by Joan Smith
“Would that be a chicken bone, or the bone of some even smaller creature?” Prance asked, and was generally ignored.
“Coffen’s right,” Luten said. “We can’t let them get away with this. There must be some reason why they chose that out-of-the-way chapel for the exchange. I’ll go and have a word with whoever runs the place tomorrow. We have a description of one of them, the fellow who coshed Coffen.”
“I’d like to get my hands on that bounder,” Coffen growled. “Fooled me good and proper with his masherino.” Then he added, as if it were a further insult, “Which was water.”
Mrs. Ballard sat silent as a shadow during this discussion, silent but happy. The Lord had not taken her in disgust after all. She was to be spared the home for the relicts of clerics. Heady with relief, she allowed herself a small glass of the wine, which she feared made her giddy, for her head was reeling.
Strange flashes of conversations with Chloe came back to her. She would just mention some of those conversations to her ladyship tomorrow when her head was clearer, and other conversations she had overheard in the rose salon as well. People tended to overlook an old lady knitting quietly in a corner.
She would go to her room now and read her Bible before retiring. She murmured, “Goodnight,” to the group, and added to Lady Luten, “I am feeling a little tired after all the excitement. So glad you have got your auction goods back.”
“And thank you for your help, Mrs. Ballard,” Corinne said. “It was very brave of you to go there tonight.”
“If I have been of any help, I am more than happy to oblige you, milady,” she said, and left.
“She’s quite a lady, isn’t she?” Luten said with a shake of his head. “Strange how you can be mistaken about someone you think you know fairly well.”
“Yes, I was amazed when she held her glass out for a thimbleful of wine,” Prance said. “I thought she would be against drink.”
“She’ll take it on special occasions, and often for medicinal purposes,” Corinne told him. “She must have been in need of a restorative tonight, after her ordeal.”
“I ought to have been checking up on your house, milady,” Black said. “Once I got involved in watching the auction goods I let up on it. I was used to check it out every day.”
“I asked you to oversee the precautions here. You were helping with the case and looking after Coffen. You can’t be everywhere at once,” she said. “You wouldn’t have been looking into the attics at my house in any case.”
“If I’d noticed the door had been picked open I would have.”
“There is plenty of blame to go around,” said Prance, mellow with the chambertin. “If I hadn’t brought my actors here, this might not have happened.”
“I shouldn’t have allowed it at this time,” Luten countered.
“Kind of you to say so, Luten.” Prance was vastly relieved. That didn’t sound as if he was expected to help defray the ten thousand lost tonight.
As Coffen had nothing to contribute in sharing the blame he said, “Pity we couldn’t find Vance.”
“I doubt if he could help us,” Luten said. “I believe his involvement was limited to nosing around here to see how the goods were stored. Since he knows they’re trying to kill him, he’ll stay well away from London.”
“He must know who’s involved, though, since he was feeding them word about the goods. Well, thankee for the food, Corrie. I’ll toddle along now. Coming, Black?”
“I believe I’ll just have a look-in across the street, see that the footmen are awake.”
“I’ll go with you,” Coffen said at once. “I meant to stop there en route.”
“I believe I’ll go as well,” said Luten, who had been on pins to go ever since his return. When he rose to join them Prance decided to tag along. As Corinne was fatigued with waiting and worrying, and as she had already been there, she decided to go to bed.
* * *
Chapter 24
Evans and the footmen were wide awake at their posts. Luten told Evans briefly what had happened at Union Chapel. A cursory examination of the lock on the front and back doors gave no indication they had been tampered with. Evans assured him the windows were secure. He declined the offer to accompany them up to the attic, saying he would prefer to stay at his post.
The stolen goods were carefully laid out on the attic floor. It was difficult to see any details by lamplight but it appeared everything was there and in good repair.
“We’ll come back in the morning,” Luten decided. “Thank you all for your help. I’ll make arrangements to have the goods picked up here for delivery to Elgin Hall under heavy guard.”
