Wiles of a Stranger (12 page)

I drove there and stabled the gig, then went into the lobby, with the excellent excuse of inquiring for my trunk. To my surprise, it had arrived, and was loaded onto the gig for me, giving me an excuse to linger. The major was not in, so I used the lobby desk to write him my note. Before I had finished, he came dashing across the street, his timing so perfect you would think he knew I wanted to see him.

“What’s happened?” he asked at once, in a sharp tone.

“How did you know…”

We walked a few steps from the desk, then I darted back for my unfinished letter.

“I have a fellow on the lookout—a groom at both inn stables—to keep an eye peeled for you. When your trunk came this morning, I hoped you would come in person for it. Now where can we go to talk? Somewhere we won’t be seen—my carriage is probably the best bet. I’ll bring it around to the front. Wait here.”

He took my letter, which I was crumpling into a ball. “We don’t want to leave any evidence around. Besides, who knows when I’ll receive another
billet doux
from you?” He flattened it out and put it in his pocket, so carefully it made me look for a reason.

“If you think you’re getting some evidence to blackmail me...”

“What!”

“I didn’t sign it.”

He shook his head and sighed. “What I was hoping for was something in the nature of ‘My dear Major Morrison: I need you desperately....’ A man could weave marvelous dreams around such an auspicious beginning.” He drew out the paper and glanced at it, frowning at my blunt words. “‘Major Morrison: I think I have found what you were looking for.’ And they say poetry is dead,” he commented, shoving it back into his pocket, much less carefully.

“Hurry up with the carriage. I can’t stay long.”

“Yes sir,” he said, clicking his heels and saluting, with no concern for the few groups standing idly by, watching us.

Within a few minutes I was seated in a very elegant carriage, with the major facing me, demanding to know what had brought me to town. I explained my discovery and my suspicions.

“He made a dart into town to deposit the check. Certainly looks like it in any case,” he said. “Good work, Miss Stacey. What was the name on the smaller IOUs?”

“The name? Beaudel’s of course. What do you mean?”

“Beaudel was the I. Who was the U?”

“I don’t remember.” I frowned with the effort to conjure up in my mind’s eye those squares of paper, but it was only the largest that I recalled. “I know Sangster was the one he paid off today.”

“Better than nothing. You should always remember names.”

“What’s in a name, major?” I asked, reminding him of his own question, and that we both traveled under an alias.

“What did this Sangster fellow look like?”

“A big, burly man. Middle-aged, wearing a badly cut blue jacket. I hadn’t much of a look at his face. His hair was fair, reddish, and his face very pink.”

“I’ll check around town and see if I can discover who he is.”

“What does it matter? The important fact is that Beaudel is using Lucien’s money to pay his own debts.”

“True, but we have to know why he has these large debts. If they are connected in some way with legitimate estate expenses, we’ll look no-how, hauling him up before a judge.”

“They are connected with milady’s bent for finery.”

“He has some blunt of his own, possibly sufficient to keep her clothed in the style to which she wishes to become accustomed. He was certainly providing for himself before his brother died, at least.”

“He didn’t buy six gowns at one time, when he lived alone.”

“If he bought even one, I am ashamed of him. Though I doubt two can live as cheaply as one, when one of ‘em is Stella. Still, over five thousand pounds in half a year... That’s a lot of gowns.”

“Since he drinks, maybe he gambles too, and loses.”

“Quite possibly.”

“What should we do about it?” I asked eagerly, wanting to terminate the business, for my father’s sake.

“We wait, and keep looking,” was his highly unsatisfactory answer.

“My father...”

“Dutch is all right. I am keeping him supplied with life’s necessities, and even a few of its luxuries.”

“The greatest luxury he wants is to be able to work. What will it take to clear his name? I thought if we could prove Beaudel is a thief, it would go a long way to proving Papa is innocent. It would be his word, a man of integrity with plenty of people to vouch for it, against that of Beaudel, a proven thief.”

“We haven’t proven it yet. Be patient. He is the executor of the boys’ estates, remember. Even if he’s guilty, it would be possible to fudge the books to show the money went into estate business. He might be, or at least say in the books that he is, borrowing money from Lucien to loan Algernon. Repairs and renovations of a large estate can run into thousands. Not that I have actually seen any evidence of these major overhauls.”

