by Mira Stables
“Exactly so. Just what I want them to do. The trouble is that they may not both come. If by any chance they do”—there was a pregnant little pause—“then maybe you won’t need to go out through the window after all. But what’s more likely is that only one of them will come. They’ll surely think one man’s enough to deal with one small slip of a girl. You see,” he teased, “they don’t know your predilection for hitting your visitors over the head.”
Nell was a little reassured by his easy confidence, but she couldn’t help wishing that they were both safely on board Jasie’s boat. Then she chided herself fiercely for cowardice. Here was adventure such as she had always dreamed of, and shared moreover with the man whom by now she was near to worshipping, and she was wishing herself safely out of it! She couldn’t see how they were going to escape, she didn’t want to see how Charles meant to deal with her abductors. Resolutely she folded together lips that showed a distressing tendency to tremble, and resolved to do just as she was bid without wasting time with what Papa would have described without hesitation as foolish female vapourings.
Charles had now produced a candle and tinder box from his breeches pocket, and having lit the candle perceived the discarded lanthorn, which he seized upon with an exclamation of satisfaction. He then proceeded to make a careful inspection of the stonework of the embrasure, finally giving the lanthorn to Nell to hold while he grasped the stone pillar with both hands and wrenched at it with all his strength. Nell watched anxiously. The stone budged not a hairsbreadth. He met her anxious gaze with a cheerful grin, visible even in the moonlight. “Solid as bedrock,” he declared. “’Twill take my weight, let alone yours,” and he knotted one end of the coiled rope round the pillar, testing each knot with care. Next he hauled in Nell’s signal streamer, and having detached the handkerchief and returned it to her, proceeded to wind the strip of cloth round the thin rope where it crossed the edge of the sill.
These preparations completed, he lifted the coiled rope on to the ledge, and turning to the watching girl picked her up bodily and seated her on the improvised cushion, so that her face was on a level with his.
“Now,” he said, and she could sense the mounting tension in his voice and in the nervous grip of his hands on her waist. “We’re going into action, you and I. All the stonework at this side of the loophole”—he laid a hand on it—“is loose and rotten. I’m going to force it out to make a passage for us. As soon as I begin they will hear us, and someone will come. I shall have perhaps a minute to work, then I must stop and make ready to receive visitors. Your part, then, is to take this bar and make as much noise as you can, banging on the stonework. Don’t worry about trying to loosen it—I’ll do that later—but just make sure that whoever comes up comes right into the room to stop you. Is it understood?”
She nodded solemnly.
Here’s my pistol then. It’s loaded but not cocked. Don’t fire unless you must. I’d like to bring the pair of us off without having to make a lot of explanations afterwards.” He smiled down into her trustful eyes, picked her up, and held her for a moment in a brief hug. “Here’s good luck to us both, my girl,” he said softly against her hair, and without further ado set her down in her sheltered corner, out of the way of fragments of flying stone, and applied himself with axe and crowbar to the crumbling stone work.
Chapter Twenty
Rudd busied himself with adding the final touches to his preparations, his mind happily occupied in the contemplation of lifelong blackmail. Dangerous it could be of course, but with one of Sir Nicholas’s kidney, a man who wouldn’t soil his lily white fingers with the touch of violence, an enticing prospect. Those bundles of hay from the barn where Sir Nicholas’s bay had found a temporary stable had been a good idea. They would start a fine blaze. The straw mattress on which that gentleman lay stretched, shielded from its contamination by his cloak, could be added to the conflagration at the last moment.
On an empty keg beside the hearth stood the remains of the food he had brought at Sir Nicholas’s behest. He, with his niffy-naffy ways, had not approved the coarse fare, chewing his way disdainfully through a slice of cold pie, and nibbling at the cheese like a nun at a lemon. All the more for those who appreciated good plain tack, thought Rudd, biting into a generous wedge of pie and smearing away the jelly that dripped down his chin with the back of his hand. He slopped some brandy into the dirty chipped cup from which Sir Nicholas had sipped with such obvious revulsion. Yet it was good brandy, he decided, rolling it round in his mouth before gulping it down and taking another bite of pie.
