The Riddle of the Deplorable Dandy

by Patricia Veryan

  A swift pounce towards a nearby potted plant and Valerian’s glass was quite empty and sagging in his hand when Beech returned, his own gait unsteady and a fresh bottle carried with care. “Here we gooo…,” he crowed. “Egad! Empty ’gain? You c’n really stow it away, Ger-Germain! Heard you had a hard head, b-but—”

  “Vaise,” Valerian corrected with another howl of laughter. “Ger-vaise, dear boy! Not ‘Main.’”

  “Thass right! Vaise, b’Jove! Sort’ve like Vance … same number’ve letters. Vaise ’n Vance. Which ’minds me—jolly good’ve you to have got him free. M’cousin dotes on him, y’know. Been—been meanin’ t’ask you—where’d you hide him, dear boy? Somewhere safe, I tr-trust?”

  Valerian waved his glass and put one unsteady finger against his nose. “Extry safe,” he said owlishly. “You’d never guess … Hic!” His heavy lids drooped and closed, his head sagged and he began to snore softly.

  Conrad Beech shook his shoulder. “Wake up! You’re drunk, sir! Wake up!”

  Valerian started and peered up at him. “Whazzat?”

  Beech prompted, “You was ’bout to tell me where you’d hid m’cousin Vance.”

  “Oh, yes. Was. Lemme tell’ya, Conrad ol’ f’la … Hic! You’d never guess … where…” A deep sigh, and his head sagged again.

  Conrad swore and glanced up as the door opened and his father joined him.

  Taking in the scene at a glance, Sir Brian wandered over to the bar and murmured something to the serving wench. She giggled, held out her hand, then tucked some coins into her bodice and ran out of the tap, closing the door behind her.

  Sir Brian joined his son, put up his jewelled quizzing glass and surveyed the sleeping man without delight.

  “You must be feeling better, sir,” said Conrad dryly.

  His father glanced at him, smiled faintly at the ironic tone and shook his head sorrowfully. “Whatever have you done to the poor fellow?” he asked. “It took you long enough, with the result that, deuce take it, you’re nigh as far gone as this drunken sot! Shame on you!”

  “He has a dev’lish hard head,” mumbled Conrad sulkily. “But almost I had him! He was about to tell me when you walked in.”

  “In that case,” Sir Brian poked Valerian with his quizzing glass, “you must wake him up. And as soon as may be!”

  Conrad shook Valerian again, less gently this time. “Wake up, damn you!” Repeated attempts were no more successful than the first. Valerian muttered something inaudible and incoherent but did not open his eyes. Frustrated, Conrad growled, “Is useless, sir! You see how it is—he’s in a drunken stupor, I can’t wake the fool!”

  Sir Brian smiled and smoothed a crease from the fine red satin coat he now wore. “I put it to you, my dear boy,” he said softly, “that you had better wake him! I’ve not followed my slut of a niece all this way only to be foiled because you allowed this arrogant pest to fall into the bottle! If we do not get our hands on Vance Clayton before the lawyers do, he will inherit and the fortune will be lost to us. I need that inheritance, dear son of mine! And be damned if I’m going to allow that wretched girl to outwit—”

  With a lithe spring Valerian was out of the chair and confronting them, eyes flashing and a pistol held steadily in his left hand. “So that’s it!” he cried, with not the suggestion of a slur to his words. “I knew you were up to your ears in this puzzle!”

  Sir Brian grated an oath and started for him.

  “Stay back!” said Valerian. “And be assured I can shoot as well with either hand! If all I suspect of you two rogues is truth, Elspeth’s father had good reason for refusing to acknowledge you! Hand in glove with that murderous schemer who tried to break Vance Clayton at his chateau, no doubt. Only your ignoble motivation was not politics but pure greed! You dogged our trail to make sure we didn’t help Clayton escape and go on living! A fortune, you said, I believe, dear sir? One that will go by rights to Vance Clayton, unless you remove him from the line of succession! That’s it, no?” Reading confirmation in their enraged faces, he laughed. “Aye, that’s the root of it, I’ll wager! So to clear your path to riches you plotted the murder of your own kinsman! What a pair of conscienceless scoundrels!” He waved his pistol. “Over there, beside your sire, Mr. Beech! Now keep your hands where I can see—”

  Perhaps because his injury had dulled his senses he underestimated the depths to which greed can drive a man. As Conrad moved reluctantly between Valerian’s pistol and his father, Sir Brian seized his opportunity and shoved his son with all his strength. Conrad staggered and fell heavily against Valerian.

