by Joan Smith
“Eh?” He looked around the crowded room. “The old folks have hit the tick. Papa has gone home. He invited me to call next week. He ain’t happy with me, but at least he’s speaking.”
“But where are the others?”
“Looks like the rest of ‘em are here, waiting for the music to begin. I meant to stand up with Miss Fletcher again. Have you seen her?”
“Not since dinner.”
“Do you know, Esther, I still don’t know what she looks like? I’d like to get her to take off her mask. She’s a light stepper. Dashed pretty curls she has.”
Esther looked all around for the shepherdess and soon knew she wasn’t in the room.
“Went upstairs to tidy her toilette, I daresay,” Buck decided. “I’ll keep an eye peeled on the staircase, or Meecham will beat me to her. I notice he watches her like a hawk.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure he has Lady Margaret in his eye.”
“Rubbish. Miss Fletcher don’t take a step that he ain’t after her like a fox after a chicken. I even saw him follow her out for a breath of air before dinner. If her brother hadn’t been with her, he would have tried to steal a kiss. A bit of a commoner, that lad. His room at the inn is like a pigsty. The servants tell me he’s broken the door frame, to say nothing of that grease on the carpet.”
Esther had very little interest in Miss Fletcher. She withdrew to a quiet corner to watch and think. Clifford knew Meecham’s horse was tethered outside. Perhaps checking up on it accounted for the Bow Street officer’s absence. Her nervousness mounted. There was something wrong, but try as she might, she couldn’t put a finger on it. Lady Altrane and Lady Sumner had retired, so their jewels were safe. Or were they? Was the robbery going to occur in their chambers, after they were asleep?
Esther rose and headed for the great staircase. The doors at the end of the hallway that Joshua had pointed out as theirs were closed, silent. Lamps along the corridor gave a dim light, enough to show her no one was there. Yet a tingling along her scalp spelled danger. She couldn’t be imagining it.
A breeze stirred at the window at the end of the hall, lifting the hair on her arms. Curtains billowed over the heavy chest below the window. The very silence was unnerving. Wouldn’t people preparing for bed make some small sound at least? She felt as if the very shadows were watching her.
She would just run down the hall and put her ear to their doors. She’d look a fool if she were caught, but a sixth sense told her things were not what they appeared. From behind Lady Altrane’s door she heard a low, spiteful laugh. “And the bracelet, milady. Alms for Allah.” Captain Johnnie! Esther froze to the spot, momentarily unable to move. He was there, robbing Lady Altrane, and there wasn’t a soul around to help her.
While she stood, summoning courage and trying to think what to do, the door opened and a masked man in a black cape and broad-brimmed hat came out, stuffing a string of emeralds into his inner pocket. He stopped a moment when he saw her. His pistol rose, and she found herself staring into eternity at the round, black hole of the muzzle.
“One word, and it will be your last,” the Scamp cautioned. The deadly menace of his voice held her silent.
What was he waiting for? He glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, a smaller masked man appeared, also in a black hat and cape, and with a strand of diamonds hanging from one gloved hand, a pistol in the other.
Esther stood, terrified into immobility. A strange ringing in her ears nearly deafened her, as she studied the two masked men, one noticeably smaller than the other. This was the pair who had robbed the gold wagon and killed two men in the doing of it. They would kill her without a second thought if she tried to stop them. The men didn’t say a word. They looked at each other uncertainly, as though silently deciding what to do with her. Their silence was more terrifying than threats.
The taller one looked at the window, then at the smaller man. He tossed his head toward the window, indicating their means of escape. Was it Meecham? He had worn a domino. The size was right, and the firm jaw. Yet not so firm as the jaw of the man who had kissed her on the heath. If she could hear him speak at close range ...
He stared at her, his eyes two glittering slits behind the mask. “You first,” he growled to his helper, but in an unrecognizable voice. “You, right behind,” he ordered Esther.
She stared. The smaller man put the diamonds in a pocket and shoved her toward the window. “I can’t jump! I’ll break my legs!” Esther objected, but in a quaking voice.
“With luck, it’ll be your neck.” The tall one laughed.
