by Deryn Lake
‘I see.’
The captain rose from his desk and, approaching the fire, held his hands out to it. ‘My God, these winters are cold. Are you a settler here, Rawlings?’
‘In a way, Captain. I really arrived by accident, if you follow my meaning.’
‘Can’t say I do, but no matter. Now, how may I help you?’
‘I would like to have a look at the list of camp followers, if that would be convenient.’
‘Can’t say it is but I expect it’s lurking around somewhere in this damned chilly establishment. Not that it’s complete, mark you. Women come and go like straws in the wind. Some buxom bitch from Boston will move in with her fancy soldier for a week or two and then she’s found by her father, given a cuff on the ear – or two or three – plus a stern talking to, then lugged home by the straps of her boots.’
‘A vivid picture,’ John remarked, shooting a look at the lieutenant, who was laughing behind his hand.
‘Here it is,’ said the captain. ‘Can’t let it into your possession, I’m afraid. Army regulations and so on. What did you say the name was?’
John told him and the army man thumbed through the register which was in sections, each with a capital letter denoting the part.
‘Sopwith, Sopwith,’ he muttered. ‘No, there’s no one of that name here.’
‘Try the men,’ suggested Dalrymple. ‘Maybe she’s a new arrival.’
Captain McLynn produced another book, this one from the top of his desk. A huge affair, he handed it to the lieutenant. ‘Here, you can look for yourself. I have other duties.’
Dalrymple seized it and staggered beneath the weight. An hour later he and John drew in a joint breath. Private Sopwith had a bivouac on the Common.
‘A very small space to accommodate a second party,’ the Apothecary remarked drily.
‘Shall we go and see?’ answered the lieutenant with a twinkle about his eye.
Walking on the Common during daylight hours was a revelation. It was clearly a thriving community for women bustled about, all of them occupied with some task or other. Scrubbing clothes, with board and tub, seemed to be one of the lighter duties.
‘Of course,’ Dalrymple said as the two men made their way through the throng, ‘the daughter of Lord Rockingham does none of this.’
John shot him a questioning look and the lieutenant explained, ‘She is the colonel’s light-of-love. She lives with him in Court Street while his wife languishes at home with their eleven overweight children.’
‘How do you know that? That they are fat?’
‘Because he has a portrait of them in his house at which his mistress throws paper darts.’
John laughed aloud as both men stopped to buy a tot of brandy from a sutler who was standing with her little cask and tot measure, hoping for some custom. Having warmed themselves, the lieutenant approached a woman washing out a soldier’s shirt and she dropped a curtsey as he drew near.
‘Excuse me, Ma’am. Do you know of a woman staying with Private Sopwith?’
‘Oh, you mean his latest? Gives herself some airs and graces. A stuck-up Yankee bitch in my opinion.’
To the two men listening it seemed that Private Sopwith was a man of many parts and obviously great reserves.
‘Do you know where she might be at the moment?’
‘Gone into town, I imagine. She works as a maid in some house or other.’
John spoke. ‘You couldn’t be more specific, could you?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Where does she work?’
‘For Colonel Mountford, I think. She’s a kitchen slave, I believe.’
‘Thank you very much for your help.’ John slipped a coin into the woman’s soapy hand.
‘So what do we do now?’ Dalrymple asked him.
‘I imagine that I wait till the servants come off duty and tackle Miss Sopwith then. I’ll take Rose with me so that the woman can be properly identified. Meanwhile, I think I’ll go and call on Jake O’Farrell and find out why he did not drive Hancock’s coach the other day.’
Dalrymple gave him a smart salute. ‘Goodbye, my dear Mr Rawlings. Keep me posted with all the latest developments.’
‘I will indeed.’
