“Her great house was rented out to a pair of strangers. She did not go with her husband into the prison: she could not stand it, poor soul. She was worn out by grief and suspicion, and died soon after. Her brother, the Captain, could not get promotion after that. He sold his commission to return and find her, and afterwards went into the city watch.”
“And Mr. Ravenscraigh, surely his debts were resolved.”
“I had thought not, and that must be so, for he is still a prisoner. After his wife died, her little legacy was all swallowed up, and he was much subdued and little else was heard of him.”
“And this old rake and suspected murderer is now dressed up in respectable black feathers as the Eminence of the Bellstrom Gaol,” Grainger finished.
“Yes, sir,” said Myron, “and by your grace, sir, may he live out the rest of his miserable, wicked life in the same place.”
Grainger stepped forward and shook Myron’s hand firmly. “I thank you. You have resolved a number of matters for me.”
After the Myrons had gone, Grainger remained, in an attitude of deep reflection, staring through the little gap of a window into the wild skies, while William leafed through the two or three pages of notes he had made, and wondered at them, and scratched his head with his pencil.
“A strange and unfortunate tale,” said William. “But I cannot see its whole import.”
“It is murky—very murky. What a falling off was there! But the crooked way will shortly be made clear.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Captain’s Sabre Goes to Work.
CAPTAIN GRIMSBOROUGH waited on the mayor’s pleasure in the hall of Wexfled House. The quality of his patience proved iron to the bones, and the Captain had rather a cooling effect on the servants, who stooped and amended their pace as they hurried by with salvers and carafes—for the honourable Mayor Shorter was entertaining tonight. The Captain was not invited to the table. The sound of glasses touching, speech-making, and silver knives tapping fine china plates fell remotely in the Captain’s ear.
Presently, the doors to the dining room opened and the mayor, a little uncertain in movement and florid in complexion, staggered through. The Captain rose silently, but the shadow he cast startled the mayor.
“Oh, it’s you is it?” remarked Mayor Shorter. “I thought you had gone home.”
“You sent for me.”
“Aye, aye. That I did.” The mayor closed the doors. “We must find some necks to stretch.”
The Captain considered this. “I know some dozen rogues fit to the purpose, but by what cause will they be fitted for the mayor’s pleasure?”
“Tush, man,” hissed Shorter. “You are too pedantic. We need to show our principles, and for these principles six or seven ordinaries must hang.”
“All the same,” returned the Captain, “I would prefer to know the cause.”
“It is these highwaymen, these reavers on the roads. They spread agitation. There are more ballads sung of their deeds than there are hymns. And we are not firm, sir. We are not firm against it. Where we are infirm, disorder follows. The Steps breed crime and riot, sir, and we are not standing against it.”
“You mean Dirk Tallow and his mob. Or the Harfoot Men.”
“I don’t care to name them, or know who they are,” hissed Mayor Shorter. “I would have our justices seen applying the law.”
“But I would care to know, respecting the last. I come to you from the city morgue, where I passed a fine half-hour with the corpse of this poor soul: a corn-merchant shot dead on the Torley Pike and left to rot in a ditch for seven-day. Therefore, sir, I would like to know,” insisted the Captain.
“Ugh, don’t speak of it. Bring in four of five souls. It don’t matter who they are. Hang ’em high, and let the rest see it. You are a watchman. The order of the city is your ward and warrant. Dirk Tallow is out of your reach.”
“Is that all we have to speak on?” asked the Captain flatly, leaning back on his heels. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
The mayor smiled and bobbed, and came towards the Captain. “Nay, I mean no offence. You are tetchy, man. But there is one thing else.”
“Then speak it.”
“I believe,” resumed the mayor, with a sly glance, “you are familiar with the name of William Quillby.”
“He is known to my daughter,” the Captain assented stonily.
The mayor coughed into his hand. “Unfortunate tendency, in the feminine part of your family, to associate with unsound persons. That young fellow is vexatious to me. He bombards my office with requests, demands audiences, appeals, reconsiderations. And now he makes insinuations, sir. Insinuations about my old legal practice, of the most base and reckless kind.”
