TWO

‘It’s been nearly two days now.’

Miles Brinkburn was perched on the edge of an old armchair by the bookcase, anxiety sitting uneasily on a face made for cheerfulness.

‘Forty-one hours.’

His half-brother, Robert Carmichael, spoke without emotion, as if reciting a scientific fact, but his thin face was ghostly and his eyes dark-rimmed. After a first glance when they arrived, Miles couldn’t bear to look at him. He stood leaning against the mantelpiece, the fire unlit in the July heat.

‘And still nothing from the police?’

This from Miles’ elder brother, Stephen, picking up from Robert’s apparently calm tone. He was Lord Brinkburn, on many committees, and had a politician’s habit of speaking as if anything that had happened was the other man’s fault, though he was as shaken as any of them.

Robert shook his head. ‘Sergeant Bevan said he’d send a messenger directly when he heard anything. That was yesterday morning. There’s been nothing since.’

‘Bevan. I’ve heard the name, haven’t I?’

‘A rising man, or so Libby gathered. I suppose he’s a friend of hers, after a fashion, as far as anybody in the force is. He’s been involved in several of her cases. That’s why I asked for him particularly.’

‘And what did he say when you spoke to him?’

‘He wanted to know what she was working on at present.’

Stephen leaned forward. ‘And what did you tell him?’

‘The truth, as I’ve told you. She’s working on nothing at the moment and nothing all this year. This can’t be connected with a case of hers because there isn’t a case.’

‘I thought she’d finish with that anyway,’ Stephen said. ‘Once you were married, and especially after the children came along, it was totally inappropriate.’

Robert’s lips turned up in something that might have been intended as a smile. ‘We thought so too, but you know that line of Milton: one talent which is death to hide. Now and again, there’d be somebody appealing for help and, either out of pity or curiosity, she’d be in there again.’

‘And sometimes doing things Disraeli wanted her to do,’ Stephen said, his low opinion of the MP in his voice. ‘Does he know?’

Robert’s own early suspicion of Disraeli had mellowed. ‘No, he doesn’t know. Apart from Bevan and whoever he’s consulted, the family and the Maynards, nobody knows.’

‘And several dozen servants,’ Miles broke in. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Stephen. It’s what Libby would have said herself. Probably half the kitchens in Mayfair know she’s missing.’

‘There’s the maid that brought in the message for a start,’ Robert said. ‘She’s the only person we know who saw one of the men involved, not that she was able to tell us much. It was dark on the step and she was dazzled by the candles inside. Just an ordinary man, not tall, with his collar turned up, saying he had a message for Mrs Carmichael that her son was ill.’

‘So the maid took in the message and Liberty went rushing out,’ Miles said.

Robert nodded. ‘I blame myself for that. I should have gone out with her. I wanted to, but we were talking to Maynard about that confounded hospital donation and I didn’t think it was anything too serious. Mrs Martley does panic about Harry sometimes. I followed her just a few minutes later, but then it was too late.’ He closed his eyes, remembering those first few panicking minutes, calling for Liberty more and more urgently. For a while, he’d turned from a scientific into a superstitious man, and thought the gods had somehow snatched her up.

‘So the maid still can’t remember anything else?’ Miles said.

‘No. She doesn’t seem to be a very intelligent girl, or perhaps she was just scared out of her wits by all the panic. She opened the front door because the butler was occupied elsewhere.’

‘And those dogs,’ Miles said. ‘That didn’t help.’

‘Dogs?’

‘You didn’t hear them? Their bitch had got loose, so all the dogs in the neighbourhood were yapping and yowling in their gardens. Half the servants were out in the garden trying to get her in when they should have been looking for Liberty. By the by, I think we should ask Legge to come up.’

‘Legge the groom?’ Stephen said.

‘Amos Legge, our friend,’ Robert said. ‘He’s here?’

‘Down in the yard. You want me to fetch him up?’

