Mundy was already puce with anger but he managed to contain it somehow. A celebrated composer had liked his play enough to provide ariettas for it, yet its leading actress was tearing it to pieces. Benjamin Tregarne had lit a fire of hope inside the playwright. Hannah had just extinguished it. Mundy needed a few moments to recover his equilibrium.
‘What’s your reply?’ asked Fleet.
‘It’s this,’ said Mundy, straightening his back and staring at Hannah. ‘I might consider some of Miss Granville’s unjustified scorn if she would stop pulling faces during the duet, waving her arms about so wildly in the prison scene and grinning at the audience throughout as if they’ve paid their money for the sole purpose of admiring her teeth. In short, she should act the part properly instead of distorting it into a travesty of the original.’
Hannah leapt up truculently. ‘I cannot believe I’m hearing this.’
‘You may hear a lot more, if you wish,’ he said.
‘Silence, silence,’ implored Fleet.
‘Are you going to let him launch such a vicious attack on me?’ she cried. ‘It’s worse than being hit by a shower of glass.’
‘You insulted me,’ roared Mundy.
‘It’s no more than you deserved.’
‘Your behaviour has been reprehensible from the first rehearsal.’
‘And yours has been boorish,’ she retorted.
‘You poison everything you touch.’
‘Then please come closer so that I can touch you.’
‘Miss Granville,’ cried Fleet. ‘We are all friends here.’
‘I’d never befriend a man of no discernible talent.’
‘When I agreed to work with you,’ said Mundy with a sneer, ‘I had to lower my standards considerably.’
‘You don’t have any standards,’ snapped Hannah. ‘I might have made the mistake of being in the wrong play, but you, sir, are in the wrong profession.’
‘That’s slander!’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘I’ll bring an action against you for defamation.’
‘I’ll bring one against you for brazenly impersonating a playwright.’
Once started, the argument quickly gathered pace and the insults became sharper and more personal. Perspiration glistening on his furrowed brow, Fleet begged them to stop but to no avail. All the bitterness that had been stored up on both sides now had an outlet. The manager was swept away by the surging torrent of abuse. When the two of them finally ran short of bile and of breath, Fleet spread his arms in supplication.
‘What am I to tell Mr Tregarne?’ he wailed.
Peter Skillen was outraged when he learnt that Huckvale had, apparently, been abducted. Back at the gallery, he found his brother and Ackford still trying to work out how it must have happened. Peter had dismissed all thought of the murder investigation and of his work for the bank. The priority now was to rescue Huckvale and call someone to account for the crime. Since Paul was convinced that the kidnap had been ordered by Stephen Hamer, the brothers rode straight to his house. They were in no mood for social niceties. When a servant answered the door, they pushed past the woman and went straight into the drawing room. Hamer and Carr were having a private conversation when the brothers burst in.
‘What the devil are you doing?’ yelled Hamer, getting to his feet.
‘We’ve come to ask you the same thing,’ said Paul. ‘We believe that our close friend, Jem Huckvale, has been abducted from the shooting gallery. You gave the order for the kidnap.’
‘I deny it wholeheartedly.’
‘When the dogs were let loose, they failed to serve their purpose so you tried another way to frighten us off.’
‘Why should I do that?’
‘Because there are things you don’t wish us to find out,’ said Peter. ‘You also want to catch the man who killed Mr Bowerman before we do.’
‘That much is true,’ conceded Hamer. ‘The rest is sheer nonsense.’
‘Before we go any further,’ said Carr with a smile, ‘it would be a great help if you could please identify yourselves. I can’t tell one brother from the other.’
‘This is Paul Skillen,’ said Peter, indicating his brother, ‘and I am Peter. We speak with one voice about Jem Huckvale. Have him released at once.’
‘But we’ve no idea where he is, dear fellow.’
‘Mr Carr is giving you an honest answer,’ said Hamer, backing his friend up. ‘We had no part either in the attack on the shooting gallery or in this supposed kidnap. Why are you so certain that your friend has been spirited away?’
