Lancashire: December 1847
Mendick froze, wondering if he should draw the revolver or stoop for the stiletto, but Peter’s next words dispelled both ideas.
“Thank goodness you’re back,” he said. “I thought that I had chased you away.” He thrust forward his hand in his familiar, abrupt gesture of friendship. “I did not mean to hurt you; it was the drink, and I wasn’t cheating, I promise.” He looked around at the trees, nearly invisible against the pre-dawn dark.
“I don’t think you would cheat, Peter,” Mendick reassured him. “It seems that you are just a better card player than I am.” He took Peter’s hand again. “I had no desire to fight you either.” He rubbed his arm, where a bruise was steadily spreading. “You’re a far better fighter than I am too, and you looked so angry I thought that I had better stay away for the night.”
Peter shook his head, repeating his apology. “Please don’t tell Mr Armstrong what happened, James.” He was trembling with genuine fear. “He’d put me in the black hole for days, he would.”
“I won’t tell him anything,” Mendick promised. “We’ll keep it between ourselves.” He looked curiously at Peter’s muscles. “But Peter, why do you let him treat you like that? You could kill him with one finger.”
Peter fidgeted uncomfortably.
“But it’s Mr Armstrong, I can’t touch him; it’s not allowed. Besides, if I did, they’d lock me in the dark again forever and ever, Mr Armstrong said, always in the dark, forever.” Just the thought had brought a sheen of sweat to Peter’s forehead, and Mendick nodded.
“I see. Well, Peter, you have nothing to fear from me. I won’t say a thing, and I promise never to put you in the black hole, or any other dark place.”
Peter looked at him with total gratitude. “You promise?”
“I promise,” Mendick said. “Now, I got myself lost running away from you, Peter, so I’ll need some sleep before I start work again.”
“You can have the bed.” Peter seemed genuinely pleased to make the offer. “But I didn’t cheat, Mr Mendick, because we’re fellow Chartists.”
*
Armstrong appeared almost as soon as Mendick's men were assembled on parade. “How are they?”
“Like nothing I have ever trained before,” Mendick told him. “They’re as keen as mustard.”
“Are they ready to fight?”
“They’re willing to fight, rather, but not yet ready. They need arms, and they’re weak as kittens. Unless they’re better fed, they won't last an hour against regulars.”
“Weapons I can supply, but food is hard to come by this season; agricultural depression, don’t you know.” The sneer was obvious, and Mendick suddenly realised what was happening. Armstrong was deliberately keeping his men on short rations so they would be desperate to fight.
“As you wish, Mr Armstrong, but even Boney said that an army marches on its stomach.”
“Aye, and look what happened to him.” Limping away, Armstrong withdrew the bolts on the lockup door. “Out you come, Peter. Your time is up.”
Mendick was surprised that Peter had the sense to look terrified as he emerged, blinking in the grey light of dawn. He looked at Armstrong like a rabbit at a circling stoat.
“Well, have you learned how to drive?”
“Yes, Mr Armstrong.” Peter augmented his words with a vigorous nod.
“I hope so.” Armstrong jerked a thumb toward the assembled volunteers. “Now, Mr Mendick is here to train the men in military matters,” he said, “nothing else. I do not want him to leave Chartertown for any reason whatever, and if he does, I’ll lock you in the black hole for a week. You keep him safe and secure, Peter; do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr Armstrong.” The prize-fighter nodded, eager to please. “He’ll be safe with me.” He glanced at Mendick. “We’re both fellow Chartists.”
“That’s it Peter, fellow Chartists all, and we must stick together, mustn’t we?” Armstrong waited for the nod of agreement before continuing, “Well, you stick to him like two peas in a pod.”
“I’m sure we can have interesting political conversations together,” Mendick said, searching in vain for a spark of intelligence behind Peter’s dull eyes.
“Fellow Chartists, all.” Peter repeated the words as if they were a mantra.
“You remember that, Peter. I’m relying on you.”
“Yes, Mr Armstrong.” Peter was nearly glowing with embarrassed pride when Armstrong hunched away.
