by Louise Allen
‘I went home, got changed, took a horse, and asked at the stables. They’d hired him a hack and I’ve been on his tail, more or less, ever since.’
‘You’ll want some food and ale,’ Luc said, standing up and reaching for the bell pull.
‘I’m fairly parched, but we had best be quick. We need to get on his tracks again. My horse went lame, but he was making for Aylesbury, I reckon. His beast will be foundering, though. He didn’t stop to change as often as I did.’
‘He could go in any direction from Aylesbury,’ James said as the butler came in. ‘South to the coast, into the West Country, up northwards. Wales, even. I’ll go to the stables, tell them we want three mounts.’
‘Four,’ I shouted after him as I made for the stairs. I had learned to ride astride – I refused to try side saddle – and I wasn’t going to let the men go haring off having all the fun without me.
By the time I was down at the yard in my long divided skirt Luc and James were already mounted and Garrick was draining a tankard. He thrust the mug into the hands of a groom, swiped his hand across his mouth and mounted too. The groom gave me a leg-up, along with a side-eye for my unconventional riding habit, and we were off.
‘Why should he run?’ I shouted as we pounded down the lane. ‘And why in this direction?’
‘Because one of the Prescotts will give him sanctuary?’ James suggested. His rangy chestnut kept pace alongside my rather more ordinary-looking bay.
‘Because he’s the killer and acted for one of them?’
‘Or because he knows who did it and wants to extort money,’ Luc tossed back over his shoulder.
‘But he was dismissed before the killing,’ I argued breathlessly. My mount might not have been showy, but it was pulling like a steam train.
‘Catch him first, ask questions afterwards,’ Luc said. ‘It’s about six miles to Aylesbury. We had best keep to the turnpike road, because I expect he will too, if his horse is tiring. The going will be easier.’
Chapter Eleven
Twenty minutes into our pursuit of the fleeing footman Garrick pointed ahead with his whip and shouted, ‘There!’
And, sure enough, we were rapidly coming up on a horse that plodded along, head hanging low, shoulders covered in sweat, while a man led it on the wide grass verge.
He dropped the reins and scrambled over a fence when he heard us, but James and Luc simply jumped the boundary, rode him down and scooped him up between them. They rode back holding him by one arm each, then dropped him like the sack of potatoes he resembled.
‘I haven’t got any money,’ he protested. ‘Let me go.’ Then he saw Garrick and me and reeled back. Apparently we were even more frightening than the highwaymen he appeared to believe Luc and James were.
We all dismounted and got him over the fence and he stared at us with a mixture of defiance, fear and confusion. Under normal circumstances I guessed he was quite an attractive young man – tall, with regular features, large brown eyes and a pale Celtic complexion.
‘What… What do you want?’ Then he looked properly at Luc. ‘My lord?’
‘You know me.’
‘You live in the Square, my lord. Just along from Lord Tillingham.’
‘And so does this gentleman.’ Luc gestured towards Garrick who had the footman pinned up against the fence. ‘You must have recognised him also. So why did you run from him?’
‘They say he’s a hard man. One who does the dirty work for the gentry.’
Garrick snorted. ‘What did you think I wanted?’ he demanded. ‘And what made you frightened enough to climb out of a window instead of simply closing the door on me?’
‘Thought that Eastern gent had sent you.’
That had us all staring at him.
‘What Eastern gent?’ I asked. ‘When?’
‘Him what came and saw his lordship on the Friday. He was angry and they had words. And when he left I heard him say that his lordship had best do what he promised or there would be the very devil to pay. That’s what he said: the very devil. And he sort of hissed it. Gave me the right shivers he did, because he looked like Mr Adrien, but black-like. Devilish.’
‘He has black hair and brown skin,’ I said. ‘That does not make him devilish.’
‘Yes, well, that’s as maybe, Miss. But I heard him and he saw me staring at him and knew I’d heard and then two days later his lordship’s dead. I heard it down The Blue Duck, Monday night.’