He never afterwards could tell why he did it but John sought entry to John Hancock’s great pile through the hole in the palings and approached the house as quietly and as secretly as he had once before. From the minute he entered the coach house he was gripped with a multitude of feelings. Firstly one of fear, remembering the man who had beaten him so savagely on the stairs. Then he recalled a conversation which he had had with the porter on the gate about a man with an English accent who had come enquiring for the late Demelza. A big, dark fellow with an upper-crust voice. So that had been it. There was definitely a fourth man involved in all this. But where to start looking?
The door of Jake’s apartment was closed but on turning the handle it wheezed open and the Apothecary entered cautiously.
‘Jake?’ he called out. ‘Are you there? I wondered how you were getting on.’
There was no answer and, looking round, John could see in the afternoon light that the living room was empty but there were signs of a small struggle. A couple of chairs and a modest table had been knocked to the floor, as if two people had engaged in a physical fight. But of Jake there was no sign. Nor did the bedroom reveal any clue as to his whereabouts. The whole place was frighteningly, yawningly empty. And this is what the other servants must have found when they had come looking for him to go to work on Christmas Day.
John was just about to leave when his eye was drawn to a wooden cupboard situated across the corner of the bedroom. Peeping out from underneath was a tiny piece of torn clothing. Staring at it, suddenly full of dread suspicion, John pulled the handle and there was Jake O’Farrell, standing upright, his head at a grotesque angle, his eyes wide and staring, the pupils quite blown, his throat slit wide. John clutched a hand over his mouth, utterly shaken. Then he ran downstairs, breathing in choking gasps as he rushed to get help.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘I reckon you’re right, John,’ said Irish Tom, putting a glass of brandy before his former employer and taking a great swallow from his tankard of ale. ‘There’s a filthy murderer somewhere whose identity is a complete mystery. First Lady Conway, then her lover. It must be someone who has a grudge against the two of them.’
‘Her husband?’ John asked.
‘But how could he have sailed from England?’
‘Perhaps he followed her but got here first because of the shipwreck.’
‘I reckon you might be right at that.’
‘But where is the bastard?’
‘Who knows? He could be anywhere.’
It was six o’clock, pitch dark, and the two of them were sitting in The Bunch of Grapes where they could talk privately. The Apothecary, still shaken from his experience, had actually fetched John Hancock himself to look at the body. On seeing it, the intellectual had turned a greenish colour but had maintained his wits. He had called for two slaves to carry the corpse into an outhouse and had then sent a rider for the coroner. Then he had shaken John Rawlings by the hand and sent him on his way, asking him only how he had known Jake and questioning him no further. Instead he had courteously offered the Apothecary a ride home in a small chaise, which John had accepted with gratitude. And now he sat with his oldest friend as they earnestly discussed the situation.
‘How can I find him?’ John asked, emptying his glass.
‘I don’t know, John, and that’s a fact.’
‘I was informed that a tall, dark man with an upper-class accent made enquiries about Demelza. But who’s to say that he was the guilty party? It could have been anyone.’
‘As you state. But weren’t you going to look for Miss Sopwith tonight?’
‘Yes, I was. But I don’t know that I feel like it.’
‘Well, I would advise that you do. It will take your mind off any other nasty business.’
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‘I was going to take Rose with me to help with the identification.’
‘Miss Rose is at this very minute seated in your shop and sharing a cup of tea with Master Tristram.’
‘Good God, are you sure?’
‘Positive. It was served to them by Suzanne herself. So I’ll come with you, Sir. I feel in an adventurous mood.’
John had yet another restorative brandy and then they left the tavern and walked the short distance to Court Street where, so John had been told, resided Colonel Mountford and the beautiful daughter of Lord Rockingham. But even as he stood gazing at the elegant lines of the large and imposing Woodchester House, a figure appeared from the kitchen quarters, removing a soggy apron and wrapping herself in a black cloak.
Irish Tom stepped forward. ‘Good evening, Ma’am. Has anyone ever told you that you’ve a face as fresh as sunlight over the lakes of my homeland?’
She turned to him crossly. ‘You’ve got the wrong woman, Mister. You’ll be looking for Nell Kinsley.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Tom answered, astonished.
