Moonlight spilled from the window at the end of the corridor. Through the narrow opening she could just barely make out the top of the staircase. There was no sign of anyone about. She realized that from her vantage point she could not see around the edge of the door to examine the hallway to the right.
“I take it the sherry was not effective.” Ambrose spoke very quietly from the darkness.
She jumped a little and then drew a shuddering breath of relief. Lowering the gun, she opened the door a little wider and put her head around the corner.
At first she could not see him at all. Then she realized why. He was not standing at eye level in the hall; he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands lightly curled on his knees. There was a great stillness about him.
“Mr. Wells,” she said softly, “I thought I heard you out here. What on earth are you doing sitting there on the floor? You should be in bed. You need your sleep as much as the rest of us.”
“Do not concern yourself, Miss Glade. Go back to bed.”
She could hardly demand answers at this hour. The last thing she wanted to do was awaken the girls, to say nothing of the innkeeper and his wife.
“Very well, if you insist.” She did not bother to conceal her doubts.
“Believe it or not, I do know what I am doing, Miss Glade.”
Reluctantly she closed the door and slid the bolt back into place. She
made her way to the bed, removed her eyeglasses, put the gun down on the table and got under the covers.
She watched the crack of light beneath the door for a time, thinking about Ambrose’s odd behavior. She did not require an answer to her question. She knew why he was out there in the chilly hall, why he had not touched the sherry earlier. He was keeping watch.
She chilled beneath the heavy quilts.
The fact that he felt it necessary to guard them through the night told her just how dangerous he believed Alexander Larkin really was.
A
mbrose listened to the almost inaudible snick of the bolt of the door sliding into place.
He waited a moment longer, cataloging the sounds of the slumbering inn. That part of him that had been trained to listen for the smallest dissonant note concealed within the natural harmony of the night detected nothing that gave cause for alarm.
He allowed himself to sink back into the quiet place in his mind. There would be no sleep for him between now and dawn, but in this inner realm he could obtain a semblance of rest. Here, too, he could contemplate problems and consider possibilities.
At the moment none seemed quite as pressing or as disturbing as Concordia Glade’s words a moment ago.
I thought I heard you out here.
That was not possible. He knew that he had made no sound. He was equally certain that he had done nothing to disturb the shadows beneath the doors when he made his way down the hall. He knew how to move in the night. He had a talent for it.
I thought I heard you out here.
He let himself drift into the memory of another night. . . .
7The boy hovered, shivering, in the deep shadows at the top of the stairs. He listened to the angry, muffled voices emanating from the study. His father was quarreling with the mysterious visitor. He could not make out all the words but there was no mistaking the rising level of rage in both men. It was a dangerous, dark tide that seemed to flood through the house.
His father’s voice was tight with fury.
“. . . You murdered her in cold blood, didn’t you? I can’t prove it, but I know you did it. . . .”
“She wasn’t important.” The stranger spoke in low, angry tones. “Just a chambermaid who learned more than was good for her. Forget her. We’re on the brink of making a fortune. . . .”
“. . . I won’t be a party to any more of this business. . . .”
“You can’t just walk away. . . .”
“That is precisely what I’m going to do.”
“You surprise me, Colton,” the visitor said. “You’ve been a swindler and a fraud artist all of your life. I believed you to be far more practical.”
“Fleecing a few wealthy gentlemen who can well afford to lose several thousand pounds is one thing. Murder is another. You knew I’d never go along with that.”
“Which is, of course, why I did not tell you,” the stranger said. “Had a feeling you’d be difficult.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t suspect what had happened? She was just an innocent young woman.”
“Not so innocent.” The stranger’s laugh was mirthless. It ended in a harsh cough. “Rest assured, mine was not the first gentleman’s bed she had warmed.”
“Get out of here and don’t ever come back. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Colton, I understand very well. I regret that you feel this way. I shall be sorry to lose you as a partner. But I respect your wishes. Rest assured you will never see me again.”
