“Are you in a hurry? Will you walk with me a little?”
She glanced up at him. In the uncertain light he could not read her expression. “I think perhaps it will rain, Georges.”
Chagrin entered his breast. “That is no answer. Do you wish to walk with me or do you not?”
She tugged her hand from his arm. “Ma foi, Georges! This is how you speak? I will go alone!”
He seized her hand. “No, you don’t!”
She pulled back, a flare at her eyes. The disturbance in his pulse caused a thump at his chest and anguish gripped him unexpectedly.
“Cecile, don’t go! I can’t bear this any longer. You are making me crazy and it’s not like me at all.”
He saw a softening in her eyes and a little smile appeared. “Why is it you are crazy?”
It was a clear invitation but he could not bring himself to say the words. “You know why.”
“Parbleu! Am I in your head?”
“You are in my heart!”
It was out before he knew what he was saying. She was gazing at him and a stray beam fell upon her face, lighting it up. Or was he imagining it? She lifted her free hand and he felt her fingers on his cheek, a gentle caress. Her voice was husky.
“It is well, Georges. You touch also my heart — au désespoir.” He went to capture her into his embrace, but she evaded him. “À bientôt, Georges. I am late.” With which, she darted away before he could stop her, picking up her skirts and running lightly along the Esplanade.
He stood still, watching her until she vanished down the lane that led to the theatre. He could wish he had settled it with her more completely, but at least she had given him hope.
The first drops of rain spattered his face and he started. What was he doing, standing like a stock in the middle of the street? Like a lovelorn fool, forgetful of everything save the impossible creature who was turning his life upside down. Was he indeed crazy, to be jeopardising his untrammelled existence? For the first time, he contemplated what it would mean to burden himself with a wife. And a passionate Frenchwoman at that. His imagination boggled at the shoals ahead. And yet, the alternative he already knew to be unendurable. To let Cecile drift out of his life? The very thought brought on heartache.
With difficulty, he dragged his mind back to duty and remembered he had still to find Rodber. About to curse the murder, he recalled its part in bringing him into close contact with Cecile and duty assumed an importance he had not previously assigned to it. For her sake, this matter must be settled. A new determination sent him hurrying through the drizzle in search of the master of ceremonies.
He ran the fellow to earth in the subscription library, having first tried his lodging, whither the porter at the Assembly Rooms had directed him.
“Ah, Colonel, did you want me? I am taking my chance to read the journals before the play begins.”
George hustled him away from the table where two others were also perusing evening papers daily provided by the proprietor, and found a quiet spot by the shelving groaning with volumes of every sort.
“I need your special knowledge of the area, Rodber,” he said without preamble.
The fellow regarded him with a keen eye. “Do I take it you are further forward, Colonel? Is an arrest imminent?”
George balked. He had no intention of revealing the extent of the investigation. He ignored the question.
“What I want to know is whether you know of a house of ill repute situated on the edge of town, convenient to the cemetery road.”
The fellow’s head reared back. “Good heavens, sir! What in the world do you mean?”
“Just what I say. I cannot enlighten you further, as I am sure you must realise.”
“Yes, but —”
“Come, come, sir, don’t trifle with me, I beg of you. If anyone knows the amenities of this town, it is you. Pray don’t attempt to fob me off.”
Rodber’s cheeks grew ruddy and he became sulky. “Really, Colonel, there is no necessity to take that tone.”
“I’ve no time for niceties, Rodber. The investigation is at a crucial point, if you must know, and your assistance may prove vital.”
This was a worthy turn, for the master of ceremonies visibly reverted to his customary pomposity. “Naturally, I am anxious to assist the authorities in every possible way, sir.”
“Well, then?”
Rodber harrumphed, cast a glance at the patently uninterested gentlemen reading at the table, and lowered his voice. “I fancy you are referring to Hetty Mason’s establishment. A discreet place, sir, known only to a select few.”
