by Paula Paul
After his brief sojourn in the village, Nicholas had gone back to Montmarsh, troubled by the fact that the English court system was so efficient. Then, feeling restless and with nothing to do, he had wondered about the house, empty now of guests and seeming very large and lonely. He began to feel hungry and decided to ask for a meal. But there were no servants to be found. He could hear their voices, however, and he finally found them in the kitchen.
“’E was mad enough to kill Lord Dunsford right then, I’ll tell ye that. And I’d wager all me buttons old Lord Winnie’d been planning to kill him ever since.” It was the voice of a young man who spoke. Nicholas recognized him as Eddie’s valet. Eddie had brought him from London for his stay in the country. Hearing the voice, Nicholas stepped just outside the door, so he wouldn’t be seen as he listened.
“I don’t believe ye a’tall.” This was the high-pitched voice of one of the chamber maids. “Lord Winningham’s no murderer. “’E’s a kind man, ’e is. Treated me with such kindness as ye’d never believe each time he came out ’ere to Montmarsh. I was always the one to serve ’im, you know.”
The valet’s laugh had a superior ring to it. “Kind, ye say? Oh yes, ’e’s kind enough if ’e thinks there’s a chance ’e can get in yer knickers. Likes a bit o’ pussy, ’e does. What man doesn’t, even if ’e’s ancient as old Winnie. But when Lord Duns caught ’im with that bloke from the theatre district, I seen the murder in ’is eyes.”
“But I still say, ’e’s no—”
It was Mrs. Pickwick who interrupted her this time. “Yer just a child, Amelia. Ye don’t yet know the ways o’ the world. If word got around a man like Winnie likes doin’ it with boys, it would ruin ’is name. It’s easy to see how ’e could calculate murder was the easy way out.” She turned to the valet. “But do ye really think he came here with it on his mind to kill the earl?”
“Sure it was on ’is mind.” The valet was full of blustery self confidence. “Heard ’im say it meself. ‘I’ll kill the bastard, ’e says. ’E was just waiting for the right moment, ’e was. What’s ’e got to lose? I ask you that. ’E knew Lord Duns could ruin ’im.”
“Aye, and Earl Duns would do it too,” one of the older kitchen maids said. “He was a cruel one, that one was. Cared not a farthing for anyone but himself. He was bound to pay with his life for that cruelty, I say.”
“He was a cruel one, all right, and it’s the devil in him that makes him walk these halls after ’e’s dead, then.” Mrs. Pickwick’s voice had dropped to a frightened hush.
“Ah go on now. ’E ain’t walkin’ a-tall. Corpses don’t walk,” the valet said, exhibiting his arrogance again.
“What about that strumpet, Mrs. Atewater?” Amelia said. “Didn’t she say she saw the dead Lord Duns walkin’ ’erself?”
“Ye don’t believe ’er, do you?” The valet said. “She was raging vexed with old Duns for throwin’ ’er over. Pure waxy, she was.”
“Waxy enough to kill Lord Dunsford?” Amelia clearly was still trying to defend Lord Winningham.
“Ye think a woman could have killed Lord Duns?” The cocky valet was incensed. “Yer crazy, ye are. Lord Duns was no milksop. ’Twould take a man to kill ’im.”
“Aye. More than the likes of Elsie,” Mrs. Pickwick said.
“Pshaw!” The valet poured himself a glass of Lord Dunsford’s best claret. “’Tis only the nobs that wants to blame it on ’er. We all knows that. So they fixes it with the constable to get the girl so none o’ them will ’ave to get too close to the gallows.”
Mrs. Pickwick nodded her head, considering it. “Aye, the constable’s a strange one. Always thought so even when ’e was the school master. Always slipping off to London for God knows what, and…”
When the gossip turned to the constable, Nicholas left, quietly, for fear that if he stayed longer one of them would catch him eavesdropping. But their gossip about Lord Winningham as well as about Isabel Atewater had given him pause. True, it could be nothing more than gossip, but experience had taught him that too often the gossip of servants was grounded in unvarnished facts. He was convinced that it needed to be investigated. But there was little time to waste. If Elsie was bound over for trial in two weeks, he had to move quickly, and so he was now on a coach bound for London. His aim was to look into Lord Winningham’s motive for murder.
