The Miller's Dance (44 page)

‘
It has been the custom for several years for Messrs Courts Bank to despatch money to their branch in Brighton by 'The Blue Belle', a coach run by the

well-known and long established carriers, Bouverie, Cartwright & Baynes, who have th
eir head offices in St Mary-le-B
one. 'The Blue Belle' leaves the Star & Garter Hotel in Pall Mall each weekday at nine a.m.

On Monday last the 16th inst. the coach left as usual, with the cash-boxes in the padlocked compartment beneath the coachman's seat. All six seats inside the coach were booked. Of these only two, a Mr and Mrs Pressby, arrived to take their seats at the point of departure. At Streatham a Mr Coningsby and a Mr
Browne joined the coach as arranged, but the remaining two inside passengers failed to put in an appearance. When the coach stopped at the posting inn in Sutton Mrs Pressby was of a sudden taken ill and could proceed no farther. She and her.husband were given
accommodation at the inn and an apothecary summoned. The coach then proceeded on its way with eight outside passengers and two inside.

At Reigate, however, the two inside gentlemen alighted from the coach to rendezvous with a friend whom they had arranged to meet there. At the inn they discovered they had missed him, and, instead of accompanying them to Brighton, as planned, he had boarded a coach for London. Seeing no point in therefore continuing to Brighton, they remained behind at Reigate and resolved to wait for the next coach to take them home.

On arrival at the Old Ship in Brighton, after the
passengers had alighted, the coachman's seat was un-padlocked in the presence of the Bank's messengers, whereupon both bank boxes were found to have been broken open and the cash extracted.

An at
tempt is being made to trace all
the passengers who travelled on the coach that day. £300 reward is offered for the recovery of the notes and/or
the
arrest of the miscreants. The value of the cash stolen is between £3,000 and
£4
,000. Similar notes are being withdrawn and changed.'

There was a long pause. Stephen eventually shoved the newspaper across the table at Paul.

'There's a Chinese puzzle for you.'

'My own feelings exact,' said Paul. 'But Chinese puzzles are meant to be solved. What do you think, Jeremy?'

Jeremy shook his head.

Paul said:
I
corrected it might appeal to you both.'
'Appeal!'

Emma came in. 'All dry, are ee? There now. Sorry. I been busy in the taproom.' She swept up their tankards with a clatter and went out.

Paul smoothed his sleek hair,
I
won't deny I have given the matter some thought since I read the piece. Money like that would not come amiss to any of us. I only wish I had the magic secret.'

'We talked of all this once before,' Stephen said brusquely, in May. It got us nowhere. Nor will it now.' 'Things have changed a little since May,'said Jeremy. 'Oh yes. Oh yes. For me? For you? For us. Maybe for all of us. But it don't - this newspaper story is a
fairy
tale
-
it' don't offer us any help.'

‘Why?’

'Well, could you imagine a lamer excuse than those two men - what was it? - Coningsby and Browne. They had arranged to meet someone at Reigate - wherever that may

'Oh, I agree,' said Paul. 'All the same I'd dearly like to know how it was done. I've thought. It must have been those early passengers — somehow.' be: he isn't there, so they return to London, even though they were originally booked for Brighton. It's a palpable lie, the feeblest excuse.'

'And the padlocked seat, with the coachmen seated upon it. There's always two of them. How did they manage that?' You see it says...'

Emma came back, glanced at their preoccupied faces,
I
can see how you all want to talk to me. Never mind. I'll go flirt with the sumpmen again.' She put the ale down and left.

Stephen said: 'You see it says the bank boxes were broken open. Not stolen. Broken open. How could that be?'

'The coachmen were either in it, or blind drunk,' said Paul,
I
've told you before, I know these men. They tak
e a tot at every stage; by the ti
me they're half home they almost leave it to the horses to find their own way.'

