by Joan Smith
“Very true. I always learn something from you, Townsend.”
“Well, it’s a mad enough scheme you’ve come up with, but the only danger I see is that Mad Jack may get away with the paste stones. Now, about what I do with the sparklers when I get to town. Lloyd’s, I take it, would be the proper recipient as they’ve paid for them?”
“Right. Prinney may try his hand at getting ahold of them. It would be a fine, regal gesture to return them to Czar Alexander to cement our alliance with Russia.”
“If they still belonged to Russia he would, certainly.”
“It would gratify his enormous ego to do it anyway, at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.”
“Lloyd will have something to say about that, which is why you want me to turn them over to the insurance company right away.”
“As soon as you get to London. Lloyd will have to deal with Prinney and the Duchess of Brampton, if she wants them back.”
“You won’t be popular at Carlton House, my lad. Nor will I, for abetting you in this harebrained scheme.”
“That is a grave concern for me,” Luten said, smiling.
“Well, your highwayman won’t get the sparklers from me, and if they get the paste goods from you, no harm done, eh? Unless one of you gets shot in the fracas. How do you figure he’ll set about it? What is his usual modus operandi? Shoot the coachman?”
“Just point the pistol in the window and order the occupants to stand and deliver is the usual procedure, from what I’ve read in the local journals about former attacks. With the pistol at the master’s head, the driver and any other outriders are ordered to lie down, face to the ground. He cuts the horses free to forestall being followed, then hightails it to the Brithelmston Tavern, where he disappears into the tunnel with his loot until the excitement is over.”
“What happens to his mount?”
“It’s been trained to return to its stable on its own. Black tells me he rides a black mount with a white star on its forehead and left front leg. During the attacks he darkens the white markings with soot, which washes off easily.”
“How did Black learn all this?” Townsend asked.
“Oh, Black has his ways. He talks to people, snoops around.”
“A good man, Black.”
“The best.”
“I could use him at Bow Street.”
“Not a chance, Townsend. Now, I’d like to do this as soon as possible. We’ll want to make a statement to the local journals today, and you’ll have to get your men down here. You go to London the day after tomorrow, the paste necklace goes that night.”
“We’d best get moving then. You can handle the journals, I’ll send a note off to Bow Street.”
“I’ll have Evans show you to my office. One of my boys will take the note to London for you. You might as well stay here tonight. We’ll want to talk, and there’s plenty of room.”
Townsend went to write his note, and Mrs. Partridge was told another guest would be staying at Marine Parade.
“He’s one of them Bow Street Officers,” she informed her mate, when she returned to the kitchen. “A strange-looking little fellow. I swear he’s wearing a wig! It’s a good thing his lordship brought down a few maids, for I’ll not have time to air out the bed in the spare room abovestairs with the extra cooking to do. I’ll send one of them down to the fish market, and have her pick up a few things at the green grocers as well. Lord, I never thought I’d say it, but I’ll not be sorry when they leave.”
“There’ll be a fine bonus at the end of it though.”
“Aye, and a new gown for me.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Brighton was all a twitter with the news in the morning’s journal that the Czarina’s necklace had been found, and eagerly read what they already knew. The Misses Mercer had been interviewed and were joyfully chagrined to see their names in the journals. Mama had always told them a woman’s name should only appear in print when she was born, married and died. But then Mama had never imagined they might be involved in such high goings-on as finding a duchess’s diamond necklace. Sir Reginald’s only qualm about the appearance of his name was that he had failed to tell the reporter he was in town researching his next novel. Never too early to begin tooting the horn.
Reporters, thronging to Marine Parade in hope of news, had the unexpected bonus of an interview with Officer Townsend, come down from London especially to transport the necklace to London. Townsend outlined the number of guards that would accompany him, and their orders to shoot on sight anyone foolhardy enough to attempt a holdup. Brighton took little interest in what would happen to the necklace once it reached London and Townsend did not enlighten them, lest Prinney’s spies at his pavilion send word to London.