A sudden, sharp explosion reverberated through the house.
The roar of the pistol shocked the boy into immobility for a few seconds. He knew what had happened but he could not bring himself to accept the truth.
Down below, the door of the study opened abruptly. He stood, frozen, in the shadows at the top of the stairs and watched the stranger move through the light of the gas lamp that burned on the desk behind him.
In spite of the boy’s horror, some part of him automatically cataloged the details of the killer’s appearance. Blond hair, whiskers, an expensively cut coat.
The man looked toward the staircase.
The boy was certain that the stranger was going to climb the stairs and kill him. He knew it as surely as he knew that his father was dead.
The stranger put one booted foot on the bottom step.
“I know you’re awake up there, young man. Been a tragic accident,
I’m afraid. Your father just took his own life. Come on down here. I’ll take care of you.”The boy stopped breathing altogether, trying to make himself one more shadow among many.
The killer started up the steps. Then he hesitated.
“Bloody hell, the housekeeper,” he muttered on another hoarse cough.
The boy watched him turn and go back down the steps. The killer disappeared into the darkened hall. He was going to check Mrs. Dalton’s rooms to see if she was there.
The boy knew what the killer did not. Mrs. Dalton was not in her rooms because she had been given the night off. His father did not like any of the servants around when he conducted his illicit business affairs.
When the stranger discovered that he had no need to worry about an adult witness, he would come hunting for the one person who could tell the police what had happened tonight.
The boy looked over the railing and knew that he could not possibly make it down three flights of stairs to the front door and out into the safety of the night before the killer returned.
He was trapped. . . .
A
mbrose’s feat of magic went remarkably smoothly the following day. Concordia was more than merely impressed with the timing and the coordination, she was awed. Surely there were very few men in the world who could have organized such a vanishing act.
“The trick is to keep it as simple as possible,” Ambrose explained when he saw them off at the train station. “And to remember that people see what they expect to see.”
The next thing she knew he had disappeared himself. But just before the train pulled out of the station, she caught a glimpse of a scruffy-looking farmer climbing into one of the crowded third-class carriages. Something about the way he moved told her that the man was Ambrose.
A few hours later, after a number of stops in small towns and villages along the way that afforded the passengers the opportunity to stretch their legs, four well-bred young ladies and their teacher descended from a first-class carriage into a busy London station. They immediately got
into a cab. The vehicle melted into the swollen traffic and the afternoon haze.
An hour later, four working-class youths emerged from a thronged shopping arcade. They were dressed in caps, trousers, mufflers and coats. They sauntered in the wake of a flower seller in a tattered cloak.
The small group drifted through a busy vegetable market and climbed into an empty farmer’s cart. A tarp was stretched over the back of the wagon to conceal the passengers.
Through an opening in the canvas, Concordia caught occasional glimpses of the neighborhoods through which they traveled. Within a short time, the bustle and clatter of the market gave way to a maze of tiny lanes and cramped, dark streets. Scenes of prosperous shops and modest houses followed. That view, in turn, eventually gave way to one of a neighborhood of elegant mansions and fine squares.
To Concordia’s amazement, the farmer’s cart eventually passed through the heavy iron gates at the back of one of the big houses and rumbled to a halt in a stone-paved yard.
The canvas was whipped off the back of the cart. Ambrose, wearing a farmer’s hat and rough clothing, looked down from the driver’s box.
“Welcome to your new lodgings, ladies.” He tossed the reins to a tall, lanky middle-aged man dressed in a gardener’s attire. “This is Mr. Oates. Oates, allow me to introduce Miss Glade and her four students, Phoebe, Hannah, Theodora and Edwina. They will be staying with us for a while.”
“Ladies.” Oates touched his cap.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Oates,” Concordia said.
The girls acknowledged him cheerfully.
Oates looked oddly pleased and somewhat embarrassed by the polite greetings. He mumbled something unintelligible and turned red.
