Consuela and the duchess greeted this news with mixed feelings, but Vespa said heartily, “Congratulations! That’s good news indeed. Are you for France, then?”
“Next week. I’m pleased, of course, but I don’t much like leaving you in the middle of this bog.”
“You may be à l’aise,” said Manderville. “I shall stand by Jack, staunch and true, as ever. The Army won’t have me yet.” He moved his arm tentatively. “Shoulder. Still stiff, y’know. And I shall now contribute my soupçon of information, which really tells us nothing, yet says a good deal, I think. While Toby was ensconced with the medical monsters, I called in at Bow Street again. You will be interested to learn, Jack, that there is no record of any street brawl the night before last involving your esteemed self; that there was no murder done in London Town; and that Colonel the Honourable Hastings Adair has not set foot on British soil for the last six weeks, at least. In other words, friends, Romans and so forth, something very sticky is afoot, and Consuela’s colonel is up to his ears in the glue.”
Vespa nodded. “Not much doubt of that. Certainly, they don’t want us sticking our noses in whatever it is. Well, at least we tried to help Adair.”
“Who is not my colonel,” murmured Consuela pertly.
Vespa smiled at her, and went on: “Then we shall leave him to his own devices and do as Paige suggested. Please interrupt if you think of something I’ve overlooked. It seems to me that the most likely candidate we’ve found thus far is a gentleman much disliked by Sir Kendrick, and who is out of the country a good deal of the time. We have several clues as to his identity. One is that both his first and last names contain the same two letters in succession. Also, we believe he may have an estate in Suffolk. And, lastly, his hobby is to hunt—rugs. Not a great deal, I admit. But it’s a start.”
Broderick pointed out, “Your surest route would be to sail at once for South America and try to wheedle the truth out of Lady Faith.”
“Oh, absolutely. But the courier my great-uncle despatched must surely reach my mother long before I could get there, and she may well decide to return at once. There is the risk that if I now sail, our ships may pass each other in mid-ocean, and—” he met Consuela’s eyes steadily “it would take a year, at least. I think I do not want to wait that long.”
Consuela blushed, and there was a small silence.
Lady Francesca, who had been frowning at Manderville’s purple coat, said suddenly, “I cannot like that colour, and I have find something we forget, Captain Jack. It is the castle. Did not your man tell you this same gentleman have a castle somewhere?”
“Yes. But he didn’t know where, save that it was not in England.”
“Still, it’s a help,” said Broderick. “We can go into Suffolk and enquire for a landed local gentleman who also owns a castle that may or may not be in the British Isles.”
“Oh, oh!” cried Consuela happily. “We are making progress! And if the castle chances to be somewhere in Britain: Wales, for instance, or Scotland, it would…” She stopped suddenly, her widening eyes flying to Vespa’s face.
Lady Francesca demanded, “What is it? What is it? Never become mute and stiff like the stockfish! If you have thinking of somethings, speak up, Meadowlark!”
Consuela moved hesitantly to stand before Vespa. He stood at once, and she touched his arm and murmured, “I am sorry to speak of that terrible time. I know you don’t like to think of it.”
His nerves tightened into knots, but he put a hand over hers and said, “Do you mean when we were down in the quarry? It’s all right, Consuela. Tell me, please.”
She closed her eyes for a second and could see again that dismal mine tunnel, and Sir Kendrick, pistol in hand, so cruelly taunting his son. She shivered, and looked up quickly. “He said,” she blurted out in a rush, “Sir Kendrick said something about your having a stubborn Scots streak in your make-up.”
Vespa muttered, “‘Miserably dogged Scots streak’ were his words, as I recall.”
“He did say it?” Broderick asked intensely, “You’re sure?”
With a travesty of a smile, Vespa said, “Do you suppose I could ever forget that moment?”
“I have to admit he was right,” said Manderville. “No offence, dear boy, but you are stubborn, you know, and—”
“Very true,” agreed Broderick. “Thing is—have you also—”
“Or have the Wansydykes—” interrupted the duchess.
“Any Scots on the family tree?” finished Consuela, breathless with excitement.
