by Michelle Cox
“I’m hoping so.”
“Do you think he suspects?”
“Given how self-absorbed he is, I’d say no. I don’t think he’s thinking about us much at all.”
“Hmmm. So where are we going to wait for him?”
“At the Coach and Horse, of course.”
“But this isn’t the way to the pub,” she mused as she looked out the window.
“Darling, we can hardly sit outside, or inside, for that matter, the Horse and Coach all day. We must meander a bit until it’s time.”
“I see,” she said, nodding. It was thrilling to be on a real case with him, even though it only involved his cousin’s wanderings. Doubtless it would turn out to be nothing. Clive seemed determined to think Wallace was involved in something dark, but she did not have that feeling at all. She thought him too passionless to be a revolutionary. He could talk impressively when it came to politics, but she didn’t think he was really a leader in that way, despite what Inspector Hartle had said about him trying to organize labor and bringing foreigners in to stir up trouble. Still, it was unsettling that he kept making trips abroad. Why? she thought as she watched the scenery whip by.
“I wish we were really going sightseeing,” she said now to Clive. “It’s exciting to be on the case, of course,” she added. “But I wish we really were going to Buxton. As tourists, that is.”
“Yes, I know what you mean.”
“I’m rather looking forward to our trip once this whole Wallace business is resolved. I want to be alone with you … just you … traveling about, stopping at a café or a pub, just as we did the other day. Somewhere where we don’t have to be the ever-so-proper Mr. and Mrs. Howard of Highbury or Lord Linley’s nephew and his wife, but we can just be Clive and Henrietta, two unsuspecting tourists.”
Clive laughed. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever be unsuspecting.”
“You’re right,” she smiled. “Okay then, just Clive and Henrietta.”
They were silent then for a few moments before Clive spoke again, clearing his throat, having decided to proceed with a topic that had disturbingly been on his mind the last few days when he wasn’t preoccupied with thinking about Wallace’s case, which was naturally almost always. Still, there was this other matter …
“As a matter of fact,” he began, “what you’re saying reminds me of something Inspector Hartle said to me the other day.”
“What was that?” she asked, trying to adjust her hat without the benefit of a mirror.
He paused for a moment before continuing. “He suggested I go into private investigations,” he said carefully, letting it sit there. “What would you say to that?” he asked, glancing sideways at her now.
“Private investigations?” she said more to herself than him. “You mean back at home? But what about Linley Standard?”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking about that,” Clive went on. “But Father is still going strong. If anything, seeing Uncle Montague these past few weeks has shown me just how much. And, as it currently stands, it’s just a matter of me learning the business. So between sitting in on meetings with him and looking through the ledgers, I suspect I may have some extra time. Highbury, of course, needs some tending to as well, but … I just thought that maybe …” He looked at her again. “If you were to help me with the investigations, we might, well, we might make rather a good team.”
Henrietta broke off her machinations with her hat to stare at him, disbelieving. “Oh, Clive! Do you really mean it?”
Clive broke into a grin, though he kept his eyes on the road.
“We’d be a team? Truly?”
Clive laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t get that excited. I’m sure the cases will be painfully dull, a missing locket here, and break-in there. Still … it would be a way to … keep my hand in, as it were. And something for us outside of Highbury. You’d still be under my mother’s tutelage in terms of our role there, however …”
“Oh, I know that,” Henrietta said dismissively. “Oh, Clive! It’s a wonderful idea! Superb!” she said, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I can’t wait!” she exclaimed, the countryside whipping by. “It’s the best news I’ve heard in a long, long time.”
—
The rest of the trip was filled with their happy, excited talk about what the new business would be like and how they would handle it in light of their duties at Highbury. Both of them could not help laughing at how much Alcott and Antonia would positively hate the idea, which, Henrietta admitted shamefully to herself, was in and of itself a small, added attraction to the plan, at least for her, which made her feel quite wicked for all of several moments.
They were so absorbed in their conversation that Henrietta was actually startled when Clive pulled up in front of the Palace Hotel in Buxton. She looked around, perplexed, as a porter quickly opened the car door for her, gazing at the rolling landscape that unfolded in front of her. The hotel itself was rather majestic, looking out over the whole of Buxton and the vale beyond. It was beautiful, to be sure, but Henrietta could not help being confused as she walked with Clive up the front steps. “But I thought Buxton was just a ruse,” she said, taking his arm.
“It is part of the ruse, darling. After all, we need somewhere to stay the night or maybe more, depending on how long it takes to catch Wallace in the act. Besides, it’s only ten in the morning, and, according to Compton, Wallace doesn’t usually venture out until closer to evening. So you see, you’re partially getting your wish to be a tourist, if only for a few hours, anyway.”
Henrietta smiled and waited patiently by the front desk while Clive signed the guest book as Mr. and Mrs. Clive Howard, and she allowed herself to be led to her first stay in a hotel, grateful that it was in the company of her husband and that her husband was Clive.
