by Caro Peacock
‘It’s a serious offence to withhold information about crimes.’
He said it in a tone that made it sound like a casual observation, rather than the threat it was.
‘If you think I’m withholding information, then say so outright.’
He nodded, as if accepting that was as far as he’d get, and glanced towards the gates. I thought I’d called his bluff and was relieved to have got off so easily.
‘Well, I’ll wish you good day then, Miss Lane.’
He half-raised his hat, turned away, then pivoted back.
‘But I was forgetting where we started, wasn’t I? Your maid.’
‘If you’ve anything to tell me about Tabby, then say it.’
The look he gave me then was like the expression on an angler’s face when he stares at the circles fish make on water, all the while weighing up where to cast his line.
‘Another coincidence–the biggest of the lot, you might say. When and where did you last see this Tabby?’
My brain clammed up with fear, so I had to struggle to count back the days. I thought he was about to tell me she was dead.
‘Friday evening, or afternoon, rather. Three days ago. There was a storm you see and…’
I managed to collect my wits enough to give him a short account of Tabby arguing with the maids and rushing out.
‘Did you ever send her to do shopping for you?’ he said.
‘What’s that got to do with it? Yes, she ran the occasional errand for me here in London. When we were at the cottage, she bought food at the village shop.’
‘Food. You didn’t by any chance ask her to buy laudanum?’
I stared, wondering if I’d heard aright.
‘Of course not. I don’t use laudanum.’
‘Then how do you account for the fact that on Saturday afternoon a young woman who sounds very like your Tabby walked into a chemist’s shop in Maidenhead and bought a bottle of laudanum? An unusually strong solution of laudanum, as it happens.’
‘There must be some mistake.’
The words sounded lame even in my own ears. The sceptical look on Constable Bevan’s face showed what he thought of them.
‘Another coincidence, then. Short, skinny girl of fifteen or so, dark hair, good teeth, a bit of an impudent look about the eyes. Sounds very much like the young woman I spoke to down at your cottage by the river.’
‘That description could fit a lot of girls.’
‘True enough. Still, there was one thing the chemist noticed in particular. Her voice. Broad cockney, he said. Proper broad cockney. Doesn’t that sound like your girl?’
I looked down in the dust where the hens were pecking. Somewhere among them was the one she’d tied up, just to get my attention. I didn’t try to answer him because there was nothing I could say.
‘If you decide there’s anything you want to tell me, my beat’s the south side of this end of Oxford Street,’ he said.
He tipped his hat again and this time really did start walking away. I called after him.
‘The girl–what happened to her?’
He turned.
‘She bought the laudanum, left the shop, that was that. As far as my friend could make out, nobody’s seen her since.’
Then he walked on and out of the gates, leaving me looking down at the chickens.
I spent a bad hour up in my room, trying to make sense of what he’d told me. The girl in the chemist’s had been Tabby. Either that, or Constable Bevan was playing some complicated game for his own purposes, but I couldn’t see why. Looked at one way, there was a horrible logic to it. Tabby quarrels with the maids, walks out, and next morning is seen in the nearest town buying a bottle of laudanum. Was it with some idea of poisoning Dora and Ruth in revenge, or killing herself, in despair at being made a mockery? An outsider would say that either was possible, but–when the shock began to wear off–I couldn’t believe either. Tabby had taken her revenge in a direct and characteristic way, rubbing ham in her tormentor’s face. If she’d decided that wasn’t enough, she was far more likely to have stormed back and knocked both girls down than used some sophisticated method like poisoning. As for self-destruction, it was beyond belief that a girl tough enough to survive homeless on the streets of London would be driven to end her life by two silly housemaids. Besides, what would she know about laudanum? It was an indulgence above her class. In her world, if people wanted to drink themselves into temporary insensibility, it was gin not laudanum in the glass. And where would she get the money for laudanum? I’d never given her more than a copper or two at a time. When she went shopping, she was scrupulous about bringing back my change. If Tabby had bought laudanum, somebody else had given her the money for it.
That raised quite a different possibility that turned the whole case on its head. Lady Brinkburn was increasingly dependent on laudanum. Both Robert Carmichael and her maid were worried about that and trying to limit the amount she took. Suppose Lady Brinkburn had encountered Tabby wandering in the grounds. She’d already used her to run one errand, in delivering a note to me. Why not borrow her for her own purposes? So Tabby had bought the laudanum for her and delivered it, probably at some secluded place chosen by Lady Brinkburn so that nobody else would ever know. Then later Lady Brinkburn drank the full bottle, lay down in her boat and died, without anybody else being involved, and my suspicions of Stephen and Miles were moonshine. That seemed to me much more likely than any other possibility, but it left one great question unanswered. After she’d run her errand, what had happened to Tabby?
I puzzled at it until my head was spinning so much that only a walk across the park would clear it. It was high time I called on Amos Legge. His practicality and commonsense were an antidote to too much theorising, and there was always a chance that he’d know what to do next.