‘I
t couldn't be that,' said Stephen, it's not just drink. Otherwise the seat padlock would've been forced too. You can see that. Now supposing the two coachmen go in for a drink and someone - inside or outside - climbs up with a crowbar, wrenches open the seat, wrenches open the boxes, grabs the cash, smooths over the damage to the padlock, puts the money in their own valises, and slips away.'

'The coach,' said Jeremy patiently, 'is only left in the yard for a few minutes
anywhere,
and people are always bustling about. I doubt if it is left unobserved for sixty seconds. What would you say, Paul? You ought to know.'

'Well, you're right about the length of time a coach is left unattended. Once it leaves its starting-point
...
And it was daylight.'

'And the seat padlock was nor forced.'

Stephen put his little finger into the gap of his broken eye-tooth, picked it abstractedly. 'One at least of the coachmen was in it. Must have been. Slipped his accomplice the key while he went for his drink.'

'Someone still had to break open the cash-boxes,' said Jeremy, in front of everyone.'

One of the candles was guttering, sending up wispy smoke and making little shadows jump and dart. Even though it was the fag end of the year, a few moths were fluttering against the window-panes.

'Well,' said Paul, 'you've helped me to think a small amount more clearly. If, as I think, the coachmen were in it, then they had an arrangement with the two men, so that when they stopped at Reigate the keys should be slipped to the men. In order to make it seem like an outside theft, the bank boxes were forced.'

‘I
f they'd wanted to do that, why was the seat-padlock not forced too, eh? That would have been much more conclusive, like, that the coachmen were not involved.'

They all took a drink.

'But how,' said Jeremy, 'could they count on the lady being taken ill at Sutton ?'

'Well, it means they were all in it - all the original passengers.'

'Or none of 'em,' said Stephen.

'Why d'you say that?'

'The coachmen could've just arranged it betwixt themselves. Surely. Easy as eas
y. They stop at one of the main
posting-houses. All the passengers get out. One of the coachmen goes in for a drink. The other does the job.'

'While the horses are being changed?'

'Well, in between. They could count a minute here and there. Twould add up in the end.'

'And what do they do with the money?'

'Pass it to some accomplice waiting at the next stage. I reckon that's why they broke open the bank boxes instead of stealing 'em. Much easier to carry.'

Paul folded the cutting from the newspaper again and again, as if trying to eradicate the questions in his , mind.

Jeremy said: 'But weren't those boxes padlocked too? Weren't those padlocked you saw in Plymouth, Paul?' 'Oh yes.'

'How long do you suppose it would take, then, to break those boxes open, after the seat-padlock had been opened with a key? How
long
would it take? More, surely, far more than the three or four minutes you might expect at the
most
when a coach is stopped and the
horses are being changed. It
would not be
possible.'
.

Stephen took a very long
drink. 'God's eyes, what do it
matter? You - you read a fairy story in a London news
I
sheet, Paul, and you bring it to show us, and then
we rack
our wits like apprentices with a brain-twister their master has give 'em. We know we can never solve it nor answer it. We don't even know if the question be right all ways, because something may have been put in or left out. But
I
whatever, twill do us no manne
r of good to rack our wits to
answer it; for if we did answer it
we should never have it just
the same way as it was in the first place in London - the facts : would never, never be the same - and so it is a sheer waste of
time and energy thinking abou
t it at all! Forget it! Let's
think about what we can do d
own here - not what they did,
or are supposed to have done, on the Brighton coach!'

Jeremy was starin
g at the smeeching candle, eyes
blind with preoccupation. There was a r
oar of laughter from the
taproom. Emma was entertaining the sumpmen. Paul said: 'Two months from now my father will be in
p
rison, my mother and Daisy turned out of doors. Then I'll ave to find work to keep them somehow. I'm not trained, you know, not the way I should be, not in law or accountantship, nor even in office work, save what I've picked up in day to day business. It is not a pretty prospect
...'
He got up and kicked at the fire to make it blaze. 'All the same, I shall not risk my neck holding up a coach at pistol-point behind a black mask or a kerchief. I don't have the stomach for that sort of violence, nor the nerve to carry it through. Maybe you do, Miller, being bred to piracy.'

