by Paula Paul
“And Polly is clever enough to know when Nancy works it all out.”
“Then she is in danger.” Nicholas said. He stood again, but Alexandra seemed unable to move. “We have to warn her. A telegram?”
Alexandra shook her head. “She may not be in a position to receive a telegram. And besides, that would risk someone else knowing the truth, someone else being in danger.”
“Then we have to go,” Nicholas said. “The next train leaves at five a.m. That’s only a few hours from now.”
Chapter Fourteen
The first thing to do, Rob decided, was to find a piece of Nancy’s clothing so he could communicate to Zack that he wanted him to help find her. With Artie sticking close as jam on a scone, Rob went back inside the house and found one of Nancy’s aprons in the kitchen and stuck it under the big dog’s nose. Zack sniffed the apron and whimpered as he looked up at Rob.
“That’s right, Zack, old boy, we both want Nance to come home, don’t we?” Rob said. “Now, go find her.” He pointed toward the front door in what he hoped was an encouraging gesture. Zack turned his big head in the direction Rob had pointed, then ambled toward the old fashioned hearth and plopped himself down in his accustomed place. With a heavy sigh, he placed his head on his forepaws and looked up at the boys with large, liquid eyes and whimpered again.
“Damn you, Zack.” Artie said.
Rob jerked his attention to the boy. “Don’t be swearin’ in Dr. Gladstone’s house.”
Artie’s face drained white, and he spoke in a frightened whine. “But she ain’t here…”
“Never you mind where she is, boy. Nance and the doc don’t fancy yer swearin’.” Rob saw the frightened tears forming in Artie’s eyes, but he turned away, too frightened himself to comfort him. “Now go get the leash for the beast,” he said over his shoulder.
“What?” Artie’s voice trembled.
“The leash. For Zack,” Rob said, turning back to Artie. It would give the boy something to do while he himself fought back his own despair. While Artie fumbled with the leash, Rob crumbled the apron into a wad and stuffed it under his arm. “Let’s go,” he said, when Zack’s leash was secured to his collar. “You lead the way, Artie. Take us in the direction you saw Nance and Polly walking.”
“This way,” Artie said when they were outdoors. He pointed toward the path that followed the shoreline for a short distance before it angled inland toward the heart of the village. They had not had time to take more than a few steps away from the house when they saw someone walking toward them.
“It’s the idjet,” Artie said. There was no fear or disgust in his voice, only resignation at being delayed.
As soon as Lucas spotted them, he bounded toward them in his awkward, unwieldy gate, calling out to them. “Where’d she go? Can I see her?” He stopped in front of them, slack-jawed and breathing hard as his eyes darted from one boy to the other.
“If ye come to see the doc, she ain’t here,” Rob said.
“Besides, surgery hours ain’t ’til afternoon,” Artie added.
“She’s gone, ain’t she?” Lucas said. “Is she coming back?”
“The doc? Sure she is, Lucas,” Rob said. “But not until later. I’ll tell ’er to come by and see ye.”
“No!” Lucas shook his head in an exaggerated movement.
Rob tried to move around him. “We got to be goin’ now, Lucas. You come back later and—”
“No!” Lucas’s voice was louder and full of agitation. “’Tisn’t Dr. Gladstone I wants, ’tis Nancy. She ain’t comin’ back, is she? I could tell, ’cause I seen ’er.”
“You seen Nancy? Where?” Rob felt his heartbeat quicken. Lucas shrugged and kicked at a clod of dirt. Rob grabbed his arm. “Where?” Lucas looked at him with a blank expression for a moment before he spoke.
“Don’t know.”
Rob grabbed Lucas’s thick arms and tried to shake him. “God damn you, where? Think!”
Lucas shook his head again and shouted back at Rob. “Don’t know.”
Rob was about to spit a mouthful of curses at him when Artie intervened, trying to push him away from Lucas. “He don’t understand, Rob. He just means he don’t know where she is.”
Rob glanced at the boy and back at Lucas, fighting to keep his anger and fear under control. He spoke to Lucas in slow, measured tones. “You said you seen Nancy. When, when did you see her?”
Lucas shrugged. “’Twas in the day time.”
Rob’s heart pounded even harder. “Yeah, ’twas daytime, Lucas. Where did you see her? Was she with someone?”
