“What’s happened?” she demanded.
“He’s gone,” Coffen said. “Cripps escaped.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? You were going to set him free in any case. I daresay he’s gone home. He’ll find Flora waiting for him.”
“No, but it’s impossible,” Coffen said. “We’ve been over the whole house. All the doors were locked when we got here. Black had set a wedge under them on the outside so they couldn’t be opened from the inside. The wedges were in place and all the windows closed and the bolt still on the cellar door, so how the deuce did he escape?”
“He must have worked a wedge loose and stuck it back in after he got out,” she said.
“Why would he bother to replace it?” Luten said. “We’d know he’d escaped when he wasn’t inside.”
“He never got out a door,” Black insisted. “I drove them wedges in so hard I could scarcely pry them out from the outside.”
“Did you search the cellar?” she asked.
“The cellar door was locked, and bolted as well,” Black said. “The only way he could have got through that door is by busting the bolts off the door, and they’ve not even been loosened.”
“But did you
search
the cellar?” she asked.
“We looked all around, certainly.”
“He didn’t walk through the bolted door,” she insisted. “He must be hiding downstairs.”
Black considered it, frowned, and said to Coffen, “By Jove, she could be right! We didn’t really
search
the place. And in the dark ... He’s hidden himself behind something. He’s still down there!”
They exchanged a sheepish look. Coffen took up a lamp and the four men headed to the cellar. They were soon back up. “He’s gone,” Coffen announced. “We searched the trunks and any place he could possibly squeeze into. He’s gone without a trace.”
“He’s a magician then,” Black said. “Are you sure them ropes were tied the way I showed you, Luten?”
“As nearly as I could remember. It was dark — but even if he did get the ropes off how did he get out of a locked cellar and house?”
“There must be a priest’s hole in the cellar,” Prance said.
“There’s no such a thing,” Coffen scowled. “Me and Black combed that cellar with a fine tooth. He’s bested us, the scoundrel. I wonder how long he’s been gone.”
“At least he didn’t make it to the duel,” Corinne said, in an effort to console him. “Let us go home and think about it. We’ll come back tomorrow and do a thorough search in daylight. It’s one o’clock. You’re all dead tired. No sleep last night, and all the worry.”
“Happen you’re right,” Black said.
“Yes,” Luten agreed. “The thing’s impossible on the face of it, but he did it, and we must figure out how.”
They discussed it for nearly an hour at Luten’s house before the others went to their hotel. The only decision they reached was that they would all go to Nile Street in the morning and try to solve the mystery.
None of them mentioned it, but they didn’t forget either that with Cripps free and in no good mood, he would likely take steps to gain revenge on Coffen. There was no point wearing the livery, he was on to that.
“Take your closed carriage in the morning, Coffen,” Luten said, as they left.
“Going to rain, is it?” Coffen said. “Pity, that’ll ruin any footprints. What we need is a clue.”
Over his head, Black nodded to show Luten he understood the reason for the closed carriage, and would see that it was used tomorrow.
A heavy sky and a brisk breeze the next morning promised rain. Already the air was so moisture-laden it dampened clothing and left the skin feeling clammy. Swells of waves crashed on the shingle beach and farther out white caps promised rough sailing for the few fishing vessels braving the winds.
“At least Coffen won’t have talked Black into letting him take his curricle,” Corinne said to Luten, as they hurried out to the carriage. She was on pins and needles until they reached Nile Street and saw Coffen’s closed carriage parked outside with a few urchins examining it. Fitz watched them to see they didn’t pull any stunts. Looking around for Prance’s carriage, she noticed he hadn’t arrived yet, unless he came with Coffen.
Finding the front door was still wedged shut, the Lutens went around to enter the back way into the kitchen. The door to the cellar was open.
Luten called down and Coffen answered in an excited voice. “We’re down here, Luten. Come down quick. We’ve found something.”
“Oh lord, I hope Cripps isn’t dead,” Corinne said, which sent Luten bucketing down the staircase with his wife following reluctantly behind him.
“What is it, Coffen?” she demanded. No dead body lay on the floor, nor anything else that appeared interesting at first glance. “What have you found?”
One lantern sat on the floor, Coffen held the other in one hand. He raised his other hand holding the ropes that had bound Cripps. Black was holding the eye bandage.