Vespa stared from one expectant face to the next. “I know there are no Scots among the Vespa’s. I’m not … not sure—” He gave an exultant shout. “No! I am sure! My grandfather, Sir Rupert Wansdyke, was a great one for tradition. Several times when Sherry and I were schoolboys he dragged us through the picture gallery in Wansdyke House and gave us a small lecture on each ancestor. We thought it deadly dull. But I remember that he said they all were of Saxon heritage, most having been born and bred in the Southland, and that not until his daughter—my mother—married a man of Norman origins had anyone from so far afield been brought into the family!” Jubilant, he seized Consuela and swung her around. “Clever, clever one! You’ve found the best clue of all! My father must have been a Scot!” He gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Thank you! Thank you!”
Lady Francesca screamed and pounded him with her little fists, demanding that he ‘unhand’ her granddaughter at once, and when he did so, threw her arms around him and collected a kiss of her own.
Manderville and Broderick came to clap him on the back and share his triumph.
Broderick said enthusiastically, “Your puzzle is as good as solved, old fellow! We’ll go up to Suffolk at once, and if we can’t track down a gentleman who owns an estate somewhere in the county, besides having a castle in Scotland—why, I’m a Dutchman!”
“This, it is so?” asked the duchess, misunderstanding, but beaming at him. “And I am the Italian, and my Consuela is a bit of this and a bit of that, and Jack may be half of a Scot.” She turned to Manderville. “You, dear Lieutenant Paige, it looks like is the only true Englishman of us all!”
He laughed. “And my many greats-Grandpapa ran afoul of Charles of Anjou in 1257 and had to leave Marseilles or lose his head, so I’m likely as mixed as the rest of you!”
His heart lighter than it had been for weeks, Vespa summoned Rennett and ordered champagne, and they all drank to Suffolk and success.
And never dreamed that Suffolk was just the beginning.
5
Although a pale winter sun broke through the clouds, the wind that swept in from the North Sea had an icy bite. Vespa drew the collar of his riding coat higher, glanced back along the winding lane, and whistled. Bright-eyed and ears flying, mud on the end of his nose, Corporal scampered from investigating a burrow.
“Keep up, you little scoundrel,” called Vespa, and turned his hired grey horse to the west once more.
He had spent three fruitless days scouring the Ipswich area. Friendly inn-keepers, waiters, parlour-maids, blacksmiths, shopkeepers, a cobbler, two muffin-men, a pedlar, a fisherman and a constable had each been only too willing to pass the time of day over a tankard of ale or a cup of tea, but no one knew of any local land-owner who also owned a Scottish castle and was away a good deal of the time. He could only hope that Toby Broderick, investigating Bury St. Edmunds, and Manderville, prowling the area around Stowmarket, had been more successful.
In this eastern edge of Suffolk the roads were not as travelled as those in the Home Counties, nor the houses as numerous, but the villages were charming and the country folk kindly. The land was low for the most part, but not flat, rising into occasional gently rolling hills. On this bright morning Vespa followed a lane that was lined by thorn hedges and trees. It would have been deeply shaded during the summer months, but today most of the trees lifted obligingly naked branches that did not shut out the welcome December sunshine. He came to the crest of a rise dig
nified by an impressive flush-flint and stone church, and as he rode down the slope he entered what was more a town than another village: a prosperous wool town by the look of the people and carts bustling about.
He raised his hat to a lady and a little girl passing by in an open carriage. The lady looked away, and the child stared unsmilingly. He was accorded the same treatment when he nodded to two men loading a cart outside a mercantile warehouse, and an old gentleman in smock and gaiters positively glared at him. It was the first time he’d encountered an unfriendliness that bordered on the hostile. The folk hereabouts appeared to have a distrust of strangers; possibly they took him for a Riding Officer—certainly smuggling was widely practiced along this coast.
Corporal raced past, his little legs flying. Vespa caught a whiff of woodsmoke and cooking; a laden waggon rumbled by, the waggonner scanning him with cold suspicion. ‘Brrr!’ thought Vespa, and wondered whether the proprietor of the whitewashed inn up ahead would deign to serve him luncheon. The street dipped into a watersplash through which the grey horse trod daintily. Corporal had been obliged to swim across and as the street turned uphill once more he trotted towards a pump, at which point he paused and looked back for his master.
A young gentleman stood beside the trough, watering his mount. Vespa’s glance flickered over the high-crowned hat tilted at a rakish angle, the fashionable riding coat and leathers, the gleaming boots and long-necked spurs, and came to rest on the tall chestnut horse. It was a handsome thoroughbred with a glossy coat and a long and waving mane and tail. It was also, in his opinion, a shade short in the back and too much inclined to twitch and dance about. ‘All nerves and show,’ he judged.
