The Glass House (33 page)

Rutledge went on, "I know that you yourself
were the victim of a prank, Captain, though you chose not to report
it. Sutcliff, my prefect, had to tell me. What were you thinking,
man?"

Bartholomew a few nights ago had thrown back
my bedding to reveal a grass snake, half-suffocated on the
featherbed. I had lifted it between my fingers and laid it gently
in the branches of the tree outside my window.

I said, "I was thinking it was harmless and
did not need to be brought to your attention."

"Harmless?" Rutledge almost shouted. "And
why, pray, did you believe it harmless?"

I half smiled. "I assumed a few boys were
simply testing out the new man. To see whether I fussed or
laughed."

Rutledge's expression told me that levity had
been the incorrect response. "You should have reported it to me at
once, and the boys found and punished. You encourage their
behavior."

I held my temper with effort. "I doubt it
connects to the more serious pranks."

"How can you know that?"

"Poison in port and fires in servants rooms
are considerably more dangerous than one bewildered grass
snake."

Rutledge's annoyed expression told me he did
not agree. "So the question remains, Captain. What do you intend to
do about it?"

His belligerence was ruining a fine spring
day. I had hoped to escape for a walk after my duties, but Rutledge
had ordered me to stay. Then he'd laid aside his papers, rested his
fists on his desk, and told me all about the pranks.

"I will question the boys," I told him. "They
likely know who is involved but are reluctant to speak. Even if
they do not know, they might be able to point to something. I will
speak to the prefects of both houses, as well. They are much closer
to the boys than you or even the tutors can be."

Rutledge peered at me in disappointment. "I
expected more from you, the way Grenville boasted. The students
have already been questioned. I had them all thrashed, but to no
avail. You will get nowhere with that line of thinking."

"The students might be more willing to speak
to a sympathetic stranger than their headmaster or even a prefect,"
I pointed out. "Servants, too, see things, hear things. I shall
have my man talk with them."

Rutledge dismissed this with a wave of his
hand. "Useless. They will not tell you, even if they do know."

I grew annoyed. "Did you expect me to pull
the solution out of the air? I must begin somewhere."

"Yes, yes, very well. But I expect you to
tell me everything. Everything, Lacey."

I did not promise. I'd tell him what he
needed to know, nothing more. I had learned in my life that
problems were often more complex than they seemed, and most people
did not want to know the entire truth. Rutledge was a man who saw
everything in black and white. Subtle complexities would be beyond
him.

He dismissed me then, curtly. Without regret,
I left the warm and comfortable room for the cold hall.

The case intrigued me, but Rutledge had not
endeared himself to me. I was also put out with Grenville and
intended to write to him so, first for not telling me that my
employment here was simply a means for solving a puzzle, and second
for not warning me that Rutledge was such a boor.

A walk in the brisk March air, I thought,
would do me good.

It was late afternoon, and boys and tutors
spilled through the double doors to change their clothes for chapel
or dinner or more studies. There were thirty boys in this house,
which was called the Head Master's house. I had not yet met all the
students, but I had started to recognize a few. Ramsay was a
tow-headed boy of about thirteen who always looked apprehensive.
Timson, the same age, had a roguish look, and it pained me to
realize that he reminded me of myself at that age. Frederick
Sutcliff, the prefect, was tall, lanky, older than the other
students, and generally despised. He was full of himself and not
above a little harsh discipline that he did not report to Rutledge.
His father was also one of the wealthiest men in England.

The Classics tutor, Simon Fletcher, gave me a
nod. He did not live in this house, but in the one opposite, called
Fairleigh. Fletcher liked a quiet pint in the village tavern, and
I'd met him there on more than one evening. The mathematics tutor,
Tunbridge, was lecturing his star pupil as usual, a heavy-browed,
spindly youth of sixteen.

The lads gazed up at me as I made my way down
the stairs and out of the house. They always stared because I was a
tall, broad-shouldered man obviously wounded in the war, and also
because they'd heard I'd refused to toady to Rutledge. This had
raised me to a certain admired status.

