A Corpse in Shining Armour

by Caro Peacock

‘As I said, just waiting to make the great entrance in the ancestral armour. Only, if he doesn’t look out, it will be too late.’

  A trumpet sounded. The other knights began to form into a line, facing the ladies on the dais.

  ‘Almost too late for me too,’ Miles said.

  His tone changed to antique formality. He bowed to me from the saddle.

  ‘My lady, will you rescue me from shame and favour me with your token?’

  His eyes were on the ribbon belt at my waist.

  ‘Indeed I will not. I need that belt,’ I said.

  He laughed, gave me another bow and cantered away to join the rest of the knights. From their gestures, he was being mocked for not having a lady’s token, as he’d predicted.

  There was still no sign of Stephen. Rosa Fitzwilliam was staring fixedly ahead. You could see the tension in her neck, from not letting herself turn and look towards the road.

  The trumpet sounded again. The marshal rode to the centre of the list, facing the ladies’ dais, and opened his mouth to speak some no doubt sonorous and suitably medieval words. Instead came a shout of ‘Hold on a moment’ and general laughter. Miles cantered up beside the marshal, pulling his horse up so sharply that it stood on its hind legs, and half fell, half threw himself to the ground, managing to land on one knee.

  ‘My lady, will you rescue me from shame and favour me…’

  This time he was speaking to Rosa Fitzwilliam. Her mouth fell open in surprise, though even that didn’t spoil her beauty. At last she turned towards the entrance. Still no sign of her fiancé. Her white gloved hand went to the ribbon on her shoulder and hesitated there. For a moment her face took on an expression as stern as an emperor’s statue. Then she untied the bow and held it out to him. Her arm started trembling. She had to fight to steady it and to fix a gracious smile on her face.

  Her decision took Miles by surprise, everybody could see that. What had started as an act of bravado had become more serious altogether. The laughing and chattering had stopped and everybody was staring at them. For long moments he stayed on one knee. When he did stand up it was the abrupt and ungraceful movement of a clockwork toy. He took a step towards her, staring from the ribbon to her face and back again. He darted forward, took the ribbon and stepped back, the way a nervous colt might snatch a piece of carrot from the palm of a hand, still looking at her. Then he raised the ribbon to his lips and kissed it, not in a brief and formal way as the other knights had done, but fervently, keeping it at his lips for a long time. There were no ‘aaahs’ or applause this time. In total silence he mounted his horse and rode back to the other knights. Rosa Fitzwilliam had already returned to her seat. Although the ladies on either side of her had not visibly moved their chairs, it seemed that there was a larger space round her than before. The marshal, visibly annoyed, began his speech.

  ‘My ladies, my lords, good gentlefolk…’

  Beside me, Joe whispered, ‘If the brother rides in now, that’s gone and torn it.’

  I thought it had gone and torn it in any case. If the Brinkburns had been a normal family, what Miles had done might be been seen as a simple courtesy. The elder brother is unavoidably delayed and, rather than leave his lady without her knight, the younger brother temporarily fills his place. But they weren’t a normal family, and what had just happened didn’t look temporary. It had the feel of a small social earthquake that had rearranged familiar scenery so that it would never be the same again. Miles’s action had looked impulsive, and probably was. (On the other hand, perhaps that request to me had been a rehearsal.) Rosa Fitzwilliam was a different matter. The moment to make her decision had arrived sooner and more publicly than she’d expected, but it must have been in her mind for some time. However annoyed she’d been by Stephen’s absence, what she’d done didn’t look like impulsiveness. Having concluded, or been persuaded, that Miles was the more likely heir, she had publicly acknowledged him as her knight. That was the way it had looked to the crowd and how it would look to Stephen.

  I didn’t blame Rosa Fitzwilliam. Renowned beauty, in a man or a woman, is a gift like a fine singing voice or skill on the violin. It comes close to being public property, and makes its own rules that it would take an unusually strong nature to disobey. A fine singer would rather perform on the stage at Covent Garden than in a smoky room at a tavern. A great beauty marries the heir to a title, not a scandalously disinherited bastard son.