‘You had been dismissed and were serving out your notice,’ I pointed out.
‘That weren’t fair. It was just a bit of fun, cheeky, you know?’ We all just looked at him. ‘I’d had a drop to drink,’ he muttered. ‘Weren’t right, not to give me a character.’
‘You were tipsy, you insulted your employer and all on the Sabbath,’ Garrick said. ‘I cannot say I blame his lordship. What was he supposed to write? This man drinks to the extent it affects his judgment and he mocks those who pay his wages?’
‘So you had a grudge against Lord Tillingham,’ Luc said. ‘You overheard his angry visitor, so perhaps you thought that there was someone who would be blamed. You knew Lord Tillingham’s habits and you knew about the window from the back garden that was likely to be open: or you could have slipped the latch earlier. He was found dead the morning after you left. It all adds up. I think the magistrate in charge of this case would like to have a word with you, Campbell.’
The footman bared his teeth then, with eel-like agility, wriggled free from Garrick’s grasp and hurled himself at me. He swung me around, one arm behind my back and, from somewhere, he produced a knife. At the sight of it at my throat the other three men went very still.
I hadn’t spent hours in the police dojo practicing unarmed combat to deal with anything from belligerent drunks to youths waving knives around to put up with this. I rolled my eyes at Luc, gave a panicky sob and slumped into an apparent faint. That dragged the knife down away from my jugular and threw Campbell off-balance. An elbow in the gut, a foot around his ankle and a shift in my weight and he was on the ground with my heel on the wrist of his knife hand.
James and Garrick pounced on him while Luc swept me into a dramatic dip and kissed me.
After that very satisfactory interval Garrick searched Campbell with ruthless thoroughness and produced two more knives. ‘And what do you need this lot for?’ he asked, waving them in front of the man’s face.
‘Protection,’ Campbell spat back. ‘Look what happens when I take an innocent ride out of Town!’
‘You ran because you are scared,’ Luc said. ‘You had reason to hate Lord Tillingham, you carry knives and you’ve something on your conscience. What do you reckon the magistrate will think that is?’
‘I didn’t kill him! That Indian bastard did, but you’ll have me at the rope’s end because I’m just a footman.’
I looked at Luc. It all seemed to hang together (no pun intended) and yet…
The men put him up behind Garrick with his hands tied and we made our way back to Rook’s Acre at a walk, the exhausted horse on a leading rein behind us.
When Campbell was securely locked in the cellar, with one of the burlier grooms outside the door, we all went for much-needed baths and to change for dinner.
* * *
After the meal we sat around and attempted to make sense of what we had learned.
James, twisting a brandy glass between his fingers, was the first to speak. ‘If we can believe Campbell, and it seems a strange thing for him to make up, Inish Kumar visited Lord Tillingham on Friday. That fits in with Adrien’s account of an irregular connection of the family calling and Tillingham telling him something of it on Saturday. If Campbell is telling the truth, Kumar and the Viscount had an argument, with Kumar laying down an ultimatum of some kind. On the Saturday Tillingham made the codicil about the inheritance of the lands the Colonel had left to his son and took the opportunity to add the bequest for Adrien: presumably he had been impressed by his concern, or his tact, or both.
‘Did he do it at knifepoint?’ I wondered. ‘Perhaps Kumar came to the window on Sunday and was let in. Tillingham wrote the document, then Kumar killed him?’
‘Why should he, if he had what he wanted, what was owed to him?’
‘True. And I can’t be right,’ I realised, seeing another flaw in my own argument. ‘The codicil reads as though Tillingham had not yet seen the documentary proof of Kumar’s parentage. If he had, surely he would be making notes about the transfer of the property, not updating his will? Besides, he is hardly likely to have thought about a bequest for Adrien if he had a knife at his throat.’
