“But why put the jewel box back in the drawer?” asked Sybilla. “That seems inexplicable.”
“In a bid to puzzle me and muddle my thinking, I believe. He would have succeeded had I not caught him at it.”
“And yesterday,” pursued Francis, “it was Abel who laid the information, was it not?”
Ottilia nodded. “That was the last piece in the puzzle. He knew I suspected him, and when your brother came home, he took a last-ditch stand to try to throw the blame where it stood most chance of holding.”
“But why go after Bowerchalke?” asked the dowager, mystified.
“Because Abel listened to us talking in here.”
Francis started. “He answered the door to George.”
Sybilla looked horrified. “He heard it all?”
“And knew the game was up,” said Francis grimly.
Ottilia sighed deeply. “His last hope lay in silencing Bowerchalke. Without a witness, it is all supposition.” Then her mind leapt and she pushed herself up, setting her glass down on the mantel. “Except that he went to Bow Street. Grice will remember him. Francis, we must act! Where is Colonel Tretower?”
“I dropped him at Bow Street. I imagine the justices will have sent their men posthaste to Bowerchalke’s house.”
“But they don’t know about Abel,” Ottilia said, a rush of panic lending her wings. “It cannot be in doubt he disposed of the boy, in which case it is doubtful he will dare return to this house. But we must make sure.”
Francis was already making for the door. “I’ll do that. Cattawade will lead me to his chamber.”
“And then we will see if he has already removed the jewels from their hiding place.”
The dowager started. “You know where they are?”
“I think so.”
“Then wait here for me.”
With which Francis left the room precipitately, shouting for the butler. Ottilia found her knees weak and sank back into her chair. She looked up to see Sybilla regarding her with concern.
“Are you yet fit to go on with this, my dear?”
Ottilia sighed. “I must. Justice Ingham will at least know that Lord Polbrook could not have murdered Bowerchalke, for he was in this house and under guard. But until Abel is found, your son’s innocence cannot be proven.”
Chapter 19
The odour was atrocious. Francis whipped out his pocket-handkerchief and clapped it over his nose. He glanced back to the doorway where Ottilia stood on the single step, well away from the noisome little area, and saw her with fingers against her nostrils to cut down the stench.
“Are you certain of this?”
She nodded. “It will possibly be wrapped in paper or rags, somewhere out of sight. In that little ditch along the wall perhaps.”
Francis eyed the noxious buckets with acute disfavour. They were set next to the cesspit wall, awaiting the coming of the night soil men. Bloodied and mutilated bodies were one thing; effluent from all the chamber pots in the house was something else entirely.
“Francis, you need not look inside the buckets.”
The mischievous note, which he had half thought quenched forever, caused him to throw Ottilia a fulminating glance.
“Do you care to assist me, Tillie?”
She chuckled. “No, I thank you.”
“Then be so good as to refrain from petty morsels of advice.”
To his mingled irritation and amusement, Ottilia covered the lower part of her face entirely, but the laughter was not wholly smothered.
“If this is the one occasion when you prove to be wrong, my girl, I promise you signal vengeance presently.”
But there was no help for it. The foul search must be effected. Tugging his gloves securely and holding his breath, Francis stooped to grasp the first of the buckets with the intention of moving them out of the way.
“Allow me, my lord.”
Francis stood up abruptly. “Cattawade? No, no, stand back, my friend. This is young man’s work.”
The butler drew himself up. “Quite so, my lord, which is why I have fetched Stibbs.”
The marquis’s groom was standing at Cattawade’s shoulder. He did not look to be enamoured of the prospect in store, but Francis was so glad to be relieved of the task that he moved aside with alacrity.
“You leave it to us, me lord,” came a fresh voice.
Turning, Francis beheld his brother’s head groom, turning in from the street and approaching down the narrow alley.
“Turville! In a good hour, man. For this reprieve much thanks, though I am sorry to burden you with such a mean task.”
“It ain’t nowise a burden, me lord, to aid in setting his lordship free. Now, what is it we’re looking for?”
Francis relayed Ottilia’s instructions and went to join her on the step, watching the burly grooms heave the buckets with their evil contents to one side.
“It is at times like this that one appreciates one’s position in life, Mrs. Draycott.”
Ottilia’s dancing eyes met his over her protective hand. “How very true, my lord. A lucky escape.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it.”
“What then?”
“Merely the advantage of having about one ancient retainers who have known one from the cradle. Cattawade would not suffer me to perform a task so ill-suited to my station.”
She laughed. “I suspect Cattawade is trying to make amends. He knew, like Mrs. Thriplow, but he dared not believe his own senses.”
Francis reflected a moment. “Now you mention it, I wondered at a look of remorse I thought I detected in his face when I told him the position of affairs.”
“What could he have done, poor man?”
Ottilia’s attention returned to the grooms, who had now cleared the wall of obstructions and begun upon their search. For several agonizing minutes nothing was found. Francis began to be restive.
“I’m beginning to be sure you are wrong. I can’t imagine why anyone would hide jewels in such a disgusting place.”
Ottilia’s clear gaze came around to his. “Would you think to look in such a place?”