‘A few hours’ sleep,’ he mimicked aloud, ‘is all I need. I must keep my mind clear, so that I may approach the new day’s problems alert and fresh.’
“Bah!” He spat as close as he dared to the sleeping man. But for his part, he wouldn’t fancy taking those ‘catchits’ as Sir Nicholas called them. He had watched curiously as the gentleman had tilted back his head, poured the powder on his tongue, then swilled it down with a mouthful of brandy.
‘Yes,’ Sir Nicholas had said, upon his interested enquiry, these were the same catchits that would do for Missy. He had condescendingly spelled out the word, since to Rudd it was unfamiliar, and had further explained that while one would give you two or three hours of sound sleep, three would produce a deep unconsciousness. A larger dose—Sir Nicholas shrugged. Then he had settled himself down on his unsavoury bed, leaving him, Rudd, to do all the work, and within minutes had fallen deeply asleep.
At least he had been abstemious with the brandy. Rudd, lifting the bottle, one of the last run, to the candle flame, saw that it was still half full, and contentedly poured another cupful. That was the way of it, he decided philosophically. Some had catchits and a mattress. Others had an old blanket and a sup of good brandy, and so thinking he tossed off the draught with a celerity that would have startled even the members of the Hellfire Club. Sir Nicholas had selfishly sprawled himself in the middle of the mattress, but maybe a hard-working innkeeper could use the odd corner as a pillow. Rolling himself in the coarse blanket he lay down on the floor and settled himself as comfortably as the circumstances permitted.
He was not allowed to sleep for long. It seemed as though he had scarcely closed his eyes when an ear-shattering racket began overhead. He sat up, cursing, and looked instinctively to his bedfellow for instructions. Sir Nicholas slept on as peacefully as though the noise were some sweet lullaby. Rudd scrambled to his feet, pulling off the enveloping blanket which had tangled itself about his legs. There was no time to be wasted. That hellish din would be audible half a mile away, and though in general the place was utterly deserted at this hour of night, one never knew when some damned nosey tide watcher might take it into his head to prowl around the purlieus of a house which rumour freely connected with smuggling.
He started for the stair, and then, on a sudden afterthought, turned back and picked up Sir Nicholas’s riding whip. Missy should be given a good sharp lesson, and if Sir Nicholas didn’t like it, he should stay awake and keep his niece in better order. Lips curled in a smile of pleasurable anticipation, he lumbered up the steep stairway and lifted the securing bar away from the doorway, yelling out to the girl as he did so that she’d better stop kicking up that row, or he’d come in and make her. A particularly loud crash drowned the end of his threat, followed almost at once by a perfect fusilade of blows. He grinned contentedly, imagining the terrified creature within battering frantically and uselessly at the unyielding stone, left the bar lying against the wall, and pulled the door open. Just as he had expected, the girl was hammering frantically at the window frame. He noticed with some surprise that she had even managed to prise one or two of the stones out of their setting. But as he made towards her, she dropped the bar, and, to his amazement, picked up a very serviceable looking pistol. Where the devil had she found that? He didn’t suppose she’d have the pluck to fire it, even supposing it was loaded, but it looked uncommon nasty. He hesitated for a moment, and in that moment a pair of
powerful arms encircled him in a close if unloving embrace, and a deep voice said gently in his ear, “Ah! My helpful friend, Mr. Rudd, hirer of paid assassins. Try doing your own work, Mr. Rudd, and see if you have any better luck than Tom Ransome.”
The heavy crash of falling stones, followed by the sustained clamour of Nell’s pounding on the window frame, had at last penetrated to Sir Nicholas’s drug-bemused brain. He sat up slowly, his eyes dazed and stupid. His sleep had been too brief to permit the effect of the drug to wear off, and it required a considerable effort of will to bring his surroundings and the events that were taking place into focus. Pandemonium had broken loose overhead. The floor shook to the stamping of heavy feet, and to the thump and roll of struggling bodies. From his position on the hearth he could see that the bar was down and the loft door open, but even if Rudd had decided to rape the girl while he slept, no female could ever put up the sort of fight that was raging over his head. He could only assume that the hour must be far more advanced than he had thought, and that Rudd must have fallen asleep—probably in a drunken stupor, the sot, in spite of his strict orders to stay awake and watchful—and so had permitted Trevannion or his groom or both to steal a march on them. Though how they had managed to negotiate the passage, raise the trap and reach the girl without arousing either himself or Rudd, was a mystery that at the moment he could not solve.
