by Joan Smith
Luten assumed a gruff voice and said, “Carriage.” Black scooped her up in his arms and they got her, squirming and kicking like a wild animal, into the carriage. Coffen got in behind them to bind her hands and feet, then left her with Black and joined Luten and Prance outside the carriage.
They spoke in low voices. “Cripps got clean away?” Coffen asked.
“Out the bedroom window and vanished in the darkness.”
“We can’t let her go. She’ll run straight to Brown.”
Luten had already racked his brains for a better solution, but in the end said, “We’ll take her to Norval’s place.”
They did this, and as Black said later, he’d as soon have traveled with a carriage full of wild cats. At Norval’s house, Corinne and Evans came out to meet them, masked and carrying dark lanterns. She just stared to see Black carry out not Cripps but a struggling woman, whom she soon recognized as Flora. Evans was positively dumbfounded.
When Black had carried Flora in, Corinne said to Luten, “I thought the cellar, but for a girl – There might be mice, Luten. Let us use the attic.”
He just nodded. Corinne ran inside, opened the window of her dark lantern and led Black and his troublesome armful to the attic. Luten and Evans followed. Black performed his magic with the ropes, untying the knots made in haste in the dark and retying them more securely, all without saying a word. Corinne beckoned to Evans. They rooted through trunks for old clothes, reeking of camphor, and arranged a bed of sorts for her.
Corinne was overcome with compassion when they were about to leave and whispered to her. “We’re not going to harm you. You’ll be free tomorrow.”
Flora kicked at her, while rumbling something unintelligible but angry from her throat. The Berkeley Brigade returned to Luten’s house, feeling not only extremely foolish that the four of them had failed to capture Cripps, but degraded to have treated a young woman so badly. It had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly they hadn’t had time to think. Pelkey returned the carriage to the stables.
Evans was the only one who was not miserable. He said in a commiserating way to Black, “I take it your plan went awry, Black?”
“It wasn’t my plan. Cripps got away.”
“Pity,” Evans said, trying to sound sorry, but Black recognized the gloating quality behind it.
No champagne was served that night as they sat around the cold grate, repining and trying to decide their next step. “I wonder if he’ll show up for the duel tomorrow,” Coffen said.
“He’ll be in his night shirt if he does, for he’ll not dare to go back home,” Black said. “We ought to take that young hellcat back. She’d do away with him for us.”
“We certainly made a dog’s breakfast of this job,” Luten said with a disgusted shake of his head. “Whoever imagined he’d run off and leave his girlfriend in that position! The man is beneath contempt.”
“The kind that’ll shoot to kill,” Coffen added.
“I doubt very much he’ll show up,” Corinne said. “It’s plain as a pikestaff the man is a coward, abandoning Flora to her fate while he saved his own skin. Now that he knows you’re not to be trifled with, he won’t be there, Coffen.”
“Where he’ll go now is to Jasper’s place,” Luten said. “Do we know where that is?”
“We don’t, the more fools us,” Black said. “One of us ought to have followed him. I don’t see how we can find out at this hour of the night either.”
Coffen frowned, then said, “If Jasper’s the rich friend of Cripps that Mrs. Partridge spoke of, he owns some property on the waterfront, not too far away. That don’t help much.”
“I doubt Cripps will go there in his nightshirt,” Black said. “What we could do, is be on the Dyke Road early tomorrow and stop him, if he should turn up, that is.”
“He’ll be with Jasper, his second,” Corinne said. “You’ll have to take the two of them. And in daylight you can hardly take them to Norvals without being seen.”
After they had all stared dully into the cold grate for a few moments, Black said, “He won’t dare to go home after abandoning Flora. He don’t know we’ve got her. And he don’t know we don’t know where Jasper lives, so he’ll not go there. Now where would a young lad in trouble go for help in the middle of the night if he can’t go home and can’t go to his best friend?”
“He surely won’t seek the sanctuary of the church in his night shirt,” Prance said, shocked at such a breach of decorum.
Corinne turned to Black. “Do you have an idea, Black?”
“If you do, let’s hear it,” Luten said. “I can’t think of a demmed thing to do.”