  As far as I was concerned, one of the interesting points about her decision was that the pro-Miles party must have gained ground in the few days that I’d been away from London. Were there rumours spreading that I didn’t know about? I watched the first pair of knights ride against each other, each managing to strike his opponent’s shield and stay in the saddle, then turned Rancie towards the stable block, wondering why Amos was hiding. On my way I passed a girl of around sixteen, fashionably dressed in pink silk and ivory lace, pretty enough but with a disappointed twist to her mouth. She had a prominent knot of pink ribbons on her shoulder and stood leaning on her parasol, looking wistfully towards the stables. When I wished her good afternoon, I got nothing but a resentful look. I rode on into the yard. A few horses looked out from their boxes, but with everyone watching the jousting it seemed deserted of people.

  As I sat looking round, a low whistle sounded from a box in the corner.

  ‘Amos?’

  I rode across and looked over the half-door. Sure enough, he was there in the shadows, sitting on a heap of straw. I slid down from the saddle.

  ‘What in the world are you doing in there?’ I said.

  He put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Is she still out there?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The pink one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He groaned. I asked him what was the matter.

  ‘She’s took it into her head that I’m going to be her champion. I’ve tried to tell her it won’t do, but she’s as stubborn as a mule in a clover patch.’

  I burst out laughing. Amos was accustomed by now to attentions from fashionable ladies, but they weren’t usually as young and blatant as this.

  ‘How did you meet her?’

  ‘I’ve been teaching her brother. I’ve sent word to him to come and take her away, only he’s waiting his turn to joust, so I’ve gone to ground here.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m here to chaperone you now. Will you help me put Rancie away, then we can talk?’

  We found an empty box for her, slackened the girth and ran up the stirrup. Amos was still wary and suggested the fodder room as a place for our conference. He threw a horse rug over a pile of hay for me to sit on, and perched on the edge of a feed bin.

  ‘What’s this about Stephen being missing?’ I said.

  ‘The day you went down to the country, he was supposed to meet me at the stables about those horses he wanted to buy, but he didn’t turn up. I didn’t think anything to it at first, but the next day somebody comes to the guvnor and wants to know if we’ve seen anything of him.’

  ‘Somebody from the family?’

  ‘No. Clerk type of a man, the guvnor said.’

  From Lomax, I thought.

  ‘And Stephen hasn’t been seen since the day Handy’s body was found?’

  ‘That’s right, eight days ago. He’s not been here to practise and he hasn’t been near the stable that keeps his horses, apart from the one time that nobody saw him.’

  ‘But if nobody saw him, how do they know?’

  ‘I’m coming to that. Handy’s body was found on the Tuesday, look. On the Wednesday morning, Mr Brinkburn’s groom comes in as usual and finds his best horse gone and its tack too. Nobody but him and Mr Brinkburn had the key to the tack room, so he decides he must have come in, saddled and bridled his own horse, and ridden off somewhere.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to the groom?’

  It hardly needed Amos’s nod to confirm it. He always spoke to the groom in the case.

  ‘And if Stephen was there before the
groom, he must have taken the horse very early,’ I said.

  ‘First light.’

  Distant cheers came from the direction of the lists. I told Amos what had happened between Miles Brinkburn and Rosa Fitzwilliam. He whistled.

  ‘Miles was expecting his brother to come riding up at the last minute in the ancestral armour to claim the favour from Rosa,’ I said. ‘He’d convinced himself that’s why Stephen had the armour collected from Pratt’s.’

  ‘I know, he’s been telling me all about it. I said I’d see what I could find out for him.’ He gave me a side-long look. ‘I knew you’d be wanting to know.’

  I could see the signs. Amos had a story to tell. I settled myself more comfortably on the rug, resolving to try not to interrupt.

  ‘There’s a friend of mine runs Bond Street,’ Amos said.

  ‘What!’

  Resolution broken at once. I was becoming used to Amos’s network of contacts in circles high and low, but luxury shopping was hardly part of his world.