George lit with triumph and mentally blessed Ottilia’s perspicacity. “Patronised by visitors? Gentlemen only? Or do lesser men benefit? Would a permanent resident use it?”
The man looked decidedly disconcerted. “Gracious me, sir, I’m sure I cannot answer you. I am not myself — er —”
George sighed. “Rodber, I am not here to enquire into your personal excesses. Have the goodness to tell me what you know without roundaboutation.”
Reddening again, the man sniffed, looking pinched. “Well, really, Colonel. I am not accustomed to be spoken to in this fashion.”
“I beg your pardon,” George said on a spurious placatory note, “but I would appreciate your cooperation, sir.”
Rodber shifted his head in a marked manner. “Very well. So far as I am aware, gentlemen visitors have been known to whisper of Hetty Mason’s facilities one to another. I should doubt of lesser men being received there.” He cleared his throat. “Those with a fat purse excepted, naturally.”
“Her fees are extortionate?”
“High enough to keep the place exclusive perhaps.”
“But a resident would be familiar with this Hetty Mason?”
“Whom did you have in mind, Colonel?”
“We will let that pass for the moment, if you please.”
The fellow looked dissatisfied, but George did not enlighten him. The matter was far too precarious to be bandied about. He went directly to the point.
“What is the exact direction of this bawdy house, if you please?”
“Francis, wake up!”
The nudging hand, combined with his wife’s urgent whisper, drove him out of a misty dream. “What’s to do?”
“There is someone in the house.”
Francis thrust his eyes open and struggled onto an elbow. “What do you mean, Tillie? The place is packed with people.”
The bed curtains were only partially drawn and moonlight filtered in through the window, showing Tillie sitting up in a listening attitude.
“I heard pattering. I thought it was the rain, but it has stopped raining.”
Francis yawned. “Likely one of the servants is stirring.”
But as he spoke, a grunt and thump sounded from without, followed by unmistakeable footsteps running down the stairs.
“What the devil?”
He was out of the bed and groping for his dressing-gown even as Tillie began to thrust off the bedclothes.
“Stay there! Don’t come out until I give the all clear.”
She sank back and a second set of thumping steps sounded as he dragged on his dressing-gown and headed at speed for the door, flinging it wide and calling out.
“Who’s there?”
There was no immediate response, but the sound of an altercation below brought him to the head of the stairs. Two dim figures were struggling, one enveloped in a concealing garment, the other a dark shape that looked half-naked. Something about the second was familiar.
Francis started down the stairs. “Hemp? Is that you?”
“Seize him, milord!”
It was grunted out. Francis quickened his steps, holding on to the bannister rail. Before he could reach the fray, the quarry wrenched out of Hemp’s hold.
Next instant, the front door was dragged open. Francis caught a silhouette of the intruder against the moonlight — a tall cloaked man in a three-cornered hat. Then he was gone, the
sound of his boots ringing on the cobbles.
Hemp was out of the door in a flash. Reaching it, Francis stopped in the aperture, watching Hemp’s pursuit of the fleeing figure. In the better light afforded by the moon flooding the wide expanse of uninterrupted sea beyond the Esplanade, Francis was able to judge his servant to be naked to the waist and barefoot. Fleet though he was, his quarry outstripped him and darted down an alley. Hemp followed and the chase became lost to sight, though Francis could still hear the steps for some little time.
“What is it, my lord? What has happened?”
Francis became aware of Tyler at his elbow and the landlady hovering in the corridor behind.
“Hemp is chasing an intruder,” he said shortly and nodded towards the woman. “Send her back to bed. There’s nothing to concern her now.”
The footman went to soothe the landlady and hustle her off, what time the dowager’s voice could be heard above-stairs.
“For heaven’s sake, Ottilia, what are you doing up at this hour? What in the world is all this racket?”
Francis looked up to see both his wife and his mother hovering in the gallery.
“I told you to wait for my word, Tillie.”