It was then that Corporal decided to shake himself.
For a small dog the amount of displaced water was remarkable. The young exquisite was liberally showered. He sprang aside and collided with his nervous mount which promptly shot into the air as if levitated, sending its owner into an ungainly sprawl. The elegant wet garments became muddy wet garments.
Noting from the corner of his eye that several grinning passers-by had stopped to watch, Vespa rode up and dismounted. “I’m so sorry,” he began, limping to the rescue.
The victim fairly sprang to his feet. His well-cut features were scarlet and twisted with wrath. Cursing, he aimed one of his glossy boots at Corporal. “Damned little cur!” he howled.
“Hey!” Vespa’s helping hand became a firm tug and the kick landed only glancingly.
“Is that—that apology for a dog—yours?” roared the victim.
As cool as the other man was enraged, Vespa drawled, “I see only an apology for a gentleman.”
Somebody hooted.
The dandy’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. His heavy riding whip flailed at Vespa’s head.
A lithe sway, an iron grip and a heave, and the infuriated young man was flat on his back again.
“Cross-buttocked!” howled an exultant voice. “Limp or no, he cross-buttocked him, by grab!”
“Neat as ever I did see,” confirmed another.
Vespa turned to take up the reins of his grey, and Corporal scuttled quickly to his side. Vespa bent to inspect him, but the little dog didn’t seem badly damaged.
“’Ware, sir!”
He straightened at the warning yell. The dandy had regained his feet and although he tended to sway, was lunging into another attack. Growling ferociously, Corporal charged forward and got a good grip on a now considerably less glossy boot.
“Confound the—mangy cur!” The young man’s hand plunged into the pocket of his riding coat and emerged holding a small pistol.
“Corporal—up!” said Vespa sharply.
The dog released the boot. The pistol shot reverberated in the small valley of the street, and Corporal flew into Vespa’s arms.
A small crowd had gathered. There were shrill screams, cries of “Shame!” and “Play fair!”
A matron wearing a splendidly laced cap cried, “Disgraceful behavior! To try and kill a poor little doggie!”
“You’re damned lucky I didn’t hit you, fellow! Whoever you are,” advised the dandy rather thickly, and with an uneasy glance around the ring of condemning faces.
Vespa set Corporal down. “If I weren’t particular about my acquaintanceships, I’d give you my card.” He took out his purse. “Your aim is as uncontrolled as your temper. But since my dog did dampen you a trifle, I’ll pay for your garments to be cleaned.” He tossed a half-crown contemptuously, and was mildly surprised when this unpleasant but undoubtedly aristocratic individual caught it with a quick snatch.
A ripple of scorn went up from the onlookers.
The dandy said ungraciously, “It’s a small part of what you owe me. If you weren’t—were not—crippled, I’d call—you out! Be damned if I—’f I wouldn’t.”
“You’d not get me out,” said Vespa. “I only fight gentlemen, and never when they’re ‘up in the world.’”
Again, the reddened eyes were lit with rage. “I’m not drunk, d-damn you!”
“Go home!” shouted a youthful voice from the edge of the crowd, and other voices were raised:
“You ain’t welcome here, Mr. Keith!”
“Go back to the ‘big smoke’!”
“Maybe we should show ’un the way, mates!”
“Aye! At the tail of a cart!”
‘Mr. Keith’ glared at them, but it was clear their antagonism was growing. He swung into the saddle and wheeled his mount so hard that Vespa was almost caught by the chestnut’s plunging head. With a snarled threat to ‘have the law on the l-lot of you yokels,’ the ill-tempered dandy spurred to a gallop and beat an inglorious retreat.
Vespa, however, found himself surrounded by now-beaming faces. He was patted on the back, informed that “We took ye for Mr. Keith’s friend, sir!” and was borne into the White Horse Inn very much the conquering hero.
The tap was a cheerful place, mellow with age, and ringing with talk and laughter. Vespa’s limp was not mentioned again, but his tidy victory over the evidently much disliked Mr. Keith was a cause for celebration. A tankard of ale was pressed into his hand, and he was begged to reveal his identity.