The coach slowed to the speed of a man’s gait, and Nicholas grew impatient. “Can’t we move along a little faster?” he called to the driver.
The driver shouted back to Nicholas over his shoulder. “Them horses has chose to move through this blackness with caution, and I ain’t inclined to dispute that decision.”
Nicholas could see that the lantern the driver had placed at the front of the coach did little more than light up the rumps of the horses. And it was, indeed, a black and moonless night. Nicholas, though, had already thrown caution to the wind by his decision to make this night journey, and the slow pace at which they moved served only to frustrate him.
He was still grumbling to himself about the slow pace when the blast of a pistol ripped into the silence of the night. The horses shied and cried out with nervous snorts, then there was a voice shouting.
“Stop the coach, and you won’t be hurt.”
The driver immediately pulled the frightened horses to a halt, but they danced nervously as the voice grew closer. “Passengers! All of you. Out!”
Nicholas, who had stiffened with fear at the first sounds of the commotion, now felt that fear dissipate as anger replaced it. How dare the hoodlums be so presumptuous! He’d like to teach them not to steal from innocent folks. Still, he knew there was danger, and he wished for the first time ever that he had taken Eddie’s long ago advice about carrying a pistol. He’d argued that it was barbaric and uncivilized. Eddie had laughed and taunted him, saying he’d find out what uncivilized was one of these days.
Now, it seemed they both had.
“Out, I say.” the voice, that of a young man, said again. With that, he jerked the coach door open and reached in to grab Nicholas’s arm and pull him out. Another form, almost too shadowy to make out in the darkness, had climbed up to the driver’s seat and struck the driver with something. The driver crumpled and hit the ground with a thud. The horses jumped, but the shadowy form reined them in.
Just as the driver fell, the other highwayman pushed Nicholas against the side of the coach, and Nicholas felt the cold steel of a knife against his throat. The highwayman ripped his watch, along with its gold chain, from his vest. “Hand over your purse, and any fancy rings you might be wearin’.” he said.
Nicholas fished a purse out of his pocket and handed it over. “I’ve no rings or jewels.” His voice was edged with the anger he still felt, and his mind spun as he tried to devise some way to overcome the young thug without risking his burying the blade in his flesh.
“You’ll not be lyin’ to me, sir, or I’ll whack your fingers to get at the rings.” The man ran the edge of the blade along the fingers of Nicholas’s right hand, and Nicholas felt a sharp pain and the warm ooze of blood. The man dropped the right hand, apparently satisfied that there were no rings on it. In the gap between seconds as the man dropped one hand and reached for the other, Nicholas lunged for his throat. The man stumbled back, and the knife fell, stabbing the ground a fraction of an inch from Nicholas’s foot.
In the same moment Nicholas heard the report of the gun coming from the direction of the shadowy form on top of the coach, and he felt the slicing, ragged heat of a bullet at his head.
Chapter Eleven
“Zack! Zack, where are you? Are you all right?” Terror gripped Alexandra, rendering her almost unable to move. The fog, growing thicker, weighed her down as well. She forced herself to take a step forward in the darkness. And then another, and another, moving toward that horrific sound she’d heard coming from Zack.
There had only been one yelping scream, and then silence except for the sound of the surf, oddly muffled in the fog. She called o
ut again. “Zack! Are you…”
Suddenly a hand clamped her mouth, and another arm, encircling her body, pinned her arms to her side. A memory of the night in the stable yard flashed in her mind, but this was not the same person. The one who held her now was smaller, perhaps only a boy, and he smelled of stale beer and cheap tobacco.
“What is it yer doing here?” the boy asked. At the same time she heard Zack growl, low in his throat, and then a loud, ferocious bark. Next, pandemonium—Zack’s bark, the arm letting go, the sound of a scuffle, young voices shouting, “Kill the bastard. He’s attacking.” And then another whimper from Zack.
“Don’t hurt him.” Alexandra screamed.
Zack growled, and she saw what she thought was the shadowy form of him lunge.
