A Noble Pair of Brothers (The Underwood Mysteries Book 1) (25 page)

Underwood had a sudden notion, one that he had no compunction in using, even though he knew it to be false, “Damn it all!” he cried, as though impatient with himself, “I had quite forgotten the birthmark.  Naturally, if you can tell me where the young lady’s birthmark was situated, there can be no doubt that you knew her intimately – though, unfortunately for you, it would be no proof of marriage.  It would appear Mary Smith was very free with her favours, when you were away at sea.”

He added that shot deliberately, and knew it to be unforgivable.  If Blake really was the husband, that information could only be painful, and would leave an indelible stain upon his wife’s memory, but Underwood was tired, irascible and sick of the smooth manner of his adversary.

For the first time Blake’s grin slid from his face, and stayed away.

An imperious hammering on the front door caused a look of relief to pass over his features; at least he would be allowed a little time to think whilst Underwood answered the summons.

Mr. Underwood was more than content to leave him for a few minutes, now being quite sure he had asked a question which the arrogant young buck could definitely not answer.

Abney stood on the doorstep, breathless and troubled, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Underwood.  I hate to disturb you, but Sir Henry sent me to fetch you and the young gentleman.  He’s in a rare fury; I daren’t go back without you.  I went to the inn, but they told me you were here.”

“He wants to see us now?” asked Underwood incredulously.

“Yes, sir.  I have the carriage waiting.”

Underwood desired nothing more than to ask Abney to tell his master to go to the Devil, but it was not in his nature to cause trouble for those who could not defend themselves, so reluctantly he caught up his coat, which he had discarded in the pursuit of comfort on so warm an evening, then went to fetch Blake from the study, “We have been summoned to Wynter Court for a meeting with the local magistrate,” he informed the seriously discomfited Blake.

“Magistrate?  What the devil for?  I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Nobody said you had.  Now stop whining and come along.  Sir Henry is not a patient man.”

Underwood was already beginning to see how the situation could be turned to his advantage in breaking Blake’s story, and he was now looking forward to this tardy visit to Wynter Court.

*

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

(“De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum” – Speak only well of the dead)

It was after eleven when the carriage came to a halt outside the front door of Wynter Court.   Most of the household appeared to be in bed as the house was in almost complete darkness.  Sir Henry had chosen his time for their interview well, there would seem to be little chance of their being disturbed.  Underwood had at first been inclined to think that the magistrate had called the meeting so late in a deliberate attempt to annoy him, but on reflection decided that it was only sensible to avoid having Blake cross the paths of Charlotte and her sisters.

Abney himself showed them to the library then prepared to leave them to face his drunk and furious employer.

  “What the devil do you mean by it, Underwood?”  he growled in greeting, causing Abney to skip swiftly to the door and shut it hastily behind him; he had no desire to see Sir Henry castigate the unfortunate man.  Underwood never thought to see him move so fast.

Underwood, for his own part, refused to be intimidated and walked casually across the room, settled himself in a chair and motioned Blake to do likewise.

  “I assume we still live in a free country?” he asked in a conversational tone, helping himself to a pinch of snuff.

“What the hell has that to do with anything?”

“Quite a lot.”  Swiftly Underwood rose to his feet and leaned menacingly across the desk, his face thrust within inches of the older man’s, “It means I am free to do precisely as I wish, and I certainly do not have to answer to you.  You may be God Almighty to the peasants, but believe me; you do not frighten me.  Now if you wish to discuss this problem in a civilized way, I am quite prepared to do so, but I swear if you speak to me in that manner again, I'm going to punch you right on the nose!”

It would be difficult to say which of the gentlemen present was most stunned by this outburst.  Underwood was a peace-loving man, who lost his temper only rarely and he had never before felt the desire to strike another human being, let alone voice a threat to do so.  Blake sat with a silly grin on his face, between amusement and astonishment, but for once speechless, unable to judge which man he considered the more insane.  He could know nothing of their previous meetings, and knew only that Underwood had just offered violence to a magistrate.

As for Sir Henry, he grew exceedingly red and spluttered inarticulately for several seconds before subsiding back into his chair.  Underwood took this deflation as tacit surrender and drew himself up to his full height, “I think we now understand each other.  Perhaps you would like to tell Mr. Blake and myself exactly why you felt you had the right to drag us here at this ungodly hour?”

