The Riddle of the Lost Lover (19 page)

“Corporal!”
shouted Vespa.

“Be damned!” exclaimed Manderville.

Another minute and the dog was close enough to hurl itself into Vespa's arms, writhing with joy and licking his chin frenziedly.

Hugging the little animal, Vespa looked up at his friend through blurred eyes and said brokenly, “Thank the Lord! Now we know which way to go!”

They lost no time, but having reached the coast and investigated several likely-looking coves, they had still discovered no trace of Monteil's coach. They were both very tired when they rode into the yard of a tiny cliff-top hedge-tavern to rest the horses. Manderville stumbled into the tap and called for luncheon, then had to be awoken to eat the thick coarse bread, sliced cold beef and pickles that were offered. He was dozing over a tankard of ale, and Corporal was fast asleep, when Vespa went outside, fretting against the delay.

There was a cold wind and the clouds were dark, but occasionally a ray of sunlight peeped through. ‘Afternoon, already,' he thought wretchedly. The picture of Consuela forced to endure another night in Monteil's hands was like the turn of a knife under his ribs. Wandering across the cobbled yard, he sank onto a hay bale, and bowed his head in despair. Gradually, he became aware of a heated discussion nearby.

“… wuz, Oi tells ye! Din't Oi see him, an' me Pa, too?”

“An' he were bigger'n a bull.”

“Wiv a yeller face, an' no eyes.”

Two of the country voices dissolved into laughter that was abruptly stilled as Vespa limped towards them. All three sprang from the fence where they'd perched. Hats were snatched off, and brows knuckled respectfully. They were youngish men, the eldest among them not over forty, their broad faces aglow with health, their eyes friendly.

“I heard you talking about a big man,” said Vespa without preamble. “No—pray don't be alarmed. Which of you saw the fellow?”

Uneasy glances were exchanged.

Vespa lied, “The thing is, there's a reward for anyone with news of him.”

“There be, zur?”

They crowded around eagerly.

“How much?”

“What's he gone and done, milor'?”

“The reward is not large, I fear.” Vespa took a quick mental inventory of the funds he'd brought along. “Five guineas to the man who can tell me where he went.”

“Cor!” Clad in the smock and gaiters of a farmhand, his bronzed face crowned with a shock of very blond hair, the youngest of the three exclaimed, “Five
guineas?
”

The older man, who appeared to be a fisherman, had been eyeing Vespa shrewdly. “Why?”

Clearly, to these simple folk five guineas was a vast sum even split three ways. Equally clearly, they were not sure of him. “I put it up myself,” he elaborated. “My name is Captain Vespa. The big man you saw is Chinese. He works for a Swiss gentleman named Monteil. They have stolen an English lady. The lady to whom I am betrothed. I'm very afraid—” his voice cracked slightly “—I'm afraid they mean to carry her over to France.”

The brief, shaken words won them over as no amount of involved explanations would have done, and provoked an outburst of shocked wrath. That a foreigner would dare to make away with an Englishwoman was as insulting as it was horrifying.

“Oi couldn't but notice as ye look proper pulled, zur,” said the fisherman. “Nor Oi cannot blame ye. If ever Oi heered o' such wickedness! Oi be Ezekiel, zur. This here—” he pulled forward a small and painfully shy individual who appeared to be an ostler “—this be Ed. And the big lad wi' all the yeller hair—that's Samuel. Ye best tell the Cap'n, Ed.”

Thus encouraged, Ed stammered that he had indeed seen such a strange chap. “Hugeous big, he were,” he said, throwing out both arms to emphasize his remark. “Nigh to seven foot tall, Oi do rackon. And broader'n Farmer Stowe's bull! Axed me summat as Oi couldn't no-wise make out. But me Pa were along o' me, an' he tells this here giant as how the other gent had rid through a hour afore.”

Vespa's breath was snatched away. Then he gasped, “What other gent? Not a very tall man with black hair and dead-white skin?”

“Ar.” Ed nodded.

“I see
that
'un,” the blond Samuel chimed in eagerly. “Riding of a neatish bay mare, he wuz.”

“Bravo!” exclaimed Vespa, elated. “Was my lady with him? She is small and very pretty, with dark brown curls and big blue eyes and the sweetest smile anyone—” He caught himself up, feeling his face redden.

