Sword and Song (30 page)

“Clothes,” Heron said, sipping at claret. “Why are you so interested in clothes, Patterson?”

“Consider the situation,” I said. “It was a warm evening – no one needed to wear a greatcoat. Someone from the house flung one on to disguise his clothes, but he had to
act in a hurry or he would have changed his shoes too – he was wearing shoes where boots would have been more suitable.”

Esther contemplated her smart, beribboned, high-heeled, muddy shoes. “Alyson’s livery is ostentatious. If you’d seen someone in scarlet and gold you would have known it was a
servant.”

“The attackers weren’t wearing scarlet and gold,” I said. “Or I would have seen it when their greatcoats flapped open. They were dressed in dark clothes.”

“So the servant changed his clothes,” Hugh said.

I shook my head. “Then why didn’t he change his shoes too? And he would never have passed for normal when he went into the drawing room. If he was to pass unnoticed, he needed to be
in livery.”

Hugh chewed on a drumstick. Esther said uneasily, “So you don’t think it was a servant after all? You are suggesting one of the guests is involved?”

I accepted more wine from Heron. “A guest could have dealt with the notes as easily as a servant.”

They were all looking bewildered; I said, “Let’s go back to basics. Everything that’s happened is because of Fischer’s legacy.”

“What is so special about that legacy?” Esther asked. “Why should someone steal both book and sword?”

“I think we’re dealing with two separate crimes,” I said, “although they may have been committed by the same person. The book, I think, was originally disposed of by
Fischer’s cousins – they thought it of no value, and it made its way eventually to Charnley’s shop from where it was stolen. I think the thief at that time had no idea it belonged
to Fischer. It was merely suitable for his purposes.”

“And the sword?”

“That’s more simple,” I said. “It’s valuable. Someone has stolen it to sell.”

“But why should anyone steal a severely damaged book?” Hugh mused.

“Ah,” I said. “Now that’s one thing of which I’m absolutely certain – thanks to Lizzie Ord.”

“Enlighten us,” Heron said dryly.

“
Because
it’s damaged. According to Lizzie, the spine’s hanging by a thread and the glue’s giving way. The covers were coming away from the boards.”

Esther stared at me. “Oh, no. Charles, tell me it is not so simple!”

I nodded. “Leaving room for a document to be slipped between the cover and the boards. Then the hiding place could be sealed up – ”

“What kind of document?” Hugh demanded.

“That’s why I want to have another look,” I said. “But if you ask me to guess, I’d suggest it’s a map. An accurate surveyor’s map of a piece of woodland
currently in dispute.”

They stared at me. “Good God,” Hugh said. “You’re not telling me William Ridley’s behind all this!”

We chewed the matter over for a few minutes. Esther and Hugh were incredulous although Heron said that in his opinion Ridley was capable of any dishonesty he thought he could
get away with. I gathered there’d been talk of a coal co-operative whose members would share the cost of producing, transporting, and shipping the coal south, and Ridley had in effect
sabotaged the entire affair to gain some advantage of his own.

Esther was, however, adamant Ridley wasn’t involved. “I saw the two men who attacked you in the wood, Charles! The one who ran away was young and fit. The one who held the horse was
older and I admit I did not get a close look at him, but he was by no means as plump as Ridley! Taller, too, I would say – a well-built man, not a fat one!”

“Sounds like Crompton to me,” Hugh said. “Charles, why don’t you see he’s the one!”

The conversation became unprofitable, going round and round over the same ground. The sun was sinking down the sky, and Esther shifted out of the increasingly chill shade of the tree, to sit in
a pool of sunshine. It was about time the coachman returned; I got up and climbed the slope out of the dell to the point where I could look down on the track.

No sign of the coach. I jogged back down to the others. Was there any polite way to ask Heron how much money he’d given the coachman and whether it was likely the man could have got
roaring drunk at his expense?

“I think we need to get going,” I said, “and the coach isn’t back yet. I’ll walk to the Black Pig and turn the coachman out.”

“Want me to come with you?” Hugh asked.