'I've never been a pirate,' said Stephen, 'nor ever intend to be - as you well know. A privateer, you little runt, is all the difference in the world, as I've also explained to you before. You get letters of marque. You're operating legally in times of war. You fight the enemy, but for private profit. That's why I'm anxious to get to sea again afore the war is over.' He banged on the table for Emma. 'Nay, I have no fancy for the black mask - little more than you, Paul - though I'm willing to stand me chance and fight me way out of most things. I carry scars enough to show it! But other folk carry more.'

'Like that sailor in the press gang,' said Paul. 'Aye. Like him.' 'And Ben Carter?'

'We'll leave that be,' said Stephen. 'Just for the time being. If you please.' Paul came back but did not sit down. 'All the same
...'
'What?'

'
I
'd dearly love to know how that money disappeared from the Brighton coach. If it was easy - or clever - or none too risky - I'd take a chance on
that.'

'You can't never know,' said Steph
en, it's a fairy story! Nobody'll
know how it happened.'

I
'm not so sure,' said Jeremy.

They both stared at him. 'What d'you mean?'

'These coaches here, Paul. Those that ply around Cornwall. Do they all have two coachmen ?'

'Yes. And some a guard as well. When there's money aboard there's usually a guard.'

'And passengers inside?'

'Four, not six. We haven't the turnpike roads to take the extra width.'

'That's the sort of coach that runs from Plymouth? The sort you travelled in after your fight with the press gang?'

'Yes. They're all very much the same as to size. Two coachmen, four horses, maybe a guard, four passengers in, eight to ten out.'

‘I
see.'

They waited. Stephen said: 'What d'you mean, you're not so sure. Sure of what?'

'Sure I don't know how it happened.'

'Get along!'

'Well,' said Jeremy, 'of course I'm not
sure.
I can't tell you how it
did
happen, of course, no one can. No one probably ever will. But I think I can tell you how it
could
happen. I think I've got a pretty good notion how it could be worked.'

Relations between Sir George and his son were strained all through that far too long Christmas vacation. Valentine was a gregarious young man who never really liked to be alone, and since Cardew was much larger than the houses in which most of his friends lived, he thought it easier to entertain than to be entertained.

So a day scarcely passed when some few other young men or women were not seated at his supper table eating his victuals and consuming his candles and coals until far into the night. Sometimes they danced to a local fiddler who lived near by at Perranarworthal, sometimes they played backgammon, sometimes noisier games. George would have found it all much more acceptable if these visitors had been the sons and daughters of the noble houses of central and western Cornwall; instead in the main they came of genteel but not particularly distinguished or moneyed stock on whom, as George saw it, he was conferring a favour rather than that a favour was being conferred.

Indeed after the disgraceful scenes that took place at Cardew on the night of The Miller's Dance, when Valentine had scarred the top of one of his best tables with his boots, George would have put the house in quarantine for the rest of the holidays: the whole evening had been quite outrageous and should have been brought to an abrupt close before it got out of hand: unfortunately, more than ever this holiday, Valentine had found a firm ally in Harriet. They hunted together, and when it was too dark to see the foxes they brought home noisy and muddy young people who turned night into day. She also stood up for Valentine in private conversations with George and lent her stepson money when he ran short. It was all very frustrating. Nor was George altogether proof ag
ainst a stab of jealousy from
time to time.

