Smuggler's Moon (23 page)

“Oh, you did, did you?”

“Which was rather annoying, after all—though not near as annoying as hearing from him that I’d been sleepwalking, and that he’d found me collapsed upon the garden path. That
he
should tell me that! He, who had dressed as
the Grenville Ghost and tried to frighten me back into my room!”

“Think now,” said I, ”did he wear still any bits of the ghost’s costume? Did you detect any of that white paint he wore upon his face?”

She gave but a moment’s thought to it and decided he had not. ”No,” said she, ”I would have noticed those baggy trousers and those floppy boots, right enough. And as for that chalky stuff he wore upon his face, it would surely have glowed still as it did in the house. He managed to change his costume and wipe his face before he rescued me.”

“Rescued you? Do you feel you were in any real danger?”

“Why, how am I to know the intentions of that ill-mannered man who jumped out at me from behind that tree?”

“Mr. Fowler must’ve changed his clothing very quickly.”

“Hmmm. Yes,” said she, ”he must’ve.”

“Or you must’ve been unconscious far longer than you seem to think.”

“I see what you mean.” She hesitated. ”Yes, well, I must think about that.”

And so saying, she lapsed into silence.

Even with Clarissa’s tale-telling and the talk between us that followed, it seemed that we had only just reached the outskirts of Deal. Having then little upon which to concentrate my attention, I promptly fell asleep. And why not? By my own reckoning, never had so much happened in so short a space of time—not to me, in any case, nor even to those round me.

I did not wake till given a gentle shake by Mick Crawly.

“We’re here, lad,” said he. ”Right here in Middle Street—Number Eighteen.”

I blinked my eyes and saw that Clarissa was no longer in the coach.

”Where did she go?” I asked.

“The young miss? She had me let her off at the inn—the Good King George in High Street. She said you’d be going on to this address in Middle Street. Did I get it right? This is where I picked you up the other night, an’t it?”

I nodded and struggled from my seat and out the door of the coach which he held for me. Then, sighing, coughing, still only half awake, I managed to count out the trifling sum he requested and included a bit extra for an ale or two. Then did I look up at the door and see our baggage had been set out upon the doorstep and added another copper to his payment, for which he thanked me.

“I’ll be ready to serve you just anytime,” said Mr. Crawly. ”You know where to find me. And I won’t ask so many questions next time.”

With that, he bobbed his head, gave me a wink, and climbed back upon the driver’s seat. Then, with a wave to me and a crack of his whip, he set his team of horses off down the street.

I knocked hard upon the door, unsure who would come to answer. I was prepared to wait a bit, if wait I must. Still only half awake, I wanted little more than to get back to sleep. For a moment, I seriously considered sitting down upon the doorstep, leaning against the fattest of the portmanteaus, and continuing my doze right there. Yet I was surprised to hear a quick response to my knock—sharp footsteps coming down the long hall—a woman’s step if I was not mistaken, though not Mrs. Sarton’s. The door opened, and I was face to face with Mrs. Keen, proprietor and chief pastry baker at the tearoom in High Street.

“Ah,” she said, ”it’s you. And where’s your young friend?”

“Off nursing our wounded constable. And how is Molly Sarton holding up?” Mrs. Keen shook her head and shivered in a gesture
which seemed to express both sympathy and revulsion at the same time.

“The poor woman,” said she, ”as if she hadn’t suffered enough! And the two of them so much in love! But she’s braving it through. Just asked me to come by to mind the house and”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—”help the blind man. She said you’d be coming by soon.”

“I fetched our baggage from the Grenville house,” said I.

“Come along then, let’s get it inside, shall we?”

And she wasted no time in grabbing the fattest portmanteau and hauling it inside. I took my valise and the remaining portmanteau (Clarissa’s) in hand and wrestled them through the door, then kicked the door shut behind me.

“Jeremy? Is that you?” Sir John’s voice came from the small room just inside the door—Mr. Sarton’s study.