“What time shall we call on you?” Prance asked.
“I plan to be here bright and early.”
“I’ll be up with the fowl and over here looking for clues,” Coffen said.
“Why don’t you all just come here when you’re ready,” Luten said.
They parted. Black suggested to Mr. Pattle that he might just catch forty winks here in the attic.
“Come home, Black. They know this place will be guarded like the crown jewels in the Tower tonight. I’m tired as a Derby winner and you must be too. You’ll be no good to us tomorrow if you don’t get a decent night’s sleep.”
“P’raps you’re right. I’ll send over a couple of footmen to help Evans out here.” No further attack was made on the auction goods overnight.
About the only thing dearer to Coffen Pattle’s heart than food was a good solid clue in one of their cases. As promised, he was up and over to the house next door at first light the next morning, without even thinking of breakfast. It wasn’t until the tantalizing aroma of coffee wafted down the hall that he remembered. Evans, still alert, assured him all had been quiet during the night.
“I noticed you have the coffee pot on the boil.”
“I thought it best, to keep the lads awake.”
“Excellent idea. Would you have a cup to spare?”
Evans disappeared and soon returned with the coffee. “Thankee, Evans. I’ll just take this upstairs with me. Luten will send someone over to replace you soon. I’m heading right up to the attic.”
He noticed bits of dried earth on the attic stairs. That’d be from their boots, picked up in Luten’s garden out back. He made quick work of the coffee and spent a happy hour crawling around the attic floor, moving objects aside in search of a clue. The difficulty was in deciding what was a clue and what was just attic junk or debris. The thieves had shoved the attic’s usual lumber aside to make room on the floor for the stolen items, and some bits and pieces had got left behind.
That bit of a satin rose, now, all dried out and shriveled, must have come from one of the old dresses hanging on that rack. A smattering of black dots he first took for mouse dropping, until a ray of sun struck them and the glitter told him they were bugle beads torn from a dress. Was this a clue? No, he found a dress on the clothes rack with bugle beading that had come undone. Corinne had had that black gown made up when deCoventry died. Poor girl looked like a carrion crow for a year.
Other bits and pieces were also discarded. Six inches of string, a corner of a newspaper dated 1805, a wizened bit of something that might possibly be an apple core. Why, he’d left that here himself half a dozen years ago, when he was helping Corrie find a frame for that picture of her Prance had painted and gave her. Funny, he never saw that picture hanging on her wall.
He spotted a glint of gold-coloured metal caught under a statue of a shepherdess. It was still bright and shiny. He lifted the statue and pulled out a little bobble of metal chains two or three inches long, held together on top by a metal rosette, still bright and shiny. That didn’t look as if it had been here forever. Looking around, he could find nothing it might have fallen from. Nossir, it was a clue! He put it in his pocket and continued his search.
Prance was the next to arrive. “Any luck?” he asked Coffen.
“Just this so far,” Coffen said, and handed him the bit
of chains. “Some kind of jewelry. It’s still shiny. I don’t see anything here it might have come off of.”
“No, I hardly think anyone would have donated a pair of boots.”
“Boots! Nobody wears jewelry on their boots, Reg.” Then he looked down at Prance’s topboots and saw a similar sort of ornament hanging off the lip of his topboots, only Prance’s were silver. “By the living jingo, you’re right. Our thieves are dandies. Do you know anyone who wears such things — other than yourself, I mean?”
“Dozens,” Prance said. “I would not have thought, though, that thieves would be so elegant.”
“No, I didn’t see no gold chains on the fellow who coshed me last night.”
“I wonder, now, if this was on the boot of the ring leader, the fellow in charge, giving directions but not engaging in the heavy lifting and carrying. He might think of himself as a gentleman of fashion.”
“If we could find a fellow with one boot wearing the ornament and one not, we’d have him.”
“That’s not very likely.”
“Nothing so far in this case has been likely.”
