Kissing Cousins

by Joan Smith

When the officer entered the room, he took one look at the open window, the curtain blowing in the wind, and ran to it.

  “Stop him, Huggans. That’s him!” he shouted out the window.

  Salverton was ready to claim no man had been in the room with him, but this ruse was futile. Bow Street had another man posted outside. He caught Jonathon as he landed in the shrubbery and clamped him into manacles.

  “What is Sykes accused of?” Salverton demanded in his most lofty accent.

  “That’s none of your concern, mister,” the officer replied.

  When Lord Salverton spoke, he was accustomed to something more than civility. He made the lowering discovery that when his position in society was unknown, he was nobody. A strange gentleman in an ill-cut jacket putting up at O’Toole’s rooming house was paid no heed whatsoever.

  “Where are you taking him?” Samantha asked.

  The officer ran a disparaging eye over the green satin gown and said, “To the roundhouse, miss. We don’t want murderers roaming the streets, eh?”

  “Murderer!”

  “Aye, Sykes is the villain who killed Sir Geoffrey Bayne this very night.”

  On this speech, the officer turned on his heel and went to join his confrere by the shrubbery.

  “Edward, we must do something!” Samantha said when they were alone. “Couldn’t you post bail or something?”

  “Not when the charge is murder. Of course I’ll testify that he was with me when the murder occurred, but— Actually, he wasn’t with us all day. Is it possible Sykes— What did he do while we were in that tearoom? He was gone for some time.”

  “He has no earthly reason to kill Sir Geoffrey,” she said hotly. “The more interesting question is why Bow Street thinks he did, and how they knew where to find him so quickly Why did they go to The Laurels in the first place? How did they know anything was amiss there?”

  “It’s possible Sir Geoffrey was in some trouble we know nothing about, but that still doesn’t explain why Bow Street should suspect Sykes, and how they knew he was here now. Someone’s been following us all the while, and reported to Bow Street.”

  “Fletcher!”

  Edward began pacing the room. He ran a hand distractedly through his hair to aid concentration. “I don’t see who else it could be, but what reason had he to kill Sir Geoffrey? Sykes thought it was Wanda he was after, because of some robbery.”

  “If he discovered Sir Geoffrey had been Wanda’s patron, he might have gone to question him and fallen into an argument. Sykes said Fletcher had killed before. There’s no saying with a man like that. But, Edward, we can’t just let poor Jonathon languish in jail. We must help him.”

  “Sykes was right. The best thing we can do is get busy and solve this matter. He’s in no real danger, Samantha. Naturally, I’ll testify as to his alibi if the case comes to trial. If I interfere now, we’ll all end up in jail—including you. What we must do is find Fletcher. That will take some doing. If he did kill Sir Geoffrey, he’ll have lit out for London or someplace well away from here.”

  “We’ll never find him in London.” She sat with her chin propped in her hands, thinking. After a moment she said, “I wager Fletcher is still looking for Wanda and Darren. He thinks we can lead him to them. He might still be lurking about to follow us. If we go to the Pantiles and let ourselves be seen—well, it might draw him out.”

  “That could be dangerous. I need a pistol. If only Jonathon were here, he’d know where to get one.” He didn’t notice he’d called Sykes Jonathon, but it did strike him as ironic that he should be regretting the absence of that scoundrel after wishing him at Jericho for two days.

  “Your wits are gone begging, Edward. O’Toole will sell you one—at a vastly inflated price.”

  “Of course!” He went into the hall and told the clerk he’d like to speak to O’Toole about buying a pistol.

  “Herbie ain’t too pleased that you lot have brought Bow Street down on his head,” the clerk said.

  “I’ll pay handsomely.” He drew a wad of bills from his pocket. “Money is no object.”

  “Ah, well, in that case, take your pick.”

  He ushered Salverton behind his desk and pulled out the lower drawer, which held an assortment of guns. “Handle them gentle. They’re loaded,” he said. “Here’s a dainty piece. Five guineas.” He handed Edward a gun with ivory inlay on the grip.

  “Are you sure it works?” He hefted the gun. It seemed well balanced.