Robert nodded and Miles ran off downstairs. They were meeting in Liberty’s old lodgings at Abel Yard, because Robert had spent most of the last two days there in the belief that any news about her would come to the yard rather than their house a few streets away, where Mrs Martley was looking after the children. They’d kept the lodgings on partly as a repository for his books. Amos Legge followed Miles back in, bending his head to get through the doorway. Robert was tall but Legge overtopped him by six inches. His breeches and jacket were as neat as when he rode out in the park with his customers from the livery stables he part-owned. He carried his brown top hat with the gold rosette but his face was almost as grim as Robert’s. The two of them exchanged a look.

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing, sir. I reckon I’ve accounted for every cart or carriage that stopped anywhere near that house all evening up to past midnight, and nothing.’

‘Suppose she went on foot,’ Miles said. ‘She comes out of the Maynards’ house and starts making for home.’

‘But she wouldn’t, not without telling me.’

‘In any case, somebody would have seen her.’

‘Not necessarily. It was dark by then, and …’

Stephen held up his hand. ‘Let’s go over it all again, the whole evening. Who knew you’d be dining with the Maynards? Robert and Miles, you were there and I wasn’t. Let’s start from who organized it and why.’

‘I suppose I did,’ Miles said. ‘Robert and I were discussing raising funds for the eye hospital. I mentioned that Godrich Maynard had millions from his coal mines and eased his conscience sometimes by giving some of it away to good causes, and Rosa and I occasionally had dinner with him and his wife. Robert was interested and I got Maynard to invite the four of us on Monday – Robert and Libby and Rosa and me. They have a house just off Millbank, near St John’s Church. Rosa and I picked up Libby and Robert in our carriage and off we went.’

‘And Libby seemed perfectly normal?’ Stephen asked.

‘Good heavens, yes, in fine form. In fact, it struck me she was looking particularly well. Blue dress – new, Rosa said …’

Robert nodded.

‘And that dragonfly thing of hers in her hair. She and Rosa were chattering happily on the way about the children. At dinner, she was sitting on Maynard’s left, with Rosa on his right. There were only the six of us so the conversation was pretty general. I can’t remember anything of significance.’

‘Railways,’ Robert said. ‘Maynard’s part of a group promoting a new line in south Wales. Your story about the young horses and your carriage being run away with, Miles. And whether the Maynards should move house.’

‘Yes, he did rather harp on about problems from the rebuilding of Parliament,’ Miles said. ‘Of course, it’s difficult for them, living in Westminster with all the carts coming and going and the noise and mud and so on, and it has been going on for ten years or more. Still, it’s got to end sometime, and I thought they should hang on.’

‘And Liberty was joining in the conversation?’ Stephen asked.

‘She certainly was,’ Miles said. ‘Libby’s never been one for womanly silence and she fairly quizzed him about mining casualties, though not to the point of being offensive. But I can’t remember a single thing said that seemed to strike her particularly.’

‘I agree,’ Robert said. ‘It was just a perfectly normal dinner table conversation.’

‘Did you talk about your eye hospital?’

‘It’s hardly my hospital. Yes, the three of us talked about it after the ladies withdrew. Miles and I both had the impression that Maynard was likely to subscribe. Of course, we don’t know what the ladies talked about on their own.’

‘I do,’ Miles said. ‘Rosa told me it was almost entirely about dogs. Mrs Maynard breeds King Charles spaniels. Rosa thought there was a limit to what could be said about spaniels but Libby kept the conversation going, as she does. In any case, the ladies weren’t on their own for long. We joined them in about twenty minutes or so, there was more general conversation, then the message arrived.’

All the time, Amos Legge had been standing just inside the doorway, hat in his hand. Robert turned to him.

‘You’re certain she didn’t go off in a vehicle, Amos?’

‘As certain as I can be. I’ve made a list I’ll give you of every vehicle that stopped in that street or round the corner from early Monday evening until after midnight. There were eleven of them – everything from carriages to the rag-picker’s donkey cart. They’re all accounted for, with a reason to be there, and none of the drivers saw any sign of a lady answering her description.’

‘It might not have stopped,’ Miles said. ‘If it just drove past and somebody jumped out and snatched her up …’

‘There’s something else, isn’t there, Amos?’ Robert said.