Black said reluctantly, “Well, it’s just an idea. I may be dead wrong, but where I’d go if I was in such a pickle is to the Brithelmston, and it’s not so far from Market Street. I’ve a notion Catchpole has his fingers in most of the dark doings in this town, and it’d take more than a lad in his nightshirt with a gang after him to rile Catchpole. He didn’t blink an eye when Mad Jack showed up with the constable at his heels. I could nip over there, if you think it would do any good.”
“It could do harm,” Luten said. “It’s as good as announcing that you were one of the men after Cripps.”
“Ah, that’s true, and it wouldn’t take long for it to point a sure finger at Mr. Pattle and the rest of you. I daresay Catchpole’s loyalty would be with Cripps in any case, for he operates here in town and I’m a newcomer. Still, I wager that’s where he’s at.”
Luten listened, finding good sense in Black’s idea. His grim expression softened. “Well then,” he said, “we have a good idea where he’ll be setting out from to meet Coffen tomorrow. We can watch and wait from Coffen’s house and nab him when he comes out. The place will be quiet at dawn.”
“Me and Black can’t be with you,” Coffen said. “We’ll have to be on our way to the duel if we’re to make it in time.”
Luten turned to Prance. “You and I can handle it, eh Prance?”
Prance, with a sinking heart and forced heartiness, said, “Certainly!”
“Evans will be glad to help,” Corinne said, earning a rare frown from Black.
“Fine, but where do we take him?” Prance said. “As Corrie pointed out, we can’t take him to Norval’s place in broad daylight. Really I don’t see how we can dispose of him at all in daylight.”
“We’ll have to put him in Coffen’s cellar,” Luten said.
“That points to Coffen as the abductor,” Prance reminded him.
“We don’t have much choice,” Coffen said. “It’ll give us a little time to think. We’ll come up with something.”
Luten added, “It’s the closest place, and really there’s no place else. What do you say, Coffen?”
“You’ll have to teach them how to make them knots you used on Flora, Black,” was his answer.
Chapter Nineteen
Coffen stretched, yawned and said, “I’m dead tired, but it’s too late to go to bed.”
The night was far gone and they had to be up and doing so early it hardly seemed worthwhile to go to bed. Evans roused up the Partridges. The husband stoked up the stove and Mrs. Partridge provided them with coffee, gammon and eggs. When they had eaten, Coffen got Luten’s dueling pistols and went to the hotel with Black to dress. Corinne and Evans went back to Norval’s house to see that Flora hadn’t escaped. They went quietly up the attic stairs and saw she had fallen asleep. Corinne, always aware of the difficulties of penniless girls in a harsh world, felt a pang of pity for the girl. In the flickering lamplight, she looked young and innocent.
* * *
Luten and Prance drove to Nile Street to catch Cripps if he left the tavern — if he was at the tavern, that is. They took turns watching at the window as the stars faded and the dark sky lightened to an opalescent white. At five o’clock he had still not come out.
“I wonder if he’s in there at all,” Luten said, rubbing his tired eyes.
“It doesn’t look as if he planned to make the duel if he is
there,” Prance replied. “He’d have to go home and get dressed and get his pistols, then arrange to get to the meadow. Surely all that would take over an hour.”
“He might have managed to get a message to Jasper to bring his things —” As the words left Luten’s mouth he lunged forward. “There! Is that him?” Prance leapt from his chair and joined Luten at the window.
Luten was looking at the back of the inn where the door had been bricked in. A man was coming around from some side or front door, or possibly from the street. He had had only a glimpse of Cripps the night before, and a description from Black. The man who had just arrived was about Cripps’s size, dressed in rough clothes and wearing a misshapen black hat pulled down low on his forehead. He pulled off the hat revealing blond hair and a round, pink face. He ran a hand over his tousled locks, then put the hat back on. “By God, it is him! Put on your mask, Prance. We’ll get him. What’s he doing? He seems to be waiting for someone.” The man was looking nervously from side to side. They hastily donned their masks, each picked up a pistol and ran outside.
