The Gentleman's Walking Stick

by Jennifer Ashley

  I stared in surprise. "You said she was dying."

  "She is. But not from illness." Miss Sandington stood. "Come with me, Captain. I will show you."

  I got to my feet and followed Miss Sandington out of the room and up another flight of stairs. She took me to a bedroom, which was dark but for one candle on a chest of drawers. When Miss Sandington lit another candle, I saw Sarah Oswald.

  She reclined on a chaise, propped up on pillows that overflowed onto the floor. A bright quilt covered her to her neck, and the dark curls I'd seen peeping from her cap in the drawing now tumbled in a swath to her lap.

  "There," Miss Sandington said, raising the candle high. "Go back and tell her father about this."

  Sarah's face was no longer the sweet, fresh one of the drawing. Someone had smashed it, smashed it so the planes of her face had altered and flattened and were covered with dark bruises. Her mouth was open, and ragged, moist breathing came from between her lips. Her hands in her lap, tangled in her long hair, were twisted and broken.

  Miss Sandington touched Sarah's shoulder, very gently, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Sarah, darling," she whispered.

  Sarah's eyes flicked open. She looked dully up at me, swept her gaze to Miss Sandington, and closed her eyes again.

  "Good God," I said. "Who did this to her?"

  "I do not know." Miss Sandington kissed Sarah again, straightened, and turned to me. "A week ago, she went out, not saying where, and was hours late coming home. I grew frantic, but she made it back here somehow. I found her on the scullery stairs, like this. A surgeon has tried to help her, but he is not optimistic."

  "Can she not speak?"

  "She has not said a word since she returned. Most of the time, she simply sleeps." Tears filled Miss Sandington's eyes once again.

  I looked down at the broken, thin body that had once belonged to a robust girl. Sarah had been harmless, innocent, moved about by people who cared nothing for her happiness. Here, in Miss Sandington's home, she had at last found a haven, but someone had destroyed her even then.

  I would discover who, and I would make them pay.

  "What was she wearing the day this happened?" I asked.

  Miss Sandington gave me a blank look. "Her dress was in shreds and her cloak was ruined. We threw them away."

  "Did she have a reticule, or a pocket? She might have had something with her that showed where she'd gone that day, or who she'd seen."

  Miss Sandington shook her head. "The maid who helped me put her to bed would have put anything she found in the dressing table."

  "May I?"

  Miss Sandington nodded, and I went to the dressing table. Its surface was cluttered with ribbons and lace, combs and inexpensive jewelry, the frippery that Clothilde Oswald had so condemned. I found scraps of paper in the drawer: a fragment from a newspaper announcing an exhibition at Egyptian House, a list of popular novels, and receipt from a chocolate shop.

  I glanced back at Miss Sandington. She sat on a straight-backed chair pulled to the chaise and was bent over Sarah's inert body. I slipped papers into my pocket, stood up, and quietly thanked Miss Sandington for telling me the tale.

  She said good-bye to me, her eyes holding the blankness of sorrow, and I departed.

  *** *** ***

  Lacey," Robert Oswald greeted me as I met him going into the door of his lodgings. "Come upstairs and let me take my revenge. I have cards and brandy."

  "No, thank you. I have come to tell you what I've discovered about your sister."

  Robert's smile vanished, and he led me quickly up the stairs to a first-floor flat.

  A thin, worried-looking man opened the door to us. Robert stripped off his gloves and tossed them at him, and the man fumbled and dropped them.

  "Impudence." Robert retrieved the gloves himself, slapped the servant with them, and shoved him out of the room. "Sit down, Lacey, and tell me about it. You look grave. Is Sarah dead?"

  I remained standing. "Your sister is alive," I said. "But she's been beaten so badly, it's doubtful she'll live."

  Robert's eyes widened, and he dropped onto a soiled damask chair. "Beaten? By, er, one of her men, do you mean?"

  "I spoke with the woman who is looking after her. Sarah hasn't been able to tell her who hurt her."

  "The devil," Robert said. "What woman? Where is she?"

  I drew out a paper I'd taken from Sarah's dressing table, unfolded it, and handed it to Robert. "I found that with Sarah's things."

  The paper was one of the handbills showing the drawing of Sarah and offering a reward of five guineas for knowledge of her whereabouts. Robert stared at it as though he'd never seen it before.

  I said, "Sarah found that and came to you, did she not? She came to tell you that she was well and happy and living with someone who loved her. Why did you not report to your family that you'd found her? And why did you lie to me?"

