I wondered why Middleton had set off for the tavern and never reached it. Had the killer lain in wait for him and dispatched him at once, or taken him somewhere?
Someone waved to me from a dark corner. I recognized Simon Fletcher, the Classics tutor. I moved across the room to him, and he grinned and gestured to the chair beside him.
"Sit down, Lacey, and share a pint. Poor old Middleton," he said jovially as I took a chair facing him. "One day saddling your horse, the next dead in a canal. You never know what the world will send your way, do you?"
"Did you know him?" I asked.
Fletcher shook his head. He had lank brown hair that was wearing thin and rather flat brown eyes. His face was long, horse-like, but his mouth curved into ready smiles that made his otherwise dull eyes twinkle. "I never went to the stables much. Not a horse man. I trust my own shanks or ride a coach if I need to go farther afield. Don't much understand the beasts."
The landlord's wife brought me an ale. I much wanted to be on my way scouring the canal for Sebastian's kin, but Fletcher could possibly tell me much. I took a fortifying sip of ale and found it spicy and warm, pleasant after the chill rain outside.
"What do you think happened?" I asked.
Fletcher looked mildly surprised I should ask him. "Good lord, I have no idea. Probably he met up with some ruffians who tried to rob him. Is there not a band of Roma wandering about?"
"They've arrested Sebastian, the Romany stable hand."
Fletcher nodded. "I heard. Some of the lads are unhappy. They like the fellow. Others say he should be stoned to death." He made a face. "Bloody little beasts boys can be."
"One of them put a garter snake in my bed," I remarked.
Fletcher barked a laugh. "That would be young Ramsay. He enjoys greeting the newcomer with reptiles."
"Ramsay is the tow-haired boy about thirteen years old? A bit nervous?"
"Oh, yes. Looks as though he is quiet and innocent, but is a little devil in fact. Smart, though. Sits through his Latin studies and soaks it up. His father is filthy rich, filthy. Owns half of London, I wouldn't wager."
"But he is a prankster."
Fletcher chuckled. "They all are. But if you mean, is he writing letters in blood and setting servants' rooms on fire or murdering grooms, I'd say no. He hasn't got the balls for it. It's garter snakes and toads and beetles down the younger boy's backs. Annoying things. Harmless."
When I'd suggested to Rutledge that the snake was harmless, he'd gone purple with rage. Fletcher, closer than Rutledge to the boys, agreed with me.
"If you had to choose which boy was perpetrating the more harmful pranks, which would you say?" I asked.
Fletcher's eye gleamed. "Ah, Captain, that I cannot answer. You are Rutledge's man. First thing you learn when you're inside is that you do not peach on your fellows."
"I am hardly Rutledge's man," I said, slightly offended. "He employs me, as he employs you."
"The school employs me. And you. And Rutledge."
"I am not his man, Fletcher," I repeated.
He nodded. "I know. Sensed that when I met you. In Sudbury, you are either for Rutledge or against him. No middle ground. He's a bastard, but he knows what he's doing running a school. Have to say that much for him."
He slurped the last of his ale, waved aside the publican's wife who advanced to ask if he wanted more. "I have Latin lessons to grade." He grimaced. "A task that requires two pints of ale, no more, no less. To answer your question, Captain, I am hard-pressed to say. There are a fair number of little beggars that I'd like to see the back of, but none that I'd call cruel. Or mad. No, depend upon it, it's a servant causing these problems. Or a tutor." His eyes twinkled.
I admitted, "I had speculated that the tutors would have access to the places in which the pranks were played."
"A fair statement," Fletcher agreed. "I will protest my innocence, however, Captain. I have no time to play pranks, and what little time I find on my hands, I spend here or flat on my back with my eyes closed. When I sleep, the boys could burn down the entire school without me being the wiser."
He smiled, as though he'd think it a good joke.
"I imagine the other tutors have similar impediments."
Fletcher nodded. "Oh, yes. Rutledge believes idleness is the refuge of weak minds and all that. We barely have souls to call our own. Only the occasional pint." He smiled at his glass. "Tunbridge does extra tutoring, but God knows where he finds the time."