It was mid-afternoon by this time, the drives so packed with fashionable carriages that a nimble urchin could swing from one to the other the length of the park without setting foot on the ground. I saw several who seemed to be trying it, until footmen noticed and dislodged them. The urchins simply rolled themselves into balls, stood up and shook off the worst of the dust, then dived for the back of the next carriage. The stables where Amos worked seemed quiet in comparison. The door of Rancie’s box was open, a boy forking fresh straw inside, so she must be out in the park, earning her oats with some suitably gentle-handed lady rider. I was sorry to have missed Rancie, because she always managed to calm me when I needed it, and that day I needed it very much. Rancie’s black cat, Lucy, came up to me and rubbed against my skirt. I bent to stroke her and noticed that there was some new smell around the yard, making her twitch her sensitive whiskers. The smell had nothing to do with horses. In fact it reminded me, against my will, of what Constable Bevan had been saying about barbers.
The door of the office next to the tack room opened and Amos Legge walked out, holding a small bottle. He was dressed with less than his usual elegance, in breeches and shirtsleeves, with a leather farrier’s apron over them. He seemed pleased to see me, but had a slightly guilty look and put the hand with the bottle behind his back. Then he looked at my face and his smile faded.
‘You were there when they found the lady, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry for that.’
I wanted to tell him about Tabby, but somebody shouted to him from inside the office, telling him to hurry up. He gave me an apologetic look.
‘We’ve got to get it done so it dries in time, but the way the lad’s fuddling about, the funeral will be over before we get there.’
‘Funeral?’
But he was striding away towards a loosebox. I followed. I supposed a horse had some small injury, and it was always useful to learn from Amos’s expertise.
The occupants of the box were a stable lad, looking nervous, and a very large black gelding, not in the best of tempers. I’d seen the lad before, but not the horse. Amos opened the half door and went in, making reassuring sounds at the horse. It rolled its eyes
and flared its nostrils at him.
‘He won’t let me put the twitch on him,’ the lad said.
‘We don’t need no twitch for this. It’s not as if we’re hurting him. It’s only the smell of it bothers him.’ He gave the bottle to the boy. ‘You be careful you don’t spill it. The guvnor says it costs more than French brandy. I’ll see he stays quiet.’
He put his hand on the horse’s neck and murmured a string of words to it in his deep Herefordshire voice. There was no particular sense to them, but even to my ears they were as soothing as the cooing of doves. Soon the big horse had dropped his head and was standing quietly. He was a fine beast, sixteen hands high or more, and pure black apart from one white sock on the near hind and a small white blaze.
At a nod from Amos, the lad squatted down by the horse’s near hind, poured liquid from the bottle on to a cloth and dabbed it on to the horse’s white sock. The smell I’d noticed outside filled the box and the horse shifted a little, but stayed calm enough under Amos’s hand for the white to be turned black. Then Amos took the bottle and cloth from the lad and quickly did the same to the small white blaze on the animal’s forehead, before it had a chance to realise what was happening.
‘Thar lad, good lad.’
He produced a carrot from his pocket, snapped it into pieces and fed it to the horse, murmuring quietly to it all the time. When he was sure it was completely calm, he opened the box door and the three of us filed out. I waited till the lad had gone about his business.
‘Are you turning horse thief then?’ I said to Amos.
He laughed.
‘Undertaker, more like. You’ve surely seen that trick done before.’
‘Yes, but isn’t it usually with boot polish?’
I knew that some people were very fussy about having the horses that drew their carriages matched to perfection. A groom could do a lot with black boot polish to even up markings on legs and foreheads. Amos shook his head.
‘Quality job, this one. A very particular customer.’
‘He can’t be so very particular if he’s dead, can he?’
‘Left instructions in his will: six coal-black geldings to draw the hearse, four coal-black mares for the mourning coach, all geldings to be matched at sixteen hands or above, all mares at fifteen two. Now how many pure coal-black horses have you seen in your life?’
‘Not many.’
‘And then not as many as you think. Even the ones that look black usually have a touch of white on them somewhere. So any stables with a horse for hire that’s big enough and can be made to look black enough is in a good market. It’s not just the one stage, either. The hearse and mourning coach have got to go all the way from Kingston to Portsmouth, and that’s three changes, even going slow like they will be.’
Until then, I’d been laughing at the absurd vanity of it, but the name Kingston rang a hollow bell with me.
‘Do I know this late gentleman?’ I said.
‘You know his sons, any road.’
‘Lord Brinkburn?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘He was in a private asylum near Kingston upon Thames. Why are they taking his body from there to Portsmouth?’
‘As far as I gather, he’s said in his will he’s to be buried in Rome, so they’ve got to put him on a ship. They’ll have had him embalmed, I reckon, this weather.’
‘He thought he was the Emperor Hadrian,’ I said. ‘I suppose that’s why he wanted to be buried in Rome.’
Then I thought that a madman’s will would have no legal force, so Lord Brinkburn must have laid down all these arrangements while he still passed for sane. Had he chosen his final resting place because his first wife had died there? If so, it was the first and last sign of softness I’d heard of in the monstrous man. I supposed there’d be no such pomp for Lady Brinkburn. As soon as the coroner allowed, she’d probably be buried in the village churchyard as quietly as she’d lived, with the hated Handy just the other side of the wall. It was odd that three of the people who’d set out from Newcastle on that not exactly honeymoon tour twenty-three years ago had died within two weeks of each other.