“No, no, I’ll be quicker on my own.”

Esther glanced up. “If Catherine is not recovered, or if she is worse, do not make her move. Tell the landlord to give her a chamber and everything she needs, and we will call for her on
our way back tomorrow. Tell him to call out the doctor or apothecary if necessary.”

I agreed, although I doubted I could persuade Catherine to desert her mistress. She’s a determined woman and I suspect she’ll probably be on her deathbed before she gives in to
weakness.

Heron called to me as I was turning away. He was holding something out to me – one of the duelling pistols Crompton had packed in the hamper. “It would be foolish to take any
risks,” he said.

“Is it loaded?” I’m nervous around pistols, all too aware of my incompetence.

“It is my experience that pistols are generally pointless when they are unloaded,” Heron said, dryly. “Unless you are facing a very gullible adversary, which these plainly are
not.”

I took the pistol from him gingerly, surprised by how light it was – or how well balanced. “Careful,” Heron said. “It will fire if you so much as twitch.”

I gave him it back in a hurry. “Thank you, sir, but I have an even better weapon in my armoury – I can run very quickly.”

“Charles can’t hit a barn door!” Hugh said grinning. “He may have a good sense of rhythm but his sense of direction is dreadful!”

I left them with dignity, climbing up the rise then jogging across to the track. I was beginning to regret the picnic almost as much as I’d enjoyed it. Sitting in the warm sunshine with
good friends and the woman I loved had lulled me into a kind of warm sleepiness from which it was difficult to return. But I was going to have to stir myself – get myself ready for the long
ride into town and the
stepping through
into the other world. To put an end to this mess once and for all.

The track was longer than I’d remembered. The trees kept the worst of the sun off my head although the air below them was thick with midges that itched on my face and in my scalp. I waved
them away. The sun was lower than I’d anticipated – how long had we indulged ourselves?

At the road, I turned left – we’d come from the right and I knew there was no tavern that way. If the coachman was roaring drunk, sobering him would take some time. I’d have to
make arrangements for Catherine too. In heaven’s name, why had we delayed so long?

Tall overblown hedges on either side were rampant with cow parsley, honeysuckle and reddening rosehips, tall seeding grasses and trailing brambles. The road was potholed and rutted, the hard
earth surface disintegrating in the dry weather. We’d had one of the hottest Junes in living memory, and it hadn’t rained a great deal since. The road twisted and turned in the peculiar
way country roads do; I glimpsed sheep in the fields and one or two wilting, yellowing crops. I started at shadows, and rabbits rustling among the brambles.

A pair of geese strutted out into the road in a sudden rush, necks held stiffly. I hesitated – in my admittedly limited experience, a goose can be extremely unfriendly. But they flapped
off into bushes and I rounded a corner to see a spread of buildings in front of me.

The Black Pig, the tumbledown cottage – they were both there, with a barn besides. But they were all ruined. The roofs had fallen in, bar a few rotting rafters over the cottage; the
windows of the Black Pig were broken, and a sturdy rowan tree had grown up inside, pushing its branches through gaps in windows and door. All that was left was the ghostly presence of letters
painted across the façade, and a half-rotted sign that must once have swung above the door. The sign had fallen into a water butt and the paint had long since mostly peeled away, leaving
just the pig’s snout and a tree in the background. It looked as if it had once been someone’s prize pig, fat and bloated and complacent.

I stood under an oak tree and contemplated the ruin. The coachman, Alyson had said, had been familiarising himself with the country roads – he’d found the picnic site easily enough.
So why had he not known the Black Pig was a ruin, and had been, by the looks of it, for twenty years or more? And if he hadn’t known, why hadn’t he returned as soon as he found out, to
tell us so and make new arrangements?

One of the servants in Alyson’s house must be in on the plot. And if a guest was involved too, the servant didn’t need to be an indoor servant. The coachman was stocky – and he
was the only one of the servants good honest careful lawyer Armstrong had not personally interviewed and approved.

And he had Catherine.

I started running back along the road.

