3-Book Victorian Crime Collection: Death at Dawn, Death of a Dancer, A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock
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weeks, and it would be very useful to us to know the guest list in advance. You will also inform me of the comings and goings of Sir Herbert himself and his family.’
‘How am I to inform you?’
‘Wait here for two days. Either I shall come and see you again, or instructions will be sent to you.’
As the candle flame steadied, I saw satisfaction on his face – and was pleased to be able to erase it instantly.
‘I said there were two conditions.’
‘What else?’
‘I have inherited a mare from my father. If you can arrange and pay for her stabling at some place convenient to Ascot, I shall do as you suggest. If not, then I refuse your proposition.’
‘A governess with a horse?’
He almost lost his self-possession. You could see him grabbing at the tail of it like some small animal bolting, and wrestling it back under his black jacket.
‘A spy with a horse,’ I said. ‘That’s different.’
He thought about it for half a minute or so.
‘Very well, I accept your condition. If you will let me know where the mare is, I shall arrange …’
‘No. Find a stables and I’ll make the arrangements.’
We glared at each other. Then he said, ‘Three days, in that case. Do not move from here. For necessary expenses…’
He picked up his hat from the wash-stand, clinked something down in its place, and went. As the door closed behind him I saw a handful of coins glinting in the candlelight. Ten sovereigns. I sorely needed them, but it was some time before I could bring myself to pick them up.
*
Three days passed. When he’d ordered me not to move, I don’t know whether he meant the town of Dover or my room at the inn. It didn’t matter in any case, since I had no intention of staying imprisoned. I slept, ate, walked by the sea, slept and ate again. The landlord had become polite now that I’d paid my reckoning to date and let him see the flash of sovereigns in my purse. Chops and cutlets, eggs, ham and claret were all at my disposal, so I made the best of them. I was like somebody cast up on a sandbank, with stormy seas in front and behind; it may have been only a short and precarious rest, but it was precious for all that. In my wandering round the town I kept an eye open for Trumper but saw no sign of him and hoped he was still on the far side of the Channel. Several times I was tempted to take the road out of town and visit Esperance and Amos Legge, but made myself defer that pleasure until I had news for them. It came on Saturday evening. A knock at my door and the landlord’s voice.
‘Letter for you, miss, just come.’
I opened the door only wide enough to receive it and took it over to the window. The paper and the writing were stiff and formal, like the man who’d sent it, the message very much to the point.
Miss Lane,
The mare may be sent to the Silver Horseshoe livery stables on the western side of Ascot Heath. The manager of the stables, Coleman, has agreed to pass on your letters to me, which should be addressed to Mr Blackstone, care of 3 Paper Buildings, Inner Temple. You will present yourself at 16 Store Street, near the new British Museum, on Monday. Ask for Miss Bodenham and act according to her instructions.
Early on Sunday morning I walked to the stables in sweet air between hay fields, with choirs of skylarks carolling overhead. Amos Legge was looking in at Esperance, leaning over the half door. He turned when he heard my step and gave a great open smile that did my heart good because it was so different from the man in black.
‘Just given Rancie her breakfast, I have.’
She was munching from a bucket of oats and soaked bran, the black cat looking down at her from the hay manger.
‘I’ve found a place for her,’ I said.
I’d expected him to be pleased, but his face fell.
‘Where’s that then, miss?’
‘The Silver Horseshoe, on the west side of Ascot Heath. You can take her there in the bull’s cart, then you’re on the right side of London for getting home to Herefordshire.’
He still looked unhappy, and I supposed he was calculating how little profit his long journey would have brought him.
‘You won’t go home quite empty-handed,’ I said. ‘This is for the expenses of the journey, and what’s left over you are to keep for yourself.’
I put five sovereigns into his hand. He deserved them, and being reckless with Blackstone’s money was some consolation for having to take it. He looked down at the coins and up at me.
‘I’m sorry it isn’t more,’ I said. ‘I am very grateful to you and hope I may see you again some day.’
The sovereigns went slowly into his pocket, but his hand came out holding something else.
‘My cameo ring? But you were to sell it.’
‘We managed after all, miss. She do resemble you somehow, the lady on it.’
Tears came to my eyes. That was what my father had said when he bought it for me. I drew out the ribbon I wore round my neck with my father’s ring that the black one had so reluctantly given me and knotted the cameo beside it. I thought my good giant might have gone hungry. His cheeks looked hollow.
‘Thank you, Mr Legge. That was a great kindness.’
He murmured something, then ducked into the box to pick up the empty feed bucket and went away across the yard. I spent some time with Esperance, stroking her soft muzzle, watching the way her lower lip drooped and twitched, sure sign of contentment in a horse.
‘I shall come and see you at Ascot when I can,’ I told her.
It occurred to me that, by sending her ahead, I’d committed myself to winning the governess post. Until then, I’d been priding myself on my cleverness, but now I was beginning to see how thoroughly I’d got myself enmeshed.
‘And I suppose you’d better go too,’ I said to the cat Lucy.
She gave a little mipping sound in answer and jumped lightly down to her place on the mare’s back. I left them there. In the yard, Amos was filling buckets at the pump. I held out my hand and wished him goodbye, but again he insisted on escorting me back to town. We didn’t speak much on the way and he seemed cast down, but perhaps that just reflected my own sadness at having to part from him.
The London Flyer drew out on Monday, prompt to the minute. I’d arrived early and secured a seat by the window and when I looked out there was Amos Legge, taller by a head and a faded felt hat than the crowd of grooms, ostlers, boys and travellers’ relatives come to see our departure. I waved to him as we clattered away, but if he waved back I didn’t see it for the cloud of dust we were raising.
Store Street is not in a fashionable part of London. It lies, as Blackstone had said, near the British Museum, off the east side of Tottenham Court Road. They’d been building the new museum for almost my entire life and were still nowhere near to finishing it, so the streets around it were dusty in summer and muddy in winter from the coming and going of builders’ wagons. It was an area I knew quite well because, being cheap, it provided rooms for exactly the kind of musicians, writers, actors and wandering scholars who tended to be my father’s friends. So when I got down from the Flyer on Monday afternoon, I had no need to ask directions.
In other circumstances it would have delighted me to be back among the London crowds, on this sunny day with the season at its height, the barouches whirling their bright cargoes of ladies to afternoon appointments, the shouts of the hawkers and snatches of songs from ballad sellers, the