  Slammed backwards, Valerian crashed into a settle. A blinding wave of pain ripped through his injured arm. His bones seemed to melt away and he sagged helplessly. Echoing with distance he heard Conrad’s shrill protest: “Damme, sir! You could’ve got me shot!” and Sir Brian’s bland response, “But I didn’t, did I, dear boy! Quickly now—we must help Elspeth’s knight errant remember where he has hidden my accursed nephew…!”

  Dimly aware that the pistol was being wrenched from his hand, Valerian heard Sir Brian demand, “Where is he? I know you got him away!”

  He said nothing.

  A back-handed blow across his mouth.

  He managed something uncomplimentary. The price of that defiance made him feel sick.

  Sir Brian snarled, “Answer me, damn your eyes!”

  He was being shaken agonizingly.

  Conrad said, “Do not hope that help will come. We’ve paid the serving wench handsomely to say the tap is closed. Speak up, you fool! Why put yourself through this misery? My cousin is nothing to you, and we’re not unreasonable. A single word and we’ll be gone. Where—is—Clayton?”

  He gave them a single and very vulgar single word.

  One of them struck him brutally.

  All too briefly he lost touch with the proceedings.

  * * *

  The instant Elspeth opened the door to the host’s parlour, she wrinkled her nose. It was very apparent that, as the innkeeper’s lady had remarked, something “was required.”

  The room was cluttered and overfurnished, but it was warm and quiet. The second Mrs. Newell was fast asleep in a deep chair, a rug thrown over his knees. The wig was slightly askew on his head, but it warmed her heart to see him resting so peacefully. She smiled at him fondly and sent up a small prayer of thanks that he was here and safe. Curled up on his lap, Pixie stretched out her front legs, uttered a welcoming trill and gave a huge yawn, but showed no inclination to leave her comfortable haven.

  Elspeth whispered, “Be a l’aise, you lazy creature! Much you care if we poor humans are obliged to tidy up after you!”

  It crossed her mind to summon Freda to attend to matters, but reminding herself that a nurse did not have her own maid, she took up the kitten’s commode and carried it to the door, hoping she would not encounter anyone en route to the yard.

  There were sounds of activity from a bedchamber; the host’s wife and her maids, no doubt, preparing the room for the expected guests. Elspeth hurried past, but luck was with her and she was downstairs before she saw anyone. A serving maid was dusting a cabinet half-heartedly. Elspeth walked towards the side door to the stables, then checked. For a moment she’d thought to hear her uncle’s voice, though at a far from weakened volume. Pausing, she turned to the tap. The maid shot in front of her, bobbing a curtsy, as she announced, “The tap it be closed this afternoon, mam’zelle.”

  “No it is not,” argued Elspeth. “I heard my uncle’s voice! Stand aside!”

  The authoritative tone caused the maid to hesitate. She looked at the box Elspeth held and backed away.

  Pushing the door open, Elspeth took two steps and halted, stunned with shock.

  Ashen-faced, his mouth bloodied, his injured arm twisted up behind him, Valerian sagged in the grip of her cousin. Even as she watched numbly, Sir Brian said a harsh “Speak, you stubborn damned idiot! Where is Vance Clayton? You’d best be quick in answering me! We’ve sent wor
d to the Comte d’Ebroin of your whereabouts and dragoons are at this very moment on their way to arrest you!”

  Obviously near collapse, Valerian croaked something incoherent. With a snarl of rage, Sir Brian struck him in the face.

  Finding her voice, Elspeth ran forward. “What are you doing? Are you gone mad? Let him go at once!”

  Conrad whirled around with a horrified gasp, releasing Valerian, who sank weakly to his knees, clutching his wounded arm.

  The expression of maddened rage on Sir Brian’s face was wiped away as he turned, smiling, but Elspeth had seen it.

  “My poor child,” he purred, strolling towards her and fanning himself daintily with his lacy handkerchief. “This unscrupulous wretch has deceived you, just as I suspected. He holds your poor brother captive somewhere, and refuses—”

  “Get away from me!” cried Elspeth, drawing back.

  With a great effort Valerian pulled his head up and choked a warning, “Run…! Get—”

  Sir Brian’s face convulsed with fury and he kicked out, sending Valerian sprawling.