“It is, sir.”

“Come see me here when you’ve done moving the bags up to the bedrooms, will you?”

“I will, sir.”

Then down the long hall and up the stairs, pushing the valise ahead and pulling the portmanteau behind. Mrs. Keen had preceded me and deposited Sir John’s big bag in the guest bedroom, where he had been napping. I put my valise inside and looked longingly at the bed—but that, it seemed, would have to wait. By this time, Clarissa’s bag had been tucked inside the master bedroom.

As we two descended the stairs, it occurred to me to ask after her tearoom: ”Who’s minding your shop, Mrs. Keen?”

“No one,” said she. ”I put a notice in the window which said that due to a death in the family, the tearoom would be closed for the day. Molly may not be family, strictly speaking, but she’s all the family I’ve got. She’ll have so much to do today—too much. Believe me, I know. I went through it all when my Neddy died.”

”Well, with your permission, mum, I’ll leave you now and find out what Sir John has to tell me.”

“Oh well, go, surely. But when you’re done, come back to the kitchen, and I’ll have something for you.”

We did then part company, and I started down the hall. I remembered as I went that Mrs. Sarton—Molly—had first mentioned Mrs. Keen to us as a ”widow lady,” and I wondered when it was her Neddy had died—and how. I had no idea how I might find out. Yet perhaps it might be best not to know. I had the uneasy feeling that if I were to inquire, I would discover that his was another life in the smuggling trade which ended violently.

When I entered the little room just inside the door, Sir John turned in my direction and bade me take a seat. He himself had chosen the place behind the desk where Albert Sarton had sat his last. Others would not have picked it— would have supposed it the unluckiest of places. Sir John, however, had never shown himself to be in the least superstitious, so far as I knew. He did not seem to believe in luck, neither good nor bad.

“I have had a report of bodies found upon the beach,” said he. ”From what was told me, it seemed to be the very same beach on which you apprehended the smugglers. I took it that none were killed in the course of your battle with them?”

“No sir, none killed. Only one man—one of theirs—was even wounded.”

“Well then, it seems that we have three new murders to account for. The man who came with the news was a crusty old fisherman. He would have naught to do with me at first, for he insisted on telling ‘the young magistrate’ about it and only him. I finally managed to convince him that Mr. Sarton was indisposed, that a doctor would be coming soon to visit him—a surgeon, in any case—and that I was handling matters for him temporarily. Though he was not comfortable with it, he gave in at last and said that there were
bodies out there on the beach. He said they looked familiar, but he couldn’t put a name on any of them. He promised to wait a bit. Will you go, Jeremy? I know you must be tired, but…”

I sighed. ”Certainly, Sir John.”

“Good lad,” said he. ”I’d go with you, but I feel I must wait here for the surgeon.” He screwed his face in annoyance. ”He should have been here by now.”

At least when I departed the house this time, my coat pocket was well filled with sweet cakes. I know not how many Mrs. Keen had given me, for I did not bother to count as I ate them, but I do know that they brought me strength when I feared that my store was near exhausted.

It was full daylight by the time I reached the beach. Just as before, I saw the ghostly masts which rose from the water well before I saw the beach proper. Then at last I stood on the bluff and looked down upon the wide strip of sand whereon we had fought our battle less than twelve hours before. From that vantage I saw that all the boats that had last night been pulled up on the beach were now gone—all but one. That one, now near the waterline, was being loaded for departure, lines, nets, oars, bait. He who did the loading was a short man of over fifty years; he worked with a kind of plodding efficiency, evidently determined to be off soon.

He would not be detained much longer, and so I hurried down to him, kicking sand as I went. Looking up suspiciously as I approached, he then returned to his methodical preparations.

“You reported three bodies here upon the beach?” I asked. ”I’ve come to view them.”

“The blind man said he’d send a constable. Are you a constable?” He seemed dubious.

“Closest thing to it.”

