by Jean Rowden
‘You can hardly plead weariness and retire early every night,’ she replied, stung that he could read her so easily, ‘perhaps his lordship will find himself awake enough to claim his rights tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, moving away and picking up his clothes. ‘But in my luggage there’s a little bottle. The drug it contains is harmless, and quite undetectable. It’is easy to administer, and I find it guarantees even the most suspicious husband a sound night’s sleep.’
Chapter Three
The ragged man leaning against the old gibbet stirred, his head lifting as the distant clock struck three. It wasn’t the bell that roused him; somebody was coming. The scarecrow figure gazed along the road towards the west, giving a faint nod once he could make out the two riders. They were muffled from head to foot as if against the cold although, even at this hour, the summer night was mild.
Eyes narrowed, the watcher didn’t move again, his gaze fixed on the newcomers. There seemed little to distinguish between them in build, or in the way they leapt from their saddles: young men, both of them, and in a hurry. They strode towards the foot of the wooden stake where the vagabond stood waiting.
As they drew near, the leader’s horse baulked, rearing in alarm, just as Docket’s mount had done two hours earlier; possibly animals sensed an ancient evil lingering in this desolate spot. Even men, insensitive creatures as they were, usually chose to avoid the place at night. The beast’s rider cursed softly, trying to subdue the terrified animal, but it refused to approach any closer. After a moment the man flung the reins to his companion and went on to meet the tramp alone.
‘All quiet?’ the man demanded, a hand shooting out with incredible speed to grasp the rags at the vagrant’s neck and pulling them tight until the ragged cloth began to tear. His tone was low, barely above a whisper, but the way he spoke marked him a gentleman.
‘Ain’t seen a soul,’ his captive rasped in reply. ‘Been ’ere since eleven,’ he added, with a hint of reproach. ‘I hopes it’s you what’s got summat for me.’
‘A knife in the ribs, or a bullet in the head, if you double-cross us,’ the gentleman replied. Almost lazily, he moved his grip to the tramp’s throat.
The second rider dismounted, dragging the two nervous horses with him so he could approach the other men. ‘No need for that,’ he murmured. ‘He knows what his life’s worth if he betrays us, don’t you, Cobb?’
The man addressed as Cobb nodded, as far as the grip on his neck would allow. ‘I keeps me mouth shut an’ I takes me pay. You got me word.’ His voice faded to a throaty whine. ‘I needs to breathe. Please to let me go, y’r lordship.’
His captor laughed, but he released his hold. ‘I’m not a lord just yet.’ He glanced back at his companion. ‘Give us time, eh? A few more months and who knows, we could both be dining at the palace.’ From inside his coat he pulled something wrapped in thin leather and tied with string. ‘So, this once we’re dealing with the organ grinder instead of one of his monkeys. I was wondering if we’d ever meet you again. You know what to do with this stuff, and you’ll bring our share back here. I’ve a good idea of value, if you try taking more than your cut I’ll know, so keep your thieving hands off.’
The strange tramp who had waited so patiently at the crossroads shook his head indignantly. ‘Fetch’n’carry Cobb, tha’s me. You dealt wi’ me before, an’ if that ain’t enough then you ask them as knows. I’m good at me trade, an’ I ain’t never pinched nothin’.’ He held out a hand to take the package.
‘Come on,’ the man with the horses urged, as the other hesitated, ‘the longer we’re away, the more chance there is of something going wrong. As it is, your games tonight might have cost us dearly. You and your whoring— It’ll be light before we get back to….’
His words were cut off with a hiss as his fellow conspirator swung round to strike him a stinging blow across the face. ‘No names, you fool! All right, Cobb, I suppose you’re as honest as any of your kind, though that’s not saying much.’ Still with some show of reluctance he surrendered the package to Cobb, and it vanished swiftly inside the ragged shirt.
‘Faugh,’ the gentleman said, taking a step backwards. ‘I’m surprised you can live with your own foul stink! Take good care of our property, or you’ll live to regret it.’