‘The gallery is his home and place of work,’ said Paul. ‘Jem would never leave it without giving a warning beforehand.’
‘Perhaps he just wandered off.’
‘You obviously don’t know Jem. He’s very conscientious.’
‘What was he doing before he disappeared?’ asked Carr.
‘He was giving instruction to someone called Philip Needham.’
‘Do either of you recognise that name?’ asked Peter. The two men looked blank and shook their heads. ‘You may, of course, know him under his real name.’
‘And what’s that, Mr Skillen?’
‘We don’t know.’
Carr raised an eyebrow. ‘There seems to be a lot of things you don’t know,’ he observed, drily. ‘You don’t actually know if your friend was abducted or not. You assume that the man who came for instruction gave a false name but you have no proof of that. The search for a culprit has, mysteriously, brought you to this door yet there are no two people less likely to hatch a kidnap plot than Captain Hamer and I. Why single us out? It’s the wildest kind of speculation.’
‘It’s based on my estimate of your characters,’ said Paul, levelly. ‘You and Lieutenant Hamer – I refuse to give him a rank to which he’s not entitled – are palpably unworthy of any trust. You lied about having those dogs unleashed at the gallery and you’re lying about this.’
‘Get out of my house before I horsewhip you!’ shouted Hamer.
‘You’d regret trying to do that.’
‘My brother will only beat you to a pulp,’ said Peter, drawing a pistol. ‘If you’d care to arm yourselves, we can step into the garden and settle our differences there.’
‘Unlike the duel with Mr Bowerman,’ said Paul, ‘you’ll have a more able adversary this time. Or are you too cowardly to accept the challenge?’
‘Don’t you dare accuse me of cowardice,’ snarled Hamer.
‘We’ve seen no signs of bravery in you.’
‘Take that back, you rogue!’
Paul did not flinch. ‘I take nothing back.’
Carr sounded a soothing note. ‘Calm down, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘We are civilised human beings, not ruffians in a tavern who fight at the least excuse. Step apart from each other,’ he urged, easing Hamer away from Paul. ‘Something is missing here.’
‘Yes,’ said Paul, ‘it’s any semblance of honesty.’
‘I was about to say that it was good manners, Mr Skillen. People don’t usually enter someone else’s house unless they are invited in. You came in by force. That was not only impolite, it was flirting with illegality.’
‘We refuse to be fobbed off, Mr Carr.’
‘Nobody is fobbing you off,’ said the other. ‘You have been allowed in to discuss the situation. We understand your anger. Your affection for your friend shines through and that’s admirable. But before you hurl unjust accusations at us, there is something you should first have obtained – evidence.’
‘We have the evidence of our own eyes,’ said Peter.
‘And of our own noses,’ said Paul. ‘This place reeks of deceit and treachery.’
‘I told you to leave,’ warned Hamer.
‘Where is Jem Huckvale being held?’
‘I don’t give a damn where he is – now out you go!’
On the point of grabbing Paul, he was stopped dead by the pistol held at his throat by Peter. Everyone froze in position and there wa
s a long silence. Hamer did not budge. He met Peter’s gaze without fear.
‘Kill me, if you wish,’ he said, ‘but it will be in defiance of true justice. I did not order the abduction of your friend and I have no inkling where he might be. As God’s my witness, I am innocent of the charge.’
The weapon suddenly felt extremely heavy in Peter’s hand.
Though he was relatively small, Huckvale was strong and lithe. Unable to break clear of his bonds, or to bite through the gag in his mouth, he instead conducted a brief search of the cellar by means of rolling over and over on the floor. He soon came into contact with lumps of coal fallen from the large pile that occupied much of the space. His head was still pounding and ropes were biting into his wrists and ankles yet he managed a smile of sorts. The best way to move coal was with a shovel. There had to be one somewhere in the cellar. Huckvale started to roll with even more urgency.