Chapter 22
It was nearly dusk when Clive rolled the Bentley into the grassy side lot that served as a car park of the Horse and Coach. As if by way of keeping its name, the old pub still had a watering trough for horses, a throwback to its days as an actual coaching inn, though a few farmers did still use the trough, clinging determinedly to the use of a horse and cart in lieu of the new tractors popping up with increasing frequency along the roadsides. The inn was conveniently situated at the crossroads of the Hill Road that led into Cromford and the Derby Road that led to Matlock Bath and Matlock proper beyond that. Clive felt certain that from this vantage point they would spy Wallace pass by on the motorbike, presumably en route to Matlock. Henrietta sat beside him in the front seat, restive and excited and not at all sleepy, she said, after their long afternoon in bed. She had wanted to see the Roman Baths in Buxton, but Clive had persuaded her to participate in a different activity altogether and promised her that they would see the Baths before they left England.
She sat now, eagerly watching the road with him. At one point she turned and proposed that they play a game of rummy while they were waiting, and he had burst out laughing. Pretending to be perturbed, she had asked him what he found so terribly funny, and he related how very different a stakeout was with her rather than the hundreds he had been on with the likes of Charlie or Kelly, for example. Henrietta smiled at this, but then asked how he instead proposed to spend the time. He brushed her hair back behind her ear and said that he could think of lots of things, but she pushed his hand away and said that this was a serious case.
Clive certainly did not need reminding of this and had prayed several times on the drive over that Wallace’s rendezvous would prove to be something entirely innocent. He wondered if he was making a mistake not only in bringing Henrietta along tonight, but also in proposing that they set up a private investigation business. Was he merely trying to overcompensate for his own nagging, perhaps irrational, fears? Was he being guided too much by his heart and not his head? Joining up at barely eighteen and marrying Catherine were decisions made from stirred-up emotions of honor and duty, not of practical sense. And look where that had led him … death and more death. But
then, again, it had eventually brought him to Henrietta, so perhaps it all made sense somehow—
“There he is, I think,” Henrietta whispered excitedly, pointing to a man hunched over a dark gray motorbike heading along the Derby road, the loud sputtering of its exhaust dying away into the night as he passed.
“Yes, I think we’ve got him,” Clive said with determined calm, putting the car into gear and pulling slowly toward the main road. He wanted to make sure he had plenty of distance between them.
“Clive, hurry!” Henrietta said nervously. “We’ll lose him!”
“Patience, darling. There’s nowhere for him to turn off just yet, and we don’t want him to suspect he’s being followed.”
That being said, Clive did accelerate a bit and quickly regained sight of him in the distance. They followed him in anxious silence all the way through Matlock Bath and on to Matlock itself, at which point they were forced to follow closer, the trade-off being that there was now at least a few other motorcars about, which afforded them a bit of camouflage as Clive darted behind them every so often. They followed Wallace’s twists and turns through the town and were surprised when they found themselves not only passing the Merry Bells, but continuing on the Derby road until they emerged on the other side of town, heading north now.
“So it’s not Matlock, after all. The mystery grows,” Clive said, intrigued. “Perhaps he really is headed for Derby.” He dropped back some now that they were back on an isolated country road, so much so that they nearly missed him turning off down a lane that appeared off to the left and which was almost hidden by overgrowth, though the frosts had turned it brown and gold. It was Henrietta who spotted him. Clive hesitated to pull in right behind him in case he was close, so he idled the car for a few minutes in the road before nosing the car gently in. The lane ahead was unpaved and absent of Wallace. He had disappeared.
“Damn it,” Clive muttered, as he steered the car slowly down the dark lane.
“Well, he must be somewhere up ahead,” Henrietta suggested encouragingly, “unless he drove the motorbike into the brush.” She peered out the window to check her theory, but the darkness was complete now, and it was difficult to see whether any of the grass was beaten down with tire tracks. Finally they spotted lights up ahead, coming from what looked like a small cottage.
Clive eased the car down the lane a bit more until the cottage was clearly in view and then killed the motor, allowing the car to eventually roll to a stop. They could see the abandoned motorbike just outside the cottage itself, which told Clive by the lack of any attempt to hide it that Wallace did not suspect he had been followed. There were no other cars in sight, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other conspirators inside the cottage. Clive prayed they weren’t dangerous or armed. They gingerly opened the car doors and got out, Clive motioning to Henrietta not to slam hers shut.
Carefully, they crept closer to the cottage, Clive holding up a finger to his lips to signal quiet. They were standing outside the door now, Clive inclining his head to listen, but the oak of the tiny arched door was too thick to hear anything beyond it. He pulled out his revolver, then, and cocked it, indicating with a nod of his head that Henrietta should stand behind him, an instruction she quickly obeyed.
He took a deep breath. “Ready?” he whispered.
Henrietta nodded, and Clive knocked loudly.
There was no sound from within.
They stood there waiting in the cold dark, Henrietta shivering either from the damp night air or the excitement of it all, and it suddenly occurred to Clive that there could possibly be a back door which Wallace and his cohorts might even now be escaping out of. What should he do? He couldn’t very well send Henrietta around the back to check, but he couldn’t abandon her here, either. Damn it! He had to make a decision and quickly.
“Stay here,” he whispered to her, and he dashed off to check the back of the cottage.
