by Issy Brooke
“Then why has Mackie not spoken out?” Adelia asked. “How can be possibly still be loyal to Sir Arthur? He must surely know the truth.”
“That is what I would like to find out,” Inspector Benn said. “He claims his innocence but he does not blame Sir Arthur.” And then, to everyone’s disappointment, he excused himself and left all four women in his tiny office while he went down to the cells to speak to Douglas Mackie himself.
THE DOOR CLOSED. SIBYL remained rigidly upright by the desk. Lady Beaconberg drew her knees tightly together and looked around at everyone else, flaring her nostrils. She clearly wanted to complain about something but as she hadn’t actually been arrested, she didn’t have much grounds to kick up a fuss. She muttered something about the lack of a cup of tea but everyone ignored her.
Mary stayed by her mother’s side and watched the door anxiously.
Adelia managed to wait patiently for little over a minute before she surged to her feet and declared, “This is no use at all. I am going to find out what’s happening. You may accompany me or wait here as you see fit.”
Of course everyone followed her as soon as she had taken the lead, and she led the deputation of women through the corridors. Policemen started forward to intercept them but fell back as the four horsewomen of the apocalypse of justice forced their way past them. These were men who had mothers; and they knew not to argue with women whose faces were set like that.
Adelia terrified a young policeman into leading them to the cells. This area didn’t smell half as bad as she had been expecting although the language and shouts that drifted through the doors were somewhat alarming. Everything was painted green and magnolia, and the corridors had an unpleasant echo to them.
The young policeman turned back with a very worried expression. “Miss, madam, please, I don’t think...”
“Inspector Benn is expecting us,” Adelia told him. “I am sure he’d prefer you to take us directly to him rather than allow us to freely roam the area, knocking on random doors.”
That thought spurred the man on to locate Inspector Benn with great haste.
Inspector Benn barked at the policeman to go away and then he saw the four women crowding in behind him, and simply gave up. He pointed at the quivering Douglas Mackie who was sitting on a bench along one edge of the room.
“Is this a cell?” Mary asked in delight, obviously romanticising prisons with some zeal. Adelia wasn’t sure if it were due to reading too much, or perhaps too little, Dickens.
“It is not a cell,” Inspector Benn informed her stiffly. “This is an interview room. If this were a cell, five or six more men would be crowded in here.”
As it was unpleasant enough with two men and four women, Adelia could hardly bear to imagine what it was like with six criminals and all their anger wedged into the space.
“Has he finally confessed?” Adelia asked.
Mackie burst out with an angry shout. “I didn’t kill anyone!”
“I know,” said Inspector Benn with a heavy sigh. “But you need to tell us who did.”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“And Golden Meadow?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would you hang for this? If you don’t tell us what you know then you’re going to be brought up for murder.”
“But I didn’t do it!”
Adelia said, “Sir Arthur’s told you to sit tight and deny everything, hasn’t he? He’s told you some lies. I think he’s probably told you that you can’t be convicted if they don’t have any real evidence, hasn’t he?”
Mackie’s silence was the agreement they needed.
Adelia went on. “But Sir Arthur is lying. He’s laid all the blame on you, now. The police need someone to convict and you are as good as the next man. Better, in fact. You’re a nobody. Sir Arthur is a somebody. You’re here in the cell – sorry, interview room – and Sir Arthur is not. If he were going to argue in your favour, he’d be here. Someone is to blame and it may as well be you, friendless, fatherless and alone here. No one is going to come and speak up on your behalf. And especially not Sir Arthur. Think about it. If you are proven innocent, then the police are back at the beginning of the case, with no suspect. Will they like that? No, of course not. Better to prosecute you, defenceless as you are, and close the case.”
Inspector Benn had made some noises of protest as she had spoken but then must have realised what her aim was. When she finished, he did not speak. They all remained silent and watch her words sink into Douglas Mackie at last.