Prance pretended to be unhappy at having to pose as a lady (and was unhappy to realize he would be in some jeopardy during Mad Jack’s attack) but when he visited Boo to borrow a gown, wig and bonnet, he certainly enjoyed being questioned and quizzed, and making much of some vague but perilous mission. “If I don’t make it out alive,” he said with a dégagé air, “I want your little group to have my collection of costumes.”
“Hush, I won’t hear such talk!” Boo scolded. He did think to enquire later where the collection was kept, however.
Tony held up a gaudy evening gown spangled with bows and beads and exclaimed, “This peacock blue gown would just suit you, Reg.”
“No, no. I am a lady’s modest companion. Nothing gaudy. A plain black merino or sarsenet, if you have such a garment.”
“The gown Sheila wore when she was playing the vicar’s wife,” Boo suggested. “It will be tight, but it fastens up the back and with a shawl around your shoulders no one will see it gapes open at the back.”
“And I shall require a bonnet. Again, plain, or at least modest, though not a round bonnet. I look horrid in a round bonnet. It doesn’t suit my face. Not too many feathers, mind.”
The costume was assembled and Prance returned to the Royal Crescent to model it for Villier’s approval. “You look just like my Aunt Mabel,” Villier said. “We must get some peppermints. She always smelled of peppermints.”
“I fear I shall be smelling of brandy. I shan’t undertake this frolic without some false courage.”
“Is it really dangerous?” Villier asked, hoping to hear more details, although he knew the general setup.
“I don’t believe Mad Jack has killed many of his victims,” Prance replied, tilting the bonnet over one eye, then setting it back further on his head to hold the wig in place.
* * *
Black had the more trying job that day. Catchpole now knew who he was, and that he had aided and abetted Mr. Pattle in the matter of the duel. He certainly suspected, if he didn’t know, that he had been involved in kidnapping Cripps and Flora. As it couldn’t be denied, Black decided his best course was to confront it head on, turn it to his advantage. He decided to walk, as he didn’t like to leave Mr. Pattle’s fine curricle and team unguarded in the stable. He entered the tavern with a scowl on his face, and was met with another on Catchpole’s ugly phiz behind the bar. Other than two old regulars nursing a drink in the corner and a boy with a broom rearranging the dirt on the floor, the place was empty.
“Well, if it ain’t Mr. Smith,” Catchpole said with a glinty stare. “You’ve been neglecting us for your fine friends lately, Mr. Smith.”
“Friends! Hah! If you can call them friends after the way they’ve treated me. Never put your faith in the nobs, Catchpole. They use you, then cast you aside.”
After weighing this remark for a significant amount of time to show his disinterest, Catchpole said, “I don’t see your master about town these days. Gone off and left you all alone, has he?”
“Gone to London on business, and did he take me along? He did not, after I done things for him that could put me in gaol. And he knew full well I wanted to go. I have a little business hanging fire in town. It wouldn’t surprise me much if he hires my replacement while he’s
there, Catchpole.” Black exhaled loudly to stress his annoyance.
Catchpole was interested enough that he decided to give Black a glass of ale, which he had withheld thus far. “Why’s that, then? Seems to me you done your best for him.”
“I did everything he asked, and some of it went against the pluck I can tell you. Truth to tell, it’s not him I blame so much as milord Mucky-muck Luten and his uppity tame pup, Prance. I’m not the only one that don’t love his lordship. Treats his servants like dirt under his feet. His butler, a fellow named Evans, feels the same way.” With a tsk of pity he added, “Ah but like myself, he needs the work.” Evans had to be mentioned as he featured in the story Black had worked out.
“Good posts ain’t exactly thick on the ground,” Catchpole said forgivingly.
