A gray mist, harbinger of autumn, greeted me as I left the manor house at break of day, and the foggy vistas were of a piece with my mental state.
What the hell could I do in a single day about the malaise spreading over Bloomfield? Silforth was building himself a fiefdom by blackmailing Osgood Banter, and on the strength of Bloomfield’s riches, that fiefdom would soon become the rural equivalent of a barony.
Not because of a kiss, but because of a vicious, pointless law and the aims of a vicious, pointless man.
“What I don’t get,” Atticus said, kicking at the carpet of golden leaves beneath a stately maple, “is what Silforth wants.”
“He wants to win.” I studied the forest floor, though with leaves falling at the touch of a breeze, heavy dewfall, and opaque morning light, signs were not easy to read. Then too, I was no longer looking for a hound as I went perambulating through the woods.
“This way.” I struck out away from the river, keeping parallel to one of its minor tributaries.
Atticus tagged after me. “Win what?”
“Life, I suppose, and he thinks the way to do that is to amass a fortune.”
“Bugger already has a fortune. His own house, his own acres, tenants. He can vote, he can shoot game, he has servants to wait on him and his dogs and his horses and brats. What more could a bloke want?”
Atticus’s question, like many of his queries, did not admit of a simple answer. “To be admired in an age where avarice passes for ambition and cheating dresses up as cleverness.”
We walked along in the quiet unique to a woods. At such an early hour, sounds were isolated. A robin greeted the day, and this late in the year, he had no chorus mates. His flute solo rang with a hollow clarity rather than the raucous cheer of springtime. Some small creature skittered through the undergrowth a few yards off the track I was following—a squirrel, hedgehog, even an imprudent fox coming home from a night of hunting.
Ten minutes later, the mist had thickened. Atticus and I might have been traversing an endless forest, with a mere handful of points from which to reckon, but for my ability to follow a trail.
“You mean,” Atticus said, sticking close to my heels, “Silforth is a greedy sod who wants it all to come easy, so he pretends to make friends while he’s really looking for his next mark.”
“You liken Silforth to a pickpocket?”
“The best of ’em are darling little cherubs. I woulda made a good cutpurse. Silforth is too noisy, though. Doesn’t have no charm.”
Atticus’s syntax became more or less polished as he was more or less at ease. When in fine fettle on familiar ground, his grammar was improving. When nervous, he reverted to his unlettered origins.
I paused to study the bracken, and Atticus nearly collided with my backside.
“Wot?”
“We haven’t had rain here for roughly a week, but with heavy dewfall, fog, and the like, signs can still deteriorate.”
“Tracks, you mean?”
“Tracks, impressions that don’t quite qualify as tracks, a bit of moss scraped off a rock, a twig bent but still clinging to the branch, scat, and…”
I was looking not for the signs of a hound’s passage, but signs of a man’s passage, and that man would be carrying a considerable weight. Five stone or more, which would slow down the man…
“You havin’ one of your spells, guv?”
My spells, during which I forgot my own name as well as the name of the British sovereign, the day of the week, and the land of my birth, came upon me of a sudden, lasted a few hours, and then departed. I was learning to ignore them, because the alternative was to live in dread of their occurrence.
I’d lived in dread quite enough as a soldier, a reconnaissance officer, a prisoner, an escapee, and a social pariah.
“I’m having a spell of impatience with a chattering magpie.”
“These woods… All eerie-like, with ghost trees and everything drippy, and you can’t hardly see where you’re going. Gives me the horripilations.”
“Lady Ophelia has been adding to your vocabulary.” I brushed damp leaves away from the base of a boulder, and my diligence was rewarded with a deep heel print in the soft earth.
“This way.”
“Wot in the ’ell are we looking for?”
If I told him, he’d never stop jabbering. “Evidence.”
“Evidence of—?” Atticus plastered himself to my side, his arms lashed about my waist.
Because I had been studying the forest floor, I saw the shape looming ahead of us an instant after Atticus had. I wrapped an arm around his slight shoulders.
“Steady, lad,” I murmured. “Sir Rupert, good day.”
“Young Lord Julian, good morning to you and the boy, or is that a barnacle I see on your person?”