“We found these under the papers in one of the trunks,” Black said. “It’s odd. I don’t see the mouth gag. He’d not leave that in place when he had his hands free.”
“Have you looked about for it?” Luten asked.
“We have. I don’t see a sign of it.” He took the lantern from the floor and began searching around in corners.”
“Very likely he just pulled it down around his neck and hurried off,” Corinne said. She saw by their scowls they disliked this sensible suggestion. “Is there another lantern?” she asked with a shudder as she looked around the dark, dirty cellar at the scuttling black beetles.
“There’s a couple in the kitchen,” Coffen said. She scampered upstairs, found a tinderbox, lit two lamps and took them down. She handed Luten one and they both joined the search for any sign of how Cripps might have escaped.
It was Corinne who made the discovery. She lifted her skirts, crouched down and shone her lamp into the dark cavity under the stairs. A bit of something white was just visible against the age-darkened boxes holding the petrified potatoes. “There’s something here,” she called, and the others joined her.
Coffen, that lover of clues, hunkered down and crawled in to pick up a square of white cloth. “That’s the gag all right,” he confirmed, when he came out. “One of the hankies Cousin Susan made for me last Christmas. She never could set a decent stitch. He must’ve tossed it over the railing as he went upstairs, trying to get out the door there.”
“No, it was too far back, way under the stairs,” Corinne said. “A light thing like a handkerchief wouldn’t have landed there. He must have been under the stairs at some point. I expect he was over every inch of the place, trying to escape. It’s odd, though, that he’d think he could escape from under the kitchen stairs.”
“Odder yet if he did it,” Luten said. He crouched down, crawled into the space, and lifted his lantern. Then he set it on the ground and began feeling the wall behind the potato bins with his fingers. The foundations of the house were stone, but here was a bit of age-darkened paneling. In its shadowy alcove, it was invisible from a foot away. With his heart beating faster, he ran his long fingers around until he felt the crack at the edge of the panel, and followed the crack. It was a perfect square, about a yard on all sides. He pushed against the panel. It gave a little but didn’t open. Then he pushed his fingers under the bottom edge and lifted. It began to move. It was hinged at the top, the hinges hidden by overhanging stones. He pulled harder and it rose to show a dark tunnel.
A chorus of gasps echoed in the still cellar. “The priest’s hole!” Corinne cried.
“I’m going in,” Luten said. He had to go in on his hands and knees, destroying his buckskins, but could stand hunched over once he was in. They watched in amazement as his hunched shoulders and buckskins faded into shadows.
“Be careful, Luten!” Corinne called. She rushed forward and held her lantern up to the mouth of the tunnel. Luten had disappeared.
“He’s gone!” she said, turning to Black.
“There’s a turning in the tunnel,” Black explained. “Don’t call! A tunnel isn’t dug out to go nowhere. We don’t know where it might lead to. We don’t want to give him away.”
It took all her self-discipline to just stand there and wait. She didn’t have to wait long, however. Within two minutes that seemed much longer Luten reappeared around the corner of the tunnel, carrying his lantern, and was back with them.
“We now know how Cripps worked his magic escape,” he said. “I followed the tunnel to another door and opened it a crack. The smell of stables told me where I was. The tunnel leads to the stable at the Brithelmston
.
”
“So that’s it,” Black cried. “He didn’t have to open a door to get out of the house.”
“That’s it,” Luten confirmed. “He came out of the tavern this morning, you recall. He seems to know his way around the place.”
“Yoo hoo!” Prance called from the top of the stairs. “Anyone down there?”
“Come down, Reg,” Corinne called. “We’ve found how Cripps did it.”
Prance came down and asked, “How he did what?”
“Oh, you don’t know. He escaped. He just disappeared without leaving the house.”
“Indeed! Do continue. I am all ears to hear how he performed that trick. One can envisage occasions when it might come in handy.”
Coffen showed him the tunnel and explained the mystery, in his fashion. “An ingenious escape hatch,” Prance said, smiling. “Kudos to whomever found it. Who did, by the by?”
“It was Corinne who found the clue,” Luten said. “I followed it up.”