“Not without the prompting of a madwoman.”
“Just so,” she said, ignoring the jibe.
“But what made you think of it?”
“Remember when we discovered the door to the garden must slam if you wanted to shut it? I think Abel escaped down the passage below. It was then I realised he must have followed me that night when Cattawade brought me down here.”
“And that gave him the idea?”
“Not then. He had not yet taken the jewels. But when he needed a secure hiding place, I suspect his mind jumped to that memory.”
“As yours did.”
“My lord!”
Francis looked quickly towards the men and found Cattawade’s pointing finger. Stibbs was holding up a dun-coloured roll. Excitement stirred in his breast as Francis heard Ottilia’s quick exhalation of breath beside him.
He jumped off the step and strode towards the groom. “Let me see.”
Stibbs held the thing up. It was bespattered with dirt and stank of its resting place. Francis refrained from touching it.
“Open it.”
The groom brought the thing to the step and laid it down. It was sausage-shaped, tied in several places with tapes, presumably to keep the contents from slipping out. Francis dropped to his haunches to watch, aware of the other men crowding round. He could feel Ottilia’s tension from where she stood above them all.
It took effort for Stibbs to undo the ties and Francis was tempted to tell him to cut them. But at last the tapes came loose. He thought the entire group held its collective breath as the groom carefully unrolled the cloth. Within there was a further, cleaner wrapping.
“Don’t open it!”
Stibbs looked up at Ottilia just as Francis did. “But they’re in there, miss. I can feel ‘em.”
“Yes, but your hands are dirty. Let Lord Francis take it.”
; Francis at once reached out. As Stibbs had said, the package was all unevenness and bumps and cold to the touch. He unfolded it with care and the mess of metal and stone winked and glittered in the weak sunshine.
A hissing of breath bore witness to the awe of lesser men at sight of such wealth. Discomfort ran through Francis and he quickly covered the jewels and stood up.
“Pray don’t move anything,” Ottilia said quickly. Her eyes went to Francis. “They must find stones and earth, enough to seem as close as possible to what you have in your hands. Then wrap it up and tie it, just as it was discovered.”
Francis was ahead of her. “And put it back? A trap?”
“Just so. We are fortunate he was too panicked to take them last night when he went after Bowerchalke.”
Francis set the men to do as she had asked, but he felt doubtful. “But will he dare come back? He must know we are on to him now.”
Ottilia’s hand reached towards the package he held. “If he does not, he will have done it all for nothing.”
“And he is now a fugitive. Yes, in his place, I think I would dare all.”
He spied a gleam in Ottilia’s eye and looked a question. She smiled.
“Now you are thinking like me, Fan.”
Francis quirked an eyebrow. “It must be catching.”
She laughed and a glow of warmth lit his chest. But a moment later she became serious again.
“Once they have done, you must go directly to Bow Street. Tell them everything.”
He nodded, the exigencies of the situation crowding his mind once more. “I had best set Stibbs and Turville to watch until Ingham can post his men.”
She nodded, and it pleased him that she did not attempt to tell him how to do his business. Yet he felt humbled to have been in this predicament almost wholly reliant on her wits and ingenuity.
“And then, Ottilia?”
She looked up, the clear gaze darkening.
“We wait.”
Ottilia could not be still. With Francis’s departure, the lightness he invoked in her had vanished. The dark thoughts that had been revolving at the back of her mind came tumbling to the fore.
A modicum of relief had been obtained while she watched the dowager, together with an eager Mary Huntshaw, checking through the marchioness’s jewels. Mrs. Thriplow, grimfaced and with set jaw, had remained in attendance, crossing items off the crudely made up list.
It had scarcely been necessary. Mary knew by heart what items should be among the gems. She detected instantly the missing necklace, which Ottilia had been able to reassure her was safely in the jewel box.
“Was it paste?” Ottilia asked her.
Huntshaw shook her head. “No, miss, it was real, all right. It’s the one on the portrait.”
“Ah, I remember,” said the dowager. She glanced at Ottilia. “Too well-known.”
“He’d have been fly to that, my lady,” put in the housekeeper.
Her utterances were uniformly dour and Ottilia thought it would be long before Mrs. Thriplow could ease her conscience. She could not blame the woman, for her own was sorely beset.
“There’s three rings missing, my lady.”
“Are you certain, Huntshaw?”
“Oh yes, my lady. I know every one like they were my own. There’s an emerald, and the small diamond. The other is only glass, though it looks like a diamond.”
“Abel wouldn’t know that,” Sybilla said. “But it matters little. An emerald will have sufficed, assuming he sold them for ready money.”
Once the inventory was satisfactorily concluded, the jewels were left in the dowager’s charge while Mrs. Thriplow went away to “see if she couldn’t get some sense out of her girls,” as she put it. The discovery of Abel’s perfidy had jolted the domestics even more, the housekeeper claimed, than had the murder of the mistress. She had sailed out, but Mary had hovered.
“What is it, Huntshaw?”
The lady’s maid bobbed a curtsy. “If you please, my lady, it’s the French madame.”