Some of the boys nodded and said a polite,
"Captain." Most of the others simply watched.

Cool damp air awaited me outside in the quad,
and I breathed it in relief. Rutledge's study was comfortable
enough, but his moods fouled the air.

The setting of the Sudbury School was fairly
peaceful. The houses had been built in the time of Henry VIII. They
had dark, narrow staircases and galleries that creaked, small
windows, and crumbling plaster. But the estate had been owned by a
family of vast fortune, who were able to fortify the houses and
modernize them as time went on without marring their beauty.

The Head Master's house comprised the north
and east sides of the quad, and Fairleigh, named for one of the
founders of the school, the west side. The south building housed a
large hall and two smaller ones for lectures, tiny classrooms, a
common dining hall for the boys, and a more formal dining room, in
which Rutledge hosted visitors to the school.

I left the quad through the gate and began
walking to the stables. The Berkshire countryside certainly smelled
cleaner than London's grime-filled streets. Here was the fragrance
of new grass, wet earth, and the faint musty odor that came from
the quiet canal that flowed past the school.

Rutledge at least did not mind me taking a
horse every morning and riding about the green swards or along the
towpath beside the canal. Rutledge was mad for sport and approved
of men who liked to ride. I was still a cavalryman at heart and was
glad to have the opportunity to ride regularly again.

I reflected as I walked that I had come to
Berkshire to find peace, and so far, it had eluded me. But perhaps
peace was not in a place but within one's self. In that case, I
might never find it. There was little at peace inside Gabriel
Lacey.

In the stable yard, I met Sebastian, a young
Romany who had been taken on by the head groom to assist him. He
was cleaning tack and not looking happy about it. Sebastian was
excellent with horses, and he and I had become friends of a sort. I
had been surprised at first to discover that Rutledge allowed one
of the Roma to work in his stables, but Sebastian told me Rutledge
had not known about it until after the fact. Sebastian had proved
handy enough--and came cheap--and Rutledge had decided to look the
other way.

"Good afternoon," I said genially to
Sebastian.

He gave me a nod. The other stable hands
ignored me. Two leaned on rakes and chatted, one sat on a crate
smoking a pipe while he mended a bridle.

Sebastian was usually effusive, but today, he
frowned at the saddle he polished. "Did you want a horse, Captain?"
he asked in his melodious voice.

"No. I'm out for a short stroll, that's all.
Is everything well with you?"

"Yes."

It was not, I could see, but Sebastian closed
his mouth in a tight line. He was about twenty, not much older than
the oldest boys at the school. The pupils generally liked him,
because he was good-natured and knew everything there was to know
about horses.

A door at the end of the line of stalls led
to the quarters for the groom and his stable hands. A man emerged
from this door just then. He was tall and burly, with black hair
under a coachman's hat.

I stared at him. I recognized him--or thought
I did.

He saw me, stopped, and ducked back into the
shadows of the doorway.

"Who was that?" I asked Sebastian.

He looked up, puzzled at my tone. "Mr.
Middleton," he answered. "The groom."

I had not seen this Middleton since my
arrival. I usually visited the stables very early in the morning,
and Sebastian alone prepared my mount.

But I knew Middleton. Or at least, I'd seen
him before, in London. He had once been the lackey of a man called
James Denis.

James Denis was a criminal, or should have
been labeled so. He was a gentleman to whom wealthy gentlemen went
when they wished to obtain a fine piece of art that was
unobtainable, to gain a seat in Parliament that was already filled,
to succeed in whatever enterprise they wished. In return, they gave
their loyalty and a high percentage of their wealth to Mr.
Denis.

I had encountered Denis far more often than I
cared to. He had helped me once or twice, but he had also
threatened me and once had his lackeys kidnap me and beat me to
teach me to respect him. He wanted me to fear him, and my friends,
Grenville included, advised me to, but Denis had only succeeded in
making me very, very angry.

I watched the door, but the man did not
reappear. "What do you know about him?" I asked Sebastian.

