A Place of Confinement: The Investigations of Miss Dido Kent (Dido Kent Mysteries)

by Dean, Anna

  * * *

  Outside, the sun was shining brightly on the inn yard and the London Mail was gone. A stable lad was whistling as he cleaned the gravel and raked out the wheels’ tracks. The manor coachman was holding his horses’ heads and jealously guarding the gleaming varnish of his carriage against the approach of seagulls.

  Mrs Bailey was sitting within the carriage and, to Dido’s surprise, Mr Mountjoy and his colourful waistcoat were in attendance upon her. The gentleman had one foot upon the step and an arm resting upon the open door – and he was leaning into the vehicle in a very familiar way.

  Dido was not, of course, so ill mannered as to attempt to hear their conversation – at least, not until she, quite accidentally, caught a word or two. ‘A friend sent me to you,’ the gentleman was saying. ‘She told me where to find you…’

  This was too strong an invitation for Dido. She halted her approach.

  Mr Mountjoy leant a little closer into the carriage; Dido stood still and strained to hear.

  ‘Can I not prevail upon you, my dear Augusta,’ he was urging in a low voice. ‘While your husband is sojourning in foreign climes, will you not take pity upon your humble servant.’

  Dido smiled thoughtfully; she believed she was beginning to understand Mrs Augusta Bailey rather well …

  ‘The too, too fortunate Mr Bailey,’ continued Mr Mountjoy, ‘need never know. If only you will be kind to me, nobody need ever know about our connection.’

  Dido gave a little cough to announce her presence. Mountjoy turned, saw that he was observed, and immediately took his leave.

  Mrs Bailey was seriously discomposed and blushing furiously. ‘You must not mind my friend Isaac, Dido,’ she said as the gentleman kissed his hand to them both and bowed himself off. ‘He is a very old acquaintance and he is inclined to allow himself liberties. He says the most shocking things!’

  ‘If he is a nuisance to you,’ Dido suggested, enjoying her discomfort, ‘you had better ask Mr Fenstanton to talk to the host here and have him sent away from the inn.’

  ‘Oh no! It is nothing. I beg you will not speak to anyone about it.’

  ‘Very well, if you do not wish it.’ Dido was too much preoccupied with other thoughts even to torment Mrs Bailey. She took her seat in the carriage; gradually the colour faded from the cheeks of her companion and an uneasy silence ensued.

  They watched Mr Mountjoy striding away to the inn. There was a small thud as a seagull landed on the carriage roof – followed by a furious croaking as the coachman tossed a piece of gravel at it.

  A little conversation upon light and indifferent subjects was required to dispel the air of embarrassment in the coach. But all the subjects presently in Dido’s mind were heavy – and far from indifferent. If Tom had won at the card table, she thought, why was the money not in his possession when the constables seized him? Where could it have gone? A few shillings, racecards and snuff – that was all that had been found in his pockets …

  ‘My dear Dido,’ broke in Mrs Bailey, who had now regained her composure and was watching her companion narrowly, ‘I hope you will not mind my remarking that you seemed a little distressed just now – when you returned from looking at poor Mr Brodie. I hope you are recovered from the shock of seeing the corpse.’

  Dido made as slight a reply as she could. She was by no means pleased to find that Mrs Bailey had been in the hall to witness the scene between herself and Mr Fenstanton. Her own feelings about that little encounter were still confused; she did not wish to contemplate how it might have appeared to a looker-on.

  ‘Dear Lance!’ cried Mrs Bailey with another shrewd look which she quickly softened into her usual expression of condescending goodwill. ‘He seemed so very concerned about your distress.’

  Dido made no reply, for her mind had returned once more to the inexplicable emptiness of Mr Tom Lomax’s pockets. It had occurred to her that there was something else, beside his winnings, which should have been in them …

  ‘This business of Letitia running away,’ sighed Mrs Bailey, ‘is a very great worry to poor Lance. And now Mr Brodie is dead and he must put himself to trouble over that. He is so conscientious.’