Adelia said, in a quieter voice, “He thinks we don’t know the truth. But with your help, real justice can be obtained.”
He hung his head. “Golden Meadow isn’t who he looks like...” he began.
“We know, we know!” Inspector Benn burst out. “But what do you know about Sir Arthur?”
Mackie shook his head and would not look at them. “Nothing certain,” he said. “He never went out to kill anyone...”
“But when he came back?” prompted Inspector Benn. “What had he done when he came back that night?”
“When he came back, I think that he had killed Lord Beaconberg after all.”
IT WAS ENOUGH FOR INSPECTOR Benn. He ushered the women out of the room with urgency, and they trooped up the narrow stairs to the main public area. Then he looked a little lost, as if they were under his care and he didn’t quite know what to do with them.
“Go!” Mary burst out, surprising them all. She pointed at Inspector Benn. “Get your men and get to the stables! My father is there – waiting for you all!”
Adelia winced as she realised she had forgotten what else was happening. Inspector Benn’s eyes widened and he nodded briskly. “And you ladies...?”
“We can handle ourselves. Go!”
He left them in the reception area and disappeared, gathering up his own retinue of policemen as he went.
Mary sagged against Adelia and she put an arm around her daughter. Sibyl was at her other side, and she said in an unusually tender voice, “Mary, let’s get you home.”
Mary stiffened and pushed herself upright. “No, not yet. We’ve got to see this through.”
“We’ve done all we can.”
“Oh don’t worry. I am not suggesting we do anything else. But let us go and watch.”
“But why?” Sibyl said. “You are tired and we cannot be involved.”
Adelia knew why Mary was saying they should observe proceedings. She felt the same excitement bubbling in her own belly. She wondered if Lady Beaconberg, who had remained silent, could feel the pull the way that Mary and Adelia did.
Adelia said, “Sibyl, perhaps you could accompany Lady Beaconberg back to Dovewood? Mary – let’s find a cab.”
Mary grinned with delight.
Sibyl sighed and agreed, but when she turned to Lady Beaconberg, there was indeed a glint of something new in her eyes.
“No, thank you, Mrs Ramsgreave,” Lady Beaconberg told Sibyl. “Adelia, will you find a cab that has room for one more?”
Sibyl threw up her hands in defeat. “Two more, then.”
Adelia led her band of warrior women down into the street.
Twenty-five
Cabs pulled by one horse were far too small but they were lucky to find a four-wheeled coach with a team of fresh horses willing to take them.
The driver laughed when they all piled in and Adelia said, “We would like you to follow that coach full of policemen, please.”
“It’s usually the other way around,” he told them. “People run away from the plod, not towards them.”
“Just drive, thank you,” Lady Beaconberg intoned in her cut-glass tones and slammed the door. The carriage lurched and they were off. Adelia was oscillating between a gleeful excitement and genuine worry for Theodore and what he had been doing.
Mary seemed to know what she was feeling, no doubt because she felt the same way. She put her gloved hand over her mother’s, and squeezed. Adelia shot her a smile.
Lady Beaconberg and Sibyl both remained silent. Sibyl must have been secretly enjoying the chase, Adelia decided, and as for Lady Beaconberg, well, she liked drama and of course she wasn’t going to want to miss this. It was all gloriously unseemly and would have scandalised their own grandmothers, but after all the century was ending soon and a new one beginning, and if the press was to be believed, this meant that all the old rule books of behaviour would be burned in great mass breakdowns of society. Riding along in a closed carriage with a nice safe group of women would seem like the most mundane thing to do.
The horses seemed to speed up. Adelia poked her head out of the window and nearly lost her hat in spite of the two-dozen hatpins that skewered it into place. She sat back down with a thump. “The police are racing ahead,” she said. “I think something’s happening!”
“This was a bad and regretful idea,” Sibyl said mechanically as if she were playing the expected part of protest.
“What would Lord Byron say about it?” Mary challenged, and Sibyl did not reply.