"And he rides," I commented, remembering what Sebastian had said.
"Oh, he likes a hack across the fields. He fancies himself a gentleman and a man of sport."
And, I thought, he'd have occasion to know Middleton and his habits.
"Is Tunbridge a good tutor?"
"One of the best, according to Rutledge. And himself. But I know for a fact he's no better or worse off than the rest of us, despite his airs." Fletcher shook his head, turned his empty glass. "Ah, the joys of teaching. Joy is all we get; the income is certainly shallow. But one day, Lacey . . ." He gave me a wink. "One day, I will be quit of all this. I'll have my fortune, retire to a grand house in the country, and enjoy the amenities of life denied a conscientious schoolmaster."
I smiled, nodding in sympathy. It was unlikely a fortune would drift my way, either.
"Shall we stroll back together?" Fletcher suggested, rising.
"No, I shall ride along the canal. Perhaps we can meet for port some evening," I said.
"Never a free moment to myself, I'm afraid. But we'll retreat here for a pint soon, I promise that."
He nodded to me, gathered up his robe, which had lain on the seat next to him, and a book, which he clutched to his chest, and departed.
I took a long drink of my ale, deposited a few coins, and left the tavern, setting my hat at an angle against the rain.
*** *** ***
I rode up and down the canal to no avail. I saw many barges traveling from Avon to London, but none with Roma. Like the villagers in Sudbury and Great Bedwyn, the bargemen I spoke to talked of the murder with interest and faint horror. In a small place like this, murder was an extraordinary thing--a thing of dangerous places like London, although highwaymen still appeared now and again. The farmers and villagers of Sudbury had spread the word to their friends and neighbors, who told the lockkeepers, who in turn told the bargemen as they traveled through the locks.
The horror was mitigated a bit by the fact that a man had been arrested. Quick work--at least we can all sleep in our beds tonight, was the general feeling.
For me, the unease had not gone away. I truly did not think Sebastian had committed the crime--his arrest was just to soothe Rutledge's pique. Someone who had brutally cut the throat of a large man who had been used to danger was still walking about. I wondered whether Middleton had simply been unlucky and come across a robber or madman. But if that were the case, would we not have found him where he'd been killed? Instead, his body had been placed in the lock and all traces of the murderer's trail obliterated.
I believed Middleton had known his killer. Probably had not feared him, which was why he'd allowed the man to get behind him with a knife. They had met somewhere between the stables and the village of Sudbury, walked together to another location, and Middleton had died. Whereupon the killer had taken Middleton to the lock and rolled him in.
Why? A quarrel? Over money, a woman? Or had the man planned to kill Middleton all along? Again, why?
One man I could easily picture cutting Middleton's throat was Rutledge himself. He was large enough and strong enough, and he had the devil's own temper. But I had asked Bartholomew to discover from Rutledge's servants what he had done the night before, and they had all sworn that Rutledge had retired to his bed at ten o'clock and had not left it until rising as usual at six the next morning.
Again, no reason presented itself, at least on the surface. If Rutledge had found out that his daughter and Sebastian were yearning for each other, I could imagine him wanting to kill
Sebastian. But Middleton? As far as I could see, the two men had had little contact.
I rode back to the school, unsatisfied. I knew so little. I would have to discover everything about Middleton--his connections and his friends and his enemies. I would have to pry into his life with Denis and beyond.
I would have to discover why anyone would bother cutting the throat of a man who'd simply come to enjoy working with horses in peace of the Berkshire countryside.
*** *** ***
I had no time to investigate that afternoon, because Rutledge spied me returning. Angry that I'd disappeared for so long, he piled me with work until supper.
I managed to speak briefly with Belinda after I left the study and before I returned to my own rooms for my meal. I'd spied her in Rutledge's garden, and I slipped out there, pretending to take a short, leg-stretching stroll and encounter her by chance. Swiftly, while I tipped my hat and bowed, I told her that Sebastian was well and that, at this point, she was to say absolutely nothing about meeting him the night before the murder. I would give her further instructions later.
