Murder Is Come Again (16 page)

“Let us go home and see,” Black said, and they went to Coffen’s carriage. For this formal occasion he had abandoned his curricle. Fitz, carefully instructed by Black, had got them to the Dyke Road with no trouble. Once on that major thoroughfare it was hard for even him to get lost.

They stopped at Luten’s house. Corinne came pelting forward to meet them. “Coffen, thank God you’re back safely. Come in and tell me all about it. I’ve had breakfast prepared. I knew you wouldn’t be able to eat before you went to the duel. Was it horrid? Did Cripps show up?”

“No, but Jasper was there. Luten ain’t back yet?”

“Not yet. We shan’t wait for him. Come and have a bite.”

The morning’s events had by no means lessened Coffen’s appetite. He made inroads on enough food to feed an army while Black related their recent doings, with Coffen throwing in an occasional remark between bites.

“I hope this is an end to all talk of duels,” she said. “You don’t think Jasper believed you’d done away with Cripps?”

“I believe he was just trying to save face,” Black said. “I wonder what’s keeping Luten?” He was worried lest Cripps had pulled some new stunt.

“I expect they’ll come home soon. They were to wait and watch till after daylight.”

Before they had finished their coffee, Luten and Prance joined them. “We’d have been here sooner but we decided to check out Cripps’s house while it’s vacant. We didn’t find anything of interest.”

“Other than Flora’s wardrobe,” Prance added with a smirk. “You would be
amazed
what sort of intimate apparel the muslin company is wearing this year, Corrie.”

Luten gave him a repressing stare, and rushed on with relating their tale.

“So I was right,” Black said. “He did go to the tavern.”

“He did. We’ve got him trussed up in the cellar,” Luten said with satisfaction.

Corinne frowned. “I wonder what he’ll do when you release him.”

Luten shrugged. “I doubt he’ll run to Brown and complain that he was forced to miss his duel. If he has a shred of common sense he won’t say a word. How can he admit he ran off and left Flora helpless in the hands of four masked, armed men? Speaking of Flora, I feel badly about the way we treated that young woman.”

“Evans and I looked in on her earlier,” she said. “She was sleeping soundly. She’s the one who could cause trouble. I fancy she’d enjoy boasting of her ordeal, and she has nothing to be ashamed of in her behaviour.”

Black stared to hear it. “You’ve not forgotten her lying to Mr. Pattle to get into his house, milady?”

“And what they did to Mary,” Coffen added, turning fierce at the memory, and the sense of guilt that Mary had been all but forgotten by them all, including himself.

“Flora may be Cripps’s dupe in all this,” Corinne said.

“That hellcat anyone’s dupe!” Black cried. “I’d sooner trust a rattle snake. Don’t you go feeling sorry for her, milady.”

“Well, I hope she loves that rascal enough to protect him by not revealing too much about last night.”

“It seems it’s safe for me to go out in my own duds today,” Coffen said, setting down his cup. “I believe I’ll just stroll around, see if I can spot that mount that Cripps was planning to ride. A black gelding with a white star and one white stocking wasn’t it?”

“Right,” Prance said. “Left foreleg.”

“That’s
two
white stockings,” Coffen pointed out.

“No, just the one, the left foreleg.”

“You said
right.”

“I meant correct. It was the left foreleg,” Prance explained, with eye-rolling patience.

“That’s what he was riding last night,” Black said. “We saw it at the Shoreham Inn. I’ll go with you, Mr. Pattle. We might just make a stop at your house and see that the cellar door is still locked as well.”

“At least he can’t say you were the one who locked him up, Coffen,” Prance said. “You and Black have an alibi, though I wouldn’t want to take it into court.”

“I’d admit I took your name in vain if it came to court, Sir Reginald,” Black said.

“That was not my meaning! I meant dueling is illegal.”

“So’s murder,” Coffen said, his mind reverting to Mary.

“None of this will ever come to court,” Luten said. “I’m going up to have a bath and shave and clean shirt.”

“I shall soak until my skin is puckered,” Prance said, rising. “I only took time to change my shirt. I’d hate to be seen in these rags. Villier will scold at the condition of my buckskins and boots.”

“That’s what you pay him for, keeping you tidy,” Black said.

“Oh Villier is more than just my valet. He’ll be worried about me. When do you want to see us again, Luten? The reason I ask, I thought I might catch a few hours rest.”