Sebastian shrugged. "Not very much. He's a
coachman, or was. He's very good with horses. A gentle sort with
the beasts."

"How long has he been here?"

"Don't know."

I moved to the stable hands still leaning on
their rakes and asked them. Like Sebastian, they eyed me in
surprise, but answered. Middleton had been employed at Sudbury for
six months.

I might have been mistaken, I told myself. I
had only glimpsed the man. But I did not think so. Why one of James
Denis' men should have taken up a post in Berkshire, at a boys'
school, I hadn't the faintest idea. But if I was right, this boded
no good.

*** *** ***

"You sure it was him, sir?"

Bartholomew held my coat in one hand, his
stiff-bristled brush in the other. The blond giant had stopped and
gaped, wide-eyed, when I'd announced who I'd seen.

"No," I answered. I drank the thick coffee
Bartholomew had brought after my supper. The quarters allotted to
me consisted of a rather plain but cozy room on the top floor of
the Head Master's house. My windows looked over the meadows behind
the school and the line of trees that marked the canal. "He did not
come out again, and I could not go charging after him. He looked
just as surprised to see me."

"But he must have heard you'd come here,"
Bartholomew said. "That's why he's kept scarce whenever you came to
take a horse, I'd wager."

"Well, if he is Denis' man, why is he here?"
I wondered. "Did Denis send him to keep an eye on me?"

"Could be, sir. Or could be he's quit of Mr.
Denis. Or could be he doesn't want Mr. Denis to know where he
is."

"True." If I was correct about who he was,
Denis had once sent the man Middleton to my rooms in Covent Garden
to fetch me. Denis generally employed pugilists and former coachmen
to serve as rather menacing bodyguards and lackeys. This one had
been no less menacing than any of the others. I had refused the
summons. Bartholomew's presence had helped, and the man had left in
defeat.

I had never seen him again. Though I'd
visited Denis not long ago, while pursuing the affair of the Glass
House in London, Middleton, as far as I remembered, had not been
there.

"Well, it's interesting," Bartholomew
remarked. "What are you going to do?"

I lifted my cup. "I will let it lie for now.
He obviously did not want me to see him. But I'll watch. I do not
trust Denis, nor any man associated with him."

"No, sir." Bartholomew resumed brushing. "Of
course, it does no harm asking about in the kitchens. Why he's
here, I mean."

"Your curiosity might prove as dangerous as
mine, Bartholomew," I said.

"Yes, sir."

I turned the conversation back to the pranks
that Rutledge wanted me to investigate, and frowned in thought. "I
wonder whether one house has seen more of the pranks than the
other. It would be difficult, for instance, for a boy in this house
to get into Fairleigh at night."

"The Fairleigh boys would chuck him right out
if they saw him." Bartholomew grinned. "And not in a nice manner,
would they?"

The houses, the Head Master's and Fairleigh,
were similar in amenities and distribution of boys, but the two
houses were fierce rivals, each convinced that members of the other
were weak and ineffectual. It is common thing among mortals, I had
observed, that when placed even arbitrarily into this or that
group, they immediately begin to defend themselves against all
other groups. I do not exclude myself from this phenomenon. In the
Army, I valiantly defended the honor of the Thirty-Fifth Light
Dragoons, and would have done so with my life. And of course, I
esteemed the abilities of the light cavalry over the heavy. Still
more serious was the manner in which cavalry viewed the
infantry--that body of foot wobblers who could not shoot straight
even standing on the ground and dug into place.

I fully admitted to prejudice in my views--I
had realized once that if someone were to come along and paint a
red or blue spot on each of our foreheads, we who had the blue
spots would congregate to other blue-spotters and come up with
reasons why we were infinitely better than the red-spotters.

The Fairleighs contended that they were
superior to the Head Masters and vice versa. Therefore, if any Head
Master boy were caught sneaking into Fairleigh uninvited, said boy
had better be fast on his feet and good with his fists. In
addition, news of such a break-in would be all over school the next
day.

Therefore, the prankster must either be a
master of infiltration and deception, or there must be more than
one.