The man at his side laughed, rubbing at his face. ‘But not for long!’ he breathed. ‘Double-cross my friend, Cobb, and your miserable existence will come to a messy end.’ He turned suddenly to look behind him, his hands fumbling on the bunched reins, separating his mount’s from the other. ‘Did you hear something? You never should have risked starting so late, you and your damned appetite for petticoats. Hurry up and give him the directions, and let’s go.’
‘There’s nothing there. You’d jump at your own shadow.’ His companion dismissed his concerns with a shrug, closing in on Cobb, his fingers reaching for the man’s throat again. ‘We need to arrange our next meeting. I hope you know the moors as well as you know London, Cobb. There’s a foul little gin house called the Crooked Man, twenty miles east of here. It’s about a mile north of the London road, not far from a village called Kerwannick.’
‘Wha’s wrong wi’ the gibbet?’ Cobb grumbled, twisting to look up at the blackened wood above his head. ‘Ain’t this quiet enough for yer?’ He made a strange strangled noise as the gentleman’s fingers tightened.
‘I never use the same place twice, Cobb. The Crooked Man,’ he repeated, a little louder than before. ‘It’s owned by a villain called Slaney, speak to him and nobody else; tell him you’re looking for Mr Pike, and he’ll send you to me. Speak to Slaney, ask for Mr Pike. Got that, Cobb? Exactly four weeks from tonight, and make sure you’re there.’
‘Crooked Man, name of Slaney. Ask for Pike. Four weeks.’ Cobb repeated hoarsely, one clawed hand scratching feebly at the fingers squeezing his windpipe. ‘Lemme breathe, y’r honour, for Gawd’s sake.’
‘A moment more, I want to be sure I have your attention. Nobody double crosses me.’ He glanced round to see his friend mounting his horse, still peering warily into the darkness, and he gave a faint scornful laugh. ‘It seems we’re in a hurry. Are you listening, man?’
Cobb’s mouth worked but no sound emerged. He nodded his head.
‘Right. While you’re in London I want you to find a good market for a pair of …’
This time there could be no denying the noise that broke the surrounding silence, or that it came from somewhere close by; it was a cough, and unmistakably human.
‘What was that?’ The rider circled, staring wildly across the ragged thorn bushes topping the nearby bank.
Abandoning his hold on Cobb, the other man thrust a hand inside his coat and drew out a long-barrelled pistol. ‘Who’s there?’ He cocked the weapon. ‘Answer me or I fire.’
A light flared into existence not fifty yards away; somebody had struck a match and thrown it into the hedge where the dry wood caught instantly, and the flames spread, lighting up the crossroads more brightly than any moonlight.
‘By God, the bastard’s betrayed us!’ The man with the pistol leapt for his horse, tearing the reins from his friend’s grasp.
Cobb half fell back against the gibbet post and clung there, gasping for breath and looking wildly around him. His tormentor, mounted now, swung the weapon towards the tramp, but before he could take aim a voice barked from the darkness. ‘Stay where you are, you rogues! Stand or we shoot!’
The rider hesitated for a second. Cobb didn’t waste his one chance, and dropped sideways to the ground. A bullet narrowly missed his head, the sound of that first shot lost in a ragged volley; a row of men had leapt belatedly to their feet, showing now above the low rampart.
‘Aim for the horses, bring ’em down!’ A rougher voice this, coming from the far end of the earth bank, but the shout came too late, for the two fugitives were already spurring away.
Cobb stayed flat, a wise move, for the shooting was wild, and several shots passed close abov
e his head. For a full minute all around him was a chaos of tramping feet, shouts, and the deafening crackle of gunfire. The roar of the dry thorn bushes crumbling to ash grew louder; the flames leapt to eat greedily at the grass surrounding the gibbet post, parched after a dry spell.
‘Hold your fire!’ Cobb shouted, in a voice that would have brought a squad of army recruits to a quivering halt. Despite coming from such an unlikely source, the order was instantly obeyed. Choking, he came to his knees, squinting into the distance; the two riders were out of range and galloping free, evidently unharmed.
Docket came to stand over the tramp. ‘I’ll thank you not to give orders to Sir Martin’s men, Sergeant Beddowes,’ he said mildly.