“He didn’t find out, and he’s relying on me.” He looked curiously at Mendick for a second, with his face screwed up in puzzlement. “You didn’t tell him.”
“Of course not; we’re friends.” Mendick held Peter’s dull eyes. “You could have killed me last night, Peter, but you did not. I challenged you to fight, remember, and you went very easy on me.”
Peter shook his head. “You still didn’t tell him.”
“Well, it’s too late now, and I hope that you don’t object.”
Shaking his head, Peter backed away, but his forehead was creased, as if his slow brain was struggling with a new problem, and twice Mendick caught the prize-fighter’s puzzled eyes on him. However, Peter was a minor worry; far more important was the passage of his message to London. For a moment he pictured the pigeon fluttering over the damp fields and through the filthy smoke of industrial England, and wondered that so much depended on such a vulnerable little creature.
*
“We can’t play cards tonight.” Peter sounded disappointed. “You’ll be all alone.”
“Oh? Why is that, Peter?” After a week of Peter’s company, Mendick hid his delight at the prospect of an evening to himself.
“Mr Armstrong needs me. I’m to drive him to meet somebody important.”
“Oh?” Mendick tried to appear disappointed. “When are you going?”
“We’re going now,” Peter said. He pointed to the stable lad who had obviously delivered the message. “So you’ll be alone all night.”
“I’ll be fine,” Mendick told him, “but you drive carefully, or he’ll put you back in the black hole.”
For a moment there was dread in Peter’s face, but he recovered quickly. “I’ll drive carefully,” he promised.
Following Peter to the stables, Mendick kept in the shadow of the trees as Armstrong lifted himself on board the blue and yellow coach, and then he trotted in their wake. His first idea had been to follow from a distance, but he decided that it would be easier to hitch a lift. Perhaps Peter’s ‘somebody important’ was the man who financed the Chartists. If so, he could find out tonight and catch the first train back to London tomorrow.
Waiting until the coach jolted over the first ruts, he hauled himself on to the luggage step at the rear, holding on to the rail with both hands and relying on the mudguards to protect him from the worst of the dirt kicked up by the wheels. He knew that if he crouched low he would be safe from observation, for there was no rear window, while Peter was far too fearful to take his eyes off the road.
The coach jolted over the atrocious tracks for half an hour before turning left between a pair of stone pillars and grinding on to a smooth gravel road. With his arm muscles screaming in protest and his face and body spattered by mud, Mendick tried to see where he was. Lamps pooled yellow light onto a manicured lawn surrounded by flowerbeds, so they were within the grounds of a large property. As the coach slowed further, he guessed that they were nearing their destination, dropped off and quickly rolled away into the darkness.
He watched as Peter turned the brougham in a tight circle to halt beside the front door of an impressively elaborate lodge house. Lights glowed behind Venetian windows that flanked a columned door while the roof rose behind a castellated parapet. The door opened the moment the carriage halted.
Expecting to see a manservant, Mendick was surprised at the elegant appearance of the man who stood there. Over six foot tall, he was between forty and fifty years old, with long dark hair swept back from a high forehead, and a frilled white shirt that surely belonged to an earlier era.
As Armstrong stepped hunched from the coach the tall man moved forward to meet him, one hand extended in greeting. Although they were some distance away, the still night air carried their words quite clearly.
“Mr Armstrong! I am delighted you could come!”
“Sir Robert! I am glad that you sent for me!”
Sliding into a shadowed fold of ground, Mendick repeated the name. Sir Robert? In this part of the world, that could only be Sir Robert Trafford, but he was one of the old school, a noted Tory and utterly unlikely to have any dealings with the Chartists. Why was he meeting Josiah Armstrong in a lodge house? Mendick shook his head; it made no sense at all.
As Peter huddled in the driver’s seat, Mendick crawled past the carriage, hoping to find an open window or some other means of access to the house. He would dearly love to listen to any conversation between Trafford and Armstrong, to see why two men with vastly opposing views were meeting with such cordiality. He swore as he came closer; for all the Gothic pretensions of this lodge, Sir Robert seemed to have it perfectly secure, with barred windows and a back door that was locked and bolted.