  “Ho! Do birds fly? Do fish swim? Herbie O’Toole sell a gun that don’t shoot? It would destroy his reputation.”

  Salverton pulled off a bill, pocketed the weapon, and returned to the saloon.

  “That didn’t take long!” Samantha said. She examined the pistol.

  “Careful! It’s loaded.”

  “Then we’re ready to go on the strut.”

  Edward tucked the gun into his waistband, frowned at her gown, took the shawl and pulled it closely about her, and they were off to the Pantiles.

  “What do we do if we see Fletcher?” she asked.

  “We lure him to some dark spot and I ask him a few pertinent questions before taking him to the roundhouse.”

  “Am I to be the bait?” she asked. “If he likes Wanda, I doubt he will care for me.”

  “In that gown, he'll care, but that was not my meaning. I'll flash a roll of money if he shows up, then stroll into some dark alleyway, where he’ll expect to have easy pickings.”

  “That might work.” After a frowning pause she said, “What if he didn’t kill Sir Geoffrey?”

  “Then this is all a waste of time, and we shall have to find something else to charge him with, to be rid of him.”

  “It’s not easy being a criminal, is it?” she said pensively.

  “No, it ain’t. Are you having second thoughts about Jonathon as a husband?”

  “A husband!” she exclaimed in astonishment. “I never thought of him as a husband, Edward. Merely as my Esmée, or Wanda. I don’t see why you gentlemen should be the only ones to have shady friends. Ladies like a little excitement as well.”

  “Let us hope today’s excitement satisfies you for a long time.”

  They walked on to the Pantiles. The night crowd was out in full force by that time. They made three tours of both sides before settling at one of the groups of tables where musicians were performing. They ordered wine and continued looking around for any sign of Fletcher. After half an hour they moved on to another musical group. By eleven o’clock the crowd began thinning, and there had been no sign of him.

  “This is a waste of time,” Salverton said. “I’m taking you back to O’Toole’s place. I’m going to visit Jonathon. He’ll know better than I what to do. My innocent past hasn’t trained me for this sort of job.”

  “I shan’t go to bed until I hear from you. Come to my room before you retire.”

  “Of course. I’ll let you know what Jonathon has to suggest.”

  They returned to the rooming house. Salverton accompanied Samantha upstairs, as there were a few undesirable-looking men in the lobby.

  At her doorway he took her two hands in his and said, “I hate leaving you here alone. Don’t leave your room if you can possibly avoid it, and don’t let anyone in. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “You treat me as if I were a child, Edward. I know better than to mix with people of O’Toole’s sort. I’ve had my taste of the low life, enough to last a lifetime.”

  “Just when I find myself acquiring a taste for it,” he said in jest.

  “You be careful, too. Fletch might be lurking about, looking for you.”

  “He’s not likely to follow me into the roundhouse.”

  “No. Well, good-bye, then.”

  “Aren’t you going to wish me luck?” His fingers tightened on hers.

  “Of course. Good luck, Edward.”

  “That is not what I meant,” he said, and drew her into his arms for a kiss.

  It wasn’t the wild, out-of-control
sort of kiss they had exchanged in the tree tunnel. Samantha was determined not to let that happen again. His lips brushed hers, and as his arms began to tighten and his lips firm, she withdrew.

  “Good luck,” she said again, and gently closed the door.

  Salverton returned below and got directions to the roundhouse from the clerk. He patted his pistol and went out the door. In his mind was the image of Samantha, reluctantly closing the door. She hadn’t wanted to stop that embrace any more than he had.

  As he walked along, a random thought of the opera he was missing wafted through his head. What a dull scald it would have been. Much more exciting to be chasing after a murderer. This was real living!

  In her room, Samantha locked the door. Then she drew a chair to the window and watched as Edward left for the roundhouse, looking raffish in that horrid jacket. She shook her head to think how he must be hating all this low sort of thing she had dragged him into. Always the gentleman, he tried to hide his displeasure, but he could not like it. Then her thoughts turned to Darren, and the peal she would ring over him when they found him. If they found him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’d like to see Mr. Sykes,” Salverton said to the guard in charge at the roundhouse.

