man posted outside the main-gate, in the lane, couldn’t help but see if anyone came out of the shrubbery.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Vincent. ‘Assuming, of course, that he was a stout-hearted fellow, and maintained his post – which I doubt. From what I know of the inhabitants of this unregenerate locality, I should suppose that they could be counted on to fortify the dragoon for his vigil with some pretty choice ghost-stories.’

  ‘Yes, of course they do,’ grinned Richmond. ‘Ash – he’s the buffer at the Blue Lion, you know – says the men hate that duty like the devil. According to him, they’ve seen more ghosts at the Dower House than we ever dreamed of! I don’t suppose they do stay too close to the gate, but it makes no odds as long as they keep the lane covered: any pack-train would have to come that way. The best of it is that while Ottershaw concentrated his forces there, the night of a big run, the train was miles to the west, and got through without catching so much as a whiff of a Preventive!’

  Vincent looked rather amused. ‘You are remarkably well-informed! Where do you come by all this information, little cousin?’

  Richmond laughed. ‘My boatman, of course! Lord, you don’t imagine anything happens along the coast that Jem Hordle doesn’t know about, do you?’

  ‘I had forgotten your boatman. Is he one of the fraternity?’

  ‘I haven’t asked him. You should know better than to think one puts that sort of a question to one’s boatman!’

  ‘To be sure I do! How could I be so stupid?’

  ‘I’ll tell you something, young Richmond!’ said Claud suddenly. ‘You’re a dashed sight too caper-witted! If you don’t take care you’ll be made to look no-how. Ought to be sure of your boatman! What’s more, you oughtn�
��t to beach that yawl of yours where anyone could launch her, and not a soul the wiser. A rare mess you’d find yourself in if she was caught bringing in run goods, and it’s all the world to a handsaw that that’s just what will happen one of these nights!’

  ‘I fail to see why Richmond should find himself in a rare mess because his boat was stolen and put to improper purposes, even though I’m spell-bound by your eloquence,’ said Vincent. ‘Have you undertaken to bear-lead him as well as Hugo, by the way?’

  ‘You needn’t be anxious, Claud!’ Richmond interposed, a confident little smile playing about his mouth. ‘Jem would no more take my boat out without my leave than he’d rob me of my watch, and he wouldn’t let anyone else do so either.’

  Claud, an expression of deep scepticism on his face, looked as though he had more to say, but as his father came into the room at that moment, the subject was allowed to drop.

  Matthew, on the eve of his departure from Darracott Place, made another attempt to persuade Vincent to follow his example. He failed, for the very simple reason that Vincent’s financial embarrassments made it desirable not only that he should oblige his grandfather, but that he should be put to no living-expenditure until quarter-day came to relieve his situation. But as Vincent was well aware that Matthew strongly resented Lord Darracott’s capricious custom of bestowing on his grandsons handsome sums which he grudged to his own son, he did not present Matthew with this explanation of what was otherwise an incomprehensible determination to remain where he was plainly bored to death. In fact, he presented him with no explanation at all, a circumstance which sent Matthew back to London in a mood of anxious foreboding only partially allayed by his dependence on his lady’s ability to control what he felt to be an increasingly dangerous situation. ‘My dear sir,’ Vincent said, ‘it would be so unkind – really quite barbarous! – to leave my grandfather without support in this hour of trial. I could not think of it! But do, I beg of you, remove Claud!’