There was a sudden flare of light in a downstairs room, and he ducked down, keeping his head beneath the level of the sill, trying to listen to any conversation inside. He heard the low rumble of a man’s voice, punctured by a short, explosive laugh, and then Armstrong crossed to the window and looked out. Only a few inches below, Mendick could clearly hear every word.
“It’s good to have a man with your influence on our side, Sir Robert.”
His companion came to the window. A full head and a half taller than Armstrong and as straight as a lancer, he spoke with the unmistakable confidence of the upper class,
“Something needs to be done about the suffering of the industrial workers, Armstrong. I only wish that these damned Whigs had not allowed things to get so bad.”
Mendick looked up. The two men stood side by side, staring into the dark. Both held a glass in their hand.
“I have always said that the Tories and the workers are natural allies,” Trafford said. “I have always been on the best of terms with my tenants; dammit, man, where would the estate be without them, eh?”
“Indeed, Sir Robert,” Armstrong agreed. “It is the industrialists who are exploiting the workers, with their lust for profit and more profit.”
“Damned upstarts.” Trafford seemed to detest the rising middle classes more than he supported the exploited workers. “But together we can put them in their place, eh?”
“With your help, Sir Robert, we can curb their power and make the country a better place.” Armstrong spoke carefully.
“And how much help do you expect, exactly?”
Even from outside the window, Mendick could sense the hesitation in Armstrong’s pause. However powerful the man was amongst his peers, he still had sense enough to defer to a member of the ruling class.
“We need arms, Sir Robert. We have men enough but we lack weapons, and the Whigs . . .”
“Blackguard scoundrels!” Trafford’s voice contained venom equal to anything Mendick had heard from Armstrong. “How many weapons do you wish?”
“We need as many as possible, Sir Robert.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Trafford sounded suddenly bored. “And now, if you would be so kind, I have personal matters to see to.”
Keeping low, Mendick hurried to the front of the house, intending to resume his place on the luggage step, but Peter had parked with the horses facing down the gravel drive, and the back of the coach was in full view of the front door. It was impossible for him to climb on board. He cursed as Armstrong and Trafford came out together, speaking quietly as Armstrong boarded the coach, and then Peter flicked the reins. The coach began to move slowly over the gravel roadway with the lamplight bouncing from the shrubbery and Trafford standing watching with his glass in his hand and a small smile on his long face.
Mendick sighed and shifted into the long loping stride that would carry him to Chartertown. The distance was irrelevant compared to the startling intelligence that he had discovered. Sir Robert Trafford, the arch Tory, was supporting the Chartists against the Whigs. He knew he could not yet return to London; nobody would believe the connection until he gathered some tangible evidence. In the meantime he had to remain with the Chartists.
*
“On your feet, lad!” Mendick glared as a man staggered and fell, but he knew that it was weakness of the flesh, not the spirit, that caused the stumble. He looked over his command again, seeing them with new eyes. Even in his youth, not sixteen years ago, the standard of recruits for the army had been higher; the men had been taller, broader and fitter than these products of an industrial society. Most of the volunteers were under average height, some were actually misshapen from a childhood spent crouched in unnatural positions in mills or factories; others were racked with coughs or so thin it seemed a gust of wind would blow them away.
If these fifty men were a fair representation of the might of the Chartists, then God help Monaghan. The correlation, of course, was also correct; if this was the best that Britain could produce, then God help the nation if there was another war. In their constant quest for profit, the factory owners had brought terrible harm to the people of Britain. Once again Mendick wondered if he were fighting on the right side in supporting the establishment with their zeal for industrialisation, rather than the Chartists with their Land Plan and desire for human dignity.
Hardening his heart and voice, he played the part of the drill sergeant, blasting the volunteers towards a standard of perfection he knew they could never attain.
“Get those feet up, you idle blackguards! You’re moving so slowly I can see the dead lice falling from you!”