The Captain smiled, which is to say, he showed any number of long teeth in his long jaw. “Respecting the Steergate Murder, I presume.”
“The murder is the matter on which his complaints hang.”
“And what is this to me?”
“Restrain him, sir. Make my displeasure known. He is treading on dangerous ground. He offends the dignity of my office with his ceaseless impertinences. Discourage his enthusiasms.”
“And if his enthusiasms persist?”
“Cool them. A few hours or days in the Bellstrom on the same terms as his friend may persuade him of his errors.”
The Captain’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sabre, and he clenched his teeth as the lion’s head on the pommel gnawed the steel guard, but he was not inclined to speak, and though the mayor anxiously scanned his features, he stood tall and composed.
The mayor, after a moment, yawned and looked back to his dining-room, and tapped his own cheek to rouse his spirits. “Well, I suppose you will stay for a glass of claret, to rally your spirits.”
“I will not.”
“Very well. Good man. Then, set to work.”
Captain Grimsborough startled and scattered the running servants as he struck out of the hall, sword and coat and heavy boots sweeping into the unquiet night.
THE CAPTAIN’S HOUSE stood at the corner of Howlbourne Lane on Flinders Hill, and though it was, rather like its master, somewhat too tall and grim, being built in part on an old watchtower and gate, Howlbourne Lane was calm in its shelter. The Captain shed his greatcloak and coat in the hall and stalked up to his office, where he sat for some time in thought, staring at nothing and betrayed only by the slow drumming of his fingers on the arm of his oak chair. Presently, he unlocked a chest by the wall and drew out a brace of pistols, which he loaded with care and slipped into his belt. The hour was late, yet the Captain rose again.
As the Captain went down the stairs, he heard voices raised in the drawing room. He went at once to the door and strode in. Miss Grimsborough was there, but as he guessed, she was not alone. She sat in an attitude of dejection before the fire, her head inclined away from him. And moving from her, as though startled, was Mr. William Quillby.
Quillby bowed hastily. “Good evening, sir.”
“Is it your intention, sir, to call on my daughter unattended and present yourself in this house without my knowledge?” demanded the Captain.
William swallowed and grimaced. “No, sir, it is not. I mean no disrespect to your house or your daughter. But it is plain that my presence is not congenial to your office.”
The Captain nodded. “I have been this night charged with arresting you, if you persist in harassing the worthy men of Airenchester. But that does not, I think, explain why you are here, seemingly in secret, this evening.”
William looked to Clara, who fixed her gaze on the hearth and did not return his glance. “I thought to convince Miss Grimsborough to press our cause once more with you. We have made discoveries, sir, that—”
The Captain brushed the rest of this aside. “And what was my daughter’s reply?”
William turned his hat in his hands. “Miss Grimsborough has such a deep respect for your position and views that she declines to press you further in this matter, for fear�
��for fear, sir—in short—of rousing your ire.”
The Captain’s mouth settled in a harsh, thin line. “I see. Then you linger here to tell me that my daughter is afraid of me. Well, you may linger no more.”
William shook his head in agitation. “Sir, if you would only pause and hear our case. We have secured proofs that Mr. Massingham was murdered for his part in a series of property frauds. We have had those proofs stolen from us by violent men. We have lately guessed the name of the foremost of those men. Can you not see where all these threads lead?”
“Do not delay, sir, on your way out, to tell me that I am also a fool!”
William Quillby drew himself up and took three reluctant steps past the Captain. He had almost reached the door to the parlour and put his hand upon it, when he clenched his fist and turned again. The hat in his hands quivered, yet he raised his chin to address the Captain. “I will not detain you longer—for I have been cast out from every respectable place in Airenchester and dismissed by every officer, high and low—except that I ask your leave to say that if I have offended or distressed Miss Grimsborough, or placed her in a position of suspicion or awkwardness with her father, then I sincerely beg her forgiveness. For, in short, sir, I adore Miss Grimsborough, and esteem her loyalty and cleverness and good sense higher than all the offices and powers of this town, and if I have but one doubt, it is the perpetual mystery and conundrum to me, how this angel could have such an absolute, blind blockhead for a father!”