Atticus stepped back and glowered at Sir Rupert. Earlier in our association, Atticus might well have given the brave knight a profane dressing down, but Atticus was learning decorum, after his fashion.
“My tiger hasn’t had much occasion to navigate foggy woods in his short life. You’re on your way to the village?” Well off the beaten path and certainly not on any ancient public right-of-way.
“My land marches with these woods. I take this shortcut to reach the path along the river. Neglected to fetch yesterday’s mail on my daily peregrinations, and a cup of tea with some of Mrs. Joyce’s biscuits makes a lovely second breakfast. What brings you to this obscure corner of Bloomfield’s policies?”
The old-fashioned allusion to a rural demesne had Atticus squinting hard at Sir Rupert.
“A constitutional, and I’m teaching Atticus some basic tracking skills. You never know when those will come in handy.” I would be teaching Atticus some basic tracking skills, if he ever shut his gob long enough.
“Generous of you, to educate the boy above his station. I hear you’re soon to decamp for home pastures, my lord. A pity we still have no sign of Thales.”
By now, my impending banishment would be common knowledge. From house staff to outside staff, to the stable, to the common at the Pump and Pickle… Arthur’s pigeons moved only a little faster than gossip in the countryside.
“I am happiest when dwelling at Caldicott Hall. A soldier learns to treasure his time at home.”
Giddings snorted. “Former soldier, and I suppose you have your reasons for avoiding Town. Good day, and a safe journey home.”
He touched the handle of his walking stick to his hat brim and stumped upon his way.
“He were insultin’ you,” Atticus muttered as Giddings disappeared into the gloom, and his shuffling steps faded into the forest quiet. “He stood there and all but called you a…”
“Failure, certainly,” I said, mentally reviewing the exchange. “As a sleuth and an officer. He’s not entirely wrong.”
“You served honorably.” Atticus’s defense of me was heartwarming and had also come to reflect my own views on the matter, on my better days.
“My brother nonetheless died at French hands, while I won free. What do you notice, Atticus, about Sir Rupert’s deeds and his words?”
“He’s a pompous, old, trespassin’ windbag.”
Accurate, as far as it went. “How did he excuse his trespassing?”
In his agitated state, Atticus needed a moment to translate my question. “He said he takes a shortcut across the woods to get to the river. And the talk in the stable is Sir Rupert tramps across Bloomfield every day to annoy Silforth.”
“Do you see any indication of a full grown man’s regular, daily passing?”
Atticus scanned the surroundings. “You mean like a footpath?”
“Packed earth, shrubbery growing in lopsided ways that hints of regular traffic. Leaves trodden down in a visible track. A tunnel through the undergrowth that suggests game or Sir Rupert’s loyal beagle taking a daily path in both directions…”
Atticus looked at the mostly undisturbed bushes, saplings, and mature growth around us. Ferns sprang up in clumps. Moss adorned the smaller rocks. A few toadstools clustered at the base of scraggly hawthorn.
“He were lyin’?”
“He is known to make a daily progress to the coaching inn, or almost daily, and you are right that he uses the path along the river to twit Silforth. He claimed this part of the woods was his regular shortcut to that right-of-way, except it clearly isn’t. Close study of a map of the surrounds will likely show us that Giddings’s holdings are some distance that way.” I gestured in the direction from which Sir Rupert had come.
“So he really is trespassing?”
“He’s up to no damned good, of that much I’m certain.”
“Ain’t much of nobody up to any good around here. Can we go back now?”
“Which way is back, Atticus?”
He looked uncertain and scared, then lifted a hand. “That way.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you said to listen to the sounds, and we’ve been following that little brook, and I can hear the brook over there,”—an outflung arm—“so the house is back there.”
“Good lad.” I tousled his mop of dark hair. “The robin might flit all over the wood in the course of twenty minutes, but that freshet is a reliable reference point. You can return to the manor, if you please.”
Atticus stood a little straighter. “Nah, I’ll just ramble along with you for a bit. My stable chores are done, and I already had a meat pie.”
Atticus’s affection for meat pies rivaled any fondness for life, liberty, or English ale ever to be memorialized in the Bard’s sonnets.
“Onward, then, and keep a sharp eye for any bare patch of earth that isn’t in keeping with the rest of the terrain.”