Lucas gave him his slack-jawed stare again, and Rob realized he had confused him by asking two questions at once. “Where did you see Nancy?” Rob asked again, speaking slowly, enunciating each word.
Lucas continued to stare for a moment, then pointed toward the path leading along the shoreline. “I think the other one hurt her,” he said in a frightened voice.
“Who?” Rob asked, trying not to let his fear take control. “Who do you think hurt her?” She and Polly must have met some unsavory characters along the waterfront. Nancy should have been smart enough to know that area was not safe for women. He felt anger born of worry rise in his throat until he heard Lucas speak again.
“’Twas Polly,” Lucas said. “I seen ’er push Nancy. I wanted to help ’er, so I ran, but I fell down, and then I couldn’t find ’em. Did she take Nancy away? Where is she?”
Before Rob or Artie could reply, another voice caught the attention of all of them. It was Kate Hastings coming up the path to the surgery with her sleeping baby swaddled in her arms.
“I must see Nancy,” she said
“Nancy ain’t here,” Lucas said before either of the other two boys could reply. “And Dr. Gladstone ain’t either.”
Kate gave Lucas a disdainful look. “I know the doctor’s away. ’Tis Nancy I seek.”
“The other one pushed ’er,” Lucas said.
Kate ignored him and walked around him as she tried to make her way to the surgery door.
“’Tis true, girl, Nance ain’t here,” Rob said.
She stopped and turned around slowly to face him. A look of recognition swept across her face. Rob knew the young woman had seen both he and Artie working around the house. “My baby,” she said, looking down at the sleeping child in her arms, “she is improved, but I need more of the medicine the doctor gave her. She told me before she left that Nancy would give it to me.”
Rob shook his head. “Come back tomorrow.”
“I need it now.” Kate insisted, then added, “It’s the nights that she worsens. The medicine helps her sleep.”
Rob was about to tell her again to come back tomorrow, but he saw the dark circles under the girl’s eyes and noted how she seemed to have grown thinner since the last time she was there, as if she had neither slept nor eaten. He sighed and shook his head in frustration. “Try the apothecary,” he said, sounding angrier than he felt.
Kate looked at him with her tired eyes and spoke to him in an equally tired voice. “The apothecary is closed. Mr. Neill is dead.”
It was Artie who spoke up this time. “No, it ain’t closed. Clyde Wright runs it now.” Artie had heard that bit of news at the same time Rob had when some of their old acquaintances at the waterfront told them. The story was that Clyde had broken the lock to the shop that had been closed since Harry Neill’s death, and that he had now set himself up as proprietor and apothecary, although Clyde denied it. He claimed that Harry Neill had left the shop to him. There was no way to prove whether or not that was true, since Harry’s brother, Winslow, his only living relative, was dead, too, and since Harry had left no will. There was even some talk that taking over the shop had long been his plan, but that he’d grown tired of waiting for a legitimate opportunity and did old Harry in. As much as he disliked Clyde, Rob still found it difficult that he could have killed Harry. He’d died of some disease anyway, not murder.
“Clyde?” Kate said, interrupting
Rob’s thoughts. “The man makes my flesh crawl.” Rob saw her look down at the sleeping baby in her arms again and once again sensed her fear and dread.
“All right,” he said. “Me and Artie is going that way. We’ll take you to the apothecary. You can ask ’im for the medicine Nancy gave you. ’E’s sure to know what it is, ain’t ’e? And ’e won’t be givin’ ye ’is disgustin’ talk with us along,” Rob said, not certain he believed it himself. He knew the girl would screw up her courage and face Clyde for the sake of her baby, but he hated to see the dread in her face. Hated, too, to think of her having to put up with Clyde’s lewd looks and comments. It would sidetrack them on their search for Nancy, and he knew every minute was precious, but he couldn’t think what else to do. The best he could manage was to send Artie, who still held Zack’s leash, ahead with Kate and the baby while he held back a little with Lucas. He didn’t want Lucas blurting out the fact that Nancy was missing and alarm Kate. There was no point in spreading the fear, not yet anyway, not until he had more time to sort things out and decide what to do. He’d managed to pull Artie aside long enough to whisper to him not to say anything to Kate about Nancy.