“Damnation! The bugger’s tearing my leg off. Use the bloody knife for god’s sake. Aaargh.”
Then suddenly the light of a lantern sputtered weakly through the fog and mist and a young voice yelled, “Let the woman go you idjets. She’s here to see me.” And then the same voice directed at Alexandra. “Call the bloody beast off of the boys before he kills ’em.” The speaker held the lantern at arm’s length in front of him so that the glaring light kept Alexandra from seeing his face clearly.
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then, “Zack! Zack! Heel!” She had to call twice more before the dog could be convinced, and by this time, his victims were both groaning miserably. Finally Zack heeded her command and moved toward her. She put her hands on him, feeling in the darkness for a wound that might have made him cry out in pain. She felt dampness around his mouth, but she couldn’t be sure if it was blood or the profuse saliva that was characteristic of him. If it was blood, had it come from Zack or the boys? Then she felt the wet, matted hair on his head as well as evidence of a gash in his skin. He had been injured, but in the darkness, it was impossible to tell how badly.
The dog was tense and alert, pacing nervously and growling, low and menacing, even as the two injured young men tried to move away, scooting on their backsides.
The boy with the lantern shouted at them in anger. “You buggard clods. Didn’t I tell you I had business here tonight?”
“We was just makin’ sure it wasn’t trouble she was here for, Quince,” one of the young men on the ground whimpered. “How was we to know she’d ’ave the bloody bear dog with ’er? I think the beast ’as tore Artie’s face off.”
There was a sickening groan from the other boy. It sounded as if he was lying on the ground.
“Serves you right for bein’ such fools,” the boy with the lantern said. “Now off with you.”
“But, Quince—”
“Out of my sight, the two of you.” With that, he squelched the lantern’s light.
“Wait!” Alexandra took a step toward the two boys as they stumbled away, but Zack blocked her with his huge body.
“Leave ’em be.” Quince’s words were a harsh command.
“But they’re hurt. Those wounds should be—”
“I said leave ’em be.” Alexandra could feel his hand like a stone weight on her arm, dragging her back. “I’ll see to it later. For now we’ve got to talk.” His voice was a harsh whisper, and she could sense, even smell, his fear.
Alexandra’s heart was pounding out her own fear as well. Zack sensed it, growled, and took a menacing step toward Quince. Alexandra grabbed his leash and had to use both hands to restrain him.
“Can’t we go someplace more comfortable? Some place where I can see—”
“No! It’s best we not be seen together, and it ' ’s best ye not tell anyone ye talked to me, ye hear?”
“Well, I—”
“If ye value yer life…”
“Good Lord.”
“And if ye don’t value yer own life, then think of the girl yer tryin’ to save.”
Alexander’s heart pounded even harder. Perhaps she should have heeded Nicholas’s warning about coming here. “I…I’m afraid I don’t understand—”
“What I’m doin’, I’m doin’ for Georgie. And ye best keep yer voice down, Miss.”
Alexandra’s mouth was dry, and she was finding it difficult to speak at all, but she managed to whisper, “Of course, George Stirling was your friend.” She paused, screwing up her courage, then added, “Do you know who killed him?”
There was a long moment of silence before Quince spoke. “Did the girl, the one they call Elsie, did she tell you she seen ’is ghost?”
“She said she’d heard him speak to her.”
“And ye didn’t believe ’er.”
“I believe she thinks she heard him.”
Quince’s laugh was a hard, brittle sound. “Aye, but yer a clever one with words, ye are. But I tell ye for sure, I know who done the deed.”
“Then you must tell—”
Zack suddenly became even more restless, and Alexandra felt him tense again. She sensed that his head had lifted, and he was sniffing the air, as if someone was approaching. Alexandra placed her hand on his head, being careful not to touch his wound. The touch was partly to soothe him and partly to read his body language as she whispered to Quince.
“If you know who killed George and the earl, you must tell the constable.”
Quince drew back from her. “I won’t talk to a copper, Miss, and I ain’t so willin’ to talk to you if it wasn’t for me doin’ it for Georgie.”
“Do you know who murdered Lord Dunsford?”