“There’s not a single repair or renovation going on at the Park. I cannot imagine what it is you’re looking for.”

“I have the feeling that when I discover it, I shall recognize it.       I am a great believer in instinct. The little hindrance is that I haven’t a notion what I am looking for.”

“We differ there. I know what I’m looking for, and we’re not looking for the same thing at all, Major Morrison. Your first priority is not freeing my father, clearing his name of this infamous charge.”

“I confess it is not my first priority, but as it will surely follow, I consider we are working towards the same end, Miss Stacey,” he replied, stressing my assumed name, as I had emphasized his own title.

The look that passed between us was closer to animosity than cooperation. “I don’t see why I should trust you,” I said, frustrated that my discovery had led to so little.

“I could say the same, with perhaps more reason,” he pointed out. “The diamonds were discovered in your father’s pocket after all.”

“Not all of them!”

“True, but then your pockets were not searched, were they, Miss van Deusen? I don’t know what you can possibly accuse
me
of.”

“Well upon my word, if this doesn’t beat all the rest! You come pretending to be a soldier, dressed up in costume whiskers, you seduce Beaudel’s wife, you coerce a child into helping you break into the house by bribing him with treats, you—”

“
Pretending
to be a soldier?” he asked, his gray eyes widening. “My dear masquerader, I could show you scars! Lucien quite begged me to come visit him, and as to what you no doubt consider the more heinous crime—well, it would be ungentlemanly to imply for a single moment the lady was anything but averse to my attentions, so I shan’t bother to imply it. She did not have to meet me at the gazebo, however.”

“I don’t care whose wife you make up to, as long as you keep well away from me. And I don’t really mind that you broke into the Park either. What I find utterly disgusting is that you strut about pretending to be an officer. I expect those whiskers you wear are to hide your face from the law for desertion of duty. Any soldier who was actually in the Peninsula would know Burgos was no victory. You must have been living in Bedlam, or Newgate, during those years, to be unaware it was a staggering defeat for us.”

Morrison placed his elbow on his knee, his knuckles on his chin and listened politely to my charges. When I had finished, he said, “I really must get hold of a good history of the late war. To be tripped up so easily, and by a girl too.... Nothing is really changed, however. We are a pair of masqueraders with no ally but each other in the affair. And let me add,” he said with a bow from the waist, “I, for one, would not want any other. Our goals are not inimical, quite the contrary. We are both out to prove the Beaudels scoundrels, so let us work out a more effective campaign than presently prevails. We must have some reliable means of being in touch. I have my little scheme of sticking around on the pretext of inspecting a three-cell jailhouse for the next week or so, which puts my performance on an equal footing with other government employees. We don’t want to race ourselves out of a soft job, you know. Is it easy for you to get into town?”

“Easy? It is practically impossible. You have no idea the shifts I have been put to. No carriage, no mount, and no excuse. I cannot have another tooth drawn tomorrow.”

“You didn’t resort to that! Poor girl. No wonder you are in such a bad skin. You must under no condition repeat
that
barbarous—”

“I just told them at the Park I was going to the dentist. I didn’t actually do it.”

“Thank goodness. Well, since you have no excuse and no carriage, it will be for me to go to you, unless an emergency should arise, in which case you grab the boy and run. To me.”

“An emergency? What do you mean? You sound as though...”

“That is precisely the way I meant to sound. If Beaudel should discover we are investigating him, there is no saying what he will be pushed into doing.”

“He wouldn’t harm Lucien. He is genuinely fond of his nephew.”

“I agree, or the boy would not be still with him. Still, there is no saying what a man won’t do when he is cornered. A rat will turn and attack his attacker, under enough pressure. I’m not sure a mouse like Beaudel wouldn’t do the same.”

“It’s the cat I’m more suspicious of.”

“Why is that?”

I told him about her meetings with Wiggins, the hiring of new servants, and Algernon’s dissatisfaction with her running his home. “There was no trouble till she landed in at the Park,” I concluded.