The volunteers responded with astonishing urgency. Rather than resenting his verbal assaults, they showed a willingness curbed only by their physical weakness. Within a week Mendick had his little band at the level of army recruits of a month’s standing. Within two weeks they could march as smartly as most line regiments, within three they could advance in open order and he was teaching them how to skirmish and scout.
He trained them in the driving rain, when every step plashed through muddy puddles. He trained them in the whispering snow, when the background trees were ghostly beautiful but the volunteers’ hands were red raw with cold. He trained them on the frosty days when his breath froze against his whiskers and every sound was magnified in the brisk air. And all the time he hoped for news from London.
He had sent a second pigeon south with news about Trafford’s Chartist connection, and every evening he disappeared into the woods for a walk, promising Peter that he would be back within an hour. He fed his remaining pigeon, looked in vain for a reply from Scotland Yard and upon his return always found Peter waiting anxiously for him.
Mendick had grown used to sharing the cottage with the prize-fighter. They spoke little but played cards each evening, with more equable results.
“Peter, I’m going to take some of the men on a night exercise.”
“Mr Armstrong won’t like that.” Peter sounded alarmed.
“So we won’t tell him,” Mendick said and manufactured a grin, “or even better, you can come with us and keep an eye on me in case I find a public house and get bung-eyed, or lose the men in the dark, or run and tell a peeler all about this army that I’ve been training.”
“No, I won’t do that.” Peter shook his head. “I know you’ll come back.”
“I always do.” He had guessed that Peter would prefer not to enter the night-dark woods. He held out his hand. “You’re a good man, Peter, and a fellow Chartist.”
Peter took his hand with the edge of his fingers, his face confused.
“Fellow Chartist.”
*
The volunteers stood at attention in the damp gloom of the December afternoon. A persistent drizzle soaked them while the trees behind them cowered in shivering misery.
“Right, lads,” Mendick said softly, “it is nearly Christmas and we are surviving on starvation rations. That does not seem right for the vanguard of the new utopia, so I think it is time to do something about it.” He enjoyed the surge of interest. “We’re going to combine our training with a spot of Christmas preparation. Tonight some of us are engaging in a very valuable military procedure. We call it foraging, when we rake the countryside for food,” he cheered them with a grin, “and anything else we can get our hands on.” He had expected the resulting laugh and waited until it subsided.
“I’ve been watching you, and I know you now. I know the smart and the quick, the best at drill and those who are ready to employ sly little tricks to get off work.”
This time the laugh was a little uneasy as the men looked at one other, wondering what he was about to say next.
“Right. I want Preston, Eccles and Duffy.”
He selected the most devious of his men and the ones least likely to have any scruples. Foraging was far more a matter of individual initiative than drill and discipline.
“The rest of you are dismissed; report as normal tomorrow morning.”
Even as he hefted the canvas bag into which he had packed a few useful items, he wondered about the legality of his movements. He, who had vowed to obey the laws that kept him on the side of respectability, was now not just bending those laws, but smashing them into splinters. He shook his head, grinned encouragingly to his chosen men and marched them into the darkness.
It was strangely nostalgic to lead a small patrol again, and if Lancashire was certainly not China, the local gamekeepers were probably more efficient than the Chinese army had proved to be.
“Keep close, lads, keep quiet and remember what I’ve taught you.” He led them through the winter woodland and halted just outside Trafford land.
“I know this place,” Eccles said quietly, more relaxed that Mendick had ever seen him. “I used to go poaching here as a lad.”
“So let’s go poaching again,” Mendick said, “but I want food for fifty men.”
“That’s a tall order.” Eccles sounded doubtful as his nervousness quickly returned. “Sir Robert is careful of his property. There’s mantraps and spring guns all over the place, and as many keepers as we have soldiers.” He shook his head. ”Bastard.”
The policeman in Mendick began to ponder. A man who put so much effort into security must have something to protect, or something to hide, which made this trip into Trafford land doubly interesting.
“Let’s see what we can find.”
“If you’d given me warning,” Eccles said, “I’d have made some traps and caught us some rabbits.”