“Come for dinner, all of you,” Corinne said. “We must free our captives tonight, you recall.”

Prance pouted. “You have just murdered sleep, Macbeth,” he said, and swanned out.

“Shakespeare,” Coffen explained. “He’s used that line before. Always quotes William when he wants to be smart. That’s what he calls Shakespeare — William. We’re off then. Thankee for breakfast, Corrie.” He turned to Luten. “And thank you for — everything. We’ll meet you back here for dinner. Come on, Black.”

Coffen and Black took the curricle to Nile Street, where they found all in order. The doors were locked and no windows broken. They entered but didn’t go down to the cellar. Some light thumping sounds from below told them that Cripps was still there.

“He’ll do there till midnight,” Black said with satisfaction.

“Let us see if we can find that mount he was planning to ride,” was Coffen’s next idea. Horses and clue-hunting promised a thoroughly enjoyable way of passing the day. He was familiar with the mews and stables of London, but Brighton was pretty well virgin territory to him. He had interesting chats with a dozen grooms and ostlers, received high praise on his frisky grays, discovered where to hire a good mount should it prove necessary and viewed half a dozen mounts that resembled the black horse with white markings that he was looking for. Not having had more than a glance at the mount at the Shoreham stable the night before, however, he couldn’t make a positive identification. Coffen did learn the owners of all but one of them. The only name he recognized was Willie Scraggs.

“This hasn’t been much of a holiday for you,” said Black, who did not share his love of horseflesh.

“At least today is fun.”

“We’ve pretty well finished the job. Why don’t we just go for a nice jaunt in the countryside, give these grays a workout, and give you more practice handling the ribbons?”

“Sounds perfect,” Coffen agreed. “We’ll stop at some country place for a bite and a few pints.”

The weather was fine. The sky, usually more white than blue on the coast, was full of brilliant sunshine, with a few opalescent white clouds wafting overhead. The countryside was a patchwork of shades of green, with flowers spangling the hedgerows and birds warbling as they swooped about from tree top to tree top, then swooped down to earth after a worm, or a bit of dry grass for a nest.

“This is how I imagined our holiday would be,” Coffen said with perfect contentment.

Black, who preferred city life, enjoyed it too, but at the back of his mind he kept wondering what would happen when Cripps and Flora were released. They wouldn’t just stop harassing Mr. Pattle. In fact, it was more than likely they’d be after him, buckle and thong.

Much the same thoughts were in Luten’s mind as he and Corinne enjoyed a drive to Preston Manor to view the beautiful rose gardens and lily ponds. Prance managed to put the whole business out of his mind by visiting Boo and Tony, and damning with faint praise the songs they were rehearsing. “It’s difficult to find a good rhyme for Charles, isn’t it?” he commiserated. “I should have just used ‘king’ myself. Dozens of rhymes there — sing, sting, ring, cling.”

“True,” Boo said. “And he
does
give her a ring, and they do cling. Oh I must change it.”

“It was just a suggestion,” Prance said modestly. He also enjoyed dropping mysterious hints as to wicked doings the night before.

They all met back on Marine Parade for dinner. Black and Coffen remained after to play cards with the Lutens. Prance had been flattered into helping Boo enliven the lyrics of one of Nell’s ditties, but he would be back by eleven.

When the group met that night to finalize their plan, Luten said, “Let us free them both at the same time. Two of us can free Flora, the other two will go to Nile Street. I hardly know which of them will give us more trouble. Does anyone have a preference?”

“Cripps for me,” Coffen said. He turned to his friend, “Black?”

“I’m with you, Mr. Pattle.”

“That leaves Flora for us, Prance. Any idea how we can keep from getting our eyes scratched out?”

“A chair and a whip are the usual implements for taming wild cats, are they not?” Prance suggested archly.

“She’ll be in no shape to put up a fight,” said Corinne, who could see Luten had no relish for the job of manhandling a woman. “She hasn’t had a bite for twenty-four hours. She’ll be frightened too. I’ll go with you and talk to her.”

“Not necessary, my dear,” Luten said. She just stared at him a moment. The sparkle in her green eyes told him she meant to go.

“Let her come,” Prance urged. “It can’t do any harm.”

“Very well. It would take an age to untie those knots. We’ll take a butcher knife.”

“That’ll put the fear of the lord in her!” Corinne objected. “To see masked men with a big knife! She’ll think you’re going to kill her.”

