Over breakfast the next morning the Lutens were discussing the plans they had made the night before when once again they were interrupted by bad news. A pale-faced Black didn’t wait to be announced but came barging into the breakfast parlour, puffing like a grampus from the fast pace he had set to bring the news.
“What is it, Black?” Corinne asked in alarm.
He fell on to a chair. “Mr. Pattle’s in clink,” he gasped out, reverting in his distress to the language of former days.
“What, arrested?” Luten demanded. “What the devil for?”
“For murdering Mary Scraggs. Her body was found right enough. A rat catcher was taking a short cut through the cemetery at dawn and found her, just as we left her, except I believe the flowers were gone or Brown would have mentioned them. Likely the rat catcher took them and sold them.”
“But why blame Coffen?” Corinne asked.
Black, in his distress, couldn’t sit still. He rose and paced back and forth, wringing his hands. “An anonymous note, according to Brown. It’s the work of whoever’s after the treasure, depend on it.”
“What was in the note? What evidence do they have?” Luten asked.
“Whoever killed Mary prigged her bonnet and purse and planted them in Mr. Pattle’s curricle. The ten pounds were missing, not that it matters now, but it proves to my satisfaction that the tip came from whoever was at his house the night she was murdered, and murdered her.”
“It certainly looks that way,” Corinne agreed.
“Now we know why the reticule and bonnet were missing,” Luten said. “They took them on purpose to point the finger at Coffen. Whatever is hidden in that house must be worth a great deal, to go to so much trouble.”
“Aye, there’s rum quids in it for someone,” Black said.
Corinne turned a trusting eye on her husband. “Can’t you do something, Luten?”
Luten squared his jaw, tossed aside his napkin as he rose from the table and said grimly, “The first thing to do is go down to the gaol and get him out.”
“You’d best take a lawyer with you,” said Black, the expert in matters criminal. “They’re strict when the charge is murder. Do you know a lawyer in town?”
“Deveril’s the man for this. I don’t know him but I know of him. I’ll pick him up on the way.”
“Can I go with you, Luten?” Black asked. “I can’t just sit idle and do nothing while Mr. Pattle’s in gaol.”
Corinne could see Luten’s reluctance and soon figured out the cause of it. Black, despite his best efforts, still had the air of the criminal about him. His presence wouldn’t do Coffen any good.
“Why don’t we go to the mews where Coffen stables his curricle and ask if anyone was seen snooping around there?” she said to Black.
Helping Mr. Coffen was the one thing in the world that might restrain Black, and it didn’t hurt that she had said ‘we’. When Luten said, “She’s right, Black. Would you mind? You may be sure I’ll move heaven and bend earth to get him out.”
“Come right back and let us know, one way or the other,” Corinne said. Before Black had a chance to object the thing was done. Luten, with a nod of approval at his wife for her quick thinking went dashing out. Black was so upset he didn’t even think to become Lord Blackmore.
“Shall I call for your carriage, milady?” he said. “It might be faster to walk. It’s not far.”
“Let us take the carriage. If we find out who was there, we might want to go after him.”
“Happen you’re right.” He sent for the carriage, then accepted a cup of coffee and sat down to wait and worry while her ladyship got her bonnet.
Luten had to use his considerable influence, Deveril’s ingenuity and a large sum in bail to get the accused out, but within the hour he had Coffen released in his custody. It helped that Mr. Brown had a strong suspicion that Mr. Pattle was no more the murderer than he was himself. Why would he kill Mary Scraggs? He was a perfectly respectable gentleman, and there wasn’t much Mary Scraggs wouldn’t do for a well inlaid gent like Pattle. Who he wanted to blame for the murder and every other crime in town was Mad Jack. He couldn’t see how he was involved, but if the Berkeley Brigade could turn up some evidence against him and remove this nemesis from his town, he would be exceedingly grateful.
The groom in charge of the mews at the Royal Crescent swore that no one had been next or night Mr. Pattle’s rattler and prads. “For it’s the finest rig and team here. I’ve taken a special interest in it and keep a sharp eye on it. It must have happened somewhere else. Had he left it parked anywhere?”
Black cast his mind back, but he could think of no time or place so likely to have access to the rig as a more or less public stable at night. “Who’s here at night?” he asked the head ostler. “You can’t work twenty-four hours a day.”
“A youngster called Timmy White, but he’d have told me if anyone was prowling about.”
“Do you keep the door locked at night?”
“Closed but not locked. This is a hotel. Folks arrive and leave at all hours. Timmy lets them in and out.”
But it was not likely that many would be arriving or leaving in the middle of the night. His roving eye had already espied the straw bed covered in a blanket in the corner. It was four pence to a groat that Timmy was asleep half the time. Black didn’t bother with further questions. It didn’t matter when or how the incriminating objects had been put into the rig so much as who had done it, and this groom didn’t know.
He led Lady Luten back to her carriage. “Can you think of anything else we can do?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t mind a word with Flora, at the tourist shop. Not that the brass box will tell us anything.”
“Let us go. I’d like to get a look at her.”
Black directed the groom to the tourist shop. Flora cast a bold, almost a mocking smile on them. “Back for another look at our wares, Mr. Black?” she said, before turning her eyes to examine Lady Luten.