She paid no heed. “Who was it, Fan?”
“That I don’t know.”
“What, have we had a burglar?”
“I don’t think it was a burglar, Sybilla.”
Francis caught the sound of feet slapping against the cobbles and went out into the street. His mother’s irritated tones followed him.
“What is he doing? Why doesn’t he close the wretched door?”
He heard Tillie murmur a response but his attention was on the entrance to the alley. Presently Hemp came into sight, walking now, and alone. Francis went to meet him as he came up, his breath still heaving. Hemp was wearing only a pair of drawers and Francis held up a hand to stop him.
“Hold hard. The women are within sight.”
Hemp nodded and leaned a hand against the wall, still struggling for breath.
“I — lost him — milord.”
“So I perceive. Never mind. It was a brave effort, my friend.”
Hemp looked up and, his eyes now accustomed in the better light, Francis noted grimness in his face. “He came for the boy, milord.”
Shock ripped through Francis and he recalled the silhouetted image he had seen. “Dear Lord, you mean it was the murderer?”
“Masked again. It is just as the boy said. The same who attacked milady.”
“Big, cloak, three-cornered hat,” Francis recited, a hollow feeling in his chest and his heart out of kilter all over again for his wife’s safety, even though the man had not acted against her this time; she had been safe in his arms, thank the Lord. And the boy was equally out of reach. “A good thing we let the colonel have him.”
There was time for no more. Tyler came out of the house, clearing his throat. “Begging your pardon, my lord, her ladyship is anxious for the door to be closed.”
Francis did not mistake the tenor of this mild request. His mother was no doubt fretting and furious.
“I’ll get the women into the parlour, Hemp, so you can make yourself decent and then join us. Tyler, bring wine to the parlour and light the candles again. Then you get back to bed. No need for the lot of us to be up.” He was heading for the door as he spoke, which Tyler was holding for him. He paused as a thought occurred. “Ah, you’d best reassure the maids too.” With which, he entered the house and ran upstairs where his wife and mother were impatiently awaiting him.
“How in the world did he get in?” Thus the dowager. While she and Francis discussed possibilities, from cellar windows to climbing drainpipes, Ottilia was concentrated upon identities.
She was seated on the chaise longue, her dressing-gown augmented by a shawl, sipping at the wine in the glass thrust into her hand by her spouse. At first beset by clutching fear for Perkin, this faded upon remembrance of his departure to George’s barracks. Thankful she had given in to the colonel’s persuasions, her mind began to turn on the intruder himself.
“He panicked,” she said aloud.
The discussion in train broke off and Francis turned from Sybilla, who was seated in the chair opposite. Candles had been lit but they were scarcely needed as a pink dawn was beginning to show through the open shutters and Ottilia could see plain the question in her spouse’s face where he stood, leaning an elbow on the mantel.
“Because Hemp woke, you mean?”
“To have come at all.”
Sybilla clicked her tongue. “I wish you had never kept the boy here, Ottilia.”
“But how did he know that?”
She received a keen glance from her spouse. “Why shouldn’t he? I spread the word of his being a witness only today.”
Ottilia’s brain was working swiftly but she paused at this. “You told those two players.”
“And they passed it to the rest, no doubt, which means Fitzgerald may readily have heard.”
“Yes, for let us not forget there was a performance last night,” the dowager put in. “Word likely spread.”
“To whom?” Ottilia demanded. “Paglesham and Charlton? Edgcott is absent. No, I doubt it had yet reached public ears.”
“Then that serves us well, Tillie, since Fitzgerald is very much to the fore.”
Ottilia remained dissatisfied. Her original train of thought returned, but before she could give it voice, the door opened to admit Hemp. He had donned his habitual costume of black breeches and coat. Ottilia fleetingly wondered if he would be persuaded to wear colours in a few months when his period of mourning was up. But his words brought her back to the matter at hand.
“Milady, you will wish to know what happened, I think.”
