“One thing you can say about Byron, he’s not one to be out at all hours,” said Mr. Beaumont. “No, that’s… heisone to be out at all hours, but I have looked in all the places that one can be out at all hours, and he is in none of them, and I had hoped, perhaps, he was here, because I know he and you were playing at something to do with murder, but he is not, is he?”
“Lord Byron is missing?” said Jane.
Mr. Beaumont was in their sitting room at this point, running a hand through his hair, looking distraught. “Perhaps I shouldn’t worry about him, it is only that he was in quite a bad way this week, and he can do… things in those states.”
“What sort of things?” said Jane.
“I’ve never heard him threaten to end his own life, but sometimes, he does things that make me think that is all he wants. Did you know he kept a bear at Trinity?”
“The college?” said Cassandra.
“Yes,” said Beaumont. “It had to be muzzled. It was mostly docile, but it was a bear, you know. You can’t keep abearin your rooms as a pet.”
“You think he kept the bear because he was hoping it would kill him?” said Jane.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Beaumont. “Maybe not. Maybe he has simply left, I suppose. He did not take his horses but maybe he simply took others. He did not take his things, but maybe he will send for them. He did not say goodbye, but maybe that is only because he is often a bit thoughtless, our Byron. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.”
“You’re worried about him,” said Jane. “I do know where he went last.”
“Oh?” said Beaumont.
“He went to see Mr. Hardy,” said Jane. “Or, rather, to ransack Mr. Hardy’s bedchamber in search of the murder weapon.”
“Oh, dear!” said Cassandra. “You would not write to the magistrate, but you told him?”
“Well, those things are quite different from each other!” cried Jane.
“Mr. Hardy?” said Beaumont. “All right, thank you. I shall go and seek him there.”
Beaumont did not return that evening, but there was a letter delivered from a servant saying that he was grateful for their help, however, that Mr. Hardy had not seen Byron yesterday, and that Beaumont could only determine that Byron had left without saying goodbye.
Jane and Cassandra passed the note back and forth, both full of anxiety.
“If Mr. Hardy would kill Miss Seward, maybe he would work himself up to killing a baron,” said Cassandra.
“Yes, especially to conceal his first murder!” said Jane. “It is only that I still don’t understand any of it.”
“We have to write to the magistrate now,” said Cassandra.
“Yes,” said Jane, nodding, her stomach churning. “Yes, I suppose we must. First thing in the morning, I shall set it all down in a letter, and we shall send it off.”
BUT MORNING DAWNEDand Jane thought to herself that it was possible that Lord Byron was not dead, but simply captured somewhere. She thought to herself that the tavern itself had storage spaces, rooms full of barrels of ale and the like, and that Byron could be tied up in one of those, trying to get free, very much alive.
So, she got out of bed as the sun was struggling into the sky and rang for the maid, had herself dressed, and set off down the path to town quite early, before anyone else was awake.
Jane worried the tavern itself would be locked up and she had made a few plans for getting in that involved breaking panes of glass and the like. But she was lucky enough to find the back door unlocked.
She let herself in.
Inside, the tavern was dusty and dark, the only light the red-gold rays of the sunrise that made it through the windows. She crept through the hallways, half-expecting Mr. Hardy to appear around any corner, his expression severe, his hands full of bottles of laudanum.You must drink, Miss Austen,he would say.
Except he was never there.
And this was fanciful, after all.
But so was the idea that Byron was still alive, she realized. If Mr. Hardy wanted to silence Byron, he would have to kill him. There was no reason to keep him alive and tied up in a room full of barrels of ale.
She realized that she was not here on a mission to rescue Lord Byron. She was, instead, here on a mission to discover his body.