Two large, sleek dogs with sharply pointed ears and well-defined heads bounded forward and stopped directly in front of the small crowd. Their cold, intelligent gaze stirred the hair on the back of Concordia’s neck. The animals reminded her of the portrait of a jackal-headed Egyptian god she had once seen in a museum.
“Meet Dante and Beatrice,” Ambrose said.
Concordia eyed the dogs uneasily. “Will they bite?”
Ambrose’s smile was not unlike that of the dogs. “Of course. What’s the point of having guard dogs that will not rip the throats of uninvited guests? But do not be alarmed. Now that you and the girls have been properly introduced, you are quite safe.”
“You’re certain of that?”
His smile widened. “Absolutely positive, Miss Glade.”
“I say, this was great fun.” Phoebe jumped down from the cart without waiting for assistance from one of the men and rubbed the place behind Dante’s pricked ears. “I very much enjoyed wearing these trousers. Much more comfortable than the skirts we sewed together.” She looked hopefully at Concordia. “May I keep them, Miss Glade?”
“I don’t see why not,” Concordia said. She relaxed when she saw that the dog appeared to be enjoying Phoebe’s attention. “They are quite practical in some ways.”
Beatrice trotted toward her and thrust her long nose into her hand. Concordia gingerly patted her.
“I want to keep my boy’s clothes, too.” Hannah stood up in the back of the cart, hooked her fingers into the waistband of her trousers and struck a jaunty pose. In the blink of an eye she metamorphosed into a youth who would not have looked out of place selling newspapers on a busy street corner. “They are ever so much more comfortable than skirts and petticoats. I feel like a different person in them.”
Edwina looked down at her own rough costume and wrinkled her nose. “They may be comfortable but they certainly are not very fashionable.”
“It was rather fun masquerading as a boy, though,” Theodora said, allowing Oates to help her down from the cart. “Did you see the way people got out of our path in the shopping arcade?”
“I think that is because they were afraid we might try to pick their pockets,” Hannah said wryly.
Ambrose looked amused. “You are correct, Hannah, and that is a tribute to your acting skills. I was very impressed.” He vaulted easily to the ground and surprised Concordia with a brief, wicked smile. “And that includes you, Miss Glade. I have never seen a more convincing flower seller.”
“He’s right, Miss Glade,” Phoebe said. “You look ever so much older in those poor clothes.”
Concordia sighed and unknotted the tattered scarf she had used to cover her hair. “Thank you, Phoebe.”
“How in blazes did ye come by this old cart and that broken-down nag?” Oates muttered to Ambrose.
“A helpful farmer loaned them to me.”
Oates looked skeptical. “Loaned them, eh?”
“No need to look at me like that, Oates.” Ambrose clapped him on the back. “I made it worth his while. He’ll be wanting his fine equipage back, however. Will you take care of the matter for me? I told the man I’d leave his horse and cart in Brinks Lane near the theater.”
“Aye, sir.” Oates climbed up onto the box and flapped the reins.
He did not appear even mildly astonished by the unusual nature of Ambrose’s arrival, Concordia thought. She got the feeling that Oates was accustomed to such eccentricities.
“Come, we will go inside and I will introduce you to Mrs. Oates,” Ambrose said. “She manages the household and will show you to your rooms.”
Before Concordia realized his intent, he took her arm and drew her toward the kitchen door. She was very conscious of the feel of his strong fingers. For some ridiculous reason she wished very badly that she was not dressed in such ragged, unfashionable clothes.
To distract herself from that depressing line of thought, she examined the exterior of the big house as they moved toward the door.
The mansion was a handsome building in the Palladian style with tall, well-proportioned windows and fine columns. It was surrounded by high stone walls and well-tended gardens. The effect was quite elegant, but she could not help but notice that the big house possessed, in a subtle, understated manner, the air of a secure fortress. Dante and Beatrice added the final touch.
The excited, chattering girls rushed enthusiastically into the back hall accompanied by the dogs. Concordia watched them, her insides
tightening. Had she done the right thing by bringing them here? Had there been any better choice?