Murder Is Come Again (12 page)

Coffen’s ears perked up at this. “Some connection between Mary and Flora, was there?”

“They’re all mixed up together. Flora was seeing Willie Scraggs at one time, and Mary was dangling after Henry before Flora got her hands on him. Mary hadn’t a chance against her. Flora’s like Henry. Cunning and mean and lazy, no real bottom to them. She’d stop at nothing. Try one of these scones just out of the oven, Mr. Pattle. I put in some raisins, especially for you.”

They shared a cup of tea and scones while Coffen told her all about their last case, in which he had posed as the Duchess of Clare’s footman to catch the thieves and murderers.

“You’d ought to dress up like Luten’s footman here, Mr. Pattle, and folks wouldn’t be shooting at you. No one looks twice at a servant in livery. Brighton’s full of them since the Prince built his castle here.”

“That’s a dandy idea, Mrs. Partridge. I wonder now if Luten has a suit that would fit me.”

“Of course he has. Lamprey was just your build. When he died a few years ago, Partridge put his outfit up in camphor in a trunk in the attic. I’ll have him bring it down and I’ll press it up for you.”

She went to the back door and called Partridge, who was out spraying the roses. Partridge darted up to the attic and was soon down with the outfit. “There,” she said, holding the jacket against Coffen to try it for size. “Looks just about right, and the dark green will help hide your — that is, it suits you. It’ll have to be aired out and pressed.”

“I’m in a bit of a hurry. Just press it. Camphor don’t stink much.”

Coffen retired to the garden with another cup of tea and some sporting magazines until the job was done. A trace of camphor was still detectable at close range. He’d borrow some of Black’s lavender water. When Corinne and Prance returned with their purchases, Coffen said, “Thankee, Prance, but I don’t need them. I’m going to become a footman”

Prance’s “Whose footman?” and Corinne’s “What an excellent idea!” came out at the same time.

“Luten’s,” Pattle said, answering Prance.

“What about all these things I bought for you? I paid good money for them,” Prance objected.

“You can take them back, or keep them for your next play,” Coffen said. “I’ll pay you for them. How much?” The bill was settled, Prance kept the stage items and went back to the hotel, pondering what play could make use of the beard and wig and face paints.

Black and Luten met up in town and returned to Marine Parade together. Coffen greeted them at the door dressed as a footman. From the corner of his eye Luten noticed the familiar dark green livery and said, “Where’s Evans?”

“It’s me!” Coffen said, laughing. “Mrs. Partridge was right. No one looks at a servant.”

“Good lord, Coffen!” Luten said, blinking.

He and Black approved of the plan for Coffen to dress as a liveried servant. The two were invited to remain for dinner and the Lutens enjoyed the novel experience of dining with what looked like one of their servants.”

“We should have invited Prance to join us,” Luten said. “His nose will be out of joint.”

“No, he met some London friends at the costume shop and planned to dine with them as we aren’t busy,” Corinne said. “I have the address, if you think we need him?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Luten said.

Pattle told them what he had learned from Mrs. Partridge about the tangled relationship between Mary, Flora, Willie and Henry. “Plenty of ill will to go around,” he finished, “but I don’t see that it helps us much.”

After dinner Black returned to their hotel, accompanied by Coffen in the livery. Luten sat with his wife until twilight, when he went to make another call on Mrs. Beazely. She agreed with Mrs. Partridge’s assessment of Henry Cripps and Flora. She too had seen Henry about with a new fellow, a handsome rogue, who had come to town a few years ago with his pockets to let and had soon bought some big property by the water outside of town. A handy spot for a bit of smuggling. “It wouldn’t surprise me much if he was one of the Gentlemen,” she said with a wise nod.

“A friend of Willie Scraggs, then?” Luten suggested, wondering if the Gentlemen were involved in their present case.

“I’ve never seen them together,” she said.

He thanked her and went home to muse over what they had learned that day.

Black and Coffen made a detour to Nile Street to see that Fitz and Raven were performing their duties. Raven heard the curricle coming, which gave him time to hide the ale he’d got at the tavern and run back to his proper post at the rear of the house. Black unlocked the front door and he and Pattle went inside for a look around. Finding everything in order, Coffen said, “What now, Black? It’s too early to go back to the hotel. Where can we go with me dressed like this, letting on I’m your footman?”