It was his intention to tell Valentine of the plans he had made for his future; but the occasion just did not arise. Each of the last three nights before he left for Cambridge Valentine was out visiting - for a change - and returned very late. And although George's character did not run to finesse, he was reluctant to call his son into his study and announce that plans had been drawn up for his future marriage rather in the same manner as if he were telling him of a change in his monthly allowance. The ideal time would be after dinner, preferably when Harriet was not there, over the port when a mellowing influence would be at work. Not that George supposed Valentine would need much m
ellowing to accept the idea; Cu
by, as Major Trevanion had repeatedly pointed out, was a pretty girl, healthy, young, amenable, accomplished, and of one of the oldest and most distinguished county families. Their home would be in the only modern castle in Cornwall, surrounded by five hundred acres of garden and farm land sweeping down to the sea. George was more interested in joint stock companies and the discounting of bills, but even he had been impressed by his first sight of
Caerhays. When the bluebells and the young beeches were out it was something conjured from a dream. No young man in his right senses would even hesitate.

It would cost more than the original agreement in the end, for the two young people would have to be subsidized in order to live. But George had ideas about that too. Thanks to the advice of Sir Christopher Hawkins and with the backing of his new bank
ing associate Sir Humphrey Will
yams, he was feeling his way into a relatively new industry which was extracting clay and china stone from the hillsides and out of the ground in the districts of St Dennis and Carloggas. In two or three years, if all went well, he would have gained control of one of the companies working there and would put Valentine in charge. By then Valentine would be living quite near, and it would depend upon his own energy and acumen whether he could develop it into something suitable to his station. (A gradual withdrawal of the'subsidies being paid out would be a useful spur to his industry; but of course he would not be told that yet.)
On the strength of their few conversations together, 'George had come to the conclusion that Cuby was a young woman of strong character, little like either of her brothers; and her influence, plus the accession of property and responsibility, might help to sober Valentine and enable him to become the sort of influence in the county he ought to be. In the meantime, therefore, George tried to overlook his present extravagances of behaviour and of purse, determin
ed if possible to keep on modestl
y good terms with the lad, so that when the time came to announce his plans he could do so in friendly fashion, offering it as the generous reward of a loving father rather than as the coldly arranged dictates of convenience.

It occurred to him to discus
s his plans with Harriet, but
the thought never came
to anything. In the old days he
would certainly have told E
lizabeth everything, but this
marriage, though not as s
tormy, was not as close. George
had been more unguarded
with Elizabeth than with any
other person in his life. Besi
des, Harriet's reactions were
predictably unpredictable.
You could not begin to guess
now her views would jump. And her growing alliance with
Valentine made her jud
gments more than ever suspect.
Once the announcement
was about to be made, then she
could be told.

George had not yet begun to make any plans for little Ursula, who had only just cel
ebrated her thirteenth birth
day, but once or twice, observing suitably titled or landed ' parents with sons of a suitable age, he could not prevent the ; occasional speculation. Ursula was really the apple o
f his
eye, though sometimes he wished she were a prettier apple. If Valentine was as unlike the Warleggans as well could be, Ursula seemed to resemble them
all. She had a strong, thick
body, a slight stoop, big features and big hands. Her movements were rather slow, but her eyes, though small and round like polished walnuts, were very quick and penetrat
ing. She had been greatl
y spoiled by her grandmother, who ' could deny her nothing, and
not a little by her father who
saw and admired in her his own blood in a way that circumstances had prevented him from ever doing with Valentine.

Naturally enough she was precocious and grown-up before her time. Harriet tended to sit on her, so that an initial prejudice on Ursula's part against the newcomer had quickly been confirmed. This was a pity from George's point of view, who wanted his new wife to be popular with everyone at Cardew and saw the purpose, in theory, of Harriet's aims. (Yet by blood and by instinct, he found himself, in practice, almost always taking Ursula's side in petty disagreements.) But he still felt it would become more comfortable between them when they came to understand each other better; and the fact that all Harriet's animals adored Ursula — and vice versa - was bound to be a reconciling factor in the end.