Amos nodded and slid a hand into the deep pocket of his jacket, looking as guilty as if he were producing a stolen thing. The hand came out holding something blue and dust-covered. Robert closed his eyes and rocked forward, then opened them and took the thing from him.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ Amos’s voice was low.

Robert nodded. ‘Her shoe.’ An evening pump, not intended for much walking, blue satin lined with white kid, soiled as if a cart wheel had gone over it. A jagged tear ripped across the toe. ‘The buckle’s gone.’

‘Somebody’d have torn that off to sell,’ Amos said. ‘There was no buckle on when Tabby got it off the boy.’

‘So Tabby knows,’ Miles said.

Amos turned to him. ‘’Course she does. She’s spent every waking hour and some sleeping ones round that house where you had dinner. This morning, some urchin came up to her with this. He said he’d found it in the gutter and she reckons he’s telling the truth.’

Silence, broken by Miles. ‘So she was taken against her will. She didn’t just walk away.’

Robert was still looking down at the shoe. ‘Toothmarks on it. A dog’s, I think.’

‘They’d fight over it if it was lying in the gutter. It doesn’t mean anything.’ Miles was still trying to make things better, smoothing away the picture of Libby being attacked by dogs. ‘Shall you give it to Sergeant Bevan?’

Robert nodded and put it in his pocket. It was shallower than Legge’s, and part of the shoe stuck out over the top.

Miles went on with his story of the night. ‘Robert went out and came back in saying Liberty had disappeared. Somebody was sent running for the police and Robert and I went up and down the street and all the side streets calling for her. Then our carriage arrived and we sent Rosa off, to see if maybe Libby had gone home by cab, though goodness knows why she would have. After that we came and woke you up, Stephen, just on the off-chance she’d gone to you.’

Amos Legge stood like a statue. ‘I’ll go on trying, sir,’ he said to Robert. ‘All the cab drivers, carriage hirers, everything.’

Robert nodded his thanks and Amos turned and went slowly down the stairs, leaving the three brothers looking at each other as if one of them, against all probability, could come up with an answer.

Tabby was waiting down in the yard by the mounting block. She wore a brown skirt, a long jacket like a man’s and no hat, her pale brown hair, none too clean, caught up in an untidy knot at the back. Her feet, in brown boots, were scuffing the straw between the cobbles. She was probably in her early twenties but had never known the date of her birthday, the name of her father or very much about her mother, beyond the fact that she’d been a prostitute and had died when Tabby was a child. From an alliance a long way back, she’d become Liberty’s assistant, and was now the guardian of Abel Yard, living in a cabin halfway between the gates on to Adam’s Mews and the cow byres at the far end. In the years following Liberty’s marriage to Robert, when she’d done less investigating, Tabby had set up on her own.

‘Well?’

‘Yes, it’s hers,’ Amos said.

‘Knew it was. Did he say anything?’

‘Not much. He’s like a bull that’s run into a stone wall, plain moithered. They all are.’

The noise Tabby made was somewhere between impatience and contempt. Amos looked down at her. ‘We’re not doing any better, are we?’

‘Depends. That shoe means something, two days after.’

‘Yes, it means she didn’t walk off on her own accord, not in one shoe. But that’s what we thought.’ She gave him a look, not much more polite than the sound she’d made. ‘Are you saying we’re missing something?’

‘The boy came up with it this morning, so it’s been lying in the gutter all yesterday, has it?’

‘Seems so.’

‘You wouldn’t get an old seg off a boot sole lying there that long – somebody would have it. And somebody did have it to take the buckle off, but even with the buckle off, it’s worth something with a lining that was new kid. So why didn’t somebody pick it up before?’

‘What are you thinking?’ Amos said.

‘That it wasn’t there in the gutter until sometime after she went. So where was it?’

‘Somewhere a dog chewed it.’

‘I’ve been talking to a maid in the house where they went to dinner. She reckons the bitch had never got out before that night. When she’s in season, they keep her shut up in an old pantry, nice and comfortable with a basket and cushion, and the maid takes her meals on a plate. It’s more than the maid’s job’s worth to let her out and she swears she never did, but she got out – the door was unbolted.’