Before he could respond, a deep voice shouted, “Jack Vespa! As I live and breathe!”
A bronzed young giant with unruly red hair, a black patch over one eye and a broad grin pushed his way through the throng, and swept Vespa into a crushing hug.
“Calloway!” gasped Vespa. “Let be, you old warhorse before my ribs are powder! I thought you were dead! What the deuce are you doing up here?”
Lieutenant Sean Calloway, late of the 71st Highlanders, roared a laugh that rattled the casements. “Farming, Captain, sir! And if it’s any consolation, I was sure you were dead!” In response to shouts of enquiry, he turned to the gathering and introduced “Captain Jack Vespa, who was an aide-de-camp to Lord Wellington.”
Vespa’s intent to remain incognito was foiled, but he could scarcely blame this old friend, and he reacted smilingly to the admiring and awed exclamations and the inevitable questions of the company until Calloway broke in to ask, “What the deuce have you done to have caused such a fuss in this quiet corner of England?”
“Cap’n knocked down that there Keith gent, Mr. Calloway, sir,” supplied a very wizened little old man. “Wanted doin’ for ages’n ages. Cap’n done it. Tidy. Eh, lads?”
During the chorus of agreement Vespa gathered that ‘Young Mr. Keith’ was ‘proper high-in-the-instep,’ that he had ‘too much Lun’on in his ways,’ and ordered folk about ‘like we was dirt under his feet.’
Calloway laughed. “If that ain’t just like you, Jack! Always up to your neck in some kind of imbroglio! Come over here and sit down, I want to know what you’ve been about since Vitoria. I got my come-uppance at that little rumpus, as you see.”
“Yes. It must be a beastly nuisance for you.”
“Oh, well. I’m alive, which is more than you could say for a lot of my poor fellows. Or for that fine brothe
r of yours, eh? You must miss him.”
Vespa stared rather fixedly at his tankard, then said quietly, “Very much. We’re the lucky ones, Sean, even if you don’t see quite as well nowadays, and I don’t run quite as fast.”
They adjourned to an inglenook by the blazing fire and for a little while enjoyed mutual recollections of their army days and the comrades they’d served beside. The local people relived and chuckled over the morning’s encounter, the name ‘Keith’ being bandied about frequently. Vespa asked at length, “Who is this fellow who’s made himself so unwelcome here?”
“Be dashed if I know. I’m fairly new to the county. My mama inherited a small farm here and has been good enough to hand it over to me. She thought I’d soon tire of it, I suspect, but I’m not a Town beau, and country life suits me. I did hear that Keith has a boat moored somewhere along the coast. Don’t know if it’s truth, but if it is he likely runs tubs or such-like and passes through here en route back to London. He’s no local, that’s certain.”
“Know most of the locals, do you?”
“Most.” The solitary blue eye slanted at Vespa shrewdly. “Why?”
“I’m trying to locate a gentleman. I understand he has an estate in the county, but the devil’s in it that I don’t know his name.” Calloway stared, and he added, “It’s a commission my mother sent me just before she sailed for South America. Unfortunately, her letter was rain-damaged and all I have is a most urgent message for the old fellow. I feel I have to try to deliver it, but I’ve little to go on.”
“Gad! Your best chance, surely, would be to contact some of the local squires, or the clergy.”
“It would, of course. But—well, to say truth, Sean, the matter’s of a rather delicate nature, and…” Vespa shrugged.
“Ah. Family business, eh? Well, I wish I could give you an assist. Have you no other description at all?”
“Only that he also owns a castle in Scotland.”
Calloway scratched his red head and frowned thoughtfully. “A castle in Scotland … hmm. Now what did I hear about…? I know! It was my great-aunt! You don’t know the lady, I think. Gad, what a chatterbox! Kindest heart in the world, mind you, but—Well, at all events, she was rattling on to my father about an old friend whom she and my great-uncle used to visit at one time. She was enormously impressed by his estate, which is up near the Cambridgeshire border. Delightful place, to hear her tell it, and with a superb rose garden. There was some sort of family trouble years ago, and the gentleman sort of dropped out of sight. Sounds to me as if he’s short of a sheet. Hardly ever in England. I’m sure my aunt said he has a place in Scotland, but whether it’s a castle or not, I couldn’t tell you.”
The Riddle of the Lost Lover Page 8