”What’s that mean? That you’ll be a constable just as soon as you grow up?”

“No, it means that I’m close enough to a constable to be a pain in the arse to you if you do not choose to cooperate.” I kept my eyes steady upon his.

“Oh, it’s that way, is it?” Then did he surprise me by bursting into laughter—and a booming laugh it was for one of modest size. ”So? You got some sand in you, do you? Well, I like a lad who’ll show some pluck,” said he. ”So indeed I’ll tell you all I know, which an’t much. When I come down to start my day, all the fisher lads was up there”—he pointed up the bluff—”lookin’ at something. So naturally, I goes up and takes a look, too, and I see it’s three dead men—each one with a bullet through the brain. ‘What’s this?’ says I to the fisher lads. ‘What’s it look like?’ says they to me. Then one of them says he heard shooting and even a big boom like a cannon last night, and these three dead ones must be the result of it all. Then says I, ‘Somebody ought to go up and tell the magistrate.’ Then they come back at me, sayin’, ‘If you think that, then you’re the one should go.’ So I went and told the blind man, and when I got back, the fisher lads was all gone. I’ve been beat out to the shoals where the herring swim for my good deed. Satisfied?”

“That all you’ve got to tell?”

He began pushing his boat out toward the water. ”That’s all.”

“Could you point out where to look for the three bodies?”

“Up there.” Standing and pointing. ”See? Just this side of that bushy, grassy place, you can see a leg sticking out.”

The place he pointed out was the very same spot whereat Mr. Perkins and I had spent hours of last night waiting for the smugglers to appear.

“Oh yes,” said the fisherman, turning back to me, ”there was one more thing.”

”And what was that?”

“Those dead men up there, I never knew them, but I saw one of them about town. One of the fisher lads seemed to know who they were, though. He said they were in the owling trade.”

Having said it, he pushed the boat out into the sea, and with a quick, spry movement, he jumped inside it. He was then far too busy with the oars to bother further with me.

I turned round and started up the sand bluff. As I climbed, it occurred to me that I should have asked the fisherman the name of him who knew the three up ahead as smugglers. Would I ever learn?

As I came upon them, the three seemed to me to lay together where they had fallen. There was no sign that they had been moved. And though there were footprints aplenty in the soft dry sand, they were not the sort that would give a distinct and separate trace. It did appear, however, that a good many men had left the site, as many as ten—though there was no way to be exact.

I bent down and examined the bodies more closely. Immediately I saw that the wounds each had received were quite like the one which had felled Mr. Sarton. Judging from their size, they might well have been inflicted by the same weapon, or at least three weapons of the same bore and weight. The wounds were also placed similarly—that is, between and just above the eyes. And the faces of all three men had been blackened by the discharge of powder. All this was enough to tell me that the murder in Middle Street had likely been committed by the same man—or by one of the same men.

I grasped the cold hand of one of the victims and moved his arm, feeling no resistance or rigidity. What Mr. Donnelly named ”
rigor mortis
” (Latin, I was certain) had not taken over the limbs of the corpus. I repeated this with the other two and had the same result—as expected. But I happened to look more closely at the face of the third, and I
noted that there was something familiar about it. What was it? Where had I seen him before? The identity of this man did, of a sudden, take possession of me. The question of
who
he might be took on great urgency.

I went so far as to whip out my kerchief, which was reasonably clean, run down to the waterline with it, and dip it. I ran back, holding it, dripping water all the way. Then, returned, I rubbed at his face with the wet linen, removing the layer of gun-soot from it, rubbing it until at last it shone clean enough there in the morning sun. And who should appear before my eyes but Samson Strong, who had testified in his own defense and that of his fellows regarding their misadventure with Mr. Perkins. And these other two—could they be those who had appeared with him before the Deal magistrate? Indeed they could, though I had not seen them well enough from where I sat to be sure of it. What had these three done to deserve such a punishment?

EIGHT

In which I journey
to London and
voyage back by ship