‘So there were all the dogs yapping and yowling out in the gardens. They said that upstairs, but I don’t see …’

‘With all the noise out in the garden, people wouldn’t know what was going on out front.’

Amos frowned. ‘You’re saying somebody in the house let the bitch out on purpose?’

A nod from Tabby.

‘And whoever it was did it because they wanted to help whoever was getting her away?’

Another nod.

‘But how would they know she was going to dinner there in the first place?’

‘The butler and housekeeper would know who was coming, and if they did, somebody else could.’

‘It seems far-fetched to me.’

‘It’s far-fetched that she vanished from under their noses and you can’t find out how she was taken away.’

He thought about it, head bowed. Then, ‘So what do we do?’

‘I don’t know what you’re going to do. I’m going to keep as close to that house as a maggot in meat.’

With nothing else to say, he wished her goodbye, unhitched his patient cob from the ring beside the mounting block and swung into the saddle.

‘You’ll get word to me if you find out anything?’

She didn’t bother to reply.

Upstairs, the three men were finding that they had nothing else to say. They’d discussed so many possibilities and theories but were no closer to finding her than Robert and Miles had been in those first disbelieving minutes outside the Maynards’ house. Stephen had a meeting to go to and Miles got up to leave with him. At the door, Stephen turned back to Robert.

‘If it had been a simple kidnapping for money, you’d surely have heard by now. And you haven’t?’

Robert had been looking down at the carpet, but he raised his head and looked up at Stephen.

‘I’ve heard nothing.’

With more assurances about coming back as soon as there were any developments, Miles and Stephen went away downstairs.

Amos Legge thought about what Tabby had said on his way back to the stables. He checked the tack cleaning, supervised the evening round of feeding and watering, spread ointment of his own making on a kick injury on a carriage horse’s hock. None of the lads who jumped to it when he noticed a bucket or a blanket strap out of place guessed that most of his mind was elsewhere. He decided that it would make sense to discuss Tabby’s theory with Mr Carmichael. By then, the horses were rugged up and eating their feed, so he walked for once, across the park towards Abel Yard. He was about to turn into Adam’s Mews when he saw Robert Carmichael about two hundred yards away, walking down Audley Street towards Piccadilly. It would be unthinkable to shout out after a gentleman like a tinker calling his dog, so Amos followed him, confident of catching up. But Mr Carmichael was striding out like a man in a hurry and Amos was hardly gaining on him. Amos noticed that he was carrying a canvas satchel, and it struck him suddenly that Mr Carmichael had heard from the kidnappers and was going to pay a ransom. This put a different complexion on things and meant that Mr Carmichael would not welcome company. If that was what he was going to do, Amos didn’t blame him. In the circumstances, he’d probably have done the same thing. But he’d be taking a big risk. What was to stop the kidnappers snatching the bag and running off without delivering? What if they weren’t the kidnappers at all, only sneak thieves who’d somehow heard she was missing and were taking advantage? Mr Carmichael, in his anxiety, wouldn’t have thought of that, so it was Amos’s business to be there when the money exchanged hands and do what he could to protect him. Once he’d decided that, he simply kept pace with him and followed him from a distance into Piccadilly. At this time in the early evening, it was particularly crowded, with carriages jammed in the street, gentlemen coming from clubs and couples sauntering. Amos collided with a young lady under a sunshade and nearly bowled her over. His red-faced apologies and a diatribe from the older woman with her meant that by the time he could look out for him, Mr Carmichael was out of sight. Crestfallen, he walked on eastwards, surprised that any criminal should choose such a public place to meet his victim. Then, just before Haymarket, he saw Mr Carmichael again, still a couple of hundred yards ahead. Amos zigzagged through the crowds, getting closer, just in time to see him turn into the yard of the White Bear inn.