With careful concentration he got to his feet and approached the open door, whence the sound of battle emerged with unabated fury. Cautiously he mounted, step by step, until he was able to obtain a clear view of the combatants, just in time to see Trevannion break from Rudd’s hold and land a couple of heavy body blows before retiring out of distance and circling for another opening. Behind the contestants, clearly illuminated in the moonlight, stood his niece, a pistol in her hand, her whole alert poise clearly indicative of a fierce determination to use it if necessary.
Under the stimulus of this shocking scene, Sir Nicholas’s bemused brain cleared with surprising celerity. The two men were in the middle of the room, and as he cautiously raised his head another inch Rudd plunged at his antagonist in a wild attempt to land a crippling blow. Neither man had any attention to spare for what was happening at the door, and the girl, at the far end of the room, would not dare to fire for fear of hitting her lover, even if she saw what he was about.
Quick as a flash Sir Nicholas was up the remaining stairs, had closed the door and heaved the bar into position. Whatever the outcome of the fight, all three were now safely caged. Slightly breathless, he leaned against the door and considered what he should do next. He could, of course, simply retire from the scene and disappear gracefully, but that would mean the abandoning of all his ambitions, and with the flow of French gold cut off it would not be long before his mounting debts caught up with him. Were there any means by which he could still salvage security out of apparent catastrophe?
He came slowly down the stairs, deep in thought, oblivious of the noise overhead, and his glance lighted upon Rudd’s carefully built pyres. Of course. A moment’s consideration convinced him that the scheme contained no flaw. And a smile of the purest amusement curved his mouth as he thought of the painstaking care with which Rudd had created the instrument of his own destruction. With the exception of Trevannion’s groom, all the obstacles to his success were trapped in a room which would shortly be a raging holocaust, and the groom, whatever his suspicions, could prove nothing. There was not a shred of evidence to connect Sir Nicholas Easton with the mysterious tragedy that would shortly be enacted. He could even take time to add his revolting bed to the bonfire. He stooped and dragged it to the foot of the staircase.
Rudd had been only half right when he said that the luck was with them, for now, without any effort on his part, he would dispose of Rudd along with the rest. For him alone the gods of chance had smiled. With meticulous care lest he drop hot tallow on his well-kept apparel, he took the candle from the lanthorn and moved from one pile to the next, lighting each in several places to make sure that they were well ablaze. Through his activities he gradually became aware that the sounds of conflict in the room above had ceased. He even found himself wondering with mild interest who had won. He hoped it was Trevannion. It was a pity that he would never know.
He picked up his cloak and shook it, carefully picking off one or two straws that clung persistently, and put it about his shoulders. His whip seemed to have disappeared, but he had better not stay to look for it, since already the room was full of smoke. He stooped to the trap, and as he raised it an axe crashed against the timbers of the attic door. Sir Nicholas smiled. The door was two inches thick, of weathered oak and hard as iron. The axe would be blunted long before its fibres yielded.
He lifted the trap door clear of the cellar entrance. The draught from below would help his fires to burn more fiercely. Already the attic stairway was ablaze. Carefully he descended the cellar steps to the gallery entrance. There he stopped. For a long moment he stood at gaze. Then his fingers moved with quiet purpose to the pocket that held the cachets.
The luck had run out at last. In the belief than Trevannion had made his entrance by way of the gallery, he had miscalculated the state of the tide. Water was lapping gently over the lower rises.