‘When’s this cortège setting out?’ I said.
‘Midday tomorrow. Soon as he dries off, I’m taking this one and the mare over to Kingston, to be ready.’
‘I suppose the Brinkburn sons will have to be there tomorrow?’
‘Bound to be.’
Amos strolled up a few doors to another loosebox. A broad black face looked over the door and accepted a piece of carrot from him.
‘Quiet as a cushion, this one,’ he said. ‘Didn’t give us no trouble. Useful mare, schooled to side saddle as well as driving.’
He looked at me.
‘Nice ride to Kingston, across Richmond Park. I was going to ride the other one and lead the mare, but I could just as easy have a saddle put on her.’
I was about to say I couldn’t go jaunting out to the country. I’d lost Tabby, my case had collapsed round me so I could expect no fee, and I had no idea what to do next. Then I thought, Why not?
‘So I’d better go home and change into my riding costume,’ I said.
He grinned.
‘I’ll have her ready by the time you get back.’
As I walked to Abel Yard, I realised that the attraction of a long ride in the country was not the only reason for my decision. The absurd funeral cortège was the nearest I’d ever get to the man who’d been the cause of so much trouble. I wanted to see him on the road behind his six black horses, with his sons paying their last respects to a man who’d done nothing to deserve respect. Since I’d followed him, through the journal, on one decisive journey of his life, it was fitting in its way that I’d see him set out on his last one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A man was waiting outside my locked door at Abel Yard. He had the look of a superior domestic servant who’d been unfairly put upon, standing with bent head and drooping shoulders as a protest about being kept waiting. He’d have been more comfortable sitting on the mounting block in the shade, but that would have deprived him of his sense of grievance.
‘Miss Lane? I was instructed to deliver this directly into your hands.’
He handed me a folded and sealed paper, with an air that said he wasn’t accustomed to being used as a messenger boy, and left without asking whether there was a reply. I recognised the handwriting as Disraeli’s. The message was short.
Dear Miss Lane,
There has been an unexpected development in the case which concerns us. If a certain report which has come to me is true, matters are not as we have been led to believe. I should be grateful for a chance to discuss the situation with you. I am escorting Mary Anne to a recital this evening. I enclose a ticket in the hope that we may meet there.
I unlocked the door and went upstairs, not knowing whether to be annoyed or amused. It was typical of my association with Disraeli that he should have suggested a public place for our meeting, including, in this case, his bride-to-be as chaperone. I could never decide whether this was from concern for my reputation or his own. From experience, he would contrive a few minutes for us to be alone among the fashionable crowd and have our conference. It was typical, too, that he should assume I had nothing better to do with my time and not tell his servant to wait for a reply. He’d count on my curiosity, if not my obedience, to ensure that I did as he wanted. Well, this time he was wrong. I was looking forward too much to my long ride with Amos and my curiosity wasn’t in the least piqued because I was sure I already knew what Disraeli wanted to tell me. He prided himself on knowing what was happening everywhere and would have heard by now that Lady Brinkburn had signed a paper naming her younger son as legal heir. Old news, as far as I was concerned. I looked forward to telling him so when we met, but that could wait now until after the funeral.
By evening, Amos and I were cantering together across Richmond Park, with the sun going down behind the old oak trees and red deer running beside us. Amos had to hold
the big gelding back so that my mare could keep up, and I missed Rancie’s speed and lightness of foot. Still, she was a kindly animal and obviously enjoyed a day out of her usual routine. When we slowed to a walk on the Kingston side of the park, I told Amos all I’d discovered about the Brinkburns. He’d been considerate as ever on the journey, not pressing me, but I wanted his opinion because he sometimes seized on things I’d missed. He listened and shook his head.
‘So the lady killed herself, after all?’
‘What else can I think? It was Tabby buying the laudanum, I’m afraid there’s no doubt of that. I’m convinced she wasn’t buying it for herself, so who else would have asked her to do it but Lady Brinkburn?’
‘Meaning to kill herself with it?’
‘That’s what I can’t decide. She might just have been desperate for sleep and taken too much. But there’s the question of the boat. I doubt if it would have come untied accidentally. If she’d decided to die, it would be just like her to untie it, lie down and float away.’
He turned his big gelding out of the park gates, on to the road.
‘And you reckon she might have done away with herself because she killed Handy and regretted it?’ he said.
‘I don’t think she did regret it, if she did it. As far as she was concerned, it was retribution on Handy for helping Brinkburn kill his first wife.’
‘Do you reckon the first wife was killed, then?’
‘I don’t know, but she’d convinced herself they’d killed her, and that’s what matters.’
‘So if she did it and wasn’t ashamed of it, why kill herself?’
‘I doubt if she was being so rational. The problem for her was that it all seemed to be part of a pattern: Handy suddenly appearing again, this notion of hers that her husband intended to take her with him when he died. Or perhaps she was just tired of it all.’
‘You said she had a stubborn streak. Would she have killed herself, leaving things as they are between the sons? Wouldn’t she want to see it settled before she went?’