  ‘I don’t mean the shops and so on.’ He waved them away, like swatting at a fly. ‘I mean the horses and carriages. Place like Bond Street, hundreds of carriages and thousands of horses up and down all day, somebody’s got to keep them sorted or it would be like a flock of geese with a fox loose, look. So my friend fixes who holds the horses and what they charge for it, and how long a carriage can stay in one place without having to pay more, and so on. And then the shops pay him if they want a place kept clear in front of them so that the carriages can draw up easy.’

  ‘Is all this official?’

  ‘’Course not. That’s why it works as well as it does.’

  ‘It sounds highly profitable. Do the police know about it?’

  ‘Yes, only they pretend not to as long as it all runs to order, which it does. Any road, my friend has to know what’s coming and going. If you get somebody offering to hold horses he doesn’t know about, or carriages not accounted for, it all breaks down.’

  ‘And your friend saw the carriage collecting the Brinkburn armour from Pratt’s?’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you. It was the day before yesterday, Monday, about four in the afternoon. Not the busiest for traffic because most of the gentry had gone to get their tea, but enough about still. Anyway, he notices this horse and cart going up the street because he hasn’t seen it before, and it’s so out of the ordinary he’d have remembered. It was a piebald cob, Gypsy-like, feather-footed, well enough turned out in its way, pulling a closed cart shaped like a coffin.’

  I started to say something then bit my lip.

  ‘There was one man driving it, and another one sitting on top of the cart,’ Amos went on. ‘They drew up outside Pratt’s and both men went inside. One of my friend’s boys comes running up to hold the horse. Minute or two later, both men come out with a crate, open the cart and put it in, then go back for another two. The man driving gives the boy his tuppence, turns the cart round as neat as you like, and they go back towards Piccadilly. My friend asks the boy where they’d come from. The boy didn’t have time to ask, but he noticed two things. The man who’d been riding on the cart had a left arm that hung funny, so he could only do the lifting with his right arm. And the cob had a brand on its hindquarters. Like a butterfly, the boy said. Neither my friend nor me had seen one like that, so we did a bit of asking around. I reckon I’ve come up with the answer.’

  ‘Which is?’

  He gave me one of his wait-and-see looks.

  ‘Do you fancy going to the circus?’

  I knew his ways well enough to understand I’d get no more answers until he was ready. Playing him at his own game, I said yes, thank you, I should be delighted to come to the circus, and he said he’d call for me at Abel Yard at five, going to the early performance on account of him having to be up early in the morning.

  We left the stable yard together, Amos leading Rancie and both of us keeping an eye out for the pink girl. She seemed to have given up her vigil, but Amos was still wary and wouldn’t part from me until we were safely back among the spectators. The jousting was still going on. The knights who’d already run their courses had taken off their helmets and were red-faced and sweating from the heat. Under their canopy, Rosa and the other ladies still looked as serene as swans. We found Joe, who held Rancie’s bridle while Amos helped me mount. Both of them had to stay until the end of the proceedings, because there were horses to be taken back to the stables. I assured them that I’d be perfectly safe on my own and rode out of the gateway, back towards town.

  As I came near the north side of Regent’s Park, I saw a policeman walking in front of me. He was a tall man, striding along at a good pace, in the usual uniform of tall hat and tail-coat, the tails of the coat weighed down by the bulge of a truncheon and the smaller bulge of handcuffs. I had some instinct about him and was tempted to keep behind, but the tedium of checking Rancie’s long easy stride would be too much for me. Besides, I had nothing on my conscience. Why should I be nervous of encountering a policeman, even an intelligent one? I rode level with him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Lane,’ he said, raising his hat.

  ‘Good afternoon, Constable Bevan. Have you been out to see the jousting too?’

  ‘I have. Most instructive.’

  I guessed from his tone that he’d witnessed the Miles and Rosa incident. He kept pace with us, walking close to Rancie’s near shoulder.

  ‘Were you there on duty?’ I said.