“What I mean is that he’d notice it missing, and either replace it or remove the other bauble.”
“Very likely,” Coffen agreed, but he put the bauble back in his pocket for further consideration.”
When Luten, Corinne and Black soon joined them, Coffen showed them his clue. Corinne busied herself checking her list to ensure that all the goods were there and in good repair while the others searched for more clues. After an hour’s fruitless search, Luten told them he had to leave to arrange for delivery of the goods to Elgin Hall. He decided to have a word with Townsend en route. He was the very man to ensure safe delivery. He often accompanied government deliveries when large sums of money were being moved. He’d ask him to hire a few extra men as well.
Black, eager to improve his status after failing to know the goods were here in Lady Luten’s house, said, “Why don’t I take a run out to that chapel in Surrey and see what I can find out about who might have got in last night, Luten?”
“Yes, you do that, Black. It would save time. I shouldn’t think the churchman himself is involved, but you might find out who looks after the church — cleaning and so on. And even the faithful of the flock, men who help out in the running of the place.”
Black arranged with Pattle for the loan of his carriage for the trip to the chapel. He was relieved that Mr. Pattle didn’t offer to go with him. He’d handle this better alone. When the others gave up the search and returned below, they saw Luten had replaced Evans and the footmen with a new crew. When Coffen could think of nothing else to do, he accompanied Prance home to badger him more about the ornament from the boot.
“Would Villier know where it might have come from?” he asked.
“We’ll ask him, though I doubt he’d know any more than I. Let me see it.” Coffen handed it to him and he studied it a moment. “I can tell you it’s not of the finest quality. The rosette, you see, is hollow at the back. Just a shell, and the chains, too, are inferior. It wouldn’t have fallen off if it were done by a first rate man like Hoby.”
Prance sent Soames for Villier, who came swanning into the room, eager to hear the latest news. He had heard all about the Union Chapel excursion from Prance last night. “All donations present and accounted for chez Lady Luten?” he asked.
“So it seems,” Prance replied.
“Good. I am at your service, Sir Reginald,” he said with a simper and a bow. “What can I do for you? Dare I hope you have finally decided which jacket you wish prepared for the ball?”
“Nothing to do with that,” Coffen told him. “We want you to take a look at this.” He took his precious clue from Prance and handed it to Villier.
Villier handled it as if were a piece of bad meat. “Your Black is attempting to turn you into a gentleman of fashion, is he?” he asked, with an arch smile to his master at this prime jest.
“Let him try it!” Coffen scowled.
Villier examined the bauble with distaste. “Tawdry merchandise,” he said, and handed it back. “You can buy these cheap imitations on the street corner, the pair for a shilling. See, the little clip on the back that attaches it to the boot is broken. The clip tends to break and the bauble fall off if it so much as touches anything. If one cannot afford the best, he ought to do without, and not buy such gimcrack stuff as this.”
Prance explained where Coffen had found it. “Well,” Villier said, “I daresay you didn’t think the thieves were gentlemen. More like something one of your actors would wear, Sir Reginald. Didn’t I see something like this on one of your boys? Vance, was it, or the other one?”
“Vance Corbett?” Coffen cried. “Have we been wrong about him all along, Reg? We thought he was just ferreting out news for the gang. He might be in with them, thick as thieves.”
“Well put, for once,” Prance said. “Now if only we could find him.”
“Of course he’s not the only one who wears such tawdry things,” Villier pointed out. “One sees these baubles everywhere. And as often as not one of the baubles is missing due to the defective clip.”
“But you saw Corbett wearing them?”
“It calls up a memory of a rehearsal, but I’m not positive it was Vance who wore it. It might have been the other one.”
“Well, we know Vance was involved with them, and we’ve nothing against Sean,” Prance said.
“Except that cerise striped waistcoat he wore,” Villier sniffed.
Coffen turned to Prance. “When will you be seeing Sean and Chloe again?”