‘Or,’ Luc said slowly, ‘What if Kumar came again on the Sunday evening but still did not have all the proofs on him? He is standing there, large as life, physically so like the other men in the family that Tillingham could have had no doubt that Inish is a cousin, and yet Tillingham is being awkward about the surrender. He has written the codicil on the Saturday, before Kumar’s return, hence the careful wording and the bequest to Adrien. He was meticulous and fussy, we are told. What if he is unconvinced that Kumar is the only son of his Uncle Archibald? Perhaps Kumar doesn’t trust him and thinks Tillingham’s reluctance to confirm the inheritance is because he intends defrauding him?’
‘And Kumar, angry with him, stabs him,’ I said. ‘It seems extreme, although he may have been at the end of his tether. He has lost his father, he has had to travel across the globe to a completely strange country and is greeted with pettifogging caution. He has no reason to know that Tillingham is an honourable man who would not try and defraud him. We know, because the codicil was found, that Tillingham was not willing to release the property until he had seen the proofs.’
‘And another thing,’ Garrick said. ‘We know Tillingham had strict principles. He was harsh on Campbell because his offence was committed on a Sunday and he gave up his mistress because he believed a married man should not have irregular liaisons. What if he insulted Kumar’s mother, treated him to a lecture about his father’s immorality and association with what he termed a loose woman?’
‘That might well push a man to violence,’ Luc agreed. ‘We need a word with Mr Kumar. I wonder where he is lodging?’
‘Adrien will know, I imagine. And the solicitors. We can find out tomorrow,’ James said. He got up and poured out more brandy all round.
‘So we now have a stronger case against Campbell, in that he fled on seeing Garrick and clearly has a very uneasy conscience.’ I added to the evidence boards and stood back to consider the result. ‘And Kumar becomes, not so much a stronger suspect, as a more complex one. This seems more complicated the harder we look at it.’
‘I will take Campbell back to London tomorrow, if I may have the use of a carriage,’ Garrick said. ‘I’ll hand him over to Sir William.’
‘How long can he keep hold of him, just on suspicion?’ I asked, thinking about habeas corpus. ‘We are a long way from any evidence for a trial and we just can’t have him locked up indefinitely while we find out who the killer is.’
‘He attacked you,’ Garrick pointed out. ‘He held a knife to your throat and I imagine you have a few bruises to show for the way he seized you. If you write a statement – and James and Luc do as well – and I take that with me, then Sir William has every justification for charging him with assault, bringing him into court and detaining him. I am a witness, even if the rest of you are out of Town.’
‘It would be as well to check with the butler about Kumar’s visit to St James’s Square,’ Luc said thoughtfully. ‘We only have Campbell’s word for what happened. Even if it is entirely the truth, other servants may have overheard, or seen, something more.’
‘Then I’ll bid you all goodnight and go and speak to the head groom about a carriage for tomorrow, early,’ Garrick said, standing up. ‘I will break my fast on the road.’
I kissed his cheek. ‘Give my love to Carola.’
We all retired, worn out by a thoroughly uncomfortable day. ‘I could quite happily live without combining a wake and a fight ever again,’ I remarked to Luc as we fell into bed. By unspoken agreement we curled together comfortably and simply cuddled.
After a bit I wriggled up against the pillows, tired, but too full of adrenaline to sleep. ‘May I ask you something very personal? I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk about it.’
Luc came up on one elbow and narrowed his eyes at me in the candlelight. ‘Ask.’
‘I have trouble understanding about marriages in the ton,’ I said, not quite knowing what it was I wanted to ask, or how to put it. ‘In my time various cultures still arrange marriages, but it is not something within my experience, so I am struggling to understand the nuances. Now, here in this time, there seems to be this strange mixture of young ladies being out in Society and mixing with men, becoming acquainted with them – and yet they are not expected to fall in love. Instead their matches are made for family advancement – status, connections, land, wealth.’
‘Yes,’ Luc agreed. He seemed puzzled.
‘So what if a couple fall in love?’