‘Somebody needed to,’ the man who had called himself Cobb replied shortly, rising to his feet and straightening his back with evident relief. He was almost a foot taller than he’d appeared while hunched against the gibbet post. ‘The rogues are well away and there’s no point wasting ammunition. I suppose there’s no chance that Sir Martin will have persuaded Major Digby to remain at his post?’ The question was civil enough, but there was something in its tone that suggested censure.
‘I doubt it; he was always a reluctant recruit to our cause. I’m sorry, it looks as if we’ve lost them.’
‘Reckon I may ’ave winged one of they rogues, Mr Docket, sir,’ a man called. ‘I reckon I ’eard ’im yell.’
‘There’s a chance then,’ Docket said.
The tramp shook his head. ‘If he couldn’t hit a target as big as two horses, I’ve not too much hope he’ll have nicked one of the men.’ He shielded his eyes against the ever growing light from the flames. ‘If we don’t put out that fire we’ll have the moor alight from here to the coast.’
Several minutes of furious activity saw the worst of the fire out. Leaving the other men to finish the job, Docket drew Beddowes to one side. ‘At least we have one piece of good news for Sir Martin. What did that man give you? I assume we’ve recovered a little of what has been stolen.’
‘I’d rather have taken the man than the goods,’ the sergeant said sourly. ‘That’s what I was sent here to do. Given another minute that poxy rogue might have told me something useful. He was asking about a market for something special.’ He reached within his rags and pulled out the package he’d been given, untying the string that secured the contents, and unfolding a piece of soft leather to reveal a black velvet bag. Gesturing to Docket to hold out his hands, the sergeant carefully poured the contents into them.
The last flickering light from the fire sent bright shards of colour cascading from the stones that dropped into the young man’s palms. Docket gasped. His hands were almost overflowing with rich red rubies, white glittering diamonds and a scatter of blue and green, from sapphires and emeralds. A murmur arose from the men who’d abandoned their task to edge closer, fascinated by the sight of a fortune in precious gems.
Beddowes jerked his head and the two men moved further away before returning the loot to the bag. ‘Here, pretend to put it out of sight, then pass it back to me,’ Beddowes muttered, thrusting the packet at Docket.
‘Don’t you trust me, Sergeant?’ Looking annoyed, Docket did as he was asked, delivering the package back to Beddowes once he was sure the manoeuvre couldn’t be seen. ‘I’d assumed we’d go to Clowmoor House together at first light.’
‘I’m not going to Sir Martin. Don’t you see? If we return these jewels to their owners then we’ll lose any hope of catching the thieves. Of course, if his lordship decides that’s what he wants then I’ll obey his wishes. I can’t say I’d be sorry to lose these rags and get a decent meal inside me, but I’ve no wish to let the beggars go free.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘This little debacle will have put our villains on their guard. There’s just a chance, if I return their loot to them, that they might be persuaded to trust me again. That’s if I can find them, because you can be sure they won’t turn up at the rendezvous we arranged.’
‘No, they’ll be sure you betrayed them. Sergeant, you can’t seriously intend to try and keep up the pretence? Not after tonight? They’re sure to blame you for what happened, what other possible explanation could there be for their walking into a trap?’
‘I’ll need to come up with something, and fast,’ Beddowes conceded, scratching his head unthinkingly, before looking with disgust at his filthy broken fingernails. ‘Who coughed? Another minute and I’d have downed our man, and by now we’d all be on our way back to our beds.’
‘I set his lordship’s chief gamekeeper to find out,’ Docket replied. ‘Woodham, come over here and tell us who ruined our night’s work for us.’
Woodham was a short square man; as they set up the trap he’d treated Beddowes with a lack of respect that bordered on contempt, but Sir Martin’s head gamekeeper was meek and obedient now, standing before his master’s secretary with a look of unease on his blunt features.