  ‘No, simply out of interest. I’m on night duty this week.’

  ‘Yet you’re in uniform.’

  ‘Regulations. A police officer must always be in uniform.’

  ‘You weren’t, in Buckinghamshire.’

  ‘That was in the country. It doesn’t count. It’s somewhat ridiculous, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We must wear a uniform signifying police and yet no regulation says the other side must wear uniforms saying Wrongdoer. It puts the side of law and order at a disadvantage, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘So you’d have the wrongdoers in uniform too, or the police in plain clothes?’

  ‘I think the latter would be more practical, don’t you? Some of us, at least. It will come, I’m sure.’

  ‘If I may say so, you strike me as a very unusual policeman,’ I said.

  He laughed.

  ‘I don’t intend to be patrolling the streets of London by night all the rest of my life, if that’s what you mean. Still, night duty has its interest.’

  Something about the way he said it made me wary.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve been talking to a colleague who was on patrol in Bond Street on the night of the Monday before last. That’s the night before Mr Brinkburn made that regrettable discovery at Pratt’s, if you remember.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘It was around two o’clock in the morning,’ he went on. ‘Our duties include keeping an eye on the doorways and windows of premises, in case anybody is attempting to break in. My colleague disturbed somebody at the side door of Pratt’s.’

  ‘Trying to break in?’

  ‘Certainly loitering in a suspicious manner. My colleague shone his lamp on him and he ran off to a gig parked round the corner and drove away at speed. On close inspection, it turned out that he had been trying to force the lock.’

  ‘I’m sure Bond Street attracts a lot of thieves,’ I said.

  ‘At a shop dealing in armour? And a thief in a gig? I asked my colleague to describe the man. He only had a fleeting view, of course, but his account was interesting. He said the person was a young gentleman with very dark hair.’

  He emphasised the word ‘gentleman’. We walked on a few strides.

  ‘I saw the younger Mr Brinkburn at the inquest,’ Constable Bevan said. ‘He has dark hair. I gather that his brother’s is lighter.’

  ‘Half the men in London have dark hair,’ I said.

  Constable Bevan nodded, as if he’d expected my reaction.

&n
bsp; ‘Quite so. We mustn’t jump to conclusions, must we? Shall you be going back to Buckinghamshire, Miss Lane?’

  ‘That’s my business, Constable Bevan.’

  I let my heel press lightly against Rancie’s flank and she moved instantly into her faster walking pace, leaving him behind in a few strides. He had been intolerably familiar, but what annoyed me more was his obvious belief that I was close to Miles Brinkburn.

  When I got home, there was another annoyance of the same kind, in the form of a note from Celia, with two rectangles of deckle-edged pasteboard enclosed in it. The date was that day’s.

  Dearest Elizabeth,

  Are you back in town yet? I’ve had no answer to the note I sent you in the country, so perhaps it missed you. I’m still confined to my sofa and am almost dying of boredom. Philip and I were invited to the Fair Ladies ball at Lady D’s this evening, but that tyrant of a doctor won’t hear of my going even if I promise faithfully not to dance, and of course dear Philip won’t go without me, even though I told him he should and at least bring me back a few crumbs of gossip. So I am enclosing our tickets in case you can make use of them. I know one is not supposed to pass them on, but everybody does and there’ll be such a scrimmage there that nobody will ever notice. If you do make use of them, you are to visit me tomorrow without fail and bring me not just crumbs but whole slices of gossip, especially about you know who and you know who else, who have definitely been invited. Please do not fail your affectionate friend,

  Celia

  I was about to throw the tickets away then, on second thoughts, tucked them into my reticule. If Celia had seen that, she’d have drawn quite the wrong conclusion.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Amos drove into the yard at five minutes to five in a black-lacquered phaeton with cream leather upholstery and primrose yellow wheel spokes, drawn by a strawberry roan cob. He wore his brown top hat with a silver cockade, and his neckcloth and the rosebud in his buttonhole were yellow to match the wheel spokes. He swung himself down to hand me to my seat.