I walked away as she drew breath to ask questions. I knew it cruel, but I could not chance that her father would note any lengthy conversation with her.
After Bartholomew fed me supper, removed the tray, and served me claret that Grenville had sent with me, I went over things with him. Bartholomew had already made friends with every other lackey about the place, and likely knew the gossip upstairs and down about the inhabitants of each house. I told Bartholomew what Fletcher had talked about, and I asked if he had learned anything from the other servants about the boy called Ramsay.
"Yes, sir," Bartholomew said, dribbling wine into my glass. "From what I gather, he's a quiet tyke. Not the mischievous kind, I'd 'uv said, but not cowed much by the others, either. The tutors call him Ramsay minor. That means he has an older brother, that they called Ramsay major, even though the older brother's gone off to work for his father. No one called me and Matthias minor and major," he went on, chuckling. "Mostly they just shouted at us to bring their boots."
"Which of you would be major?" I asked curiously. The brothers looked much alike and were roughly the same age. I'd long thought them twins, but Grenville had told me they were not. Grenville did not know himself which was the elder and which the younger.
Bartholomew cleared up the matter. "Matthias is older," he said. He caught up one of my boots and leaned against the table to clean it. He spat on the leather and scrubbed busily with a brush. "But not by much. I popped up less than a year after he did. We have two more brothers, younger than us, about one year apart." He grinned. "Our mum and dad, they were much partial to each other."
I smiled, imagining the four brothers in a rough and tumble but happy household. "Ramsay is a normal boy, you'd say?"
"I wouldn't call any of the lads here normal, sir. Their fathers' arses are all planted on piles of money so high they must go dizzy. Ramsay's dad is rich as sneezes, they say. Like them Rothschilds."
"Ramsay is in this house, am I correct?" I inquired.
Bartholomew spat again, brushed vigorously. "Stands to reason. It's much easier for him to get up here to put a snake in your bed than if he were at Fairleigh."
"Do you think you could get your hands on young Ramsay? I'd like to ask him a few questions."
Bartholomew set down the boot. "Right now, sir?"
"Yes, unless he is meant to be doing something else. I do not wish to get the boy into trouble with Rutledge."
"You leave it to me, sir."
Bartholomew left the room, a spring in his step.
I envied his energy, and his youth. I had to say, however, that so far my stay in the country had been good for me. Riding each morning was beginning to harden my muscles again, and the fresh country air renewed my appetite, which had never been light to begin with.
I liked it. I stared into the flames and contemplated the differences between life here and my life in London. I really ought to return to Norfolk, I thought. My home was there, and so were my memories.
My memories. Memories were why I had gone to London and not east and north to the fens when I had returned to England. There were certain memories I did not want to face in Norfolk, even after all these years. I felt them there, waiting for me. Here in Berkshire, on the border of Wiltshire, the tentacles of the memories were weaker. But I'd felt them even in India, strive as I might to break them off.
What I ought to do was return there with part of my new life, with a person who could banish the memories. Louisa Brandon could do that. She was stronger even than memories of my father and my deep boyish hurt when I'd realized as a child that he'd hated me. Louisa could look at me with her wise gray eyes, put her hand on mine, and say, "It does not matter any longer, Gabriel." And thus it would be true.
Of course, I could not be traveling to Norfolk any time soon. Here I was in Berkshire, earning money to stave off poverty, investigating vicious pranks and a murder. Norfolk, and memories, would have to wait.
Bartholomew was a long time in returning, so I rose and limped across the room to refill my glass. I noted my boots positioned neatly on the floor. They had never been so shiny until Bartholomew had come to work for me. I'd had a batman in the army, but his idea of shining boots had been to bang off the mud and most of the dung and toss them into a corner. At the time I hadn't cared--they'd simply get muddy again.
I heard Bartholomew's tread in the hall as I sat down again. He opened the door and pushed young Ramsay inside with a beefy hand on the boy's shoulder. I greeted Ramsay and offered him a glass of claret.