The other drew aside the velvet curtains and she saw a stout rope tethered to the legs of the heavy chest. He drew out a drawer of the chest, clambered nimbly up on top and let himself out, while the other kept his pistol trained on Esther. Awkwardly she climbed onto the chest, out the window, and let herself down the knotted rope. Her fingers burned, and the rough hemp caught at her gown, but Esther didn’t notice. What are they going to do when they get me outside, away from the safety of the house? she wondered.
The smaller man was waiting, silently pointing his pistol at her, when her feet hit the ground. Within seconds the taller one joined them. Esther looked around for a weapon or the best means of escape. While her eyes scanned the Abbey for a doorway and she gauged her chances of reaching it without being shot, another masked, caped man shot from the shadows, and another. The roadway was suddenly littered with replicas of Captain Johnnie, lending a nightmare quality to the affair.
“Grab him, lads!” Officer Clifford’s voice called out.
In the same instant the real Captain Johnnie pulled Esther in front of him for protection.
“Hiding behind a lady’s skirts,” Clifford scoffed. “Now is that any way for a Royal Scamp to behave?”
The tallest of the masked men lunged forward, a string of oaths spluttering from his lips. Through a miasma of terror Esther recognized Joshua. “You touch her and I’ll hound you to hell and back. You won’t get away this time!”
Captain Johnnie uttered a menacing laugh and cocked the pistol. “One move, and I plug her,” he warned. Joshua came to a halt, as if frozen. Esther heard his heavy breaths and saw the clenching of his jaw. “Throw your pistols at her feet—nice and easy.”
Esther felt the sharp pressure of the gun’s muzzle against her spine. Clifford and the other men kept their pistols. “Now!” Johnnie barked.
“For God’s sake, do it!” she implored, and four guns fell with a thud at her feet.
“The other one’s sneaking away!” someone called. It sounded like Meecham.
Esther turned and blinked as she noticed a pair of blue patent slippers flashing beneath the black cape as the smaller man moved rapidly over the ground. Meecham disappeared into the shadows of the park, hounding after the Scamp’s assistant.
“Your mount won’t be coming to you as you planned,” Clifford crowed.
“Then you’ll be bringing me one from the stable. Now!” His voice boomed out, full of authority. To reinforce the command, he jabbed the pistol into Esther’s back, causing her to jerk forward.
“Do as he says,” Joshua Ramsay ordered. He surveyed the scene. Johnnie had Esther, but even without Clifford and Meecham, there were the footman-runner and himself against Johnnie. What they required was a distraction. He surveyed his options; all of them put Esther in too much jeopardy. One nervous spasm of the Scamp’s finger, and she was dead.
Esther studied the men in front of her, counting up characters. Meecham chasing through the park, Joshua here, Buck innocently waiting in the ballroom for Cathy. The masked man was Fletcher, then, and the small assistant his sister, in her blue patent slippers. She had let that simpleton of a Cathy hold her at gunpoint, when she should have scratched her eyes out. If she had known, she would have leapt on her before Fletcher got down the rope. But who had attacked her and the Fletchers that night on the heath? Some friend of Beau’s, put up to it to fool her?
Captain Johnnie’s glamour and mystique fell fro
m him. He was just Beau Fletcher dressed up in costume. She’d be damned if she’d be afraid of him. Yet the pistol snuggled, against her spine held her quiet. The edgy silence stretched. Fletcher saw Joshua eying the pistols.
“Pick up the pistols, one by one, and throw them into the park,” he said to Esther.
He leaned forward, holding his pistol against her while she lifted one pistol and threw it, but not very far. She reached for another. Did she dare risk turning it against Johnnie? Perhaps if she threw herself to the ground ... But Johnnie didn’t usually kill his victims if they did as he said. Her life was worth more than Lady Sumner’s diamond necklace. She threw the second pistol beside the first.
Joshua watched, silently willing Esther not to do anything foolishly reckless. Meecham would have the sister in custody. That was a trump for them. And he had removed their waiting boat from the dock. That would hold up their escape. There was time to catch them yet. If only Esther didn’t do something foolish. Perspiration beaded his brow, and he pulled off his mask.