“She won’t see it unless she’s worked off her bandage,” Prance pointed out. It flashed into his mind that in his new novel the heroine would indeed see the villain coming at her with a knife, whose razor-sharp blade glinted coldly in the moonlight. It gave him a delightful shudder of fear.

“She’ll
hear
men’s heavy footsteps,” Corinne pointed out. “In the dark that will be almost more frightening than seeing you. Let me have a word with her first, explain we’re setting her free.”

“We should take her away from Norval’s place before we remove the eye bandage,” Luten said. “We don’t want her to know where she’s been. Too close to home. We’ll drive around a while to confuse her before leaving her at her own place.” Then he turned to Black and Coffen. “How do you plan to handle Cripps?”

“Since he knows where he’s been tied up, we’ll free his legs, march him up to the back door, take off the eye bandage and let him go with his hands tied and his mouth shut,” Black said. “He’ll leg it to the tavern. We’ll let them finish the job.”

“That might be best,” Luten said, chewing back a grin. Leave it to Black to come up with the solution.

Freeing Flora was not so awful a job as they had feared, although she had managed to work off her gag and the covering over her eyes had slipped down to her nose. She was as terrified as Prance’s heroine would be when she saw her masked abductors return, one of them carrying a long knife, that glittered in the shadow. She stared, the whites of her eyes indicating mute horror. Prance made a mental note of this. Her silence was more effective than invective. Just so would his heroine behave when the highwayman freed his ladylove. And he, the hero, would suffer remorse for adding this modicum of pain to her ordeal. His gentle female readers had especially appreciated that touch of sensitivity in his heroes.

Corinne rushed forward. “We’re not going to harm you,” she said. “Just be quiet. We’re going to free you, but if you start acting up —”

Flora didn’t shout. Nothing but a weak sniffle came from her. She just nodded her capitulation. “I’m going to put the cover back over your eyes and the gag over your mouth,” Corinne said, and did it. She was afraid Flora would bite her, or at least begin hollering once she was out of the house. Luten cut the ropes, the hands first, then the ankles. Flora rubbed her wrists, and waited a moment. As no one tried to stop her, she arose, stiff in every joint and teetering. Corinne steadied her till she could stand by herself.

“We’ll take you home now,” Corinne said, and led her to the stairway.

To conceal from the Norvals that their house had been used, Luten hastily stuffed the bedding of old clothes back in the trunk, nodded to Prance to pick up the ropes and closed the attic door after they had descended. They went out the back door, then on to Prance’s waiting carriage. There wasn’t an ounce of fight left in Flora. She cowered beside Corinne on one banquette with Luten and Prance facing them on the opposite side. They drove up and down a few streets then to Market Street. Her house was quiet and all in darkness when they reached it. The door was unlocked. They led her inside, settled her on the sofa and left.

“Poor thing,” Corinne said. “She was frightened to death.”

“Quite tamed from when we picked her up twenty-four hours ago,” Luten said, not without a qualm of his own. “Shall we drop around Nile Street and see if the others have left yet?”

“They’re still here,” Prance said when they arrived. “That’s Coffen’s carriage and team. I expect he wore his grays into the ground this afternoon and didn’t want to use them again.”

“I wonder if they’ve set Cripps free yet,” Corinne said.

“We’ll wait a moment and see,” Luten suggested. When neither Cripps nor Black and Coffen had come out after five minutes, Luten decreed that something must have gone wrong.

“Go in and see, Luten,” Corinne said.

“You can see through the kitchen window from outside,” Prance said. “He was in the cellar, see if the cellar door’s open. If it is, that’s likely where they are.”

A feeling of tension was rising amongst them. Luten was the first one at the window. There was no one in the room. “The door’s open. I’m going in,” he said.

Prance handed him his pistol, which he’d brought from the carriage. “Best take this.”

Corinne scampered back to the carriage to get Luten’s pistol. By the time she returned, the others had gone in. By standing on her tiptoes she could see the top part of the kitchen and four heads. Black and Coffen must have come up from the cellar. But there was no sign of Cripps. Luten and Black were talking in an excited way. Black tossed up his hands in a gesture of anger or futility. Coffen was just shaking his head. She went to the back door which Luten had left hanging open and listened. “It’s impossible!” Luten was saying, and the others were all jabbering. She went in.