The Captain’s hand tightened upon the worn hilt of his sword, but he replied with no more emphasis than a stone. “Are you concluded, sir?”
“I am.”
“Then you choose a curious moment to bare your teeth.”
“I am precious weary of being dismissed out of hand.”
“Then get out, before your new nerve leads you to some new recklessness.”
“No, Father! William must stay.”
The Captain rounded on Clara, who had risen in her passion and seemed likely to come at him with her fists. “And who are you, my girl, to say who should stay or go beneath this roof?”
“It is enough, Father!” exclaimed Miss Grimsborough. “I know that William is kind and generous and thoughtful and loyal, and he has contended with a great evil and never faltered. Are you so blind, Father, so dulled and weary, that you cannot see his honesty and worth?”
“Is it your intention,” demanded the Captain, grinding his teeth, “to turn on me, as well, and stand up for this vexatious scribbler?”
“I am an obedient child, and I would never in thought or deed or word turn against you, but I would rather steer you to the better course, as Mother would were she here.” Miss Grimsborough placed her trembling hand on her father’s arm, and by degrees he loosened his grip on his sword. “I have seen you through the years, bated and frustrated and beaten down, until you seemed insensible to all that was natural and just in this world. And now, to turn a good, decent man from your door when he seeks your counsel and assistance is intolerable to me, and alien, I think, to your true nature.”
The Captain squared his shoulders and spoke again: “Hold, sir—” meaning William, who had not moved but to look on in wonder since Miss Grimsborough rose. “If I am to face insurrection in my own household, then at least tell me the reason why.”
William assented, “If you will humour a mere scribbler with your attention, he will endeavour to be concise.”
“Go to, sir!” growled the Captain.
“We have long held,” continued William, “that there is one who designs against Mr. Grainger, acting under the authority of a black seal. At every turn, this person has acted against us with information drawn from spies. That person was there at the scene of the crime but a day afterwards. That person procured the testimony of the false-witness, Josiah Thurber, which was fatal to our case in court. We have learned that the same man has sworn falsely in court before and gained considerable advantage by it, as Mayor Shorter knows.”
“If you mean Brock, the thief-taker,” said the Captain, “then you may have no fear of speaking that name here. But I must have certain proofs, and not suspicions, to contend with that man.”
“Perhaps you shall,” said William, measuring his words. “For Mr. Brock is intimate with every criminal gang in Airenchester, dines with the gaoler and supplies him with much of his trade, and has a spy and informer in the Bellstrom Gaol, a politic debtor, long known to Brock and closely connected to him, who has ingratiated himself in Mr. Grainger’s confidences, posing as a sympathetic gentleman and well placed to betray him.”
“And who is this informer?”
“His name is Ravenscraigh.”
The Captain faltered and drew a sharp breath between his teeth. “There is a name I had not thought to hear again.”
“Father.” Miss Grimsborough laid her hand lightly on the Captain’s shoulder, and slight as the touch was, he swayed beneath it.
“I struck out all connection with that man. I had thought, these ten or twenty years past, that some prison-fever or accident had brought him off.”
“He is alive and in regular communication with the thief-taker,” added William.
The Captain looked to his daughter. Her colour was strong and her eyes bright. “Your poor aunt. She was headstrong and loyal, and easily turned by a persuasive tale, and she made a reckless match. Your mother mistrusted and disliked that Ravenscraigh. I have been harsh with you, my dear child, recalling your aunt’s example. But is it possible that I too have been cozened and lulled by these glib and oily fellows? I am a plain man, and I mistrust all fanciful notions, but is it possible I have been sleeping also?”
“No, Father, you are a good and upright man, and you have followed your duty.”
“Only, sir,” said William, subdued now, “if you will listen to us and act. Put our words to the test. Challenge these men, and it may be that if they are alarmed or uncertain, we will force them to an error that will untangle their intrigues.”