“Very much, Hemp, I thank you.”
He gave a small bow, but turned first to Francis. “I took the liberty of inspecting the lower regions of the house, milord, and I believe he came in by way of the kitchen window.”
“Good heavens!” Sybilla glanced up at her son. “We never thought of that, Francis. Was the window broken?”
“No, milady. But the latch is bent and may have been forced, though he was careful enough to set it back in place.”
Francis intervened. “And then? Did you find him in your room? He woke you?”
“His step on the attic stair woke me, milord. I paid no heed, thinking Tyler may have gone down for a drink and was coming back up.”
“Ha! Just as I thought when her ladyship woke me.”
“Yes, milord, but it wasn’t so. The instant I heard the handle turning on my door, I started up and saw him enter. He must have seen me. Heard me, perhaps, for I think I cried out.”
“He took off?”
“On the instant, milord. I leapt from my bed and went after him, but he was wide awake and myself a trifle bleary or I would have got him.”
“Don’t repine, Hemp. In fact you did get him, as I saw.”
Hemp shifted his shoulders. “I erred, milord. I tried to grapple with him. If I had merely held onto his cloak, it would have choked him and stopped him.”
“Or he might have divested himself of it and escaped anyway,” Ottilia put in, feeling all her steward’s regret.
“True enough.” Francis was watching her. “Anything else we need to ask?”
Grateful he deferred to her judgement, Ottilia eyed her steward. “I dare not suppose you felt you knew the man, Hemp?”
He gave one of his faint smiles. “I wish I might say so, milady, but no. Apart from realising he was the same who attacked you. I was too occupied in the hope of stopping him to have leisure to sense any such thing.”
“I should think he would not, Ottilia,” came in irritated accents from the dowager. “How in the world should he know the man in any event?”
“Hemp is acquainted with the players, ma’am.”
“But not this theatre manager fellow. Or do you know him?” Sybilla turned to Hemp.
“I have seen him in the
tavern, milady, but not to speak to. In general, he and Mr Ferdinand have their heads together. He is not one to fraternise with the lesser players, although of necessity Wat and Aisling, who manage the scenery, must know him better. However, I have not seen them hover about him in the tavern.”
Ottilia seized on this. “Have you ever heard either speak about him? Fitzgerald, I mean.”
He turned to her, his brows drawn together. “Not in particular, milady. Why?”
She disregarded the question. “Think, if you please, Hemp. Could you tell from anything they may have let fall whether Fitzgerald is a man likely to panic?”
She caught Francis’s intent look and Sybilla’s raised brows, but kept her attention on Hemp. His frown deepened, but his eyes showed he was considering the matter. Ottilia waited.
“No, milady,” he said at last, his brow clearing. “If I take an impression gained from the players in general, I would say he is considered to be a very level-headed sort of man.”
Ottilia smiled her satisfaction. “Thank you. That is just what I supposed.”
There being nothing further to be done, Francis dismissed Hemp with a word of thanks. He left the room, but poked his head around the door a moment later.
“Milady, all this upset has made me forget something the boy said before I left him with the colonel’s lieutenant.”
A little fillip leapt in Ottilia’s breast. “What was it? I am eager for any morsel at this moment.”
“Perkin seems to think the murderer knew both of those gravediggers. He spoke of their trade. He knew it ‘of old’, he said, and reminded them it was against the law. Also he said he knew the justices at Dorchester.”
Digesting this, Ottilia thanked Hemp and he withdrew. She was again struggling with the niggle of remembrance that would not come to the fore. Someone had said something pertinent to her, but what. She found her spouse sceptical of the usefulness of the information as he began to snuff the candles.
“I don’t see how that helps. Our man must have known those fellows or how could he hire them to dig the grave?”
“Of old,” said Ottilia.
Sybilla, who was already at the door, looked back. “What of it?”
The Candlelit Coffin (Lady Fan Mystery Book 4) Page 32