A young boy came around the corner of the tavern, leading a fine black mount with white markings. He let go of the reins and the horse walked towards Cripps, who patted its head, said a few words and reached for the reins.
Luten saw that if they didn’t get him before he got astride that mount, they’d never get him. He ran forward, followed by Prance, both pointing a pistol at the man. Before he could get a leg over the mount, Luten said, “One move and you’re dead.”
It was a bluff, as he wouldn’t have shot an unarmed man, but Cripps would have, and assumed the other fellow would do the same. He dropped the reins. “Walk,” Luten said, indicating Coffen’s house by a toss of his head. Cripps sneered, but he walked, with a pistol at his back. “Inside,” Luten said when they reached the back door. Prance held it open, Cripps went in.
“My mount,” he said, looking over his shoulder. They looked and saw the mount had followed them. Another problem! “In,” Luten growled. Cripps went in without another word. They were back in the kitchen, where they had been watching the tavern through the window.
“The cellar,” Luten said, nudging him in the back with the muzzle of his pistol. Cripps, obviously familiar with the place, turned towards the cellar door without having to look for it. Prance got the ropes and a lantern and they took Cripps down into the dark, dank cellar. Prance held the lamp while Luten tied him up. He wasn’t sure he was making the knots right, but he bound the man up as securely as he could, then they left him, sitting on the floor in the dark and went upstairs, putting the bolt on the door when they reached the kitchen.
“Well, it’s done,” Luten said, removing his mask. Prance did the same. “Coffen’s safe for today. I feel we’ve behaved about as badly as Cripps throughout this entire affair. Ganging up on the fellow, to say nothing of the way we treated Flora.”
“They brought it on themselves,” Prance said. “It’s fourpence to a groat they killed Mary, and certainly intended to kill Coffen. I wonder if he was planning to go to meet Coffen this morning. Since he had got hold of a mount, he’d have had time to go home to make his preparations. As he obviously has an accomplice at the inn, would he not have had his clothes brought there, though?”
“I have no idea how he thinks, or what he’d do,” Luten scowled. “A demmed fine bit of blood, that mount. What are we to do with it?” He glanced out the back window, looked again, went to the back door and returned. “It’s gone,” he said.
“Must have wandered off,” Prance said. “Probably in Catchpole’s stable. I’ll go out and see if it’s about.” He was back in a moment. “It wasn’t making for Catchpole’s stable. I just saw its tail. It was running hell for leather down the street. No sign of the boy who brought it here. This gets odder and odder, Luten.”
“It’s gone back to its own stable.”
“Very likely. Too late to follow it now, but I’d recognize it if I saw it again. A white star on the nose and one white stocking, left front leg. Well, what do we do now? Sit here and guard our prisoner, or go home and change? I feel as if I’d been wearing this shirt for weeks. You could do with a shave yourself.”
“He’s safe enough,” Luten said. “We might as well go.”
In the meadow behind the churchyard, Black and Coffen waited with Jasper, who had arrived late in a handsome black carriage. Jasper looked at Coffen. “I see Sir Reginald has allowed you to appear without your livery today, Mr. Jones,” he said, using the names they had given. “Is Cripps not here yet?” He looked around in what seemed like genuine surprise. “I was to pick him up, but when I got to his house he was gone. I thought he must have been so eager he had come ahead without me.”
“You’re late,” Black said, drawing out his watch. “We’ve been waiting this quarter hour and he’s not come.”
“He’ll be here,” Jasper said confidently. “Mr. Jones is not that eager to die, is he? Cripps is the best shot for miles around.” He cast a sly grin on Coffen. “Jones will be the third man he’s killed.”
Black lifted his hand to conceal an imaginary yawn. “We’ll give him a little longer,” he said, and sat on a rock to chat quietly with Mr. Pattle.
Jasper pulled a cigar from his pocket and made a production of lighting it. Then he strolled off and leaned against a tree. He drew out his watch and glanced at it from time to time, then looked down the road towards Brighton, frowning. A dozen carriages, carts and mounted riders passed, each carriage causing Jasper to take a closer look, then sigh and resume his pose against the tree when none of the passers proved to be Cripps.