It was very overgrown with dying weeds and bramble, but it took only a few moments to ascertain that there was thankfully no back door. Hurriedly, he crept back to the front, where he saw Henrietta knocking again. What was she doing?
“Wallace?” she called out sweetly. “It’s Henrietta! May I come in?”
“Henrietta!” Clive hissed. “What are you doing?”
He cursed to himself as he rushed back to her side, his revolver still ready, just as the door opened to reveal Wallace standing in the doorway, holding, of all things—a child!—who looked to be no more than a year or so old.
Wallace looked them over, a scowl on his face. “I suggest you put that thing away,” he said, nodding at Clive’s gun.
Looking first at the child and then at Wallace, Clive lowered the revolver as if in a trance and obediently put it back inside his jacket, utterly stunned at what they had discovered.
“Well, it seems I have been found out,” Wallace said thinly. “I suspected you might figure it out eventually, but I had to at least try to keep up the pretense.” He looked at the toddler he was holding and then back to Clive. “This is my son,” he said with a touch of pride despite the situation. “Linley Wallace Gustave Howard.”
Clive could only stare in disbelief. No one said anything for what seemed a long time.
It was Henrietta who broke the silence. “He’s lovely,” she said with a smile and reached out and rubbed the baby’s chubby arm. “You look exactly like your Papa,” she said, looking up at Wallace now.
Wallace gave her a grateful look and the first real smile he had given her since her arrival in England.
“Come in,” he said gruffly and stood aside. “You might as well.”
Clive and Henrietta followed him inside, Henrietta giving Clive a quick glance with raised eyebrows as they bent slightly to pass through the low door. The inside of the cottage was warm and bright, and a fire was crackling in the fireplace. A woman stood up from her chair by the fire and came to stand beside Wallace, a look of fear on her elegant face. She had thick black hair which was done up in an old-fashioned style, and she looked to Clive to be older than Wallace, closer, actually, to his own age. She stood heavily, and it became obvious that she was very pregnant.
“This is my wife, Amelie,” Wallace said, smiling at her as he put his arm around her.
“Your wife?” Clive said, stunned.
Henrietta, on the other hand, instantly held out her hand to the woman. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Howard,” she said warmly.
The woman took her hand and smiled gratefully. “You muzt be ’enrietta,” she said with a thick French accent. “And you muzt be Clive,” she said, turning to him now. “Wallaze ’az zaid much of you both. We’ve been expecting you, ’aven’t we, Wallaze?” she asked, looking up at him.
Wallace shrugged.
“Your home is lovely,” Henrietta said to her. “So warm and inviting.”
The woman smiled. “You are very welcome ’ere, are zay not, Wallaze?” she said. “Pleeze, zite down.” She gestured toward a rattan bench to the left of the fireplace. “Would you like tea?”
“Thank you,” Henrietta said graciously as she sat down. “That would be lovely.”
Clive followed as if in a daze. How could Henrietta be so nonchalant? She was acting as if what they had found was perfectly normal! He should be questioning Wallace, not sitting down to tea!
“Wallace! What is the meaning of this!” Clive demanded, trying to exercise some control over the situation.
“Just what it seems, Clive,” Wallace said defensively. “I’m married. Several things should be adding up now, I should imagine.”
Linley, sensing the tension in the air, began to cry.
“’ere,” Amelie said, reaching for him as he leaned toward her from Wallace’s arms. “’eez tired. I’ll put ’im to bed now. Zat way you can talk. I’m sure you ’ave much to zay.” She gave them a smile as she rubbed Linley’s fine blond curls at the back of his head, trying to soothe him. “Dodo, l’enfant do, l’enfant dormira bien vite,” s
he sang to him softly as she disappeared up a few tiny steps to a room beyond.
Wallace watched them go and then turned back to Clive with a look of grim resolve as if mentally preparing for a grueling battle.
“So this is the alibi,” Clive said first.
“Yes, I was here that night, as I try to be most nights, especially with the baby due so soon.”
“Oh, Wallace,” Henrietta said compassionately. “It must be terrible for you, for you both.”
“But why?” Clive asked, mystified and ignoring Henrietta’s comment. “Why the secrecy? You could quite easily have been hanged for murder. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I bloody well know that, Clive. I had it in hand.”
“Is that so? What was your plan, then?”
Wallace let out a sigh. “We were going to leave the country as soon as you buggered off to London.”
“With your wife due any time?” Clive asked incredulously.
“I didn’t say it was the best idea! Just the only thing I could think of,” Wallace said, irritated, his voice rising. “What would you have me do?”
“I can think of several things, actually …”
“It’s not that easy, Clive!” Wallace shouted, but then, conscious of the baby in the next room, he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “It’s all right for you! You can marry whom you want,” he said, looking over at Henrietta, “be what you want, but not the likes of me! This lot should never have fallen to me; it was always meant for Linley, but the poor bastard had to go get himself killed.”
“I understand that, Wallace, more than you know, actually, but how long did you think you could suspend your father’s disappointment? Surely he has to find out sometime. And I would think the knowledge that he has a grandson—an heir—and possibly another on the way would be of particular interest to him.”