We moved along, loosely paralleling Sir Rupert’s tracks, which were about the right size, but not as deep as the earlier print I’d found. His steps turned to the east, and I could see the trees thinning in that direction. My quarry would have wanted more privacy, not less.
I found another deeper boot print and pointed out to Atticus the difference between the impressions made by Sir Rupert’s very recent passing and those of the second person.
“So we’re looking for a big fella?”
“What’s another reason an impression might be particularly deep?”
“Ground’s soft?”
“Good guess, but we haven’t had much rain recently. The ground is dampish with dew, not hard-packed.”
Atticus hunkered and frowned at the outline of a man’s boot. “Was he movin’ fast?”
“Another good guess, but how easy is it to run through a woods like this?”
Atticus scowled as he rose. “Dead stupid to run here, when you could land on a rock, twist your ankle, slip on the moss, conk your noggin. Nobody would hear you yellin’ for help, unless Sir Rupert took to trespassing again. So our mark must be a fat fellow, right?”
My boy was close and trying hard. I snatched him up and strode across the ground, then set him down as his spate of swearing was still gathering steam.
“Wot the ’ell, guv? I ain’t no sack of spuds, and you ain’t no stevedore.”
“Compare the tracks I made with you as my cargo and the tracks I made when my arms were empty.”
Atticus complied without further grumbling, which should have occasioned a notice in The Times.
His frown cleared. “He’s a poacher, and he had a good haul. He made deeper tracks because he was carrying his catch.”
I resumed our progress. “You got the basics right: Our man might be stout, as you suggest, or he might be carrying something. A poacher is a good guess. The moon would have set by about three a.m., leaving a good hour of darkness to check the traps and snares.”
“How do you know when the moon set?”
“Because it was directly overhead more than three hours before midnight, and in summer, we have more sun and less moon. I’ll explain it later.”
“Doesn’t feel like summer to me,” Atticus said. “If we’re not trailing a poacher—and I would not help myself to so much as a busted bird egg when Silforth was nearby—then what’s afoot?”
“I’m not sure.” Though I had a fair idea. “We are close to Giddings’s land, I’m guessing, but clearly on Bloomfield’s side of any property line. We’re still looking for a patch of earth that lacks ferns, grass, toadstools…”
Atticus and I saw the piece of grounding fitting my description at the same time.
“Like that?” he said, sounding both nervous and brave.
“Exactly like that.” I examined the turf, which somebody had tried to replace in its original order, without much success. The same boot print we’d spotted earlier was much in evidence, as was the bite of a shovel following an oval circumference about a yard in diameter.
“Can we go back now?” Atticus asked, staring at the disturbed earth. “I have the collywobbles and the horripilations and a megrim and a case of the green apple quickstep comin’ on.”
“You lead the way, and take your time. We might well spot something of interest on our return.”
I would present myself at breakfast, enjoy a repast, then return at a later time with a shovel. Atticus and I had found a grave, I’d bet my best spyglass on it.
We’d also found a puzzle, though, because the boot prints on this side of the river did not, to the best of my recollection, match the partial print I’d found at the sight of Thales’s last known whereabouts.
I’d confirm that conclusion by consulting my sketch. I abruptly had much to do before I accepted my congé in less than twenty-four hours.
“Tell me more of Thales’s upbringing,” I said to Mrs. MacNeil. “Was he truly allowed the status of a pet?”
We sat on the back porch of the steward’s cottage. I’d caught Mrs. MacNeil shelling peas, which she did with mesmerizing efficiency. She spared me a measuring glance, all the while splitting fat green pods, then pushing the peas free with her thumb.
“Curious question, my lord.” She’d given me an even more skeptical inspection when I’d asked to sit with her for a moment.
I snitched a whole pod and crunched it into oblivion. “I’m a curious sort of fellow.”
She took her time answering, while I enjoyed my treat. Produce picked not an hour earlier and at the peak of its ripeness. I snitched another.
“They’re good,” I said.
And that seemed to make up her mind about something, perhaps the fate of Bloomfield and its rightful owner, which could well hinge on her answer to my questions.