The loverlike description won sympathetic smiles. Samuel said with regret that he had seen no such lady.

“Me Pa says as the big giant fella axed fer Willy,” supplied Ed, hopefully.

“That'll be Willy Leggett, zur,” clarified Ezekiel.

“Willy were lying off White Cove yestiday, but—” Samuel stopped, looking scared.

His heart pounding with renewed hope, Vespa said quickly, “Never fear, I'm no Riding Officer. Mr. Leggett is a free-trader, I take it. Show me where his boat lies, and I'll make it nine guineas you can divide between you!”

*   *   *

Willy Leggett's ‘fishing boat' was at the moment ‘at sea.' George Leggett, his brother, conveyed that information to Ezekiel, who had accompanied Vespa and Manderville to the large quay that ran out from a cove that was as if tucked into the cliffs. Ezekiel had at first approached Leggett alone and had held an earnest discussion with him, during which Leggett's enigmatic gaze had shifted constantly between Vespa and Manderville, while the straw he gripped between his teeth jerked as constantly from one side of his mouth to the other.

He was a sturdy man of late middle age, his skin red and leathered from years of exposure to wind and water. At first suspicious and reluctant to talk to these strangers, he was much shocked by the tale Ezekiel told, and Vespa soon managed to win his confidence. He admitted that Willy was on a run to France, and had sailed with the previous evening's tide, bound for Brittany.

Startled, Vespa exclaimed, “Brittany! Do you know whereabouts?”

“Aye,” said Leggett, retaining the straw.

“Was there a lady passenger? A very lovely young lady?”

“One or two ladies. I wouldn't 'zackly say ‘lovely.' But that tall gent were aboard, and his gert hulking servant with him.”

“You're quite sure the gentleman did not drive away in his coach?”

“Couldn't of. Coach went too.”

Vespa glanced along the quay. Several fishing boats were tied up, and a good-sized crane was unloading bales from the hold of a merchantman.

Manderville said, “Jupiter! Your brother must have a large boat, Mr. Leggett.”

A faint sly grin curved the thin lips. “Aye.”

“Is she very fast?” asked Vespa anxiously. “Have I any chance of coming up with her?”

Leggett viewed him thoughtfully. “Might. The
Saucy Maid
's heavy laden. Low in the water. Touch and go it were, whether she'd clear the sand bar. If Willy spies any Coast Guard cutters, he'll likely hide in the Islands 'fore going on.”

“Which would give me a chance to catch up?”

“Might. If you wasn't 'bliged to hide as well. Either way, ye'd be needing a fast boat, sir.”

“Only tell me where to find one!”

Leggett took the straw from his mouth and considered it. Once again his keen gaze flashed from Vespa to Manderville. “Both on ye?”

Manderville said quickly, “Both of us.”

Turning to him, Vespa argued “Paige, this will be enemy territory. I'll not ask you to—”

“
Both
of us,” reiterated Manderville.

Vespa clapped him on the back gratefully. “I must send off a letter to the duchess at once. And then—what d'you say Mr. Leggett?”

“Enemy territ'ry, right enough,” said Leggett. “Risky. But if this here Frenchy stole your lady, Cap'n—well, we can't have that now, can we?” With an almost-grin he replaced his straw and started to stroll along the quay. “Foller me, gents, and meet my
Lively Lace,
the fastest yawl on this or any other water!”

*   *   *

The
Lively Lace
was fast, all right. Clinging to the rail near the aft mizzenmast and watching her mainsail and two jibs crack in the wind, it seemed to Vespa that the yawl fairly flew, her bow throwing up billowing clouds of spray as it sliced the waves.

George Leggett had been quite willing to convey them to the port on the Brittany coast where his brother would hopefully have dropped anchor. The fee was surprisingly low. George had said with a twinkle that since he'd not be carrying any contraband for once, if a Revenue cutter did challenge him, he could claim that he was simply ferrying passengers to the Channel Islands. “Put their noses proper out of joint, it will,” he'd chuckled, as he showed them to the small cabin below decks. There were bunks in the cabin, and within minutes two were occupied. Vespa had slept for almost seven hours, awakening to the familiar pitch and roll of a ship and the heavenly aroma of frying ham that wafted from the tiny galley. A wash and shave and a hasty meal, then, leaving Manderville still sleeping like one dead, he'd come up on deck feeling a new man.