  ‘I am sure he is.’

  ‘Lance always wishes everybody to be happy,’ continued Mrs Bailey tilting her head to one side and watching Dido closely. ‘He is so very attentive to everybody.’

  She spoke with such particular meaning that Dido must give her a little attention. ‘Mr Fenstanton seems to be a very kind gentleman,’ she hazarded.

  ‘Oh, he is! I have a very great regard for him – and so has Mr Bailey. And that was why I was so very happy when—’ Mrs Bailey stopped herself and put her hand to her mouth with a look of great consciousness. ‘I declare! I was upon the point of speaking out of turn! I beg you will forget entirely what I just said, Dido. Being unguarded is one of my greatest faults. My friends are always rebuking me for it. “Augusta,” they say, “you are so very unguarded. You are insufficiently cold and reserved.”’

  Dido only smiled and thought how obliging it was of Mrs Bailey’s friends to be always discovering such very attractive faults. She returned to the vexed question of Tom Lomax’s pockets …

  ‘No, no!’ cried Mrs Bailey holding up a hand. ‘I must insist that we say no more upon this subject! I declare I have gone as red as my shawl. I beg you not to press me.’

  Dido looked out of the carriage window and considered whether there was any way in which Tom could have removed something from his pocket and concealed it before his arrest …

  ‘Oh dear!’ cried Mrs Bailey. ‘I can see that you are wondering at my breaking off so sudden. I know that you are offended.’

  ‘No, not at all…’

  ‘Oh! I cannot bear to be suspected of incivility.’

  ‘I assure you—’

  ‘Well then, if you insist upon it, I think I must explain myself. I was,’ she whispered, seizing both Dido’s hands, and quite forcing her to pay attention, ‘upon the point of saying that I was pleased to find Lancelot so very much in love with Letitia.’

  ‘In love?’ repeated Dido. She had not expected this to be the secret which her companion was so very determined upon not concealing. Nor could she quite understand why Mrs Bailey should wish so particularly to convey the information to herself. ‘Mr Lancelot is in love with Miss Verney?’

  ‘Oh yes. He is over head and ears!’ Mrs Bailey assured her. ‘Of course, he has said nothing about it. But knowing him so very well, I cannot doubt it. My friends tell me that I have quite a talent for detecting these things.’ Her sharp eyes seemed to be watching for the effect of her words on her listener. ‘And though the Great Bard tells us that “the course of true love never did run smooth”, I do believe that in this case…’ The rest was all sunk in a convenient silence and a knowing smile.

  Dido murmured a polite wish for the gentleman’s success with the lady, but her heart was not in it. She was distracted, for all at once she was seeing in her mind the moment of Tom Lomax being seized: his attempted escape, his stumbling against the stones, and his careful replacing of those stones …

  ‘My dear,’ said Mrs Bailey in a gloating voice, ‘you seem upset. Have I said something amiss?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all.’ But Dido already had one foot upon the step of the carriage. ‘It is nothing – a slight headache only. A little air will set me to rights. Please be so kind as to tell Mr Fenstanton that I shall walk back to Charcombe Manor.’

  ‘Very well, and I hope you are soon recovered, my dear,’ Mrs Bailey called after her. Her face leant out of the carriage window, yellow curls blowing across her eyes, her startlingly red lips parted in a look of ill-natured satisfaction.

  Dido paid her no heed as she hurried down the grassy bank before the inn and started along the terrace. Her thoughts were all fixed upon the benches in the mall – and the heap of stones which lay beside them.

  She must investigate those stones without delay.

  Chapter Twenty-Six


  As she hurried forward, the brisk wind from the sea lifted Dido’s pelisse and set it flapping, obliging her to hold it with both hands. She reached the bottom of the bank and came onto the main terrace which, she was pleased to see, was deserted. The dinner hour was approaching and all the widows and half-pay officers had returned to their lodgings to dress.

  Down upon the sands a single bathing machine was ploughing out through white-crested waves, the tail of its horse streaming in the wind, the water foaming about its wheels. It would seem that Mr George Fenstanton was setting a good example to Charcombe’s visitors and taking his daily dip.