‘Well, it’s like this, sir,’ he began, twirling his cap nervously between his fingers. ‘We was a bit short of men, what with Abe Lidden and his bad back, and Tom Pencarne’s boy going off to join the navy so sudden. I asked around at the market in Trembury, and this chap was eager for a night’s work. Said his name was Bragg, and he’d worked for Mr Detreath at Clow Head, until the mine closed. He looked to be down on his luck, but he seemed a reliable sort, so I agreed to take him on. I told him I’d see how it went, and maybe put in a word with his lordship about taking him on proper like. Fact is though, he seems to have run off in all the kerfuffle. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him since them shots were fired.’
‘You knew this operation was to be kept secret, yet you engaged a man you’d never even seen before?’ Docket shook his head in disgust. ‘It’s a wonder the rogues came at all. He could have tipped them off before they came within miles of us!’
‘He had no chance to tip anyone the wink, sir,’ Woodham said. ‘I made sure of that. He was pretty much under my eye all day.’
‘That didn’t stop him giving those villains a warning, did it?’ Docket cast an apologetic glance at Beddowes. ‘I’ll speak to Sir Martin about this, Woodham, I’d have thought you’d have more sense. Anything else you want to ask this fool in the meantime, Sergeant?’
‘There is something I’d like to know, Woodham,’ Beddowes said. ‘Could you and the rest of the men hear what was being said between me and those two rogues?’
‘I only heard one thing,’ Woodham said, sounding sulky at being forced to speak directly to the man from London, whom he clearly despised. ‘And that was when the gentleman mentioned the Crooked Man. I was a lot closer than Bragg, but there’s a chance he heard it too. I was thinking maybe the cough was an accident. Perhaps he got something caught in his throat, like, and couldn’t help himself.’
‘Then why would he run off?’ Docket said.
‘Well, he’d know he was in trouble, with the game flushed and nothing in the bag,’ Woodham replied.
‘How old was this man Bragg? Was there anything of note in his appearance that would help to find him again?’ Beddowes asked.
‘Aye, he had a scar across the side of his chin,’ Woodham replied, drawing a finger along his jaw. ‘You could see it through his beard, that being a bit on the thin side. He wasn’t a young man, forty maybe.’
‘Where does that get us?’ Docket asked, turning back to Beddowes.
‘I’m not sure,’ Beddowes confessed, ‘I’ll let you know if I find out.’
Docket sighed. ‘If you’re not coming back with me, I suppose I’d better go and report to Sir Martin. You’re sure you don’t want to spend a few hours in a comfortable bed and get a good meal inside you while there’s a chance?’’
‘Best not, sir, thank you,’ Beddowes replied stolidly. ‘I’ll bed down somewhere of my own choosing if you don’t mind. No point risking being seen with you. It’s bad enough having to trust your men to keep their mouths shut, especially in light of what’s just happened.’<
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‘Don’t worry about that,’ Docket looked grim. ‘Sir Martin will put the fear of god into Woodham over this, we’ll have no more mistakes.’
‘Nevertheless, I’ll be better leaving by myself,’ Beddowes said. ‘I’ll be in touch when I have news.’ As he turned away he seemed to shrink, and it was an old hunch-backed vagabond who went slinking away into the dark.
‘Odd sort of man,’ Docket commented, speaking as much to himself as the gamekeeper who stood at his side.
Woodham snorted. ‘Can’t say I was sorry he decided not to come with us, Mr Docket. I’m no bed of roses, but I’ve an idea that stench could carry half a mile.’
Chapter Four
After a disturbed night Phoebe made up her mind; she must visit the ruins. If Annie, the nursery maid, wasn’t the worst kind of gossip, she might have left the children with her for a while, but Annie was the kind of girl who wouldn’t believe there could be such a thing as a perfectly innocent meeting between a governess and a young working man. At least it was a fine day, and that gave her an idea.
‘It’s time Master Rodney learnt a little more about the history of Knytte,’ Phoebe said, as Annie finished fastening Eliza’s coat. ‘We shall begin with the ruins of the monastery. Not many children are fortunate enough to have so much of the past at their fingertips. Once you have finished your duties here you may come and join us if you wish, Annie, it would be a treat for you. The development of the monasteries is a fascinating subject.’ She knew from past experience that the nursery maid hated listening to any sort of lesson.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Miss, but I’ve orders to help with the downstairs, once the nursery is done.’