Isaac hauled in the reins and the carriage slowed and turned into a graveled drive flanked by two tall stone columns.
French leaned forward. “You can set us down here. It’s a fine evening for a stroll. We’ll walk the rest of the way.”
Isaac gave him a look I expect he usually reserved for the village idiot, and accepted his fare with a shrug. We waited until he’d turned the carriage and rattled off down the road toward Redhill.
“We’ve certainly made ourselves conspicuous,” I said. “We’ve no luggage and we’ve just gotten out of a perfectly good carriage to stretch our legs and take the air. The story will be all over the county by morning.”
“It can’t be helped,” said French. “I assume there’s a house at the end of this drive and that Welch is in it. We could hardly allow Isaac to drop us at the front door. We need to be cautious, India. We saw what these fellows did to Mayhew and they’re liable to do the same to us if they catch us wandering around.”
The reminder of the carnage in Mayhew’s room sent a chill through my bones. I grasped French’s coattail and we set off, skirting the drive by traversing an adjoining field. The pasture was dotted with trees and thick with grass. My skirt dragged over the turf, producing a swishing sound that could be heard in the next county. Low clouds scudded over the sky, occasionally obscuring the nearly full moon that shed a bit of light over the countryside. A breeze had kicked up, smelling of rain. I do not enjoy the elements, and was considering informing French that I would wait for him at the Duke of Wellington when he hissed sharply and dropped to a crouch. I followed suit, craning my neck around his solid figure to locate the reason for his wariness. He touched my arm and pointed ahead of us. I dutifully peered in the direction he indicated. A pinprick of light appeared, faded to a tiny red dot, then flared again.
“A guard,” French whispered. “Having a smoke. Let’s avoid him.”
We set off at an angle, bent over at the waist to lower our profiles against the night sky. We crept along like this for some distance until we had flanked the guard. He’d been stationed on the drive, some distance from the house, but now I could see a large structure looming ahead of us. It was a two-storey house of brick, squat and ugly, with a tiled roof. A low verandah ran across the entire length of the house. From the number of windows, I estimated there were only two rooms on either side of the double front door situated at the center of the facade. Each of the rooms nearest the main door had a set of French doors facing the verandah. Curtains had been drawn at the windows, but thin lines of yellow lamplight indicated that the first room on the left as you entered the house was occupied. The remainder of the house was dark, and not a little foreboding. An ornamental hedge in need of clipping ran parallel to the front of the house. The gravel drive ran through an opening in the hedge and expanded into a large courtyard of chipped stone.
French put his lips to my ear. “There may be other guards. You go left and I’ll go right. We’ll meet on the other side, just opposite of where we are now. Have your Bulldog ready.”
I counted this as a significant and positive development in our relationship. Not so very long ago, French would have insisted that he conduct the reconnaissance alone. I was pleased to be deemed capable of creeping about in the darkness looking for criminals.
French drew his weapon, and I saw that he had replaced his Webley Boxer with a new one. The pistol was chambered for .577 cartridges, which are about the size of your average railroad spike. The bloody thing could take down an elephant. The recoil from the shot could take down the shooter. I’d shot the gun once, at a Russian spy, and damned near concussed myself.
Bending low, I scuttled to the shelter of the ornamental hedge and surveyed the grounds. With the light emanating from the windows, the figure of a sentinel would be outlined against the house, that is unless of course the chap was hunkered down somewhere out of sight. But I had to assume that any sentry would be up and patrolling the area for interlopers rather than having a kip while he waited for them, meaning us, to come to him.
I gripped the handle of my revolver and proceeded at a stealthy pace, using the hedge as a backdrop to hide my silhouette. The hedge would also hide me from the view of the guard down the drive, in the event he turned around and looked at the house. It was slow work and nerve-wracking to boot. I’d slide a few steps forward and pause, straining my eyes as I searched the inky shadows for a silent form. My shoulders and neck ached with tension. I hadn’t forgotten the butcher’s job our opponents had done on poor Colonel Mayhew, and I half expected a blade at my throat at any moment.
I edged around the corner and found myself at the back of the house. There was another gravel courtyard here, containing a stone drinking trough for the farm stock, and an assortment of dilapidated outbuildings. A soft whicker emanated from one of them and I tiptoed across the crushed stone to find that one building was in use as a stable. Two horses in the stalls lifted their heads when I poked mine inside, and I saw a carriage covered by a canvas tarp to keep out the dust. I slithered out and crept warily through a shed (the prior occupants of which had been, by the smell inside, chickens) and another small building that might have been a smokehouse, based on the acrid odor of old soot.
I will confess that my journey was ponderous and by the time I’d ascertained that there was no one lurking in the gloom and had sidled up to our rendezvous, French was wound as tight as a spring.
“What took you so long?” he snapped.
“I was being thorough. I hope you didn’t miss anything in your rush to meet me,” I snapped back.
French snorted, which I thought a feeble reply. “I didn’t see anyone. Did you?
“No. It looks as if there’s only the one bloke down the drive. There’s a team of horses in the stable and a carriage,” I reported.
“Let’s see if we can find a way into the house,” said French. “Only one of the rooms at the front appears occupied.”
We crouched behind the stone trough for a bit, to be sure that our approach had not been noticed. Have I mentioned how much I detest waiting? I’d be very pleased with this secret agent business if only it involved shooting Russians and did not require that I hang about watching people or places, with no dinner and no means of amusement. After three hours or so (alright, it wasn’t that long, but it surely felt like it), French deemed it safe to try the windows at the back of the house. All were locked. There was a door too, which likely led into the kitchen, but as it also was bolted we could not confirm our hypothesis.