  The guard took one look at Salverton’s jacket and said, “Hired hisself a fancy lawyer, eh! He must be planning to plead innocent. It do beat all how so much crime gets done, and all the criminals innocent as newborn babes. He’ll be up before the magistrate in the morning, but he’ll be bound over. Murder’s serious. We don’t hold with murder in Tunbridge Wells. Bad for the tourist business.”

  Salverton went along with the misapprehension that he was Sykes’s lawyer, as it ensured quick access to the prisoner. He found Sykes playing cards with three other miscreants in a locked room. There was no air of punishment save for the bars on the window and the smoke from the vile-smelling cigar that turned the air blue. The room, he could hardly call it a cell, had a well-battered deal table and four mismatched chairs. Glasses of ale sat amid the cards on the table.

  Sykes looked up when he saw Salverton. “Excuse me, lads,” he said, and placing his cards facedown on the table, he went off to a corner to speak in private with his caller.

  “You shouldn’t of come here!” he scolded. “I see you’re surprised at the luxury of the place. The regular cells were full of drunk and disorderly young gents. They had a party that got out of control, so me and the lads were put up here. I was going to send you off a note with my news as soon as the game was over. I’m weaseling the facts out slow like, so as to avoid suspicion.”

  “News? What have you found out?”

  “Smokey Dalton knows Fletch,” he said, nodding to the prisoner who was smoking a cigar. “They shared an ale this afternoon, before Smokey forgot hisself and snaffled a jewelry box in one of them shops on the Pantiles and got arrested. Fletch is looking for Wanda, like I thought, but not because she was in on the robbery.”

  He paused a moment to add a touch of drama to his tale.

  “Why, then?” Salverton asked.

  “She’s his wife.” He smiled to see Salverton’s eyebrows rise at this stunning announcement. “He was after Bayne and Darren Oakleigh and anyone else that’s touched her tender body, if you follow me. Half of London must be trembling in its boots since Fletch hit the streets. Dalton thinks Bayne ran to ground here in Tunbridge Wells when he heard Fletch was out. Since Fletch didn’t know where to find him, he went looking for Wanda’s latest beau. He learned from Wanda’s chums in London that she was seeing Oakleigh, and where he lived.”

  “You think he followed Miss Oakleigh and me all the way from London to Brighton and on to Tunbridge Wells?”

  “I do, and I think as well that Fletch is the reason Wanda was so almighty eager to get out of town in the first place.”

  “We’ve been wondering how Bow Street came to drop in at The Laurels so conveniently, and knew you were at O’Toole’s as well. You don’t think Fletch knew where Sir Geoffrey was hiding?”

  “He didn’t know when he got here, but he’d find out soon enough. Bayne’s an important man. People would know he has a cottage here. I figure when Fletch found out, he left us for a few hours and did Bayne in, then nipped back to town. The Laurels is next door to Tunbridge Wells. It wouldn’t take him half an hour. He was coming from the right direction when I saw him and got him behind the stable for a bit of the home brewed. He must have recovered quicker than I figured and picked up our trail. He must of seen us head toward Rusthall Common tonight and figured where we were going. Now, don’t take a pet, melord, for the next step is pure conjecture, but my thinking is that he sent Bow Street out to The Laurels, hoping to hang the murder on me, so you and Samantha would be at his mercy.”

  “But you weren’t even in the house. It’s myself who would have been arrested if Bow Street had arrived a minute sooner.”

  “Fletch didn’t know that. I was close enough that I’d have been taken in. Fletch may not know your name yet, but he would have seen your fancy ken in London, and know you’re above the law. It’d be Jonathon Sykes that was hauled in.”

  Salverton found this explanation credible. “How did he know you’d be at O’Toole’s?” was all he said.

  “Where else would I stay in Tunbridge Wells?” was the answer. “Every town of any size has a spot you can go when you’re in a bit of trouble, like. In Brighton, the lads stay at my place; in London there’s half a dozen spots, but in Tunbridge Wells, we stay at O’Toole’s. Fletch likely hung about outside until he saw me go in, then sent a note off to Bow Street. I don’t see how else they found me.”

  This also sounded reasonable. “We’ve got to find him, Jonathon.”

  “Aye, for the next number on his list is young Oakleigh, if I know anything.”