Lady Luten began looking at the tawdry items on display, most of them cheap items featuring some aspect of Brighton on them, and the city’s name in gilt. She lifted a jug bearing a likeness of the Prince Regent and even considered buying it for Luten as a joke. A small vase of yellow roses on the desk, fading but still with their petals, caught her eye. There had been yellow roses in that bouquet Prance brought for Mary’s laying out.
When she turned her attention back to Flora, she was saying, “How’s your friend Mr. Pattle today, Mr. Black?”
“Fine. I’ll be meeting with him shortly at his house. Why do you ask?”
She gave another of her bold smiles. “I thought he might be reconsidering my offer to work for him.”
Black gave her a steely, menacing stare. “He hasn’t forgotten your keen interest in his house,” he said. Then he turned to Corinne. “Shall we go, Lady Luten?”
Corinne turned a bland eye to Flora. “Your flowers need water,” she said. “They’re wilting.”
Flora just glanced at the vase and gave a tsk of annoyance. “So they are, and I bought them only this morning from old Meg, at the corner stall.”
“That was sharp work, milady,” Black complimented her, when they left. “I didn’t notice the flowers. From Sir Reginald’s bouquet, are they?”
“They looked like it, not that we can prove it.”
“She never batted an eye when you twitted her. Very likely the rat catcher sold them to old Meg.”
“What a bold hussy she is. I wouldn’t trust that smug grin an inch. She knows perfectly well Pattle has been arrested. She was practically crowing when she asked after him.”
“I agree, but I don’t see what we can do about it till we find some hard evidence.”
“We’ll find it,” Corinne said. “Let us go home and see if Luten is back yet.”
They hadn’t long to wait. Luten brought Coffen straight to Marine Parade, where Black, watching from the window, rushed to the door to greet him. He was welcomed like a hero returning from the Peninsular Wars.
“Any luck at the mews?” Luten asked Corinne. She just shook her head.
“I can have my curricle back,” Coffen said, when the racket had settled down, “but I ain’t supposed to leave town or get into any trouble. I intend to go with you to quiz Weir and search my house and talk to Beazely. Let Brown try to stop me!”
“We are going to go over that cottage with a fine tooth comb as well,” Luten said. “But first we’ll have that word with Weir and see if we can discover what the hidden treasure is.”
Prance arrived before they left and had to be informed what was going on. The Lutens went with him in his carriage. As Corinne had been missing out on all the excitement she insisted on accompanying them. Black went on ahead with Coffen in the curricle. They were thus in the line of fire when someone took a shot at Coffen as he wended his way through the Lanes. He was an easy target, seated in the open curricle. Fortunately the shot missed and just lifted his hat from his head. Black hollered, “Duck!” and they both ducked. The second shot went well over their heads.
Coffen’s team reared up in distress and he had the devil of a time quieting them down. When no further shots were fired, Black leapt down and tried to give chase on foot, but the miscreant was long gone. There was little chance of finding him in that disreputable labyrinth known as the Lanes.
The employed members of the neighbourhood were out fishing. Although there was still plenty of life about — drunks, children, women sitting on doorsteps gossiping, dogs and especially cats, they did not appear to take the shots seriously. The men capable of answering just shrugged. One woman sitting on the doorstep smoking a pipe pointed one way, the slattern with her pointed the other. It was obviously futile and possibly dangerous to give chase.
Prance’s rig caught up with them. The occupants hadn’t seen the attack or heard the bullet and were curious to learn what had happened.
“Someone tried to kill Mr. Pattle, that’s what,” Black said and uttered a curse unknown even to Prance, who made a study of profanity, though he seldom used it. Coffen’s hat with a knick in the brim was produced to show how close the shot had come.
“Let us get into Prance’s rig,” Corinne said. “You’re a sitting duck in that open rig, Coffen.” They all piled in for a quick discussion. “Let us go home,” she said. “They’re not after Black. He’ll be safe driving the curricle. You don’t mind, Black?”
“I was just about to suggest it myself,” said Black. He enjoyed getting the reins of the high steppers between his fingers.
“Home?” Coffen objected. “Devil take it, I’m going to see Weir if it kills me.”
“It just might do that,” Prance pointed out. “I wonder how Henry assuming Henry is the assassin manqué — knew you would be passing this way. He must be following you.”
“What’s a monkey got to do with it?” Coffen asked and was ignored.
“It seemed to me he was in place, hiding and just waiting,” Black said.
“It was Henry,” Corrine said. “You told Flora you were going to meet Coffen at his house, Black, and Weir’s office is just around the corner from Nile Street. She must have told Henry.”
“When were you speaking to Flora?” Prance asked, and Corinne told him of their visit to the mews and the tourist gift shop. “She had some wilting yellow roses there in a vase.”
“They must have followed us last night,” Coffen said. “Odd they’d bother snitching wilting flowers.”
Black sniffed. He was constantly amazed at the ignorance of the aristocracy at how life was lived by the other ninety-nine percent of the population. They’d likely never heard of a mudlark, or knew that the leftovers from their tables were sold out their back doors. “More likely the rat catcher broke up the bundle and was peddling the flowers to street vendors,” he said. “That’s an old racket. Flora didn’t bat an eye when you mentioned them, Lady Luten.”
“That’s true. Well, let us go and see Weir.”
Black wasn’t tardy to hop into the curricle and the two carriages were off.