“I will go,” said the Captain, his voice grim and his eyes hard as tested steel. “His lordship the mayor has called for a hanging, and a hanging he shall have, yet I wonder what he shall think when he sees who I have in mind for the fatal tree.”
“Sir—” began William “—I will go with you.”
“Stay here,” the Captain commanded. “My daughter is fond of you, I perceive. I am bound for places where you would hinder rather than assist me; therefore, remain. I have rough work to do before morning.”
In a few long strides, the Captain was gone. Miss Grimsborough, astonished at her own passions, knew not whether she should weep or laugh, and William, quite dazed (with relief or anticipation, he could not rightly say) gathered her up in his arms and spun her about.
CAPTAIN GRIMSBOROUGH strode from Flinders Hill to the low town, pausing only at the watch-house on the way. The night was bound to be cold: low clouds swarmed across the sky and snuffed out the weak candles of the stars. But, harsh as the elements were, they had little influence on the business of the streets, as the constables reported, and theft and mayhem were already comfortably abroad.
While the Captain went down by Battens Hill and Denby Street, the mayor saw the last of his guests from the steps of his house and peevishly bade the footman lock the doors and windows. This evening’s entertainment had left little but a sour taste in his mouth and jaded his senses. He had scarce means to ascertain at that moment what forces roamed abroad, though he fretted at their consequences.
So, when Mrs. Wenrender returned home from a ghastly, dull, entirely wretched evening of propriety at the mayor’s house, she was quite distracted by boredom, and the stable-boy had a chance to slip a note into Cassie’s hand, given him by a gentleman earlier. The note, as Cassie saw in an instant, came from Mr. Quillby and Miss Grimsborough, but it warned her merely that the Captain was abroad and set about their business, and whether that went well or ill, it would be the cause of some disturbance among their enemies.
&
nbsp; Subsequently, consternation flared in the low town. Rumour and dismay erupted wherever the Captain went, and flittered out from his course, soft-silent as moths. The porter boys trotted up the lanes through the shivering cold, bearing new intelligence of the Captain’s movements among the bawds, innkeepers, and cutthroats, who shrugged and shook their heads. One or two who held themselves preferentially informed pointed gloomily to Battens Hills, or towards the Bells, and with a sombre pass of the hand made a particular gesture about the neck, the import of which is too well understood to explain.
IT WAS THE hardest hour of the night, when the flames of candles and lanterns stifled in the murk and the spirit itself recoiled from the weary progress of the hours. In Files Lane, where the warehouses and shacks crouched together like beggars casting dice for a dead companion’s rags, the exhalations of the river and the black smoke were so compounded as to make all material forms indistinct, throats raw, noses ache, and eyes blur. A boatman called for fares forlornly on the river. Few passed this way by choice, but the Captain of the Watch ranged abroad still, and though the doors carried no marks, he sought one in particular.
The Captain came to a long, crooked building at the end of a boatyard, like a ship overturned and drawn up on a beach with all its timbers cracked, for lamplight gleamed between the old planks and smoke crept out about three or four low smokestacks. Men slouched outside the door, drawing on long pipes and stamping their feet against the cold. The foremost of them glanced sinister at the officer of the watch, but a stern glare from the Captain persuaded him to forbear. The Captain stepped smartly inside. This place was known prejudicially as Gadger’s Hole, and was dedicated at all hours to the three great principles of trade—flesh, drink, and games.
The Captain made for the stairs behind a certain table where a lean, long-nosed young man, with the deep marks of the pox about his face and too much foppish lace about his neck and wrists, picked idly at a plate of meats with a notched knife. Salt-cellars, candles, tin-spoons, and tankards littered the table, as from the remains of a feast. Beside the young man, glaring at the leavings like a guest come too late to the dinner, brooded a round-shouldered, black-browed imp of a man, with broken teeth and nose, and coarsely shaven head. Between them, with the tip of the blade stuck between the timbers of the table, rested a much-sharpened dagger with a wire-bound handle.
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