The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) (30 page)

Having thought things out that far, I turned off the
road and covered quite a segment of my journey by riding across country. It was a nuisance, but it felt like a wise precaution. I got lost once, but I hailed a farmer who was taking muck to his fields in a donkey cart, and he put me right. I ate my packet of food, which consisted of ryebread, cheese and a wrinkled last year’s apple, as I went along, and both Bay Star and I drank from a stream. By late afternoon, I was in Windsor.

I rose right past Barnabas Mew’s shop, and had to quell a ridiculous impulse to dismount, tether my horse, walk into the shop and ask if Brockley had been there. It was difficult to believe that nervous, humble Mr. Mew could really be dangerous, that it wasn’t safe to walk into a perfectly ordinary shop and say, “Have you seen Mr. Brockley?” but I had had warnings enough that the danger was real.

I did, in fact, dismount and go into a shop, but it wasn’t Mew’s. It was well away from the clockmakers, and sold lanterns. I was going to need one.

I bought a candle-lantern, stowed it in my saddlebag and betook myself to the Antelope Inn. Here I did enquire after Brockley.

“He was here with me, only yesterday,” I said to the landlord. “He was on a speckled grey cob then, but he came back to Windsor yesterday evening, riding a chestnut.”

“Did he now?” The landlord was a large, self-assured man with an aggressive manner. “I’ve not seen your man, mistress, no, but the horse—would it be a gelding, sixteen hands, maybe eight years old, with a narrow white blaze and one white sock on the off fore?”

“Well—yes, that sounds right. You’ve seen it?”

According to Dale, the horse which Brockley had purloined from Lockhill so that he could ride back to Windsor without overtaxing Speckle, was Mason’s second mount, a very good animal. Brockley had got away with it by simply declaring that he had permission, and Lockhill being Lockhill, which meant disorganised, no one had questioned it. When Dale described the horse to me, I knew which one she meant. It was called Blade, because it had a dagger-shaped white streak down its nose. It certainly stood about sixteen hands, and it had a white sock, too, though I couldn’t recall on which foot and I hadn’t the slightest idea how old it was.

“Seen it?” said the landlord. “I’ve got it! There’s a horse like that running about loose in my paddock. The paddock was empty last night, but this morning there was this horse in there, grazing. My ostler called it in with a sieve of oats and fetched me to see it. I took a look at its teeth and I’d say eight years old or thereabouts. I told Martin to give it some water and leave it in the paddock for the time being. And I’ll tell you something else: I had a look round, wondering if it was a stray that had got in through a break in the hedge. I couldn’t find any breaks, but under the hedge I found a saddle and bridle. Someone came in the night and turned that there horse out in my paddock a’purpose. The tack’s in my harness room now.”

I went to inspect both horse and tackle. It was impossible to be perfectly sure—chestnut horses with white markings are as common as dandelions in spring, and the saddle and bridle were plain and anonymous—
but it was highly likely that both steed and tack were Brockley’s.

If so, he had reached Windsor. He had put his horse in the inn’s pasture, hoping no doubt to return for it before long, and then he had gone in the darkness to Mew’s shop. And vanished.

“Stable the horse,” I said to the landlord, “at my expense. I’ll talk to you further tomorrow. I shall need a room for the night and a meal of some sort as well.”

“And Mr. Brockley?”

“I hope,” I said, “that he’ll be here by morning, but if not, as I said, I’ll pay the bill for the horse.”

“I’m not that worried about the horse,” said the landlord, frankly. “What I’m worrying about is you. Were you meeting this fellow here? You’re not running away with him, are you?”

Another of them! Redman, Tilly, and now this.

“No,” I said, “I am not. He is my manservant and is at the moment carrying out a commission for me. I expected to meet him here.”

Once more, I was overwhelmed without warning by a longing for Matthew. If only, if
only,
Matthew could be here to help me now. When I bade him farewell at Lockhill, I had had a mad urge to confide in him, but I knew I had been right to resist. Even if he were not entangled in this business, he might still sympathise with it. Even for Brockley’s sake, I dared not tell him the truth.