‘They attempt to persuade her father, or they elope, or they resign themselves to being apart.’
I nodded. That was how I saw the possibilities. ‘But take Miss Jordan. No-one is suggesting that she loved Lord Tillingham. It was a suitable, arranged, marriage. Yes? But now he is dead, so she is available again. Her dowry receives a boost in the form of a generous bequest and, all of a sudden, two young men she has known from childhood perk up and take an interest.’
Luc still clearly had no idea what I was getting at. ‘So how does she feel?’ I persisted. ‘How does she react?’
He sat up, shoulder to shoulder with me, the better to shrug, it seemed. ‘I have no idea how she feels. I suppose the young men in question might have been interested before, but knew better than to set themselves up as rivals to the head of the family. Now they think they may have an opportunity of fixing their interest with her before the next Season when she will again be within the orbit of more eligible, titled men.’ He shifted to look at me. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’m not sure. It was just overhearing them at the funeral meats. The attitude of Adrien’s two older cousins jarred with me. They vaguely acknowledged that Arabella might be upset, but all they focused on was her prospects as a bride for themselves. And Jerald seems unhappy,’ I added, not certain what that had to do with any of this.
‘And why should I mind answering questions about the matter?’
‘Because your marriage was not a love match, was it? Did you really know your wife before you wed?’
‘No. She was a very suitable bride for me,’ he said slowly, weighing his words, I thought. He avoided saying her name, and I realised that he never did, to me. ‘I liked her, respected her, but we were not friends. I had affection for her but I did not love her.’ There was a long pause. ‘I could not discuss things with her beyond the day to day matters of our life and Society. Is that what you wanted to know?’
‘I suppose so. It is not that I am jealous of her. If you had loved her then that would only have made me even more sorry that you had lost her. I think I am trying to find some way of understanding how the people involved in such a marriage must feel.’ It was my turn to shrug. ‘I do not know why it seems important to this case, because one of them is dead and the other, surely, is incapable of murder.’
‘Your brain is tired.’ Luc slid back under the covers. ‘Let me show you how I feel about you. It may not solve any mysteries…’
That was as far as he got before I wriggled down to join him.
* * *
The next morning Luc was told firmly by his mother that he ought to be continuing the inspection of Rook’s Acre, because her own noteb
ook was full and she fully intended browsing in the very dusty library in search of treasures while he inspected roof joists, drains and the mysterious damp patches in the kitchen.
With the put-upon air of any man confronted with a To-Do list, Luc enlisted the twins as junior surveyors and waved James and me goodbye as we rode off to find Adrien in the hope he had Inish Kumar’s direction.
We discovered him looking harassed and the house in a bustle.
‘My Uncle Frederick is very unwell,’ he said. ‘I have sent to Cambridge for his own medical man and, meanwhile, all three local doctors have come, eager to treat the new Viscount.’
‘Unwell? He’s not – ’ I broke off, aware we were in the middle of the wide hallway with servants hurrying to and fro and several doors open.
Adrien grimaced. ‘It is quite natural, there is no need to fear anyone has attacked him. His illness is gaining ground and the past few days have exhausted him, but he insisted on getting out of his bed for the funeral and the reading of the will.’ He glanced around and lowered his voice. ‘I fear he is never going to leave it again now though, poor man. He never wanted this title and he should be where he is comfortable, in his own familiar rooms in Cambridge, surrounded by his books.’
‘Will you continue to work with him as you did with your cousin?’ James asked. ‘I imagine no one else understands the details as well as you.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. My father and the family lawyer have asked me to assist. Frankly, it is a relief to have practical things to do.’
We told him that we had located Campbell and that he was on his way back to London and Sir William’s custody. Adrien perked up at that, then sagged at the shoulders when we had to admit there was no evidence against the man, except for his flight.
‘We were hoping you knew where Mr Kumar is lodging,’ I said. ‘I assume he was the visitor to your cousin that you told us about? The person who was an irregular connection?’