When she left the theatre, Hannah craved reassurance. Ideally, she wanted to go back to the house and fling herself into Paul’s arms but she knew that he would not be there. The other person who’d offer her support and consolation was Charlotte, so she told the driver of the carriage to take her to the gallery. On the way there, she was smarting from what she felt was her maltreatment at the hands of Abel Mundy. Though his Christian beliefs held him back from using expletives, he’d nevertheless found words that could inflict deep wounds. As she recalled them, Hannah was affronted afresh. The carriage deposited her outside the gallery and she ran into the building. Flinging open the door, she dashed into the room used as an office, making Charlotte look up in surprise.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked, getting to her feet.
‘It was excruciating,’ cried Hannah. ‘I’ve just been through an unimaginable ordeal.’
Charlotte embraced her warmly then eased her gently into a chair. The tears came like a minor waterfall and all she could do was to wait for several minutes until Hannah had recovered enough to tell her friend what had befallen her. Nothing was left out of the narrative. She remembered each individual insult from the playwright. Reliving her ordeal brought on a fresh burst of tears at one point. Hannah then made an effort to sit up and regain her poise.
‘He’ll have to be dismissed,’ she said.
‘What about his play?’
‘It ought to be destroyed, Charlotte.’
‘Mr Fleet doesn’t think so.’
‘His judgement is abysmal.’
‘Yet he thinks that you have no peer on the English stage.’
‘In that instance, his opinion is sound,’ said Hannah, ‘but his assessment of Abel Mundy is woefully awry. That man is impossible to deal with.’
‘The meeting was not entirely a disaster,’ argued Charlotte. ‘When you heard that no less a person than Benjamin Tregarne would compose some songs for the play, you were delighted.’
‘It’s true. I was.’
‘Mr Mundy was also pleased.’
‘We both were, Charlotte.’
‘There must have been a wonderful feeling of goodwill as a result.’
‘There was, there was,’ said Hannah. ‘I was floating on air.’
‘That was before you made your demands.’
‘But they weren’t demands. They were sensible suggestions to improve the play and rescue it from its banality. I was trying to help.’
Much as she loved her friend, Charlotte had pangs of sympathy for Mundy. It was clear that he’d been cruelly provoked. Before they could discuss the meeting any further, Gully Ackford came into the room. He saw that Hannah had been crying.
‘I shed tears myself when I realised that he’d gone.’
‘Who had gone?’ asked Hannah.
‘Jem has been kidnapped. Isn’t that why you’ve been crying?’
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘Hannah was involved in an argument at the theatre,’ explained Charlotte.
‘What’s this about a kidnap?’
‘Jem disappeared earlier on. Gully is certain he was abducted.’
‘But why – and by whom?’
‘We don’t know, Hannah.’
‘Paul thinks he has the answer,’ said Ackford. ‘He believes that Hamer is behind it. Peter and Paul went off together to confront him.’
‘This is terrible,’ cried Hannah. ‘Why did you let me ramble on about my problems when this has happened? Why didn’t you tell me, Charlotte?’
‘You needed comfort.’
‘I feel so guilty. All that I had to endure was someone losing his temper. Jem Huckvale is the victim of a dreadful crime. Oh,’ she went on, ‘do forgive me for my selfishness. I should be thinking about Jem.’
‘We’ll find him somehow,’ said Ackford.
‘Why was he abducted?’
‘Someone wants to take our minds off Mr Bowerman’s murder. I suppose that that’s a good sign in a way.’
‘A good sign!’ exclaimed Hannah. ‘How can you possibly say that?’
‘It shows that we’ve made more progress than we thought. Our rivals are scared, Miss Granville. They’re trying to shackle us.’
‘Poor Jem! My heart goes out to him.’
‘If anyone can find him,’ said Charlotte, ‘it will be Peter and Paul.’
‘I hope they can find the man who kidnapped him as well,’ said Ackford, teeth gritted. ‘I’d like a word with him.’
‘What did you call yourself?’
‘The Reverend Philip Needham.’