“I knew all that. Man-talk, while having ices on the cannons. You have not forgotten our delightful outing? My man is at Tunbridge Wells now, looking into her past, and Wiggins’s, while he is there.”

“Major, are you a Bow Street Runner?” I asked, my heart lifting. “Did Sacheverel hire you to look into this affair?” I could think of no other explanation for what he had just told me.

“I wish I could say yes, since the melodramatic idea appeals so strongly to you. Alas, I must disappoint you, my dear. But I am here at Sacheverel’s request, if that cuts any ice.”

“It does. It’s troubled me very much, wondering why you are here.”

“I am somewhat encouraged to learn it is only the ‘why’, and not the being here itself that troubles you. Even gentlemen with whiskers have feelings, you know.”

“I should be getting back.”

“Yes, unfortunately you should. It hurts like the devil to have a tooth drawn, but it don’t take long. We have not settled on some method of communicating. I don’t care much for your style of letter writing,” he added with a bantering smile. “Is there some spot near the Park where I could meet you, some place we would not be seen? If Lucien is along, it’s no matter.”

“He knows who you are, that his grandfather sent you?”

“He knows Sacheverel sent me, but quizzing him for my name won’t answer your other question.”

“I am to take Lucien to the meadow in the afternoons. We could meet there, unseen from the house.”

“What time. Two, three?”

“Let us say two-thirty.”

“And on a rainy day? We don’t want to lose track of each other, and there’s no saying we won’t get a week of rain, here in England.”

The last phrase hinted at his coming from another climate. He sounded as though comparing it to a different climate, is what I mean. “Unlike the Peninsula,” I mentioned, and looked for his reaction, which was only a faint smile.

“I’ll tell you what. That metal staircase outdoors at the end of the upper hallway—I’ll be there around eleven at night, if I am not in the meadow in the afternoon. It’s well removed from the family’s chambers. You can meet me there, I take it, without any trouble?”

“I suppose so.”

“Don’t let your enthusiasm run away with you. You have no romance in your soul—a secret tryst with a dashing stranger. I left out the handsome on purpose, to save you the chore of contradicting it. Let’s make it a nightly date, whether we meet in the meadow or not. It will enliven our dull evenings no end.”

We were approaching the Shipwalk again, having made a little circuit to one end of town and back. “My evenings are quite lively enough, thank you.”

“Is that a refusal? I would happily drive the five miles to see you, but to climb a staircase and look in at a vacant window, I’m not sure it’s worth it. In fact, I’m sure it isn’t worth it. I wouldn’t have to leave Chelmsford for that sort of excitement. I’ll be there. It’s settled, starting tomorrow night.”

“All right.”

“Let yourself out the carriage door. There’s no point in our being seen together any more than necessary. If they should hear, at the Park, that you were with me, don’t deny it. Better to let them think you’re throwing your bonnet at me than the truth. Maidenly blushes should divert suspicion,” he added, with a smile not far short of a laugh at my disgust.

Distasteful as the suggestion was, I felt it a wise one. Just as he pulled the check string to stop the carriage, he leaned across to my side of the carriage and put his fingers on my cheek. I was startled at his doing so, as I had not encouraged his dallying remarks. He caressed my cheek a moment, gently, then pinched it hard enough to make me squeal. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “That looks more like a face that has undergone a trip to the dentist. Give it another rub before you get home.”

“You are very thorough,” I complimented him stiffly, and reached for the door.

“Not really. That wasn’t what I wanted to do at all.”

It was not necessary to ask his meaning. His bold eyes, staring at my lips, made his meaning quite clear.

“There was something else I wanted to do too, Major,” I said, with a smile, and a modest glance at my fingers.

“By all means, go ahead.”

“You’re sure you won’t mind?”

“I would like it excessively.”

“How kind. I want you to find Mr. Kirby for me, and tell him I am very eager to see him. Try the Clarendon Hotel, in London. That is his last known address.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared. “I will be very happy to oblige you, miss.”

“Thank you. You are very kind. See you tomorrow.”

I let myself out and called for my gig, happy to see the trunk tied in place. The mood that descended on me as I returned to Glanbury Park was unsettling. I was drifting from my purpose, in going along with Morrison, but was not clever enough to clear father’s name by myself.