A Death in Norfolk (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #7)

by Ashley Gardner

  "Here," the keeper said in indignation. "What the devil be ye doing?"

  His northern Norfolk dialect was decidedly pronounced, and Grenville and the town-bred brothers looked blank. I understood him but answered without bothering with the dialect.

  "We're looking for a gentleman," I said. "He would have come here three, maybe four days ago. Possibly hurt."

  "Don't have time of day for anyone." The man said, switching to common English, not to be polite, but so he could tell us we were bothering him. "Pumps don't keep themselves working."

  "Then you won't mind if we have a look."

  The windmill keeper growled. "I do mind. Who be you?"

  "Captain Gabriel Lacey," I said, giving him a truncated version of a military bow. "From Parson's Point."

  The man squinted up at me. "Lacey? Son of Mr. Roderick?"

  No surprise that he had heard the name. "I have that distinction."

  "You should have said right away. A fine man he was, old Mr. Lacey."

  I hid my surprise. To me, the man had been a martinet and a bully. I'd been too young to notice what others had thought of him.

  The keeper opened the door hospitably wide, and we squeezed into the foyer. A ladder-stair, much like the one in Easton's abandoned windmill, led upward, but this one was solid and fairly new. I introduced Grenville and the brothers, and the man told us he was Jonathan Waller. Born and bred in Stifkey, family going back generations.

  "I'm looking for a man," I repeated, once we'd gotten the niceties out of the way. "He would have come this way in the last day or so."

  "I'd have been here."

  "And was he?"

  Waller shook his head, pressing his lips together. "Do you see anybody here?"

  "Perhaps I could . . ." I gestured to the ladder with my walking stick.

  Mr. Waller, to my surprise, stepped out of the way. Bartholomew and Matthias seemed to make him nervous, so I told them to look through the miller's house next door while Grenville and I searched here.

  The windmill was five stories high, the lower floors wider than the upper as the windmill tapered to its smooth roof. The huge paddles swung slowly past the windows, which looked out to the sea on one side, to green land and huddled villages on the other.

  Grenville followed Mr. Waller into his living quarters, while I explored the mill rooms. I found a room in which gears would turn the huge wheels, but the millstones leaned against the walls, grain no longer being trundled here for grinding.

  Back on the ground floor, I found a trapdoor. Pulling this open, I saw that it led down to a damp space beneath the windmill, and there I found the blood.

  Not the huge quantity I'd seen on the marsh, but definite dribbles of it under the light of the lantern I'd borrowed from the keeper's kitchen. Enough blood to make me climb out and shout for Waller.

  He came down, with Grenville, and I pointed at the blood, holding my lantern nearly on top of it. Waller at first looked blank then guilty.

  "He begged me to keep quiet. Said someone was trying to find him, and to kill him." Waller shot me a frightened look. "Did he mean you?"

  "No, I am a trying to help him." I flashed the light about, but the room was so dark, it seemed to drink in the lantern's flame. "You patched him up? Down here?"

  Waller nodded. "He didn't want to risk being seen in a window. I told him we were a long way from God himself, but he insisted. Strong chap, to lose a hand like that and not be half dead."

  "He rested here, how long?"

  "A night and a day, then he was gone. He paid me good coin to say nothing, so nothing I said."

  Waller's expression told me he expected more good coin from us for the information. Grenville, used to such things, already had a few crowns jingling in his hand.

  "We agree that silence is best," he said, pressing them to Waller's palm. "We're the man's friends and are trying to help him. If you see him again, tell him to stay put. Send word to Lacey's house if you can."

  Waller did not argue. "Are you going to be living there now?" he asked me. "Have a nephew who could help out with the grounds."

  I was growing used to this refrain, but it stood to reason. The country people would consider it my duty to give them employment, and I agreed with them.

  "Send him 'round," I said. "I am certain he will have plenty to do. To return to this man you patched up, where did he go after he left you?"