Chapter Twenty-One
He had not planned to do more than mill the man down—knock him out perhaps, as he had done Ransome—and so clear the way to freedom for himself and Nell. Yet looking down at that hideous mask of agony and death, at the betraying purple marks across the throat where his fingers had choked the life away, he felt neither guilt nor shame. It was not even because in his heart he felt that he had only exacted just payment for the death of Gareth Penderby. Standing in the shadows beside the door, he had seen the evil lust on the man’s face as he had come in, the purposeful grasp on the whip which was intended to subjugate his proud slim girl. That whip had signed the man’s death warrant. It had roused Charles to an uncontrollable fury which would endure all punishment so that it was finally assuaged by killing. The punishment had been considerable. Rudd had been a powerful opponent, not unskilled in wrestling and boxing, and master of many a cunning trick that might easily have defeated Charles’s greater science, had he not been sustained and inspired by the raging passion within him.
He dragged himself to his feet, and turned rather blindly to the corner where Nell waited.
“I’m sorry, child,” he said, hoarsely, heavily, “you shouldn’t have been subjected to that exhibition. But at the end, it was him or me.”
“Is he dead?” she said wonderingly. And when he nodded, her voice came fierce and quick. “Then I’m glad. He was a beast and a brute, and he deserved to die.”
Charles stared at her. He had expected tears—vapours—even reproaches. It seemed that women were not the delicate sensitive creatures that he had been led to believe. Certainly this one wasn’t. She was looking up at him anxiously, and one hand came up tentatively to touch his bruised and battered face. “Has he hurt you dreadfully?” she asked with childlike simplicity, and then, on a penitent gulp—“It’s all my fault. If only I’d done as you said, none of this would have happened. I’m truly sorry.”
Painful though the action was, Charles had to smile. There was a good deal to be said for a philosophy which could accept abduction, violence and murder itself, and reduce the whole situation to nursery status as something that could be expiated by an expression of frank penitence.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” said the anxious voice again. “He hasn’t injured you seriously?”
“No.” Though not for want of trying, he thought, remembering one or two of his late opponent’s less endearing tricks. “I’m quite all right. I think perhaps we might try the door now, since there is only your ingenious uncle to oppose us.” He picked up the axe, testing its edge against his thumb, and summoning up his depleted energies for the next task, but Nell had turned away from him and was standing, head up, sniffing the air as he had seen hounds do when taken a
t fault.
“Do you smell smoke?” she said sharply. “Something burning?”
He stopped. A couple of blows on the tough oak had already suggested that more than one tired man with an axe was required. Obediently, he too sniffed. There was no mistaking it.
“The window it must be, after all,” he said cheerfully. “Dear Uncle Nicholas has set the place alight beneath us.”
The task was not nearly so difficult as he had feared. Quite a light tap from the axe was sufficient to set the perished mortar showering down in clouds of dust, and though he would have preferred a stouter crowbar, a man must be thankful, and the shutter bar, though rather too flexible, proved adequate to the work. One by one the larger stones were dislodged, as the smoke, seeping up between the floorboards, thickened in the room.
It really did not take too long to make an aperture wide enough to permit the passage of Nell’s slim person.
“There,” he said thankfully, putting down his tools. “Now for Jasie and his boat.” He put his head out of the window and whistled again, a joyous bubble of impudent sound. And prompt to cue, back came the response from below.
“Good man, Jasie,” he murmured softly, and then to Nell, “It would seem that your father trained his colour Serjeant almost as well as he trained his daughter. You won’t be afraid, I know. You can trust Jasie and me to take care of you. I’m going to bind this end of the rope in a loop round you, and lower you down to the boat. It won’t be very comfortable, I’m afraid, and you may come down wide of the boat, but there’s no need for silence now, so if you find I’m lowering you straight into the arms of Father Neptune, just yell, and I’ll stop. The boat must be within a yard or two, and Jasie will be with you within seconds.”
Nell heard him to the end, and then shook her head firmly. For one dreadful moment he thought she was frightened of the descent. Some people, he knew, couldn’t bear heights. Then she said, quite coolly, “That opening’s not big enough for you. I noticed your shoulders wouldn’t go through, only your head. I’m not going down until you’ve made it bigger. Then I’ll know you can follow me as soon as I’m safely down, and we’ll both be all right.”