Henry rode straight to the old parish hall. Mr. Poole sat behind his desk, shuffling papers. If it wasn’t for the payroll of Willowkeep, Kippingham could never afford a constable.
Poole glanced up as Henry entered. “Back so soon?”
Yes, yes. It was all very comical. No doubt he’d be swallowing quips about his night in the jail for some time. “I need to speak with Thomas Darby.”
“Why?”
“There’s been a kidnapping up at Willowkeep.”
Poole closed his notebook. “Who is missing?”
“Miss Darby’s younger sister, Susan, has been taken. I believe he might have information.”
Mr. Poole pushed his papers to the side and stood. “An abduction?” He took a ring of keys from a hook and started up the stairs. “And you think Mr. Darby is involved? It’s his own daughter.”
Henry followed him. “I think he might know something that could help. It’s worth a try.”
Poole unlocked the door to the room Henry had slept in last night. Darby was there, sitting on his cot, leaning back against the wall. Poole followed him in and locked the door.
“Missed me that much, eh?” Darby said.
They were all so clever. “Actually I’ve got a few questions for you. About Susan.” Henry took a seat in the one wooden chair, keeping as far from the moldy mattress as possible. “She’s been kidnapped. Taken by someone demanding a ten-thousand-pound ransom.”
“My Susie?”
“Yes. I came for information.” Henry looked over at Poole, who’d been following this whole conversation closely. Henry turned back to Darby. “What can you tell me about Robert Burton?”
“A chancer and a cheat,” Mr. Darby said. “Make no mistake. Stole my business right out from under me. ’Course I were dead at the time, but that don’t mean he could rook my daughter out of her fair share.”
“That was years ago,” Henry said. “What about now?”
Darby nodded. “I was in Hull a few weeks back. Burton weren’t there. I found the letter Charlotte had left me, seal broken and read. Weren’t hard to figure out where he’d gone. I followed him here, but afore I could find him, they locked me up.”
“Does Burton have any connections in these parts?” Henry asked.
Darby shook his head. “None that I know of. His wife is passed. His son died in the war. Just him.”
“What about this man you murdered?” Henry asked. “Could that have anything to do with Susie’s abduction?”
Darby was shaking his head even before Henry finished his question. “No. That don’t have nothin’ to do with this. Nothin’.”
Henry glanced at the constable. The man shrugged. “I don’t know any particulars,” Poole said.
Seemed Darby had nothing that would help Henry find Susie. “Right, then.” He waited for Poole to unlock the door. “Guess we’ll just have to keep looking.”
Darby stood too.
“I’ll call in the men to assist in the search,” Poole said, slipping his key into the lock.
In one swift movement, Darby picked up the wooden chair and slammed it into Poole’s back. The constable collapsed to the floor.
“What the devil!” Henry backed away, searching for any kind of weapon. Of course there was nothing. It was a jail.
“She’s my daughter. I’m coming with you.” Darby tossed what was left of the chair onto one of the empty cots.
Henry would certainly go to prison for this, and not just overnight. Facilitating the escape of a murderer. But if Darby had any information to aid in the recovery of Susie, he needed it.
They slipped quietly to the stables behind the hall. Henry mounted his horse, then turned to find Darby putting an ancient saddle on one of the constable’s horses. “You will be hanged for that.”
“Neck’s already bound for the noose.” Darby flung the girth strap around the horse’s belly. “Besides, I’m just borrowing it. Mr. Poole won’t be needing him anytime soon.”
They could cover ground much faster if they both had a mount. Though Darby’s beast was most certainly a carriage horse, it was better than nothing.
Only two days in the company of Miss Darby’s father and Henry was turning criminal. Darby was already sentenced to death. He had nothing to lose. Henry had everything. Putting his fate in the hands of such a man may not have been the wisest move.
“Let’s ride back to the house, organize a search party. We’ll comb the countryside,” Henry said.
“No. We ride south, toward Tunbridge.” Darby tightened the girth.
“Why Tunbridge?” The letter had mentioned Chipstead, to the north.
“I know a place where we might find him.”
“Why did you not say as much?” Henry trusted this man about as far as he trusted Burton.
“Not in front of the law. That’s the last thing we’ll need.” Darby slipped an ill-fitting bridle into the horse’s mouth and fastened it behind the ears. “If he’s got the child, what do you think he’ll do with her if he sees a regiment of men riding up, firearms at the ready?”
He had a point. Susie’s safety was paramount. Burton might just as easily end the girl and flee back to Hull, none the loser.
Darby said he’d been in Kent long enough. Henry had supposed he’d meant long enough to know the whereabouts of Charlotte and glean something about Willowkeep. He must have meant long enough to crawl around the underbelly of this county to find the holes where people like Burton hid.
Henry had a powerful notion he would regret this. He nodded at Darby. “Lead on.”
They set off at a gallop until they were under cover of the trees between Kippingham and Willowkeep. Darby slowed his horse, and Henry rode up beside him.
“This way,” Darby said.