‘Because she’s the only one who might be described as free to come and go.’
John stepped forward. ‘Do you happen to know if she has a friend in the militia?’
The woman looked blank. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Does she sleep with soldiers?’ translated Tom.
‘I’ll say she does. Though lately she’s quietened down. Got a regular chap, so she says.’
‘Do you happen to know his name?’
‘Peter, I think.’
‘I meant his surname.’
‘Oh, Milksop – or something like that anyway.’
‘Where is she, do you know?’
‘She slipped off early to join him. They’ll be on the Common by now.’
John and Tom looked at one another and, with one accord, headed off in the same direction.
The camp at night was a different place entirely. Off-duty soldiers huddled round the many braziers which had been lit round the perimeter, muffled up in greatcoats, their hats pulled well down. John, observing from a distance, thought it looked like something from a dream, the snow creating a kind of mist through which the figures of the men were distorted into shadows, unreal and vaporous. Sounds were muffled and he heard them as distant cries of long-lost beings. For who were they in the main but pressed men, taken from their hovels by force and made to fight to maintain the right of Britain to rule all that it could lay its empire-building hands on? Suddenly, in a clear-headed moment, John vividly sympathized with the plight of the Colonists and the terrible predicament in which they found themselves – ruled by distant laws from a country that most of them had never even seen. He could clearly understand why men like Dr Joseph Warren and his followers were staging a violent protest against such unfairness.
‘Which bivouac is Sopwith’s?’ asked Tom, running his eyes over the several hundred which appeared in the eerie gloom.
‘We’ll have to ask directions.’
‘And find a pair of poor souls going about their private business with a certain enthusiasm, I don’t doubt.’
‘Come now, Thomas. You’ve never appeared cowardly before.’
‘I hope you are joking, Sir, for that’s something of which I’ve never been accused.’
‘Of course, of course. But you do realize that as many men as can be have been housed elsewhere for the winter. Only a few hardy souls remain.’
‘But given the straight choice of trying to smuggle a girl into my room in a house in which I’ve been billeted – complete with beady-eyed landlady who hates the guts of the British – or taking her to a chilly but private bivouac, I know which I’d choose. As would you, John, and don’t deny it.’
The Apothecary had no intention of doing so, thinking that his former coachman had put his finger on the spot, then realizing that this was a rather rude double entendre. Smiling to himself, he and Tom proceeded cautiously into the misty scene.
Whether Private Peter Sopwith had a billet elsewhere or whether he was braving out the wintry conditions was never revealed to them, because as they approached a small tent that had been deliberately pitched at some distance away from the others, they heard the loud cries of mutual enjoyment. Miss Kinsley certainly did not restrain herself and neither did the good soldier boy, if their ears were telling them the truth.
Turning to Tom, John said, ‘Perhaps we ought to give them a few moments.’
‘I think you’re right.’ And sitting down on a tree stump, Tom pulled a pipe from the depths of his pocket and began to puff away. After a second’s hesitation, John joined him and the two men sat together, as contented as the biting cold would allow, and conversed in low voices. Ten minutes passed and then a head covered with longish hair poked itself out of the tent flap and said nervously, ‘Is there anybody there?’
John strolled over. ‘Private Sopwith?’
The man emerged from the bivouac in a state of some disarray. ‘Yes, Sir.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Who asks?’
‘Rawlings is the name. Investigator assisting Lieutenant Harry Dalrymple, enquiring into the recent deaths of two people.’
In the whitish light thrown by the snow the soldier’s face turned a shade of lilac. ‘I don’t know who you mean?’ he gulped.
‘You refer to Lieutenant Dalrymple? Don’t you know your commanding officer, man? What kind of solider do you call yourself, eh?’
Behind him the Apothecary could hear the Irishman give a low chortle as John played up his act.
‘I’ve a damn good mind to put you on a charge, soldier. Stand to attention, blast you. Tom, fetch the lieutenant, this second.’