  Shivering at the very idea, Dido hurried on towards the place where the green benches stood and, as she came close, she fixed her eyes eagerly upon the stones: a grey pile, almost as high as the bench beside it.

  Tom Lomax had hidden something in that pile of stones.

  She was sure of it. He had hidden something which he did not wish the constables to find in his possession. That had been the cause of his sudden movement, even though he must have known that escape was impossible. Perhaps it was the money he had won from Mr Brodie which he had hidden – or perhaps it was something more dangerous …

  She paused as she reached the bench upon which Tom had been sitting, and she recollected the scene. He had been lounging with his legs stretched across the pavement; one hand had been resting on the head of his cane – and the other hand had been holding a letter. He had been reading a letter.

  Yet there had been no letter discovered when the constables made a search of his person.

  Dido stooped down in the biting wind beside the stone heap. It was comprised of broken rock and fragments of dried mortar, each piece about the size of a fist. She peered into the gaps, but could see no edge of paper, no scrap of white among the grey. She closed her eyes in an effort of memory. Before the men seized him, Tom had been replacing stones on the very top of the pile.

  Tentatively she began to remove the topmost stones, trying not to care too much about the staining of her gloves with dust, the scratching of the soft kid. The wind whipped her cloak and bonnet ribbons in all directions, and cut at her cheeks. The stones tumbled about her hands, trapping and bruising her fingers. She fervently hoped that nobody would pass by and see her engaged upon such a strange task. But she had not moved more than a dozen pieces of stone before she was rewarded with a glimpse of white paper. She began to work faster and a minute later she had the letter in her grasp.

  Smiling in triumph she sat down on the bench and turned her prize over in dusty hands. The letter was so very stained, its edges so much torn, that she suspected it had been far from fresh even before it was immured in the workmen’s rubble. The seal of blue wax was broken roughly as if the letter had been torn open without the aid of a knife.

  She looked hastily about her to be sure she was alone on the terrace before reading the direction written on the letter’s cover.

  * * *

  Lancelot Fenstanton esquire, Charcombe Manor, Devonshire, England.

  * * *

  There was a great sinking of the heart as she read the words. Though she could not immediately determine why they should fill her with such dread …

  That the letter was not addressed to Tom Lomax was a surprise and the question of how – and why – the letter came to be in his possession must arise. She folded her arms tightly about her and shivered in the penetrating wind. The answer which suggested itself was not at all welcome.

  And now she faced a new difficulty. The only right, the only honourable, course was to hand this letter, unread, to the man to whom it was directed. But what would be the consequence of such an action?

  Tom had been most anxious to conceal this letter from the forces of justice. Why? Did it provide evidence against him?

  She took the folded paper in one hand and tapped it restlessly against the other. Her heart beat fast with the need to know what was written within … And the seal was already broken. When she delivered the letter to Mr Fenstanton he would not know whether she had read it or not …

  She blushed with shame and found herself remembering a time about a year and a half ago at Belsfield Hall, when she had rebuked Tom Lomax himself for reading what was not addressed to him. She had then been as determined against benefiting from information so dishonourably gained as any well-bred woman could be. Had she changed in the intervening eighteen months? Perhaps the interest she had recently begun to take in mysteries and injustices had weakened her principles, corrupted her mind. Perhaps all her busyness in these causes was no more than an excuse for that impertinent meddling in other people’s lives which is so frequently derided in ageing spinsters. Perhaps Mr Lomax was right to condemn.

  But the very thought of that gentleman brought her moralising to an abrupt halt, and turned her mind instead to his suffering in the face of his son’s danger. And all she could think of was that the paper in her hand might reveal something about the case …

  In a moment the letter was open upon her lap and her eyes were rapidly devouring the words – as if the severity of her transgression might be lessened by speed.

