“Oh!” Her eyes widened. “Then… perhaps I saw themurderer!”
“It is possible. Or it might simply have been a worker taking an unscheduled rest from his labours, who knows. But I suggest you two enjoy your ride together, and I will brave the undergrowth to see what I can find.”
“I think we have the best of the arrangement, Captain,” Bertram said.
Michael grinned. “By no means, Mr Atherton. There is nothing I enjoy more than pottering about in woods looking for clues.”
He waved them away, then led his horse a few paces away from the track. Unstrapping the sword from its carrier on the beast’s side, he fastened it to his belt. He had no expectation that he would need it, but he felt vaguely undressed without it.
Within ten paces, he encountered the problem that had deterred Miss Franklyn, for the way was thick with brambles and other impenetrable growth. He pressed on, however, wielding the sword on the densest patches, hoping his boots and thick buckskin breeches were stout enough to survive more or less unscathed. Before too long, as the tree canopy closed fully overhead, the brambles died away and the going was easier.
It was less easy to be sure he was following the precise direction defined by Miss Franklyn’s pointed whip, but before too long he saw a small clearing ahead and was tolerably sure that this was the right location. A small rise and a conveniently positioned fallen tree trunk marked a comfortable spot where a man might sit to rest. And from there, he could see not merely back to the track where his horse was just visible, but a long section of track that curved away from the woodland. From here, a man with a telescope, say, could easily watch Miss Franklyn galloping along the curved section. She would be hidden by trees for a moment, only to reappear at the more open section where she had stopped and noticed the glint of something shiny — the telescope, perhaps.
The clearing held no clues, however. There was no fire, nor signs that there had ever been one. There were no horse droppings… but no, the man had run away, so he had no horse. Where would he run to? On the far side of the clearing were more brambles and other undergrowth, which presumably he had crashed through as he fled. Not far beyond lay a narrow track running at right angles. That would be much easier going for a man making a hasty escape, but which way would he go? Michael was a thorough man, so he explored both. To one side the track wound away through the woods, leading ultimately to the moors. In the other direction, the track soon led to a much larger clearing, where horses had been tethered quite recently — or one horse on several occasions, perhaps. From there severaltracks led off in different directions, but it was impossible to tell which had been used recently.
Michael returned to his own horse in thoughtful mood. He could not find a way to connect this to the murder, for a man would hardly linger in woods nearby more than three months after the event. Yet he could not quite set it aside, either. It was yet another oddity that could not be explained.
21: Highwaymen And Elopements
The letter from James Neate was terse and to the point. Michael read it aloud to Luce and Pettigrew.
‘To Captain M Edgerton, Corland Castle, West Yorkshire. Michael, Entry has been gained to the house, but Mrs Mayberry and her four nieces are gone, fled in the night, according to the neighbours, taking the servants with them, destination unknown. We do not yet know precisely what else they may have taken with them, but the safe is still there, the contents untouched. Do you think Miss Nicholson and her maid, who have seen the interior of the house, would be willing to come to Pickering to see what might be missing? If not, the bailiffs are compiling a detailed inventory which they might look at. Yours, J Neate.’
“This is what happens when one gives due notice to people,” Michael said disgustedly. “They disappear. Poof! Vanished in the night.”
“At least they did not manage to break into the safe,” Pettigrew said.
“Shall you try to find them?” Luce said. “If they have not stolen anything—”
“But they know so much!” Michael cried. “And Mrs Mayberry, if that is even her right name,liedto us! She told us that Nicholson never went to the house, but that is clearly not the case, for all his account books are in that room above the coach house. We must find out where she has gone and question her closely until she tells us the truth.”
“And yet,” Pettigrew said placidly, “I seem to recall his lordship expressing the wish that the lady should not be inconvenienced.”
“She is no lady!” Michael said hotly. “She is a brothel keeper and a thief.”
“The first I will grant you, but the second is yet to be established. If indeed items are missing, then you will have every justification for pursuing Mrs Mayberry, but otherwise, she is hardly pertinent to the murder.”
“Everyone is pertinent to the murder,” Michael muttered, but without heat now. “Very well, Pettigrew. Have it your own way. Unless there has been thievery, Mrs Mayberry may be left in peace. Miss Nicholson told us of a cash box containing four hundred and twenty pounds. If that is still there and the exact amount remains within, we may assume that nothing has been stolen. However, if I should happen to be in Pickering and should happen to talk to a postilion, it would do no harm to enquire as to whether he transported a group of ladies away in the middle of the night, now, would it?”
Pettigrew laughed, and shook his head but said no more.
It was Luce who added quietly, “If you should happen to be in Pickering, Michael, I hope you will not forget poor Peachy, who has been missing for more than a month now.”
“I do not forget Miss Peach, but unless we have some unexpected luck, I fear it may be impossible to pick up her trailnow. But she is a resourceful lady. I do not believe she has come to any harm. She is merely busy on secret business of her own, that is all.”
“I hope so, Michael. I do very much hope so.”
***
Tess could not remember a time when she had not had a Plan. As a child, she had fully intended to be a sailor and fight to keep the seas free from the marauding hordes of other nations. Captain Nicholson would save the day for Britain, and she had kept a particularly straight stick in her bedroom for practising her swordplay. But her first visit to Scarborough and the sight of real ships being tossed about on tempestuous waves had scotched that notion.
Her next idea was to be a highwayman, living wild and free like the Romanies, and only occasionally, when living on berries and herbs palled, would she hold up a carriage and take a few coins with which to buy meat. Rich people could afford to share their wealth, after all. But no amount of persuasion succeeded in convincing her father, uncle or cousins to teach her about guns, and since she did not see how it could be done without weapons, she was forced to rethink.
Eventually she decided that she would be a spy, and sneak into France to find out what Bonaparte was up to. The government would be extremely grateful to her, she was sure of that, and she might even be knighted for her efforts. Sir Teresa Nicholson. Naturally she would have to speak French like a native to be able to pass unnoticed, and the governess of the day was startled to find her such an enthusiastic student all of a sudden, after showing little interest in any other subject.
But the seep of reality from her mother and aunt, the various governesses and her female cousins brought home to her thatthe only acceptable career for a woman was to marry and breed children. As first Izzy and then Josie married, and even Olivia, her confidante in all things, turned her thoughts in that direction, Tess had realised she was alone, and trapped. The only escape was marriage, but that was just another trap, to keep a woman subservient to a man.
That was when she had met Tom Shapman, and her Plan had taken a different turn. Why should she not marry, but to a man of her own choosing, who would not keep her in subjection as men of her own class would? And when her father had died, she had, for a brief moment, believed that all she wanted would at last come to her — money, and the man with the strong arms and clever hands, and most of all, freedom. Freedom from this stultifying castle and all the people within it.
