‘Oh. I had wondered if he was putting distance between himself and the rest of the family.’
* * *
We got back and revived ourselves with tea, a mug of ale or a glass of brandy, depending on how desperate we were feeling, heard about the boys’ adventures of discovery and listened to Cook’s list of complaints about the horrors of the kitchen. Then Luc, James and I sat around the evidence boards and added what we had discovered.
‘I’ll amend the entry on the list of suspects for the unknown son of the Colonel to name Mr Kumar, although I do not know what his motive might be or how he could know about the ease of access through the study window.’ I did some crossing out, added a note and s
tood back, sucking my pencil.
‘The legacies did not appear to offer any clues,’ James observed.
‘No. The most junior set of cousins, Horace’s sons, are interested in Miss Jordan, especially now she has had her dowry boosted. Not Jerald though; he did not seem anxious to start courting her. Perhaps, being nearer her age, he still thinks of her as the playmate of their childhood. Talking of Jerald,’ I added. ‘He seemed more upset after the will was read than before it. He looked positively unwell, I thought. I wondered if the reality of it all had finally got through to him.’
‘He cannot have expected a bigger sum, surely?’ James said. ‘They all appeared pleasantly surprised – ’ He broke off at the sound of someone arriving and the rumble of a distinctive voice. ‘That’s Garrick.’
It was. He came in dressed for riding, hat still on his head, whip in his hand, and said, ‘I’ve been chasing Campbell and I’ve just lost the bastard. Apologies, Cassie, I didn’t see you.’ He took off his hat, but kept it in his hand.
I waved the apology aside. ‘Campbell? Oh, the dismissed footman. Why are you chasing him?’
‘Because he’s running,’ Garrick said with a wolfish grin.
I couldn’t say I blamed Campbell. Garrick advancing on you with grim purpose would be enough to spook anyone, and I would guess that he has the same instincts as a cat – if it runs, chase it.
‘I tracked him down through one of the agencies. They were supercilious about him because of the lack of a character from his last employer, but they said they kept him on in case anyone wanted an experienced man cheaply. I went to his lodgings, he opened the door, took one look, slammed it in my face and by the time I got in he was out of a window,’ Garrick said, straightening his back with a grimace.
‘He hailed a hackney carriage and, as luck would have it, there wasn’t another to be seen, so I ran. Lost him of course. Then I had a stroke of luck – the cab horse was a piebald and there aren’t so many of those around and I saw the hackney half an hour later as I was quartering the streets. He’d been dropped off at a livery stables and they gave me the name.
‘I went home, got changed, took a horse, and asked at the stables. They’d hired him a hack and I’ve been on his tail, more or less, ever since.’
‘You’ll want some food and ale,’ Luc said, standing up and reaching for the bell pull.
‘I’m fairly parched, but we had best be quick. We need to get on his tracks again. My horse went lame, but he was making for Aylesbury, I reckon. His beast will be foundering, though. He didn’t stop to change as often as I did.’
‘He could go in any direction from Aylesbury,’ James said as the butler came in. ‘South to the coast, into the West Country, up northwards. Wales, even. I’ll go to the stables, tell them we want three mounts.’
‘Four,’ I shouted after him as I made for the stairs. I had learned to ride astride – I refused to try side saddle – and I wasn’t going to let the men go haring off having all the fun without me.
By the time I was down at the yard in my long divided skirt Luc and James were already mounted and Garrick was draining a tankard. He thrust the mug into the hands of a groom, swiped his hand across his mouth and mounted too. The groom gave me a leg-up, along with a side-eye for my unconventional riding habit, and we were off.
‘Why should he run?’ I shouted as we pounded down the lane. ‘And why in this direction?’
‘Because one of the Prescotts will give him sanctuary?’ James suggested. His rangy chestnut kept pace alongside my rather more ordinary-looking bay.
‘Because he’s the killer and acted for one of them?’
‘Or because he knows who did it and wants to extort money,’ Luc tossed back over his shoulder.
‘But he was dismissed before the killing,’ I argued breathlessly. My mount might not have been showy, but it was pulling like a steam train.
‘Catch him first, ask questions afterwards,’ Luc said. ‘It’s about six miles to Aylesbury. We had best keep to the turnpike road, because I expect he will too, if his horse is tiring. The going will be easier.’
Chapter Eleven
Twenty minutes into our pursuit of the fleeing footman Garrick pointed ahead with his whip and shouted, ‘There!’
And, sure enough, we were rapidly coming up on a horse that plodded along, head hanging low, shoulders covered in sweat, while a man led it on the wide grass verge.
He dropped the reins and scrambled over a fence when he heard us, but James and Luc simply jumped the boundary, rode him down and scooped him up between them. They rode back holding him by one arm each, then dropped him like the sack of potatoes he resembled.