“That hound was treated like a royal lapdog,” she said. “Mrs. Maynard—that was Silforth’s housekeeper, before he came here—was at her wit’s end. Dog hair on the sofa, dog tracks on the carpet. Dog stink in parlors… Mrs. Silforth had some rules. The hound was not permitted in the nursery or in the formal parlor, but he had the run of the house otherwise, and nobody could say a word against him. He’s a fine animal, and Mac put some manners on him, but no housekeeper rejoices at the sight of a pet that size.”
“And he had the run of Bloomfield earlier in the year?”
“Not quite. Same rules—not in the public rooms, not in the nursery suite. Mac said it was foolishness, and Mrs. Fortnam nearly gave notice—she keeps house at Bloomfield. Thales is no longer a puppy, and he’d likely still be living like a king, sleeping next to Silforth’s bed, except Mac put his foot down.”
That anybody put a foot down with Silforth was interesting. “How?”
“Said a hound with a nose like Thales’s would be ruined for field work if he wasn’t allowed to dwell with his pack. A pack hunts as a pack, to hear Mac tell it. One individual might be good at finding a scent on damp earth, another is better at dry grass, and so forth. Together, they can follow a line over hill and dale and across water. Thales is a fine talent. Put him with his mates, and they are nigh unbeatable.”
For what amount of insurance money would Silforth kill his own favorite? Somewhere at Bloomfield was a copy of the policy, spelling out its terms.
I did not want Silforth to be guilty of insurance fraud, but that hypothesis explained the facts. With the aid of an accomplice, Silforth could easily have arranged for Thales to “disappear,” while Silforth himself remained in plain sight.
Then he’d imposed on his neighbors, loudly and at length, conducting a distraught “search” for the prodigal.
Next came the proud squire’s grudging willingness to let me poke about, confident that his scheme had been too well planned, and Banter too cowed, for my efforts to bear any fruit.
And now somebody else would prevail at the hound trials, and Silforth need not fret over any dark horses or lucky contenders snatching that prize from him. He had insurance money to look forward to, and the local competitors would rejoice to see one among them walk off with that enormous pot.
If that had been Silforth’s scheme, then I’d underestimated him. He’d set up the situation so that the local huntsmen and women, who detested him, would collude in waving me off. I’d also not pegged Silforth as a man who’d murder his own hound for short-term gain.
Even my attempts to locate the dog, paltry as they’d been, would support the conclusion that Thales had come to an early, tragic end. Banter’s fear of Silforth gained greater credibility, if Silforth was capable of that sort of calculation.
I thought about packs and pack loyalty. “Who are Osgood Banter’s mates?”
She watched my hands as I shelled peas at less than half the rate she’d gone at the same task. “We all are, if the idiot lad would just let himself see that. You might consider taking up a post as a scullery maid, my lord.”
High praise. “Can O’Keefe keep going for another year?”
“Aye. And he knows better than to heed any promise of a pension made by Silforth. Mr. Banter is the owner of Bloomfield, and Mr. Banter has made pension arrangements for O’Keefe long since. O’Keefe won’t desert if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Your brother manages Silforth’s kennel.”
“My brother got his start here at Bloomfield, and he’s answerable to me for his actions. Mac is stubborn, he’s not stupid, and we all have a bit put by. Mr. Banter pays well and on time. Silforth’s former staff tells a different story, for all Mrs. Silforth wrote them lovely characters.”
“Mac told me to let sleeping dogs lie.” The warning took on new significance, given the grave in the woods.
“Mac is cautious by nature. He’s had to be.” She helped herself to another peapod. “You will be careful?”
“I am careful by nature.” Except sometimes. “And I ride a fast horse.”
“Silforth’s is faster.”
“No, he’s not, because the beast runs in fear of the whip. My horse runs for joy.” I rose, though I wished I could have finished with the batch of peas. Thoughtful work, satisfying and almost soothing.
“Then you’d best hope Silforth doesn’t catch you on foot,” she said. “G’day, my lord.”
“Good day, and thank you.” I descended the wooden porch stairs and considered next steps. A chat with Mrs. Joyce in her capacity as postmistress, another visit with Mac, a private conversation with Banter, some discreet snooping at the manor—or a lot of discreet snooping—and then a long and arduous night in the woods.
I’d likely be exhausted by morning and delighted to leave, did Silforth but know it.