  A rage such as she had never before known wiped away all restraints. With a muffled cry, Elspeth resorted to her only weapon, and as her uncle stamped towards her she hurled the contents of the commode directly into his face.

  His scream was ear-splitting. Spitting and swearing, tearing frantically at his face, ripping off his wig, running about blindly, he gave every indication of a man gone completely demented.

  The door burst open and Herbert rushed in with the host beside him.

  Conrad slipped quietly from the room.

  Herbert exclaimed, “Gervaise!” and running to drop to one knee beside his cousin, he put an arm about him and lifted him gently. “My God! What on earth has—” He stopped speaking and looked up, appalled, as a panicked Elspeth rushed to his side.

  “My dear Lord!” she gulped. “Is he—”

  Awed, Herbert whispered, “He’s crying!”

  “No, he’s not.” Smiling through tears, Elspeth said brokenly, “He’s laughing!”

  * * *

  Their small parlour was quite crowded when they had gathered there. Only Joel Skye was absent as he related a considerably edited account of events to the pompous local agent of the law whom the landlord had summoned.

  “How I should love to have seen it,” mourned Vance Clayton after yet another burst of merriment. “My dainty dandified uncle, adorned with the—er, contents of Pixie’s commode!”

  Wiping tearful eyes, Valerian said, “Shall I ever forget it? Truly, you could not have devised a more devastating punishment, my demure little Nurse Cotton!”

  “For a moment,” said Herbert, sighfully reminiscent, “when I first arrived and saw him dancing about, I really thought he had gone berserk.”

  “And you may have been correct,” agreed Valerian. “Certainly, whatever wits he had were thoroughly scrambled!”

  Watching him, Elspeth was relieved to see that the savage interrogation he’d endured had left his spirits undaunted. The cut beside his mouth and the bruises on his jaw and temple she judged to be relatively minor, but she was a little worried by the glitter of his eyes and the faint flush high on his cheekbones. The wound in his arm, she decided, was not so minor. At this point she became aware that Vance was smiling at her, probably expecting her to comment, and she said hurriedly, “Even so, he is a very bad man and should not have been allowed to escape.”

  Joining them in time to hear her remark, Joel Skye tossed his tricorne onto a credenza and, pouring himself a glass of wine, said, “I rather suspect he and his son will waste no time in leaving the area. It seems they are suspected of involvement in several unsavoury matters and there have been notices sent from Paris instructing the authorities to detain them should they come this way.”

  Valerian said, “Small wonder we were so beset with disasters throughout our travels. Those supposed Mohocks who attacked Nicholas Drew in Town were undoubtedly hired by Beech, as were the bravos who broke into the pension outside Le Havre. You’ll remember, Elspeth, that they knew who you were.”

  “So they did,” she exclaimed. “My goodness! So all the time it was my uncle’s hirelings who meant to stop us!”

  “And when my uncle and Conrad so gallantly came to our rescue at the Trojan Horse, they had actually arranged the attack themselves,” said Vance wonderingly. “What dogged persistence!”

  Herbert said, “Then those pseudo-priests were in their pay also! And some of the bravos at at the Chateau d’Ebroin. But I think most of that ugly crew belonged to the fine gentlemen who want to bring down La Pompadour.”

  “Yes, but somehow the Beeches had learned who was holding Vance,” said Valerian. “Just think how well it would have suited their plans had he died at the hands of La Pompadour’s enemies. They would have been rid of the threat he posed and could be held blameless for his untimely demise. They were likely happily preparing to shed tears at your funeral, Clayton!”

  Skye said thoughtfully, “They took a chance, though. Suppose he’d survived, or told what he knew and been released?”

  “I suspect they’d prepared for just such an unlikely development,” said Valerian. “They may have paid one of the chateau guards to murder Clayton. Certainly, they had no intention of allowing him to escape alive.”

  “And how extreme glad I am that you were able to elude my uncle’s traps and rescue me from that loathsome hole,” said Vance fervently.

  Amused, Valerian observed, “Gratitude you possess in abundance, Clayton. But your lack of curiosity amazes me. Have you no least interest in learning about this mysterious inheritance?”

  Elspeth said, “Valerian is right, Vance! Who on earth can have made you heir to what would appear to be a large fortune?”