The Irishman played his part. ‘I surely will, Sir, immediately, now and at once. But a thought occurs, Milord.’
‘And what might that be, my good man?’
‘That it is not this young fellow that we ought to be questioning, begging your pardon, your Grace.’
John thought that he was being promoted through the aristocracy at the speed of flight. ‘Then who is it, fellow?’
‘Why, his light-o’-love, Sir. The woman with whom he has relations.’
‘D’you mean me?’ asked a voice from within the bivouac.
‘Yes, Madam, I do,’ replied John grandly. ‘Step forth and show yourself.’
So there she was, the woman who had so cleverly kidnapped his daughter. John’s blood quickened as he saw her, so smug-faced and pale beneath the winter moon. She had black hair, loose about her shoulders, and rather small dark eyes. She was also thin as a broom handle and just as attractive.
‘Miss Kinsley, I believe,’ he said in a voice that would have cut ice.
She must have felt a touch of alarm because she bobbed a curtsey and said, ‘Yes, Sir.’
The Apothecary decided to throw caution to the wind and said, ‘I am making a citizen’s arrest for the part you played recently in the kidnapping of Rose Rawlings. You will come with me now.’
At that Tom loomed out of the shadows and stood, large as an Irish giant, beside John, his very presence oozing menace. Private Sopwith gazed at him, wondered about hitting either of them, then thought better of it. He then proceeded to act in a highly ungentlemanly manner and said to Miss Kinsley, ‘Sorry, Nellie, but I can’t help you. You’d better do as the man says.’
She turned and ran, lithe as a fox, pelting in the direction of the bushes. John immediately sprang into action, followed by Tom, who with his great long legs quickly passed the Apothecary and disappeared into the darkness. There was a crash, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground, then silence. John, seriously thinking that he ought to get back into condition, sprinted in the general direction of the ruckus.
Tom was lying on the ground, gasping for air, all the breath knocked out of him. John glanced round for the Irishman’s quarry but she had disappeared into the night. Instead of chasing after the girl he sat down beside his oldest friend and waited for his panting to stop which, e
ventually, it did.
‘The evil little shrew escaped,’ Tom said, half sitting up. ‘By God, I’ll have her tongue for toast before I die. How dare she.’
‘She probably did the most sensible thing in the circumstances,’ John answered, giving a wry irregular smile. ‘But she won’t get away for long. Tomorrow I shall call on the colonel’s lady and put the case to her.’
‘Now that,’ Tom answered, ‘would be something that I’d very much like to witness.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Enchanting, thought John. The only way to win friends and get information is to be utterly enchanting to everyone. But he was having a great problem living up to this. The colonel’s mistress, the Lady Anne Temple, was nowhere to be seen. Instead he had to contend with the colonel’s sister, a large, tall and somewhat fearsome female who closely resembled a man in women’s clothing.
‘And why do you wish to see one of our sahvants, Sir?’
John bowed deeply and tried to give her an awestruck glance as if she were someone of enormously high rank. ‘The truth is, Ma’am, that I need to question her about the recent kidnap of my daughter.’
Miss Mountford raised a quizzing glass which hung round her long neck on a faded black cord and peered at him intently. ‘What’s that you say?’
John smiled winsomely, feeling an absolute fathead as he did so. ‘I was asking, dear lady, where your servant Nell Kinsley …?’
But he got no further. The woman suddenly rounded on him, resembling nothing so much as a militant horse. Her full and fluid lips curled. ‘I do not pass the time of day discussing the sahvants with total strangers. Out with you, Sah. Out, I say.’
It was at this moment that Lady Anne Temple walked into the room and gazed round.
‘Whatever is the matter, Augusta? I heard you shouting from my bedroom.’
‘This madman has entered our house without invitation and wants to know details of the housekeeping arrangements.’
John bowed again and tried to adopt his most sincere expression, ending up with a somewhat constipated look. He opened his mouth to speak but Lady Anne cut across him.