“Now, another pistol,” Beau ordered. “I’ll take it. Hand it to me. Don’t turn around. Just put it behind your back.”
This was her chance. Esther carefully took hold of the pistol handle, put it behind her back, aimed the muzzle at Fletcher, released the safety catch, and pulled the trigger. A deafening shot rang out.
Beau gave a leap and a howl of pain, followed by a string of obscenities. He dropped his pistol and clutched at his wounded hand. When she turned, Esther saw blood dripping from his fingers. In the same instant Joshua threw himself on the howling Scamp, adding his own profanities to the scene.
Officer Clifford arrived with a mount and grinned at the brouhaha. He dismounted and began gathering up pistols. “Well done, lads!” he congratulated.
Joshua turned Fletcher over to the runner and rushed to Esther. He grabbed her by the arms first, then pulled her tightly against his chest, one hand stroking her back.
“Are you all right, darling? Did he hurt you?” He looked down at her, and she saw the love and fear glowing in his eyes.
“No, I’m all right,” she assured him.
Josh’s fear gave way to relief and was soon finding an outlet in anger. “Why did you go bumbling upstairs? We had everything set! You might have been killed,” he scolded. The sting of his words was softened by a reassuring hug.
“You should have told me!” Esther exclaimed.
“I didn’t want you involved.”
“Not involved? He was staying at my inn! I was more involved than anyone.”
“Yes, you were happy to involve yourself with a blasted criminal. Running off to London with him. Why do you think I had this ball? To get him away from your inn for the capture!”
“I knew you weren’t having it for me.”
“I had it to get that creature out of your inn. I didn’t want to have him arrested there, and shoot up half your customers.”
Clifford nudged Joshua with his elbow. “My lad’s taking Fletcher into the roundhouse. I’m going after Meecham and the sister. Are you coming with me? Not that I need help to arrest a woman. The sly minx. I know what face I’ll see under her mask. The same blond lightskirt who gave Johnnie an alibi at the Black Knight. I knew when Miss Lowden told me she was a blonde who she was. That’s why she’s been at such pains to avoid showing herself—never leaving her room unless she had Fletcher run downstairs first to see I wasn’t around.”
“I doubt she is his sister,” Joshua said. “His bit of muslin is more like it.”
Esther remembered the loving laughter from Cathy’s room, and Beau’s treatment of her, which was more uxorious than anything else. “The wretch! I wager he has no intention of buying the inn.”
“I should hope not!” Joshua exclaimed.
“Are you coming or no?” Clifford demanded.
“I’ll take Miss Lowden into the house.”
“I’m going with Clifford,” Esther said.
“That you are not, missie. One debacle a night is enough,” Clifford told her. “Take her away,” he said to Joshua, in much the same tone he had used to his minion for the removal of Captain Johnnie.
Clifford shook his head as the young couple went toward the Abbey, arguing like a pair of fishwives.
Chapter Fifteen
It was four o’clock in the morning before the ball was over and the guests retired. Other than Lady Altrane and Lady Sumner, no one was aware of what had happened in their rooms and outside the Abbey. Those stalwart dames had volunteered their services, with the proviso that paste replicas of their treasures be used for the deception. They had no fear for their lives, as they were instructed by Officer Clifford to hand the jewels over without an argument.
Clifford’s hirelings posed as their footmen for the visit. The ladies also submitted to being tied and gagged, on the understanding that Joshua would send a servant to untie them as soon as the Scamp had left the house. The rooms on either side of theirs were occupied by listening helpers. Lady Sumner had some hopes of a kiss from the midnight bandit for a reward, but was disappointed. Captain Johnnie used some discrimination in that matter.
Buck took Lady Brown and Lady Gloria back to the inn with him, and Esther remained behind to await Meecham’s return.
“Joshua will drive me home soon, Auntie. Don’t wait up for me,” Esther said
This unusual procedure found no objection from the hopeful matchmaker. She wouldn’t have objected if Esther had said she meant to move into the Abbey as a laundress. Joshua could do no wrong. “Don’t be too late” was her only warning.