“If you can call bowing and scraping to his lordship a good thing. Mind you, there’s good pickings in a lord’s house. It’s Luten that’s turned Mr. Pattle against me. Not fancy and smooth-talking enough for him. I’d like to get even with him.” He took a slow pull on his ale and said softly, as if to himself, “But how can I do it? No, it’s too —”
Catchpole, wiping away at the counter with a dirty rag, listened and said leadingly, “I see they found some diamond necklace in Pattle’s house.”
“Yes, a bit of a shocker, eh? Now why couldn’t I have been the one to find it? The Czarina’s necklace, they call it. Seems it’s famous. I had an ale with my old pal Evans last night. He tells me they’ve got Townsend down from Bow Street to take care of it. He’s a twister all right.”
“Townsend?”
“Him as well, but I meant Luten. Oh there’s strange goings-on at Marine Parade, Catchpole. I wish Mr. Pattle was here, I could weasel what’s afoot out of him all right, for he’s not the brightest twinkler in the sky.”
“Why’d he go to London then? Business, was it, or fear of another duel?” This alternative was mentioned with a sly grin.
“ ‘Twas family business. That’s why Lady Carter came to town. Her and Pattle are kin. You might have seen it in the journal t’other day. Some rich uncle died, and there’s family business to deal with. More money for them as don’t need it. Lady Carter’s to join him in London in a day or so.”
Catchpole didn’t express much interest in this, but Black persisted. “She’s another mucky-muck if you like. Queer as Dick’s hat-band. Mr. Pattle told me she hates traveling. Was all cut up at having to go to London to inherit another fortune. What she does, she waits till night to leave, doses herself up with laudanum and snores all the way there.”
“Not afraid of highwaymen?”
“She don’t travel in a style to tempt the sons of Dick Turpin. Plain dark carriage, no bunch of footmen and what not. And if business was slow and one of them did stop her, he’d find no jewels and a purse as near as empty as makes no difference. She’d be a perfect –” Again he stopped.
Catchpole lifted an encouraging eyebrow, but Black pretended not to see it. He put his empty glass out for a refill and Catchpole was not slow to oblige him.
“You were saying she’d be a perfect –?”
“Just an idea Evans and me were talking over last night. Evans has taken the notion there’s something havey-cavey about Townsend’s visit. There’s talk of Townsend taking the necklace to London, with an announcement in the journals. It’s not Luten’s way to announce his plans publicly. Evans thinks it’s a ruse. Luten always keeps things under wraps, you see. Wouldn’t tell his own mother if he was marrying a princess.”
“Stands to reason they’d want to protect the necklace, though,” Catchpole said. “I doubt even Mad Jack would attack a caravan of Runners.”
“‘Twas just an idea, and with Mr. Pattle away, I’m what you might call persona un-grata at Marine Parade, so I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Happen your friend Evans could find out?” Catchpole said, batting at a fly on the counter to indicate his unconcern at this suggestion.
“I daresay he could. A sharp ear has Evans. He don’t miss much.”
“Might be interestin’ to know just what’s going on.”
“So it would, but I don’t see what good it would do me or Evans.”
“There’s others might be interested.”
Black gave him a cagey grin. “Interested enough to split the profits?”
“You never know.”
“I don’t do business without knowing what’s in it for me,” Black said bluntly.
“So far all you’ve got to sell is ‘maybe’. Now if you and your old pal Evans had something certain, I might know someone as’d be interested to the tune of a couple of hundred quid.”
Black decided this was his cue to arise and prepare his exit. “Cut line, Catchpole,” he said, fixing him with a commanding eye and adopting an altogether more businesslike air. “We both know we’re talking about a set of sparklers worth at least five thousand. I’d want more than a couple of hundred.”
“You’d need solid information for that.”
“I might be able to provide it, if the price was right.” He leaned over the counter and said in a lower voice, so the fly wouldn’t hear, “A thousand would just about do it.”
“A thousand! You’re mad. He’d never go for it.”
“Tell Mad Jack a thousand, take it or leave it. I’d have to share with Evans. Luten would be suspicious. He might turn Evans off.” He began drawing on his gloves.