The carriage stopped with a great deal of shouting and horses’ hooves and neighs and a cracking sound. Sibyl and Lady Beaconberg were thrown into the laps of Adelia and Mary, which caused a huge flurry of apologising and the righting of clothing before Adelia managed to reach over to the door and get out.
Up ahead, there were policemen swarming everywhere, and clustered in a small knot bent over a figure being held down in the dusty road.
But Adelia only had eyes for her husband. Theodore was standing on the far side of the group of policemen grappling with the man on the ground, and he was watching what they were doing intently. He had lost his hat, and his trousers were so dirty that Smith would surely vow to burn them on sight. He was breathing heavily, noticeable even at a distance, and was holding his right side with his hand pressed hard to a point just below his ribs. His jacket seemed askew and his face was running with sweat.
He was an unfit sort of man in his fifties, and he was alive, and Adelia had never seen a more pleasing sight in her life.
She cried out and began to run towards him, skirting around the bunch of fighting, yelling men, wondering why on earth she felt so relieved to see him – he had never faced the dangers that she had done! It was strange how the imagination worked. She had not allowed herself to be anxious about him until this moment, seeing that he was safe – now she could picture all the things that might have happened, and worry about it with a kind of delicious thrill, because none of it had actually occurred.
He saw her as she got nearer and leaped to meet her, grabbing her firmly with no regard to anyone who might have been watching. She put up a faint objection but he said, “I’m Lord Calaway – who dares to tell me what I can do with my wife?” and she melted against him, perfectly willing to give herself up to the sanctuary of all that he offered.
“But are you all right?” she whispered. He smelled of exertion and hair oil.
“Yes, yes, completely. We’ve got him! We did it, my love, my dear heart, my lady detective. You and I, we did it!”
“I am sure Inspector Benn would have something to say about that.”
“We’ve been lucky with him. He’s been a fine asset to our investigation.”
“Theodore, darling, don’t let it be put about in that manner. Inspector Benn must be the one who takes the glory.”
“Why? Surely the papers would prefer to write about a man with a title solving crimes through cleverness than an everyday policeman following the rules. Perhaps I should look up that Horatio Dobson fellow and tell him just what he might write. If it weren’t for me, Lord Beaconberg would have been recorded as a mere accident. And if it weren’t for me – and you, my dear – Douglas Mackie, an innocent if somewhat stubborn young man – would be facing the gallows.”
“You have so much to tell me.”
“And you must tell me of your adventure in Lancaster. Together, we are quite the heroes, you know.”
“Theodore!” she said, very sternly, pulling apart from him. “However supportive and amenable Inspector Benn might be, you must not try to steal his limelight. Do you understand?”
He clearly didn’t. But he was in no mood for arguing with his wife, either. He looked past her and began to grin. “They’ve made the arrest!”
She turned and saw that Sir Arthur was now on his feet and being shackled around his ankles and his wrists. He glanced up at them briefly and immediately hung his head in shame.
The policeman around Sir Arthur began to hustle him into the waiting coach, a specially-fitted one used by the police to transport all manner of miscreants. Lady Beaconberg picked her way past the little scene with a look of distaste and came to stand alongside Adelia and Theodore.
“He came from nothing and he is returned to nothing,” she said with snobbish satisfaction, and Adelia knew she was not referring to anything biblical. “You know, I had expected him to rant and rave a little more.”
“You thought he might make some kind of impassioned speech about the wrongs being done to him as he was arrested?” Adelia asked.
“Yes. The stories in the newspapers have far more vocal criminals than this.”
“I am sure when we read this account in the press, Sir Arthur will be a more colourful character.”
“Let’s hope so. I say, shall they want to interview us?”
“The police or the papers?”
“Both. I am not available for comment, of course,” Lady Beaconberg said haughtily. “I shall tell them so quite firmly.”