“So I see by the knees of your buckskins. I don’t envy Simon the job of cleaning them. What, exactly, was the clue?” Prance asked, and Coffen held up the gag.
Prance had to hear all the details, but he didn’t see why he had to hear them in a filthy cellar and suggested they go abovestairs.
“Before we go,” Coffen said, “any clues in the tunnel, Luten?”
“No, not a thing.”
“You folks go on up. I’ll just have a peek before I join you.”
Black remained behind with Coffen, in case he ran into trouble. He was soon back out, however, to confirm the lack of clues and the debouchement of the tunnel into the stable at the tavern. “The one stable we didn’t go to this morning,” he said, shaking his head in vexation.
“If he has friends there, Mr. Pattle, as we suspected, it was no safe place for you to be. I doubt if you’d have got out alive.”
They went upstairs and joined the others who had migrated to the drawing room to discuss their findings in relative comfort. “I wonder now if that’s why Mary wanted the house so badly,” Prance suggested, and looked around to see if anyone could add to his idea.
“Don’t be foolish,” Coffen scoffed. “What was to stop Mary from going in at the door if she wanted to visit the tavern, which she wouldn’t. There weren’t any girls there, were there, Black?”
“No, just men. Even the likes of Mary wouldn’t go there. Seems to me it was young Cripps that was mighty determined to get Mr. Pattle out of the way, though I can’t see why, unless it has to do with smuggling.”
“Interesting,” Prance said, “Mary’s brother Willie handles the brandy distribution hereabouts — and lives at the Brithelmston. Might she have been acting as her brother’s agent?”
“It’s possible,” Luten said, “But who was obviously using the tunnel on a regular basis is Mad Jack. That’s how he magically disappeared from the Brithelmston the night you were there, Black. The tunnel must run not just to the stable, but to the inn cellars as well.”
“Are you suggesting that Cripps is Mad Jack?” Prance asked.
“Why not? We know he’s a scoundrel and lives well, yet has no job. He knows the secret of the tunnel.”
“For one reason,” Prance said, “his mount also disappears when he goes into the tavern. He couldn’t very well hide his mount in the tunnel. Or is it bigger than I thought from your description?”
“No, you couldn’t get a horse through it.”
“There was no sign of horse shoe marks or droppings,” Coffen added.
“I’m not suggesting he hid the horse in that manner,” Luten said.
“The horse didn’t come into the tavern with him the time I was there,” Black said. “He had some other trick for hiding it.”
“If Cripps
is
Mad Jack, we know now why he was so eager to keep Coffen away from the house,” Luten said. He turned to Black. “You’re the only one of us who actually saw Mad Jack. Could he be Cripps?”
“I can’t see no reason why not. All I saw was a mask and a man wearing a black cape. It could very well have been him so far as size goes.”
“And let us not forget Willie Scraggs,” Prance insisted. “No reason
he
couldn’t be Mad Jack, is there? For that matter we don’t know he isn’t the one who actually shot at Coffen.”
They all sat a moment, thinking, then Black said, “One of them black nags with the white markings we spotted at a stable belonged to Willie Scraggs.”
“Similar to the nag that was brought to Cripps this morning,” Prance said. “I wonder now if Cripps and Willie work together.”
Corinne said, “You’re likely right that Mad Jack makes use of the tunnel, Luten, but what about the Czarina’s necklace? We thought that was why people want to get into the house, why Mary wanted to live here, to snoop around for it.”
“How would she know it’s here?” Luten asked.
“Her brother lives at the tavern. If he isn’t Mad Jack, then he at least knew that Jack sold his goods to Bolger. The whole town seems to know that.”
“I wonder if old Bolger knew about the tunnel,” Coffen said. “It would explain why he got the selling of Mad Jack’s takings from his holdups.”
“Very likely they worked hand in glove,” Luten said. “In any case we now know how to trap Mad Jack. Not a word of what we found out today. We don’t want him to get wind of it or he’d not use the place again.”
“Catchpole said he only attacks about once a month,” Black said. “He just made a haul. We’re only here for a couple of weeks. He won’t strike again while we’re here.”
Luten smiled. “I wager he would if he heard a particularly valuable piece of jewelry was on its way out of town. Something like the Czarina’s necklace.” He looked around the group for their reaction.