The other man guffawed. ‘You’ve never been inside a church.’
‘He didn’t know that.’
‘You fooled him good and proper.’
‘My orders were to get him out of the way. That’s what we did.’
‘And we got well paid for it.’
He jingled the coins in his purse. The two of them were in a tavern, drinking ale and congratulating themselves on their success. Jem Huckvale had been easily deceived and just as easily overpowered.
‘Where did you get that name from?’ asked the shorter man.
‘Philip Needham? He was a real person.’
‘And was he a real priest?’
‘No, Nathan, he was a butcher. My parents wouldn’t get their meat from anyone else. He was a big, red-faced man with a huge belly on him.’
‘Talking of names, what’s his?’
‘Who?’
He held up the purse. ‘I mean the gentleman who gave us this.’
‘People like him don’t have names, Nathan.’
‘How did you find him?’
‘I didn’t – he found me.’
‘What happens to the lad we left in the coal cellar?’
‘Nothing – he stays there.’
‘I thought we’d have to let him go in the end.’
‘That was the idea, Nathan, and that’s what I agreed to do. I was to wait for the word then release him. But there’s no point now, is there?’ he said with a chuckle. ‘We’ve been paid so we can forget all about Jem Huckvale. As far as I’m concerned, he can stay in that cellar and rot.’
He lifted his tankard and downed the remainder of his ale.
Fresh from another reprimand at the hands of the chief magistrate, Yeomans and Hale redoubled their efforts to solve the crime. Information came in from a variety of sources but it was difficult to link it into a coherent whole. One item did catch their attention. There was a report of unlawful entry into an agency dealing with rental property, much of it in the vicinity where the murder occurred. Though nothing appeared to have been stolen, they felt that it was worth investigating. The agent gave the Runners a frosty reception.
‘It’s no good coming after the event,’ he said, spikily. ‘We expect you to prevent crime from happening in the first place.’
‘How did the burglar get in?’ asked Yeomans.
The agent pointed. ‘He climbed through that window.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It was still open when I got here later on.’
‘Yet nothi
ng was stolen, I hear.’
‘That’s not the point. Somebody was trespassing. It’s a crime.’
Hale studied the window. ‘It’s very small,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to climb through it and you couldn’t even get your head in, Micah.’ He recoiled from his companion’s punch then turned to the agent. ‘Has anyone been showing an unusual interest in this place recently?’
‘Oddly enough,’ said the agent, ‘there was someone.’
‘I don’t suppose that you remember his name.’
‘That’s an offensive remark. I always remember names.’
‘What was this man called?’
‘Peter Skillen.’ The Runners were astounded. ‘I see that you know him.’
‘We know him all too well,’ said Yeomans. ‘What did he want?’
‘Mr Skillen was keen to know who owned the house where a murder took place a few days ago. I refused to give it to him. It’s always been our policy to respect confidentiality.’
‘How keen was he for the information?’
‘He was extremely keen, not to say overeager.’
Turning slowly, Yeomans looked at the window. Hale read his mind.
‘It wasn’t him, Micah. Peter Skillen is agile but even he couldn’t wriggle through a space like that.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about him, Alfred.’
‘Then who were you thinking about?’
‘Jem Huckvale.’
Hampered by the ropes and the darkness, he took a long time to find the shovel. In the course of the search, he created small clouds of coal dust, some of which got into his eyes. In the end, however, he rolled up against something hard and metallic. It was the shovel. Because his hands were tied behind his back, Huckvale had to wriggle into the most uncomfortable position in order to get close to the shovel. He felt the edges of the implement for the sharpest point. Then he put the rope against it and rubbed as hard as he could. It was slow, painful work and he could feel the circulation being cut off in his arms but he persisted until his strength was almost drained. Making one last effort, he exerted as much pressure as he could, then felt the strands burst apart at last. After tearing off the gag, he undid the ropes around his ankles. He rubbed his ankles and his wrists. Huckvale then felt the bump on his head gingerly.
A Date with the Executioner Page 22