“You can have time off tomorrow to make them,” Mendick promised. “In the meantime, you can guide us in.”
Eccles grew in confidence as he negotiated the outskirts of Trafford’s land. Using brushwood as protection against the jagged glass, he slipped over the boundary wall with ease and slithered across the bough of a tree to descend the trunk.
“Sir Robert is careful always to lop the lower branches from any tree close to the wall,” he explained, “just in case of men like me.” His grin showed white in the gloom. “But there are always ways in.”
Trafford’s trees were spaced out, with an occasional exotic rhododendron set between native plants.
“Careful!” Eccles stretched out his hand. “Watch your feet here.” He pointed downward, where metal gleamed through the leaf litter. Bending down, he brushed carefully with his hand to reveal a metal plate. “Man trap,” he said, pointing to the saw-toothed jaws that were intended to slam shut on the leg of its victim. “Step on that and you’re crippled even before the beak sends you to Van Diemen’s Land.”
As so often before during the last few weeks, Mendick wondered about his loyalties. Obviously the law of the land had to be maintained or there would be anarchy, but to allow landowners to employ such brutal devices simply to defend their game against hungry people seemed positively immoral. Trafford may be a supporter of the Chartists, but where his property was concerned he continued to act like the most selfish member of the upper class.
“Watch for spring guns too,” Eccles warned. “The landowners rig trip wires attached to a blunderbuss or something similar. If you’re lucky you’ll only get peppered with bird shot, but a blast of that in your belly is bad enough.”
Preston swore foully while Duffy vowed vengeance on any gamekeeper that crossed his path. They eyed the mantrap with loathing and moved ever slower as they neared Trafford Hall.
“There won’t be much game near the building,” Eccles warned, but Mendick shook his head. “We’re not after game,” he said. “We won’t ever find enough to feed the five thousand . . .”
“But there’s only fifty of us,” Preston said, but Duffy nudged him and explained the Biblical reference.
“So we’re going into the house itself,” Mendick said.
Duffy nodded his approval, but Eccles, more knowledgeable about the law, warned of the consequences:
“If we go into the house it’s called house-breaking, Sergeant; it might mean the rope.”
“What do you think they’ll do when they find you drilling and planning a revolution?”
“Sweet God in heaven, I hadn’t thought of that.” Eccles shook his head; after living the dream of Chartist utopia for so long, he obviously found it hard to bring himself back to reality. “Come on, then.” He thrust back his hand. “No, wait!”
A tall man had emerged from a side door of the house, smoking a long cheroot.
“That’s Trafford himself,” Eccles said, and everyone stopped to watch the man whose property they were invading.
Dressed in a black frock coat, Trafford swept one hand over his unfashionable mane of glossy black hair as he looked out into the night.
“Handsome bugger, isn’t he?” Mendick watched as Trafford finished his cheroot, flicked the butt into the grass and sauntered casually around the building to the front door, where he consulted the gold hunter suspended from his waistcoat. “It looks like he’s waiting for somebody.”
“And here somebody comes now,” Preston indicated the landau that ground up the drive, its metal shod wheels scraping over the neat gravel. Leaving his seat, the coachman opened the door and bowed as a woman emerged, so swaddled in a heavy cloak that it was impossible to see her face.
“That’s him occupied for the night then,” Eccles said. “He likes the ladies, does Sir Robert.” He looked around at Mendick. “Especially the Dutch ones, so I’ve heard.”
There was a muted murmur of conversation, and then Sir Robert escorted the woman inside the house, with the front door opening smoothly before them.
“Right,” Mendick decided. “Let’s observe for a while.”
Trafford Hall had occupied its present site for centuries, but a succession of owners had augmented and altered the original mediaeval building. The simple Norman keep was now only a small part of a complex of different architectural styles, its identity lost amidst an array of various wings. Waiting in the fringe of the trees, Mendick watched as flickering candles signalled the progress of servants checking the windows and closing the doors for the night.
“Will there be food in there?” Preston wondered, and Mendick nodded.
“With a staff that large, there will be more than enough food.”