Black liked very well the idea of appearing in public accompanied by a liveried servant, but he knew that a gentleman did not go out for an evening’s entertainment with his footman. You certainly couldn’t visit a low dive with a footman in tow, nor a really fancy place either. “Some small tavern out of town catering to tourists and travelers seems the likeliest spot,” he suggested. “The thing to do, I’ll go into a tavern and after a few minutes you come in as if you have a message for me. That way it won’t look so odd. Once we’re seated in a dark corner, who’s to notice what you’re wearing?”

“There’s an idea. Let us drive along and see if we can find a place. Go west, towards Shoreham. I seem to recall there’s an outdoor garden at one of the inns there. The fussier types won’t be sitting outdoors. You’d best drive as you’re my employer tonight.”

“It might look better that way,” Black agreed, happy that he hadn’t had to suggest it himself. They stopped at the Shoreham Inn, a small, inelegant establishment five miles from town, and Black took a table in the garden. On a fine night with the breeze not unpleasantly chilly he was fortunate to find the last free table. Many of the tables were occupied by groups of young men and their sweethearts, out for a night’s wooing. Black’s discerning eye pegged half the men as country gentlemen, half as dandies aspiring to be taken as gents. None of the women dressed or behaved like ladies. After a few moments, Coffen came in and handed him a piece of paper. Black opened it as if it were a note, motioned him to sit down and when the waiter came, he ordered ale. “Make it two. You might as well join me, Higgins,” he said in a kindly way to Coffen.

The occupants of the other tables were too busy flirting to pay any attention to them. They discussed the case over their ale, rehashing those same points they had discussed over dinner. They agreed that Cripps sounded the sort of weasel who would steal from a dead man. As the evening wore on, the wooings at the other tables rose to shrieks of laughter, intermingled with playful pinches and slaps and a few genuine protests from the women.

“We might be wise to leave before the fights break out,” Black suggested. “You don’t want Mr. Brown arresting you again when you’re out on bail. We can make another stop at Nile Street before we go back to the hotel and make sure our guards are awake. I got a whiff of ale off Fitz.”

“Good idea.”

As they were leaving the garden, a pair of young bucks were just arriving. Both were well set-up as to build and dressed in a style that suggested a lively taste in fashion and plenty of money to indulge it. The one in front was a blond with the usual blue eyes and pink-cheeked complexion that often accompany blond hair. The other was older, dark-haired, with a vaguely Slavic look due to his high cheekbones and gray eyes. Both wore jacket buttons too large, cravats too high on the neck and waistcoats too bright for gentlemen of good breeding, but the blonde one was the worst offender.

The entrance to the garden was through a narrow opening in a hornbeam hedge, which tempered the breeze from the water. It wasn’t Black’s custom to give way when he was closer to the opening. He went through first, with Coffen behind him. The blond young buck, who had obviously been drinking, barged in from outside, nearly knocking Coffen over as he tried to pass through.

“Here, watch what you’re about,” the fellow said, and gave Coffen a shove on the shoulder. Coffen shoved back. “Out of my way, lackey!” The blond man shoved again.

The dark-complexioned buck said, “This is an outrage! An uppity
servant
assaulting a gentleman!” He turned to Black. “You should keep better control over your servants, sir.”

“You should watch your tongue, lad,” Black shot back.

“It’s all right, Black,” Coffen said, eager to leave before the meeting came to blows. “He’s bosky.”

“If you say so,” Black said through gritted teeth.

“Did you say bosky?” the blond said angrily.

“The fellow called you a drunkard,” his dark friend informed him. Are you going to stand still for that?”

“Devil a bit of it.”

“So which is the master here?” the dark man asked. He turned to Black. “You take orders from your
servant,
sir?”

“Let us go,” Coffen said to Black, and took a pace forward towards the opening.

The blond buck reached for his shoulder and pulled him back. “You’ll leave when we say so.” He turned to his friend.

“Go on, demand satisfaction for the insult you’ve suffered at this footman’s scurvy hands,” the friend urged.

“I demand satisfaction,” the blond said. “Absholutely.”

“True, you oughtn’t to lower yourself to meet someone so obviously not your equal, but then this fellow,” he sneered in Black’s direction, “is no gentleman either.”