After fifteen minutes, he returned to Black and Coffen. “Something must have happened,” he said. “I can’t replace him as that would leave me no second to see things are carried out properly. I believe I’ll have to reschedule this little match. I suggest –”
“Not so fast, Mister Jasper,” Black said. “Your man’s failed to show. When one of the two turns chicken, he forfeits the duel. Everyone knows that. Mr. Jones and I have better things to do than be rushing out here at dawn and cool our heels while Cripps works up his courage to come.”
“Now really, Sir Reginald. I tell you something has happened to Cripps. He’s ill, or—”
“Or come to his senses. We’ve seen this trick before. This isn’t Mr. Jones’s first duel you must know, nor his second. And there’s not a scratch on him. He doesn’t care to waste more time on cowards. You may tell Mr. Cripps he has forfeited the duel, and that’s an end to it.”
Jasper considered a moment, then said, “You’ll be hearing from us. I shall give Mr. Cripps your message.” He gray eyes narrowed, then he added, “And if by chance he came here early without me and — had an accident —” he said with awful irony.
Before he could say more, Black took a pace towards him, his hands already clenched into formidable fists. “You’d best leave while you’re able,” he growled.
Jasper gave one last sneer, before beating a hasty retreat to his carriage and left.
“Did you hear that?” Black fumed. “He’s trying to make out we did away with Cripps before he got here.”
“So we did. He was just trying to save face, Black. Well, I’m glad that’s over. You did a grand job. I’d no idea I was such a dangerous fellow. I wonder if Luten and Prance caught Cripps, or what happened to him.”
“Let us go home and see,” Black said, and they went to Coffen’s carriage. For this formal occasion he had abandoned his curricle. Fitz, carefully instructed by Black, had got them to the Dyke Road with no trouble. Once on that major thoroughfare it was hard for even him to get lost.
They stopped at Luten’s house. Corinne came pelting forward to meet them. “Coffen, thank God you’re back safely. Come in and tell me all about it. I’ve had breakfast prepared. I knew you wouldn’t be able to eat before you went to the duel. Was it horrid? Did Cripps show up?”
“No, but Jasper was there. Luten ain’t back yet?”
“Not y
et. We shan’t wait for him. Come and have a bite.”
The morning’s events had by no means lessened Coffen’s appetite. He made inroads on enough food to feed an army while Black related their recent doings, with Coffen throwing in an occasional remark between bites.
“I hope this is an end to all talk of duels,” she said. “You don’t think Jasper believed you’d done away with Cripps?”
“I believe he was just trying to save face,” Black said. “I wonder what’s keeping Luten?” He was worried lest Cripps had pulled some new stunt.
“I expect they’ll come home soon. They were to wait and watch till after daylight.”
Before they had finished their coffee, Luten and Prance joined them. “We’d have been here sooner but we decided to check out Cripps’s house while it’s vacant. We didn’t find anything of interest.”
“Other than Flora’s wardrobe,” Prance added with a smirk. “You would be amazed what sort of intimate apparel the muslin company is wearing this year, Corrie.”
Luten gave him a repressing stare, and rushed on with relating their tale.
“So I was right,” Black said. “He did go to the tavern.”
“He did. We’ve got him trussed up in the cellar,” Luten said with satisfaction.
Corinne frowned. “I wonder what he’ll do when you release him.”
Luten shrugged. “I doubt he’ll run to Brown and complain that he was forced to miss his duel. If he has a shred of common sense he won’t say a word. How can he admit he ran off and left Flora helpless in the hands of four masked, armed men? Speaking of Flora, I feel badly about the way we treated that young woman.”
“Evans and I looked in on her earlier,” she said. “She was sleeping soundly. She’s the one who could cause trouble. I fancy she’d enjoy boasting of her ordeal, and she has nothing to be ashamed of in her behaviour.”
Black stared to hear it. “You’ve not forgotten her lying to Mr. Pattle to get into his house, milady?”
“And what they did to Mary,” Coffen added, turning fierce at the memory, and the sense of guilt that Mary had been all but forgotten by them all, including himself.