  Her brother shook his head. “I’ve no least notion. Didn’t think anyone in our family had a feather to fly with, but—”

  “Oh, my goodness!” cried Elspeth. “Speaking of flying—Gervaise, with all the violence and excitement I quite forgot! What was it my uncle said about dragoons? Remember? When he was threatening you.”

  They all waited uneasily.

  Puzzled, Valerian said, “I’ve no idea. I don’t recall him saying anything of that nature.”

  She wrung her hands agitatedly. “Likely you were in no condition to hear him. But he did! I know it!”

  Skye walked closer to her and said gently, “Try to remember, Ellie. Was this after you emptied Pixie’s box over him?”

  “No, no! It was when I first walked into that dreadful room! Sir Brian was trying to force Gervaise to tell him where we were hiding Vance.” She put a hand to her brow and went on, “I was so horrified that at first I couldn’t even move, but I heard him say something about … about Gervaise answering quickly because—Oh! Now I recollect! Because, he said, dragoons were on their way to arrest us all!” She reached up to Skye frantically, and he took her hand and held it. “Joel! We must go! At once!”

  Frowning, Valerian stood. “Yes, indeed! We cannot fail now! We’re almost to Le Havre!”

  He sent Herbert running to the stables to find Marcel and have the team poled up and the horses saddled; Skye went to gather their belongings; Elspeth hurried in search of Freda, and he himself sought out the host and paid their bill. Over Elspeth’s protests he chose to ride for this last stage of their journey. He claimed that he felt the need for some fresh evening air. The truth was that he was very tired and had a nagging presentiment that he must keep awake in case of more trouble.

  Within minutes he had ushered the girls and Vance into the coach, Marcel was on the box, and Skye was climbing up beside him, having loaded the Bath chair into the boot. The ostler brought up their extra horse. Valerian’s swing into the saddle was stiff and awkward. His arm was miserably painful, his head pounded and his bruises ached. It was as well, he thought wearily, that he’d insisted on riding. Had he been comfortably installed in the warm, coach, he’d have been asleep in jig time.

  Herbert, wh
o had ridden to nearby high ground to get a good view of the road, returned at the gallop, shouting, “Sir Brian didn’t lie about this, Gervaise! There’s a fair-sized troop coming this way!”

  So his apprehensions had been justified! He called, “En avant, Marcel!” only to exclaim, “Hi! Stop! Jupiter! Where are my wits flown? Who has our Pixie?”

  There was consternation. In the rush to depart they had all forgotten the little cat that was so necessary to their plans. Comparing notes, it was clear that no one had seen her since the confrontation with the Beeches in the tap.

  Herbert drew near and called urgently, “Make haste! They’re almost here!”

  “When did you last see Pixie?” shouted Valerian.

  At once dismayed, Herbert answered, “Not since we took Skye inside after he was knocked down. Jove! Is she not in the coach?”

  “No, and we must find her!” Dismounting, Valerian called, “Marcel—drive out! And spring ’em! Herbert, you ride escort!”

  Leaning from the window as the coach jolted on its way, Elspeth cried, “No! Gervaise, don’t—”

  “Go on,” he ordered harshly, and ran back to the inn.

  A frantic search was instituted. Valerian, the host and his lady, the maids and even two of the guests looked everywhere, but there was no sign of Pixie. Realizing that they dare delay no longer, Valerian sprinted into the yard. He encountered his cousin, whom he’d thought was riding beside the now vanished coach, and yelled, “Herbert! What the deuce…! Come on, man! We’ll find another black kitten!”

  Herbert spun about and ran to the horses. Mounting up and starting across the yard, Valerian saw that the coach had turned back also. Voicing some heart-felt oaths, he galloped towards it, gesturing imperatively, and the team was wheeled and began to move forward again.

  From the box Skye shouted, “Did you find her?”

  “No,” answered Valerian.

  Leaning from the open window, Elspeth said, “Oh, Gervaise! Your father will be so disappointed. She’s such an affectionate little creature.”

  He guided his mount close to the coach. “True. But she’s only a cat and your brother’s life must take precedence! My cousin saw the dragoons almost upon us. We’ll have to find another black kitten is all. It’s sad, but—” Glancing around, he discovered that Herbert was nowhere in sight. “Now blast that idiot!” he raged. “I told him to give it up! Of all the stupid—Well, he’ll just have to take his chances!”