Weaving in and out of patches of forest, only using the road when necessary, they made their way south. Nothing like following a villain to the lair of a villain.
They reached the outskirts of Tunbridge, and Darby led him into a woodland. The sun dropped quickly, leaving them in the gloaming of twilight. Miss Darby would be home from London soon. He prayed he’d have her sister back for her by then.
Darby took his horse off toward a copse of trees. “We’ll leave ’em here and finish on foot.”
“Are you sure Burton is in these parts?” They’d wasted precious hours if this was a wild-goose chase.
“He were here a few days ago. Where else would be such a good place to go to ground?”
Plenty of trees for cover. Water from the river. Game from the woods. A very good place to lie low. If they found Burton without Susie, at least they could bring him in for poaching.
Henry dismounted and opened his saddlebags, lifting out the dueling pistols. Two shots. That was all he had.
Darby grinned at the pistols. “Good idea. I’ll take one of those.”
If things got precarious, it might be better to spread out the weaponry—one pistol each. Yet handing over a firearm to a man accused of murder seemed not the wisest choice.
Henry shook his head. “Before I give you a loaded weapon, I think it’s time you tell me who it was you murdered. And why.”
Darby eyed him, peering at Henry through slitted lids. Henry felt as though some kind of judgment was being laid upon him.
Finally the man said, “It were Otto Brand, captain of the fishing smack, the Rising Sun.”
“Your own captain?”
“Aye.” He pointed deeper into the woods and started walking. “When the Rising Sun came to port in Hull, it were right after my Louisa passed. I’d already failed my wife. I had nothing to lose. I left my business in the hands of Burton and went out. I meant only to be away a few weeks, clear my head, but things took a turn. See, we also took on a young lad of fourteen, William Papper.”
So far, this seemed a fairly average circumstance.
“As it were, young William said something in jest but which angered the captain beyond reason. Afore we reached the mouth of the Humber, the captain started beating the poor lad.”
Henry stopped walking, all his attention on Darby and his story.
“Every day the captain brought the boy closer and closer to death, inch by inch. He forced the lad to stand naked at the stem while he doused him with buckets of water. This were over Christmas, mind. Water colder than ice. Captain threatened us with a gun if any tried to interfere. The other three men seemed to take it in stride. And so it went, day by day. Captain starving him. Beating him. Freezing him. The poor lad died on New Year’s Day.”
Henry had heard about the cruelty of some captains toward the young indentured boys on their vessels, but this went far beyond.
Darby finished in a whisper. “Brand told us the lad had been swept overboard by the foresail, but we all knew the truth. I can’t rightly say what happened next. Something inside me just broke. Next time the captain come up from the hold, I flung a rope round his neck and . . . Well, let’s just say he found a grave at sea as well.”
The boy had already died. He couldn’t be saved. Darby should have waited till port and let the law take over.
“What about the rest of the men?” Henry asked. “Surely they cared that their captain had just been murdered.”
“None were sorry to see him go. The lad William had suffered greatly. We’d been out nearly three weeks when we turned and made port in Grimsby.”
“Did they accuse you?”
“They all agreed to say nothing of the matter—long as I disappeared. Fishermen die all the time on the North Sea. Second Hand Dench reported that Captain Brand had been swept overboard trying to save young Papper, and myself trying to save Brand. We were all three written up as lost at sea. And I fled. Had to. After Dench said I were lost, if anyone saw me, the truth about Captain Brand’s fate would come out.”
That explained why everyone thought he was dead—except Miss Darby. “Why does your daughter think you’re still alive? There must be some reason, or she wouldn’t have bothered to leave a letter at your warehouse.”
Darby slipped under some low-hanging branches. It was fully dark now, and the going was slower. “As it happens, Second Hand Dench weren’t so trustworthy as I thought. Not more than three months passed when he marched himself back in and told the law that I was the one what killed Otto Brand. When word of that spread, there weren’t no going back. I was a wanted man.
“Still, I tried to help my Charlotte. Left her a bit of money now and then. I s’pose it were enough for her to question. Weren’t no one else willing to help her.”
He’d been on the run for six years. Someone must have seen him and reported it for him to end up in the Kippingham jail. Someone local.
“Who gave you up?” Henry asked.
“Who d’ya think?” Darby let out a mirthless laugh. “Burton must have caught sight of me and gone to the constable. Our friend Poole snatched me from the Grayling Arms the same day you come in.” Darby stopped. He nodded his head to the left, and Henry peered off into the forest. An old cottage stood near the shore of a pond. The faint light of a fire flickered through a window.
“That’s it,” Darby whispered.
Henry pulled one of the pistols out of the back of his breeches. He considered it for a moment, then handed it over to Darby. The other man took it, inspected the flintlock and the trigger, then tucked it into his own breeches. Henry prayed he’d not just made the worst mistake of his life.
Darby grinned at him, then set off, moving quietly through the trees and bracken, closing in on the cottage.
Henry followed, crouching low, until a noise hit him that brought him up short. The wails of a child in distress. A cry Henry had heard many times. Seemed little Susie was giving her captors a run for their money.