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Harry kept his gaze on Adam. The cat had left the bench, and the old man sat in a strained frozen posture, his hands still, his head cocked to listen to the din from the tap.

Lucy came running from the kitchen, checking only to put a hand on Adam’s shoulder before striding up to Cole.

“Mr. Cole, what’s happened? Where are your passengers?”

Cole looked surprised to be addressed by her. Harry watched the man’s face change as he took in the keys Lucy had retied to her waist.

“They shot out the lamps at the seven-mile stone. Got my guard, Fishlock, too. And took the bleeding ’orses.” He reached for another cup of ale.

“Who?” someone from the crowd asked.

“Gypsies. Spoke gibberish, the lot of them, except the leader. Big fellow on a black horse.”

“Mr. Cole,” Lucy interrupted. “Is anyone hurt?”

Cole frowned at her. “Had to leave the passengers, miss. No ’orses.”

Lucy turned and strode for the door. Harry nudged Wilde. “Go help her. Get the stable master to collect the passengers.”

Wilde was up off the bench and at Lucy’s side before she reached the door. Harry heard him calling, “Miss,” saw them talk, and Wilde hurry out the door. Lucy turned back, watching Cole.

Harry stood and crossed to Adam’s side, settling beside the old man. “King Cole is telling a story, Adam. Lucy’s listening.” The cat jumped into Harry’s lap, and he shifted the creature over to Adam to hold. The old man’s hands curled around the animal.

Cole was on his third pint, telling the story of the encounter at a place where the road curved around a low rise and ancient pollard beeches cast a deep gloom. The highwayman, whoever he was, had worn no lace or plume. No silver had glinted from his weapon, and the dark brim of his hat had hidden his features. Adding insult to injury, the fellow had taken Cole’s whip and tommy, a short murderous weapon of weighted whalebone that could make the slowest horse give a faster mile.

Harry did not have to consult his map to know that the place Cole described was one Harry had already identified as a good place for an ambush. He placed a hand on Adam’s shaking knee. The old man was muttering, “Geoffrey ran away.”

“Steady, Adam. Lucy’s safe.” It was a guess, a stab in the dark, but the muttering stopped. “Lucy’s here. She’s safe,” Harry repeated.

Adam quieted, still holding his head cocked in a listening attitude. His right hand stroked the cat. Queenie purred and began to knead Adam’s leg with her claws.

A constable arrived, and Lucy led him and Cole to the inn’s private parlor. The bench sitters continued to talk about the robbery, speculating about the odd behavior of the thieves in taking Radcliffe’s horses. Everyone knew Radcliffe’s night-run horses were on their last legs and apt to die in the traces, especially with a coachman like Cole driving them.

Only Lucy’s passage back across the common room to Adam’s bench created a brief pause in the talk. Every man took a moment to lift his pint pot again. While they were drinking, Wilde slipped back into the crowd, a pair of eyes and ears Harry could count on.

Lucy came straight to Adam’s bench and sat on the old man’s other side, speaking quietly, assuring him that no one had been seriously hurt, not even Fishlock the wounded guard, telling him that a wagon had been sent to collect the passengers. Harry watched Adam grow easy under the influence of the girl’s sweet, steady voice.

“We must thank Captain Clare,” she told Adam, “for sitting with you. I’m sure it helped to have a friend at your side.”

Adam nodded. “Captain Clare likes cats,” he said. “Captain Clare does not run away.”

A brief alarm flashed in the girl’s eyes at the reference to running away. The key to the old man’s distress lay in that act of someone’s running away. Years ago someone had bolted in a confrontation on the road. Harry’s next duty was to find the spot where the terrible event occurred. He would start by looking at the place where bandits had stopped the Radcliffe Rocket. And he had an idea of how he could use Wilde’s help after all.

* * * *

For the moment Harry had a partner. He would take Wilde with him to the scene of the ambush, and then send the youth off to investigate Adam’s past.

As partners went, Wilde was not too bad, but he was London-bred, and though game for anything, he was no rider, so Harry took a gig from the inn stables. He wanted to reach the abandoned coach ahead of the constable and before a fresh team arrived to move the vehicle.

A wet, snowy March had given way to a bright, dry day. The budding trees wore a hint of spring color, and only the wheel ruts shone with traces of rainwater. They passed the inn wagon bringing the passengers and the wounded guard back, and it occurred to Harry that Cole wasn’t a man to be in charge of anything. Cole had left the coach behind, and surely, Radcliffe expected his employees to guard his property. At the four-mile stone they passed the last cottages of St. Botolph’s and left the outskirts of London behind. The landscape changed to open rolling heath with stands of trees and clumps of dense foliage. Beside Harry, Wilde grew more alert.

“Looks like plenty of places for an ambush,” he said.

Harry nodded. At night, too, the coach on the road with its lamps lit would make quite a target for anyone concealed in the darkness of trees or bush, but Harry thought the place wasn’t right yet, still too close to civilization, and with a well-marked, open road to tempt a bold coachman like Cole to try to outrun his assailants.

As they approached the seven-mile stone, the landscape changed again. Pollard beeches grew close to the road, their branches intertwining overhead, and the road itself narrowed and disappeared around a low rise. When they rounded the bend, they found the abandoned coach square in the middle of the road. A track split off to their right into the woods. Harry could see at once why thieves had chosen the spot. The curve of the road, the uphill slope on one side, and the close proximity of trees and bush would slow the coach’s progress and momentarily cut it off in either direction from help or escape.

He turned the inn gig into the wood and halted under a stand of trees. Wilde jumped down and walked toward the coach. “Perfect spot for a lay, sir, but what kind of thief takes near-dead horses and not the passengers’ fat purses? Seems a queer thing to me. From what I heard in the tap, there were several in the gang, but they mostly ignored the passengers. The leader knew Cole, I think.”