Quince leaned toward her and seemed about to say something when Zack let out another sharp bark. In almost the same instant, Quince moved quickly to grab Alexandra again, clasping his hand around her mouth and holding her arms against her sides in the same manner the other boy had done. Zack lunged at him, but he managed to back away.
“Somebody’s coming.” Quince’s mouth was close to her ear, and his whisper was full of terror. “I ought to kill ye to keep ye quiet about this.”
Alexandra tried to say something, but his hand on her mouth made it almost impossible to breathe and certainly impossible to speak. Zack barked, loud, harsh, and angry and tried over and over again to lunge at Quince, but Quince’s deft maneuvers kept Alexandra between him and the dog so that Zack could not attack without harming the one he was trying to protect.
A voice, muffled by the mist and fog, called out. “Who’s there?”
Another whisper, hoarse and curdled with fear, came from Quince’s lips, still close to her ear. “Hold the dog.”
She nodded, or tried to nod as much as his restraining hand would allow and pulled Zack’s leash shorter. Immediately Quince loosened his grip on her and fled. Almost instantly the darkness swallowed him, and the fog softened his footfall.
Zack barked and strained at his leash, but Alexandra would not let go. She started to call out Quince’s name, but the memory of his fear that someone might find out he had spoken to her kept her quiet. She resolved to try again to see him. She could come down to the piers again tomorrow in the light of day and ask for him. No, that would be unwise. He had not wanted anyone to know he had spoken to her, and he had threatened her with her own and Elsie’s life if she revealed it. She would have to find another way.
“Zack,” she said, still whispering. “Hush now. We must go home.”
Zack obeyed her and stopped his barking, but he kept up a low undulating growl that sounded almost like vowel sounds, as if he were trying to speak to her in her own language to warn her of danger.
“It’s all right, Zack. We’re going home now.” She took a few steps forward, blind in the heavy darkness, allowing Zack to lead her. He had given up trying to talk to her and had resorted to his loud, threatening barks again. She followed the sound and bulk of him, and then screamed in fear when a human hand touched her face.
At the same time, Zack leapt, snarling, but Alexandra managed somehow, awkwardly, to get in his way, and it was she he knocked to the ground. Zack seemed confused. The voice she had heard earlier, muffled by the fog said her name.
“
Dr. Gladstone?”
Alexandra held her breath, puzzled for a moment. Then: “Mr. Atewater? Is that you? Zack! Stay!”
Two hands reached to bring her to her feet, gently. They both spoke at the same time. “Dr. Gladstone, what are you doing out this time of…?”
“Mr. Atewater, I thought you were in…”
“I thought it was you I saw walking this direction, and I must confess, I followed you,” Atewater said. He held her arm and led her away from the water toward the dim lights of the town.
In spite of her commands, Zack was still growling and lunging against the leash. Obviously the encounter on the pier had upset him. And there was still the possibility that he had been injured. She had Jeremy Atewater to deal with now, however.
“You followed me? I don’t understand…”
“Frankly, I found it odd that a woman would be out alone so late at night. Even with a dog as large as the one you have,” Atewater said. “I thought perhaps I should keep an eye on you. It was so dark, though, I lost you. And then when I heard the dog barking, I followed the sound. To be honest, I was frightened you’d been attacked.”
“Oh no, not at all. Zack was just barking at shadows. And…and I often walk Zack at night.” Alexandra wasn’t sure why she was lying. Why she felt the need to protect Quince. “But what are you doing here, Mr. Atewater? I thought you and Mrs. Atewater had returned to London. Zack, quiet, please.”
Atewater, who was now leading her toward a street, walked briskly. The fog made light from cottage windows dance out of bounds. “You’re quite right,” he said. “We did plan to go to London, but at the last minute, I decided to stay. You see, Lord Dunsford and I were involved in a rather complicated business venture together, and I’m afraid his death precipitated rather a lot of work and decisions I’m forced to make. Mrs. Atewater went on without me. I took a room at the inn. More convenient than staying so far away at Montmarsh, you see.”
“I see,” Alexandra said, trying not to let her curiosity overcome good manners. She wanted to ask him exactly what sort of business kept him here and why he was out walking so late.