“Confound it,” said French, when we’d exhausted the last of our possibilities. “There’s got to be a way in.”
“Shall we try the front?”
French sucked in his breath. “It’s too risky. What if the guard walks up the drive, or turns round and sees us?”
“Our only other option then is to wait until whoever is in there leaves the house and follow him, or them. But we could wait here for days.”
French hesitated, but the idea of staking out the house held as little appeal for him as it did for me. “I had hoped to avoid this, but we’ll have to break in. The noise may alert the guard or people in the house. If it does, then dash out of here and head north for a distance. Then cut back west. You’ll reach the main road and you can walk to the Duke of Wellington. I’ll meet you there.”
“An excellent plan, French. Which way is north?”
“Bloody hell.” He stabbed a finger at the fields behind the house.
“So west would lie in that direction?” I held out a hand uncertainly. “But isn’t the road behind us? Wouldn’t that be south? If I go north and then west, how will I cross a road that’s south of us?”
“Because the damned road curves. Didn’t you notice how we changed directions as we drove?”
“You mean to tell me that you did?”
“Naturally.”
“Well, I’ll be hanged if I know which way is north or south and I’m damned sure that if I’m being chased over the fields like a bloody fox that I won’t remember which is which. I have a much simpler plan. If we are pursued, I shall just run until I’m exhausted. Then I’ll cower in a ditch until dawn and head for the first farmhouse I see and beg to be taken to the nearest station. I’ll meet you back at Lotus House. Agreed?”
“We’re wasting time,” said French. “Just do what you like. You always do, anyway.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night.”
We crept back to the last window we had tried, which, being as far from the presumably occupied room at the front of the house as was possible, represented our best chance of entering undetected. French extracted his knife from his boot and inserted it into the frame, trying to pry open the latch. The grating of the blade against the metal fastening sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet of the countryside. My ears were pricked for any noise from within the house. French worked the blade back and forth. I heard a creaking noise, followed by a crack that to me sounded as loud as a gunshot. French and I froze.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“The frame is rotten. I’ve split the wood.”
We waited for what seemed an eternity, but the house remained quiet and the sentinel down the drive did not come to investigate.
“I believe I can dig out enough of that frame to get to the lock,” said French. He probed the wood with his blade, flicking small pieces of it away with each movement of his hand. It can’t have been very noisy, for the timber was old and soft, but each time French dug the blade into the frame it sounded to my ears as if a corps of lumbermen was felling oaks.
There was a snapping sound and French grunted in satisfaction. “Just a few more minutes and I’ll have this lock out.”
He was as good as his word and in no time at all he had pulled the lock from the flaking wood and set it on the ground. He grasped the sash and pushed upward gently, and the window slid open—not, I would note, as silently as we would have desired, but with much rasping and shuddering. This necessitated another wait, but finally French was satisfied that we remained undetected and levered himself up and over the window ledge. He was gone for a few moments sussing out the situation, but returned soon to offer me his hand. I wished I’d had time to change into my trousers, for scrambling through a window encumbered by a full skirt is deuced difficult.
We were in the kitchen. I could see the bulk of a cooking stove against one wall and a row of cabinets against another. Crockery, pots and pans were heaped on a table in the center of the room. A small wooden table and four chairs occupied one end of the room. The air in the room was fusty, and smelled of stale food.
French put a hand on my arm and whispered. “Through the door is a dining room, and then the entrance hall. There appear to be four rooms on each side of the main hall and I assume the same number of rooms upstairs. Welch is in a room at the front of the house with another man. I could only get a glimpse in there. It appears to be used as a library. I don’t think there’s anyone else in the house, but I didn’t have time to check the rooms upstairs. I don’t see any lights up there but keep your eyes open just the same.”
I tugged my Bulldog from my purse. French took my hand firmly in his and we negotiated our way out of the kitchen and into the dining room. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see that the furniture was covered in sheets. This room also smelled musty, and there was an air of disuse and neglect about the place. We navigated around the furniture and reached the entry hall. French poked his head around the door frame and then pulled me closer, gesturing for me to have a look for myself. Directly in front of me I saw the side of a set of stairs leading from the ground floor to the first. The space beneath it had been sealed off and there was a small door into a cupboard. I reckoned the space would be used for storage. Turning my head toward the left, I could see a white sheet draped over a large dresser or chest. Ten feet beyond the chest lay the front door to the house. Craning my neck farther out of the dining room entrance, I could see a set of double doors between the chest and the main entrance. The doors were closed. I could tell that because a thin wafer of yellow light issued from the room French had referred to as the library. The door to this room, which stood directly opposite the set of closed doors, was cracked open a few inches. I heard muffled conversation.
French touched my hand and we left the safety of the dining room and crept into the entrance hall, edging closer to the library. I winced as a floorboard squeaked under my weight. We stopped short of the open door and huddled against the wall. There was a lively discussion taking place in that room, but the occupants were obviously sticklers for privacy for they were speaking in hushed tones. Once I heard Welch’s voice raised in protest but someone shushed him peremptorily and the palaver continued. I could hear only snatches of the exchange. I heard the words “weapons” and “shipment,” but the heavy oak door effectively deadened most of the sound from the room. Still, some of the tone came through and from it I gauged that Welch was the inferior in the room. It was frustrating not to be able to hear what was being said, but short of sashaying in and seizing the men at gunpoint . . .
Well, why not? I nudged French and held up the Bulldog so that he could see it in the faint light filtering through the edges of the door. I mimed opening the door and charging in with gun in hand. French frowned and shook his head.
“Why not?” I said against his ear.