  "Don't know, and that's the truth. He walked out into the storm and disappeared. He must have gone south, because he didn't take none of my boats. Never saw him again."

  His words rang with sincerity. I imagined that Waller had been happy to see the alarming man vanish.

  "You are certain he said that someone wanted to kill him?" I asked.

  "He looked that frightened," Waller said. "Don't know who could make a big man like that so scared, but I don't want to meet such a one."

  Grenville fed Waller another crown, and we took our leave. Bartholomew and Matthias joined us after coming out of the miller's house.

  "Nothing there," Bartholomew said. "Plenty of birds' nests and animal tracks, but no Cooper, dead or alive."

  "What now, Lacey?" Grenville asked as he let Matthias boost him onto his horse. "We search south? If Cooper worried about someone trying to kill him, would he not seek Denis's protection? Or at least get word to him?"

  "I don't know," I said, not liking what I was thinking. "But I intend to ask Mr. Denis."

  *** *** ***

  We rode back to Wells, and from there turned south, asking everyone we saw along the way about Cooper. No one had seen any man they didn't know, injured or otherwise, in the last few days.

  I rose in my stirrups as the day started to darken. To the north was a line of gray that marked the marshes, to the east, west, and south, green farmland, much of it enclosed now.

  Many of the commons and heaths I remembered from boyhood had vanished. Enclosures beggared people as much as bad harvests did, because the poorer tenant farmers and villagers could no longer run their sheep on the commons or raise food on part of it. Large landholders were squeezing out the small, the way of the world.

  I sank to my saddle in frustration. Cooper could be anywhere. He might have taken a mail coach to London or north to Lincolnshire or south to Suffolk. Or he could have paid a fisherman to take him to Amsterdam in Easton's wake. Combing the countryside was producing nothing.

  "At least we have discovered that he was alive a few days ago," Grenville said, moving his horse beside mine. "If he could walk away after losing his entire hand, then he is indeed strong. He'll turn up somewhere. He's probably lying low, nursing himself back to health."

  If he did not die of fever first. The wounds from amputations had to be burned, or the remainder of the limb--indeed, the rest of the body--could fester. Men died even when it seemed they'd recovered from the injury.

  I recalled the remains of the campfire I'd seen near the blood. Cooper could have built that fire and plunged the stump of his arm into it once he'd cut off the badly injured hand. If so, Cooper had vast strength of will and the bravery of a lion.

  But he might have done it. Denis had known, even as a child, that throwing in his lot with Cooper was the way to survival. Denis was no fool.

  "We should return to Easton's," I said. What I would do there, I kept to myself.

  Grenville adjusted his hat and pulled his greatcoat closer against the wind. "I'm afraid I'll be traveling back to London in the morning, Lacey. I've had a letter from Marianne."

  His tone was so somber that I looked at him quickly. "Bad news?"

  "No, nothing like that. She has reached London again and says she wishes to consult with me. I can only imagine what that means."

  With Marianne Simmons, one never knew. Her urgent need might mean life or death or a shortage of the snuff she liked so much.

  "I am certain Denis will be pleased to have me to himself," I said.

  "Not if you come with me. Not that I wish harm to come to Mr.
Cooper, but now that we know he's alive, surely Denis has better resources to send after him than you. Evidence of Cooper at the windmill should be enough to point him in the right direction. Let us go to London and be finished with Denis and his band of thieves."

  I wanted to agree. I was ready to meet up with Lady Breckenridge and move on to planning what we'd do in our married life. How much more satisfying to discuss renovations to my old house from the comfort of her warm sitting room--even better, from the comfort of her bedchamber.

  Or perhaps we should not return to Norfolk at all. I could try to find a way to break the entail and sell the house, if even for pittance. I would marry Donata and bury myself at the Breckenridge estate until her son grew up and tossed us into the dower house. Viscount Breckenridge's lands were in Hampshire, a beautiful place in a serene valley. Donata would always want her Season in London, but I could be the stodgy husband who remained in the country all year, seeing to the farms and fishing. I knew that Donata had no such life in mind for us, but it was a pleasant fantasy.

