She didn’t have much in the way of cover between here and there. She’d like a glimpse of the patrons, but even wearing trousers, she wasn’t foolish enough to attempt going inside. The tavern was poorly lit, but she’d be a newcomer. Men would stare.
She’d have to go through town as planned, trailing her shadow. Having a suspicion of who it was, she stepped off the road, to the far side of the tavern. Losing sight of her, her shadow raced toward where he’d last seen her. Eleanor stuck out her stick, tripping him.
Silas avoided a fall but rubbed his knee and glared at her. “Whadya do that for?”
“Because I need eyes inside that tavern. I’ll only be dallying with the chickens on the green. You can sit on the Monk’s step and keep an eye on anyone coming or going. If you see Bradford or Percival or anyone looking suspicious turning toward the green, they’ll not notice if you follow them.”
“His worship says I was to stay with you,” he said, hanging his head, although he side-eyed the noisy tavern with a degree of curiosity.
“I’ll be just down the street. You can run down to tell me anything you see or hear that might be of interest. It’s a much better use of your time than hiding in the hedges.”
A woman began singing inside, and his head popped up. “All right, for a bit,” he agreed. “Don’t go far or it will be my head.”
“The professor is walking just on the other side of the cottages. He’s not far away. I shall be fine,” she assured him. “He’s the one we must protect, which is why you need to follow anyone heading that direction.”
He eyed the distance skeptically, nodded, and took himself off to the crumbling mounting block beside the tavern door. Very few in the village had horses or required a mounting block these days, so he was safe there.
Glad to have a warning system in place, Eleanor continued strolling down the street. In the dying light of the overcast evening, it was simple enough to slip in and out of the shadows of overgrown bushes. Half the houses on this side of the street were unoccupied, their thatch roofs too rotten to serve as more than mice burrows.
There was a light in one or two better-maintained cottages, where some of the older residents lived. The storefronts across the street were closed, including the gallery. It was dinner time. She didn’t expect to see anyone out and about. . . unless they were up to no good, like her.
The hens had gone home to roost. A few goats lay about, watching her warily as she took a position next to the village well. She hoped if anyone even noticed her in the shadows that they would assume she waited for someone. If it weren’t for the goats, this would be a lovely place for benches and flowers.
There were lights in the physician’s cottage to her right, so the Walkers were eating at home this evening. Grey’s stride was longer than hers. He ought to be emerging along the river road that ran beside the Walkers’ cottage by now. The bridge wasn’t terribly far from the green. Eleanor looked but couldn’t see it easily from this position. What if she stood on the well. . . ?
Voices caught her attention, and she crouched down, settling deeper into the shadow. Two men staggered down the rutted street, coming from the direction of the tavern and crossing to the boardwalk on the opposite side as they drew closer to her position. Singing drunkenly, one had his arm over the shoulders of the other, making it difficult to identify their forms, other than that the small one appeared to be holding up the larger. Perhaps they were just laborers on their way home after a hard day’s toil.
She watched as they turned down the alley beside the once-vacant cottage Bradford occupied—the only place that alley led was to the professor’s yard. What did she do now?
Silas silently slipped up from the other side of the street. “They said they was meeting the money man,” he whispered. “I can’t see ’em to know ’em.”
Meeting the money man? El suffered a chill of apprehension. “All right, I don’t think there is anything we can do except watch. We’re just spying, not fighting,” she warned. “We’ll have to let Mr. Russell’s men deal with them.” She hoped they were stationed around the house as promised.
She really wanted to find Greybourne. The book was safely with the publisher. They’d taken Grey’s notes to the manor in the valise. If anyone wanted to search the nearly empty house for treasure, they were welcome to it.
But, according to Thea, it was the professor to whom accidents happened. He appeared to doubt the danger, but what if that had been his heir she’d seen earlier? A stranger who looked like Grey and lurked in the alley. . . She didn’t need imagination to add two and two.
Only the heir had nothing to do with Comfrey, did he? And the banker certainly did not look like Greybourne. So perhaps this was about the house, after all. That would be a relief.
From here, she could see the light pouring through the tavern doorway. It was too far for her to distinguish more than silhouettes when two more men emerged and strolled toward the gallery across the street. Judging by size, she’d say the lean one was Percival, but she couldn’t recognize the shadow in a hat with him. Mr. Jones, perhaps?
Where did the artists live? She’d thought it was down a lane that twisted along behind that side of the village, toward the bakery, but they weren’t turning that way.
A tall, burly man emerged from behind the front hedge of the vacant butcher’s cottage. . . Bradford. El clenched her walking stick as he turned toward the river, where Grey hid.
It was almost totally dark now. She counted four of them, plus Bradford, none holding lanterns. This could not be good.
“I’m going to warn the professor,” she decided. “I’d like you to keep an eye on the street and come tell us if you see anyone else heading toward our house or the river. We should be near the bridge.”
Silas started to object, but she held her finger to her lips. “I’ll tell him I saw you and you’re right behind me. You’re fine. If you want to walk up and down between here and the bridge, that’s fine too. None of us know what to expect.”
He nodded anxiously. “Them artists was at Monk’s. They’s rowdy like. You’ll hear ’em if any more come this way.”
The drunken song of the first pair had dissipated. Had the guards caught them?
“Stay out of their way. We need you to be our messenger.” Eleanor slipped across to the physician’s cottage, lingering under the rose-covered arch to be certain no one else was on the street.
Hurrying in the direction of the river, she checked the bridge. A lion-maned man was just stepping onto it.