One thing that delighted him was that the little girl was outstandingly quick at figures. When she was seven she had opened a sweet shop for her dolls, and had kept an account in large childish figures recording how much each spent per week. At twelve George had bought her a model tin mine built by a crippled miner at Wheal Spinster. Erected on three-foot stilts in her playroom, everything worked except that the engine sucking up real water had to be animated by a manually operated handle. There were little miners underground, bending in tunnels and picking in caverns, water-wheels and tin stamps, washing floors, air adits, even imitation coal. A few months after it was installed George was particularly gratified to find that Ursula had opened a cost book and was drawing up her own make-believe accounts, striking bargains with the miners and paying out dividends.

Ursula was annoyed that Harriet wouldn't be a shareholder.

'She should go to
school,
George,' Harriet said one day when they left the nursery. 'Lord's my life, I have little room for the genteelisms that are taught as standard at most of these Schools for Young Ladies; but she needs more company of her own age, more
competition,
a certain levity of manner that comes from mixing with frivolous girls. Also a smattering of French would do her no harm. But most of all, to get out is the important thing.'

'She is often out,'George said stiffly.'And she has one or two young friends. I don't believe she will be that much the better for mixing with the daughters of tradesmen.'

"Send her to Mrs Hemple's,' said Harriet. 'She opened a select school in Truro last July. I do not suppose that the girls she meets there will do her any social harm.'

In Harriet's view, Ursula badly needed to be jolted out of herself. Apart fro
m riding, which she did frequentl
y but badly, she had none of the cheerful feckless pastimes common to girls of thirteen. Harriet had once been tempted to suggest sardonically to George that a suitable marriage might be arrange for Ursula by pairing her off with that stout sweaty spectac
led schoolboy called Conan Whit
worth, but consideration for the safety of her own marriage had prevented her.

It was January i2 when Valentine left for the Lent term at St John's, which began on the seventeenth. He had to make a very early start and came to take leave of his parents while they were still abed. He was in very good spirits and kissed his stepmother with his usual familiarity, resting fingertips gently on her bare shoulder as he did so.

'You look tired to begin the day,' said Harriet.

‘I
t is an ungodly hour, ma'am, and I was up until an ungodly hour last eve. Tired but happy, I might say.'

Harriet raised an ironi
cal eyebrow. 'Not happy to be
gone, I trust?

'That was not what I meant.'

'No, it was not what I thought you meant.'

Valentine said: '"Did you ever hear of Colonel Wattle? He was all for love and little for the bottle?" A noble song, that.
I
give you good morning, stepmother mine.'

She uttered her low chuckling laugh as he left the room.

Sir George was sitting in his dressing-gown. Valentine greeted him cheerfully. One thing about the boy: he never was sulky.

'Well, Papa, I leave you to take a little rest and peace after the noise and turmoil I have brought to the house.'

'You certainly have been a disturbing influence,' George said candidly. 'But it is no doubt good to be high-spirited in youth. And I think you have given pleasure to Lady Harriet.'

'Among others,' said Valenti
ne. 'Among others. And thank you. Father, I have taken much pleasure myself.'

‘I
t remains for you now, then,' said George, 'to pursue your studies at Cambridge with some diligence. Though I am not sure that the subjects you are studying
...'
' 'Various things are obligatory if one wishes to read Classics later.'

'Ah well, it is all something of a mystery to me. But the dead languages offer, or seem to me to offer, little opportunity to pursue the subjects which will best serve you when you comedown.'

I
think perhaps I should have been sent somewhere else to learn bookkeeping.'

George looked at him suspiciously, but Valentine's manner was so cheerful that he concluded no sarcasm was intended.

'Well, goodbye, Papa. I will endeavour to live beyond my means, but dodge the creditors so skilfully that you will not be troubled.'

They shook hands, and Valentine left. George reflected that there might have been time even this morning to hint at some of the plans he had for his son; but concluded it was better not. Next time when he came home it would be Easter; there would not be the same excuse for endless parties and most of the damned hunting would be over. They would be sure to get an evening together.

In fact George need not have concerned himself in the matter of choosing a right time, for Valentine already knew of the arrangement, proposed for him. Conan Whitworth had taken the first opportunity to inform him.