  "I'm afraid I must stay a little longer," I said with reluctance. "There is more to Cooper's disappearance than meets the eye, and I have a few other things to resolve."

  "The missing vicar's daughter?" Grenville asked. "I can be as suspicious as you at times, Lacey, but all evidence points to the fact that she eloped. And now the publican's son has confirmed he helped her run away."

  "No, I do not mean Miss Quinn."

  Grenville eyed me in curiosity, but I could not answer him. I had personal conflicts to resolve--between myself and Buckley, between myself and Terrance Quinn, between myself and my mother's revelations.

  "Go to London," I said. "Give Marianne my best wishes."

  Grenville shot me a dark look, but we spoke no more about it.

  *** *** ***

  Denis had shut himself away with other business, I was informed when I returned. I told the lackey who'd come out to meet me to report that I'd found trace of Cooper.

  I washed and refreshed myself in my chamber, and Bartholomew brought me a glass of hock and a small, cold supper. After that, Denis sent for me.

  Again he dismissed the man who stood guard and spoke with me alone in the study.

  "The windmill keeper treated Cooper's injury," Denis said when I'd finished my tale. "And then Cooper vanished? You believed this?"

  "I see no reason for Waller to lie about it. By all evidence he'd been happy to see the back of Cooper."

  Denis's eyes went sharp. "I wager this Waller knows more than what he told you. Why did you not question him more closely?"

  "I questioned him thoroughly, I assure you. Grenville's lavishness with coin loosened Waller's tongue."

  "I disagree." Denis's voice was calm, but I heard rage behind it. "He told you what you wanted to hear. He would have told you nothing at all if you'd not seen the blood. Then you prompted him into the tale of patching up a man with a missing hand, and he agreed to it."

  "If you believe him hiding Cooper, we searched. Cooper wasn't there."

  "At first light, you will show me the way there, and I will search. And question the man. He will open up to me far quicker, no need for Grenville's coin."

  "No," I said.

  Denis's eyes widened, his anger no longer hidden. "What did you say?"

  "I am finished with this search," I said. "Finished running about the countryside in all weather on your errands, while you lie to me. I have some private business to conclude, and then I will be returning to London."

  "No, you will not."

  "I say I will. Find Cooper on your own. Waller told me that Cooper was in fear for his life. I can imagine only one man Cooper would fear." I took a firmer grim on my walking stick. "That man is you. I refuse to hunt Cooper down and hand him over to you so that you can kill him."

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  The room went quiet, Denis facing me in the middle of it. I heard his men rumbling to each other as they shut down the house for the night, and the wind, cold and straight, rattling the windows and moaning under the eaves. Denis and I were nearly of a height, I half an inch taller. His dark blue eyes, staring straight into mine, held vast and cold fury.

  "I told you why I needed to find Cooper," he said in a voice that could have chilled hell itself. "And what I would do if you did not assist me."

  "And I grow weary of your threats. I will make one of my own. If you lay a finger on any of my friends or their families, I will kill you. I might have to wait a long time before I can find a way, but I will do it. I will come after you and never stop."

  His eyes did not move, did not even flicker. "You have tried my patience many a time, Captain, and I have ever looked the other way. Do not imagine I have done so because I am kind. I've done it because I saw that your intelligence and your bloody stubbornness could be useful to me. I have aided you so that I would make sure you aided me in return. I have spent considerable time and resources on you. You owe me this favor, and you will do it."

  "Not when you lie to me." I clenched my hand around my walking stick, feeling the sword loosen inside it. "If you want to speak of a man telling me what I wish to hear . . . Your tale of Cooper rescuing you from the streets was calculated to invoke my sympathy. It was very touching."

  "I told you no lies. Cooper did rescue me, I am grateful to him, and we did form a bond of friendship. Enough that I am willing to risk being alone in a room with you in order to persuade you to help me find him."