Kate and the baby, along with Artie and Zack, were already inside the apothecary by the time Rob and Lucas arrived, and Kate was trying to explain to Clyde the type of medicine she needed for little Alice. The shop smelled of earth and of green things, much like the doc’s herb pantry, but there was a sour smell overlaying everything as well. As Rob looked around at the shelves and the counter, he noted the layer of dust and grime that covered everything. Clyde hadn’t bothered to tidy up after he opened the shop, and if the dust wasn’t enough testimony to that, the clutter of papers on the counter and the dirty stains on the floor were more than enough.
“Infusion of red clover? Sure, I’ve plenty o’ that.” He chuckled as he turned away toward a storage room. “And if me luck holds out, I’ll be needin’ all of it. Whooping cough is a contagion, ’tis. Every little snot-nosed brat in Newton will be needin’ it.” He chuckled again as he disappeared through the door and called over his shoulder to Rob and Lucas, “Be with you in a minute, boys.” He was gone only a few seconds before he returned holding a jar filled with liquid. His face was stretched into a leering smile. “’Tis a bit expensive, Katie, but there’s a way you can reduce the price if yer willin’.”
Kate responded by pulling Alice closer to her and trying to grab the jar from Clyde’s hands. Zack growled, low in his chest, and his ears lay almost horizontal, but Clyde ignored him and laughed, holding the jar just out of Kate’s reach. “Can you pay the price, Katie?”
“She’ll pay sixpence,” Rob said, taking a menacing step toward Clyde.
“Oh, but ’twill take more than sixpence,” Clyde said, his gaze sweeping the length of Kate’s body.
“She’ll pay a sixpence.” Rob’s words were clipped with anger.
Clyde turned his gaze from Kate to Rob, and his lecherous grin dissolved into a smirk. “This ain’t none o’ yer business, boy. Go on back where ye belongs, knee deep in ’orse shit.” He glanced at Artie and back at Rob. “What’re you two doin’ this far away from the doc’s and Nancy’s apron strings anyway?”
Before either Rob or Artie could answer, Lucas spoke and took a lumbering step toward Clyde. “They ain’t here. Polly took Nancy away. Did she take the doctor, too?”
“What is this idjet talking about?” Clyde asked, looking at Rob.
“Polly pushed Nancy,” Lucas said. “She was mean to her, and now she’s gone. Did Polly take Nancy away? Will Nancy die like Seth’s pigs?”
“Ye disgustin’ idjet. Get out o’ here ’afore old Polly gets ’er hands on ye.” Clyde finished off his cruel tease by trying to push Lucas toward the door, but Lucas wouldn’t budge.
“Did she hurt Nancy?” Lucas seemed near tears, and Rob stepped forward to intervene by placing his hand on Lucas’s arm, but Lucas brushed it off. “Did she?”
Clyde laughed his cruel laugh again. “What are ye worried about Nancy for? She can take car o’ herself. Although, ’tis true that Polly’s a strange one. Used to tell me stories about killin’ cats. Tortured ’em to death, she did. When she was nothin’ but a wee child. Threw ’em into boiling water, she did, and laughed when she told me about it.” He moved his face so close to Lucas their noses almost touched. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t the one what killed them pigs you love so much. What you been doin’ with them pigs, idjet? What unnatural acts you been doin’?”
Lucas backed away from Clyde as tears and snot ran down his face. “Did she kill ’em? Did Polly kill the poor little pigs?”
Rob grabbed Lucas again, not giving him a chance to protest this time, and shoved him toward the door. “Go home, Lucas. Go home to your mama, and don’t leave the house ’til I come tell you to. You, too, Kate. Go home.”
“Is Nancy all right?” Kate asked.
“I said go home, Kate.”
Kate snatched away the jar of herbs before she moved quickly across the room to follow Lucas out the door. Rob grabbed Artie’s arm to pull him out.
Clyde ran after them. “What about the money she owes, you little thieves?”
Rob pulled a tu’pence from his pocket and threw it at Clyde as he hurried away, herding the others in front of them.
“What’s wrong?” Lucas asked, stumbling as he ran. “What’s wrong?”
“Just run, Lucas,” Rob shouted.