Sir Henry still seemed to be recovering himself and did not immediately answer; instead he hoisted himself out of his chair and headed for the decanter of brandy which stood on a tray with several glasses on an occasional table.  He poured a very large tot with an unsteady hand, slopping more onto the salver than landed in the glass.  He drank it greedily, watched with longing by Blake and disgust by Underwood.  The latter could not help but notice the young man’s expression of yearning and silently crossed the room, poured two more glasses and handed one to his companion.  He tossed his own off in one swallow, feeling rather in need of sustenance since the magnitude of his actions began to come home to him.

Sir Henry stood by the fireplace, his feet planted firmly apart, his back to the flames, and the interview began.  Underwood was called upon to explain his behaviour and he briefly described how he had become interested in solving the mystery of the unknown murder victim (though he gave no reason for that interest; a man of Sir Henry’s insensitivity was hardly likely to identify with his own feelings of pity for the poor girl) and how he had traced her coach journey from London.  He told of the newspaper advertisement and the promise of monetary reward for information.  He then turned to Blake, as did Sir Henry, and both gentlemen waited patiently for him to add his portion of the story.

Blake had been seriously disconcerted by the events of the past few minutes so when he attempted to speak, his voice was a hoarse croak.  He choked, took a sip of brandy and tried again; “I don’t know what you expect from me.  I’ve told you the woman you call Mary Smith was my wife, what more do you want?”

“A wedding license would be helpful for a start,” said Sir Henry, making no attempt to disguise the contempt in his tone.  Underwood almost dashed a hand against his forehead; what a fool he was.  Why had he not thought of that?  It might not prove who ‘Mary Smith’ was, but it would certainly prove whether Blake had ever been married.

“I don’t carry it around with me,” answered Blake smoothly.

“Then I suggest you go back to London and when you have it, you can bring it back here and show us.”

Blake’s voice took on an unpleasant whining quality which Underwood found even more odious than his previously arrogant one.

“That’s hardly fair.  It has cost me a small fortune to get here.  You can’t mean to send me back without the money.”

“Then you had better come up with some much more convincing proof, my friend.”

“I’m tired,” protested the young man, “I can hardly think straight.  I have travelled for two days, barely sleeping in all that time.”

“Very well.  We will continue this conversation in the morning.  Be here at half past eleven.”

Assuming themselves to be dismissed, Blake and Underwood set down their glasses and made for the door.  Sir Henry allowed Blake to enter the hall before laying a restraining hand upon Underwood’s sleeve, “I think you will find,” he said confidentially, “that young man will have skipped back to whatever cesspit he rose from, by eleven in the morning.”

For Underwood it seemed to be going against nature to not only agree with Sir Henry’s judgement, but to be grateful for his intervention, but on this occasion he was forced to concede that the magistrate was probably correct.  He nodded, then followed Blake into the hall.

Sir Henry, however, had one last shock to release upon them, for as his two unwilling guests approached the front door he said maliciously, “You’ll forgive me, gentlemen, but I told Abney he could retire, since it is so late.  I’m afraid you’ll have to walk back to the village.”  With that he walked back down the passageway and firmly shut the library door upon them.

The stow men exchanged stunned glances, “Does he mean it?” asked the exhausted Blake bleakly.

“I’m very much afraid he does,” sighed a resigned Underwood, “Damn the old goat!”

Abney had evidently not dared to disobey his master and bring the carriage around to the front door, but he had kind-heartedly left a horn lamp on the table by the front door.  There was a short delay whilst they teased the wick into life from a nearby candle, then they left the house.

Underwood would have much preferred, from a distance point of view, to have taken the short-cut through the woods, but knowing Sir Henry’s predilection for protecting his property with man-traps, he decided that, though longer, the drive was infinitely safer.

They began the long tramp in silence, their way lit by a magnificent full moon, which rather made Abney’s lamp redundant.  Blake was growing more and more despondent.  He could plainly see his thirty guineas drifting further and further from his grasp, added to which he had already spent considerable sums on clothes, travel and lodgings.  To say that he was disillusioned by his first foray into fraud was to vastly understate the matter.

Underwood could only be grateful that his companion showed no inclination to talk, and in fact had fallen slightly behind, presumably to discourage conversation.  He abhorred violence of any kind and the strain of the past twenty-four hours was beginning to play on his nerves.  He could scarcely believe he had played in such a bloodthirsty cricket match, and then offered to strike his future father-in-law.  He wondered vaguely how Charlotte would greet that gem when it was relayed to her – as it most assuredly would be.  Sir Henry was hardly likely to miss such an opportunity for mischief.