  "If Cooper believed that someone was trying to kill him, he would seek you, knowing that you could protect him better than anyone else," I said. "Therefore, I must ask myself why would he run in the opposite direction, unless you were the person who wanted to kill him."

  "I do not know!"

  Denis's voice rose into a roar, his facade cracked at last.

  The door swung open, and the man who'd been standing guard looked in worriedly. "Do you need me, sir?"

  Denis didn't bother to look at him. "No."

  The man nodded but shot me a warning look as he withdrew.

  After the door closed, I watched as, moment by moment, Denis reigned in his rage.

  "I have not lied about Cooper," he said, when he'd regained control. "I admit that, in the past, I have not always told you the whole of a matter, but in this instance, I have given you everything. Cooper has protected me since I was a lad. If he met someone he thought would be a danger to me, he would lead the man on a merry chase through the marshes and pay the windmill keeper to stay quiet."

  "Even while he's badly injured? Knowing that any moment could bring fever and death?"

  Denis nodded. "He has defended me in similar fashion before, leading away danger and not returning until said danger was dispatched. I wish to find him before he dies because of it."

  "You mean that he is being self-sacrificing rather than acting from fear?" I was not certain I believed that either.

  "Cooper does not know the meaning of fear. He fears nothing, and that sometimes leads him into trouble." Denis stopped, the near-smile he sometimes employed twitching his lips. "He is much like you in that regard."

  For some reason, I could not feel amused. And I had seen Cooper fearful before--when he anticipated the wrath of Denis.

  "I will take you to the windmill," I said. "But you will not bludgeon the keeper into telling you what you want to know."

  "Sometimes pain, or fear of it, loosens the tongue," Denis said.

  "In such case, your victim will tell you anything to make you stop."

  He gave me a nod. "I agree that there are better ways to bargain than with torture."

  The argument hovered there, waiting for one of us to end it. "First light," I said. "If that's when we leave, I'll to bed."

  "You do that, Captain," Denis said, forever needing to have the last word. As usual, he did not say good night.

  *** *** ***

  At first light the next morning, I rode out with Denis and one of his tame pugilists-
-three horsemen in the dawn.

  The day was mostly clear, with a few thin, high clouds overhead. Last night's wind had died off, making for a pleasant Monday morning's ride.

  Grenville had been up when we left, preparing for his journey back to London. He'd advised me to take care when we said good-bye. I agreed with him.

  None of us spoke as we made our way north, taking the road that skirted Blakeney, on through Parson's Point and to Stifkey and Wells. We turned north after that, following the path that went nowhere but the windmill.

  The windmill stuck up out of the salt grasses like a lone tree in the middle of a plain. Our horses headed for it steadily, Denis neither pushing too fast nor lingering. I'd never seen Denis use any transport but his lavish carriage, but he was proving to be a competent horseman. He'd not grown up in the saddle, as I had, but somewhere he'd learned good horsemanship.

  The tide had turned in the night, and now the sea crept for the marshes slowly but steadily. We needed to finish our business quickly, or the water would cut us off.

  We left our horses in the yard with the cow and mounted the few steps to the windmill's door. Denis tilted back his head to look up at the windmill, studying it, assessing it.

  I wondered if his power came from his ability to learn--to look over something and decide right away whether he could use it, and then discover everything he could about it. People or windmills or horsemanship would be all the same to him.

  The pugilist thumped on the door but Waller did not answer. When five minutes had passed, Denis signaled his man to break open the door.

  The pugilist--Morgan by name--did nothing so dramatic as crash it down. He brought out a small iron bar and hammer, wedged the bar against the door handle, and brought the hammer down on the bar. The door handle broke away, and Morgan widened the hole it left until he could get his hand inside and unbolt the door. A housebreaking technique, one that did not make much noise.

  We went inside through the small foyer and to Waller's living quarters. Food sat on the table, half eaten, the chair pushed back in haste. Waller had seen us coming.