And probably loudly, frequently, and in the middle of telling them exactly what they want to hear, Adelia thought. But it didn’t matter.
The police had all disappeared now. The carriage containing Sir Arthur rumbled off, and even Inspector Benn had gone, after having a quick and private word with Theodore. The four women looked at Theodore, and the coach driver that had brought the women out of York sighed and said, “I don’t know if I can get another one in, but I’ll try. We’ll be going a deal more slowly on account of the horses, mind.”
Lady Beaconberg was unconcerned about the other passengers. She waited by the carriage door, looking pointedly at Theodore until Adelia nudged him into remembering his polite duties. She said, as she was helped into the compartment, “I shall need to be taken to Dovewood immediately. My daughter is waiting for me.”
“I will walk back to the Grey House,” Theodore said. “Mary?”
“Papa, I am tired; I’ll come by carriage,” she said, following Lady Beaconberg into the coach.
“I’ll walk with you,” Sibyl said. “I have had enough of reckless chases and witnessing such things as men rolling in the dust. It won’t do.” Now it was her turn to look pointedly at Theodore until he offered Sibyl his arm.
“Adelia!” Lady Beaconberg called from within the carriage.
“I have to go with her,” she whispered to Theodore. “Anyway, I’m the one who will need to pay the cab driver.”
“Go on. I will see you soon.”
“I may need to stay overnight,” she warned.
“Why? She seems perfectly capable of looking after herself.”
Adelia and Sibyl looked at one another, and Sibyl said, “Appearances, Lord Calaway, are deceptive.”
“That is true.” He sighed. “Very well. I shall see you as soon as you are able to come. I suppose the food at Dovewood is quite good.”
“It will be if we are paying for it,” Adelia muttered. “Sibyl, please tell my husband everything that has happened – spare him nothing.”
She watched them go, before turning and climbing into the cab, and finding a great wave of weariness wash over her as all the excitement of the past few hours began to ebb away.
MARY WAS ASLEEP ON Adelia’s shoulder by the time they reached Dovewood, which was something of a feat given that even a solid coach ride is never the most smooth or restful experience. The gravel driveway didn’t wake her, which told Adelia exactly how exhausted her daughter
was. Lady Beaconberg frowned and said, “I will get someone to bring her inside. Let her sleep here.”
“We can leave her here in the coach and I’ll carry on back to the Grey House with her,” Adelia said. “She ought to be in her own bed.”
Lady Beaconberg clearly didn’t want to be on her own, just as Adelia had expected. She said, “What nonsense, when she is here now and I have a house full of perfectly suitable bedrooms. I’ll not hear of the pair of you stirring another step. Just wait here and I shall see to everything.”
Lady Beaconberg inched down out of the carriage and was met by her staff clustering around the front steps. Adelia gently nudged Mary awake.
“Are we home?” she muttered.
“No, we’re at Dovewood and I think that Lady Beaconberg will insist we stay the night.”
“But why?” Mary protested in a muffled voice. “We’re not far...”
“She doesn’t want to be on her own here, that’s the long and short of it, but she can’t ask us outright. She’s been through a lot and she just needs to ... readjust, I think. I am happy to be company for her tonight, but do you want sending on alone back to the Grey House? The cabbie seems happy enough because he knows we will pay him.”
“If she needs us, we can stay,” Mary said. “But Cecil expects me home...”
“I’ve already warned your father. He will inform Cecil. Ah – are you ready to get down?”
Lady Beaconberg appeared at the cab door with two servants who helped Mary to her feet. She was swept inside while Adelia remained to pay the cabbie handsomely for his unusual jobs that day. He drove off whistling.
Adelia looked up at the rich blue sky. The sun was past its zenith now; she judged it to be around mid-afternoon. She hadn’t eaten since an early breakfast before they boarded the train for the last part of their journey to York. Since then they’d been in the police station, raced across town and out into the countryside, and witnessed the arrest of a murderer.