Despite everything, though, slowly the tension began to leave his body.  He could not have found anything better to relax him had he tried, for the combination of peace and beauty which surrounded him, added to his physical weariness, blended to dull the edges of the worst of his fears.  It was a glorious evening, with a clear sky and all manner of fragrant odours wafting to him on the warm breeze from the still damp earth.  He breathed deeply of the clean air and contentedly looked about him, seeing the world in a very different way than was usual for him.  He was rarely to be found strolling outdoors in the evening, being more inclined to hug the fireside and read a good book.

It was full moonlight, with not even the occasional wisp of cloud draping itself across the face of the moon and though he still held Abney’s lantern aloft, it was not really necessary, for it was amazing to him how much could be discerned in the silvery haze.  The lightest of winds soughed amongst the leaves above their heads and Underwood smiled slightly; he had always considered the sound of wind-stirred foliage to be the most cheerful of noises, bestowing the same feeling of joy and well-being as the burbling of a brook or the distant echo of children’s laughter.

When he heard some animal snuffling amongst the dusty remnants of last year’ fallen leaves, he wondered what it might be.  The sight of a badger shambling out on its nightly forage, or a fox darting in the moonlight, its eyes glinting coldly as it stared at them, was something he would have given much to witness.  However, logic told him that such an eventuality was unlikely.  Sir Henry’s bloodlust must surely have cleared his estate of such vermin many years ago.

As though the thought had given birth to the deed, a shot suddenly rang out and Underwood instinctively shied.  Behind him Blake was not so lucky.  He crashed to the ground with a sickening thud; the breath forced from his body in a strangled gasp by the impact.

It was several seconds before Underwood could gather his shocked wits sufficiently to understand what had happened.  Blake lay on the drive, face upward, his arms thrown wide, his eyes open, staring, shining slightly with reflected moonlight, a dark stain spread across his body.  Underwood knew he was dead, but still he forced himself to approach the man, to try and find a pulse in the neck, the wrist.  There was not even a flutter.

As he knelt there alone in the moonlight, vainly struggling to find some evidence of life in the young man who had only moments before been complaining of his utter exhaustion, Underwood was struck by a dizzying nausea, which he had to close his eyes against and fight.  He could not allow himself the luxury of a faint here; for one thing it was not safe.  Whoever had shot Blake might even now be reloading his gun.  With a supreme effort he gathered the strength to stagger to his feet and set off at an unsteady run back to Wynter Court.

With little thought for the sleeping inmates of the house, he raised the great knocker and hammered it against the door with all his might.  The crashing reverberated through the building and presently the light of a single candle could be seen through the windows on either side of the door, gliding in a ghostly fashion down the stairs.

Brownsword, for he it was, his coat drawn hastily over his night-shirt, opened the door to the ashen-faced Underwood, and before he could demand an explanation for the outcry, the man stumbled into the hall and sank into a convenient chair, “Fetch help!” he gasped, struggling for breath; “There’s been an accident.”

Roused by the noise several members of the family now gathered on the landing, looking over the banisters into the hall below.  It was thus Charlotte saw her pale and obviously shaken beau and with a faint scream, she ran to his side, only to recoil in horror when she noticed his blood-soaked sleeve, “My God!  What has happened to you, Underwood?”

“It’s not my blood,” he assured her soothingly, “I must have brushed against poor Blake.”

She shook her head, “It is yours,” she said breathlessly, “Your coat is torn and I can see the wound.”

Underwood glanced down and realized she spoke the truth.  The material of the upper arm of his coat was jaggedly torn, and blood oozed from the flesh beneath.  He had heard only one shot, so the bullet which killed Blake must have skimmed past him first, catching his arm.  He had felt nothing at the time, but now his face drained completely of colour, his eyes closed and he slid gracefully to the floor in a dead faint.

Charlotte shrieked at Brownsword to fetch brandy, a doctor, and anything else he could think of which might be helpful, whilst Jane sensibly hoisted the inert Underwood into a sitting position and gently slapped his cheeks until he opened his eyes.

Once the situation had been explained, Underwood was led by the solicitous Charlotte to the parlour, where he was persuaded to lie on the sofa to await the doctor’s arrival, whilst Abney and two footmen were despatched to search for the body of the unfortunate Blake.  Harry, who had arrived rather belatedly on the scene, was sent to fetch Dr. Herbert on his fastest steed.

Brownsword was sent to rouse the master of the house, who had, apparently, slept through the whole drama.  Knowing him to have been drunk only an hour or so before, Underwood was scarcely surprised that he had heard none of the hysteria which had taken place directly beneath his room.