“Well?”
“She’s taken bad, my lady. I can’t rightly understand what she says, but I think as it’s because the master has been got by the justices. She’s been crying herself into hysterics, my lady, and I don’t know how to do.”
This speech ended in a rising tone that showed the woman to be on the verge of hysteria herself. Ottilia looked a trifle apprehensively at Sybilla, recalling last night’s altercation in the library with her elder son.
There was a shadow in the dowager’s eyes, but she rose, straight-backed as ever. “Very well, I will go to her directly. You run along, Huntshaw.”
Mary curtsied and went out, and Sybilla looked at Ottilia.
“I had best do what I may. I had hoped to avoid giving her an account of the happenings here, but it can’t be helped.”
Ottilia had been at first glad to be left alone with her unquiet thoughts. But they became rapidly too oppressive to be borne. She got up, pacing the room, only half conscious that she did so.
She could no longer take the slightest delight in the game she had undertaken. She yearned for that objectivity, which at the outset had served her so well. Francis had been right when he said that time had overtaken them. She could not even work out for how many days they had all been thus engaged upon what had begun for her as an adventure. A stark and horrid one, but an adventure nonetheless.
How had she become so deeply involved that every new development, every fresh occurrence, had all too much meaning? By degrees at first, and then in leaps and bounds. She was now so thoroughly enmeshed that she felt it as if these were her people, her very family. Their misfortunes, their distresses, had insensibly become hers.
Would that she had been able to remain aloof. Her vaunted common sense would have remained in play, and she would not have neglected to take those ordinary precautions she had criminally missed.
“Ottilia?”
She blinked out of her reverie and found the dowager had come back into the room.
“What is the matter, child? You look utterly riven.”
Blindly, Ottilia gazed at her. Without will, she spoke the churning riot of her mind. “It is of no use. I cannot absolve myself. I am palpably to blame for that young man’s death.”
For a moment Sybilla stared uncomprehendingly. Then light entered her face. “Bowerchalke? But, my dear Ottilia, how so? You did not kill him.”
Ottilia had neither power nor will to prevent the tears that trickled down her cheeks. “I might as well have done. I never thought — I kept it back when I knew —”
“No, you did not know.” Sybilla came to her and seized her hands. “I will not allow you to do this, Ottilia. You are in no way to blame for Abel’s deeds.”
“But don’t you see? I did not look for him. Despite having my suspicions of him. But I became so engaged with the puzzles presented to me, I forgot the most elementary precautions. I know, we all know, how servants listen at keyholes. I knew at once it was how Mary heard what she did.”
“I remember.” The dowager’s grip was hard and comforting. “But you are not thinking, my dear, and that is so unlike you.”
“I am thinking too much, and I cannot bear my thoughts.”
“Come, come sit.”
She found herself pushed and ushered, thrust into the sofa, with Sybilla beside her, still holding her hands.
“My dear child, one does not notice footmen. Even had you done so, had any of us, we would not have ‘seen’ him, do you see? He had only to stand or walk away, and one would think nothing of it. Abel had business in every part of the house. That is the nature of a footman’s work.”
Ottilia’s overcharged nerves began to settle a little. “You are right in that, of course. But last night, when we were discussing matters of such import? I had seen him open the front door!”
“Yes, but the news Colonel Tretower brought was enough to distract anyone. Ottilia, you may charge yourself with neglect if you so wish, but it is absurd.
What, were we to spend every moment looking out for spies? Even had we done so, only look at this house. There are a thousand places to hide. It would take an army to cover every avenue.”
Obliged to see the sense in this, Ottilia’s heart lightened a little. “Yes, I see that.”
“But you are yet in the dumps.” The dowager loosened her grip and began an absent stroking of the hands she held. “I think you are overwrought, my child, which is hardly surprising. You have taken the troubles of this whole family upon your shoulders and it has grown too burdensome.”
A shaky sigh was drawn from deep within Ottilia’s chest. “Perhaps. But I would not have had it otherwise.”
“Nor I, believe you me. How we would have done without you, I cannot endure to contemplate.”
At this, Ottilia let out a laugh. “That I cannot allow. I have only done as my mind dictated.”
“As your heart dictated, Ottilia. I am not blind, my child.”
Startled, Ottilia whipped round to stare at her. Had Sybilla divined it all? She felt the warmth rush to her cheeks and struggled to avert the shame of giving herself away.
“It is true, I have grown fond — of all of you.”
“And we of you, be sure.”
The dowager fell silent and Ottilia willed her to remain so. Her hopes were not in any shape to be thrown beneath the light of exposure. Indeed, within the last four and twenty hours they had fluctuated so crazily that she had begun to doubt her ability to maintain composure in the presence of their object. So far she had held herself well in hand. Helped, it was true, by the undoubted bond of friendship and a shared sense of merriment. But to look beyond, into the veil of an unpredicted future? No, she could not. The whole was dependent not upon her, but upon Francis. And she could not answer for his affections being engaged.
As if the thought of him had the power to bring him to her, the door opened and she heard his voice.
The Lady Fan Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions) Page 31