  Hebron Plantation, Antigua. 17th January 1807

  Dear Lancelot,

  I would have this letter reach you with all possible speed and so, rather than wait upon the packet, I am entrusting it to James Brodie who sails tomorrow in a private vessel bound for Plymouth. God knows! I would find a better messenger if I could; but the fellow says he knows Charcombe. He says he plans to visit the place on business in the course of his journey home. And, dispatch being of the first importance, I must take my chance with him – though I have not known him a week.

  I trust you will pardon me, old friend, for not making all those remarks upon my own health and enquiries into the health of all our acquaintance which a fellow is supposed to put in his letters. Consider everything said that is proper, I have not time for it. To the point –

  I would have you take hold of young Tom Lomax and tell him that he is a damnable villain. Tell him that if, upon my return, I find him within twenty miles of my family I shall put a bullet through his brains, or else have Jack Smith take the gelding iron to him.

  Lance, what will you say when I tell you that the wretch has had the impertinence to raise his eyes to Letitia? Or I should rather say he has raised his eyes to Letitia’s fortune. For all his fine words I do not believe there is any real affection in the business. The whole world knows Tom Lomax is all to pieces and his father barely holding off the creditors. And John Harris gave me a hint more than a year back that the fellow was set upon marrying well. But I thought little of it. For I never thought Letitia would be foolish enough to be taken in.

  But I tell my tale ill. I have not said that I have had a letter from young Lomax, who, thinking I know nothing of him, has the audacity to ‘beg for my consent’. He and Letitia are ‘so very much in love and she has done him the inestimable honour of agreeing to be his wife’.

  He takes me for a damned fool! He thinks to have the matter settled while I am at a distance and hopes I know nothing about his character. But you may tell him, Lance, that he has wagered on the wrong horse this time. Tell him that if he marries the girl without my consent he shall not see a penny of her fortune …

  I cannot write any more now; Brodie rides for the port within the hour. He is waiting in the next room. Dear God! But I can smell the rum on him from here! If only there were a better messenger to be had.

  I know that you will not fail me, Lance. I know you will act as soon as this comes into your hands.

  The horses are at the door now. I must finish in haste. Yours ever in trust and friendship.

  Reginald Bailey.

  * * *

  Dido found that she was shaking uncontrollably; shock and fear were chilling her to the bone. She stood up hastily in the biting wind, folding up the paper and wishing that she might throw it out into the sea. She wanted rid of it. Its touch seemed to freeze her hand.

 
Tom’s possession of this letter, together with its import, would be damning evidence in the eyes of any assize court jury. She doubted there were to be found twelve men anywhere in the country who – when the evidence was placed before them – would not conclude that Tom had killed Mr Brodie in order to get this letter from him.

  It was such a very reasonable conclusion.

  She crossed her arms about herself as a new horror occurred …

  It was such a very reasonable conclusion that a part of her mind was almost believing it to be true!

  Never before had she doubted Tom’s innocence. Every fibre and sinew of her being had been bent on finding the truth; not simply for the truth’s own sake, but because she was sure that the truth would acquit him.

  But now, for the first time, she faced the possibility of guilt; a guilt which, if proven, would destroy for ever the happiness of the man she loved.

  And for several minutes she was overpowered. She stood, not knowing what to do, in the piercing wind which tore at her pelisse and bonnet, exposing her arms and whipping her hair about her face. She turned blindly first one way and then another; the wind and her wretchedness drew warm tears from the corners of her eyes which chilled immediately upon her cheeks.

  But at last she exerted herself, forcing reason upon her terror. She must act. She must find out whether this worst of all fears was founded upon fact or only appearance.

  She turned with growing resolution in the direction of Old Charcombe and began to walk. Tom Lomax himself was the only person who could answer the questions which were now raging in her head. She must talk to Tom directly.

  She did not know how the gaoler was to be persuaded to admit her, and she preferred not to consider the impropriety of the visit. But she knew that she was bringing a world of trouble upon her own head; for even if no word of her going unprotected into a gaol was to get back to Charcombe Manor, her continued absence from the house would bring sufficient disapprobation from her aunt.