It was already four-thirty before Meecham and Clifford came back to relate the final outcome of the affair and straighten out a few details. Joshua called for coffee, in an attempt to keep everyone’s eyes open another half hour.
“How long have you known Fletcher was Captain Johnnie?” Esther asked Clifford.
“He was the prime suspect from day one.”
“But he had an alibi for the time of the Higginses’ attack.”
“That one wasn’t Captain Johnnie’s work,” he told her. “There are plenty of scamps on the heath, many of them using Johnnie’s tricks. The minute he conned you into showing him all the nooks and crannies of your inn, Fletcher rose to the top of my list. He pulled the same stunt at the Black Knight and hid his loot in the attic. The girl he calls his sister, Cathy Barker, gave him his alibi at the Black Knight, which put me off a little. Actually she was his accomplice in the gold robbery.”
“She isn’t his sister?” Esther asked.
“She is Fletcher’s light-o’-love and, sometimes, his accomplice. London is her usual ground, but she follows Johnnie about here and there. She knew I would recognize her, so kept her phiz hidden when he brought her here. Her papa was the famous highwayman, Black Barker. She comes by her calling honestly.”
“She won’t hang,” Meecham said, “but she’ll do a stretch at Bridewell. It was Fletcher who shot the guards on the gold wagon. The night he went to London, ostensibly to fetch her, they met at the Black Knight and went after the gold. I fancy she is the one who learned it was moving at that time.”
“The likes of Johnnie and his woman have helpers in critical places,” Clifford said. “They could have been in league with one of the guards he shot. The man would tip him the clue as to when the gold was moving, planning to get his share. That is the likeliest thing—then Johnnie got rid of the weak link and kept all the gold for himself. The girl confessed they hid it not far from where he ditched the carriage in the Thames. She’s giving evidence to save her own skin. No honor among thieves, whatever they may say.”
“Is Fletcher an ex-navy man?” Esther asked.
“The Admiralty has no record of a Captain Fletcher. There was a seaman of the name, posted to Canada.”
“He did seem to know something about Canada,” she remembered.
“As Seaman Fletcher is a deserter, I figure he’s our man. That would explain why he planned his getaway by boat ton
ight. He had a tidy skiff anchored at the bottom of the Abbey cliff, manned by his groom. I had him followed when he took you to London, Miss Lowden. He made a visit to the docks.”
“He said he had some importing business to look into.”
“That is when he arranged for the boat, so we knew how he planned his getaway,” Clifford continued. “Young Meecham tethered his mount in the park to go after them if they evaded us here at the house. We were set to pounce on them as they crawled out the window, but of course when we saw they had you with them, we had to improvise.” A glint of annoyance from his brown eyes was the only chastisement Esther received.
She returned the glint with interest. “I wouldn’t have been with them if you had told me what was going on!”
“We wanted you to behave normally, as you had befriended the couple,” Meecham explained. “We didn’t want you to reveal, involuntarily, that you knew.”
“Normal behavior in abnormal circumstances can prove a trifle hazardous,” Esther pointed out.
Clifford resumed his explanation. “You will find, when you get home, Miss Lowden, that the pair of them cleared out their rooms. Had their things smuggled into his carriage and taken to London, pretending the carriage needed repairs. They had no intention of even paying their shot at your inn, but if you submit your bill, I’ll see it’s paid from his funds. He has plenty of them here and there. He’d planned to leave his white mount behind. A small price to pay for what he might have gotten away with this night.”
Esther nodded. “He has a gold locket of mine I’d like to recover. It belonged to my mother. I still don’t know who was sleeping in my attic. That wouldn’t have been Fletcher, when he had his own suite and Cathy hers.”
“Surely it was him, throwing a few red herrings in our path. He never slept a wink there, but only made up a mattress and tossed a few wine bottles about to make us think it was some outsider. And the cigar butt, as he don’t smoke. He’d have picked it up around the hotel somewhere. He’s full of twists, that one. He stuffs his lanky shoulders with wadding when he goes out robbing, to make his victims think he’s a big lad, and of course the cape and hat add a touch of drama.”