“Stand aside or I’ll knock your block off!” Black growled.

“What does it take to goad you into a duel?” the dark young buck said to Coffen, and pulling off his glove, he handed it to his friend with a commanding look. The blond took the glove and slapped it across Coffen’s face.

“Name your shecond, shir,” he said, slurring his words. “We shall meet in the court of twelve paces at dawn.”

“Now see here,” Black said, “if it’s a fight you’re after, just step outside this hedge and we’ll settle it, man to man.”

“Not speaking to you, cur!” the buck said.

His friend turned to Coffen. “Your name, my good man? It’s a little eccentricity of my friend’s. He likes to know who he’s killing.”

Coffen didn’t often lose his temper but a direct slap was enough to do it. “John Jones,” he said, hoping to at least keep his name out of it. Brown would certainly use it as an excuse to lock him up again if he got wind of it. He had said something about “keeping the peace” when Luten got him out of lockup.

“Mr. Jasper will represent me,” the buck said, nodding to his companion.

“I take it this great booby will be your second?” Mr. Jasper cast a disparaging glance at Black. “After we’ve had a few pints here, I shall do myself the honour of calling on your second to arrange details. Let us say one a.m. His address?”

“The Royal Crescent Hotel,” Coffen said.

“And his name?”

“Sir Reginald Prance,” Black said in a hollow voice, hoping the “Sir” might deter the rogue, and not quite daring to use Lord Luten’s name.

The blond buck bowed and said, “Henry Cripps.”

Mr. Jasper smiled. “We shall meet at dawn in the meadow behind the church yard on Dyke Road.”

Black and Coffen exchanged a startled glance at the familiar name. “We’ll be there, Cripps,” Coffen said.

Jasper smiled and herded his drunken friend to a table in the garden. Coffen and Black, caught between anger and fear and confusion, beat a hasty retreat to the curricle. Black looked around the stable, trying to ascertain how the bucks had got there from town. Coffen’s curricle was the finest rig there. It stood out from the few elderly rigs drawn by only one horse. There were a few mounts as well. Two of them were fine bits of blood, a bay and a black gelding with a white star on its nose and a white sock on its left front leg.

“So that’s Henry Cripps,” Coffen said, as they drove off. “Bottle bitten. Do you think he’ll remember he challenged me to a duel?”

“I doubt his friend will let him forget,” Black replied. “Jasper was mighty eager for this duel. You mind Mrs. Partridge called Cripps a coward. I daresay he’s been boasting to his friend how he’s been trying to kill you, and his friend was sober enough to give him his chance. They knew it was you, despite the names we gave them. He’s bound and bent to kill you one way or t’other, Mr. Pattle. You can’t meet him.”

“I’m a pretty good shot, Black. What I’m wondering is how they knew we were there. It’s not likely they’d have gone there by chance. They must have been following us.”

“I daresay Cripps was snooping around the house on Nile Street, waiting to sneak in, and followed us from there. But did he have the other fellow, Jasper, with him?”

“Cripps might have followed us to the tavern, then rushed back to town to enlist Jasper’s help,” Coffen said.

“That’s just what he did! He was afraid to tackle us alone. We were at the Shoreham for over an hour. I figure those two bits of blood, the bay and the black gelding, were their mounts. Well, we’ve had a look at Cripps now, and I don’t like what I see. I wager he’ll shoot to kill.”

“What could I do?” Coffen said with a sigh. “We all but apologized. He was determined to bring the thing to a head. A gentleman — which he was pretending to be — don’t meet a footman in a duel. Brown will clamp me in irons for sure.”

“We’ve got to get you out of it somehow. And me as well. What will Sir Reginald not say when he learns I’ve used his name!”

“Why did you, Black?”

“I hoped his fame might put them off. Sir Reginald is well known.”

“He’d not have been put off if you said Prince George. He went there for the purpose of arranging this duel.” He gave a rueful shake of his head. “There’s no getting out of it.”

“There might be a way. Sir Reginald would know the in’s and out’s of that book about the rules of a duel.”

“The
Code Duello,”
Coffen said. We’ll have a word with Reg. Will you tell him you used his name?”

“I tremble to do it, but I must. He’s bound to find out sooner or later.”