Since the name was now in the open, Catchpole said, “I’ll mention it to Jack, if I happen to see him.”
“You do that. And don’t wait too long to see him, for I’ve a feeling the goods will be going soon. Very soon.” He rammed his hat on his head and left.
He hadn’t gone far before he realized the boy who had been sweeping the floor was following him. He returned to his hotel. After half an hour, he continued on to Marine Parade and checked to confirm that he was still being followed. He had the excuse of seeing Evans, so that was all right, but he took the precaution of using the back door, since he’d said he wasn’t welcome at Luten’s house.
Lady Luten was watching for him at the front window. When she saw him go to the back door, she rushed to the kitchen. “How did it go, Black?” she asked eagerly.
“I believe we’ve hooked our fish, milady. I’ll go back tomorrow and fill Catchpole in.”
“I believe you were being followed,” she warned.
“I was, which is why I used the back door.”
She laughed. “You don’t miss a trick, Black.”
They went to tell Luten, who was with Coffen in the study. Townsend had gone to meet the coach his men would be arriving on, to direct them to a cheap hotel and to fill them in on their duties. Black repeated his conversation with Catchpole to Luten and Coffen.
“Do you think he swallowed it?” Coffen, gowned but not bewigged, asked, when he had finished.
“Hook, line and sinker. He squawked at a thousand, of course, but he didn’t say no. I had to blacken your character, Luten.”
“You’re not the first. I can’t work up much worry over what a scoundrel like Mad Jack thinks of me.”
“I was followed when I left, which is why I came in by the kitchen. I’ve let them think I’m not welcome here.”
“Then I expect you can’t stay to dinner,” Corinne said with an air of regret that pleased him.
“Best not. It might be a good idea if me and Evans are seen together outside the house tonight, though. Since I’ve given them the notion Evans is in on it with me, we ought to be seen together away from the house. It will have to be late at night when his duties here are done.”
“He’ll be thrilled,” Corinne said. “I think he feels left out of things.”
“It’s not likely they’ll accost him,” Black said at once. Thrilling Evans, and particularly including him on a case, was no thrill to Black, but he tried to conceal it.
Black had a word with Evans before leaving. Evans was indeed thrilled to be asked to meet Black at his hote
l around midnight. “And don’t worry if you’re followed,” Black said, as if it happened every day. “He won’t harm you. He’ll just want to know where you’re going.”
“I’ll take a pistol,” Evans said.
“Well, don’t kill him. We want him to take back a report that we’ve met.”
Evans agreed that he wouldn’t shoot to kill.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The next morning’s journal carried the continuing story of the Czarina’s necklace, including the interview with Townsend outlining the strenuous precautions being taken for its safety during delivery to London. A description of the necklace and its history, obtained from an “unnamed source” (a back issue of the journal) was limited to carats and value. He trusted that Mad Jack’s memory was not good enough to recognize the paste necklace as a fake in the dark.
Prance was happy to read his name and description of the finding of the necklace, until he saw himself described as the author of The Round Table Rondeaux, and not a mention of Shadows on the Wall, and his spy story, soon to appear in bookstores. The Rondeaux, a tedious, liberally footnoted, book-length poem in blank verse about King Arthur had been the sort of failure usually described by friendly reviewers as a critical success, meaning there might be something in it, but no one could figure it out, and very few bothered trying.
Brighton was boiling with excitement. The Runners, commonly called Robin Redbreasts in honour of their distinguishing garb, who had been brought in for the occasion were objects of great interest. A few local dandies bought red vests and strutted about town, hoping to be mistaken for London policemen. Among the most interested readers of the newspaper were Mad Jack and Catchpole.
“You think this Black character is on the level?” Mad Jack asked his colleague, when they met that night after the tavern was closed.
“He is on close terms with Luten’s butler. They met in private late last night. Mind he’s no Johnnie Raw, Jack. He knows what the tip is worth. He laughed at the couple of hundred quid I offered.”