  Robert stared at the drawing a moment longer and then up at me. "Well, Good God man, is it not obvious why? Because I did not want you to find her. Since you've discovered her anyway, damn you, very well then. She did come to me. But is it not better that my parents think her dead than where she is?"

  "With Miss Sandington? With a woman who cares for her?"

  Robert came out of his chair. "Sarah told me all about her relations with that--that woman. Dear God, a man's own sister."

  "So you became angry with her," I said, my words cold. "And you beat her, just as you would your servant. But she was a young girl, no match for your strength. And in your temper you did not stop beating her."

  Robert paled. "You do not know that."

  "No, I am guessing. But I believe I've guessed right."

  Robert flung himself away from me and began pacing. "Yes, yes, I did hit her. I was disgusted with her. But I did not think I'd hurt her that much."

  "I am certain you did not mean to when you started. But I saw her."

  "You have no proof, Lacey."

  "No."

  Robert swung to me. "Bloody hell, man. I could not help myself, could I? Imagine if she were your sister."

  I only watched him. Robert's rage faded to worry. "Will you tell my father?"

  "I have not decided," I said.

  Robert seized my arm. "For God's sake, Lacey. You have no proof."

  "Let go of me," I said. "You make me sick."

  Robert let his hands drop to his sides, and I turned and made for the door, leaning heavily on my walking stick. The effects of Frances's massage had faded, and my knee pained me once more.

  Behind me, Robert bleated, "Do you not see, Lacey, that it is better this way? If Sarah dies, she can no longer shame us, or herself."

  I turned back. What Robert saw on my face was enough to make him cower, but he did not run. He must not have thought a crippled man was much of a threat.

  He was wrong. My fist caught him full in the face. Scarlet blood gushed from his nose, and he clapped his hand to it as my next blow, with my cane, landed on his gut. Robert fell to his knees.

  I left him there, huddled on his carpet, screaming for his servant. I closed the door and went down the stairs and out into the grimy, fog-shrouded city. St. James's was crowded, but I pushed through the throng, seeing no one, walking and walking until I had to stop in exhaustion.

  *** *** ***

  I found myself after a time outside the house of my lady love, on South Audley Street. Lady Breckenridge had gone out for the evening, but her ever-efficient butler, Barnstable, let me in, fed me brandy, and tended to my bruised knuckles and worn-out knee without asking questions. I sat in Lady Breckenridge's elegant little back parlor and breathed in her scent until I felt more at peace.

  The next day, I walked from my rooms the short distance to Bow Street and told the Runner called Pomeroy all about Robert Oswald. Milton Pomeroy had been my loud, boisterous sergeant in the army, and now he was a large, boisterous Runner. He brightened at the prospect of a possible conviction.

  Robert Oswald had been co
rrect, however, when he'd accused me of having no proof. If Sarah did not recover and tell her story, there would be nothing to say that Robert had beaten her nearly to death. I doubted that Robert's servant would be brave enough to confess it, if he'd even witnessed it.

  Pomeroy, on the other hand, did not bother with such trivialities. He went forth to arrest Robert Oswald, but did not find him. Robert disappeared from London, never to return. Pomeroy searched for him a while, then gave him up as not worth the trouble. There were far more lucrative criminals to pursue.

  I never learned whether Sarah Oswald lived or died. I returned to Miss Sandington after a time to inquire how she was, to find that Miss Sandington's household had gone, moved to the country, so a coffee vendor thought. However, I did not read of Sarah's death in any newspaper, and from that day to this, I hoped she'd found her peace with Miss Sandington at last.

  I never saw Robert Oswald again, and Thaddeus Oswald shunned me publicly thereafter.

  End

  * * * * *

  About the Author

  Award-winning Ashley Gardner is a pseudonym for New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Ashley. Under both names--and a third, Allyson James--Ashley has written more than 35 published novels and a dozen novellas in mystery and romance. Her books have won several RTBook Reviews Reviewers Choice awards (including Best Historical Mystery for The Sudbury School Murders), and the Romance Writers of America’s RITA (given for the best romance novels and novellas of the year). Ashley’s books have been translated into a dozen different languages.

  More about the Captain Lacey series can be found at

  http://www.gardnermysteries.com

  Or email Ashley Gardner at

  gardnermysteries@cox.net

  Books in the Captain Lacey Regency Mystery Series

  The Hanover Square Affair

  A Regimental Murder

  The Glass House

  The Sudbury School Murders

  The Necklace Affair (novella)

  A Body in Berkeley Square

  A Covent Garden Mystery

  The Gentleman's Walking Stick (short story collection)

  A Death in Norfolk

  A Disappearance in Drury Lane

  And more to come!