A bright moon escaped the clouds from time to time and was reflected on the endless expanse of heaving waters. The cold air blew salt spray in his face. He thought yearningly, ‘I'm coming to you, my love. God keep you. I'll find you soon.' Leggett, at the wheel, had watched his approach approvingly and called that the captain had his ‘sea legs' all right.

Vespa crossed to his side and shouted, “I've done my share of sailing. Can we hope to reach France tonight?”

“If this wind holds, sir, I'll have you in Brittany by dawn—give or take sunrise.”

Vespa nodded and returned to the rail. Time passed, and he was joined by the tall yellow-haired Samuel, who Leggett had explained sometimes sailed as ‘crew.' Samuel offered an oilskin coat with the warning that Cap'n Vespa would get ‘soaked through' without it, because it looked like ‘weather' was blowing up.

He was right. Within an hour, Leggett and Samuel were struggling to shorten sail while Vespa took the wheel. Manderville came reeling up, shouted something unintelligible, lost his balance and shot across the deck. Vespa gave a horrified yell, secured the wheel and ran. Manderville was hurled over the rail but somehow managed to clutch it. He hung on for dear life while Vespa dragged him back onto the deck.

Bracing himself, Vespa gasped out, “Devil of a time … for a swim, Paige.”

Manderville clung to him and groaned, “What … I don't risk … in the name of…”

“Of—what?”

“Of—er, friendship, of course. And—curse you, you've torn my—new coat!”

“Ingrate,” panted Vespa, staggering back to the wheel. “D'you want a turn at this?”

“Certainly not! I'm a soldier—not a damned merman! When dare we hope to reach—to reach dry land again?”

“Dawn—so Leggett says, if this wind keeps up.”

“
Wind?
I thought it was a hurricane!”

Hurricane or not, when the pale fingers of dawn streaked the eastern clouds the
Lively Lace
was following the Normandy coastline towards Brittany, just as George Leggett had promised. Vespa had seen several distant lighthouse beacons, but not so much as a glimpse of a Revenue cutter. The seas were treacherous here; great plumes of spray boiled up around offshore rocks, and the dark water surged in swift and deadly currents that only a skilled mariner could hope to navigate.

The wind having dropped, Manderville risked another climb to the deck. One glance at lowering skies, heaving seas and a great mass of black granite that suddenly reared up beside the bow, and he flung a hand over his eyes and retreated, moaning.

For Vespa it had been a night of backbreaking effort, but the battle against the elements, bruising as it was, had given him the chance to put aside, for the moment, his crushing anxieties, and he had the satisfaction of knowing his health was steadily improving and that he'd managed to be of real assistance.

Peering at the looming ridges of Brittany, he stood at the wheel beside Leggett, and asked, “Are you sure of your brother's destination? That coastline ahead looks very wild. I never saw so many coves and inlets, and each guarded by offshore rocks. Might he not choose an easier route?”

“He got no choice, Cap'n. With that there coach to off-load, he'll need a port with a crane, but he's got to take care. The French navy don't amount to much since our Nelson met up with 'em, but they got a few ships of the line and some Customs cutters, and Willy being English they'd be main glad to send him to Davy Jones' Locker!”

“I haven't seen much in the way of towns. This area's pretty sparsely populated, isn't it? Would it be worthwhile for French naval ships to patrol here?”

“Not in a reg'lar way, sir. But the more lonely it is, the more chance for free-traders and such to slip in and out.” He shouted suddenly, “Hi! Sam! We're going in! Shorten sail!”

The yawl slowed, and turned landward. For some minutes Vespa had heard a dull roaring, and now, looking ahead, he caught his breath. Here again, the coastline was guarded by clusters of rocks like so many jagged teeth snarling against shipping, the waves thundering and foaming around them. “Good Lord!” he muttered.

Leggett's hands were strong on the wheel, his keen eyes fixed on the tumultuous seas. “If it weren't for that there dratted coach…” he muttered.

The
Lively Lace
began to buck and leap like a fractious horse. Vespa clung to the rail and marvelled at the skill of these men who could pick their way through such treacherous currents. Black-green water hove up along the side, then suddenly fell away; the roar was deafening, and for a heart-stopping few seconds the deck seemed to drop from under his feet and he was sure they were going down. A moment later the yawl drifted easily on a surface with scarcely a ripple.