Without a watch, it was difficult to judge time, but he estimated that it was eleven at night before the final yellow light died and he could creep closer to the Hall. He toured the building, searching for an open window, but after twenty minutes he realised that Trafford had trained his servants well.
“All the windows are locked,” he said, “so we’ll have to break in.”
“And how do we do that?” There was bitter cynicism in Duffy’s voice.
“Watch and learn, my friend,” Mendick promised.
Rounding a dark corner to one of the projecting wings, he directed his lantern onto a low window. “We’ll go in here,” he decided.
“Why choose this one in particular?” Preston asked.
“It’s in the darkest corner,” Mendick said. “Now, Preston, you keep watch for gamekeepers.” He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “You’re our ears and eyes.” There were iron bars set into the stonework around the window, with the glass of the multi-paned window behind.
“I thought you were a soldier, not a housebreaker.” Eccles was watching with professional interest.
“Watch and learn, Mr Eccles.” After hunting down some of the cleverest thieves in London, Mendick had picked up some of their tricks. Taking a length of cord from his bag, he drew it around the two central bars, and, using a short metal bar, began to twist, putting pressure on the bars.
“That’s clever,” Eccles approved.
“If you’re taking notes, Eccles, I’ll charge a consultation fee.” He felt the cord rubbing the skin from his fingers but continued until the bars creaked and began to move. “There we go.” he was unsure if he felt satisfaction or relief. With both bars loosened, he took hold and began to pull them back and forth.
“Let me!” Stretching over him, Eccles grasped the left hand bar and hauled it free of the mortar.
“Well done. Stand aside.”
Two bars were not enough. Mendick had to loosen the next, which Eccles also removed with a single impressive tug, tossing the metal behind him with an expression of contempt. The sound of iron crunching on to the gravel path seemed to echo around the house. Mendick stiffened, and a score of bats exploded from the eaves far above.
“Quiet!” They crouched in the darkest shadows until Mendick was sure nobody was coming to investigate the noise.
He cut away the putty from the bottom window pane, thrust through his hand and flicked open the catch to ease open the sash.
“Is that what they taught you in the army?” Eccles asked. “Maybe I should sign up and thieve for Queen and country.”
“People like me do to property what politicians and generals do to entire countries.” Mendick did not have to inject the bitterness into his voice. “But while we would be transported for it, they are given titles and lands.”
Duffy looked over to him. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you speak like that, Sergeant.”
Mendick grunted but said nothing. He was thinking like a Chartist again.
“There’s somebody coming!” Preston nearly shouted the warning, and Mendick quickly closed the shutter of his lantern and squeezed into the shelter of the wall. Hearing the confident crunch of footsteps on gravel and the patter of a dog’s paws he tried to appear as small as possible. If a lone gamekeeper caught them, they could fight their way clear, but with a score of servants within shouting distance, escape through policies thick with mantraps might not be so easy. The footsteps passed and Preston grunted,
“All clear, Sergeant Mendick.”
Mendick said nothing. He waited apprehensively for a few more moments and then crawled through the open window and inside the house. With his men silent behind him Mendick padded onto a stone-flagged floor in a dark room that smelled of mould and neglect.
“Lantern!” Mendick hissed, and Eccles obliged, directing the narrow beam around the room. Heavy wooden tables lined three walls, while unmarked boxes sat solidly on a shoulder-high shelf.
“It’s some sort of store room,” Duffy said.
“So I see,” Mendick said, as Eccles flicked the light around boxes of soap and candles, polish and paint. “No food, though.”
“That would be too easy,” Eccles said. “Let’s keep going.”
Closing the window, Mendick pulled a piece of dark paper from his pocket and placed it over the missing pane.
“If anybody should look in now, they won’t see anything or feel a draught. Now keep quiet.”
“Jesus, Sergeant, that was impressive.” Eccles looked at him with new respect.
“Aye, we learn lots of interesting skills in Victoria’s army.”
Their boots echoing on stone slabs, they moved through the ground floor, with Mendick not sure exactly for what he was searching but hoping for some sign. Duffy cleared his throat.