He accepted. He walked quickly to the chair by the fire, seized the glass Bartholomew brought him and took a long gulp.
Ramsay minor was at the age of just before he would shoot into his full height and his voice would drop. He had very light brown hair and blue eyes and pale skin. He held his claret glass with a practiced air, but he did not relax.
"What is your other name, Ramsay?" I asked pleasantly. "The one your mother calls you?"
He assessed me over the rim of his glass. "Didius, sir."
"Didius," I mused. "Very Latin."
"Yes, sir."
"Nothing to be ashamed of. My Christian name is Gabriel. Very Biblical, I've always thought. I hope Bartholomew did not frighten you when he persuaded you to come to see me?"
Ramsay cast a glance at Bartholomew, who grinned back at him. The boys as a whole seemed to like Bartholomew, who was good-natured and friendly. Bartholomew knew his place, at the same time offering his own brand of wisdom in his deferential way. He also towered at least six and a half feet high and had biceps that bulged and flexed in an alarming fashion. I'd spotted more than one boy feeling his own arms after seeing him.
"No, sir," Ramsay said.
"Good. Now, Mr. Ramsay, why did you decide I was a lover of reptiles?"
Ramsay jumped, looked guilt-stricken. "It was just a bit of fun, sir. You know."
I tried to sound reassuring, but had already realized, during my brief stay here, that I had no idea how to talk to boys. "I do know, Ramsay, I've been to school. How did you manage it? You have to walk right past Rutledge's sitting room to get to my stairs."
Ramsay's gaze went to the window. "Climbed the tree outside."
I was impressed. "And no one saw you?" My room overlooked a bleak hill that led to the canal. The path below was much frequented, and the boys played cricket in a field not far from the walls.
"It was dark already."
"Are you telling me you climbed up that tree, in the dark, carrying a snake?"
"Yes, sir."
I raised my glass. "I commend your ability and bravery. The snake did not frighten me, Ramsay."
"I know, sir."
I took a contemplative sip of wine. Ramsay did the same. "The other events here," I said slowly, "have not been quite as harmless."
Did I imagine a glint of apprehension in his eye? Or would any boy look so, while questioned by the secretary t
o the headmaster?
"No, sir."
He could not seem to drop the sir. Ramsay could have addressed me as he would other servants--by last name alone. Perhaps something in my air prompted the sir. My late father would have had apoplexy that Ramsay dared address me at all. The boy's family, despite their great wealth, were merchant class, their status below my family's landed gentry. My father would not have even spoken to Ramsay or his father had he met them. He would have snarled something about upstart burghers and crossed the street to get away from them. Even as he'd owed half the bankers and money-lenders in London, he had despised them.
"I will tell you the truth, Ramsay." I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Rutledge has asked me to look into the pranks. But I am not Rutledge's toady. I will learn all I can, and then decide what to tell him."
"Yes, sir."
I could not discern whether he believed me or not. "Nor will I reveal to him the source of my information. So I wonder if you will tell me, what are your own opinions on the matter?"
Ramsay looked at me in surprise. I suppose he'd thought I was leading up to accusing him of the crimes. He took a fortifying drink of claret. "I really couldn't say, sir."
"I know you do not want to peach on your fellows, but I will keep anything you suggest to me in confidence. I am not certain how to convince you that is true, but I will give you my word, as a gentleman."
Ramsay looked doubtful. "Were you in the war, sir? Some of the lads said you were in the cavalry."
"In Portugal and Spain. Not at Waterloo."
Most people looked disappointed when I told them that. I had fought the entire savage war on the Iberian Peninsula, the six years we had pushed Napoleon from Spain, step by bloody step. But because I had quit the army and returned to London after Bonaparte's abdication, I could not wear the Waterloo cross and so was considered somewhat second-rate.
Ramsay, on the other hand, simply nodded. "My father says that the war was won because of English bankers, not soldiering." He paused, looked at my raised brow, and finished, "My father is an ass."