“I’ve decided to discontinue the rehearsals, but I must tell them, and give them a little extra something for cutting the rehearsals short.”
“You might just mention to Sean if he happened to notice if Vance wore things like this,” Coffen said, holding up the rosette.
“I hadn’t planned to actually see them. I was going to write and enclose a cheque.”
Villier, listening, said, “Might Vance’s chère amie know what sort of boots he wore? Miss Lipman, I believe, was the name.”
“She might,” Coffen said. “I was thinking of having a word with her, in case Vance had been in touch with her. I’ll do it now, while Black is away. Thankee, Villier. You’ve given me something to think about.” He dropped the bauble in his pocket and left.
Villier sighed. “I do hope he’s not thinking of buying a set of those baubles. They look well on a long, slender boot like yours, Sir Reg, but can you imagine them on those wide, misshapen things Mr. Pattle wears.”
“Don’t worry. Pattle’s no peacock.”
“I should say not! More like a waddling duck, but at least relatively clean since Black has taken his valet in hand. Now about that jacket for the ball...”
* * *
Chapter 25
Black intended to present himself to the cleric who ran the Union Chapel as a well-inlaid gent. Between Mr. Pattle’s carriage and the new suit he’d had made up since joining the Brigade, he looked the part. He chose, from a collection of gentlemen’s cards he had accumulated over the years, one for a J. Jerome Greene, The Alders, Kent. He realized his language wasn’t quite up to scratch, but he’d hint that he’d made his fortune in trade. The churches weren’t as nice as the aristos about a fellow’s background, as long as the dibs were in tune. Come to that, the aristos were beginning to smarten up as well. Take Whitbred, made his fortune in brewing, and now hobnobbed with the tip of the ton.
After pounding a thorough explanation of the route into Fitz’s thick head, he got to the chapel with only a few side excursions. He assumed the newish brick house to the side of the chapel was where the top churchman lived. He went to the door and presented Mr. Greene’s card to a butler who was not nearly as fine as Evans.
“Doctor Calvert is at the chapel this morning, sir,” the butler said.
“Conducting a service, is he?”
“Oh no, sir. He has an office there. He is working on c
hapel business.”
“I’ll drop in on him there.”
“Try the door at the back. It should be open.”
Black retrieved the card as he had only the one, thanked him and trotted around to the back door into the chapel, taking note that the lock had not been trifled with. It seemed about a quarter of the building was given over to the business end of running the chapel. At the end of a corridor a door held a sign telling him it was Calvert’s office. He tapped and was told to come in.
He entered a small, ill-furnished office where a jolly dumpling of a man with a ring of white hair around a pink, shiny scalp sat behind a battered desk. He looked up and said, “Good day to you, sir. What can I do for you?”
Black handed him Greene’s card. “I’m a carriage builder. You might have heard of me. My usual line is barouches, but I’m expanding into curricles and plan to make them here, on the Surrey side of town where land and labour are cheaper. I’ll be buying a place to live nearby to keep an eye on things while the new operation is getting underway. I’m a church-going man, have been all my life. I feel it’s a man’s duty to support his church, with time as well as money. I take an active part in chapel life. My way is to deal with the top man, and I figure in the present case that would be yourself.”
“Indeed, my poor self,” Calvert said, his blue eyes gleaming with either greed or pleasure at meeting a new disciple. “Doctor Calvert. No relation to Calvin or Calvinism,” he added with a little smile. “Have a seat, Mr. Greene.”
Black pulled a hard-backed chair forward and sat down. “Glad to hear it,” he said, answering smile with smile. “I don’t believe the good Lord meant for us to be miserable on this fine earth He gave us.”
“Just so. My sentiments exactly. We call our little sect the Surrey Union Sect. The country calls such sects as ours Dissenters, but we never dissent with the Bible. A man can be good without depriving himself of pleasure.”
He reached into a drawer. “Speaking of pleasure, Mr. Greene, could I interest you in a wee nip?”