They’d run only a short distance when Kate slowed and then stopped, breathing hard and clutching her crying baby tightly to her chest. “I must rest,” she gasped. “How could it be Polly what done all those dreadful things?” she asked, breathing hard as she looked up at Rob. “I seen ’er helping the doctor. She held Alice like she was ’er own. And I seen ’er help Lucas’s ma that day at the market cross. Saved ’er from certain death, she did.”
“I don’t know how or why, Kate, but ye got to get home, and ye got to stay there to keep yer baby safe.” He turned to Artie. “Take ’em home, Artie,” he said, grabbing Zack’s leash from him. “And take Lucas home as well. See that they all gets there safe, then you go home yerself. See that ye lock the doors, ye hear? I’ll be along later.”
“But, Rob…”
“Do as I say, Artie. I needs ye to help me now.”
Artie gave him a troubled look that lasted for only a second before he turned to Kate and Lucas. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll see that ye gets home safe.”
Rob watched them go as Zack barked and tugged at his leash, wanting to go with them, but Rob held on tight. He was glad to have them all out of the way. He didn’t understand the potential danger for them, he only knew it was real. No more real for anyone than for Nancy, though. He had to find her before it was too late. He pulled the wadded apron from under his arm and placed it in front of Zack’s nose. The big dog sniffed, then looked up at Rob and whimpered.
Nell Stillwell, the butcher’s wife, almost tore the door from its hinges as she blasted into the constable’s office. She’d forgotten to put on the black patch she usually wore to cover her dead left eye, and it glared and rolled at him with milky foreboding in the split second before she erupted into a frenzied barrage of words and advanced toward where he sat at his desk. Her heavy boots left the debris of the slaughtering pens on the floor, scattered like odoriferous confetti. “’Tis Nancy Galbreath. She’s been kidnapped by a mad woman, and I fear she’s already dead. Same as poor Ben Milligan. If she ain’t dead, ye must save ’er. And hurry. There’s no time to waste.” In front of him now, she placed both of her large, bloodstained hands on his desk and leaned so close to him he caught the scent of pork kidney. “I tell ye, ye got to hurry, Snow. They’s no time to waste, and ’tain’t that Pendennis woman like we thought. ’Tain’t a man either. ’Tis—”
“Sit down, Nell,” Snow said in his quiet, commanding schoolmaster’s voice. He set aside the rather disturbing document he’d just been reading and held his tall, thin body very strai
ght in his chair as he laced his long fingers together and then rested his hands with a menacing quietness on the desk in front of him.
Nell stopped speaking. She stared at him with her one good eye while the other one crept with a liquid stealth backward into her skull, leaving a stark white orb. She straightened herself and looked around for a chair. Finding one, she sat uneasily on the edge and kept her eye on Snow.
When he spoke, his voice was icy. “All right, Nell, what do you wish to tell me about Nancy Galbreath?”
“’Twas Kate Hastings what told me she’s missin’, and the boys, Rob and Artie, is out lookin’ for her. The idjet, too, but they sent ’im home to his ma. ’Twas the idjet what seen Polly drag ’er off and told the boys, and ’twas Clyde Wright what told ’em how she likes to kill things and—”
“Just a moment, Nell. You’re telling me Lucas Pendennis claims to have seen Polly Cobbe dragging Nancy away?”
Nell nodded. “I is.”
“And what makes you think you can trust the word of the unfortunate boy who claims pigs speak to him?” Snow glared at her with his cold blue eyes.
Nell’s hesitance was uncharacteristic. Snow knew she was used to being in command. She might know her place among her betters, but no one, not even the highest and mightiest could truly intimidate her. Yet, he thought he saw her weaken. “Rob thinks she took ’er too,” she said finally, in a voice that was at least a little subdued. “And anyway,” she added with more force as she fought her way out of the trance, “and anyway, Nancy ain’t home. Hasn’t been there for two days and two nights.” She was standing now, completely herself again. “I think it best ye do yer job, Constable. I think it best ye find Nancy Galbreath ’afore ’tis too late.”
Constable Snow stood up from his desk, towering over Nell, who was no small woman in either height or breadth. “Thank you, Nell. I understand your concern, and I appreciate your vigilance.” He took her arm and led her toward the door. “Dr. Gladstone will be back soon. Perhaps that will clear things up.”