How I wanted to investigate Mew’s shop in the company of someone large and tough, though! Matthew would be my preference, but the landlord of
the Antelope would do! What if I told him everything and asked for his help?

But he probably wouldn’t believe me, and if he did, he wouldn’t let me come with him. He would go alone into danger, as Brockley had, and it is a heavy burden, to know that you have sent men into peril.

So I stood there steadily and looked him in the eye until he shrugged and gave over questioning me. Then I asked to see my room and ordered my supper. There was no parlour to spare this time and I’d have to eat at the same time as everyone else, the landlord said, but when I said I would take the meal in my room and not join the rest of the guests at the long table in the main dining parlour, this seemed to allay his suspicions about me.

“Quite right. A lady travelling alone should keep her privacy,” he said.

I was now so nervous that I felt sick rather than hungry, but I knew I must eat if I could. Also, I was thinking ahead. I asked, therefore, for half a cold chicken as well as a wedge of hot veal pie and a dish of preserved plums. Some of it might prove useful during the night to come.

B
efore eating, I went out again, to reconnoitre on foot while there was still some daylight left. I put up the hood of my cloak, in case Mew should be about.

I was becoming very frightened of the danger and difficulty which lay ahead. I must go out after dark, find my way to Mew’s house—which would be occupied—break in and enter the cellar. Only for Brockley’s sake could I have contemplated it at all.

My only chance of getting in would be from the rear, as Brockley himself had said. All the doors, back or front, would certainly be bolted, and the lockpicks would therefore be useless. But according to Brockley, in that back room where I had seen what could be the cellar entrance, the window might be vulnerable.

Walking through Peascod Street, I looked keenly at the shops and cottages to either side. Most of them adjoined each other, but there were a few alleyways giving access to the rear. Such an alley ran between Humfrye’s, the apothecary, and the next shop along, a bakery. I counted the shop doors between Mew’s and
the apothecary—I would look very foolish if I burgled the wrong house—then I made for the alley.

At the far end, I found myself on a path which ran past the back gardens of the shops and houses. On the other side were sheds and paddocks. I saw animals grazing: horses, a cow or two, a few goats. Beyond the paddocks lay ploughland, turning grey in the gathering twilight. I turned left along the path, meaning to inspect Mew’s fence, and was abruptly accosted by a loud voice from the direction of the bakery.

“Here, who are you? What are you a’doing of, prowling about along here when it’s nearly night? What are you after?”

A gate creaked and the owner of the voice appeared, male, bulky, clad in workaday clothes with twine holding his baggy breeches in at the knee. He was inquisitive and frowning. To judge from the flour dust on the breeches, this was the baker in person.

“Well, I’m damned! It’s a lady! Are you looking for someone, mistress? What brings you here?”

“My dog ran away!” I said. As a spur-of-the-moment liar, I thought, I was undoubtedly improving. “I’m looking for it. It’s a little white lapdog. I didn’t mean to disturb anyone. I’m so sorry.”

“What do you mean, disturb anyone? No one’s asleep yetawhile. If you’re looking for a dog, what’s its name?”

I tried frantically to think of a name in a hurry, and saw a thistle near my feet. “Thistle!” I said.

“
Thistle!
Of all the funny names. What you want to go calling a dog Thistle for?”

“He’s got a rough coat. Thistle!” I called.
“Thistle! Thistle!”

We pursued the absurd hunt for a nonexistent dog for some time, all along the path. The baker insisted on coming with me. I thanked him graciously and seethed beneath the surface. At last I gave up, said that I must have been mistaken in thinking that Thistle had run into the alley. I would return to my lodgings, I said, and see if the dog had run back there ahead of me. As I set off for the inn, the baker stood in the mouth of the alley, staring after me.

I had done my reconnoitring, all the same. I had identified Mew’s back garden, and I had observed that he didn’t seem to possess a dog, although one of his neighbours did—it had barked as we passed. I had seen, too, that the path was lamentably neglected and that quite a few people used it as a convenient dump for rubbish. Several heaps of old fabric and various items of thrown-out furniture lay along the verge. There was a cracked stool and a battered truckle bed and some old wooden boxes of various sizes. If I needed an impromptu ladder, the means were to hand.