  “Fletch wouldn’t stick around here, I shouldn’t think. Where would he go?”

  “He’ll stick to your coattail like a burr till he finds Oakleigh and Wanda. That’s my thinking. You may not see him without Jonathon Sykes’s eyes to help you, for he’s a sly dog, but he’ll be after you sure as hanging follows a conviction. What you don’t want to do is lead him to young Oakleigh.”

  “That, at least, is no problem. We don’t know where he is. What would you do, Jonathon?”

  “I’m accused of robbing Bayne as well as killing him,” he said with a cagey look.

  Salverton frowned, sensing that he was missing something, but he couldn’t for the life of him see how this altered matters.

  “Bayne’s pocket was to let when they found him,” Jonathon said. “Watch gone as well, ring—everything. They searched me when they brought me. Asked me what I’d done with Bayne’s watch and ring and money purse. They’ve had a neighbor in to quiz him. He says Bayne always carried a great gold turnip watch and wore a ring with a red stone. He could identify them. They say he usually carried a wad of blunt as well.”

  “Yes?” Salverton said encouragingly.

  “Lord love me, do I have to draw you a picture?”

  “That would help,” Salverton said in an unusually humble manner.

  “How have you survived so long, melord? You’re innocent as Miss Oakleigh. Here’s what you do, then. Fletch will be hot on your tail. You send word ahead to Bow Street to be waiting for you out of sight at a safe spot of your choosing. When Fletch comes lurking about, Bow Street hauls him in. He’ll not have laid the watch and ring on the shelf, for his pockets are jingling with the blunt he stole off Bayne, see? He hasn’t got a place to actually live yet. He’ll have the goods in his pocket, for he’d not leave them unguarded in any of the places he’s likely to find a safe bed. It’ll go a long way toward proving he kilt Bayne. Nobody’d be fool enough to kill a man and leave such treasures behind. Then you step forward and tell the judge I was with you when the murder was done.” A worried frown creased his brow. “Do you understand what I’m saying, melord?”

  “Yes, I understand. What do you mean by a safe place to trap him, Jo
nathon? Is O’Toole’s safe?”

  “O’Toole’s? O’Toole’s?” he asked in a voice high with disbelief. “Lord love me, I’d as soon trust my daughter with the dragoons. I’d not trust O’Toole’s. Herbie is all right, but you never know which of his servants Fletch might have in his pocket. Nay, go back to your own bailiwick, someplace where you have people you trust. Your own house, if it ain’t beneath your dignity to have Bow Street lurking about the shrubbery to scandalize the neighbors.”

  Salverton nodded. “My servants are eminently trustworthy. But I don’t like to leave you here. I could speak to a magistrate—”

  Sykes shook his head firmly. “Nay, Fletch will be easy in his mind if he don’t have me to deal with. Besides, I’m filling my pockets with this set of Johnnie Raws,” he added, glancing to the table, where a pile of gold coins at his place indicated a game for deep stakes.

  “Well, don’t worry about the trial. I’ll be there to give evidence.”

  “Just see you don’t get yourself kilt, or I may find myself in a bit of trouble.”

  “I’ll be careful, Jonathon.” He felt more gratitude than this was due to Sykes. “If I’ve behaved badly the past days—and I know I have—I want to apologize. I do appreciate all your help. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

  “It was a pleasure. Now that we’re all friends, I might tip you the clue. You cave in too easy, melord. On money matters, that is to say. I’ve overcharged you at every turn. It’ll be weighing on my mind now that we’re pals. I’m too scrupulous, it was ever my failing. I shouldn’t ought to have gypped you, but you bled so free, it was too much temptation for a weak man.”

  A rueful smile curved Salverton’s lips. “In my opinion, you’ve earned every penny, Jonathon.”

  “Then I’ve been underpaid all my life. It’s been the easiest rhino I ever picked up—save for old Lord Egremont. He was an innocent if there ever was one. Never checked his pockets, nor his wine cellar, nor his wife, come to that. Ah, they don’t make them like Egremont no more.” He shook his head in fond remembrance. “Away with you now. And take good care of Miss Oakleigh. But then, I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”