“Is the food not usually stored in the cellars?” Mendick berated himself for missing the obvious.
“Find a stairway, then,” he ordered, and within minutes Duffy was leading them down a twisting stone stair, feeling their way along a rough wall that took them to a short corridor lined with doors.
“Cellars. Maybe wine cellars.” Preston licked his lips.
“They’ll be locked.” Duffy looked to Mendick.
“Not for long.” The army had taught him a plethora of tricks for foraging, but it was the people he had met as a police officer who showed him how to pick locks. The cumbersome, old-fashioned doors of this part of Trafford Hall were not even a challenge. The first cellar contained racks of bottles, filmed with dust.
“That’ll do me.” Preston reached for the nearest until Mendick pulled him away.
“Food,” he reminded him. “We’ve got an army to feed.”
The second cellar was filled with sacks of meal, interspersed with rounds of cheese and boxes of apples.
“That’s better,” Mendick approved. “Everybody select a sack of meal, some cheese and whatever else you fancy. I’ll see if I can find anything else.”
“Right, Sergeant.” Eccles had already taken a huge bite of an apple and was chewing lustily, while Duffy was sampling one of the rounds of cheese.
To the delight of Preston, the next cellar was filled with jars of honey and jam, but the fourth was double locked, with a massive padlock holding a heavy chain in place. Mendick frowned as his police-trained mind switched on; what could Sir Robert Trafford possibly have that was so valuable it merited such precautions? He selected the most intelligent of his volunteers.
“Eccles, you lead everybody home and for the love of God, don’t get caught.”
“Are you not coming, Sergeant?” Eccles sounded nervous at the sudden responsibility.
“You just go ahead,” Mendick ordered. “I’ll not be long behind you.”
Waiting until the volunteers had slipped into the dark, he knelt down to work, but after five minutes of frantic jiggling with the stiletto he realised that it would take an expert to pick this padlock. He swore and then froze as voices echoed along the corridor. There was the flicker of candlelight, a yellow glow that bounced along the wall in his direction and a deep-throated laugh.
“Dear God.” He glanced behind him to where the corridor ended abruptly in a brick wall that blocked any prospect of escape. There remained only the food cellars, so he slid into the nearest just as two figures loomed at the far end of the corridor. Closing the door with his foot, he crouched in the dark and cursed again when the lock failed to connect and the door creaked open. With no time to close it a second time, he could only hide and hope that nobody noticed.
He looked around, momentarily panicking as he realised how vulnerable he was. The cellar was a place of stone. Stone walls sloped upward to a groined stone ceiling, while deep stone shelves held various sacks and boxes. Where was best to hide? Ducking down, he crawled into the lowest and furthest away shelf, dragging a sack of meal in front of him for additional concealment.
There were two voices; one belonged to Sir Robert Trafford, and the other to a woman who shared his confident, educated upper class accent. No doubt she was the same woman who had arrived in the landau. Why were they down here at this time of night?
The voices became louder until it sounded as if they were just outside the storeroom, then they abruptly stopped. Mendick tensed, wondering if he had been seen, but just then he heard the rattle of a chain and realised Trafford was entering the neighbouring cellar. Silence stretched for long moments, but as Mendick crawled out of his hiding place Trafford began to speak again.
The acoustics of the cellar created a frustrating echo; Mendick only caught the occasional word, but Trafford appeared to be an entertaining speaker for the woman was laughing. The sound was distinctive, with a curious whoop of breath that he had heard before, although he could not recollect where. Weighing the fear of discovery against his duty to ferret out information, he peered through the gap between the door and the wall.
Trafford was locking the padlock and speaking with the woman, who had one hand on his arm in a most companionable fashion. He seemed to listen with only half his attention, but then he smiled to her, bent closer and kissed her briefly on the lips.
Mendick choked back his surprise as the lantern glow fell fully on the woman. Last time he had seen her she was dressed in worn clothing and had the rough voice of a mill worker; now she wore a fashionable dress and her accent was entirely upper class. The woman who returned Trafford’s kiss was Rachel Scott.