A whine. Something flicked past my eyes. I stumbled to a halt. Geese squawked furiously. Dear God, the geese! Something – someone – had spooked them. Someone in the
hedge, in the field, among the old ruins.

Someone shooting at me.

And I was standing stock still like an idiot! But if I ran, I’d be an easy target...

I flung myself at the hedge. A second shot, high above my head. He had two pistols. At least I’d startled him into firing too quickly, before he could aim properly.

I crashed through a rotting, broken-down fence into a dense tangle of saplings. This had once been coppice; the spindly shoots grew up in dense bundles from low stumps. The attacker was further
away than I’d thought. By the wall of the ruined barn, in deep impenetrable shadow, I could just see his movements as he furiously reloaded. I had seconds to reach him and it wouldn’t
be long enough. I shouted and ducked down. The fellow was excitable; he loosed off another shot. The ball went over my head again.

I ran at him, tramping through brambles that caught at my clothes, scrambled over another, more sturdy fence. He must realise he didn’t have time to reload again; he turned and ran. A
lithe, slender figure, in dark coat and breeches. At the corner of the barn, I tripped over something, grabbed a tree trunk to steady myself. He’d abandoned one of the pistols.

The squeal of a horse. Hooves clattering on a road.

I heard the thud of the horse’s hooves receding into the distance as I came out into a farmyard. Tavern and cottage on my right, barn on the left. Weeds sprouted through cobbles, stunted,
distorted saplings twisted from broken-down walls. Suddenly conscious I was exposed, I retreated to the deep shadows of the barn.

Nothing. No one. The attacker must have been alone.

I went back to the coppice, twisted one of the saplings from its stump and prodded cautiously at the abandoned pistol. It was a cheap affair, nothing on it to identify its owner, no convenient
coat of arms. I left it, afraid it had been abandoned because of a misfire.

The low sun was in my eyes as I ran back along the road. We needed to find shelter. Somewhere we could easily defend. And our problems multiplied if we had to spend a night in the open. We had
food and drink, and pistols, but we were not warmly dressed, least of all Esther. And no one at Long End would miss us until late tomorrow – they all thought we were staying the night with
the Blacketts.

The track loomed up ahead. My scraped side was aching where I’d been stabbed; I was labouring for breath. Midges swarmed around me. The track seemed endless and –

There was movement behind one of the trees. I spun – and saw Hugh, sighting at me along his cocked pistol.

He lowered the pistol. “We heard shots. What happened?”

“The Black Pig’s ruined. Has been for years by the look of it.”

“The coachman’s one of the plotters?” he asked instantly.

I nodded. “There’s one of the others here too. Shot at me, then rode off. Where are Esther and Heron?”

They were still in the dell, close behind the tree that had sheltered Esther. She’d draped the rug over her shoulders to hide at least part of her pale dress, and held one of the duelling
pistols; Heron, beside her, had his sword drawn. I would have run a mile rather than face him with that look on his face.

“I brought this on myself,” I said. “I thought I was being clever using our outing to cover my visit to Newcastle. But we’ve walked into a trap.”

“What about Catherine?” Esther said in horror.

I had no answer to that. “We need shelter,” I said. “And somewhere no one can take us by surprise.”

“A local farm?” Hugh asked.

“Too risky. How could we be sure we could trust their occupants?”

“But what’s the alternative? We can’t walk.” Hugh was looking at Esther’s shoes; if she had to walk more than across a room, they would probably cripple her. And
that unwieldy dress was made for an elegant turn or two in a drawing room, not for a hike down country lanes.

Heron said unemotionally, “I do not believe I will be able to walk far either.” A muscle in his cheek worked as he spoke; it plainly cost him to admit this weakness.

“I think the best thing to do is to take shelter in the Black Pig ruins.” I cultivated a tone as cool as Heron’s to try to discourage argument. “With several pistols and
a sword, it may prove defensible. I’ll walk on, try to find help. If I can get hold of a horse, I can ride on to Blackett’s house, and bring him back with a band of his
servants.”