Amos slowed down, near familiar territory now. The White Bear was one of the main starting points for stage coaches. He’d sold horses to them and knew dozens of the grooms, drivers and ostlers. It struck him that the kidnappers might be playing a clever game – grab the money then get away behind four fast horses on a stage coach. If so, they’d miscalculated. Amos could take the best horse from the yard and follow. For now, though, some caution was needed. Mr Carmichael would not want to see him there. With Amos’s height and breadth of shoulder, it was hard for him to be inconspicuous, but he did his best, keeping his head bent so as not to catch the eye of anybody he knew, mounting the outside stairs that led to the balcony of the inn overlooking the yard. Mr Carmichael went inside the inn, then came out again a few minutes later with the satchel as plump as when he’d gone in. He didn’t look up to the balcony. A coach was standing in the yard, horses harnessed, passengers inside, a few on top and ostlers loading luggage. No driver was on the box yet, but apart from that it was almost ready to go. Amos had the timetables of most of the coaches from this part of London in his head. This was ‘The Union’, an overnight coach for Dover via Rochester and Canterbury, arriving at the port around dawn. Mr Carmichael was talking to one of the ostlers, handing him something – certainly not a fat wedge of money, just a folded sheet of paper, by the look of it. The driver had come out of the inn and was getting up on the box, the horses stirring as he took the reins in his hand, wheels grinding on the cobbles. If a handover of money was to happen, this was the moment for it. The ostler nodded and put the folded paper in his pocket. Mr Carmichael ran to the coach just as it was moving and swung himself up the steps to the seats on top. As he plumped down on to a seat, still with the satchel, his head was just under Amos’s feet. Thinking about it afterwards, Amos blamed himself for not vaulting over the balcony rail and joining him on top of the coach, but at the time he was too surprised by the speed of events. He watched as the coach turned out of the yard into the street and broke into a trot, then was lost in the press of traffic. The ostler was still in the yard, sweeping straw. Amos knew him by sight, and his offer of a drink was happily accepted. He went inside, ordered two pints, and was halfway down his by the time the ostler joined him. Amos explained that he was there to see off a gentleman on ‘The Union’. The ostler swallowed the pint pretty well at a gulp and Amos ordered two more.

‘Was that a letter he gave you?’

The ostler nodded. Amos was an important man in the horse world and being treated by him was an honour.

‘I expect he’d have given it to me, only I was up on the balcony and he was in too much of a hurry,’ Amos said. He had an air of authority about him, especially in the stables. ‘I’ll take it and deliver it for you, and you can keep the shilling.’

Something in the ostler’s expression told Amos it had probably been nearer half a crown. ‘The gentleman said I was to deliver it tomorrow afternoon.’

‘I’ll see to that.’

The ostler produced a letter from inside his tunic and handed it over. Amos finished his pint and took it back to his room at the stables. It was a single sheet of paper, folded double, addressed to Miles Brinkburn Esq., at his home in Knightsbridge. If the fold had been sealed, Amos might have been reluctant to break it, but it was simply secured with a smaller triangular fold at one corner. He was feeling pretty close to anger. Mr Carmichael had chosen not to confide in him. He and his brothers were planning some rescue and wouldn’t trust Liberty’s oldest friend, who’d been with her in tight places before she even knew they existed. If he thought they’d manage it without him he might just have tolerated it, but she’d need him, he was sure of that. So, without any particular feeling of guilt, he undid the triangular fold and read.

Dear Miles,

By the time you read this, I should be some considerable distance away. I have some information which I’m afraid I am not free to share with you and Stephen without a great risk to Liberty’s life. I shall be in touch with you as soon as possible but do not know when that will be. It will certainly be some days. Meanwhile, you should continue by all means to look for her and encourage the police to do so. She may yet be found by methods other than the one I have had to adopt. With all my heart, I hope so. In haste, and with kindest thoughts of you all whatever happens, your brother, Robert.

He read it through twice, a little consoled that the brothers were as much in the dark as he was, but puzzled. If Mr Carmichael had picked up some clue, why shouldn’t he have included them all in the search? His first thought was that he should deliver the letter to Miles straight away. But then, if Mr Carmichael really did have good information, why take the risk of hindering him? On balance, he’d keep the letter till tomorrow afternoon. It was a hard decision, because every muscle in his body was tense with a wish to be on a fast horse, following Robert into goodness knew what.

I hope you know what you’re doing. He said it in his head to Robert, without much belief in his heart.