I had also ascertained that to reach the path I need not go through this alley. Two others came out on to the same path, so that I could keep well away from the bakery.

Once back in the Antelope, I did a little prowling on the ground floor to familiarise myself with it and then went to my room. My meal arrived and I forced the pie and the plums down my gullet, but I cut the half-chicken in two and secreted it in my hidden pocket. I had other uses for that. Then I rested until the darkness had fallen completely, and I even dozed a little. The
night before had been disturbed, and the one to come would be worse.

• • •

When the time came to set out, I had to shake myself into action. I was unwilling to leave the safety of the inn, and there was no doubt that I was tired, but I overcame these weaknesses and made myself set about leaving the Antelope.

The front door, of course, was heavily barred at nightfall and couldn’t be unbarred without making a noise, while the spitboy and a couple of other servants slept in a room off the kitchen, which made it difficult to leave by way of the kitchen door. But my prowlings had taken in the parlour where I had dined with Brockley and Dale. Memory had told me that it was promising, and memory hadn’t lied. The parlour was at the front of the house and had a low window. This had a bolt, but it was small and the room was well out of earshot of anyone sleeping in the house.

Having lit my lantern from the candles in my room and then blown the candles out, I crept downstairs. The parlour was quiet and empty. Kneeling on the window seat, I slid back the bolt and peered into the dark street; then I hitched up my skirts, and climbed quietly out. Reaching in to retrieve my lantern from the seat, I pushed the window almost shut behind me and hoped that no lurking robbers would notice the weakness in the inn’s defences.

In the darkness, the world was hushed. A few houses showed a gleam of candlelight but no one was about. Most people fear the dark to some extent: night is when ghosts and murderers walk. Even indoors, in
rooms with lamps and candles, the corners have shadows, and sometimes the shadows have curious shapes. The doorways of Peascod Street were like black mouths, and the sound of an owl made me jump. My breath was uneven with nerves as I made my way along the road, and I trod with care, for my lantern was not bright and at first I could hardly see where I was going.

Presently, the moon, which was only just past the full, came out from behind a patch of cloud. Aided by this, I found an alley, not the one I had used the first time, and went round into the path at the rear. However, the blanched moonlight cast such dense black shadows that it was of little use for seeing fine detail. Holding the lantern up, I moved warily along the back fences. I found Mew’s fence, but the neighbour’s dog began at once to bark. I threw one of the chicken pieces over the fence, and to my relief it wasn’t one of those over-trained guard dogs which won’t take food from strangers. It fell on the chicken with a growl of pleasure and I set about a close examination of the fence.

The baker’s presence had stopped me from doing this the first time, and what I found now was discouraging. Brockley had said that the fence looked ramshackle, and so it was, but at close quarters it wasn’t quite ramshackle enough. The gate was solid, and although the fence was breaking away from the post at one end, I still couldn’t squeeze through.

Well, I had supposed from the start that I would probably have to go over the fence rather than through it, and I had seen how it might be done. My teeth expressed an inconvenient wish to chatter, but I quelled them and began gathering useful items from the
thrown-out objects beside the path. One box was rotten and fell apart when I touched it, but I found one which was sound, and put the cracked stool on top. Despite the crack, I hoped it would bear my weight.

As I stepped on to it, however the dog next door, his chicken finished, barked again and threw himself against the fence. I fumbled hurriedly for the rest of the meat, and tossed it to him. Once more, he pounced on it, and the barking subsided into low, muffled growls. I hitched myself side-saddle on to the top of the fence. It shook ominously but I swung both feet over together, and let myself down with an awkward slither because I needed a hand for the lantern and could only spare one to hold on to the fence.

I crouched in the overgrown garden, wondering if anyone had heard me or the dog. Nothing stirred. No sudden candlelight showed; no one opened a window to stare out into the night.

The moonlight now seemed too bright and so did my lantern. As I rose to my feet, they threw my shadow across the straggling grass, and the lantern danced, sparkling, in my shaking hand. If anyone did peer out, I would be horribly obvious. Lifting my hem, I ran forward, feet brushing through the weeds and thistles scratching at my legs, until I could shelter in the darkness close against the house.